The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London, July 2012

“I’ve come to wive it wealthily in Padua”, as Petruchio sings in Kiss Me Kate, but here at the Globe things seemed very different. Before the start a drunken football hooligan stumbled his way onto the stage and urinated on two plants in the audience before collapsing flat on his back. The plants walked out, and that disturbance caused someone in the cast to announce that the show was off, but nothing is quite as it seems in this hugely entertaining Shakespeare work, and Toby Frow’s production at the Globe did it proud.

Kate and Petruchio, all images Manuel Harlan

The drunken hooligan, who was of course Master Sly, eventually turned into Petruchio himself, full of wit and absurdity. Looking like Don Quixote and behaving like John Cleese on a bad day, Simon Paisley Day bowled his maiden over, turning her from shrew to loving wife. As Kate herself, Samantha Spiro glowed with energy from her very first appearance, making a highly attractive, if shockingly feisty and argumentative, prospect. She even knocked the wall down when her father and sister went inside the house and left her out. But there’s much more than mere outrage here — it’s all really very funny. When Petruchio says, “Antonio, my father is deceased”, his servant Grumio kicks a bucket, to huge laughter from the audience.

Kate being tamed

And the production is very physical, with a convincing punch-up between Kate and her sister Bianca, and when their father Baptista accepts that Petruchio is the man, and raises one of his arms with one of Kate’s saying, “Tis a match!” the audience burst into spontaneous applause. Pip Donaghy made a fine Baptista, and Pearce Quigley was quietly convincing as Grumio, the butt of his master’s dangerous inclinations for mockery and fun.

When Lucentio and his servant Tranio undress to exchange clothes, the better to woo Bianca, Sly in the audience is so disgusted he walks out, reappearing as Petruchio. And then he disrobes almost completely, down to tatty boots and a dance belt, which brought cheerful laughter from the audience when he turned his back to exit the stage. Jamie Beamish was delightfully over the top as Tranio, and his brief singing interlude looked set to turn this into a musical.

The food scene was very wittily done, and when the first kiss occurs four musicians in red play for all they are worth. It was all highly entertaining, with Samantha Spiro giving a delightful account of Kate’s final speech, and looking far happier than the other two recent brides.

“Why there’s a wench, come on, and kiss me, Kate!”, and the dance at the end was beautifully choreographed by Siân Williams. A show not to be missed.

Performances continue until October 13 — for details click here.

Doctor Faustus, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London, June 2011

“For vain pleasure of four-and-twenty years hath Faustus lost eternal joy and felicity. I writ them a bill with mine own blood. The date is expired, the time will come, and he will fetch me”. Thus speaks Faust in the final scene. The scholars seek to save him, but the clock strikes eleven and he has but one hour to live before being carried off by the fiends of hell.

Arthur Darvill as Mephistopheles, all photos by Keith Pattison

Yet in those four-and-twenty years there were good times a-plenty, spent with Mephistopheles his comrade in magic and trickery. Eventually Faust conjures up Helen of Troy to save him, “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Ilium? Sweet Helen make me immortal with a kiss”.

Good angel, bad angel and Faust

The famous phrase that starts this plea for life eternal is Christopher Marlowe’s. He is the author of this play that mixes comedy with scenes of serious intent, as when we see the torture of Giordano Bruno, whose bloodied body is punched on stage, before one of his eyes is gouged out. This is the Dominican friar, philosopher, mathematician and astronomer who went beyond the Copernican view of the solar system to see the earth as just one inhabited planet in a mighty universe, and was badly mauled by the Church of Rome. His treatment served as a useful warning to Galileo who felt compelled to recant his scientific views in 1632, knowing full well that Bruno had been burned at the stake in the year 1600. Galileo was born the same year as Christopher Marlowe (1564), but Marlowe died in 1593, infamously killed in a brawl. Yet here in this play, possibly performed by the Lord Admiral’s Men in 1588, we see the beginning of the end for Bruno. And while Marlowe shows us a great scholar being abused on stage, he also allows that great fictional scholar, Faust to make a fool of the Pope. He and Mephistopheles impersonate some visiting cardinals, creating enormous confusion, and with Mephistopheles’ help Faust becomes invisible so as to play games with the Pope and his henchmen.

