REVIEWS.
Tamburlaine The Swan, Stratford-upon-Avon ????? HHHHI Tarantino is born again at Stratford in this bloodsplattered production of Christopher Marlowe's tragic masterpiece.In Michael Boyd's incisive and well-directed production, which overlooks none of Marlowe's intent to shock his audience, the corpses pile up steadily and Tamburlaine himself (played with a convincing flourish by Jude Owusu) cuts the throats of his kingly victims with, one assumes, the same indifference he used in his early life as a sheep farmer, when a mutton roast was required for a tribal feast.
In fact, Owosu breaks the neck of a nearby victim as carelessly as one might swat a fly in this violent crowd-pleaser (I speak of the original audience in 1587) when we are barely into Act One Scene One!
At one extraordinary moment, Marlowe's demented psychopath even dispatches his own son and he's always around to help those unfortunate royals whose instincts about whether to stay or leave this world early are confused.
Occasionally this spectacularly violent play can seem comical, and at times Boyd adds an acceptable tongue-in-cheek element to Marlowe's tale which does, at times, like Tarantino, go right over the top.
But, hey, we should always remember that Marlowe in his day would have seen heads rotting on spikes on London Bridge, and would have been only too familiar with public hangings and worse.
Owosu deserves congratulations for bringing off well a huge role, where Tamburlaine scarcely leaves the stage all night.
And a special word here for David Sturzaker's fine playing of the pitiful Governor of Babylon and Rosy McEwen's fragile Zenocrate dressed in virginal white, both actors speaking Marlowe's words very well. But vocal coaching is still needed for the small part players who cannot be heard when hovering up-stage - teach them voice projection, it's basic theatre.
The sets are simple - they need to be since the action moves around continually - and the costumes are roughly period and often in lavish gold and black. For a season.
Richard Edmonds Ruby Hughes, HuwWatkins St Andrew's Church, Presteigne ????? HHHHI It's fascinating to seek out links in the shrewd programming artistic director George Vass brings to the Presteigne festival.
Saturday's recital from soprano Ruby Hughes and accompanist Huw Watkins was a case in point. Entitled "A Charm of Lullabies" it did indeed have a largely underlying theme of babyhood and sleep, but there were so many twists in the tale here, with a disturbing pessimism belying the balm of a sunny afternoon outside.
The many moods of Britten's own Charm of Lullabies already exemplified what was to come: Hughes' intensely committed response to texts, tone opening out into glorious bloom, Watkins' generous ability to capture the essence underlying every texture of piano-writing.
And what wonderful texts these are, as are almost all of them - Christina Rossetti, Dickinson, Larkin, Yeats, depicting the poignancy of love remembered - in Watkins' own Echo song-cycle, receiving here its UK premiere. Watkins picks out a key word from each poem and crafts the accompaniment accordingly. Hughes deployed a huge range of colours, but diction sometimes clouded under pressure, and her habit of conducting every breath of phrases did prove distracting.
Echo ends with the sombre, unsettling and incomprehensible "Baby Blue" by David Harsent, a presage of what was to follow in Helen Grime's Bright Travellers. This was a cycle with vocal lines (sometimes gratuitously placed, avoiding expectation) intimately exulting in the fierce joy of pregnancy and delivery (Fiona Benson the poet) - though the in-depth analysis of breast-feeding was perhaps sensationalist - but ending with a grim depiction of stillbirth.
Hughes invested huge emotional involvement in this work, collecting herself to deliver a consoling account of Berg's Seven Early Songs, so shapely in their construction (no wonder Britten was influenced by him), and touchingly redolent of both Brahms and Wagner.
Christopher Morley
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| Title Annotation: | Features |
|---|---|
| Publication: | The Birmingham Post (England) |
| Geographic Code: | 4EUUK |
| Date: | Aug 30, 2018 |
| Words: | 632 |
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