Scarborough is a Brontë town: Anne came here to convalesce, and she is buried in St Mary's churchyard. Yet the Stephen Joseph Theatre is not what you'd think of as a Brontë theatre. Its production of Villette is also unusual in that it is the result of a collaboration with physical theatre specialists Frantic Assembly. Laurie Sansom's production comes under strain from its conflicting elements, yet it seethes with a suppressed hysteria that feels Brontë-esque.
Charlotte Brontë's Villette is a dark study of isolation and emotional despair, made all the more oppressive for its setting within the petty gentility of the Belgian bourgeoisie. Lucy Snowe is one of the least attractive Brontë heroines, yet the evocation of her loneliness spills over into a wild, gothic abandon quite unparalleled in Charlotte's output.
None of this is easy to stage: Lucy's outward experience is so numbing, and her interior world so extreme, that she risks becoming either a forlorn, tiresome prig, or a shrill, neurasthenic annoyance. The problem is solved by injecting Lisa Evans's terse adaptation with sudden irruptions of gestural expressionism, choreographed by Frantic Assembly's Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett.
Georgina Lamb faces an uphill struggle to make Lucy Snowe engaging, yet she taps into the emotional reaches of the character through her dances of despair. Particularly fascinating is the sequence in which Lucy succumbs to a breakdown, having been left alone throughout the holidays. Her restless twitching becomes the physical expression of someone literally going out of her mind with boredom. She receives fine support from Rachel Atkins as Madame Beck, Saskia Butler as Ginevra Fanshawe and Stephen Ventura as Professor Paul. Villette may be a difficult book to love, but this production offers a good deal to admire.
· Until November 12. Box office: 01723 370541.
