THE MINISTRY OF PLEASURE. To 27 June.
London
THE MINISTRY OF PLEASURE
by Craig Baxter
Latchmere Theatre To 27 June 2004
Tue-Sat 8pm Sun 4.30pm
Ruins 2hr 15min One interval
TICKETS: 020 7978 7040
Review: Timothy Ramsden 20 June
The dark side of pleasure, as an amalgam of desire, pain and hurt, in a fascinating new play.Craig Baxter's fascinating, if overly episodic, play makes clear that Good King Charles' golden days had faded long before his reign ended. Religious severity, apparently swept away by the pleasure-loving monarchy's aura, still nags away, largely through the elderly figures Robert Gillespie ably portrays. Any natural disaster can be hauled in as evidence of God's judgement.
At first Charles, keen on science (he's first seen peering through a telescope), takes the line of his favourite, John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester. A comet's neither good nor bad. But as fire piles on plague, the forces of superstitious speculation overwhelm rational explanation till Charles is forced to surrender his public scepticism and his Minister of Pleasure.
Wilmot's life echoed his verse - the most sexually frank seen outside brown wrappers till the present day. Baxter, through Martin Delaney's ever-boyish performance, shows him initially as a sharp-tongued innocent, with a disdain for the country damp and green and full of cows.
At court he plays the fool, miming sexual acts amid a louche court dance (sent spinning into modern decadence by Simon McCorry's cross-centuries music) while still wearing his travel-satchel. He miscalculates, especially when abducting the young heiress he's sure returns his desire, and triumphs callously over rivals.
Fighting the Dutch sours Wilmot's natural inclination for scorn and bitterness yet further. Dead comrades haunt his nightmares, while his days are filled with a new fury at the waste of war. If that's what serious government's about, then pleasure had better reign instead. No wonder he gets on well with Charles, the merry, womanising monarch who snaps back when admonished to be serious, that seriousness took his father to the execution block.
Life's never going to be that easy, as puritan reactionaries, court enemies, the pox and Wilmot's destruction of others' lives make clear. This fascinating landscape is worked out through some technically limited performances at moments to the point of becoming painfully raw.
Jeremy Daker's set craftily suggests celebrity and astronomy in its star panels, their pattern fading to the sides. But the play's the thing that gives this evening its lustre.
Rochester: Martin Delaney
Elizabeth: Frida Show
King Charles II: Johnnie Lyne-Pirkis
Anne/Barbara: Charlotte Fields
Queen/Jane/Nell: Amy Humphreys
Fanshawe/Sir John/Mrs Tasker/Montague/Councillor: Neil Summerville
Mulgrave/Wyndham/Sexton/Councillor: Sean Patterson
Burnet/Hawley/Tom/Councillor: Robert Gillespie
Director: Stuart Mullins
Designer: Jeremy Daker
Lighting: Phil Hewitt
Sound/Composer: Simon McCorry
Dance/Movement: Alan Meggs
Fight director: Sean Patterson
Assistant director: Will Hammond
2004-06-22 00:13:41