Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, March 27, 2007.

Directed by Darko Tresnjak and starring F. Murray Abraham.

There are times when theatre reasserts itself, making it once again an essential ingredient of life; this is the case with the RSC’s current production of Coriolanus - soon to be on tour - as it was with the renowned New York based Theatre For A New Audience’s production of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, which stared the legendary F. Murray Abraham, which, along with Coriolanus at the main house, was the last show to be seen in the Swan, on the 30th March, before the long awaited rebuilding programme begins.

Set in the ‘near future’, which is tomorrow - which never comes of course - this smart, fast-paced, modern-dress production, which kicks off with a grey-suited, obviously wealthy, unsmiling, and seemingly confident merchant, Antonio (played superbly by Tom Nelis), who, for no apparent reason, suddenly starts to question himself - in the company of Salarino and Salanio - amidst the strange silence of a financial trading floor…

In sooth, I know not why I am so sad:
It wearies me; you say it wearies you;
But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,
What stuff ’tis made of, whereof it is born,
I am to learn…

And learn we did, learn that Shakespeare’s language, once decoded and made new by new thinking, with the application of that new thought used cleanly in this beautifully updated production, directed by Darko Tresnjak (and made even more appropriate by the American accents), that included the subtle use of mobile ‘phones - and the brilliant replacement of caskets by laptops - the, on the whole very young audience, became quickly engaged, and actually take notice of what was going on and being said. The play was, again, seemingly relevant.

Antonio’s worries and sadness were soon explained when we learned that he needs money, has over-stretched himself. We all do it, and if we say we don’t we are either very lucky, or lying. He’s in a spot, needs cash, and, well, in the world of this play, there’s only one man who can help him - Shylock.

Which is strange, because one would have thought that in the world presented to us (even in the near future) there would be banks out there demanding Antonio borrow from them (they demand it of me in this world most days), but no, Shylock is the only hope. And why? Because Antonio has become a bad risk, which is something you realise when you take another look at him, at the cut of his jib so to speak - he is self-indulgent and self-pitying; the world owes him a living, at least according to him.

He is also two-faced, and when Shylock makes his appearance, the cool, calculating, cliff-like, character that F. Murray Abraham’s has created knows this Antonio well, knows his kind better than his own daughter, and quickly reminds our sharp-suited Antonio that…

Signior Antonio, many a time and oft
In the Rialto you have rated me
About my moneys and my usances:
Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,
For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe.
You call me misbeliever, cut throat dog,
And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,
And all for use of what is mine own.
Well then, it now appears you need my help:
Go to, then; you come to me, and you say
‘Shylock, we would have monies:’ you say
so;
You, that did void your rheum upon my beard
And foot me as you spurn a stranger cur
Over your threshold: monies is your suit.
What should I say to you? Should I not say
‘Hath a dog money? is it possible
A cur can lend three thousand ducats?’ Or
Shall I bend low and in a bondman’s key,
With bated breath and whispering humbleness,
Say this;
‘Fair sir, spit on me on Wednesday last;
You spurn’d me such a day; another time
You call’d me a dog; and for these courtesies
I’ll lend you this much moneys’ ?

In fairness Antonio responds by saying he may very well spit upon Shylock again, and kick him like a dog, but is it not best to lend money to an enemy, the easier to extract the penalty should the venture fail.

And it is in these early exchanges that Shakespeare sets out the complexities, the evils, the duplicities, and the simplicities, of anti-Semitism, of the future horrors perpetrated by the uniformed Antonios’ of this world (as they ‘borrowed’ the money, the spectacles, the shoes, the homes, the department stores, the factories, and the lives of Shylock’s tribe), encapsulated beautifully, and emotionally, in Abraham’s depth of characterisation, in his utter absorption of Shylock. The story of the Jewish people is in that one character, brought alive - for me - for the very first time in a production of this play. I believed every word, every gesture, every demand for his pound of flesh, for the courts to support him, not deny him. I wanted to see Antonio’s heart cut from his body.

In fact, such was the power of Abraham’s performance that the scenes where Portia is confronted by her suitors were both a welcome comic relief from the high tension, but also slightly out of place within such high octane drama. Nevertheless they were superbly well done, with the aforementioned use of laptops and screens, instead of caskets, a simple and effective idea, with Ezra Knight’s Prince of Morroco, and Marc Vietor’s Prince of Arragon, wonderful comic inventions.

Overall the cast of this production were some of the finest young American actors on the scene today, with Kate Forbes’ Portia something of a master class in how to create two characters (Shakespearean cross-dressing) that are wholly believable, although I felt this particular Portia would never have forgiven Saxon Palmer’s Bassanio quite so readily, if at all.

