The Hunger Games: On Stage evaluate – thundering battle to the demise in a blinding dystopia | Theatre

A luminous bow hovers within the darkness as if suspended within the sky whereas the arena-like stage is full of smoke. A determine emerges: Katniss Everdeen, the woman from District 12 in Suzanne Collins’ post-apocalyptic universe, performed by Jennifer Lawrence within the movie franchise. With her look, the 74th Hunger Games start – and no particular impact is spared.

Closely following the plot of Collins’ first e-book within the younger grownup sequence, and the Lionsgate movie of 2012, Matthew Dunster’s manufacturing is a grand-scale manifestation of dystopian Panem. It is a spot wherein the haves and have-nots are divided into districts, and wherein youngsters are pitted in opposition to one another as “Tributes” in a lethal TV gameshow, pressured to kill for prime-time leisure. The final one standing wins the prize of survival.

There is an array of screens, thundering sounds of the cannon at any time when a Tribute dies and a gantry that stretches throughout the stage that represents the tree Katniss (Mia Carragher) climbs to flee being butchered.

The Super Bowl optics are all there from the off: a wardrobe of nice gaudy glory (the Sixties, with twists of commedia dell’arte, the Palace of Versailles and alien-chic, designed by Moi Tran), a fast-changing set by Miriam Buether and energetic choreography from Charlotte Broom. The first half, prepping us for the gameshow, lacks pressure, nonetheless. “We are just hours away from being mortal enemies,” Katniss says. But you don’t really feel the dread in Conor McPherson’s adaptation, which appears clipped by the tempo of occasions, all spectacle above emotion.

There is inside monologue by Katniss, permitting us to entry her emotions, as within the e-book, however not fairly sufficient, and this narration can also be burdened with exposition and background. The present doesn’t handle to nail her relationship with Gale (Tristan Waterson) however how can it, when he’s not a part of the central gameshow world, and when it’s attempting to attain a lot else?

Carragher, full with Katniss’s signature plait, is fresh-faced, bodily and fortunately doesn’t imitate Lawrence’s laconic efficiency. Euan Garrett as Peeta, her fellow District 12 Tribute and movie of pure goodness within the e-book and movie, feels extra of a sidekick. The romance between them doesn’t bubble up sufficient beneath the floor, and it’s Katniss’s transient friendship with Rue (Aiya Agustin) that’s extra affecting.

Because of the tempo, there may be not sufficient time for characters to come back to life, from the stylist Cinna (Nathan Ives-Moiba) to the escort Effie (Tamsin Carroll). The actors do succesful impressions of their display counterparts as an alternative: Cinna wears the identical gold eye make-up as Lenny Kravitz, Joshua Lacey as Haymitch channels Woody Harrelson’s voice, with the identical abrasive rakishness, whereas Carroll even has a bodily resemblance to Elizabeth Banks’ Effie within the movie.

John Malkovich, showing on display as President Snow, goes his personal approach a bit extra, not as lugubriously contemptuous as Donald Sutherland within the movie, extra blank-eyed and Spock-like. But he stays as flat as his 2D picture, extra a cameo than a personality.

At occasions, the contestants look much less like modern-day gladiators and extra like TV’s Gladiators (the tacky, Lycra-clad stars of the unique Nineteen Nineties present). The Tributes are impressively athletic and look caffeinated to the eyeballs, however really feel benign whilst they arrive on doing methods with daggers or bows and arrows.

Made in the identical mould because the stage model of Stranger Things, this present just isn’t as persistently eye-popping. The manufacturing bursts into life within the second half, when the Tributes discover themselves within the killing subject. There is a brutal frenzy as gentle, sound and motion mix forcefully. It excels in motion drama, and at occasions looks as if an analogy for youngster troopers in real-life wars.

The largest benefit the stage manufacturing has over the movie and e-book is that the auditorium of this new theatre actually does look like a gameshow house, with us as its bloodthirsty viewers, and there are even some shifting blocks of seats to create a way of immersion.

Fans of the sequence will in all probability lap it up and the ending leaves it nicely open for the burning woman to return, and return. May the chances be ever in its favour?