Category Archives: Theatre

Pravda – September 2006

Experience: 6/10

By Howard Brenton and David Hare

Directed by Jonathan Church

Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Thursday 21st September 2006

We saw this play back in the eighties, at the National, with Anthony Hopkins. I found I couldn’t remember much of it, except for Hopkins’ performance, so I came to this production as a virgin, almost. I found the play dated in parts and with a lack of depth to the characters, but still with some very interesting points to make about power and the abuse of it. There are still a lot of ideas coming to the surface.

The set was very stark. White panels at the back, a wide, raised platform for most of the action in the centre, with some snippets at the front and sides. The floor was covered in reverse print, suggestive of the old printing press, which partly lapped up onto the back panels. The two lower panels slid apart to create doors, slightly wider or narrower as required – simple but effective. A great deal of furniture came on and off during the play, but this was cleverly covered by business at the front of the stage, e.g. newspaper vendors selling their wares and giving us useful headlines to carry the action forward. There were also media interviews of various characters. These two writers know how to put something on the stage; I’ll say that for them.

I enjoyed all of the performances, and only had one difficulty – there’s a scene with four characters speaking with contrasting accents, South African, Australian, Yorkshire, and RP. Maybe it was the weird combination, but I found this hard to follow. Some of the accents seemed to be wandering around the globe a bit, and weren’t immediately recognisable, although this scene was the only one that gave me any real problem.

The play is about the takeover of the British media in the eighties by, mainly, Rupert Murdoch. Represented here by Lambert Le Roux, a South African, he bullies his way to the top, discarding the husks of people he’s used along the way. Those who try to fight back are ruthlessly trampled underfoot, until all come under his sway. Only those who walk away can survive with souls intact, although that’s not as clearly stated as one might wish. It was a tremendous performance by Roger Allam in the lead role. Like Anthony Hopkins, he had the strong physical posture – wide stance, very upright, moving from the shoulders like a bull looking for a china shop. I was convinced by his power and ruthlessness, though not so sure that he could be physically violent when need be. Still, it was a great performance, and fortunately, given that this is a play about a strong, dominating character, the other performances were on a par. The whole production has a balanced feel to it, and there were some lovely cameos for minor characters, such as the political correspondent, whose job was to explain the parliamentary lobby system to us innocents.

It’s interesting to compare our attitudes then and now. I remembered on the journey home how much the British media had been in thrall to Murdoch when he first started mauling his competition. The BBC, in particular, struck me as very wimpish in not standing up to his criticism and fighting their corner. He was a shark swimming into waters that had never seen anything bigger than a herring and he killed at will, but now everyone’s toughened up and shark is the norm.

This play has stood the test of time, and is a good record of the attitudes then, and a warning of how things can change. As Lambert says, “You never used your editorial freedom when you had the chance.” The price of freedom is indeed eternal vigilance, and plays like this help.

© 2006 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Habeus Corpus – September 2006

Experience: 3/10

By Alan Bennett

Directed by Peter Hall

Company: Peter Hall Company

Venue: Theatre Royal, Brighton

Date: Tuesday 19th September 2006

I found this disappointing; Alan Bennett doing Joe Orton, not really my cup of tea. The performances were excellent, as usual, and it was weird to see several actors whom we’d seen last week in Measure for Measure at the Courtyard in Stratford, appear again tonight. I hadn’t realised that the Peter Hall Company was touring two plays, so we got to see both within a week of each other.

There were some laughs, and as I say the performances were fine, but much of the writing was very dated, and some of the jokes were telegraphed minutes before they arrived. This piece could do with a good rewrite to bring it more up-to-date, or else be left in a drawer somewhere till it’s old enough to be a classic.

Good points – Barry Stanton without a beard (and I haven’t seen that before!) playing a charlady with an uncanny knack for knowing everything that’s going to happen or has happened – has she read the script? Edward Bennett was superb as Canon Throbbing, desperate to get laid, and Paul Bentall, recently the Provost inVienna, was enjoyable as a travelling artificial breast fitter who mistakes a real pair (Annette Badland’s ample bosom) for his company’s work.

© 2006 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Orestes – September 2006

Experience: 6/10

By Helen Edmunson, from the play by Euripedes

Directed by Nancy Meckler

Company: Shared Experience

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date Friday 15th September 2006

This is an adaptation of the Orestes by Euripides, done by Helen Edmundson. Set in a lavish bedroom, with gold sheets on the bed and pairs of gold shoes hanging on the door, I found it was an interesting production which raised some good questions about the reasons people have for killing each other, without trying to come to any specific resolution to answer them all. I like this type of theatre.

