Play-Watching in London I
Aug. 16th, 2025 05:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakI can spend a few days in London right now, and that already meant two plays.
Globe Theatre: The Merry Wives of Windsor
Rarely performed these days, and actually one I never read, which is one of the reasons why I used the chance to watch it in an afternoon performance, that and the way watching plays at the Globe, in a perfectly reconstructed Elizabethan theatre, has yet to cease being special to me.
About the play itself: the reason why I never read it is that the short summary I did read back in the day put me off, and watching it didn’t change my mind about the play itself. So much second hand embarrasment, and watching a character getting humiliated non stop is my anti-kink and a big squick. Note that in the Henry IV plays, Falstaff also gets pranks plaid on him, and gets of course rejected most painfully by the end, but it’s not non-stop. In the verbal sparring with Hal earlier, he gives as good as he gets, and his terse “honour” speech during the Battle of Shrewsbury has people debating whether this is Shakespeare deconstructing his own mighty battlefield rethoric or not. (At any rate, it’s one of those brief monologues, like Shylock’s “Hath not a Jew” speech, that comes not from a character meant as either heroic or tragic but ends up being one of the best known Shakespearean pieces anyway. Meanwhile, in The Merry Wives, Falstaff is relentlessly the butt of the joke and hardly gets to say anything clever or witty. (Mind you, the play also makes sure he’s not taken as harmless or undeserving of at least some ; it’s not just that he lusts after our two married heroines (which would be less of a problem in this day and age than for Elizabethans) but that he wants to fleece them of their money and thinks nothing of planning to hand over one them to her next lover for some more profit.)
However, performance can make some difference. As can direction. In this particular production - in which the character wear costumes which feel more Jacobean than Elizabethan, but are gorgeous to look at (various shades of green and blue for the citizens, red for Falstaff and some red mixed with blue-ish for his entourage) - the other men aren’t impressive, to put it mildly, and the worst male character is in fact Ford (Jolyon Coy). By contrast, our heroines, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, are that rarity, central female characters above thirty in a centuries old play, and while of them (Mistress Page) is the mother of the play’s young ingenue, Anne, both of them being sexual beings as well as being clever, determined and energetic is central to the plot. The play already starts out with a note of ambiguity in that you don’t know whether either of them wouldn’t have at least flirted with Falstaff if they hadn’t found out as soon as he proposed that he was already two timing them with each other, and then Mistress Ford (Katherine Pearce) increasingly obviously starts to enjoy not just the prank part of their “revenge scheme” but the making out with Falstaff before each prank kicks in, and the more oafish her husband behaves, the more torn she comes across. By the time the play ends, she looks absolutely stricken when her husband triumphantly declares he’ll lie with her tonight, and later silently returns to kiss Falstaff one last time in a mixture of consolation and hunger, which is the end of the play.
(Again, this is not in the text, it’s all silent acting and directing addendum.)
This helps the play not to feel so relentlessly one note, and the actor playing Falstaff, George Fouracress, has enough charisma and comic timing that you wish he’d get to play the Falstaff of the Henriad als well. Plus everyone else threw themselves in their roles, too, and as I was standing close to the stage as a groundling, I had the chance to observe the facial acting of even the bit players, which was great. I enjoyed the performance more than not. But in general I think I’ll keep staying away from this play and regard it as one of Shakespeares lesser comedies.
The Garrick: Mrs Warren’s Profession
One of George Bernard Shaw’s early “problem plays” and scandals. (He wrote it in the early 1890s, and except for a club performance in 1902, it would take two decades to make it to the London stage. By contrast, it was already performed in Germany in the 1890s as well. Legendary producer Max Reinhardt was a big Shaw fan and so were a lot of Wilhelmians.) This production is starring Imelda Staunton as the titular Mrs. Warren, and her real life daughter Bessie Carter (known to the general audience probably best as Prudence Featherington in Bridgerton) as Vivie Warren; the director is Dominic Cooke.
Other than switching the play’s setting from late Victorian (then-contemporary to when Shaw wrote it) to just pre WWI (which affects the costumes but not much else), this was a very werkgetreue production, and while the guys gamely did their supporting parts, this is a two women play, standing and falling with its Kitty and Vivie Warren, and both actresses were great. I’ve seen Imelda Staunton through the decades as both villainesses and heroines, in costume and in contemporary scenarios, and she’s reliably excellent, so I expected nothing less, but her daughter I knew only from her comic relief bit part in a fun Regency Soap, and you really need a strong Vivie for this play to work, so it was with great joy I can report Bessie Carter was superb. (BTW the program tells me her Dad is Carson the butler from Downton Abbey.) The two women have two big argument scenes, and the great thing with Shavian argument scenes is that he always takes care to give both parties good points. (Up to and including Jeanne d’Arc’s judges instead of presenting them as Evil McEvil in his St. Joan.) The emotional balance shifts both times, and he makes the characters work for it.
