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Vol. 18, No. 1, Winter 2000

Provocative Choices: London and Stratford in 1999

By Alan C. Dessen

Shakespeare directors and actors in summer 1999 provided many bold and sometimes controversial choices. At the Globe, Kathryn Bunter's fast-paced and very funny rendition of The Comedy of Errors used only two actors to play the two sets of twins, although at several points she did resort to a third and fourth actor (in Danny Scheie's delightful 1988 Shakespeare Santa Cruz production, without any additional personnel, one actor played both Antipholi and another played both Dromios, but Scheie omitted the final "hand in hand" exit). In Stratford-upon-Avon, Michael Boyd's highly inventive RSC production of A Midsummer Night's Dream was well received by reviewers, who relished the Freudian images and the movement from a repressed Athenian court to an anarchic release in the woods to a final integration when Bottom inveigled Hippolyta and, eventually, the entire ensemble to join in a dance. Two Shakespeare Roman tragedies at the Globe with all-male casts elicited much interest--and comparing the Globe Antony and Cleopatra and the rival version in Stratford became a popular indoor sport.

Mark Rylance's production of Julius Caesar at the Globe provided a mix of "authentic" items, distinctive choices, and 1990s reflexes. Given the limited female presence in the script, the all-male casting posed less of a problem than did the unusually heavy demands of doubling and tripling roles (only five of the many figures who appear up through 3.1 reappear thereafter). For example, the director retained Cassius' warning to Publius that the latter should depart lest Caesar's supporters "do your age some mischief" (3.1.93), though Publius was being played by the youngish actor who also played Lucius. In the final moments, Paul Shelley, who played Caesar, reappeared as Strato so as to bear the sword that kills Brutus (not an uncommon double), though any potential symbolic effect was not stressed. The actors wore Elizabethan rather than Roman costumes, a choice that had practical consequences. Thus, blood was visible in 3.2 on Caesar's body and mantle and in 4.3 on a very bloody ghost, but in 3.1 the post-assassination bathing in blood up to the elbows enjoined by Brutus did not take place owing to the long Elizabethan sleeves worn by the conspirators. The historical question then follows: was the toga as costume an enabling device for bloody Roman tragedies?

In moving this script to the Globe stage, Rylance had to solve many problems. In 3.1, to get from "the street" to "the Capitol" without leaving the stage, Caesar and others circled around the pillars, in a manner reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet where the masquers "march about the stage" (1.4.1 14) to move to Capulet's ball. While I found the rapid on- and offstage movements for the battle scenes effective, I was less happy about the thrusting out of items in 1990s fashion to establish a sense of place for the orchard in 2.1, the Capitol with Pompey's statue in 3.1, and the tent in 4.3 (the highly flexible rendition of the "house" in the Globe Comedy of Errors seemed more fluid). The acting area above was used not only for the two orations in 3.2 but also for much of 2.2, Caesar eventually descending to greet his visitors. As was true for all three 1999 Globe Shakespeare productions, heavy use was made of the yard. In particular, no crowd was onstage for the Forum scene, a choice I have often seen and one, I confess, that does not work for me (e.g., I miss the yo-yo effect when Antony says to the departing crowd "You have forgot the will I told you of"--3.2.238). One striking moment, however, was generated the afternoon I saw the show, for the tribunes' caustic comments to the crowd in 1.1 (e.g., "You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things!"--1.1.35) silenced not only the actors planted in the yard but also the volatile and potentially raucous groundlings, who initially seemed prepared to "cull out a holiday" (49). Is this scene designed to shame not one but two sets of auditors into attentiveness'?

Other choices warrant mention. After the departure of the ghost in 4.3, Brutus claims that Lucius, Varrus, and Claudio cried out in their sleep, a statement that I have always seen played as false, but Rylance provided groans from the three actors along with other sound effects during the ghost's appearance so as to show how the apparition affected others besides Brutus. As is often the case, Caesar fought his assassins until coming face to face with Brutus, at which point he gave in; yet Rylance enhanced this effect by including an oversized sword appropriated by Caesar from Metellus Cimber to defend himself forcefully but laid down at "Et tu, Brute?" A strong image emerged of Caesar as warrior, prince, and deer at bay.

