REVIEW: Rebecca at Melbourne Theatre Company
- Natasha Dyson
- Oct 6
- 2 min read
Anne-Louise Sarks’ elegant new adaptation of Daphne du Maurier’s 1938 novel has all of the gravitas you’d expect from the psychological thriller, but with the contemporary stylings to appeal to a new generation.
Rebecca’s carefully curated design (Marg Horwell, Paul Jackson) provides a pared back take on the grandeur of the Manderley estate, wherein our unnamed protagonist is slowly swallowed by an obsession with her new husband’s late wife, Rebecca. Depth and space on stage play a large role in the isolation of our heroine, her growing envy mirrored and the bridge between her dream and reality blurring. It’s an intentionally uncomfortable watch, emphasised by an eerie original score (Grace Ferguson, Joe Paradise Lui).
Nikki Shiels’ portrayal of ‘woman’ was deeply compelling throughout the entire 100 minute act. Shiels never left the stage; our nuanced narrative voice, filling in the gaps of context while expertly navigating the second Mrs de Winter’s dissolving reality. Each of the four seasoned actors embed generosity in the grief of their characters, a sense of empathy not easily evoked from roles complicit in our heroine’s struggle.
Watching a protagonist lose any sense of her own value in her relationship, which was founded on the deliberate withholding of information, is a crushing depiction of the lengths we will go to keep someone we love. Each of the characters in the play have manufactured their version of events, and the ensemble scenes at the end of this production included masterful portrayals of these individual truths unravelling.
I found that after a while the play’s reliance on blackouts took me out of the tension, and it became harder to comprehend the passage of time through the later exposition-heavy scenes, where the actors remain in costumes from the pivotal ball scene weeks before. The staging is at its most abstract in the revolving flashback sequence, with the three supporting actors remaining in the costumes of their main role, but speaking as the other characters they had portrayed. It was unclear whether this was designed to draw parallels between each of these figures in the waning mind of our protagonist.
Unfortunately at times I felt the script told us how to feel about characters such as Mrs Danvers and Jack Favell, whereas the actors’ chemistry didn’t necessarily line up with this narrative. Our opening night audience strangely spent a good deal of time chuckling at the traditionally scary Danvers, and while the ostentatious Favell was charming, it wasn’t clear there was supposed to be sexual tension between him and the protagonist until it was overtly displayed. It’s possible this adaptation relies too heavily on an existing understanding of the novel’s plot, although there have been significant changes made to the order of events.
The characters of Rebecca are timelessly written, uncomfortably relatable in their anxieties and miscommunications. It is a brilliant story, and whilst this adaptation struggles rhythmically, it certainly captures the expanse of human doubt and deceit that haunts the inhabitants of Manderley. Love, jealousy, and the age old tale of coming to your own maddening conclusions.
