SHAKESPEARE: OUTDOOR, OUTRAGEOUS AND OPEN-HEARTED
Start by knowing that this is a bangingly entertaining evening out under the Suffolk skies, with ragamuffin costumes and lovely ramshackle beach-huts under the great chestnut tree. Red Rose Chain has been doing outdoor productions for years, and their venue ever has been, in recent years, this field at the Anglo-Saxon ship site, well supported by the National Trust. The summer show’s tradition, which Shakespeare would probably approve, involves a good deal of clowning and audience-teasing, music-hall or panto moments combined with a real Shakespearianist ability not only to treat the poetry with respect, but to ease down to poignant feeling when – between the larks and misunderstandings – real human loves and fears are played out.
Those who follow this extraordinary little company and deeply mourn its founder – Jo Carrick died this year – will rejoice as I do at the way David Newborn and Katy Latham chose, in her memory, to bring back Jo’s own rampaging production of Twelfth Night, complete with her songs and treatments. And, let me just mention, the uniquely ground-breaking casting of Antonio, rescuer and devoted friend of shipwrecked Sebastian. Here, Antonio is a puppet dog: large, dishevelled and hairy, designed by Maia Kirkman-Richards and operated by various of the seven human cast depending what’s going on (this is a tight, neat production with some good doubling (Orsino and Aguecheek, Maria and Sebastian).
There is also joy for regular aficionados of the group in seeing last year’s Hamlet now in a garish full-body bumblebee-striped onesie as the deluded Malvolio. This is Vincent Moisy ( also memorable as the Witchfinder-General in Ipswich, London and Broadway). His is a lovely interpretation of the haughty major-domo in Olivia’s household: very selfconsciously officer-class at first, dealing fiercely with Emily Jane Kerr’s diminutive drunkard Sir Toby and Darren Latham’s pleasingly OTT camp Aguecheek. His outraged cries of “Sir Tob-eh!” is masterly. But when he has been deceived that Olivia loves him and will make him her lord, there’s a brief, properly touching, moment as he wonderingly says “I thank my stars I am..happy!”. He never has been, poor Malvolio. Always played the hopeful Jeeves, always uncertain beneath it.
Feste , the revellers and Maria hide beautifully behind the lower branches of the great tree, delighted at his foolish credulity over the fake-news letter. But in the second half Malvolio’s torment by this gang is genuinely nasty, more so in the growing dusk as the tree becomes spooky, full of danger; the drum-banging , shouting, accusing campaign of the joke that goes too far is properly horrid, as it should be. Alex Murray’s Feste, who spends much of the show winding up the audience to the correct level of panto frenzy , also has a good moment of reality when he tries to deny it all to his outraged mistress.
And so it all resolves, as the old tale has these four centuries, with the absurdity of errors and the relief of truthful love. And, let me say, some impressive fights. This young company (Ryan Penny organizes the mayhem) always seem well up for a bit of wild brave physicality. Just as – under Jo Carrick’s insistence for years working together – they are strongly audible: projecting properly and intelligibly, not needing to be miked as so many outdoor shows now are.
Red Rose Chain dedicated this production to its lost leader. And she would be proud of them.
www.redrosechain.com to 22 Aug
rating four
theatreCat 