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Stars explained: * A production of no real merit
with failings in all areas. ** A production showing evidence of not
enough time or effort, or even talent, and which never breathes any real
life into the piece – or a show lumbered with a terrible script. *** A
good enjoyable show which might have some small flaws but has largely
achieved what it set out to do.**** An excellent show which shows a
great deal of work and stage craft with no noticeable or major
flaws.***** A four star show which has found that extra bit of magic
which lifts theatre to another plane. |
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Highbury Players
**** SO, did Shakespeare’s daughter Susanna
have it off with local haberdasher Rafe Smith in her husband’s herb
garden in Stratford? That’s the question posed by Peter Whelan in the
play he wrote 20 years ago for the RSC. The question is based on the
historical fact that a wealthy son of the local gentry, Jack Lane,
accused Susanna of not only knowing the haberdasher biblically but had
caught the “running of the raynes” from him.
The raynes being the
kidneys and the phrase a polite description for gonorrhoea. Serious
charges in the 17th
century, so Susanna, her husband Dr John Hall and Smith brought a case
for slander against Lane at the Consistory Court at Worcester in June,
1613. That is the crux of it but there is a fascination
beyond the drama in the snippets of information of medical practice in
the 1600s – death must have been a tempting option for some faced with
Dr Hall’s herbal remedies supplemented by doses of lead and a few
poisons, which we were told, were used carefully. Anyone for a leech in
the groin or a wriggly worm poultice? We discover some wonderful medical terms and the
script produces some very funny lines, although Robert Hicks’ Dr Hall
fails to see the humour. Hicks give us a Hall who is a humourless, d Emma Woodcock’s Susanna is the practical one, helping to make up prescriptions, collecting the herbs and, despite being a woman, administering to the sick when her husband is away.
Once she would laugh and smile, she might even
have flirted, but no more, the Hall household is one of puritanical
dreariness.derous, brooding man, miserable as sin in the portrayal by
Mark Fletcher. He takes honesty to new levels, and has to have the need
for economy of truth explained for when tap dancing around the facts,
for example, the difference between carnal knowledge and
carnality,something Bill Clinton would understand a few centuries later. Then there is the Hall’s servant Hester, Ciara
O’Sullivan, an unwilling witness, persuaded that it would be in her best
interests to be less than certain of what she had seen. Whether she feared the wrath of God or betraying
Susanna more was a close run thing, until she convinced herself that
God, apparently perched on the roof of Worcester Cathedral, had told her
to lie. She has a lovely flash of anger towards the end as we discover
her own love for Rafe, who seems to get the women flocking around him
despite turning miserable into an art form. Rob Alexander gives us a rather unworldly Bishop
Parry, Bishop of Worcester, with a head either in the clouds or buried
in the sand, leaving all the hard decisions and Church discipline to his
Puritan layman Vicar General, Barnabus Goche, played in po-faced, no
nonsense and somewhat sinister style by Cos Calogirou. So thank the Lord for
Jack Hobbis’s Jack Lane, a real Jack the lad. Hobbis was Algernon in the
recent Importance of Being Earnest
and brings that devil may care attitude to this 17th century rake. At
last someone who actually smiles and is up for a laugh, although he is
up for a bit more than that, trying to seduce Hester and having tried it
on with Susanna. Oh, and there are a couple of complaints of sexual
misconduct against him. He is Dr Hall’s apprentice to please his wealthy
father, and for a generous allowance is quite happy to go along with it,
unfortunately he has tendency to also be as happy as a newt, and a rich
young thing and drink are not the best of bedfellows. Hobbis gives a nice contrast between the
confident, world at his feet, do as he pleases Jack at the start of the
play to the contrite, apologetic, almost pathetic Jack after making the
drunken accusations, looking for forgive We watch the drama slowly unfold as the layers
pile one upon the other. Did Susanna have a past before she married? Did
she kiss Jack? Why was she making up a prescription for the Italian
disease, as gonorrhoea was known? The Italians got the blame for
syphilis as well, incidentally, which they in turn called the French
disease, which the French called the English disease, and so on – an
early example of European unity. Director Alison Cahill builds the drama slowly.
This is a play with little in the way of action and even the court case
doesn’t have the gripping theatre of say murder or treason, with a
gibbet as the prize. It is a church court with excommunication as the
deterrent which for a drunkard and hedonistic womaniser such as Jack is
a far lesser punishment than the risk of losing his allowance.
So the tension has to be built skillfully and
slowly, and the interest held by a strong cast who play their parts
well, including some well delivered long speeches, particularly by
Susanna. A word too for the set designed by Malcolm
Robertshaw which was quite magnificent, a very solid looking
representation of the garden at Hall’s Croft, the house in
Stratford-upon-Avon by William Shakespeare and given to his daughter as
a wedding gift. The set is full of live herbs, generously
supplied incidentally by the National Trust’s Charlcote House near
Stratford, an estate where Shakespeare is reputed to have been caught
poaching as a young man. It looks a picture, although a couple of
plastic pots might be better disguised or their contents transferred to
clay containers for authenticity. There is a clever switch to Worcester Cathedral
with Andrew Noakes lighting plunging the rear into darkness apart from a
drop down, illuminated stained glass window and two stone columns being
highlighted for a rapid and effective change. A mention too for Olivia Williams and Ava Cattall
who are sharing the small but important role of Elizabeth, the Hal’s
daughter. All in all this is an
interesting production of a lesser known play, based on historical fact.
It alludes to theories by some that Shakespeare might have suffered from
syphilis and although the Bard never appears - the play ends as he is
about to be carried into Hall’s Croft as a desperately sick man - he is
there in the back ground, as he should be as the 400th
anniversary of his death is celebrated. The move must have worked as he lived another
three years after the play was set in 1613, the year when his last play
was performed. A fascinating glimpse into a real life Shakespearean
drama. To 25-06-16 Roger Clarke 14-06-16 |
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ull
as ditchwater Puritan. You suspect his idea of fun is to find a four
leafed clover. Hicks cleverly gives us a man who obviously suspects the
accusations could be true but rather than call his wife a liar in the
eyes of God supports her with a fervour that becomes an obsession.
ness
and perhaps even acceptance.