ROMANTICS ANONYMOUS

ROMANTICS ANONYMOUS

Shakespeare's Globe at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

20.10.2017

A delicious confection for Emma Rice’s swan-song to the Globe: a brand new pocket musical, given in the intimate Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Only a few token candles, but the musicians’ gallery is well used by Jim Henson’s superb ensemble.

Based on a much-loved French film, Rice’s adaptation has music and lyrics by Michael Kooman and Christopher Dimond. It tells the heart-warming story of two painfully shy people, brought together by chance and chocolate.

“Not everything can be translated,” our hero remarks. The play begins in French, but a glorious device – involving a taste of fine dark chocolate for everyone in the audience – switches the dialogue to English. In a range of regional accents, too, though the Allo Allo route proved impossible to resist at times.

The company of nine beautifully inhabit the characters, eccentric, lovable, charming; there is much deft doubling, notably by the superb Philip Cox as the Ghost of Jean-René’s father, the tongue-tied Pierre and a sympathetic concierge, and Gareth Snook as the suave chocolate magnate Mercier, a mumbling recluse and an outrageously operatic Madame Marini.

The chorus combine the functions of the Greek and Broadway varieties – telling the story, and giving us some lovely miniature production numbers. They are variously the employees at the Chocolaterie, and the members of the support/therapy group Les Emotifs Anonymes.

The couple – whose happy ending includes a nod to the Flying Lovers of Vitebsk, last year’s Rice musical in this space – are Carly Bawden, demure and self-effacing as Angélique, and Dominic Marsh as Jean-René, the epitome of sweaty-palmed social paralysis, seeking confidence from a course of self-help cassettes.

As we’ve come to expect, there is much under-scoring, with evocative instrumentation, and some lovely pastiche numbers – Savoir Faire, and, the best for my money, the toe-tapping Don’t Think About Love.

So much to enjoy – the excruciating scene in the restaurant, the squeaky office door, the tiny 2CV, the bonus track in the foyer during the interval. Like Angélique’s chocolates, a melt-in-the-mouth delight, an escapist treat as we wait for winter.

But the Playhouse added little other than warm intimacy – it’s to be hoped that this lovely little piece will be seen elsewhere. It would sit well in any cosy auditorium, even, dare I say, chez Menier, just around the corner ...

BOUDICA

BOUDICA

at Shakespeare's Globe

13.09.2017

Here's the history play Shakespeare wishes he'd written. He would certainly know the legend of the warrior queen. He might even have seen Fletcher's Bonduca, a fanciful romance staged in 1613, which was possibly the Boadicea play that was originally scheduled for the Prologue Season here at the Globe.

Tristan Bernays' play is Shakespearean in many senses. It's largely written in verse and in early modern English [“marry”, “needs must”] – unlike Charles III, where the pentameters are concealed in contemporary dialogue. Not at all easy to pull off, it works surprisingly well, though some advice from the Globe's many experts would have avoided the occasional infelicities, and eradicated the bizarre insistence on using a nominative pronoun after a preposition: there it is in the publicity pull-quote - “I’d rather walk in blood than walk a slave / For he thy Emperor!
There are many contemporary echoes – the nature of nation – the Roman who was born here and has never seen Rome – the evils of military occupation. Brexit too, perhaps.
It mixes drama and comedy – here it's the Roman military providing light relief, comedy enemies like the Nazis in 'Allo 'Allo.
It plays fast and loose with history, giving prominence, and names, to Boudica's two daughters. Cunobeline [Shakespeare's Cymbeline] is resurrected; many of the scenes are reminiscent of Lear.
And it sits very well on the Globe stage, even in the shared light of a rainy matinée. The space is imaginatively used in Eleanor Rhode's powerful production. Soliloquies, battles [always mention the numbers], visceral violence, a funeral and audacious abseiling.
The setting is stark. Upright boards screen the frons scenae. Later they're highlighted in gold, later still they fall forwards with a gunshot crack, and for the second act become trees swaying in the breeze.
It's a story about strong women, and they are excellently cast. Anna-Maria Nabirye is Andraste, the gold-brassarded goddess of war who gives the prologue and epilogue. The title role is played by Gina McKee, with a strong stillness which contrasts with the powerful anger of her two daughters: Joan Iyiola's Alonna, who seeks peace with the Romans, and Natalie Simpson's Blodwynn, the more violent sister, overlooked by Boudica as her heir. After Boudica's death - “Sweet goddess you have come for me,” she whispers as she took belladonna – the girls fight and weep together, as Alonna, too, foresees the future of her native land.
Broad characterizations for the men: Abraham Popoola's imposing, belligerent Badvoc, king of the Belgi [wasn't aware that his name existed outside Rory McGrath's Chelmsford 123], Samuel Collings' effete Catus, Clifford Samuel's sympathetic, noble Suetonius, the Roman Governor. And, most successful with the text, most at home in the Globe, Forbes Masson as a very celtic Cunobeline.

