By William Shakespeare, Directed by Gregory Doran, Starring William Houston.

At the RST, 14th March 2007.

First of all forgive me for taking so long in writing this review, but things have been pretty hectic here at Humdrumming Mansions, what with Hilary moving down from Preston - accompanied by several hundred boxes, furniture, clothes, lots of clothes - plus, it has to be admitted, the devastating effect Gregory Doran’s superb new production of one of Shakespeare’s finest plays - and the outstanding performance of William Houston as Coriolanus - had on me, effectively silencing me. And I don’t get silenced easily.

Coriolanus is a tough, unrelenting play, full of exquisite language, that must be played with an intensity that will leave the average actor recuperating in a run-down Bournemouth hotel wondering what life and art, and bad hotel food, is all about, which is why amateur companies seldom, if ever, have a go at this great word fest of a piece that explores the human condition, in relation to the individual and to the many, in horrifying detail, as Lucy Hughes-Hallett’s programme notes try to clarify when she writes…

” There’s a fault-line running through the core of our culture, one which Shakespeare dramatises with alarming lucidity in Coriolanus. It’s the rift between the archaic warrior code which exalts the ‘noble’ qualities of pride, physical courage and personal integrity (of which Coriolanus is a prime example), and the civilised code which subordinates the individual to the community and prizes self-control, patience and diplomacy. The two value-systems are irreconcilable, and yet they have coexisted at least since Homer sang of Troy. Homer celebrated the uncompromising wrath of Achilles (admiringly described as ‘the most violent man alive’) and simultaneously deplored his intransigence. He both gloried in the great-heartedness of the Greek and Trojan warriors and lamented the war’s brutal waste of life. That ambivalence has persisted down the millennia, complicated further both by the rise of republicanism and by Christianity’s endorsement of a moral code in which humility is prized higher than honour, and forgiveness is preferred to valour.”

It is the moral code we still try and live by today, and, as Ms Hughes-Hallett points out, Shakespeare, in Coriolanus, puts it plainly, and bloodily, in front of us to inspect and reflect upon, as no doubt Tony Blair and George Bush have done on many occasions in the last four years or so. On that basis alone Coriolanus is one of Shakespeare’s most timeless of plays, and one that should make each succeeding generation realise that human behaviour may take on the veneer of civilisation, but in reality, at heart, never changes - that the majority inevitably get it wrong, with the various minorities always claiming they are either victims, or misunderstood. The result is usually a total lack of trust between the leaders and the led, with the former ploughing on unperturbed, and the latter listening to anyone who is prepared to say anything about anything or anyone in a tone of voice that suggests honesty - trust me I’m a doctor/politician/lawyer/king/queen/the people’s princess/trade union leader/novelist/actor…whatever. Coriolanus is about all of that, and about not taking your eye off the ball, about not looking in the mirror too often, about finding yourself, Napoleon style, banished, about never trusting anyone - especially yourself - yet appearing to trust everyone, especially yourself. Above all it’s also about listening to your mother.

Coriolanus was written straight after Anthony and Cleopatra (produced by the RSC earlier this season) around 1608, and is the perfect companion piece to that essay on the destruction of a noble nature through, as W.G.Clark put it, “…voluptuous self-indulgence…” whereas Coriolanus explores the destruction of a noble nature through, in Clark’s words, “…haughtiness and pride…”, with the heat and splendours of a corrupt Egyptian royal court replaced by the harder, tougher corridors of a more corrupt republican Rome, where there is an ever-widening political gap between the patricians and the plebeians. And here Shakespeare represents the plebs as little more than uneducated, overgrown, children, with the patricians portrayed as leaders who possess little or no judgment, and, with the exception of Menenius Agrippa, even less reasoning power and self-restraint. It feels like the Britain of the 1970s.

And to put over the power of this, one of Shakespeare’s finest creations, you need actors of the first order, and a director of genius.

