Review Coriolanus

Coriolanus
by William Shakespeare

The Hero Lies In You
http://bit.ly/RSCRomeMMXVII

In ancient times, before her trusty steed joined her in theatre adventures, TLT was a mighty literary warrior, in  hand to page combat with the classics including Coriolanus.

Yep, in other words, she took Coriolanus for English 'A' Level, a play written by the Bard during the reign of James 1 of England and VI of Scotland round about the time of food shortages and corn riots in the early 17th century.

She also saw the late, lamented Alan Howard in the role from the vertiginous "Gods" at the Aldwych Theatre, then the London outpost of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Now, roll on the years, it's Coriolanus and the Royal Shakespeare Company in a version which curiously manages to combine excitement and blandness all in one production.

Coriolanus is a hero while he is away at war defending the Roman city state, a fighting machine who overcomes allcomers including the attacking armies of Rome's arch enemy, Tullus Aufidius and the Volscian military.

Coriolanus only knows how to speak the language of war and has only ever focussed on channelling resources towards war.

He is urged on by a mother who, in this production, is more politically astute than simply wanting a military hero in the family.

Her son, though, has never had to think outside his own military and domestic sphere, let alone negotiate the politics of central and local government and the distribution of civilian resources.   

Angus Jackson directs Shakespeare's tragedy and civic rumination on a geometric stage with a set of classical simplicity by Robert Innes Hopkins using its depth to good effect. 

The martial and male political forums are placed at a layered distance from a  white marble statue of a magnificent horse laid low by an imperial lion.

The interior female domestic sphere is symbolized by a Venus De Milo, another marble white statue but of a beauteous woman with her arms broken off.

It is a geometric play with Coriolanus at first a part of the geometry of Rome (ok, ok, TLT knows geometry is a Greek invention, but you known what she means!).

But then he becomes a destructive force as he leaves it, in banishment and then revenge, to join the Volscians, laying waste the ritualistic balance of power between the two armies.  

In Shakespeare, especially in a play such as Coriolanus, it is always interesting to see how the writing with its use of formal rhetorical devices still chimes with a modern view of "character".

Sope Dirisu's Coriolanus stands like a tree trunk, which ultimately breaks rather than bends. This visual image remains in the mind but is not matched by his rather unsupple verbal, if clear, delivery.

He and the people around him seem to be in a nebulous, hierarchical, corporate space.

The refined violin and cello strings and short bursts of a live operatic voice create a  feel of the City's elite in tuxedos and bow ties ruling the roost like corporate sponsors refusing to countenance the plebeian pleas for grain.

In this it almost treads on the ground of the National Theatre's 2012 Timon Of Athens but does not go all the way, remaining a kind of no-man's land on clean brown wood floors.

This lack of specificity, despite some design striking touches, combined with the modern dress does not work in the end in its favour. It gives it, especially with the aural strings and trills, a certain blandness.

Hayden Gwynne is a strong Volumnia, the mother of the warrior, who in her interpretation is not so much obsessed with making her son a martial hero as making sure he builds a secure domestic and political family for himself.

After the popular politicians have taken Coriolanus, a vital cog, out of the Roman machine, the scene where  mother, wife and young son plead to save the city is heartrending.

Otherwise, James Corrigan's Aufidius makes an impact, particularly in the ultimate scenes where the final, messy scramble ends in tragedy.

Paul Jesson's Menenius, the wily, good-living patrician, has a clarity and manages to hold the audience with his manoeuvring and arguments.

The Tribunes, the formal political representatives of the people, are nicely characterised by Jackie Morrison and Martina Laird.

However the arguments they put for the fickle populace and the responses of the arrogant elite come through less successfully on the large Barbican stage. 

Charles Aitken is engaging as Cominius, Coriolanus's political colleague and Hannah Morrish is a fetching contrast to Coriolanus's mother as the more delicate wife Virginia. The fighting is well-staged by movement director Lucy Cullingford.

The production is exciting at times and a little plodding at others, especially in the first act.  It's a pleasure to see Coriolanus again but, although there are moments of power, it did feel occasionally rather diluted. It's an upper range amber light.  

Review King Lear (PREVIEW)

King Lear 
by William Shakespeare

Pop Up Britain
http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/

Would the rain hold off? That was the question in TLT's mind as she slalomed her way through the crowd towards the edge of the Globe stage with its pillars swathed in tarpaulin for Shakespeare's play of fractions and factions.

Of course a storm at the appropriate time would be nature's seal of approbation for one of the then Jacobean playwright William Shakespeare's most famous scenes - the storm scene both inciting and reflecting the madness of King Lear in the play first known to be performed in 1606.

