We're still in love with Shakespeare In Love

By Helena Payne

The rumbling juggernaut of a success that is Delfont Mackintosh’s Shakespeare In Love is now in its third incarnation. The production at the Noel Coward theatre remains as energetic and glittering as ever with an astonishingly young and capable cast. They breathe new life into the familiar characters and story, daring each other on to greater heights. Stoppard and Norman’s script is a love letter to all that is wonderful about the theatre and the man and poet who is the bedrock of our cultural heritage.

There is nothing more synonymous with Shakespeare and the theatre than balconies. Shakespeare In Love does not scrimp on the balconies. On two levels they run the breadth of the stage and curl into the auditorium, not only that, they bloody move! Like this seemingly solid, polished structure the production moves like a well-oiled machine, as confident in its moments of intimate detail as in its passages of bold, physical ensemble work.

Eve Ponsonby and Orlando James make a handsome and markedly blonde couple as Viola De Lesseps and William Shakespeare. When we meet Shakespeare, he is suffering from writer's block. James makes the most of this, stuttering and grasping for lines any audience member could complete. With the subtlest inflection or daintiest raised eyebrow, he convinces as the frayed poet and immediately has us on his side. Eve Ponsonby shines even brighter as his adoring fan. She possesses an adorable dappiness and confidently plays with the verse. Utterly plausible as Shakespeare's muse, she entertains as her trouser role, Thomas Kent, and breaks our hearts as Viola in her admission, "I just wanted to be an actor." Their love is all gushing promises and burning physical passion and, quite rightly, is the glowing heart driving the story on.

Most notable from the strong ensemble is Thomas Padden, multi-roling as Adam, Boatman, Gregory and a multi-instrumentalist. His physical comedy and mime is hilariously exasperating in his audition for Romeo and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter, his Boatman fabulously droll and credulous. The players are a seething mass of thighs, tights and testosterone. Tilney’s sneer that they are, “peddlars of bombast” could not be more apt. None more bombastic though, than Peter Moreton as Burbage. He sends up the process of warming up and postures and declaims as outrageously as possible. “The Money,” Neal Barry as Hensloe, also provides much amusement in his transformation from a snivelling, quibbling penny pincher to a committed thespian and arts enthusiast obsessing over the appropriateness of a blue cap for his apothecary. Other nods must go to Edward Franklin as a striking, considered Marlowe who maintains poise and subtly against the sea of romping men. Indeed, one criticism perhaps of the players would be that too many seemed to be playing Burbage. There is only ever room enough on stage for one “over-ripe ham,” and that crown belongs to Burbage.

Hamlet muses theatre ought to be a “mirror up to nature” and, as evinced in Shakespeare In Love, there is nothing that theatre does so well than holding a mirror up to itself. Shakespeare In Love revels in its own self-awareness. The compulsory dog storms the stage met with the exclamation, “Out damned Spot!” The fourth wall is regularly broken by wry winks and cheeky glances. The atmospheric music that underscores some of the more tender moments is yelled at to “Shut Up!” All the actors indulge romantic notions of how life in the theatre was and can be. Like a Shakespeare play, they weave together psychologically realistic depictions of characters coupled with unnaturalistic devices to convey the story.

This cast have only improved on an already stellar production making it one of the most formidable competitors in the West End. Shakespeare In Love also marks a triumph in the argument for employing appropriate actors to rejuvenate a show rather than hoiking in reality television “stars” or ex “pop-artists.” Norman and Stoppard can sleep sound knowing that their work is being carried to new heights by an incredibly accomplished new ensemble.Shakespeare In Love demonstrates it is still possible to achieve commercial success whilst retaining artistic credibility, thus we can all breathe a deep sigh of relief.

http://shakespeareinlove.com/

@SILonstage @PostScriptJour

#reviews