As if afraid that the audience would not engage with this piece of ancient history, the grisaille of the Globe is obscured by banks of speakers, The Clash provide the music for the jig and the opening of Act Two. But in truth the writing, despite its flaws, the movement and the bold performances could have wowed the groundlings at any point in the Globe's history, from the Burbages to Michelle Terry.



production photograph; Steve Tanner

TRISTAN AND YSEULT

TRISTAN AND YSEULT

Kneehigh at Shakespeare's Globe
13.06.2017


This daring deconstruction of an ancient legend is one of Kneehigh's greatest hits. It's been at the Cottesloe as well as in Cornwall, it's toured the States, and this latest outing slots in the Globe between Glasgow and Mold.
It fits well in the wooden O – the cast relish the contact with the audience, and the circus ring sits comfortably on the stage.
The show is an intoxicating mix of genres and styles: circus, music-hall, stand-up as well as moments of intense intimacy. An all-you-can-eat, kid-in-a-sweetshop gallimaufrey of effects which some of us remember being so radical in Ariane Mnouchkine's work back in the 70s. It's unashamedly physical, with perhaps rather too much choreographed violence. Even those who know Kneehigh only at the Globe – where Emma Rice presents her final season this winter – will recognise the naïve rhyming verse [Little Match Girl] the bitter-sweet airs (and the flying) [The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk] and the marvellous Mike Shepherd [Adolphus Tips] here playing King Mark of Kernow.
He's one of a very strong company, with Hannah Vassallo and Dominic Marsh as the lovers, audience favourite Niall Ashdown as the handmaiden Brangian, touchingly complicit in the bed-trick, Kirsty Woodward as Whitehands, the other Yseult who does most of the story telling, and an agile Kyle Lima as Frocin [the Dwarf in earlier versions] who betrays Tristan and ends up as one of the Unloved. They provide a geeky Greek chorus, Love Spotters in hoods, armed with binos, cameras and notebooks, the reluctant members of the Club of the Unloved, whose excellent house band – Martin and the Misfits - sits in the musicians' gallery.
The score is eclectic, its cultural relativism putting Nick Cave up against Richard Wagner, Only the Lonely against Oye Negra in a powerful, emotive soundtrack.

NELL GWYNN

NELL GWYNN

at Shakespeare's Globe
02.05.2017


Jessica Swale's feisty, feminist [and great fun] historical romp is back at Shakespeare's Globe for a dozen performances. As director Christopher Luscombe puts it, a lap of honour at the end of its national tour.
It's great fit for this inclusive space – the musicians' gallery becomes Charles II's Royal Box – the period instruments move aside to the Lords' Rooms. Around the stage left pillar there's purple upholstery for the Court, stage right the humbler backstage trappings of the playhouse.
Almost a complete change of cast since it last appeared here in the autumn of 2015. Nell is now played by Laura Pitt-Pulford, a sharp, worldly-wise young woman, human and likeable, climbing eagerly from orange seller to leading lady to royal mistress – her King is sympathetically played by Ben Righton, giving a fine comic performance in the style of a much younger Simon Callow. Kynaston, one of the last surviving boy actors, whose raison d'être is threatened by the royal innovation of “actoresses”, is brilliantly done by Esh Alladi, flouncing, flashing his eyes, ignominiously reduced to the rank of spear carrier. Michael Cochrane makes a cynical, scheming courtier, and Nicholas Bishop is the playwright Dryden, forever struggling with deadlines and the demands of Clive Hayward's Killigrew, the incompetent manager of Drury Lane.

