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Once more the exquisite surroundings of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse provide a backdrop for the most craven of emotions in this witty, assured revival of John Ford’s turbulent classic.
'The Broken Heart' opens with a happy and carefree Orgilus carrying his betrothed love Penthea onto the stage and embracing her. Moments later black hooded men violently separate the couple. From seduction to abduction – in those few moments the dark seeds for the rest of the play are sewn. Penthea, we discover, has been forced into a marriage with a wealthy older man by her proud brother Ithocles, and Orgilus will not rest until he has exacted the full price for this violation.
The play was published during the reign of Charles I and takes ancient Greece as its historical setting. The main action is set in Sparta, but Orgilus flees to Athens – first forcing his sister Euphrania to swear she will not marry till she has found a man he agrees is worthy of her. Brian Ferguson’s Orgilus is a wiry, dynamic presence, adept both at expressing the play’s most cruelly visceral sentiments and its moments of dry comedy.
One of Ford’s jokes is that Orgilus’s intention is to study philosophers including the Stoics in Athens. Yet it is his lover, Penthea (a sterling, self-possessed turn from ‘Mr Selfridge’s’ Amy Morgan) who proves the true stoic and pays the ultimate price.
Director Caroline Steinbeis presents a deft interpretation of this challenging text, wittily highlighting all its absurdities at the same time as she plumbs its depths. Some stunning coups de théatre include a moment when the three central female figures perform a dance as if trapped in a music box. Their knowing expressions show them to be far more than dolls, yet the dance’s power derives from the fact that none can escape the sadistic choreography of the society that contains them.
Strangely it is Owen Teale, of ‘Game of Thrones’ fame, who looks most uncomfortable in this production as he plays Penthea’s ageing lover. Otherwise there is not a dud performance, whether it’s Sarah MacRae’s Boadicean-style princess Calantha, Joe Jameson’s Bertie Wooster-ish Nearchus, or Luke Thompson’s wearily heroic Ithocles. A dark gem.