Gemma Miller

Review of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and As You Like It (directed by Federay Holmes and Elle While for the Globe Ensemble) at Shakespeare’s Globe, London, 29 April and 30 May 2018

There was great anticipation surrounding the Globe’s staging ofHamlet and As You Like It, the inaugural two productions under the new artistic directorship of Michelle Terry. In a break with the director-led approach of previous artistic director Emma Rice, Terry announced that she would perform an actor-manager role, placing emphasis on an ensemble approach that was both inclusive and democratic. She claimed that she wanted to “dismantle the hierarchy” by “giv[ing] the actors a say” from the beginning of the creative process (qtd in Lukowski). All twelve members of the cast attended every rehearsal, regardless of whether they appeared in the scene being worked on or not, and there was an open-door policy, which meant that members of the Globe staff and the public could observe rehearsals. Parts were allocated after the ensemble had been cast and the actors contributed to decisions about costumes, design and music. The two directors, Federay Holmes and Elle While, were jointly credited for each production, although it was unclear where their jobs ended and the actors’ began. This is all very laudable and, for me at least, a welcome change from the conceptdriven productions that have become a depressingly familiar feature of the London and Stratford stages. However, this utopian approach to ensemble theatre was not without its issues. At first glance, As You Like It andHamletmake for an unlikely pairing, but the plays have more in common than is initially apparent. They were they both written around 1599, the year the Lord Chamberlain’s Men first took up residence in the Globe Theatre, and both plays seem self-consciously aware of the architecture of the company’s new playing space. Hamlet’s reference to “this brave o’erhanging, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire” (2.2.302–3) and Jaques’s “All the world’s a stage” (2.7.139–166) monologue are obvious examples of this. Both plays are set in and, in the case of As You Like It in opposition to, “the envious court” (2.1.4) with its duplicitous courtiers and authoritarian rulers. And perhaps most importantly, they are both concerned with absent fathers and children who have been cut adrift. Although playing these two plays in repertory brought out some interesting comparisons and correspondences, I could not help feeling that this could have been exploited to greater effect. We know that the Lord Chamberlain’s Men (and later the King’s Men) worked with a core ensemble of around twelve actors, and that Shakespeare wrote parts with specific actors in mind. Richard Burbage was the tragedian, Will Kemp and later Robert Armin were the clowns, and two boy-actors, one tall and fair the other short and dark, played the lead female roles. The actors were typecast according to their physical features and acting styles, and almost certainly never played against type. This was not the approach taken by Terry’s ensemble and as a result it often felt as if the casting did not always play to the actors’ particular strengths. One such example was Pearce Quigley, who played Rosencrantz in Hamlet and Jaques in As You Like It. As Jaques, he was the epitome of the Shakespearean melancholic: cynical, doleful and nonchalant. He began the “seven ages” (2.7.143) monologue while chewing on a banana and leaning

Review of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night (directed by Simon Godwin) at the National Theatre, London, 15 April 2017

At first sight, it seemed that Simon Godwin’s revival of Twelfth Night was going to be a light-hearted meditation on the fluidity of gender and sexuality. The posters certainly foregrounded this aspect. They featured the comic actor Tamsin Greig as “Malvolia” standing upon a grand marble staircase next to a champagne bottle and broken glass, staring straight into the camera (Figure 1). On the one hand, her short, slicked-back hair and sharp black trouser suit highlighted her masculinity. On the other hand, her high heels, fully made-up face and provocative pose (one hand on hip, the other holding party streamers), gestured towards her femininity. However, as is often the case with “celebrity” Shakespeare, these publicity photos bore little resemblance to the Malvolia that appeared on stage, highlighting instead the status of the actor over the essence of the character. More significantly, they gave no indication of Godwin’s admirably nuanced interpretation of Shakespeare’s most bittersweet comedy. Having said that, there were some wonderful comic moments and the National Theatre audience was certainly in fine Bank Holiday spirit. The production was set in modern dress and Soutra Gilmour’s revolving set maximised the vast space of the Olivier Theatre’s stage, enabling swift scene changes between the two courts of Olivia and Orsino and neatly encapsulating the play’s theme of the “whirligig of time” (5.1.373). At the centre of the revolve was a sweeping staircase that opened up to reveal hidden sets, as for instance in the hilarious box-tree scene. Balconies on either side of the stage contained musicians, including a drummer, guitarist and saxophonist/flautist, who intermittently walked onto the stage and mingled amongst the actors. Not only did this emphasise the centrality of music to this play, but it also reinforced the theatricality that the identity confusions and gender switches inevitably invite. In the first half of the play, Greig played Malvolia as a repressed puritan complete with severe bobbed haircut and ramrod-straight posture (Figure 2), wagging her finger at Sir Toby Belch like a disapproving schoolmistress and fastidiously straightening marginally misaligned shrub pots. Her asides to the audience were perfectly timed and her facial gestures were a masterclass in comic understatement. Her disdainful, Mrs Danvers-like sense of superiority slipped only occasionally: when Olivia said, for example, “O, you are sick of self-love, Malvolia” (1.5.86), Greig briefly gave a coquettish smile and flirtatious glance, before reverting to her customary pose. As a counterpoint to Greig’s self-righteous, sanctimonious Malvolia, Phoebe Fox’s portrayal of Olivia was a study in repressed desire, albeit much closer to the surface than that of Greig’s Malvolia. At first, barely able to contain her sensuous playfulness beneath her austere black dress, she swung her hips and clicked her fingers in time to the music whenever she thought she was not being observed. Upon meeting Viola-as-Cesario, however, she quickly abandoned all sense of decorum, along with her mourning weeds. At one stage she stripped off to her underwear and dragged Cesario into a jacuzzi and at another, she shamelessly straddled a prone Sebastian, mistaking him for his cross-dressing sister.

