"How many ages hence / Shall this our lofty scene be
acted over / In states unborn and accents yet unknown?"
There's a lot of Shakespeare on BBC4 at the moment, and it's
all piling up, unwatched, rebuking me. I did a degree in English, many years
ago, and yet it's possible that I haven't read or seen any Shakespeare since. I've only read around
twelve of the forty-and-counting plays, which is sort of pathetic. My degree
certificate is staring sternly at me as I write this: something must be done,
and so it shall.
So here's the first of many of these reviews. Generally
they'll be looking at the BBC4 productions, which are essentially filmed
versions of recent stage productions but with some concessions to the medium of
television, although that won't always be so, as in the case of the forthcoming
history plays. There'll also be films and whatnot.
This particular production is very topical indeed, being
that it's currently running in Stratford upon Avon. There's a contemporary African aesthetic, with
everything about the play's look and directorial style strongly suggesting the
slow slide from liberty to authoritarianism, driven by one charismatic figure,
that seems to be happening in places like Uganda
and Ethiopia.
There's also, of course, a hint of the Arab Spring. The cast is led by the
outstanding Patterson Joseph as Brutus, a slightly subdued Cyril Nri as Cassius
and Ray Fearon as Mark Antony.
Lots of people don't like the idea of Shakespeare in modern
or non-contemporary dress. I do. For one thing, certain plays (including this
one) are very common, and it's nice to have a little variation in the visuals.
For another, the anachronisms are already there. These are Romans who hear
clocks chiming and allude often, and eloquently, to the effects of the four
humours. Realism has its place, but to be shackled to it would be dull indeed.
And the setting serves to emphasise certain of the plays themes, and remind us
of their universalism. There's nothing exclusively Roman about the power
relationships we see here. The only unfortunate side to modern dress is that it
renders awkward those features of Shakespeare that reflect the style or
technical limitations of the time, with battles always taking place out of shot
and wives dying off-screen
It's hard to judge the full effect of the setting, though;
it's devised for the stage and, although the crowd scenes (including Mark
Antony's speech) are essentially just a camera pointed at the stage, the rest
of the play was filmed on location, hence the plotting between Cassius, Brutus
and Casca takes place in a urinal, complete with mimed peeing(!), while the "ambitious"
Caesar is killed, symbolically, on a broken escalator. I'm almost tempted to go
hunting for symbolism in the peeing, too…
The only version I'd previously seen was the 1953 film
version, in which the most prominent and foregrounded performers were Marlon
Brando as Mark Antony and John Gielgud as Cassius. So I was a little surprised,
at first, to see the superb Patterson Joseph cast as a surprisingly wily
Brutus, whereas Cassius might have been a more natural part for him. But I came
to appreciate this more intelligent Brutus, calculating but never cynical.
Nri's Cassius, meanwhile, was far more fallible, and less Machiavellian, than
I'd expected. Fearon's performance was strong, but there were too similarities
to Brando's iconic portrayal to fully escape from its shadow.
I love this play, and there are always new things to be
seen. I love Shakespeare's cynical yet true depictions of the fickleness and
murderousness of the mob, who are easy prey to demagoguery and mistake Cinna
the poet for Cinna the conspirator as easily as they mistake paediatricians for
paedophiles. There's a universal human truth right there. And Mark Antony's
speeches, cynical and practical deployments of rhetoric though they are, are
things of such beauty.
It would be wrong, I think, to judge the production too much
by its camerawork, as it has only one foot in the televisual medium, at best. But
the scene in which Antony
and Octavian (a Laurent Kabila-like Ivanno Jeremiah) casually discuss their
proscriptions is nicely punctuated by short, sharp cuts to hooded figures being
shot in the back of the head, which I found very powerful.
Perhaps the production is let down slightly by the sometimes
overly restrained performance of Cyril Nri, but the use of the African setting
works well, and Patterson Joseph is outstanding.
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