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William Russell's Duke was the most likable
one could imagine. The effect of a fortyish and rather attractive
Duke was to underline at the end of the play, the impression of
Isabella's fear of sex, whereas when the lines, "Dear Isabel, I
have a motion much imports your good; Whereto if you'll a willing
ear incline, What's mine is yours, and what is yours is mine." were
spoken by the older and less well-preserved Sebastian Shaw the audience
more readily sympathised with her dismay, although I doubt if that
was Barton's intention. Both Shaw and Russell were genial Dukes,
and I think that in neither case did the bite of "If power change
purpose" at the end of Vincentio's explanatory speech to Friar Thomas
impress itself so deeply upon the audience as when the lines were
spoken by Edward Hardwicke in the Young Vic production a few months
later. He, I felt, gave the impression of some knowledge of his
Deputy's character, made necessary by his later revelation of Angelo's
treatment of Marianna, and gave me the feeling that he needed to
test Angelo.
In reading the play, I had had some reservations concerning
the Duke's reasons for throwing the burden of his responsibilities
onto Angelo. It seemed to me unfair. Now one felt some sympathy
with his wish to prove rather than guess at, Angelo's make-up. He
had to know whether the power he felt within Angelo was good, or
if the Marianna episode was an accurate pointer to the reverse.
Angelo had so far proved himself a capable, though stern, upholder
of the law, while his prince was around to keep an eye on him. Would
he also prove capable of wielding absolute power with absolute impartiality?
I felt, the Duke was almost certain in advance of the result of
the experiment.
The first Isabella I saw exactly matched my preconceived
notions. I did not like Isabella. She was almost likable at times,
but our sympathy was quite lost in the first encounter between Isabella
and Claudio. "Might but my bending down reprieve thee from thy fate,
it should proceed." How self-deceptive those words sounded! Or rather,
how like an attempt to deceive herself, for we were not convinced
that she was convinced. Isabella was as seeming pure as Angelo.
How unlike the following night, when Mary Rutherford's fiery Isabella
tore down the web of hypocrisy, and persuaded us that she was as
deeply wounded by her brother's lack of conviction as she had been
horrified by the revelation of Angelo's corruption. That performance
was unique, and I would like to elaborate on the reasons for this.
The actress had been playing the smaller part of Juliet
in this production the previous evening, and had not before held
the stage at Stratford. She walked onto the stage, the play already
half an hour late in starting, in Estelle Kohler's dress, visibly
pinned up on her, with sleeves hanging to her fingertips. For a
few moments she had to struggle to contain the tension of standing
on the vast Stratford stage, then it was absorbed into the part.
Ian Richardson's Angelo was one of the most terrifying
performances I have ever seen. In fact, when I reflect, I can think
of nothing else to place beside it. When Estelle Kohler played the
role, they did not have much eye contact after their first scene:
he had his back turned to her, or stood behind her, or simply looked
in a different direction, most of the time. But he rarely took his
gaze away from Mary Rutherford: with contempt, lust, and the full
weight of his power bore her down, and still willed her on to defy
him. She returned scorn for scorn, fury for fury, but at the end
of Act II, when Angelo bent her back across a table to kiss her,
to which Estelle Kohler's Isabella sucumbed after much scratching
and struggling, she would not let him do it! He had to give up the
attempt, but Richardson is never an actor to allow an effect to
be lost; if one thing does not happen as it should, he makes sure
something else does. He knocked her off the table. He apparently
decided Angelo had a taste for that, and for the rest of the evening
the poor girl was pushed, shoved, and, when making her plea to the
Duke for justice, literally thrown across the stage. (None of this
happened on the occasions I saw Estelle Kohler in the part.) However,
at the point where Estelle Kohler made an attempt, considerably
more feeble than her struggles in the table scene already mentioned,
to attack Angelo and was easily held by the guards while Angelo
smiled scornfully from a safe distance, Mary Rutherford shot across
the stage like a tigress, hands clawing for his eyes: Angelo almost
lost his balance trying to escape.
Reading through this, I see there may be a possibility
of your thinking that in this intense, physical, interpretation
subtlety may have been lost, but not so. Partly because in appearance
this Angelo was, to borrow from Marlowe, "As beautiful as was Bright
Lucifer before his fall". A bright Angel. Mirror bright. There must
have been few in the audience could escape the reflection, whose
reflection: the Good and Bad Angels were one; were all. Usually
I object to applause during a play, but here the spontaneous storms
that accompanied Richardson's several exits came from the excitement
and need for involvement of an audience that had become as much
a part of the whole as those on stage. It was, in short, an evening
when one learnt that Shakespeare's words when read, are beauty,
when spoken, magic.
We had a marvellously lively and corrupt Vienna.
Ben Kingsley was an unusually interesting Claudio, and Sara Kestleman
the neglected Mariana, Angelo's "ex". The Stratford rogues threatened
to take over the play as they had done the city. The brilliant Anthony
Langdon (a magnificent John of Gaunt in the Barton/Pasco Theatregoround
"Richard II"), as Barnardine refused "to die this day, for any man's
persuasion". John Kane was as good as one expected as Pompey, and
the catalogue of cut-throats, whores, and other sinners, with the
characters whirling and dancing around Pompey as he speaks the lines,
became a Hogarth drawing come to life.
Presumably, the different interpretations described
above had been developed in rehearsals with Estelle Kohler and Mary
Rutherford. It gives some idea of the quality of the RSC at that
time, that the company could produce such exciting and thought-provoking
performances even at the preview stage, and that understudy casts
provided varying, but valid and satisfying, interpretations.
Shirley Jacobs©
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