A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Unfolds Theatre at the Rose Playhouse

04.08.17

for Remote Goat

A Dream to add to the pantheon, to join the “bathroom accessories” and the “30s Hollywood”, both from Shakespeare's Globe.

The theme this time is fairground. It works perfectly in this space, renowned for its chamber Shakespeare in an immersive style.

“Roll up, roll up ...” from the foyer, where you're encouraged to pin the tail on the donkey's bottom, to the intimate performance area, [Sullivan's hymn on the calliope], where there's inflatable hoopla and a card trick in which Verona meets Athens.

Once the main event gets underway, the gimmicks are reined in, with little details – the candyfloss, the inflatable dainty ducks, the goldfish-in-a-bag lanthorn – to bring us back to Dreamland, the name picked out in fairy lights over the water.

Alex Pearson, who has years of experience of bringing the Bard to life within these walls, gives us a lively, physical and very entertaining Dream. The grouping is perfectly planned, the rehearsal sequence wickedly observed. The mischief in the wood is lively and often very funny, the boys wrestling on the forest floor as the girls spar verbally. Theseus and Hippolyta dance cheek to cheek, the lovers sleep on the further shore, which does seem a little less involving after the proximity of the Mechanicals and Titania's bower.

A cast of eight, with much doubling. Not just the obvious Titania/Hippolyta [Cindy-Jane Armbruster] and Theseus/Oberon [beautifully spoken by Ian Hathway], but Robert Hazle, impressive both as an aggrieved Egeus and a fussy Quince, Rhiannon Sommers as Hermia, eloping with her luggage, and a shy Snug, hiding behind her buoyancy-aid Lion. Nick Oliver is a compelling, lustful Lysander, casual in a tee-shirt, as well as Starveling, Clark Alexander Demetrius, formal in a collar and tie, as well as a hilarious Thisby. His Pyramus – their death scene endlessly inventive – is Sydney Aldridge, pulling off the tricky double of Helena, comfort eating when the course of true love runs less than smooth, and Nicky Bottom, done as a sulky teen diva, slurping a slushy, chomping on a carrot as she recalls her dream. A triumph in the role, the most memorable female Bottom since Dawn French's wartime Dream of 2001. Equally engaging is Elinor Machen-Fortune's Puck; she's also an officious Philostrate, introducing the interlude and the Bergamasque jig, before coming back as Robin Goodfellow to bid us goodnight.

The audience is frequently drawn in to the action – as confidants, and, in the case of front-row Ricky, to play a very convincing Wall.

With his new company Unfolds Theatre, producer Pepe Pryke has brought to Shakespeare's Bankside an enchanting summer show for all the family – “swift as a shadow, short as any dream...” 

THE TEMPEST

THE TEMPEST

Sea-Change Theatre at the Rose Playhouse

23.06.17

for Remote Goat

Shakespeare probably saw his Tempest over the river at Blackfriars. He'd be bewildered to find it performed 400 years later on the sparse remains of The Rose, already dark by the time the play was penned.

He'd be intrigued by this beautifully simple staging, directed by Ray Malone and designed by Lu Firth. Ropes, crates, and a distant prospect of the very Romantic storm, which we view, with Miranda, from afar.

Sea-change, a women-only company, seeks to “invert the Elizabethan convention of male-only performances”. Their name is taken from Act I – one of Shakespeare's many coinings – and this was their inaugural production, first seen on Lesvos last year.

The cross-gendering works well, for the most part. Many of the male characters, names unchanged, become women. Others remain resolutely masculine – the clowns, the Neapolitan nobles, striking in their beards, black doublets and red sashes. No chance of meeting Claribel, but we do get to see Sycorax [Lottie Vallis] – a strong female role – conjured by Ariel in a very effective scene.

American actor Marianne Hyatt makes an imposing Prospero, the poetry beautifully delivered [though it's a shame that Our Revels was both misplaced and misremembered]. Her daughter is played by Lakshmi Khabrani, in an impassioned, and often passionate, reading. Kimberley Jarvis is a compelling Ferdinand; Lucianne Regan an angelic Ariel, in a long white robe which seems to sap some of the fun and the energy from an otherwise delightful interpretation. A strong Caliban from Rosie Jones, giving The Isle is Full of Noises to just one auditor in the front row, and a great Laurel and Hardy double-act from Vix Dillon and Gerry Bell as Stephano and Trinculo, the drunken butler – skin-head and England shirt … 

Sue Frumin, who wrote this version, makes several appearances as Myrtle, the mudlark peddling relics from the river. A good idea to root the production in the place, but like the hand-held projector, it didn't really work in practice.

The publicity might lead us to expect a more radical re-working, rather than this magical, captivating 90-minute Tempest, which though it has its own agenda, manages to respect the text, the place and the audience. Let's leave the really radical to the rival house across the way … 

THE ALCHEMIST

THE ALCHEMIST

Mercurius at The Rose Playhouse, Bankside

10.06.16

Ben Jonson was no stranger to the Rose, but this perfect farce was written for an indoor space, and, ironically given the plot, was premièred in Oxford thanks to the plague.

It was last done on this tiny, temporary stage some three years ago.

Mercurius's riotously lively production begins with Labrinth's Earthquake, shaking the concrete rafters as Subtle and Face unpack their paraphernalia, ready to welcome a succession of the gullible to the house they've “borrowed” in the Blackfriars. Peter Wicks is the duplicitous butler, sporting an eye-patch as the captain, tongs as the alchemist's acolyte. Benjamin Garrison makes a gloriously fruity, flouncy charlatan, flopping onto his chaise longue and wrapping himself in his astrological throw. Doll Commmon, their “colleague”, as the programme coyly has it, is Beth Eyre, just as clever as the chaps at assuming a disguised persona.

