A luminous bow hovers in the darkness as if suspended in the sky while the arena-like stage is filled with smoke. A figure emerges: Katniss Everdeen, the girl from District 12 in Suzanne Collins’ post-apocalyptic universe, played by Jennifer Lawrence in the film franchise. With her appearance, the 74th Hunger Games begin – and no special effect is spared.
Closely following the plot of Collins’ first book in the young adult series, and the Lionsgate film of 2012, Matthew Dunster’s production is a grand-scale manifestation of dystopian Panem. It is a place in which the haves and have-nots are divided into districts, and in which children are pitted against each other as “Tributes” in a deadly TV gameshow, forced to kill for prime-time entertainment. The last one standing wins the prize of survival.
There is an array of screens, thundering sounds of the cannon whenever a Tribute dies and a gantry that stretches across the stage that represents the tree Katniss (Mia Carragher) climbs to escape being butchered.
The Super Bowl optics are all there from the off: a wardrobe of great gaudy glory (the 1960s, 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 tension, nonetheless. “We are just hours away from being mortal enemies,” Katniss says. But you don’t feel the dread in Conor McPherson’s adaptation, which seems clipped by the pace of events, all spectacle above emotion.
There is internal monologue by Katniss, allowing us to access her feelings, as in the book, but not quite enough, and this narration is also burdened with exposition and background. The show does not manage to nail her relationship with Gale (Tristan Waterson) but how can it, when he is not part of the central gameshow world, and when it is trying to achieve so much else?
Carragher, complete with Katniss’s signature plait, is fresh-faced, physical and thankfully does not imitate Lawrence’s laconic performance. Euan Garrett as Peeta, her fellow District 12 Tribute and picture of pure goodness in the book and film, feels more of a sidekick. The romance between them does not bubble up enough beneath the surface, and it is Katniss’s brief friendship with Rue (Aiya Agustin) that is more affecting.
Because of the pace, there is not enough time for characters to come to life, from the stylist Cinna (Nathan Ives-Moiba) to the escort Effie (Tamsin Carroll). The actors do capable impressions of their screen counterparts instead: Cinna wears the same gold eye makeup as Lenny Kravitz, Joshua Lacey as Haymitch channels Woody Harrelson’s voice, with the same abrasive rakishness, while Carroll even has a physical resemblance to Elizabeth Banks’ Effie in the film.
John Malkovich, appearing on screen as President Snow, goes his own way a little more, not as lugubriously contemptuous as Donald Sutherland in the film, more blank-eyed and Spock-like. But he remains as flat as his 2D image, more a cameo than a character.
At times, the contestants look less like modern-day gladiators and more like TV’s Gladiators (the cheesy, Lycra-clad stars of the original 1990s show). The Tributes are impressively athletic and look caffeinated to the eyeballs, but feel benign even as they come on doing tricks with daggers or bows and arrows.
Made in the same mould as the stage version of Stranger Things, this show is not as consistently eye-popping. The production bursts into life in the second half, when the Tributes find themselves in the killing field. There is a brutal frenzy as light, sound and movement combine forcefully. It excels in action drama, and at times seems like an analogy for child soldiers in real-life wars.
The biggest advantage the stage production has over the film and book is that the auditorium of this new theatre really does seem like a gameshow space, with us as its bloodthirsty audience, and there are even some moving blocks of seats to create a sense of immersion.
Fans of the series will probably lap it up and the ending leaves it well open for the burning girl to return, and return. May the odds be ever in its favour?
• At Troubadour Canary Wharf theatre, London, until October
