The talented Mr Ripley

By LINDA HERRICK


Tom Ripley is the ultimate Mr Teflon. No matter how many lies he tells, or cons he pulls, or people he kills, he always manages to slip-slide away, a gentle smile on his bland face.

The ambiguous, often charming villain in Patricia Highsmith's iconic series of novels has fascinated readers since he appeared in 1955, and he has been inspiring film-makers for more than four decades, most recently in Anthony Minghella's The Talented Mr Ripley and Liliana Cavani's Ripley's Game with Matt Damon and John Malkovich respectively.

Now Tom Ripley is stealing back into town, this time in the Phyllis Nagy adaptation of The Talented Mr Ripley, a production being staged by the Auckland Theatre Company. It features Glen Drake as Ripley (he played Cameron Scott on Shortland Street in 1996-7), American Chris Stewart as Ripley's object of desire Rickie Greenleaf, and the cast also includes Jennifer Ward-Lealand, Stuart Devenie, Mia Blake, Benjamin Farry and Kip Chapman.

Far from being a reprisal of the movie version, the Nagy play doesn't follow a naturalistic flow. The narrative is filtered through Ripley's mind, the strands of stories weaving in and out of time and place as he finds a way to a better life - by taking another person's identity, and life.

"It's a nice luxury having the filter of the story coming through his head," says director Oliver Driver. "It gives you licence to do anything. The [Minghella] film was a very literal series of events but in the play Ripley is telling you about the events."

"In the novel, you get to know what's going on in Ripley's head and why he's making certain decisions," says Chris Stewart. "The theatre allows you to play with that a little and the audience gets to see the emotions a lot more."

Nagy's treatment is faithful to the mood of Highsmith, whom Graham Greene described as "the poet of apprehension". She preferred subtle disclosure driven by the characters' psychological state, rather than a series of A to B actions. And where Highsmith - and Minghella - maintained a certain ambiguity around Ripley's sexual preferences, Nagy is more bold. In the play Ripley patently desires a man - the rich, feckless Greenleaf, whom he has been paid to fetch back from Italy - but in the end he is much more in love with himself. In general, all people disgust him.

"Regarding his sexuality, he could very well be a virgin," says Glen Drake. "Sex doesn't really fit into his aesthetics. I think people constantly disappoint him, anyway. Rickie certainly does. I think you'd have to be a perfect person for Ripley."

Says Stewart, "Highsmith had the homosexual tones but she did it in a way where Ripley wasn't embracing that. But Phyllis Nagy doesn't push it down that much, you allow it to blossom a little bit. Phyllis has really pushed the campness in the play."

Both actors agree Ripley is a misogynist, reserving many of his best lines in spitting contempt for Rickie's girlfriend Marge (Mia Blake) who is resentful of the time the two men spend together. "Name like a grazing cow. And a mind like a shipwreck. Scattered and waterlogged and always at the bottom of everything."

So certain is Ripley that he has snatched Rickie from Marge's arms, that the rude announcement during a boating picnic that the couple are getting wed and Tom can push off back home, to poverty and obscurity, is unacceptable. And why not?

"He's had this idea in his earlier life that he needs to alter who he is to enjoy life," explains Stewart. "Then he goes off to Italy and sees something [Rickie] that wasn't even in his wildest imagination, someone who knows how to pull so much enjoyment out of life. So, of course, if he's going to play somebody else, it's got to be someone like this because look at how fantastic it is! Money, clothes, a dream he would never have dared dream before."

Highsmith's friends have told of how the [gay] writer saw Tom Ripley as her alter-ego, a man she talked about as though he was real. She rarely approved of castings for Tom in the films, liking Alain Delon in the 1959 version of The Talented Mr Ripley (Plein soleil), but not Dennis Hopper in Wim Wender's 1977 The American Friend.

But what she most hated was directors' attempts to straighten her depiction of blurred identity and existential amorality. Happy endings, when the bad guy got caught, were anathema; Hitchcock's meddle with the finale of her Strangers on a Train bothered her a great deal.

The Texas-born writer lived in Europe from 1963 until her death in 1995 at the age of 74, wearing without variation 220cm waist Levis, neckerchiefs - and an attitude. "I myself have a criminal bent," she once told an interviewer. "I have a lurking liking for those who flout the law."

Flouting the law is assumed by Ripley as his right. After all, he's an intellectually superior being. "I believe Tom thinks he can get out of any situation," says Drake. "Any problem that comes along, he has an answer for it. When there are those moments of danger - like when Marge sees him wearing Rickie's ring, when Rickie's friend Freddie finds him [posing as Rickie Greenleaf] - Tom always has a solution. In fact, he enjoys those moments as a challenge, he gets a buzz out of it."

And in the end, when Ripley has finally found the solitude - and money - he craves, he manages to convince himself that all is well with everyone else.

"He's convinced it's all worked out for everybody," says Driver. "Marge is happy. [Rickie's father] Herbert has found someone to give all his money to."

"And Dickie's happy," sniggers Stewart, "because let's face it, he wasn't happy before."

According to Tom, Rickie has done well out of the deal, even if he is dead. Mr Ripley does have a talent - for self-justification. "The more I learn about your habits, the more I'm convinced I did you a favour in that boat. You were lazy and slovenly," he muses about Rickie at one stage. "Even Marge would have given up in disgust at your sloth. ... your stock has risen greatly since your demise. People love you, Rickie. They adore you now. And tell me who's made that possible?"

* The Talented Mr Ripley previews at the Maidment Theatre Thursday and Friday, and runs February 14-March 20.