“The Mouse and His Child”

at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Saturday 8th December 2012

The Mouse and His Child is, hands down, the most fun I’ve had at the RSC since Matilda. It is also the most inventive, playful and well-put-together show I’ve seen the company produce in the past two years, even with the fanfare and pomp of the World Shakespeare Festival and Boyd’s final season. Since watching it yesterday, I’ve been thinking a lot about the genre of children’s theatre (or theatre for children) and whether it can teach us something about theatremaking in general.

The show itself is an adaptation of Russell Hoban’s book of the same name, in a script penned by Tamsin Oglesby. It’s a charming Christmas tale about a clockwork mouse-and-child toy who find themselves in the wilderness on their own and looking for a family made of other toys and the animals they meet on the way. The cast, led by Daniel Ryan and Bettrys Jones as the eponymous heroes, is universally brilliant, with energetic performances from Carla Mendonca, David Charles and Michael Hodgson among others.

Director Paul Hunter employs – for want of a better phrase – a devised, physical theatre style approach in his rehearsal room, allowing anyone to chip in ideas, improvising, shaping and moulding until the right solution is found. Pots and pans take the place of instruments (don’t worry it’s better than Stomp) and the simplest of objects are turned into puppets, whilst costumes only hint towards character with simple accessories rather than making fully-blown mouse outfits.

Every moment is imbued with a sense of imagination and childishness, and not one scene is dull or unnecessary. It’s bizarre, however, that many still see this as not workable within a more ‘mature’ theatre environment. We seem to separate children’s theatre from actual theatre, and prefer a more intellectual approach to Shakespeare and the classics. But why shouldn’t these texts be explored in a similar way? Some of the best Shakespearean productions I’ve seen have been meant for kids, and are no less satisfying or rigorous because of it. As adults, we disregard childish, playful thoughts far too quickly without recognising the positive impact we could have. What The Mouse and His Child and its ilk do is remind is there is nothing to be ashamed about in having an imagination and a sense of play; in itself a rather subversive political idea.

This sense of playfulness isn’t just apparent in the performances but also in the very fabric of the production, including perhaps the best use of the thrust space since the Histories. The 3D-ness of the theatre is utilised fully, complete with trap doors, flying things, multiple entrances and four revolves, leading to never-ending movement and frequent surprises. The use of shadow puppet-style animations projected onto various surfaces also aids the storytelling and means huge set changes aren’t necessary. In Borrowers style, small objects are made large, so that we see a huge string of fairy lights on the back wall and a spool of thread hanging above the stage.

Hunter’s production also revels in its own theatricality, never once attempting any attempt at naturalism. It’s also highly self-referential (here followeth a spoiler). One hilarious moment sees an ugly larvae turn into a puppet dragonfly, which soars around the stage before being zapped by a lightbulb and smacking onto the floor. After a roar of laughter, the puppeteer exclaims “What?! It’s called The Mouse and His Child isn’t it? Not The Bloke with the Dead Dragonfly“. Michael Hodgson as the slightly pantomimic (but utterly superb) Manny Rat, complete with Trunchbull-esque hunch, also has a wonderful rapport with the audience and makes no attempt to disguise the fact he is an actor playing a character.

I’ll no doubt be chided for looking too deeply into a children’s production, but it’s hard not to wish this style were employed more universally. Many have suggested the production is too complicated, and complained that without knowing the story the narrative is lost, but seeing as the way it is told is just as important this misses the point (and is, in my opinion, slightly idiotic; I knew neither the book nor the story yet still got every moment). The story also has a wonderful moral, suggesting cooperation is better than competition as the Child laments “Why does everyone want to eat everyone else?” I know it’s ‘only’ children’s theatre. But it’s bloody good children’s theatre. And it could teach the rest of us a thing or two.

Looking back at the World Shakespeare Festival: Part Three

What varieties of artistic collaboration emerged during this Year of Shakespeare and what kinds of artistic, civic, and/or ethical implications might they hold?

I’ve already spoken about the ‘collaborations’ between the Globe Theatre and international companies and the ethical implications they may hold, so this entry will look more specifically at collaborations between British companies and artists.

A good place to start here is the BBC’s Hollow Crown series, one of the most high-profile productions of the World Shakespeare Festival. What’s interesting here specifically is the way in which the season was put together. Four of Britain’s most high-profile directors collaborated on the piece (Rupert Goold, Richard Eyre, Thea Sharrock and Sam Mendes as producer), and the endeavor was, as already mentioned, funded by the BBC. So there are two types of collaboration here: artistic and financial.

In the first instance, the absence of any real kind of overarching aim should be noted. True, the four plays are narratively and thematically linked, and clearly effort was made to make them aesthetically similar if not identical, but there are many imperfections. Take Tom Hiddleston’s Hal; in the two parts of Henry IV, he’s presented as a rebel, complete with leather jacket and cheeky grin, but in Henry V his thoughtful, heroic King seems to be a different character altogether with little in common with his former self. The decision to use some of the same cast in the latter three plays but begin with a completely different ensemble in Richard II suggests the first is seen as an entirely separate entity. There seems, then, to have been executive artistic decisions being made at a higher level to the three directors, and little attempt to find cohesion between each of the films. The result then, is a jumbled one, for though the four parts look similar, that’s where the collaboration ends, leaving them feeling disjointed and incohesive.

