Tag Archives: Swan Theatre

Love Is My Sin – January 2011

6/10

By: Wiliam Shakespeare

Directed by: Peter Brook

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Friday 7th January 2011

This piece was devised by Peter Brook to link a number of Shakespeare’s sonnets together. First performed in Paris, here we had Michael Pennington and Natasha Parry delivering a series of sonnets exploring love and time from different angles. While I’m fascinated by the sonnets, I find their language too complex to be readily understood, and so although some lines came across really well, for the most part “it was all Greek to me”. I found Natasha Parry’s delivery a little weak, and our position didn’t help, as our view was regularly blocked. The music was charming, but with the heat in the auditorium, I nodded off a few times when the music took over. Still, it was a pleasant evening, and I would still be happy to attend other sonnet readings in future.

The highlight of the evening was an unexpected treat – Peter Brook and Michael Boyd in a post-show conversation. Paul Allen made the third, and I was totally taken with Peter Brook’s deep listening presence, and the tremendously good sense that he talked. His view on professors and their declarations about Will’s work were spot on (and good fun), and although I don’t remember all the details, I thoroughly enjoyed his contributions.

Michael Boyd was equally entertaining. In fact, the two made a great double act. I left the theatre feeling I’d been in the presence of two masters of theatre, that as with great theatre I’d been uplifted and improved just by being there. A great night.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Penelopiad – August 2007 (2)

10/10

By: Margaret Atwood

Directed by: Josette Bushell-Mingo

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Thursday 9th August 2007

I managed to wipe my memory clean for the start of this performance, forgetting what I’d seen before, to allow me to see this as a totally new experience. I did start to get “flashbacks” later on, but I found it surprisingly easy to move into forgetfulness – perhaps the influence of Lethe?

There were some changes to the cast. Sarah Malin, who had played Odysseus so well last time, had been taken ill, so the parts were re-arranged to cover. This meant there were only eleven maids tonight, but that didn’t spoil it for me. On the whole, the understudies did a great job, and I possibly just preferred this Helen (Lisa Karen Cox). Odysseus was played by Kelly McIntosh tonight, and the only snag was her height. When so many people comment on Odysseus’s short legs, it needs a bit more effort on the audience’s part when Odysseus is one of the tallest people there. However, apart from that, and some uncertainty in the bow-stringing scene, this was another good performance, remarkably so in the post-marriage bed.

It was interesting seeing it again from a completely different angle. Before, we had more of a panoramic view – here we were much closer to the action, and could see the expressions on their faces more clearly. I was also aware of the sound effects more – how recordings were used for various lines to create an effect. I hadn’t realised how much this went on when we were up in the second gallery. I also saw some things that hadn’t been so visible from above – Penelope talking to one of the maids who was off to one side, for example. And of course we missed seeing that beautiful pool this time. I’m glad I had my memory to call on for that one.

The darkness at the start seemed to last longer this time. When the light shafted down, Penelope was standing there with her veil over her head, and speaks the first few lines like that. I don’t remember if it was the same last time. Either way, it was very effective. When she removed the veil, and wrapped it round herself, she was grinning, and very girlish. The changes of emotion through the opening scene came across very well, and I noticed this time that when the maids came on from the back they too had veils over themselves. When the next scene starts, showing us Penelope’s childhood, that’s when they throw off the veils and start playing the other parts.

I was able to see Penny Downie’s drowning performance much better tonight – it was very effective, giving the impression of someone falling through the water, and struggling for air. The birds still seemed more like seagulls, but who cares? The audience seemed more responsive tonight; I heard more laughter on the funny lines than I remember from before.

She dances a bit when talking of the “vapid dancing” that goes on in the fields of asphodel – that may be new. The curtain at the back that came down for the childhood scene, I think, didn’t properly come down, so the group that huddles behind it for the wedding night activities are partly exposed. I thought Penelope screamed a bit quicker tonight, and seemed to be enjoying the deception a lot more.

The sea journey to Ithaca was clearer from this perspective. I noticed Penelope throwing up more than once, and the maids were hauling on ropes and bailing out the ship. Odysseus was positioned aft, steering their course. With the dramatic lighting, it made more of an impression on me this time. I was prepared for the introduction of the in-laws this time – there seemed to be more bleating, though whether it was the wife or the goat, I’m not sure.

The birthing scene was well received this time, and certainly looked effective, with the baby suddenly popping out. I had a greater sense of Penelope being held back from her baby, being cut off from her natural role.  The scene where Odysseus leaves for Troy registered more with me. The audience responded more to Odysseus’s comment about having thought the oath up himself – hoist with his own petard.

It’s after this that Penelope has a go at Helen, calling her a “septic bitch”, and immediately after that she draws back the cover on the pool. For several of the scenes, when the maids or their characters were giving us the main action, I noticed that Penelope was standing towards the back of the stage, usually on the left, and with her back to us she was looking over her shoulder at what was going on. This gave a lovely sense of her detachment from the maids’ version of the story, while still emphasising her importance as the central character.

The meeting with Helen in Hades was just as good as before. I liked Helen’s calm assurance that, even as a disembodied ghost, she’s still worth looking at. The rape scene was just as powerful, and I felt the contrast with the feather fan song even more acutely. It’s a tough thing to pull off, bringing in a song like that when we’ve just had an extremely emotional moment, but they’re still managing it very well.

The dream sequence is triggered by Eurycleia bringing in a drink for Penelope. She holds a huge drinking bowl up, and runs around her, waving it in the air. Then Penelope dreams. She sees the sailors, the sirens, and Telemachus with his toy boat on his head, walking across the stage, and meeting with Helen. The one-eyed monster seemed to be missing this time, but it all seemed much clearer from this angle.

I realised that Penelope is teasing Eurycleia when she tells her to wash the stranger’s feet. Knowing that she’s already recognised Odysseus helped, I think. The tension wasn’t quite the same for the bow-stringing scene, and Odysseus had some difficulty removing his breastplate to become a maid again, but the hanging scene was even more effective, as I could see the maids rise up – the equivalent of their bodies dropping down – one by one. It was macabre and very moving. For their final bows, Penny Downie took a moment to acknowledge each of the understudies.

Overall, I enjoyed this almost as much as the first time. The changes due to illness did remove a bit of the energy, but the performances were even more remarkable for the last-minute rearrangements. Seeing it close up was also a bonus, and I still think Penny Downie should receive every acting award available for this performance. I’d love it to come back after the stint in Canada, but heigh-ho, we’ll just have to cross our fingers.

© 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

Macbeth – June 2007

3/10

By: William Shakespeare

Directed by: Conall Morrison

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Thursday 21st June 2007

I found this a very ramshackle production. There were some interesting ideas, and some good performances, but it didn’t work satisfactorily as a whole. I felt disinterested and often bored, which I don’t experience too often at the RSC.

There was a scene inserted at the start which I presume was intended to give focus and meaning to the whole production. To begin with, there were a number of chairs placed on the stage in rows, with one on its side. At the start, the doors at the back opened, and with much screaming, yelling and clashing of swords, various people rushed onto the stage, some pulling carts. The men grabbed the chairs, and piled them up as a barricade against the doors, while the women got the wagons into a circle… sorry, wrong genre. The women hid behind the carts as best they could. To no avail. The marauding forces under Macbeth forced the doors open, and Macbeth himself took on and killed the men, then turned his attention to the women and children. We could see he was barely alive, in that his humanity had been squashed out of sight by all the killing he had endured, and although he held one of the babies quite tenderly for a while, he still wrung its neck without compassion.

It was a powerful scene, and in many ways it promised well for the rest of the performance, but even so, I found myself wondering, in the midst of all this emotive force, where does he go from here? This Macbeth has none of “the milk of human kindness” left in him. There’s nothing in his life but senseless slaughter – he’s an empty shell. He’s already at “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…”, yet the rest of us are three hours away from it. It would take some masterstroke to connect the dots to give us a satisfying explanation of this character’s journey from here, and sadly, we didn’t get one. There were some good bits to the central performance, true, but overall the range was limited and the verse-speaking not quite up to the job. Lots of energy, but not enough detail – “Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”.

The opening scene hadn’t quite finished, however. The three women that Macbeth had killed, jerked alive again after he’d gone. I had suspected this might happen – come on, three women, in Macbeth, can’t just be coincidence. Sure enough, these lately deceased became the three weird sisters, and their motivation was plain and stark – they wanted revenge for their slaughtered children. Steve saw them as avenging angels, though not necessarily heavenly ones, and that’s a good image. They thoughtfully removed the bodies, which allowed the rest of the action to continue, but they did linger over it, and I felt the first intimations of the boredom that was to become all too familiar during the evening.

Next up was the pirate king. You don’t remember him from Macbeth? Well, he’s called Duncan, and David Troughton played him in what Steve reckoned was a West Country accent with Scottish moments, long straggly hair, and a leather coat. What else were we meant to think? I had to work hard to stifle a fit of the giggles at this point, because the wounded soldier who arrived to tell the King what had happened was speaking with one of the worst Scots accents I’ve heard in a while. It wasn’t helped by the fact that some of the cast were putting on a Scottish accent, some had Caribbean inflections, the Irish contingent apparently felt their own brogue to be sufficiently Scots-like not to bother, and we had a Welsh second murderer. Most of the black actors chose the West Indian/African route, so it was doubly surprising to hear one of their number attempt a comedy version of the Scottish accent. I barely suppressed my giggles, but suppress them I did. I have no idea why these choices were made – we could tell from the post-show yesterday that the actors mostly weren’t using their own accents, so it had to be a deliberate decision. (At least it helps to explain why David Troughton kept correcting himself when referring to “English” actors in the post-show.)

