‘Twelfth Night’ - Shakespeare’s Globe - Thursday 4th October 2012

Twelfth Night – the name of this play is as familiar to me as A Midsummer Night’s Dream – and yet I hadn’t seen it before, at least I don’t think so – it is one of those, in seeing which, you get kind of a deja vue feeling. Here we have another that starts with a shipwreck and uses two of Shakespeare’s favourite comedy devices of mistaken identities and twins – well hey if you have a formula that works, it well bears repeating. That said I’m not sure many writers these days would get away with quite so much repeating ;)

This is a great fun romp - the main attractions in this case are Mark Rylance playing Countess Olivia and Stephen Fry as her steward Malvolio; both of whom romp to the max. The production marks Stephen Fry’s first return to the stage after his now famous disappearance from it 17 years ago during a performance of Cell Mates. He was said to have had a bad reaction to reviews – as he later and so movingly explained in his documentary The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, he in fact had a bipolar depression. Since that coming out, Stephen seems to have coped with life and performance even better than before – he is on our screens in something almost every single week, as presenter, actor, comedian, quiz show host… he now also has his own production company, writes profusely, travels also profusely and is an all-round absolutely wonderful example of a highly creative human being. He’s been challenged on his kindness by Pamela Stephenson Connolly in one of her Shrink Wrap programmes – but as he said he just likes to be nice – and whyever not?! In my opinion he is the nicest celebrity of whom I’ve had any experience and I am the proud owner of a personal letter from him – that said, as are many others – he gives as much as he can to as many as he can. He also has my empathy and understanding because I have experience of a loved one with bipolar disorder. For that reason I’d decided this review would honour that empathy and be as kind as possible. BUT he has no need of that degree of kindness at all. His performance as Malvolio is absolutely excellent!! No excuses required – in fact so much the opposite. If I can be so bold I think that his coming out, and being so open and sharing, has enabled his expressiveness and now he can fully excel in who and how he is. Stephen lends the very best of Stephen Fry to this role and is absolutely adorable. (Okay, yes, as Shakespeare is a repeater of plot devices, so I am of superlatives and absolutelys ;))

I felt so anxious for him. Not knowing the play I didn’t know when he would first make an entrance. I was also eagerly awaiting Mark Rylance’s entrance. And, of my goodness, what an entrance that was! Countess Mark-Olivia tiptoes in and parades the stage as though on wheels – I still haven’t worked out how it is that men in Elizabethan dresses as woman look like they are being wheeled around but it’s very funny! Dressed in black – his character in mourning for her father and brother and swearing to avoid the company of men for 7 years; which doesn’t last much more than 7 minutes! – looking elegant, perfectly feminine, poised, lady-like and very slim! Such a far cry from the puffed-up strength and burliness of Rooster in Jerusalem. In fact you wouldn’t believe it was the same person, and yet, in Mark Rylance’s case you absolutely would! There is such an ease to his manner and embodiments that it all seems as natural as breathing – a turn of phrase, manner and attitude occurs seamlessly in a heart-beat. He gives us acting perfection, so real that it really is not an act. He is just being! He can be male or female and we believe him. And yet he can still work so delightfully with the incongruence and hence comedy of the fact that he is a man playing a woman. A man in drag?! Oh no! It’s like a gender in between, which is how he seems. So soft and sensitive – how can such a person convincingly give us Richard III – well he can and did – albeit with much more sensitivity and humanity; still the bitter, deformed tyrant. And so he processes the stage and takes us; the audience along with him – so much so that it took me some time to realise others had come along in with him – amongst those others Stephen-Malvolio. Before I was aware there the dear man was advising his mistress!! Stephen and I had somehow avoided the anxiety of his entrance in the entrancement of Mark-Olivia.

And maybe the entrancement by both of these is the reason why scenes without them seem almost banal and routine. You find yourself thinking “Okay, here’s a bit of Shakespeare filling, til the best bits come.” And actually that IS a shame. Twelfth Night is the story of young Viola - here played by Samuel Barnett – who survives the aforementioned shipwreck, in which she believes her twin brother Sebastian to have drowned, and takes on the disguise of a young man, calling herself Cesario, and enters the service of Duke Orsino (Liam Brennan). The latter is attempting to woe Countess Olivia and sends Cesario to do the job for him ;) Viola falls for Orsino and Olivia is bewitched with love for Cesario… and so the usual wonderful Shakespearian romantic comedy ensues. Samuel Barnett is a very worthy and talented young male actor – whom I liked very much indeed as Queen Elizabeth in Richard III by the same company. But here he drowns and Viola along with him – NOT because he is bad, but because his goods aren’t good enough to make him as visible as he needs to be to match the likes of Mark-Olivia, Stephen-Malvolio and also Paul Chahidi as Olivia’s gentlewoman Maria. One of the wonders of this play are Shakespeare’s musings – through his characters – on men and women in love and how they deal differently with love and that state of being. Samuel is a man, playing a woman, who then takes on the role of a man, and Shakespeare made the absolute most of this in the dialogue he provided for Viola and her interactions. Sadly this doesn’t make enough impression. The subplot involving the tricks played by Maria and others – including the lovely fool Feste (Peter Hamilton Dyer) – on Malvolio seem to become the main plot…

And OMG how delicious! Malvolio is convinced that Olivia is in love with him and that she delights in him wearing yellow stockings and cross-garters… he must smile profusely at her to show her that he returns her affection. And here is where we get the highlight between Mark-Olivia and Stephen-Malvolio as the latter delivers the famous line…

            “Some are born great, some become great and some have greatness thrust upon them…”

thrusting himself onto her!!! The entire audience laughed long and hard at this.

