Outgoing Globe artistic director Dominic
Dromgoole’s revival really begins to pay off in the second half: that
is, in the portion of the play written by Shakespeare. The authorship
of the first two acts is increasingly ascribed (including for this
production) to the deservedly unremembered George Wilkins. That first
segment of the story simply buffets the title character hither and yon
around the eastern Mediterranean of the classical era – Sheila Reid’s
narrator Gower has to explain why all these different nationalities are
shown speaking the same language. Pericles endures first a failed
marriage suit (his intended turning out to be incestuously involved
with her father), then voluntary exile, shipwreck and a knightly
tournament which yields him a proper bride. This episodic phase is
simply one thing after another. There is no sense of shape to the
story, nor can James Garnon despite his best efforts succeed in finding
depth in the character of Pericles.
Shakespeare takes up the quill in time for the next shipwreck
(honestly, Pericles was an extreme weather warning on two legs) which
sunders the prince from his wife and newborn daughter Marina. After the
interval Marina, now a young woman, escapes murder by being abducted by
pirates and is sold to a brothel, where she proves so virtuous and
persuasive that she remains
intacta
until a ship from Tyre arrives in the harbour… at which point we slip
into one of those complex reunion routines so typical of Shakespeare’s
late romances.
This is where Dromgoole brings heft to the proceedings. Rather than
follow the usual saccharin-saintly option, Jessica Baglow’s Marina
seems mildly to moderately depressive. Perhaps this is the common note
which enables her to communicate with the now-near-catatonic Pericles;
Garnon, in turn, now cuts such a credibly desolate figure that not even
reunion with Marina seems likely to save him – more than once he
physically collapses. Nor do director and cast try to stifle the
absurdity of some of the deadpan lines, and Dennis Herdman, Kirsty
Woodward and Fergal McElherron revel in inflating the comedy of the
brothel scenes. The production doesn’t solve the problems of dual
authorship, but the bits that are worth staging in the first place are
distinctly worth watching here.
Written for the Financial
Times.