|
|
| go to lobby page | more reviews | return to international page | go to other departments |
Contents: October 16, 1999:
Antipholus and Dromio avoid confronting Adriana in "The Comedy of Errors." (Photo: Donald Cooper)
(1)"Julius Caesar" at The Globe.
(2)"The Comedy of Errors" at The Globe.
"Julius Caesar"
Mark Rylance's production of "Julius Caesar" has the flavor of a modern thriller with some comedy thrown in for leavening and plenty of the swordplay, blood and gore for the crowd, a shoot-'em-up of the time broadly played for action. He has attempted to provide a sense of how the play must have been to patrons exactly 400 years ago, when the first recorded production was staged on September 21, 1599, and there is a curious mix of period and modern, including the casting of men in the women's parts, as was done at a time when women were barred from the stage.
By William Shakespeare, directed by Mark Rylance
Produced by the Globe Theatre
21 New Globe Walk, Bankside
171 902-1400
Opened May 26, 1999
Closed
Reviewed by Lucy Komisar September 21, 1999Caesar has just been victorious in war against Pompey, and his fellow senators fear the ambitious man is planning to make himself king and become a tyrant. Led by Cassius, they persuade the hesitant and ethical Brutus to join an assassination plot. Caesar ignores prophecies of dire peril and goes to the Senate, where he is murdered.
Caesar's protege Mark Antony is allowed to speak at the funeral, and cleverly turns the mob against the plotters. In the upheaval and civil war that occurs, Brutus and his co-conspirators are all killed.
The Roman story is told in Elizabethan trappings, white togas occasionally wrapped around Elizabethan crenellated collars and capes. Caesar (Paul Shelley) is a sneaky, villainous character, something like a political boss, dressed in a scarlet cape, puffed knee pants, and high boots, the flavor of a buccaneer.
The play's real tension is based on the moral interaction between Brutus and Cassius, enhanced by the excellent portrayals of both characters. Brutus (Danny Sapani) exudes a sense of noble weakness, a flawed trust, a lack of astuteness. He seems to despair at his inability to handle the political crisis. Richard Bremmer as Cassius is powerful, angry, crafty, and passionate, and you can see in him the schemer who will later be accused by Brutus of corruption, of having itching palms, of taking bribes.
Everyone plays to the audience in the pit. The soothsayer (Jimmy Gardner) who warns Caesar to "beware the ides of March" is a white-bearded old man with sneakers and hospital whites who runs through the audience pit. Later, a fellow with jeans and sneakers and backwards cap comes with another warning.
After the murder, two characters in modern dress come in to arouse the anger of the audience. "We will be satisfied, let us be satisfied," urges a man in a trench coat and a youth in a windbreaker. There's a sense of modern political murder, of a coup. When Mark Antony (Mark Lewis Jones) harangues the crowd and some of the ringers shout, "the will!" some in the audience join in. When Antony says he doesn't want to stir them to mutiny, they're react with cynical laughter.
The most powerful scene that puts the past in the present is the staging of the mob's attack on a member of the Senate, done by modern street thugs who beat and kick their victim brutally.
One element that doesn't work is supposed to be a throwback to the time of Shakespeare but appears instead to be a modern joke. It's the campy portrayals of Portia by Toby Cockerell and Calpurnia by Benedict Wong. It distracts from their speeches and from their characters' credibility.
In the midst of all the action, it's possible to forget the political lesson of Shakespeare's play. Cassius declaims, after the murder: "Stoop, then, and wash. How many ages hence shall this our lofty scene be acted over in states unborn and accents yet unknown!" This was a murder with a political message, and that came across very clearly.[Komisar]
"The Comedy of Errors"
This is a comedy modernized to reflect the bawdy, riotous original. Simply restaging what the director imagined the old production to be would give us an antique. Instead, the goal is to resurrect the old spirit but not the old form. It's modern, hokey, campy, bawdy and even occasionally cruel and violent.