The performances were excellent. Electra (Mairead McKinley) was the powerhouse of the piece. She was the one who had seen their father killed in his bath, but was unable to take revenge until Orestes’ return. She is an odd combination of sanity and obsession, not helped by Helen’s cruel remarks about her (relative) ugliness and lack of children. She conveys all the suffering which can lead to a lust for revenge, together with the intelligence and cunning that comes from waiting a long time to get that revenge. She it is who hits on the idea of killing Helen, to pay back Menelaus for daring to take the throne from her and her brother, the rightful heirs (or matricides, as the mob outside the palace prefer to call them). She has more loose screws than B&Q, yet she’s still saner than her brother, whose final descent into total insanity horrifies even her, although that’s partly because he’s just buggered up their one chance to escape the mob. She is also able to argue convincingly against Tyndareos, their grandfather (yes, it’s another Greek dysfunctional family, folks), who is practically baying for their blood, though in slightly more civil terms than the mob outside. His focus is the law – they have killed their mother (his daughter), so they must die. He’s not so hot on why the law didn’t crack down on Clytemnestra and her lover when they killed Pops, but that’s politicians for you. A lovely performance from Jeffrey Kissoon.

Menelaus (Tim Chipping) is wonderfully portrayed as a weak, indecisive type, who’s nevertheless prepared to take advantage of his niece and nephew’s plight to gain political clout for himself. After depleting the forces of wherever he ruled before the Trojan War, he’s now looking for a new country to rule, and here’s a place that’s just lost its rulers, and about to execute their heirs/killers, and hey, he just happens to be family, so why not offer to step into the breach? Do not allow this man to make you a cup of tea; if you’ve got anything he wants, it’ll be laced with something deadly. Despite this, Menelaus comes across as one of the nicer people to begin with – bit softer, more caring and understanding, willing to help the besieged couple. Not that he’s prepared to carry through with it, and in the end, he loses more than he’d bargained for.

Orestes seems to be under his sister’s thumb in many ways, and yet she looks to him for leadership, strength and love. It’s that odd kind of relationship where it can be difficult at times to tell who’s leading and who’s following. He’s plainly more affected by their killing spree than she is – she’s wanted the revenge all along, but he’s suffering the guilt, and it’s after killing Helen that the guilt drives him to lose it completely. Alex Robertson judged his performance in this role very nicely. There’s an intriguing moment as they are heading down the suicide route, where they kiss and look like they’re tempted to make love. I don’t think this implied any pre-existing sexual relationship between them, although as this is based on Greek drama, I could be completely wrong. I just saw it as a last despairing expression of love between them, especially as Electra had been so hurt by Helen’s complete refutation of her womanhood. Still a virgin, this could be her only chance.

Helen arrives in the palace ahead of Menelaus. She’s brought their baby, who is tended to by a slave woman. Helen, though beautiful, comes across as a real bitch. Admittedly, she’s talking to the pair who killed her sister, so you have to make some allowances, but she’s so full of herself, being part-God as she claims (and there’s a cock-and-swan story, if ever I heard one!), that she’s bound to cause trouble wherever she goes. Still, she reminds us of the massive impact of the Trojan war on this world, equivalent to the First World War in more recent times, where so many died for so little reason. And those deaths are the trigger for all that happens afterwards. There are red figures lurking at the back of the stage – dummies – and for me they mainly represented the many dead on all sides because of one beautiful woman and her fatal choice. It’s a powerful confrontation, Helen and Electra, and Claire Onyemere as Helen more than holds her own. The slave woman, played by Claire Prempeh, has little to do but nurse the baby and shrink into the background, and I would have liked to have heard more from her. She does have a short conversation with Electra later, which demonstrates that, for all her reasons to suffer, she’s much more at peace than any other character in the play.

Both brother and sister rely heavily on an alleged oracular injunction to justify their actions, and it’s here that the play’s main interest lies. Is it OK to kill people because ‘God’ tells you to, or not? This, despite ‘God’ having spent centuries passing on the message that killing is not a good idea. In many languages! Through many wise people! I am firmly in the ‘killing is not a good idea’ camp, and I regard with deep suspicion anyone claiming that ‘God’ has given them a licence to kill. However, it does happen, and we need to come to terms with this particular insanity, which never seems insane to those who find it a handy excuse. It’s noticeable that these young siblings ask for their gods’ help after they’ve decided to kill Helen, not before. I got the impression that Electra was getting a taste for murder by then.

