It's good to see Greenwich Theatre making a return to in-house production, since their past few years have been marred by a string of travelling flops. Their collaboration with the Stage on Screen company looks like a fruitful one, and choosing to stage classic works is sensible.
The Duchess of Malfi is here set in the inter-war years, starting with the 1918 Armistice, thus explaining the death of the Duchess' husband and creating a little background tension in the lead-up to the outbreak of a further war which turns the Cardinal into a mini-Mussolini and explodes family tensions into murder and madness. It's a decent production - there are some unfortunate stumblings over lines, and the pace would have been helped by some judicious cutting, but it's all very forgivable. Bosola's the real star turn here, although his diction is initially alarmingly mannered, the effect wears off, and Tim Treloar's performance is impeccable. It's a difficult part, but he brings a gritty sort of determination to the role, which works well. Tim Steed as the incestuous Ferdinand also deserves a mention for his oily, uncomfortable solicitousness of the eponymous Duchess. I can't really get away without mentioning her - Aislin McGuckin has a good stab at it, and has an appropriate wiry determination. She could tone down the hammy choking in the death throes, though - there are few things more guaranteed to curl an audience's toes.
The same cast for Volpone, with Richard Bremmer and Mark Hadfield duetting marvellously as Volpone and Mosca, with strong support from those cast members who had already distinguished themselves in The Duchess of Malfi. This play contains one of my favourite lines in English drama, from Lady Would-Be; 'I pray you sir, let me borrow your dwarf'. There was a severe lack of dwarf, and he was much missed. Incidentally, if anyone can explain to me what exactly it is that Jonson has against the Dutch, I'd be very grateful.
Despite the fact that by the end of Webster's work the stage is littered with bodies, I can't help but think Jonson's the nastier work, and his view of humanity the bleaker. Webster's characters kill and kill and kill, in the pursuit of money or revenge. There's a bloody sort of simplicity to his world, an internal logic. In Volpone (as in The Alchemist) Jonson's stupid, greedy simpletons queue up madly to be gulled and gulled again by sharper wits. Webster may seek to expose the darkness of the human soul, but Jonson finds the human body and its human needs grubby enough.
Monday, 12 April 2010
Monday, 22 March 2010
A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Rose, Kingston, Thursday 11th March 2010
Now, Judi Dench is, of course, a National Treasure (TM). The Rose, Kingston (not to be confused with the barely excavated original on Bankside) was always guaranteed selling every seat in the house on this basis alone, but this staging is much more than a mere vehicle for the lady's talents.
First of all, the Rose is a charming venue. A copy of the fourth of London's public theatres, built by Philip Henslowe on Bankside in 1587, its enclosing circular layout lends a certain intimacy to performances, far more appropriate to the works of the Bard than the standoffish proscenium arch theatres of the West End. The Kingston Rose is very bare bones - towering metal girders instead of the Globe's kitschy authentique wood and marble. It's a very workmanlike theatre, and what romance it offers is entirely up to the production.
This one's got it in spades. An opening masque provides a speaking show whereby a court of players are given permission to perform by the ever regal Dench as Elizabeth I, who then translates herself into Titania. This is very much a play about patronage, and what might have seemed a clumsy paralleling of the Queen of England with the Queen of the Fairies is legitimised by the text. Titania is always surrounded by her fairy players, who sing and dance on her command, while Oberon is quite solitary, but for his henchman Puck. Our rude mechanicals too (with their obligatory regional accents - it's Liverpool this time) shine on the night, clinging to the hope of sixpence a day for life from Theseus.
The frantic lovers are all I'd hoped - they were always going to be somewhat overshadowed by the greatness of the leading lady, but there is talent here. Lysander and Demetrius are rather insignificant, comically interchangable, as Helena and Hermia are not, but this is and always has been a play about women's desires. Annabel Scholey does a fine job in the slight role of Hermia, but Rachael Stirling brings real depth to her portrayal of Helena with a husky-voiced desperation that hints at real self-loathing.