“He has no children”: Changing Representations of the Child in Stage and Film Productions of Macbeth from Polanski to Kurzel

ABSTRACT Justin Kurzel’s 2015 film of Macbeth takes the multi-faceted trope of childhood in Shakespeare’s play and turns it into a visual image that permeates the landscape of his film. From the pre-credit sequence, in which the grieving Macbeths are seen burning the body of their dead baby on a funeral pyre, to the closing coda, in which young Fleance returns like an avenging fury to challenge the crown, they provide a crucial interpretative framework for reading this latest cinematic adaptation. It is an interpretation, moreover, that presents the child as a complex and contradictory nexus of hopes, fears and anxieties. Not merely innocent victims, the children of Kurzel’s Macbeth are both pitiful and terrifying. This portrayal of childhood has its roots in a tradition beginning in the last three decades of the twentieth century, when directors focused increasingly on the children in this play. In this paper, I will begin with the last major English-language film of Macbeth by Roman Polanski (1971) and track the dramatic treatment of the children through to Kurzel’s 2015 release, locating the shift in focus within a larger socio-historical context of changing attitudes towards the role and identity of children more generally. By focusing on some landmark English theatre productions staged in the period between the two films, I will demonstrate a general trend away from a sentimentalised depiction of childhood towards a nihilistic vision that heralds the end of the so-called “century of the child”.

Review of Shakespeare's Richard III (directed by Thomas Ostermeier for the Festival d'Avignon) at the Opera Grand, Avignon, recorded 11 and 12 July and broadcast at 10:40 pm 13 July on arte Concert

When asked in an interview with Joseph Pearson why he had chosen to stage Richard III, Thomas Ostermeier was characteristically straightforward in his reply. It was, he explained, to showcase the talents of Lars Eidinger, the star performer of Ostermeier’s Berlin-based Schaubühne theatre. “He’s perfect for the role”, he explained; “I like the idea of having a very charming Richard, with whom people can sympathize.” This is not an uncommon reason for choosing this play. It has proved a popular platform for acting talent from its first appearance in the sixteenth century, through the era of the great actor-managers, to the contemporary theatres of London, New York and continental Europe. However, it is unusual inmodern revivals to see somuch focus on the interiority of Richard. Translated into modern German prose by Marius vonMayerburg and pared back to just 60% of the original text, this adaptation excised much of the ritualistic patterning and sense of historical determinism to present a protagonist whowasmore akin toHamlet than to Shakespeare’s Richard (whomShakespeare in turn inherited from John Rous, John Morton, Polydore Vergil, Thomas More, Richard Grafton, Edward Halle and Raphael Holinshed). The most memorable and critically lauded “celebrity” Richards of recent years have based their characterisation on his physical appearance, with bravura performances from Laurence Olivier, Antony Sher, Simon Russell Beale and, more recently, Kevin Spacey. Eidinger’s Richard, on the other hand, brazenly displayed his deformity as a combination of meta-theatrical signifiers which seemed to indicate a physical disability while simultaneously revealing it to be nothing more than a rhetorical, theatrical and historical construct. His arm, a “blasted sapling withered up” (3.4.69), was indicated merely by a plaster around the middle finger of his right hand. A cushion strapped to his back gestured towards his “bunch-backed” form (1.3.244), while a black leather head-band tied under his chin, his surgical boot on his right foot and train-track braces across his top row of teeth suggested more generalised physical impairments. As he moved, his knees collapsed in towards one another and he hunched over, dragging his booted foot behind him. Yet these external signifiers of “deformity” were nothing more than that – signifiers. It quickly became apparent that Eidinger’s Richard was not defined by his physical appearance but by his complex and, at times, extremely affecting psychological make-up. In this respect, unlike many Richards who had come before him, he undermined any simplistic attempt to establish a causal link between physical deformity and moral depravity. He was a Richard in whom his audience might see themselves reflected. In his interview with Pearson, Ostermeier said that he wanted his production to pose the following questions: “Have you never wanted to do what Richard is doing? Have you never wanted to commit morally reprehensible acts?” Originally opening in the Schaubühne theatre, Berlin in February 2015, this production was one of the most hotly anticipated events of the sixty-ninth Avignon Festival in July 2015, and it did not

