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2007 has been different from previous years because of
the rebuilding going on in the Stratford theatres. There has been no specially
named 'season'. And a new artistic director has taken over at the Globe.
Nonetheless an insensitive review in the TLS (June 15, 2007, p. 17) prods
me to write up the Shakespeare plays of the current summer, at least those
in Stratford and London. According to John Stokes the Lear at the
Stratford Courtyard theatre made no-one cry. Maybe it was the seat he was
in, but up in the rear gallery where I was, tears flowed abundantly at the
end. They were partly, I suppose, a reaction to the sheer sadness of the
final scene, in particular the deaths of Cordelia and Lear and those powerful
but simple words that announce them - 'Never, never…', 'I have a journey
sir shortly to go./ My master calls me and I must not say no'. But they
were also, at least on my part, delighted recognition of the privilege we
had shared - an extraordinary performance of the greatest play. True, some
of my friends, sitting elsewhere, disliked some aspects of the production:
the rain for the storm scene made the stage wet, and those sitting close
were afraid the actors would slip; the hanging of the fool above the stage,
which thus makes literal what may perhaps be only metaphor in the text (perhaps
he means Cordelia); an extravagant almost operatic setting which nonetheless
respects the thrust stage of this wonderful temporary Courtyard; music that
occasionally drowns out the speeches; an underplayed (but surely moving)
Cordelia … But there were so many good things in this performance, above
all perhaps the marvellous clarity of the verse-speaking, but also the richly
elegant costumes for the royal women that contrast with the rags and eventual
nudity for those on the heath, a Gloucester (William Gaunt) whose courage
and suffering are of equal intensity, a Fool (Sylvester McCoy) who plays
the role as a music-hall veteran and who suddenly removes his wig to become
old, and above all Lear himself. McKellen's performance gave me the feeling
that this was what a great actor had been preparing for throughout his career.
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The production had by this point gone through some drama
of its own. Trevor Nunn, the director, had postponed press night until his
Goneril, Frances Barber, recovered from the twisted ankle sustained during
rehearsals. Thus the play ran for several weeks with an understudy in a
principal role and no reviews appeared, a sign of the immense power the
RSC must have over the nation’s drama critics: no-one wants to step out
of line and displease the maestro. The Stokes review, by the way, wrote
that Barber was playing Regan, even after all the fuss and hype in the media.
The TLS was obliged to apologize the following week.
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Next door, at the Swan, in the last weeks before it closes
to allow for all the structural work in the main house, from which it is
separated by only a very narrow and shared backstage area, is an extremely
violent and even frightening Macbeth. The RSC has paired it with
a new translation by Tanya Ronder of Ionesco’s absurdist play Macbett,
and used the same cast (but a different director) for each. The result is
that the two plays need to be watched in sequence, since the exhilarating
and vaguely erotic comedy of Ionesco is here seen as an interpretation of
Shakespeare as well as a witty satire on Eastern European paranoia and totalitarianism.
Ionesco makes much, for example, of the extremely odd reference in Shakespeare
to ‘the king’s evil’, in which the English king is supposed to be able magically
to cure scrofula by the laying on of hands. One wonders what James thought
of this passage, and indeed how he reacted to the witches’ apparent powers.
In Ionesco it simply becomes a grotesque satire on the efforts of the powerful
to impress. There are no witches other than the Lady Duncan/Macbett, but
she is very much the seductive witch, impelling Macbett to assassinate her
husband; Banco and Macbett (their truncated names also a comment) become
virtually interchangeable soldiers ‘fresh from the killing fields’ (Ronder),
at least in the opening long sequence; Malcolm’s bizarre testing of Macduff
from Shakespeare’s Act IV is taken seriously and re-worked as his coronation
speech at the play’s finale: tyranny continues. It all becomes fearfully
funny at times, as this exuberant performance represents power as absurd.
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All the high spirits gain an extra edge from their references
to the parallel production of Shakespeare’s play, in which the witches are
enormously powerful and brilliantly imagined: at first they are women who
witness the murder of their children in battle and then like zombies they
arise from the killing fields. This opening scene, a new prelude to the
play, is one of the most frightening I have endured in the theatre, close
to the action as one is in the Swan, so that the battlefield violence threatens
to spill over into the front seats, and you find yourself flinching. When
the battle is over, Macbeth stands centre stage with a baby in his arms,
which he caresses and then slowly strangles. The tone for the piece is given,
even as the play’s central notion of childlessness versus lineage is clearly
announced. This is not a noble Macbeth who can credibly hesitate before
killing Duncan, persuaded only by the entry of his wife in the extraordinary
Act I, scene 7. And that indeed is the problem with this production, since
David Troughton never brings his Macbeth back down to any ordinary level:
his eyes are mad and staring from the beginning. It is as if he cannot shake
off the parallel Ionesco role, where an insane tyrant appears to be part
of the basic conception. The excellent RSC programme notes mention contexts
of contemporary masculinity and violence, such as Serbian attacks on Bosnian
Muslims. But Shakespeare surely calls for more subtlety.
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Unusual as it may be, for once there is a good deal more
of that key Shakespearean quality in the Globe’s Venice season, devoted
to what they call 'Renaissance and Revolution'. The Merchant is a
riotous, rollicking production in which everyone on stage is having such
a good time that the audience, those standing close enough at least, cannot
resist joining in. This participation is the great strength of the Globe,
as we have seen time and again, and it is still very much in evidence now
that Mark Rylance has yielded his director’s role to Dominic Dromgoole.
In the past I have often found this play’s young men who cluster around
Bassanio tedious, but here they become both bumptious and funny. Yet in
the roles of their women especially there is a good deal of Shakespeare’s
subtlety: Nerissa (Jennifer Kidd) and Jessica (Pippa Nixon) are both played
as young and attractive but notably more mature than the men they fall for.
