PLAY REVIEWS Contents
Transcription
PLAY REVIEWS Contents
PLAY REVIEWS Contents Stratford-upon-Avon Winter Season 2004-2005 The Two Gentlemen of Verona, directed by Fiona Buffini for the RSC, The Swan Theatre, Stratfordupon-Avon, 13 January 2005 Peter J. Smith A New Way to Please You (or The Old Law), by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley, directed by Sean Holmes for the RSC, The Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 14 April 2005 Greg Walker Julius Caesar, directed by David Farr for the RSC, The Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 17 January 2005 Neil Allan 45 45 49 London Winter Season 2004-2005 Macbeth, directed by John Caird, Almeida Theatre, London, 4 March 2005 Jami Rogers Julius Caesar, directed by Deborah Warner for the Barbican Theatre, London, 14 April 2005 Nathalie Rivere de Carles Twelfth Night, directed by Stephen Beresford for Tara Arts, Albery Theatre, London, 8 September 2004 Jami Rogers Chichester, Nottingham, Liverpool and Bristol Doctor Faustus, directed by Martin Duncan, Edward Kemp, Steven Pimlott and Dale Rooks, Minerva Theatre to Cathedral, Chichester, 20 September 2004 Peter J. Smith Hamlet, directed by Yukio Ninagawa, The Theatre Royal, Nottingham, 30 November 2004 Greg Walker Dr Faustus directed by Philip Wilson, Liverpool Playhouse, 12 February 2005 Elinor Parsons Twelfth Night, directed by David Farr, Bristol Old Vic, 12 November 2004 Elinor Parsons The Tempest, directed by Richard Baron, Nottingham Playhouse, 2 November 2004 Greg Walker 50 52 54 56 59 61 62 63 America Pericles, directed by Mary Zimmerman, The Shakespeare Theatre, Washington D.C., 30 December 2004 Kelly Newman Richard III, directed by Benjamin Evett for Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Old South Meeting House, Boston, MA, 30 October 2004 Jami Rogers Coriolanus, directed by Karin Coonrod for Theatre for a New Audience, Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College, New York City, 20 February 2005 Jami Rogers 66 67 69 France: Lille, Orléans, Paris Juli Cèsar, directed and adapted by Àlex Rigola, translated into Catalan by Salvador Olia, French subtitles by Jérôme Hankins, Théâtre du Nord, Lille, 12 December 2003 Vincent Roger La Répétition des erreurs, directed and adapted by Marc Feld and Claude Duneton, Carré Saint Vincent, Scène Nationale d’Orléans, 3 March 2005 Estelle Rivier Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 71 72 Les Joyeuses commères de Windsor, directed by Jean-Marie Villégier and Jonathan Duverger, ATAOScène Nationale d’Orléans, 21 October 2004 Estelle Rivier Coriolan, directed by Jean Boillot and Delphine Stoutz, translated by Laetitia Coussement and Olivier Chapuis, Théâtre Gérard Philippe, Saint-Denis, 13 November 2004 Estelle Rivier Troilus et Cressida, directed by Bernard Sobel and translated by Bernard Pautrat, Théâtre de Gennevilliers, Gennevilliers, le 10 April 2005 Estelle Rivier Un songe, une nuit d’été..., d’après Shakespeare, adaptation et traduction de Benoîte et Pauline Bureau, mise en scène de Pauline Bureau, au Théâtre du Ranelagh, Paris, le 5 janvier 2005. Guy Boquet Comme il vous plaira, traduction de Xavier Maurel, mise en scène de William Mesguich, par le Théâtre de l’Etreinte au Théâtre 13, Paris, le 10 novembre 2004 Guy Boquet Le songe d’une nuit d’été, traduction de Jean-Michel Déprats, mise en scène de Sophie Lorotte, au Théâtre Mouffetard, Paris, le 6 janvier 2005 Guy Boquet La Tempête, d’après Shakespeare, mise en scène de Frédérique Lazarini, dramaturgie de Didier Lesour, à La Mare au Diable, Palaiseau, le 13 février 2005 Guy Boquet La Vie de Timon, traduction d’André Markowicz, adaptation et mise en scène de Victor Gauthier-Martin, au Théâtre de l’Aquarium, Paris, le 23 mars 2005 Guy Boquet Femmes gare aux femmes (Women beware women) de Thomas Middleton, traduction et adaptation de Marie-Paule Ramo, mise en scène de Dan Jemmett, Théâtre de la Ville, Paris, le 12 octobre 2004 Guy Boquet Macbett, farce tragique d’Eugène Ionesco, mise en scène par Jérémie Le Louët, au Théâtre 13, Paris, le 11 mai 2005 Guy Boquet 73 75 76 78 79 80 81 82 82 83 Istambul Hamlet, directed by Adrian Brine at the city theatre, Kadiköy, Istanbul, 11 March 2005 Tom Band A Note on the Translation Ayse Nur Demiralp Band Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 85 86 PLAY REVIEWS Stratford-upon-Avon Winter Season 2004-2005 The Two Gentlemen of Verona, directed by Fiona Buffini for the RSC, The Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 13 January 2005, front stalls. S ince David Thacker’s 1991 production of Verona (see Cahiers Élisabéthains, 41 [1992], 55-56), the RSC has only staged the play once (directed by Edward Hall in 1998). Thacker set his production, complete with crooning chanteuse, in the age of Jazz. How disappointing then that Fiona Buffini and her designer, Liz Ascroft, had set theirs in… the age of Jazz: double breasted suits, spats, furs and patentleather shoes. Not only did the setting and costume recall Thacker’s production but they drew attention to the ways in which that earlier version was so much better than this one. For, whereas Thacker had used the period to underline the youthful naivete of Shakespeare’s adolescent lovers with allusions to the excesses of an age balanced on the verge of the Great Depression, for Buffini it provided little more than the opportunity to stage a number of Busby Berkeley musical routines. Whereas Thacker’s world adumbrated its own decline, Buffini’s was hopelessly happy with whooping party-goers complete with martini glasses, staggering across the stage at the end of almost every scene. While Jonathan Bate’s programme note sees in the play qualities that may identify it as juvenilia, “freshness, energy, pace, wholeheartedness, a desire to get to the point and to speak its mind”, The Two Gentlemen of Verona contains one of the most insidious jealousy plots in the canon which makes it kin in some respects to Othello. Buffini ignored these darker tones and gave us a play about a farting dog, funny messengers and mixed-up youngsters out of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This was a world of pretty young things, Vile Bodies, so that when age did appear, it did so as a caricature. Patrick Romer’s Antonio was less of a father figure than Hamm out of Beckett’s Endgame, slumped, grey-haired and helpless, in a wheelchair and propelled willy-nilly by Adrian Schiller’s inebriated Panthino in Max Wall tails, helping himself to the rack of hard liquor fixed to the back of his master’s chair. Christopher Saul’s Duke of Milan, the play’s other senior citizen, was also ridiculed, stripped by the outlaws down to his granddad vest and long-johns. But, without the authority of these patriarchs, the scenes of Valentine’s banishment or the relations between Sylvia and her father make no sense and such characters seem merely to be the fuddy-duddy remnants of a bygone era. Over a ragtime piano score the lovers variously threw themselves on a chaise longue downstage of a dressing screen embossed with the latest Deco designs. Laurence Mitchell as Proteus bewailed his lovesickness in patterned knitwear sweater and tweeds. His relationship with Alex Avery’s Valentine was little more than two boys joshing— less Brideshead Revisited than Carry on Jeeves. There was very little depth to any of the relationships and only Vanessa Ackerman as Julia managed to mine the play’s deeper emotional tones. Zubin Varla’s Thurio was a slicked back spiv—a combination of Al Capone and a pantomime villain—unthreatening in his arrogance and Cloten-like ignorance. Even the guaranteed scenes between Launce and Crab failed to ignite; Andrew Melville played the servant as a morose Scot, and Ria – a lanky lurcher—embodied this sense of boredom with its tail literally between its legs and an expression of canine ennui. The problems of the closing scene were inadequately prepared for and the enormity of Proteus’ assault and Valentine’s “gift” of Sylvia were never adequately addressed. After Valentine intervened to prevent the attack on Sylvia, he almost immediately conceded her. This is in the play but what was so alarming was the alacrity with which Sylvia (Rachel Pickup) complied and moved towards Proteus. I am not suggesting that she should bridle in the manner of Katherine from The Taming of the Shrew but she has just been the victim of an attempted rape and, if she is shown to be blindly obedient to Valentine’s wishes, we should at least know why. Her submission is of course precluded by Julia’s unmasking and her all too brief hesitation before embracing and kissing the newly forgiven Proteus. That this account of the production’s final scene sounds perfunctory ought to be unsurprising. One can only hope that the play’s next outing is less inconsequential than this. Peter J. Smith * A New Way to Please You (or The Old Law), by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley, directed by Sean Holmes for the RSC, The Swan Theatre, Stratfordupon-Avon, 14 April 2005, centre stalls. B ehind the plot of A New Way to Please You, the first of the “rarely performed” Elizabethan 45 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 and Jacobean plays that make up Greg Doran’s 2005 “Gunpowder” season in the Swan, lies a simple conjecture: what if a law was passed condemning the elderly to death as soon as they became a burden on society? How would people react to so seemingly rational, yet cruel an Act? Middleton and Rowley throw such a statute into the midst of their play-world (a gesture strikingly literalised in Holmes’s gamesome production, which opens with a massive pile of legally-bound documents falling onto the stage with a hugely amplified thud) and watch as its inhabitants scurry about, variously seeking to escape or capitalise on its provisions. The conceit is a simple but highly effective way of generating social satire – of exposing to open view the avaricious and lustful motives that drive a corrupt world. If suddenly it is made a capital offence to reach the age of eighty (in the case of men) or sixty (the span allotted to women, who are, it is claimed, only “productive” so long as they can reproduce), then new social imperatives are created (don’t look old!) and new opportunities for venality present themselves. The Parish Clerk is instantly elevated to new-found power and influence, for he keeps the register of births and deaths and can say who is due to die next (thus identifying prime targets for marriage for legacy hunters, both male and female), and can sell that information for a tidy profit. And hence avaricious husbands and lusty young wives can plan with cynical confidence for their next marriages, being able to predict to the day and the hour the moment that their current older spouses will have their state-sponsored appointment with the hangman. Billed as a “black comedy” by Greg Doran, and a tragicomedy in Richard Rowland’s programme notes, Middleton and Rowley’s The Old Law (the RSC have inverted the original title and subtitle to call their version, perhaps more in hope than expectation: A New Way to Please You) is better described as a Problem Play in the making. Like Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure it proffers an unsettling mixture of burlesque comedy and macabre human viciousness, with the former usually generated when the latter miscarries. As in Measure, the plot is instigated by the seemingly capricious decision of a Duke to let slip the forces of corruption and see what happens, presumably with the intention of testing his subjects’ mettle before reining them all in again at the end. Albeit in this play the Duke, Evander of Epire, does not actually explain his motives in any detailed way, opting instead for the brief summation in Act 5 Scene 11: A New Way to Please You, The Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon Top right: Jon Foster, standing, & Julian Stolzenberg (Courtiers), Jonjo O’Neill (Simonides) Above: Matt Ryan (Cleanthes), Evelyn Duah (Hippolita). Photos both pages courtesy of Stephen Vaughan 46 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 PLAY REVIEWS […] We have our end, And all is ended well. We have now seen The flowers and weeds that grew about our court rogues, backed by a supporting cast of avaricious household servants, dismissed on the apparent death of Simonides’ father Creon, spend the bulk of the play conspiring to marry, divorce, or bed their current or prospective partners in the shortest possible time for the maximum financial reward. The only exception to the vicious norm is provided by Cleanthes and his wife Hippolita, the young and loving son and daughter-in-law to Leonides, whom they protect from death by announcing that he has died of natural causes, concealing him in a forest lodge until they are betrayed by Eugenia. This last action leads to the arrest of the virtuous characters and their trial at the hands of the villains, until, in the final denouement, the Duke intervenes to restore the status quo and, thanks to the revelation that no one has actually been put to death, engineer the (partial at least) reconciliation of all parties. Faced with what is, on the surface at least, a rather perfunctory, ill-balanced (the court scene presided over by the young parasites is far too long and wordy for what has gone before) and rather sour text, Sean Holmes wisely accentuated its comic potential in an attempt to live up to the implications of his title. He ruthlessly modernised the play’s satirical focus on the sartorial peccadilloes of the younger and older generations, and shifted the moral weight of the first half from the exploration of the viciousness of the young to the burlesque exposure of the folly of old men trying to ape the manners and lifestyles of Presumably, by 1618, the date of first performance, the idea that the ruler might step forward as Deus ex machina to put everything to rights with the Renaissance equivalent of “it had all been a terrible dream…” (the recourse of many a modern schoolchild in search of an ending for an intractable piece of creating writing) was so hackneyed a dramatic motif that it seemed to the playwrights to need no detailed exposition here. In the meantime between the promulgation of the law and its eventual revocation, the play offers a series of brisk vignettes of the kinds of venality that putting the fate of the old in the hands of the young might provoke. There is the parasite son, Simonides, all too anxious to hasten his parents’ demise so that he can squander the fruits of his inheritance on clothes and self-indulgence with his cronies. Then there is Eugenia, the vain, A New Way to Please You, The Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon gold-digging young Above: Michelle Butterly (Siren), Fred Ridgeway (Gnotho) wife of the ancient Below: The Company counsellor Lysander, who is impatient to see the back of him so that she can marry Simonides (“always take age first to make thee rich; / That was my counsel ever, and then youth / Will make thee sport enough all thy life after.” 2.1.). Finally there is the vicious “clown” Gnotho, who wants to rid himself of his old wife Agatha in order to marry the younger, more attractive Siren. These 47 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 youths. Hence Lysander (James Hayes), desperate to regain his virility in an attempt impress his young wife as well as to evade the strictures of the law, transforms himself from a white haired geriatric into a surreal vision of the nightmarish 70’s TV presenter Jimmy Saville. Throwing off his shaggy white coat to reveal a garish yellow checked track suit, and with his hair and beard dyed – with the exception of a recalcitrant snowy tuft (“This little mangy tuft takes up more time / Than all the beard beside!” (3.ii.)) - a very unnatural shade of matt black, he engages the services of a hip-hop dancing instructor (Mark Springer) in white vest, walkman, and designer trainers. He then proceeds to challenge the young parasites to a dancing competition played out on a “disco-mat” machine under disco lighting, with every robotic step accompanied by raucous electronic honks and squeaks from the speakers wheeled in behind them. This scene, in which age implausibly routs youth in a series of increasingly bizarre “duels”, was the comic centre of the play, and no opportunity was lost, here or elsewhere, for comic asides and overt contemporary references. So Lysander, examining his new, “younger” look in a full-length mirror, fell into an adaptation of Robert de Niro’s famous “You talkin’ to me?” routine from Taxi Driver: “Art thou talking to me?…There doth be no one else in the chamber”. Meanwhile the vicious young courtiers (Julian Stolzenberg and Jon Foster) and Simonides (Jonjo O’Neill), the latter stealing every scene with his dry asides, faux concern for other’s well-being, and exaggerated Belfast accent, entered to woo Eugenia with a chorus line from Oklahoma!, and signalled their commitment to fashion in ever more extravagant variations of Boy George hats, glitter make-up, and Adam and the Ants haircuts. And, just to prove that the wardrobe mistress had her finger on the pulse of the very latest youth fashion (the design was by Kandis Cooke), the courtiers also displayed prominently above the waistbands of their jeans, underpants (and at one point, incongruously, a woman’s thong) bearing the mock designer labels “CkuF” and “IstH”. Set against these vanities of contemporary fashion, the older generation wore exaggerated versions of contemporary OAP-wear. Thus Creon (Geoffrey Freshwater) appeared like a old soldier on Poppy Day, sporting a chest full of medals, a red military beret and a jacket a good three sizes too tight, fastened up the front by a bizarre line of over twenty buttons - this, presumably, to make some visual sense of the First Courtier’s line: “our diseased fathers…love a doublet that’s three hours a-buttoning, / And sits so close [it] makes a man groan…” 2.1). To drive the point home, the programme was full of photographs of iconic images of the fashion-mistakes of the Saga Holiday generation: comb-overs blown awry by the wind, over-brightly coloured pattern ties, and zip-up cardigans. Somewhere in between the extremes of sober age and vicious youth were the virtuous young couple, Cleanthes (Matt Ryan) and Hippolita (Evelyn Duan). Dressed in vaguely hippy homespun, neither very trendy nor especially orthodox looking, they made the most of the slightly saccharine, preachy roles of “lone voices of virtue in a corrupt world” that the text demanded. Similarly, Fred Ridgeway, playing Gnotho as an ageing Cockney wide-boy in a pork-pie hat, was as engaging as it is possible to be in the role of a man who openly falsifies his wife’s age to speed her early death, punches her in the stomach when she upbraids him for his unfaithfulness, and tells her to her face that he intends to marry a more attractive woman the moment she is dead. Ishia Bennison also did well with the few lines afforded to Agnes, his wife, combining a kind of feisty brassiness with an understandable air of injured innocence. The differences between the younger and older generations, like the “battle” between the sexes, is a seemingly timeless theme, always amenable to contemporary reworking. So Holmes’s decision to update wherever possible, and to add visual humour whenever the script seemed to be open to it (as when, during the drinking contest in 3.ii, the cast momentarily stopped their business and collectively hopped up and down like rabbits accompanied by a loud electronic pinging sound to symbolise the disorienting effects of the strong liquor Lysander had just drunk) was a wise one, winning over a predominantly middle-aged audience with its relentless energy and determination to point out the ridiculousness of fashions of all kinds. The production was not, however, oblivious to the darker tones of the play, nor to the potentially unsatisfactory implications of its rather perfunctory ending. How Lysanda and Eugenia, Agnes and Gnotho would resolve their rather obvious marital difficulties henceforth was dealt with through the simple expedient of having the first two tearfully reconciled in the final moments, and allowing Agnes to “swinge” Gnotho offstage at the end with a cuff about the head. But, how the state as a whole would resume “business as usual” in the aftermath of the crisis brought about by the Duke’s actions could not be so readily resolved. Notably, when Peter De Jersey’s Evander, played as a smooth politico in a lounge suit, clapped his hands and called for music in the final lines, nothing happened. The band that had intervened decisively throughout the production (Music and Sound Design were by Chris Branch and Tom Haines), providing accompaniment to all the major scenes and offering intrusive over-amplified thuds when books were opened on tables, and loud rustlings when money was counted out or changed hands, pointedly failed to strike up. Perhaps, his anxious look around him before the blackout suggested, the genii of misrule would be harder to 48 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 PLAY REVIEWS put back into the bottle than he had initially thought. The text used is: Thomas Middleton and William Rowley, A New Way to Please You or The Old Law, ed. Richard Rowland (Nick Hern Books/RSC, 2005). 1 Greg Walker * Julius Caesar, directed by David Farr for the RSC, The Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 17 January 2005, left stalls. “H ow many ages hence / Shall this our lofty scene be acted over, / In states unborn and accents yet unknown!” (III.1.71-73). Cassius articulates the relevance of the drama to both an Elizabethan audience and any future context: the play will speak to us as long as there prevails a struggle between autocracy and democracy, state authority and the anarchic force of the multitude. Any given production is thus invited to tease out the latent connections between its own socio-political context and that of Shakespeare’s Rome. The risk is that this interpretative operation can become overly didactic, furnishing a distracting veneer of modish gestures, reading the Capitol as Capital. The challenge is embraced by this production, with predictably mixed results. The programme invokes Berlusconi and Putin as leaders whose manipulation of the media has imperilled democracy; Caesar is comprehended through the lens of today’s semiotic imperialism, waging a ratings war. This insight may not be original, but it carries a certain urgency and is consonant with the text. The decorated images of the opening scene are now screen projections of Caesar, who then enters to face a microphone. Christopher Saul’s Caesar is a rather shallow figure, an efficient if easily manipulated media-conscious politician. His rebuff of Metellus Cimber’s imprecations is addressed more to the audience than to the supplicant, spinning stubbornness as consistency. The orators at Caesar’s funeral are filmed from two angles, and composite live images play on a screen hung from the scaffolding that dominates the set. Gary Oliver’s Antony cuts a swaggering figure, crying “havoc!” (III.1.276) with conspicuous relish. He also understands (as Brutus does not) the iconic impact of Caesar’s body, potent even (and especially) in death. The corpse’s wounds are microscopically traced by camcorder and writ large on the screen as Antony directs and exploits the crowd’s response to the virtual snuff movie. The set, too, highlights its manipulative status: the musicians are present on stage, the points of light picking out the mixing desk serving as a constant reminder of the orchestration of effects and affects. The disorder of the natural world is conveyed by neon strip lights: taking their cue from David Lynch or Martin Creed, they figure disorientation as they flicker and buzz. Rome has become an isle full of noises, the sputtering of the lights merging with high-pitched electronic ululations and white noise. This enveloping static is evocative of a distorted signal: the characters cannot tune in to the cosmic message. Certain gestures arising from the same impetus are far less effective. The crowd clambers over the scaffolding in a manner more befitting a musical. Cinna the poet’s body hangs ominously behind Antony as he pricks the names of the condemned, but is then reanimated in order to lead an incongruous cod-Brecht/Weill number announcing war. The antagonists confront each other before the battle in front of a UN flag; perhaps the scene is meant to resonate with recent pseudo-diplomatic processes in which war is a foregone conclusion, but any further analogies are strained: who is meant to be “America” here, who “Old Europe”, and on what grounds? The most serious reservation, however, concerns Zubin Varla’s Brutus. He delivers the lines with a curious singsong intonation as if attending to the words’ sonorities at the expense of their meaning. Perhaps this apparent detachment from the import of the speeches is intended to convey the character’s stoicism, but it does so at considerable cost, stripping Brutus of vitality and inner conflict. Varla’s delivery elides the comma in “Then lest he may, prevent” (II.1.28), but surely it marks a truly vertiginous moment of the sort memorably evoked by T. S. Eliot: “Between the idea / And the reality / Between the motion / And the act / Falls the Shadow” (“The Hollow Men”, lines 