Theatre Review: Othello (Shakespeare's Globe)

The last ten years or so can't be said to have lacked for starry Othello productions on UK stages, whether it's Chiwetel Ejiofor facing off with Ewan MacGregor at the Donmar, Clarke Peters and Dominic West in a high-Wire production at Sheffield Crucible, or Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear at the NT. Still, there's something particularly exciting about the prospect of Mark Rylance returning to the theatre that he ran to play Iago opposite André Holland (of Barry Jenkins's Moonlight and several stage Shakespeares in the US) in the title role. However, the results, in Claire van Kampen's erratic production, don't prove ideal.

Part of the problem is the tendency of the Globe audience to turn every play into a comedy, so that each instance of dramatic irony generates guffaws and even a line such as "Strangle her in her bed" is greeted with hearty laughter by some. But that tendency is exacerbated in van Kampen's production via the farcical scampering around that occurs in its early stages.

Rylance is the principal offender here. He begins by speaking the lines at breakneck speed; his proficiency with the language means that (almost) every word is heard but, still, several vital utterances don't have the weight of thought. Red-capped and nimble, Rylance tries out lots of interesting things in the performance but his Iago finally feels less mercurial than incoherent. Even before Iago's soliloquies start Rylance seems to be acting more to the audience than to the other performers; that approach may be justified to a degree, but when he does start to get more of a relationship going with his fellow cast members it feels like too little too late. Ultimately Rylance neither succeeds in creating a disturbing presence here nor in making something really fresh out of the role.

Holland fares considerably better. In the early scenes, his stillness and poise are in such contrast to Rylance's restless scurrying about that it's a relief to look at and listen to him. (A very stylish coat helps, too.) He treats the language with ease and naturalness, his American accent accentuating Othello's outsiderness, and he makes contact with the other actors while still being inclusive of the audience. In the second half, the performance becomes a bit more generalised (Rylance's feebleness as an antagonist doesn't help him), but Holland is by far the best reason for seeing this production.

There's solid support from William Cubb as a Lear-ish Brabantio, from Aaron Pierre as a hot-headed Cassio, and from Badria Timimi and Catherine Bailey in the effectively re-gendered roles of Lodovica and the Doge of Venice. (Bailey also doubles as a sparky Bianca.) Jessica Warbeck is competent and sometimes touching as Desdemona, belatedly achieving the production's most unsettling moment as she feels what she believes to be her husband's conciliatory embrace turn into strangulation.

As Emilia, though, Sheila Atim underwhelms, giving an awkward performance that doesn't maximise the huge potential in this crucial role; the great "Willow" scene between her and Desdemona seems not so great here. This is particularly disappointing in a season that seeks to trace the character of Emilia through Shakespeare's drama, leading to Morgan Lloyd Malcolm's recently-opened new rabble-rouser about Emilia Bassano. Following her acclaimed turn in Girl from the North Country, it's not too much of a surprise that van Kampen gives Atim a bonus song to sing, but the most sparkling thing about the actress here is her costume: two (rather inappropriate) gold outfits with gold earrings and a shock of gold hair to match. (This Emilia out-dresses her mistress.)

Otherwise, Jonathan Fensom's design is undistinguished and unilluminating, which might be said of the production as a whole. Little thought seems to have gone into context or the exploration of certain relationships, so that promising aspects such as Iago and Emilia also being in an "interracial" marriage don't receive the attention that they merit. Rylance's gabbling and some cuts to the text ensure that the evening is a fairly pacy one, but the end result is to make the material look more like a clunky melodrama with comic elements than a searing examination of jealousy and manipulation. Holland's compelling performance aside, this is an unintense production that doesn't dig deeply enough for the racial and sexual politics of the play - or, simply, its tragedy - to resonate as they should.

Othello is booking at the Globe until 13 October.

Book Review: Hamlet: Globe to Globe by Dominic Dromgoole (Grove, 2017)

My review of Dominic Dromgoole's new book Hamlet: Globe to Globe is up at PopMatters. You can read it here.

