The lack of live theatre has opened the floodgates for world-class Shakespeare companies to stream recorded versions of their recent productions. I’ve watched many of them, glad to have a chance to see productions I would have otherwise never been able to enjoy. I thought I’d take the time to put down a few thoughts on each of the productions I have seen in the last three weeks. So here’s a passel of mini-reviews of the various shows.
One Man, Two Guvnors – presented by the UK’s National Theatre, it’s not Shakespeare, but it’s the first one that began the viewing buffet. Starring James Corden as the valet Francis Henshall, this 2011 production was a lot of fun. Corden went all out in his performance, and didn’t leave a comic stone unturned. The cast overall was terrific, with Suzanne Toase perhaps the most delightful as Dolly. Corden’s relationship and interaction with the audience (including a terrific bit with an audience plant) was really wonderful. The production never took itself too seriously, with 4th-wall breaks of all kinds. It was a lot of fun.
Treasure Island – this 2015 adaptation by the National Theatre was, again, not Shakespeare, but was enjoyable. The cast here was uniformly good, and the adaptation played well enough. It’s always hard to adapt a novel to the stage, and in this case Jim, as narrator, played by a female but always referred to as male, did a fair job. Long John Silver was played by Arthur Davill of Doctor Who fame, and he succeeded admirably. His scene with Jim Hawkins as he teaches him how to navigate by the stars was well done. The set was magnificent.
Twelfth Night – another National Theatre production from 2017. Not the best. Tamsin Grieg’s version of Malvolia was billed as the highlight, and she was good in spots, but the production itself was uneven in the acting. The concept was, I would say, “jetset fashion,” but it wore out its welcome fairly quickly. The Olivia (Phoebe Fox) and Viola (Tamara Lawrance) had little chemistry. Viola in particular was very weak; energetic but not particularly attuned to the character’s reality. Her attraction to Orsino was not believable in the least, and she actually seemed to shy away from that reality, giving it merely a cursory approach. The romantic language on all sides was not a strength, as the show seemed to want to rely more on its hip concept than the actual predicaments of the characters. More weak performances came from Toby and Andrew, Feste and Fabian. Only Nicky Wardly as Maria stood out to me as having any sense of purpose or motivation. The National is a place that can awe you with its technical prowess, but I think that can also have a tendency to subsume the actual play.
King Lear – If you want to watch and listen to your Shakespeare straightforward and with little adornment, the Stratford Festival in Canada is the place to go. It’s about a 5-hour drive from where I live, so I’ve been there a few time. It’s a culture-vulture’s paradise, overrun with well-educated, white, upper-middle-class and above people who want their fix of high-class theatre. Stratford delivers. The entire festival and town of Stratford Ontario is awash with this clientele, and caters to its tastes in all regards. To its credit, many of the actors have been with the company for 20+ years, and make it their entire career. Others come and go. There is a very notable Stratford style, and in some respects it’s laudable. This King Lear was right in that style: beautifully costumed, impeccably spoken, emotionally dry. Stratford’s productions impress you but don’t move you. When you leave a Stratford production, you know you’ve seen a production with world-class production values, you feel intellectually satisfied, but you don’t feel emotionally moved. Colm Feore is one of Stratford’s stable of long-time ensemble actors, and his Lear is traditional and right in the style. He speaks well, he doters about as necessary, but he never really delivers an emotional blow; you never feel for him. It’s satisfying intellectually because you can appreciate the text, but it leaves you emotionally neutral. The rest of the cast is much the same – well-spoken but somehow less than human.
Coriolanus – While this show was a 2018 Stratford production, it is decidedly NOT in the Stratford style, and we can all be thankful for that. This is the stand-out production so far, and if I had to recommend you watch only one of these productions, this is the one. The reason is because it is a Robert LePage production, and Mr. LePage is one of the most innovative directors working anywhere in the world. He made his reputation with stunning use of multimedia, and in this show he puts his multimedia talents to exquisite use. It’s visually stunning. He combines projections with multi-screen monitors and creates a world that feels modern in its use of cellphones and technology, and yet ancient with its use of backdrops featuring Roman ruins. There is even a very wry and comic scene where two soldiers on guard duty at separate posts deliver their lines via WhatsUp chat, complete with emojis. And to make the production completely stunning, the acting is superb, charged with emotion. The actors here, led by Andre Sills as Coriolanus and Lucy Peacock as Volumnia, speak the text not only superbly, but with emotional charge and power. This is the kind of Shakespearian acting I really enjoy, where the text and its emotional power are so well blended that one is not overwhelmed by the other; each gets its due. This is an outstanding production, one I wish I could have seen live.
