Renaissance meets rave in director Melly Still’s lavish interpretation of ‘The Revenger’s Tragedy’. The Jacobean horror-play (currently ascribed to Middleton as opposed to Tourneur), with its sickly luminous tapestry of vice, is a designer’s best nightmare. And Still, with designer Ti Green, rises to the difficult heights of the Olivier with a revolving set of tall gauze walls, projected with classical and modern fantasies from fleshy oil paintings to a giant graphic of a woman’s face morphing into a death’s head.
The memento mori is the most memorable aspect of the play: we first meet its anti-hero Vindice going one better than Hamlet by clutching the skull of his poisoned beloved, swearing revenge. Still’s production starts with a big bang instead: pumping bass is mixed with string music as courtly partygoers (in clubby costumes) revolve in revels which climax in a rape. Aesthetically, it establishes the dynamic, deranged glitter which helps give this three-hour production its pulling power. But it also foregrounds events from the sub-plot, depriving Vindice (Rory Kinnear, almost hidden by streaming fake hair) of the clear moral origin necessary to trace his subsequent fall into the corruption he sets out to punish.
Vindice spends much of the play impersonating a pander (here, to comic relief, a cockney cynic with wandering hands). The character-change is sudden and complete, displaying Kinnear’s versatility as a character actor (many other performances are forgettable in comparison). But the comic punch in this and other scenes seems too broad for the play’s grotesque sense of proportion. And Kinnear’s Vindice is less than the sum of his many parts.
Vindice’s revenge against the Duke (he tricks his lady’s murderer into kissing her poisoned skull) is made brilliantly, hallucinogenically plausible by the delicate manipulation of a life-sized puppet. But the production’s feverish mobility becomes less satisfying as the play descends into its gleeful bloodbath. It always looks spectacular, but sometimes feels soulless.
For all its clever stage design and engaging (and loud!) live music, something core is lacking in this performance. For a play in which death, killing and the planning of it are central, dying has to be convincing, and it mostly wasn't. The performances are variable, and strangely disconnected, although the main characters are solid enough. I left feeling flat. Perhaps that's the only outcome of so much revenge?
I disagree with the rating and recomendation of this production. I found it emotionally unengaging and lacking except for its pure shock factor. The direction was predictable and i felt that with such a fantastic play to work with the outcome could have been stunning. However the actor who plays Hippolito redeems it all somewhat and there is no denying that the visuals and live music where impressive and enjoyable. If you want to see some really good theatre try Harper Reagan, the other side of the National.
2 comments
For all its clever stage design and engaging (and loud!) live music, something core is lacking in this performance. For a play in which death, killing and the planning of it are central, dying has to be convincing, and it mostly wasn't. The performances are variable, and strangely disconnected, although the main characters are solid enough. I left feeling flat. Perhaps that's the only outcome of so much revenge?
I disagree with the rating and recomendation of this production. I found it emotionally unengaging and lacking except for its pure shock factor. The direction was predictable and i felt that with such a fantastic play to work with the outcome could have been stunning. However the actor who plays Hippolito redeems it all somewhat and there is no denying that the visuals and live music where impressive and enjoyable. If you want to see some really good theatre try Harper Reagan, the other side of the National.