Lindsay Posner's fully realized production of Volpone at the Swan, as good a rendition of a Jonson play as I have seen, included tour de force performances by Malcolm Storry as a red-haired, sybaritic Volpone and Guy Henry as a lithe, inventive Mosca (the latter's 3.1 hymn to parasites and to his own ability was a show-stopper). The script was somewhat streamlined (e.g., gone was Volpone's seductive "Come, my Celia" song), but the play's many difficulties were tackled head on with relatively few adjustments. In the two productions of Antony and Cleopatra discussed below, the Globe director retained Enobarbus' comment that Antony at Philippi "was troubled with a rheum" (3.2.5 7), but the RSC director changed rheum to cold. Posner provided a third option for handling such difficult terms by including in the program a series of glosses (e.g., for strappado, commendatori, Aretine, The Courtier, Whitefriars' nation, Hospital of the Incurabili). Such a solution, however, presupposes an especially alert and retentive audience, for (as one actor in the company asked me) how is an auditor confronting a hard word in a darkened auditorium to retrieve such program copy?

The energy and inventiveness of Volpone and Mosca drove this show and garnered many laughs at the expense of their victims, particularly in acts one and three. What stood out for me was the surprisingly dark interpretation generated by the portrayal of the birds of prey (Voltore, Corbaccio, and, especially, Corvino), who were not bird-like caricatures but ominous figures in black. The director managed to stifle laughs at points where in my experience they have regularly occurred (e.g., Bonario's potentially melodramatic appearance to save Celia from Volpone; Corbaccio's behavior during the trial scenes). In particular, Corvino's excesses throughout the play can be very funny, but Richard Cordery's menacing figure towered over Claire Price's victimized Celia--and the display of a chastity belt during his tirade in act two underscored that menace.

Although Volpone's near rape of Celia was less disturbing than I had anticipated, the trial scene of act four was unusually grim in tone and well suited to Jonson's display of the vulnerability of justice to the power of wealth and concerted lying. Here the avocatori were played not as fools but rather as individuals trying to effect justice but understandably conned by the machinations of Mosca and the rhetoric of Voltore. The situation of the hapless Celia and Bonario was staged tellingly: for example, her swoon, mocked by others onstage, was extended (although aided by Bonario, she took some time to recover) so as to heighten a sense of what was being damaged or threatened. Here and elsewhere, this production provided a strong punch worthy of Jonson at his best.

Trevor Nunn's Royal National Theatre production of Troilus and Cressida had many distinctive features. Most visibly, the Trojans (with the curious exception of Pandarus) were played by black actors, whereas the Greeks were white. Roger Allam's Ulysses was outstanding, particularly in his clear and effective presentation of his meaty speeches in 1.3 and 3.3, where by means of meaningful pauses and accompanying gestures he heightened key words and ideas. I was also impressed by Jasper Britton's Thersites and Simon Day's Ajax. As might be expected from this director, several moments emerged as especially meaningful. In particular, in the aftermath of the Hector-Ajax combat Hector tells Ulysses "The end crowns all, / And that old common arbitrator, Time, / Will one day end it" (4.5.22426), at which point there was a pause as both Trojans and Greeks looked out over the heads of the audience so as to contemplate the future of Troy and the war, a telling theatrical moment that brought into focus other key speeches on Time. Nunn also crafted a new Epilogue that included not only the scripted speech from Pandarus but also a pastiche of interspersed lines from Troilus (the final couplet of 5.3 and the couplet that precedes the Epilogue-- 5.3.111-12, 5.10.33-34), Cressida (her "poor our sex" final lines--5.2.109- 12), and Thersites (on "the Neapolitan bone-ache" and "the dry serpigo"-- 2.3.17-20, 74-75). Pandarus still had the final words, but the climactic image for the playgoer (after Thersites had deposited the glove retrieved from Troilus in 5.2) was Cressida alone in the darkness with a hard-to-read expression on her face.

Confronted with this long and difficult script, Nunn made other adjustments as well, including some substantial cuts after the first preview, which ran well over four hours. Long speeches were pared back (e.g,, in 1.3); the role of Antenor was collapsed into that of Margarelon. More extensive re-scripting was signaled by a program note announcing that, "for this production, both the Quarto and Folio texts have been used in a version wherein the play has been edited and in part re-arranged." That rearrangement strongly affected the action before the interval, so that a playgoer witnessed the following sequence: Prologue; the middle of 1.2 (the return of the Trojan warriors); the beginning of 1.3 (up to the arrival of Aeneas); 1.1; the rest of 1.2; 2.2; the end of 1.3; 2.1; 3.1; 2.3; 3.2.

For the playgoer unfamiliar with this daunting script, the director's reshaping helped to create a clearer narrative. With the two opposing forces onstage during the Prologue, pantomimed actions singled out Helen, Paris, and Menelaus (and, as usual, the latter became a running joke). A subsequent skirmish then set up the next element, a return from battle (1.2) during which Pandarus identified for Cressida and the audience a series of Trojans including Hector and Troilus. By the end of this sequence, the playgoer had witnessed the equivalent of an extended program note or introduction. In addition, having the Trojan council scene (2.2) precede Hector's challenge to the Greeks ( end of 1.3) simplified matters and eliminated what some have perceived as an anomaly.