Wagner stands by as Faust opens the magical book

Then there are the magical transformations, where people are turned into stags, apes and dogs — all wittily done, and the appearance of the Seven Deadly Sins is an occasion for enormous fun. At one point, Faust is decapitated by someone wielding a sword, yet he suddenly reconnects his head, terrifying his opponents. This production by Matthew Dunster delivers an array of magical effects, helped by Paul Wills’s excellent designs. There are giant figures from hell, along with ordinary folk caught up in the action, and I loved the costumes for this Rabelaisian world of characters, including a good angel, a bad angel, Lucifer the prince of hell, the Pope, cardinals, and heaps more.

Richard Clews as Dick with monsters from hell

Paul Hilton as Doctor Faustus and Arthur Darvill as Mephistopheles were suitably energetic and well matched, even to the extent of looking almost identical, and in the less major parts I liked Felix Scott as Faust’s servant, Wagner, and Pearce Quigley’s comic timing as Robin. The diction was good, though when the delightful looking Beatriz Romilly first rushed on stage as the good angel, I understood not a word she was saying, but things warmed up later and the clarity of speech was fine, at least from my seat in the middle balcony. As for the crowd in the standing area, they looked to be in rapt attention at this entertainment, watching a sparkling performance of Christopher Marlowe’s most well-known play for a mere five pounds. Better value cannot be had in London.

Performances continue until October 2 — for details click here.

All’s Well That Ends Well, Globe Theatre, London, May 2011

A young Count, Bertram is brought up in the same household as Helena, a doctor’s daughter he has neither courted nor encouraged. She loves him, is desperate to marry him, and his mother favours the match, but his adamant refusal is over-ruled by the king, so he leaves home, and we should sympathise with him. Yet we don’t. Shakespeare gives us a most dislikeable character, unnecessarily brutal in his rejection of a fine young woman who has miraculously cured the king’s sickness.

Ellie Piercy as Helena with Sam Cox as the king, all photos by Ellie Kurttz

On the other hand, Helena herself is hard to love. She is no Juliet — I’ll prove more true than those that have more cunning to be strange — for though wedded to him, she is yet a stranger and her cunning hoists him on his own petard. He writes a letter saying, When thou canst get the ring upon my finger which never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body that I am father to, then call me husband: but in such a ‘then’ I write a ‘never’, yet this clever woman, who performed a miracle on the king, produces another on her husband. Using the ‘bed-trick’ she gets another well-born young woman to promise to lie with him at night, acquire his ring, and then substitutes herself.

Colin Hurley as Lavatch with Janie Dee as the Countess

Although Shakespeare’s title yields one of the most well-known aphorisms in English, this play itself is little performed. The young couple are unsympathetic and occlude their meanings in a plethora of prodoses and apodoses, continuing even to the end as Bertram says to the king, If she, my liege, can make me know this clearly/ I’ll love her dearly ever, ever, dearly, to which she responds, If it appear not plain and prove untrue . . . To these quasi-endearments the king finishes by saying, All yet seems well, and if it end so meet,/ The bitter past, more welcome is the sweet.

James Garnon as Parolles

The king — the lynch pin of this play — was superbly portrayed by Sam Cox, with noble bearing and fine diction yet still with a subtle comedic touch. In fact the wittiness of this production by John Dove came over well, aided particularly by James Garnon as Bertram’s friend Parolles, a braggart and coward, and with Colin Hurley as Lavatch, the fool in the Countess’s household. She, the mother of Bertram, was vividly played by Janie Dee, exhibiting life and good sense in the same measure as her son lacked it. Her affection for Ellie Pearcy’s well drawn portrayal of Helena helped give us some sympathy for this rather too clever young woman, who was well matched by Naomi Cranston as the shrewd young Diana who apparently seduces Bertram. He of course is not to be favoured by the audience, but Sam Crane portrayed his unlikeability mainly as diffidence, and his speeches were often a string of words generating little sense, with a voice that could not be clearly heard when he turned his back to the audience. But the cast as a whole did a superb job of bringing this strange comedy to life, and their dancing on stage when the play was over allowed all the characters but one to show rhythm and sparkle.

Well worth all the effort of those rehearsals, this production continues until August 21 — for more details click here.

Anne Boleyn, Globe Theatre, London, July 2010

This play has a wonderful role for the eponymous heroine, and Miranda Raison portrayed her superbly as an attractive, sexy, and determined young woman, more than a match for everyone at court except Thomas Cromwell. He — the man who engineered her downfall — was played here by John Dougall as sure-footed and ruthless, ready to abuse his power as he saw fit.

