THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
THE TRANSATLANTIC MAGAZINE
Original comedy by William Shakespeare
Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon, Warwickshire CV37 6BB until May 18, 2024
This marks Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey's first production as new Co-Artistic Directors of the RSC, Evans having moved on from making a great success of both Chichester and Sheffield theatres. Their advance programme looks very refreshing indeed although this is not a great start.
For a first splash, they've secured Luke Thompson, international star of Bridgerton, who it turns out is greatly accomplished at Shakespeare and is alone here in giving his character some depth of intelligence. He has the charisma to spare of course and the more excited fans in the auditorium did make their presence felt, adding to the gaiety.
Harder to fathom is the choice of play, for this is one of the Bard's more challenging and less performed pieces. Director Emily Burns, on the heels of a perfect exhumation of Dear Octopus at the National, does a lot with it but ultimately it outstays its welcome.
The King of Navarre (an impressive Abiola Owokoniran) and three nobles have resolved to retreat and study for three years, eschewing female company: so even the Princess (Melanie Joyce-Bermudez), who is suing for land lost to Navarre's father, has to be encamped outside the court with her three ladies. Messages are exchanged via interfering underlings who provide the comic relief but inevitably the four men fall in love, break their vows and catch one another out in their forbidden yearnings. They break the vow and proceed to be tricked by the wily ladies.
The fact that the women here are not interested in romance and speak disparagingly of men makes this as hip and empowering as a Taylor Swift album and Joanna Scotcher's smart casual costumes are so elegantly modern they lend these women a cool invincibility.
Burns sets it all in an exclusive Polynesian spa resort (think The White Lotus), and so it's all golf buggy antics and playing for larks. The warm glow of Neil Austin's lighting will make you want to book a holiday. Guests are adorned with leis and welcomed by a local traditional band. Interestingly, while this musical element could have anchored it, it instead degenerates into a massage room chill out. Think Hotel Costes Bora Bora.
The men are first presented as lazy billionaire Tech-Bros, glued to their handsets, but then this idea gets forgotten. Curiously, for a piece that explores the transformative potential of love, there is very little chemistry evidenced between the 4 couples, but lots of 'bro' bonding.
Instead, the focus is very much on the comedy from the supporting characters. Don Armado is presented as an idiotic, preening Spanish tennis player. Jack Bardoe gives it everything and his paso doble swishes nearly make him burst his tight ever so chic tennis gear. Nathan Foad is a delight too, camping it up in his turbaned spa gear as another one of the underlings and Jordan Metcalfe's Boyet (aide to the Princess) is another physical comedy delight, at one point doing a terrified squeeze past.
The piece, however, is baggy and doesn't have the tautness of the great plays. It is mired in endless allusive wordplay, albeit wittily performed here by Tony Gardner's confident Holofernes, but the overrich banter soon gets wearying, especially for a modern audience who might be unfamiliar with the piece and so at a loss to keep up with the story. While the pageant at the end pulls out all the stops and Joanna Scotcher's dressing up box designs are glorious (flip-flops made from coke bottles!), we are by then exhausted. It's all too pleased with itself and cries out for trimming.