Such gains by means of reordering, however, should be weighed in terms of potential losses or diminutions. For me, a distinctive feature of this unusual script is the way scenes comment on each other or work in counterpoint, as when the tawdry view of love in 3.1 (the Helen-Paris-Pandarus scene) precedes 3.2 (the first meeting of Troilus and Cressida) or when 2.1/2.3 (the two anti-heroic Thersites-Ajax scenes) bracket 2.2 (the Trojan council with its emphasis upon honor and chivalric idealism). Nunn's re-scripting was strong on clarity and narrative continuity but reduced the ironic or deflationary effects built into the script, not to mention the impact of various verbal-poetic links (e.g., deed in 3.1-3.2) so as to raise some provocative questions about the links between narrative sequence and potential meanings.

A major strength of this show lay in the ensemble scenes and the overall stage movement. Thanks in large part to Allam's Ulysses, the issues set forth in the various Greek council debates were very clear, as was the debate among the Trojans in 2.2 where the interactions resembled a classroom where would-be speakers raised their hands to be recognized. The manipulation of Day's Ajax at the end of 2.3 proved a gem and elicited applause from the audience--and new to me was Ajax's "Shall I call you father?" (2.3.256) being directed at Ulysses rather than Nestor. I felt something was missing in the observation scene (5.2), though Britton's Thersites was outrageously effective here (including a mock masturbation and ejaculation). The strong battle scenes included Thersites stripping corpses of their valuables. Hectors ignominious death featured not only multiple wounds from the Myrmidons' spears but also a final garroting indicted by Achilles.

Michael Attenborough's RSC production of Othello provided a strong telling of the story by means of a streamlined script, a younger than usual Othello, and a psychopathic Iago. Having just concluded a successful touring version of Romeo and Juliet, Ray Fearon and Zoë Waiter were obvious choices for Othello and Desdemona, but several reviewers harped on the price tag of a thirty-one-year-old Moor. For example, Paul Taylor (The Independent) noted that "the difference of age is important since it extends that range of opposites--racial, cultural, and social--which simultaneously makes the central couple's love a wonderful leap of faith and renders it hideously vulnerable to the insinuation of lago"; for Taylor, "the painful impact of the play is blunted if you level the age gap" as is any sense of "midlife crisis." Richard McCabe's chilling Iago, in contrast, was widely admired. Charles Spencer (The Daily Telegraph) described him aptly: "Corpulent in body but militarily erect in bearing, he has a great, white, pudgy moon of a face and eyes that are disconcertingly dead"; to those onstage he exhibits "a bluff, reassuring geniality" but to the audience "the frozen countenance of a psychopath."

In addition to an outstanding Iago, this show also featured several strong ensemble scenes, particularly the Venetian council scene ( 1.3) and the Cassio drunk scene (2.3), both done as effectively as I have ever seen. Indeed, act one as a whole was unusually strong, thanks in large part to the huge push and theatrical excitement provided by Richard Cordery's forceful and ultimately anguished Brabantio. Various onstage images resonated. For example, the closing beat of the temptation scene (3.3) is often played as a "marriage" ceremony between a kneeling Othello and Iago, but here at the key moment the two cut their palms and joined hands so as to become blood brothers. Iago's "I am your own forever" (3.3.480), therefore, was chilling. Earlier in the same scene, Iago was just about off the stage at his "To be direct and honest is not safe" (378) with only his heels showing (from where I was seated) so that Othello's "Nay, stay" (381 ) got a huge laugh.

According to the program, the director cut two hundred fifty lines from the received text. Many of these cuts were familiar to me (e.g., 3.1; 3.2; 3.4.1-22; chunks of 1.3, including the reference to Marcus Luccicos); as many reviewers noted, Othello's reference to his age ("I am declined / Into the vale of years"--3.3.265-66) was gone as was Iago's "praise" of women in 2.1. In 4.1, Othello spoke some of his eavesdropping lines but, placed behind a stage door, could be seen only as a shadow during this action, a choice that changed drastically the dynamics of the scene. Given the many elisions, I was surprised to witness Othello's rarely included appearance in 5.1 to cheer on the murder of Cassio, though typically this scene overall was pared back.