72-76). Adrian Schiller, a gaunt and misanthropic Cassius, verbally assumes the role of a looking-glass in which Brutus can discern a contorted reflection of himself with which he cannot but identify. The set renders concrete this image: the backdrop is a dark, distorting mirror in front of which the plot is hatched. However, this phantasmagoric warping finds no counterpart in this Brutus, who delivers tormented verse with an odd lack of engagement. This performance is effective only when enacting rhetorical failure: Varla’s Brutus seems unaware of semantic volatility, relying rather upon an imagined transparency of his case, and therefore fails to manipulate the emotive resonances of Caesar’s image. The door is thus left open for Antony and Octavius Caesar, the latter’s triumphant image appearing on the screen to announce a new visual imperialism. When the stage empties, only a hi-fi is left to convey the echoes of the departing crowd. Caesar’s besuited ghost enters — this is a consummate politician, not a bloody reminder of violence — and switches it off. In this iconodulic struggle, Caesar himself has the final, sardonic gesture, cancelling his own show. Neil Allan 49 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 London Winter Season 2004-2005 Macbeth, directed by John Caird, Almeida Theatre, London, 4 March 2005, middle stalls. I t is modern theatrical custom to run Macbeth without interval. Theatres as diverse in location and audience as the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Sydney (Australia) Theatre Company, Max Stafford-Clark’s Out of Joint Theatre Company and the Sandbach Comprehensive School in Cheshire have recently done productions of the play without a break. John Caird’s production at the Almeida Theatre broke with this, creating a version that showed Macbeth does not have to be played as a Jacobean thriller. The stage floor was a simple round of black marble, curving slightly out towards the audience. The costumes were of Elizabethan cut, although without the ruffs and bulky finery associated with the era, which was thus merely hinted at — giving the production a more timeless feel. With more than a little nod to the legendary 1976 RSC production directed by Trevor Nunn, Caird contained much of the action to within a circle encompassing the centre of the marble base. Simon Russell Beale’s portrayal of the title character was a lucid and intelligent study in guilt. Macbeth was a man preoccupied with judgment and remorse, as he grappled with his conscience. During his “If it were done…” soliloquy, for instance, he paused to consider “We still have judgment here” (I.7.8), pointing emphatically at the ground, knowing there would be consequences for his actions. After Duncan’s (William Gaunt) murder, asked by Macduff (Paul Higgins) “Is the king stirring, worthy thane?” (II.3.42), Macbeth’s guilt manifested itself in fretful hand-washing worthy of his wife, as he paused and answered with a slow, “Not yet.” (II.3.42). His crown became a focal point for his guilty burden and as he sat with the assassins who would kill Banquo (Silas Carson), Macbeth suddenly took off his diadem and scratched his head where it had lain, as though he were allergic to the crown — or at least his bloodsoaked method of attaining and keeping it. Banquo’s death was necessitated in this production by the absolute knowledge that Macbeth had murdered Duncan, as Banquo angrily grabbed the bloody daggers from Macbeth’s hand (he hadn’t left them with the grooms’ bodies) and said pointedly to his face his “Fears and scruples” sentence (II.3.126-29). Banquo, thus threatening judgment upon Macbeth, had to be slain. However, regardless of Macbeth’s later prickings of conscience, there were indications early in the action — particularly through William Gaunt’s superb portrayal of Duncan — that Macbeth was not entirely trusted by the establishment. The King seemed unsure of this Thane as, speaking about the previous Cawdor, he hesitated to say “trust” at Macbeth’s entrance on “He was a gentleman on whom I built / An absolute trust”. (I.4.14-15), which signalled a certain amount of distrust for Macbeth. Duncan also appeared to be about to confer his crown on Macbeth, rather than his heir Malcolm in Act I Scene 4. As he conferred upon Malcolm the title of Prince of Cumberland, Duncan faced Macbeth, the crown in his hands and as he hesitated, it was clear that Macbeth thought he was about to receive the crown. Macbeth’s disappointment when Duncan turned away was palpable. The relationship between Macbeth and his wife was subtly and astutely drawn. Far from being the termagant of theatrical lore, Emma Fielding’s Lady Macbeth was a woman whose frustration in her loveless marriage caused her to concentrate on her advancement, achieved by her husband’s ascent. The cracks in their marriage were vividly apparent in the way they communicated. She taunted his manhood on occasion — noticeably when she hit lines such as “Art thou afeard / To be the same in thine own act and valour /As thou art in desire?” (I.7.39-41) — with an edge to her voice. She also made clear her low opinion of her husband’s abilities, highlighted by the micro-management delivery of her line “I laid their daggers ready; / He could not miss ‘em.” (II.2.11-12), emphasizing the second phrase to show she lacked faith in his ability for action. When he returned with bloody daggers a few lines later, Lady Macbeth impatiently grabbed them, scolding him and showing she thought him a child incapable of following the simplest instructions. The marriage breakdown was most visible in Act I Scene 7, placed as they were at opposite sides within the playing circle, which emphasized the emotional distance between them; this was a couple who seemed to have not communicated for years. Separated by this vast gulf, Macbeth looked on in horror at his wife as she said she would “Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums, / And dash’d the brains out…” (I.7.57-58). They seemed to know each other no longer. Caird and his company made Macbeth’s descent into madness extremely lucid, beginning with his obsession with dreams. Macbeth made clear that his dreams, too — like those of his wife in Act V — are sullied. Speaking to Lady Macbeth in Act III Scene 2, he emphasized the phrase “terrible dreams” (III.2.18) and then, in real anguish, he howled “O full of scorpions is my mind” (III.2.36). Macbeth’s madness was enhanced by Russell Beale, who was able to con- 50 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 PLAY REVIEWS Macbeth, Almeida Theatre, London Emma Fielding (Lady Macbeth), One of the Weird Sisters Photo courtesy of Hugo Glendinning nect Macbeth’s rapid descent into insanity with the jealousy that rankled since the favourable prophecy given Banquo’s descendents’ by the Weird Sisters. Thinking on it anew, Macbeth seethed with anger and huskily shouted at the audience “For Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind” (III.1.64). When Banquo came to haunt Macbeth, upset at not having his tale of a ghost in the room believed, the thane became a whining child on his “I saw him” (III.4.73). He then turned into a sarcastic host in full flow, stating that once upon a time a man who was dead would stay dead (III.4.77-82). The total effect of Macbeth’s fit of sarcastic wit was of a less lanky version of Basil Fawlty, provoking an embarrassing scene at his own dinner party — a social faux pas which Lady Macbeth pointed out with an icy “You have displaced the mirth” (III.4.108). After the dinner guests had departed, Lady Macbeth laid her husband down in the centre of the circle, and then left the stage upon hearing the sinister Weird Sisters’ approach (played by Ann Firbank, Jane Thorne, Janet Whiteside). From this point forward, the audience was made acutely aware of Macbeth’s visions, and we became privy to his “ter- rible dreams”. While Macbeth lay where his wife had left him, the witches cast the spells of Act III Scene 5 over his still body. The two witches’ scenes were conflated so that on “By the pricking of my thumbs” (IV.1.44) he was awakened. The heath in the script therefore became Macbeth’s disturbed dreams and the apparitions of Act IV Scene 1 appeared in the guise of children — Macduff’s children, later to be murdered. In fact, a chilling moment in the production came just before the interval, as Macbeth slipped on after Macduff’s eldest child had been carried off to his death, leaving Lady Macduff (Sara Powell) writhing in combat against the remaining murderer. With his back to the audience, Macbeth was seen stroking the face of Lady Macduff, calming her as she was murdered. Only in her final death throes did Macbeth turn toward the audience and his extra-textual presence was revealed, as his murderous career became actual, no longer committed for him by contract killers. Worth noting here was the witches’ appearance: when standing outside the playing circle they appeared normal, dressed unremarkably in the same vague Elizabethan style as the other characters, but once they crossed into the space their makeup gave them an aura of death—like skeletons haunting the earth and making their appearances sinister. Caird used both the Weird Sisters and the apparitions of Macduff’s children with increasing frequency as Macbeth became more and more disturbed. For instance, Macduff’s eldest child became the “creamfaced loon” (V.3.11) and after his exit, Macbeth motioned to the space where he had been saying “I am sick at heart” (V.3.19). The news that “The Queen, my lord, is dead” (V.5.16) was brought by the weird Sisters. Effective though their frequent appearances were, it was difficult to decide whether they were figments of Macbeth’s fevered imagination or actually controlled events—whether they appeared in numerous guises because Macbeth was mad or whether they had made him mad deliberately. Played against current theatrical tradition of racing through the play at breakneck speed, Caird’s production allowed for a skilful examination of the characters and situations that populate this play. The pace was measured, yet the payoff in being able to get inside the main characters was immense. However superbly portrayed the Macbeths, Banquo, the three witches, and William Gaunt’s excellent Duncan were, the rest of the production lacked the same level of emotional rigour. Each actor was wellspoken and the story was clear, but they did not achieve the same level of three-dimensional characterization, thus keeping the production from reaching its full potential. Jami Rogers * 51 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 Julius Caesar, directed by Deborah Warner for the Barbican Theatre, London, 14 April 2005, centre stalls. Produced by BITE:05, Barbican; Co-produced by Théâtre National de Chaillot, Paris; Teatro Español, Madrid; Grand Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg, Luxemburg. I n her answer to Paul Taylor’s question “Are we talking 44 BC or 2003 AD?” in the programme, Deborah Warner gave away her manifesto for her version of Julius Caesar: “It’s exciting when our times can release for us a text anew”. And indeed, this production of Julius Caesar echoes the eternal questioning of political ambition and righteous wars whether in Antiquity or the present. If Shakespeare’s foreign spaces were always reminiscent of sixteenth-century London, the scenery at the Barbican is so familiar we could mistake the inside of the theatre and the outside of Westminster. Costumes are distributed according to social ranking and occupation and match the variety of the audience. If it weren’t for the transparent curtain masking the set before the play begins, the limit between audience and actors would be almost non-existent. Thus, no matter however reluctant you might be at the prospect of sitting through a play lasting over three and a half hours, you are absorbed into its world from the very moment members of the Roman mob stumble on the stage and tear the veil away. The thoroughly modern aesthetics of the production surprisingly fits the classic theme and the agenda of unsteady Roman politics, starting with the set design. Though confessing a slight personal fixation with space and props, it is no exaggeration to say that the scenography of Julius Caesar is the most striking feature of the production. The set is a tailormade costume for a play about fragmentation. Julius Caesar stages identities that are progressively shattered by the anxieties of political ambition. Hence, before even talking about the cast and the stunningly sober but powerful acting, it is impossible not to mention the brilliant use of the Barbican Theatre’s immense stage. The set is absolutely modelled on the dynamics of the play and never does its grandiose structure seem inadequate to the act. Deborah Warner reaches the perfect balance between space, bodies and words. She chose to cut the play into two visually and rhythmically distinct parts. The first two hours focus on Rome’s political space while the last hour features the derelict environment of the battlefield. As stated in the programme, Warner’s intention was to offer the audience both sides of the political agenda of the play: “I think we may have to change our language to attempt to match Shakespeare’s experiment with our own, so perhaps when the audience return after the interval, they feel that they’ve not come back to the same evening”. The first part of the production stresses the orderly architecture of the Roman state and its inner frailty. The latter consists in the constant visual fragmentation of the stage space thanks to structures usually evoking geometrical stability. Warner plays on vertical and horizontal frames and treats the stage like a set of China dolls. The wide black stage is reduced to a smaller set thanks to a U-shaped glass structure. The back walls are fitted with side curtains framing a giant central screen on which changing colours are projected according to the characters, the tone, the time and the place. The glass structure recalls Norman Foster’s glass buildings whose fake transparency has become the emblem of the new political London. It is within this striking frame that most of the action will take place. The intricate structure is not restrained by this doubling of the stage borders but by the regular addition of another frame within the frame made by the safety barriers and separating the Roman mob from the Senators. The intensely composed space reflects Rome’s social structure while also evoking a contemporary public gathering. This proximity between the visual shape of the play and our own experience of the urban political space creates confusion between the time of the audience and the time of the play. Yet this familiarity never becomes a moralising plea against modern political issues. The unexpected setting is reinforced by an unexpected positioning of the actors on stage. A large mob made up of a hundred extras is confined between the glass walls and the barriers while a crowd of Senators confusedly goes through the glass doors at the back and occupies the steps. This first contact between space, actors and speech plunges the audience in a state of visual confusion. The stage is saturated by the Roman mob, threatening to overflow the security guards, and the indistinct group of Senators. The spectator’s eye is unable to identify the title-character in this sea of unruly bodies. Why is Caesar invisible? Indeed, the first contact with the characters indicates an interesting but daring casting choice. John Shrapnel is a surprising choice for Caesar. His entrance almost comes unnoticed and he is dwarfed by the more imposing stature of the other Senators. He’s obviously cast as a questionable leader both politically and physically, ready to be overthrown by stronger-looking men. The visual focus during the entire first part is clearly on three characters: Ralph Fiennes’ Mark Antony, Simon Russell Beale’s Cassius and Anton Lesser’s Brutus. Fiennes enters the stage dressed in white running gear, jumping around in a bacchic frenzy which ends with the bathing of his triumphant body in champagne by two girls from the crowd. Such ritualised excess casts Caesar in the margins of his own triumph. Cassius’ strongly embittered plea against Caesar’s physical weakness and overpowering ambi- 52 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 PLAY REVIEWS tion is ambiguously justified by this lack of charisma. Mark Antony’s excessive physical strength, Cassius’s active rhetoric and Brutus’ genuine anxiety about Caesar’s triumph are all pitted against Shrapnel’s interpretation of a sick and stubborn old general. Rome appears already torn between various images of a ruler. Such a dislocation of the political unity is echoed by the inability to read the signs of the characters. They look into mirrors with no shadows, the way we look at the ill-defined, fluttering reflections of the act in the glass structure. The set echoes Cassius’ words : “And since you know you cannot see yourself / So well as by reflection, I, your glass, / Will modestly discover to yourself” (I.2.69-71). Who can read the prophetic signs when the vision is so fragmented? The ill-omened colours projected on the large back screen, the drunk soothsayer shouting his “Ides of March” curse, Calpurnia’s overlooked dream and the mourning purple of the senatorial togas are all contrasted with Caesar’s misunderstanding and Mark Antony’s careless absence. The entire scenography stirs towards Caesar’s assassination. His entrance in the senate is marked by a set invaded by the colour of mourning: black and purple togas, screens and walls. If the moment they stab Caesar is not particularly striking, Warner’s taste for crude violence re-emerges in the cannibalistic feast of the slaughtering Senators on Caesar’s dead body. They seem to scavenger the corpse which merciless treatment will be echoed in the cruel murder of Cinna, the poet, when a maddened crowd will gather on his innocent body. Cinna’s tortured body, whose mangled arms can still be seen after the fall of the curtain, forms the transition to the second part of the play, set in a war zone. The stage is further fragmented by the front curtain isolating the forestage occupied by Mark Antony, Octavius and Lepidus sentencing to death the conspiring senators. The main stage is seen behind the veil and is occupied by a lonely prostrated Brutus while the very back of the stage, free of the glass structure, shows indistinct soldier figures. Now, we have entered the problematic theatre of war. The cast, in desert camouflage uniforms, negotiates around a war-cabinet table and finally goes to war. The stage is a dark barren space saturated with computerised, non-figurative images projected on the back walls and heavy-metal music achingly blasting whenever they come to fight. The references to current warfare are impossible to avoid: the uniforms, the weapons, the bombing — embodied by the fall of domestic débris from the ceiling — the music, the questioning of human wastage. The visual and aural saturation makes the audience uneasy and brings more confusion. It naturally leads to the conspirators’ appetite for self-destruction. The serial suicides of Cassius and Brutus and their companions are seen less as Caesar’s ghost’s curse than as a consequence of the absolute insanity of the conflict. The only remaining calm but chilling presence is that of Mark Antony, nonchalant walking about the stage lazily smoking a cigarette while holding a revolver. His laid-back but tough aura is already contrasted with the rising power of an inexperienced but frighteningly cold Octavius. The chaotic portrayal of those ruthless men is brought to its climax after the suicide of Brutus. The tribute of Beethoven’s solemn music paid to the noble fellowship of the dead is brutally interrupted, leaving Mark Antony standing alone, contemplating Brutus’ corpse and his own end. The talented sobriety of the acting complements perfectly the material fashioning of the play. Fiennes’ Mark Antony is a man of few words who unleashes his power in the brilliant manipulation of the Roman mob. The crescendo of his voice, more and more fuelled by an ill-contained anger, turns the mutinous crowd into his revengeful instruments of justice. His standing on a wooden platform looking upon Caesar’s shrouded body strengthens the impression of a troubling role-playing. His cunning manipulation of Caesar’s purple toga shredded to pieces by the conspirators’ daggers is violently contrasted with the stained shroud enveloping the murdered corpse. The evolution of Mark Antony throughout the play matches his ever changing outfits. From the white pyjamas for the ritualistic triumph and the untidy suit of the careless politician to the mourning clothes of the faithful friend and ruthless avenger and the uniform of the campaigning soldier, Mark Antony is pictured as this striking visual landmark of a state hovering between its success and its frailties. Simon Russell Beale’s contrapuntal Cassius is the perfect foil to Fiennes’ toned Mark Antony. Beale’s scruffy academic look enhances the banality of this character lost in a sea of men in suits. Beale’s fake triviality and improbable physique for the part are soon erased by a powerful delivery reminiscent of his performance of Hamlet for the National Theatre. His first embittered monologue and his crafty manipulation of Brutus are tinged with sufficient ambivalence to coax the audience into understanding his cause. Throughout the play, he is the bad conscience of a frail, lean, sleepless and guilt-ridden Brutus. Beale’s convincing performance fits the duality of Warner’s modern interpretation. The audience strives to find a character to side with. Spectators end up being another versatile Roman crowd or the passive cynical voyeurs of ambitious men’s quarrels and aimless bloodsheds. The interpretation of the entire lead cast stresses the absence of a righteous ideology. Warner’s dark interpretation of the political agenda of Julius Caesar combines the Renaissance text on political unsteadiness and contemporary anxieties of a world in transition. There’s no room for a clear-cut legitimate ideology in this phoney orderly society of Warner’s Julius Caesar. And the only character liter53 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 ally embodying this decaying spectral utopia is the gangly, crippled body of Portia. Fiona Shaw’s emotional plea as the daughter of Cato suggests that the last noble man left in Rome is a dying woman. This cameo part of the impressive Shaw is the flesh and blood synthesis of the ills of Rome and the end of the violently innocent triumphant era. Like those cold opaque architectural buildings disturbing our sense of beauty, this production is a dark glass reflecting a chaotic past and revealing an anxious present. Nathalie Rivère de Carles * Twelfth Night, directed by Stephen Beresford for Tara Arts, Albery Theatre, London, 8 September 2004, front circle. T he lights go up on Twelfth Night at the Albery Theatre to the sound of a hard rain — which becomes visible upstage as the lights grow stronger — and sitar music. It immediately evokes the feeling of the monsoon season and I could almost imagine the humidity thick in the air. This Illyria had become modern India, and it was the setting that was perhaps the most intriguing part of the production. The set was dominated downstage by a representation of modern, cream-coloured tenement buildings — which were just derelict enough to cause one to wonder why the wealthy Olivia was living in them — and upstage was a layer of gravel over which occasionally a bicycle or a rickshaw passed in an effort to bring everyday Indian life on stage. In India the cycles would not pass one at a time, so what was missing from the Indian atmosphere was the sense of an overcrowded world with no room to move. In this setting, the characters inhabited a world that retained some vestiges of British colonialism. Sir Andrew Aguecheek (Paul Bazely) was a westernised man, dressed in tan slacks and cream shirt, who clearly does not fit in — Shakespeare’s version of The Jewel in the Crown’s Hari Kumar — as he seemingly tries to be a British Indian. Aguecheek’s line “I am a great eater of beef” only emphasized his estrangement from the Hindu society in which he lived. For his duel with Cesario, his compatriots had clearly dressed him for their own amusement as he was stripped down to his white vest, shorts, and awkwardly wore cricket pads to protect his shins — as if the greatest danger from Cesario would be his kicks, rather than the sword. The other misfit in this society is Malvolio, played touchingly by Paul Bhattacharjee. Upon reading the letter planted by Maria (Harvey Virdi), he breaks into a smile which is pleased but sheepish and accompanied by an involuntary shrugging of his shoulders — like a little schoolboy who has been granted his wish for the girl next door and is both excited and shyly embarrassed about his good fortune. He exits but returns to the stage after Maria and company have vacated it, just prior to the interval, bringing on his portable radio, the lights fading as he sits there beaming with happiness. It is a touching glimpse into Malvolio’s private world. In the final scene, as Fabian explains the plot against him, Malvolio’s features crumble as his little boy’s dream comes to naught. As he exits, he says