THE
ARTS
4173 16th-17th Century Playwrights
We have seen many classics from earlier times. In the 1960s we saw:
John Ford – ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore’ - which is memorable for me because the title comes from the last line spoken by a hypocrite of a cardinal: “And if any woman cannot say tis pity - she’s a whore”
Thomas Middleton & William Rowley – ‘The Changeling’ – this was the most influential matinee at the Royal Court under the Imperial College scheme. Memorably directed by Tony Richardson, it starred Robert Shaw and Mary Ure (who were having an affair at the time, which added to their performances). As I saw it, supported by George Devine but opposed by Laurence Kitchen who was then the Times theatre critic, the direction took the opposite view to normal since it described the fall of Da Flores and the ascent of Beatrice Joanna.
Later, mainly at the National, we saw:
Vanbrugh’s ‘Provok’d Wife’ starred Dorothy Tutin and Geraldine McEwan, who was one of my favourite actresses ever since I saw her on television playing the ‘Daughter of the Wedding’ in the 1950s. She was also the mother of one of Sarah’s friends who used to have to cook breakfast for Sarah when she slept over! Latterly, she has played – wonderfully - a frail old Miss Marple on television; thus spanning my lifetime.
‘The Mayor of Zalamea’ by Pedro Calderon de la Barca was amongst a number of Spanish masterpieces and the lead was the masterly Michael Bryant. Another, though written by an Englishman, was Thomas Kyd’s ‘The Spanish Tragedy’, also with Michael Bryant
‘The Shoemaker’s Holiday’, by Thomas Dekker, was directed by John Dexter; who directed many of the plays at the Royal Court, but who didn’t create the best magic in my opinion.
I know ‘The Hypochondriac’ by Moliere was as important to the French as Shakespeare is to us, and derives from earlier Commedia del Arte, and further this production was directed by Michael Bogdanov and had a marvelous cast led by Daniel Massey, yet I found it thin and uninteresting.
‘The Rivals’, which we saw in a marvelous performance with Geraldine McEwan and Fiana Shaw along with Michael Hordern, was on the other hand a superb ensemble piece.
I find Henrik Ibsen very dark, especially in plays such as ‘Hedda Gabler’, though ‘An Enemy of the People’ is especially powerful. Best of all, and in a totally different idiom, is ‘Peer Gynt’, which we saw with Derek Jacobi taking the lead in a production which also included Sinead Cusack and Nigel Hawthorne.
I do not know if you might call ‘Tantalus’ an old play since, although it was based on the original Greek cycle of plays, the modern version was written by John Barton (for the ‘Royal Shakespeare Company’ and the ‘Denver Center Theatre Company’) and directed by Peter Hall. It was a monumental piece, taking three half days to complete – and was, I thought, superb.
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