When I read that in Justin Audibert’s production the men would be played by women and the women by men I was all set to hate it. But then I thought it might be interesting. If, at the end of what Shakespeare wrote, Katerina triumphs then it might be interesting to see a production when the men triumph and I was amazed that I would be seeing an anti-feminist interpretation of the play.
That’s the great thing about live theatre. You can be completely wrong and I was wrong here on both counts.
Amanda Harris is strong and dominant as Baptista Minola and so sets the matriarchy setting firmly right from the start. The boys, Katherine (Joseph Arkley) showing a little bit of feistiness at the start and Bianco (James Cooney), established as a wimp at the start and maintaining this throughout, were nowhere as interesting as those characters played by women. Straight from a triumphant Jacques in As You Like It Sophie Stanton as Gremia is equally good here, showing off by gliding on metaphorical casters except at the end of the first half where for a single moment she realises she is defeated in her absurd quest for the juvenile Bianco. Claire Price is wonderful as Petruchia. Her character is much less obnoxious than usual and I found myself rooting for her in her task of subduing a dull Katherine. Melody Brown is also energetic and powerful as Vincentia.
Amy Trigg in her turbo charged wheelchair as Biondella is full of life and vigour. She could outsprint everyone – clever for the resourceful Biondella, whose set pieces were delivered at breakneck speed with every word audible. Charlotte Arrowsmith as the signing Curtis is as good here as she was in As You Like It and it is a great touch by Audibert not to translate what she signs. All Petruchio’s household know exactly what she is saying by her signs, even though we don’t. After all, she is talking to them.
The rest of the cast are all o.k. One thing I didn’t understand, though. The only significant character not to be gender switched is Grumio (splendidly played by Richard Clews). Why? Bill thought it might be because he was played as gay. If so I don’t approve. I don’t think gay men are women really.
There is song and dance. Indeed the play opens with a Spanish style dance. I didn’t get why it was appropriate to be Spanish but the dancing was great – better than the singing at the Preview we went to, but that might improve. You could see why Leo Wan was in it. He can sing.
There were several interesting and stimulating choices. In the sun and moon scene both Katherine and Petruchio drink water before she metaphorically baptises him. I liked the way Katherine was defiantly eating a chicken leg in his opening scene and eating another at the festivities at the end. I liked the way Petruchia kissed Katherine at the end rather than treading on her hand.
Hannah Clark’s costumes are sort of period, sumptuous, beautifully made, and full. Katherine’s wedding outfit, lit at first with black light, is stunning. Gremia’s handling and fondling of her sword was hilarious, particularly the way she wanked it at moments of stress. Petruchia’s odd boots and Grumio’s down-gyved one at the wedding scene were nice touches. I didn’t understand why Katherine didn’t have a wig, though. It certainly made her look out of place in company with these people. Can that be the purpose of it?
There’s a lot to enjoy here. Unfortunately for me it made clear the weaknesses in Shakespeare’s script. In this production it seemed obvious that Shakespeare was not interested in either Katherine or Bianco in the openings Acts they are barely characterised and have almost no motivation. I didn’t think Katherine was worth listening to before the final speech and the only characterisation of Bianco seemed to be an exaggerated walk and the tossing of his absurdly long locks. There was far too much sub-plot in the first half and I thought all the suitor for Bianco stuff was not only strung out but rather tedious. The play is about sex and money. Money was brought out well.
I think that seeing As You Like It and Taming of the Shrew as a pair is the way to do it. That experience shows off the versatility and skills of the best actors and the ways Shakespeare can be interpreted in many different ways.
Come and see them. There will be a warm welcome for you at Moss Cottage.