softly, “I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you” (V.1.368) with his voice breaking with the effort of holding back his sobs. This Malvolio will be too heartbroken and ashamed to seek revenge. The musical Feste (Kulvinder Ghir) was transformed into a Baul singer, a Bengali traditional minstrel. There are two traditions of Baul travelling singers, and this Feste fits the type who has no fixed abode and is treated as an outcast in this society. Baul songs are mainly concerned with the problems of separation and unrequited love which fits perfectly with the themes of Twelfth Night. Feste’s place in this world of Illyria was to make the other characters as uncomfortable as possible, perhaps in an attempt to provoke them into pondering their own situations through music. Feste invaded the personal space of Aguecheek and Belch during “O mistress mine!” (II.3.37) to the point where they were cringing, desperate to be away. “Come away death” (II.4.50) was disturbing for characters and audience alike, as Feste covered his head with cloth, crouched on the ground while rocking back and forth, keening. It powerfully showed the mortal subject of the song. Viola (Shereen Martineau) and Olivia (Neha Dubey) were both very strong. Olivia was dressed luxuriously, the saree of her mourning period barely less ostentatious than the green and gold dress she sported to impress Viola. The two scenes which they have alone together deftly portrayed the shift in the power balance between them. They were not played for cheap laughs. In the first scene, the two were vying for control over the situation and while Olivia sternly rebuked Viola/Cesario early in the scene with “Have you any commission from your lord to negotiate with my face?” (I.5.221), making it clear that she is an aristocrat, neither gained complete control over the other. In their second meeting, it was clear that Olivia had lost power as she desperately flirted with Cesario. Olivia had clearly changed when she fell in love with the page and had thrown away her selfrespect, trying to fashion herself into something that would please her beloved’s eye. Orsino (Raza Jaffrey), by contrast, was rather weak. In the opening scene he was believably in the throes of an unrequited love, sitting in a chair, listening to his gramophone record and suffering real anguish over Olivia. However, the emotion was not sustained in the following scenes. Later he did not seem able to * 54 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 PLAY REVIEWS come to grips with the complexity of the role, giving no indication that he was truly in love with Viola, nor retaining the anguish felt about Olivia when actually confronting them both at the end. Overall this production was lucid, telling the story clearly. The language lent itself quite easily to the Indian rhythms of speech — although Viola, Olivia and Orsino all spoke in upper class English, another remnant of the Raj. The setting proved once again that Shakespeare’s plays are malleable, giving a western audience a small window into Indian culture. Whether an Indian audience would react the same to this production when translated into Hindi is a question begged by this Twelfth Night. Jami Rogers 55 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 Chichester, Nottingham, Liverpool and Bristol Doctor Faustus, directed by Martin Duncan, Edward Kemp, Steven Pimlott and Dale Rooks, Minerva Theatre to Cathedral, Chichester, 20 September 2004, promenade. wiring and cables and, in its chaos, looked not dissimilar to the offices of many academic colleagues. Samuel West’s Faustus entered in jeans, a T-shirt and trainers over which he wore an academic gown and hood. This he immediately took off, suggestmagnificent achievement, this is the kind of ing some begrudging student who has just attendtheatre which deserves international touring; ed graduation ceremony for the benefit of his proud parents but who is clearly unimpressed by the idea of professorial prestige. He scooted his wheeled chair recklessly between the four poles of learning: divinity, law, medicine and philosophy, content and then rapidly discontent with each, kicking books and slamming them shut before opening and consulting his necromantic volume. He was clearly a scholar from a working-class background; there were no middle-class expectations about attending university, rather this was someone who had attended Wittenburg on his own merits and graduatFaustus, Chichester ed top of his year without Samuel West (Faustus) and Vicki McManus (Lucifer’s consort) losing his cockney accent but sadly, that which makes it memorable and sig- — one was reminded of the affectations of Nigel nificant also makes it impossible to move. With four Kennedy or Jamie Oliver both of whom assume a directors, seven professional actors, over one hun- now chic East End persona in order to defy class condred and thirty amateurs and the glorious setting of ventions! At “che serà, serà” (1.46), West chanted the Chichester’s eighteenth-century North Street, medi- line in the manner of a football hooligan: this was eval market cross and gothic cathedral and cloisters, a Faustus frustrated and affronted by the etiquette this Doctor Faustus was epic in both its ambitions and of High Table, by the fustiness of Oxford, Durham, its achievements. What made it even more exciting Aberdeen, the Red Brick or even the Plate Glass uniwas the shift from the mundane to the momentous versities. Later in the production, Steven Beard’s — from the banality of a studio theatre with strip eccentric 1930s Rector admonished him from a fulllighting and a linoleum floor to the arched magni- speed bicycle in billowing academic gown and mortude of Chichester’s medieval cathedral (in which, tar board — exactly personifying the stuffy traditions incidentally, Larkin’s “earl and countess lie in stone”, against which Faustus had set himself. This was a Larkin having confused Chichester with the nearby graduate of Luton or Derby who could see no way to Arundel and so having wrongly entitled his poem shirk his background in spite of his intellectual bril“An Arundel Tomb”). liance. In this way, his necromancy was as much one Faustus’s study was a room off a post-1992 uni- in the eye for the academic system as an expression versity corridor, slightly tatty with an office chair of a personal ambition. on wheels and a boring grey lino floor — no King’s The Good and Bad Angels (Matt Costain and College Cambridge here. The ceiling was festooned Stephen Ventura) sat among the audience, their with computer monitors, keyboards, television conflicting advice all the more effective for its bescreens, video recorders and similar “info. tech.” de- ing plainly delivered. Faustus never acknowledged tritus. All of this apparatus was interconnected by them directly and so they seemed to be speaking PHOTO COURTESY OF CLARE PARK A 56 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 PLAY REVIEWS PHOTO COURTESY OF CLARE PARK from inside his head. As the scholars discussed this was why the sight of Faustus drawing his own Faustus, we saw him ecstatically tracing a penta- blood from a hypodermic which Mephistopheles gram, hand on crotch and intoning his spells with a had given him was all the more shocking. As Faustus frenzied sexual intensity. Quite what this signified, held the syringe with one hand, the other being outI could not be sure but the effect was to make the stretched, he looked to Mephistopheles to assist him summoning of Mephistopheles disturbing and al- and withdraw the plunger. Mephistopheles backed most embarrassing in its fervidness. As the schol- away holding his hands in front of him as though ars exited and the lighting switched to a lurid red, to indicate squeamishness but clearly to signify that out leapt a devil (Vicki McManus) — on all fours in Faustus, who then had to employ his teeth on the scarlet, skin-tight costume with long tail and rubber plunger, was acting alone and of his own free will: this mask — so extending the uncomfortably erotic na- was a brilliant touch. As Faustus was beset by “Homo ture of the scene. Faustus’s immediate panic and re- fuge!” (5.81) there were hints of the hateful siege of quest for a more acceptable shape led to the re-entry contraries which were going to animate his final soof Mephistopheles in the guise of an urbane vicar in liloquies. In order to distract him, Mephistopheles black suit and dog collar. But (and this was genuinely presented him with a dance of devils and a Prospero frightening), in addition to the large and evil-looking gown. One final sardonic touch: Faustus was lauded silver skull on his ring, Michael Feast wore a pair of with a crown of thorns. red contact lenses which gave him a truly demonic We were then ushered from the Minerva studio appearance. Feast’s performance was one of the best to the cold evening of the vast car park immediately I have ever seen in any dramatic role. He was charm- outside. On the roof of the neighbouring main-house ing as the insouciant Faustus challenged him about theatre we saw a spectacular fire-eater. We processed the whereabouts of Heaven and Hell but his gentle as a group between two rows of cars, their headlights tone of explanation became a guttural roar at “Why, on and weird ambient noises coming from their stethis is HHHHHHHELL, nor am I out of it!” (3.78): reo systems. Between the cars, draped across their Faustus, like the audience, physically jumped at the bonnets or sitting on their roofs, were black clad devsavagery in his voice. Yet, in spite of the horror of ils hissing and haranguing us. As we passed down this devil, Faustus approached Mephistopheles and the North Street, we saw them, grasping at us from kissed him on the lips. Instantly recalling the kiss in the tops of phone boxes and pillar boxes, draped Gethsemane, this was also a continuation of the sex- across benches and leaping at us from shop fronts. ual subtext of temptation and thus looked forward to Inventively, groups of devils enacted the Seven the appearances of Lechery and Helen of Troy. Deadly Sins. Wrath was a group of post-pub louts The following scene (5), in which Faustus contracts throwing punches at each other, Gluttony smeared his soul in exfood around change for twentheir mouths, ty-four years of Covetousness Satanic power attempted to was ominous raid a cash mayet strangely chine on North achieved with Street. Sloth many of the clidraped themchés from the selves over the horror genre. pavement in Fundamental front of us while organ chords, Envy, trapped thunder and behind railflickering ings, grasped lights presaged and screamed the arrival of curses at us. At Mephistopheles one point, the who pushed the damned souls set apart and were tumbled Faustus, Chichester walked downthrough a Hell’s Samuel West (Faustus) and Vicki McManus (Lucifer’s consort) stage with an orMouth which dinary wooden had been erectand metal desk the like of which one can see in any ed across a shop front. In spite of their lacking the school or university office. His briefcase was perfect- intensity of the psychologically naturalistic scenes in ly ordinary and the paper-work was conducted in an the Minerva, these promenade scenes were true to atmosphere of disarming reasonableness. Perhaps the ribald public spectacle of Marlowe’s play. Doctor 57 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 Faustus is, as we tell our students every year, situated on the fault line between the spectacular drama of the Middle Ages and the emergent interiority of the early modern theatre. The scene with the Duke and Duchess of Vanholt and the mysterious appearance of the out of season grapes was enacted on a small square scaffold. Faustus, in white bow-tie and black tails, was an urbane and charming master of ceremonies. The Good and Bad Angel shouted advice from the balcony of a neighbouring hotel (this production had clearly taken some arranging). Lucifer and his consort (Kieran Hill and Vicki McManus) arrived in a topless sports car, she a gorgeous and sexually alluring presence, he an Italianate wide-boy in sunglasses, sharp suit and wielding a cane. From thence we were led to the Papal palace, groups of friars, nuns and cardinals flanking a tall umpire’s chair which served as Peter’s throne. The invisible Faustus, Mephistopheles and Lucifer strolled among them, throwing their food and spilling their communion wine while Lucifer’s consort sat in the papal throne, her fish-netted legs splayed and her cleavage very much on display, smiling down at the ensuing chaos. Next we processed to the medieval market cross to witness scenes of lechery, Faustus receiving a blow job from an assembled gaggle of devils! Throughout these proceedings one was struck by the contrast between the neo-classical harmony of North Street’s architecture and the pandemonium of the noise, violence, showers of victuals and jostling of the crowd as we avoided the clutches of the more enthusiastic devils. The effect was one of both exhilaration and humour. We will never re-experience the organised chaos of the pageant wagons or the intrusions of the Tudor interludes, but perhaps this was a tincture of that flavour. We arrived in the magnificent Cathedral Gardens as Faustus resurrected Alexander the Great and his Paramour for the entertainment of the Emperor and Empress. Brilliantly they arose from mock-ups of tombs exactly like the real ones adjacent to them so that, for a brief moment, their emerging limbs gave rise to a frisson of panic among the audience. Led inside the cloisters, we watched the Emperor’s banquet with guests seated behind a long table and eating and conversing in silence and in slow motion. Floodlit from the front, the blanched guests threw huge shadows on the gothic arches behind them. All costumes, utensils and props were white so that the effect was reminiscent of a bleached version of Leonardo’s Last Supper — strangely eerie and intriguing. The horse courser scenes were enacted by a commedia dell’arte troupe (Faustus was doubled at this point) with plenty of comic lazzi involving buckets of water, hay bails and crude sound effects. Unfortunately, although the intentions of this inset drama were clear and the addition of another genre should have caused no problems, commedia with its rapid improvisation and interplay with its audience is notoriously difficult to bring off and this episode was disappointing. While on the one hand, these were amateur performers, on the other the production’s directors should have been aware of the pitfalls of expecting so much from them. From here we processed to another part of the gardens to see the despondent Faustus slouched against a wall, his conscience squirming. He was distracted by the scholars who requested he summon up Helen of Troy so that they could see for themselves the erotic cause of Homer’s epic struggle. At Mephistopheles’s command she appeared aloft on the Cathedral roof. McManus (doubling this part with Lucifer’s consort) was costumed in billowing gold, her face masked, her gestures graceful. Dropping a handkerchief to the enraptured scholars she was gone as soon as she had appeared — a vision which was to remain with Faustus and cause him to request her reappearance for his sole delectation in the final scenes. The huge Gothic resplendence of the interior of the cathedral was an uncanny setting for the final scenes of spiritual agony. Faustus’s passion was enacted on a simple square dais just ‘downstage’ of the choir and immediately in front of the stone rood screen. As Steven Beard’s Old Gentleman attempted to win him back to the path of righteousness, he was assaulted by a group of devils who had crept up guilefully on him. The final speeches of the attendant Angels were delivered from the vertiginous clerestories above the Cathedral door. The Angels stood right up near the roof in front of the enormous double arch of the western stained glass window. As the Good Angel spoke about what could have been had Faustus listened to his advice — “behold / In what resplendent glory thou hadst sit…” (19.111) —the window was illuminated from without, so that the effect was of dramatic revelation: this was a magnificent coup de theatre. As the Bad Angel described Faustus’s future torments in Hell, we looked down from the clerestories to the glass doors behind us to see, in silhouette and lit in red light, devils spitting and roasting damned souls: pure Bosch. But the evening’s most disturbing moment came with the re-entrance of Mephistopheles. Stripped to the waist, with tattered black sleeves hanging from his wrists which at once recalled the academic gowns we had seen earlier and also stood in for the singed wings of a fallen angel, Feast’s Mephistopheles railed from the top of the rood screen at the stupidity and hopelessness of Fasutus. The echo around the Cathedral, the devilish red lighting, the potency of Feast’s acting, not to mention the force of Marlowe’s text, were enough to make this moment genuinely frightening and, in such a setting, peculiarly blasphemous. Against this Satanic fury, the final quiet desperation of West’s beautifully spoken Faustus (the cockney seemed to have evaporated) contrast- 58 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 PLAY REVIEWS ed brilliantly and, as the cathedral bell tolled midnight, the choir stalls were lit red and inevitably and ineluctably, Mephistopheles entered behind him. His seizure of Faustus’s soul was simply another kiss, looking back both to the reference to Gethsamane and the lines which had been addressed to Helen, “Her lips suck forth my soul” (18.102). The two of them expired and tumbled on top of one another, heaped onto the stage. At this moment the cathedral was plunged into darkness and ten or so speakers entered with candles to pronounce the epilogue. As they reached their last lines, they blew the candles out and we were left darkling and in total silence. This was magnificent theatre — an astonishingly impertinent and outrageous realisation of one of the period’s most disturbing plays. Marlowe would have loved it. Peter J. Smith * Hamlet, directed by Yukio Ninagawa, The Theatre Royal, Nottingham, 30 November 2004, centre stalls. T his new touring production of Hamlet, directed by Yukio Ninagawa with a largely Japanese design team, and starring Michael Maloney, offered a powerful reminder of the virtues of both the play and its relationship to theatrical space and spectacle. The overall design of the production and the well realised central performances — Bob Barrett as a thoughtful, engaging Horatio, Peter Egan who doubled a clear and charismatic Claudius with a somewhat histrionic Ghost, and quintessentially Maloney himself as the prince —are evidently driven by a clear vision of the play as an exploration of the alienation and redemption of the central protagonist. Set design and costumes combined to produce a visually arresting and eminently readable production. The set itself was a large black box, with two sets of tall double doors on each of its three walls providing ample avenues for entrance and exit and alcoves for courtiers to stand in during moments of high ceremony, but also allowing for a sense of intimacy, even claustrophobia when all of the doors were shut. Within this black space, changes of mood and tone were created by variations in costuming and lighting. Whole scenes were effectively colour coded. The soldiers on the battlements wore dark, dusty grey armour, resembling a cross between Lewis Carroll chess-pieces and traditional Japanese warriors. The Ghost itself was in full samurai costume with what looked like a Darth Vader mask pushed back over his head. For the indoor scenes, King, Queen and courtiers were dressed in rich crimson robes, the courtiers with scarlet scarves thrown around their necks like ruffs, while for their scenes together, Polonius, Laertes and Ophelia wore light silver grey, the father in long scholar’s robes, the son in travelling coat and slacks, the daughter in summer gown and short-sleeved jumper. Against these bold swathes of colour Hamlet’s “customary suits of solemn black” (I.2.78) (first a formal robe and then, for the “mad” scenes, a black blazer worn over a wide floor-length skirt) presented an effective contrast, suggesting an unresolved anomaly in the society of the court, literally matter out of place. Only on his return from the sea did he vary the theme, sporting a bright white shirt symbolic of his new resolution and clarity of purpose. The supporting roles were competently rather than eye-catchingly performed. Brendan O’Hea and Nick Bagnall’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (who first appeared in matching blue tank-tops, the latter sporting ultra-modern heavy-rimmed glasses and speaking with an incongruous Mancunian accent), were a little too broadly drawn, too obviously sketches rather than fully-realised characters, to work in a play world with little time for the kind of comic business that might have suited them better. Robert Demeger’s Polonius was better judged, a pedantic schoolmaster, anxious to win the approval of his male peers and superiors, but vindictive and openly aggressive when dealing with women. He slapped Ophelia (Laura Rees) when she seemed less than totally submissive, and even presumed to silence Gertrude (Frances Tomelty) when she tried to interrupt his account of Hamlet’s derangement. Tomelty’s Gertrude was well played, but the rôle was again somewhat underdeveloped, leaving it unclear as to her motivation at key moments in the play. At Claudius’ “I pray you go with me” (IV.5.219), she pointedly refused his outstretched hand, choosing to exit through a door stage-left rather than join him upstage, suggesting she had perhaps taken to heart Hamlet’s injunctions to avoid his uncle-father’s company. Yet, two scenes later, when her husband again offered her his hand at “Therefore let’s follow” (IV.7.169), she not only took it but wrapped her arm around his waist, leaning her head on his shoulder as they exited in each other’s arms. The implied contradiction was neither pursued nor resolved, although the look of both shock and disbelief on her face in the final scene as she realised that the drink had been poisoned, perhaps suggested that until then she had not taken her son’s accusations too seriously. Her direction of a derisive “He’s fat and scant of breath!” (V.2.239), not at Hamlet but Laertes in mockery of his poor performance, as her son took a comfortable three-nil lead in the fencing match, was, however, one of the funniest moments of the night, an unexpected suggestion of both the degree to which family honour was at stake and the pleasure to be gained by spectators from the early stages of this usually sombrely staged confrontation. At the heart of the production, inevitably, was 59 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 Maloney’s superbly modulated performance as the prince. Unlike Toby Stephens, the lead in the current RSC production (see Cahiers Élisabéthains 66 [2004], 41-43), Maloney does not have youth on his side. Hence the addition of an auburn wig was needed to suggest the gap in years between himself and Gertrude. But what he does have is a wealth of experience to bring to the rôle; and how it showed! He established an instant rapport with the audience, emerging from the wings, a single black-clad figure amid a sea of crimson, to deliver his first line, “A little more than kin, and less than kind” (I.2.65). And thereafter he maintained, seemingly effortlessly, a close relationship with the spectators throughout what was a master-class in dramatic timing and verse-speaking. Emblematic of the performance was the moment when, at “I have heard / That guilty creatures sitting at a play / Have by the very cunning of the scene / Been struck...” (II.2.577-80), he leaned up, rested his hand on the front of one of the stage-side boxes, and peered out to deliver the lines at the spectators in the first circle, an eyebrow raised in quizzical invitation, tacitly daring them to say it was not so. He then turned to the front stalls to confide in us that “I’ll have these players / Play something like the murder of my father” (582-83), an idea that he seemed to imply might have been lost on those in the upper seats. The great soliloquies were treated with similar subtlety, mixing frenetic rage with moments of delicately poised intimacy. At the exit of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern following II.2.536, he closed the upstage doors with a flourish, and, as the dust settled in the spotlight around him, turned to face the audience with an emphatic half-whispered “Now I am alone”. With a shrug he threw the book in which he had seemingly been so engrossed during his exchanges with Polonius high into the air, watching its pages scatter across the stage. Now at last, the gesture suggested, he could lay aside his antic disposition and share his real thoughts with the audience. Stepping to the very edge of the stage he delivered “O what a rogue and peasant slave am I...” (II.2.538 and following) with a steadily gathering rage, rising to a crescendo on “Bloody, bawdy villain! / Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!” (II.2.568-69), when he threw himself at the doors upstage and stage left, highkicking them open and battering his head and shoulders against them. Then, the fury subsiding at “O vengeance”, he returned to the edge of the stage, sat down, and with a shrug