The couple try kidnapping Menelaus’ baby as a way of negotiating an escape, but it all goes horribly wrong when Orestes tries to fly off a cliff. Oops. Not having a handy cliff on stage, the shoe-laden door had to double as a dangerous precipice (from comments at the post-show, this didn’t involve any acting on the door’s part). I found this ending a bit confusing, because there was so much going on. On the cliff, we have Electra, in front of her brother but supposedly looking forward at him. He’s behind her physically, so he can use a rope to brace himself and appear to be flying or falling (take your pick). Menelaus is down below, screaming at everyone because he’s petrified his baby is going to be killed, and Helen’s dead body has somehow rolled itself onto the stage. God knows what Tyndareos and the slave woman are doing – I couldn’t keep track of it all. Orestes has also sprouted some feathers at his shoulders, which were intriguing, but didn’t help with the clarity at this point. Also, the rear semicircle of the stage burst into flames as all this is happening, so we had a few hazards to keep our minds off the action. Normally I like Shared Experience’s multi-layering, but this was a bit too much. I basically focused on Electra and Orestes, and left the rest to their own devices.

There wasn’t much else to report on the staging; the set worked well to convey the place and situation – an opulent prison – and the main focus was simply the performances, all of which were first rate. I would happily see this again.

© 2006 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Romeo and Juliet – September 2006

Experience: 8/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Nancy Meckler

Venue: RST

Date: Thursday 14th September 2006

I’ve enjoyed Shared Experience’s work in the past in smaller venues, so I was looking forward to seeing what Nancy Meckler had done in the main house at Stratford. I wasn’t disappointed.

We had been warned that there was a framing device, a play outside the play, where a community was re-enacting the tragic deaths of Romeo and Juliet. The set emphasised this. At the back was a huge picture frame. A couple of trees at the sides gave the impression of an open-air venue, and there was a square platform for the action. This moved back during the vault scene to allow access to Juliet’s body. Overhead, a lighting rig ran diagonally across this smaller stage. Seats were provided at the sides for the ‘actors’ to rest on between scenes. There was even a little girl running around – obviously a family affair.

And given the Italian setting, it was a ‘family’ affair in more ways than one. Before the start, the ‘actors’ were getting ready, setting up the stage, getting into costumes, etc. The men were trying out the taps on their shoes, and some quarrel broke out. There was a bit of a scuffle, then the older and wiser men broke it up, but you could see there was still a lot of tension. Incidentally, the main agitator turned out to be the man playing Tybalt – so cast to type, then. I liked the way this suggested that the conflict the re-enactment was supposed to ease still lingered. People obviously hadn’t learned their lesson.

As tempers rose, the oldsters decided it was time for the men to hand in their weapons – a lovely piece of staging. It started off with knives being handed over (placed in a large blanket), then hand guns, then rifles. I was hoping they’d got the RSC to spring for a few Kalashnikovs, but apparently not. Anyway, once the armoury was put to one side, the ‘play’ could begin. (Later on, the ‘actor’ playing Tybalt was still angry enough to try and retrieve his weapon, but was stopped.)

One of the things I loved most about this production was the use of tap dancing to represent fighting. The men each had a staff they could bang on the ground, which with the sound of the taps got the action across beautifully. And the framing device allowed for it perfectly too – these people are not meant to be doing it for real. The choreography of the fights changed depending on who was fighting. Great stuff.

All the performances were good. I particularly liked Romeo, Juliet and the Friar. Romeo came across as a bit wimpish, still immature at times, yelping and squealing and whimpering like a child. But at other times he showed what a man he might have made. Juliet was still a child at the start, but with quick wits, and a temper! The relationship with the nurse was cosy and domestic at the start, but she actually hits her when she doesn’t get the news she wants quick enough. She matures even quicker than Romeo, and has to learn to handle her own emotions entirely from her own resources, as even the nurse can no longer help her. I found this a very moving performance. The Friar was a good counterpoint to last night’s Duke in Measure for Measure – this monk lays his plans, and then they all go horribly wrong – no rabbits get pulled out of his hat! When he’s telling his story at the end, he was more nervous than I’ve ever seen before in this part – and rightly so, considering what he’s been up to without the Duke’s knowledge.

