{"id":1832,"date":"2019-06-27T07:55:59","date_gmt":"2019-06-27T06:55:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1832"},"modified":"2019-06-27T08:01:48","modified_gmt":"2019-06-27T07:01:48","slug":"propwatch-the-lighter-in-venice-preserved","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2019\/06\/propwatch-the-lighter-in-venice-preserved.html","title":{"rendered":"Propwatch: the lighter in Venice Preserved"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the opening scene of Venice Preserved<\/a><\/em> at the RSC, a rebel recruits a desperate friend to the cause. His indignation is scorching hot, so of course he pulls out a lighter, itching to burn the rotten state to the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Thomas Otway\u2019s tense, too much neglected Restoration<\/a> tragedy (1682), a viciously corrupt Venice has reduced Jaffeir (Michael Grady-Hall) to ruin. He covertly married a senator\u2019s daughter, and the couple have been disowned and driven to destitution. In James Cotterill\u2019s 1980s\/cyberpunk design, we first see Jaffeir with his desk-cleared clutter shoved in a box, lanyard dangling redundantly from his neck. Pierre (Stephen Fewell) hopes to harness his friend\u2019s fury, ignite his private passion into political action. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pierre, leading a plot to overthrow the state, pulls out\na lighter. He sets his official badge alight and dumps it down a drain. Then he\npresses the lighter into Jaffeir\u2019s hand, where it flares, briefly, into life.\nWhat further righteous fires may follow?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Otway\u2019s Venice seems a city of perpetual night. Everyone\nmeets at midnight \u2013 for a rendezvous on the Rialto, to plot insurrection or for\nsome after-hours kink. It\u2019s a dark world, thick with shadows. Yet Pierre\u2019s\nlighter strikes the smallest of sparks. It lasts as long as he presses down on it,\nthen sighs back into nothing. The dank Venetian air suffocates it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As you\u2019d expect in a lagoon-lapped city, the play ripples with watery talk. Jaffeir saved his beloved Belvidera (Jodie McNee, pictured top<\/em>) from drowning, kickstarting their ruin. People describe being buffeted and engulfed by passions, speak of seas and waves and plunging into the depths. And watery metaphor seeps into literal tears. Belvidera and her husband are helplessly lachrymose \u2013 and even staunch Pierre is damp-eyed by the action\u2019s end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No wonder a flame seems so fragile when all the talk is quenching. Yet the conspirators look to burn, and their rhetoric spreads \u2013 even Belvidera will later wonder whether to stab, drown or burn herself. Jaffeir too implores destruction to scorch the world \u2018to one curst cinder\/ And all us little creepers in’t, called men,\/ Burn, burn to nothing: but let Venice burn\/ Hotter than all the rest.\u2019 Reform isn\u2019t possible against ingrained cruelty \u2013 people long for flame, ache for fire to consume the corrupt state, to burn it all down. You can\u2019t blame them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Stephen Fewell. Photos by Helen Maybanks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Venice is a place of reflex cynicism, paying the faintest lip service to principle. When Jaffeir demands a pledge that the senate will spare his comrades\u2019 lives, the duke barely pays attention. These oaths are broken as they\u2019re spoken. Even characters who try for conviction can\u2019t make a promise stick. How do you choose between your cause or your family, your lover or your friend? Loyalties tangle, and they are tugged apart by contradiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Prasanna Puwanarajah\u2019s deeply-thought production, I lost count of how many people brandished knives and didn\u2019t use them. They point blades at an enemy\u2019s chest, hold them against a loved one\u2019s throat, threaten to immolate themselves. But they don\u2019t, mostly. Some fatal lack of conviction makes them falter. Commitment sputters and dies like the lighter\u2019s flame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One striking aspect of the show, despite the 1980s setting,\nis that nobody smokes. Characters look like smokers \u2013 a nightcrawler\u2019s unhealthy\npallor, mascara smeared like ash \u2013 but no one lights up. It makes Pierre\u2019s\nlighter appear even more futile: a flame desperately seeking its purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

In the opening scene of Venice Preserved at the RSC, a rebel recruits a desperate friend to the cause. His indignation is scorching hot, so of course he pulls out a lighter, itching to burn the rotten state to the ground. In Thomas Otway\u2019s tense, too much neglected Restoration tragedy (1682), a viciously corrupt Venice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[322,321,33,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-1832","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-props","9":"tag-propwatch","10":"tag-rsc","11":"tag-theatre","12":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1832","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=1832"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1837,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1832\/revisions\/1837"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}