At last some thoughts on theatre - not quite when I hoped and, in fact, a full week since I last posted. However, having revived sufficiently after several quiet days and some good nights' sleep, it seems only fitting finally to write about the shows I saw last week, since they were/are revivals themselves. The first, which I watched on Saturday 25th, is Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy's adaptation of the anonymous mediaeval morality play The Summoning of Everyman, in this incarnation simply titled Everyman. The second, which I saw on Tuesday 28th, is a period dress production of George Farquhar's early-eighteenth-century comedy The Beaux' Stratagem. These are two plays that have not been overly present in the public consciousness, much those who study them (like me!) might wish they were and despite the fact that previous casts have included the early brilliance of greats such as Maggie Smith (now Dame), so I was excited to find out how they'd been reimagined for a new generation of audiences. They're also at opposite ends of the spectrum of possibilities when it comes to revival, and they're in repertory in the same space, which (in my head, at least) makes them ripe for comparison.
I should start off by saying that I absolutely loved both - and by assuring you that this is not just an unconsidered blanket statement. I don't love everything I watch, and I'm very ready to be critical (in the academic sense of the word) but I have very eclectic (and sometimes apparently incompatible) tastes in theatre. These two pieces were hugely different which, to my mind, leaves me ample room to enjoy both - and to illustrate that I am perhaps a bundle of contradictions, equally enamoured with the 'old-fashioned' aesthetic of a play performed 'as its writer wrote it' (if that is ever truly plausible) as with a production which might be termed 'modern', 'postmodern' or even 'post-postmodern'.
Forgive me if that seems pretentious (particularly that last bit with all the inverted commas and jargon) but it brings me to the essence of my joint review. The principal dramatic and critical concern when it comes to revivals is (yet another buzzword for you) 'relevance'. Will a 'Restoration' comedy about an impecunious aristocratic dandy hunting for a convenient fortune (and wife) meet well with current sensibilities? How does one approach presenting a mediaeval man's struggle with God and Death (both capitalised to emphasise their personification) as important in today's largely secular society? These productions, in my opinion, provide ample answers to such questions, as is underscored by the repeated presence of phrases like 'fresh' and 'thought provoking' in reviews for them both. As is in keeping with their seemingly disparate styles, of course, they do so in vastly different ways - a few of which I'll explore below:
Where The Beaux' Stratagem exhibits its theatricality through casual asides to the audience, slapstick humour involving obvious disguises, and lively songs and dances, Everyman does the same through its inclusion of video montages, wind machines (!) physical theatre and a combination of mediaeval-inspired music on period instruments and more modern dance tunes like Donna Summer's 1977 disco hit 'I Feel Love'. Whilst these strategies may appear to be worlds apart, though, they actually have a similar goal, namely the creation of spectacle by way of the technology available during the eras they are attempting to capture - in these cases, the first decade of the eighteenth century and the second of the twenty-first, respectively.
Moreover, and aptly for productions that are sharing a stage for their runs, they achieve this spectacle in much the same manner - through their use of space. In Everyman, for instance, God (a woman, brilliantly played by Kate Duchenne!) opens the play by mopping the entire stage, as a trigger for her monologue about the divine duties of cleaning up after humans. Then, when Chiwetel Ejiofor enters as the titular character, he does so on wires from the flies, descending as if into a deep pit - an actual hole in the stage. Similarly, in The Beaux' Stratagem, the sense of constant change and deception (with nobody really sure who or where they are in life at any given point) is conveyed and maintained by the fact that much of the action takes place on the central staircase and its landings. Even the scene changes keep pace with this flurry of movement, in fact, because the difference between the coaching inn (where the titular duo, Aimwell and Archer, leave their horses 'ready saddled') and the big house (where they practise their guises on Dorinda and Mrs Sullen) is denoted only by the presence or absence of a seemingly flimsy wall.
The aura of simultaneous distance and immediacy evoked by this wall brings me to the linguistic elements of the two productions - because, as is only right in a properly put-together revival, one often finds oneself listening to the words of the characters and wondering exactly which era one is in. You might suppose that this would occur less frequently in Everyman, since it is an avowedly modern adaptation of the original text, and on a certain level this is true. The principal concern of Duffy's (brilliant) script, and consequently the 'reckoning' that drives the play, is the environmental impact of humanity. This is seemingly a striking addition to the ethical and moral dilemmas of the mediaeval protagonist (antagonist?) and its topicality is slyly conveyed through moments such as when God laments that the Earth has been 'fractured - fracked'. Nevertheless, even amidst all the plastic bags (and the wind machine that blasted them into the audience), I couldn't help but think of A Midsummer Night's Dream and its 'the seasons alter' speech. Of course, the monologue is there to emphasise the magical mechanics of the play, but its vocabulary is so specific and evocative that one wonders about the relationship of Shakespeare and his predecessors with the planet. (There are probably already essays upon essays upon articles on this subject already. I'm going to do some research. I'm a geek. I know.)
Potentially tenuous intertextual links in Everyman aside, all of The Beaux' Stratagem's fidelity to the bosoms and bustles of its original context served, in my mind, only to heighten its 'modern' (or, more accurately, subversive) nature. I say subversive because that's what it is, and was, however subtly. The combination of Mrs Sullen's lines, for instance 'Agh! Matrimony!'*, and the play's concluding suggestion that she might remarry following a divorce were both genuinely novel in the period. (As they still are today, indeed, to many people in many societies.) For me, though, the crucial connection between our time and Farquhar's arose in (the suitably nebulous space of) the epilogue, and through a single word - 'consent'. Its presence in the script obviously alludes to the mutual agreement on separation made by spouses but, when uttered by a (modern) actress in a (modern) auditorium it necessarily carries connotations of other (legal and non-legal) agreements that are vitally important in a society still imbued with, and entrenched in, rape culture.
So...those are my musings on two raucous and refreshing revivals, exceedingly different and yet somehow decidedly similar. Hopefully they'll both make us think - and I hope my own (long-overdue) thoughts have not bored you, at least.
*I haven't got my copy of the script in front of me, so that quotation is probably incorrectly transcribed.
