Greed,
corruption, lust, vanity and the worship of wealth...
...the driving forces in both
works I saw in the RSC’s Swan theatre this weekend (the second being The Jew of
Malta). But, if the motivation had parallels and the venue and many of the cast
members were the same, the two productions could hardly have been more
different.
For
their new Volpone, the RSC have not only produced a modern setting in Stephen
Brimson Lewis’s designs but they have also tinkered with the dialogue, with
textual revisions by Ranjit Bolt. The inclusion of references to social media
and nano-technology (a clever play on the name of Volpone’s dwarf) is not going
to sit comfortably with the purist, but in this refreshingly witty staging they
add a contemporary edge to the humour that you can’t help feeling Ben Jonson
would have approved of.
Movable translucent panels and full-motion display screens form the
set, which morphs from scene to scene courtesy of Tim Mitchell’s high-contrast
lighting and video designs by Nina Dunn. A ticker-tape display of stock prices
and CCTV security images give way to heartbeat and blood pressure monitors when
Volpone is on his sick-bed, and we see live video of Lady Politic Would-Be as
she is followed about the stage by paparazzi. The cast organise their lives and
take selfies with smart phones and tablets.
Casting by Hannah Miller is a stroke of genius, with perfect
choices more or less throughout. Geoffrey Freshwater and Matthew Kelly are
splendidly obsequious as Corbaccio and Corvino, the two hopefuls trying to
ingratiate themselves with Volpone so they might inherit his fortune, while
Annette McLaughlin somewhat oversteps the line into caricature with her Lady
Politic Would-Be. The trio of Androgyno, Castrone and Nano, played by Ankur
Bahl, Julian Hoult and Jon Key, bring both sinister and pantomime elements to
the piece, and turn out a couple of song and dance routines into the
bargain.
Henry
Goodman revels in the leading role, slipping in and out of disguise as he leaps
into his hi-tech hospital bed and transforms himself into a drooling wreck, left
with only a twitching hand and rolling eyes to perform his telling asides to the
audience. His faithful, parasitic servant Mosca is played with poise and elegance by Orion Lee, one of several cast members in a debut season with the RSC.
Ben
Jonson was making a serious point about materialism, corruption and
con-merchants, and there is a sense in which the satire loses some of its bite
amidst the comedic delivery under Trevor Nunn’s direction. There are clear
messages in the work for a modern audience that could possibly have been given a
little more weight in a modernist production, but very fine performances and
ensemble timing score a hit nonetheless.
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| Henry Goodman, Annette McLaughlin, Orion Lee, Matthew Kelly and Geoffrey Freshwater - Photo (c) Manuel Harlan / RSC |
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