Nigel Hess's music, the songs and the dances, the wit, the bawdy and the amusing anachronisms all conspire to give us a very entertaining couple of hours, whilst gently exploring some more serious themes – ambition, power, poverty, and the place of women in the performing arts.

ROMEO AND JULIET

ROMEO AND JULIET

at Shakespeare's Globe

29.04.2017


Opera directors are used to controversy. To the point of audiences booing their work.
That would never happen at the Globe, of course.
With opera, experts say, you can always close your eyes. Whatever else is done to Traviata, or Meistersinger, the music survives more or less intact. Not so Shakespeare.
Daniel Kramer, Artistic Director of ENO, makes some radical choices in this, his first Shakespeare and the first show of Emma Rice's farewell season – The Summer of Love. The stage design suspends two black war-heads over the stage, with more black draping obscuring the musicians and the gallery for many in the audience.
The action emphasises violence and death. Civil brawls, black friars and funerals. Much of the text is delivered with a veneer of irony, or simply played for laughs. There is relentless extraneous business and in-your-face choreography; the bawdy badinage and phallic fun quickly wear thin. The music ranges from Keep Young and Beautiful [1933] to Dinah Washington – This Bitter Earth, movingly performed – and Sinead O'Connor, substituted for the last pages of the play – the scene ends here with Juliet's “Let me die.” There is an underscore for much of the play, as is fashionable now at this address, after the manner of video-game music - quite discreet and effective, with MD Laura Moody on cello.
The actors generally speak the text well when allowed to do so: the Queen Mab speech – no irony, no underscore – a good example from Golda Rosheuvel's Mercutio. Microphones are used, but mainly to balance speech with music. Edward Hogg's Romeo delivers lines from amongst the groundlings with exemplary clarity. Like his Juliet – Kirsty Bushell – he comes across an ageing teen, with all the annoying mannerisms and little of the charm of an actual youth. Their wooing is frequently undermined by the laughs: “He jests at scars ...” is lost beneath the guffaw that greets some irrelevant business elsewhere.
Blythe Duff makes a fine Scottish nurse; Martina Laird a ridiculously overplayed Lady C. Friar Lawrence is a very ecumenical Friar, giggly and cuddly; Gareth Snook a violent Lord Capulet. “My fingers itch...” was cut, I think, since he had already rained kicks and blows in the general direction of his wayward child.
DMs and YMCA seem symptomatic of a certain stylistic laziness; Capulet's cur pees over the stage. The bed/tomb, centre stage for much of the piece, is a powerful symbol, though hardly original, and the use of overlapping scenes lends real pace and energy to the second half. But these are not enough to rescue a misconceived, self-indulgent interpretation of a play familiar to many. Hoping that this OTT pantomime will bring people to Shakespeare is like hoping that the Roly-Polys will bring a new audience to contemporary dance.

THE WHITE DEVIL

THE WHITE DEVIL

Shakespeare's Globe at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
26.01.2017

An early look at the penultimate show in this winter's Playhouse Wonder Noir season.
Annie Ryan gives this dark tragedy a duly dark production. The total blackout at the start is barely troubled by single candles as the protagonists gather. The stage, strewn with corpses at the close, seems to be stained black.
Webster's tale of hypocrisy, seduction and revenge is played out in a vaguely dystopian setting, with Jamie Vartan's stylish costumes suggesting the 19^th century, as does the mechanism for the conjuror's “spectacles of glass”.  
Ryan fields a strong cast, including Garry Cooper as the Cardinal and Fergal McElherron in a clever double as Camillo and the banished Lodovico. Jamie Ballard is Brachiano, Joseph Timms [lately Sebastian and Lucentio] a laddish Flaminio, Mercy Ojelade Isabella (and Gasparo), Kate Stanley-Brennan Vittoria, and Anna Healey a strong Cornelia.
Tom Lane's music – cello, accordion, fiddle, trumpet, dulcimer – is very effective; an even fuller score would not have come amiss, perhaps.
All a far cry from the RSC's strange disco production of 2014, with its female Flaminio. And much closer to Webster's own vision, I would think, first staged, not too successfully, at the Red Bull on a dismal winter's day in 1612.
The White Devil is at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse until April 16.

