Love’s Labour’s Lost

Love’s Labour’s Lost

By William Shakespeare

Northern Broadsides

The Lowry, 17 April 2012

The ladies looking none too impressed. Photo by Nobby Clark.

One apostrophe denotes possession, the other contraction: so much for the grammatical intricacies of the title of the play.

It’s a comedy containing a cornucopia of courtships (well, four or five) and was also, incidentally, Harold Bloom’s favourite play.  In Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human he praises the play in particular for its language – its poetry, wordplay and rhetoric (all those ‘figures pedantical’ that Shakespeare most likely culled from Puttenham) – and here it is placed at the service of love.  His suitors, and especially Berowne (an excellent performance by Matt Connor in this production) are sophists, though the game is to win a lady not an argument.  And just as the sophists in olden days were  not too concerned with truth, nor do they – the suitors – make a big song and dance about fidelity.  There’s little wonder then that the gentler gender seek a deferment, to test their suitors’ affection.

This is a vibrant production of the play that would satisfy even Bloom himself.  There is the comedy, and here I would pick out the performances of Andrew Vincent (as Armado) and Adam Fogarty (Costard) in particular and the moment when Longaville’s (in person, Jos Vantyler’s) pockets seem to teem with manuscripts, a slue of scrawled sonnets.  This last was one of several comic details that enhanced the text no end.  The music and songs were spot-on an’ all.

And the sets and costumes were wonderful to look at, a colourful extravaganza you couldn’t peel your eyes away from.  It was a joyful experience withal and you went away with a better understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare’s great talent.

 Love’s Labour’s Lost is at The Lowry until Saturday 21 April, details here.

We are Three Sisters

We are Three Sisters

By Blake Morrison

Northern Broadsides

The Lowry, 20 September 2011

If you have some familiarity with the Brontes’ lives and works, and with Chekhov’s Three Sisters also, you will definitely get the max out of Blake Morrison’s play.

Your appreciation of the curate’s speculations concerning the form that future life will take is definitely enhanced by a knowledge of Chekhov’s play, for example, as will be the fate of Tabby, the Brontes’ servant.  So too you’ll enjoy the very end, where instead of Moscow the sisters look to London, their soon to be published novels and posterity for their salvation.

Then, on another tack, there is Branwell, who like Rochester’s wife in Jane Eyre almost dies by setting himself and the parsonage alight.

However, it would be tedious to enumerate all the various echoes and allusions.

What I liked most about Morrison’s play was the character of the Doctor, played by the excellent John Branwell, a plain-speaking man caught in the headlights of a deep emotion, and the empathy for Tabby, the virtue-bejewelled Eileen O’Brien.  A treasure and a half, she is.

There is also Emily, the true genius of the litter, who is given to making gloomy, Gothic pronouncements.  They are a shaft of moonlight, these utterances, awry yet disquietingly illuminating.

We are Three Sisters, a solidly entertaining play, is at The Lowry until 24 September, further details here.  Then it continues its UK tour, full tour dates being here.

Northern Broadsides’ The Canterbury Tales

The Canterbury Tales
By Geoffrey Chaucer
A new version by Mike Poulton
Northern Broadsides
The Lowry, 18 May 2010

It’s a long, long road…

This is as vital and bawdy and funny and moving and ultimately redemptive a stage version of Chaucer’s great work as you would wish to see.  There’s some terrific stuff to be had on stage here.

If you are looking for a modern edition of the text, I can recommend Peter Ackroyd’s retelling, which was published just this year.

The Canterbury Tales is currently touring the UK until mid-June.  Tour dates are here.

Medea

Medea
By Euripides
Northern Broadsides
In a new version by Tom Paulin
The Lowry, 13 April 2010

True, revenge is a dish best eaten cold.

But sometimes it must be taken when hot and spicy – so hot that it might burn the mouth.  When Medea is given 24 hours to blow town, she  has to act pronto to get her two shillings’ worth of pay-back.

This is a mesmerising production of Euripides’ great play, not least because the chorus and the music – percussive and rhythmic and dissonant – is so up to the mark.  Nina Kristofferson is spellbinding in the title role and Barrie Rutter (as Creon & the messenger) also stood out.  Paulin’s version of the play is at its best when it sticks to the original sense and meaning, rather than hankering after contemporary resonance and relevance, or trying to make the play into a quasi-feminist tract.  The term ‘safe haven’ occurs and rankles somewhat: a haven is safe by definition, clearly.

There is little doubting that Medea is a gal on a mission.  She decides to keep Jason, her two-timing hubby, alive but wants to kill all those he cares for.  That is the way to do it: vindictiveness as art.

It is no matter that the two dearest to Jason are their children (Jason’s and Medea’s too); revenge grasped when the blood is hot can burn the heart too.

The Greeks knew some deep stuff, that’s for sure.

This production is at The Lowry until 17 April.  Details here.