Annie Proulx: Celebs Rumors

David Benedict Canny casting of Mike Faist (“West Side Story”) and Lucas Hedges (“Manchester by the Sea”) and abundant efforts to honor Annie Proulx’s short story “Brokeback Mountain,” immortalized in Ang Lee’s screen version, are all in place. Above all, the sincerity underpinning director Jonathan Butterell’s premiere of a stage version is never in doubt. But despite a live soundtrack of bluegrass and country songs, the production only proves you can have too much fidelity. Sticking so doggedly to the original, the production fails to find anything approaching a satisfying theatrical form. Staged in-the-round in London’s 602-seat Soho Place theater, Ashley Robinson’s notably sparse adaptation of Proulx’s story confuses literary with literal. Borrowing the story’s introductory paragraphs, Robinson provides a cliched framing device, showing the older version of Ennis (Paul Hickey) waking up besieged by difficult memories. From his bedside radio, we hear the first of Dan Gillespie Sells’ original country songs welling up. The pedal steel guitar sets the scene, but its title and chorus “Don’t Let the Years Get You Down” is an immediately worrying indication that the production will be telling as well as showing.