All entries for August 2008

The Taming of the Shrew, RSC, Courtyard Theatre

In Need of a Tamer Shrew

1 star

It’s not often that I leave the theatre at the interval. But when it came to renewing my parking ticket to accommodate the overly stretched-out running time of The Taming of the Shrew or just getting in my car, on this occasion the latter seemed more appealing. Conall Morrison’s production for the RSC of Shakespeare’s notoriously difficult play is a perfect example of sledgehammer theatre. While I am told that the second half sobers up a bit, what I experienced was a patronising interpretation of The Shrew where the actors over-emphasise Shakespeare’s language like morons, the timelessness of the misogyny theme is rammed down our throats, and on show is some of the least funny comedy I’ve seen for a while.

Starting with a clumsy introductory scene of a stag night in Soho featuring blow-up dolls and a token pole dancer, we are then taken into the play-within-a-play where Petruchio (Stephen Boxer) is in search of a wealthy woman to wed. He takes on the challenge of taming the intolerable Katherine (Michelle Gomez) who, kicking and screaming, eventually succumbs to the power of her masterful husband. Boxer is suitably cocky and swashbuckling as the Tamer, though a little too unlikeable, and Gomez is aptly and painfully shrill as his unfortunate wife. The production undoubtedly boasts a fine array of actors – mostly young and many new to the RSC. Under Morrison’s direction though we get a parade of competitive egos where upstaging is a-plenty, the mocking of accents gets in the way of Shakespeare’s language, and every line is mined for double entendre. And in all the bollock-kicking, breast-chafing and bum-slapping, the seriousness of the subject matter gets lost. The play grinds along at a frustrating pace as slapstick, cumbersome props, and bodily noises obstruct each line. Despite the setting of Padua, every time an Italian word crops up the actors make a meal of it as if it were Pig Latin. It’s no wonder that this Shrew has become the length of Hamlet. The production is devoid of any kind of truth and instead seems to be unified under the agreement to all take the piss.

Of course, you could say that I’m being over-reverential about Shakespeare, as the Sunday Times’s Rod Liddle, who immensely enjoyed the production, would say. After all, they liked a bit of bawdy, did the Globe-goers. But the piece’s hysteria and lack of any varying colours only highlight how easy it is to forget this is Shakespeare. Why can’t we leave Shakespeare’s humour and timeless theme to speak for themselves? After all, a preliminary scene that shows the horrors of the Holocaust would hardly be appropriate to a production of The Merchant of Venice. These clumsy additions suggest either that Shakespeare was a racist and a sexist, or that he was a moralist writing the plays to combat the problems of misogyny and anti-Semitism. Neither is entirely accurate.

Let’s stop imposing on Shakespeare what we think he is saying; let’s just allow these great plays to speak for themselves.

Anna Brewer : 30 Aug 2008 15:33 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

A Slight Ache, National Theatre

Match of the Day

4 stars

Most of Pinter’s off-stage forces remain elusive, hidden from our sight for the plays’ duration – except in his “A Slight Ache” where the ominous presence that obsesses Edward and Flora is soon beckoned onto stage by them. The “Matchseller” (played here by Jamie Beamish) is a mysterious figure that lurks in the lane at the bottom of their garden. He wears a balaclava throughout, but is sweating profusely. He’s part young, part old, part attractive, part repulsive, part jelly, part solid. He clutches a tray of damp, rotting matches, but never sells a single one. Yet, as with so many of Pinter’s characters, it’s not at all clear what the Matchseller represents, or what singular function he holds.

What is crucial though, and what comes across in Iqbal Khan’s fine production, is the Matchseller’s neutral identity. Edward and Flora project onto this blank human canvas what they most want – or most fear. To Edward, the Matchseller is a threatening embodiment of all that he’s not. In his presence, Edward must fluff his feathers, inflate his chest, and show off his (embarrassingly dull) colours. (He’s not the village squire, admittedly, but he sees himself as such.) To Flora, the Matchseller is the much longed-for lover that she can seduce and simultaneously mother. In an effectively non-committal interpretation, the Matchseller remains expressionless and still throughout, simply tolerating the expression of this couple’s desires and dreads.

Simon Russell Beale is spot-on as the ebullient, blustery Edward. Short and squat, he is like an aggravated pigeon, standing as if accommodating awkwardly proportioned genitals. Delighting in the sonority of his language, he hisses, hoots and booms his way through some of Pinter’s most musical dialogue while all the time trying to present himself as the regular Everyman. “I was in commerce too,” he tells the Matchseller. Only, it heightens our awareness of Edward’s museum-case existence even more.

Clare Higgins as Flora displays poise and resignation. It is clear from her initial avoidance of the topic of the Matchseller that she has another plan and hardly envisages a future with Edward. Flora is preparing for a second bloom. Higgins plays her as having an intriguing mixture of naïve gaiety and sexual ripeness. While Flora is a character that is often read as lacking bite, Higgins brings out her character’s underlying strength. “Women,” she says, “will often succeed, you know, where a man must invariably fail.” Edward, needless to say, is left speechless.

My only reservation about the production is the extremity of the surreal. The Matchseller is so sinisterly Beckettian that we cannot fully understand the desire for human contact that Edward and Flora crave, nor her profoundly sexual attraction to him. Similarly, the sparse set that spins, accompanied only by its own whirring, proves rather limiting. Russell Beale’s miming of opening windows ends up looking like he’s swimming through mud. Nevertheless, the exploration of the surreal does lead us to recognise that the Matchseller is not so much a literal figure, but a psychological creation of Edward’s and Flora’s.

At the end, as Edward lies on the floor, belly slopping over his trousers and immobile excepting his head, we see the epitome of a man broken by the awareness of his own deterioration. Just like the Matchseller’s matches that feel “suspiciously like fungus”, Edward’s possessions that he is so boastful of – his garden, his canopy, his pool – have amounted to absolutely nothing.

Anna Brewer : 12 Aug 2008 14:31 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem