I really didn’t want to go to yet another production of Hamlet, especially after the RSC’s last attempt where the setting was a public school fencing hall, Hamlet middle aged and where the political backdrop of the play was omitted with the cutting of Fortinbras. I was fearful about what they would do this time. I should have paid more attention to the fact that it is directed by Simon Godwin whose outstanding Two Gentlemen of Verona was such a delight in 2014.
This is a fine production. Over an hour is cut and yet the cutting is seamless. No famous lines are omitted. The soliloquies are all there. And yet time passes quickly (except for the Players scene and the enactment of Priam) and my attention was held throughout.
The opening interpolation is masterful. The play opens on graduation day at the University of Wittenberg, establishing a multi-racial cast and where the only line is the play’s title. What a brilliant way of establishing that this is a contemporary play featuring young people. And the context is further established by the dumb show of the funeral cortege of Hamlet’s father. The battlements are manned by soldiers with machine guns. The ghost is smoke. A blood pact seals the silence of Marcellus, Barnardo and Horatio. When the ghost does appear he is indeed ‘strange’ with a Caribbean accent, in contrast to the African English of Claudius and Gertrude, his voice amplified by an echo chamber.
Horatio (Hiran Abeysekera) is a delightful young man, both modern and Elizabethan at the same time with his tiny earring in his left ear and Rosencrantz (James Cooney) and Guildenstern (Bethan Cullinane) are also delightfully youthful in their tourist garb. There is, of course, nothing gender specific that Guildenstern says and so the gender switch works perfectly. Gertrude (Tanya Moodie) is completely inscrutable. In more private moments she can’t keep her hands (and mouth) off Claudius (Clarence Smith) but in the more public ones her rather haughty distance is rather chilling.
Hamlet is an artist, the scenes with his street art and the link between his clothes and artwork are a most imaginative way of visualising the play’s verbal imagery. In a completely unexpected moment Hamlet shoots Polonius through the street art arras with a gun. This gun had previously been drawn to out attention because Hamlet treated it as a totem, unwrapping it, fondling it and then wrapping it up again.
The surprise continues with the interval placement after the line ‘And now I’ll do it’ as Claudius is attempting to pray. Not for a moment would anyone want to leave.
More delightful surprise interpretations occur after the interval. Instead of comparing Claudius to his father in the bedroom scene Hamlet compared himself to Claudius. When Hamlet appears in handcuffs on his way to England, it is obvious that he can’t trust Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; they have been dragooned into being his warders.
Laertes descends from a helicopter. Ophelia in her madness creates her dead father out of her clothes.
All of this, all of it interpreting the details of the text in a brilliant way, kept my attention and interest throughout. As did Paapa Essiedu’s acting as Hamlet. He was never dull, never long-winded, never tedious. Quite a triumph.
Designer Paul Wills created masses of costumes changes. The shoes are meticulously chosen and often informative. Despite the basic bare stage, the ‘set’ is constantly changing.
I think this production is a triumph. I loved it. I shall go again. Come and see it and make your stay complete with a stay at Moss Cottage. You can even taste the marmalade that won silver and bronze awards at this year’s World Marmalade competition.
Don Quixote. rsc Swan Theatre, review by Peter Buckroyd.
The production of Don Quixote directed by Angus Jackson which has recently opened at the Swan Theatre is the RSC’s tribute to Miguel de Cervantes who died at almost exactly the same time as Shakespeare.
It is a modern play by James Fenton based on some of the episodes in Cervantes’s picaresque novel. The first half before the interval is a series of farcical sketches as the ancient and deluded Don Quixote played by David Threlfall persuades his servant Sancho Panza played by Rufus Hound to accompany him on his misguided and misinterpreted adventures. Don Quixote speaks in an antiquated, anciently formal way, while Sancho Panza has a modern demotic. It is full of visual stimulus: puppet horses, puppet babies and a toddler, flying, sword fights, windmills, games of catch, sheep, the collection of content for a fardel, a chain gang of gallery slaves, a cage for imprisonment. The scene changes and manipulation of props is slick and skilful, missing few attempts at comedy along the way. One of the ways it is held together is by the frequent presence of a delightfully gormless boy, splendidly played by Richard Leeming. Another is the delight of seeing which cast member is going to be next horse and anticipation of what they will do to create horsiness. The third is the frequent appearance of quasi-Spanish songs.