Where the money came from suggests another kind of collaboration; that between the BBC and the British public. The History plays can often be seen, if not as a cruel, at least an honest look at the monarchy. The constantly warring factions and immature attempts at power hardly portray Britain’s royal heritage in a kind light. Nonetheless, the BBC, the monarchy and Shakespeare are all now British institutions and can be seen as conservative in some cases (though not always, I hasten to add), and all three were spoken of highly over the summer. The BBC’s remit is to represent “the UK, its nations, regions and communities”, but in essence what the Hollow Crown films did was to represent our aristocracy in a positive, heroic light, making them palatable for the summer of Brand Britain, where Shakespeare wrote far more nuanced and human characters. A silent pact was made between the BBC and the British public not to question Queen and country this summer, and this is implicit in the way in which the royal family is portrayed in the Hollow Crown season.

Another large-scale institution to collaborate with the British public was the RSC, through their RSC Open Stages project (not directly linked to the World Shakespeare Festival but receiving significant coverage because of it). The idea behind the scheme is to “bring professional and amateur theatre makers together”, through a sharing of skills and ideas, though to the best of my knowledge little money changed hands. Of course, theatre doesn’t need money to be great, but when all a big company does to support an amateur show is to play them a few videos and give them a logo, one has to wonder just how much ego is present and how much those involved are capitalizing on prestige. One of the most prestigious RSC Open Stages productions, Will Tuckett’s West Side Story in Newcastle, was referred to as “the RSC’s West Side Story” in a few contexts, demonstrating that for many all that mattered was the name of the RSC. This is problematic not merely because of the confusion about origin, but also because this takes away credit from the communities and companies creating these shows, as the RSC takes precedence and the individuals involved have to overcome this pressure. The national becomes more important than the local.

It’s easy to criticise when you haven’t been directly involved, and I know here I’m being nit-picky (and some of my arguments don’t really hold water), but these things are worth thinking about. I’m not complaining for a second that these productions and collaborations exist, either; they’ve done a lot to add to public understanding of Shakespeare and have given incredible opportunities to thousands of people. The question at the top of this post is a multi-layered, far-reaching one, and I haven’t even begin to answer it. Nevertheless, thinking about the implications which the World Shakespeare Festival has on our wider cultural discourse is important, as is considering what the underlying dogmas are which some of these collaborations bolster.

Looking back at the World Shakespeare Festival: Part Two

Yesterday, I considered broadly the way in which the World Shakespeare Festival mirrored current trends in theatre, both at home and abroad. Today’s question is a little more complex, as we consider the universality of Shakespeare’s work and whether or not the WSF has really demonstrated anything which we didn’t know before.

What have we learned from the Year of Shakespeare productions about the performative qualities of Shakespeare’s plays?

This is a difficult one; we’ve always known that Shakespeare’s plays hold a specific power in performance, and that his work maintains relevance in contemporary settings. This leads us to consider the universality of Shakespeare, not just temporily but also spatially. Seeing directors set plays in the current day demonstrates that the canon certainly has a universality within British culture, but what the Globe to Globe season showed was that his work crosses cultural boundaries too.

Perhaps the best way to loosely define “classic” is this: a work of art which, though set in a certain time, maintains relevance across generations and national boundaries. This is the reason the World Shakespeare Festival exists; though the original dissemination of his work was due to the rise of the British Empire, they now live on due to the fact they have gained a global cultural currency.

Each production performed at the Globe demonstrated a reappropriation of Shakespeare’s work by each company. The South Sudan Theatre Company showed Cymbeline to be a celebration for a new era, and was impossible not to read in the context of the country’s new-found independence. The production used music and dance as a way of breaking up scenes and punctuating key moments, much like the Globe’s in-house shows, though still firmly revolved around the central narrative. By extension then, this proved what we already know; that, though Shakespeare’s language, poetry and characters are all gorgeous creations, it is his stories which inspire and enthuse the world over.

This throws up a small problem, however. Seeing as the majority of Shakespeare’s plays are based on source materials and aren’t original works (though they include plot twists and new characters which were invented for the purposes of each play), we have to question whether it is Shakespeare’s works which are being performed or simply the stories, many of which are merely folklore with a bit of poetry.

So what, then, are the inherently performative aspects of Shakespeare’s works? Why, for example, are the Henry VI plays attributed to the Bard and not to Hall or Holinshead, especially when performed in translation? The best answer is a mixture of the three points mentioned above; language, poetry and character. The first two of these are difficult in translation, but a good translator will take the rhythms and rules of Shakespeare’s verse and transpose them into similar poetic patterns within their own linguistic traditions. The Palestinian Arabic used by Ashtar Theatre in Richard II, for example, used an archaic form of the language, which the actors described as (and I paraphrase) “just as difficult to get your head around as Shakespeare”.

More than that, however, characters remain constant across boundaries; though their motives and nuances change for each production, their super-objective will be the same no matter where they perform, and their fate will remain unchanged. Again, I repeat what I said yesterday, and I apologise for failing to put this in a more erudite way, but each production throughout the Globe to Globe season felt like Shakespeare. We left each in much the same way as we’d leave an Anglophonic production, considering its link to the past, its relevance to now, the choices the characters had to make and with a spinning head after trying to understand the language.

