Monthly Archives: August 2007

Henry IV part 2 – August 2007

8/10

By: William Shakespeare

Directed by: Richard Twyman

Venue: Courtyard Theatre

Date: Thursday 2nd August 2007

This was a huge improvement on part 1 which we saw a couple of nights ago. The play starts with Rumour, played by Forbes Masson, who enters dressed as Bagot and dragging Richard’s coffin, which he opens. This releases Richard’s ghost, who wanders off and reappears occasionally. Rumour then tells us all about his work, making it clear that the stories Northumberland is about to hear are false. Sure enough, he hears the wrong story first, and there’s some posturing as the messengers try to make out their story is the accurate one. A third messenger has the right story, and Percy knows the worst. I found this a bit boring, and couldn’t always make out the lines, and the staging was still pretty static.

The next scene gives us John Falstaff checking on his urine test, complaining about his mate the Prince, complaining when he can’t get what he wants in the way of goods, and then being upbraided by the Lord Chief Justice (Richard Cordery). I was paying more attention this time to Richard’s performance, to see how his rehearsal process might affect it, and he certainly was paying attention all the time to what was happening on stage.

Falstaff pretends to be deaf, and there was lots of humour. David Warner really seems to have grown into the part. At the end of this long scene he sends Peto to deliver some letters, and take something to Ursula – for this he takes out a carrot – plenty of double entendres there.

Next the rebels plotting together – a long speech from the Archbishop, and much concern about the likely success of their actions. Then it’s a lovely scene where Mistress Quickly tries to arrest Falstaff over the money he owes her. Along comes the Lord Chief Justice, and hears her complaint. As well as denying her the money he owes her, Sir John is reneging on his promise to marry her, but it looks like she’ll forgive him if they do wed. This was a great performance from Maureen Beattie. Honest, respectable woman that she is, she can’t help flaunting herself at the Lord Chief Justice, showing off her tits, wiggling and pouting, all very “respectable”  but liable to be misinterpreted! The Lord Chief Justice sees past all Falstaff’s prevarication, and pushes him to make amends to Mistress Quickly, which he does with more promises, getting more money out of her all the time. Meanwhile news comes of the King’s army, and they head off to the wars.

Harry and Poins are next. Poins pushes the bed on, with Harry asleep on it, and with his finger on his lips, invites us to keep quiet. Then he pulls the cover off Harry, who reacts quickly. Their conversation clearly shows that Harry is beginning to adjust his thinking and his behaviour to reflect his own noble position more – a warning to the audience that he will be renouncing his former companions before long. Bardolph arrives with a letter from Falstaff, warning Hal not to be too friendly with Poins, as Poins wants Harry to marry his sister. Poins semi-denies this, and here I got the impression that he might well have been thinking about it. They decide to spy on Falstaff that night, disguised as tapsters.

Next Northumberland, his wife, and Hotspur’s wife enter. Despite his intention to join the rebels, Hotspur’s wife points out, at length, that he broke his oath when he failed to turn up to help his son, so he might as well fail these other people, of so much less worth than her dead husband. With his wife joining in the pleas, he decides to head for Scotland.

At the tavern, the tapsters are in the know about the Prince and Poins’ ruse, Mistress Quickly and Doll Tearsheet are the worse for wear, but Doll does at least feel better after throwing up (thankfully faked). Doll and Falstaff quarrel, and when Pistol is announced, Mistress Quickly refuses to let him in, saying she can’t abide “swaggerers”. Her hands are really shaking. Falstaff persuades her that Pistol is a gentle man, and well behaved, so she allows him in. Unfortunately, he’s as quarrelsome as they come (would any sane person actually believe what Falstaff tells them?), and with Doll having a go at him with a knife (they’ve all had too much to drink), he draws his sword. Mistress Quickly manages to calm him down a bit, though the way she strokes his sword wouldn’t normally have that effect on a man. Steve reckons it’s a good job he didn’t have a pistol, as it would have gone off!

Eventually the brawling gets too much, and Pistol is hit over the head and falls into the basement. Falstaff and Doll are getting on better now, and he talks to her of the Prince and Poins, insulting them. They reveal themselves – they’d only just arrived, with moustaches to disguise themselves – by shouting “Anon, anon, sir” when Sir John calls for more sack. Hal challenges Falstaff to worm his way out of the insults he’s just heard, which he does by saying he dispraised the Prince before wicked people so that they would not love him. Harry is testing him by asking whether each person there is wicked or not, and Falstaff’s just about managing OK, but then Peto comes with news of the gathering forces, and Hal realises he has to get to court. Falstaff is also called for, and off they all go.

