Who wouldn’t like to win the lottery or discover a priceless object in the attic? But for Kino, a poor pearl diver, finding a specimen of great worth doesn’t transform his beloved family’s life as he had hoped. What and how we value family, friendship and community, which have no market value but truly make us wealthier, is at the heart of John Steinbeck’s novella. This affecting adaptation by Dumbshow uses plenty of poor-theatre techniques and is all the richer for it.
There is more than a touch of Kneehigh theatre’s bird-twitchers from Tristan and Yseult in the chorus of beachcombers who piece together the tale from objects washed ashore. There’s a similar directness and simplicity in the staging, which uses an original score by Rollo Clarke as much as the text. There are some lovely moments as the flotsam and jetsam on the stage is put to good use. For instance, crates are transformed into the steep cliffs up which Kino (Michael Bryher) and Joanna (Hester Bond) must climb with their baby to escape danger.
At other times the stagecraft is a mite clumsy, and sometimes the studied simplicity is a little self-conscious; even at 70 minutes, the show feels as if it is stretching things out.
But Sam Gayton’s adaptation and the production gets to the emotional heart of the story. It’s good, too, that it doesn’t have a finger-wagging moralistic bone in its body. Instead, it plays up the comedy as it tells the story of an entire community – including a couple of entertaining nuns who are like two blisters waiting to pop – which is either corrupted or compromised by the sudden arrival of the pearl.
With this inventive, heartfelt small-scale touring show, the young company Dumbshow are finding a distinct voice and aesthetic.
• At the Point, Eastleigh, on 30 October. Box office: 023 8065 2333. Then touring until 23 November.
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