of almost resigned self-contempt delivered “Why, what an ass am I” (II.2.571) as a whisper. Similarly, “To be or not to be” was delivered with a hushed intimacy from the edge of the stage, a conversation between actor and an audience co-opted as like-minded friends, whose agreement to his propositions — “Who would these fardels bear...?” (III.1.77) — was implied by glances across the footlights and nods of acknowledgement. Maloney’s capacity to engage the audience fully in his thought processes and maintain their understanding of what he was doing meant that there were no lingering doubts that his madness was real. The implication was clear that it, like his cruelty towards Ophelia, was no easy thing for him to feign, but a necessary strategy for survival in a corrupt and dangerous world. As a clear and engaging reading of the narrative bequeathed to us by the play’s complex textual history, Ninagawa’s production worked triumphantly. The issues at stake were clear from the start, the performances well matched to the clarity of the direction. There were one or two odd omissions. In the closet scene the crucial lines in which Hamlet confronts his mother with her own guilt — “A bloody deed — almost as bad, good mother, / As kill a king and marry with his brother...” (III.4.29-30 and following) — were cut, leaving her collapse from self-righteous indignation into shattered self-reproach far less clearly motivated — a contributory factor, perhaps, towards the apparent ambivalence about her rôle mentioned earlier. Similarly, in the scene of preparation for The Murder of Gonzago, much of Hamlet’s advice concerning “tear[ing] a passion to tatters” and keeping the clowns in check (III.2.9 and following) was omitted. Given Maloney’s engaging relationship with the audience and theatre-space elsewhere, it was disappointing that this explicitly meta-theatrical moment was not made capitalised on. But such minor objections should not detract from an appreciation of this ambitious and almost completely realised vision of Dr Faustus, Liverpool Playhouse Above: Nicholas Tennant (Faustus), Samuel Collings (Good Angel) Opposite page: Jamie Bamber (Mephisto), Nicholas Tennant Photos courtesy of Stephen Vaughan 60 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 PLAY REVIEWS the play. Rarely has a production combined so compelling a performance from an actor at the height of his powers with such clarity of directorial vision and design. Greg Walker * Dr Faustus directed by Philip Wilson, Liverpool Playhouse, 12 February 2005, front stalls. F ull bookcases stretched from floor to ceiling on three sides of the stage in Philip Wilson’s production of Dr Faustus at Liverpool Playhouse. Mike Britton’s impressive set integrated a central entrance on each wall which focussed attention upon the symmetry of the design. The hatching pattern on the wooden doors seemed evocative of a confessional screen. The predominance of wood emphasised the ecclesial atmosphere. The height of the set was emphasised with ladders on either side of the stage. Despite this, however, there was a strong sense of claustrophobia. A librarian (Alan Barnes) hissed “Shhh” to quieten Faustus (Nicholas Tennant) during his opening soliloquy. Wagner (Michael Brown) was also present at the beginning, reading at the same table as Faustus, and he continued working, oblivious to the latter’s debate: Wagner’s (and the Librarian’s) presence paradoxically enhanced Faustus’s isolation. Nicolas Tennant is not a tall actor, so although the stage space was sparsely furnished, the heavy library tables and chairs did have an oppressive effect. Valdes and Cornelius (Simon Harrison and Daniel Osgerby) both towered over Faustus. For their first appearance, they wore academic gowns, which increased their size and also contrasted with Faustus’s brown tweed suit, his unbuttoned shirt and loosened tie. Some similarity in his appearance to Frank (the Liverpudlian academic in Willy Russell’s Educating Rita) was also suggested by Nicholas Tennant’s prosaic and at times painstaking articulation of Faustus’s Latin. This, combined with his unprepossessing appearance, ensured that Faustus seemed more Everyman than tragic hero. His muted and conversational tone contrasted with the clipped and often forceful verse of Mephistopheles (Jamie Bamber). The text used was the A-text and fairly heavy cutting (Philip Wilson acknowledged in the programme the loss of about 160 lines) meant that the piece was played without an interval. The small cast of eight meant much doubling for all but Faustus and Mephistopheles. This technique underlined the play’s hierarchy of characters. The sense of Faustus and Mephistopheles using those around them was intensified by the changing rôles. Symbolic costuming was evident in the white and black gowns worn by the Good and the Bad Angel (played by Samuel Collings and Daniel Settatree) respectively. The contrast was marked by the fact that both wore huge wings. These ensured that they moved very little 61 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 and so their first scene (entering from opposite sides) underlined both the symmetry of the staging and the heaviness of Faustus’s known world. It is appropriate that the notion of a good and bad side of the stage was subverted by Mephistopheles (wearing a tailored suit with an orange lining and red trainers), who occupied the Good Angel’s side for most of his initial, persuasive dialogue with Faustus. There was a resonance in Mephistopheles’s reference to “each other’s spheres” (6.40) which was spoken just before he broke the established duality by moving to stand close to Faustus. Mephistopheles’s influence was shown on a basic level when Faustus demonstrated his liberation by, immediately after the pact, rearranging the solid wooden library tables. The lithely agile Mephistopheles had encouraged a subversion of the environment by standing and lying on the furniture in his first scene. His athleticism increased the contrast with the stolid advice of both the Good and the Bad Angel. The physicality of Mephistopheles’s performance prompted an unpredictable dynamic with Faustus. There was a sexual frisson to which Faustus seemed drawn and which Mephistopheles utilised. The allmale cast helped highlight this. Lechery (Michael Brown) made an overt sexual approach to Faustus and unnerved him. All Seven Sins were dressed in the same brown suit as Faustus; attention was focused here upon the production’s overarching notion of the events in the play as an extension of Faustus’s mind. The opening had established this idea with the prologue being spoken by disembodied voices. Both Faustus and Wagner were on stage, but only Faustus could hear and react to those voices. When Mephistopheles later conjured up spirits for Faustus, a light shone on Faustus’s face and the audience saw shadows moving across it and heard noises. The ethereal presence of Mephistopheles was enhanced by him not carrying any properties himself. The “fire” (5.63) which he used to liquify Faustus’s blood was a cigarette lighter, which Mephistopheles deftly picked from Faustus’s jacket pocket and then returned. Mephistopheles’s “book” (5.169) was Mephistopheles himself. He stood centre stage with his arms outstretched and compelled Faustus to stand behind him with his arms slightly lower. The tableau they then created was reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci’s drawing “Vitruvian Man”. The animation of the picture demonstrated Mephistopheles’s commitment to action. The closing sequence was remarkably powerful. Faustus’s “I’ll burn my books” (19.190) was not the usual desperate promise but a commitment which was immediately fulfilled. He frantically created a pyre of his books from those surrounding him on the shelves, tables and floor. The fire was ignited by Faustus using his cigarette lighter. He was now in control of those items that Mephistopheles had manipulated (and become). The audience quickly became engulfed in smoke which eventually cleared. The solidity of the upstage bookshelves had dissolved into a piercingly bright blue cyclorama. Charred pieces of wood traced the outline of the structure of the library, silhouetted against the light. The focus, however, was just off centre where the wood had been burnt, leaving the shape of a crucifix. The established symmetry was broken and yet, here, perhaps was the clearest indication of a spiritual centre to the piece. Contradictions were juxtaposed but perhaps not resolved in the survival of an image which testified to both a rejection and an assertion of faith. Elinor Parsons * Twelfth Night, directed by David Farr, Bristol Old Vic, 12 November 2004, rear stalls. “W hat country, friends, is this?” (I.2.1). Viola erupts from a pool of water. Wet, and seemingly cold, Nikki Amuka Bird begins David Farr’s production. Although the captain is standing next to Viola, and Orsino and his servants are present, it is the audience she addresses as “friends”. Her words hang in the air whilst Orsino (Charles Edwards) offers the text’s first lines and characterises what is clearly a separate location. It is, perhaps, fortunate that the audience is given time to frame a possible response to Viola’s question. The space for contemplation of Angela Davies’s elaborate set makes a straightforward response more difficult. High walls with detailed plasterwork would enclose the stage on three sides were it not for the large holes which are blasted through on either side. Scaffolding poles increase the sense of the structure’s fragility. We perceive a destroyed, rather than decayed, grandeur. Any instinct to situate this in a precise time period is discouraged by the suspension of a neon strip-light next to a chandelier. A television-set is visible among the bric-a-brac which busies both sides of the stage and it seems similarly incongruous. Illyria is seemingly very British (Curio’s hunting dress and Feste’s Irish accent reinforce this). A prompt to the audience to view the action through the “mists of time” is offered in the smoky haze which is present throughout the performance. It may only be later that the audience realise that the tableau at the beginning also included Olivia (Rakie Ayola). She is seated at the top of what appears to be a pile of precariously balanced chairs which lean against the centre of the back wall. She only draws attention to her veiled figure when she descends the furniture gracefully (which facilitates the long entrance needed for her first appearance). Her silent presence onstage is paralleled by Sebastian (Joseph 62 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 PLAY REVIEWS Kennedy), who the audience witness enter and then sleep on a make-shift mattress downstage right. His beige suit and neon orange shirt is matched by Viola as Cesario and identifies them as twins. Their contrast, however, in physical appearance and vocal dissimilarity does perhaps strain an audience’s ability to suspend their disbelief when Orsino comments: “One face, one voice …” (V.1.213). The casting choice means that much of the confusion between the twins provokes more bewilderment than amusement in the audience. The humour does become hard-worked and often seems separate from the text itself. Sir Toby (Jimmy Yuill) splashes in the pool of water when carousing with Sir Andrew (David Delve). Sir Toby’s Wellington boots had earlier concealed his alcohol. His humming of “Singing in the Rain” is predictable. A similar inevitability characterises Olivia’s fall forward into the water after propositioning Viola (as Cesario). She loses her dignity and also some credibility in the choreographed movement. Maria (Lindy Whiteford) shows a comparable lack of spontaneity. There is no sense of her having a pivotal rôle in this production. Dressing her as a maid compounds the denial of her significance within the play. Lindy Whiteford’s flowery overall makes Viola’s inability to identify “the lady of the house” (I.5.173) confusing. The relationship the audience witness between Maria and Sir Toby Belch is goodhumoured but not intimate. Jimmy Yuill isolates himself partly through his interest in photography. The black and white photographs decorating the set increase the impact of his hobby. A potential superficiality in his relationship with Feste (Ian Lindsay) and Sir Andrew is indicated when he takes a group photograph to secure the alliance: “Three merry men be we” (II.3.75). He also shows a voyeuristic delight in taking photos of Malvolio when he is cross-gartered. The shift in fortunes for Sir Toby after his wounding encounter with Sebastian is reinforced by Fabian producing the camera to record the humiliation. Laughter, however, rather than sympathy is provoked. Similarly, the turn of fortunes for Malvolio is dealt with light-heartedly. Malvolio is imprisoned in a piano (it had provided the sweet music at the beginning). The audience is encouraged to find his confinement in “hideous darkness” (IV.2.30) more comic than disturbing. The emphasis here is consistent with the humour that is generated later by Mark Lockyer’s petulant delivery of “I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you” (V.1.375). An uneasy resolution is indicated, however, after Feste’s closing song. Ian Lindsay’s flat tone and inclination towards speech rather than song contrasts with the upbeat tune which comes from his radio. A tableau is constructed at the end with Sir Andrew, Antonio and Malvolio entering severally from stage right. On the opposite side of the stage the newly made couples form a celebratory group. Feste is in the middle. There had been a similar symmetry earlier when on either side of the stage Orsino and Olivia kissed Viola and Sebastian respectively. This had the effect of making the embraces seem more forced than spontaneous. At the end, therefore, the audience is unlikely to be allied in feelings with any of the characters. The overwhelming impression is that we have only been superficial acquaintances with everybody that we met in this Illyria. Elinor Parsons * The Tempest, directed by Richard Baron, Nottingham Playhouse, 2 November 2004, centre stalls. The Tempest is a notoriously challenging play to stage. Its potentially disorienting mixture of stately masques and spectacle with domestic scenes of great intimacy and some of Shakespeare’s most direct discussions of Renaissance power politics, coupled with unrelenting focus on Prospero as the central protagonist, stage-manager, and deus ex machina, call for a very clear vision on the part of a director if a production is to succeed. The best Tempests have thus often been those that have imposed the clearest reading on the play, taking liberties with the text where necessary to create a distinct and memorable theatrical experience. Richard Baron’s competent, colourful new production for the Nottingham Playhouse Theatre Company, while being entirely workmanlike and explicable in its own terms, failed to grasp this nettle, suffering from an over-reverential approach to both text and narrative that left the play rather less than the sum of its parts. It was not that any of the performances, or any of the directorial choices themselves were necessarily poor ones. Indeed, it is hard to say precisely what was lacking in the production, but demonstrably on the night that I attended, something was. Perhaps it was just teething trouble. Only three days into the run, the timing of many of the exchanges, especially those between Caliban (Michael Melia), Trinculo and Stephano (played as a pair of Glaswegian drunks by Graham Crammond and Rod Matthew respectively, the former dressed, rather incongruously, in the oversized shoes and checked jacket of a circus clown) may have still been slightly off. Whatever the cause, a great deal of carefully choreographed comic business — as when Matthew circled around the blanket under which Melia and Crammond were performing complex variations of a pantomime horse and a game of “Twister”, trying to find an orifice into which he might thrust his bottle — raised little beyond an occasion ripple of dutiful laughter. Similarly the scenes between the courtiers were well acted, suggesting some very subtle readings of the various rôles, but the pacing was too leisurely, and the business too limited to engage the audience 63 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 when the text was not readily captivating for a modern audience. Here at least some judicious cuts might have moved things along more swiftly, removing lines that were superfluous to the points the production was seeking to stress. Much more could have been made of the tension suggested here between Gonzalo, Sebastian and Antonio. Gonzalo was played, slightly unusually by David Terence, as a rather shrewd as well as an honest counsellor, who could see through the intriguers’ schemes and was keeping a weather eye on them throughout the play. Dressed somewhat unnervingly as a kind of superannuated English provincial lordmayor in frock coat and chain, but with the wild white hair and facial expressions of Barrie Humphrey’s dissipated “Australian Cultural Attaché”, Sir Les Patterson, Terence brought a distinct critical edge to the role that it often lacks. More also could have been made of the relationship between Sebastian (who was doubled by Rod Matthew and played as a portly 1930s playboy in a white suit and circular shades) and the more serious intriguer, Antonio, played by Michael Mackenzie as a junta general bedecked with medals. Pericles, directed by Mary Zimmerman, The PHOTOS COURTESY OF ROBERT DAY The Tempest, Nottingham Playhouse Right: Matthew Bugg (Ariel), Clive Francis (Prospero) Below: Matthew Bugg (Ariel) Photos courtesy of Robert Day 64 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 PLAY REVIEWS The latter’s exasperation with Sebastian’s fecklessness was splendidly brought out when Alonso (Kern Falconer) and Gonzalo fell asleep. Rather than seize the opportunity to take his destiny into his own hands, Sebastian produced a spliff from his cigarette case and lay back to enjoy it. When he passed it on with a comradely smile, Antonio threw it abruptly into a rock-pool and began to lecture his slightly distracted ally on the realities of Machiavellian realpolitik. At the heart of any production, setting the tone for everything else, is, of course, Prospero. And here too the production revealed both its strengths and its limitations. Clive Francis’s magus was an avuncular beachcomber, wearing his homespun cotton trousers rolled, Prufrock-like, above the ankle and, when he was not shrouded in his magic robe, sporting reading glasses and what looked like a knitted waistcoat. It was hard not to like him, but equally hard to imagine him raising the dead or anyone taking too seriously his threat to cleave Ariel in an oak. His moments of anger were brief outbursts of exasperation rather than signs of any deeper malice or suggestions that he had delved deeper into the realms of magic than was good for him. Hence some of the darker textures of the rôle — and some of the more interesting complexities to the play — were lost. There was no hint here, for example, of any of the interest in postcolonial politics that has dominated scholarship on the play for the past two decades: Melia’s Caliban was a brutish savage pure and simple, a grumbling, howling creature out of his depth in human society who attracted little sympathy from audience or other characters alike. Nor did Francis’s Prospero gesture towards any wider themes, whether imperialist politics or the associations of the magus with the playwright himself. Here was a straightforward father figure who was working out the best way to secure a safe return to Milan for himself and his daughter (played by Eilidh Macdonald) and a good marriage for the latter into the bargain. That he had magical spirits at his command and apparatus that gave him access to the innermost secrets of the universe was rather by the bye: a feature of island life (like the ability to carve rather fetching lookout posts from local wood) that would readily be discarded when his work was done. What the production offered then, was a straightforward and rather reverential reading of the play that took few liberties with the text and did little to challenge conventional readings. Where it did allow itself a little innovation was in the depiction of the spirit world, represented here as a decidedly camp trio with a taste for crossdressing and cabaret. Matthew Bugg was an athletic Ariel, who brought a dancer’s poise to the task of slinking around the stage or flying in above it, as he variously enticed and terrified the courtiers with his incantations or the music of a violin. Adept at quick costume changes he appeared variously in a multi-coloured bodysuit crested with a flamboyant coxcomb, a 1930s one-piece swimming costume, and a winged harpy suit with skull headpiece and huge clawed feet. He was ably assisted by Jean Marc Perret (Spirit/Isis) and Danielle Young (Spirit/Juno), especially in the Masque of Juno and Ceres when all three emerged from the rear of the set in outrageous allegorical headgear (a rainbow, a sheaf of corn, and what looked like a gilded model of the solar system, respectively) like a tableau from the Sydney Gay Mardi Gras. The set, designed by Ken Harrison, was attractive and functional. A raised platform upstage, with pivoting sections represented both a space ‘above’ from which Prospero might observe action at stage level, and the rocking deck of the ship in the opening storm scene. The space under the platform was open to view, and provided a crawling chamber for Ariel to traverse to eavesdrop on the courtiers and doubled as Caliban’s cell. Downstage the wooden floor gave way to a shoreline of sculpted rock formations and pools of water in which characters paddled. It was over this barrier between the stage and auditorium, the island and the wider world, that Ariel clambered to exit through the auditorium when Prospero gave him his freedom at the end of the play. He went, not with a curse, spitting in the face of his erstwhile master as Simon Russell-Beale memorably had in the RSC production of 1993 [reviewed by Angela Maguin in Cahiers 44 (1993), pp. 95-97], nor with an exultant leap of joy and look of gratitude, but with a quiet smile of satisfaction. It was a fitting end to this functional, understated production. He did not look back. Greg Walker 65 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 America Shakespeare Theatre, Washington D.C., 30 December 2004, rear of the stalls. D espite its awkward plot construction and critical condemnation as a corrupted text, Pericles on stage can sweep away all objections with the force of its once-upon-a-time. Tempests, knights vying for the hand of the fair princess, pirates, shipwrecks, and a miraculous recovery from death are just a few of its theatrical jewels. Mary Zimmerman has brought Pericles to the Shakespeare Theatre’s stage for the first time in its seventeen-year history, and I could not help feeling that she might have put a few more of those jewels on display. The production sparkled as bright but as coldly as a diamond. The Tony Award-winning director of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Zimmerman created some lovely stage pictures— Thaisa’s birthday party, all autumnal silks and harvest flowers; Pericles almost drowning in the long blue silk streamers representing the storm at sea; the silvery goddess Diana—but neglected the dramatic possibilities in other moments. I especially missed the knights’ tournament, which, though not explicit in the text, is an opportunity to showcase the actors’ stage combat skill. More problematic was the lack of aural clarity in several scenes; two of the Gower speeches were even set to music, and the singers did not help matters. Zimmerman seemed more interested in the visual magic, leaving the actors to try to tell the story as best they could. The production began swiftly, with Act I Scene 1, the lines of Gower’s opening speech divided among the cast as the play unfolded. Two ladies–in-waiting clad in black knelt upstage as the incestuous daughter entered, wearing a long crimson veil (a rather odd interpretation of Pericles’ description of her as “appareled like the spring”, I.1.13); they hid their faces in their hands as Antiochus kissed the girl. The production did not include any visualization of the dead suitors (Antiochus gestured out to the audience on “yon sometimes famous princes”, I.1.35), but the ladies’ movement hinted at the corruption in which his courtiers colluded. As a messenger dashed on to report Pericles’ flight, the action froze and the two ladies walked downstage to deliver the opening Gower speech. Sharing the role of Gower among the cast kept up the speed of the production—on the whole, pace was not one of its flaws (except for an unnecessarily long set change into Thaisa’s birthday party: a choreographed arrangement of tables, chairs, and bouquets that was almost as complicated-looking as the subsequent dance of the knights and ladies). Key performers were strong and clear. Ryan Artzberger, as the eponymous hero, was best in his moments of suffering, which seemed to shape his characterization. He began the play as a pleasant enough prince, but it took the trials of fortune to make the audience take a lasting interest in him. Colleen Delany was a graceful princess Thaisa; her sudden love