Abstract
Symptomatic of this production and its frenetic inclusivity was the cyclorama hanging upstage (design by Max Johns). The illustration (also used for the cover of the production’s programme) featured a naïf image, reminiscent of both the Bayeux Tapestry and those scathing ‘condition of England’ tapestries of Grayson Perry, at the centre of which a crowned, robed and female King John stood, icon-like, in a halo of gold, surrounded by anachronistic weaponry: archers and spear carriers but also machine-gun-toting Mafiosi, drones and Chinook helicopters. The production, like its prevailing image, rolled together the medieval and the modern day in a hectic – sometimes distracting – imbroglio of venality and violence. The effect was to underline the ubiquity of political corruption and human savagery, and this point was readily taken; but the play itself seemed almost stifled by this blunt-force emphasis on man’s inhumanity to man.
Again, the closing moments illustrated a tendency to bite off more than the production could chew. John died stage-centre in a tin bath (echoes of La Mort de Marat), the Bastard had his rousing closing speech, another invading army danced their way down stage, Pandulph walked into the mayhem throwing bundles of paper money into the air like ticker-tape and finally, Constance and Arthur entered and began to snuff candles. The effect was to induce a kind of vertigo – a panic from the inundation of new ideas, each one hot on the tail of the last. More, in this case, amounted to less.
This barrage of ideas and unruly sequences was a pity as there were some genuinely interesting takes on Shakespeare’s rarely performed play and these were executed by a company both thoughtful and articulate. Rosie Sheehy took the role of the King. The cross-gender casting was, frankly, neither here nor there but Sheehy’s diminutive stature and red pyjamas reinforced the play’s characterisation of her as a monarch well out of her or his depth. Her cheeky dismissal of the French Ambassador, ‘Farewell Shitty-yon [Chatillon]’ (1.1.30), demonstrated a defiantly childish personality and an abrupt insolence. Perhaps the intension was to demonstrate the self-inflicted wounds following from the UK’s suicidal stupidity of Brexit – stubborn defiance of the Continent even while the troublesome consequences are only beginning to emerge…(‘Well’, as Philip Larkin puts it, ‘We shall find out’.) ‘England’, Chatillon (Nicholas Gerard-Martin) reported, ‘Hath put himself in arms’ (2.1.57), and the relative superiority of England’s enemies – which included the ursine Austria (Richard Pryal) in colossal fur coat – encouraged us to side with the underdog even while acknowledging the obduracy of its outlook.
Aaryan Dassaur and Tom McCall as Arthur and Hubert had the play’s greatest scene. Both were magnificent and the exchange was given a creepy twist by being set in a 1960s institution with medical trolley complete with sinister implements and two starched nurses on hand for immediate sedation – a cross between One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Bell Jar. McCall steeled his strength by swigging from a hip flask. Dassaur’s winning prince made the subsequent appearances of his bloodied ghost all the more intrusive. It was as though the production could not let go of a powerful central performance without recycling it.
The intensifying argument between the taunting Bastard (Michael Abubakar) and the prickly Austria exploded into a fully blown food fight – rolls and cakes flying every which way. At the end of this, after a reflective pause, the French King’s ‘I am perplexed and know not what to say’ (3.1.147) caused a gale of audience laughter. But in this, at the risk of sounding po-faced, the production was having it both ways. There was a threat of incipient violence, crimes against humanity and child torture, but at the same time the worst that might happen was getting custard on your suit: another instance of a production brimming with ideas that occasionally overflowed the measure. Another instance, the gold inflated alphabet balloons that had presided over the marriage of Blanche (Nadi Kemp-Sayfi) and the Dauphin (Brian Martin), with a blithe ‘JUST MARRIED’ were popped and rearranged to display a darker motto: ‘JUST DIE’ – sledge hammer and nuts, perhaps.
Certain critics have claimed that King John is Shakespeare’s most political play, an assertion that would be seemingly justified in the staging of this play at such a politically turbulent juncture in international politics. Yet Rhode appears to have been overwhelmed by all the possibilities available to her to explore such political themes that she included them all. Party-political pantomimes, Machiavellian manoeuvring, tenuous alliances, betrayals, backstabbing, denials, retractions of self-serving politicians and monarchs are all within this play. Yet, far from underscoring the historical ubiquity of such events, the fluidity of temporal representation though the blatant backdrop and unfixed period costuming diluted important contemporaneous political potentialities and resonances. One such confusing scene was the battle before the walls of Angers, where the three female citizens, dressed as 1950s secretaries in cat-eye glasses, ate popcorn while a semi-comical and chaotic boxing match took place on centre stage. The message was unclear. Was this supposed to show war as nothing more than entertainment and violent spectacle, with political power plays as little more than pantomime? Considering the previous food fights and aggressive dance-offs that stood in place of physical hostilities, this would seem to be the case. Yet the concluding Anglo-French fracas saw actual serious fighting, the belligerents wearing costumes that included medieval tabards mixed with modern combat fatigues. The sangfroid Bastard’s closing, ‘naught shall make us rue / If England to itself do rest but true’ (5.7.117–18), lacked the irony with which his previously playful and opportunistic character might have imbued such lines when taking into consideration present political circumstances.
This was an engaging and rapidly paced production, exciting to watch and always on its feet, but there were points at which its pell-mell velocity and turbulent ingenuity distracted audience attention from the play itself. It was a truly ‘mad composition’ (2.1.588), with so much diversity and so many visual distractions and conceivable allusions to both modern and historical events and persons that it became a victim of its own success, never truly in focus. If Rhode is able to rein in her impatient imagination, this, her inaugural Shakespeare production, may well be followed by other more thoughtful shows.