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Last updated 20th July 2002
GHOSTSDaily Mail" the dominant performace is Daniel Evans's as Oswald. The destructive interdependence of mother and son in a ghastly, ghostly past, is vividly conveyed in Evans's dying despair. He touches chords in everyone's life " Daily Telegraph" In a mesmerising performance by an actor who somehow combines an air of puckish danger with cherubic innocence, Daniel Evans's Osvald dissipates the gloom with the sunniness of far-off climes. Gradually, as the secrets about the past emerge, we notice how his gleaming, petulant restlessness also marks him out as his father's son and therefore damned. " Sunday Times" The point of Daniel Evans's performance is that Oswald is putting on an act. He wants to create a cheerful atmosphere before giving his mother some terrible news. This gives a new slant to Oswald's character; he is more of a planner, a manipulator. It gives you, too, a glimpse of the man he must have been, and might have become: confident, debonair, generous " Evening Standard" More interesting is the artist son, Osvald, who is cursed by the legacy of his father's sexual liaisons. The part is impressively developed by Daniel Evans, who starts as a souped-up squirt full of boyish affectation and ends as a despairing, haggard wretch. " The Times" Evans recently made quite an impact during a National stint that allowed him to play Bernstein's Candide, and he confirms his quality here. In a notably effective tipsy scene he manages to suggest that he has more of his father in him that his mother cares to acknowledge. But he never loses our sympathy for the bewildered, restless, panicky young man who cannot understand why or how he's afflicted. In particular, he does a lot with a smile that simultaneously suggests a capacity for joy and suppressed desperation. " |