Now King Henry graces us with his presence, and after sending off some letters, tells us all about insomnia. It’s much worse for kings, he reckons (why are so many powerful people such self-indulgent wimps?). Then the lords he wrote to turn up, as quick as if he’d texted them (impressive), and they discuss the situation briefly. Again, Henry is more caught up with how things have changed, and recognises that Richard II’s earlier prophecy about the split between him and Northumberland had some truth to it. Warwick puts things into perspective and helps to steady Henry’s resolve – altogether a calming influence. Obviously, Henry’s feeling the guilt, and this scene prepares us for his coming illness and death. I felt there was still some more to come here – not all of the “why can’t I get any sleep when all these ordinary people can” whinge came across clearly.

Now we had the interval, and during it, young Davy, servant to Justice Shallow, sets up the stage for the next scene in Gloucestershire. There’s a lot of funny business here – Matt Costain, Director of Rope Work, plays the part, and he needs a lot of gymnastic ability. He tried to pick up three folding stools, leaving each stool where it was while he went for the others, and of course they all fell over. Then he spent some time attaching bunting to the tower at the back. The first attachment point was in reach, but the second, round to the right, was too high, so he had to get a ladder. He wasn’t in quite the right position, so he shifted the ladder several times without getting off it, making it more and more precarious, until eventually it fell over, and left him clinging to the railing of the tower. There was a bit of audience participation here, as he signalled to those on the right-hand side to help him. Eventually one did, the ladder was restored, and the bunting was attached. Hooray! As he closed up the ladder, he reacted as if he’d caught a tender part of his anatomy in it – an old trick, but never let it be said we’re not easily pleased.

We had been looking forward to the next scene, Shallow and Silence, since this morning’s talk from Jonathan Bate, about Shakespeare and the law. He has an interesting theory on the go that Will may have spent some of his missing time in the Inns of Court, possibly even Clement’s Inn, but as he intends to publish, he didn’t want us to spread it too widely beforehand. Anyway, he read out a lot of the opening part of this scene, and very entertainingly, so that my appetite was whetted. I’ve often lost a lot of this dialogue and tended to regard Shallow and Silence as being on a par with Dogberry – you have to put up with them, but the more they can be cut the better. This time, I understood the lines much better, both from Jonathan’s reading, and from the performances.

After the two old men get through their reminiscences, or rather Shallow’s reminiscences as Silence lives up to his name for the most part, Falstaff arrives to enrol the men that Shallow has provided for the King’s army. Mouldy does indeed look pretty foul, and the reactions of the others suggest a lack of personal hygiene. Shadow is very white and ghost-like, and tends to faint easily, not the best constitution for a soldier, one would think. Wart is bent almost double, and Francis Feeble is as tasty a pantomime young man as one would wish to see (played by Katy Stephens). He’s also the only one who comes close to being courageous. Bullcalf is big and strong, and it looks like he’s the pick of the bunch, but once Falstaff and Shallow go in for dinner, the real transfer negotiations take place (isn’t that always the way?). Bullcalf and Mouldy bung Bardolph several pounds to avoid conscription, and amazingly enough Bardolph and Sir John keep faith with them, taking all the others instead. Shadow faints (again).

Falstaff tells Bardolph to give the new enlistees guns, which they take out of the chest they’ve brought with them. Bardolph gives Wart a rifle, and shows him how to shoulder arms, ending with bringing the gun to his middle front. When Wart tries it, apart from being a lot more shaky, he ends up banging the gun on the ground in front of him, which makes it fire! Bardolph takes the gun away again, and they troop off.

Falstaff promises to visit Justice Shallow again, and once left alone on stage proceeds to tell us how he plans to “fetch off these justices”. He’s upset with Shallow both for lying and for having done so well for himself despite being such a pathetic fellow at Clement’s Inn. This is the nastier side of Falstaff, and it comes across pretty well. (If I remember rightly, Davy removes the bunting at some point, possibly before, possibly after this speech.)

