'King John', RSC Swan Theatre, 4th November 2019

King John

4^thNovember 2019, The Swan Theatre

I had quite the obsession with Elinor of Aquitaine when I was younger. I think it started with Jean Plaidy whose ‘Eleanor’ was quite a romantic figure. Then I read everything I could get my hands on.  What was it that appealed about this She-Wolf?  I think it was the ballsiness; the ability to turn any situation to her advantage.  Your first husband, the King of France, no longer wants you so you make a bee-line for the King of England despite his being ten years your junior.  Then you only go and outlive him and all the while showing your mettle as a woman producing a dynasty that went onto dominate the monarchies of most of Europe.

So I knew the history but I did not know Shakespeare’s rarely performed King John.  Just as well, perhaps, because if I had been particularly fond of the play I might have been upset to find that in this current performance, John was being played by a female actor.  She was not playing the role as a woman, per se, in that her name had not been feminized or the text changed to imply a change of gender, as was the case in the recent production of Taming of the Shrew.  But neither was there an attempt to disguise her true sex.  I can’t say what this added to the play and neither does anyone try to justify it in the programme.  Having never seen the play before, I will hazard that it took nothing away from the text either.  Not least because Rosie Sheehy, playing John, has such a beguiling stage presence and a cat-like elegance of movement but also because ‘King John’, for me, was not much about King John.

John was Elinor’s youngest son.  Although his mother is in many of the play’s scenes, she is given relatively few lines to speak.  Presumably Shakespeare felt that history had said enough about Elinor.  The character for me who steals the play, both on paper and in this superb production, is Constance, Geoffrey’s widow.  She believes that her son Arthur, Duke of Brittany, has the superior claim to the throne of England.  Certainly, if we understand primogeniture correctly then she is right.  It is not just a desire for power that ignites Constance’s maternal indignation but her desperation seems to stem from her awareness that whilst John conquers England and Normandy, her son will not be safe.  Ethan Phillips, who played Arthur so touchingly, begs of his mother, “I do beseech you, madam, be content.” But Constance cannot be content because she understands what the other characters do not, that her son’s life must be at risk.  If ‘King John’ were to be given a subtitle, as with so many of Shakespeare’s plays, it could perhaps be, ‘Look what I started’.  As with Macbeth, who does not fully realise the consequences when he first entertains the idea of killing King Duncan, so King John does not realise fully the consequences of declaring war on France over his claim to the English throne. The voice of reason is spoken by ‘mad’ Constance who in this performance was played so effectively by Charlotte Randle. The whole production was given a mid-century gangster movie feel.  And Randle’s Constance was the perfect gangster widow, a moll, a Kray’s cast off, she would have looked at home behind the bar of the Queen Vic.  And from this unlikely Cockney queen came one of the most moving soliloquys, I’m prepared to say, of all Shakespeare:

Grief fills the room up of my absent child,

Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,

Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,

Remembers me of all his gracious parts,

Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;

Then, have I reason to be fond of grief?

Fare you well: had you such a loss as I,

I could give better comfort than you do.

I will not keep this form upon my head,

When there is such disorder in my wit.

O Lord! My boy, my Arthur, my fair son!

My life, my joy, my food, my all the world!

My widow-comfort, and my sorrows’ cure!

Randle’s Constance tore at her hair as she delivers this to the unsympathetic King of France and eventually convinces him of her sanity. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I watched and I would return again just for that scene.  I tried to think when it was that I was last so moved watching Shakespeare and I concluded that it was when I last saw Richard III in that very same theatre.  There are many parallels between the two plays.  Not least, that Shakespeare gives the most honest and heart-rending speeches to women.  I refer to the scene where Queen Margaret and Queen Elizabeth mourn their dead sons. Dead sons was something that Shakespeare knew about only too well.

So you could go and see this performance for just that scene. However, there is much else to recommend it.  The music was something between Mike Myers and the Godfather and the cast sporadically broke out in formation dancing, as if in a 1960s spoof spy film.  This sounds unlikely, I know but was tremendously effective at exerting the influence of each side of the war.  It also showcased how well actors move, this being an important facet of their skills set.  It was fun and dramatic and culminated in a food fight at the wedding of the Dauphin and Blanche that ended as no food fight should ever end, with bloodshed.

This play has intrigued me and I would love to see another interpretation of it.  The RSC has sent me happily to the text and I’ve read it a couple of times and wonder, given this fascinating time of history where powerful women abound, why it is not performed more often?

As You Like It, RST, Monday 25th March 2019

As You Like It, RST

Monday, 25th March 2019

It's expensive to go to the theatre.  So when you see those offers for cheap tickets, you jump at them.  But then, it's Monday and you need to iron a pile of school uniform and you can't think why you thought it was a good idea to go out in the cold to watch a Shakespearean comedy, of all things.  I recently read an interview with Roddy Doyle who said that the last Shakespearean comedy that he saw was As You Like It, about thirty years ago, which confirmed what he had always suspected, that he hates Shakespeare's comedies.  And he's never been since.

I sort of concur.  My favourite Shakespeare play is probably Richard III or a good Macbeth.  Some blood, anyway.  But hey ho, it was to be a sit down and a glass of wine so shouldn't grumble.  And if you'll see my last review, I think you'd agree that it is far better to visit the theatre with low expectations because in this case, As You Like It was a sunny slice of joy.  

