VENUS AND ADONIS till 17 March
VENUS AND ADONIS: William Shakespeare
Part of the Complete Works Festival
www.rsc.org.uk
Swan Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon
Runs: 1h, no interval, till Saturday 17 March
Review: Rod Dungate, 15 March 2007
A delight, a joy, a gem
The Little Angel Theatre – RSC joint production is a unique and totally engaging contribution to the Complete Works Festival. More than this, really, it’s quite magical.
Shakespeare’s poem was incredibly popular in its time; it used all the fashionable literary tricks. Today we may view it as an oddity and ‘interesting, keep working hard and you’ll achieve great things’ type of work. At times it’s lovely, at other times it clanks along and the rhymes grind like poorly oiled cogs. All this is of no matter whatsoever as the production transforms it into a beautiful, touching, funny and delicate masque. The use of puppets heightens the fairy-tale distance of the tale, enabling us to engage with it effortlessly.
The Little Angel Theatre’s team are clearly among the leaders of their art. Traditionally based, the puppets are animated with a gentleness, even love, that is breath-taking. There is a wit (sometimes naughty wit) that delights and an equally delightful sense of imaginative invention. Each puppet, whether it be Venus, Adonis, horse, boar, hare is a thing of beauty and crafted to reflect fluid movement, intelligence and emotion.
One of the poem’s contemporary popular elements was its eroticism, these moments are a joy to watch, as strangely moving as they are amusing. But I would give anything to watch two other sections again.
The first is when Harriet Walter (a glorious reading of the poem) approaches Adonis’s horse to describe it for us. ‘So did this horse excel a common one / In shape, in courage, colour, pace and bone,’ she begins. Then, breaking with convention she moves towards the horse; the horse hears her and poses for us as she continues her description: ‘Round-hoofed, short-jointed, fetlocks shag and long, / Broad breast, full eye, small head and nostril wide . . .’ Joy, oh joy!
Later, Venus, fearing Adonis’s death, encounters Death himself. Beautifully staged; she first berates him and later dances with him. This must be seen to be appreciated.
All in all, a lovely gem of a production.
Narrator (RSC): Harriet Walter
Narrator (LAT): John Hopkins
Puppeteers: Nele De Craecker, Roger Lade, Rachel Leonard, Lynn Robertson Bruce, Sarah Wright
Guitarist (RSC): Nicholas Lee
Guitarist (LAT): Simon Davies
Puppets Designed and Created by: Lyndie Wright, Jan Zalud, John Roberts, Stefan Fichert, Simon Auton, Jungmin Song
Directed by: Gregory Doran
Directors of Puppetry: Steve Tiplady and Lyndie Wright
Designed by: Robert Jones
Original lighting Designed by: Adam Crosthwaite
Relighting for the Swan Theatre: Vince Herbert
Music Arranged by: John Woolf
2007-03-16 10:32:34