The first argument is the one where Kitty Warren’s past is revealed; Vivie starts strong and on the offensive, but once Kitty stops trying to avoid and distract and point blank describes the poverty and the choices she had, and insists she made the right ones for herself, Vivie increasingly becomes wrong footed and impressed and woved. The second big argument is the reverse: by now, Vivie has found out about her mother’s present as well as her past, Kitty starts as the challenger and then begins to loose. And the great thing is that the core isn’t about the morality of sex for money, it’s about exploitation of others. Kitty started out as the exploited and became an exploiter. It’s this which Vivie can’t get beyond, and yet is aware her own education that enables her to earn her money with a good job was paid for with money from said exploitation which she was wilfully blind before.
One of the unique to this production elements is the silent Greek choir like presence of women in Edwqrdian underwear - the women to whom Kitty once belonged and whom she now manages and uses and to whom Vivie was blind before; but they could also stand in for the exploited of other professsions. Mind you, I’ve seen Vivies who were basically young Margaret Thatcher, where you have the impression the distaste is just with the sex and not the exploitation: Bessie Carter’s Vivie comes across as genuinely appalled by the later, and somewhat less self righteous (the “I am my mother’s daughter” comes out not as ironic but true in terms of wanting to work, wanting the satisfaction that comes from being self reliant) but no less determined in her final scene.
Having thus watched Shakespeare and Shaw, I have on my schedule next: Robert Bolt, and then a new play, which from the sound of it is Shakespeare/Marlowe slash, starring Ncuti Gatwa as Kit M. Stay tuned!
Globe Theatre: The Merry Wives of Windsor
Rarely performed these days, and actually one I never read, which is one of the reasons why I used the chance to watch it in an afternoon performance, that and the way watching plays at the Globe, in a perfectly reconstructed Elizabethan theatre, has yet to cease being special to me.
About the play itself: the reason why I never read it is that the short summary I did read back in the day put me off, and watching it didn’t change my mind about the play itself. So much second hand embarrasment, and watching a character getting humiliated non stop is my anti-kink and a big squick. Note that in the Henry IV plays, Falstaff also gets pranks plaid on him, and gets of course rejected most painfully by the end, but it’s not non-stop. In the verbal sparring with Hal earlier, he gives as good as he gets, and his terse “honour” speech during the Battle of Shrewsbury has people debating whether this is Shakespeare deconstructing his own mighty battlefield rethoric or not. (At any rate, it’s one of those brief monologues, like Shylock’s “Hath not a Jew” speech, that comes not from a character meant as either heroic or tragic but ends up being one of the best known Shakespearean pieces anyway. Meanwhile, in The Merry Wives, Falstaff is relentlessly the butt of the joke and hardly gets to say anything clever or witty. (Mind you, the play also makes sure he’s not taken as harmless or undeserving of at least some ; it’s not just that he lusts after our two married heroines (which would be less of a problem in this day and age than for Elizabethans) but that he wants to fleece them of their money and thinks nothing of planning to hand over one them to her next lover for some more profit.)
However, performance can make some difference. As can direction. In this particular production - in which the character wear costumes which feel more Jacobean than Elizabethan, but are gorgeous to look at (various shades of green and blue for the citizens, red for Falstaff and some red mixed with blue-ish for his entourage) - the other men aren’t impressive, to put it mildly, and the worst male character is in fact Ford (Jolyon Coy). By contrast, our heroines, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, are that rarity, central female characters above thirty in a centuries old play, and while of them (Mistress Page) is the mother of the play’s young ingenue, Anne, both of them being sexual beings as well as being clever, determined and energetic is central to the plot. The play already starts out with a note of ambiguity in that you don’t know whether either of them wouldn’t have at least flirted with Falstaff if they hadn’t found out as soon as he proposed that he was already two timing them with each other, and then Mistress Ford (Katherine Pearce) increasingly obviously starts to enjoy not just the prank part of their “revenge scheme” but the making out with Falstaff before each prank kicks in, and the more oafish her husband behaves, the more torn she comes across. By the time the play ends, she looks absolutely stricken when her husband triumphantly declares he’ll lie with her tonight, and later silently returns to kiss Falstaff one last time in a mixture of consolation and hunger, which is the end of the play.
(Again, this is not in the text, it’s all silent acting and directing addendum.)