Amongst the varied victims, all splendidly portrayed: Monty D'Inverno's Dapper [he was also the angry Kastril], Clark Alexander [who also plays the absent Lovewit, master of the house] as Abel Drugger, seeking to feng shui his tobacconist's shop, and Jeremy Booth's excellent Sir Epicure, eagerly seeking the philosopher's stone and relishing some of Jonson's richest, ripest language. Alec Bennie is his sceptical side-kick Surly, soon to return in Spanish guise. Some of the playwright's sharpest satire is reserved for the Puritans: Charlie Ryall's Anabaptist Ananias and Beth Eyre's splendidly named Tribulation Wholesome. Ryall also gives us Dame Pliant, the widow who weds Lovewit in the deft dénouement.

The echoing void is sparingly, but effectively used – shadowplay for the quarrel, and Mammon's imposing arrival.

“Take but the cues I give you; it shall be brief enough...” Pared down to the statutory ninety minutes, Jenny Eastop's relentlessly pacy Alchemist is fast and furious fun – the tinkly little doorbell scarcely stops ringing. Just the thing to ruffle the cobwebs and rouse the glorious ghosts of the old Rose.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE

MEASURE FOR MEASURE

Heady Conduct Theatre at The Rose Playhouse, Bankside

14.05.16

for Remote Goat

Stripped-down Shakespeare, shorn of background and the bigger picture, but telling the moral fable clearly and accessibly.

The stage itself is uncluttered, with just a wooden chest for the borrowed habit. But above, devotional pictures lit by real candles, and, across the water, one of the best shoreline scenes I've seen in this unique performance space – Amy Harris and co-director Rebecca Rogers the designers. Reflecting the religiose imagery, we see Mariana's marriage and the bed-trick in dumb-show, and more substantial dialogue scenes too. Not a word lost, either; the switch from close-up to distant shore impressively handled, enhanced by excellent soundscape and music [Jack Sugden].

Much is lost, of course. It's still not dark when we emerge into Bankside – 90 minutes exactly. Pompey and Overdone amongst the casualties, partly compensated by a comedy [uncanonical] prologue, some business with an unsuspecting whore in the front row, and paper flags to wave for the Duke's return.

Engaging performances from six young players, including director Simon Rodda as the loose-tongued Lucio. Matthew Darcy is Vincentio, eavesdropping from the audience, and particularly effective in the closing scenes where he calls the shots; Luke de Belder the confused, miserable Claudio. Gemma Clough plays the prison provost, the nun Francisca as well as the wronged Mariana. Blake Kubena is “hard Angelo”. His soliloquies are natural, involving, even if, perhaps because of pruning, the melting of moral rectitude is not fully explored. His scenes with Rebecca Rogers' earnest, virtuous novice Isabella are compelling, vocally and physically. “Who will believe thee, Isabel?”, he snarls – the refrain of the abuser over the centuries.

The approach to the text is contemporary and fresh – non-verbal communication very twenty-first century. Verbal, too, on occasion - “Yeah, yeah, yeah!” the cynical response to Angelo's apology.

Comedy and accessibility to the fore in this successful, succinct short Measure.

photos: Heady Conduct Theatre

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

Wolf-Sister Productions at The Rose Playhouse, Bankside

07.04.16

for Remote Goat

The merry war waged between Beatrice and Benedick is played out as the men march back from a real war to Messina. Last year we had Edward Bennett coming home to Charlecote's military hospital after The Great War, and this year Douglas Rintoul's début in Hornchurch celebrated VE Day in an English country house.

It's the 40s option on Bankside, too, in Alex Pearson's delightful, deft 90-minute version. Morse code, aircraft, machine guns on the sound track as we walk in to see a stepladder, bunting and uniformed figures far across the water.

Churchill reminds us of the foe's unconditional surrender, Harry Boyd's Messenger reassures us that the losses were few “and none of name”. Kit Smith's kindly Leonato first mentions the “skirmish of wit” at the heart of this clever comedy.

The sparring, the gulling and the war-like wooing are enjoyably done by Rhiannon Sommers' bomber-jacketed Beatrice and Adam Elliott's boyish Benedick.

His eyes are expressive, his business as he eavesdrops is inventive, working his way along the back row of the audience. “Love me? Why?” is touching in its simplicity. “The world must be peopled!” has him suggestively tucking in his shirt.

Her eavesdropping is done at cricket-pitch distance, across the water, which also serves well for the chamber window and the funeral procession with sparklers for torches. Sommers gives a Beatrice of infinite variety, from the still small voice which admits “I love you” to the barbed quips and the urgent “Kill Claudio”.

The other couple are Genie Kaminski's warm, charming Hero and Clark Alexander's intense Scottish Claudio.

The wedding is well staged. Claudio's rejection of Hero is brilliantly underplayed at first – the rejected ring drops on the Rose's floor-boards – and it's hard to tell whether he's in earnest or no. Only later comes the incontinent violence.

The reduction brings some bonuses: Benedick composing his funeral sentences as a soliloquy, Dogberry's watch much pared, with the actors thinly disguised with duffel coats. The costumes are evocative of the period, the stylish uniforms have a dash of Ruritania in the detail.

Excellent music [Robert Hazle], some recorded, like the brilliant revellers number – nine dancers hoofing it on this tiny stage, surely a first [Ian Hathway the choreographer] – some live, like the lovely Sigh No More with guitar and clarinet.

production photograph: Robert Piwko