THE EMPEROR JONES. To 17 December.
London
THE EMPEROR JONES
by Eugene O’Neill
Gate Theatre 11 Pembridge Road W1 To 17 December 2005
Mon-Sat 7.30pm
Runs 1hr 10min No interval
TICKETS: 020 7229 0706
boxoffice@gatetheatre.co.uk
www.gatetheatre.co.uk
Review: Timothy Ramsden 35 November
Dramatic heights reached in the pit.
Interesting to see this after New End’s a one-man play about Robert Maxwell. Eugene O’Neill’s title character, too, is a magnifico who’s built power out of little more than force of personality before being destroyed. Brutus Jones could also be out of a Joseph Conrad novel as O’Neill unwinds his complexities through the action.
For much of its brief course Emperor Jones seems a 2-man, then a solo play. Meeting English colonial Smithers (Paul Wyett, the stage Cockney of American expectations), Jones alternatively threatens and charms like a natural bully. His self-image soaks up power, while he’s fashioned a myth of invincibility, claiming only a silver bullet can kill him. The one he’s had forged is the tyrant’s poison pill, ready for the long-denied, continually-feared moment of overthrow that’s now arrived.
There follows a long night for soul and body as his planned escape goes awry, fantasy figures bursting in, making a play of 2 or 1 people, one of 21. Jones’ past looms before him: African poverty, a prison work-gang, the slave market.
Thea Sharrock’s vivid and perceptive production plays this on a long, narrow, sand-covered pit, the audience staring down from outside. When Jones the slave is lifted on a stool for inspection he comes to audience eye-level, implicating us in his condition by his glance, his nervous, near-naked body emphasising what the magnificent uniform and braggart manner of his glory days has hidden.
Yet, for all the vividness of this slave-mart, or the prison chain gang – Wyett doubling as the white authority figures of slave-dealer and prison-guard, for whose treatment of Jones the softer-mannered, venial Smithers suffers the Emperor’s tongue-lashing - and the contrasting pictures of poor black people emerging from hatches under the audience, exhausted, baleful witnesses against Jones, in a sense this is a one-character play.
Paterson Joseph has the externals of authority in the opening scenes, slightly undermined (deliberately) as he bends to attend to his footwear. Later, the night sounds leave him fearful, lying-low and near-naked with sweat glistening over his body. Whatever Jones’ status, this is a commanding performance in a beautifully-detailed production.
Brutus Jones: Patterson Joseph
Smithers/Prison Guard/Plantation Owner: Paul Wyett
Old Woman: Corinne Skinner Carter
Congo Witch-Doctor: Swayne Barnaby
Lem: Yemi Ajibada
CompanyL Zahra Browne, Robert Crumpton, Rick Galazca, Duane Henry, Elizabeth James, Nicholas Karimi, Olivette Oniokeoci Cole Wilson, Oluyemi Cole-Wilson, Patrick Ross, Jonah Russell, Carrie Shirtcliffe, Jonathan Taylor, Alex Tilouche, Nicola Welburn, Archie Whyld, Robert Wilson
Director: Thea Sharrock
Designer: Richard Hudson
Lighting: Adam Silverman
Sound: Gregory Clarke
Choreographer: Dwayne Barnaby
Dialect coach: Jeannette Nelson
Assistant director: Claire Lovell
Assistant designer: Ben Austin
2005-11-29 10:33:49