The price tag for such streamlining was most evident in the final scene. Some of the omissions are standard practice (e.g., Desdemona's references to Othello's rolling his eyes and gnawing his lip and the interjections that interrupt Othello's final two speeches--5.2.37-38, 43, 357). With no bed curtain, Lodovico's "The object poisons sight, / Let it be hid" (364-65 ) was omitted, as was a chunk of Gratiano's report of Brabantio's death (206-9), Othello's "every puny whipster gets my sword" (244), and much of the recounting of events before the suicide speech. What was unusual was the omission of the beginning of Othello's "I have seen the day" speech (259f) and his account of the previous use of the weapon he is brandishing, a passage that sets up a powerful comparison of heroic past and diminished present. At stake here was not narrative efficiency but a potential anomaly given the Edwardian setting of this production wherein swords were primarily ceremonial. Although this production had many strengths, I found something missing in the 4.1 eavesdropping and, particularly, in the final scene, owing in part to adjustments in the script.

The dueling Antony and Cleopatras offered many opportunities for comparison, in part because the RSC version was deemed by many the least successful venture of the 1999 season, whereas the Globe version was the richest of the eleven productions I have seen there since 1997. Both directors got great mileage out of Cleopatra's two encounters with the Messenger (2.5, 3.3), and both (perhaps building on Plutarch) presented in the final scene a Cleopatra initially disfigured or plain (and several U.S. playgoers remarked to me that here in particular the RSC's Frances de la Tour reminded them of Carol Burnett). In Stratford, Henry Ian Cusack's Pompey was the best I have ever seen, so those scenes had added force, especially the galley scene (2.7), where his choice not to kill the triumvirs was especially meaningful.

The Globe director used an unusually full script (although Seleucus disappeared from 5.2, playgoers got to see 3.1 with the body of Pacorus). But the RSC director made major adjustments: gone were 2.4, 3.1, the beginning of 2.7, and most of the dialogue after Charmian's death, while the opening scene omitted Demetrius so as to have Philo-Canidius standing alone to address the audience. Neither production solved the problem of presenting the eerie noise under the stage in 4.3 so that in both that moment emerged as a non-event. I cannot determine if such a failure (which I have experienced before) is the result of an instrumentation problem (today's hoboys-oboes do not do the job), a placement problem (our acoustics are not suited to under-the- stage effects), or a historical-cultural problem in presentation-reception--probably some combination of all three.

Steven Pimlott's RSC production featured many unusual choices. Most notable was what I think of as the "walking dead" convention: starting with Enobarbus in 4.10, each of the figures who died onstage arose and walked off. For a first-time playgoer, such a device was a possible source of confusion, especially with Eros in 4.14 (was he actually dead?). And it meant that in the final moments of 5.2 (much of this section was cut), the Romans confronted not the bodies of three Egyptian women but several objects, most notably the fig basket, Cleopatra's crown-headdress, and downstage Antony's armor and red cloak. Also distinctive was the presentation of Cleopatra's "monument" without any indication of height or separation, hence to be imagined by the playgoer, so that the Romans in 5.2 merely had to walk downstage to "surprise" Cleopatra. Other choices included Antony killing himself not with his own sword (discarded earlier) but with Eros' smaller weapon, a choice that left me in a quandary as to how to interpret Decretas' claim in 5.1 that he is delivering Antony's sword to Caesar. Before his death, Malcolm Storry's Enobarbus beat very hard upon his bare breast as if to call for death. Cleopatra's preparations in 5.2 included extensive ritual washing early in the scene and later an elaborate putting on of makeup with few or no lines to cover either action. Charmian took the final asp in full view of a Roman soldier (no mystery here) and placed it between her legs.

A Major strength of Giles Block's Globe production was its pace. With very few exceptions, this was a fast moving show with no gaps and with figures entering before others left the stage (Pimlott too presented comparable exits and entrances but without such overall drive). Occasionally, an end-of-scene line lost some of its potential when delivered by an exiting actor (e.g., Enobarbus at the end of 3.13, Octavius on "poor Antony" at the end of 4.1 ), but the constant narrative thrust on the Globe stage with no scenic distractions made for excellent storytelling. In Stratford, the director got more mileage out of Mardian the eunuch, but Block crafted a host of meaningful and telling moments, as when Cleopatra's figman, played with an American southern accent, sat on her throne. I found Alan Bates' RSC Antony convincing in his 3.7 decision to fight at sea, but overall Paul Shelley's Globe Antony was consistently credible and appealing in both his weaknesses and his strengths.

