MORTE D'ARTHUR
June 17, 2010
Royal Shakespeare Company, Courtyard Theatre, Stratford, until August 28, 2010
It’s one of the great cultural icons of our time, a masterpiece in historical fantasy and a towering example of theatrical imagination. And you can catch Spamalot on tour this autumn.
Anyone who has ever seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail or its stage incarnation, Spamalot, is doomed to spend their evening at the Courtyard rocking with silent laughter at this new version of the Arthurian legend, adapted from Sir Thomas Malory’s 15th century original by Mike Poulton.
All the classic comedy moments are there in some form: Tim the Enchanter, the Knights who say ‘Ni’, Requiem-chanting monks – there’s even a giant knight guarding a forest who’s defeated by… a shrubbery. It’s just the laughs that have been removed.
It all has the feeling of a vast, sprawling epic (and at nearly four hours, the audience’s endurance is severely put to the test, let alone the actors’) in which every bell and whistle has been employed by both writer and director Gregory Doran to try to convey something of the scale and grandeur of the legend.
Unfortunately, slow-motion fighting and a few flakes of snow do not a coup de theatre make, and Doran – who has in the past given us some of the most magical and extraordinary images to adorn this stage – is alarmingly wide of the mark with a succession of stagey, tricksy, frankly unimaginative devices in this rendering of the mythic tale.
Poulton – himself a noted playwright and creator of fine dramatic adaptations – is partly to blame with a script that lurches nauseously quickly from episode to episode accompanied by some cod-middle English dialogue and no pauses for either meaning or depth. This inevitably contributes to the sense of the characters being mere ciphers, there simply to advance the narrative – which many do in a distinctly untheatrical fashion – rather than having their own story to show, not tell.
Performances are mixed. Sam Troughton has weight as Arthur but is given nothing of any real substance to get his teeth into. Forbes Masson is an intriguing and interesting Merlin but he disappears from the story at the end of the first of three acts. Meanwhile, Launcelot – that supposed epitomy of chivalry and knightly heroism – is slight and weasely in the hands of Jonjo O’Neill, lying brazenly to escape punishment for loving the queen in a rather un-chivalric fashion.
It’s all a rambling, colossal mess to the sounds of a percussion-heavy score that adds little to the drama. The only thing missing is a cow launched over the battlements. And to be honest, even that wouldn’t have surprised me much.
ROMEO AND JULIET
March 19, 2010
Royal Shakespeare Company, Courtyard Theatre, Stratford, until August 27, 2010
FLAMBOYANT director Rupert Goold, formerly of Northampton’s Royal & Derngate and now an associate at the RSC, is never one to shun the resources on offer.
So his latest production of Romeo and Juliet in Stratford’s Courtyard Theatre is as lush, epic and spectacular as anyone could wish for.
With a versatile, intelligently used set designed by Tom Scott and a sumptuous, eclectic music score from Adam Cox, he creates atmosphere, electricity and visual magic at almost every moment.
But Goold’s direction is much more than simply a succession of grand set pieces: he’s a thoughtful, meticulous practitioner who exploits his own gifted understanding of the text to wring passionate, crafted performances from his actors.
Chief among these – as can only be hoped in Romeo and Juliet – are his title characters. Mariah Gale is a touching, vulnerable Juliet, all gangly youth and wide-eyed innocent, while Sam Troughton gives a Romeo of fire, foolishness and fierce devotion. Most importantly, there’s a real chemistry between the two that has the eager audience rooting for them from the off.
Elsewhere, Forbes Masson provides a strong, grounded Friar Laurence, Richard Katz’s Lord Capulet comes alive in his scene ordering Juliet to marry his choice of suitor, and Patrick Romer turns in a wonderful cameo playing the apothecary as a world-weary drug-dealer.
I could have done without the way-over-the-top foppishness of Jonjo O’Neill’s camp Mercutio, or the deliberately perverse mixing of modern and medieval in the wardrobe department, and poor diction and lack of projection continue to riddle the current acting ensemble.
But the pluses in this arresting production far outweigh the minuses, and the company has undoubtedly benefited from the Goold-en touch once more.