Kevin McNally, best known for his role as Joshamee Gibbs in the Pirates Of The Caribbean movie franchise,  takes on the title role in the Shakespeare's Globe production directed by Nancy Meckler.

He's a very neat, one could almost call him dapper, Lear with a snowy white manicured beard and designer tattoos.

This Lear dresses in a not-quite-a-military uniform as if he were a corporate man with a penchant for vodka shots who has turned to a fashion choice of freshly laundered and ironed jacket and trousers in shades of khaki brown and beige.

There's a huge KEEP OUT daubed on the nailed up doors of the stage (designer Rosanna Vize) torn down by the motley crew of performers invading the stage with their shabby suitcases and creating a makeshift pop up Britain for this King Lear.

A goods trolley roll container from a warehouse (maybe in the age of the internet it's also warehouse Britain) lies on its side ready for them.

So these squatters zip up their windcheaters, turn their baseball caps, pull their beanies down over their ears. And lay a golden cloak and golden circlet crown on the ground for Lear, King of the Britons.

The daughters of Lear stand on crates, ready for their father to address them while the King's Fool (Loren O'Dair)  is a delicate Pierrot musician with a tear painted on her cheek, playing the violin.

Gloucester (Burt Caesar) is a credulous complacent astrology-believing  senior courtier in an Edwardian red velvet smoking jacket whose good and bad sides are embodied in his sons, all-too-gullible Edgar (Joshua Jameson) and driven, bitter illegitimate Edmund (Ralph Davis). 

The Duke of Kent becomes "Our Lady Of Kent" (Saskia Reeves), a bespectacled sensible woman politican in white jacket, skirt, blouse and court shoes, holding a large black book of accounts or minutes of the Royal court proceedings  or maybe a version of the Domesday Book, a book of land deeds.

She narrowly avoids a throttling when her position is ripped from her after she dares to question Lear's wisdom in giving up his kingdom in favour of his daughters and, more pertinently for a patriarchal monarchy, his sons-in-law.

There's Goneril (Emily Bruni), thin and sallow with pursed red lipstick lips, hair scraped back in a bun, a small cape around her bony shoulders.  Regan (Sirine Saba), black hair streaming down her back, is fleshier, more voluptuous in a silky white halter neck, a fur pagan pelt stole and long velvet skirt.

They pile on the flattery.  Cordelia (Anjana Vasan) famously says nothing, a small figure in over sized, virginal white high waisted robe and silver adornments,  all ripped from her by her angry father to reveal a plain slip which could pass equally for a 1960s dress.

This is a solid, vigorous flat cap production with clear verse speaking - ideal for exam students who, despite cuts, want to hear the text. At the same time, it didn't blow TLT or her own automotive courtier away.

The use of  the cage-like warehouse roll goods container for the tearing out of Gloucester's eyes by  Cornwall (Faz Singhateh), the changing of Edgar and the pitting of sister against sister over their deceitful lover Edmund felt rather laboured.

The best things about the production?

Saskia Reeves's sturdily loyal Kent with extra resonance when disguised she answers the question, "How now, what art thou?" with "A man, sir".

 And  Joshua James's loose-limbed scampering Edgar, the only character who via a lunatic vagrant disguise, really gets low down and dirty truly gaining the sympathy of the audience and credibly transforming into a thoughtful statesman by the end.

Otherwise it's altogether too clean and laundered and  a lacklustre mash up of the traditional and the modern in dress and delivery.

This otherwise conventional production of King Lear does extract a fair amount of comedy out of Lear's contradictions and his realisation of his two elder daughters' treachery, but it does feel this is at the expense of power and pathos.

Having said this, there is a gesture towards homelessness in a corporate Britain, with a courageous military soul drained into pointless voilence, and the Kingdom's division did make us think of the union, Brexit and the implications for the island of Ireland.

The rain held off and, while this wasn't top notch for us, this brisk and admirably clear (and maybe televisual?) version of Lear is still an excellent upper range amber light introduction for those coming fresh to the Bard.

Review The Tempest

Shakespeare's enchanted isle weaves its rich and strange spell on Carolin Kopplin in an enticingly musical, cross-gender production.

The Tempest
by William Shakespeare

Bewitched, Bothered And Bewildered
http://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/

This pared-down version of William Shakespeare's final play provides a rather superficial but still engaging production with some outstanding performances.

Actor musicians greet the audience as they seat themselve on three sides of stage, providing an exotic and welcoming atmosphere. Then the drumming ceases abruptly as Prospero (Sarah Malin) makes her entrance for her first monologue.

