by William Shakespeare
seen at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on 28 June 2015
This production is directed by Dominic Dromgoole and features Mariah Gale as Isabella, Kurt Egyiawan as Angelo, Dominic Rowan as the Duke, Joel MacCormack as Claudio, Dean Nolan as Elbow and Brendan O'Hea as Lucio. It is presented in 16th century dress to underline the conflict between Puritans and the more bawdy elements of society.
There is plenty of raucous business to keep a good-humoured audience happy; as the musicians are warming up, two houses are wheeled into the groundling space, and bawds and their pimps start crying for trade. When a couple enters either house, it starts rocking most suggestively. Later, when Angelo decrees that suburban houses of ill-repute are to be demolished, these are collapsed and wheeled off.
It takes a while for the serious elements of the play to surface after all this comic disruption, and after the initial scenes of the bawds being arrested and questioned. There is another of Shakespeare's comic characters who entirely misuse words (such as 'respect') in the person of Elbow, here played by Dean Nolan in maniacally clownish style, taking every advantage from his overweight frame.
Claudio's white-faced dismay indicates that more is at stake, together with the unwillingness of Angelo's colleagues to act on his stern judgement that the young man should be executed. Kurt Egyiawan has all of Angelo's passionate coldness and innate seriousness, offsetting the barely dented cheerfulness of the city pimps and bawds.
But the focal point of the drama in the play is provided by Mariah Gale's Isabella, first seen as an over-earnest novice, but soon revealed as a quietly strong and eloquent pleader for mercy. Obviously ill-at-ease with the over-familiar manners of the courtly elite - such as the foppish Lucio - she shies away from physical contact but becomes ever more determined to put her case. She is of course even more dismayed to find that she has overplayed her hand, and she finds Angelo's proposal to exchange Claudio's life for her body utterly repulsive.
Her encounter with her brother rocks her confidence even more. Initially he agrees with her assessment that Angelo asks too much, but the thought of untimely death quickly causes him to urge her to surrender herself. Only the intervention of the Duke, who is disguised as a friar, stops the argument. Joel MacCormack handles the quick changes of tack this evidently impulsive or even wayward young man displays, without losing our sympathy entirely. Mariah Gale only grows in stature as her innate rectitude shines forth amidst all the tawdriness of her world. Though she articulates principles and beliefs that are hardly comprehensible to the modern audience, she rightly earned a round of applause for one of her most earnest speeches.
The resolution of all this mess requires a number of subterfuges - not least a version of the bed trick, the substitution of a convenient head for Claudio's, and the continual interference of the disguised Duke. He manages his business as if improvising a game, seemingly hardly aware that he is playing with people's real emotions and quandaries. So long as it all comes out right any trickery is justified, including his bland pronouncements as a supposed friar that there is no moral taint in his proposals. It is presented as almost farcical at some stages. The trouble is that the final reckonings are still in dubious taste - marriage is forced on Angelo (though his wife, who colludes in the bed trick, is perfectly willing), and the now-revealed Duke makes it clear that he wants to marry Isabella. She once more is deeply shocked, but seems here to relinquish her aspirations to the novitiate with good grace. Even Claudio and his beloved - delivered of their child - hardly looked happy to be together again. The traditional Globe closing dance seems to paper over a rather perfunctory happy ending.
It was fascinating to see this play immediately after the Almeida's 'Oresteia'. Two such different examinations of the question of justice, equity and social cohesion could hardly be imagined. In particular, Shakespeare, in much the shorter play, seems so cluttered because of all the crowd scenes and comic buffoonery - and yet these underscore the issues by their sheer contrast with the struggle between Isabella and Angelo. There are (thankfully) many dramatci ways to interrogate these central problems.
Her encounter with her brother rocks her confidence even more. Initially he agrees with her assessment that Angelo asks too much, but the thought of untimely death quickly causes him to urge her to surrender herself. Only the intervention of the Duke, who is disguised as a friar, stops the argument. Joel MacCormack handles the quick changes of tack this evidently impulsive or even wayward young man displays, without losing our sympathy entirely. Mariah Gale only grows in stature as her innate rectitude shines forth amidst all the tawdriness of her world. Though she articulates principles and beliefs that are hardly comprehensible to the modern audience, she rightly earned a round of applause for one of her most earnest speeches.
The resolution of all this mess requires a number of subterfuges - not least a version of the bed trick, the substitution of a convenient head for Claudio's, and the continual interference of the disguised Duke. He manages his business as if improvising a game, seemingly hardly aware that he is playing with people's real emotions and quandaries. So long as it all comes out right any trickery is justified, including his bland pronouncements as a supposed friar that there is no moral taint in his proposals. It is presented as almost farcical at some stages. The trouble is that the final reckonings are still in dubious taste - marriage is forced on Angelo (though his wife, who colludes in the bed trick, is perfectly willing), and the now-revealed Duke makes it clear that he wants to marry Isabella. She once more is deeply shocked, but seems here to relinquish her aspirations to the novitiate with good grace. Even Claudio and his beloved - delivered of their child - hardly looked happy to be together again. The traditional Globe closing dance seems to paper over a rather perfunctory happy ending.
It was fascinating to see this play immediately after the Almeida's 'Oresteia'. Two such different examinations of the question of justice, equity and social cohesion could hardly be imagined. In particular, Shakespeare, in much the shorter play, seems so cluttered because of all the crowd scenes and comic buffoonery - and yet these underscore the issues by their sheer contrast with the struggle between Isabella and Angelo. There are (thankfully) many dramatci ways to interrogate these central problems.
No comments:
Post a Comment