KING LEAR
March 3, 2010
Royal Shakespeare Company, Courtyard Theatre, Stratford, until August 26, 2010
ENSEMBLE playing has become the mantra for the current management of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Naturally, some are more ensemble than others.
Which means that Greg Hicks, the darling of the present company, installed for upwards of two years, has already played Julius Caesar and Leontes in The Winter’s Tale. Now he takes the title role in King Lear.
There are two fundamental problems with this: he looks about 30 years too young and he sounds about 30 years too young. This may be because he’s about 30 years too young. But he’s also too lightweight in his stature and delivery to lift Lear above the realms of a loopy shouter, finding little of the depths of pathos and anguish necessary for this most arduous and complex of roles. And his wig’s terrible.
He’s not aided much by his supporting company, either, who are uncomfortably ill at ease with Shakespeare’s extraordinary poetry and offer nowhere near enough light and shade to raise this production above the level of distinctly ordinary. Surely we have a right to expect more from the RSC?
Notable exceptions include Geoffrey Freshwater as a touching, poignant Gloucester, much truer to the character of a failing old man than Hicks can manage, and the always reliable Katy Stephens, standing out among the three daughters as a steely, vampish Regan.
Aside from a host of other undistinguished performances, the blame for this underwhelming offering lies squarely with its director, David Farr, who throws handfuls of meaningless gimmicks at the production with no clear understanding of what he’s trying to achieve. Or if there is, he’s managed to keep it successfully to himself.
So we find wardrobe cast bizarrely adrift on the oceans of history, with costumes ranging from medieval cloaks to First World War infantry. Sets are similarly random, with overhead strip lights conflicting with hand-held gas lamps, while the storm on the heath seems to blight nobody but Lear himself: a single feeble shower falls unaccountably on him as the rest of the stage remains stubbornly unaffected.
I so want to encourage and applaud the ensemble principle which, in its finest incarnations, can give us something as magnificent as the Histories cycle two years ago. Unfortunately, the underlying disappointment of this Lear casts a stark spotlight on all the flaws of the system while offering little in the way of compensation.
June 17, 2010
Royal Shakespeare Company, Courtyard Theatre, Stratford, until August 28, 2010
It’s one of the great cultural icons of our time, a masterpiece in historical fantasy and a towering example of theatrical imagination. And you can catch Spamalot on tour this autumn.
Anyone who has ever seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail or its stage incarnation, Spamalot, is doomed to spend their evening at the Courtyard rocking with silent laughter at this new version of the Arthurian legend, adapted from Sir Thomas Malory’s 15th century original by Mike Poulton.
All the classic comedy moments are there in some form: Tim the Enchanter, the Knights who say ‘Ni’, Requiem-chanting monks – there’s even a giant knight guarding a forest who’s defeated by… a shrubbery. It’s just the laughs that have been removed.
It all has the feeling of a vast, sprawling epic (and at nearly four hours, the audience’s endurance is severely put to the test, let alone the actors’) in which every bell and whistle has been employed by both writer and director Gregory Doran to try to convey something of the scale and grandeur of the legend.
Unfortunately, slow-motion fighting and a few flakes of snow do not a coup de theatre make, and Doran – who has in the past given us some of the most magical and extraordinary images to adorn this stage – is alarmingly wide of the mark with a succession of stagey, tricksy, frankly unimaginative devices in this rendering of the mythic tale.
Poulton – himself a noted playwright and creator of fine dramatic adaptations – is partly to blame with a script that lurches nauseously quickly from episode to episode accompanied by some cod-middle English dialogue and no pauses for either meaning or depth. This inevitably contributes to the sense of the characters being mere ciphers, there simply to advance the narrative – which many do in a distinctly untheatrical fashion – rather than having their own story to show, not tell.
Performances are mixed. Sam Troughton has weight as Arthur but is given nothing of any real substance to get his teeth into. Forbes Masson is an intriguing and interesting Merlin but he disappears from the story at the end of the first of three acts. Meanwhile, Launcelot – that supposed epitomy of chivalry and knightly heroism – is slight and weasely in the hands of Jonjo O’Neill, lying brazenly to escape punishment for loving the queen in a rather un-chivalric fashion.