The sorcereress, Prospero, ruler of this strange island, is the rightful Duchess of Milan, overthrown by her treacherous brother Antonio (Gemma Lawrence) and his accomplice King Alonso of Naples (Stanton Plummer-Cambridge).

When Prospero learns that her enemies are sailing past the island she conjures up a storm to shipwreck them with the help Ariel (Peter Caulfield), one of the spirits on the island who was imprisoned by the witch Sycorax before Prospero freed him to use his services for her own needs.

Directed by Amy Draper, this production proffers a fresh approach combining Shakespeare's language with beguiling dance and music, creating a magical world solely with percussion (excellently performed by Andrew Meredith) and sound effects (music Candida Caldicot) on an otherwise bare stage. Yet this version's short running time leaves very little room for character development which works against the performers.

The cast, save for Sarah Malin and Peter Caulfield, all play a variety of characters. Minor costume changes imply sudden switches into different characters which can, at times, be somewhat distracting but are usually well-executed.

Malin's Prospero rules with a quiet authority, using the graceful Ariel and the crude Caliban at her pleasure. Caulfield's Ariel is a delicate, vulnerable creature. Yet he remains detached and understated, with a sweetly ethereal singing voice, moving swiftly across the stage despite being wrapped in a strait jacket.

Meanwhile Plummer-Cambridge's Caliban is a damaged creature, dethroned like Prospero and therefore bitter and resentful, yet too ignorant to progress. Benjamin Cawley's Ferdinand is so full of life that Miranda, played by Gemma Lawrence, quite understandably falls head over heels in love with him.

The clown scenes involving Trincula (Lawrence again) and Stephano (Cawley) are well devised and the comedy works, particularly the image of the four-legged monster created by Caliban and Trincula.

Another highlight is the wedding dance performed by Prospero, Miranda and Ferdinand and accompanied by a myriad of invisible inhabitants of the island. Nevertheless, the most touching scenes belong to Ariel and Prospero, defining their unique relationship. So, even if this truncated version has its flaws, there is still enough humanity and enchantment to merit an amber/green light. 

Review Cymbeline

Cymbeline
by William Shakespeare

Swan's Way
https://www.rsc.org.uk/barbican

Once upon a time TLT remembers watching a BBC children's serial The Changes where suddenly nearly everyone in the British Isles turns violently against technology and goes back to medieval village way of life. Meanwhile mainland Europe remains unchanged.

This emerged from the muddy depths of memory while watching the Royal Shakespeare Company's Cymbeline where the Britons live in a twilight post apocalyptic candle-lit world.

Meanwhile over on the continent ... Yes, the Romans host an electric international court with an  multilingual casino lifestyle where the courtiers swan around in luxury designer brands, confident that Latin remains the language of diplomacy.

The programme posits the Britons paying tribute to the Roman Empire as a Brexit fantasy (it was first performed in Stratford-upon-Avon before the referendum), although the parallels feel a little strained in Melly Still's whirlwind gender-swapping production. 

Innogen (Bethan Cullinane) is a tough but still emotionally vulnerable young princess, first seen with a ragged skirt of downy swan feathers, picking up on lines in the play, "Hath Britain all the sun that shines?Day? Night?/Are they not but in Britain? In th' world's volume/Our Britain seems as of it, but not in'it:/In a great pool a swan's nest"

She defies her statuesque Boadicea of a mother, Queen Cymbeline (Geraldine Bevan), to marry her childhood sweetheart Posthumus (Hiran Abeysekera) but their newly married life quickly goes awry when Posthumus is banished and then ends up in Rome.

With its unstable mix of genres and self conscious narrating-the-story style, there's no doubt Cymbeline is a challenge and there are plenty of strengths in individual performances in this production.

Cullinane makes a sturdily attractive Innogen, tenacious and resilient but still fragile enough to make us care in female garb and disguised as a boy. 

The slighter figure of Abeysekera, her lover, then husband who is easily persuaded in a wager that she is an unfaithful wife is more problematic.

He's a bit of a soft puppy dog at the beginning but his final brief scene with treacherous Iachimo does make for a natural and intuitive sense of an ending to that side of the story.

Changing the sex of Cymbeline and that of her consort who becomes "The Duke" (James Clyde) brings a new dynamic to relationships. Out goes the wicked stepmother trope and The Duke (James Clyde) is a rather too subtle, modern brown-suited villain with leather patches on his elbows.

More successful is Italian nobleman Iachimo (Oliver Johnstone) who as a villainous devil steals all the best tunes bringing lusty swagger and humour before his come-uppance.