But it was always going to be about Dench. And so it is. There's a ripple of indrawn breath when she first appears as Titania, and it's a lot to live up to. But how could she not? This woman *breathes* Shakespeare. She's occasionally been criticised (I name no names) as a haughty sort of performer, and one suspects a hint of self-parody in her first addresses to Oberon, in front of their audience of fairies. She's a commanding presence, but never an overpowering one, and Charles Edwards' Oberon stands up very well to her, bringing a certain petulance to the part. There's something about his Oberon that suggests a boy grown to manhood too fast, not quite in control of his emotions, but very much in love with his queen.
I have not yet read a review of this staging that didn't make mention of Dench's age. I do not know why. As someone rather more down-to-earth than myself pointed out to me, they're not human. They're fairies. And one of Shakespeare's favourite themes is that we're all (whatever age) fools for love.
Titania certainly is. Beautifully, stupidly, madly in love. Dench's performance demonstrates how love transforms us - she blossoms in the company of Bottom and his asses head (which was lovely - whatever charity deals with donkeys should have passed round a hat - they'd have been coining it) and it only makes the tragedy of her love worse. Everyone who's ever watched in dismay as their best friend giggled in infatuation at the dreadful jokes of the latest dreadful lover knows this feeling. And Judi Dench has a lovely giggle. As plot-devices go, 'and then she falls in love with the donkey' is pretty far-fetched, but that giggle clinches it. She's head-over-heels.
The verse speaking from the whole cast is impeccable. Peter Hall has long been noted for his respect for Shakespeare's lines, for leaving them be. There's no running on of lines over the long speeches, and rhymes are allowed the space they deserve. It pays off in that the whole play breathes - it isn't overworked, and there's no hint of actorliness even in the soliloquies. It lends new comedy to Puck (a delightfully clowning, loose-limbed Reece Ritchie), who got laughs for lines I've never heard an audience enjoy so much before.
I've seen A Midsummer Night's Dream more times than any other play. I've seen some absolute shockers, and I've seen some I thought were perfect. This was better. This one proves it. The play really is the thing.
First of all, the Rose is a charming venue. A copy of the fourth of London's public theatres, built by Philip Henslowe on Bankside in 1587, its enclosing circular layout lends a certain intimacy to performances, far more appropriate to the works of the Bard than the standoffish proscenium arch theatres of the West End. The Kingston Rose is very bare bones - towering metal girders instead of the Globe's kitschy authentique wood and marble. It's a very workmanlike theatre, and what romance it offers is entirely up to the production.
This one's got it in spades. An opening masque provides a speaking show whereby a court of players are given permission to perform by the ever regal Dench as Elizabeth I, who then translates herself into Titania. This is very much a play about patronage, and what might have seemed a clumsy paralleling of the Queen of England with the Queen of the Fairies is legitimised by the text. Titania is always surrounded by her fairy players, who sing and dance on her command, while Oberon is quite solitary, but for his henchman Puck. Our rude mechanicals too (with their obligatory regional accents - it's Liverpool this time) shine on the night, clinging to the hope of sixpence a day for life from Theseus.
The frantic lovers are all I'd hoped - they were always going to be somewhat overshadowed by the greatness of the leading lady, but there is talent here. Lysander and Demetrius are rather insignificant, comically interchangable, as Helena and Hermia are not, but this is and always has been a play about women's desires. Annabel Scholey does a fine job in the slight role of Hermia, but Rachael Stirling brings real depth to her portrayal of Helena with a husky-voiced desperation that hints at real self-loathing.
But it was always going to be about Dench. And so it is. There's a ripple of indrawn breath when she first appears as Titania, and it's a lot to live up to. But how could she not? This woman *breathes* Shakespeare. She's occasionally been criticised (I name no names) as a haughty sort of performer, and one suspects a hint of self-parody in her first addresses to Oberon, in front of their audience of fairies. She's a commanding presence, but never an overpowering one, and Charles Edwards' Oberon stands up very well to her, bringing a certain petulance to the part. There's something about his Oberon that suggests a boy grown to manhood too fast, not quite in control of his emotions, but very much in love with his queen.