In what ways have these productions succeeded or failed in creating a shared frame of reference for spectators?

Only those who saw every World Shakespeare Festival production (and I imagine that group is very small indeed, if not nonexistent) are able to share a solid reference point withanyone else who saw at least one production. Nonetheless, a conversation has grown out of the event, and even those with only one ticket under their belt have been able to join in the debate in some way.

The Globe to Globe season, as perhaps the most public part of the World Shakespeare Festival, has meant a large-scale discussion about translation and international Shakespeare. British audiences have seen that we are not the only nation who can do Shakespeare well and that other languages shed new light on the plays. In this instance, the ongoing debate is not one which focusses on the plays individually but the nature of the festival as a whole; someone who saw Belarus Free Theatre’s King Lear can discuss how Shakespeare differs in translation with someone who saw Romeo and Juliet in Baghdad, each providing different examples of the merits of setting the plays in different nations. The same is true of someone who saw Julius Caesar at the RSC and someone else who saw Julius Caesar at the Globe, though the discussion shifts slightly then to one which focusses more heavily on the play.

I do worry a little, however, that this marks “the other” as the focus of what is being discussed and shoving all foreign language Shakespeares into the same bag without necessarily understanding their differences. Rather than talk about productions in English, French, Albanian, Arabic, Maori etc, we talk about productions in English and productions In A Different Language.

One of the strengths of the WSF – that it contained such a variety of plays, companies and styles – is also, then, its downfall. By choosing not to curate around a particular theme or idea other than “Internationalism”, the Festival lacked any identifiable theme which could be picked up in conversation. Most of the conversations I’ve had about the season have focussed around the nature and ethics of the Festival as a whole rather than specific productions.

 

I understand neither of these questions have really been answered here, but these are my initial thoughts on the issues. Once again, without having seen every show it is impossible to discuss with any comprehensiveness any overriding themes or narratives, so that instead we ask bigger, more oblique questions. This is neither a Good Thing nor a Bad Thing, but it’s a shame that individual productions at the Festival don’t get so much attention due to being lost in the noise of the complete entity.

Looking back at the World Shakespeare Festival: Part One

Now that the World Shakespeare Festival is pretty much over, the time has come to question the effects and implications of the shows chosen on Shakespeare studies, international conversations and theatre in general. At a symposium at the Shakespeare Institute last week, ran by Paul Edmondson, Paul Prescott and Erin Sullivan and attended by a host of Shakespearean academics (and myself), these questions were laid on the table and an attempt made to begin answering them. Most in the group had contributed to www.yearofshakespeare.com. Between us, we had – I think – seen every single production the WSF had organised. Looking back over my diary, I managed to see nineteen WSF shows (plus all of the BBC Shakespeare coverage), though regrettably none of them were outside Stratford or London (ten at the RSC, eight at the Globe and one at the National). Nonetheless, I managed to see a pretty diverse range of productions, so I’ll try to deconstruct some thoughts on the whole thing on a series of blog posts over the coming days.

As a framework, I’ll be using a series of seven questions presented to us last Thursday:

1. What might the Year of Shakespeare productions and events suggest about current and emerging global performance trends, tropes and turns?
2. What have we learned from the Year of Shakespeare productions about the performative qualities of Shakespeare’s plays? In what ways have these productions succeeded or failed in creating a shared frame of reference for spectators?
3. What varieties of artistic collaboration emerged during this Year of Shakespeare and what kinds of artistic, civic, and/or ethical implications might they hold?
4. How might the UK’s hosting of the Olympic Games have inflected our reading of Year of Shakespeare productions and events?
5. What implications might the 2012 Year of Shakespeare festivities hold for upcoming Shakespeare celebrations in 2014/16?
6. How might the Shakespeare productions or events this year influence the way we teach Shakespeare? What are the obstacles to productive change?
7. What were the ‘moments of clarity’ for you during the 2012 Shakespeare festivities – i.e. when did particular interests, questions, or concerns come into focus?

As I go, I’ll use examples and discussions given at the event last week to try to give a little more depth to my limited knowledge of the festival. Anyway, here we go.

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What might the Year of Shakespeare productions and events suggest about current and emerging global performance trends, tropes and turns?

Question One provides the longest answer, but it is perhaps the most straightforward. All we have to do is find current trends surrounding the 2012 theatrical landscape and then discover where in the dialogue about the WSF they are present. Some of the most interesting and passionate debates I’ve had about theatre over the past year have centred around these three broad topics:

• Interpretation and adaptation
• Collaboration
• Criticism and reception

I’d like first to point out that this is in no way the only things which are being talked about nor even a comprehensive discussion of said trends; these are merely the conversations I’ve been having and their relation to the WSF.

Interpretation and Adaptation

This is a particularly thorny subject, especially with regard to the performance of Shakespeare and the classical canon. When does Shakespeare stop being Shakespeare? Is this distinction textual  (by editing the script, have you tampered with the original intention) or theatrical (some may argue that only Shakespeare plays performed in their original setting at the Globe is truly Shakespeare). The Globe to Globe performances could well be considered “not Shakespeare” due to the fact they’ve been translated and cut, meaning they’re Shakespeare twice removed.

