A NEW WAY TO PLEASE YOU. To 31 December.
London
A NEW WAY TO PLEASE YOU
by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley
Trafalgar Studios (Studio 1) To 31 December 2005
Mon-Sat 7.30pm Mat 28, 31 Dec 2pm no evening performance 31 Dec
Runs 2hr 30min One interval
TICKETS: 0870 060 6632 (booking fee)
www.theambassadors.com/trafalgarstudios
Review: Timothy Ramsden 26 December
Revival of a c1618 play shows the old ones can be the best.
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s ‘Gunpowder’ season transfers to London, opening aptly with a bang as a pile of legal documents thuds to the floor – the first of several key sounds amplified as an echo of their importance in characters’ lives. For ‘The Old Law’ (this play’s original title – the RSC have chosen its sub-title) means life is to be judged by the criterion of social usefulness.
Evander, young Duke of Epire, has decided men contribute no more after 80, while women offer no nurture after 60, at which ages they’re to be executed. And if any offspring can prove a parent clapped-out earlier, the oldsters will be chucked off a high rock into the sea forthwith. Aspirant heirs and lecherous older men start planning new lives and new wives. Only young Cleanthes and his wife Hippolita resist, hiding his father Leonides away.
As these character names suggest, we’re in an imagined ancient society, but director Sean Holmes’ decision to go for modern dress and a disco-world provides clarity. Simonides’ immediate enjoyment of his inheritance comes out in sacked servants and the sort of stylish clothes future years can only laugh at. But there’s a viciousness to all this, brought out by Jonjo O’Neill, by Fred Ridgeway Gnotho in his cruelty to his ageing first wife and in Miranda Colchester’s smilingly cold-hearted Eugenia.
In contrast, Matt Ryan and Evelyn Duah create a quiet moral sanity, while mature RSC stalwarts show their quality: Geoffrey Freshwater’s military Creon straight-backed and clipped-voiced in obedience to authority to the apparent last, Barry Stanton’s dignified Leonides. And James Hayes gives a fine comic display as Eugenia’s old husband, whom she cannot have executed soon enough. Determined to match any youth, he dyes his hair (one patch of white beard stubbornly resisting) and takes on the young men at their own games of dancing, fighting and drinking.
Peter de Jersey is excellent as the youth-loving Duke who produces a final plot twist, knocking the tragic curve off-course, cutting a world gone mad with sensual self-satisfaction down to size in this colourful resurrection of an intriguing old play.
See also Rod Dungate's review of this production at Stratford-upon-Avon in the RSC section of reviewsgate.
Simonides: Jonjo O’Neill
Lawyer/Butler: Keith Osborn
Lawyer/Cook: Nigel Betts
Cleanthes: Matt Ryan
Creon/Parish Clerk: Geoffrey Freshwater
Antigona: Teresa Banham
Hippolita: Evelyn Duah
Leonides: Barry Stanton
Evander: Peter de Jersey
Cratilus/Tailor: David Hinton
Courtier/Drawer: Jon Foster
Courtier: Julian Stolzenberg
Bailiff/Dancing Master: Mark Springer
Coachman/Gnotho: Fred Ridgeway
Footman/Parthenia: Vinette Robinson
Eugenia: Miranda Colchester
Lysander: James Hayes
Agatha: Ishia Bennison
Siren: Michelle Butterly
Director: Sean Holmes
Designer: Kandis Cook
Season Stage: Robert Jones
Lighting: Wayne Dowdeswell
Sound/Music: Chris Branch, Tom Haines
Additional Sound: Jeremy Dunn
Music Director: Chris Branch
Movement: Michael Ashcroft
Voice/Dialect coach: Jeannette Nelson
Fight director: Terry King
Assistant director: Elizabeth Freestone
2005-12-27 13:59:32