{"id":898,"date":"2014-05-14T17:56:29","date_gmt":"2014-05-14T16:56:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=898"},"modified":"2014-05-14T17:56:29","modified_gmt":"2014-05-14T16:56:29","slug":"laughter-in-the-dark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2014\/05\/laughter-in-the-dark.html","title":{"rendered":"Laughter in the dark"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"fiona_shaw_testament_of_mary_2\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A comment on the Guardian<\/em><\/a>\u2019s review of The Testament of Mary<\/em><\/a>, currently at London’s Barbican, described Fiona Shaw\u2019s performance as \u201819th century\u2019 in style. I\u2019m not sure the term fits such an arrestingly contemporary performer \u2013 I suspect they just meant \u2018big\u2019. Which it no doubt is. Shaw, like Simon Russell Beale, whose King Lear<\/a> in London was recently broadcast in the NT Live series, is a singular performer, whose fine-honed sensibility and gleeful theatricality create portrayals that anchor a production.<\/p>\n

Why bracket Shaw with Russell Beale? They are distinctive, because they can never not be funny \u2013 however much a play might seem to strangle laughter. They use their wit to delineate its limits \u2013 to remind you that what they\u2019re nervously joking about is the least jolly thing in the world<\/a>. King Lear<\/em> and The Testament of Mary<\/em> are cases in point \u2013 Shakespeare\u2019s least consoling tragedy and the sorrow at the heart of the Gospels \u2013 but in each, the star finds a piercing comedy, which offers perspective and provokes despair.<\/p>\n

\u2018Star\u2019 is an uncommon word for serious actors these days \u2013 too shallow, too elitist, especially as directors are credited with a production\u2019s shape. But it fits these two perfectly \u2013 they\u2019re charismatic monsters, magnets for attention, whose mannerisms enchant and, for some, repel.<\/p>\n

They were both pegged for comedy early on. As a pup, I saw their early performances \u2013 Russell Beale as a hapless, filthy innocent out of his depth in Howard Barker\u2019s ferocious rewrite of Women Beware Women<\/em><\/a>; Shaw, plushly troubled in The Rivals<\/em> at the National. Both went to the RSC to snaffle on comedy \u2013 his fops, her sharp-tongued broads \u2013 before scoring darker stuff like Electra and Richard III.<\/p>\n

\"Simon<\/a>

Simon Russell Beale as Lear Photo: Mark Douet<\/p><\/div>\n

Even when playing a tyrant, Russell Beale (SRB to devotees) uses wit like a beesting \u2013 it harms the speaker as much as his target. His latest role, like his Leontes<\/a> and Stalin<\/a>, is a self-harming despot. As Lear, he illustrates the theatrical saw that what helps you play a king is not your behaviour, but everyone else\u2019s. His first appearance \u2013 staging the doomed love-test as a kind of show trial <\/a>\u2013 is greeted with hideous strain by family and followers. The downcast eyes and tense attention suggests how they fear his flying off the handle \u2013 indeed, he will rattle off the ranting curses at a speed beyond thought. But even here, his inflections are skewed comic \u2013 even if the only person he\u2019s amusing is himself. He stomps up close to Cordelia and pincers her cheeks. \u2018Better thou hadst not been born than not to have pleased me better,\u2019 he says, and laughs, delighted at the paradox. It\u2019s the grotesque joke of someone who doesn\u2019t realise that people will soon stop laughing along.<\/p>\n

Sam Mendes\u2019 production, though on a bombastic scale, is utterly focused on character (even tiny roles like Daniel Millar\u2019s Curran get a through line from cheeky sneak to abashed virtue). Everyone treats Lear like a king; when he sloughs off authority and they stop, he doesn\u2019t know how to treat himself. He blusters, founders, eventually becomes ineffably sweet. The furious spume of speech slows. He thinks. Russell Beale\u2019s voice, with its sudden wheels and drops, gradually unspools humility in short velvety skeins.<\/p>\n

Shaw\u2019s voice has its own plangent edges, alternate quizzical or furious. Her stage persona is often that of abject entertainer: her Medea<\/a> was a jokey gawk, the missus who kept dropping the balls and whom no one took quite seriously. Mary, too, is mistrusted by her son\u2019s dogged disciples (she prefers to think of them as \u2018misfits\u2019). She elaborates Colm Toibin\u2019s text with little exhalations of laughter and whimsical incredulity. She\u2019s maternal, often domestic (Shaw does a lot of tidying and swabbing), but Mother of the revolution, Mama Theology? No. She rejects the roles, won\u2019t be beatific.<\/p>\n

Before Deborah Warner’s grave production\u00a0begins, we\u2019re encouraged to browse around the stage \u2013 peering at lights, flowers, an impressively restless black vulture (photo, top, by Paul Kolnik). Shaw walks on to set things up, then settles in a perspex box, with drapes and flowers. She\u2019s made an icon, stippled with smartphones (which veer between her and the vulture). It\u2019s a sharp device: the play itself proceeds to topple iconography. Shaw is as ferociously and exact as the vulture. This is no gospel, but Mary\u2019s testament, her witness statement \u2013 her truth, not the truth.<\/p>\n

\"London<\/a>

London Assurance Photo: Tristram Kenton<\/p><\/div>\n

It\u2019s a shame these actors have rarely shared a stage. They were strongly subdued as Portia and Cassius in Warner\u2019s Julius Caesar<\/em>, lacking any scenes together; more recently, gleamed in the larky London Assurance<\/em> <\/a>(he a dandy upholstered in self-regard; she a horsey eccentric). Fun was had, but fun-plus is the thing they both do peerlessly \u2013 and I\u2019d love to see them do it together. (Though in what? Private Lives<\/em>? Ghosts?<\/em> A contest, surely, as much as a compact). As Lear dies, and as Mary is condemned to veneration, something dims. Their wit is an index of humanity exploring its own limits.<\/p>\n

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

A comment on the Guardian\u2019s review of The Testament of Mary, currently at London’s Barbican, described Fiona Shaw\u2019s performance as \u201819th century\u2019 in style. I\u2019m not sure the term fits such an arrestingly contemporary performer \u2013 I suspect they just meant \u2018big\u2019. Which it no doubt is. Shaw, like Simon Russell Beale, whose King Lear […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":901,"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":[34,81],"class_list":{"0":"post-898","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-theatre","9":"tag-tragedy","10":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898","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=898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}