Theatre feast

We’ve been having a very busy time theatre going. We’ve seen five plays in less than two weeks. It’s been brilliant.

Last week, we went to Stratford to see The Witch of Edmonton and The White Devil. They aren’t Shakespeare, of course; The White Devil is written by Webster, and The Witch of Edmonton is written by a consortium of Ford, Dekker and Rowley.

The eponymous witch is played by Dame Eileen Atkins. She is a shrewd, lonely, somewhat embittered individual, and has quite daring speeches to make, which are withering to the men who run things. The interplay between her and her familiar, a black dog, athletically played by an actor equipped with a flexible skeletal tail, was excellent. The subplot was also very well played, particularly when the murder victim’s sister realises her brother in law was the murderer. I was on the edge of my seat then. The writers were pretty ambiguous about the existence of witchcraft and magic, and surprisingly on the side of the women – the sensibility was more modern that I expected, I think.  

The same was true of The White Devil. In that play, women were used by men. They are not better than the men, but they are made to take the responsibility which the men can avoid. Of course the director may bring out this, because it chimes with modern ideas, but they can’t put in something that isn’t there to start with.

It was quite gruesome. It ended with three women murdered on stage – remember we are in the front row – and then one of the murderers cut his own throat. By this time, I was so involved that I clapped my hands over my eyes. I bet the actor found that satisfying, if he happened to notice.

The next day, we went to see Arcadia at the Nottingham Playhouse. We used to have a bit of a thing about Stoppard, but Arcadia came out during the long gap in theatre going occasioned by children. So we were really looking forward to it, and it didn’t disappoint. The cast was mostly young, with a couple straight out of drama school, excellent, and Ilan Goodman,  the actor who had to explain chaos theory and the mathematics, did it very well indeed. Stoppard does make you work, though. But there’s plenty of emotion too.

This week, we’ve had another trip to Stratford, to see Love’s Labours Lost and Love’s Labours Won, as the RSC is calling Much Ado About Nothing. (They have historical justifications for this, if you’re interested.) Well, it was just superb. The plays have been set either side of the Great War – Lost, just before, so the idea of the lovers deciding to wait a year became terribly sad; and Won, just after, so the more mature and serious atmosphere made sense. The whole company were tremendous, although two such wordy plays must be exhausting – and the same company is doing a new play, The Christmas Truce.

The set and costumes were spectacularly good, and both plays were scored by Nigel Hess. The music was integral and wonderfully effective – marches, Ivor Novello type songs, and incidental music which scored the action superbly.

There was a Q & A with the cast after the second play, which we found enlightening. Most of the audience seemed to have seen both plays – only a small minority had only see Much Ado. So most of us had done the marathon – although, of course, it was the cast who had really done the work, the emotions generated take it out of the audience too!

If you can, go and see both plays. They are wonderful.

Seeing Love’s Labours Lost means we are now in search of only three plays, and then we have seen the whole accepted canon. We still need Cymbeline, Pericles and Henry VIII. They aren’t very often performed. But Greg Doran has promised to do all the plays during his tenure – so we just have to live long enough. And there are plenty of plays we’d like to see again, so we’ll be driving a groove to Stratford for as long as we can, I think.