A word too for the Posthumus's gender-swapped servant Pisania (Kelly Williams), acting as her master's secret agent at the British court who also brings clarity to the plot.

The trouble is chunks of the story get lost in the low-light opening scenes - it's hard for newcomers to the story to grasp, even with flashed up projections of newspapers, that two of the Queen's children were kidnapped as babies or even that the doltish would-be pop star Cloten (Marcus Griffiths) is The Duke's son from an earlier marriage.

Even so, the soundscape from composer Dave Price does bring visceral ripples as the plot unravels. Over in Wales, a nobleman banished unjustly many years earlier from the Queen's court, Belarius (Graham Turner in a solid performance) is living in the wilds with the Queen's children, in this version a girl and a boy rather than two boys, who know nothing of their Royal birth.

Turned into a pair of Peter Pan-like Lost Children, despite a famously gory outbreak of violence, the two (Natalie Simpson and James Cooney) make an engaging bow-and-arrow pair. Altogether, this is a curate's egg of a production which feels a tad long but it's an amber light for this awfully big adventure.

Review Henry V

Henry V

by William Shakespeare 

Wild About Harry

http://openairtheatre.com/

This Henry V begins with a Mary-Beard-like veteran academic, an orange-scarfed Chorus (Charlotte Cornwell) urging us to exercise our minds on the history of Henry V and the war against France. 

After patiently explaining the male succession to the crown, it is this gray haired tutor who has the prerogative to annoint a King Henry from among the modern young people milling around on stage. She chooses, naturally, a woman (Michelle Terry), in a nifty Prince of Wales check three-piece short-trousered suit with red rosebud lipsticked mouth and something of Le Petit Prince about her.

During our lifetimes, TLT and her own peacenik horsepower sidekick never had occasion, until now, to view  Henry V as problematic. It had the infinite capacity to chime with both patriotism and pacificism and Britain was safely esconced in Europe geographically and politically in a way Shakespeare never envisaged.

But now it has to accommodate uncharted territory. The bureaucratic seismic shift of Brexit and a war, or rather in our times technically a conflict, with real flesh and blood maimed and lives lost, transformed into a report. These are uncertain times and this uncertainty, for better and for worse, pulses through director Robert Hastie's production of Shakespeare's history play.

The single-minded pursuing of conquest despite the uncertainty, on a metal grid stage designed by Anna Fleischle amidst the greenery of Regent's Park, proved more visceral for us than the gender bending casting. The delicate mash up costuming matches the mood -  crumpled red velvet surrounded by a gold crown sitting on the head of a diminutive but authoritative King Harry and a taller, darker decadent Dauphin (Alex Bhat) with an Amadeus laugh. 

For it's not the older heads, not even the scheming Church of England leader (David Sibley), who lights the touch paper, but the rivalry between the graduate of the French royal court, the louche French prince taunting his generational counterpart across the Channel. 

It's a strange but lucid rendering of Henry V. We cross the century from Edwardian check to modern army fatigues, blue for the French, khaki for the British but this fight ain't no fashion parade. 

Harry on the spot orders summary executions: a conspirator, Lord Scroop (Phil Cheadle), planning to dislodge him; a former drinking partner, Bardolph (Bobby Delaney), for looting a French church and he gives the nod to the cutting of French prisoners of war throats. 

The famous St Crispin's Day speech uttered on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt turns from the rousing of the crowd to the singling out of one recalcitrant to be persuaded to turn back to fight. Yes, it's a plea, yes it has a sense of urgency. 

But it also curiously chimes with the age of the blog and the astute piece of internet propaganda which feels as if it's tailored to the individual. King Henry V has for many always been a play with a double voice, patriotic and heroic yet cynical and angry about the expediency, brutality and waste of life by war. Now Hastie's production has added the finely honed psychology of the web age. 

Lanky Princess Katherine (Ben Wiggins) is more noticeably at first in drag but her learning of English has real comic verve, with surely a leaf taken, in reverse, from Betty Comden and Adolph Green's French Lesson . And her final appearance is suitably regal, spikey crown on her head as she towers over the rest of the cast with an echo of an American icon.

This is a production with a mix of strong performances from Terry, Cornwell, Bhat, Catrin Aaron as Captain Fluellen and Philip Arditti as Pistol,  full of striking images and precision within self-contained scenes. But it sometimes does feel rather like a curate's egg, more resonant in its parts than as a whole. 

