The Cement Garden: Ian McEwan's first novel on stage
A new stage adaptation of Ian McEwan’s first novel forms part of the Vault Festival. But nearly 40 years on, is his book now a period piece?
The Vault Festival, Waterloo, is one of the newer London festivals and returns for its second year in 2014. Amongst the many theatre shows on the bill it will include a stage adaptation of Ian McEwan's grim first novel, in one of the more literal underground events London has on offer:
Is The Cement Garden the most disturbing of Ian McEwan’s first published novels? Or does that honour go to The Child in Time? Early adopters of his work were exposed to the bleakest of 1970s literary fiction, dark, dysfunctional, depressing and, in the case of these two novels, centred on orphaned or lost children.
In the former (published in 1978), four children ranging in age from 15 to 6 lose their father, and then their mother. To avoid being taken into care, they bury her body inside cement in their basement – with predictably grim consequences. One American critic of the time dubbed McEwan’s novel ‘nasty, British and short’, but in Britain McEwan’s reputation as one of the most gifted albeit darkest young writers of his generation was established.
The Cement Garden was adapted for film by Andew Birkin in 1993 (Charlotte Gainsbourg and Andrew Robertson starred) but has never made it onto the stage. Now young theatre company FallOut are bringing their production of the book to the Vault Festival under Waterloo station – so audiences can assess the impact of McEwan’s story nearly 40 years after it was written.
The book’s mood of impending doom, affectless nihilism and what’s been called the ‘sexual Gothic’ were of the times, McEwan told the Guardian. ‘It was the late 70s,’ he says. ‘Everyone seemed focused on a sense that we were always at the end of things, that it was all collapsing. London was filthy, semi-functional. The phones didn't work properly, the tube was a nightmare, but no one complained. It fed into a rather apocalyptic sense of things.’
Its mood of looming apocalypse might be unmistakeably 1970s but the buried sexual abuse it hints at will strike a stronger chord with audiences than ever. In 1978, McEwan’s preoccupation with sexual dysfunction might have seemed gratuitously horrible; now, it’s merely realistic.
Adapted by writer Jimmy Osborne and artistic director David Aula, FallOut’s production makes the most of the tunnels under Waterloo station, where, appropriately enough, the action of the play will take place over two levels and produce one of the more unique shows in London.
Read our preview of The Cement Garden