Review of Shakespeare's Hamlet (directed by Lyndsey Turner) at the Barbican Theatre, London, 24 October 2015

This production of Hamlet, with the title role played by Benedict Cumberbatch (internationally recognisable for his performances in TV’s Sherlock and the Academy Award-nominated The Imitation Game, as well as his work in the theatre), had to be one of the most hotly anticipated theatre events of the decade. The fastest-selling London play in history, Lyndsey Turner’s Hamlet was dogged by rumour and controversy from its very first preview performance. Critical etiquette was ignored by journalists rushing out pre-press-night reviews, while theatre etiquette was abandoned as audience members broke into spontaneous applause and took unauthorised performance photographs. Not surprisingly, I was sceptical about just how Cumberbatch was going to be able to live up to the high expectations placed upon him. When asked by Melvyn Bragg in a special episode of his South Bank programme whether he felt the pressure as he prepared to go on stage each evening, Cumberbatch was adamant that nerves were not an issue. However, every actor who approaches this colossus of a role wants to be remembered for his or her portrayal of Hamlet, and there have been some striking interpretations in recent years, from BenWhishaw’s young and vulnerable prince in 2004 for The Old Vic, to Maxine Peake’s gender-blind Hamlet at the Manchester Royal Exchange in 2014. What could Cumberbatch possibly bring to the role that would make him stand out? The answer, as I discovered when I finally got to see the play one week before the end of the run, was a compelling combination of high-octane energy and remarkable control which was regrettably let down by an underwhelming production and supporting cast. The curtain rose to reveal Hamlet sorting through his dead father’s clothes while listening to Nat King Cole’s “Nature Boy” on an old-fashioned gramophone. In the preview performances he opened with the “To be, or not to be” soliloquy, but after much critical censure the director, Lyndsey Turner, thankfully abandoned this idea. She did not, however, relocate it to its rightful position before the “nunnery” scene (3.1), but for reasons I could not fathom, moved it to before the arrival of the players, as in the First Quarto. This was just one of many textual excisions that did not make narrative or dramatic sense. The opening scene on the battlements was cut entirely, and Barnardo’s “Who’s there?” (1.1.1) was spoken by Hamlet as Horatio appeared through a door in the wall behind him. There was some logic in opening the play in this way as it provided a neat sense of symmetry. Horatio is, after all, the friend charged with telling Hamlet’s story in the final scene. It also set the tone for a production that was unashamedly designed as a star vehicle for its “celebrity” actor. However, it failed to capture the sense that something was rotten in the state of Denmark, thus diluting the political aspects of the play. In a breath-taking coup de théâtre, the wall behind Hamlet and Horatio rose after their brief exchange to reveal a vast, sumptuous ballroom decorated in opulent blues and golds, with a sweeping staircase, glittering chandelier and enormous double doors. The Elsinore courtiers, led by Claudius and Gertrude, entered in glittering evening dress and gathered around an elaborately dressed banqueting table, with a darkly brooding Hamlet sitting squarely in the centre.