Review, As you like it. Royal Shakespeare Theatre
I had the misfortune last year to see two execrable productions at Shakespeare’s Globe – As You Like It and Hamlet, both of which contained subsidised theatre’s latest obsessions: a character who used British Sign Language and gender switching. Gender switching usually means that women play men’s parts but the Globe went further and switched the genders of both Orlando and Rosalind. These two gimmicks both led to the text often being rendered incomprehensible, particularly as there seemed to be no good reason to feature a relationship between a female to male transvestite and a drag queen. Just as bad was having a main role (Celia) signing so that he lines had to be reallocated to other people. Confusing and ludicrous. Similar nonsense was in Hamlet where the main character’s university friends were a white geriatric man and a signing woman and where both Hamlet and Laertes were female (the latter of challenged stature).
Such decisions went right against the text so it was with some trepidation that I went to the RSC to see this production as it featured both gender switching and signing. And yet in the hands of director Kimberley Sykes these decisions enriched the text and worked perfectly. I was amazed. It just shows the different between a play which has a talented and inspired director and one which has a rubbish one (or, in the case of Hamlet no director at all).
The central concept of Kimberley Sykes’s (and designer Stephen Brimson Lewis’s) production is ‘All the world’s a stage’. So, when the actors from Duke Frederick’s court become characters in Duke Senior’s, curtains fall, costume racks come on and we watch the actors change in front of a metallic strip globe which forms the backdrop to the Forest of Arden. Ironically there had been a large round fake grass carpet in Duke Frederick’s Court which is folded in two by Rosalind when she and Celia reject it for a bare wooden floor with a large circle in the middle. Set, metaphor and symbol come together. And what about Jacques? Just as M. le Beau becomes Madame Le Beau, tottering hilariously in her heels on the fake grass, so Jacques becomes Madame Melancholy. It is an inspired choice which places Jacques at the heart of the play. It is even more inspired that Jacques is played by Sophie Stanton, usually part of but on the fringes of the court, remote yet sensitive, exquisite in her verse speaking, completely devoid of histrionics and by far the best Jacques I have ever seen and heard.
This production is in many ways a breath of fresh air. There are no gimmicks. Even the giant puppet of Hymen who presides over the weddings at the end proved to be a deus ex machina, another example of the world as a stage and vice versa, joining the lovers together but whose task could not be performed without stage mechanisms and the assistance of other human characters.
The range of possible relationships is fully highlighted by the imaginative choice to make Audrey use sign language (so that she can’t hear or grasp Touchstone’s almost ceaseless bibble babble) and provide the touching moment when she rejects her signer, the loyal William, for the hilariously clad Touchstone, he of the large lunchbox. Even making Silvius Sylvia has its benefits, introducing a touch of modern non-binary into the play.
It is a strong cast. Lucy Phelps is splendid as Rosalind and Sophie Khan Levy almost convinces that Shakespeare created a viable female character in Celia. Even she can’t give Celia’s falling in love with Oliver credibility, though. For me the real joys of the show were Sophie Stanton’s Jacques and Richard Clews’s Adam. Their verse speaking, movement and stillness were quite magical.
I really enjoyed this production, even more on a second viewing. You should see it. And you can sample the homemade jams and marmalades at Moss Cottage, especially as for the first time Moss Cottage has gained a gold award in the World Marmalade Competition.
Tartuffe. Review by Peter Buckroyd
Tartuffe
The Swan Theatre
Some time after his inspired production of Much Ado about Nothing, set in India, which made sense of a lot of Shakespeare’s tiny details which often strain comprehension and credulity, comes his much awaited Tartuffe. Not only is the play set in Birmingham, it is also in a rewritten version by Anil Gupta and Richard Pinto.
Moliere is the French Ben Jonson and Tartuffe’s early history robbed it of some of its originally conceived satirical pungency because of the political situation and its warring elements in the early 1660s. Gupta and Pinto restore much of Moliere’s biting satire of hypocrisy, combining it with the hot potatoes of religion and politics. The transposition to Birmingham is a joy and the introduction of the narrator/participant character Darina as the Bosnian cleaner (brilliantly played by Michelle Bonnard) creates further universality and contemporary relevance.
