THE GOLDEN ASS. In rep to 29 september.
London
THE GOLDEN ASS
by Peter Oswald
Shakespeare's Globe In rep to 29 September 2002
7,14,21,26 Sept at 7.30pm
8,15,22 Sept at 1pm
28 Sept at 2pm
29 Sept at 4pm
Runs 3hr 10min 2 intervals
TICKETS 020 7401 9919
www.shakespeares-globe.org
Review Timothy Ramsden 1 September
A long, unlikely tale that gathers force through the skill of its telling.This is the Globe folk letting their hair down. Through much of Oswald's adaptation of Apuleius' comic novel from Classical Rome, the stage is heavy with cascading follicles.
Though, there are serious points being made one being the inclusion of this adaptation in this Globe season. Here's a story about a man turned into a donkey, in a season also playing Bottom's Dream.
And the other Globe show, Twelfth Night, builds comedy out of love's mad transformations. Young Lucius in the Ass merely wants piles of money and a splendid girl. It's over-curiosity in a witch's house (there are witches galore in the town of Hypata) that spellbinds Lucius into donkey form.
For the first hour director Tim Carroll and his large cast chuck a compendium of rough theatre techniques at Oswald's words, creating a hectic vaudeville. It's as much their impudent, brazenly theatrical tricks of acting and staging as the script's wit immense as this is - that make the thing so uproarious; unsurprisingly, theatre references crop up throughout.
Act Two brings the play's soul. Opening in the now-familiar vein, with a comic opera brigand band, there emerges a story-within-the-story, the seriously-told puppet tale of Cupid and Psyche the beautiful yet unwise woman who, somewhat like Lucius, suffers Venus' revenge. This moves towards grander opera, its events distanced by the formally-attired reciters and classically-trained singers on the Globe's balcony.
Cupid and Psyche, body and soul, finally work together to teach Lucius a thing or two, but too late. There are more high-jinks in the final act but mixed with Lucius' increasing sufferings as a burdened-beast, slowly forgetting once he was human or the elusive secret of regaining human form.
Sinking into forgetfulness, he's unable to tell his love Photis he is the donkey she's been searching for with her now all-gone roses, (eating a rose will restore Lucius' humanity). He's only released from becoming a permanently ex-Lucius by surprising intervention, which as in al the best denouements, has been present periodically throughout.
Mark Rylance translates well from wide-eyed callow youth to experience-ground quadruped, and Louise Bush has splendid vivacity and eventual pathos as Photis. It's a splendid story all round the kind of shaggy-dog journey that would fit well into promenade or site-specific settings. Ken Campbell could do it justice. There again, so do the Globe team.
Isis/Pamphale/Massima: Geraldine Alexander
Old Woman in Robbers' Cave: Liam Brennan
Prostitute/Baker's Wife: Michael Brown
Photis: Louise Bush
Robartes, a robber/Timinos' Mother: Keith Dunphy
Captain/Jupiter/Honorius' Wife: Peter Hamilton Gyer
Decius, a robber/Groom: Ryan Early
Bellerophon/Thrasillus: Paul Higgins
Clytus: Colin Hurley
Towerr/Lover: Simon Hyde
Tlepolemus/Cook: Richard Katz
Lucius' horse/Pythia/Lover: Jan Knightley
Robber/Timinos: Patrick Lennox
Appolonius/Alexandros, a robber/Priest: Gary Lilburn
Witch/Widow/Sister of Psyche/Friend of Baker's Wife: Rhys Meredith
Servant to Byrrhena/Balbus, a robber: Aled Pugh
Milo/Thiasus/Bear: John Ramm
Lucius: Mark Rylance
Aristomenus/Honorius: Peter Shorey
Charite: Philippa Stanton
Judge/River/Baker: Bill Stewart
Officer/Sextos, a robber/Groom: Simon Trinder
Officer/Hostus, a robber: Paul Trussell
Sister of Psyche/Ringmaster: Timothy Walker
Byrrhena/Hypotrophus, a Robber: Jem Wall
Socrates/Eagle/Auctioneer: Albie Woodington
Psyche: Amy Freston/Pamela Hay
Cupid: James Oxley
Master of Play: Tim Carroll
Master of Design: Laura Hopkins
Master of Music/Composer: Claire van Kampen
Master of Dance: Sian Williams
Circus Band Orchestrations: Andy Keenan
2002-09-02 11:47:19