“…this Shawshank Redemption simply lacks the dramatic ‘oomph’ to bring the jaded theatre goer towards the edge of their seat.”
📍 Festival Theatre, Edinburgh
📅 Tue 25 to Sat 29 Apr 2023
🕖 Evenings: 7.30pm | Matinees: 2.30pm
🕖 Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes, including one interval
🖊️ Adapted by: Owen O’Neill, Dave Johns (from a short novel by Stephen King)
🫰 Producer: Bill Kenwright
🎬 Director: David Esbjornson
🛠️ Design: Gary McCann
💡 Lighting: Chris Davey
🔉 Sound Designer: Andy Graham
🥷 Fight Director: Alison De Burgh
🎂 12+
🎭 Captioning: Thu 27 Apr, 7.30pm; Audio Description & BSL Interpreting: Sat 29 Apr, 2.30pm (Touch Tour 1:15pm)
🎭 Wheelchair Accessible Venue, Wheelchair Accessible Toilets, Audio Induction Loop
.The Shawshank Redemption surely needs little introduction. Frank Darabont’s adaptation of Stephen King’s 1982 Novella hit cinemas back in 1994 and is officially one of the most beloved movies ever made. The story of Andy Dufresne (Joe Absolom) wrongly convicted for the double homicide of his wife, and her lover, the play follows him into incarceration in Shawshank Penitentiary. There he negotiates inmate rapists, vicious guards, and a duplicitous warden, despite which he keeps hope alive.
Much of that hope stems from friendship with fellow prisoner Red (Ben Onwukwe), the resident ‘getter’ of contraband be it French Wine, or rock hammers as required for Andy’s geological hobby. Though a cynic after many years of refused parole, Red finds it impossible to resist the other’s indomitable spirit.
Theirs is the pivotal relationship upon which the play relies, and if they don’t enjoy the most organic chemistry, the two still make for genial company. It’s far from Onwukwe’s first time in his role, and it shows. He has a fine, rich voice to play the story’s narrator, and oodles of gruff charm which invites the audience’s sympathy. Absolom, by contrast, is a little muted, less a doughty survivor and more a reserved resister.
The years pass, not lacking with tribulations nor violations, but ultimately matters settle into a less eventful, if grinding monotony. However when Warden Stammas (Mark Heenehan) bullies Andy into subservience as his personal tax man and ‘book-cooker’, the future grows darker. Hope will have to spring from the most unlikely places for Andy’s story to end in anything but tragedy.
Technically it’s adept production. Gary McCann’s set is narrow, clearly meant for a smaller stage than the Edinburgh Festival Theatre, but it’s still evokes an apt grey regularity. Chris Davey lights proceedings deftly, razor sharp spots and warm filters offering claustrophobia and utopia as required. The fight choreography is suitably brutal at times, if not every cast member sells their physicality with equal conviction.
It has to be said, however, that the play never really justifies its existence. This is, on the face of things, a rough criticism, but it’s my no means intended cruelly. Creating commercially successfully theatre only seems to grow harder with time. Such a renowned IP as The Shawshank Redemption is tough to resist, but it’s difficult to see what this adaptation adds to either movie or novella. Yes, it makes for a perfectly pleasant couple of hours in the stalls, but there’s nothing new here. Such a familiar tale demands an original vision of what it could be, what it could mean, to avoid unfortunate comparisons with the very, very good movie.
This is no way negates some fine work from the wider cast, Heenahan in particular creates a truly pompous, odious warden to rule over the inmates lives. Kenneth Jay also makes the most of prison elder Brooksie, his freedom-induced crisis bringing much needed tension to proceedings.
It’s very possible that were the undoubtedly capable Absolom directed to a more visceral, and enigmatic performance, that this adaptation would ultimately feel less flat. However, as things stand, this Shawshank Redemption simply lacks the dramatic ‘oomph’ to bring the jaded theatre goer towards the edge of their seat.
The Shawshank Redemption will play the Festival Theatre, Edinburgh until 29 April 2023. It is a Bill Kenwright production.
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