The Muslim Pervaiz family is ruled over by Imran, beautifully played as a thoroughly convincing rather stupid and gullible despot by Simon Nagra, gets religion and becomes besotted by Moliere’s Tartuffe character. Imran’s zealous conversion causes credible complications for his westernised family – his sharp but astute wife Amira (Sasha Behar), his daughter Mariam (Zainab Hasan) and street boy son Damee (Raj Bajaj) – because they have no love for the ‘adopted’ Tartuffe and can see that he is an outsider. They catch Taruffe’s phoniness which Asif Khan so cleverly conveys in subtly gradated stages at the same time as the audience does. Imran eventually gives his house over to Tartuffe before the latter’s hypocrisy is unmasked because he is unable to find fault in him despite his lecherous groping his wife’s breast. In the end Tartuffe is unmasked and the new surprise ending gives some measure of order to the chaos that unthinking devotion to pseudo-religion has caused. There are so many contemporary jokes and references throughout the play that the audience can hardly fail to realise that religious infatuation is no different from political infatuation.
The text is hilariously funny, the pace extremely brisk, the music wonderful in the variety of ways it characterises, the direction inventive and full of gags of different kinds (Darina vacuuming in the stalls seats, Damee hiding in a huge floral display, Imran hiding in the sofa in the unmasking scene, fun with cushions, Tiger briefs, Tartuffe playing basketball, for example). The wonderful music catches elements both of contemporary England and the Baroque elements of the play’s source, as well as being used as a tool for characterisation, culminating in a concluding dance rap.
The satire is sharp. At the end it is revealed that Imran was an illegal immigrant who realises in his moment of anagnorosis that he should never have voted Leave and that Tartuffe is not the only imposter. He may have brought the family close to disaster but his religious sidekick Usman (Riad Richie) turns out completely unexpectedly to be an undercover police agent. Opposite sides of the moral spectrum, then, both use religion as their tool. It leaves you with something rather more complicated to think about that you had reckoned.
The whole thing is a romp, a suspense story, a keen satire, a delight to see and hear. Moreover it shows up the stupidity of most men (Mariam’s finance Waqaas, charmingly played by Salman Akhtar and Usman apart) and the potential power of women caught up in evnents over which they have apparently little control.
Merry Wives of Windsor. Review by Peter Buckroyd
The Merry Wives of Windsor
RST
There are several quite different ways of going about mounting this play. One extreme is to highlight all the darker edges: the cruelty to Falstaff; the scheming malevolence of women; generational conflict; the subjugation of young people by parents; male power; satire of the rising Elizabethan middle class; subduing the old order. At the other is a light hearted romp, with farcical elements.
Director Fiona Laird chooses the latter in a very funny and delightful comedy. In order to gain some contemporary resonances she uses the Essex cliché, choosing the Old Lady of Brentwood (rather than Shakespeare’s Brentford) in order the make the audience think about The Only Way is Essex. It works beautifully, the mood and genre established right at the start by a messenger announcing that Queen Elizabeth wants a new play with Falstaff in it and wants it quickly.
There is a lot of light hearted music, some of it country and a long dumb show dance which introduces the characters. Falstaff’s arrival is heralded by cacophonous music Liz Brotherston’s costumes are wonderful, combining modern dress, tastlessness and Elizabethan ruffs. There is lovely detail such as Slender’s chavvy rings and Falstaff’s codpiece. There are some clever and witty jokes. The statement that there are ‘some simples in my closet’ is made hilariously literal because Simple is hiding in the closet. Dr Caius’s franglais is a joy throughout, with some Brexit allusions and jokes. Ford’s disguise as Brook is great with plastic nose and coat while he still wears the same posh M and S carpet slippers that he wears as Ford. I guess he knew that Falstaff never looks at anyone’s feet! The director also has fun with Nym, Pistol and Bardolph, the latter played by Charlotte Josephine who is also splendid as Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet. Nym (Josh Finan) is used as the boy who dresses up to masquerade as Anne at the end, giving rise to a lovely joke as Caius (Jonathan Cullan) realised ‘it’s a Nym’ (it’s an him’). Nima Taleghani has very little to do as Robin but executes an audience focussing role splendidly in several scenes where he has no lines as well as being very welcome eye candy. Nym and Pistol (Afolabi Alli) act as the servants who manipulate the laundry basket (here transmogrified into a wheelie bin) with delightful cod Slavic (Polish?). Fenton is short sighted and accident prone, falling over frequently when he isn’t wearing his glasses. Sir Hugh’s Welshness is highlighted by a Welsh choir. The Essex girls display themselves on sunbeds which Falstaff attempts to hide under. Mistress Page displays Carry On style Barbara Windsor (get the joke?) tits. There is an absurd remote control golf buggy. Slapstick and high farce and well handled for Falstaff’s escape.