The scene where the three witches greet Macbeth was fine, nothing special to report. The women left through the back door, which Macbeth and Banquo were apparently oblivious to. Likewise the arrival of Ross and Angus to inform Macbeth that the first prophecy has come true was also OK, but added nothing to my understanding of the play. Duncan’s thanks to Macbeth and Banquo were fine, and Macbeth did at least register well his shock at hearing Malcolm created heir to the throne.

I’ve never quite understood exactly when Macbeth wrote the letter he sends to Lady Macbeth. He’s riding furiously to prepare for Duncan’s arrival chez lui, yet he manages to knock off a reasonably lengthy letter (Lady Macbeth is obviously part-way through when we first see her), and the postman’s quicker than he is. This is one time when text-messaging would seem to be the answer, but sadly they didn’t have it in those days. Anyway, next up was Lady Macbeth and the letter, and boy, was she good. Derbhle Crotty managed to get across a sense of an ordinary woman gone seriously bad. No histrionics, nothing over the top, just plain negativity focused and concentrated. Her invocation was very grounded and, as she spoke her final lines, and with Macbeth appearing in the doorway behind her, she froze with her eyes wide and staring, as if her later madness was already within her. Which of course it was.

Duncan’s arrival was again average, and this time my view of Lady Macbeth was blocked by all the entourage standing about, so I felt my attention slipping again. Macbeth’s soliloquy “If it were done” was OK, but with one very good piece of interpretation, given this production’s focus on the personal: for “we still have judgement here”, there was a long pause before the “here”, and as he said it, he placed his right hand on his heart, indicating that his own conscience was what he meant, rather than the usual reference to the world in general. That I liked very much.

Again, there was the difficulty from the opening scene in getting to grips with how Lady Macbeth persuades her husband to kill Duncan. From Terminator-like assassin, he’d become a picky wimp, and she had to work hard to get him to change his mind. Frankly, I didn’t think she’d manage it, good though her performance was, but then I wasn’t buying much of Macbeth’s emotional posturing at this point. However, I did enjoy Derbhle’s performance. She managed to be hard as nails, yet a little nervy with it, taking us a bit further along Lady Macbeth’s descent into hell.

The opening to the next scene, Banquo’s arrival leading into the dagger speech, was a bit hesitant. The language didn’t seem to come across too well, but the arrival of the witches certainly helped. One came on and dropped a dagger onto the stage in perfect time for Macbeth to give his speech. As he went to grab it, she whisked it away, and another of the three, having already come on, dropped another dagger on another part of the stage. And so it went on, a nice piece of staging and perfectly timed, with the last dagger being removed just before “There’s no such thing”. As the bell tolled, he climbed up the ladder to go to Duncan’s room.

Lady Macbeth appeared, and was now showing her nervousness more clearly. Their dialogue was largely lost for me, as it was rushed through so quickly. I know they’re agitated, but there’s no need to lose it altogether. Lady Macbeth might be able to speak brave words to her husband, but her face gave her away when she grabbed the daggers – she wasn’t looking forward to this at all.

The porter was played by all three witches, tossing a pig’s head between them – not a scene that I’ll be fondly remembering anytime soon. The words were too garbled (keen to get past the unintelligible stuff quickly, perhaps?) and the actions not particularly helpful. The one witch who stayed behind to actually talk to Macduff and Lennox was pretty graphic about standing to and not standing to, and really enjoyed her own joke, but it wasn’t the best porter scene I’ve experienced. Of course, they need time for Macbeth to get cleaned up, as he would be back on stage pretty soon to greet Macduff himself. Then we had the discovery of the murder, lots of people rushing on stage in various states of attire, Macbeth admitting to having killed the grooms, and Lady Macbeth throwing up over the top balcony railing, before collapsing and being carried off. As so much was going on, I’m not sure how she was playing that bit; whether it was a device to distract the others from Macbeth’s maladroit justification of his actions, or just because it’s all got too much for her. Anyway, my main thought at this time was a forensic one. Macbeth’s really smart here, because not only has he got rid of two potential witnesses in the grooms, he’s covered up any evidence of him killing Duncan – if the CSI people were to check him for blood, he could always claim he got Duncan’s blood on him from the grooms. When I find myself thinking like this during a performance, it’s not usually a good sign.

The play trundled on in the usual way – I must say, they did at least stick pretty much to the standard version, and after a year of viewing Shakespeare from just about every angle except right way up, this was a pleasant change. Donalbain and Malcolm fled, people chatted about what’s going on, Banquo was getting his hopes up, King Macbeth and his Queen were looking happy with the world, Banquo went off riding, Macbeth invited the murderers onto the stage, the Queen talked with him afterwards, and was even more worried by him not confiding in her, and then the murderers, joined by one of the witches as the third murderer, tackled Banquo and Fleance.

Having a witch as the third murderer worked very well, I thought. Remember, the witches are working to bring down Macbeth, and in this scene she was the one who put out the light, making it harder for the murderers to do their job. If I heard correctly, she told Fleance to flee even before his father did, and although she went after him, she showed no signs of attacking him. This was a good way to interpret the scene, I found – one of the better ways in which the witches were woven into the fabric of the staging.

When Banquo was killed, he was lying to our right, near the front corner of the stage. I remember thinking, that’ll be handy for him when it comes time to join in the feast. Sure enough, when the time came, the weird women helped him up, smeared his face with blood, and placed him in the empty chair. Macbeth freaked out, as usual, and sent him packing, and they took him off. A little later, I noticed the tablecloth twitch a bit, and reckoned he’d be coming up through the trapdoor for his next entrance. Sure enough, he did. Some blood had been dripped over the fruit in the middle of the table, and then he rose up, sending the middle trestle flying, and the food and fruit went everywhere. I took a moment or two to stop a bloody apple from landing in my lap. As Lady Macbeth tried to calm her husband down, off to our left, a grinning Banquo was seated at what remained of the table, and the witches were waving his hand at them. It was both funny and scary – I could understand why Macbeth was freaking out. Unfortunately, he was so upset that he let fly with his hand and swept a cup off the table, so that Steve and I (and people for several rows back) were sprayed with a large amount of fake wine. It was a bit of a shock, as I’m not used to this sort of audience participation, so I really didn’t notice much of the rest of that scene, but it finished pretty soon anyway, and we could begin to clear up the mess. As did the stage staff.

We wiped ourselves down, and Steve went to change the program, as that had been splashed. He likes to keep them, so a clean copy is essential. As he did this, I realised I wasn’t happy sitting there any longer. Rather than just leave (although I was tempted), I asked if there were any other seats available. I must say the RSC staff were very helpful, and it turned out there were tickets for two seats in Row H which hadn’t been collected, so as these seemed perfectly good, we took them. There was more cleaning up to do, but fortunately, we were both wearing red or pink tops (I was in the pink), so the evidence of our splashing was fast disappearing.

I was happy with the change because I had felt too close to the action during the first half. That’s not usually my complaint, but this production had evidently taken “sound and fury” to heart, and there was so much going on at times, and on different parts of the stage, that I was having to look round a lot more than usual to be aware of what was going on. This isn’t a criticism of the staging, as I like productions to use the Swan to the full, but in this case I felt happier being further back, so that I could get a better overview of the action (and no more wine).

Hecate was dropped, as I would expect with this interpretation, and so they restarted with the review of the story when Lennox and another Lord had a little chat. Fortunately, I had been paying attention, so it didn’t matter that this didn’t come across clearly. The witches came on carrying suitacses for their consultation with Macbeth. Instead of the various items they were chanting about, they took dolls and babies’ clothes out of the suitcases to put in the cauldron/pit. I found this very moving. When Macbeth arrived, demanding answers, there was a strange extra section where the witches sat him in a chair, put a bag over his head and then a noose, and proceeded to hang him. Not to death, obviously, but just a bit. Why? Time of the month? No explanation was forthcoming, and it didn’t add to the play for me. They used dolls to represent the various apparitions. To show Banquo’s line, lots of dolls dropped down from the ceiling.

Macduff’s family was next in line to be killed. Again, I found this to be less clear than I’ve seen before, although choosing to show Lady Macduff about eight months gone added to the emotional emphasis on childlessness. One of the three witches came on to advise Lady Macduff to fly, and she was apparently speaking out of turn: the other witches made this clear when they turned up. The killings were added to by the killers raping her, largely out of sight, but still unnecessary, even in this context. I was looking forward to the end already.

About this time I was beginning to despair. I felt I’d lost my ability to keep an open mind, and to adapt to new productions and different ways of doing things. Then I thought back to all the performances we’d seen over the past year, and which I’d written up in these notes. I realised this was just a temporary blip, that actually we’re pretty good at accepting these productions on their own terms, and I felt much better. Thank goodness for this writing – it’s something concrete I can refer back to if I lose track again.

The meeting between Macduff and Malcolm worked better than a lot of the scenes. In particular, the line “He has no children” was fairly howled out by Macduff – very moving. Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking confirmed the madness that had been set up earlier and beautifully developed, and was one of the best versions I’ve heard. Then we’re basically into the battle preparation and final fights, and then home. The messenger who came on to tell Macbeth about the forest moving was one of the witches, and she grinned as she left, knowing she’s just told him something fearful. The cry of women was done by the three sisters from the top balcony, and was piercing and eerie. The final confrontation between Macduff and Macbeth worked well enough, and so to bed.