This helps the play not to feel so relentlessly one note, and the actor playing Falstaff, George Fouracress, has enough charisma and comic timing that you wish he’d get to play the Falstaff of the Henriad als well. Plus everyone else threw themselves in their roles, too, and as I was standing close to the stage as a groundling, I had the chance to observe the facial acting of even the bit players, which was great. I enjoyed the performance more than not. But in general I think I’ll keep staying away from this play and regard it as one of Shakespeares lesser comedies.
The Garrick: Mrs Warren’s Profession
One of George Bernard Shaw’s early “problem plays” and scandals. (He wrote it in the early 1890s, and except for a club performance in 1902, it would take two decades to make it to the London stage. By contrast, it was already performed in Germany in the 1890s as well. Legendary producer Max Reinhardt was a big Shaw fan and so were a lot of Wilhelmians.) This production is starring Imelda Staunton as the titular Mrs. Warren, and her real life daughter Bessie Carter (known to the general audience probably best as Prudence Featherington in Bridgerton) as Vivie Warren; the director is Dominic Cooke.
Other than switching the play’s setting from late Victorian (then-contemporary to when Shaw wrote it) to just pre WWI (which affects the costumes but not much else), this was a very werkgetreue production, and while the guys gamely did their supporting parts, this is a two women play, standing and falling with its Kitty and Vivie Warren, and both actresses were great. I’ve seen Imelda Staunton through the decades as both villainesses and heroines, in costume and in contemporary scenarios, and she’s reliably excellent, so I expected nothing less, but her daughter I knew only from her comic relief bit part in a fun Regency Soap, and you really need a strong Vivie for this play to work, so it was with great joy I can report Bessie Carter was superb. (BTW the program tells me her Dad is Carson the butler from Downton Abbey.) The two women have two big argument scenes, and the great thing with Shavian argument scenes is that he always takes care to give both parties good points. (Up to and including Jeanne d’Arc’s judges instead of presenting them as Evil McEvil in his St. Joan.) The emotional balance shifts both times, and he makes the characters work for it.
The first argument is the one where Kitty Warren’s past is revealed; Vivie starts strong and on the offensive, but once Kitty stops trying to avoid and distract and point blank describes the poverty and the choices she had, and insists she made the right ones for herself, Vivie increasingly becomes wrong footed and impressed and woved. The second big argument is the reverse: by now, Vivie has found out about her mother’s present as well as her past, Kitty starts as the challenger and then begins to loose. And the great thing is that the core isn’t about the morality of sex for money, it’s about exploitation of others. Kitty started out as the exploited and became an exploiter. It’s this which Vivie can’t get beyond, and yet is aware her own education that enables her to earn her money with a good job was paid for with money from said exploitation which she was wilfully blind before.
One of the unique to this production elements is the silent Greek choir like presence of women in Edwqrdian underwear - the women to whom Kitty once belonged and whom she now manages and uses and to whom Vivie was blind before; but they could also stand in for the exploited of other professsions. Mind you, I’ve seen Vivies who were basically young Margaret Thatcher, where you have the impression the distaste is just with the sex and not the exploitation: Bessie Carter’s Vivie comes across as genuinely appalled by the later, and somewhat less self righteous (the “I am my mother’s daughter” comes out not as ironic but true in terms of wanting to work, wanting the satisfaction that comes from being self reliant) but no less determined in her final scene.
Having thus watched Shakespeare and Shaw, I have on my schedule next: Robert Bolt, and then a new play, which from the sound of it is Shakespeare/Marlowe slash, starring Ncuti Gatwa as Kit M. Stay tuned!
no subject
Date: 2025-08-16 05:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-16 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-16 07:49 pm (UTC)Mrs. Warren's Profession is one of the Shaws I have not read or seen, but is high up on my list of ones I want to!
no subject
Date: 2025-08-19 04:17 pm (UTC)Falstaff/Quickley: is a thing in some productions of the Henry IV plays I’ve seen, maybe that carried over?
Re: the humliation enjoyment, I was on board with the first one, but with the second it started to feel uncomfortable, and then the “fairies” pinching - which in this production included hot iron being used on Falstaff, because by then everyone else had gotten into the act - was just going too far.
no subject
Date: 2025-08-16 11:08 pm (UTC)*googles George Fouracres* Hm, he’s cute too. And he apparently played Hamlet three years ago
no subject
Date: 2025-08-19 08:17 pm (UTC)I also rather liked the vicar, who I felt was badly repaid by his son, and the architect (Prade?) who says that he's never asked Kitty who Vivie's father was, as he feels like women deserve friends who don't ask those questions.