COMUS

COMUS
Shakespeare's Globe at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

26.10.2016

Masques make themselves very much at home in the Playhouse.

Milton's Comus gets the full dramatic treatment in Lucy Bailey's brilliant production, the first show of Emma Rice's first indoor season at Shakespeare's Globe.

As with All The Angels – getting a return run after Christmas – there is a behind-the-scenes frame, in this case a gently subversive, richly comical look at how the masque came to be staged, all closely based on the historical facts, it appears. The commissions, the family scandal, the children and the servants pressed into performance. And Mr Laws, deferentially directing, and taking the Prologue and the Attendant Spirit.

Patrick Barlow's brilliant script – fear not, Milton survives almost unscathed – and Lucy Bailey's imaginative direction make for a fascinating 100 minutes.

There's a fine cast, including Globe regulars Philip Cumbus as Laws, and Danny Lee Wynter as the satyrish Comus himself, somewhere between Prospero and Caliban. The youngsters are Rob Callendar and Theo Cowan as the brothers, and Emma Curtis as daughter Alice who plays the Lady, and takes Comus' tabor at the end, refusing to accept the subservient conclusion Milton might suggest - a “different lesson” indeed.

Lots of magnificent Playhouse effects – the Spirit flies in, the Monstrous Rout – dissolute dryads, hideous-headed monsters of the woods - are all but washed away by the stream that runs from beneath the stage and flows through the pit and out into the foyer. It's also the home of Natasha Magigi's splendid Sabrina.

“Warped and wonderful” is how it's being sold. And so it is, a very promising start to the winter of Wonder Noir.

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

Shakespeare's Globe at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

28.09.2016

This is the Globe touring production that's been delighting audiences all summer. Now it's back home, stuck slightly awkwardly in the candlelit playhouse. It's too big, bright and bold for this intimate space; it's a pity there was no slot for it in the great Globe itself.

Nonetheless, its charm, its passion and its sense of fun survive.

Set in 1966, it begins with a beige group of youngsters bopping to the hits of the day, merging seamlessly into the daft plot. The onstage band – this is a company of actor/musicians – are in a garish booth at the back of the stage. Its roof, accessed by vertical ladders, is a further acting area. Both Kate Sykes, the designer, and James Fortune, the composer, have embraced the flavour: a telling contrast between Verona, that beige backwater, and Milano, where it's at, fashion capital then as now.

Performances are excellent, the timing honed over a long tour. Guy Hughes and Dharmesh Patel are the gents in question; both give hilariously silly interpretations. The girls [Aruhan Galieva and Leah Brotherhead] have a bit more depth, especially at the tearful end with its touching lament.

Amongst the rest, doubling furiously and reaching for their instruments to form the backing band, Amber James gives us a lovely Thurio and a cheeky Lucetta. Charlotte Mills takes Launce by the throat, with musician Fred Thomas as the dog Crab. And, taking over from Adam Keast, injured in a stage fall [those ladders], T J Holmes works the audience wonderfully as the other fool, Speed.

As the Swinging Sixties declined into the safer Seventies, there was a Broadway musical based on this same comedy. Very much of its time, I recall, and not nearly so faithful, or as much fun, as this stylish summer show.

THE INN AT LYDDA

THE INN AT LYDDA

Shakespeare's Globe at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

15.09.2016


Ending its short run in the Jacobean playhouse, John Wolfson's intriguing play is a welcome addition to the richly varied offer at this Bankside address.
In fact it began life here, years ago, as a rehearsed reading [with Sam West no less], before turning up on Radio 4.
We're promised “A Meeting of Caesar and Christ” - the Caesar in question, in AD33, is the notorious Tiberius. He's dying, and pins his hopes on an Eastern healer he's heard about. But too late – his man Pilate has already executed the miracle worker from Nazareth. If not historical, then this much is at least apocryphal. But there's no evidence that the ailing emperor ever made the journey to Judaea, or talked face to face with the risen Jesus.
Despite some uneven writing, it makes a thought-provoking play, the theology and the history leavened in Andy Jordan's simple, lively production with a good deal of humour, ranging from cerebral wit to crude anachronisms.
The Magi, now elderly but still following the Messiah whose birth they witnessed, have some of the best lines, Joseph Marcell's Caspar particularly good. Philip Cumbus owns the stage as a divinely decadent Caligula, and David Cardy is an engagingly down-to-earth astrologer.
The two men-gods at the philosophical heart of the play are Stephen Boxer's rambling, raging Tiberius, well contrasted with Samuel Collings's serene Jesus.
John the Evangelist – a strong presence from Matthew Romain – is left to explain how some things are better left out of the history books...

