On the 26
th of September we saw Cymbeline produced by the Kneehigh Theatre Company. It is hard to describe the performance.
I feel like I have been gushing about every performance I have seen so far, and now I'm trying to balance the feeling that I have been too accepting and uncritical (after all, if you like everything, is there really anything to like?) with the feeling that I have truly enjoyed each production I have seen, for different reasons.
The production was a Cornish adaptation of Shakespeare's excellent story with brilliant music, creative and immediate writing, and a fantastic commitment to telling the story of the play with energy and passion. I was impressed with how they managed to combine comedy and farce with truly honest emotion.
I will try to describe what I saw. It was set on a thrust stage, with the primary scenic unit being a giant structure of scaffolding with a chain-link cage front. The cage part was actually two great doors that opened and closed to create different playing spaces that could be looked through, climbed on, used to hold things and in general made an appropriate space for the action to take place.
Memorable moments? The opening scene where counter-culture hooligans wearing hoodies deface the front of the King's palace with the word “remember” and memorabilia of the King's abducted twin sons. The cross dressing cornish man (woman?) who narrated the plays events. The touching and hilarious moment where Imogen thinks her lover Posthumus' head has been cut off. The dancing gigilo Iachimo and his cross dressing women of ill-repute. Seeing a remote control car used repeatedly onstage as a means of furthering action and delivering post. The gender-bent maid Pisanio with her crazy physical humor and commitment to her role. The vile Cloten and his demand that Imogen “Suck on his toes.” The brutal and sphinx-like Queen and her hot singing. The King Cymbeline's transformation from drugged out wreck to commanding conqueror. The Roman Emperor being portrayed by a light-up cardboard cut out and a tape-recorder. Posthumus' journey by boat. The beautiful music that accompanied all these moments. The fantastic company making a play that is several hundred years old their own in a way that would make Shakespeare proud, even if it wasn't his play.
http://www.kneehigh.co.uk/index.html
The next was probably the least enjoyable play I have seen yet. It was The Tempest, starring Patrick Stewart as Prospero. I'm in conflict over what I thought about the production.
Where to start? The director and design team decided to reset the play in an arctic wasteland, in contrast with the usual jungle Mediterranean island setting. This in itself is an interesting choice, and I feel, a perfectly fine one. But a interesting concept does not a great production make. But I am getting ahead of myself. They attempted to apply the chosen concept to various (I do not say all) parts of the play, with some success. Patrick Stewart gave us a Prospero at the end of his rope, desperate and clutching. He was so out of control and powerless that at the end of the play, I almost wondered if the whole show had been a hallucination of his. But his performance did ring true within itself, and with the interpretation of Ariel they chose.
Ariel was a great lurking, slow and solid block of ice that tore with glacial speed and strength across the stage from time to time. He did not respect Prospero at all, and never did I feel like he was scared of him. The play was clearly Ariel's. Ariel had all the power, he just happens to acquiesce to Prospero, for reasons unknown (of course we know that it is b/c Prospero freed him, but this is not acknowledged in the action of the performance). While not the flitzy, spritely, bouncing force of nature that I expected to be harnessed and tamed by an all-powerful Prospero, his performance did work. And that is just about where the good things of the production stop for me.
One can accomplish almost anything theatrically with a good company and a good director. This was a good company, and I assume the director has his strengths, but he was almost entirely focused on Prospero and Ariel, and I felt he hung the others out to dry. Miranda was played convincingly as a poorly socialized and almost autistic schoolgirl. This is an interesting dramatic choice, a good exercise. But I feel it does not hold up in performance in relation to the rest of the cast. Her relationship with Ferdinand and her father is entirely devoid of warmth and we are left with out any understanding as to how either could cherish much feeling for her.
The nobles were summarily dismissed as well, and had almost no sense of being the arctic wilderness they were supposed to inhabit. I did not feel any emotional connection to any of them.
The Caliban was merely adequate (biased, you say? Well that is totally likely- but the problem here is that the director seemed to feel that this Caliban was not worth any kind of dramatic force in this play). Stephano and Trinculo failed to hit any humorous high points for me, either. I did, however, love their costumes and some of Stephano's acting choices. The overall feeling was that they weren't given the chance to pull off what they needed to for these parts.
