I always worry about writing about theatre. I worry I’m not going to write about it like everyone else. I had this problem at Uni, where I studied the bloody thing. Everyone else would write about it in this classic, scholarly way and there’d be analysis and secondary critics and stuff, and I… well.<\/p>\n
Have you ever seen those videos of Harry Potter fans in Japan? Go and YouTube
some now. Okay. I’m like that, but with Jacobean revenge tragedies. I
will camp out on the internet and snipe front row tickets and then work
seventy hours of overtime to afford them. I will sob behind my fingers and
moan, “Their love is so real<\/em>” to myself as characters stab each other
up on stage. I will embarrass the actors and everyone around me by
simultaneously crying and cheering during the applause at the end. I’m
getting a tattoo of one of the stage directions from John
Ford’s<\/a> ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore<\/strong><\/a>, for crying out loud.
A tattoo. This is a Thing for me. I’d reblog gifs all over Tumblr
for The Changeling<\/strong><\/a> and Edward II<\/strong><\/a> if such gifs existed.<\/p>\n
But they don’t, because it’s just me.<\/p>\n
I get away with writing flailing fanboyish nonsense for my
film reviews<\/a>, but I don’t know how far I’ll get
away with it for this. Let’s see.<\/p>\n
What it is, is that I went to see Cheek By Jowl’s<\/strong> new production<\/a> of the
aforementioned
‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore<\/strong> at the Cambridge
Arts Theatre last week. It’s a modern dress production,
featuring a single, static set, a nearly omnipresent ensemble
cast, and modern dance. Oh, and lots and lots of sex and
violence. It’s directed by Declan Donnellan<\/strong><\/a>, who took a modern dress
production around London in the ’80s, and this is his
new version that’s doing a big tour around France and
the Sydney Festival, before coming to roost in London’s
Barbican Centre in the near future.<\/p>\n
Before I trundle on in my usual obtuse fashion, let me
outline the plot of
‘Tis Pity<\/strong> for you, in case you
don’t know it. Once upon a time in Parma, Giovanni
falls in love with his sister Annabella. It’s
requited and consensual and they carry on in secret for
some time. Annabella is, unfortunately, being courted by
sixty zillion guys other than her brother, and her
father’s all, “please marry someone because
your brother’s a bit useless, ps. don’t marry
your brother lol”. It’s all okay and she can
put off marriage virtually indefinitely, which is relevant
to her interests because she’s in a very nice
relationship with Giovanni, ta very much AND THEN SHE
BECOMES THE PREGNANT and GUESS WHAT it’s obviously
her brother’s. So, in order to divert the dreadful
shame of being pregnant out of wedlock, she marries Suitor
#1, Soranzo, who is not a very nice man (with previous
abusive history) and who has an even worse manservant
called Vasques, who likes to shiv people. Soranzo finds
out Annabella’s pregnant, Vasques does some
Sherlocking and finds out it’s Giovanni’s, and
Giovanni, with time-honoured 24-carat flawless logic,
decides to avert the on-coming crisis by killing
Annabella, ripping out her heart, and taking the heart to
a party. Then, everyone dies.<\/p>\n
It’s the best play.<\/p>\n
I was amazed at the audience, first. It was all –
ALL – middle class couples about twice my age!
They didn’t look as though they were there for the
same reasons I was, to put it tactfully. I felt
decidedly shifty in my spiked collar and skinny jeans,
with my boyfriend and my ‘hawk haircut. Aside from
the central relationship, I was looking forward to
seeing how homoerotic this production had made
Vasques’s relationship with his master, Soranzo.
And, yes, I wanted to see squirting blood and
eye-gouging. That’s what I was there for, and I
clutched my Feelings Scarf (the stripy scarf I take to
every film or play I see so that I can cuddle it and cry
into it; I am ridiculous) and was essentially self
conscious right up until Annabella (Lydia Wilson<\/strong>) came on stage.<\/p>\n
As soon as she emerged, I lost my
comparing-myself-to-the-audience anxiety completely.
With
‘Tis Pity<\/strong>, I’m used to
Annabella being painted as this passive recipient
of Giovanni’s (Jack Gordon<\/strong>) affections. She is
tossed about between her suitors and her
brother, and it’s never really clear what
she wants because you only ever see her through
the lens of the men and their desires – so
she’s this unattainable, Madonna\/whore
figure that I’d never really felt I could
connect with.<\/p>\n
Not this Annabella! Nope. She’s a tiny,
scrappy waif with a half-shaved head and
tangled hair, adjusting her laptop with her
feet so that she can watch a film with her
headphones on. Her bedroom – the set
where the whole thing takes place – is
adorned with posters for
True Blood<\/strong> and
Dial M For Murder<\/strong>, absinthe and
The Vampire Diaries<\/strong>. She has
tattoos and scruffy sneakers. Just
visually, I found her easy to bond with:
like someone I could have met in the
pub. “Shame, though,” I
thought, watching her bounce about on
her bed, waiting for the lights to drop
and the play to properly start,
“that the play is mostly from
Giovanni’s
perspective.”<\/p>\n
While that’s textually true, it
certainly wasn’t the case for
this production, which literally
revolves around Annabella. She’s
practically on stage all the time,
even when she’s not
participating in a scene. She’s
picked up and hoisted about. She leads
the dance numbers. She gets dressed up
as a Madonna, complete with lit-up
fairylight halo. She has all these
extra actions and reactions, and when
she speaks, she speaks… clearly.
She fights back when Soranzo (Jack Hawkins<\/strong>) hits her.
Her decisions about herself and her
love life are clearly made,
physically and verbally, and she
makes her mind explicit. I was,
frankly, amazed, having never really
seen Annabella performed with this
kind of clarity and sympathy before.
I’m normally a Giovanni kind
of guy – I always read him as
this obsessive, devoted, atheist
whose life is ruined by his social
context and coercively-assigned
religion, but Donnellan’s
staging gives Annabella such agency
that watching it, I found my
allegience changed.<\/p>\n