Check? Check

This post is in praise of actors, about a moment in Measure for Measure which I saw at the RSC in Stratford at the weekend.

Pompey, the ‘bawd’ or brothel-keeper, is a classic Shakespearian comic, and about two-thirds of the way through, locked up in the city jail, he has a speech which looks like Jacobean babble on the page:

I am as well acquainted here as I was in our house of profession: one would think it were Mistress Overdone’s own house, for here be many of her old customers. First, here’s young Master Rash; he’s in for a commodity of brown paper and old ginger, ninescore and seventeen pounds; of which he made five marks, ready money: marry, then ginger was not much in request, for the old women were all dead.

Then is there here one Master Caper, at the suit of Master Three-pile the mercer, for some four suits of peach-coloured satin, which now peaches him a beggar. Then have we here young Dizy, and young Master Deep-vow, and Master Copperspur, and Master Starve-lackey the rapier and dagger man, and young Drop-heir that killed lusty Pudding, and Master Forthlight the tilter, and brave Master Shooty the great traveller, and wild Half-can that stabbed Pots, and, I think, forty more; all great doers in our trade, and are now ‘for the Lord’s sake.’

On stage, in the Shakespearian-style Swan Theatre, it comes alive, as Pompey, played by Joseph Kloska, uses the audience as the characters, picking them out as he goes through the names and improvising, but just a little, as he goes.

My son happened to be wearing a check shirt, sitting in the front row, and Kloska adapted the line about Master Caper and his “suits of peach-coloured satin” to fit, riding the laughter to add, “You have to work with what you’ve got”. A few lines later he got more laughter by picking out a balding man a few seats along as “Drop-heir”, adding a line to say, “It’s all in the Folios, First Folio, Second Folio”.

It felt as close to the way in which the Shakespearian audience would have experienced a comic actor as is possible for a 21st audience to get.

One other note on the play: one of things you learn when you learn about screen writing is “to love your minor characters”. Shakespeare was there first. The murderer Barnardine is hardly on stage – he only has a couple of scenes – but he steals them both. And it’s all in the writing.

The picture at the top of the post is a production still from the RSC, and is used with thanks.

Revisiting “The Comedians”

(c) Helen Maybanks

I had feared that Trevor Griffiths’ play The Comedians, premiered in 1975 and revived by the Hammersmith Lyric – the run has just closed – might seem as dated as Galsworthy or Priestley, with its exploration of racist and sexist humour and an argot of venues that seems as remote as the Romans. I needn’t have worried.
The underlying tension in the play, between the old pro, Eddie Waters, who’s teaching the aspirant comedians of the play’s title, and the agent Bert Challenor, come to look for new talent, is as live as ever.
Eddie Waters sets out his stall as he warms up his protégés ahead of their performances at a local club in front of Challenor:

WATERS: A joke releases the tension, says the unsayable, any joke pretty well. But a true joke, a comedian’s joke, has to do more than release tension, it has to liberate the will and the desire, it has to change the situation.

Some of the writing, and the performance, as the play explores this in its first act, amid the pre-set tension, is right at the edge, particularly the apparent improv around the tongue twister, “The traitor distrusts truth”.

Challenor, of course, is having none of it, as he arrives towards the end of the act, to give the comedians a few tips before they go on stage.

CHALLENOR: I’m not looking for philosophers, I’m looking for comics. I’m looking for someone who sees what the people want and knows how to give it to them … Any good comedian can lead an audience by the nose. But only in the direction they’re going. And that direction is, quite simply … escape.

Of course, (mild spoiler alert) the students who pander to Challenor get the contracts. Price has changed his act at the last minute, and is tough, challenging, and perhaps not funny, mystifying agent and the other students alike (but not Eddie Waters). The third act, effectively, plays out between Waters and Price. They’re on the same side of the argument that comedy should ‘change the situation’, but about what comedy is for, but disagree about whether this needs to be done with love and compassion or not.

This makes it sound like a play of ideas, and it is, of course. But it’s also a technical tour de force, an ensemble piece in which all the ensemble are deftly drawn (as my friend Rick pointed out), some clever stagecraft, outstanding writing, and perhaps most satisfying of all, it plays out in real time – the director of the Lyric production, Sean Holmes, emphasised this with a clock in full view of the audience, which could have been risky for a less accomplished play or production.

‘What will you do?’, asks Waters of Price, as he leaves. ‘I’ll wait’, he says.

And with hindsight, he’d probably have done alright, along with the other comedians dismissed by Challenor. 1975 was probably – pre-punk, pre-Jubilee, pre-Thatcher – the highwater mark of the ‘joke telling’ comedian in the Northern clubs. As alternative comedy took off in the early 80s, the political, the angry, and the character comedians all prospered. Perhaps Griffiths had an instinct that the moment was about to turn.

The production photo above is by Helen Maybanks.You can see more of her photographs – many of them utterly charming – at her blog.

Gangster Macbeth

Love&Madness‘ setting of Macbeth, currently at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, moves it from mediaeval Scotland to a pub in ’60s London gangland, and like all such translations something is lost – and something is gained. On balance, I think the gains outweighed the cost.

Macbeth is Shakespeare’s shortest play, and drives relentlessly through its short scenes. It takes a couple of scenes to get used to the combination of ’60s decor and Shakespearian language, but as you do, the intimacy of the studio theatre becomes claustrophobic. The gangster framing also emphasises the ties of blood and loyalty, and the closeness of violence to the surface (and as much personal as business), which can easily get lost in a more traditional presentation.

Power is an aphrodisiac, and the Love&Madness production captures this well in the sexual relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, which becomes more physical as the moment of Duncan’s murder approaches.

Obviously the witches present a problem in a modern setting; they are the most primitive – or primeval – element of the story and don’t sit well in a post-enlightenment world, even one where the paint is peeling from the walls. The production dealt with this by turning them into folk musicians, almost straight out of the Troubadour, and having their curses sung. This has the strength of making the witches more like a chorus, with bursts of video for the scenes from the cauldron, but at the same time makes them less evil, and more detached. Arran Glass’ singing wasn’t the best, but was compensated for by Kate Robson-Stuart’s sinuous violin.

I liked the way the audience were drawn in to the story, being offered snacks from the buffet at the supper after Banquo’s death (and at some productions, though not this one, a glass of wine from the bar as they arrive). We could have had a seat at one of the pub tables, but weren’t that brave. Shame the audience wasn’t  larger, but we did go to a Saturday matinee. It’s on at the Riverside, in repertory, until 28 July.