By William Shakespeare, directed by Kathryn Hunter and Tim Carroll
Produced by the Globe Theatre
21 New Globe Walk, Bankside
171 902-1400
Opened June 3, 1999
Closed
Reviewed by Lucy Komisar September 8, 1999Direction chores are shared by Kathryn Hunter, "master of the play," responsible for the physical realization of the script and for directing the action, and Tim Carroll, "master of verse," focusing on eloquence and helping actors to speak their lines.
The story is that Egeon, having lost his wife and sons in a shipwreck many years ago, has come from Syracuse to Ephesus to search for them. He is jailed for being from the enemy city and sentenced to death. His son, Antipholus, accompanied by servant Dromio, have also arrived to search for Antipholus's brother. There's another twin, Dromio's; those babes were also on the ill-fated voyage.) The various twins won't run into each other (they can't since each set is played by the same actor), but they'll will meet up with numerous friends and strangers -- including a wife, a jeweler and a mistress -- who will take them for the wrong brother.
That's where the similarity to any production you've seen before ends. The newly arrived servant Dromio (Marcello Magni), looking like a bedraggled hippy, ambles through the pit, kissing audience members on the cheek or forehead and mugs, "Oh, Madonna." He is, after all, from Syracuse in Sicily. His master, Antipholus (Vincenzo Nicoli), pirouettes in a new robe.
When his master gives gold into his care, Dromio kicks up his heels and throws money bags over his back, and they twist around his neck to gag him. New to town, Dromio carries a map, complains he's lost and asks advice from two merchants who point him in opposite directions.
He and Antipholus bat a shuttlecock with copper trays. Antipholus misses. Dromoio, yells "punta" and pumps his arm, then takes a drink and banana from a trainer at the side. Antipholus drops the shuttlecock as if it's a tennis ball, and Dromio declares match point. They kiss each other and bow to balcony. At this point, one wishes the play would resume.
There is more. The schoolmaster Pinch (Harry Gostelow), here shown as a charlatan priest, exorcises in Latin: "Habeas corpus, status quo." And he bites the breast of Adriana (Yolanda Vazquez), Antipholus of Ephesus's wife. Three "priests" in white skirts dance and wave incense pots. When they throw off their robes, fakir Pinch is in diapers. They chant the Kamasutra and do erotic poses. There are lots of sexual jokes. Pinch rubs against Adriana. A man dressed as a market woman pulls up his skirt to flash.
Hunter goes to great length to find possibilities for bawdiness. The flirtatious Adriana, is addressing Adolphilus of Syracuse, who she thinks is her husband. Adriana says, "Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine, whose weakness, married to thy stronger state, makes me with thy strength to communicate....." To which he replies, "To me she speaks; she moves me for her theme. What, was I married to her in my dream? Or sleep I now and think I hear all this? What error drives our eyes and ears amiss?"
Meanwhile, as he walks around, she is hanging onto him, like a vine, her head thrust between his legs -- long pause -- he completes the lines: "Until I know this sure uncertainty, I'll entertain the offered fallacy." Pun fully intended.
The production is very physical, even acrobatic, with mugging, gestures, shouting and carrying on, a raucous chorus of comic sighs and cheers. There's lots of interaction with the audience. A rubber fish lands in the pit in the midst of a wild chase. A boat sails through the audience. There are cockfighting puppets and the old gag of a fake walking-dog at the end of stick. Dromio comes running, panting, collapses, gasping. He takes a puff of a water pipe, turns away, then turns back for more drags. He sings in Italian in mock opera style to a young lady on a balcony, all the while holding a white handkerchief like Paverotti. He portrays an encounter with his twin with the aid of a freestanding revolving door. Sometimes, the production seems like a comedy act with sight gags.
Dromio, in fact, as star gagman is the star of the show, and Marcello Magni, who says as much with the twist of his face as with words, does the part brilliantly to deserved cheers.
The mood is enhanced by Middle Eastern musicians and dancers and by the technicolor red and yellow robes and fezes. This is not the elegant style of traditional Shakespeare. It is often amusing, but I wouldn't want it for a steady diet. When gags take over, the poetry disappears. [Komisar]
| home | listings | columnists | reviews | what's new? | cue-to-cue | people | welcome |
| museums | recordings | what's cool? | who's hot? | coupons | publications | classified |
