Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Edinburgh Fringe - Shakespeare's Mothers and Mr. Darcy

Two more fringe shows today. The first was called Shakespeare’s Mothers: Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know. The loose framework for the show was William Shakespeare being grilled on a television infotainment show and being held responsible for the rise in numbers of female terrorists due to the kind of women’s roles he wrote. Shakespeare then takes us through some of his female characters, with the three actors performing a scene or two for each. In an hour, we visited Lady Macbeth (she was a mother, even if it was only a throw-away reference), the sisters from Lear, characters from Pericles, Coriolanus, Cymbeline, and a couple of Richards, among others, and (of course) Gertrude from Hamlet.

‘Shakespeare’ was very funny, and I enjoyed all of his commentary. The Shakespeare scenes were… ok. All three performers suffered (to varying degrees) from what I call ‘actor voice’ during those scenes. This happens when actors choose to wear Shakespearian roles like diamond-encrusted mantles and then use Great big Voices to fill them out. It all results in a Great Big Barrier between the audience and any kind of emotional connection with the material. Not at all crippling in this case, but I did notice people starting to tune out.

Personally, I got the most out of the scenes from plays that I knew well. Scenes from the ones I have never spent time with (Pericles, Cymbeline and the like) kind of passed me by, though Shakespeare did his best to put them into context.

But the best part came at the end, when some of the mothers broke out of their scenes to interact directly with Shakespeare. All of a sudden, the whole thing really came alive, and it left me wishing more of the play had been like that.

On the whole, a good show. You’ll get the most out of it if you’re familiar with a wide range of Shakespeare’s canon.

I also saw Darcy’s Dilemma. From the blurb in the guide, which begins “Pride and Prejudice – the story continues”, I expected this play was going to add something to the story. But, no. He covered no ground that wasn’t already better trod by Austen herself.

Set in Darcy’s study in the period immediately after his rejection by Elizabeth Bennett, this is essentially Darcy’s reaction to that event, and really just recaps the story thus far. With a lot of raging and angst-ing.

The script is poorly constructed. Supposedly a one-man show, it relies far too heavily on pre-recorded dialogue from other characters, and twice Darcy walks off-stage to talk to a non-existant footman. Now, either it should be a one-man show in which he creates for us the other characters in his world, or it should be a play with multiple characters. It is, however, neither here nor there.

Not to mention the fact that the pacing was absolutely glacial. Interminable pauses left me repeatedly wondering if one of the many sound cues had gone awry. And the sound cues themselves could easily have been played at double speed and not raised any eyebrows.

Mr. Mickleburgh as Mr. Darcy mumbled many of his lines, and twice left the stage completely empty to shout his lines from the depths of the side-stage curtains.

All in all, it felt like one man’s vanity project – an excuse to dress up in a tailcoat and sideburns and pretend to be one of literature’s greatest romantic heros.

What with the names of Austen and Darcy attached, this show will sell well, but I wouldn’t recommend it. And for a final nail in the coffin? The woman beside me slept through the whole thing.

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