BERENICE. To 3 June.
Tour
BERENICE
by Jean Racine
tgSTAN Tour to 3 June 2005
Runs 1hr 25min No interval
Review: Timothy Ramsden 7 May at Tramway Glasgow
Take away the trappings the play's the thing.Imagine this; late in rehearsals the director asks everyone in the theatre to watch a run-through of Racine's tragedy. The actors play among the audience, with no set or costume, making the lines as truthful as possible. They find it brings clarity and truth to their performances; the audience discovers it's sharply-focused and dramatically powerful. Why not; if a star of traditional 20th century theatre like Sir John Gielgud observed that the pre-dress rehearsal run could be the best performance a play ever has?
Not that there's anything ill-prepared about this production by Belgium's tgStan. It's clearly been choreographed specifically for this modern-dress, no frills performance, moving among an audience sitting on rows of detached stools in a wide corridor formed out of the Tramway's huge space. The cast copes with an intensified version of the actor's split-level attention, on one hand being, say, a ruler in his court, on the other remembering to stand in the correct light on stage.
Here the company needs to maintain the line of concentration without falling over the audience a very real possibility that earned me the only apology I suspect I'll ever receive from a Roman emperor. Constantly, performers' attention needs tight holding against the risk of an eye or mouth muscle flickering in response to anyone in an audience sometimes literally under the actors' noses, in full light (resulting, incidentally, in the most cough-free theatregoers I've experienced in a long time).
Emperor Titus loves the foreign princess Berenice, but the Roman people are in anti-queen phase, especially when the potential queen's a foreigner. There are other loves and plans, played out with impressive force and understanding, not least by Forced Entertainment's Cathy Naden in the title role, on (let's hope) temporary cross-Channel loan.
Spatial relationships become intensely significant, as do movements around or among the audience. And tonal variations in voice; a sudden rage envelopes the whole space. There's one set element, a screen that occasionally changes colour with mood. But the play's the thing this stimulating show's far from being cut-price, right to the sudden end, where words finally give way.
Berenice: Cathy Naden
Titus: Frank Vercruyssen
Antiochus: Tiago Rodrigues
Phenice/Paulin/Arsace: Carly Wys
Director: Designer/Lighting: Thomas Walgrave, Jose Nuno Sampaio
Costume: An d'Huys
2005-05-31 13:40:59