Theatre Review: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare’s Globe)

 

Zubin Varla and Meow Meow in A Midsummer Night's Dream (Photo: Steve Tanner)

 

In her beautiful note in the brochure to her first season as Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe, Emma Rice argues for the importance of the preservation of childlike wonder, which she defines as “a deep and immediate relationship to the people we meet and the things that happen to us”. Theatre, Rice writes, can bring us into just such a mindful, intense state of being, creating “a temporary community”, an “army of humanity”, connected by the diverse stories in which we’re absorbed.    

While sometimes succumbing to an overly-larky tone that irritated some audiences, at their best Rice’s productions for her Kneehigh company achieved precisely that sense of immediacy and engagement. This may account for my ability to remember moments from her delectable and wildly underrated adaptation of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg and even from her much-derided take on Steptoe and Son with particular vividness several years on. The freshness of Rice’s approach, and her ability to draw wholesale on a range of influences and art forms (“I’m not a minimalist girl,” she’s noted recently), makes her appointment as the Globe’s Artistic Director  a particularly exciting one.   

Rice has chosen to open her first season with a production that feels very much like  a statement of intent, at least as far as her self-directed work is concerned, and that even includes (at least) one big, fat self-reflexive joke. Incorporating nods to Beyoncé, Bowie and Bollywood, George Formby and John Donne,  Rice’s take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream is energetic and hugely entertaining from start to finish. With cheeky textual revisions by dramaturg Tanika Gupta that place the play in a fluidly contemporary multicultural London of Hoxton hipsters, Russian brides and gay lovers (Helena becomes Ankur Bahl’s excellent Helenus here, hotly pursing Ncuti Gatwa's Demetrius), the production draws from a grab-bag of inspirations. Oberon's words “Rock the ground” are displayed in neon; Börkur Jónsson supplies a set of floating globes and tubes that suggests nightclub as much as fairy forest; and the proceedings are presided over by sitar player Sheema Mukherjee, whose contributions add pulse and drama throughout.

The approach is highly reminiscent of that of Ed Hall’s Propeller company at its peak: a modern mash-up that nonetheless doesn’t neglect the language, finding mostly ingenious echoes and equivalents, and placing the play vibrantly within a range of traditions and intertexts.

 

A fine company doesn’t flag (and certainly ticks all the requisite diversity boxes to boot), with enjoyable and inventive turns from Zubin Varla as a swaggering Oberon, Katy Owen’s  punky, water-pistol-toting Puck,  Ewan Wardrop’s endearingly buffoonish Bottom (here a Bankside Health and Safety Officer channeling George Formby and Bruce Willis in Die Hard mode at various points), Lucy Thackeray’s battily officious  Rita Quince and Nandi Bhebhe's bodacious First Fairy.

The stand-out, though, is Meow Meow, reuniting with Rice after their great collaboration on Cherbourg and bringing quirky cabaret spirit to the proceedings once again. Without dominating, Meow Meow is pretty much a show all by herself here: she’s as physically witty and uninhibited as any Titania can ever have been (deliciously deranged when under Oberon’s spell, she pauses at one moment to grab a groundling’s beer) but the real surprise is her verse-speaking, which is commanding and beautiful throughout..

The production’s employment of lights and mics has already proved controversial. But in many ways this doesn’t seem like a staging that’s calculated simply to piss off purists (though apparently it has done just that...) Rather, there’s as much affection as there is irreverence to the show’s shaking up of Shakespeare, and a big-hearted, generous tone that should disarm anyone who goes with an open mind. Rice and her collaborators try out a whole bunch of things here, and while a few of the conceits feel strained and imposed, the end result brings freshness and - yes - wonder  to one of Shakespeare’s most familiar plays. The production casts a spell; the space feels transformed. Rock the ground, rock the Globe. 

 

Booking until 11 September.