production image: Marc Brenner

946: THE AMAZING STORY OF ADOLPHUS TIPS

Kneehigh at Shakespeare's Globe
28.08.2016

“In the dark times, will there be singing?”
It's not every family show that cites Brecht in the first moments. This is Kneehigh's big-hearted adaptation of the Morpurgo story of one girl, her cat and the Second World War.
Emma Rice has brought it to the Globe, as she did with the equally enchanting Flying Lovers earlier in the season.
It sits well in the democratic space of the Wooden O, though the Globe adds little to the experience. The groundlings, as usual, get the best of it. The actors, clad in overalls, sweep the yard before the action, the excellent blues band warms up from the musician's gallery.
There is plenty of music throughout – underscoring, which is becoming a feature at Rice's Globe – telling the band to shut up for a bit raises a hearty laugh. But there's also a knees-up with banjo and beer bottles, and a haunting spiritual from a dead GI.
South Devon, 1943. Home to Lily, her cat and her family. But they are soon to be made homeless by Exercise Tiger, rehearsal manoeuvres for D-Day. Also far from home are a French schoolmistress, evacuees from London, and American troops.
It's an inventive, engaging production – the landing craft, tiny models, sail, and burn, in tin baths at the front of the stage. Tips the cat is a rag-doll puppet. Young Lily dreams of a playground face-off, complete with skipping rhymes, to settle the conflict between Hitler and Churchill.
Great performances all round, not least from Katy Owen as Lily, feistier and flirtier than in the book. Ncuti Gatwa and Nandi Bhebhe are the two black Americans, Adi and Harry, Chris Jared Lily's father, as well as the village parson and Grandad. Ewan Wardrop gives hilarious broad-brush comedy as the Lord of the Manor and the brassy mother of evacuee Barry [Adam Sopp]. And there's a memorable double from Mike Shepherd as a grumpy Grandad and Lily in later life, reunited at last with the older Adi, played by hep cat Adebayo Bolaji, who's also in charge of the music.
As in War Horse, a young person's search for a beloved animal, lost in the wider world of war, is at the heart of the story. There is a happy ending, but the tragedy and the loss of life is not sanitised. There's dignity as well as daftness in this hugely enjoyable ensemble piece.

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

Shakespeare's Globe and the Bolshoi Ballet

03.08.2016


Two Shrews on the same day, with little in common save [some] characters and the bare bones of the plot.
The Globe's new production, set in Ireland one hundred years ago, the time of the Easter Rising, seeks to add emancipation to the mix. Stylish costumes in subdued tones; the company's shoes, untenanted, face upstage at the start – they are discarded again before the jig at the end.
Caroline Byrne's production paints a grimly patriarchal world – her Kate – a strong Aoife Duffin - begins as a rough fighter, but ends broken and bowed by Edward MacLian's rudesby Petruchio. The all-Irish cast includes many impressive performances, not least the lively servants – all played by women, including Helen Norton as a lugubrious Grumio, and superb comedy from Imogen Doel and Molly Logan, capturing to perfection the mischievous charm of the boy apprentices. Amy Conroy has a nice double as the Tailor, and the Widow, given a signficant presence throughout the piece.
An Irish band provides an atmospheric underscore.
This is an uncompromising, often darkly violent production, which is a timely reminder that the themes beneath the comedy are still sadly relevant here and now.
A very different Katherine in Jean Christophe Maillot's ballet for the Bolshoi, though she does suffer a wintry journey and a hard bed. But she is subjugated, or seduced, in that same bed, with an agitated Grumio [Georgy Gusev] adjusting the wayward sheets.
Set to a tuneful assortment of Shostakovich – Tahiti Trot for the wedding feast – Maillot's choreography is witty and slick. Impeccably danced by Bolshoi stars Ekaterina Krysanova and Vladislav Lantratov as the Shrew and her tamer, with his shaggy mane and overcoat. Olga Smirnova is a gauche, demure Bianca, with Semyon Chudin as her lover Lucentio – they have a delightful Gadfly pas-de-deux in Act One.