There are more sketches in the shorter second half: bed scenes, a joust fight on ‘horseback’, a charming caged lion, court scenes and a flying horse, a variety of silly walks. The humiliation of Don Quixote by the court introduces sourer, more sombre tones as does Don Quixote’s encounter at a graveside and his final deathbed scene.
Rufus Hound interacts throughout with the audience (it is hard to believe that it is Sancho Panza doing so) with plenty of scope for improvisation. It is an entertaining show. Make sure you leave your brain at home.
Orchestra of the Swan, Pershore concert. review.
Orchestra of the Swan
Number 8, Pershore Friday 12 February
The first Pershore concert in Orchestra of the Swan’s new Worcestershire series took place on Friday at Number 8, Pershore. This well run venue has a lovely auditorium, almost full on Friday evening, and although the players said that the sound from where they were playing was rather dry, the sound in the auditorium was excellent: clear, bright and vibrant.
All three Pershore concerts focus on Mozart, his friends, admirers and rivals. The concert opened with Symphony no 25/37, the opening introductory section by Mozart and the rest by Michael Haydn, brother of the more famous Joseph. There are apparently several versions of this score. Friday’s was the one where Haydn’s writing was edited by Mozart, very different from the original. It is an early version of the concerto with just three movements and from the outset the orchestra’s playing was crisp, bright and impeccably timed.
There is a distinct advantage in having as soloist the principal player in the orchestra as the soloist can draw on vast experience of listening to the sixteen players forming the ensemble, and this was strongly evidenced in the first of the two concertos, Mozart’s Flute Concerto no 1, an early version of the concerto form with just three movements. It was a delicate and elegant conversation between Diane Clark’s flute and the orchestra, impeccably timed and balanced. The beautifully played flashy cadenzas showed off all Diane Clark’s musicianship without taking away from the sense that they, too were part of a conversation.
In marked contrast was the Horn Concerto no 4. The horn doesn’t make an elegant noise and its propensity for accumulating liquid which had to be ejected tends, in my view, to make it rather vulgar and comic. It reminded me that musical taste is very much a personal thing. I’m sure Francesca Moore-Bridger loves her instrument; she certainly plays with poise and passion; in terms of conversation, though, this was one of those rather boisterous ones where the horn shouts at the orchestra rather than engages in subtle discussion with it.
The last work in this splendid concert was Joseph Haydn’s Symphony no 44, ‘Farewell’. Conductor David Curtis pointed out that, in F sharp minor, the key is a long way from the ‘home key’ of C Major, just as Haydn’s players at the Esterhazy Court were a long way from their home in Vienna. The interesting slow second movement represents some of this longing to be home in its sense of subdued nostalgia. The second of four movements, it stops rather than reaching musical resolution before the slightly edgy court dance which just fizzles out and the final movement expresses the players’ desire to return home to Vienna as they leave the stage two by two leaving only the principal first and second violins to end it. It is a delightful and inventive work, beautifully played.
The concert was a wonderful start to what will no doubt be a memorable series of three concerts in Pershore, most enthusiastically received by the audience.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Review by Peter Buckroyd
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Erica Whyman’s ambitious production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, using amateur actors from fourteen theatre companies all over the country for the mechanicals, and involving several actors who will be known to sections of the audience from TV soap operas and popular drama series, is a joyful affair, a most appropriate celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.
Set in the 1940s, which Erica Whyman describes as a time of great change, the production also celebrates the optimism of post-war Britain. Gone are the dark edges which have characterised so many recent productions of this play. Never for a moment do we think that Egeus will have his wish of demanding his daughter Hermia’s death. Egeus is very much a subject of Theseus and Theseus does not appear to be a tyrant. Hippolyta does not seem to mind being a trophy in Theseus’s conquest of the Amazons. There is no sense of bestiality in the relationship between Titania and Bottom. Puck is a ‘mischievous sprite’ rather than an agent of harm. Bad things only happen in dreams (such as Hermia’s) and under the influence of magic, the results of which can very easily be reversed.
