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TWENTY years before Frederick Engels wrote his seminal work on the condition of the English working class, Elizabeth Gaskell was exploring the appalling conditions suffered by working people exploited by the new capitalist elite thrown up by the industrial revolution.
Mary Barton was her first book and centres on the life of a young seamstress working in one of the many sweatshops which sprang up in urban Manchester during the 19th century.
Barton is starry-eyed about the gowns that she prepares for the new rich. She becomes captivated by the flattering advances from the mill owner's son. Her dream of escape from poverty seems close.
John, her father, on the other hand, has no illusions. He has already lost a wife and young son to the deprivations of poverty and starvation. He believes that organising a strong militant trade union is the only way to put a brake on the unfettered greed of the mill owners. With minute detail, Gaskell unpicks the class and family tensions created by the new world order.
As many English literature students will tell you, Mary Barton is a dense and sprawling narrative, peopled by a cast of thousands. This makes it very difficult to condense into a two-and-a-half-hour piece of theatre, but Rona Munro's adaptation manages to pare it down to the essentials without losing any of the moral strength of the book.
For a sophisticated modern audience fed a diet of fast-moving images, it seems a brave decision by the Royal Exchange to stage the play. The language can seem cliched and stylised, reducing the work to a dull melodrama. Sarah Frankcom's skilful direction manages to avoid this pitfall. This is helped by a fine ensemble cast that eschew mawkish sentiment by creating genuinely sympathetic characters.
A real highlight is Liz Ascroft's stage design, where the very smells and deafening noises of 19th century industrial Manchester permeate the theatre.
In one remarkable scene, she stunningly recreates a mill fire. The collapsing building is a poignant image reminding us that it is always working people who become the victims of zealots, whether it be greedy fat cat bosses or nationalist terrorists.
It is fitting that the Royal Exchange should choose Mary Barton to launch its 30th anniversary season. The theatre proudly sits as a cultural icon at the heart of Saint Ann's square, the setting of Gaskell's classic work.
Plays until October 14. Box office: (0161) 833-9833.
PAUL FOLEY
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