Director
Jamie Lloyd begins his revival with a prelude (which continues behind
the opening scene) consisting of a sinister, dimly-lit procession of
masked and cowled figures across Soutra Gilmour’s skew-whiff gilt
cathedral set. It looks a little like the central sequence of
Eyes Wide Shut, but also like a
sinister parody of the musical interludes Lloyd has inserted into his
production of
She Stoops To Conquer,
currently in rep a couple of minutes away at the National Theatre. But
the comparison does not hold: in the Goldsmith production, the director
maximises and augments the comedy at every opportunity, whereas in the
case of John Webster’s Jacobean tragedy he seems unwilling, with this
sole exception, to go any further than the script, or even that far.
The emotional and psychological tone of the production meshes well with
the visual aspect, but it is the feel which needs to dictate the look.
Snow falls onstage for much of the second half, but this should not be
a cold play. Webster was perhaps the most willing of his contemporaries
to take the risk of toppling his grotesque tragedy over into black
comedy; this play contains a severed hand, a chorus of lunatics and a
case of lycanthropy, as well as the grim yet odd observation that “We
are merely the stars’ tennis balls.” Lloyd and his cast never seem to
take the chance that we might laugh for the wrong reason.
Eve Best in the title role only really gets up to her usual acting
speed after the interval, when the Duchess has been imprisoned by her
brothers and loses something of the self-possession that pervaded the
first half; her Act One seduction of her steward Antonio (Tom Bateman),
for instance, shows little erotic or dangerous charge. As the
villainous brothers, Finbar Lynch sports a rather pervy leather
gauntlet after a road accident, which adds to the severity of the
Cardinal’s aspect; yet Harry Lloyd as Ferdinand shows few of the signs
of madness before it descends upon him, and limits the disturbing
indications of incestuous lust for his sister (usually a mainstay of
the character’s portrayal) to a single brief kiss. Only Mark Bonnar
excels unreservedly as the malcontent Bosola, railing at men and fates
alike as he finds himself entangled in others’ machinations. It all
makes for an evening not nearly as unsettling as it should be.
Written for the Financial
Times.