for Pericles was one of the delights of the production, and her reported death in childbirth took audience members around me by surprise. Artzberger showed his skill in this scene, pouring out his grief over his wife’s body as the silk waves rippled softly around her. The imagery in his eulogy—“A terrible child-bed hast thou had, my dear, /No light, no fire” (III.1.56-57)—could have been more strongly reflected in the staging, however: the tempest was rather tamely presented, despite the description of the “dancing boat” and the baby’s “rudeliest welcome to the world” (III.1.13; 31). The production began with the sound of thunder and heavy rain, but there was none in this scene. The beauty of the moment that followed made up for that lack, though: the “sea” stilled as Pericles laid Thaisa’s body on one of the silk streamers, a sailor draped its end over her, and another pulled her offstage as if she were borne away by the waves. This script offers many excellent roles, and the Shakespeare Theatre cast was impressive. Particularly memorable was Richard Pelzman as King Simonides; he provided many of the lighter moments of the evening, whipping on a cone-shaped party hat as he resolved to “awake [Pericles] from his melancholy” (II.3.86) and dancing with glee as he plotted to bring his daughter and Pericles together. One wished that Shakespeare had written more scenes for this jolly man — or that Zimmerman had doubled him with another character, as this play can afford some particularly fruitful doubling. Michelle Shupe excelled as the radiant goddess Diana and the wicked Queen Dionyza, and so did Naomi Jacobson as the kindly Lychorida and a hilariously nasty Bawd; while Floyd King showed his range with the First Fisherman (his comic timing was impeccable) and the Pander, quite the most menacing of the brothel crew. Zimmerman was less fortunate in her Marina. Dressed in a costume that recalled Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and speaking in a high-pitched voice, Marguerite Stimpson looked and sounded like a little girl, which emphasized the seediness of the brothel but did little to establish her as a strong heroine. Marina carries much of the action in the second part of the play, and the seriousness of her trials parallels that of her father, but the staging seemed bent on downplaying any real threat to her life or virgin- 66 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 PLAY REVIEWS ity. Leonine’s attempted murder turned into a chase through a wheat field that went on for so long that I started to wonder what was keeping the pirates. More important, her victory over the lechers in the brothel seemed more a result of their ineptitude than her sterling goodness. The script for her scene with Lysimachus followed the Complete Oxford edition (with textual additions by George Wilkins—the Act V reunion of Thaisa and Pericles was likewise lengthened), which can make his reformation more dramatically credible, but turned his lines into lame excuses for his behaviour, rather than the epiphany that this moment should be. Marina’s warmth and compassion were rather lacking in Stimpson’s performance, though she showed more of these qualities in the crucial reunion scene with Pericles. Though Zimmerman and her cast found felicitous moments of comedy in the staging (Antiochus and Leonine delivered some of the Gower lines together wearing devil horns, as if they had become imps in hell) the de-emphasis of the serious marred potentially dramatic scenes. “Bad child, worse father, to entice his own /To evil” (Prologue 27-28) was strangely played for a laugh, diminishing the sense of threat to Pericles. The array of knights in Act II Scene 2—including an African warrior performing a dance that invited the audience’s laughter, and an armoured knight carrying a sword too heavy for him—did not offer Pericles much of a challenge; against competition like this, he was bound to win the tournament. Most disappointing, the final scenes of reunion failed to achieve fully the sense of wonder that the characters express. There are laugh lines in the script, to be sure — Pericles breaking off his frenzy of embraces to ask, “Who is this?” (V.1.214) on spotting Lysimachus’ unfamiliar face — but Artzberger simply sounded peevish. The laughter should accompany tears, both onstage and in the audience. The production’s coldness was largely due to the design. Dan Ostling’s set, with its high, grey walls and large windows accented by a plain metal-railing balcony and one wall comprised of drawers and cupboards, evoked a forbidding institution, not the flexible every-place this play might require. Actors pulled pieces of fabric out of drawers and carried ship models on sticks , and the pirates made a memorable entrance out of a cupboard. Excellent productions of this play have been performed on an essentially bare stage, but here the scanty scenery was lost in the austerity of the set. A pile of sand on a blanket represented Tarsus, with Cleon and Dionyza accompanied by a lone famine victim, but in general the groupings of furniture in the middle of the huge empty room contributed little. Bringing this play to life requires warmth of spirit from its actors and directors, and perhaps a leap of faith: with its comparatively slight production history, there is less of that familiar certainty that all will come out right. When it does (both as a play and as a production) it can move the audience to tears. The production was extremely well received, so the Washington audiences must have taken that leap of faith and savoured the visual feast, but to this viewer, a more emotional telling of the old tale would have been more satisfying. Note: All line references are from the New Cambridge edition, Doreen DelVecchio and Antony Hammond, eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Kelly Newman * Richard III, directed by Benjamin Evett for Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Old South Meeting House, Boston, MA, 30 October 2004, front stalls. B oston’s historical Old South Meeting House — from which the colonists began the Boston Tea Party — was the unique backdrop for a different type of revolutionary politics, as the Actors’ Shakespeare Project chronicled Shakespeare’s Richard III and his rise to power. The auditorium comprised the white pews and the space underneath the pulpit doubled as a stage. The audience was introduced to Richard before curtain-up, dressed in a dark business suit with a grey tie, leaning against one of the cream pillars supporting the pulpit. He looked more like the stereotype of a brooding Hamlet than the wizened hunchback. He appeared distinctly anti-social as piano music played, and characters walked among the pews as though at a cocktail party and a uniformed servant offered the Bishop of Ely’s strawberries to those who sat waiting for the play’s beginning. John Kuntz’s Richard began as a rather ordinary young man, clearly harbouring a grudge, but not the kind of venom that indicated the carnage to come. Despite the content of Richard’s opening soliloquy, his relationship with his brother Clarence (Allyn Burrows) at the beginning of Act I Scene 1 showed affection between the two as Richard clung to Clarence in farewell and Clarence knuckle-rubbed Richard’s head in a big-brother token of affection. This was possible because Kuntz did not signal to the audience that Richard was play-acting, nor did he play him as a comedic star turn in the first half. Each phrase Richard uttered was said in complete earnestness, whether he was speaking to his family, his political rivals, or the audience. In his early scenes, he seemed affable and charming, so much so that the young Princess Elizabeth (Maureen Regan), an addition to the text, in schoolgirl’s uniform, gazed at him in admiration. The first indication of Richard’s underlying menace came on his meeting with the two princes. The young Duke of York, showing childish curiosity, conversed warmly with his uncle while 67 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 Pericles, Shakespeare Theatre, Washington Ryan Artzberger (Pericles), Michelle Shupe (Diana), Jonathan Wiener (ensemble member) Photo courtesy of Richard Termine Richard III, Old South Meeting House, Boston Carlos Rojas (York), John Kuntz (Richard) Photo courtesy of Kippy Goldfarb 68 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 PLAY REVIEWS he unconsciously explored the fingers of Richard’s “blasted sapling”. When Richard could stand York’s touch no longer, he suddenly lashed out and slapped the child’s fingers hard. From that moment, Richard’s ruthlessness was laid bare for the audience. The rest of Benjamin Evett’s staging was equally thoughtful in its portrayal of the play’s power politics. Richard’s crony Buckingham (Marya Lowry), played here as a woman, had seemed loyal to Edward IV and his family, yet when she spied her chance for advancement she stated to Richard, “My lord, whoever journeys to the Prince,/For God sake let not us two stay at home “ (II.2.146-47). Richard quietly summed her up, appraising the idea and the package from whence it came, until he exclaimed “My other self” (II.2.151), signaling their new political alliance. In a clever bit of stage business at the beginning of Act III Scene 5, the Mayor of London (Paula Langton) entered and was greeted by Richard and Buckingham. Just after the initial welcome, the lights in the auditorium went suddenly black, as though the group had come under attack. Catesby (Allyn Burrows) shielded the Lord Mayor who was clearly frightened. Ratcliffe (Michael F. Walker) then entered and dropped the head of Hastings on the ground with a loud thud as the lights came back up. The Lord Mayor was completely speechless, clearly torn between knowing that the coup which had just taken place was criminal, yet afraid for her own head. This beautifully illustrated how Richard was able to come to power by using the simple tool of fear. Unfortunately, this well-defined sense of politics was missing in the reconciliation at Act II Scene 1. That scene did not make it clear how the factions felt about each other, although it did match in tone Kuntz’s early downplaying of Richard’s machiavellian tendencies. However, in this case, what was missing was not comic glee in Richard’s nastiness, but a sense of just how the fractious rifts within the royal family would leave a power vacuum into which Richard soon stepped. The most powerful performance came from Paula Plum’s cameo appearance as Queen Margaret. Inserting herself into Act I Scene 3, Margaret was dressed in a black cocktail dress from the thirties, which portrayed her as a creature from the past not engaged in the modern political world of the Yorks, who all wore contemporary business suits. Her asides were said directly to Richard, who ignored her at times, at others he stuck his fingers in his ears, and once spat a hateful “What?” (I.3.112) at her before completing his sentence railing at Queen Elizabeth (Jennie Israel). In her later scene, Margaret entered on “If sorrow can admit society” (IV.4.38), moving across the stage as a polite hostess would, making her guests feel welcome. Margaret clutched a ragged book and as she spoke the name of each of her enemies, she recalled their fates and crossed out their names, tearing at the paper with her pen. As she exited, Margaret dropped the book at the Queen’s feet, stating “And leave the burden of it all on thee” (IV.3.113), thus bequeathing the Queen her sorrows. This distinctive use of props and the contemporary business costumes allowed the production to mimic the machinations of today’s politicians and campaign officials, greedily seeking the world’s top job. The scene dominated by Queen Margaret also brilliantly showed how the loss of power not only affected Margaret, but also Queen Elizabeth and her daughter, as they were each reduced to sobbing at Margaret’s vengeful feet. Because Kuntz’s Richard was not a star turn, his portrayal made him all the more evil once he had cast off his affable veneer. His rise and fall was not that of a cheeky, loveable villain but of a man who chillingly stopped at nothing to gain power. Jami Rogers * Coriolanus, directed by Karin Coonrod for Theatre for a New Audience, Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College, New York City, 20 February 2005, front stalls. A high wall of wooden panels, lit to make them appear grey, made an artificial room within the proscenium arch stage. This stylized rendering of Theatre for a New Audience’s production of Coriolanus began with the cast ascending ladders that were placed deep within the orchestra pit, the entrance mimicking the wartime cliché of going “over the top”. This was the only time the ladders were used, but it was effective in its evocation of social upheaval and war. The cast then became anonymous citizens of Rome — clothed indistinguishably in costumes of similar cut, differing hues of grey, belonging to a nameless, timeless epoch — followed their leader, and began to chant “corn at our own price” (I.1.10‑11), which firmly established their actions as a hunger riot. Menenius (Jonathan Fried), who had entered as one of the crowd, separated himself on his entrance line, put on his spectacles and addressed the citizens in the soft tones of a well-spoken politician. To illustrate a point, as though in a classroom, Menenius drew the rotund figure of a man on the back wall—clarifying for the plebeians exactly what the “belly” and “the body’s members” (I.1.93-94) meant to them. Not to be outdone in artistic ability, the first citizen (unidentified in the programme) used the chalk to illustrate his own points within the ensuing argument. This use of graffiti was never more effective than in Act I Scene 1, clarifying the argument of what can be a tedious scene during performance, but it became a gimmick that was overused. At each scene change in the first half, an actor would announce to the au69 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 dience a scene number and name it with a phrase as the rest of the company wrote the caption on at least two of the walls: “Scene Two” (I.3, as I.1 and 1.2 were conflated into one segment) began with graffiti of “manifest housekeepers” (I.3.52-53) added to the walls. While it provided excellent clarification for an audience orientating itself to both the story and language at the beginning of the show, by the seventh “scene”, it was a tired device and distracting as the company did not cease writing the slogan (“the people are the city”, III.1.199) during “scene seven”. A much more effective technique was a stylised staging used often in the early sections of the production. The staging was reminiscent of acting exercises which try to isolate the meaning in difficult texts via movement. For instance, in Act I Scene 1 when Coriolanus (Christian Camargo) and Menenius began their exchange, the citizens remained frozen in place. Likewise, as Sicinius (Simeon Moore) and Brutus (Michael Rogers) began their dialogue with “Was ever man so proud as is this Martius?” (I.1.250), it was Coriolanus and his party who froze, enabling the two tribunes to circle around the stationery figures in a menacing way, making the characters’ opinion of Coriolanus crystal clear to the audience. This stylisation, while abandoning Shakespeare’s crowd scenes, isolated the motives of key characters which are often lost when played with a traditionally large cast. This illuminative effect was also employed in Act I Scene 4, when Coriolanus, instead of exiting to enter Corioles, was immobilized centre-stage as his soldiers discussed his foolhardiness at entering the city alone (I.4.46-63). The soldiers’ admiration of Coriolanus was clear, which is difficult to achieve within a traditional staging of the chaos of war. The portrayal of Coriolanus was much enhanced by these theatricalities. His ability to rally his troops was also perceptible when he exhorted “Those are they / That are most willing” (I.6.66-67) to follow him. Camargo’s characterization here showed quite clearly Coriolanus’ self-assurance and his faith that only those troops committed to winning would be those that followed him. By believing in himself, he enabled his troops to believe in him in return. Though the language and situations are different, the effect onstage in Act I Scene 6 was of a King Harry stirring up the troops for St. Crispin’s Day. This Coriolanus also displayed what I interpreted to be true modesty. He was uncomfortable when praised and, when given the honorific title “Caius Martius Coriolanus”, he smiled wryly and said “I will go wash” (I.9.66). The staging of the beginning of Act II Scene 2 emphasized his discomfort, as he was placed in a chair downstage centre, lit by a spotlight, with the senators upstage right seated behind a table and the tribunes upstage left seated unceremoniously on a bench, each group arguing over the merits of naming Coriolanus Consul. The focus here was on Coriolanus’ shifting uncomfortably in his seat. Despite his modesty, this Coriolanus’ downfall was caused by his inability to solve his problems by any method other than violence. When confronting the tribunes in Act III Scene 1, Menenius and Cominius (Ezra Knight), the experienced politicians, tried to convince Coriolanus to broker a deal with the tribunes. Any chance of a political settlement was removed when Coriolanus’ instinctive reaction to Sicinius labeling him a “traitorous innovator” (III.1.174) was to grab the tribune violently by the throat. Volumnia (Roberta Maxwell) also tried to reason with her son (played here as no controlling force over him, merely another voice trying to temper his excesses), to no avail—violence remained his tool, as politics seemed unknown to him. Oddly, the stylisation which had enhanced the first half of the production completely disappeared in the second. After the interval, the production lost all momentum as scenes were played with actors statically speaking to one another. The staging became dull and the scenes lacked the clarity which had worked well in the first half. Therefore, Coriolanus’ meetings with both Aufidius (Teagle F. Bougere) and Volumnia were underplayed. Had more moments grown from the acting exercises which had served the first half so well, this Coriolanus could have had a second half to match its first. 70 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 Jami Rogers PLAY REVIEWS France: Lille, Orléans, Paris Juli Cèsar, directed and adapted by Àlex Rigola, translated into Catalan by Salvador Olia, French subtitles by Jérôme Hankins, Théâtre du Nord, Lille, 12 December 2003, front stalls. À lex Rigola belongs to that generation of young Spaniards (taken here to mean also Basques and Catalans) who have burst onto their country’s cultural scene with a mix of confident irreverence and experimentation that makes for both artistic creativity and thought-provoking reappropriation. After winning attention (and awards) for his Titus Andrònic in 2000, which was his first staging of Shakespeare, he has been widely acclaimed — and granted yet more awards — for his Juli Cèsar. Created in November 2002 for the prestigious Lliure Theatre in Barcelona, which Rigola directs, Juli Cèsar has been on a world tour that has taken in Lille, Toulouse, Palermo, Rome, Saint Petersburg and Caracas. The production is divided in two parts of unequal length, respectively entitled “Word” (Acts I-III) and “War” (Acts IV-V). This idea was adopted by Stuart Seide in his staging of Antony and Cleopatra (see Cahiers Élisabéthains 66 [2004], 68-69)1, which harmoniously rounded off the “Lille 2004” theatrical season, which was one of the major events that marked the French city’s year as European capital of culture. The setting of the play, “Roma”, is clearly indicated by black lettering on the left side of the backdrop. As politicians play on words to get their message across and to achieve their ends, there is an interesting play on these letters which confers structural unity to this production. By the beginning of the second part, the “R” and “M” have disappeared, leaving only the vowels “O” and “A” on the wall. The audience is left to wonder whether these stand for Octavius and Antony and whether Rigola is also subtly equating the two parts, “Word” and “War”, through their vowels. Before the play actually begins, the actors come onto the stage in turn, running on the spot so as to suggest the vanity of the human race for personal gain. The actors’ black and white underwear matches the off-white set design and modern black furniture, and it quickly gives way to black trousers and white business shirts. The only colours used in this production are black and white, with a touch of red for the long silk dress worn by a most dignified and generous Portia, played by Matilda Espluga, and also for the carpet used when Caesar makes his regal entry and the blood-stained shirts after his assassination. Caesar is the only character dressed in a black polo-neck jumper and black trousers. The stage is wide but not very deep, which allows for effective lateral choral movement. Eight black chairs and one small one, with their backs to the audience, are lined up on the stage. It becomes apparent to the spectators later on in the play that the small chair is for the thirteen-year-old boy who plays Octavius Caesar (Joel Roldàn), thus symbolically preserving the impression of an age difference between Caesar (younger than usual here than in most productions) and his successor, who later becomes the aptly named Augustus Caesar. The chairs are used in several ways during the production. In the Senate meeting scene at the Capitol presided over by the Roman general, they are placed around a long black table, evocative of a Board of Directors chaired by an MD, just before being dismissed from office. After the interval, placed haphazardly on the stage, the chairs convey a feeling of revolt and disorder and later on again, they are used as horses. At the very end of the play, they stand like stelae or statue plinths in honour of the dead Roman tyrant and the conspirators, reminiscent of Caesar’s (II.2.76) and Pompey’s (III.2.190-91) statues, from which streams of blood flow. Another notable element in this production is the very effective use of microphones to create a battlefield atmosphere. The main microphone symbolises the power of words as a political instrument and serves as a dagger for stabbing Caesar, sending out an ear-splitting explosion and ending in a shrill whine. Words can kill. As pointed out in a public discussion with the actors after the performance, an interesting parallel can be drawn between Cassius, Casca and Brutus trying to convince themselves and others to join the conspiracy to kill the Roman tyrant and George W. Bush, Tony Blair and José María Aznar trying to persuade their allies that it was necessary to send troops to Iraq. The second part of the production probes deeper into the political void left by an assassination. The conspirators, plunged into confusion and disarray, face civil war in Rome, in much the same way as the capture of the Iraqi dictator has left the country in chaos. This does not imply that these parallels were initially intended by the director, since the war in Iraq had not yet started when the play was first staged but it can be seen as a further example of history repeating itself. Ferran Carvajal is a fragile and supple, somewhat effeminate, Caesar. His acting has an ethereal quality about it which makes him seem almost physically unreal. The savage assassination of this lone, ghostly figure contrasts with the general impression that 71 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 he was somehow inaccessible and thus protected from the violence of the conspirators. The solidlybuilt Pere Arquillué is particularly impressive as Antony, especially in his funeral oration from the Forum rostrum before the plebeians as they sit on the theatre steps. He is also very moving in the scene where Antony holds the frail, bare and blood-soaked body of Caesar in his sturdy arms, in a scene that is suggestive of the Deposition of Christ by Joseph of Arimathea (III.1). Brutus, played by David Selvas, is convincing as the leader of the conspiracy and is ably assisted by an intriguing Cassius (Julio Manrique), although neither of them attain full tragic stature when they commit suicide at the end of Act 5. The black dog Gastón appears twice in the production, the first time, unleashed and vaguely evocative of the mythological Cerberus, the three-headed watchdog at the gates of hell, as a portent of Caesar’s impending death, and the second time as a guide-dog to Caesar, Brutus’s “evil spirit” (IV.3.281), during one of his ghostly apparitions and also perhaps as one of the “dogs of war” (III.1.273). As regards the music, Àlex Rigola and sound designer Igor Pinto have drawn on a wide range of musical genres, from Wagner’s The Valkyrie to The End by The Doors and also some of the trendiest Barcelonese techno music, with original lighting effects. When young Octavius Caesar is playing with his war toys in Act IV Scene 2, there is an obvious allusion to Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. The overall impression is of a resolutely modern and daring production which nevertheless always remains faithful to the essence of the play. With a well-balanced cast, Catalan director Àlex Rigola’s original and stimulating