Things that I liked? A fresh new approach to the text. Prospero being interpreted entirely differently than what I expected. Ariel being fresh and different. The spectacle of Ariel erupting from the corpse of a dead sea-lion to make his “You are three men of sin” speech. Stephano as a singing butler. Trinculo with pans tied to his feet. An sense of eeriness that pervaded the whole production.
Things I disliked? Prospero telling every one to draw in to his cell, then the cell burning on stage after Ariel enters it lastly. A distinct feeling that Miranda, the Nobles, Caliban and even Prospero were somehow subordinate to the plot of Ariel getting his freedom. Seeing a play that I wanted to outshine everything I expected and shatter my sensibilities of how the play could be done instead fail under the weight of a poorly executed directorial concept. Honest, I know, and I hope not unfair too.
Link
Julius Caesar was altogether a different experience. Really solid production. Elegant design solutions. Fine acting. Good sense of tension. The only thing we missed - and this really is probably textual, was that the second half wasn't as riveting as the first. But I loved it still.
The performances of both Brutus and Cassius surprised me in how they grew on me as the show went on. I was also taken with the power and grace of their Julius Caesar, who had played a flat and sonambulizing Gonzalo in The Tempest.
The murder of Caesar was a stark and memorable moment. All of the conspirators were wearing bright, painfully white togas, and Caesar was already marked with a distinctive red sash that cut across his body. The stabbing was appropriately violent, with blood spattering everywhere. Caesar also surprised me by standing a good moment after he had been so violently stabbed, holding on to his power even until the last moment.
But this was all the first act. The second act had good costumes and spectacle, fine acting too, but no single moment that capped it all off. Octavius was very unimpressive in the final moments of the play. He is supposed to young in the play, but he is also supposed to have presence. I felt that he did not have the presence required.
We saw King Henry VI Part 1 on Saturday morning at 10.30. If it had been any other production, I would felt that seeing such a weighty production so early in the day would have been a bad idea, but I have grown to love this history cycle of plays and the performance did not disappoint.
This play probably has the weakest script of any of the Shakespeare plays we have seen, but it is also the start of something big and exciting. Let me describe it.
It was staged in the new Courtyard theatre, a space with a thrust stage, three floors of seating (pit, and two galleries) rather reminiscent of the Globe. The design made good use of this excellent performance space. The thrust was left bare, and a great cylindrical tower with spiral staircase at the back of the thrust made the primary scenic unit. It was set against a great curving wall that revealed itself to be a great pair of swinging doors. The floor, tower, and curved wall were all constructed out of beautiful sections of polished rusty steel or iron. They also frequently dropped in scenic units from high above the stage, as well as used the great heavy traps in the floor to great effect.
The sound was created, as in other productions, by a live band and singers, and various foley effects that made good use of the metal surfaces in the set (great clangs, bangs and scrapes).
The lighting was probably the best we had seen yet, and used a wide variety of unconventional instruments. Great shadows of the warrior Talbot and other players were thrown twenty feet high on the great curved back wall by low and powerful footlights.
The acting was superb. Having seen a previous production of this whole cycle by the BBC, I had high expectations of the actors. Talbot, Joan la Pucelle (Or, Joan of Arc), and the Dauphin, his court, and the Bastard of Orleans were all excellent. As is customary with Shakespeare and the English, there were plenty of jokes about France's military prowess (or lack there of). The Cardinal Winchester and Gloucester also did not disappoint. I was also impressed with Henry VI's (hereafter H6) performance. He is a difficult character to play – weak and ineffectual as a ruler, but the weakness must be played strongly; a weak performance is not a performance of weakness.
Some memorable moments? Henry the V coming out of his grave in the ground, covered in blood to lead the charge in one battle against the French. Joan of Arc summoning here divine/demonic power to defeat the French king and Talbot. The hilarious entrances of the French King and the Bastard of Orleans. The English army rescuing Talbot from the Duchess. Winchester spitting on Henry the V's grave. Talbot's scene with dying son. The arrival and courtship of Margaret of Anjou by Suffolk. The Battle scenes enacted on ladders hanging high above the stage. So many great moments!
http://www.rsc.org.uk/content/2205.aspx
Next play, King John. What I consider to be rather a weak script, but still with the promise to be a great performance!
PS My laptop has been acting up lately, with specific regard to internet access- thus I may be out of communication for a while until it is fixed. Cheers!
