Noel Coward’s ‘Brief Encounter’ flickers only dimly in Brooklyn

British troupe presents a multimedia stage version of a famed film

BY MICHAEL SOMMERS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

OFF BROADWAY REVIEW

Ever see the superb 1945 British film "Brief Encounter"?

That's the one about two nice, suburban people who meet at a railway station and fall hopelessly in love although they are married to others. Underscored by Rachmaninoff's music, the romance is especially poignant because the lovers realize from the start how they cannot decently allow their affair to flower.

The great Noel Coward adapted the screenplay from his 1935 one-act "Still Life," in which he co-starred with Gertrude Lawrence as part of his "Tonight at 8:30" cycle of nine short plays and musicals.

Opening on Tuesday at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, "Brief Encounter" is a curious mash-up of the original drama, the screenplay, multi-media effects, deconstructed staging techniques and a couple of Coward's songs like "Mad About the Boy."

Adapted and directed by Emma Rice, this Kneehigh Theatre venture reportedly won acclaim in London's West End and on British tour as well as at San Francisco's American Conservatory Theatre. But I must confess that the supposed charm of the production left me cold in Brooklyn.

Dressed as 1930s-era movie palace ushers, the acting company greets the audience and warms them up with a few ukulele-strummed numbers before getting into costume as "Brief Encounter" characters.

The story then more or less plays out as Coward conceived it, contrasting the tight-lipped romance between Laura (Hannah Yelland) and Alec (Tristan Sturrock) against the easygoing comedy provided by other individuals employed in the train station's lunchroom.

Unfortunately Rice directs these lighter moments with a heavy hand, encouraging farcical behavior that clashes weirdly against the deep restraint demonstrated by the two leads. Unnaturally stylized staging bits, such as when Laura and Alec literally fall in love or everyone in the lunchroom violently shakes as an express train roars by, prove to be risible distractions rather than anything that genuinely heightens or informs the essential drama.

The stark two-level skeletal setting is augmented by sepia film projections of crashing waves and passing trains. At times the onstage actors are replaced by themselves as filmed in slightly campy close-ups recalling David Lean's screen style. During the two-hour show, the action is interspersed by several more songs and dances, usually handled for anachronistic comedy.

Aside from the enjoyably intense performances of Yelland and Sturrock, "Brief Encounter" registers as a pretty silly occasion. The show dimly recalls "The 39 Steps" Hitchcock homage currently on Broadway, only not done so well or amusingly. But then, I prefer to see Coward's excellent material staged without the diffusing lens of a post-modern viewpoint. Really, there's no need to comment upon the works by an artist the theater world has long revered as "The Master."

"Brief Encounter" continues through Jan. 3 at St. Ann's Warehouse, 38 Water St., Brooklyn. Call (718) 254-8779 or visit www.stannswarehouse.org.