approach, which highlights some extremely uplifting moments, is like a breath of fresh air. 1. In that review, the first phase of the production was mistakenly called “World” instead of “Word”. s Vincent Roger * La Répétition des erreurs, directed and adapted by Marc Feld and Claude Duneton, Carré Saint Vincent, Scène Nationale d’Orléans, 3 March 2005, centre. T he performance of La Répétition des erreurs — an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors and Pascal Guignard’s philosophical text, La Raison — started as the audience was taking place in the large Pierre-Aimé Touchard Theatre. On the stage, a huge architectural skeleton representing a collapsed Mediterranean edifice supported by a scaffolding was being dusted while technicians, dressmakers and actors seemed to prepare the stage for the performance. You could hear someone hammering offstage while costumes were being ironed and lighteffects checked… Suddenly, Bernard Menez (who played the Duke, Luce and Doctor Pinch), dressed as a contemporary stage-director, walked among the stalls and asked one of the usherettes whether the play could start. In bright light, he addressed the audience: “You are going to attend a run-through”, he said and added “despite a few trials and difficulties the show is almost ready. As a matter of fact there was a fire in the wings, which partly burnt the costumes and damaged the setting…” This, of course, was no improvised statement, but the prologue to a performance that would ostensibly illustrate the art of illusion. The set, which was purposely not finished, also included a huge screen on which images of Mediterranean harbours were cast. The views were supposed to recreate the atmosphere of Ephesus where the plot is set. Yet the film also proved to be half ready: the image sometimes showed excerpts of commercials, news items, and old films where actors were fencing. It even broadcast the interior of an actor’s dressing room where a pet dog was acting the fool! As a matter of fact the dog was to come onstage later on in the performance after having supposedly escaped from his kennel. So as to justify the intrusion of modern technology in an Elizabethan play, Bernard Menez explained that as Shakespeare’s verse are not always understandable, he had had to resort to some form of magic effects. “After all, he added, Shakespeare did encourage such technique,” and he quoted Prospero both in English and in French. To launch the plot of The Comedy of errors, the actors came on stage and put on their sixteenth-century costumes. This action reiterated the notion that the play was a “repetition” (the French word meaning “rehearsal”) as the title of the performance stated. Hence the first Shakespearean lines, translated by Claude Duneton, sounded approximate and were chaotically scanned. After Egeon’s long storytelling in Act I Scene 1, the performance shifted to a long monologue taken from Guignard’s Raison. The latter broke off the action on stage and led to another mental space, a more meditative one with its own language and meaning. La Raison tells the story of a philosopher wandering in ancient Rome while pondering on the “reason” that influences human action. In Feld’s adaptation, the text was uttered by Egeon (Jacques Denis), a character who does not appear much in Shakespeare’s play. It was a way to complete the portrait of both Antipholuses’ father, who as a doomed figure needed to meditate on the human’s fate. He intermittently intervened during the performance, guided by his gaoler and violinist (Richard Axon.) The plurality of voices due to the superimposition of texts was further echoed by the actor’s cues. Since some members of the cast were English-speaking, they sometimes told their lines in English. The 72 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 PLAY REVIEWS final lines of the abbess (Natasha Cashman) in Act V Scene 1 were told in English for instance; they were translated by the other characters onstage with much confusion and inaccuracy, which obviously conferred a comic tone to the end of the performance. Overall, Feld’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedy was rather lively and meant to be entertaining. To complete the mise en abyme of dramatic art, the performance encountered further difficulties: after an hour and a half, lights went out and the first row had to hold pocket-lamps and direct them to the stage so that the actors could go on “rehearsing”… Previously Dromio’s mind had gone blank, the iron curtain had suddenly fallen and Menez-director had confusedly apologized for the unexpected interval. What is more the unfinished set constantly reminded the audience of the artificiality of the world on stage: various parts of the ruin were sometimes gathered, lifted by a visible string wheeled onstage by a technician, but once vertically settled those Hellenic columns remained shaky, and the actors could not lean against them safely. To juxtapose the interior and exterior parts of Adriana’s house in Act III Scene 1, where some of the characters are supposed to have supper inside (Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse) while others (Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus, Angelo and Balthazar) are conversing outside and trying to enter the house in vain, the upper part of the scaffolding was partly concealed behind lace curtains. You could easily guess the characters’ silhouettes above and follow the talking below. This vertical interplay created a very dynamic bi-dimensional play, and recalled the balcony of the London Globe. It was also a trick to pretend there were two different actors to perform the two Antipholuses… but the final scene where all the cast was reunited disclosed the truth in that matter since one of the brothers was nothing but a broadcast image: a fake Antipholus, gigantic and remote; once again the illusion was, willingly, imperfectly rendered. To Marc Feld, “a play is a polyphony of materials that meet and are confronted to one another; […] as a consequence a play is always complex.” His adaptation showed this complexity because of the multiple doubles it encompassed: the original play’s doubles (the two pairs of twins), the textual doubles (Shakespeare’s play on the one hand, Guignard’s prose on the other), the double genres (drama and philosophy), the double language, the double worlds (real and theatrical), etc. It was perhaps too much in a single net. Some of the actors managed to switch back and forth between the different parts they had to perform and succeeded in inhabiting the two worlds (fictitious and mock-real, or Shakespearean and contemporary). Others were clumsy, hardly ever truly involved in the plot, and they scanned Shakespeare’s (translated) verse very oddly. It was hard to know at times whether this was intentional or not, since everyone seemed to play hide-and-sick with the different levels of reality. Moreover, though Guignard’s text was poetical, it tended to lengthen the development of the praxis and created confusion. It was difficult to relate the philosopher’s meditations to Shakespeare’s plot. Guignard’s speculations on human nature and the solemnity of his prose did counterpoise the comic tones of the Errors but it unfortunately missed the point: people had come to see a comedy first and foremost. Unless one chooses to see it as contributing to the maze of confusion in which Shakespeare likes to lose his audience; all in all, it certainly made for an amazing show where nobody could understand, see, and know who’s who and what’s what. Estelle Rivier * Les Joyeuses commères de Windsor, directed by JeanMarie Villégier and Jonathan Duverger, ATAO-Scène Nationale d’Orléans, 21 October 2004, rear stalls. O ne usually expects from a performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor to be entertained and allowed to indulge in good-humoured laughter. The characters, mainly Falstaff, all tend towards buffoonery and are endowed with grotesque features: Falstaff is often caricatured as an excessively self-confident paunchy clown; Bardolf, Pistoll, and Simple are his sly acolytes, though his punching bags too; Mistress Quickly is a farcical, cunning woman, whose function is to originate imbroglios. Skilful casting and directing can produce a delightful atmosphere of comedy. Regretfully, laughter proved shortlived in this production by Jean-Marie Villégier. The curtains opened onto what seemed to be a promising start. Bright colours dominated the scenographic design formed by three tiers of curtains that hung from wooden rails. A whitish platform contrasted with the rest of the huge stage, which was plunged in the dark. The first characters who entered the stage — Master Shallow (Alain Delanis), Page (Didier Niverd) and Slender (François Genty) — wore bright costumes that, combined with their manner, initially invited amusement: Master Shallow looked like a semi-demoniac, semi-Gallic crank whose malapropisms were rather hard to understand. His red and black garments and long white moustache created a funny effect when the protagonist desperately struggled to communicate, especially since his head nodded continually from right to left like that of a toy dog on the rear shelf of a car. Generally speaking, all the characters aroused laughter as they came on stage, and yet these humoristic assets soon lost their verve, so that the audience, sitting in comfortable 73 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 seats, either preferred to doze off or to leave during the interval. Falstaff (Jean-MarieVillégier himself) was indeed at the heart of foolish games, in keeping with the plot of the play, allegedly written at Queen Elisabeth’s bid, but he never gave rise to the audience’s connivance nor looked miserable enough to arouse their sympathy when he was finally ridiculed in the forest scene and mocked by everyone. Falstaff never seemed to be deeply enough in love to be loved indeed. Pistoll (Stéphane Jaouen) and Nym (Emmanuel Guillou), who were dressed up as Batman and Superman respectively, were initially delightful, but they soon became rather boring, especially when they kept laughing during Falstaff’s soliloquy in Act I Scene 3: the audience could not hear what was being said and missed part of Falstaff’s plans. Such redundancy of humour made for tediousness. Love should have been the central character of the play since it is at the core of the different plots. However no emphasis was laid on it. Even the cause of discord between the Pages (over Anne’s marriage) was almost silenced. What remained highlighted in the Pages and the Fords was that they were fools and poltroons, made to appear almost indistinguishable in behaviour and appearance. Mistresses Ford and Page (Karine Fellous and Agnès Proust) wore longsleeved black-silken gowns, were high-heeled and dark-haired, thus featuring rather sinister women — witches in a fairy-tale? — whose sensual movements and extravagant laughter (a cute oddity) suggested the two Siamese cats in Walt Disney’s Beauty and the Tramp. Page and Ford (Alain Trétout), wore cream-coloured suits and looked like a pair of dwarfish dogs next to their tall bossy wives. In a similar mirror effect, the doctors (Jean-Claude Fernandez and Emmanuel Guillou) resembled the well-known Thomson and Thompson of Tintin’s adventures. While some of Villégier’s deliberate references to the world of comics and TV cartoons were obvious enough — Fenton was dressed like Robin Hood and Shallow’s nephew (François Genty) like Peter Pan — others were puzzling: Anne Page, who was performed by an actor (Jonathan Duverger), might recall Mylène Farmer (an eccentric red-haired French singer) or a puppet waving her awkward mechanical arms while roller-skating on the stage… Villégier’s translation (published by Editions Espaces 34) was interspersed with well-known French lyrics (such as extracts from “Partenaire particulier”) and French political metaphors (including one which depreciatively compared the Educational system to a Mammoth needing to be slimmed down). They aroused knowing laughs from the groups of teenage students in the audience who were accompanied by their teachers — even though they and others who came to discover Shakespeare as an author capable of comic prose might have wondered whether they were indeed hearing Elizabethan theatre. In the programme Jean-Marie Villégier explained that he had opted for modern references to avoid the play sounding “incomprehensible” to a modern audience; he also alluded to the various levels of language that Shakespeare had multiplied in The Merry Wives. Because of their respective Welsh and French backgrounds, the parson and doctor are not at ease with English and make a lot of mistakes; Villégier chose archaic phrases to characterize their cues. Moreover in Shakespeare’s play most of the characters speech alternate between verse and rather colloquial prose: Falstaff sometimes parodies an epic style while Fenton speaks mostly in iambic pentameters, which Villégier chose to keep mostly in English. While the audience appreciated listening to “authentic” Shakespearian poetry, they wished they could understand what Fenton really said to Anne Page. Villégier seemed to consider it was not worth knowing… Others probably did. The female rôles were performed with a wellbalanced mixture of humour and sensuality. The host[ess] (Béatrix Meunier) was a tall blonde, dressed in glossy blue (with prominent breast and backside) and Mrs Quickly (Béatrix Meunier again), who never stopped going to and fro across the stage carrying a little bag, had a nasal voice and a hairdo and manner remindful of the French president’s wife’s — to the extent of setting aside her loose change, as the latter invites everyone to do every year to raise money for children in hospitals. The setting, with its arrangement of curtains, also made for rapid, flowing movement on stage. While a character stood in the foreground, another could tiptoe away through the pink curtain, disappear behind the blue one while another had had time to come from backstage through the yellow one (cf. drawing of the stage setting). These neat comings and goings brought liveliness to the performance and were reminiscent of a puppet theatre, for instance when heads suddenly popped out of holes artificially made between two curtains. The lighting effects were not sophisticated but they managed to lay focus on some scenes. The forest scene for instance was feebly lit. The stage was swathed in a mysterious haze as all the characters, astride horseheaded brooms and wearing long colourful sheets, messed around, mocking, booing and shouting at Falstaff. Overall the audience was plunged in a rather contemporary atmosphere which drew on the conventions of archetypal comedy and the world of cartoons and the media. This was not quite what this audience expected, perhaps, on attending a performance of a Shakespeare comedy, but the choice was potentially exciting — if only it had been consistently followed through. 74 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 * Estelle Rivier PLAY REVIEWS Coriolan, directed by Jean Boillot and Delphine Stoutz, translated by Laetitia Coussement and Olivier Chapuis, Théâtre Gérard Philippe, SaintDenis, 13 November 2004, central stalls. O n this rather gloomy and rainy Saturday at Saint-Denis in the suburbs of Paris, the audience entered the Theatre Gerard Philippe in an appropriately apprehensive mood. While Brecht considered Coriolanus as one of the greatest plays ever written by the Bard, it is still one of the least performed of all Shakespeare’s works. For Jean Boillot, the stage director, to produce this play does not mean to deliver a message. Neither did he want his production to stand as a model of truth enabling people to grasp the meaning of the play. His purpose was to create a polyphony of voices, whether they were historical, social or intimate. The scenography created by Laurence Villerot was a grey, black and white adjustable scaffolding, representing the tiers of a Roman arena. As the lights went on, the public could discover what was supposed to be a street in Rome where rioting citizens were supposed to be demonstrating — except that in Boillot’s production, the Roman plebe was performed by a single character, a small, slim and teenage-like actress (Anne Réjony) who gesticulated in front of a passive audience embodied by the other characters sitting on the tiers as well as by the “real” audience of the play. “I wished to produce Coriolanus because politics and drama are intimately linked in that play,” the stage-director said. “Its theme, that is the making of politics, corresponds to its working process, that is the dramatic performance. Shakespeare’s metaphor ‘all the world’s a stage’ becomes ‘the political world is a stage’ and vice versa. The forum is a stage and the stage is a forum.” (Jean Boillot, September 2004) Consequently the major part of the performance occurred on and around that important prop (which filled the scenic space almost entirely). Divided down the middle by narrow stairs, the scaffolding did not always aim at representing the forum. Some of its intermediate platforms could be lowered and reveal the “innards” of the prop, in which small alcoves had been furnished to become private lodgings, in particular those of Volumnia (Joséphine Derenne) and Virgilia (Isabelle Ronaynette). When Caius Marcius leaves Rome to fight against the Volscians (I.2), his wife Virgilia secludes herself in her tiny bedroom where she spends her time embroidering while her mother-in-law, Volumnia, goes to sit in hers, which is furnished with an armchair and a (stuffed) dog. The scaffolding and its inner thus juxtaposed all the protagonists on different vertical levels. The imposing architecture of the scaffolding also signalled the passage from one locus to another. Built on casters it could be driven to one corner of the stage platform or be shown sideways. For the market scene (II.3) it was set in profile, with the (one and only) citizen arranging his/her goods on it (a few coloured tee-shirts on which “the Plebe” was written, and two garlands made of geometric knick-knacks) when Coriolanus approaches. As a candidate for the Senate, he has to get the votes of the plebe, which means flattering them — in this case, the one and only citizen, which contributed to the comic mood of the scene in this production. The contextual incongruity — Coriolanus who scorns the people deplores having to play the hypocrite — was heightened by the deliberately anachronistic scenic image. Coriolanus (David Ayala), wearing his white Roman gown, looked somewhat ridiculous in this odd-looking environment which suggested the flea market at Barbès (a district of Paris), rather than at a fifth-century forum in Rome. Initially, the prop functioned well. It created an effect of surprise and enabled the actors to be active throughout the performance (even when they remained feebly lit in the background recesses.) In the end, though it became too overpowering and tended to lose its meaning. When banished Coriolanus signs an agreement with the Volscians (Ivan Mathis played the lieutenant), the scaffolding was pushed into a dark angle of the stage, as if it had become a burdensome, redundant macro-accessory. However the spare space left around the scaffolding, before it was wheeled away, also played an important part. It served as an exit passage towards the wings even though, following the Brechtian distancing mode, these were not hidden behind walls or curtains; the actors sat on chairs left on the stage sides and eventually changed their clothes, turning into Romans or Volscians as the case might be. One could say that they eventually lost their fictional dimension, appearing as human beings merely playing the parts of Shakespearean characters, but one might also consider the scaffolding as a leitmotif showing that, when no longer on the tiers, men partially lost their ascendancy over their brethrens and became humble: “the characters in Coriolanus,” Jean Boillot explained, “have no existence of their own when they are not taking part in the debate on their right to belong to the political body.” Symbolically, the loss of existence was expressed by the characters losing their dramatic functions when they ostensibly showed their common dimension, i.e. when they stood as normal men, even as members of the audience on the stage sides… Yet other interpretations of that intermediate space, in between two worlds — the fictional and the tangible — could be proposed. One may argue for example that it represented the base world, the people, since the latter could hardly climb the stairs except when they were encouraged to condemn Coriolanus, shouting “à la roche, à la roche!” (“to th’ rock to th’ rock with him!”III.3.79.) It could also be the transitory 75 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 space leading Coriolanus to his death, since he had to cross that area before being murdered in the final act. Those remarks remain suppositions which Jean Boillot’s following comments might clear away: “As soon as democracy has been invented, it becomes fragile: the Patricians don’t want to lose their privileges; the plebe is badly educated; the politicians don’t pay attention to the masses […]. Perversions are deeply anchored. Coriolanus is an incorruptible Patrician […] who thinks there is life elsewhere else, outside the political and corrupted Roman community. Yet his tragic death teaches him [and us] that History cannot exist without a dialogue which is called democracy.” As a result the space around the scaffolding could stand as this “elsewhere” where democracy had not yet taken root and where, in consequence, all individuals are exposed to the risk of death. Death was undoubtedly one of the main characters in Boillot’s production. Another huge prop intermittently intervened in the performance to remind the audience of that discomforting guest. Operated by a technician opposite prompt side, a white curtain made out of plastic and gauze was lowered into sight. An image was projected onto it to background sounds of crackling, splattering and running feet. First the white silhouette of a body was scanned and zoomed; a wound was then cut in one of its limbs and blood spread on the white curtain. Finally a black and white silent scene taken from contemporary news footage was broadcast: people were seen running in the streets (a coup d’Etat in Venezuela) but the image was blurred and you were never too sure of what really happened there and what it meant. The white silhouette lying on its right-hand side was the final image of the production just after Coriolanus’s death, reflecting the position of the Roman patrician who had died falling on his right-hand side. The screen functioned well for the battle scenes in Act I, scenes 7, 8, 9 and 10. Standing on the highest level of the scaffolding, Marcius and soldiers mimed the events from behind the curtain, speaking in microphones while another character addressed the public and commented their actions. A musician situated under the scaffolding created sound effects throughout the scenes: shouts, fanfare of bugles and trumpets, thunder and so forth. That was a climatic moment in the production since with very little means, it managed to recreate the atmosphere of a Peplum. David Ayala (Coriolanus), a stout and authoritarian man, uttered his lines in a solemn but hoarse voice; Pierre-Alain Chapuis (Menenius) and Josephine Derenne (Volumnia) offered a well-balanced and sensitive interpretation. Dressed in contemporary suits, the Romans (and mainly the tribune) were intended to appear more civilized, but also much weaker, than the Volscians, who were either half- dressed (their bare muscles showing their physical strength) or fur-coated and bloody-looking. Yet, by the end of the performance, the contrast was less obvious: colours only enabled the public to be aware of the passage from the Capitol to the Volscians’ camp : the colours of the ties Romans and Volscians wore by then were either grey or dark red. Because the code of colours was barely noticeable, it was inefficient and altered the contrast which had clearly opposed the two camps at first. However this sudden absence of limits between the two camps might be supposed to show that the enemies ended up being almost interchangeable. The translation and adaptation (by Laetitia Coussement and Olivier Chapuis) was harmonious and well served by the actors’ professional dictions. This new script brought out the modernity of the text which Jean Boillot had chosen to emphasize. When, in Act III Scene 2, Volumnia encourages her son to flatter the plebe, her words seem to describe contemporary politicians’ public relations strategies as she encourages her son to “speak to them with empty words and honeyed speeches” (“Parlez-leur avec des mots vides, des discours mielleux. Pourquoi ne pas user de la même stratégie en temps de guerre?” Her patronizing sense of superiority is heightened by Marcius’s infantilization, when he promises to go, pleading with her not to be scolded : “j’irai maman, mais je t’en prie, ne me gronde plus”. Let us note that the relationship between mother and son was ambivalent: kissing his mother’s lips, kneeling in front of her, uttering strange sounds (like a wounded bird’s) when he was scolded, Marcius lost his credibility in Volumnia’s presence. Brecht, who re-wrote the play, dismissed