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.
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.
Miss Littlewood, review by Peter Buckroyd.
Miss Littlewood
The Swan Theatre
Joan Littlewood was a hugely influential figure in mid-twentieth century British drama, innovating in theatre and theatre direction in a similarly important way to Jonathan Miller in opera productions.
Sam Kenyon’s new musical is a tribute to Littlewood, telling some of her story in a kind of theatrical biopic. It is hard watching it to separate what is his work and what is director Erica Whyman’s but this is consonant with Littlewood’s productions which often blurred the line between writer, composer and director, as seen in her iconic Oh What a Lovely War.
Littlewood’s innovations such as regional accents, ensemble productions, audience involvement, workshop rehearsals are all taken for granted now but they were strikingly new to her audiences in the north of England and then at her eventual permanent London base the Theatre Royal, Stratford East. In her company actors came and went, earned a pittance while they broke new ground and Kenyon and Whyman show these things throughout.
The show is narrated by one permanent Joan (Clare Burt) but Joan at different stages of her career is played by six other actresses (bug, small, black, white, with different accents) with the permanent Joan often breaking traditional theatrical boundaries by interacting with the audience and commenting on the performances of the Joans.
I wish I knew more about the specific directorial techniques Littlewood used (I am old but not old enough to have seen more than a few of her productions at Stratford East which came to an end in 1975). But it seemed to me that Whyman and Kenyon were telling the story in very much the same way as Littlewood would have done, so that this musical is an insight into mid-twentieth century theatre in Littlewood’s hands, theatre which led to the development of agitprop, for example. And Whyman, like Littlewood, expects her actors to be able to act, to play musical instruments, to sing and dance. These they do splendidly.
This production certainly gets across the idea that theatre should be an immersive experience, that theatre should not be elitist, that radicalism and satire are what drive our nation forward. It also raises timely issues such as inclusivity, equal opportunities for talent regardless of background and funding for the arts. The RSC can’t quite manage Littlewood’s dream of a multi-class audience, though the CV37 tickets ought to help.
Whyman’s meticulous attention to detail, the readiness of all her productions for a first preview audience, attention to detail and intellectual coherence are all on view. What is extraordinary is that she should have two artistic triumphs running at the same time at the RSC (Romeo and Juliet and Miss Littlewood) coming hot on the heels of the artful but seemingly artless direction of Three Letters at The Other Place. It all leaves me hungry for more of her work.
Whether the music will prove as catchy as Oh What a Lovely War’s and whether the satirical edge is a keen as in Littlewood’s work only time will tell.
But what remains very clear in my mind is the success of this show as an ensemble production. True, there are some fine performances (Clare Burt as Joan Littlewood, Greg Barnett as Jimmie Miller, Solomon Israel as Gerry Raffles, Sophia Nomvete and Emily Johnstone as Joans) and a great deal of slick stagecraft, scene changing and furniture removal – from the performers’ point of view it is all hands on deck. As I write this in the week that our Prime Minister threatened her cabinet with the news that she had replacements ready if they did not tow her line, this production’s message about co-operation and egalitarianism is stark.
How commercial this musical will prove to be I don’t know. Littlewood wouldn’t have cared. It doesn’t have the gimmicks and Dahlish appeal of Matilda, but it is much cleverer and more uplifting. Come and see it. If you can combine it with a visit to Romeo and Juliet and enhance your experience with a stay at Moss Cottage you will be made very welcome.
Mrs Rich, review by Peter Buckroyd
The Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich
Swan Theatre
I went to the preview of the RSC’s production of this play with considerable excitement. I had reconciled myself to thinking that I would never see a production of one of Mary Pix’s plays and here it is. Why should I care? In the very early 1970s I spent three years reading and studying the three hundred or so tragedies that were performed in London between 1695 and 1740. I have only ever seen a production of one of them. Now admittedly The Fantastic Follies of Mrs Rich is not a tragedy but it is by one of the more popular tragedians of the period. It’s a Restoration comedy. It would be untrue to say that the RSC has uncovered a neglected masterpiece, but Mrs Rich is a perfectly good well-made Restoration comedy, all the more interesting because it is by a woman rather than a man. Most people are unaware that there were at least five well known and popular women dramatists of the later seventeenth and early eighteenth century – Aphra Behn, Susanna Centilevre, Mary de la Riviere Manley, Catharine Trotter and Mary Pix.
What I found most enjoyable about this production, directed by Jo Davies and designed by Colin Richmond is that it catches a great deal of the spirit of what a production might have been like at the end of the seventeenth century. Of course the stage mechanics are very different, but instead of having flats in grooves pushed on from the side stage Richmond has painted curtains which can be furled and unfurled or pulled down as needed. Typical of the period are the many scenes with just a small number of characters who would have performed near the front of the stage because it wasn’t easy to see what with the fumes from the candles and the cigarette smoke. And Richmond has candlelike footlights round three quarters of the stage. There is spectacle, too, in the form of the sumptuous costumes, gorgeous to look at, colourful and a way of filling the stage and in the form of the toy coach in Hyde Park. The set consists of hand props – lots of them – all carried on and off by the cast. The mechanics of this give visual variety and all the transitions are slickly accomplished.
Davies uses a great deal of movement in the production and all members of the cast employ a series of expansive hand and arm gestures which give an authentic sense of period. There are period style songs, too, written by Tarek Merchant and a wind quartet and harpsichord in period costume and wigs which form a pre-show concert. Sentimentality is assured by the appearances of elder Clerimont’s dogs, Lossie and Theia.
What of the play itself? It’s all pretty familiar and recognisable if you know Restoration comedy. It’s a mildly satirical comedy of manners. It unmasks hypocricy, deals with social pretentions, reveals the shallowness of ‘persons of quality’, deals with the complications of inheritance, the crucial need for money in society courtship, marriage, plotting, twists and turns, mistaken identity, mischief making, the more grounded nature of members of the working classes. The only difference is that it is the women who are controlling everything, rather than the men and they are therefore alert to and manage to unmask male folly. One of the more hilarious moments is when there is a challenge and duel between Mrs Rich and Lady la Basset and they engage in a sword fight in their undergarments. Rich widows are searching for husbands and take the lead in their quests. The men might look as if they have some power and authority but they don’t. In the end the women find their husbands and there are marriages (giving the opportunity for yet more gorgeous costumes).
The cast is very good. Compared with the dire performances in Macbeth playing only a few yards away the acting here is properly professional. For me the star is Sadie Shimmin playing a wonderful servant/landlady magnificently. She is a joy to watch and to listen to whenever she appears. But there are other excellent performances, too. Mrs Clerimont turns out to be the moral centre of the play and Jessica Turner does a fine job, completely convincing. Sophie Stanton is on stage most of the time as Mrs Rich. She has most of the songs and is a commanding presence, her gowns taking up a great deal of space on the beautiful shiny parquet floor and the wearer showing them off to their maximum advantage. I felt at the beginning that there was something not quite right about her accent but then realised that that is because she is not a ‘person of quality’ and so her vowels indicate her pretentions. Effective. There are no weak links in this production. It’s a clever move to cast Tam Williams as Sir John Roverhead. He’s a slight figure who looks cute in his posh brocade but he is a small man, morally flawed, who gets his comeuppance at the end. I didn’t grasp why he had rouge only on his right cheek; that possible symbolism was lost on me.
Don’t expect anything very deep and you are bound to enjoy this production. Come and stay at Moss Cottage with its sumptuous breakfast and award winning marmalade and your visit will be complete.
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