In the opening minutes of David
Eldridge’s dramatisation of the Third Crusade, it seems worryingly as
if the chronicle will be prey simultaneously to obvious orientalism and
over-explicit “whoops-exposition” narrative. Through the first half, it
becomes apparent that these are devices tactically deployed in
conscious imitation of Shakespearean history plays, as Eldridge and
director James Dacre treat the struggle between Richard the Lionheart
and Saladin over possession of Jerusalem in a manner befitting the
Globe. Then, in the final seconds before the interval and the hour or
so after it, a set of stylistic after-burners fire and propel the play
into an audacious stratosphere. The experience is not unlike falling in
love over a series of dates: you gradually come to see the full range
of the subject’s temperaments and imagination, and to see even their
occasional mis-steps as a source of fascination.
At the RSC in recent years, John Hopkins showed himself capable of both
taut commitment and square-jawed, deadpan self-parody. His Richard runs
the entire gamut, often in the course of a single line. As Saladin,
Alexander Siddig is somewhat underused, although in the second act he
at least escapes his all-too-frequent British typecasting by playing a
couple of Jews amongst his various Arabs. Other characters range from
12th-century sappers to Tony Blair; Sirine Saba, for instance, gets to
double as Berengaria of Navarre and Golda Meir.
Herein lies Eldridge’s daring. He relocates Richard’s death to the Holy
Land in order to provide a pretext for what follows: a presentation to
Richard, as he languishes in purgatory, of the following centuries in
the Middle East, especially the 20th/21st from the Sykes-Picot
agreement to the ISIS jihad and the current Gaza attacks. This is
tremendously sensitive territory, especially at present, but writer and
director expertly walk the high-wire between the twin abysses of
timidity and alienating partiality. Then follows a recapitulation of
the crusade, but in modern terms and language; the final negotiations
about the status and dominion of Jerusalem echo down the centuries,
with a grim threat to continue to do so. This beautifully pitched
production of a coruscatingly ambitious play offers no answers, but
this is one of those occasions on which simply asking a
properly-formulated question in dramatic form takes more skill and
nerve than most can muster.
Written for the Financial
Times.