{"id":1071,"date":"2015-04-17T16:13:40","date_gmt":"2015-04-17T15:13:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1071"},"modified":"2015-04-17T16:17:09","modified_gmt":"2015-04-17T15:17:09","slug":"suicide-watch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2015\/04\/suicide-watch.html","title":{"rendered":"Suicide watch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"BrokenH-masque\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Someone starves to death, another stage manages his own execution. A person falls victim to a booby-trapped chair. And someone dies, as it says on the playbill, of a broken heart.<\/p>\n

John Ford\u2019s\u00a0The Broken Heart<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(c1629-33), in a rare revival from Shakespeare\u2019s Globe, sounds sensational. And of course it is. But it is also unlike more familiar Jacobean tragedies \u2013 it\u2019s even quite distinct from Ford\u2019s better-known \u2019Tis Pity She\u2019s A Whore<\/em><\/a>, also recently revived in the Globe\u2019s candlelit indoor theatre.<\/p>\n

A thinker’s play<\/strong><\/p>\n

As Performance Monkey noted earlier this year<\/a>, the opportunity to see a range of early modern drama makes clear how wide and wild a period that is. (As well as the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at the Globe, the RSC are in on the act too \u2013 programming Marlowe\u2019s Jew of Malta<\/em> and an even rarer Ford, Love\u2019s Sacrifice<\/em><\/a>, this spring).<\/p>\n

What both Ford plays share is a sense that the demands that the world places on us \u2013 social, political, commercial \u2013 are simply impossible to bear. We all feel that sometimes, staring at the streetlight shadows in the smallest, loneliest hours \u2013 but Ford finds this a heart-sickening condition of his culture: that emotion and expediency cannot be squared, that desire cannot match duty, that life cannot be lived.<\/p>\n

In \u2019Tis Pity<\/em>, love turns inward, squirreling into a secret space away from a corrupt world \u2013 notably, the incestuous compact between Arabella and Giovanni. Michael Longhurst\u2019s production<\/a> this winter foregrounded its gaudy high-fashion sensibility, its wit and shocking pathos. Caroline Steinbeis<\/a>, directing The Broken Heart<\/em>, describes it as \u2018a thinker\u2019s play\u2019 \u2013 in a programme interview, she suggests that Ford \u2018seems to have an understanding of weight and melancholy; of that place in between that we can glimpse or feel for a brief moment before it\u2019s gone.\u2019<\/p>\n

Hamlet gone wrong<\/strong><\/p>\n

What does that mean onstage? Ford set \u2019Tis Pity<\/em> in a lurid contemporary Italy, but The Broken Heart<\/em> in classical Sparta, where happiness is swiftly snatched away \u2013 from Penthea and Orgilius, whose betrothal is broken so that she can be married off to paranoid moneybags Bassanes; from Princess Calantha and the warrior Ithocles, who can\u2019t even speak publicly about their love until far too late, when a ring is placed on a corpse\u2019s finger. Fathers die, brothers meddle in their sisters\u2019 wishes; the most you can hope for is getting out of the world asap.<\/p>\n

\"Amy<\/a>

Amy Morgan as Penthea. Photo: Shakespeare’s Globe<\/p><\/div>\n

Some reviews worried about the tone, but Steinbeis\u2019 balance between grim, giggle and peculiar seemed right to me. Her women were superbly withheld \u2013 Amy Morgan\u2019s Penthea, in particular, moved stiffly, spoke remotely, as if she\u2019s decided to be an effigy before the play begins. And the men were properly ridiculous \u2013 comic characters at the wheel of a tragedy. Owen Teale\u2019s Bassanes is an OCD pantaloon with real-world consequences, and the excellent Brian Ferguson located Orgilius\u2019 Hamlet-gone-wrong trajectory: student aspirations, problems with girls, disguise of questionable efficacy, vengeance which harms himself as much as anyone else. It made for a disquieting, unpredictable evening.<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve noted before, each Wanamaker show takes a different approach to the theatre\u2019s signature candlelight. Longhurst ramped up the emotional dynamics \u2013 swooping them up high, plummeting them daringly low, extinguishing them altogether, heightening the drama\u2019s dynamic extremes. Steinbeis often pulls them up high, and keeps them there: characters inhabit a dun-toned pall, dulled like their unhappy circumstances.<\/p>\n

Photo (top): Sarah MacRae in The Broken Heart. Photo: Bill Knight via theartsdesk<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Follow David on Twitter: @mrdavidjays<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Someone starves to death, another stage manages his own execution. A person falls victim to a booby-trapped chair. And someone dies, as it says on the playbill, of a broken heart. John Ford\u2019s\u00a0The Broken Heart\u00a0(c1629-33), in a rare revival from Shakespeare\u2019s Globe, sounds sensational. And of course it is. But it is also unlike more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[164,68,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-1071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-jacobean-tragedy","9":"tag-shakespeares-globe","10":"tag-theatre","11":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1071"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1076,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071\/revisions\/1076"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}