As I write this, I feel I haven’t quite done it justice. It wasn’t as boring as it might seem from my terse descriptions, although I don’t regret any of them. The delivery of lines was poorer than I’m used to, and some of the contrived extras – the rape, the hanging – did nothing for me. Having seen all these actors in Macbett the night before, we know they’re all good at their job, so I have to put the problems down entirely to the director and his concept for the piece. The idea of having the three witches as women avenging the deaths of themselves and their children is superficially tempting, but it shifts the balance of the play too much for me. It became partly a revenge drama, rather than a tragedy based on extremes of ambition. I liked the emphasis on inner psychology in places, but then the witches were definitely supernatural, which contradicts that reading a bit. All in all, it was too unbalanced to be really enjoyable, though I will remember some bits with great pleasure.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Macbett – June 2007

3/10

By: Eugene Ionesco, English version by Tanya Ronder

Directed by: Silviu Purcarete

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Wednesday 20th June 2007

What a bum-number! Don’t get me wrong, great performances from all of the cast, and probably the best production we Brits are likely to get, but still, what a bum-number! At least it kept to two and a half hours, and there were some really funny bits, plus the post-show was interesting, so the evening wasn’t a complete waste (though it came as close as I can remember!).

This version of Macbeth clearly expresses Ionesco’s own antipathy to any form of totalitarian state, be it Fascist or Communist. It can be summed up quite succinctly in the quote “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” [Lord Acton] Duncan is a despot who rules a Dukedom in an unspecified place (OK, the play says Scotland, but this is Absurdist theatre, so nothing’s that straightforward). We actually get to see Glamiss and Candor (Cawdor) plotting their coup. They’re unhappy about how much of their wealth the King/Archduke is creaming off, particularly when it comes to chickens and eggs. There’s a mention of how many virgins he’s taken, but they do seem to come some way down the list. During their plotting session, a huge picture of the Archduke is positioned behind them, and from time to time others come on and bow reverentially. Both Banco and Macbett come on and chat to the two men, so we get to see how they fit in – they’re 110% loyal to the current ruler. Even so, Glamiss and Candor agree to rise up and overthrow the tyrant.

On the one hand, this staging does get across the situation pretty well, and there’s some humour in it. Everyone’s carrying a case of some kind – briefcase, suitcase – and the two plotters interact well with the audience. What comes across very nicely is how they move from specific personal grievances to glossing it with the idea that they’re acting “for the public good”, a typical trick of power-crazed megalomaniacs. On the other hand, we’re much more aware of state surveillance nowadays, and so any sense of real menace was sadly lacking.

The war between the two sides was reasonably entertaining. Lots of soldiers in bulky combat-type gear loped about – it’s a physical style that I found very reminiscent of Rhinoceros, years ago at Chichester. (Mind you, they probably didn’t have many options for how to move in those outfits.)  There was an Absurdist touch with a lemonade seller, wandering about, trying to sell restorative lemonade to people, and who gets into a confrontation with a killing machine, fresh from the battlefield. At least, I assume that’s what it was meant to be. The actor had lots of clunky bits of costume, and moved a bit robotically, with lines suggesting a great relish for slaughter. Various soldiers were killed, and then revived, soldiers chased each other, then swapped places – all the ways to represent mayhem and senseless bloodshed you can think of, without actually using fake blood. (Or real blood, of course.)

The bloody theme was emphasised by a duet of speeches from Macbett and Banco. I say duet, although what actually happened was that they took it in turns, each one stepping aside from the battle temporarily to reflect on the situation. Both speeches were identical, and portrayed in very similar ways. From the post-show, we learned that in France, these speeches are meant to be delivered identically (must be a nightmare if the first guy farts!), but for this production, they felt the audience would get the repetition (we did), and would appreciate the variations according to character (we did).

The speeches give numbers to those killed, and start off with a few men shot, more burned, thousands buried under rubble, millions killed in other ways, etc. The death theme is certainly given a vigorous outing here. Both men also shoot the lemonade seller. (Well, she’s groaning a bit from being beaten up by the killing machine earlier, so you can understand them just wanting a bit of peace and quiet.)

The Archduke finally turns up, accompanied by his wife, Lady Duncan. He is clutching his throne – a small chair, almost a stool, with a picture of a crown on the backrest. He cuddles this throughout the play, at least while he’s alive, and there’s an entertaining tussle over it later on when Macol comes to revenge his fathers and claim his crown from Macbett. More on that story later. The Archduke’s a complete coward, but like a lot of that type, totally critical of anyone else’s weakness. An injured soldier turns up – he’s got a spear through his middle – and they question him to find out what’s going on at the front. The soldier can’t tell them much – he was press ganged by the rebels, then captured by the Archduke’s troops and forced to fight for them. He was wounded (not by the spear, that must have come later, as if it matters in Absurdia), and when he woke up the battle had moved on. Lady Duncan is about to kill him with her knife (she’s a bloodthirsty cow, that one), but her tells her not to trouble herself, he can top himself and save her the effort. So off he goes with his grenade and blows himself up. Thoughtful of him. The Archduke’s servant and his wife’s maid also feature in this scene, and do a lovely job. The servant, so loyal he beheads himself later after bringing Duncan bad news, seems to reappear with a reattached head later, while the maid spends most of this first scene holding onto a rope that leads off behind the plush red curtain, possibly attached to her Ladyship’s horse? Who knows? She spends most of her time carrying suitcases around.

Duncan sends his wife off to the front to check on how things are going. While all around are diving for cover, she breezes in, hardly bothering to check for stray bullets, and asks for info. Banco’s there first, and tells her what he can, then swaps with Macbett. Finally the fighting’s over, Duncan’s troops have won, and Glamiss and Candor are prisoners awaiting their fate. It’s now safe for the King to arrive, which he does eventually, after many announcements that he’s just coming. (Funny at first, soon gave way to dull. Apparently that’s just how the French like it.)

The first to be brought on for execution is Candor, wrapped up in black plastic sheeting. He’s given a final speech to read out, and there’s some fun while he tries to get his hands free of the sheeting to be able to hold it, and then to be able to hold the megaphone. Megaphones are well used throughout this production, especially in the battle scenes, and at a lot of other times as well.

Now the slaughter begins. The King sentences Candor and Glamiss to have their heads cut off, together with all their followers, and he expects the executioners to make it snappy – they’re all to be done by tonight. Macbett is told to sit by the Queen/Archduchess as they watch, and he’s soon on the receiving end of her orgasmic pleasure at seeing so much bloodshed, which he thoroughly enjoys. The staging has a large white curtain at the back, behind which the King’s men disappear, emerging with heads in bags which they dump down the central pit. As each head is removed, an artistic blood spatter appears on the sheet, so pretty soon it’s more red than white, while the number of heads carried to the dump keeps increasing. We get the message.

Sadly, with all this fun on the go, the servant turns up to tell Duncan that Glamiss has escaped. This leads to the order for his execution, as mentioned before. The King is mightily unhappy, and sends Banco and Macbett off to find him asap. And so darkness descends. Literally. I don’t know if the Swan auditorium has ever been so dark during a performance before. Banco and Macbett are searching for Glamiss in the dark and in the rain, so Banco heads off to find a horse. This leaves Macbett alone, in the dark, in the countryside, and we all know what he’s likely to find in the dark, in the countryside, in a version of Macbeth, don’t we? Yes, it’s finally the witches’ turn to give us all a laugh, and they manage it very well, I must say.

The two witches are done with actual masks covering the actresses’ heads, giving them wrinkles long before their time. They also walk with a stoop, using canes, and brilliantly manage to be both old dames waiting for a bus (it’s those suitcases again), and unearthly hags. Their scene with Macbett is echoed later with Banco, but with more changes than in the earlier repeated scene, as each character is told different information. The lights do come on for a short while, in a circle enclosing the central ironwork, and this relates directly to the time when the witches are talking to Banco and Macbett. As the witches move around, we hear the voices coming from different places, and sounding more and more like Lady Duncan.

What’s good here is seeing how the two characters react to the information they’re given. We get to see how their minds work, although with this type of theatre it’s a kind of generic reasoning. They’re both warned that Duncan will refuse to give Banco his title (Glamiss), and will give it instead to Macbett, though without the land and money that should really go with it. They also inform both men that Glamiss is already dead, drowned in the river and washed into the sea. This is the start of both men’s disaffection, though for different reasons – Banco feels he’s been treated unfairly, while Macbett sees his opportunity to get the Queen for himself by taking the throne. David Troughton produced some marvellously excessive facial expressions during this part, really getting across how manic Macbett has become under the witches’ influence. There’s also a lovely bit where one witch informs Macbett that Duncan has a son, Macol, who’s away studying, and another son, Donalbain, but he doesn’t come into Macbett’s story much.

Later (and I’ve lost track of what happens when by this time), we see the witches appear at the back and transform themselves into Lady Duncan and her maid. It’s not clear at this time that the first witch has simply taken Lady Duncan’s place, after kidnapping her and locking her in the dungeon. What I understood was that Lady Duncan was actually a witch, and even after the real Lady Duncan emerges later, I’m still not sure when the witch is meant to have taken over, or even if it matters.

There’s a lovely scene where Duncan sits at a table stacked high with eggs, and starts eating them, apparently raw. This got quite a few “Yeughs” from the younger section of the audience. This is where Macbett and Banco each confront Duncan, Banco complaining about Macbett being given the title he was promised, and Macbett saying he didn’t want the title, and it should be given to Banco instead. Duncan’s having none of this, and this confirmation of the witches’ prophecy, together with Duncan’s intransigence, pushes the two generals into rebellion, just as the witches wanted. Their plotting scene is a reprise of the earlier one, between Glamiss and Candor, except that Banco and Macbett are also getting changed after playing some racquet sport. The end result is the same – another agreement to topple Duncan, with Macbett becoming King and Banco, Prime Minister.

The assassination starts with Duncan coming on, stripped to the waist, carrying his throne. He sets it down, and there’s various lines about a healing ceremony he’s about to do. He’s anointed with black and white face paint, and then wrapped in a large clear plastic sheet, held together with a big “X” of black tape over his heart. It’s even placed slightly to the left side, as I saw it.