These parameters, however, are slowly being disintegrated so that we accept Shakespeare however it is presented. It’s important to turn the question round here and see that when, for example, The Misanthrope is presented in London, though it may be “in a new version by Martin Crimp”, it is still well and truly Moliere’s play.

It’s also interesting to look at traditions of Shakespeare abroad. Many European practitioners are unafraid to tamper with the Bard’s works, subtracting and adding as they see fit. Andreas Kriegenburg’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream which I saw at the Deutsches Theater earlier this year, though far from perfect, played with Shakespeare’s play fast and loose. But though in a different language and recast for a different theatrical tradition, it was still unmistakably Shakespeare.

These questions had to continually be asked throughout the Globe to Globe season. Richard II, though set in Palestine and performed in Palestinian Arabic, still considered the same themes as the original and encapsulated the spirit of what the Bard was writing.

Interestingly, the most contentious WSF production, Troilus and Cressida, was one of the few to include a largely text. I don’t quite know what this suggests, but I do think the trend towards edited and adapted versions of the Canon has meant the limits of what Shakespeare ‘is‘ have been widened. We are now happy to accept more work as “by [or after] William Shakespeare”; as long as the “spirit” is Shakespeare is encapsulated, his name can be used.

Collaboration

This leads smoothly onto the trend for collaboration; I have no issue with works which bear little resemblance to the original taking its title or author due to the fact that theatre is an inherently collaborative form. Wanting to cut or play around with Shakespeare and his contemporaries does not mean we believe ourselves to be “better than Shakespeare”, merely that we acknowledge the four-hundred years since the play’s conception have added a great deal of textual resonance to the piece. We must also never forget the work of Jan Kott, treating old plays as if they were new works, with the creative license that the latter gives. We are not better than Shakespeare. We are collaborating with him.

As our world becomes smaller, it becomes easier to experience other lifestyles and cultures, meaning that international theatre collaborations are becoming ever more prevalent (I know cross-cultural productions have been staple for a good fifty years, but where the invention of flight began to chip away at the borders between nations, the internet took a wrecking ball to it). All the Globe to Globe productions were, by definition, collaborative; they had a British commissioner, native producer, a translator, director and dozens of other creatives. Nonetheless, the strict rules which Locoq placed on the season did seem a little restrictive and, rather than being a platform through which different companies and identities educated one another, it became something a bit too akin to a showcase. Sometimes, the tone felt like “We’ve given you the money, now show us what you’ve got”. The season was a resounding success, but more emphasis on true artistic collaborations could have made it a richer cultural experience.

In my eyes, the two most interesting pieces in this discussion were the RSC’s King John and Troilus and Cressida (I’m sorry, I’ll be mentioning it a lot in the coming posts). The former worked largely within British theatrical tradition but was created in a way which clearly focussed on collaboration. Headed by Maria Aberg (a Swedish director) and with significant input from Dramaturg Jeanie O’Hare and the various designers, the effect was one of plurality. Whether King John slotted into the remit of the World Shakespeare Festival is questionable, especially when placed beside the RSC/Wooster Group venture. Like it or not, Troilus and Cressida embodied what I understood the festival was supposed to be about; joining with international companies and learning what they can teach us about how they “do” Shakespeare. It’s also key in this respect that the companies rehearsed separately until the latter stages of the process before colliding head-on in performance. By putting two starkly opposed ways of working in opposition, they were able to inform and illuminate one another. True, Rupert Goold’s original plan to have a postmodern metathetrical RSC-in-ruffs take on proceedings may have been a bit more successful, but the production nonetheless showed two traditions playing off each other and creating sparks in the process.

Criticism and Reception

It could be that I assign to this point more credit than it’s worth due to my interest in the subject, but it can’t be denied that the way in which we watch and talk about theatre has changed dramatically within the past five years. The influence of blogs, Twitter and websites has seen the advent of a new age of theatre criticism.

That discussion cannot be had in full here (I’ll leave it for another day), because the key point here is how this trend for long-form criticism and more immediate audience feedback relates to the WSF. Throughout the summer, hundreds of blogs and twitter feeds have commented on shows and events, adding to the abundance of opinions and thoughts surrounding the productions. Consciously or not, every review posted on a blog is written in reaction to the strict confines and creatively stunted main-stream media review structure. Whereas during the Complete Works Festival in 2006, blogs were only just beginning to gain a following, in 2012 they are a constant reminder that the opinions of the newspaper critics are not the only ones out there. Take a look at the difference in opinion between the press reviews of Troilus and Cressida and their long-f0rm online cousins, and you see a marked difference.

The same shift is also happening in academic circles; normally, academic reviews of productions happen months after the event in journals (or “posthumously” as some described it on Thursday). The creation of http://yearofshakespeare.com/ however, meant that similar reviews were able to be discussed within days in long-form (though not as long, perhaps, as true journal entries). Star ratings were shunned and an emphasis was placed on discussion and debate, ensuring that no one person’s opinion was seen as gospel. There are discussions that this sort of forum will continue after 2012 as a space to consider Shakespearean productions in an informal academic discussion; there is no doubt this would complement the work of the bloggosphere beautifully.