Miranda Raison as Anne Boleyn, photo by Manuel Harlan

The story is that he destroys Anne before she can warn the king about his maladministration of funds from the dissolution of the monasteries. But hadn’t the king tired of her? Didn’t he find Jane Seymour an attractive alternative to a wife who failed to produce a son? If so this play showed no attraction of the king towards Jane Seymour. She appeared only to be a tool of Cromwell, put in at the last minute, and the king’s affections for Anne never seemed to diminish. Yes, it may well be true that had Anne produced a son her position would have been impregnable, and yes this play did show that the birth of a deformed baby was an important factor, but it seemed as if the king’s role was subservient to that of Cromwell, which was odd. Did Anne really meet William Tyndale, during a journey he made secretly to England? In this play she met him twice, but the second meeting was unconvincing. Tyndale’s acolytes were very rude to her, yet she kept pleading with them. Surely a woman as shrewd as Anne, brought up with the intrigues of the French court, would have had little patience with deliberate insults, and backed out of an impossible situation.

Act I built up a steady momentum, and I liked Anne’s announcement of a fifteen minute intermission as she scuttled off to the bedroom with the king, but Act II suddenly transported us nearly seventy years into the future. All at once we were faced with James VI of Scotland, successor to Anne’s daughter Queen Elizabeth. And then the play switched unpredictably between past and future. History tells us that Anne was beheaded at the Tower of London, and some say that her ghost walks there still. Perhaps it does, but did James I of England see it, as he did in this play by Howard Brenton, directed by John Dove? At one level we seemed to be at a history lesson, but with so many laughs for the audience I could no longer to take it seriously.

James Garnon played a wittily serious James VI — he was after all a highly educated man whose intellect was often underrated — and Anthony Howell portrayed a virile and attractive Henry VIII. In the recent Globe production of Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey showed immense gravitas, before having the ground cut from under him by Anne Boleyn, but here Colin Hurley played him as an irascible weakling. Perhaps that was the intention, but the contrast between the two plays was ill judged, unless we are supposed to take them as fictions bearing little resemblance to history. I very much liked Sam Cox as Dean Lancelot Andrewes, and Peter Hamilton Dyer as William Tyndale, and I loved the costumes by Hilary Lewis. Anne’s dresses were glorious, and Miranda Raison’s smouldering sex appeal and assertive shrewdness in that role was by far the most vital thing about this play.

Henry IV Parts 1 and 2, Globe Theatre, London, July 2010

With an audience on three sides of the stage, plus the casual openness of the standing area, Roger Allam was well placed to give us a wonderful interpretation of Falstaff. His contact with the audience was inspired, and they loved him, yet there was nothing over the top in his shrewd levity, ever ready to recover from the jibes and rejections of others.

Falstaff with Mistress Quickly and Bardolph, photo by John Haynes

Apart from Falstaff, these plays have no central character given to introspective soliloquies, so it is more the case of one actor playing off another, and many of the cast did this well, performing more than one role. William Gaunt and Christopher Godwin were amusing as the old duo Shallow and Silence in Part 2, while having been far more direct and vigorous as Worcester and Northumberland, and I liked Paul Rider both as Bardolph, and in his vignette as the Archbishop of York. Jade Williams as Doll Tearsheet in Part 2 showed an engaging weakness for Falstaff, throwing up most convincingly on the front corner of the stage and surprising the audience packed around there, a far cry from her refined Lady Mortimer. Barbara Marten played Lady Northumberland, as well as being a suitably indignant tavern hostess as Mistress Quickly, with her husband sitting upstairs smoking a pipe — a nice touch.

Prince Hal with Falstaff, photo by John Haynes

Oliver Cotton played the King as a serious monarch, betrayed by the rebellious vanities of others, but the principal rebel, Harry Hotspur showed a spluttering anger that failed to allow even a half-second pause in the expression of his fury. Sam Crane’s portrayal of this hothead could have used more nuance, and his re-appearance as Pistol in Part 2 had a clownish quality that seemed unsuited to this production. But Jamie Parker as Prince Hal showed nuance aplenty in his fine portrayal of youthful high spirits edged by an understanding of his future as king. Here is an actor — one of the original cast for The History Boys — who can be suitably immature as Prince Hal, yet bring into Part 2 elements of the future Henry V who will inspire and lead his army at the Battle of Agincourt. I look forward to his future portrayal of that role!