Maybe poet Rupert Brooke, often dismissed as a misguided jingoist, was craftier than is sometimes acknowledged when he chose the cadences of Henry V in his idealized view of England and soldiery in his war poetry. The point between what the soldier king would be and what he is isn't always found in this production but it's an amber/green light for cold metal amidst the lush park greenery.  

Review A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream

by William Shakespeare

Method And Madness

http://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/

OK, we at TLT Towers, one reviewer plus a puckish sidekick (no wings, but hey, TLT's jalopy is no Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!), are game for all sorts of productions. And this one is a curious one. 

Yet another A Midsummer's Night's Dream (AMND), this time stripped down like the wood flooring traverse stage it's played on. With just seven actors. And directed by Simon Evans whose Bug we enjoyed.

Well, there's a bug in this version of AMND - or maybe a couple of separate bugs since both get slapped down separately by actors entering the magic forest. And this is a very actorly Dream with quite a few rewrites, rejigs and reorderings but it also treads a dangerous path through the woods - in danger of becoming the thing it is parodying.

Yet in the midst of it, there are some very good young actors on display here. Yes, I should say this is a production filled with young actors. We're not sure if the cast will be infuriated  or will laugh at we mortal bloggers' foolish ways if we say the team of actors led by Freddie Fox but it seems to be his Ovidian transformation on the cover of the programme (see my associated Tweet - like it, retweet it, send me a tweet to plight your troth or whatever you like). 

However he may be harking back to the method of another English actor who, according to Sir Peter Hall here, did not seek to be loved by his audience.  

For we see a group of actors meeting in a rehearsal room for a performance of AMND with Freddie who plays Demetrius and Bottom definitely cock of the walk.  That's Freddie Fox again, of course (dahling!), not Freddie Hutchins who plays Lysander and mechanical Flute - the dilemma of what to do with two Freddies is, in fact the subject of a good, telling actorly joke which gets rather lost in the fray.

But somehow the introduction then of elements and costuming from children's tales felt more like incestuous theatrical references than an opening up of the text. But maybe the hierarchy of acting is the point, just as "dwarf" Hermia, despite being equal in height, has to make herself small beside "maypole" Helena (Lucy Eaton) to fit the part.

There's also a touch of the Play Gone Wrong in this production and it was as if we'd been lured into an experimental part of another project rather than a stand alone AMND. 

There are some witty ideas but also an overstepping of the tightrope into - yes what we said before - becoming that which it was trying to parody.

The verse speaking and other lines (it's a fast and loose AMND) ranges from the acoustically muffled to the crystal clear and entrancing with some occasional skilful interpretation. Theseus (Ludovic Hughes who also doubles as Oberon) takes on an intriguing inciting role while ex Eastender Maddy Hill goes from supple Titania to stage manager Peter Quince complete with red rasta cap, French onion man come mime artiste outfit with (badly drawn) moustache.

But we have to ask, while wishing to remain playful rather than utilitarian, who or what is it for? For example, is it a parody of or primer for exam multiple choice when we're told that the Dream is about the weather?

Was someone reading our mind when it struck us that all it needed was for a famous Hollywood alumnus of the actors' studio to appear and then lo and behold mini skirted (Julie Christie lookalike|) Susie Preece did a louche impersonation of the said same star?

Yes, it was one of those performance that you have to resign yourself to picking out the sweetest flowers, while wishing you could take the whole bunch in hand and let them do the beautifully-spoken straightforward version which you glimpse through the chink in the wall.

Talking of which, it's allocated seating, so if you're in the front row and not keen on being picked for audience participation, you may want to do a swift changeling swapping of seats. Everyone's so busy (there's a lot of running around and shouting), we don't think they'll notice.

At the same time, the competition between the two Freddies culminates in a truly visceral Pyramus and Thisbe scene with an interesting and, while couched in the cotton wool of hilarity and still suitable for children's consumption, truly painful echo of current affairs.

It could prove to be a show that should have been sponsored by Marmite. If you live up to type, you may have the reaction you've walked into a particularly chaotic theatre-in-education performance. Or like the photogenic young redhead boy in the audience on the night we attended, you may join in with gusto and collapse in fits of giggles and joy.

So TLT and her little sapling felt like two little lost boys without their own gang in the midst of this forest of frenzy without a Puck in dungarees (Melanie Fullbrook) or a Theseus to sort things out even with a closing magical moment which made them recall Metro Goldwyn Mayer's famous slogan. .

Hell, we think, why didn't they go hell for leather and create a new play about actors taking on A Midsummer Night's Dream? As it stands, we'll repeat for the third time, despite some clever touches, it felt as if it became what it was parodying, so it's a slippery elm amber light.

