The Royal Shakespeare Company
Director: Tim Carroll
Carroll’s rather lacklustre production of this, one of Shakespeare’s most problematic comedies, was a hodge-podge of conflicting ideas. What could have been interesting conceptual decisions lacked the courage of their own convictions, and the few very strong moments were lost in the midst of mediocrity.
This was Shakespeare without the drama, without the passion, without the pain, and cartainly without the suspense. There has been a tendancy with the RSC over the last few years to perform Shakespeare’s plays in such a way that the characters always seem to know what is coming next, and this was one of the worst culprits I have seen. This was the kind of Shakespeare that puts people off Shakespeare.
Carroll appears to have tried to combat his production’s lack of energy with ‘West Wing’ style talking-while-walking. While in the West Wing this lends importance to what’s being said unfortunately in this production it just meant many lines were inaudible and fluffed. The cast were generally dull, but Amara Karan’s Jessica was particularly insipid. She had one expression (deer-in-headlights) and portrayed no emotional turmoil at leaving her father’s house or eloping. None of the rest of the cast were actually bad, but there was no-one who drew the eye or commanded the open and empty stage of the Courtyard Theatre.
This production began with an exuberant jig dance-sequence, which was repeated at the end. While some of the cast were clearly more at home dancing than others, this was a successful visual piece, and when reiterated at the end demonstrated how well this cast could do physical storytelling. All of the relationships were explained within the changing of partners and movement, it was just a pity that this neat choreogeaphy did not translate into the rest of the play.
Carroll had made some interesting conceptual decisions, but they did not seem to bear any relation to the sense of the play. This meant that they ended up seeming gimicky and did not enhance the production. During the casket scenes, Portia was stood in a kind of cave at the back of the stage, dressed in white with a head-to-toe veil covering her. She was portrayed as some kind of ice-queen, the caskets themselves were made of ice and their keys were icicles. Portia was surrounded by stalactite icicles, which were visually interesting but leant nothing to the performance. It felt as though Carroll had lost the energy and tension of this scene and was relying on spectacle over substance to bring it back.
Musically, the casket scenes – and, indeed, all the scenes – were excellent, although I would again question Carroll’s use of the visual to compensate for the lack of tension: the atonal and atmospheric music really enhanced the scene, with the sound of resonating wine-glasses making the choice take on huge significance. But, the fact that you could see the wineglasses being used meant it had less impact, with the disembodied hands of the musicians serving only to distract attention. However, the wine glasses were later used to great visual effect, the sparkling arc of elevated glasses each consecutively filled with blood in an eerie forshadowing of Shylock’s exaction of his bond.
All of the interesting ideas in this production were visual. The drama of the court scene was mostly wasted by a rather butch but underwhelming Portia/Bellario, but the tall Shylock straddling an Antonio (James Garnon) who was held in a cruciform shape was a truly arresting image. But again, Carroll did not push it, and givne that he spent the rest of play playing down Shylock’s physical Jewishness (he was bare-headed and dressed in a plain suit) it was bizarre to suddenly try and find some tension by emphasising the sacrifical nature of Antonio as a scape-goat.
The fact that Shylock was not dressed in traditional Jewish costume was again an interesting visual idea – a not particularly subtle way of suggesting that actually there was little difference between Antonio and Skylock. However, once again Carroll did not take this idea anywhere; the other Jewish character, Tubal, was dressed in much more obviously Jewish clothes with a covered head. This made the decision to make Shylock look un-Jewish rather pointless.
This production felt as though Carroll had explicitly removed the Jewish element of the play but then not replaced it with anything apart from unjustified visual effects and pantomimic audience participation. Those of a nervous disposition should not sit in the first row of the stalls! It seems to me that if the laughs in a so-called ‘comedy’ (and I admit that that term is problematic with this play) are all coming from ad-libbing and insulting the audience then the play itself is bound to be neglected.
Shylock (Angus Wright) epitomised the problem with this production. He had the most stage presence of any of the cast, but still did not really stand out. Even when sharpening his knife on the sole of his shoe 6 inches from me he was still not intimidating, and neither did he have any pathos. Carroll had not made the essential directorial decision of how to play Shylock, so he was neither victim nor villain, just a rather dull take on such a complex character. The basic problem with this production was that it did not have the courage of its own convictions. Carroll had some interesting ideas but failed to push them far enough to make any kind of real statement, and a bland and unexcting cast failed to capitalise on what he did do.