I have not yet read a review of this staging that didn't make mention of Dench's age. I do not know why. As someone rather more down-to-earth than myself pointed out to me, they're not human. They're fairies. And one of Shakespeare's favourite themes is that we're all (whatever age) fools for love.
Titania certainly is. Beautifully, stupidly, madly in love. Dench's performance demonstrates how love transforms us - she blossoms in the company of Bottom and his asses head (which was lovely - whatever charity deals with donkeys should have passed round a hat - they'd have been coining it) and it only makes the tragedy of her love worse. Everyone who's ever watched in dismay as their best friend giggled in infatuation at the dreadful jokes of the latest dreadful lover knows this feeling. And Judi Dench has a lovely giggle. As plot-devices go, 'and then she falls in love with the donkey' is pretty far-fetched, but that giggle clinches it. She's head-over-heels.
The verse speaking from the whole cast is impeccable. Peter Hall has long been noted for his respect for Shakespeare's lines, for leaving them be. There's no running on of lines over the long speeches, and rhymes are allowed the space they deserve. It pays off in that the whole play breathes - it isn't overworked, and there's no hint of actorliness even in the soliloquies. It lends new comedy to Puck (a delightfully clowning, loose-limbed Reece Ritchie), who got laughs for lines I've never heard an audience enjoy so much before.
I've seen A Midsummer Night's Dream more times than any other play. I've seen some absolute shockers, and I've seen some I thought were perfect. This was better. This one proves it. The play really is the thing.
Monday, 8 March 2010
Fanfare please...
Alarums and Excursions is dead chuffed to announce that it has got its sticky fingers on a pair of tickets for (the completely sold out) A Midsummer Night's Dream, at the Rose Theatre, Kingston, starring the inestimable Judi Dench. Much excitement!
Sunday, 28 February 2010
Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Magic and Science, Tuesday 23rd February
In a dark dark town there was a dark dark street and in the dark dark street there was a dark dark shop and in the dark dark shop...
Was every nightmare you ever woke screaming from.
The Last Tuesday Society resides at Viktor Wynd's Little Shop of Horrors, which is a veritable cabinet of curiosities. I arrived early for Philip Ball's lecture, and having paid my £7 entry was provided with a very fine gin and tonic. This is a marked improvement on those lectures I attended at university, where one was expected to provide one's own gin and tonic. This fortified me for a tour of the shop downstairs. If, dear reader, you find yourself in the market for a pickled foetus, a display of taxidermy, a gilded cow snout, a skull once owned by Aleister Crowley, the preserved erection of a gentleman hanged in the Seventeenth Century (I was tempted), the cast of a dicephalous skeleton or shrunken heads at reasonable prices, this is the place to come. Bring a chequebook and an expression of prurient glee. I liked it very much.
An apt setting, then for the night's lecture. Philip Ball is a science writer whose work has covered topics as various as music, cosmology, pattern formation in the natural world and political philosophy. He's also a trained clown. A Renaissance man of sorts, then, discussing Paracelsus, another kind of Renaissance man; a natural historian, metallurgist, alchemist, drinker and glutton. Ball's lecture took Paracelsus very much on his own terms, not as the legend Browning wrote of, or the wizard whose statue adorns the halls of Hogwarts, but a Neoplatatonic mystic, and the first man to try to come up with a comprehensive theory of everything. A practical sort of chap, he had little time for the doctors of the day, who relied on a Galenic model of humoral medicine, and rarely saw their patient, diagnosing by uroscopy. Paracalsus declared 'all they can do is stare at piss', and preferred a more holistic approach, subscribing to the microcosm/macrocosm idea. He was very well travelled (or possibly just frequently run out of town by angry uroscopists), but often impoverished. We owe him thanks for the idea that specific illnesses should be treated with specific cures - no one had really thought of that before. Things move on of course, otherwise we'd all still be rubbing our syphilis sores with mercury while our noses rotted off, but Paracelsus started things moving. He was unpopular, with a flair for the dramatic, and Ball's lecture communicated this very effectively, with wit and style. He's a compelling speaker, and I wouldn't hesitate to see him speak again. He concluded with a quote from the man himself; 'I am different. Let this not upset you.'