The concluding thoughts at the Shakespeare Institute centred around “The 2012-ness of the World Shakespeare Festival”, and what made the event specific to now. From my perspective, the Olympics and surrounding events have marked a point at which cultural event fed into wide social discourse in a way which hasn’t been seen before. We can be tweeting, facebooking and blogging before, during and after going to see a theatrical production or a sporting event, sharing our thoughts not simply with our closest friends but with the whole world. 2012 perhaps marks the point at which social media reaches its peak before new methods of communication are found and the existing formats become stale. In the context of the World Shakespeare Festival, this has meant thousands of opinions on singular performances, as the notion of the lone, objective critic is destroyed and theatre is placed back into the hands of those to whom it belongs: the people.

“Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare

at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Friday 1st June 2012

*The performance reviewed was a preview*

Doran’s ‘all black’ production (an odd description, in my opinion: you wouldn’t necessarily describe a cast as ‘all white’) of Julius Caesar, cut down to two hours and fifteen minutes, feels like a modern political thriller, though it lacks any real drama and could do with having more pace. Seeing as Caesar is murdered halfway through the text, this cannot be blamed much on Doran, though the second half of the production feels slow by comparison and fails to really say much about the nature of dictatorships.

We enter the theatre to jovial music and a lively, crowded stage, and as the lights go down it’s clear that Caesar is loved by all. He had led his people to a victory and created a happier lifestyle. What’s odd, though, is that this feels like the jubilation which follows a revolution, and though images of tyranny (a large statue, pictures of Caesar) are present, this is far too happy a state and doesn’t bear the marks of repression at all. This means the plot of Brutus and Cassius to overthrow the ‘tyrant’ comes out of nowhere and is difficult to understand.

And while this production manages to ask questions about the nature of military coups and the shifting nature of politics internationally, the attempt to mix it with images of the Arab Spring falls short. This play is about the politician, not the ordinary man, which is utterly incongruous with the clips of popular uprisings we have seen over the past eighteen months.

That said, the central cast play the manipulative and charismatic politicians of the play with impressive honesty. Jeffery Kissoon’s ageing Caesar bears resemblance to many past-it dictators, and puts on a kind face for the masses. The problem is, we never really see him lose his rag and his wrongdoings aren’t evident, meaning Cyril Nri’s bewildered Cassius has a harder job to convince us that he deserves to die. Ray Fearon’s Mark Antony is powerful though gentle, and is the closest we get to hearing the people speak; his speech to the populace is fantastic, though by the end of the play it’s easy to see that he could just as easily follow in the conspirators’ footsteps by creating another dictatorial regime. Paterson Joseph is here on top form as Brutus, overly ambitious and willing to die for what he believes, even though that opinion is tough to endorse. They are supported by a fine cast who inject energy into the play (though the accents are sometimes a little, shall we say, scattered).

There are clear military references in Michael Vale’s set, which looks like the steps of the Pergamon built out of Soviet breeze blocks, though it feels a little static for a play which sees such broad shifts in location, tone and government. A bizarre moment sees a section of the copper back wall rise up for no apparent reason, and scene changes could be smoother. It’s also lit to excess by Vince Herbert, though Akintayo Ekinbode’s African music is interwoven well and changes with the state, as it moves from happy union to a land of turmoil.

Doran’s production is solid and strong, and I welcome the cutting of an interval in order to create a more thrilling atmosphere, but it’s difficult to shy away from the fact that, no matter how hard we try to philosophise in the UK, it’s tough to really know the effect and questions surrounding the Arab Spring. There are also holes in the plot and drama which means this Caesar doesn’t feel that tragic, plodding along with an unclear trajectory.

I also wonder about the verisimilitude of the term “World Shakespeare Festival”, particularly the Royal Shakespeare Company’s take on the idea. Though Boyd et al have invited companies from Iraq and Brazil to perform in their theatres, the majority of productions have been created by British directors – Roxana Silbert and David Farr co-ordinate the ‘Nations at War’ and ‘Shipwreck Trilogy’ respectively. This production of Julius Caesar now adds to that list, and though British directors setting plays abroad is by no means a Bad Thing (after all, Shakespeare did it), it feels remarkably like the RSC is giving us a peculiarly British version of the world. Naturally, collaboration between nations should be encouraged, but it feels slightly disingenuous to use the adjective “World” to mean “British-directors-setting-plays-somewhere-that-isn’t-Britain-with-a-few-actors-from-around-the-world”. It would be far better to have foreign directors tackling these plays with the RSC’s resources to give an entirely different perspective in order that we may learn from one another.

Overall, this once again feels like a missed opportunity to have a genuinely global discussion; perhaps in a different context Julius Caesar would be more impressive, but under the banner of the ‘World Shakespeare Festival’ it falls at the first hurdle.

Pinterest board here: http://pinterest.com/danhutton/julius-caesar-by-william-shakespeare/

“Two Roses for Richard III”

by Companhia Bufomecânica, based on Shakespeare’s Richard III

at the Courtyard Theatre, Tuesday 8th May 2012

*The performance reviewed was the last preview*

In 1863, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote of his concern that the work of artists would become “surcharged with immense and incoherent imagery, with exaggerated descriptions and strange creations”, making us “regret” reality. The Brazilian Companhia Bufomecânica’s Two Roses for Richard III, presented in Portuguese as part of the World Shakespeare Festival, is guilty of exactly these vices, and is such a hotch-potch of ideas and images (many of which are fantastic), presented with little coherence, that it is extremely difficult to follow, lacks drama and leaves us craving for a little sanity.