The four young lovers fall in and out of love, but such is the tenor of the play that we know no real harm is going to come to them. There is a quasi-teenage exuberance and innocence about them, particularly about physically restless Lysander, beautifully played by Jack Holden in a most welcome return to the RSC, and gangly Helena, confidently and effectively played by Laura Riseborough. Puck is wonderful. What a star Lucy Ellinson appears to be! It’s hard to keep your eyes off her wonderful movement and facial expressions – a delight. Unusually the music and musicians are integrated into the playing, acting as fairies with instruments, providing a rare cohesion.
Of necessity for a touring production, the set is minimal. Only a fake grand piano (which serves as Titania’s ‘flowery bed’ and a set of metal stairs are needed on an otherwise bare stage, although these are complemented by some pretty hangings.
Tom Piper’s costumes, too, are rather minimal although they are also very striking. Chu Omambala (Oberon) looks gorgeous in his shirtless white suit as does Ayesha Dharker (Titania) in her red dress. Puck’s androgynous suit is also splendid.
And what of the amateurs? The actors in the two companies involved in the previews – The Bear Pit Theatre from Stratford and the Nonentities from Wyre Forest – were indistinguishable from the professionals.David Mears’s Bottom and Alex Powell’s Flute were as good renditions of their parts as I have seen. Stunning. The audience loved the mechanicals and rightly so. Their performances were truly celebratory, their direction completely professional and delightful.
You have to see it. Make a real treat of it and come and stay at Moss Cottage, too.
Doctor Faustus, review by Peter Buckroyd
Doctor Faustus
I have to admit that it was only with the second viewing of this production that I grasped and enjoyed it. Perhaps it’s a disadvantage knowing the two versions of the text because director Maria Aberg has conflated them and then cut extensively to create a text which is significantly different from the two known ones. The combination of puzzling out the text and missing various bits that were cut distracted me.
Having made the decision to have two actors who both play Faustus and Mephistopheles suggests a similarity between them. This is established right at the start as the two actors (both in Mephistophilis costume) stand opposite each other and light a match each. The one whose match burns out first plays Faustus that evening. I spent far too much time thinking about the interchangeability of the two at a first viewing.
It transpires that Mephistophilis represents Faustus’s desires: what Faustus would love to be and do but dare not, so that when he has sold his soul Faustus can become that person. Quite straightforward and intelligible, really. But I got distracted by it the first time.
I have always found the comic scenes tiresome and so Aberg’s decision to cut many of them was welcome. The pantomimic Seven Deadly Sins produce an entertaining spectacle but I still can’t really get why Faustus should be so seduced by them. The Pope episode and that of the Duke of Anholt were also pantomimically presented. The audience laughed appropriately. I watched them and listened to them laugh. There could have been biting political, social and religious satire here but the dark edges of these scenes were not dark enough for me.
There are suggestions of the homoerotic in Faustus’s relationship with Mephistophilis, perhaps not surprising given that it is really a relationship between Faustus and a forbidden more exciting version of himself and the use of the Hebrew Kabala for the spells widens the dimension of the play’s exploration of the unknown.
Aberg’s idea that hell is the lack of faith (not religious faith but any kind of faith) is a splendid one, accounting for the reduction of the play’s overtly Christian content, so that bits of the Old Man and the Chorus are given to Wagner, though why the Scholars – and so many of them – should be dressed in Keystone Cops costumes eluded me.
Still, it’s a very interesting text and the decision to play it without an interval worked well, especially as it is cut to just under two hours playing time.
When we saw it first Oliver Ryan’s match went out first. I was not alone in finding his accent peculiar and Faustus’s early speeches were rather hard to hear and follow. Sandy Grierson’s Scottish Mephistophilis was much easier to hear and understand. Nicholas Lumley as Wagner spoke in standard English, perhaps drawing the audience’s identification towards him. There aren’t any other ‘characters’ in the play.
The music by Orlando Gough is wonderful. Naomi Dawson’s costumes are spectacular. Ayse Tashkiran’s movement plot is outstanding. The decision not to have scene changes but to place everything in Faustus’s transformed study makes clear that everything is going on in his head: a most interesting and, I thought, successful use of Beckett’s ideas.
The Helen of Troy scene also takes place in Faustus’s head. It is long, drawn out, intense and powerful, making considerable physical demands on both Faustus and Helen (Jade Croot).
The play ends with Faustus’s death. Not, I think, what Marlowe intended, but interesting. When Faustus is dead, of course, nothing can go on in his head, especially in a secular age. It’s pretty bleak, and all the better for that.
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