Ingmar Bergman referred to his film Through a Glass Darkly as a surreptitious stage play. An intense chamber piece, shot in black and white in 1961, it was the first in a trilogy of films exploring religious faith and its loss. In the Corn Exchange Theatre Company’s production, the film’s lingering closeups are exchanged for a bare stage and a dappled grey backdrop, creating a sense of open space and endless sky. It could be Sweden – or Ireland; this is less a specific place or time than a state of mind.
Jenny Worton’s stage adaptation centres on Karin, a young married woman who seems to be the heir to Ibsen and Strindberg’s desperate heroines. The four characters – Karin (Beth Cooke), her father (Peter Gowen), brother (Colin Campbell) and husband (Peter Gaynor) are presented by director Annie Ryan as vulnerable figures in a vast seascape. Amid long silences, they move with the deliberation and grace of dancers against designer Sarah Bacon’s grey sliding screens.
Over the course of one day, it becomes clear that the annual family holiday to a remote island is not quite the idyll that Karin hopes for. Instead of bringing her closer to her self-absorbed father, a novelist, it gives her time “to stare into the abyss”. Having recently been in hospital for a condition that might be schizophrenia or depression, she is emotionally fragile. Watched over anxiously by her husband, Martin, a doctor who thinks her illness is incurable, she is regarded by her father as material for his next novel.
As Karin becomes more agitated, she starts seeing visions. She seems to hover on the brink of insanity, struggling between two states of mind. Beth Cooke expressively captures her turmoil, yet there is a central difficulty with the characterisation of Karin. In Worton’s script, she is not sufficiently established beyond her illness; she is defined in reaction to her husband, father and brother Manus, with whom she has a sexually teasing relationship. He does not believe she is ill, just bored – an interpretation that links her to all the powerless, mad, or sexually predatory women of 19th-century theatre and opera.
Bergman’s film emphasised Karin’s religious quest, culminating in her extraordinary vision of God. Here, she seems to be the victim of dysfunctional family dynamics, which don’t have the same metaphysical weight. While the stage imagery, performances and atmosphere of this production are beautifully realised, the writing does not match the sense of significance they evoke.
- At Project Arts Centre, Dublin, until 5 December. Box office: (00 353) 1 8819 613.