First off, a lot of actors wearing the witch-type masks appear at the back, and Duncan “heals” them, represented by them taking off their masks and jumping for joy. After this, Macbett, Banco and the Queen surround Duncan, and mimed stabbing him. Apparently these mimes were too much for Duncan, and he’s finally dead.

Now Macbett is King, and marries the woman whom he thinks to be Lady Duncan. Banco is in the throne room, fantasising about the future the witches promised him, and as he lies there, presumably asleep, Macbett walks in and decides to castrate him, to prevent his children taking away the crown. This isn’t particularly gory, although again the younger audience members reacted pretty strongly to some of it. Macbett appears to eat the off-cuts, only to blow ping-pong balls out at the audience. Sort of good fun.

Now their plan has come to fruition, the witches resume their masked form, and head back to their boss, carried on a flying suitcase. (Actually, it’s a sliding suitcase – you just have to use a bit of imagination.) Macbett holds a banquet, at which he shows he’s losing it big time, and eventually the real Lady Duncan appears, claiming the crown. When challenged about how she knows so much of what’s gone on, she replies that her fellow prisoners tapped out messages – it’s the prison grapevine.

When Macol turns up, he and Macbett have a lovely tug-o-war over the throne. It’s more like they’re both caressing it. Macol wins, and Macbett points out that no man born of woman can kill him. Sadly for Macbett, it turns out that Macol is Banco’s love-child, born of a gazelle, who was transformed into a woman for the sexual act, then re-transformed to carry the child. Damn. But at least Macbett can’t be killed unless there’s a forest present. In an instant, lots of huge flower arrangements are carried on stage, cellophane crackling, and put in a circle round Macbett. Curses, foiled again.

After Macol shoots Macbett, and thrusts him down the pit, he sits down to give his inaugural speech as King. A microphone is placed in front of him, and he gets underway. The speech is taken directly from Macbeth, using Malcolm’s lines when he’s checking out Macduff’s intentions, so it comes across as pretty unpleasant. However, the problem with tyrannies is that society can crumble eventually, with so many needed people killed off, and so it is here. As Macol continues to give his speech, the stage hands come on and start clearing the set, taking away the flower arrangements, his microphone, etc, until the stage is pretty clear. Then the Henry (vacuum cleaner) comes on, and Macol has to skip nimbly out of the way of the wire, as he uses a megaphone to try to get his message across. Finally, David Troughton comes on, dressed for the off, and taps his watch to show Macol his time is up. End of play.

All the above description sounds more interesting than I found the actual presentation to be. The play clearly spells out the corrupting effects of power, that absolute rulers aren’t to be trusted, and that even the most loyal of supporters can turn nasty, given the right circumstances. It also shows that extreme loyalty can lead to ridiculous acts of self-sacrifice. But we already knew this, so I didn’t feel I’d gained any greater understanding. The generalised sense of dictatorship allows for audience members to colour in the background themselves. Sadly, I tend to find that diminishes a portrayal, rather than enhancing it for me. I like ambiguity a lot, but not on a blank canvas. (I’m probably no good at ink blot tests, either.)

The apparent misogyny in the play (I read the program notes) didn’t really come across for me, mainly because of my confusion about the Lady Duncan/witch combo, and partly because none of the men are up to much either. The physicality of the performance was good; although I can always do with less gore, I do enjoy the liveliness and energy, especially when the actions are almost balletic. I’ll be interested to see if the Macbeth is similar in terms of the movement.

The post-show only had male cast members – I assume the ladies are working hard to get The Penelopiad on stage (opens soon).  There were some interesting questions, and we learned that the director, a Romanian, liked to work from the outside in, typical of Continental directors. Because of the way the performances have been developed, externally rather than internally, the actors find they’re still getting to know the piece, and still developing it. Both David Troughton (Macbett) and Sean Keans (Banco) admitted to a competitive streak – each tries to outdo the other in their repetitive speeches in the battle sequence. The suitcases are also in their Macbeth, and it was suggested that we’d seen these plays the wrong way round, as Macbett probably took the Macbeth ideas to a different level, whereas the Macbett might undercut our enjoyment of Macbeth. Ah well.

Another character who fitted in well with the overall effect was a rag and bone man, actually a woman. We heard the call a few times, and she wandered across the stage a bit, but her most telling moment was after the battle scenes, when all the victorious soldiers were saluting Duncan. There were lines about the dead soldiers, and we hear the rag and bone cry from behind us. She’s summoned onto the stage, and while the soldiers take off their outfits (they’re all wearing suits underneath), she bends over as the discarded clothes are heaped up on her back. A couple of the cast lead her off. I remember thinking how appropriate that was, as so many people in the play are now only rag and bone. It reminded Steve of Mother Courage, as did the lemonade seller. I was reminded earlier of Oh What A Lovely War, when the lights around the stage lit up, as if we were in a music hall.

I wanted to leave one of the best bits to the end. There was a butterfly woman, who came on with a butterfly on a long pole, and carrying a net, which she used to try and catch the butterfly. As the pole was too long, she kept missing, but it was lovely to watch as the butterfly flitted here and there, looked like it was about land on someone’s head, then moved on. This created a lovely sense of peace amidst all the turmoil, especially as the lights had been lowered as well, so there was a peaceful gloom everywhere. The only odd note was the headless body of the faithful servant. He had gone to cut off his own head, then returned to deposit it himself in the pit. What loyalty. The headless body then stood there, as everyone else got off the stage, and remained there until the butterfly catcher guided it off, using its hand to hold the net. This was a remarkably beautiful section. We see the butterfly catcher once more, later on, but I don’t remember anything specific about it.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

A Midsummer Night’s Dream – May 2007

10/10

By: William Shakespeare

Directed by: Tim Supple

Company: DASH Arts

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Friday 11th May 2007

This is the second time we’ve seen this production, and it hasn’t lost anything in all those months. In fact, it’s improved – ten star plus! As I’ve gone over most of the staging in the first set of notes (see RSC Complete Works), I’ll just cover the changes here.

The early stages were as before. I remembered how Ajay starts off as Philostrate, with his long robe. The singing stone was just as magical, and the action much the same, and just as enjoyable. The first change I noticed was the mechanicals. The clattering pots and pans didn’t seem so loud, and the actors seemed to have developed their parts more. I suspect that comedy in particular needs the experience of an audience to grow and develop, and from the look of things, this group has taken full advantage of all the performances to learn as much as possible.

The fight between Titania and Oberon had changed slightly – it wasn’t quite so fierce. The sexual action between the lovers had really hotted up, however, and it was clear that both the men and the women this time were feeling the full force of rampant hormones, as the women started to respond sexually, even to the men they didn’t want.

When Oberon describes the effect of the flower he sends Puck to pick, he demonstrates the eye-smearing method, and Puck is so affected by just this display, that he’s extremely taken with a pretty blonde lady in the front row, but Oberon snatches him back before things get out of hand.

The rehearsal scene seemed to have even more interaction with the fairies. Bottom’s gourd was still there, and I was pleased to see the production promoting safe sex – when he reappears later with Titania, there’s a bright red condom on the end of it. The fairies’ reaction to him seems to be clearer as well – Titania might be in love, but they’re not at all keen, especially when he wants them to scratch him. Yuck!

The reconciliation between Titania and Oberon gives rise to a beautiful dance, which I don’t remember happening before, or at least not to this extent. It’s just after this that the couple change back into Theseus and Hippolyta. The elastic rope that tangles the lovers seemed to be less than before, and knowing what was going on I was able to concentrate more on the lovers this time, and I enjoyed the whole scene much better. Oberon’s pursuit of Puck through the tangle was also good fun. He was giving him a real ticking off, and Puck just didn’t want to let him get too close. He may have looked a bit downcast at times, but still, he was obviously enjoying every minute of the mischief.

Thisbe seemed to be even more disinclined to play a woman during the rehearsal, but changed her mind when it came to the performance in front of the Duke. All the animals and set design parts were doing more, it seemed. I particularly felt for Moonshine, ridiculed by the aristocrats. His dog, though, was a lovely touch – as he’s played by the tailor, his dog is an adapted sewing machine (an idea from the actor himself). One nice aspect that I didn’t notice before was that Egeus shows his acceptance of the situation at the end by hugging his daughter.

I was aware this time of the dangers of the forest, not that it wasn’t there before, but tonight it was heightened. I also saw the playlet at the end not only as a treat for the audience, but as a kind of healing therapy for the lovers. They, too, had been through a trial, facing dangers in an attempt to find their loved one despite parental opposition. Here was an even more comic version of their story, to take the sting out of their experience, and to give them a chance to laugh, not only at their mischance, but also at themselves. And this includes Theseus and Hippolyta, as they’ve been fighting, and have only just come to an understanding.

I noticed that the list of possible performances was handed to Hippolyta to read out – presumably because she would find it easier to give the English version. I also felt that perhaps the cast are themselves more comfortable with the different languages, as they gain in experience, and receive such a great response from a wide range of audiences.

Post-show. It covered some of the same ground as before, naturally, but I noticed there was less need for translation, so I assume all of the cast have become reasonably comfortable with English, enough to get the gist of what was said.

The set design arose from practical considerations, plus ideas Tim and the designer had worked on before rehearsals, but they were open to new ideas all the time, and the red earth and wooden grid at the back just materialised during rehearsals, so they went with it.  There is a strong tradition in Indian theatre for quick changes on stage – just a turn or slip behind a screen, and immediately the new character is there, or the same character is somewhere else. (I asked about this in relation to Titania and Oberon changing back to Hippolyta and Theseus on stage.) I also asked Tim as we were leaving if he was doing any more cross-cultural projects, and he is, one using actors from Africa and around the Mediterranean (?), and the other with a huge mixture of Asian, South American and others. I shall look forward to seeing those.

