“He’s a guggling midden-daup”; “As glumpy as a corpse”: the dialogue is rich in dialect, strong of accent. To understand every word – it’s impossible! But not a jot of meaning is lost. A variegated ensemble of theatre-savvy actors delivers characterisations as broad and as vivid as the language. Action cracks along on a staging that is sharply suggestive and infinitely adaptable. Blake Morrison’s new adaptation of Lesage’s 18th-century satirical French comedy Turcaret (original subtitle, The Financial System) is classic Northern Broadsides.
Twenty-five years ago, Barrie Rutter founded this company to give regional theatregoers a chance to hear the same accents on stage as were spoken in the auditorium (or in the boatshed, the cattle market, mill – wherever best suited the production or audience). Comedies and tragedies, translations, adaptations, new commissions and classics (ancient and modern) – 70-odd productions followed.
Then, last July, Rutter resigned as artistic director. The Arts Council had decided not to increase the company’s funding (for reasons unclear to me).
So, For Love or Money is Rutter’s last touring production as director/performer with the company he created. The action, relocated to a small Yorkshire town in the 1920s, spins with a crazy, clockwork precision around a triangle summarised by wily servant, Jack (canny Jordan Metcalfe): “The banker gives to t’widow./ The widow gives to t’lover./ The lover gives to no one./ He keeps it all himsen.” Naturally, Jack is determined to insert his own “sen” – and Lisa, his intended – into this venal bill of exchange.
With such a whirligig of vice, it can be hard to invest in characters’ fates, but performances that expose the raw desires behind behaviours pay dividends in pleasure. Rutter’s puffed-up banker, Sarah-Jane Potts’s faux-naif widow and Sarah Parks’s cracked “belle”, in particular, discharge sterling performances in this capital, nine-strong ensemble.
• For Love or Money is at West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, from 26 to 30 September. Box office: 0113 213 7700. Then touring until 2 December.