the ending for lack of evidence, as he saw it: Aufidius’s funeral oration was replaced by a meeting at the Senate where the order of the day was discussed, thus showing that life went on without any providential man. Just as Marcius had said early in the play that as “a stupid actor”, he remained “voiceless” (“comme un acteur stupide, je reste sans voix”), the audience, leaving the theatre Gérard Philippe, could say: “as a conventional viewer, I remain puzzled”…. But as free citizens, they certainly cherished their fortune secretly. Estelle Rivier * Troilus et Cressida, directed by Bernard Sobel and translated by Bernard Pautrat, Théâtre de Gennevilliers, Gennevilliers, 10 April 2005, front stall, centre. I t may seem a commonplace to say that Troilus and Cressida is as beautiful a text to hear as it is a hard play to stage. Because of the philosophical and poetic imagery the text holds, this play seems more a 76 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 PLAY REVIEWS matter of words than of action, and the challenge for the whole cast is to convey the meaning without the help of stage movement. Bernard Sobel did choose to concentrate on the characters’ voices, and whether it was Stefan Delon (Æneas), Gilles Masson (Ulysses), Brontis Jodorowsky (Hector) or Damien Witecka (Pandarus) to name but a few of the main actors, each of them had a clear and elegant diction. The performance opened with Thersites (Bernard Ferreira) wearing a contemporary beige raincoat and black trilby hat. He uttered the prologue in a very casual way, addressing the audience as a teacher may address his class, without any emphasis or stage business. After introducing the setting where the play is to take place, he showed what was hidden under his overcoat, a fake coat of arms, and said “and hither am I come,/A prologue arm’d but not in confidence/ Of author’s pen or actor’s voice, but suited/ In like conditions as our argument”(emphasis mine.) It was a subtle and immediate way to exhibit the artefact of drama, and to bridge the gap between the 21st century and Greek antiquity. The set consisted of five tall anthracite mirrors reaching up to the flies. Throughout the performance they revolved mechanically, indicating the passage from one camp to another. There were hardly any lighting effects: the stage remained half-lit most of the time. Because of the dark colour of the glass panels, the overall atmosphere was rather solemn and disquieting. The pattern on the actors’ dresses was reminiscent of the aesthetics chosen by Jean Vilar in the 1950s when the characters wore long black and white gowns covering matching overalls. The design was geometric: orange zigzagging lines for the Greek army and square-shaped lines for the Trojans. The Trojan pattern suggested a caduceus wrapping itself round the actor’s body, in keeping with Thersites reference to Mercury in II.3.9-11 : “O thou great thunder-darter of Olympus, […] lose all the serpentine craft of thy caduceus […]”. Yet, apart from the pattern on the actors’ costumes, the aesthetics did not attempt to plunge the audience into ancient days. There were scarce properties onstage (a tiny stool and, in Act III Scene 2, an apple to illustrate Pandarus’s garden) and hardly any heavy props brought in within the three-and-a-half-hour performance. So what did Bernard Sobel aim at highlighting in his production ? If we consider the programme we soon discover that he based his analysis on Jan Kott’s Shakespeare Our Contemporary which he quoted over two pages. In this play, buffoonery surprisingly swings both to a bitter philosophical reflection and to a tale of passion. According to Kott, heroes “want to chose in full awareness. They philosophise, but it is not an easy or apparent philosophy. Nor is it just rhetoric.” (p.62) Troilus and Cressida is as much a fight opposing two warlike enemies as a quarrel on the meaning of life and of love. Values are questioned and mainly the way in which man is able to survive in a cruel and topsy-turvy world. “Is this how men live ?” Sobel asked, “Theatre has always been one of the tools that man invented to break his isolation. […] Shakespeare moves me today because in such a defective play as Troilus and Cressida this painful question is not solved.” The characters’ long soliloquies require concentration on the part of the audience. Ulysses’s cues are particularly enthralling. The production gathered momentum after his meditation on the attitude of the mocking Greeks (I.3.142-210) who mimic their opponents. This is a crucial example of Shakespeare’s meta-theatrical discourse. From then on the meaning of the scenography seemed more obvious. The mirrors are an easy convention to set forth man’s fatuity and pride. Yet in a play where so many lines are devoted to vanity and the power of appearance, it eventually seemed appropriate. It is eyesight and hypocritical praise that shape things, thus creating mere illusions: man is not aware of the things he owns “till he behold them formed in the applause/ Where they’re extended; who, like an arch, reverberates the voice again […]” (III.1.119-21) In such a picture in which the characters’ debates do not lead to action, who are the true heroes? Jérémie Lippman and Chloé Réjon, who respectively played Troilus and Cressida, performed their parts with praiseworthy freshness and spontaneity. They took the opposite view to romantic leads’ love at first sight, and succeeded in giving a modern drive to their meetings. Their encounters never seemed stereotyped and even aroused surprise, drawing parallels with similar scenes written by Shakespeare. Cressida is as mean of her face as countess Olivia is in Twelfth Night for instance: “Come, draw this curtain, and let’s see your picture”, Pandarus says to his niece in Act III Scene 2, when her face is covered by a veil, echoing Olivia’s words, “we will draw the curtain and show you the picture” (I.5.237.) Likewise, Troilus and Cressida’s last (quite erotic) kiss in the same scene managed to exemplify an Elizabethan superstition, often hinted at by the bard (e.g. in Richard II, V.1), conceiving that lovers’ hearts passed through their open lips, either to seal a marriage oath or to serve as a token of faithfulness. Jérémie and Chloé’s kiss was so passionate that we could easily imagine that even their souls were being exchanged through their embrace. There was hardly any music in the performance, which dissociates this production from most of its highly orchestrated contemporaries. After the interval the red curtain was drawn and a remote soundtrack was heard, just as it is suggested in Shakespeare’s text (III.1.16.). Pandarus, Helen (also played by Chloé Réjon, who wore a mask so as to mark the difference with Cressida) and Paris appeared enveloped in white sheets that suggested their orgiastic or 77 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 at least leisurely existence. It once again drew a parallel with Sobel’s reading of Kott who emphasized the double entendre in the play : “Everybody knows that Helen is a whore, that the war is being fought over a cuckold and a hussy.” In the programme of the production, one of the headlines was a quote from Thersites: “All the argument is a whore and a cuckold” (II.3) thus setting forth one of the main directions led by the producer. Soon after, at Helen’s request, Pandarus sang a song. He was given a guitar by an anonymous arm appearing from the wings and started to play a very odd, discordant air. It obviously reflected the disordered context in which the historical events occurred. Disorder was also well illustrated by Cassandra’s madness. The character was performed by Camille Louis. The young actress’s shrill voice was striking : her confusing and resonant words seemed disincarnate. The public might have been frozen to the bone by such a ghostly intervention ! As a whole it was a production worth being attended if only for the actors’ ability to voice the complex textual message. W. H. Auden, whom Sobel also quoted in the programme, considered that in Shakespearean tragedy, man’s desire to be a god who can escape from his fate exists before man’s pride: heroes create a mad world because the desire at the source of their actions is hidden. In Troilus and Cressida the audience is shown the madness of a world which is also their own… It is true that Sobel enabled his audience to hear a modern text and to draw possible parallels with contemporary thoughts (especially through Ulysses’s or Pandarus’s speeches.) Yet the tempo of the production was too slow. Body language was static and conventional. The setting was cloisonné: it gave the illusion of an interior environment and never brought the audience metaphorically out into the open, where most of the praxis is to occur. People needed time to become involved in the context of the play, and it is a pity there were no scenographic movements that could have entertained an audience that expects not only to “hear a play” but also to “see a text.” Estelle Rivier * Un songe, une nuit d’été..., d’après Shakespeare, adaptation et traduction de Benoîte et Pauline Bureau, mise en scène de Pauline Bureau, au Théâtre du Ranelagh, Paris, le 5 janvier 2005. Q uinze élèves de la promotion 2004 du Conservatoire National Supérieur d’Art Dramatique ont fondé la compagnie La Part des Anges et présentent pour leur sortie leur propre version du Songe d’une nuit d’été. Pour Pauline Bureau, qui signe la traduction avec sa sœur Benoîte, angliciste, “le lutin est ma- léfique, les amoureux échangistes et la reine zoophile. Quelques sortilèges libèrent toutes les pulsions, criminelles, sexuelles, suicidaires, racistes. La nuit est un lieu où l’animalité s’exprime, où le temps est tissé de la matière des rêves, un lieu de tous les possibles, l’aube un retour à la conscience et au réel. Le jour, les pères sont tyranniques, la loi implacable et les inconscients cadenassés. La nuit libère le double fantasme de chacun. Thésée et Hippolyta se divinisent en Obéron et Titania, régnant sur la terre entière et ne dirigeant plus les actions des hommes mais leur âme. Les artisans s’habillent de cuir pour devenir des fées. La forêt est un gigantesque kaléidoscope de fantasmes, de désirs et de pulsions. Puck, seul à avoir un vision globale d’images morcelées, tire les ficelles de l’action avant de dévoiler celles du théâtre”. Virginie Destiné limite le palais de Thésée à une haute toile blanche: en haut à gauche une ouverture carrée est la fenêtre derrière laquelle parlent Hippolyta (Sonia Floire en robe blanche décolletée d’Alice Touvel) et Thésée (Gaëtan Vassart en cape de cuir beige), avant l’apparition d’Egée (Fabien de Chalvron) à une fenêtre analogue plus petite à droite, dominant au centre trois ouvertures hautes en guise de portes où Lysandre (Mikaël Chirnian) et Démétrius (Yann Burlot) en veste et pantalon noirs encadrent Hermia (Samantha Markowic en robe blanche courte). La grande Helena (Sarajeanne Drillaud en longue robe blanche) entre par la porte centrale, à la fin de cette scène, raccourcie et un peu terne. Après leur départ, Quince (Bryan Polach) vient devant la toile appeler d’une voix forte les autres artisans assis à côté du public: Bottom (le grand et fort Nicolas Chupin, à la voix tonitruante), Flute (le grand et mince Antony Roullier), Snout (Elya Birman ) se ruent tour à tour vers la scène et grimpent à une échelle derrière le rideau pour paraître au-dessus; ils sont rejoints par Starveling (Fabien de Chalvron ) et Snug (le petit Camille Garcia). La toile disparue, on voit dans l’ombre des troncs d’arbre évoquant la forêt: sur l’un d’eux grimpe Puck (Marie Nicolle) avant l’entrée d’Obéron et de Titania, Gaëtan Vassart et Sonia Floire gardant leur costume puisqu’il s’agirait donc des songes de Thésée et d’Hippolyte, dont la dispute est raccourcie. Puck et Obéron regardent passer Démétrius suivi d’Helena. Après leur sortie, Titania entre avec quatre fées en longue robe de cuir, doublons des artisans (Bryan Polach, Antony Roullier, Elya Birman, Fabien de Chalvron): s’ouvre la petite clairière très éclairée, jusqu’alors masquée par un rideau noir, le séjour de la reine des fées. La scène entre Lysandre et Hermia voit celle-ci repousser les enlacements de Lysandre sous le regard de Puck. Après leur sortie, les artisans commencent à répéter leur représentation du drame de Pyrame et Thisbé; Bottom parti revient avec une grosse tête d’âne, faisant vite fuir les autres artisans dont deux reviennent enlever quatre petits pliants 78 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 PLAY REVIEWS sur lesquels ceux qui ne jouaient pas regardaient répéter les autres. Dans la rencontre de Bottom et des fées, celles-ci parlent très peu, laissant l’essentiel à Titania qui emmène assez vite Bottom dans sa clairière où elle commence à l’enlacer tandis que tombe le petit rideau noir qui cachera leurs amours. Obéron et Puck Demetrius et Lysander, qui jouent à courtiser Helena sous le regard furieux d’Hermia avant que les quatre amoureux ne se placent aux quatre coins de la scène. Après le réveil de Titania découvrant qu’elle a dormi avec un âne, et sa réconciliation avec Oberon, leurs deux interprètes reviennent vite en Thésée et Hippolyte — sans Égée — pour emmener avec eux les deux couples d’amoureux réconstitués. Quince tire à la corde une rampe de théâtre d’ampoules électriques tandis que les autres artisans placent un cadre de scène entouré de lampes pour présenter Pyrame et Thisbé à Thésée et Hippolyta, assis d’un côté de la scène, et aux deux autres couples, assis de l’autre côté. Derrière le rideau du cadre de scène, on aperçoit Bottom et Flute qui se déshabillent pour jouer Pyrame et Thisbé tandis qu’Elya Birman apparaît, vêtu d’une toile percée, pour représenter le mur. Fabien de Chalvron tient une lanterne au bout d’un perche en guise de lune et le petit Camille Garcia en costume couleur de lion est affublé d’une petite tête de lion. Après la scène du mur, où Flûte/Thisbé porte une longue robe claire, il ôte sa robe pour n’être plus qu’en slip quand il a fui le lion: après avoir parlé à l’homme à la lanterne, Bottom/ Pyrame voit cette robe et après de grands gestes tire un poignard dont il finit par se frapper: Flûte/Thisbé revient, d’abord derrière le rideau, puis prend le poignard et s’en frappe, à demi caché par le rideau. Tous se relèvent et s’alignent sur la scène avant que Puck appelle le public à applaudir. Après un début un peu terne, la jeune troupe s’épanouit dans les scènes de la forêt. La plupart des comédiens semblent promis à un bon avenir. Guy Boquet * Comme il vous plaira, traduction de Xavier Maurel, mise en scène de William Mesguich, par le Théâtre de l’Etreinte au Théâtre 13, Paris, le 10 novembre 2004. P our William Mesguich, “le voyage de Comme il vous plaira est [celui] où le théâtre est à nu, et aussi celui du bonheur de faire s’entrechoquer illusion et réalité, [...] tissant les liens du tragique et du grotesque. [...] Tout est prétexte au jeu, le travestissement est roi, les corps sont vertige théâtral. [...] Le dédoublement est un prince envoûtant qui flirte avec l’infini, l’inachevé. [...] Un palais, une forêt, deux tribus, deux clans, des regards qui tranchent, des gestes qui disent la violence, des mots couperets ou farces- ques pour tromper l’ennui. [...] Une fable pastorale agréable à l’oeil et à l’écoute [mais surtout] un texte complexe, cruel qui raconte l’exil, la solitude, la peur de l’autre, différent de soi, étranger à soi, avec, en toile de fond, toujours, le désir fougueux, enfantin, de réparer, de réconcilier. [...] Shakespeare mélange les genres, bafoue les conventions, et nous entraîne dans les méandres existentiels d’une folie douce où cohabitent farce, complot, rage, amour et devoir de mémoire. La forêt d’Ardenne [...] est une forêt imaginairement réelle, peuplée de formes étranges, reflet cassé et toujours renaissant de la cour du duc usurpateur, sa sœur jumelle et paradoxale, forêt de l’exil / liberté, lieu de nulle part et d’ailleurs. [...] Les chants lettoniens et tziganes scanderont cette fable vive-argent, [...] ce monde rapide comme l’éclair [...] où le rayonnement clair-obscur foisonne d’artifices quand cesse la duperie. [...] Ces êtres à la fois maîtres de leur destinée et jouets de leur désir d’être autre [vont] graver leur instabilité, leur folie, leur joie sur le terrain aléatoire de la vie amoureuse et du rêve.” La taille réduite de la troupe du Théâtre de l’Etreinte fait que seuls trois comédiens ne jouent qu’un rôle, Laurent Prévot (Orlando), Sarah Mesguich (Rosalinde) et Samantha Markowicz (Célia); Laurent Montel passe du duc Frédérick au vieux duc en exil, ce qui n’est pas trop gênant, Florent Ferrier de Pierre de Touche au lutteur Charles, d’où l’absence de Pierre de Touche lors de la lutte, William Mesguich de Jacques au paysan William amoureux d’Audrey, Marine Marty de Phébé à Audrey, Chris Egloff de Le Beau à Amiens et au jeune berger Silvius, et Benjamin Julia d’Olivier à un seigneur et au vieux berger Corin, voire au curé de campagne au visage invisible tant sa barbe est fournie. Les costumes d’Alice Touvet sont très hétéroclites. Le décor de Laura Gozlan est réduit au début à quelques pendrillons blancs. Passent sur la scène tous les comédiens, le vieil Adam n’étant qu’une poupée tenue par Orlando qui lit son texte sur un livre relié, avant l’entrée d’Olivier en vague costume Renaissance assez sombre; le serviteur Denis a disparu. Après la sortie des deux frères, Rosalinde et Célia en robe blanche font leur entrée en gesticulant beaucoup et en se roulant parfois par terre; Rosalinde installe un moment au bord de la rampe un phonographe à haut-parleur doré, avant l’arrivée de Le Beau au visage maquillé de blanc et au costume Renaissance surtout gris, qui gesticule encore plus et esquisse des pas de danse; puis apparaît Pierre de Touche en costume à carreaux rouges comme son visage et le petit bouton de clown sur son nez: il disparaît vite avant la courte lutte à coups de poings et de pieds de Charles avec Orlando devant le duc Frédérick, observée par les deux cousines à moitié cachées. Après la rencontre entre Orlando et Rosalinde et la condamnation de celle-ci à l’exil, les pendrillons sont ôtés et l’on voit trois petits arbres très tordus défoliés, 79 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 autour desquels tombent néanmoins des feuilles. Tandis que le vieux duc se prépare à manger avec son entourage d’exilés, parmi lesquels on voit une femme, jouée par Marine Marty, Orlando, nus-pieds et jambes nues, est en train de parler à Adam et on le voit revenir en tenant un moment la poupée dans ses bras. Si Pierre de Touche garde son costume très voyant, Rosalinde en Ganymède laisse apercevoir un pantalon noir sous une grande cape noire et porte des petites moustaches postiches, tandis que Célia est en robe brun beige de paysanne. Marine Marty a un costume et une sorte de bonnet de laine blanche laissant juste voir le visage quand elle est la bergère Phébé mais a un costume bien plus séduisant pour jouer Audrey. William Mesguich en Jaques est en costume noir presque actuel et une sorte de chapeau melon noir. Benjamin Julia a le visage caché par une énorme barbe blanche quand il est le vieux berger Corin, circulant sur une chaise roulant, mais aussi le curé de campagne en longue soutane grisâtre et grand cache-col. Les scènes dans la forêt sont très animées, sauf pendant le monologue de Jaques sur le monde entier comme théâtre: toute la troupe vient alors l’entourer et la salle s’éclaire à ce moment: les deux publics, celui sur scène, et celui dans la salle, sont ainsi associés. Les comédiens font parfois des entrées et des sorties par la salle. Quand on évoque la chasse au cerf, Marine Marty, la tête affublée de cornes de cerf, s’installe un instant derrière un grand cadre placé sur la scène. Son double rôle conduit à des coupures dans les dernières scènes. La rencontre entre Olivier et Célia est un peu écourtée; et Rosalinde, qui a trouvé entre les feuilles jonchant le sol les papiers où Orlando a écrit son amour pour elle, fait conclure par des baisers ses dialogues avec lui alors qu’il la croit encore Ganymède. La scène de reconnaissance de Rosalinde par son père est coupée, de même que l’intervention du dieu Hymen, avant les mariages et la danse finale de toute la troupe. Si l’ensemble de la comédie est bien suivi, le texte manque de la poésie qu’ont su conserver d’autres adaptations comme celle de Supervielle. Le jeu est trop souvent poussé à la grosse farce, sans que les comédiens montrent la sensibilité nécessaire dans les scènes capitales. Guy Boquet * Le songe d’une nuit d’été, traduction de Jean-Michel Déprats, mise en scène de Sophie Lorotte, au Théâtre Mouffetard, Paris, le 6 janvier 2005. P our Sophie Lorotte, “Le Songe est à la fois un rêve, un cauchemar, un fantasme. Dans un univers faisant la part belle à la poésie et à l’imagination, mêlant Orient et Occident, passé et présent, réalisme et fantaisie, différents mondes coexistent et oscillent entre féerie et cauchemar, [entraînant] dans ce tourbillon de jeunes amants aux amours contrariées un couple explosif formé par le roi et la reine des elfes, un malicieux génie et des artisans aussi exubérants que maladroits, dont Bottom, le plus touchant et peutêtre le plus humain des personnages [...] du grand Will. Quatre histoires d’amour vont s’entrecroiser au coeur d’une folle nuit d’été. Aucun protagoniste n’en sortira indemne, tant les rapports sont ici dominés par la sensualité, l’orgueil et le pouvoir. Cette nuit au cœur des mystères de la forêt sera celle de toutes les révélations, de l’éveil des désirs, de l’adieu à l’enfance.” Claire-Marie Magen évoque le palais de Thésée par une toile de fond et des pendrillons colorés avec un tapis au centre. Hippolyta (Julie André en robe de chambre violet-mauve) et Thésée (David Seigneur en robe de chambre rouge sombre) se montrent un peu distants avant l’arrivée d’Egée (Frédéric Souterelle), de Lysandre (Stéphane Brel) et Démétrius (Nicolas Beaucaire) en veste et pantalon blancs et de Hermia (Herrade von Meier en robe blanche), puis de Helena (Julie Deliquet en robe rose). Après leur départ, Quince (Julie Deliquet méconnaissable par le costume d’artisan et son faux nez au-dessus de moustaches redressées) fait venir les autres artisans, tous vêtus d’un costume plutôt défraîchi et portant des lunettes, Bottom (Frédéric Souterelle), Flute (Stéphane Brel), Starveling (Nicolas Beaucaire) et Snug (Herrade von Meier avec faux nez et moustaches). Au son de la musique très rythmée de David Georgelin, les artisans roulent le tapis et tordent les pendrillons pour simuler des arbres devant un fond d’échelles de corde reliées entre elles, où s’accrochent parfois, la tête en bas, Puck (le petit Cyril Aubin en pagne et écharpe diagonale sur le torse), Obéron (David Seigneur vêtu de même) et Titania (Julie André en jupe courte et soutien-gorge légèrement bariolés). Grimpant sur une échelle de cordes latérale sur laquelle s’allume une guirlande de petites lampes lors des scènes où ils voient sans être vus, Puck et Obéron observe l’arrivée de Démétrius, sans veste ,suivi d’Helena. Titania passe avec quatre fées à costume et masque noirs. Hermia gifle Démétrius quand il tente de l’enlacer. Bottom, sorti après la confirmation des rôles dans Pyrame et Thisbé et les premières répétitions très comiques, revient avec de grandes oreilles d’âne laissant voir son visage. Titania, revenue seule, enlève Bottom, l’enlace et part sur son dos quand il quitte la scène à quatre pattes, en brayant. Obéron et Puck regardent Lysandre et Démétrius, désormais torse nu, courtisant Helena en présence de Hermia; pieds nus toutes deux, elles se disputent entre elles malgré les interventions des deux hommes, qui quittent la scène pour se battre. D’un jet de lumière, Obéron les fera sortir tour à tour de leur rêve et se placer en couples reconstitués sur le devant de la scène. Ensuite, il réveille Titania qui découvre horrifiée qu’elle 80 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 PLAY REVIEWS a dormi avec un âne, le roi et la reine se réconciliant tandis que Puck emmène Bottom pour lui ôter sa tête. De nouveau en robe de chambre, Thésée et Hippolyta découvrent les deux couples reconstitués sous les yeux d’Egée qui s’enfuit quand il voit que Thésée prend le parti des jeunes gens. Dans la mesure où les comédiens ayant joué Egée et les amoureux jouent aussi les artisans, Thésée et Hippolyta restent seuls à regarder Pyrame et Thisbé devant la toile de fond et les pendrillons replacés en musique par les artisans, après que Cyril Aubin est revenu un instant en Philostrate sous un chapeau qui le cache à moitié pour leur faire choisir la pièce qu’ils souhaitent voir. Le mur est représentée par les rangées de pierres imprimées sur la double cape que porte Nicolas Beaucaire/Starveling, le trou étant simplement indiqué par l’écartement de ses index et ses majeurs de chaque côté; Herrade von MeierSnug a des manchettes en peau de lion et une tête de lion sur la sienne qui laisse voir son visage. Frédéric Souterelle arrive en Bottom/Pyrame en costume et chapeau extravagants et il prendra un débouchoir en caoutchouc en guise de poignard pour frapper sa poitrine dénudée. Stéphane Brel-Thisbé porte une énorme perruque et un costume encore plus extravagant, avec deux entonnoirs en métal en guise de seins, et laisse tomber une écharpe. À son tour,, elle prendra le débouchoir pour s’effondrer