I liked the use of a pillar of ladders for the balcony scene. It allowed for more movement in what can sometimes be a fairly static scene, and the lighting effects, with lights shining up from below, were lovely. It also meant an easier time for Romeo, as he didn’t have any precarious climbing to do. The apothecary appears from below (trapdoor), which worked well. There was a Shared Experience moment at the end, when all the stories are being told. The acting audience listens, and moves as one, slowly and steadily to observe each part of the tale. A nice touch, especially as we, the real audience, already know what’s happened, and can otherwise get a bit bored.

One thing that didn’t work for me was the use of the characters’ jackets to remind us of who’d been killed. When Mercutio and Tybalt die, their jackets are taken off and hung from the lighting rig. This was OK, but then when Paris is killed in the vault, the removal of his jacket was a bit clumsy and obvious, and there was no time to get it hung up. If I had to opt for one way or the other, I’d leave it out.

At the end, all the ‘actors’ shake hands and hug, indicating that perhaps the re-enactment has done its job and helped to bring the community together. But I couldn’t help noticing that Tybalt and some other of the younger men weren’t there – perhaps not a complete success, then. Unlike this production, which was.

© 2006 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Measure For Measure – September 2006

Experience: 5/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Peter Hall

Company: Peter Hall Company

Venue: Courtyard Theatre

Date: Wednesday 13th September 2006

This was an interesting production, using the idea of the Duke representing King James, who had published a book on good government shortly before this play was first produced. The costumes reflected this – black, black and more black (but best velvet, of course). The whores were more colourful – drab beige and brown. Those caught out by the strict laws had sackcloth draped over them, with a description of their shortcoming writ large for all to see – “Whore”, “Fornicator”, etc.

The set was largely bare stage. Three grills dropped down to represent the bars of the prison, with the middle one further back, to allow access. Benches, throne, tables, etc. were brought on as needed, and there were openings at the back on both levels for cells and viewing spaces for the citizens.

On the whole, the actors delivered their lines clearly, although for whatever reason, I couldn’t make out much of James Laurenson’s part – it seemed a bit muffled. Bit of a drawback, this, as he played the Duke, but he came across OK when it mattered, especially during the final act when the friar comes out of the closet. Isabella was very good. She had clear diction, and spoke with understanding as well as feeling. I could see her move from a position of absolutism to one of charity, if not actual compassion. Also, in that final scene, when she has to choose between mercy and revenge, it put me in mind of Portia’s plea to Shylock. In fact, I could see Merchant of Venice references throughout.

I didn’t see her reaction to the Duke’s first proposal of marriage; all I could see were her arms around her brother as she hugged him. There was no obvious response to the second proposal, either, and the Duke was obliged to leave the stage alone.

Lucio was very good. I always enjoy him, partly for the humour later on – the final act would be dreadfully dour but for him chipping in now and again – but also because he is the catalyst for Isabella’s renewed pleading to Angelo. But for him, she would have taken “no” for “no”, and left. He is therefore the person who helps her see better what she is capable of, as well as showing himself a good friend to Claudio, and setting in train the whole business of the play. It can be difficult to reconcile these two completely different aspects of his character, but Michael Mears managed it pretty well, and was very entertaining in the process.

Annette Badland was seriously wasted as Mistress Overdone. There don’t seem to have been any cuts in her part, but I remember seeing more of this lady in the past, presumably just in the staging. Barry Stanton as Escalus was suitably sober and dependable, and his scene with Elbow was entertaining.

Angelo’s a really nasty piece of work – self-righteous and as judgmental as they come. A good match for Isabella – maybe part of what softens her up is seeing herself reflected in such a man. These main characters worked very well together, and gave me more insight into the relationships between them. I felt the Duke was deliberately testing Angelo, as well as attempting to resurrect the penalties which had lapsed. His reaction to overhearing Isabella’s disclosure of Angelo’s offer to her brother was visible, though slight. All in all, a good production, which, as always, left me wishing Angelo had had the common sense to pack Claudio and Julietta off to a priest, instead of sending Claudio to prison.

© 2006 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Comedy Of Errors – YPS – September 2006

Experience: 8/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Elizabeth Freestone

Company: Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Wednesday 13th September 2006

This was a very good production, with excellent staging and a well-edited text. The performance began with all the cast coming on stage in two files, with the Duke and a blindfolded Egeon at the back. The rest of the cast formed up in two rows at the front of the stage, and all were carrying rifles. They turned, raised the rifles, and knelt down, preparing to fire. The Duke, at the last minute, asks Egeon for his story (removing the blindfold as he does so), and as he tells it, the firing squad get so caught up that they gradually lower their rifles, and just listen. Egeon’s tale, though edited, still covers the salient points, and but for the rampant coughing from the audience, would have been very moving. Incidentally, to make ends meet on this long quest, Egeon has apparently taken painting and decorating jobs – his sleeves and the bottoms of his trousers were covered in white paint.

