Review: La Strada

Luckily director Sally Cookson overcame any misgivings she may have had about taking on Fellini’s 1954 masterpiece to create this accomplished, inventive and hugely enjoyable adaptation. At turns poignant, funny, energetic and lyrical, it perfectly captures both the hardship and camaraderie of an itinerant life. La Strada translates as ‘the road’ but Fellini said for him it also meant ‘love, melancholy and hope’, all of which are beautifully realised, in a nuanced and empathetic way, in Cookson’s production. Young Gelsomina is sold for 10,000 lire by her impoverished widowed mother to brutish circus strongman Zampano in order to feed her other children. As the pair travel through the Italian countryside on Zampano’s motorbike, they come across a ragtag circus where, with encouragement from free-spirited tightrope walker Il Matto, Gelsomina finds her own voice and maybe even the strength to break away from the bullying Zampano...

Audrey Brisson makes a perfect Gelsomina, totally inhabiting the character’s quirky otherness and the excellent international cast – which includes performers from Finland, Italy, Canada, Vietnam and Corsica – bring vivid characterisations to multiple roles. The storytelling encompasses imaginative physical theatre, outstanding live music and some lovely filmic echoes – daringly long-held moments, recalling a cinematic slow-fade, where nothing is said but much is communicated.

In many ways the story in its film form relates closely to the particular time and place it was made, a ravaged postwar Italy, but at its heart are powerful universal themes – the fundamental human need to make a mark, belong somewhere and be loved – and Cookson’s heart-breaking, uplifting production brings these to the fore.

To April 29 and at Sheffield Lyceum, May 22-27.