‘Fatal Attraction’ at Theatre Royal Haymarket

If you have a well-loved pet rabbit, don’t see Trevor Nunn’s new staging of Fatal Attraction. Equally, if you enjoy original, surprising theatre, give this a wide berth.

With a script by James Dearden, the film’s original writer, the production marks Nunn’s return to the Theatre Royal Haymarket. There are recognisable faces, a big-name adaptation and the bunny boiling scene. And nothing much else.

You know the plot. Dan Gallagher, a bland New York lawyer meets alluring Alex Forrest in a bar. She’s attractive, precocious and his wife is out of town for the weekend. Trying to acquit himself he asks: ‘a beautiful woman starts talking to you in a bar, what would you do?’ When their two-night stand turns into months of harassment (and, eventually, pet-emulsification) Dan tries to shirk Alex’s advances, hiding their sexual blip from his family. It’s a cliché in itself but Alex becomes increasingly violent and eventually ‘gets all Glenn Close on him.’

And there’s the problem. Fatal Attraction is fatally flawed. The film is so iconic and such a cultural reference point that adapting it for the stage seems pointless. None of the performances will outshine the originals and the script is simply a sliced and diced re-write of the screenplay. Nunn’s production aims to be cinematic, with scenes framed by large sliding screens, but the result is a muddled presentation. It’s like watching staged rehearsals for Nunn’s hypothetical film adaptation with the director occasionally losing faith in this aesthetic. At points, bizarre stylised sequences are shoehorned in like a handful of New York extras gliding silently through stage mist.

Mark Bazeley was an adequate Dan, a stock red-blooded male but ultimately not too much of an out-and-out bastard that we don’t feel a bit sorry for him. Kristen Davis, in what may be the most obvious piece of casting this year, offers diluted Nigella Lawson appeal as his wife, Beth. And Natasha McElhone clearly enjoyed the thrill-ride of taking on Alex Forrest. She managed to pull off the flirty (but compos mentis!) girl at the bar as well as psychopathic stalker, catapulting towards the dramatic, revised ending.

Apart from this notable plot change, Fatal Attraction plays like an extended presentation of the film, slightly hamstrung by having to be on the stage. ‘I’m sorry, Sir Trevor’, I cry.  I tried to like it, really I did but you gave me nothing to be excited about. Fatal Attraction is this spring’s theatrical rice cake: it’s predictable and nearly presented but simply not tasty. Go out and buy a bagel, or better still a ticket to King Lear.

Fatal Attraction is playing until 21 June at:

Theatre Royal Haymarket
18 Suffolk St
Haymarket
SW1Y 4HT

Box office: 020 7930 8800

Ticket provided by officialtheatre.com