Now we see the rebels again, preparing their forces for war. Northumberland has sent his apologies, and news comes of the King’s forces led by his son John. The Duke of Westmoreland arrives, from Prince John, to ask what grievances the rebels have. They talk. And they talk. And they talk. Unlike the Henry VI’s, this isn’t martial banter, this is political manoeuvring. Both sides are attempting to take the moral high ground, and the language is quite dense. I certainly didn’t pick up all of it at the time, although I got the gist.

Finally, Westmoreland takes a list of the rebel’s complaints to the Prince, and they discuss whether they can trust his word or not. Of course, they can’t, but Hastings and the Archbishop seem to be the trusting sort. With the arrival of the Prince, declaring that he’ll satisfy their demands, peace appears to break out, but sadly the rebel troops disperse too quickly, and soon the Prince’s officers surround and arrest the rebel leaders. I notice the same level of sneakiness with both Falstaff and the Prince – effective strategies though they may be, I’m not keen on the lack of integrity on show. Also, I think some of the drinking lines were cut, as there seemed to be very little gap between the peace agreement and the arrests.

The next scene is a short one, designed, it would seem, mainly to remind us that now the battle is over, Sir John is heading back to Gloucestershire to tackle Justice Shallow. Falstaff comes across a wounded knight, and takes him prisoner, as he’s too injured to fight. The Prince and Westmoreland turn up, and the Prince chides Sir John for arriving so late to the party. Falstaff’s response is breathtakingly cheeky. The prisoner is led off to be executed with the rest of the captured rebels, and the Prince heads off to London to see his father, who is now sick. Left alone again, Falstaff rails against abstemious men, extolling the virtues of sherry sack, and swearing he would have all his sons, if he had any, learn to drink this magic liquid. Off he heads to see the Justice again.

Back in London, the King is in a wheelchair, and in his bedroom. Most of his sons are present, but not Harry. He warns young Clarence to keep well in with Hal when he succeeds, and act as a mediator to help prevent his excesses from damaging their relationships. He’s very worried about what will happen once he’s gone, and convinced that his son will not make a good king, although he is aware of some of his good qualities.

Warwick again puts in a more balanced view, stating that Hal is only finding out what goes on amongst the lower classes, but the king’s not persuaded. News of the victories arrives – Westmoreland tells the king of Prince John’s success, while another messenger informs us all that Northumberland and the Scots have been defeated by the Sheriff of Yorkshire. Despite the good news, the king swoons, and has to be helped to bed. Although he recovers a bit, he wants to be left alone to rest, so they exit. Prince Hal has just arrived, and decides to stay with his father. The crown is lying on a pillow to the right of the king – he fought hard to get it, and he’s not letting it out of his sight now!

I noticed as he was put on the bed that a few feathers drifted down to land on him. I wondered if it was planned, and now it was confirmed. After ruminating on the pressures of kingship (Elizabeth must have loved Will’s work – he’s always pointing out the hardships that royalty has to endure), Hal notices that a feather isn’t moving, and despite not having any medical training, jumps to the conclusion that dad’s snuffed it. What cheek! A few words of sorrow, and then he puts on the crown and runs off with it, though only to the next room, presumably to adjust to his newly-acquired status.

When the king wakes up, he calls for company, and on hearing that Hal is around, asks to see him. Nobody knows where he’s gone, and then the king spots the empty pillow! I could envisage alarms and sirens going off, security doors slamming shut, all based on King Henry’s rage at finding his son has prematurely taken the crown. Warwick, ever the calming influence, tells the king that Hal is next door, sobbing his heart out (bless).

Now for some of the biggest speeches in the play. Henry and Hal have a heart-to-heart – it’s a bit like Jerry Springer, but a bit more civilised. The King accuses Hal of all the things he’s worried about – that he’ll let all his drunken, criminal buddies have power when he’s King and ruin the state. Only he takes a lot longer to say it than that (46 lines). Hal then responds (39 lines) with one of the most grovelling apologies I’ve ever heard. Several thoughts struck me. One is how noble he suddenly sounds, another is that the performance by Geoffrey Streatfield is growing on me, and the other is that I’ve never really understood Hal’s motivation in seeming worse than he is to gain greater glory when he shows his true colours. I’m sure it makes sense to him, but so far it’s escaped me.

