THEATRE REVIEW: Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness

When you see that a rendition of Joseph Conrad’s classic Heart of Darkness is being produced for the stage it’d be difficult to quell your inevitable curiosity. Curiosity that arises from a series of impossible to answer questions. Firstly, how the hell do you plan on producing Heart of Darkness for the stage? Conrad’s magnum opus might sit at a comfy eighty pages or so – at least my copy does – but it is a deceptively complex narrative, arguably on par with the ultra dense works of authors like Pynchon and Joyce. Secondly – and this is perhaps more perplexing than the technical limitations of the stage – how on earth do you get past the problem of Apocalypse Now? How do you ever adapt a work that has, arguably, already been perfected in the past? Which arguably improved upon the source material?

Well, apparently you address all of these problems head on and the result is a thing of meta-fictional beauty.

Heart of Darkness is presented in a suitably bizarre fashion. The audience are read the stage directions – which, initially, feels like a clunky way of overcoming the narrative difficulties of adapting the novella – and every scene is set in extensive detail (“INT. OFFICE”, etc.). This gives us the disorienting sensation of being present at a table reading. That we’re being exposed to something that isn’t quite finished – and this is in no way a criticism.

About a quarter of the way through our cast – each of whom are impeccable in their multiple roles throughout Heart of Darkness – begin to openly discuss just how problematic an adaptation would prove to be. These problems extend far beyond any possible technical difficulties and, inevitably, extend to be the very real issue of race (is the novella racist or is it a product of its time?) within the text.

More than anything though, the clever decision was made to ensure that the play is not based on Heart of Darkness, strictly speaking, but actually about the novella and about perhaps biting off more than one can artistically chew. Ironically, the least interesting parts of the play are…well, the parts that are actually form the “play”.

That’s not to say that these scenes aren’t wonderful in their own right, but you’ll most likely be fascinated more by the set design and presentation of the content than by Marlowe’s journey. I was fascinated by the choice to make the set seem as barren as possible – cameras and setting are left exposed, making you very aware that you’re watching work of fiction unfold. The “action” itself unfolds on three screens suspended above the stage.

Green screen is utilised liberally to present most action (a car journey, for example) but also to provide us with a more “cinematic” view of events and, often, filters are utilised that left what was on the screen smattered in what looked like Ben-Day dots.

Heart of Darkness is a spectacular and difficult work about, well, a spectacular and difficult work. Many people will go out of curiosity, I imagine, just to figure out how the hell they ever planned to pull off Conrad’s work on stage. If you’re one of them then you’ll leave disappointed, but in a marvellous, jaw dropping way.