près de lui, mais tous deux se relèvent quand Thésée donne son avis avant le retour de tous sur la scène pour un salut en musique dansé sur la chorégraphie de Louise Ekland et le dernier rappel de Puck au public. Malgré les coupures, Sophie Lorotte donne au spectacle le rythme qui convient et tous les acteurs passent à merveille d’un rôle à l’autre. Guy Boquet * La Tempête, d’après Shakespeare, mise en scène de Frédérique Lazarini, dramaturgie de Didier Lesour, à La Mare au Diable, Palaiseau, le 13 février 2005. P our Frédérique Lazarini, si “après avoir rétabli l’ordre, Prospero finira par se dépouiller de ses pouvoirs, il s’agit là d’une métaphore du poète luimême renonçant définitivement à son art: La Tempête est en effet la dernière des comédies de Shakespeare, l’ultime hommage de l’auteur — le plus éblouissant et le plus énigmatique à la fois — à la merveilleuse machine qu’est le théâtre. La dimension philosophique de l’œuvre est enrobée dans un chatoiement baroque, une exaltation des moyens de théâtre, des trucs et des masques qui sont des ingrédients de la féerie et d’une comédie fantastique jubilatoire”. La scène est située entre deux groupes de petites tables, placées sur de légers gradins, et autour desquelles est assis le public. Les comédiens entrent par une porte latérale face à un mur décoré de quelques rangées de petites lampes pas toujours allumées. Audessus de cet espace de jeu, une petite maquette de navire à mât est attachée au plafond. Entrant avec Ariel (Françoise Munch en maillot moulant gris perle allant du cou aux pieds et sur lequel passent quelques suites de minuscules lampes électriques qu’elle peut allumer ou éteindre), Prospero (Didier Lesour en blouson et pantalon beiges clairs avec une ceinture et des bottes marron) se plaçant près du mur fait un geste doublé d’un bruit tonitruant et l’on voit le bateau remuer énormément en signe de tempête. Après un noir, on voit apparaître le Bosco du navire (Pierre-Marie Verchère en pantalon, maillot de corps et bonnet) avec l’ivrogne sommelier Stéphano (Christophe Labas-Laffitte) et le bouffon Trinculo (Licinio da Silva), tous deux pieds nus en pantalon blanc et maillot à rayures bleues et blanches horizontales, bientôt suivis des nobles voyageurs en costumes contemporains, deux des personnages de Shakespeare étant joués par des femmes: le vieux conseiller loyal Gonzalo est remplacé par la jeune femme Polonia (Lydia Nicaud en robe grise et bas de soie gris), le roi de Naples père de Ferdinand est devenu la reine de Naples (Françoise Carrière vêtue de même en un peu plus élégant), et l’on retrouve Antonio, le frère usurpateur (Philippe Thourel en veste et pantalon noir et cravate) ainsi que Sébastian (Nicolas Klajn, vêtu de même en gris), frère non pas du roi mais, en l’occurrence de la reine de Naples. Après leur départ, Prospero rentre avec Miranda (Nina Seul en jupe rose à petites fleurs et petite brassière assortie, le visage caché derrière une très fine dentelle tombant d’un mince ruban rouge enserrant sa tête); d’un geste de sa baguette magique, Prospero fait revenir Ariel et après son départ Caliban (MarcHenri Lamande, hirsute et le visage enlaidi par des points de maquillage surtout noir ou rouge et torse nu sous une sorte de petite veste de petites feuilles au-dessus d’une culotte rougeâtre); Ferdinand (Nicolas Sauveton en veste et pantalon noirs et cravate blanche dénouée) aperçu un instant auparavant lors du naufrage tombe vite amoureux de Miranda, mais Prospero l’immobilise d’un geste quand il le menace et veut refuser de travailler pour lui. Malgré des coupures, le spectacle reste des plus fidèles à la trame et à l’esprit de Shakespeare avec parfois des allées et venues d’un personnage à proximité du public. Ariel, à la démarche toujours d’une belle élégance, contemple les nobles ambitieux ou les immobilise d’un geste quand ils veulent poignarder la Reine de leurs canifs; elle éteint parfois un instant les petites lampes, qui dessinent de jolies courbes sur son maillot moulant. Stephano entré avec une bouteille vide censée pleine abreuve Caliban, prélude à des scènes assez acrobatiques avec Trinculo, et Stephano finira coiffé d’une petite barrique. Ferdinand paraît un instant en portant un petit fagot de bûches 81 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 et quand Prospero lui permet d’épouser Miranda, il lui ôte sa légère voilette de dentelle dont elle replie le ruban. Par moments glisse un petit meuble couvert d’objets conformes à la scène jouée, notamment les victuailles du repas des nobles, d’où sortira Ariel, coiffée un instant d’une énorme perruque pour être un magicien au service de Prospero. Celui-ci fait entrer les déesses témoins du mariage de Miranda et Ferdinand entrés dans le petit meuble au milieu d’un damier d’échecs: Junon (Marie Guibert en robe claire à l’antique) leur parle avant Vénus (Sylvie Cécile-Tombarel en jupe et brassière dorées sous un léger voile) et Cérès (la forte Jacqueline Gérard en robe claire mais coiffée d’un amalgame de choux de couleurs diverses, de pommes et de grappes de raisin blanc ou rouge) mais il n’y a pas de scène de nymphes et de moissonneurs. Avant la fin, Prospero prend son ancien manteau déposé près du public pour signifier son renoncement à son pouvoir magique. L’ensemble du spectacle est très bien mené, les costumes, tout en étant modernes, correspondent au statut des personnages et Nicolas Sauveton, MarieJo Henry et Catherine Arnoult ont su vêtir les autres personnages de façon très conforme à l’esprit de la pièce. Les éclairages de Xavier Lazarini font toujours bien voir les personnages en action, même quand ils passent à travers le public, et le son toujours bien choisi d’Isabelle Surel concourt aussi à la réussite de ce travail très bien servi par tous sous une direction admirable. Guy Boquet de penser avec philosophie et d’agir avec démence — fou comme un vrai sage..... Il vit pleinement ses contradictions humaines et nous tend un miroir où nous pouvons nous regarder et comprendre qu’il est aussi difficile de donner que de recevoir. Le fantôme du krach boursier, l’effondrement d’un système menacent derrière l’inflation de générosité de Timon; un cauchemar où l’argent n’aurait plus sa valeur: que feront à ce moment-là tous nos flatteurs et nos corrompus, que ferons-nous nous-mêmes ?” Ce point de vue sous-tend le choix de costumes très actualisés par Angéla Séraline, sans pour autant justifier leur caractère hétéroclite ni sans doute la scénographie d’Yves Collet, deux murs de planches déplaçables côté cour, un grand miroir transparent côté jardin, une balançoire au-dessus du plateau, un grand écran au fond et divers éléments mobiles, dont des gros fûts métalliques argent ou rouge d’où sortiront des personnages. Trois comédiens ne jouent qu’un rôle, Régis Royer (Timon), d’abord assez élégant mais en costume très usé à la fin, Alban Aumard (l’intendant Flavius) et Clémence Barbier (le serviteur Flaminus); les autres, Pascal Sangla, Alexandre Steiger, Sara Louis, Julia Vidit, Gaëlle Hausermann, Marion Bottolier, jouent six, voire huit rôles. Timon écoute un moment à une sorte de portable la voix de Jean-Paul Roussillon et l’écran montre Philippe Bianco et Dominique Valadié parlant en tant que sénateurs. Malgré un énorme travail de mise en scène et des déplacements multiples, tout ceci est très loin de bien faire suivre l’action qui s’achève sur l’invitation aux spectateurs de se méfier des doux rêveurs et même de les détester. Much work about nothing? * Guy Boquet La Vie de Timon, traduction d’André Markowicz, adaptation et mise en scène de Victor GauthierMartin, au Théâtre de l’Aquarium, Paris, le 23 mars 2005. S elon Victor Gauthier-Martin, “Timon, riche athénien, bouleverse l’ordre de la cité en partageant son immense fortune avec des marchands, des flatteurs, des corrompus, des artistes [...] Il sème son héritage, espérant récolter de signes réciproques d’amitié et de respect et devient ainsi le moteur et le centre d’une expérience utopique fondée sur la générosité.] Mais sa logique est insensée, elle grippe la machine sociale et met à mal les valeurs traditionnelles bourgeoises et religieuses. Il ouvre la voie au chaos: dévalorisation, dépréciation […] l’argent et le pouvoir se distribuent comme des poignées de mains. Autour de lui, les événements se précipitent, et rapidement sa ruine est consommée, son projet d’art de vivre en dehors de toute convention est un échec. […] Il se regarde dans la vanité creuse d’un monde où le mensonge épouse l’utopie, pour mieux la trahir. A la fin, blessé, ruiné, abandonner de tous, il n’a de cesse * Femmes gare aux femmes (Women beware women) de Thomas Middleton, traduction et adaptation de Marie-Paule Ramo, mise en scène de Dan Jemmett, au Théâtre de la Ville, salle des Abbesses, Paris, le 12 octobre 2004. D an Jemmett voit en cette pièce de 1622 “une tragédie jacobéenne comme le théâtre de Webster et de Ford après la mort d’Elisabeth. L’extravagance de ces pièces [...] ne les rend pas tout à fait sérieuses. Middleton semble avoir voulu entremêler tout ce qu’il aime au théâtre en usant d’une histoire assez sombre et dure.” La belle Bianca de 16 ans (Sonia Cardeilhac), arrachée à sa famille à Venise par le jeune dadais Léantio (Vincent Berger), vit désormais à Florence mais, sous l’influence du duc cinquantenaire (Pierre Banderet) qui en tombe amoureux, elle passe de la jeune vierge timide à une femme qui cher à se débarrasser de son jeune mari, que désire l’intrigante veuve Livia (Josiane Stoléru), dont la nièce Isabella (Julie-Anne Roth) a 82 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 PLAY REVIEWS une aventure avec son oncle Fabrizio (Thierry Bosc) alors que son père Hippolito (Mathieu Delmonté), avait, pour l’argent, préparé son mariage avec un jeune crétin. Le Duc qui fait assassiner Léantio se prépare à épouser Bianca et organise un spectacle joué par Livia en Junon, Isabella en nymphe et Fabrizio et Hippolito en amoureux rivaux, qui tous tuent quelqu’un, avant l’arrivée de Bianca qui se suicide. La scénographie de Denis Tisserraud et Dan Jemmett transpose l’action à une époque récente, autour d’une vieille voiture Triumph 2000 entre une tenture rouge et une baignoire où le valet Guardiano en clown blanc (Thierry Bosc) verse de temps en temps un seau d’eau. Les costumes de Sylvie Martin-Hyszka sont assez hétéroclites: Bianca passe d’une robe blanche à une marron, Isabella est en orange terne, Livia en noir, Hippolito en complet noir et son frère Fabrizio en costume à grands carreaux rouges, mais tous sont pieds nus, de même que le Duc en sorte de robe d’apparat à dessins multicolores qui parfois s’ouvre sur un crucifix précieux et une étole quand Pierre Banderet incarne aussi le Cardinal frère du Duc dans leur dialogue. Bianca est d’abord amenée à Florence recroquevillée dans un cube à roulettes où on la cache parfois encore; le jeune crétin est un petit automate apporté dans une valise par Hippolito qui le remet à Isabella en mettant en route en même temps la voix enregistrée d’Andrew Aguecheek. Parfois, un personnage entre dans la voiture qui klconnr avec stridence: c’est là que, rideaux baissés, Bianca est séduite par le Duc et ressort un sein visible un instant et que plus tard, Léantio est étranglé à la fenêtre arrière par un frère de Livia. Nul ne change de costume pour le spectacle prévu pour le mariage du Duc, mais le pot d’échappement et les gicleurs sont censés envoyer des vapeurs asphyxiantes, la voiture recule et écrase Hippolito, les boissons servies viennent d’un petit bidon d’essence et Fabrizio moribond se dénude complètement avant de s’allonger dans la baignoire pour s’y frotter d’eau rouge comme du sang, avant que Bianca arrivant voie les autres allongés morts et boive à son tour la boisson mortelle. Si l’action de “cette histoire excessive” est “alambiquée” comme l’avoue Dan Jemmett et si son extravagance est parfois dure à suivre, elle est en général bien servie par les comédiens installés assis en vue sur des chaises au fond de la scène avant d’entrer ou sortir par la tenture. Guy Boquet * Macbett, farce tragique d’Eugène Ionesco, mise en scène par Jérémie Le Louët, au Théâtre 13, Paris, le 11 mai 2005. E n 1972, Ionesco a récrit Macbeth en pensant à sa Roumanie natale, au totalitarisme qui a pesé sur son pays, celui des nazis ou des staliniens, dénonçant avec un humour noir la quête paranoïaque d’un pouvoir ubuesque qui entraîne le monde dans une spirale sans fin d’hécatombes et de désespoirs. Sur la scène sans décor majeur, que Virginie Destiné a meublée de sièges mobiles dont un surmonté d’une grosse couronne rouge pour évoquer un trône, Jérémie Le Louët et les six autres acteurs qu’il dirige, en costumes récents de Sophie Volcker, incarnent trois-trois rôles qui incarnent, dans le cadre d’une réflexion profonde sur la mécanique du pouvoir, un univers de fiction “passant du théâtre de boulevard à la tragédie, en passant par le conte de fée”. Ionesco a supprimé un certain nombre de scènes, la réception de Duncan chez Macbeth, la fuite de ses fils, le complot contre Banquo, le massacre des Macduff, le somnambulisme de Lady Macbeth, éliminant par là aussi un certain nombre de personnages shakespeariens, mais créant de nouvelles scènes et de nouveaux personnages. On voit d’abord Glamiss (Antoine Couret) et Candor (Hugo Dillon) en une sorte d’uniforme noirâtre comploter contre Duncan tandis que peu après Macbett (Julien Buchy) et Banco (Laurent Papot) vêtus de même font assaut de loyalisme, laissant Glamiss et Candor lever leurs épées pour se promettre fidélité dans leur révolte sanglante contre Duncan, avant le meurtre d’un limonadier par un soudard. Macbett confie son épée dite sanglante à l’ordonnance qui revient aussitôt disant l’avoir lavée. Banco fait de même. Tandis qu’on approche le trône, entrent Duncan (Jérémie Le Louët en manteau de cour), archiduc et non roi, et sa femme (Noémie Guedj) en robe longue bleue et sa suivante (Florencia Cano-Lanza) vêtue de même: Duncan cite parmi ses ennemis le roi de Malte, l’empereur de Cuba, le prince des baléares, les rois de France et d’Angleterre et parle de partir en cas de défaite au Canada ou aux États-Unis, avant l’arrivée d’un soldat blessé enrôlé malgré lui par Glamiss et Candor et que Lady Duncan aurait poignardé s’il ne s’était enfui. Candor, fait prisonnier, sera exécuté avec ses soldats hors de vue tandis que Lady Duncan en compte trente-trois; Glamiss se noie en tentant de fuir en bateau. Deux sorcières apparues dans l’ombre attendent le départ de Banco pour annoncer à Macbett la mort de Candor dont il portera le titre. On a ensuite la parodie du couronnement de Duncan et du toucher des écrouelles mais Duncan est poignardé par Banco déguisé en moine, par Macbett et celle qu’il prend pour Lady Duncan, déguisés en malades; Macbett met le manteau de cour que portait Duncan et la fausse Lady Duncan (Noémie Guedj), ne gardant vite qu’un soutien-gorge doré et un léger tutu, s’offre à Macbett et feindra de l’épouser en robe blanche et voile de mariée. Banco, dédaigné par Macbett et prêt à la révolte, est tué par lui. Après le départ de la sorcière déguisée, la vraie Lady Duncan dit à Macbett qu’elle n’est pas sa femme et Macol, se disant fils de Banco, 83 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 poignarde Macbett et annonce qu’il aura des descen- ou tonitruant d’Ivan le Terrible de Prokofiev. dants royaux. Une belle réussite parfois au son doux 84 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 Guy Boquet PLAY REVIEWS Istambul Hamlet, directed by Adrian Brine at the city theatre, Kadiköy, Istanbul, 11 March 2005, mid-stalls. D escribing a production of Hamlet as derivative may, at first glance, appear to be somewhat petty criticism. It is inevitable, given the popularity of the play in performance, that certain ideas will be reused and even Laurence Olivier wrote of the “legitimate borrowing” which takes place in the theatre. However, Adrian Brine’s production at the City theatre in Kadiköy appeared to be a random mixture of old ideas, strung together in an incoherent way which demonstrated no over-all vision or sense of purpose. The action was played out on a bare stage with a raised walkway along the back wall. This was accessible via two staircases on either side of the stage, one of which was open while the other was closed off with old and worn-out black flats which were in visible need of repair. In addition to the usual side entrances there was a door upstage centre underneath the raised walkway. This comprised of two sliding black flats which became progressively less efficient at opening and closing as the evening wore on. This cheap, simple and flimsy design put one in mind of a Student Union Drama Society production. The costumes added to the whole S.U. effect. Some had obviously been hired or made especially but others appeared to be what the actors had found at the back of their wardrobes. For example, Claudius and Polonius wore morning suits for much of the time but Osric (who seemed to have the added role as Polonius’ personal assistant) wore a modern lounge suit. The uniforms for the castle guards resembled those of French Gendarmes and the players were dressed in dreadful, ill-fitting checked suits. Gertrude, Ophelia and the attendant ladies wore evening dresses, some of which were of a more modern design than others. One can conclude that the “look” of the production (so far as there was one) was twentieth century, but from which decade was anyone’s guess. Hamlet himself was costumed in a black polo-neck and black trousers. This gave the effect of a student from the 1960s and his mop-top hair cut added to this image. It was this pseudo-sixties look which really reminded me of past productions. It was Peter Hall’s RSC production of 1965 which first presented Hamlet (David Warner) as a disaffected student of the post-war generation, complete with scarf and overcoat and it was Trevor Nunn’s 1970 RSC production which costumed Hamlet (Alan Howard) head to toe in black. To plunder past performances and to “borrow” ideas, which in the original versions were all part of well thought through concepts, and to drop them into a production which clearly does not have one is a dreadfully uninspired and unimaginative way to go about the process of direction. This, however, was not the only idea which appeared to be lifted from elsewhere. When the American actor John Barrymore played Hamlet in the 1920s he made tentative use of Freudian psychology in his reading of the part. In the 1936-1937 production at the Old Vic, Tyrone Guthrie made much use of the Oedipus complex and he and his Hamlet (Laurence Olivier) made repeated visits to Freud’s biographer Professor Earnest Jones for advice. These psychological ideas made their way into Olivier’s 1948 film version and have been used periodically ever since. The point at which an Oedipal interpretation becomes most apparent is the closet scene. However this is not the only place where it can manifest itself, nor is Hamlet’s relationship with his mother the only way of interpreting Hamlet’s behaviour as Oedipal. Olivier was an energetic and athletic Hamlet who in normal circumstances would have killed Claudius in no time. Therefore his reasons for inaction were not the obvious ones of a sensitive soul set upon a vengeful path which were far beyond his gentle capabilities and other reasons for his moral philosophising had to be looked for. However, such a sustained through line was not evident and consequently the touchyfeely closet scene appeared to be unmotivated. It was this random borrowing which muddied the production. An Oedipal interpretation of Hamlet needs to be addressed from the outset and thoroughly thought through, as does an interpretation of a disaffected, anti-establishment student. However, bolting these two very different ideas together resulted in a disjointed, incoherent and directionless production. Poor production concepts can often be saved by good acting. This production started promisingly in dim light and the sound of a bell tolling. The majestic ghost, played wonderfully well by Haldun Ergüvenç. Poor production concepts can often be saved by good acting. This production started promisingly in dim light and the sound of a bell tolling. The majestic ghost, played wonderfully well by Haldun Ergüvenç appeared with his face half lit and accompanied by some eerie music. Bernardo, Marcellus and Ahmet Özaslan’s energetic Horatio were all suitably frightened by the apparition and the evening got off to a very promising start. Unfortunately it went 85 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 CAHIERS éLISABéTHAINS 67 SPRING 2005 quickly down hill after the opening scene. The text was cut, removing all the politics and reducing the play to a domestic tragedy. This diminishes the status of Claudius and makes him simply a villain rather than a villainously shrewd political operator.The cuts leave the actor with fewer choices and opportunities to make anything of the character and Mehmet Gürhan played him as a one-dimensional slimy toad. However, none of this would have mattered much if Hamlet was played effectively, but unfortunately Ayhan Kavas was not up to the task. Admittedly he was not helped by Brine’s uninspired direction.Every soliloquy was staged in exactly the same way. Hamlet was positioned down stage centre sitting on the edge of the stage and exactly the same lighting (centre spot on Hamlet with the rest of the stage dimmed) was employed for each one. This was a dull and uncharismatic Hamlet. There was no sense that he was either angry or depressed or mad (real or feigned). There were odd moments, such as an unconvincing tantrum during the “Oh what a rogue and peasant slave” speech (II.2), where he writhed on the ground weeping. However this was neither preceded nor followed by any motivational or consequential actions which would have put this display of emotion into a recognisable context. It was as though the actor had been told to do this by the director and gamely complied, but with no real understanding as to why he should do it. Another peculiar moment was a strange dancing celebration conducted by Hamlet and Horatio after Claudius had been “frighted with false fire” (III.2.254). To celebrate this moment as a victory over Claudius by dancing around the stage banging a drum is nothing if not original. However the sentiment that it conveyed was that Hamlet was terribly pleased with himself for being so very clever and thinking up such a brilliant scheme. There was no sense of the awful realisation that the ghost was right and that Hamlet must carry out a task for which he is ill equipped. Even without these unhelpful set pieces one seldom got the impression that Hamlet was experiencing a strange and terrible inner journey where he was struggling to make sense of the confusing circumstances which confronted him. The great last scene is virtually director proof and with it a certain amount of respectability was regained. This was aided by a fine and dignified performance from Mert Turak as Laertes and Kavas appeared to understand better what was required of him. He conveyed a certain sense of nobility and an understanding and acceptance of the finality of the moment as he confronted his own mortality. Amongst the supporting cast Derya Çetinel was excellent as Ophelia when mad, although she lacked a sense of vulnerability when sane and seemed a little too self-assured. Haldun Ergüvenç made a welcome return as the first gravedigger in the now old-fashioned doubling of those two parts (in recent productions Polonius has doubled as the grave digger). The rest of the supporting cast were unremarkable. Tom Band A Note on the Translation Hamlet was first translated into Turkish in 1908, and this was followed by seven different twentiethcentury translations. The text used in the production at the City Theatre is based mostly on Sabahattin Eyüboglu’s translation (Hamlet, Istanbul: Remzi Kitabevi, 1965). As a literary scholar, Eyüboglu is careful to create a fluent language without giving up his loyalty to the original text. In the grave-digger scene, however, the production uses the more Turkish sounding translation of Can Yücel, a well-known poet himself, who refused to call his work “translation” and preferred to use the expression “retelling in Turkish” (Hamlet, Istanbul: Papirüs Yayınları, 1996). To the English-speaking audiences of our age, it is apparent that Shakespeare’s language belongs to an earlier age. This is something that cannot be felt in Turkish translations of Shakespeare because the language used is modern Turkish. Dramatic verse, however, is far from being natural to the Turkish ear, and this contributes to create the sense that the language, though modern, has a different tone from that of everyday speech. To give a sense of how a Shakespeare translation sounds in Turkish, here is Horatio’s speech in I.1.167-74 retranslated into English from Eyüboglu’s translation: But look, the dawn is walking with its reddish [skirts On the dews of the Eastern hills. Let us give up our watch and if you listen to me Let us tell young Hamlet About what we have seen tonight. Because believe [me, This spirit who hasn’t talked to us will speak to [him. What do you say? We should go and tell him about [it, shouldn’t we? This is what our love for and duty to him require. 86 Delivered by Ingenta to: ? IP: 93.91.26.29 On: Thu, 29 Sep 2016 19:04:52 Ayse Nur Demiralp Band