King Henry (43 lines) is so taken with Hal’s speech, that he’s reconciled to him on the spot, and sits him down on the bed for some fatherly advice on how to run the family firm. Basically, prevent civil strife at home by fighting wars abroad (why does that sound familiar?). Once done, he feels bad again, and asks to be taken to Jerusalem (the room, not the city) to die.

Back in Gloucestershire, Shallow is combining dealing with household affairs, insisting Falstaff stays for longer, and considering a plea from Davy to help a friend of his. As Davy is also sorting out the household affairs, it makes for a very confused scene. Again, it ends with Falstaff having another go at Shallow, privately, to us. This would be boring if it weren’t for the improved performance of David Warner as Falstaff – it was much more entertaining than Part 1.

With the King now dead, the new king’s brothers meet the Lord Chief Justice to tell him the news. All are convinced that the Lord Chief Justice is in for a hard time now that Hal has become King, as he had Hal committed to prison for striking him when he was acting with the King’s power and authority. However, Henry V enters less brashly than expected, and speaks gently to his brothers, assuring them they are all safe. He got a good laugh on the line “This is the English not the Turkish court”. He does challenge the Lord Chief Justice, true, but his response is so upstanding that either it reassures Hal, or it persuades him not to take revenge, and he confirms the Lord Chief Justice in his position, promising to be guided by him as by a father.

Back with Falstaff and the Justices, Davy comes on to spread a picnic for them. A pit had been prepared, and Davy produces a frying pan and starts to cook something – too far away to tell what. Various requests for wine go unanswered; Falstaff in particular appears to have an empty cup for a long while. Silence has obviously been at the sherry – he sings several songs, interrupting the dialogue, and then sinking back down on the bench at the back. All is jollity, and then Pistol arrives to announce the old King’s death and the crowning of Prince Hal as Henry V. They’re all convinced Falstaff is a made man, and rush off to London, where Mistress Quickly and Doll Tearsheet have just been arrested. As the beadles take them away, Doll Tearsheet and Mistress Quickly get in plenty of rich insults. Doll appears to be pregnant, but as the beadle observes, it’s only a cushion. It’s a short scene, presumably to allow others to regroup and change if need be, but also to flag up the coming rejection of Falstaff by the new King.

For the final scene, Falstaff and his entourage arrive from all corners, clambering onto the stage in their haste to become part of the power elite. Falstaff excuses his bedraggled state as showing how much he wanted to see Hal again, and Pistol brings the news of Doll’s arrest. They gather round the main stage, waiting for the procession from the coronation.

King Henry arrives, walking down the circular stairs in the tower, followed by the Lord Chief Justice and his family. He’s done up in a white suit with a cloak and the crown, looking very regal. He ignores Falstaff’s greetings, telling the Lord Chief Justice to talk to “that vain man”. Henry then makes it clear he is no longer going to involve himself in the life he led before, and all the people he knew from that time are banished from the court. He does show some kindness in granting them an allowance to avoid penury, and promising to reward them with positions as they earn them. Off he goes, leaving Falstaff’s crew totally undone. Sir John tries to put a brave face on it, by claiming the King will send for him in private – this was just the public “spin” – but Shallow’s not buying it. He’s lent Sir John a thousand pounds, and wants it back – he’ll be waiting even longer than Mistress Quickly, I reckon.

Finally, the Lord Chief Justice enters, and has them all sent to the Fleet Prison, while the Lord Chief Justice and Prince John discuss this satisfactory outcome (at least, it is for them). Prince John reckons they’ll soon be sending soldiers off to France – a little bird told him. Could he be right? We’ll have to wait till November to find out!

I enjoyed this performance a lot more than Part 1. The story came across better, the staging was more entertaining (especially Davy’s business with the bunting), and I heard almost every line clearly. I still feel there’s more to come, especially in the final scene with the reactions from Falstaff and his group. This Prince Hal certainly changes over the plays, but other performances have conveyed this even better for me, and I do hope this role comes on before November.