Both reviewers and other playgoers agreed that the much anticipated appearance of Mark Rylance as Cleopatra quickly became a non-issue as novelty gave way to good acting and a well-told story. Initially, this Cleopatra was a bare-footed gypsy in green with an ankle chain whose constant motion and effervescence gave a local habitation and a name to "infinite variety"--Michael Billington (The Guardian) described the effect as "an itchy restlessness" that amounts to "a self-conscious demonstration of sexual fever." In addition, Danny Sapani's Charmian was a lively, teasing companion and an engaging onstage presence (his other role this season was Brutus--surely one of the most distinctive doubles of the decade). Also successful were James Gillan as Iras and Toby Cockerell as Octavia. For the playgoers I consulted, the Globe "women" clearly outpointed the Stratford actresses.

Both assets and liabilities of the Globe stage were much in evidence. The servants' dialogue that begins 2.7 (often omitted, as in Stratford) was included in order to cover the time needed to set up the banquet table, whereas a brief interval after this scent (not an "authentic" early Jacobean choice) was then needed to clear the stage. Despite what I am told were heroic efforts by the assembled company, the offstage shouts and other sounds to denote the sea battle at Actium ("the noise of a sea-fight"-3.10.0) were barely audible to me in the lower gallery as a result of the deadening effect of the thick wooden doors, so I found this moment underwhelming, whereas elsewhere sounds, especially those from brass instruments, were very effective. Again, knowhow is missing today on how to deal with the many scripted sound effects within in this period.

To characterize quickly "Egypt" in the opening scenes, Block invoked not only Jenny Tiramini's rich costumes but also pillows rather than other furniture, an effective shorthand device on this stage (and one that is scripted for a "Senate" scene in Coriolanus 2.2.0). Other distinctive choices included Cleopatra's touching Enobarbus on the cheek and then looking back at him at her exit in 3.13 as if to anticipate his choice to leave Antony or to prefigure the future. Later, Rylance did not take a second asp but rather at "Nay, I will take thee too" ( 5.2.312) gestured downstage at the audience or at an imagined Antony.

A key moment in this production (and one I had much anticipated) was the raising of Antony in 4.15 to Cleopatra and the other two "women" placed above. In Pimlott's RSC version with no visible monument, Antony was placed in a chair center stage, and the three women, far downstage facing the audience, pulled on imaginary ropes and moved backward until level with him. At the Globe, by means of strong acting choices, Shelley's Antony managed to dampen the laughs often elicited by the botched suicide (e.g., at "How, not dead? not dead'?"--4.14.103) or his subsequent question to Cleopatra's messenger ("When did she send thee' "--l 19)--in Stratford, Bates swallowed the former line but did get a laugh on the latter. In contrast to the botched suicide, the strenuous physical effort needed to hoist Antony up (and the length of time consumed doing so) evoked titters from playgoers--and the image presented included not only Charmian and Iras struggling in the background but Cleopatra hauling on a rope while standing on the railing of the above. What was most revealing to me was that such laughter was not damaging but rather was integrated into a larger, inclusive effect. The key to this effect was getting the audience back into the proper mood for Antony's death and Cleopatra's epitaph (preceded by Rylance's cry of despair), and here the actors succeeded, with the mood enhanced by the visible presence of four Romans waiting silently below. Overall, the physical difficulty of the hoisting became central to the "imagery" or ironies of the scene. It provided an important context for the death and the reaction to that death. As staged here, the awkwardness was essential so that it could be transcended.

Staging Shakespeare's scripts on a reconstituted Globe stage certainly does not serve as "the answer to all problems," with or without strictures from the "authenticity police." Nonetheless, among a host of provocative 1999 choices, I found the RSC versus Globe approaches to Cleopatra's monument particularly instructive. As a great believer in the role of an audience's "imaginary forces," I am more than ready to participate in the stage conventions crafted by a director, whether with dead figures who walk of the stage or a height that is to be imagined rather than enacted. Still, as with Elizabethan sleeves on Roman conspirators, some practical theatrical choices have significant and sometimes unforeseen interpretive consequences so as to become an integral part of the "imagery" or tone of a key scene. Similarly, changes in the sequence of scenes (as in Nunn's rescripting of Troilus and Cressida) can affect the context for key events, while placing Othello and Othello in a period in which swords are anachronistic in combat can affect the heroic (or anti-heroic) dimensions of a key moment. Like the Egyptian women and Roman soldiers who are directed in the Folio to "heave Antony aloft to Cleopatra" (4.15.37), all interpreters of these plays in the theatre must struggle with daunting problems and flirt with potential disasters. Seeing that struggle at work in this scene at the Globe emerged for me as the most telling single moment of Shakespeare onstage in 1999.

Note: Citations from Shakespeare are from The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans, 2nd ed. (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1997).


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