The Silence of the Lambs has been adapted for the stage, following the hostile reception of the Trainspotting theatrical version. Director Nikolai Foster wisely avoids turning it into a musical. Adapter Gina Gionfriddo works from Thomas Harris's 1988 novel, not Jonathan Demme's film, about FBI rookie Clarice Starling's dangerous interrogation of psychotic psychiatrist Dr Hannibal Lecter for insights into serial killer Buffalo Bill.
Avoiding karaoke acting
The biggest risk of theatricalised movies is that acting becomes karaoke. Mollie Gallagher, making a confident stage debut in the lead role, echoes Jodie Foster's Virginia accent and ramps up the pugnacious posture and walk. John Partridge's Lecter, more sonically American than Hopkins's Welsh variation (the character is Lithuanian), avoids the hissy lip-sipping and injects less charm and culture.
Split-screen staging
Another jeopardy is that cinema directors move the camera, while a stage is a default wide shot. Foster impressively varies perspective, creating a split-screen effect by bracketing main scenes with silent tableaux of other characters. In Lecter-Starling scenes, Howard Hudson's lighting subtly directs gaze, encouraging tight focus. Careful character placement approximates a two-character shot.
Queasy content, intelligent update
The genre-standard autopsy scene feels rawly appalling when played downstage without multiplex protection or camera cuts. The brief touch between main characters electrifies live. But content can feel queasy: the Buffalo Bill strand, sometimes more main than subplot, means much of the evening watches women stalked and tortured.
Gionfriddo, a front-rank dramatist and twice Pulitzer finalist, intelligently addresses this. Stressing pervasive sexism of the 1983 setting, she gives female victims, neatly differentiated by Lottie Amor, more plot-time and agency, reflecting changed attitudes. A shocking new line, spoken twice, reflects devastating survival calculations a victim may make.
Romantic context maximised
Most daringly, while all versions see the Lecter-Starling narrative as a love story, the stage version maximises romantic context, albeit from warped to desperate. Buffalo Bill targets single women on the dating scene. FBI boss Jack Crawford's (Oliver Farnworth) status as recent widower is emphasised, haunting his mentorship of Starling.
A risk is that streamer searches for the film may increase, but this show is worth seeing. At Curve, Leicester, until 15 August, then touring until 26 June.