Well, the early 21st century is proving to be, for director Gregory Doran - who is something of a genius - a golden age, with, over the last few years, as I’ve mentioned in previous reviews, a clutch of superb productions under his belt, including the 2005 RSC production of Ben Jonson’s Sejanus: His Fall, where William Houston took the audience by the throat and shook it until it begged for mercy, before shouting for more. It was one of those truly magical theatrical experiences. This is what I said about Houston in a review of Sejanus…

” Great art is also illustrative of other great art, and when I heard Houston as Sejanus, and the power and clarity of the way he interpreted Jonson’s words, something clicked onto (or into) my jazz links and I immediately thought of the British Baritone saxophonist, John Surman, and his ground-breaking work with Mike Westbrook back in the late 1960s. Listen to one of John’s long solos (they’re really musical essays) and you’ll hear the power of Houston in those soft, fluttery low notes, and the brisk, crackly, high notes. What Houston and Surman do is make art accessible, and, by consequence, meaningful. There’s little point in spouting the words of Johnson if the listener gets little or no sense of their meaning, or of Jonson’s emotions or background. I could hear Jonson the soldier, and the murderer, in the magical journey of which Houston was the narrator…”

Doran was able, by giving Houston a great deal of freedom, to bring that beautiful old war-horse of a Jonson play to life, to make it real, to make us feel as if we were eavesdropping on history. He has been able to do the same with this breathtaking production of Coriolanus.

And Houston, as Coriolanus, dominates the stage, dominates every move this production makes, becomes the pivot on which everything turns, becomes the spike upon which everything is bloodily hung. But it is not a selfish domination, but a realisation that the character of Coriolanus - as with Sejanus - is the narrator of his own downfall, and of our salvation - it is the story of a prophet if you will. We ignore that message, his message, at our peril.

Many recently have described Houston as the new Olivier. I agree, but only in one respect, that, like Olivier, Houston has set a new standard by which all other actors will now be judged. One cannot liken him to Olivier - as Olivier could not be likened to anyone else - because he’s an original that other actors, from this moment onward, will be compared against, and not only in style, but in vivaciousness and energy, and in his ability to scare the pants off us, and then make us laugh, but mostly to believe in him completely, and by so doing believe in the character, and consequently the story, the narration. William Houston has changed the English stage.

This production was, of course, not a one man show, with Janet Suzman’s portrayal of Coriolanus’s mother, Volumnia, quite breathtaking in its understatement and repressed passion, which, when released toward the end of the play when she confronts her son, with his son at her side, created a confrontation that was exquisite in the extreme, which had the audience holding its breath until Houston, in response to Suzman’s beautifully-paced appeal, allowed them to breathe again, as his own rugged face, just for a moment, became wholly distorted with emotion. It was a moment seldom seen these days in the theatre.

Likewise with Timothy West’s portrayal of Coriolanus’s old friend, the patrician Menenius, we were in the hands of a master craftsman, whose voice, comforting and familiar, led the audience and the plebs, down a warm dark passage of compliance and double-speak, which created a kind of artist’s wash to the stage - a blank page if you will - upon which Houston/Coriolanus, could make his bold strokes. It was an acting master class that, in its refinement, could easily have been cast aside as unimportant, when, in fact, it was vital.

This production is the very finest tribute to the old RST.

After closing this weekend, Coriolanus will tour to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Madrid, and Washington DC. Go to the RSC site for more details.

At the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon

December 30, 2006

Gregory Doran is the Cecil B.DeMille of theatre, the great theatrical showman, the director with the golden touch, a thesp who knows how to turn the all too familiar into something new and spectacular. And in this wonderfully re-tuned show Doran has taken the bones of the story, and, with the music of Paul Englishby, the lyrics of Ranjit Bolt, turned the whole thing into a singing and dancing extravaganza that delights at every ridiculous twist and turn of Shakespeare’s plot. I loved it.

And that’s about it when it comes to Doran’s work - you either love it or hate it. But what is there to hate?

But the purists often do, as if the Doran touch somehow cheapens Shakespeare, makes fun of the Bard and his hallowed words. Rubbish! Doran brings Shakespeare to life - back to life even, as he must have been in those dangerous, glorious days of the Globe - in a way that Bill himself might have recognised and applauded. Gregory Doran has somehow plugged into the man, might even be the man. The second coming perhaps?

