At Wales Theatre Company |
| Wales Theatre Company- Twelfth Night/Cymbeline/The Merchant of Venice , New Theatre, Cardiff , October 23, 2004 |
| Piercing lightening flashes and all the lights in the theatre auditorium are instantly blown to blackness. Out of the thunderous, on stage, storm and smoke a muscular sea captain carries the diminutive Viola from the sea and lays her on the beach, the sea-coast near the city of Ilyria. Mike and Bill had obviously come to an arrangement where Mike was able to give us scene 2 of Act one before proceeding into scene one. Clearly Bill had given Mike a few tips on the ways he did the plays when he first wrote them. However in a theatre built not long after the end of the nineteenth century a few adaptations needed to be made to the stage to meet the need of a twenty-first century audience’s demand for greater intimacy, an intimacy that Bill understood all too well. As a result we have a near re-creation of Shakespeare’s ’Wooden O’ with a large clear acting space stretching out towards the audience with galleries and steps behind to give additional impact to the presentation. Michael Bogdanov is a proven and consummate theatre expert. He will always have a very clear picture of what he wants to achieve with a production and, with his actors, will set out on an extremely rewarding and creative path to reach that goal. The central impetus that drives all his work is, of course, to have the maximum impact on his audience. This neutral grey scenic device cleverly devised by Sean Crowley and Ed Thomas skilfully serves each one of the productions, making it possible for us to experience this marathon of all three plays in the same day. Viola and her rescuer leave the stage, efficient stage staff quickly alter a few basic items of furniture, the smoke clears and we see the bedraggled decoration over the mantlepiece and a tattered Christmas tree in a corner. and we are at the Duke’s palace. Some smart piano music, from the easy fingers of Ray Llewellen, becomes “the food of love.” The love the duke seeks, we learn is in vain and the stage is cleared again for the entrance of the clowns. The sonorous Sir Toby Belch of John Labanowski, the very aguecheeked Sir Andrew played with great warm hearted simplicity and humour by Frank Vickery, the wonderfully melodious Feste of Bill Wallace dressed not in some highly colourful jester outfit but as you would expect of someone who scrapes a living begging pennies in exchange for japes and songs, however prettily he sings them (financial patronage of the arts in Tudor times being then, just as unenlightened as they are in Wales today). All capped in hilarity by the glorious Malvolio of Paul Greenwood. His crossed-gartered scene, being one of the great comic highlights of the whole day. In such great contrast to all this hullabaloo, in the dualogues between Heledd Baskerville, now male-garbed, as Viola and Nickie Rainsford’s Olivia we experience some of the most beautiful and sincere speaking of Shakespeare’s verse to be found on any stage today. In my recent experience of watching Shakespeare plays, I have found that so many directors neglect the verse, frightened that their productions will not be accessible to their audience; they add in modern songs in a ham-fisted manner and the actors speak as if they found their lines in a tabloid newspaper, creating a totally negative experience. The mastery of verse speaking is a hallmark of all three of these Bogdanov productions. Bill knew that he needed something more than asceticism and beauty to satisfy his groundlings; he seems to be familiar with the work of Ayckbourn and Stoppard and the TV script-writers of Midsomer Murders, setting up complex comic traps and flagging up moments of oncoming delight, with rings and things, for us to anticipate. But both he and Bogdanov return to dignity and drama with the concluding plays. As the on screen newsreader tells us, regime-change is no new thing and we are told of the Roman army’s Dubya-type preparations to overthrow the British King, Cymbeline, driving home the thought that we humans have learned practically nothing in the last two thousand years. A strong and beautifully compelling performance from Lisa Zahra as Imogen, great assurance from John Labanowski, warmth and wisdom from Paul Greenwood’s Belarius, in fact, highly intelligent and extremely realistic performances from all the cast compel the painful story of this, sometimes considered, difficult play, with the utmost clarity and great human understanding. More than immensely satisfied with our aperitif and main course our stamina is now rewarded with an entrancing desert by The Merchant of Venice. We are now able to appreciate the full magic of Paul Greenwood’s acting as he follows his outrageous Malvolio and his tough giant Belarius with this most dignified and moving Antonio. In fact it was a joy to see, over the three plays, such versatile playing from all the members of this great ensemble company. There’s also a second, contrasting double act from Heledd Baskerville and Nickie Rainsford playing Portia and Nerrisa with a wicked and conspiratorial twinkle in their eyes. Philip Madoc’s strong Shylock joins the company and embraces the wonderful ensemble zeitgeist of this newest Wales Theatre Company, with its strong contingent of some of the best actors in Wales today. There was an eruption of appreciation from the audience as Michael Bogdanov presented his whole company to us at the end of this sumptuous artistic feast. The Bogdanov flourish was not only confined to the stage, our twelve hour assignment of play watching was rewarded with a robust supper – and speeches from ‘dignitaries’. The Mayor of Swansea, the Leader of Cardiff Council, the Chief Executive of the Arts Council of Wales all acknowledged the excellence of the company’s achievements but offered little, if any, reward. And my heart sunk – Over thirty years ago I was part of a similar ceremony when the Welsh Drama Company presented the first major play “The Government Inspector” at the opening of The Sherman Theatre. That company’s praises were sung and the hopes that it would be touring great plays throughout Wales for many years to come were commended. It folded within three years! Similar attempts to follow this pattern, such as Theatr Yr Ymylon, Theatre Wales, lasted for even shorter times. If we let this one get away then we in Wales are a nation of philistines! Welsh people have only reluctantly embraced devolution. It is the job of the Welsh Assembly Government to nourish us spiritually as well as economically, indeed to do one without the other would annihilate us as a people. We have always been reluctant to embrace the arts, the art of theatre more than any other. This self-consciousness is probably our greatest national weakness, one that is still holding us back from playing our fullest part, as a significant nation in Europe and in the world. The adoption of The Wales Theatre Company as a part of our national fabric would be a clear step towards Wales acquiring an International urbanity that it so desperately needs. The report of The Arts Council of Wales, drawn up by Peter Boyden, now before the Welsh Assembly for consideration identifies a lack of a proper infrastructure for theatre to flourish at an International, or even National level in Wales. We are continually reminded of the failure in the infrastructure of our physical health service in Wales at the present time. At the core of both these needs is money. In both areas money and our humanity are inexorably entwined. To fulfil the needs of a fully-fledged theatre movement in Wales would probably need the doubling or even the trebling of the money at present available. One big step forward would be to find permanent funding for this new, exciting Wales Theatre Company. |
Reviewed by: Michael Kelligan |
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