According to the programme notes, this production has taken inspiration from all eight of Shakespeare’s histories in order to present a new, contemporary version of Richard III. Alas, this barely comes through in the final production, which is basically a translated and conservatively edited production of the last History with a smattering of references to the prequels and a few postmodern asides to the audience (“I don’t know how to die on stage. I’m just an actor!”).

The show opens with an orgiastic movement number, with actors discarding their modern clothes in favour of generic-Elizabethan apparel. Richard, semi-naked, recounts his favourite speech, but before we know it three different actors are playing the character in the Lady Anne scene (supposedly to demonstrate his multi-faceted personality). Rowan Atkinson look-a-like Savio Moll takes most of Richard’s lines for the rest of the play, playing him as petulant and short-tempered, before Carol Machado plays the falling king in the final scenes opposite Julia Lund’s stoic Richmond. These shifts work academically, but on stage without signposts like common costumes or accessories it becomes difficult to follow who’s who and the nuanced differences between the versions.

Total theatre is attempted by directors Cláudio Baltar and Fabio Ferreira, incoporating projection, music, dance and acrobatics into the performance, but it is not fully achieved due to the overwhelming sense that the pieces of the jigsaw do not fit together. Renato and Rico Vilarouca’s video images look stunning, but have little in common with the subject matter of the scene, and Paulo Mantuano’s movement, though clever, too often lasts longer than is welcome (when the women are mourning, the cast just moves around the stage slowly for five minutes). Fernando Mello da Costa and Rostand Albuqueque’s set provides a sweeping blue platform for these aspects to play on, falling down from the back before jutting out and down towards the audience like a dropped ribbon.

The defining moments of this production are the carnivalesque circus acts, choreographed by Renato Linhares, which are used to represent murders or the supernatural. Clarence’s murderers climb onto a floating ladder to murder their charge and the two princes are slaughtered within what look like gigantic finger-traps, whilst the ghosts berate Richard and champion Richmond from high above the audience. Some stunning images are created, and along with Fabiano Krieger and Lucas Marcier’s fantastic soundtrack, which covers everything from basic drumming to contemporary electronica, we are treated to some moments of unadulterated theatricality.

Unfortunately, however, these stand-out scenes are negated by the saturation of ideas presented, which makes it difficult to know where to look or what to listen to (a fact not helped by the fact we find ourselves reading the English subtitles throughout). The visual effects do not add anything to the storyline and actually detract from the drama of Shakespeare’s text even if they do create memorable snapshots. As an academic exercise, Two Roses for Richard III throws up some interesting points about the play, its context and theatre in general, but the company would do well to undergo a little reflection to pare the production back in order to serve itself better as a piece of theatre. As it stands, it seems de Tocqueville was right, and over much of this long three-and-a-quarter hours we long to return to a concrete reality.

“Romeo and Juliet in Baghdad” by Monadhil Daood

at the Swan Theatre, Monday 30th April 2012

*The performance reviewed was a preview*

In theory, Monadhil Daood’s production of Romeo and Juliet in Baghdad, presented as part of the World Shakespeare Festival by the RSC in collaboration with the Iraqi Theatre Company, should give the play a potency which hasn’t been evident in Britain for at least the last half a century. Setting Shakespeare’s text, we’d assume, in a post-war Iraq, would at last make the overbearing nature of the parents make sense whilst the necessary stealth of the central couple would usher in a deeper tragic pathos. Unfortunately, however, whether through lack of time, funds or artistic prowess, this production fails to ever take off and is depressingly underwhelming.

Daood’s text (translated into English by Raad Mushatat and Deborah Shaw) is perhaps the most inriguing aspect of this version. Montague and Capulet are here brothers (making the lovers cousins), and have been torn apart by the war, spending the last 9 years in feud whilst their offspring long for one another. A clever touch adds a character – the Teacher – who offers the voice of reason to the characters and attempts to orchestrate proceedings though he is powerless to do so, and is countered by Paris, cast here as a Mujahadeen, who manages to gain a sick victory at the close. The language is poetic in its simplicity (though where Daood’s work ends and the translators’ work begins is difficult to tell), using such phrases as “The night should be for lovers” to revel in a new-found freedom of speech. Daood also manages to shift the focus of the tragedy, which can be found not in the fact Romeo kills himself even though Juliet is sleeping but because there is no need after all for them to be in the fateful spot where they meet they demise, seeing as their parents were close to reconciling.

The show falls apart with Daood’s disappointing direction, which fails to give the production any kind of drama and, although fast at 90 minutes, lacks anything in the way of pace. Overly-simplified images, reminiscent of my GCSE-drama days, litter the show, and images are created in which very little thought seems to have been invested (though I did enjoy the symbolic gestures which suited actions to words – something we should see more of). In dance scenes, actors move out of time, and every now and then a body inexplicably appears on a balcony only to disappear a moment later. The text, which is so bitingly political, just isn’t given the hearing it deserves.

Ali Khassaf’s score, however, which runs throughout the whole piece, is fantastic, and acts like a movie-soundtrack, suggesting emotions for us to feel. Unfortunately, it’s in a far from harmonious partnership with Jabbar Jodi Alabodi’s garish and inconsistent lighting, which has that kid-in-a-sweet-shop feel, and his stark set, with an all-but-redundant central tube.