The performances I particularly liked were Julius D’Silva as Bardolph and Maureen Beattie as Mistress Quickly. Julius was part of the Spanish Golden Age season a few years back and it’s nice to see him return, although neither of us recognised him at first with all the makeup he wears. He certainly seems to fill the role very well. Maureen Beattie gets a lot of the humour out of her part, more so than I can remember from other productions, and she can scream invective as well as the best of them, not that Mistress Quickly gets many opportunities for that. Forbes Masson as Rumour gave us one of those threads through time that are integral to these productions, and there were many other enjoyable performances. In general, the play seemed better balanced and happier than Part 1 – roll on Henry V.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Penelopiad – August 2007 (1)

10/10

By: Margaret Atwood

Directed by: Josette Bushell-Mingo

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Wednesday 1st August 2007

This was an absolutely fantastic theatrical experience. From the moment the lights dimmed to blackout, till the bows at the end, I was totally spellbound by the sheer power and energy of this production. It was at times disturbing, moving, scary and very very funny, and not many plays, never mind productions, can do all that in one evening.

The opening blackness was as complete as I’ve known in the Swan, and I started to feel a certain spookiness at being left in the dark for so long. There were strange sounds, a howling that could have been a wolf. Then a rectangle of light struck down onto the stage, showing us Penny Downie, as Penelope, in a blood red dress and wrap, her reflection glowing like a stain on the black floor. A very effective start, only to be superseded by her tremendous performance as she led us through Penelope’s version of her life’s odyssey. She’s not a happy shade, this one, but even so she gets a lot of humour out of her opening speech, modestly describing her sack of words as “of a reasonable size”. It’s clear she wants to give us her version of events, take us for a “spin” through her life, but then her dead maids arrive, brought to life by the magic of theatre, pointing out that she had failed them. Penelope acknowledges this view, but deflects it as well by claiming she had turned a blind eye, wanting everything to turn out happily. Of course, it’s fine for her to talk – there were no happy endings for the maids.

And no happy beginnings either. As Penelope starts to tell her story from childhood, the maids reappear as the various characters – her father Icarius, King of Sparta, and her mother, a Naiad. (See, even in this play we have an unnamed woman!) There’s also a wonderful oracle who wails magnificently, and has some lovely lines about how hard it can be to make out the God’s intentions clearly. Not that that matters to the King – on finding out his daughter, Penelope, may at some point possibly weave a shroud for some sort of father, he decides to have her killed. Unfortunately he’s stupid enough to have the daughter of a naiad (water nymph) thrown into the sea. They take Penelope and cast her down, into the waves, where she struggles and writhes for a bit. Then a lovely flight of purple striped ducks come to rescue her (big birds, on the end of poles, thought they were seagulls at first but the lines soon put me straight). Icarius takes her back, and from then on everyone calls her “ducky”. We then get more of Penelope’s view of her parents, before the maids get their chance to point out that they were children too, and not the pampered children of Kings, but the neglected, beaten, starved children of the poor and captured, made to work hard for what little they were given, which never included love or kindness.

Already I was finding this play very powerful. I felt such a sense of relief that at last all the neglected women of the world were finally being given a voice. In Orestes last year, there were red body shapes round the back of the Yvonne Arnaud stage which I felt were a reminder of all those killed in the Trojan War. But still they were men. This is the first time I have seen any play really open up the awareness that behind all the slaughter of the ages there have been far more women affected, killed, raped, tortured, maimed and made to suffer than has ever been fully acknowledged. Unlike the red bodies, these women now get to come forward onto the stage and tell us their stories, and I found it incredibly moving and liberating to experience this in my favourite performance space and with such a good company of actors. I feel this is such an important work, it must be performed more, and brought to a wider audience. We have too much killing in the world as it is.

In fact, although I feel Penny Downie’s performance was absolutely superb, I did find her character rather smug and distant. I could appreciate the terrible conditions she’d been brought up in; even if the drowning story wasn’t true, she was still married off like a piece of livestock, and had to live in an unsympathetic household for most of her life. Appreciating it didn’t change things, though – she was still a difficult woman to feel close to, especially compared with the maids.

After a short description of Hades (bit colourless, apparently) she takes us through her wedding to Odysseus. The maids made very fine men, I must say; I was only slightly worried that I fancied a couple of them myself. Odysseus is a drug cheat, only he drugs the other contenders so he and his short legs can win the prize. Or rather the second prize. By this time, Helen (later of Troy) has turned up and is preening herself magnanimously on one of the balconies. So much beauty, so little time to let everyone see it! The men are obviously getting stiff necks (at least), craning to see her.

Penelope is taken off by Odysseus for their wedding night, and we get to see how he charms her into working with him to deceive the eavesdroppers silhouetted behind the curtain. The kissing and canoodling that follows was remarkable. I suppose I felt it was safe, knowing they’re both women, but somehow it was much more erotically charged than when two men do the same thing (as with Propeller). In fact, the women seemed able to take it further than men usually do, or men and women together, so perhaps it was just the increased intimacy that made it so powerful. (Either that, or I’ve got some hidden lesbian yearnings.) Men can be so skittish around the unmentionables, despite their macho posturing, while women are more relaxed about the nitty-gritty (comes from the monthly blood-letting, I suspect). Anyway, this scene, and the raping later on, were much more intense, oddly enough, than a lot of supposedly steamy sex scenes.

Penelope tells us how Odysseus takes her away, back to Ithaca, and we get another song from the maids chorus, reflecting on how they stand little chance of ever marrying a handsome hero who will take them away to a better life. The sea journey was short for us, longer for Penelope, who shows us that she’s not a good sailor by throwing up into a convenient bucket. King Laertes and his wife Queen Anticleia are a remarkable pair. He’s carrying a goat, probably his best friend in the whole world, and she bleats like one and has a hairstyle strongly reminiscent of horns. Unfortunately, there’s also Eurycleia, Odysseus’s old nurse, who basically takes charge of everything, giving Penelope no real way to fit in. But in mentioning that Penelope’s job is to give Odysseus a son, she does show her a way to be useful. At this point, Penelope’s eyes light up, and she holds her tummy, possibly suggesting that Telemachus is already en route?

Either way, the next chorus is about that nine month journey, together with the journeys the maids made to reach the royal household. They raise the question of whether they would have drowned him, had they known he was later to kill them (Steve votes yes, though the nurse also comes in for some criticism). Then Penelope is held aloft, and Telemachus is born, only to be taken immediately into Eurycleia’s charge. Odysseus, in that unthinking way men have, tries to congratulate Penelope by pointing out that she’s one up on Helen, who hasn’t had a child yet, but from Penelope’s perspective it’s more troubling to find him still thinking of that great beauty. (Men can be so inconsiderate when their wives have just given birth.)

The next section gives us a view of Penelope’s daily life in Ithaca. Ignored by practically everyone, she spends many days weaving in  the company of slaves, dreaming of the nights which she will spend with Odysseus in bed. There, he tells her the secret of the bedpost carved from a living olive tree, which means the bed can never be moved.  Just then, a ship arrives with the news of Helen and Paris eloping, and Odysseus packs and leaves. Penelope is furious with Helen, and tells us all about it – it’s a lovely bit of invective, well delivered.

Now there’s a fairly long passage where Penelope explains the waiting she endured. We see Telemachus growing up, and being cosseted by Eurycleia to the exclusion of his mother. Penelope is now running the estates, and does her best to increase them, hoping to impress Odysseus when he returns home. Then the news comes that Troy has fallen, and the maids tell the story of the taking of Troy until Penelope cuts them off. The details were becoming more harrowing by the line, but I suppose those who’d been through such abuses themselves were perhaps glad to hear of others suffering the same fate. Or perhaps they just weren’t as bothered as Penelope. I was aware of how much more their suffering had been, so that they could see such a brutal story as simple reality.

Now she’s spending her time looking out for Odysseus’s ship. A water tank had already appeared in the floor of the stage, and gave us a lovely representation of the harbour and sea. But all that came were rumours of Odysseus’s travels, and a group of sailors, looking suspiciously familiar, dancing and singing about their journey and adventures with Odysseus. Three of the maids were perched on the left balcony behind a microphone, looking like the kind of girls sailors enjoy the company of whilst in port. This wasn’t as clear as most of the other songs, but I still got the gist. The first act then closes with Penelope telling us that she heard no more after that.