Review King John

King John

by William Shakespeare

Game of Thrones

https://www.rosetheatrekingston.org/

TLT and her loyal motorised lieutenant made all haste to the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames to see King John, a Shakespeare we had never seen before, at the Rose Theatre.

Even before reading the programme after seeing the play, and finding it was the first Shakespeare to be filmed in 1899, both TLT and her faithful equerry agreed King John has all the elements of a stonking melodrama and political mini-series!

The weak and vacillating king (Jamie Ballard) is dependent on advisers, especially his mother, veteran schemer but still careful Elinor of Aquitaine (Maggie Steed). But the King when left to make decisions on his own, in an effort to stand on his own feet, takes a brutal and murderous misstep.

The victim of this, young boy Arthur (played on press night by Sebastian Croft), a prince by demeanour and blood, pleading for his life reduces the would-be assassin (a bluntly honourable Stephen Kennedy) to tears. 

Arthur's tragic mother Constance (Lisa Dillon) is a power player for her son but ultimately driven mad by grief and grievance. Meanwhile swashbuckling bastard son Philip Faulconbridge (Howard Charles) of Richard the Lionheart is a cynical but heartbroken looker on,  participant and commentator.

This is a production of great clarity in what could be otherwise a confusing play. The nearest we have to a hero is Faulconbridge. Yet this doesn't quite fit and perhaps the clue is in the title of a play upon which Shakespeare drew heavily, some would say rewrote in a "twice told tale": The Troublesome Reign of King John.

For this, it struck us, is a situation tragedy - the troublesome situation of "that England hedged in with the main/The water-walled bulwark" plagued by uncertainty over the throne and land rights. 

And it's rather exciting, mined for humour as well in Trevor Nunn's well-paced (even though it should be said approximately three hours long) production.

Don't look for the Magna Carta though in Shakespeare's version, although perhaps a cloth underfoot rolled out like a parchment at the beginning is a twenty first century gesture towards it.

But this is Shakespeare at his most politic, meanng the play does not disturb the Elizabethan world order, the divine right to rule of the Protestant Tudors implicitly compared with the chaos of the Plantagenet Catholics. 

Nevertheless it is this which gives the play its modern feel. The shifting alliances and plotting of the unstable in power have a relevant resonance. Pandulph the Papal legate (Burt Caesar) has all the deviousness and diplomacy of a corrupt FIFA official, whose European power politics on behalf of the Pope sets off family rifts and wars between English and French.

A seemingly straightforward Globe-like stage with scaffolding to insert more levels is given a sense of time travelling and mash up with two video screens, one on each side (set and costumes by Mark Friend with concept design by John Napier). Describing it makes it sound more clunky than it is for the audience, as the actors' phrase goes, caught up "in the moment".

The screens show stills of stone turrets, discarded amour on a desolate battlefield, medieval illuminated manuscript illustrations and paintings, stained glass figures and as the King grows more fragile, delicate blossoming trees.

There is also sparing but effective use of video - a kingly debate flashes on the screens in close up well serving a play full of competing claims. Public events are publicly broadcast and the battles are in stark black and white like some Eisenstein silent film.

An otherwise plot driven artificial incident to modern eyes,  yet, in our modern times, also too horribly true, is shown as a vertigo black silhouetted figure falling from on high.

The rhyming couplets rang out clearly and every character carried their weight in the play with the, again, straightforward but ratcheting-up-the-tension use of sound effects (Fergus O'Hare) - the drum roll, the ticking clock - and music (composer Corin Buckeridge).

Ballard's King John has stepped straight out of medieval painting with his pigeon chested bearing. Gradually as his power waxes and wanes, his nervous gestures augment and his mouth is increasingly down-turned in the manner of the best silent films. This style suits the build up to the supernatural visions of the play  but his end, in a wheelchair, drooling, also had a touching quality.

The Prince Arthur  (he's the son of John's elder brother Geoffrey so has a claim to the throne) of Croft also has the touching embarrassment of the boy whose widowed mother is fighting his corner. 

This play also provides some powerful roles for women, seasoned politician Elinor, determined yet doomed Constance and Princess Blanche of Castille (Elizabeth Hopper) who finds herself torn from her nearest family on her wedding day as events,  triggered by Cardinal Pandulph, twist and turn.