But, if we’re honest, this was F. Murray Abraham’s show, who had the audience spellbound (and the Swan is a very intimate space) every time he walked on stage, with his stillness utterly compelling, and working like a cinematic close-up so that all eyes were focused on him, on every eye movement and muscle twitch, with ears tuned to every syllable, word, and sentence. Such was his power that no one in the audience coughed or moved - in fact they, we, dared not move or cough because Abraham had somehow encompassed us within his Shylock’s demand for justice, within his Shylock’s demand that we listen and take note before evil is done again, that his Shylock’s tribe is not spat upon for using that which is their own.

It was another Oscar winning performance.

For more information about the work done by Theatre For A New Audience, click here.

And for information about the RSC go to their website.

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.

Second Thoughts All Female Production

Stratford upon Avon Civic Hall, Saturday March 10th, 2007

Playing Shakespeare is a tricky old business at the best of times, and any company taking on a particularly well known Shakespeare play are setting themselves up to be knocked down. And any theatre company straying from the norm which puts on, for instance, an all male version of Romeo & Juliet, or, in the case of Second Thoughts, an all female version of Hamlet, had better make it work, and work well; which, in the case of the latter, means getting hold of the best Prince of Denmark you can find. Which is exactly what director, Estelle Hand, did when she found the phenomenal Penny-Anne O’Donnell.

Before going to see the show I had my doubts that an all female production of this most male of Shakespeare’s output could be done yet again, and convincingly (who could possibly top Sarah Bernhardt’s acclaimed 1899 one-woman-show, which did two nights in Stratford, or Frances de la Tour’s mighty portrayal of 1979?), because no matter how hard you try, and no matter the ever lengthening tradition of female Hamlets, and the knowledge that in Shakespeare’s day boys played girls, and girls were nowhere to be seen - not to mention the tradition of the Principle Boy in pantomime - it’s still difficult to get your head around the fact that a woman is playing a man, and that a female actor will have little idea of what it’s like to be a man (even if they live with one, especially if they live with one), as male actors have little or no idea what it’s like to be a woman, which is why most female impersonators (and transvestites) always go over the top, creating grotesque monsters.

So, with all that baggage on board Hilary and I, fortified by a couple of stiff drinks, took ourselves along to the Civic Hall. Glad we did too.

But let’s get the moaning out of the way first.

The all black set (ruined by two dreadful gothic-style curtained doorways, which I’m sure must have been a committee decision) was the prefect idea for this production, as were the black suits and white shirts, which, had that idea been carried through for all the characters, would have worked superbly, and diluted the very idea of gender. But, by giving Gertrude a heavy velvet frock, and Claudius a crumpled purple top that looked as if it had come from a bad charity shop (plus a couple of iffy cardboard crowns), made a good idea weak, and, for this member of the audience, wholly distracting.

The next grumble is about the text, or lack of it. Now, believe me I’m all in favour of cutting out Shakespeare’s long-windedness where needed (and there’s an awful lot of it in Hamlet), and I admit it had been encouraging to hear that Estelle Hand had been pretty ruthless with a text that can often result in a four hour marathon. But, sadly, I feel she may have been just a bit too ruthless (her production was just over two hours long), with one result being that poor old Rosencrantz and Guildenstern - who are a damned good device meant to lighten things for a bit - were, in this production, left looking like a couple of unwanted extras from a film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. Consequently these two, rather down-at-heel characters, had little to say, or any reason for actually being there. And it did cross my mind that had they ever been college friends with this production’s stunning Hamlet he’d (she’d?) have crossed them off her (his?) Christmas card list years ago.

Okay, the moaning is over.

Hamlet has always been something of a one-woman, one-man, show, with all the peripheral action little more than a fleshing-out of the Prince’s thoughts, leaving the all important soliloquies at the heart and soul of the piece; and once Penny-Anne O’Donnell is on stage, and starts to speak - and makes sense of Shakespeare’s rich sentences - you know you’re in the presence of an actress of power and eloquence (she is also a speech and language therapist, which helps), who quite naturally controls (as Hamlet should) every aspect of the action taking place around her, at the same time focusing the audiences attention on her, and her every move (and she knows when to stand still, too), and Shakespeare’s tumbling, troubling, wonderful, words. She was a joy to watch and listen to, and she belongs on the professional stage. Gregory Doran please, please, take note - she is a star in the making.

Penny-Anne was very ably assisted by another budding professional, Natalie Danks-Smith as Horatio, a beautifully spoken Pamela Hickson as Polonius (with superb comic timing), Alex Delin as Guildenstern (good comic timing there too), and not least the young Verity Harris, whose Ophelia - especially in the second half - was quite stunning.

Overall I enjoyed this production, with Estelle’s confident directorial hand very evident where it mattered.