Prince Hal replaces the crown, photo by John Haynes

What makes Part 1 work so well is the brilliance of Falstaff and Prince Hal. Of course Hal is not seen much in Part 2, until he takes the crown from his father’s pillow near the end, so there isn’t quite the same energy in the second part, but Roger Allam was gloriously endearing as Falstaff — one could not imagine a better portrayal. These productions by Dominic Dromgoole give a fine understanding of the plays and are a delight to watch. I loved the convincing grubbiness of the costumes for the ordinary folk, as well as of the military vests for the nobles, and the crests hanging round the seating areas add to the authenticity. With the mummers at the beginning, starting outside the auditorium and taking their mime inside, a wonderful sense of occasion is given to these performances, and at £5 for a standing ticket in the pit there is no excuse for missing them. Six hours of Shakespeare with nary a dull moment.

Parts 1 and 2 of Henry IV continue until October 2^nd and October 3^rd respectively — for more details click here.

Henry VIII, Globe Theatre, London, May 2010

This is one of Shakespeare’s last works, written in collaboration with John Fletcher, who later became his successor as chief playwright to the King’s Men. It was originally known under the title All is True, rather than Henry VIII, perhaps because the King does not have the main role, appearing in only nine of the seventeen scenes.  The  principal role is for Cardinal Wolsey, who has some memorable lines, particularly during his final speech, “Had I but served my God with half the zeal I served my King, He would not in mine age have left me naked to mine enemies”.

Dominic Rowan as Henry VIII, photo by John Tramper

The play deals partly with the national crisis of the Reformation, starting with events following a ceremonial treaty with France engineered by Wolsey, to the gradual dismissal and divorce of Queen Katherine, the advent of Anne Boleyn, the downfall of Wolsey, the attempted plot against Archbishop Cranmer, and his subsequent christening of Anne’s daughter Elizabeth — the queen who would later become a patron of Shakespeare and the Globe Theatre. Cranmer gives a speech predicting a glorious reign for her, and the audience at the time would remember Elizabeth’s funeral, and have known very well that Cranmer was burned as one of the three Oxford martyrs under her predecessor Queen Mary.

In the meantime this play contains plenty of scheming, including interesting scenes between Wolsey and Katherine of Aragon. She distrusts him, though he makes every effort to persuade her he is sympathetic to her cause, “Why should we, good lady, upon what cause, wrong you? … The way of our profession is against it. We are to cure such sorrows, not to sow ’em”. When news of Wolsey’s death reaches her she forgives him, and then dies herself, blessed with a vision of peace.

Miranda Raison as Anne Bullen (Boleyn), photo by John Tramper

This production by Mark Rosenblatt, with designs by Angela Davies, clothes the players in magnificent Tudor costumes, and allows the audience to see the characters before and after they meet the king. This is cleverly done by having them come out of one door, in through another and out again, or something like that — it works very well. The costumes are truly beautiful and the occasional use of puppets is brilliant. Ian McNeice is a very strong Wolsey, with excellent stage presence, Kate Duchêne is entirely convincing as Queen Katherine, and Sam Cox is very striking as the Lord Chamberlain, and as First Citizen. Henry is portrayed as a lively, handsome man, well played by Dominic Rowan, and the relatively small part of Anne Bullen (Boleyn) is very attractively played by Miranda Raison, who will appear again as the eponymous heroine in Howard Brenton’s new play Anne Boleyn, later in the Globe’s season.

Anne Boleyn starts on July 24, and both it and Henry VIII continue until August 21— for more details click here.

Macbeth, Globe Theatre, London, April 2010

This new production by Lucy Bailey presents a Dante-like vision of hell. A large black sheet covers most of the standing room in the pit, with slits for audience members to stick their heads through so they can see the stage, and at times writhing male torsos smeared with blood emerge through some of the slits. The witches in their dark red nun-like robes are gatekeepers of hell — tall, medium and very short, they occasionally skulk around the stage ready to draw the characters to their eternal doom. In the scene where they conjure up three spirits, they lick the bloody fingers of one, and the second spirit is a bloodily-red rag doll to which one witch gives birth.

Macbeth and three witches, photos by Ellie Kurttz

The director does not shy away from the grotesque, and when Macduff’s wife and children are murdered we see the deed in all its gore, his son being brutally slashed in the face and later killed. These and other bloody details are alleviated by the antics of the porter in Macbeth’s castle, played by Frank Scantori. He urinates in a bucket, ambles around like a small bear, throws the contents of the bucket over the audience in the pit, and when he’s knocked over, this short and gloriously fat man is stuck on his back like a beetle. It’s amusing, but what of the psychological drama of Macbeth and his wife, played by Elliot Cowan and Laura Rogers?

