THE APPLE CART To 1 August.
Bath.
THE APPLE CART
by George Bernard Shaw.
Theatre Royal In rep to 1 August 2009.
2.30pm 24, 25, 30 July.
7.30pm 29 July, 1 August.
Runs 2hr 15min One interval.
TICKETS: 01225 448844.
www.theatreroyal.org.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 22 July.
Rare airing for late Shavian political wit.
It’s 81 years since Shaw, in his seventies, wrote this futuristic fable with its dithering, fractious politicians outwitted by a popular young king. It remains remarkably relevant – though Barry Stanton’s suitably thunderous Boanerges, first working-man in t’Cabinet, and soon won over by royal charm, is distinctly pre-New Labour.
Even King Magnus’s fears at Shaw’s act three googly about America determining to return to the British Commonwealth – realising it will bring Britain under American control - seem current in a decade when America’s led Britain into foreign wars.
Under their grand classical names these politicians are a comically shabby lot, like a street of classically-colonnaded buildings housing betting-shops and burger-bars: both legal, and part of many people’s lives, but hardly living up to first impressions.
It’s possible, with some historical knowledge, to relate Shaw’s ministers to the 1928 Cabinet, principally Prime Minister Proteus (James Laurenson, admirably catching the mix of indecision and canny awareness of how Magnus is outwitting them) as Labour’s Ramsay MacDonald – who became more protean shortly after this play.
Contrasting them is King Magnus - a rejuvenated Shaw in Charles Edwards’ politely charming, quick-witted controversialist (upsetting apple carts was Shaw’s career-long aim). In practice, the contemporary alternative were the strong men – Mussolini and Stalin – who held such attraction for western left-wing intellectuals.
Typical Shavian mockery of establishment English types is here too, but more surprisingly a central interlude where Magnus shows power benefiting from another interest in life, the royal mistress Orinthia, who has her own apartments in the palace.
Sex was hardly Shaw’s strong suit, and the language can seem more strained here, but within the brief moment this cut-text production allows, Janie Dee compensates for this, with free-flowing celebration of Orinthia’s confident physicality, trouble-free senusality and a wit to equal the king’s.
Elegantly designed by Christopher Woods, whose ordered shapes contrast the muddled characters (in an act of bureaucratic pomposity the politicians line their bowler-hats on the last-act balustrade), Peter Hall’s production picks scrupulously through the comedy of political debate as a reminder that even minor Shaw is leagues ahead of most political debate on stage.
Pamphilius: Richard Clifford.
Sempronius: Peter Sandys-Clarke.
Boanerges: Barry Stanton.
King Magnus: Charles Edwards.
Alice: Elizabeth Crarer.
Proteus: James Laurenson.
Balbus: Peter Gordon.
Micobar: Richard Dixon.
Crassus: Jeffry Wickham.
Pliny: Geoff Leesley.
Lysistrata: Penny bunton.
Amanda: Julia Swift.
Orinthia: Janie Dee.
Queen Jemima: Candida Gubbins.
Vanhattan: Richard Lynson.
Director: Peter Hall.
Designer: Christopher Woods.
Lighting: Peter Mumford.
Sound: Gregory Clarke.
Associate director: Cordelia Monsey.
Associate lighting: Rachael. McCutcheon.
2009-07-25 04:47:20