When someone asked if the actors ever get nervous climbing the ladders and ropes, there was a long pause, then Joy Fernandes said he didn’t – big laugh, as he’s the only one who doesn’t go clambering over the set.

Someone asked if the amount of sexuality and physical contact on display had caused problems in India, where there appear to be more concerns about showing these things publicly. There was a pause, and then Joy pointed out that they had come up with the Kama Sutra, so presumably Indians knew sex existed. Apparently there was one place where some people reacted negatively about the sexuality, but mostly, everyone in India enjoyed it immensely. In Calcutta (I think), the audience sat very quietly during the performance, and Tim thought they’d absolutely bombed, but then the applause at the end was very enthusiastic, so obviously in that place they have a tradition of not making much noise during a performance. He also reckoned there’d been as much difference between reactions in India, as between India and England.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Merchant Of Venice – March 2007

10/10

By: William Shakespeare

Directed by: Darko Tresnjak

Company: Theatre For A New Audience

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Thursday 29th March 2007

This was just fantastic. I sobbed and sobbed, and all before the interval. Then I sobbed some more during the interval. Then some more during the second half. Great. Oh, and I also laughed a lot. Also great.

The set was wonderful. At the back were some glass screens, overlapping to allow for doorways. In front of these stood three tables, on which stood three Apple Macs, open, with backs facing the audience. Above the Macs were three screens. Up to the start of the play, these displayed a request to turn off mobile phones, pagers and the like, in English, Hebrew and Italian. I’ll describe later displays as I go. The rest of the stage was bare, and pretty much stayed that way – a couple of chairs were brought on for the trial scene, but otherwise the furniture didn’t get in the way of the action. Just how I like it. The overall effect was high-tech industrial, and the program describes the time as “the near future”. We would see later how well they used the technology. Costumes were mainly suits and dresses, with Jessica, as a page boy, wearing a hoodie, and Launcelot Gobbo sporting jeans, t-shirt and trainers for his opening scene. As often happens, the order in which I report these scenes may not be the order in which they appeared on stage.

The play opened with Antonio entering in sombre mode, all over the city gent. His two friends (Solanio and Salerio) come on with a coffee for him, and try to winkle out the cause of his sadness. They’re much younger than him – this Antonio, as so often happens, likes to surround himself with young, good-looking men. They have a jokey way with them, but Antonio refuses to be cheered up. Along comes Bassanio with his mates, Lorenzo and Gratiano, and we get to see how Gratiano simply cannot be made to shut up. His expressive manner reminded me of Jim Carrey – wide eyes and wide, grinning mouth. His joshing with Antonio is off-key, given Antonio’s mood, and so, finally, he heads off with Lorenzo, and we get to see the relationship between Antonio and Bassanio.

This Bassanio seems quite a serious young man compared with most performances I’ve seen. Antonio is obviously besotted with him, though it’s not exaggerated in this production. There’s a later scene where Solanio and Salerio discuss Antonio’s fortunes, or lack of them, and come to a knowing understanding that Antonio dotes on Bassanio, but even that’s not as in your face as some productions. Bassanio soon gets Antonio’s promise to lend him his credit so he can get a loan, and off he goes to try his luck on the Rialto.

The screen display for these scenes is simply numbers – suggesting the financial sector. I haven’t a clue what was on them, if anything, for the next scene, because this was all about Launcelot Gobbo, the servant of Shylock. He comes on, looks around him, opens his bag, and takes out a halo headdress, all white and fluffy. He checks out the audience on his right (our left), and spots an older lady in the front row. She’s his conscience, so he heads over and puts the headdress on her. (She’s spotlit, so it’s obviously down to whoever sits in that seat.) Then he pulls out a red headband, with horns on it! Now we know what’s going to happen, so there’s a murmur of enjoyment as we all look to see whose going to get this one! The spotlight lands between a couple sitting on the other side. The woman laughs, as she thinks it’s her partner who’s been picked, but at the last minute Launcelot swerves, and puts it on her head. Great fun. This is the longest intro to this scene I can remember, and then we get a superb reading of the lines. Launcelot is played by a black actor, and although he’s not rapping as such, he does get a huge amount of humour from the rhythm of the words. I know this piece of text reasonably well, and this was one of the best deliveries I’ve heard.

I think the next scene is the meeting between Bassanio and Shylock, and later Antonio. F Murray Abraham played Shylock with a tremendous amount of intelligence and compassion. It’s clear from his portrayal that he seriously hates Antonio, and that he has much justification, based on the way he’s been treated. When describing his mistreatment by Antonio, he takes his handkerchief out of his pocket, as if to wipe away the spittle – his hatred and the memory of the abuse are physically rooted in him. He also gets across the sense that Shylock has a right to feel this way, that he has a valid culture and traditions, and that he’s living in a society that treats him and his fellows as less than human. The Christians have their faults, but this production has the awareness that there’s good and bad on both sides, and stays neutral, allowing the characters to speak as individuals, rather than mouthpieces for one ideology or another. For example, I was very aware, when Antonio makes some angry comment about the Devil quoting scripture, that the very scripture he’s talking about is largely shared between these religions. Anyway, at this point, Shylock is staying very smooth, and holds back the fullness of his emotions for later. He still speaks out pretty strongly against Antonio’s previous treatment of him, but manages to lure him in to the agreement with clever words. Antonio’s rage and contempt came across more than clearly. He may be a good friend to Bassanio, and respected by his fellow traders, but he’s got a mean streak coupled with some nasty prejudices, all perfectly normal for his time and place, though sadly they don’t seem entirely out of place today.

Now the modern technology starts to kick in. At Belmont, Portia and Nerissa discuss the various suitors for Portia’s hand. Portia hands over her mobile to Nerissa, so she can flick through either their pictures or a contact list. The usual banter is well done, and this Portia isn’t shy about admitting her affections for Bassanio when Nerissa mentions him. She’s also very relieved to hear that her flock of suitors is leaving. At this point, her general factotum, Balthazar, enters. Done up in black like a stage manager, and sporting an earpiece, he announces that another suitor is arriving, the Prince of Morocco. His was one of the funniest portrayals of the evening. To get all the information about the Prince’s arrival, he had to manoeuvre round the stage to get a good enough signal on his headset. Then the Prince of Morocco arrives. With the sound of an aeroplane in the background, the Prince, dressed in a vivid pink jumpsuit, bursts onto the stage, trailing his parachute and a ground crew servant. He’s also a black actor, but with bleached hair, and he oozes arrogance and self-belief. After throwing off his chute, he unzips the top of the jumpsuit to give Portia the full benefit of his manly chest, medallion and all. Much laughter. Off they go to prepare for the selection process, with Balthazar eyeing up the Prince’s servant.

Next we see Bassanio organising his party using his mobile to contact people. Lorenzo is also organising his own party – a raid on Shylock’s house to take Jessica away and marry her. The scenes with Jessica follow thick and fast at this point. I suspect it’s because they couldn’t squeeze in the quick changes necessary to flip between Belmont and Venice, but it worked quite well. When Launcelot takes his leave of Shylock, we see Jessica, looking very downtrodden, polishing some silver for her father. Launcelot is unhappy to leave her (he’s got enough luggage!), and she’s very sad to lose his company. (No senior Gobbo this time.) The short time Shylock spends with his daughter during this scene shows very little affection between them – I got the impression that it’s not because he doesn’t love her, it’s just that he doesn’t seem able to express it. Later, when he’s chopping and changing his mind about going to supper with Bassanio, his main concern seems to be his goods, and the sanctity of his home. One nice touch at the end of this section was that Jessica dropped something when she came down to Lorenzo. I didn’t see what it was, but as Shylock returned, he spotted the item, which turned out to be his keys. He realised something was terribly wrong, and ran to check his house. Too late. For Jessica’s whispered conversation with Lorenzo, when he comes to get her, she’s positioned in the first gallery, in the usual gap between the seats, off to our right. I wondered if she would climb down the post (they have footholds), but no, she used the stairs.

Now we get the first stab at the caskets. Balthazar, showing off to the Prince’s servant, goes along the row of Macs, pressing the right button, and up comes the inscription on the screen. First lead, then silver, then gold. Portia and the Prince enter. He’s dressed down, a bit, and before making his choice, takes a scimitar out of the case presented to him by his man, and gives it to Portia. Then he poses for a picture with her, still holding the sword. I liked this Prince of Morocco; he was flash, but not as over the top as some. I got all of his lines clearly, as I did for almost the entire evening. When he made his choice, the “key” Balthazar gives him is a USB stick, which he puts into the Mac’s port. The inscription then dissolves, like a computer virus simulation, to reveal a grinning skull against a background of flames, and the verse is actually a recording. Brilliant. One of the best uses of technology I’ve seen on stage. Off the Prince goes, followed by his servant – much concern from Balthazar, as they’d obviously been getting on so well, but he has to make do with a “call me” gesture.

One little meaningful point – as Portia leaves, she makes some comment about God saving her from all of such complexion. Nerissa is played by a black actress, and she obviously notices and takes offence at this comment, and rightly so. This reminder of Portia’s own prejudices is echoed later on during the trial scene, to good effect. The second suitor, the Prince of Arragon, is dispatched pretty quickly – we only need him so we know what’s in the silver box – a fool’s head – and which casket is the right one. His gift to Portia is a lifebelt, and again he poses for pictures, which she’s got used to by this time.

