DE MONFORT. To 31 May.
Richmond.
DE MONFORT
by Joanna Baillie.
Orange Tree Theatre To 31 May 2008.
Mon-Sat 7.45pm Mat Sat & 1, 8, 29 May 2.30pm (+ discussion 1, 8, 29 May).
Audio-described 13 May, 17 May 2.30pm.
Runs 2hr 35min One interval.
TICKETS: 020 8940 3633.
www.orangetreetheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 2 May.
All passion and no plot makes Jo a dull girl.
Imagine a theatre director two centuries from now reviving a forgotten play once admired by Andrew Motion and Melvyn Bragg, its title role played first by John Gielgud, then Antony Sher.
As culmination of his Women Writers year, Orange Tree director Sam Walters has programmed one of Joanna Baillie’s ‘Plays of the Passions’. Baillie provided each passion with a tragedy and comedy. De Monfort is her 1798 tragedy of hate (the hate-comedy was The Election).
The Orange Tree, repeatedly ranging into little-known repertoire, here takes a giant leap into a far-flung corner. The Germanic setting reflects the influence of Germany’s Sturm und Drang, the ‘Storm and Stress’ prefiguring full-fledged Romanticism. Its grand-scale emotions and interest in morbidity are reflected in De Monfort’s loathing for his former friend Rezenvelt.
The intense hatred which poisons De Monfort’s life is even less explicable than Iago’s malevolence or Leontes’ jealousy. Rezenvelt remains amiable, while neither their friend Freborg and De Monfort’s sister Jane can understand her brother’s fury.
The De Monforts were first played by leading classical actors, John Philip Kemble and his sister, stately Sarah Siddons. Later, the mercurial Edmund Kean played the title role. But the play comes from a long period of English theatre where Shakespeare’s influence stifled Tragedy in blank verse and inflexible attempts at grandeur.
Sir Walter Scott admired a drama that reflected his novels’ sweep, while Wordsworth’s admiration is understandable. De Monfort’s sociable scenes turning to dark deeds in a forest, with fashionable nearby Abbey, read like a Wordsworth narrative poem.
But they leave the actors presenting spelled-out attitudes in a piece that’s all display of emotion with no connecting story. Imogen Bond’s cast try hard. Geoff Leesley’s bluff Freborg is cheerful, while Ben Nealon’s Rezenvelt smiles pleasantly in a part that’s all reaction. As, mostly, is Alice Barclay’s Jane; presumably Siddons thrived on the opportunities for emotional sympathy.
Justin Avoth’s dark protagonist has a convincingly gloomy intensity, but the play continually reasserts his hatred without exploring a character whose disposition may have seemed startlingly real at the time, but is now part of a ‘thee-and-thou’-studded historical curiosity.
De Monfort: Justin Avoth.
Jane De Monford: Alice Barclay.
Rezenvelt: Ben Nealon.
Count Freberg: Geoff Leesley.
Countess Freberg/Abbess: Christina Greatrex.
Manuel: Kieron Jecchinis.
Jerome/Brother Bernard: David Gooderson.
Grimbald: David Ricardo-Pearce.
Theresa: Rebecca Pownall.
Jacques: Mark Starr.
Page to the Countess/Brother Thomas: Chris Starkie.
Lay Sister: Heather Saunders.
Director: Imogen Bond.
Designer: Sam Dowson.
Lighting: John Harris.
Composer/Choreographer: Matthew Bugg.
Assistant director: Katie Henry.
2008-05-03 11:54:55