Venue: Jericho Arts Center
Date(s): 8 September, 2001
Reviewer: Jane Penistan
John Ruskin, the Victorian art critic, regarded his
wife, Effie Gray, as a chattel, a being of beauty, chaste and obedient
in much the same way as many Victorian husbands regarded their wives.
At least, that is true if we are to believe The Countess.
After many loveless and abusive years Effie and Ruskin divorced and
Effie married Ruskin's cast off protege John Everett Millais.
The play opens with a projected portrait of Queen Victoria and
disembodied voices requesting that Lady Millais be received by the
queen, and being denied. What follows is a series of scenes depicting
the Ruskin's home life and episodes from Ruskin and Millais's
sojourn in Scotland with Effie. The unexpected denouement of John
Ruskin with his parents is followed by the queen's announcement that
she will admit Lady Millais.
James Gill presents John Ruskin as a self satisfied, arrogant man. An
erudite and articulate lecturer, but an acerbic critic of his
contemporaries, he feels himself betrayed by his friends and his wife.
In spite of the dislike one may have for this conceited but brilliant
man, his final downfall arouses pity.
Effie Gray, played by Heidi Dorman, is beautiful and charming, with
much underlying strength. That all the men fall for her is hardly
surprising. Her quiet endurance and stubborn insistence on being a
person not a chattel are well done and so are her scenes with the
passionate Millais (Todd Brooks) Brooks has the mannerisms and good
looks of one of the often portrayed Pre-Raphaelites, but unfortunately
his voice is not always as strong as it might be, and was at times a
little inaudible. As Mr and Mrs Ruskin, George Connell and Catherine
Brennan give admirable portraits of a choleric and authoritative
father and a god fearing and loving mother. Mrs Ruskin manages some
sympathy for the errant Effie.
This is an interesting look at Victorian art and manners derived from
writings of the original characters and their contemporaries.
© 2001, Jane Penistan