There are a couple of scenes with Solanio and Salerio, giving us the information about Shylock’s suffering and Antonio’s losses. Then we see Shylock directly, as he confronts these two and their taunts. The two set pieces in this play were handled very well, but this one, “Hath not a Jew eyes?…” was the best I’ve ever heard. The whole speech was knit together beautifully, as Shylock’s justification for revenge. His passion really comes out here for the first time, and the standard lines take on the expression of his absolute conviction that he is only doing what he’s seen others do. Instead of being a reminder of our common humanity, the comparisons are a reminder of the gutter we all come from, and in which Shylock is determined to thrive.

Then we have the phone call from Tubal, still in Genoa (or the upper balcony). This was the one time when I couldn’t make out the lines very well, when Shylock was speaking into his phone. But I got enough to find the scene moving, though a bit disjointed. Tubal sends Shylock a picture of the ring, making it easier to understand how he knows which ring it is, and in his reaction to this news, I found myself moved to tears. The line “I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys” usually moves me, but here I caught a glimpse of the love that this man had been capable of, and which he’s buttoned up in sorrow since his wife’s death, never showing it to his daughter who needs it so much. It was a tremendous insight into this man’s character, and although I know it’s there, it was more clearly expressed tonight than ever before in my experience. As Shylock leaves the stage, full of sadness, we get the interval, and a chance to blow my nose. How thoughtful of them.

At the start of the second half, Bassanio arrives at Belmont, and goes straight to choosing. I noticed that Portia uses “hazard” in her opening lines to him; this word is also in the winning lead inscription – is she trying to give him a subtle hint? His reasoning came across clearly – it may have been cut, but I suspect it was also down to the delivery. Everyone is happy with the result, and Balthazar brings on champagne.  As they’re celebrating, Lorenzo and Jessica arrive, bringing the bad news about Antonio. There’s no specific sign that Jessica isn’t being welcomed, although Launcelot is strangely unhappy about being left behind to serve her and Lorenzo. Given that he seemed to like her in Shylock’s house, why the change? The banter between them later on seems pretty nasty.

Nerissa is decidedly not impressed at Portia’s decision to let the men go off before consummating their marriages, and not too happy about heading off to the monastery either.  However, she goes along with Portia’s plan to follow the men to Venice, though with some reservations.

For the trial scene, the Duke was above and behind us, Bassanio to our left, Gratiano and the others on the upper gallery. Two modern, plastic chairs were brought on, and the centre table brought forward. Shylock puts his scales on these, then unwraps a piece of meat to use as a weight. Antonio is in orange prison garb, with his hands taped together. He’s put in one of the chairs. Shylock is smooth, implacable, and makes it clear he’s out for vengeance. Nerissa enters, to explain that the young Balthazar (Portia’s name in disguise) has come from the other lawyer to give the court the benefit of his advice. One nice touch here is that the actual Balthazar is also with them, with a fake moustache.

Portia and Nerissa are dressed in smart suits, and wearing small moustaches. These disguises are good ones, not that that should stop Bassanio and Gratiano seeing through them. But, as usual, they don’t. The trial follows its usual course, and Antonio is clearly ready for the knife.  The “quality of mercy” speech was a little lacking here.  I didn’t feel Portia was giving it her all, but still there was a fair bit of tension throughout the scene. Bassanio is with Antonio as Shylock prepares to cut, while Antonio’s hands have been taped to the chair. Shylock has Antonio by the neck, reaching round from behind to make the incision, when Portia stops him, and metes out the justice he had been so keen to have. It’s noticeable here how she, such a strong advocate for mercy, is adamant that now Shylock shall have only justice and the law. This is where I find the echo of her earlier prejudice. She may be slow to take offence, but when she does…..! There’s definitely an edge to her delivery of justice. When Shylock is told he will have to convert to Christianity, he reels, and falls to the ground behind the table. Antonio snatches off his skull cap, leaving the poor man distraught.

This scene brings up such mixed emotions, such is the skill of the writing, and the skill of these performers. There’s nothing much to rejoice in here, as no one has behaved particularly well. But Shylock is in such despair that it’s hard not to feel sympathy for him.

As the lawyers take their leave, Portia is obviously relieved that Bassanio won’t part with his ring. Antonio, probably out of jealousy, urges him to send it after the lawyer, and Bassanio does. There could be problems coming up in this marriage. Portia and Nerissa are still in their suits when they get back to Belmont, and yet their husbands still don’t spot what’s happened, till they come back on in full disguise, with moustaches. The ring bit was as funny as ever, and I always love the way Gratiano rats out Bassanio. Antonio has been happy again, in Bassanio’s company, but is naturally depressed again when he finds out the ring was actually given to Portia, and he’s lost Bassanio after all.

Before they get back to Belmont, we see Jessica and Lorenzo, in bathrobes, having their little lovers’ tiff. On the whole, this is fairly light, but turns sour when Lorenzo mentions her stealing away from her father. She seems to be suffering from guilt and grief at betraying him. Shylock’s skull cap is still lying on the stage where Antonio threw it during the courtroom scene, and Jessica picks it up. By the end, she seems to have come to terms with her decision to run away and marry a Christian, and as she rejoins Lorenzo, they appear to be reconciled. (And Lorenzo’s got a nice bum.)

This was a fabulous production, and I’m really glad we saw it.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Venus And Adonis – March 2007

8/10

By: WIlliam Shakespeare

Directed by: Greg Doran

Company: Little Angel/RSC

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Saturday 17th March 2007

This was a wonderful hour of poetry and motion, with music. Towards the back of the Swan stage was a smallish puppet theatre, about four feet high and maybe seven feet across. (Sorry, 1.3 metres and 2.2 metres respectively.) In front of it stood a bench, and to either side a chair. The guitarist sat to our left, and Harriet Walter, as narrator, sat on the right. With some classical guitar music, we were off, and Harriet spoke the intro to Venus and Adonis, the dedication to the Earl of Southampton.

As I’d been watching the guitarist, I was surprised to look back and see Will Shakespeare had popped up from behind the bench, and was sitting to one side, penning the introduction. Behind him, the curtains of the puppet stage opened, and the Earl was revealed. I didn’t quite follow why Queen Elizabeth then came on and spent some time with the young Earl – I’ll have to look up the poem when I get home.

Then the poem itself started with Venus arriving on stage in a conch shell carriage, pulled by two doves – a lovely picture. Meantime, Adonis arrives on his horse. He’s a pretty boy (Adonis, that is, although the horse wasn’t bad either), but with absolutely no manners. Venus fancies him on sight, pulls him off his horse (and sends the animal packing), and Adonis doesn’t even want to kiss her! She pleads, she cajoles, she strokes and kisses various parts of his anatomy, all without raising his interest. Finally, she swoons, and, worried that she’s dead, he approaches her to check for signs of life. Apparently this involves kissing her, just to see if she’ll wake up (I don’t remember this technique when I did first aid!). He has a couple of goes to find somewhere to rest his hand (Not the breast! Not the crotch!), he plants a serious smacker on her lips, and she miraculously revives. Following some fairly passionate clinching, which had Adonis adjusting his garments afterwards, he runs off, the churl, leaving Venus sad and lonely.

Next day, he’s out again, planning to hunt boar, and refusing to listen to Venus’ warnings about how dangerous it is. Sure enough, the boar gets him, and Venus is upset, and curses love, and it all ends unhappily. Great fun.

That’s the basic story, but there’s more detail, and this is one production where the detail is everything. The puppets are fantastic. Venus is so soft-looking and voluptuous, it’s hard to imagine any red-blooded man not falling for her. She’s full of little touches – literally, as she can hardly keep her hands off Adonis for most of the poem. She walks so beautifully, each foot lifting and stepping so delicately. When she and Adonis do kiss, her feet lift off the ground one after the other, then her legs float up, then his legs float up, then they’re floating together in mid-air (so much easier with puppets than with real actors), then that cunning love-goddess has swivelled round so they’re lying together in mid-air, then it gets a bit pornographic (kept the audience awake, though). At one point, when she’s lying down, suffering the pangs of unrequited love, she still manages to pull her skirt up to show a substantial bit of leg. Her dance with the hands of death towards the end was good, too, as she leapt from hand to hand so gracefully, expressing her happiness when she thinks Adonis is alive after all. She was worked so well and so expressively that I could easily imagine her face changing to display the emotions.

Adonis is an articulated lump of wood by comparison, which is fine, because that’s what he’s meant to be. Solid, unimaginative, makes me wonder what Venus saw in him. He’s only interested in hunting, and doesn’t care for gurls. Funnily enough, he’s going hunting clad only in a skimpy off-the-shoulder very short tunic.  I suspect he’s actually well aware of his looks, and has set out to flaunt as much of his body as he can. A real pussy tease. Well, he gets his comeuppance, poor lad. When he runs off, he goes right across the stage and out of one of the side exits; a lovely mover.

His horse is good-looking, too, and he knows it. The poem describes him in some detail, and for this part, Harriet moves over to the bench where the stallion is posing, to point out the bits she’s talking about. He’s happy to oblige, but he’s even more interested in a serious bit of equine totty that shows up and flirts with him. She’s the reason he runs off and leaves Adonis stranded in the woods with a randy goddess. As Venus points out, his horse knows how to have a good time with a lady. At one point I thought they might go so far as to have the horses mating on stage – they’re in the right positions, and she does lift her tail – but there’s no coitus, interruptus or otherwise, on show.

The boar is an excellent piece of work, really menacing and LARGE! It comes on after Venus has heard the hounds howling and suspects that it’s curtains for Adonis. Meantime, she’s busy hiding herself as the boar enters, and looks around for someone to gore. His tusks are red, his bristles are big, and he’s a well-muscled killing machine. He checks out various parts of the stage, and there was nearly a nasty moment when he spotted the guitar player, and thinks about giving him a good mauling. But fortunately he heads off, leaving Venus to find Adonis’ dead body.

