Castle Lennox, written by Linda McLean, composed by Michael John McCarthy, and directed by Maria Oller, is a singular and surprising musical. The audience is introduced to Annis (Emma McCaffrey), a charismatic young autistic woman, and her selfish, neglectful step-mother, Fletcher Mathers, in 1969 just before Annis is taken to Castle Lennox, Scotland’s largest institution for people with learning disabilities. Castle Lennox is a take on Cinderella — complete with an absent angelic mother, a stepmother, and a fairy god-nurse — but with a modern and disillusioned tonal shift, which is complemented by the setting, an eerie, isolated Scottish castle. Annis spends act one fighting to have her opinions listened to, her real name -— Annis not Agnes — acknowledged, and her perspective valued, but after decades of punishment and imprisonment, Castle Lennox’s Cinderella loses her interest in the outside world.
The audience is introduced to the complicated inhabitants of the Castle. The mostly loving and welcoming, occasionally deceitful, patients perform hilarious and esoteric musical numbers about cake and laundry and the creepy boredom of every day being exactly like the last. Castle Lennox also manages to be a love-letter to Scottish eccentricity; most of the characters (patients and staff) are Scottish.
One standout scene is the dance between Annis and William at the ball. It caught myself and all the audience members I could see, completely off-guard. This effect was equally the product of the actors’ performances and the lighting and sound design (Simon Wilkinson and Calum Paterson). The dance left me hopeful, un-jaded, and in-the-moment. All I could think was, everything was really beautiful for a second there.
To me, the most touching moments were the sporadic musical interactions between Annis and her mother. Though a figment of her imagination, Annis’ mother is represented physically through the photograph in Annis’ hand and the British sign language translator, Rachel Amey, who present throughout the performance on stage right but only interacted with the story to sign her mother’s ethereal words to Annis, and receive her reply. The lyrics are the same aspirational idioms and platitudes which Cinderella receives from her mother; be kind, be strong, you are loved. However, the audience begins to know what Annis knows, those words are not nearly enough. The words never lose their touching appeal, but are so juxtaposed by the abusive, eery, and cruel Castle Lennox, that solace in them is completely unattainable.
Annis is turned into, by her experience at the Castle, a deflated and somehow hopeless person: the exact opposite of who she was. She confronts the audience with a timeless question; how can I tell the difference between a good person and a bad person? Not having the answer to that question brings the majority of Annis’ hurt. A tale as old as time.
Lyceum Theatre from the 30th of March to the 1st of April
Image by Pete Dibdin provided via Press Release