All in all, King John proved a compelling and absorbing evening, with every argument over claims to the throne, the possession of mainland France territories, the plotting and the scheming followed intently by TLT and her trusty mechanized steed. So for an evening of national and international upheaval a jousting green light   

Review A Midsummer Night's Dream PREVIEW

A Midsummer Night's Dream
by William Shakespeare

Monster Midsummer Mash Up 
http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/ 

A joyful beginning to Emma Rice's tenure at The Globe for a gender-crossing xx best exotic Marigold xx A Midsummer Night's Dream where TLT and her garlanded companion found themselves groundlings in a wonderland just outside of Hoxton.

The tone is set from the start as tambourine-shaking parishioner Rita Quince (bespectacled Lucy Thackeray), in Globe volunteer uniform, clambers on the stage from white-tableclothed restaurant tables, introducing Nick Bottom (Ewan Wardrop) Health & Safety Officer.

Up above is the sitar-playing Sheema Mukherjee perched on a balcony and this parish has obviously now gone global in search of funding as is the wont of parishes nowadays ...   

*Flashback Alert!* 

We must confess to loving AMND (as we will shorten it from now on) since having our first magical experience at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre. Not without it's Indian tinge too, since one of the co-directors was Kashmir-born David Conville (along with Richard Digby-Day, a partnership still it seems going strong, and Christopher Biggins!)  But at the time we were chiefly excited by seeing pre-Big Brother, post Rock Follies Rula Lenska as Titania and Liver Bird Elizabeth Estensen as beanpole Helena. 

Anyway fast forward to the present!  

*End of Flashback Alert!*  

It's a hybrid AMND (hold on to that acronym!), a trifle self-conscious but none the worse for that. A cross between Bollywood, 1960s' Performance (without the gore), Sgt Pepper, Ugly Betty, trademark Kneehigh puppetry and aerial  flourishes (although also playful gestures to Peter Brook's legendary "Empty Space" AMND with Alan Howard and Sara Kestelman) 

Fresh from the "blow up sex doll" Measure for Measure (doncha just love the TLT blog archive, just to be able to say and link to that?! Put that in your pipe and smoke it, broadsheets!;)), Zubin Varla is a middle-aged Indian Mick-Jagger-type (parentheses and acronym alert, wait a moment Mick Jagger is now an OAP!) gangster cum restaurateur cum Duke Theseus.

He has captured the initially Scottish Hippolyta (Meow Meow clad in leopard skin slinky dress and coat) from a rival although she, by the end of the play, having brought her stilletos to the conference table, changes nationality.

A Glasto Indian sixth-former Hermia (AnjanaVasan) and an indy Brit wannabe Kerouac cum Brando cum Calvin Klein pecs' Lysander (Edmund Derrington) plan to elope. While a Brooks Brothers' (we really should get sponsorship for this!) ambitious smoothie Demetrius (Ncuti Gatwa), rather sinister in setting his sights on Hermia, is pursued by his old flame (and first aider - don't ask, go see!) Helenus (no. it's not a spelling error, it's Ankur Bahl!).

Bottom is the male cock of the walk surrounded by lady volunteers (*Minor Quibble Alert* he could insure he has a few all-eventualities' put-downs for good-natured heckles when he poses rhetorial questions to the audience!). 

And they are a comely bunch of variously talented am dram menials from Bottom's vainglorious would-be Olivier, via Snout's (Alex Tregear) ingeniously "wittiest partition" cereal packet wall to the rather proficient Thisbe/Flute (a hard call to make clear an amateur is really rather good but Margaret Ann Bain pulls it off). 

But wait - we can't forget the faerie world and mischieviously Puckish (surely a tautology?!) Puck (Katy Owen) - part Pinocchio, part Tinker Bell - who also transforms herself into stern father in a wheelchair Egeus cum gangsta ?music producer with Sophia Loren sunglasses. 

Voodoo zombie fairies (Nandi Bhebhe, also Metro-reading Starveling) and Cobweb (Tibu Fortes), amongst others, do Oberon and Titania's bidding with Varla and Meow as is usual doubling up the royal roles. 

We're past the time of phrases such as "unashamedly populist" (why should it be anything else?). There have been enough updatings and adaptations of Shakespeare to make even a Globe in-joke about "fidelity to text" a wee bit dépassé when it's now broadcast in your own series or be damned in the groves of academe. But it's all none the worse for that. 

Maybe Bottom's transformation into an ass scene - seen by your Pen and Tell twosome in broad daylight - could have been more magical but, again, that's a minor quibble (we've had enough of alerts - once used they're no longer a novelty!). 

A great bubble of laughter and little toots of pleasure from TLT's sidekick engulfed The Globe (with even a bit of Bowie and was that a touch of cod Sondheim?!) in this first production of a new regime. Tanika Gupta's lyrics  and dramaturgy including a smidgeon of John Donne acknowledging the new Globe's American origins and Stu Barker's music prove charming crowd pleasers. 