Humour is what the RSC does best at the moment and perhaps it's more accessible for all the tourists.  At the forefront of the comic ensemble is Emily Johnstone.  She played Amiens in the first half and Le Beau in the second half.  As Amiens she did a wonderful turn as 'PA to a Duke', constantly falling off her high heels and fawning over the wrestlers with what must be a natural talent for comic timing.  The wrestling match itself was brilliantly done, the use of stage space constantly changing and rotating.  And then as Amiens, Johnstone showed herself to also be the owner of a beautifully melodic voice.  In my opinion, she was the star of the show.  But they were on the whole a young cast and had many talents between them.  Lucy Phelps, as Rosalind, was also quite brilliant; especially when she plays Rosalind, playing Ganymede, pretending to be Rosalind (only in Shakespeare!!) and she was hiding in the audience whilst calling to Orlando.  It all seemed wonderfully fresh and impromptu as she conspired with the audience.

When the characters go off into the forrest there was some theatrical magic as the actors seemed to come out of character and many stage hands appeared to transform the setting.  This clever hiatus signalled to the audience that characters were now playing different roles and echoed Jacques' famous speech that "All the world's a stage".  From this point, it would be worth pointing out that As You Like It promises/threatens some audience participation.  Maybe don't sit in the stalls if this kind of thing frightens you.  No fear for us up in our cheap seats in the Gods.  But there were plenty who did want to join in which generated much hilarity and applause.  Audience participation is always a good way of including the audience in the performance so that that particular piece of theatre can truly be said to be unique; no two audiences being the same.

At the end, the Goddess Hymen appears to bless and restore order through matrimony.  Hymen was an enormous puppet, designed perhaps to look a bit like Mother Nature but instead reminding me of a White Walker in Game of Thrones.  All the same, it was visually epic and rounded things off with a climax as well as the traditional resolution.

I felt that it was a Monday night well-spent and I almost thought, particularly with reference to the first half, that I could go and see it again.  And that is quite an accolade for one of Shakespeare's comedies!

The Taming of the Shrew

The Taming of the Shrew, Royal Shakespeare Theatre

8th March, 2019

On this International Women’s Day I took my two eldest daughters to see Taming of the Shrew at the RST in Stratford.  Interesting choice for IWD you may say but obviously I had no idea of the auspicious day when I booked the tickets.  Such forward planning is sadly not my style.  

The girls didn’t know the play and I was excited for them to see it.  It’s a problematic play in many ways, the clue being in the title.  Ultimately the shrew is tamed.  But the entertainment is in Katherine’s defiance.  Arguably, she is the greatest Shakespearean female with some of the greatest lines: “I see a woman may be made a fool/If she had not a spirit to resist.”

Ahh, “a spirit to resist.”  And this is where the entertainment lies; just watch her resist!  I think I speak for most theatre-goers when I say, “We forgive you, Mr Shakespeare, for ending the play in the manner you did.”  I like to think that, of course, within the confines of the day, he had to have the shrew tamed both for the sake of conventional comedic resolution but also so that fifty percent of his audience were not shocked and disgusted out of ever visiting the theatre again.

All this was pacing around in my head when I bought the programme and discovered that such sacrilege was about to occur that I instantly wished I’d chosen a different play.  What a shame that the first time my girls were to see this play, the wonderful Katherine was to be played by a man.  Even worse, all the roles had been swapped and we were being transported to a sixteenth century matriarchy.  I explained to my girls what was going to happen.  They cared not a jot, having no prior knowledge or affection for the play.  And so, we perched on our stools and awaited the performance, me telling myself firmly to open my mind.  

Matriarchy is an odd but satisfying concept, I suppose.  Not what the feminist aims for, obviously, being so wedded to equality as we are but a nice day dream all the same.  Except, even in day dreams I’m a pragmatist.  What would a matriarchy be founded on?  The patriarchy, of course, exists for one reason and one reason alone: Men are bigger and stronger than women.  And for all the pay inequality, silencing and burkas it's worth remembering that still, today, an average of 137 women, across the world, are killed by men everyday.  There’s the patriarchy.

In the programme for this performance, Jami Rogers writes:

‘Some audience members may find it uncomfortable to watch a female Petruchio wielding power over a male Katherine, but perhaps some will also ask why – when audiences have happily flocked to see a male Petruchio’s treatment of a female Katherine – it is unacceptable if the tables are turned?’

Well, Jami, it’s unacceptable because it doesn’t work.  And you’re wrong that audiences ‘happily flocked’ to see Katherine beaten and bullied by Petruchio.  We flocked to see the guile and spirit and sheer witty brilliance of Katherine in the face of inevitable domination.  The scenes where Claire Price, quite brilliant as Petruchia, physically abuses the male Katherine were simply turned into farce.  The audience roared and indeed they were quite funny.  Funny because it’s all so improbable.  My girls looked thoroughly perplexed.  My eldest struggled not to walk out.  Afterwards, she said, “It’s a horrible play!”  But I tried to explain, “If only you could have heard Katherine’s words spoken by a woman, seen a woman square up to Petruchio, you’d have been incredibly moved.”  Not this time though.  

I do want to try and suspend my disbelief for a moment and comment on the good because there was still much to praise.  All the cast gave their absolute all but Emily Johnstone as Lucentia and Laura Elsworthy as Trania were particularly successful at harnessing the humour of their parts.  How Sophie Stanton as Gremia, managed to hover in her enormous gown so successfully, as if propelled by wheels, was a source of fascination and hysteria to all.  The music, a sort of Renaissance rock, was also effective at enhancing an environment based around mad dating rituals and hidden identities

I suppose, at this precise moment in time, such an interpretation seems pressing and contemporary.  Jami Rogers refers to characters being ‘gender-swapped’ but let’s be clear, the sex of the actors was swapped; nothing to do with gender.  And what the RSC hoped would be subversive actually bordered on offensive.  Womankind has a history and that history is often one of repression and enslavement.  It cannot so easily be handed to men, either in drama or in any other way you might care to imagine.