Theatre 2017: Review Eight - The White Devil

The White Devil, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare's Globe, London. February 2017.

The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse really is the perfect place to see these wonderful Jacobean revenge tragedies. The eerie lighting really does let the evil of the plots shine through.

The White Devil was wonderfully nasty (in the best way) within this setting. The playhouse was dimly lit at the start and at first it was hard to work out who all of the characters were but as more candles were lit it became clearer to work out who was who and then the absurdity and evil really shone through, and as the play drew to a close the candles were put out and the room grew darker as the madness drew to a close. I don't think that the candles have been used to greater effect in anything I've seen in this location.

Vittoria is unhappily married - her family arranged this to save their own reputation and finances - and pursued by Bracciano who seems to love her despite being married himself.  We also have a scheming brother who will do anything, including pimp his sister, to advance his position, a disgraced Duke who will do anything to get back into the good books and then there's the corrupt cardinal and his lackey.

It is a revenge tragedy so no spoiler to say that by the end of the play the stage is littered with corpses - all of whom the audience doesn't really grieve over. And some of the deaths are wonderfully staged and incredibly amusing to watch. At the start I was concerned that the darkness of the plot wouldn't emerge as there seemed to be much overplaying of the crude humour but, like the lighting, this all just helped to show the true nature of the characters.

Since coming out of the Playhouse I've been discussing the play on and off with Rebecca and the Upstart Wren and like the best things I am liking it more and more.  As I said there are no characters that you admire wholeheartedly but unlike so many plays from this era I find Vittoria to be a believable and strong female lead. She is manipulated and used by all around her and yet throughout this production she remains strong and dignified, her crime is to fall in love with a man who is not her husband and then be caught up entirely in the wider politics of the time.

Unlike Rebecca I didn't dislike Bracciano completely, he is an out and out cad but he is also being manipulated by forces that he doesn't quite appreciate. His fickleness was played superbly and in the end he did seem to love Vittoria, however short their union was!

The true villain for me was Flamenio who had no care for anyone and would do anything to get what he wanted, the way he was played on stage actually made my skin crawl slightly.

On reading the programme on the train home I've learned that this production has cut text from the original and reassigned lines so I am now off to read Webster's original and see how it compares...

Theatre 2017 - Review One: All the Angels

All the Angels, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare's Globe, London. January 2017.

Wow - what a way to start theatre trips in 2017! This play had appealed to me from the instant I saw it in the Globe's brochure a while back, and I was sad that I couldn't get to those first performances. When it was announced that it was coming back for the winter 2016/17 season I knew I had to go.  I'm not sure Rebecca knew what she was agreeing to but she gamely took on board my enthusiasm and we booked seats.

How to explain this...it is the story of Handel writing and staging the first performances of the Messiah but it isn't a performance of the oratorio, nor is it a straight play about the writing process.  It travels from Chester to Dublin and is about redemption and the power of music. It is also a masterclass in singing and composing.  It was also utterly spellbinding and overwhelmingly powerful.

I've loved (the famous bits of) the Messiah for a long time and the power of the music was made clear to me when we heard excerpts performed at the Royal Albert Hall as part of their candlelit Christmas festival a few years ago.  Hearing the evolution of the music in the candlelit Sam Wanamaker was magical. The voices filled the space wonderfully and being both an intimate but still quite large space it was wonderful to feel the music filling the space.

The two subplots, one imagined and one real, did bind the music together and being interested in Shakespeare and performance history I really enjoyed Susannah Cibber's story while the Crow's provided a valve from the heightened emotion of the Messiah.

The use of the singers as almost actors was inspired too - they personified the power of music in a very clever way whilst being consummate professionals. Kudos to them all as they had to perform singing badly too which must have almost been harder than Handel's original.

I think that you can tell I loved this piece of theatre,  I could quite easily have sat through it again that day despite the discomfort of the seats. If this doesn't make my top 10 plays of 2017 then this year is going to be really brilliant in terms of theatre.

Now if someone can recommend a really good recording of the Messiah for me to listen to I'd be most grateful

Theatre 2016: Review Eleven

The Winter's Tale, Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakesepeare's Globe, London. March 2016.

After last autumn's less than brilliant trip to see the Brannagh version of this play I approached this trip with trepidation.  Brannagh and Dench are such respected actors and they were performing Shakespeare - perhaps I didn't like the play rather than the production, perhaps it wasn't as bad a we recalled it being...

Nope - The Winter's Take is a fascinating play and I am glad that I gave it another chance.

I know that having seats this time that allowed me to see nearly everything (no seat at the Globe has 100% visibility due to the architecture) was always going to improve the experience but this production was cohesive from start to finish, the actions of all the characters hung together properly. It is still a preposterous, confused plot but acted and directed well you can at least follow the story and see how daft it is.

The house style at the Globe made the jump from court to pastoral more natural and the costumes and setting were consistent, what was tedious at the Garrick became interactive here and also elements from this start to the second half continued all the way through to the denouement making for a much more balanced and consistent production. As ever at the Globe the comedy was played up but this helped The Winter's Tale and added to production far more than playing it straight had done (well for  me anyhow).

The use of the candle light was clever here too, and it made the infamous "exit pursued by a bear" part truly creepy, the Playhouse is very dark when all of the candles are extinguished.

The play wasn't without flaws, the first half was at times a little 'shouty' and on more than one  occasion actors fell over their lines audibly but on the whole this was a great afternoon at the theatre and proved to Rebecca and I that currently no one does Shakespeare better than the Globe.  I'm glad that I have two more productions still to see from this Winter Season.