I went to the pub for a drink afterwards. Me and the barman are going to save up and go halvsies on a shrunken head. We're different. We're with Paracelsus. Oh, and mine's a pint.
Was every nightmare you ever woke screaming from.
The Last Tuesday Society resides at Viktor Wynd's Little Shop of Horrors, which is a veritable cabinet of curiosities. I arrived early for Philip Ball's lecture, and having paid my £7 entry was provided with a very fine gin and tonic. This is a marked improvement on those lectures I attended at university, where one was expected to provide one's own gin and tonic. This fortified me for a tour of the shop downstairs. If, dear reader, you find yourself in the market for a pickled foetus, a display of taxidermy, a gilded cow snout, a skull once owned by Aleister Crowley, the preserved erection of a gentleman hanged in the Seventeenth Century (I was tempted), the cast of a dicephalous skeleton or shrunken heads at reasonable prices, this is the place to come. Bring a chequebook and an expression of prurient glee. I liked it very much.
An apt setting, then for the night's lecture. Philip Ball is a science writer whose work has covered topics as various as music, cosmology, pattern formation in the natural world and political philosophy. He's also a trained clown. A Renaissance man of sorts, then, discussing Paracelsus, another kind of Renaissance man; a natural historian, metallurgist, alchemist, drinker and glutton. Ball's lecture took Paracelsus very much on his own terms, not as the legend Browning wrote of, or the wizard whose statue adorns the halls of Hogwarts, but a Neoplatatonic mystic, and the first man to try to come up with a comprehensive theory of everything. A practical sort of chap, he had little time for the doctors of the day, who relied on a Galenic model of humoral medicine, and rarely saw their patient, diagnosing by uroscopy. Paracalsus declared 'all they can do is stare at piss', and preferred a more holistic approach, subscribing to the microcosm/macrocosm idea. He was very well travelled (or possibly just frequently run out of town by angry uroscopists), but often impoverished. We owe him thanks for the idea that specific illnesses should be treated with specific cures - no one had really thought of that before. Things move on of course, otherwise we'd all still be rubbing our syphilis sores with mercury while our noses rotted off, but Paracelsus started things moving. He was unpopular, with a flair for the dramatic, and Ball's lecture communicated this very effectively, with wit and style. He's a compelling speaker, and I wouldn't hesitate to see him speak again. He concluded with a quote from the man himself; 'I am different. Let this not upset you.'
I went to the pub for a drink afterwards. Me and the barman are going to save up and go halvsies on a shrunken head. We're different. We're with Paracelsus. Oh, and mine's a pint.
Saturday, 20 February 2010
Ill met by moonlight...
Welcome to Alarums and Excursions, your guide to all things Renaissance (both fair and foul) in London. I'll be posting as often as I can manage with reviews of everything there is to do around here that comes in Early Modern flavour. Next week I'll be reviewing Phillip Ball (author of The Devil's Doctor) lecturing on Paracelsus and the World of Renaissance Science and Magic, hosted by The Last Tuesday Society and planning a trip to the Seven Stars on Chancery Lane, which has been around since 1602. I'm also tempted by Rory Kinnear in Measure for Measure at the Almeida and (if I'm feeling brave) Richard III at the Riverside Studios, where Sadie Frost is tackling my favourite female role in Shakespeare's canon, Lady Anne. It's looking like a promising few months for Renaissance stagings, as Greenwich Theatre makes a return to producing in-house shows with Volpone and The Duchess of Malfi coming up in March. I await reports from my spies south of the river. As for tonight? I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.
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