The design, by Ernest Pignon-Ernest – stark, geometric and white, save for Bianca's blue and Kate's green – could well have been done in Shostakovich's lifetime, rather than just two years ago. Another stylish touch is the enigmatic prologue in which the Housekeeper [!?] teasingly trades heels for pointe shoes, warming up as the large orchestra – xylophones and saxes – is tuning up.

THE FLYING LOVERS OF VITEBSK

THE FLYING LOVERS OF VITEBSK

Kneehigh 
at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
24.06.2016

This is Emma Rice's Kneehigh swansong. And, from the Bristol Old Vic, she's brought it to her new home, Shakespeare's Globe.
Sophia Clist's bold, bulky wooden structure sits slightly uneasily in the Jacobean playhouse, but the enhanced candlelight suits this atmospheric, nostalgic tale perfectly, while the intimacy of the space brings a powerful emotional heft to Daniel Jamieson's lively, wistful two-hander.
Marc Antolin and Audrey Brisson play painter Marc Chagall, child-like, Chaplinesque, and his muse, and first wife, Bella Rosenfeld.
“We can pack all the things we love in Vitebsk into our minds and take them with us,” she tells him, and so they do – the green cows, the rabbis, and of course their airborne alter egos travel to Petersburg, Paris, New York … The devoted Bella sees Marc brush off war, revolution, anti-semitism, fatherhood, as he focuses passionately on his work.
Past blends with present in a playful, poignant piece which resonates long after the music has faded. Ian Ross, the MD, with James Gow, provide an evocative accompaniment, as well as supernumerary support. The old Inkspots number which opens the show is reprised as an encore, suiting the narrative and the mood to perfection.
Back in the 90s, Rice played Bella, we're told. This revival, exquisitely directed, full of imaginative touches and flowing, flying movement, blends theatre and fine art in a moving memoir of the painter as a young man.

HENSLOWE'S DIARY IN ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION

HENSLOWE'S DIARY IN ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION

Passion in Practice at The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
26.05.16


Not a diary in the modern sense. A business day-book, perhaps. And this entertainment does not confine itself to the commercial jottings of the great theatre manager, proprietor of the Rose and the Fortune.
We meet his son-in-law, Edward Alleyn the actor, writing home to Joan while he is away touring with Lord Strange's Men. Peter Street, theatre builder, Moll Cutpurse, roaring girl, Simon Forman, medic and astrologer. All brought to life in their own words, spoken, as far as we can guess, in their own accent.
But centre stage, in a bravura performance, is the man himself, celebrated this year along with his acquaintance, and rival, W.S. “the other feller”. In Will Sutton's wickedly enjoyable characterization, we see him shelling out for a new script – from £3 – and for “Street's dinner and mine” - from 6d; he enthusiastically promotes bear-baiting, and is keen to make money however he can. But he's far from the illiterate rogue of popular imagination, and despite the stress, is a keen man of the theatre. And, almost certainly, once owned the land on which we sit.
Much of this all-too-brief candlelit concoction is improvised, and the word-of-mouth evidence is fleshed out and explained by the uniquely fascinating team of David and Ben Crystal.

Like last week's Faustus, it would certainly bear repeating in the even more appropriate, if less atmospheric, arena of Henslowe's own Rose, just yards away from the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse.

