KING JOHN aka the Shakespeare megamix

There are a handful of Shakespeare plays I have yet to see - be it on stage, film or television.  And thanks to The Globe Theatre, there is now one less.

I had minimal knowledge of KING JOHN, I had read a synopsis of it a few years back and it sounded a bit of a hodge-podge and to be honest, I didn't expect to see it anytime soon.  But here we are, celebrating 800 years since the detested King John was made to sign the Magna Carta document by his rebellious barons and thanks to a co-production with Nottingham's Royal & Derngate Theatre, I can now finally say I have seen it!

It is even better to be able to say that James Dacre's production was hugely entertaining.  I am sure part of that was due to me discovering the play as I watched it but it is also down to some committed performances and Dacre's direction which swept through the play like a dose of salts.

It's rarely performed which is strange as there are a couple of cracking lead roles and a few excellent speeches.  Afterwards I wondered if the performers felt more able to barnstorm their roles because there is no accumulated 'baggage' attached to them? I certainly didn't have any previous memories of any of the roles so could enjoy them fresh.

It is considered to have been his 15th play, probably nestling between A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM and THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.  At times it almost felt like Shakespeare was doing his own megamix as he populated his play with a villainous King, an ambitious Queen, an out-for-himself bastard son who delights in his mischief, a sorrowing but vengeful mother, a courtier-turned-assassin - all characters who would turn up in other plays of his.

The oddest thing about the play is the abrupt ending - suddenly King John is dying, poisoned by a disgruntled monk.  I mean Will lad, what were you thinking?!  The really intriguing thing is that during King John's dying speech, he makes a passing reference to his troublesome lords being appeased - so probably the only thing that King John is remembered for nowadays is brushed aside!

As I said, the actors jumped feet first into their roles with no great actor's shadows to hide from.  Jo Stone-Fewings was a lip-smackingly nasty King John, relishing in his badness like a panto villain.  Alex Waldmann was a revelation as The Bastard, the illegitimate son of Richard The Lion Heart who starts the play as a cynical sod sharing his delight in his actions with the audience but by the end he has changed to a passionate fighter and ends with the rueful observation that England will not be undone by outside forces but from within:

This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,
But when it first did help to wound itself.

Duking it out as the fighting regal mothers were Barbara Marten as Eleanor of Aquitaine and Tanya Moodie as Lady Constance.  Both has their opportunities to shine - Marten also played The Bastard's unapologetic mother - but Moodie was excellent as the disdainful Constance, fighting for her son's right to rule.  Her final scene where she mourns for her captured son was very powerful, it's a shame that her character doesn't appear again after that.

Also rising to the challenge were Giles Terera in the double role of Pembroke and Austria, Mark Meadows as the apologetic assassin Hubert, Joseph Marcell as the duplicitous Papal emissary and Laurence Belcher as the innocent Prince Arthur.

With Jonathan Fensom's fluttery Plantagenet designs and Orlando Gough's evocative score, this was a real surprise and another success for the Globe's Justice & Mercy season.  By the way, if you think the photographs are showing off the Globe stage as particularly Gothic it's because they were taken during the production's pre-Globe mini-tour of churches and cathedrals.

Coming out of the Globe Theatre and walking along the Thames chattering away about a Shakespeare play I had never seen before, I felt a sudden kinship with my fellow audience members who had done the same thing 419 years before.

A Shaw thing: WIDOWERS' HOUSES, Orange Tree Theatre

Well last week was a novel experience - I went to a theatre I had never visited before!  Yes, Constant Reader, believe.

I have wanted to visit the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond for a while as they have a policy of staging little-seen and neglected plays but had hitherto put it off.  The news that they were staging George Bernard Shaw's 1892 play WIDOWERS' HOUSES was the spur to finally go.

 

My default setting for Shaw is "Oh my lord all those WORDS" but on reflection I find that more often than not I have enjoyed what I have seen.  Of his many plays I have seen MRS WARREN'S PROFESSION, HEARTBREAK HOUSE, PYGMALION and SAINT JOAN in the theatre, as well as having seen CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA, MAJOR BARBARA, PYGMALION, SAINT JOAN and THE MILLIONAIRESS on film and television.  Yes that hectoring tone is always lurking in the background somewhere but I have enjoyed the plays seen.

WIDOWERS' HOUSES actually plays like a fast-paced drawing-room comedy but with lurking shadows among the teacups.  Shaw was 36 when it was staged at the Royalty Theatre in 1892 and it proved to be his first major success.  However it is not seen as regularly as some of his other works, I had only heard of one production before in 1970 at the Royal Court with Nicola Pagett, Frank Middlemass, Anthony Newlands, Robin Ellis and a young Penelope Wilton.  Mind you, it has only been staged on Broadway once - and that was in 1907!

Shaw sets up the play as a romantic comedy but then pulls the rug under our expectations.  Idealistic Dr. Trench is holidaying in Germany with his affected friend Cokane and has fallen for one of their fellow travellers Blanche Sartorius but although she is more than happy to reciprocate his feelings, Trench has to win over her stern widowed father, a secretive self-made man.

Back in London, Trench discovers that Sartorius has made his fortune from being a slum landlord, squeezing extortionate rates from tenants in poorly-maintained flats in deprived areas.  Sartorius even dismisses his unctuous rent-collector Mr Lickcheese for sympathising with his tenants' well-being.  Trench's shock is compounded when Sartorius reveals that the doctor's income is drawn from interest accrued from a mortgage on one of Sartorius' buildings!  Trench is further disenchanted when Blanche refuses to live without her father's 'tainted' money that has kept her in the style she has come accustomed to and they call their engagement off.

Four months later Sartorius is visited by a newly wealthy Lickcheese, grown rich by investing in a dodgy property company that renovates tenements to hopefully sell on or knock down for municipal building projects.  Sartorius' buildings - the Widowers' Houses of the title - are of interest to the company and Lickcheese hopes to persuade his former employer to join in the scheme so they can all get rich quick - including a certain doctor who has a mortgage on one of the houses.

Will Trench remain unsullied by the nefarious property deal or will he ditch his principals for a piece of the action and the chance to reconcile with Blanche?  It all leads to a surprisingly modern ending.

As I said, I was quite surprised how much I enjoyed the sharply defined characters and the swift pace.  The small in-the-round Orange Tree auditorium suited the piece well, giving the action an intimate immediacy.  

Simon Daw's design idea of having the playing area surrounded by a frieze of Charles Booth's 'poverty' map of central London helped to visualise the play's themes as these iconic maps were published around the time that Shaw wrote the play.

The Orange Tree's new Artistic Director Paul Miller's direction brought out Shaw's moments of comedy and drama in equal measure and he elicited strong performances from Patrick Drury as the commanding Sartorius, Alex Waldmann as the baffled Trench, Stefan Adegbola as the preeningly pretentious Cokane and it was a delight to see Rebecca Collingwood as the opinionated and 'modern' Blanche.  

We saw her last year in GRAND HOTEL, her final year production at the Guildhall Drama School, where she was an eye-catching and vivacious Flaemmchen so it was a thrill to see her again at the Orange Tree making her professional stage debut. Simon Gregor certainly made a splash as the oily Lickcheese - another of Shaw's working-class characters who refuse to know their place - but the Dickensian caricature he gave us was sometimes at odds with the more restrained performances around him.

As I have said, I was surprised how much I enjoyed WIDOWERS' HOUSES and hope to visit the Orange Tree again - even if the 'age specific' sold-out audience made it's small bar/foyer and narrow staircases a bit of a logistical log-jam.