Where Stephen’s expressions of love as Malvolio are thrusting and blatant, Mark’s towards Cesario, and then Sebastian are charmingly subtle and faltering. Where Stephen strides across the stage and later dances deliberately and clumsily like a bouncing baboon, Mark glides along until startled when he trots along like a colt before rapidly regaining that graceful mare.

I’d happily see that baboon and horse together on Strictly Come Dancing… meanwhile they were stunningly entertaining in the finale dance on that beautiful replica Globe stage. 

Twelfth Night – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2012     

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‘Richard III’- Part 2 - Shakespeare’s Globe - Thursday 19th July 2012

(Rated 4/5 )

As promised, I am revisiting my experience of this production of Richard III. I wanted to say more and didn't feel I had the time and energy to do so, so here it is now... part 2.

As I've said before, I personally don't find this play that interesting aside from the character of Richard himself - or perhaps that should be multiple-characters/personalities of him - and how he became as he did. Unfortunately I didn't see Anthony Sher's portrayal of him, but Sher wrote a book on his experience and acting process during that time; Year of the King. Sher and his then psychotherapist, Monty Berman, analyse Richard and conclude that it all has to do with the fact he wasn't loved by his mother! That does come through in the play. And that he is bitter about his disability and the world owes him. And perhaps like Dexter (of TV fame, played by Michael C. Hall), and other psychopaths, once he has started killing he can't stop. In fact some of his arguments, though crazy, seem almost reasonable. Again, like Dexter Morgan, Richard Plantagenet confides in his audience a great deal, so we get a fascinating insight into the workings of his mind and plans - then to see them carried out and we can enjoy even more the horror and humour of his manipulations. And yet it is difficult to sympathise with him on the mother front - unlike Dexter, Richard's mother wasn't murdered horribly right in front of his young child's eyes and he doesn't take out his compulsion to kill on bad people - Richard's victims are innocents; amongst them women and children. Also, most disabled people don't go round murdering others. In fact of those I know, disability rather gives them a heightened compassion towards others and a strength in dealing with life's struggles. It does seem to be a well-used dramatic ploy for villainy though - other examples including The Phantom of the Opera and a few Bond villains!

This production was in traditional Shakespearean costume. I think that also helps us believe the men as women, in their skirts right down to the ground - they glide instead of walk along the stage. The young princes, played by Shanu Hazzan and Dylan Standen, looked just like little men in their royal garb. Very cute and I was very impressed by their delivery of Shakespeare's language as though it was the most natural way to speak in the world. 

The new Globe is a very special theatre. It has been reproduced as accurately to the original as possible within available knowledge. It has such an amazing atmosphere and you feel transported back in time. For someone with disability problems it is a little difficult. You are sitting on hard wooden benches with no support for the back - though you can hire cushions and fold up 'chair-backs'. Well that is of course if you are sitting at all! Many stand where stalls would normally be - great view but tough for a typically 3-hour long play. Actors and audience alike are open to the elements - best to take layers of clothing in case. That said, with the insistence on air conditioning in many closed theatres, it is often warmer in The Globe. I was far too cold in the Donmar on my last visit.

Really great job, and will be a great experience for anyone going instead of, or as well as a trip to the Olympics. For foreign visitors this troupe make Shakespeare easily understandable. I look forward to them, with the addition of Stephen Fry doing Twelth Night...

Richard III – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2012

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‘Richard III’- Part 1 - Shakespeare’s Globe - Thursday 19th July 2012

(Rated 4/5 )

Ok, dear readers, no Shakespeare’s Richard III is NOT one of his 2-parters. However, my energy is restricted, such that I’m not sure I will be able to write all I want to say on Mark Rylance and The Globe company’s interpretation of this in one go. Yesterday involved a fair amount of moving around and it was all a bit too much for this body of mine. That plus the strange weather we’re having – just passably warmish then very cold wind and rain… lots of rain – it’s playing havoc with my ex-broken parts…

So enough moaning. We were very fortunate with the weather in the end last night. No rain and not too cold. So thankfully not Richard III within The Tempest!

And here I am complaining about my restricted body whilst Mark Rylance keeps putting his well-able body under the strain of being disabled – his Richard with a limp refreshingly different to the one he used for Jerusalem, and all hunched up and small compared to that other role for which he puffed himself up and became so famous and rightly highly-celebrated. And from the word go Mark injected his supreme talent into Richard. He was a funny Richard, even a strangely gentle psychopath, sensitive and gloriously charmingly manipulative, then dangerously brutal – making this a black comedy version, yet still dramatic and somehow not farcical. He was believable in his transitions from one way of being to the other, and had us really thinking about why and how this character – and I say character given the real Richard III had such bad press and was not a psychopath – became who and how he did.

As far as I recall I have only seen this play once before. That time it was Kevin Spacey playing an apparently far more serious and unsympathetic persona and I didn’t understand the plot, lost track of the Queens and felt bored. We were too high up to really see facial expressions though and when Kevin’s face loomed large on a screen it did get a lot more interesting and the charming psychopath was well visible. I looked up the plot before I went this time. In essence Richard kills lots of people to get the crown, and is then killed himself. The End. And when he is not on stage, for me it is a pretty boring play. What makes it interesting, or not, is how the actor chooses to embody Richard. And then how he interacts with the other characters…

In this production everyone is played by men, back to the tradition of Shakespeare’s time. And I was actually surprised that I was having to remind myself of that when the Queens – as in royal not gay; though they may be that too! – were performing. They were all superb, but particularly Samuel Barnett as Queen Elizabeth.

And once the play has ended and the epilogue has kindly informed us what happens next in the ‘real’ history, the original tradition of dancing and prancing around is also revived within the replica of Shakespeare’s own Globe Theatre and up gets Mark as himself and joins in. We are all reassured this was only a play and nobody is actually dead!

Richard III – Review by TheRestrictedReviewer © 2012

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