DR FAUSTUS IN ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION

DR FAUSTUS IN ORIGINAL PRONUNCIATION

Passion in Practice at The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

22.05.16


Marlowe's mighty line rang new-minted around the candlelit Playhouse, in an eloquent, pocket-sized production by Passion in Practice.
A candle burns on Faustus' simple table, a bowl, a bottle at the front of the stage. And books scattered everywhere. The action begins with Marlowe himself, perhaps, in the person of the learned doctor, composing the “thousand ships” piece [cf Shakespeare in Love] before scrumpling the parchment and throwing it to the floor. Later, with a couple of quills, it makes an improvised dragon, a typically inventive touch. Helen's face is confined to a flimsy postcard, just like the prospects of Paris, Naples and the rest, seen from the soaring creature's back.
Aslam Husain makes a human, often humorous, “man that in his studio sits”, without losing any of the intensity. At the end, he vows to burn his books, and walks upstage to hell with a quiet, determined acceptance of his fate. The pact with the devil is brilliantly done.
Emma Pallant – a super Beatrice on tour a couple of years ago – is an equally intense Mephistophilis - “Why this is hell ...” chillingly done. A very youthful Lucifer from Alex Boxall, and Jennifer Jackson completing the cast. They are also, inter alia, Valdes and Cornelius, and, tellingly, the students in the final scene.
Improvised music helps the ambience, and the Original Pronunciation [Ben and David Crystal] brings extra energy to the relentless rhythm of the lines.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

at Shakespeare's Globe

30.04.16



Shakespeare's text cut and “improved”. Extraneous songs and dances making for a long evening.
No, not Emma Rice's “Wonder” Dream but Purcell's “Restoration Spectacular” The Fairy Queen, first staged in London more than 300 years ago. Nothing new under the watery moon.
Very much a calling-card production from Rice, taking the helm at Shakespeare's Globe following two decades from Rylance and Dromgoole.
A lacy metal forest outside the building. “WONDER” in lights over one of the merchandise carts. And inside, huge white balloons fill the sky, and semi-transparent green tree-trunks hang down into the yard.
Over the doors, two tech desks, signalling another departure: amplification and lighting effects. Of course, as is often argued, Shakespeare would have used them had they been available. But they weren't, and he didn't. And certainly not in this space, designed for a very different style.
“Rock the Ground” - a quote from Act Four – in neon at the back of the stage. A lengthy, uncanonical, but very funny prologue introduces the Globe Stewards who will become the rude mechanicals. Rita Quince and her crew, with Health and Safety Officer Nick Bottom the only man.
We're a long way from Warwickshire. In a weird Grexit, Athens is expunged, and the woods given a local habitation and a name – London, Bankside, Hoxton. Hipsters weeds are the lovers' choice: no longer two of each kind, since one of the couples is gay.
The feel is of an Indian wedding – Tanika Gupta the dramaturg here – and sitar music underscores much of the action. The songs – sometimes settings of Shakespeare's verse – range wider, with George Formby and David Bowie sharing the bill.
The rough magic of the Fairies is energetic, with much choreography. They are Tudor-clad, but it is dressing-up, since Katy Owen's engagingly nimble Puck has flashing trainers and a day-glo water pistol, and Zubin Varla's menacing Oberon swigs from a plastic bottle of cheap cider.
Lots of laughs, though not all of them are Shakespeare's doing. Mixed fortunes for the text - “you ugly bitch” is not a modern equivalent of Lysander's cruel but witty put-down. Meow-Meow's Titania delivers the nine-men's-morris speech movingly; Ankur Bahl's Helenus has a lovely soliloquy in the first scene.
The Pyramus and Thisbe sequence benefits from being trimmed, and is very amusingly done by the mechanicals with Rita Quince at the keyboard.
But as “Jill will have Jack / No looking back” is warbled as the play closes, it suddenly seems a “long age of three hours”.

I'm not sure I'm one of the “purists” and “traditionalists” whose reservations many reviews have airily dismissed. I've seen, and loved, some radical Dreams in my time: lesbian lovers, a boarding school, early Hollywood. But I found it hard to warm to this lively, loud staging, full of tricks and ideas, which seems to be aimed especially at people who don't really get Shakespeare. Of whom, unless she has been seriously misrepresented by the media, Emma Rice is one. Meant, surely, as a celebration of this place, in this anniversary year, it comes across as apologetic and patronising: you'll like this play better if we sugar the pill with gimmicks and jokes. Let's hope that the new audiences it brings in will stay for what looks like a varied season, finishing with a revival of last year's Merchant of Venice.