Two or three years ago Doran created something wonderfully moving with his puppet interpretation of Venus & Adonis that was, for a while, the best the RSC had come up with in quite a long time, even with real actors. He did it again with his hilarious production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which took the lid off that, until then, dreadfully unfunny play, re-inventing it so that it not only made the critics of the Times, and The Guardian (Charles Spencer of the Daily Telegraph was already a hopeless case by then) laugh uncontrollably in the aisles, but also made this most peculiar of plays penetrable and understandable. Most recently - the winter of 2005/2006 I think - he took Geoffrey Chaucer by the scruff of his neck and his scrotum, and turned The Canterbury Tales into a brave and hugely funny (and I mean funny) show that lasted over six hours that seemed like six minutes. And in both Dream and Tales Doran used puppets again to mesmerising effect. There are no holds barred when Doran gets his hands on a play - if it works leave it in.

And that was obviously the order-of-the-day with Wives too. One can imagine Doran lining-up Dame Judi Dench, Simon Callow, Alistair McGowan, Haydn Gwynne, Jeffery Dench (Dame Judi’s brother), and the rest of ‘em, like a sergeant major before a battle and explaining that attack - in comedy as in warfare - is the best, the only, sort of defence. That once the enemy are on the run, or in this case, the audience are screaming with laughter (then applauding at the oh-so-very-wonderfully-over-the-top singing and dancing) don’t ever look back toward your own trenches but keep on going forward until the audience is conquered completely and utterly, and begging for mercy, or, as we did at the end, for more!

Doran doesn’t really leave you time to think (you can do that on the way home, or in the restaurant over a glass or two of wine and a good steak), but instead wants you to become an integral part of the production (as you might in a pantomime where you desperately want to shout out ‘behind you’) and expound as much energy and sweat in the watching and listening as the actors do in the performance; and Doran makes you do that. It’s the least you can do really.

But Merry Wives: The Musical is not a pantomime, but a well thought out piece of musical theatre that at the start deliberately uses the obvious build-up to a song as a way of warming-up the audience, who then take each succeeding song (and Ranjit Bolt’s songs are very good, which you’d expect from the nephew of playwright Robert Bolt) much more easily for what they are, namely a means of pushing forward the plot. Only when the audience have become used to that device (which is an old and well tested device anyway) does the energetic and wonderfully ironic (yes, ironic) choreography of Michael Ashcroft come into play. And does he play!

The whole show borrows from anyone and everyone, and in Ashcroft’s dance, and Englishby’s score, we have a mix that takes in everything from The Chocolate Soldier, via The Phantom of the Opera and Les Mis, to Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and The Rocky Horror Show. It’s just so wonderfully, breathlessly, eclectic; but done with a superb skill that only the RSC can do when it’s really motoring. If anyone remembers the RSC production of The Begger’s Opera of the early 1990s you’ll know what I mean.

Dame Judi Dench, as Mistress Quickly, is seriously funny - she also sings as if she’s just about keeping up, which is a skilful, twinkle-in-the-eye touch - as is Simon Callow’s thoughtful and beautifully timed Sir John Falstaff. And Callow’s deep baritone voice is a lovely musical instrument that lived up handsomely to the promise it made in the street that day a few weeks back.

Alistaire McGowan’s Frank Ford is a delight of paranoid comedy, and his singing and dancing skills are an absolute revelation. God, the hours that must have gone into it all is quite mind boggling.

It’s good to see Haydn Gwynne back with the RSC, with her portrayal of Mistress Page quite extraordinary, with her versatility abounding in both song and dance. Oh, and Simon Trinder, as Abraham Slender, is an utter delight, and a star in the making.

I’ll tell you something. It’s worth going to see this show just to see Dame Judi somersault her way across the stage after one particularly energetic dance routine. She does, honest.

Merry Wives: The Musical runs at the RST Main House until February 10th 2007.

For tickets go to the RSC site.