David Troughton is close to perfection as Falstaff. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an actor play Falstaff before when I haven’t been drawn to the farcical nature of the fatty prosthetic padding. Not so here. I could have been deceived into thinking that Falstaff was grossly fat.
Laird just gets rid of the Herne’s Oak stuff and sets the final scene in the town square presided over by a statue of Queen Elizabeth with a Spanish carnival like atmosphere. I always find the Herne the Hunter stuff irritating as well as barely comprehensible, despite my work on provenance and footnotes and Laird obliterates the problem so easily.
It’s all great fun.
I only had one disappointment. Shakespeare’s text is striking in its use of prose except for Mistress Anne and Fenton. Their parts were cut and I could not hear any verse. I ended up caring only for what happened to Falstaff (in keeping with the way the play began and with what Laird was doing) but I missed the extra layer of aural stimulation and seriousness that Shakespeare creates.
Tamburlaine. Rsc review by Peter Buckroyd.
Tamburlaine
The Swan Theatre
I guess it was a mistake to go to a Preview of Tamburlaine because it is directed by Michael Boyd and his productions are often not in their finished form for the Previews (unlike Gregory Doran’s or Erica Whyman’s). However I did. Friends tell me that it is much better ten days or two weeks into the run. Good.
The story itself is pretty simple. Tamburlaine, born a shepherd, wants to rule the world and sets out to do so by whatever means it takes. He invades, kills and conquers. It was immensely popular with Elizabethan audiences, the first play to spawn a sequel in Tamburlaine the Great Part 11.
This production puts the two plays together, cutting them violently, to result in 2 hours 55 minutes playing time. And for me this is the main part of the problem. A vast number of Marlowe’s mighty lines have inevitably been cut, resulting in a loss of poetry, lyricism, political philosophy and debate and leaving sometimes little more than plot. There are vast numbers of characters (or at any rate named people) involved and so doubling and trebling is parts is necessary. It only takes about an hour or so for the audience to realise that the issues are the same regardless of who is being conquered and that the motivation of the main character is simply megalomania. It’s interesting to see kings killed and reappear as other kings whose behaviour is similar as is their fate. Maybe that is the message of the play, warning Elizabethans of the danger of expansionism and drawing parallels with modern day atrocities. The primary women (Tamburlaine’s wife Zenocrate (Rosy McEwen) and Bajazeth’s wife Zabena (Debbie Korley)) do a good job of attracting audience interest and involvement, despite their curtailed parts and both Tamburlaine (Jude Owusu) and Bajazeth (Sagar I M Arya) are powerful and effective as oppressor and oppressed.
Mycetes, King of Persia, is made semi-comic. Sychophantic Meander (James Tucker), in black, looks out of place and therefore transcends particular time and place.
There is much casual walking over dead bodies. Characters are either smeared in chocolate blood when they die or have chocolate blood poured over them from a bucket. There is a good deal of subtle unobtrusive music, mainly percussion. Bajazeth’s cage is pushed in and off efficiently and serves several symbolic purposes. There are dodgy human horses who pull on Tamburlaine’s chariot after the interval, making obvious political links with Bajazeth in the first half.
There is a horrifying violent immoral ending with the sacrilegious burning of holy books. Kings, we sense, are ten a penny. There are guns and a good deal of leather at the end. All becomes gratuitous violence and slaughter.
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