Abstract
This was an unashamedly feel-good production of a (mostly) feel-good play. With an almost entirely Black acting company, musical influences from reggae and Afrobeat, and spectacular carnival costumes (Melissa Simon-Hartman has designed for Beyoncé as well as the Notting Hill Carnival) we were pitched cheerfully into a world of Afrofuturism. Minor textual tweaks accommodated this cultural shift. For example, as Benedick pondered Claudio's preference for the ‘the tabor and the pipe’ (2.3.14), this became ‘the mbira and the pipe’.
The intersection of African influences and technological, sci-fi futurity was a key part of this production and occasionally its aesthetic squeezed out the subtleties of Shakespeare's play of spiteful gossip. Raffia sleeves and skirts, towering wigs, Pharaonic cloaks, and Aztec collars mingled with illuminated writing tablets and peculiarly glowing handheld orbs which seemed to symbolise fidelity – passed between the participants at Hero's ill-fated wedding. Don Pedra, Claudio, and Don John (Ann Ogbomo, Mohammed Mansaray, and Micah Balfour) abseiled in, costumed like Roman centurions but in bright blue, red, and green, respectively. The watch wore black uniforms with fluorescent tabards with massive, pointed shoulder pads and neon flashing sunglasses. Enormous laundry basket hats hinted at their self-importance.
Jemima Robinson's set echoed the costumes in its eclecticism and weird wonder. Hedges and trees (offering hiding places during the gulling scenes) were fluorescent triangles, arcs, and spheres. Knee-high plants of threaded spheres grew around the edge of the stage and also formed Beatrice's bouquet (which suddenly lit up as she resolved: ‘Benedick, love on. I will requite thee’ (3.1.111). At one point she sheltered beneath a luminous orange wheel-barrow and an enormous stylised palm tree curved over the action, its leaves rendered as spheres and suspended circular planes.
The hyperbolic design offered Akiya Henry's Beatrice plenty of space for a larger-than-life performance. She flirted shamelessly with Don Pedra hesitating quixotically before responding to the latter's plaintive question: ‘Will you have me, lady?’ (2.1.305). There was an uncomfortable beat as Beatrice dallied with and then firmly rejected the homoerotic proposal: ‘Nnnnnnnnnoooo, my lady [switched from the text's “lord”]’. Luke Wilson's well-intentioned Benedick was really no match for her and he came to a very definite second-best in their ‘skirmish of wit’ (1.1.61) though his sombre resolution to abjure the company of Don Pedra, and Claudio gave him a gravity and seriousness that emphasised the enormity of their offence: ‘You have killed a sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you’ (5.1.148).
Mansaray's Claudio and Taya Ming's Hero never really connected and the jilting at the altar caused little audience consternation until Beatrice's order to ‘Kill Claudio’ was barked immediately and loudly in response to Benedick's gentle entreaty: ‘Come, bid me do anything for thee’ (4.1.289). Intriguingly, Ming's Hero maintained a frowning disposition even after the couple's second wedding. Her ‘surely as I live, I am a maid’ (5.4.64) was defiant rather than submissive, though any discontent quickly evaporated in the play's final happy climax.
Dogberry and Verges (Karen Henthorn and Toyin Ayedun-Alase) were an excellent combination of pathos and comedy, the former at the end of her tether and choking back tears when challenging Conrad in the most ridiculous terms, ‘Dost thou not suspect my place? Dost thou not suspect my person?’ (4.2.72), Verges, sagely nodding, in sympathy.
This was an able and enjoyable production but I fear it will be remembered as a cross between science fiction and carnival extravagance rather than for any of its individual performances.