For the start of the second act (there was no interval), Helen arrives, and we’re back in the underworld. She’s not accompanied by the string of admirers mentioned in the text, so I guess even the quick-change supremos of this ensemble couldn’t quite fit those parts in as well. In fact, she’s not even accompanied by much in the way of clothes, as she’s about to take a bath and give all her admirers a thrill. After a bitchy little exchange between them, in which Helen suggests Penelope isn’t Miss Squeaky Clean herself, the suitors begin arriving at Ithaca, sniffing around for a tasty morsel. It was quite menacing, this bit, as the figures of the suitors gradually stole into view in the gloom around the stage, and Penelope herself looks hunted. Before long, Penelope is being pestered by suitors right, left and centre, Telemachus is being laughed at when he tries to stand up to them, and the human pigs are eating the porcine pigs and other cattle to try and starve Penelope into making a decision. There’s a bit in the text where some of the maids play the animals being slaughtered, and I wasn’t clear about this in performance, but maybe a different angle next week will make it clearer.

Penelope has escaped to the right balcony at this point, and explains her view of her predicament. She’s trying to fend off her suitors by playing along, when she comes up with the idea of the shroud. She gives a lovely little speech to the suitors, and they go along with it. Now she has to spin the weaving out as long as possible.

A loom descends from above, and Penelope and her maids talk together as the maids unpick the day’s work. The fabric on the loom is a bright red, so there’s another reminder of all the killing. Penelope’s quite chatty with these maids – she’s selected them all and brought them up, and uses them to find out what the suitors are up to. Unfortunately, their behaviour is misinterpreted by those not in the know. The suitors regard them as recompense for being kept waiting, and Eurycleia and Telemachus consider them insolent whores. Eventually, one of them is raped by a suitor, and although the other women are attacked as well, she’s the one we focus on.

As she lies alone in the middle of the stage, in the light square (the water tank has gone by now), the other maids come on with feather fans, and sing a Hollywood-style musical number about how the maids like to sleep and dream of their perfect man. It finishes with a verse about how they always wake up to find they’re still in the same place, and have to get on with the unremitting toil, and then they leave, with the raped woman still on her own in the middle.

This whole section was one of the most moving and disturbing of the whole play. The rape itself was brutal, and seemed explicit, although it wasn’t. To then see such a soft, comfortable song and dance number while the  raped maid lay hurting in the middle, was difficult, yet I could see how in the midst of such pain and anguish, some kind of escape would be vital. These women needed their dreams to stay sane; the extent of their suffering could be measured by the gap between their fantasies and their reality. The contrast made the sense of suffering stronger for me.

We’re now getting close to the end of the story. Telemachus takes a ship to find his father, leaving Penelope even more abandoned. On his return, he does bring a little news, though not what she wants to hear. He’s seen Menelaus and Helen, and finally confesses that Helen does look old by now, older than Penelope herself.

A larger shroud drops down to show the progress they’d been unable to avoid making, and as the maids continue unpicking, Penelope promises to look after them, and tell Odysseus all about them when he gets back. How they’ve helped her, how they’ve found out things, etc. Unfortunately, the suitors have rumbled her, and she’s really in trouble. After praying to the gods, and reckoning they don’t actually want to help humans, she falls asleep and dreams. This bit was a little jumbled, but basically she seems to be dreaming about Odysseus’s journey, with a lot of the sailors’ song being reprised. There are also three big mouths – the sirens, I presume – and a big monster thingy which I assume was the Cyclops. All in all, it was quite entertaining. And afterwards, when Penelope wakes up, her prayers are finally answered as Odysseus comes home.

He’s in disguise, of course, and although he reveals himself to Telemachus, and Eurycleia eventually twigs, he insists on no one telling Penelope, as he thinks, stupid man, that she would give him away. She, of course, has already recognised him, but doesn’t want to spoil his view of himself as being clever. Unfortunately, he tells Eurycleia to lock her in her room so that she doesn’t see the bloodshed, as he intends to kill all the suitors. She goes to sleep, planning to tell him all about her faithful girls, and we can feel the tragedy building.

The bow-stringing sequence was very neat, with a few suitors completely unable to do it. Odysseus does, of course, and fires off lots of arrows at point blank range (mimed), so that suitors are falling all over the place. When he gives the order for the maids to clear the bodies and clean the place up, I wondered how they would do it, as the maids and the suitors are one and the same, but I found it very effective that the dead bodies simply get up, leave off their suitor gear, and become the maids. As they clean the place up, Odysseus is told of their insolence and bad behaviour, and orders them killed. Despite their pleas to Telemachus, they’re strung up, one by one, until all twelve are hanging, dead.