The other main character is death. And this was done very cleverly. The surround for the puppet stage included some moulding, which came away to form two very long arms with big, claw-like hands. At the centre top of the frame was a round device, which I’d spotted earlier, but couldn’t make out what it was. At this point, it transformed into a skull. Venus spends some time chiding death for taking away her beloved, fending his hands off, and getting really cross. Then when she hears the huntsmen, she assumes all is well, and apologises for her behaviour – this is when she has her little dance with the hands of death. It was quite impressive seeing these big hands float around without getting caught up in anything.

Nearly forgot the hare! When Venus is trying to persuade Adonis to hunt anything rather than the boar, she talks about the hare, and we get to see one – standing up, crouched down, loping round the stage. Beautifully done. And there was also a deer at the beginning, that leapt across ahead of Adonis, and puppet silhouettes that ran across the back of the stage – hounds, deer, and boar.

The narration was also excellent. Harriet Walter did a great job of reading out the poem, fitting it beautifully to the puppet’s actions. The puppeteers also added some noises and comments from time to time, and it all worked very well together. I particularly liked one occasion when one of the puppets looked at Harriet, not sure what to do, and she responded with a shrug. The music fitted in so well, I was often unaware of it, but I did enjoy what I heard.

It was such a complete experience that it’s hard to convey it in words. Little movements by the puppeteers gave such amazing performances from the puppets. Venus raising her head when Adonis is checking her vitals, for example, and Adonis holding his hands over his crotch after their romp, then pulling his tunic back into place. And Venus settling herself down to sleep, cradling her head on her arm. Lots of lovely moments, coming thick and fast, while the narration gives us the story. A great way to spend an hour.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

As You Like It – March 2007

6/10

By: William Shakespeare

Directed by: Sam West

Company: Sheffield Theatres

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Thursday 8th March 2007

This was an interesting and often enjoyable version of As You Like It, or, given the sheer amount of dressing up opportunities, Hat You Like It. There was a great deal to like about the staging, and the performances, and above all, it was fantastic to see and hear Will’s actual words, and see women playing the women’s parts (even if one did pretend to be a man occasionally) – it’s been so long!

This production opens with Jacques coming into the auditorium, as if at the last minute, and looking for his seat. After worrying some of the front row across from us, he suddenly strides across the stage, declaiming “All the world’s a stage…” and the action begins. Several actors carry on a long oblong form, covered in a black cloth, obviously representing a coffin, while Rosalind and her father, also dressed in black, stand together at the front of the stage. Orlando stands by the coffin, flanked by two umbrella bearers, clearly mourning his recently departed father, while Rosalind’s father takes his leave of her. Both characters are left, alone, mourning their lost fathers. I liked the juxtaposition of these two scenes, and it occurred to me that perhaps they’re linked causally as well as emotionally – perhaps the death of Sir Roland de Boys, a supporter of Duke senior, led to his banishment, as he no longer held the balance of power at the court.

Next comes the opening scene proper, as the coffin is transformed into a bench, by simply removing the cloth covering it. Orlando does this, after removing his own coat, and with Adam, begins to pick up the apples scattered in front of the bench by another actor. Orlando’s complaints came across very well; it’s easy to understand why he’s frustrated and angry, and the following dialogue between Orlando and his brother Oliver makes it clear that they just don’t get on. If only Jerry Springer had been around in those days to help heal their relationship! The scuffle whereby Orlando demonstrates his wrestling credentials was well done, although I did get a bit worried when the carpet they were fighting on got rucked up, in case someone tripped over and hurt themselves. But all was well. Now, where can I find a bookie and get a quick bet on Orlando for the wrestling match?

Charles the wrestler was one of the best I’ve seen, all charming Italian, and apparently willing to help Oliver out by killing his brother. Oliver’s non-explanation of his hatred for Orlando was good. It made me think this was just one of those karmic things – a necessary negative flaw which would help to resolve the situation over time. In any case, he made a good villain, more realistic than some I’ve seen.

There was one line that caused a laugh for reasons other than the text or business. Charles refers to the banished Duke living in the forest of Ardennes (as this is France, theoretically), and compares him to Robin Hood. Given that Orlando is played by Sam Troughton, recently seen in the latest incarnation of Robin Hood on TV, most of the audience spotted the humour.

The next scene takes us to the court, and this is represented by several mounted antlers being lowered in front of the back curtain. I did enjoy this. We could see the Duke in his wheelchair behind the curtain, with his men, but first we get to see Rosalind and Celia, as they slip through the curtain and spend some time away from the company.

These were two very good performances, and once again, we have a Celia who is a good match for Rosalind. I notice when I see such a balanced pairing, how many lines Celia actually has. Often, she hardly seems to speak a line, but in this production, as with Amanda Harris’s portrayal, she came across as a strong character in her own right, at times stronger than Rosalind.

The girls are obviously very good friends, and their teasing of Le Beau is merciless. I often feel sorry for Le Beau, and I was wondering if they would send this one into the forest to find Duke senior. Touchstone is also introduced at this point, and although I enjoyed some of this role tonight, I didn’t feel I really “got” what he was about, and some of his lines were pretty dull. But it is a difficult part, so no criticism of the actor is intended.

The wrestling was reasonably well done, although I wasn’t keen on the “spare” actors stamping on the ground as it was going on. The growing attraction between Rosalind and Orlando was nicely done, even though I couldn’t see all of the expressions from our position. The Duke’s change of attitude when he hears of Orlando’s parentage was very clear, and added even more to the feeling of menace created by his body guards, one of whom had drawn a gun on Orlando when he announced who his father was. We knew something bad was going to happen. Le Beau’s assistance to Orlando seemed pretty full this time, and he’s obviously going to have to leave the court, as he’s overheard by the gun-toting minder. In fact, just about everyone’s leaving the court – Rosalind and Celia disappear with Touchstone, Oliver’s sent a-wandering to find his brother, and we don’t go back to the court after that, so who’s banished whom?

Rosalind and Celia’s leaving plans seemed more mature this time around, more of a plan than just desperation. Adam’s warning to Orlando was OK, but this bit often seems to drag, and this was no different, especially as there were some long pauses between lines. Fortunately, we’re soon off to the forest, and down come the antlers.

This is where it all starts going a bit pear-shaped for me. I did enjoy the staging up to now. The use of the coffin/bench, the apples (the scene is in an orchard), the antlers, etc. Once in the forest, things became a little crazy. In some ways, this is fine, as there’s that magical, fantastical element to the second half of the play. However, I didn’t find the staging giving me the sense of letting go so much as annoying and distracting me. Some elements were just plonked down on the stage without being related to the performance in any way I could fathom (what was that massive bird all about?), while some aspects worked really well for me, for example, the silver cut-out tree, raised up by Corin and Silvius. I didn’t entirely go for ribbons being draped on it instead of sheets of paper, but at least it looked pretty. At the end of the first half, either Audrey or Phoebe came on while the Duke is threatening Oliver, and placed a tiny sculpture on the far side of the stage, towards the front. She then sprinkled some sand(?) over it. Why? During the interval, this was replaced by short sticks, with hats sitting on top of them. I guessed this was a bigger version of the sculpture, though it was just a guess, but I still didn’t have a clue why this was on the stage. Some characters used some of the hats during the second half, admittedly, but not enough to justify it, given how it got in the way of some of the action. There was also a huge balloon, which lit up. Hooray. God bless modern art, and preferably bless it as far away from me as possible.

Enough of the ranting and raving, on with the production. The character who tells Duke senior about Jacques and the stag by the river is…. Jacques. His disguise is pitiful, though the way it was played, he apparently fooled the Duke, but not his followers. Puzzling, yet sadly not inspiring. By the time Orlando waves his large sword (now how did he come by that in the middle of a forest when he didn’t bring one with him?) at the Duke and his men to get some food, I was getting a little tired of Sam Troughton’s tendency to bellow his lines most of the time. I know I’m usually complaining about lack of volume, so this should make a pleasant change, but I did find myself longing for a remote so I could turn the sound down a bit.

As a boost to the cross-dressing theme, Orlando is wandering round the forest wearing a double string of pearls. Instead of the usual pendant which Rosalind gives him, she’s handed over her pearl necklace, and this, together with a stronger than usual hint of eye makeup, gives Orlando a distinctly feminine appearance. [P.S. Also, Steve spotted his painted toenails.] What with Celia and Rosalind’s own wrestling match and kiss, there’s a strong sense of sexual non-conformity here. Jacques is wearing high heels and a feathered toque, and eventually I realised his shirt was actually a silky slip or dress top. For the final scene, hats and aprons are exchanged between the couples, and a feeling of Saturnalia rules – Hymen has to come in and break it up! Again, all understandable given the nature of the play, but I felt it was overdoing it – underlining, bold type, and an exclamation mark! Trust the text, it’s worked well for many a year.

This is making it sound like I didn’t enjoy the play at all, so I’d better redress the balance. Rosalind and Celia were excellent in this half of the play. Rosalind’s expressions as she deals with the incredibly complex situation she’s in, were worth the price of admission alone. Celia’s reactions to her cousin’s outrageous behaviour were entertaining in themselves, and served to remind us how far Rosalind/Ganymede is going in her pursuit of love. I was aware that Rosalind finds herself trapped by her own disguise. She’s safely in the forest, both her father and the man she loves are here with her, yet she doesn’t know how to reveal herself to them, so she plays the game of wooing. It’s not absolutely clear here whether Oliver, having discovered Rosalind’s secret when he helps her recover from her faint, tells Orlando; at times I thought he might have, then I thought probably not. I do like it when Orlando knows, as otherwise he, and the Duke, seem such dimwits for not recognising her.