I really enjoyed this opening sequence. The firing squad gave it immediacy, a real sense of danger. The Duke, while chatting to Egeon, is perilously close to getting shot himself – just one twitchy trigger finger… This staging emphasises the Duke’s clemency, giving Egeon till sunset to find some way of paying the fine.

As the various characters leave, one soldier remains, and becomes Antipholus of Syracuse (A/S). Slinging his rifle over his shoulder, he sends Dromio off to the Centaur, and both he and Dromio share any relevant lines of the missing merchant.

A/S’s opening soliloquy, “He that commands me to mine own content…”, was very well done. The gestures used were moving, and repeated at the end to close the piece (although this could probably have been dropped, as the audience were ready to applaud as soon as the Dromios left the stage). I got a sense of someone who’d been searching so long and so desperately that he no longer expected to find what he was seeking – which explains why neither he nor his Dromio twig what’s going on.

Dromio of Syracuse (D/S) then returns, and the real comic business begins. Good comic timing from both sets of twins made this very enjoyable. When Adriana first arrives and addresses A/S as her husband, his look of amazement was a joy to behold. D/S just pats him on the shoulder as if to say ‘you’re on your own, mate’, and sits out most of the discussion. Adriana is, as usual, pretty intimate with the man she believes to be her husband. On the line “Am I in earth, in heaven or in hell” A/S indicates Dromio, Luciana and Adriana in turn.

The set: it’s still the Much Ado set, but without the rubble all over the floor. White cloth at the back, various pallets arranged round the stage, higher at the back. Back left, on an angle, sat a chest (holds the money Adriana gives D/S to redeem her husband), and one pallet came half-way across the front, and doubled as a door for both Antipholus’s house and the abbey. Part of the pallet hinged up, and was held in place by a rope. The costumes were all various shades of blue, with a tie-dye/ washed out effect. Both Dromios had bright blue hair, and the women wore underskirt hoops on the top of normal skirts – why?

The advantage of having two sets of twins (instead of doubling) is that the scenes they’re both in are easier to do. When Antipholus of Ephesus (A/E) arrives home for lunch, it becomes very clear he’s got a temper, and a pretty violent one at that. With the pallet-door, there are lots of gaps, through which guns, bars, etc. are thrust, giving D/S plenty of opportunity for ducking and diving.

The wooing scene after lunch was well-edited, and we got D/S’s descriptions of his (un)intended in full, but at a fair lick. D/S arrived for this scene at full tilt, with his trousers round his knees – evidently the kitchen wench doesn’t mean to wait till the wedding night for a piece of her betrothed! Next there’s a lovely piece of action with the goldsmith and the chain. When A/S, on receiving the chain, urges the goldsmith to take his money now, in case he never gets it, the goldsmith takes out his pocket book, thumbs to the right page, and starts to work out how much he’s owed. This takes a short while. In the meantime, A/S has said his lines and leaves to find D/S. The merchant, just missing him as he leaves, turns and sees A/E walking towards him from a different direction. Without batting an eye (they must be used to this sort of stuff in Ephesus), the goldsmith immediately tells A/E how much the chain costs, and then the confusion tumbles on through the arrival of a merchant (Balthazar) and the officer, so that A/E is bound and carted off before he knows what’s happening. Sending D/E off to get a rope’s end has been squeezed in here – normally it’s at the beginning of A/E’s entrance – but overall it’s a lovely piece of editing and staging.

D/S comes back to tell him there’s a ship about to leave, and stands bemused by what’s going on – not the scene he expected. He takes his time before heading back to Adriana, reluctant to see his fiancée again. After D/S gets the money, we see A/S even more bewildered – people are greeting him, giving him things, measuring him up for a suit, and still he doesn’t twig. He and D/S become even more panic-stricken when the courtesan arrives, and demands the chain she’s been promised. Off they flee, so that A/E can come on again to be suitably angry with D/E, who’s returned with the rope. Lots of physical stuff now, as the officer has to forcibly restrain A/E from attacking D/E. They really did throw themselves around, this lot.