Review of Shakespeare's Measure For Measure (directed by Joe Hill-Gibbins) at The Young Vic, London, 21 October 2015

Shakespeare’sMeasure for Measure is not called a problem play without good reason. Considered by many to be too salacious for the stage until the second half of the twentieth century, when it saw something of a revival beginning with Peter Brook’s 1950 adaptation for the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford, it continues to provide a challenge for directors. Although many of the themes resonate with a sceptical contemporary Western audience – a Foucauldian sense of authoritarian control, an ineffective penal system, sexual double standards, moral relativism, disillusionment with the political elite – it is, nonetheless, very much a play of its time. The problem, as Hill-Gibbins’ modern-dress adaptation made all-too-clear, is its reliance on an audience’s understanding of Catholic morality. Without this shared understanding, Angelo’s self-flagellating asceticism and Isabella’s rigid moral absolutism seem, at best, outdated, and at worst, risible. Although the multiple biblical references may have resonated with early modern audiences, for whom eternal damnation was a very real fear, they no longer have any meaningful purchase in our postmodern, multi-faith society. When Isabella says, for instance, “More than our brother is our chastity” (2.4.185), modern audiences tend to titter in disbelief, so removed is it from our twenty-first century libertarian values. One solution, as demonstrated in Cheek by Jowl’s Russian-language adaptation at the Barbican earlier this year, is to downplay the religious references and focus on the play’s preoccupation with surveillance and repressive authoritarian regimes. However, Hill-Gibbins chose to avoid any direct political engagement. Instead, he foregrounded the Old Testament symbolism and juxtaposed it with very modern sexual imagery, resulting in a performance that, while fast-paced, high-energy and extremely funny in parts, lacked overall coherence. The play began with the Duke emerging from a mound of blow-up sex dolls in Miriam Buether’s eye-catching but rather confused set design. Although they were eventually pushed to the back of the set, the dolls provided a constant backdrop to the production, evoking the hedonistic desires just beneath Angelo’s fastidious facade. At times, a hand-held camera panned across the dolls, their kaleidoscopic image projected onto a screen behind the main action. The extreme close-ups of waggling pudenda and rubbery orifices were amusing at first, but their novelty soon wore off and they proved to be somewhat of an unwelcome distraction. The camera was also used to provide a visual backstory to Claudio and Juliet’s relationship in a “selfie”-style montage of bedroom images. This was then contrasted with close-shots of their terrified faces as they were interrogated by the Duke, who was by this time in his disguise as a friar. I found it frustrating, however, that having been given such a prominent role early on in the play, Juliet was then relegated to the role of static observer. She stood for the entire final scene with a baby in her arms at the back of the stage, failing even to react to the revelation that Claudio has been spared death. Other minor characters were more successfully portrayed. Mariana was played by Cath Whitefield as a wild-eyed, unhinged “woman scorned” with an unhealthy Angelo fixation. In a modern take on her song of unrequited love (“But my kisses bring again, bring again, / Seals of love, but

Hamlet by Ninagawa Company (review)

Hamlet Presented by the Ninagawa Company at the Barbican Theatre, London, England, in association with Thelma Holt Ltd, Saitama Arts Foundation, and HoriPro Inc. May 21–24, 2015. Directed by Ninagawa Yukio. Set design by Asakura Setsu and Nakagoshi Tsukasa. Lighting design by Hattori Motoi. Costume design by Maeda Ayako. Sound design by Inoue Masahiro. Hair and make-up design by Kawamura Yoko. Fight choreography by Kurihara Naoki. With Daimon Goro (First player/Second gravedigger), Fujiwara Tatsuya (Hamlet), Hira Mikijiro (Claudius/Ghost of Hamlet’s Father), Hirota Takashi (Norwegian Captain), Hoshi Tomoya (Marcellus), Hori Genki (Lucianus), Juku Ikkyu (Cornelius/Priest), Mamiya Hiroyuki (Rosencrantz), Masafumi Senoo (Voltemand/Prologue), Matsuda Shinya (Bernardo), Mitsushima Hikari (Ophelia), Mitsushima Shinnosuke (Laertes), Noguchi Kazuhiko (Messenger), Ohtori Ran (Gertrude), Okada Tadashi (Osric), Seike Eiichi (Guildenstern), Shinkawa Masato (Francisco/The Dumb Show King), Sunahara Kensuke (Player Queen), Takao Taka (Polonius), Takeda Kazuaki (Player King), Teuchi Takamori (Sailor/The Dumb Show Poisoner), Uchida Kenshi (Fortinbras), Urano Shinsuke (Gentleman/The Dumb Show Queen), Yamaya Hatsuo (First gravedigger), and Yokota Eiji (Horatio).

