The Spectator - February 08, 2018

(Michael S) #1
Edgar Degas,

Danseuse Assise

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Sculpture & Works on Paper


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Saturday 11.00-2.00

Theatre


Changing the bard


Lloyd Evans


Julius Caesar
Bridge Theatre, until 15 April

Dry Powder
Hampstead Theatre, until 3 March

Nicholas Hytner’s new show is a modern-
dress Julius Caesar, heavily cut and played in
the round. It runs for two hours, no interval.
The action opens with the audience grouped
around a central stage where a ramshack-
le rock gig descends into a riot. The play
unfolds like an illegal rave at a warehouse.
It’s bold, in its way, and some of it works.
A couple of the Roman senators are
played by actresses and the text has been
bodged to suit the cult of gender neutral-
ity. ‘Romans’ is substituted for ‘men’ in
Mark Antony’s famous line, ‘so are they all,
all honourable men’. This small change is
curiously painful to hear. It turns the omi-
nous finality of Shakespeare’s original into
a tuneless clatter.
Visually the play is eccentrically subur-
ban. Michelle Fairley (Cassius, believe it or
not) looks like a dinner lady stranded at a

opera’s greatest dramatic moments. Here, it
is blunt, inert.
Consolation comes from the pit, where
Opera North’s former music director Rich-
ard Farnes gives a vivacious, propulsive
account of the score, whirling his audience
through the opera’s ballroom at speed, but
still finding time to illuminate moments of
beauty — the sudden softness of strings in
the Act II prelude, a solo line from a cor
anglais, curving like calligraphy in the ear.
But brilliance and light only make sense in
Verdi’s chiaroscuro world if tempered by
shadows on the stage, and the effect here
was one of imbalance.
Vocally this isn’t vintage Opera North
either. Bardon and Gevorgyan are the pick
of the cast, but the central triangle all have
their issues. Exquisite in moments of still-
ness, Adrienn Miksch’s Amelia tended to
be shrill and tremulous in intensity, while
Rafael Rojas made a meal of Gustavus, his
grainy tenor tiring audibly through the even-
ing. After a slow start, Phillip Rhodes’s per-
sonable Anckarstroem did rally for a fine
‘Eri tu’, but it wasn’t quite enough to set this
operatic marriage ablaze.
It has been years (and several dud pro-
ductions) since the UK has seen a decent
Ballo in maschera. Will we ever get to go to
the ball? I wouldn’t start polishing your tiara
just yet.


bus stop. She wears a blue Primark raincoat
with a handbag slung over her shoulder. A
handbag? She’s a Roman general fighting
a civil war. And we’re asked to believe that
she plucked David Calder’s burly Caesar
from the Tiber and saved him from drown-
ing. He’s twice her size. Calder’s Caesar is
all right. He’s a lot older than 56, and far
too giggly at first, but he calms down and
becomes more statesmanlike later. His cos-
tumes are poor: a leather jacket and a Sovi-
et general’s greatcoat. I saw Soviet togs in
this play in 1980 and even then they looked

dated. David Morrissey’s Mark Antony is
good but flawed. Like Calder, he’s too old.
And why the silvery beard? Mark Antony
is a sex god, not Captain Bird’s Eye. Mor-
rissey is blessed with a beautiful, hypnotic
voice which gives him a real air of author-
ity when he converts the Roman mob to his
cause. This long passage is excellent and the
contemporary setting works well.
The star attraction is Ben Whishaw (Bru-
tus) and it’s becoming clear that he is ill-
suited to Shakespeare. Most of the Bard’s
great roles are warriors and Whishaw lacks
the physical and spiritual mettle for soldier-
ing. Slight, gentle, troubled, dreamy, he’d be

It’s becoming clear that Ben Whishaw
is ill-suit ed to Sh ak espeare
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