More good editing – no Pinch to contend with. Luciana speaks any of his lines that are needed, and has some great business in the process. As A/E is seriously agitated by this time, the officer has him at gunpoint. As Luciana goes towards him, he makes to lunge at her, and she steps back, shoves the officer out of the way, and grabs his gun. After brandishing it rather wildly (everybody ducks as she swings it round), they get A/E and D/E tied up, and march them off to Adriana’s. The officer’s line “He is my prisoner…” was delivered very well, showing the officer’s nervousness.

From here, it’s pretty straightforward to the end, and all the reunions. At the very end, after the Dromios have left the stage, A/S re-enters, and stands, repeating the gesture with his hands that marked one drop of water seeking another in the ocean. Nicely done, but as I said before, this could probably be dropped.

The trouble with trying to describe such a lively and inventive production is that the description always falls far short. Much of the humour was in the business and in the reading of the lines. I would happily see this one again.

© 2006 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Tempest – YPS – September 2006

Experience: 3/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Patsy Rodenburg

Company: Guildhall School of Music and Drama

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Monday 11th September 2006

I was a little disappointed with this, although there were a number of good points. The performances were generally good, but the delivery wasn’t always powerful enough, so lots of lines were lost. While I would agree with the cuts that had been made – the shipwreck, the performance of the goddesses, the fake feast – the resulting text felt a bit clumsy, and in some cases, where a ‘famous’ line had been kept, there were references that didn’t make sense in this version.

However, the staging worked well on the whole. The initial shipwreck is suggested with a piece of blue cloth held up, waist-high, by the characters on the ship (dressed in suits). At each end stands Ariel – in this production Ariel is being played by two actors, a man and a woman. This was a very unusual choice for me, and I thought it worked very well. In this case, it allowed the Ariels to start moving the cloth from side to side, causing the characters to sway, more and more, until eventually they are flung off, and leave the stage, while the Ariels float the cloth up like a roof. A very good evocation of the storm and shipwreck.

The dialogue starts with Miranda’s plea to Prospero to calm the storm, followed by his explanation (long overdue, it would seem) of their arrival at the island. Prospero has pictures which he gives Miranda to look at, of his disloyal brother, the King of Naples, and the good Gonzalo, this time played by a woman. As he mentions each one, the characters come on stage so we can see who they are; as an audience member, I always find this a helpful device.

Caliban is an unhappy creature, chained up when first we see him. He certainly doesn’t pay much attention to personal hygiene, but given the circumstances, that’s understandable. He tends to lope around on all fours, very like Crab in Two Gentlemen of Verona. I usually feel sorry for him; personally I think Prospero’s a bit of a control freak who’s taken over the island without a by-your-leave, and Caliban had every right to at least make a pass at Miranda, but I may be in the minority here.

Anyway, Prospero introduces Miranda to Ferdinand, achieves the desired result, and then we rattle through the attempts to cheer up the King, and the potential coup. I felt a lot of the humour was lost here, although some supporters behind us were doing their best to add a laughter track at every opportunity. (The giveaway was the laugh coming before anything funny had happened on stage.) But we do get a good sense of the King mourning for his son, believed dead. Meantime, Miranda and Ferdinand agree to marry, and after this we meet Trinculo and Stefano. Their business is so curtailed that it’s hard to make anything much of them. However, Trinculo is also played by a woman, and she gives the character all the trembling cowardice it needs, though the drunken scenes are weaker.

From here, it’s all straightforward to reconciliation, and a happy ending, finishing with Prospero’s ‘farewell’ to the spirits – no epilogue. I don’t think this play condensed as well as the others – I missed more than with the other YPS productions. But there were some good performances, and I dare say the children will enjoy this one – it’s very visual.

© 2006 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Rape Of Lucrece – September 2006

Experience: 7/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Gregory Doran

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Sunday 10th September 2006

Now for rape, suicide, and the end of a monarchy. This was an excellent reading of the poem, suitably edited to keep the running time down. Again, it was so warm I was finding it hard to concentrate at times, but the performances were very effective, especially when Jane Lapotaire was taking us through Lucrece’s sufferings – despite being raped, that woman had the stamina and the vocabulary to outlast Patience! We just got the edited highlights, thankfully.