So we take away a green light served up by The Globe's "wedding special" menu and wish the happy coupling well!

Review Measure For Measure

Measure For Measure

By William Shakespeare 

Whose Law Is It Anyway?

 www.shakespearesglobe.com/

It was hot, hot, hot at The Globe and that wasn’t just the sex and corruption on view in Shakespeare’s 1604 (or thereabouts) ‘problem’ play Measure For Measure. For the groundlings’ fans were fluttering as we sweltered in a catch-it-while-it-lasts fully-fledged British heatwave!

For those who don’t know the latest 1604 salacious gossip, the puritan Lord Angelo (Kurt Egyiawan), deputizing for the Duke of Vienna (Dominic Rowan) and a martinet when it comes to enforcing the law of no sex without marriage, has been caught trying to having his wicked way with novice nun Isabella (Mariah Gale). 

A bit rich, since Isabella only came to him to plead for her brother Claudio’s (Joel MacCormack) life after the latter admitted getting one Juliet (no, not that Juliet, another one in the shape of Naana Agyei-Ampadu) up the duff and now faces execution. 

And the state, after turning a blind eye for many a year, has suddenly found itself shocked, shocked to find debauchery and brothels on nearly every street corner.

 

Will Angelo get away with it? Will Isabella save her brother? And how will she save her brother? And will Duke Vincentio save Vienna, even if it thinks it doesn’t need saving?

Well, it is termed a comedy rather than a tragedy, so perhaps you can guess at least some of the answers. And Artistic Director’s Dominic Dromgoole’s swansong production at The Globe certainly seeks to milk every ounce of comedy with the bawdiest of bawds (Petra Massey), a light-footed roly poly Constable (crowd-pleasing Dean Nolan) a wobbly man toy who seems to be able to right himself after numerous tumbles, a Duke who seems to have leapt off the alternative comedy circuit and even a play on the name of Claudio reminiscent of the Mel Brooks’ Frankenstein pronounciation quip  

But Measure For Measure is also a late, dark play alongside Troilus and Cressida, A Winter’s Tale and The Tempest with echos of The Merchant of Venice and, while harking back to the mores of another age, strangely modern in its take on economic, sex and marriage issues. 

Claudio has broken the law with Juliet because she cannot marry while her merchant relatives keep back her dowry to use in their business. There’s the fear of single motherhood. The Duke, who doesn’t want to be the baddie, allowing brothels for many years and then stamping down on them, delegates responsibility to others. 

Angelo of course would now be ripe titillating hypocrite fodder for many a tabloid. For the broadsheets also, having rejected on spurious grounds fiancée Marianne (Rosie Hilal) after she loses her dowry and the implications of the “private order” to expedite Claudio’s execution.  

Even the crude pun on marriage by the-pimp-turned-assistant-executioner Pompey (Trevor Fox) almost (but not quite) makes equals of husbands and wives: “If the man be a bachelor, sir, I can; but if he a married man, he’s his wife’s head and I can never cut off a woman’s head.” 

The Duke’s words give Juliet’s lover a status in modern lingo: “Your partner, as I hear, must die tomorrow.” And his final words to Isabella have a modern ring: “What’s mine is yours and what is yours is mine”, taking their relationship with each other outside the realms of family and dowry. 

So how well does this production marry the dark and lighter shades? The bawds are rightly called bawds and fill the large Globe stage, but it does sometimes feel like comic overload undermining the darker aspects of a play examining weighty issues. 

However, Mariah Gale makes an intriguing Isabelle – initially an over schooled student, shying away from life, with rehearsed speeches before finding her own voice and clear-sighted disgust as first her brother’s and then her own situation becomes more and more desperate. In the final scene, as she retreats to a chair and tries to make sense of the situation,  we believe in her baptism of fire into worldliness, the uncertainty of events and people.

Kurt Egyiawan’s Angelo is more inscrutable and it does feel sometimes that his interpretation is the play straining at the bit for a modern dress version.  

Indeed, the New Orleans tinge to the music made a pleasing and somehow plausible mash-up in this production.

It’s with the Duke that the problems of this problem play are highlighted. In this ultimate ‘quis custodiet ipsos custodies’ play, he seems a  figure hoofing it. This brings out a lot of humour in his tonsured disguise as a religious friar but this personality seems at odds to the supposed restoration of order at the end of the play, despite his humble profession on his knees asking Isabella for her hand in marriage. 

So the different measures of this production were not always equal for us, but we award it a golden sunshiny amber light.