This was done very effectively. Instead of actual hangings, they each in turn stopped pleading and crying, and stood, twitching and swaying slightly, to represent the hanging bodies. It took me a few moments to realise this was happening, and then I found it an incredibly powerful image. With a short pause at the end, the maids then leave the stage and Penelope wakes up. Even as she’s horrified to find her loyal girls have been killed, we can see the realisation that she won’t do anything about it. She’s scared of rocking the boat, and she’ll live with the knowledge for years, but she won’t speak up. That’s the silence that doubly kills those girls.

She and Odysseus return to their bedroom, and now she tests him with the story of the bedpost. Although both acknowledge that they have changed, I’m not sure how well they’ll get to know each other, as Penelope is certainly keeping a lot back, and we probably all have our suspicions about Odysseus by now. The final section takes us back to Hades, where Penelope explains about the rebirth option, forgetting the past lives to go through another spell of life. Odysseus keeps going back, although all she wants is for him to stay with her, an unattainable dream. The final image is her description of her maids “running” away from her, their still twitching feet not actually touching the ground. It’s a macabre description, and all the better for having Penelope alone on the stage as she says it. Again, the total blackout, and we’re done.

Re-reading this, I don’t think my descriptions begin to get across the marvellous way this production was put on. The performances were all excellent, and the cast worked together as if they’d been doing it for years, not just weeks. I liked the mix of accents, as it gave me a sense of this being all women’s stories, not just coming from one culture’s point of view. The songs were apparently in all sorts of styles, but none of them jarred, although the Hollywood-style musical number did raise the discomfort level as mentioned above. All the action flowed seamlessly, and despite the director’s statement earlier (see below for pre-show notes) that the play wasn’t perfect, I was never bored, and never felt there was more work needed.

The three best aspects of this production, though, are the text itself, the performance of Penny Downie, and the way in which the ordinary women are allowed to speak. The text has such a distinctive voice, and has so much humour to balance the bitterness, that it’s a joy to read as well as hear. I may even read the original book to see how it’s been adapted. Penny Downie gives such an assured performance as Penelope that I can’t imagine it being improved, and I look forward to seeing it again next week from a closer position so that I can see more of the detail. She conveys all the emotions and thoughts so clearly, and I do hope she receives the accolades she deserves.

It almost seems like sacrilege to say that, though, when the importance of recognising all the women is emphasised so much in this play. Their story wouldn’t affect me so much if we didn’t have Penelope, while without these other women, her life’s story would be seriously incomplete. I’ll remember this production for a long while, and I suspect I’ll still be getting more ideas from it for some time to come.

Pre-show talk with Josette Bushell-Mingo (and a man)

We went to the pre-show having already heard from Deborah Shaw at the RSC Summer School a bit about the writing and audition processes for this production. Her description of Josette suggested a creative whirlwind, and we weren’t disappointed. Josette is both articulate and passionate about her work, and uses her body and voice very effectively both to get her points across and to include the whole audience in the experience.

She didn’t want to give too much away for those who had still to see the play, but I got a sense of a production that uses many forms of dramatic expression in a loose structure, which has evolved a lot over the rehearsal period. To be honest, a lot of what was said has been blown out of my mind by the tremendous performance, but I will just mention that Josette warned us not to expect too much, as the play wasn’t fully developed yet. Changes were still being made, and the whole process of doing this across the Atlantic sounded challenging, yet very rewarding. She described her first meeting with Margaret Atwood to discuss her ideas – Margaret was very genteel and restrained (good impression from Josette here), while Josette was even more frantic with nerves and gabbled her way through it all. Apparently it went well, as Margaret seemed completely happy to hand her baby over for the transformation to the stage.

From her descriptions, not only was Josette excited to be closing the Swan (temporarily, we hope), but the cast were thrilled to be here as well. The Canadian actresses brought a lot to the mix, especially a more laid back attitude to adapting Margaret Atwood’s work, and all the cast were fully involved in developing the piece. She mentioned one section which had been moved by others, put back by her, but which they knew didn’t work. God knows which bit she meant – I couldn’t spot it. At least my expectations weren’t too high after this talk.

One point the chap made was that Helen and Menelaus must have had a talk after he got her back, and I found myself thinking “Of course they didn’t – Menelaus is a man!” Josette told us how the women played all the men’s parts, and had had special training on how to move, both as men and as women, which had helped them enormously. It was certainly one of the strengths of the production that the male parts were so believable.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me