Basic plot. Tarquin’s son rapes Lucrece, after a (relatively) short pause to consider the merits or otherwise of his actions. No contest – lust wins again. She’s in despair, and lets us know all about it, railing against time, opportunity, her husband, etc. before considering a painting of the Trojan War (as you do). She has the wit to send for her husband, and meeting him on her return, appears to have run out of words. After briefly explaining that the King’s son has raped her (serious editing here), she stabs herself, under the horrible delusion that somehow she’s damaged goods and the stain on her character cannot be removed. Personally, I prefer the version of red Riding Hood where the little girl, on encountering a grandma with long snout, long ears and big teeth, takes a gun out of her basket and shoots the wolf (James Thurber, I think). Woman power. Then we have Lucrece’s father and husband wrangling over whose loss is the greater (shades of Laertes and Hamlet). Will no one call an ambulance? (OK, the poet thinks she’s dead, but what does he know? A good doctor, a fully equipped ER, and she might recover!) Fortunately Brutus (ancestor of the Caesar-slayer) is on hand to knock some sense into them. So, off they go to overthrow the political structure of Rome. Yes, it is a bit of a jump, but if you know your Roman history, it makes perfect sense (thank you Mr Parks, my second year Latin teacher).

Several curtain calls (what do you call these when there’s no curtain?), which often seems to take actors by surprise. Did they think we’d gone home? Snuck out while they weren’t looking, or were they too engrossed in their part to notice? I suppose this isn’t a promising subject for rapturous applause, but then you’re not likely to get much passing trade at this sort of thing – only your hard-core Shakespeare fans, desperate to catch a glimpse of this rarely sighted beast.

One final point – the actors had been standing for so long, they actually found it difficult to take their bow; perhaps that explains the response to the applause – they couldn’t wait to get off the stage!

© 2006 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Troilus And Cressida – September 2006

Experience: 8/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Peter Stein

Company: Edinburgh InternationalFestival in association with the RSC

Venue: RST

Date: Saturday 9th September 2006

This was the clearest production of this play I have ever seen, which is partly why I enjoyed it so much. I could tell who all the characters were, the pace of the dialogue was slowed to match the pace of the scene changes, so I could hear almost every word, and the performances themselves were excellent.

Some scene changes were a bit too slow, especially the final change, moving the big wall forward and then tilting it to create a massive ramp on which all the fighting could take place. Having said that, I liked all the set designs, and enjoyed the use of the wall, so I’ll excuse the time it took to move it. The only thing that didn’t work for me – nearly made me laugh out loud – was the two tents (half tents, as it turned out), floating across the stage to join together as Cressida’s new home – a sort of camping ballet. It didn’t help that we could clearly see the scene changers working really hard to keep them on course. If they could have tightened up on this, and speeded up the mechanical bits, the whole play would have been quicker. But as I said, the tempo of the play was set by these changes, and it was good that there were no awkward changes of pace – just a good steady walk rather than a canter.

The only down side was that some of the staging didn’t use the RST stage very well. For most of the first half, the action took place not on the thrust, not even in front of the arch, but in the middle or rear of the stage. In an auditorium like this, that’s normally dramatic suicide, but this production just managed to get away with it. Several of the actors had done seasons here before, and obviously knew the problems, as they were noticeably better at projecting than the others. Even so, the change in volume and energy was evident on those few occasions when actors came further forward and inhabited the foreground of the stage. As Achilles’ and Ajax’s tents were on either side of the thrust, the Greeks tended to be further forward anyway, and for most of the second half the position was reversed, with most of the action taking place near the front.

Despite this, I enjoyed the production enormously. I could make out so much more, and in seeing the characters and their relationships more clearly, I found a lot of new ideas and awarenesses buzzing through my brain – just what I like when watching Shakespeare.

This production makes it abundantly clear that the play is about “war and lechery”. The men’s costumes were obligingly skimpy, which was no hardship, and for once Troilus didn’t spring from the lovers’ bed partially dressed (yum). Helen and Paris had a longer romp in their suspended bed than was strictly necessary to set the scene, and Pandarus’ arrival didn’t slow them down all that much. When Troilus and Cressida finally get together, without having exchanged a word beforehand, Pandarus is urging them to get to the sex straightaway – no conversation, no getting to know each other, just snogging and fucking. As an early attempt at a dating agency, Pandarus sucks. He obviously took this approach to his own relationships as well, because by the end of the play he’s riddled with all the diseases that sex can provide.