What a piece of work is a (wo)man: the revelations of cross-gendered Shakespeare

In a September 2014 article for the Guardian entitled “What a Piece of Work is a (Wo) Man: The Perils of Cross-gendered Shakespeare”, Mark Lawson said of such productions, “if the governing aim of a production is to make the play seem different [my emphasis], perhaps those involved ought to be doing a different play”. This seems to be missing the point, as exemplified in the latest gender-blind performances of Henry IV (a conflation of 1 Henry IV and 2 Henry IV), directed by Phyllida Lloyd at the Donmar Warehouse, and Sarah Frankcom’s Hamlet for Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre. Taking on some of the most iconic male roles within the Western canon not only provides female actors with the opportunity to flex their performance muscles beyond the welltrodden roles of Hedda, Electra and Rosalind, but also, as Sarah Werner has noted in her work on feminist theatre, enables them to “legitimize their performance” within the maledominated world of the theatre (45). For it is an unavoidable truism that, while an actor is still valued on his/her ability to “do” Shakespeare, the strong female roles are few and far between. Moreover, as a locus of debate, dissent and social corrective, the theatre would be doing a disservice to its own heritage if it did not continue to question conventions and demythologize cultural norms. Surely every director tackling a new production of Shakespeare strives to “make the play seem different”. The alternative is too unthinkable to bear: continuous runs of King Lears and Hamlets with revolving casts, revolving stages and identikit replicas across the capital cities of the world. The Shakespearean plays we have inherited are not prescriptive theatrical pro forma, but ambiguous, contradictory, and replete with inconsistencies. Ripe, in other words, for reinvention. The prospect of Maxine Peake playing Hamlet generated a sense of anticipation before the production even opened. Albeit an actress known for her versatility and range, taking on roles as generically and stylistically contrasting as Twinkle in Dinnerladies (1998–2000) and Myra Hindley in See No Evil: The Moors Murders (2006), she does not have the reputation of Harriet Walter (concurrently playing King

Review of Shakespeare's Macbeth (directed by Kenneth Branagh and Rob Ashton for the Manchester International Festival) at St Peter's Church, Manchester, 20 July 2013

This whole production was shrouded in mystery – from the purchase of the ticket, which was made without the benefit of practical details such as location, running time and cast, to the secret setting in the deconsecrated church in Ancoats. A limited run of 2 weeks to an audience of just 280 per performance, directed by and starring none other than Kenneth Branagh: it was easy to see why this was being billed as the hottest ticket in town. Drawing perhaps on his experience of directing Shakespeare for the cinema, Branagh’s production gave equal weight to the visual and the aural to create an atmosphere of gothic horror – or, as Brian Blessed informed me afterwards, an evocation of the densely metaphoric phrase “Light thickens” (3.2.51). The Captain’s report of the morning’s battle was replaced with a filmic reconstruction, featuring a 25-strong cast fighting an intricately choreographed but thrilling sword fight on a mud-coated floor amid torrents of rain. The stabbing of Duncan was played out on the stage, giving a visual image to haunt the minds of the audience – as it does Macbeth. Lady Macduff was murdered in front of our eyes, her neck savagely broken as she hung limp like a ragdoll in the killer’s arms. Lady Macbeth performed her sleep-walking scene on a balcony at the bottom end of the church, teetering towards the edge with arms outstretched above her in what was presumably a pre-meditated foreshadowing of an off-stage suicidal leap. The movement of Birnam Wood to High Dunsinane was realistically depicted using shields convincingly shrouded in life-size trees. Overall the effects of this production tended towards a cinematic sense of realism rather than the more common, expressionistic techniques used in so many contemporary performances. It lent a hermeneutic clarity to the play which was refreshingly devoid of a directorial “concept”. As we entered the church, a figure later revealed to be Lady Macbeth was lighting devotional candles and raising her hands in prayer. She was positioned on the altar, beneath a large gothic crucifix suspended at an ominous angle, foreshadowing the disjunction between her connection with religious iconography at the opening of the play and her later invocation of the satanic spirits. Her hair was covered with a white veil and her back turned tantalisingly to the audience. Mid-way up the walls at the opposite end, the three weird sisters burst through concealed doors, their eyes rolling in their eerie blue-painted faces