We've had our Shakespeare and now move on to Gilbert & Sullivan and three big scale concerts.
Shakespeare - Reviews
The newly established GB Theatre Company arrived at Kentwell with a cast of 12 in late July to play in the Open Air The Merry Wives of Windsor and As You Like it. Unfortunately they suffered the loss of a leading female player (Mistress Page in MW and Celia in AYLI) who left unexpectedly to attend her gravely ill mother. Two gallantly stepped into the breach. Jenny Stephens the director of MW in MW and Stacey Roca in AYLI. Even her best friends would not describe Jenny as an actress but she performed (with script) gallantly while Stacey is undoubtedly a very accomplished actress and did very well almost to the point that we were unaware she was dependent still upon the script. Changes in casting, during a run and with minimal rehearsal are unsettling for any company. It unbalances even if it does not destroy the equilibrium of the ensemble. The GB Company performed excellently as it was. We were left to wonder how much better the company would have been if it had remained entire. Mistress Page is rather more central to MW than Celia is to AYLI and the change in the former was noticeable. In both plays there was much music with thoughtful use of fiddle playing between scenes and, believe it no, it was a cast in which many voices could sing well, together and in tune. Kentwell offers a large stage area and many entrance points. The cast made good use of both elements. Though too rarely of one scene distantly overlapping the next.
The Merry Wives of Windsor is one of Shakespeare's least successful plays (perhaps because its in prose and lacks poetry). In modern parlance its a farce and the plot stretches credulity to its limit. The Dutch girl staying with us found the plot unfathomable. Though this did not greatly impair her enjoyment of the performance. This production was led by a most excellent Falstaff. It is a challenging part to play as there is a great temptation to go over the top. There is a subtlety to the role in that it must be made believable that Falstaff who is not without his own low wisdom would fall into much the same trap three times. Alex Delamere caught the old knight to perfection. He has a powerful stage presence and gained our sympathy while we were laughing at him. He every inch filled the fat knight's figure never better illustrated than when the two who carried him off in the buck basket struggled so we feared the weight would do them injury. Though the performance missed the foil that Mistress Page might have generated. The play is not unlike a French Farce with couples making and unmaking and coming and going endlessly.
The sundry oddballs making up the lesser players were collectively very well done. With a good Falstaff in place the rest of the cast must mind their manners to keep their own excesses in check and the cast managed this well. There's a real problem in plays where there is doubling up or when a player is required to pretend to be someone else. When doubling up the second role must be visibly different from the first one so that the audience are in no doubt as to who is being portrayed. When, while keeping to one role, a player must don disguise the change has to be much more subtle - different enough to persuade that the player is in his disguised mode but not so different as to appear to be someone else. Much of the doubling up in this production was very well done but the Host/Mistress Ford on the one hand and Ford as Brooke may have confused the unknowing.
It may not be much of a play but its an excellent one for those in the audience unfamiliar with the bard and the Kentwell audience greatly enjoyed the romp.
As You Like It Like MW this involved some doubling up and also the central character Rosalind disguising herself as a man and then disguised as a man pretending the part of a woman. (How this must have played when all the women were played by boys !) Lucia McAnespie's Rosalind was a triumph. She has a powerful and attractive stage presence and an inspiring energy in her playing. In all manifestations as woman, as man and as man being woman she caught the wind of it to the letter. Gabriel Thomson as Orlando her lover was an excellent foil. A lovelorn youth is not always easy to play sensibly but the wrestling scene (between the wrestler Charles and Orlando) not only produced the best choreographed wrestling I have seen in a play but helped to establish Orlando as someone whom one could well understand Rosalind finding irresistible. I liked the aged Touchstone. Fools only work when it is understandable how they might have got away with telling the truth (in jest) for so long. Long years of learning just how far to go is the secret. Jaques is one of my favourite characters with one of the best speeches in all Shakespeare. David Davies delivered this speech excellently well. He has a fine speaking voice though it tends to become declamatory. Sometimes Jaques should be a little more wistful and world-weary rather than plain miserable. As with MW it is difficult to keep up with all the couples and their comings and goings but the company managed it well enough.