Anyway, the young lovers’ relationship doesn’t last because Cressida is swapped for Antenor. This is an obstacle few lovers would overcome. Romeo and Juliet had it easy by comparison (and I saw a lot of Romeo and Juliet in this romance, too, especially in Cressida’s concern about expressing her love too soon and too openly, just as Juliet regrets that Romeo has overheard her declaration of love). I noticed that Troilus, even though he’s not happy to lose her to the Greeks, doesn’t kick up much of a fuss with his father about the exchange. This is the boy who was effectively pleading Paris’ case earlier, when Priam was consulting his sons over what to do with Helen. Then, he was all for keeping Helen, for honour’s sake. I ask myself, if he really loved Cressida, wouldn’t he have put up more of a fight? Re-reading his arguments to Priam, many of the lines could be applied equally well to his relationship with Cressida – “O theft most base, that we have stolen what we do fear to keep!” If he prizes Antenor more highly than Cressida, so much for staying faithful.

Cressida was excellently performed. It’s a difficult part, as it’s not clear why she appears to transfer her affections to Diomedes. Is she just being pragmatic? Has she actually realised that there are other men in the world? Is she just in despair and turning to whoever shows her kindness or seems to want her? As I saw it, this production has the courage to show her as a woman who doesn’t stay faithful to one man. It happens. Get over it. There’s so much emphasis on romantic love in Shakespeare (and his contemporaries) (and earlier writers) (and later writers, come to that) that it’s a relief that one of them has finally come out of the closet and just shown what can happen between men and women.

Troilus reminded me so much of Romeo, going off in a tantrum because he can’t have the Cressida of his imaginings – true, faithful, pure, chaste. It’s debatable whether he actually stays faithful or not. He’s certainly out of love with her in this production – in the closing scene, Pandarus brings Cressida on stage to offer her to Troilus and he rejects her. She stumbles off, Troilus is killed immediately afterwards, leaving Pandarus to speak the closing lines. The introduction of Cressida at this point is an invention, not found in any edition I looked at, but it does make a good point.

I saw the connections between Thersites and Pandarus too. Pandarus is Thersites in the making (if he lives long enough). Both were well played. I’ve never seen a ‘cuddly’ Thersites, but even so, this one was more repellent than most. His commentaries on the action were apt and intelligible for once, even if they were a bit repetitive. Pandarus was wonderfully lecherous and voyeuristic – getting (almost) as much pleasure from his niece’s sexual initiation as if he’d done it himself, a strange counterpoint to the nurse in Romeo and Juliet. In fact, it occurred to me that Troilus and Cressida is Romeo and Juliet’s negative image – they start together with family support, then end up on opposite sides of a warring divide.

A few more points. The helmets the Trojans wore muffled their speech a bit. Menelaus was nicely bumbling – the mandatory cuckold. I really liked the procession of men with Pandarus identifying them for Cressida (and us). I liked the way they posed – Hector very manly – and the way Pandarus mistakes Troilus, who’s dragging himself along. Although this was funny, I wasn’t keen overall on making Troilus so wimpish. OK, he’s in love, but he sometimes comes across as an ineffectual boy, not the strong warrior he appears to be from other reports. Also his words are given weight during the Helen debate, so he’s obviously not just a wimp.

Finally, this production gave full weight to the warfare elements, so for once the title characters almost take a back seat.

© 2006 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

King John – September 2006

Experience: 3/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Josie Rourke

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Saturday 9th September 2006

I found a lot of this terribly dreary, and could hardly keep my eyes open. The Swan felt very stuffy and I longed for a breath of air. The repetitive wordiness of the play just started to wash over me, and there wasn’t enough business and action to keep my attention. Like the bastard Philip, dubbed Sir Richard, I became frustrated that nothing was going on.

This was a disappointment, as much of the cast are also in Much Ado, which was excellent. This is not a criticism of the actors, as they were giving perfectly good performances – the production just didn’t have that sparkle about it. The bastard was definitely the best role, and Joseph Millson got a good deal of the humour out of the part. In fact, I thought there was more humour in his performance, if only the audience would have appreciated it better. Maybe it wasn’t so much a leaden production as a leaden audience. But I have seen it done better, especially the Cardinal. It’s as if the cast haven’t yet found out what a good play it can be.

Good points? The bastard, desperate for a fight, constantly being frustrated by all the peace treaties that get agreed! His comments on the “wooing” between Blanche and the Dauphin were entertaining. Blanche was good – it’s a small part, but she made her presence felt. As she was talking about her divided loyalties pulling her in two different directions, Eleanor and the Dauphin were actually holding a hand each – a human tug-o-war.

Not so good points: Constance’s grief at losing her son did go on a bit.

© 2006 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me