The Silvius/Phoebe scenes worked very well. Again, I didn’t see all the expressions, but I saw enough to enjoy it. William proves more than a match for Touchstone, though not for Audrey, who puts her knee to good use. The cow or goat being wheeled around after her was another enigma; best not go there.

All in all, it’s the performances I enjoyed most, and I felt they worked remarkably well in a staging that didn’t always help them. I was relieved when the end came, partly because the boring bits were over, but more because of the epilogue, my favourite of all Shakespeare’s. They teased us though, disappearing off together as if they were done. Eve Best delivered the epilogue beautifully, and so I left the theatre happy, though not elated. Better luck next time.

P.S. A couple of points I missed – the hailstones(?) pummelling Jacques’ umbrella, and the orange dropping from the sky. We liked the long pause Christopher Ravenscroft held before “More villain thou.” It suggested to Steve that this usurping Duke had actually loved his own brother, but that the relationship had soured, and at some level, the Duke has his regrets over it. He played the contrast between the brothers very well.

On the strange manifestations mentioned above, Steve also came up with the idea that this production was paying homage to other, well respected director’s stagings {sorry, didn’t mean to sound so bitchy}. The white, box-like nature of the set echoed the Richard II in the Other Place, which had been transformed into a white box, while the wheelchair for Duke Frederick picked up on John of Gaunt’s wheelchair. The big bird may have been a nod to Ninagawa’s big white wolf, while the falling items, such as the orange, and the sand, may have referred back to Ninagawa’s King Lear. Still don’t know what the big balloon was about, but if the other ideas are valid, I’m not impressed. I did get the feeling this production might be trying to be too clever, and this would confirm that opinion.

When Rosalind sits down with Celia and Corin to watch Phoebe and Silvius, Eve Best borrows a program from someone in the audience. A nice touch, done before, but still good fun. (She does give it back.)

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Twelfth Night – March 2007

6/10

By: William Shakespeare

Directed by: Declan Donnellan

Company: Chekov International Theatre Festival

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Thursday 1st March 2007

This was a superb production, with many, many great aspects, especially the acting, the staging, and the music. It was directed by Declan Donnellan, whose Cheek By Jowl productions have always been enjoyable. Why only 6/10? Shakespeare is still about the language, and I sorely missed it in this performance. Some languages, like Russian and Chinese, from experience, have such a different rhythm and cadence to English, that the feel of the piece changes too much, and I notice the lack. Having said that, this was about the best Twelfth Night I’m likely to see, so maybe I’ll change my mind about the rating at some point. (If it had been in English, it would have easily rated 10/10.)

It was an all male production, not unusual these days (as if there wasn’t already a dearth of good parts for women!), but unlike Propeller, these men did try to look and act like women, and managed it very successfully too. I will refer to the actors as he/she according to their roles as much as possible, though Viola/Cesario is going to be fun! The stage was bare, brick walls showing at the back. Buff coloured board gave us a floor, and that was pretty much it at the start. All the men came on to begin the performance, dressed in white shirts and black trousers, with braces, and carrying instruments. They started with a song, and one chap, standing towards the front, was obviously Orsino. I expected him to launch into “If music be the food of love…”, but it didn’t quite work out that way. Instead we were treated to some of Viola’s lines about losing her brother in the storm. The other actors gathered round, and voila! Viola has a skirt wrapped round her waist. Then she asks the captain who has rescued her about their locality, and he points out Olivia – another actor steps forward – and Orsino – as previously suspected.

At this point I’ve lost track of the exact order of the staging (doesn’t take much to throw me off, you may be thinking, but that’s the trouble when directors play fast and loose with the order of events – it’s great fun, but impossible to remember in detail afterwards). I remember being impressed with Olivia even at this early stage – she stood very still, poised but clearly grieving, looking feminine with just a skirt wrapped round her waist. At some point she also leaves the stage, and we get going with Orsino’s musical foray. They’ve got a pretty good combo going there, the music was excellent throughout, and this was quite a catchy number, with a bit of a beat.

A feature of this production was the overlapping of scenes. Instead of waiting for a scene to end and everyone to get off stage before the next lot troop on (the queuing option), we often had characters from one scene hold still for a few seconds while the next scene got underway, then the first lot would do the final line or lines of their scene, and sweep off past the next scene’s entrants. Good fun, and partly explains how they got the running time down to two and a half hours. The other reason was some hefty cutting, which if anything helped to make the story clearer. That, and the great acting.

This overlapping happened here, with Viola coming back on, dressed in a rather nice straight velour dress, in a peachy/gold colour. This is where we get the line that usually has me in tears – “What should I do in Illyria? My brother, he is in Elysium.” It didn’t affect me at all this time, and that’s probably the major reason I missed Shakespeare’s language. However, I did get my emotional fix later.

At some point, a set of black cloths fell down from a rail at the back of the stage. I had noticed the off-white versions of these earlier, but the black ones had escaped my attention. I liked the way these gave a very simple and effective amount of setting to each scene. In the garden, they could be trees to hide behind. Indoors, they allowed for doors and walls. Also, the overall use of black for everything except Viola’s dress and Orsino’s dressing-gown set the tone of mourning brilliantly. The second half would use cream cloths and costumes to suggest the theme of love, and the changeover was very effective.

Some thoughts on the performances:

Sir Toby – excellent. A really unpleasant drunk. Only problem was, what does Maria see in him? He even hits her. Although he does make it up to her by getting her drunk, so she ends up joining in an even more raucous chorus than the one she stopped. It was a great performance, showing us his drunkenness and ability to manipulate Sir Andrew.

Maria – good performance as a woman. She comes across as more of a worrier, and perhaps that’s why this one goes for Sir Toby – he’s a good retirement plan. She does have some wits, but not as much as I’d like to see.

Sir Andrew was younger than some I’ve seen, and much more modern in dress. He’s an obvious fop and a fool, but without some of the wistfulness I’ve seen in some others – “I was adored once” sounds more like claiming everything Sir Toby claims rather than a pang of lost love. Best bit – standing in front of the cloths in the garden scene after Malvolio comes back in front.

Malvolio – very proper and stiff. A cross between a butler and an undertaker, and better looking than most who play this part. He really is a Puritan, and there’s some lovely business with Olivia lighting up a crafty fag when Malvolio’s out of the room, only to pass it to Feste when he comes back – Feste doesn’t mind taking the heat off his mistress. In some ways this was the most interesting performance. Most Malvolios nowadays are played almost as clowns, just for laughs. This Malvolio seemed to be just a very uptight steward with ideas above his station. His reading of the letter was excellent, even though it lost some of the humour (and I noticed the interruptions pretty much dried up at that point – some were definitely cut). His little bow of head at the end, when they were taking their bows, was still very much in character, and he gets to say his “I’ll be revenged on the pack of you” to the entire audience at the very end. Nicely done.

Viola/Cesario – good, only problem was I felt it was less obvious that she was a she when in Cesario’s togs. The emotions and thought processes came across well, and at the end I got a real sense of everything piling up on her as all the accusations of treachery and violence mount up.

Sebastian – good. Liked the end, when he comes on through the cloths, not seeing Viola, who’s shrinking back into them, with everyone else clustered at the front of the stage. Good match for Viola, and that’s often a benefit of ensembles.

Olivia – superb. Dignified, poised, yet capable of behaving a bit naughtily, and of going overboard when presented with a handsome young man. She was smart to lock herself away to mourn her brother – one look and she’s hooked. Brilliant.

Orsino – good, not much of a part, except at the end, when he and Olivia still mistake the twins, and he apologises to Sebastian in that manly way. No sign that he’s in love with Cesario/Viola before the end.

Feste – also superb. A wrinkly jester, who sings a mean song, and competes with Sir Toby to get to the fallen money first. Some of Maria’s lines were passed to him during the drinking scene, and it worked very well. He’s an old retainer, and a smooth operator.

Antonio, the sea-captain deserves a special mention – he took a small part and made it memorable. He’s obviously smitten with Sebastian.

I liked a lot of the staging as well. Orsino’s servants were reluctant to step back fully when Orsino tells them to, when he wants to have a private word with Cesario. When Malvolio catches up with Cesario to “return” Olivia’s ring, he’s able to do so because Antonio’s presence on stage has held Cesario up. Sir Toby and Sir Andrew had obviously visited the off licence before returning to Olivia’s house, as they had a carrier bag filled with booze with them. Sir Toby copied Sir Andrew’s dancing, and Cesario got completely carried away playing the tambourine during Feste’s song.

The duels were both well done, the mock one as well as the real one. The cowardice of both Cesario and Sir Andrew were very clear, and very entertaining. I had my emotional fix with the line “I am all the brothers of my father’s house and all the sisters too.”

Sir Toby and Feste both rushed to grab the money thrown down by Antonio after he thinks Sebastian has denied him help. Malvolio’s cross-gartered yellow stockings were relatively subdued, which fitted well with this production, and later, when imprisoned for madness, he appears in the straightjacket on the darker stage down below, with the others on the upper gallery, lit.

When Viola comes back on in her frock, Orsino takes a bit of time to decide how to treat her, before kissing her. Olivia kisses Sebastian, and thank God, there’s no silly reaction from the audience – it was quite a moving moment. I noticed Viola’s reaction to Antonio’s story; she realises Sebastian is probably alive.

Often someone would pause the action, with the other actors freezing, to say an aside, although some asides were said right in front of the other characters without this. The surtitles were edited severely – we probably only got about half to two-thirds of the lines, regardless of what had been cut from the text.

They finished with a song, and another catchy number, too, with Malvolio back as the faithful servant, serving champagne to everyone. This allowed him to speak his final line at the front of the stage, with everyone else celebrating behind him.

There were a lot of interesting images in this production. I loved the work they’ve obviously done on movement, and there was a lot of detail in all the performances. I’d certainly see this company again.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me