Gabriel - Globe Theatre

Set of Gabriel

This afternoon found me once more at Shakespeare's Globe, to see the final performance of Gabriel, starring trumpeter Alison Balsom. Again, I didn't know anything about this production other than that it was set in seventeenth century England and would feature a reasonable amount of Baroque trumpet music. It's fun going to a production knowing very little about it beforehand.

Set in 1690s London, Gabriel turned out to be a series of vignettes featuring a variety of characters covering the spectrum of society  - Queen Mary II and her sickly nephew, the Duke of Gloucester, coarse watermen, musicians, a theatre director, a tapster...What these scenes had in common was that they all referred to the trumpet in some way. One of the themes of the play was the idea of people who felt voiceless being able to give expression to their thoughts and feelings through a musical instrument (namely the trumpet). Each scene was followed by music by Purcell or Handel.

Did I enjoy it? The first half felt very promising to me; the first fifteen minutes in particular were funny and exuberant and exciting. The costumes looked authentic and I couldn't fault the music and singing. However. There was a lot of bawdy and lavatorial humour, which I generally find funny in small doses, but in this production it was too much. It felt gratuitous. It seemed as though the writer was trying to compensate for the seriousness and grandeur of the music by making the non-music speaking bits as light, frivolous and farcical as possible. There was a big contrast between the music and the spoken vignettes, which featured flatulence (this scene I actually found pretty funny), full-frontal male nudity (more than once) and simulated oral sex.

I thought the second half dragged, but I enjoyed the scene with Queen Mary II (Charlotte Mills) and William, the Duke of Gloucester (Joshua James), which was amusing and poignant. The starling given to William by the Queen as a pet was well done and enjoyable to watch - it was a model bird manipulated by an actor. There were lots of little touches that added favourably to the atmosphere of the piece, such as the wooden boards representing London landmarks that were held up while a boatful of musicians was being punted down the Thames, to represent the movement of the boat. I also liked the parody of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

I suppose vignettes are almost inevitably unsatisfying as it's hard to give the characters much depth or show development. At the end Dominic Dromgoole, Artistic Director at the Globe, came on to give a little history of the show, and because of it being the final performance, the cast members threw roses into the audience. Finis.

Next: Blue Stockings 

The Cripple of Inishmaan - Noël Coward Theatre

I'd be lying if I claimed that my desire to see this play had nothing to do with the fact that Daniel Radcliffe was in it. I knew next to nothing about The Cripple of Inishmaan before going - other than that it starred Daniel Radcliffe - and was a dark comedy set in Ireland.

It took me a while to get into it as I didn't find it particular funny at first ('Has the egg-man been?' 'He has but he had no eggs.' Sorry, I still don't find it funny). But I was drawn into the story as more characters appeared  - my favourite scenes were those featuring violent, potty-mouthed Helen (Sarah Greene) and her long-suffering brother Bartley (Conor MacNeill) - and one learned more about life on the desolate island of Inishmaan and the mystery surrounding the deaths of Billy's parents.

Yes, Daniel Radcliffe was playing an orphan for the nth time. I thought he was very good as 'Cripple Billy', an intelligent, sensitive young man who was sick of being continually mocked for his physical infirmities; his understated performance certainly evoked my sympathy. I thought his speech was slightly less distinct than that of the other actors, though. I sometimes missed bits of his lines.

I liked the sets. I much prefer detailed sets over minimalist ones. Much of the action took place in the shop belonging to Billy's 'pretend' aunts, which included shelves stocked with produce (mainly tins of peas).

I think I preferred the second half of the play. There were a surprising number of twists and turns plot-wise as many of the characters told lies, sometimes for their own benefit, and sometimes in an attempt to spare others from pain. In the second half especially, the mood kept lurching from hope to despair and back again. Dark, cruel humour isn't usually my thing, but I did find this play funny, probably because it clearly had soul, too. It wasn't cynical; it was very touching. Finally discovering the truth about the demise of Billy's parents - or at least, what appeared to be the truth - was shocking and moving.

Next: Gabriel

Henry VI - Globe Theatre

Harry the Sixth 

Last weekend (27 July) I went with a friend to see Henry VI Parts 1, 2 and 3 as a groundling (i.e. standing in the yard) at Shakespeare's Globe. Physically it was easier than we'd expected - easier, actually, than standing for Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 in 2010. We wondered whether they'd abridged the plays significantly in order to fit them all in on one day. I hope not.

Anyway, Play 1, Henry VI Part 1, Harry the Sixth. It was a lot better than I'd expected. I went knowing nothing about the play itself and only a little about the historical figure of Henry VI. Since the three plays were among Shakespeare's first, I had been concerned that they wouldn't be up to his usual standard and - dare I say the b-word - boring. But no, I was very impressed. Henry VI (Graham Butler) was portrayed well as a very pious, naive person who was aware of his ineptitude as King, but who wasn't made into a caricature or a figure of fun. He was a complex character.

Given his small role in the first play I thought it worked very well that Henry VI was visible pretty much all the time - even in scenes where he had nothing to say - sitting reading on the scaffolding 'throne' in the background, and reacting with fear at certain points. One had a reasonable insight into his character before he spoke his first lines.

Joan of Arc (Beatriz Romilly) was amazing. I loved the scenes in which she performed some very skillful sword-fighting with various men - and won. I spent much of the first half thinking how incredibly progressive Shakespeare must have been to have created this strong female character, to whom he had given some of the best lines, and through whom he was clearly making a point about how women who break the patriarchal mold have, in the past, been assumed to have derived their powers from some demonic source. Until she did actually turn out to be a witch, summoning evil spirits to help her. I was more than a little disappointed. Why did you have to do that, Shakespeare?

The Houses of York and Lancaster

Play 2, The Houses of York and Lancaster, Henry VI Part 2. We didn't get as good leaning positions for this one. We were right on the edge of the stage. OK, this was the one where the Duchess of Gloucester (Beatriz Romilly) was shamed after helping to perform some kind of dark magic to see into the future. That was one of the major storylines. The other was Jack Cade (Roger Evans), a commoner who wanted to be King. There was a song about Jack Cade in the second half, which was good. The use of the scaffolding to make percussive music was clever and evocative. I liked the Jack Cade song. It was my favourite part of this play. I was kind of hoping he would become King.

The True Tragedy of the Duke of York

Play 3, The True Tragedy of the Duke of York, Henry VI Part 3. This was another very good one; I preferred it to the second play but didn't enjoy it as much as the first. The first half was extremely dark, involving a prolonged scene showing the psychological and physical torture of the Duke of York (Brendan O'Hea) at the hands of an almost pure evil Queen Margaret (Mary Doherty). It was uncomfortable to watch and made darker and more tense by the fact that it was performed during a thunderstorm (we were protected from the rain by the edge of the Globe roof, so could enjoy the dramatic effects of the storm without being personally affected by it - queuing for a ridiculous amount of time does pay off!). In the second half there was some light relief in the form of Lady Bona, played by a man (David Hartley), and a very camp King Louis XI of France (Brendan O'Hea), who stormed about the stage bashing all the musical instruments (drums, cymbals etc.) when he didn't get his way. Richard, Duke of Gloucester (Simon Harrison), later to become Richard III, played a big part in the second half of this play, killing poor Henry VI.

The final play was followed by a good, energetic jig. The preceding two plays had not contained jigs, so I was glad that the one at the end of the third play was of an admirable quality. When we left the Globe we were soaked to the underwear within approximately twenty seconds.

Next: The Cripple of Inishmaan