Review: The Talented Mr Ripley at Theatre Royal Windsor

The sleek set is crucial in this stylised production of The Talented Mr Ripley, elegantly adapted from Patricia Highsmith’s menacing and seductive novel.

A raised white cube with a metre-square hole in the centre dominates the stage, gangplanks leading off on either side. Tom Ripley, who also has something of a hole in the centre, looks to the audience and asks: “Have you ever had the feeling that you’re being watched?”

There is strain in his voice, he’s watching the other figures weaving across the stage, all dressed in dull shades, eyes shadowed by trilby hats. It’s New York in the 1950s, Tom lives in a ‘shabby brownstone’ and is dressed to match. 

His inner monologue is echoed by the other performers on stage, a kind of Greek chorus portraying the protagonist’s thoughts, sometimes bringing New York, Rome or wherever to life. Being followed to the Green Cage Bar is about to take Thomas Ripley from his shabby existence and into a sunny, moneyed world. ‘Well dressed, well fed’ Herbert Greenleaf introduces himself as the father of Richard, ‘Dickie’, saying he tracked down Tom through a mutual acquaintance. 

Ripley plays along with the father’s belief in the young men’s friendship, exaggerating the connection and fabricating a social jaunt complete with mussel picking and fictional food poisoning.

Greenleaf wants his son to quit his dilettante exisistence in Europe and offers to pay Ripley’s way to Italy so he can help persuade young Dickie home.

Soon, Ripley is in Mongibello where he finds Dickie with Marge Sherwood, languid in the sun. Dickie is at first rather dismissive of Tom, but as Ripley ingratiates himself, he relaxes in the company of his fellow American. 

Marge starts out as more friendly to the interloper, but her suspicions begin to grow about this ‘nobody’ even though her boyfriend just wants to ‘drink too much’, practise his painting or sail.

Ripley is scared of the water but captivated by his companion’s golden life – and swiftly decides he wants it for himselfl.

The production is by The Faction, an ensemble company that takes on classic texts in a highly original and theatrical way. Given the novel’s intense interiority, the ensemble approach is surprisingly effective and often funny. There was the bus to Rome scene, created with suitcases and the trilby-wearing chorus in a frieze, then a car created with the actors waist deep in the central pit, two lamps held at surface level.

The show is very physical and deals well with the darker encounters. Dickie and Tom take a boat ride that turns out to be deadly. And those characters who challenge Tom Ripley’s stories are in danger of an unhappy ending – the apartment scene with Marge and Ripley is wire-tight on tension.

Bruce Herbelin-Earle’s lithe frame is perfect for playing nonchalant Dickie and Maisie Smith gives strong support as Marge, increasing in uncertainty and confusion as Ripley’s lies weave around her. The cast of 10 take on multiple roles, with Christopher Bianchi notable as Herbert Greenleaf and the police investigator Lieutenant Roverini.

Ed McVey’s performance anchors the play, a talented Mr Ripley indeed. He reveals a hollow man, watching and wanting, shaping himself to the life he covets. In this cool production, the central white cube on stage becomes something else entirely – a void. Entirely Ripley.

The Talented Mr Ripley is showing at Theatre Royal Windsor until Saturday, February 28.