Romeo and Juliet – This is a 2009 production at The Globe Theatre in London. I’ve been to the Globe twice, but only in winter, so I’ve never seen a show there. I did see a production in their smaller indoor theatre, a puppet-based show which was adorable. This particular R&J was mediocre. The Globe of course has as its mission the attempt to re-create the conditions of Shakespeare’s Globe, so almost everything about the show follows so-called “original practices.” The technical aspects are all “hand-made,” music is live, shows are in daylight, there is little scenery beyond the stage itself. Costumes are the key scenic element. The focus is on the text. This production was, for me, uneven in that regard. The Romeo (Tomiwa Edun) was pretty bad. He seemed to fly, skip and dance about the stage for no particular reason, and his voice had this cry to it that felt like a constant – and unneeded – vibrato. Ella Kendrick as Juliet was very good. Her eyes and face registered a wonderful innocence, but when power and resolve were called for, she had it at the ready. She also had a superb mix of emotion and textual clarity, never letting her emotions overtake the text. But there was no sexual chemistry between the two, no real desire. It was a mismatch. Philip Cumbus as Mercutio was – well, in truth, I don’t really know quite what he was trying to do with the character. My best guess was that he wanted him to seem as some sort of tortured soul, but I think it was just tortured acting. Ian Redford as Capulet had some nice moments. I enjoyed watching Ms. Kendrick’s performance, but not much else. But they did perform the musician’s scene that takes place immediately after Juliet is discovered dead and led to the tomb. I’ve never seen it done, and in some sense seeing it performed gave me a different slant on it. But I’d probably still cut it.
Anthony and Cleopatra – The National probably billed this as a star-studded 2018 production featuring two of England’s finest actors – Ralph Fiennes as Mark Anthony and Sophie Okonedo as Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile. I am sure everyone else thought this was a magnificent, triumphant production. I thought it was overwrought. To be sure, Mr. Fiennes and and Ms. Okonedo are two pretty good actors, but in this production I just think they tried too hard to be “great.” I think what they both do not capture are the adolescent elements of the relationship. Mr. Fiennes never seems like the infatuated boy in love with the captain of the cheerleading squad, and Ms. Okonedo never seems like the infatuated girl in love with the captain of the football team. I’ve always seen A&C as a story of two past-their-prime lovers trying to re-capture the zest and power of their youth, and I miss that here. Ms. Okonedo projects power (her greatest strength as an actor; she is riveting in The Hollow Crown as Margaret) but little vulnerability. Mr. Fiennes also projects power but little sense of a man diminished and vulnerable. In fairness there are glimpses, moments of these elements, but they are never quite brought to fruition, and especially not well utilized in their scenes together. Tim McMullan was as unsatisfying as Enobarbus as he was as Toby Belch in Twelfth Night. His performance seems completely isolated from the show he’s actually in. Tunji Kasim is turgid as Octavius Caesar. The concept is modern, the set refined and not overwhelming. The rest of the cast is workmanlike and effective.
The Two Noble Kinsman – another Globe production from 2018. I had never read the play, so I went into this completely cold. It’s a bad and puzzling play. It’s called a “tragicomedy,” and it took awhile to decide how to read the production’s intent. I think they did all right with it, gleaning the comedy out of it and mixing it with some drama and outright zaniness. The most unique feature of the play was that the Jailer’s Daughter was played by a little person (Francesca Mills). She was incredibly energetic, spoke the text superbly, and gave it her all. I think, though, that the choice to make her more of a clown character than a dramatic character missed the mark. If they had made the choice to make her character completely sincere – more like Ophelia in Hamlet – the could have added yet a third dimension to the production. A missed opportunity. Worth seeing only because you may never get a chance to see a staged production ever again.
MacBeth – a 2017 Stratford production in the Stratford style. Ian Lake and Krystin Pellerin take on the title roles. They are satisfactory in the Stratford manner. They try to incorporate a little sex and lust into their roles, and they manage a modicum of success with that, given that they are both attractive people, but it doesn’t amount to much in the end. Mr. Lake misses the struggle of MacBeth to make a decision between good and evil, but he does a little better once MacBeth goes all in. He also misses the internal sense of regret and inevitability in the character’s later speeches, particularly the “tomorrow” speech, which falls terribly flat. Ms. Pellerin does a fine no-nonsense sleepwalking scene. Scott Wentworth, a Stratford regular, acquits himself well as Banquo (as he did as Gloucester in King Lear). The Stratford Festival manages some remarkable technical work in the Festival Theatre, considering the age of the building and the lack of modern technology.
That’s it for now. There are a number of productions coming up that I’ll be seeing, so expect another condensed review post in the near future.