The Weevil in the Biscuit
I could only manage to get to one of John Foster’s plays in
his double bill about Robert Louis Stevenson at Lighthouse Poole on Thursday
night 25th October.
In the end I chose
“The Weevil in the Biscuit” and I was not disappointed. This depiction of the
relationship between RLS and his American wife Fanny whilst he was in the
process of writing “Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde” in their house at Westbourne was
both charming and intense. This was a
superb cameo play which owed its effect, not only to its excellent writing but
also to the neat direction by Jon Nicholas slipping the characters into and
out of soliloquy and dialogue with consummate ease and, not least, to the
thoughtful and emotionally moving portrayal of the characters by Mark Freestone
as Robert Louis Stevenson himself and Rebecca Legrand as Fanny.
Mark Freestone started with an enormous advantage – he bears
an uncanny resemblance to RLS but that was only one incidental part of his
portrayal which was driven by a complex of character traits from to frantic
writer, sick man to childish, childlike husband. Rebecca Legrand’s character
had a similar complex journey as she showed delight in her husband’s work and
frustration at his inability to accomplish what he was capable of, even
bursting into outright anger at one point.
But it was the relationship between the two where in the play was at its
most touching and powerful. Here were two people bonded by a common commitment
yet maintaining a childlike innocence.
This was a dense, thoughtful play and, after it discarded
the initial conceit of addressing the audience directly, it became truly
compelling. I took away the picture of
two adventurers through the world whose only real home was each other.