Elliot Cowan as Macbeth

A perennial question is whether Macbeth and his wife are addicted to murder, or are simply ambitious clowns swimming in insecurity. The director’s contribution is to portray the two of them as a young couple full of sexual energy and ambition. Laura Rogers as Lady Macbeth has been deliberately cast as an attractive, sexy, modern-looking young woman, ready for a roll in the hay with her virile husband. A pussycat it seems, yet calm and controlled in determining the murder of King Duncan, and cleaning up the bloody mess afterwards. She has done this by steeling herself to the deed, yet cannot cope with her own later reactions. Elliot Cowan portrays an attractive Macbeth, metaphorically in clothing several sizes too large for him.

This production spoke to me about the brutal shrewdness of many warlords and leaders today in cultures dominated by clans, like early medieval Scotland. There are nonetheless men of courage and nobility, like Banquo, well portrayed by Christian Bradley showing excellent gravitas and a sense of honour. But I’m afraid I found some of the acting a little uneven. Elliot Cowan as Macbeth had good stage presence but his voice was somewhat couvré at times, and although James McArdle as Malcolm spoke with great clarity, the lack of spontaneity in his speeches rendered them dull. Julius D’Silva created a powerful presence as the Scottish thane, Ross, and since this was only the second performance it may be that some of the other acting will settle down in later performances.

Overall the production is a strong one, though I found it too gory for my taste. Many people will doubtless like the effect of Banquo’s ghost appearing from the underworld through a huge platter of food, reaching out a bloody arm to grip Macbeth’s hand. The horror of the moment was effective, but I prefer less gore and a more abstract realisation of this tightly written play.

Performances continue until June 27 — for more details click here.

Helen, Globe Theatre, August 2009

This Euripides play was given in a new translation by Frank McGuinness, and I liked it, but fear it may sound odd in a few years’ time with expressions like done and dusted. However it worked well here, directed by Deborah Bruce, with designs by Gideon Davy, in a production that took the story lightly. That story, about the real Helen going to Egypt and remaining faithful to her husband Menelaus, while a fake went to Troy as the wife of Priam, became popular in Greece as it let Helen off the hook for the deaths of so many men in a ten-year war. The story was taken up by Hugo von Hofmannsthal as a libretto for Richard Strauss’s opera The Egyptian Helen (Die Ägyptische Helena, which I saw in February in Berlin). The opera is a more elaborate affair, and for this reason doesn’t work well on stage. But this play does work, and at ninety minutes with no interval is far shorter than the opera.

I thought Penny Downie did well as Helen, with Paul McGann giving an excellent portrayal of Menelaus. Rawiri Paratene was Theoclymenes, the Egyptian king who wants to marry Helen, and his all-seeing sister Theonoe was well performed by Diveen Henry. The appearance of Helen’s heavenly brothers Castor and Pollux at the end, as gardeners and odd-job men with angelic wings was pure nonsense, but fun. They were there before the play started, painting the stage, showing that none of this stuff should be taken too seriously, and the whole production was meant to be comic, with Helen expressing an oh-my-god-is-it-really-you attitude, and Theoclymenes hamming it up as a pompous but easily deceived king.

Romeo and Juliet, Globe Theatre, May 2009

This production by Dominic Dromgoole, designed by Simon Daw, gave a claustrophobic intensity to the drama, while the music composed by Nigel Hess with choreography by Sian Williams helped lighten the atmosphere. As Romeo we had Adetomiwa Edun giving a passionate performance, and commanding the stage with his presence. Unfortunately I found Ellie Kendrick’s Juliet no match for him, and one wondered why he and Paris took any interest in this dull girl. Rawiri Paratene was an impassioned Friar Lawrence, Ian Redford an irascibly intense Capulet, Ukweli Roach a sneeringly dangerous Tybalt, and Fergal McElherron was superbly engaging as Peter, a servant in the Capulet household. These men made the drama work, aided by Philip Cambus as a slightly wild Mercutio, Jack Farthing as an emollient Benvolio, Tom Stuart as a keen and callow Paris, Penny Laden as the nurse, and Andrew Vincent showing good stage presence as prince of Verona. The fight scenes were entirely convincing, and I thought the monks carrying Juliet’s body through the audience in the pit added a very effective touch. Altogether a successful production of the play, though I wish the nurse, Juliet and her mother had come over a little more strongly.