It’s all a rambling, colossal mess to the sounds of a percussion-heavy score that adds little to the drama. The only thing missing is a cow launched over the battlements. And to be honest, even that wouldn’t have surprised me much.
ROMEO AND JULIET
March 19, 2010
Royal Shakespeare Company, Courtyard Theatre, Stratford, until August 27, 2010
FLAMBOYANT director Rupert Goold, formerly of Northampton’s Royal & Derngate and now an associate at the RSC, is never one to shun the resources on offer.
So his latest production of Romeo and Juliet in Stratford’s Courtyard Theatre is as lush, epic and spectacular as anyone could wish for.
With a versatile, intelligently used set designed by Tom Scott and a sumptuous, eclectic music score from Adam Cox, he creates atmosphere, electricity and visual magic at almost every moment.
But Goold’s direction is much more than simply a succession of grand set pieces: he’s a thoughtful, meticulous practitioner who exploits his own gifted understanding of the text to wring passionate, crafted performances from his actors.
Chief among these – as can only be hoped in Romeo and Juliet – are his title characters. Mariah Gale is a touching, vulnerable Juliet, all gangly youth and wide-eyed innocent, while Sam Troughton gives a Romeo of fire, foolishness and fierce devotion. Most importantly, there’s a real chemistry between the two that has the eager audience rooting for them from the off.
Elsewhere, Forbes Masson provides a strong, grounded Friar Laurence, Richard Katz’s Lord Capulet comes alive in his scene ordering Juliet to marry his choice of suitor, and Patrick Romer turns in a wonderful cameo playing the apothecary as a world-weary drug-dealer.
I could have done without the way-over-the-top foppishness of Jonjo O’Neill’s camp Mercutio, or the deliberately perverse mixing of modern and medieval in the wardrobe department, and poor diction and lack of projection continue to riddle the current acting ensemble.
But the pluses in this arresting production far outweigh the minuses, and the company has undoubtedly benefited from the Goold-en touch once more.
KING LEAR
March 3, 2010
Royal Shakespeare Company, Courtyard Theatre, Stratford, until August 26, 2010
ENSEMBLE playing has become the mantra for the current management of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Naturally, some are more ensemble than others.
Which means that Greg Hicks, the darling of the present company, installed for upwards of two years, has already played Julius Caesar and Leontes in The Winter’s Tale. Now he takes the title role in King Lear.
There are two fundamental problems with this: he looks about 30 years too young and he sounds about 30 years too young. This may be because he’s about 30 years too young. But he’s also too lightweight in his stature and delivery to lift Lear above the realms of a loopy shouter, finding little of the depths of pathos and anguish necessary for this most arduous and complex of roles. And his wig’s terrible.
He’s not aided much by his supporting company, either, who are uncomfortably ill at ease with Shakespeare’s extraordinary poetry and offer nowhere near enough light and shade to raise this production above the level of distinctly ordinary. Surely we have a right to expect more from the RSC?
Notable exceptions include Geoffrey Freshwater as a touching, poignant Gloucester, much truer to the character of a failing old man than Hicks can manage, and the always reliable Katy Stephens, standing out among the three daughters as a steely, vampish Regan.
Aside from a host of other undistinguished performances, the blame for this underwhelming offering lies squarely with its director, David Farr, who throws handfuls of meaningless gimmicks at the production with no clear understanding of what he’s trying to achieve. Or if there is, he’s managed to keep it successfully to himself.
So we find wardrobe cast bizarrely adrift on the oceans of history, with costumes ranging from medieval cloaks to First World War infantry. Sets are similarly random, with overhead strip lights conflicting with hand-held gas lamps, while the storm on the heath seems to blight nobody but Lear himself: a single feeble shower falls unaccountably on him as the rest of the stage remains stubbornly unaffected.
I so want to encourage and applaud the ensemble principle which, in its finest incarnations, can give us something as magnificent as the Histories cycle two years ago. Unfortunately, the underlying disappointment of this Lear casts a stark spotlight on all the flaws of the system while offering little in the way of compensation.
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