The cast manages to inject some humour and humanity into Daood’s lacklustre production, but they generally struggle to ever find genuine emotion. Ahmed Salah Moneka and Sarwa Rasool’s Romeo and Juliet capture some teenage angst, but the stakes don’t seem to be very high and they are not together long enough for us to ever start to empathise. The early scene between Haider Monathir (Capulet) and Maimoon Abdalhamza (Montague) is truly moving, though something is surely wrong when the youngest person of the company is upstaging everyone (Ameer Hussein’s brilliant Benvolio, in a touching double-act with Fikrat Salim’s Mercutio).

That so much could have been done with this production is the most frustrating thing about it. The material and context is so rich, screaming out to be mined for further intricacies, but very little effort is taken to deal with it. Daood and his comany offer a solid and vaguely interesting retelling of a story we know so well, but its full potential is never realised.

Though my only first-hand experience of the World Shakespeare Festival has been to-date at the RSC, this is precisely my problem with the it; these artists have been given an opportunity to take the Bard’s work and try them in settings in which he’s rarely found himself, delving deep into his plays to question and challenge audiences. Why would you play it safe when you’ve got the whole world watching you? When you are given the opportunity to interrogate these gargantuan ideas on this scale, why would you shy away from it? As Daood says himself in the programme, “Shakespeare’s spirit can intimidate the politicians”. So why aren’t we intimidating them? I’m off to the Globe later this week, and this is still early days for the WSF, so things may improve, but if events continue in this safe-but-ever-so-slightly-different vein, then the whole festival will have been worthless. For once, we have the ability to open up debate on a global scale. Here’s to hoping that opportunity won’t be missed.

“King John” by William Shakespeare

at the Swan Theatre, Thursday 19th April 2012

Arguably, it is only when witnessing a Shakespeare play in performance for the first time that we truly realise the Bard’s genius not only as a poet but also as a dramatist. This unknown quality is partly the reason for the success of Maria Aberg’s production of King John, but her superb direction is the main cause. The performance takes us everywhere theatre should, whilst throwing in some panache in the process.

The story, which deals with the turbulent relationship between England and France during John’s reign, here becomes a parable of family politics. Two families try to reconcile all by presenting the other with a suitor who shall be married to one another. From the superlative wedding scene onwards, however, individual arrogance and pride gets in the way and more than one death weighs on the minds of the participants.

By setting the play in what seems to represent a modern village hall, Aberg brings these familial tensions to the fore. The amount of rubbish on Naomi Dawson’s staired set correlates negatively with the number of people on stage at any one point, putting us in mind of those parties which wear on into the early hours of the morning, which see relationships break down and the truth spilt (though maybe not multiple deaths).

Adding to this is the decision to change the genders of the Bastard (Pippa Nixon) and the Cardinal Pandulph (the menacing Paola Dionisotti), meaning the women of this play are just as instrumental in events as the men. Although this is being deemed as the show’s USP, however, we forget the two roles were initially male; a hymn to gender blind casting if ever there was one.

More impressive is a fantastic cast who manage to give the words power without actually acting like the nobility the script dictates. The wide-eyed Nixon is fantastic, leading the audience through the twists and turns of the narrative and gaining our trust from the moment she steps onto stage to sing ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ on the ukulele (a nice touch). In Alex Waldmann, she has a worthy partner, and he portrays John with calm passion, debunking the name of ‘bad’ he has been given. Good support is provided by Siobhan Redmond’s wise Elinor, Oscar Pearce’s somewhat idiotic Dauphin, Susie Trayling’s steely Constance and John Stahl’s sturdy King Philip, while

Aberg’s stagecraft is masterful. The wedding scene is frenzied in its drunken fluidity, and it countered beautiful by the final scenes towards the end of the play, shouted across the auditorium from the balconies. John’s death scene is like no other, and the production is soundtracked brilliantly by Carolyn Downing, who uses everything from Rihanna to Dirty Dancing. David Holmes’ blazing and striking lighting adds to the feeling of tragedy.

By making the play contemporary, Aberg also manages to comment on current discussions about Scotland’s place in Britain. We see that, although union between countries (like that between England and Scotland) can seem like a desirable thing to begin with, underlying tensions and differences means a permanent union is impossible (especially if one country attempts to take more control). More than anything, however, this is a deeply affecting production which reaches astonishing levels of emotion. King John is by a long shot the best thing the Royal Shakespeare Company is showing this season, and is perhaps the best thing they’ve produced since The Merchant of Venice last year. Though if you were silly enough not to enjoy that, this probably isn’t for you.

Greg Doran: the new Michael Boyd

Today, it was announced that Greg Doran is to take over as artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company in September. Very few of us can say we didn’t see that coming. He’s a solid, safe pair of hands. He believes in the integrity of Shakespeare’s language and his productions in the last few years have been nothing but good. As Michael Boyd’s right-hand man, he understands how best the company should be run and no doubt realises where improvement is needed. In discussions, he is gentle, respectful and humble. He seems the obvious choice.

