![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Stratford 2019
Sep. 24th, 2019 12:20 amThe first one we saw was the most predictable: The Front Page. We knew pretty much what to expect because we have seen two different movie versions of it. It still held a few surprises. One good touch was the restoration of the character of the black alderman, included in the original script but dropped during out-of-town tryouts in 1928. On historical, artistic, and social justice grounds, it was good to see him back. Other changes were less happy. I understand why they decided to change some of the male characters to women, since the original play is overwhelmingly male – but I’m not sure about the decision to change the male editor of the newspaper to a female owner, a scheming and amoral gold-digger from the chorus line, who had married the owner and inherited the paper on his death. Among other things, it seems like an insulting reference to Katharine Graham, who, as today’s audiences will remember, acquired the Washington Post on her husband’s death. It’s also considerably less daring than the gender reversal in the 1940 movie version, His Girl Friday, where it was the main character, star reporter Hildy Johnson, who was made over as a woman.
The second play we saw on Saturday, Nathan the Wise, was the biggest surprise. We knew virtually nothing about it, except that it had something to do with relations between Christians, Muslims, and Jews. And so it was, though it came as a surprise to find this heartfelt plea for religious tolerance embedded in a farcical plot where (spoiler alert) everyone turned out to be each other’s long-lost relatives. I was also surprised, and pleased, to find that it was, for the most part, a nice story about nice people. With the exception of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, a bloodthirsty monster who seemed to have wandered in from a different play, all of the characters were quite admirable: tolerant, generous, and brave. It didn’t need villains; there was enough dramatic tension in the relations among a group of good, well-meaning people trying to negotiate the complexities of life in a volatile multicultural society. It showed the little moments of mistrust and prejudice that can afflict even good-hearted people in times of stress, as well as the unintentional insensitivities – as when the Lay Brother lavishes on the wise Jew, Nathan, his highest words of praise: “You are a Christian, Nathan!” Ouch.
From reading the reviews of this production, it appears that the most controversial thing was the decision to cast a youngish woman in the role of Nathan. In general, I agree with what one of the reviewers said: the more unfamiliar the play is likely to be to the audience, the more straightforward the interpretation should be. I have said this myself about plays and operas. The casting of a woman as Nathan didn’t bother me, however, because I didn’t even see it. I had no idea the actor was a woman until I read it in the program during the intermission. And even then, I could hardly believe it. But then, I am well known to be clueless about gender. For me, the actor did a good job in the role, and that’s all that matters. At least they did not rewrite the play to make the character a woman. Now that would have been distracting.
The final play we saw was Henry VIII, one of the few Shakespeare plays that we had never seen. It is not performed very often – in fact, this is only the third time it has been performed in the 68-year history of the Stratford Festival. It is not Shakespeare’s best work, and it is not entirely by Shakespeare – it is known to have been a collaboration between Shakespeare and his younger colleague John Fletcher. But Peter and I both enjoyed it. It had a lot of interesting and relevant things to say about how dangerous it is to be too near a person with vast and arbitrary power. (In fact, all three plays had considerable relevance to today’s world of fake news, religious prejudice, and unchecked political power.)
Henry VIII ends with the christening of the infant Princess Elizabeth, and a long poetic prophecy of her future greatness. I found myself in tears over this – I’m not exactly sure why. If Elizabeth had still been Queen when this play was written, it would have seemed like cynical and insincere flattery of the monarch. (Like that part of Orlando Furioso where it is shown that all of history is leading up to the advent of Ippolito D’Este.) But Henry VIII was written in 1613, when Good Queen Bess had been dead for ten years. This seemed less like flattery and more like a sincere lament for a golden age, still in living memory but now irretrievably vanished. So I wept. For Queen Elizabeth I. And Queen Elizabeth II. And Britain, now fallen on bad times. And babies, and all the hopes and disappointments that come with them. Royal babies. My babies. All babies. And all of the lost golden ages.