Kirsty Besterman was originally to play Nerissa and was to be the understudy
for Portia, but Michelle Duncan was obliged to withdraw from the company
(‘ a sudden indisposition’), so Kirsty stepped capably into this demanding
role (her debut) and uses her slight figure to fill the court scene with
a clear and commanding presence.
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In an unusual move for the Globe, the director, Rebecca
Gatward, has chosen to build some extra scenic elements into the yard, not
only the common steps which allow the actors to mount and leave the stage
from the ground, but also including a small Rialto bridge jutting out almost
to the entrance. Part of the purpose is to suggest the difference from the
smelly Venice quayside (with its gondola — ouch!) and the serenity of Belmont,
even though this is a distinction that is gradually undermined by the language
of the play (gold has its role in both). But the main dramatic function
of this bridge prop, it turns out, is to provide a separate platform for
Shylock, thus emphasizing for key moments his alienation from the rest of
the population on stage. Unfortunately, though perhaps deliberately, John
McEnery, a seasoned Globe actor, fails to use the possibilities of the role
to evoke sympathy, as in the famous ‘Hath not a Jew eyes’ speech, and though
this allows the audience to feel a bit better about his humiliation, it
robs the play of its complexity. There is no tragedy inside this comedy,
threatening to break out. This is all the more regrettable since, in view
of the ways we have all been wondering about Shakespeare’s religion in recent
years (was he from a Catholic household and thus mostly silent about religious
issues for personal as well as political reasons?), it would have been interesting
to see Shylock’s forced conversion against the background of Protestant
treatment of Catholics.
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The key role in the Globe’s Othello is also seriously
underplayed. Tim McInnerny’s Iago is an isolated, rather lame tempter, not
simply alone for the soliloquies, but lonely. This could be an affecting
way to play the role so that his only convivial moment is when he conducts
his drunken troops in song, dominating them all as he stands above them
on the pub table. But its effect is to unbalance the play, especially since
Othello and Desdemona have such a clear erotic charge between them. The
director, Wilson Milam, was not afraid to cast a magnificent black man as
Othello, Eamonn Walker, and for his Desdemona to choose a fine young actress,
Zoë Tapper, who has not done Shakespeare before. That they are so manifestly
in love could have given Iago an extra motive for provoking the ‘green-eyed
monster’, and to an extent it does. But McInnerny is so marginalized that
he is unconvincing even as an Iago who is trying to get back into the game
and so to centre stage. He does not himself understand why he is tempting
Othello to his ruin. That is a plausible interpretation of the role, but
its effect in the Globe is to leave the audience confused. This leaves a
hole in the middle of the play which even this Desdemona with her superb
presence cannot fill. From her first entrance she challenges our attention,
arms crossed as if in modest piety, yet really, as we soon see, in a bodily
manifestation of the inner struggle she speaks of, her ‘divided duty’. And
this is no meek, yielding Desdemona. She puts up a terrific struggle in
Othello’s arms before he can master her to murder. The ending is the most
powerful scene, and renders this production, in spite of the shadowy Iago,
one of the most moving I have seen.
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About the truly dreadful Macbeth at the Regent’s
Park Open Air Theatre, the less said the better. (The main character is
inaudible, his wife is an appallingly vulgar hussy, the witches slitheringly
inappropriate, the rest of the cast worse, the set a mockery made of random
oil-drums and large boxes.) Just remember never to go there for anything
but a light-hearted comedy, preferably preceded by a glass of wine in the
bar. Happily the regular Midsummer Night's Dream does not disappoint:
there can be few more pleasant ways to spend a summer's evening. in the
gathering gloom.. This year is Ian Talbot's last after 20 years as artistic
director and once again he uses Christopher Luscombe to direct the play
itself, along with Janet Bird as designer. She dresses Olivia Darnley's
lovely Hermia in what seems to be a bustle, and Hattie Ladbury's droll Helena
in a taller and practical dress that also has little to do with Athens (in
spite of Oberon’s instructions to Puck about the lovers’ Athenian garments)
but makes for a proper comic contrast. Like Macbeth’s witches (thankfully
the only parallel), the fairies stick around on the stepped stage even when
not called on for action. Unfortunately they continue to attract the eye
in their green and gold chitons (proper Athenian garb for Greek fantasy)
and unless they are playing flutes or eyeing each other up, do not quite
know what to do with the audience’s returning gaze. Meanwhile the male lovers
move slickly around and in and out of Noel Coward (also worth seeing in
the Park, as is Sandy Wilson’s The Boy Friend, returning from last
year’s wonderfully upbeat hit). As is to be expected, Talbot's vigorous
Bottom splendidly and deliberately upstages the rude mechanicals except
perhaps for Chris Emmett’s Peter Quince. They look rather awkward, but very
funny, in their ballet costumes. If only these two marvelous open-air theatres
were not constantly beset by those low-flying planes and even the occasional
helicopter. Even when Bottom's ‘Now am I dead, now am I fled; My soul is
in the sky’ is followed, a moment later, by their overpowering roar and
bright glare, the audience’s suddenly delighted laughter at the timing doesn’t
ease my grumpy longing to shoot them all down. It's even worse at the Globe,
as we all know to our cost. What a truly weird decision it was for the BBC
to record a read-though King Lear there last year, for broadcast
on the World Service at Christmas! Most of it had to be re-recorded in the
studio to escape the aircraft intrusions. All you can hope if you can make
it to this year's marvelous Othello is that the wind-patterns will
be favourable and shift the Heathrow approach path.