But that’s exactly the problem. When talking about Doran’s work and style, many words associated with mediocrity are employed; “solid”, “good”, “okay”, “fine”. He has rarely been talked of as “bold”, “ambitious” and “provocative”. Hence why he got the job, I imagine. With a company as respected and well-known as the RSC, the board couldn’t be expected to place the ship in a new, less-experienced pair of hands. Or so I imagine the argument goes.

Some of us, however, believe that’s exactly what the company did need. Boyd has done an incredible job over the past decade of bringing the company out of the slums of Noble’s tenancy and into the realm of the theatrical heavyweights. His return to the European model of ensemble has been a superb move (though it could still go further), and most can agree that the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre is one of the most exciting major theatres built in a generation.

This is precisely the reason the RSC doesn’t need Doran at the helm; my guess is he will bring much the same output as Boyd – good but not ground-breaking – and he will continue the outgoing AD’s legacy of raising the enterprise out of the ashes. This is fruitless considering the RSC is in a far better place than it was a decade ago. It is at the stage it should be (minus a London home), and does not need the same, ‘solid’, work in order to build its reputation. Now is the time, more than ever, when the company can afford to take risks.

Some of us were unfortunate enough to be born after the golden age of Hall and Nunn, when European companies were invited to Stratford to perform in the same spaces as British performers and experimental productions were mounted at The Other Place. We long for a return to those roots, which would entail shifting the focus of the company slightly away from Shakespeare and towards theatrical practices in general. There are companies all over the continent – nay, world – who are producing work far more challenging and exciting than anything the RSC has done in years, and on a fraction of the budget. We should learn from them; the RSC needs to stop pandering to the audiences who were watching thirty years ago and provide something for the next generation too. Doran said today on Front Row that it’s not as easy as simply reopening a new black-box studio theatre, and that TOP was more of an “idea” than a real venture, but if he’s to have any success in showing the RSC to be an institution not afraid of “taking risks” (outlined on its web page), then these sort of decisions need to be made.

All this may sound like I would champion the directorship of, say, Rupert Goold, but quite aside from the fact he apparently withdrew his application, even he remains someone who is relatively mainstream (though I imagine he’d have been more exciting than Doran). Granted, the company shouldn’t have been handed over to an unknown, but I imagine that the choice of someone a little younger and avant-garde would have been welcomed by a large percentage of its audience.

Naturally, it’s difficult and somewhat unfair to come to conclusions without letting Doran even have his say about his plans, but based on his track record it’s difficult to envisage the RSC going the places it ought to. Not all of us are middle-class, middle-aged theatregoers who enjoy safe, mediocre theatre.

“The Heart of Robin Hood” by David Farr

at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Friday 2nd December 2011

Written for www.StageWon.co.uk

Origins stories are all the rage. In recent years, we’ve seen how Batman, Superman and even Sherlock Holmes came to be the heroes we know they are. Now, in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Christmas offering of 2011, David Farr revamps the classic myth of Robin Hood, giving a new twist whilst simultaneously making a comment on our current social conditions. But, although Gisli Örn Gardarsson’s production has some superb moments and clearly has a heart, overall it is somewhat lacking in intellect.

Farr’s text focusses on the traditionally placid female of the tale, Marion (Iris Roberts). After escaping the conclaves of the castle, she comes across Robin (James McArdle) and his vagabond gang in Sherwood Forest, choosing to trick them into allowing her to join as Martin, her alter-ego (they don’t allow women to be part of the gang). After much Shakespearean false-identity, child-nabbing and general-power-seeking, things resolve themselves in a joyful climax.

It’s an ingenious time to be staging such a production, which shows that, while we are told society is ‘broken’ by our rulers, it is they who are truly corrupt as they arrest innocent civilians, fiddle with taxes and shout loudly about royal weddings. But while I don’t disagree with the sentiment, Farr’s script flits between frivolous and dark like a Tory government which can’t make its mind up about selling off forests. Gardarsson’s production too often strays into pantomime too, lowering itself to cheap jokes regularly and mixing ingeneous stagecraft (instruments as animals and impressive aerial choreography by Selma Björnsdóttir) with obvious ideas. Yes, this is a family show, but the RSC has itself proved that family shows can appeal to adults and children alike if bold decisions are made.

And although the cast is strong, they all lack the character which Börkur Jonsson’s set (complete with overhead branches and a massive slide which allows for dynamic entrances) embodies so easily. We never truly believe McArdle and his Merry Men are people of the earth, and Prince John’s men, led by Tim Treloar’s Guy of Gisborne, are hardly very frightening. Roberts’ Marion does a good job of providing the emotional heart of the piece, and Ólafur Darri Ólafsson copes well with letting the audience in as her jester Pierre, but it is Martin Hutson’s Prince John who impresses most. Hutson superbly straddles the line between pantomime villain and a James Bond nemesis, and is the creator of some of the best moments in the production.

Björn Helgason’s magical lighting and Högni Egilsson’s epic sound hark back to the story’s legendary roots, while Emma Ryott’s costume has echoes of the contemporary, but just like the script and tone of the production, the design lacks a real sense of cohesion. While The Heart of Robin Hood ultimately fails to truly capture our hearts and tries to do too hard to shoehorn in lots of ideas, it is nonetheless better than most ‘family’ shows, and provides a good rubric for future shows. Perhaps we’ll see Beowolf’s Sword within the not-too-distant future.