MOLIERE WOULD HAVE LOVED IT
Much to celebrate here, and not only the return of that maverick angel Mark Rylance: once again treading a London stage, adorned with a clerical collar and at one point (actually, two points) hopping in fruitless pursuit of a very reluctant hostess with his trousers round his ankles, Rix-style. Excellent.
Even without that, celebrate the first production on his scale in a mainstream theatre by Darren Raymond’s “Intermission Youth” charity, long supported by Rylance and his late wife Clare van Kampen in its mission to reach and develop young people of few advantages. Crew and creatives involve both Intermission’s young members and its seasoned graduates; all spot-on, artists flowering through hard times and a good few hard beginnings. You’ll rarely seen a more joyful curtain-call: Rylance capering in Yoruba dance with a dozen Intermissioners , hailing two professional debuts in traditional manner, and hauling up Raymond himself – adaptor and director – for an extra hurrah.
Forgive the overenthusiasm, but I have followed Darren Raymond ever since he first encountered Shakespeare in Bruce Wall’s astonishing prison sessions with the London Shakespeare Workout, and over two decades watched his steady, inventive leadership of the group, his encouragement of kids who never knew this world existed, and his inventive remixes of the great plays, for a while based in a church behind Harrods. Saw his RSC cameo as a boatswain in The Tempest, too.
Here, he has taken Moliere’s 1664 play about a hypocritical cleric who invades and deceives a patriarch while his family try to damp this mad enthusiasm. It’s transplanted to the London household of Oga Afolabi , stern head of a Nigerian clan and father of cool rapping D-Miz (whose coolness alarms him) and the beautiful Adanna. She is to be married into a more Caribbean family: Delroy’s shy son Sinclair. But Oga (in Moliere it was Orghon) is dazzled by Pastor Blake, Rylance making the most of the creepy-vicar business with head-tilts, bowed humility over a clutched prayerbook, as with vast toothy smiles and artful faux-humility he undermines the marriage. So Oga decides the Pastor shall be the groom. His wife Elmire is appalled, as is everyone else except his mother-in-law (Suzette Llewellyn) who is conned by the pastor’s investment-offer to hand over her informally Caribbean “pardner” savings. Elmire, as in Moliere, sets up a situation where her daft husband will see the impostor trying to seduce her (hence Rylance’s trouser incidents).
And so the mayhem ensues, with a series of broad comic scenes underpinned, as they should be, by real personalities and potential pain. Nakeba Buchanan as Elmire is terrific, as is her daft husband : Usifu Jalloh’s Oga is , forever climbing into tremendous traditional raiments. Actually, Rylance briefly drops the clerical collar to be equally clothed in a purple robe and turban. He looks like a small but pious Smurf. Ultz designs, with Maybelle Laye: it’s spectacularly colourful.
Raymond’s adaptation is in verse, rhyming couplets, as in the original, sharp and fluid and witty. And listening to them is a reminder of what a long-term Shakespearian this writer is, easy with the iambics which are, for English-speakers, the most naturally expressive. It works, incidentally, far, far better than Bartlett’s similar attempt at faux-shakespeare in King Charles III. Which just goes to show that there’s nothing like being thunderstruck by your first meeting with Shakespeare and daily, emotionally, fascinatedly being close to his texts over decades.
All the cast are at home with it, easy-flowing; Ivandro Da Cruz Leite as Sinclair has a grand attempt to out-preach the interloper and breaks the lines down just as he fails, Morenike Onajobi’s cynical best-pal Kemi is wonderful to listen to, and both the battling grannies are sharp as a tack on finely timed half-lines.
Almost best of all, Moliere (who concluded by having the King himself step in) would be pleased that Raymond offers three sharp possible endings, some violent and sudden after the huge con-trick is exposed, and settles in the end for the good old Metropolitan Police. A very good time was had by all.
marylebonetheatre.com to 24 October
rating 5
cos there’s nothing like it, and its better than the NT gave us this week…
theatreCat 