leading from
At the Old Vic, under the new policy of casting a
wider net, they have come upwith the interesting idea of reviving The
Tempest In the Dryden-Davenant version of 1667, with Purcell's music.
This needs to be considered in context : written at a time when Dryden
had just become a contract writer for the King's theatre, it is
conceived as an opera, which to him meant 'a potential tale, or fiction,
represented by vocal and instrumental music, adorned with scenes,
machines and dancing.' With The Tempest this involved 'the fable of it
all spoken and acted by the best of the Comedians; the other part of
the entertainment to be performed by the singers and dancers.'
And so poor Mr. Vari's play becomes a tug-of-war
between these two ill-matched champions, with a supporting cast directed
by William Chappell as if the whole thing were being done by ENSA in
the open air in the middle of an air- raid; and this amplification goes
to underline the fact that the piece itself is just not witty or
dramatic or charming enough. Perhaps in a more muted production, and
with somebody more icy, more truly grande dame than Miss Mount, it might
have seemed different, but as sentimental farce the effect is too often
dull and embarrassing. The two ladies have their occasional moments of
glory, but It is really asking too much to expect them to coo
convincingly over a cradle placed by the footlights while baby noises
emerge from backstage. At first, I wondered whether Miss Rutherford was
Moreover, Dryden cheerfully set about re-writing Shakespeare (he said he
never worked at anything with more delight); being at that time under
the influence of the tidier French drama, he intro- duced some symmetry
in the shape of sisters for Miranda and Caliban, and a counterpart for
Ferdinand; he contrived a neater, less complicated narrative, and made
ample allowance for the 'machines' which he knew to be the main
attraction for his public, theatre-starved after two years of closure.
Even now, one could make out a case for Dryden
improving upon Shakespeare. This Tempest makes much more sense than
the original. Continually we see Dryden asking Shakespeare rational
questions about points of plot or character —does not Prospero, for
instance, feel any pity for those he tortures?—and because this is the
kind of thing that puzzles us no less than him, it is satisfying to
find him putting the question in somebody's mouth and obtaining a good
enough answer. The play has become quite consistent and plausible; all
that we have lost is most of the poetry, the revelation of a great mind
near the end of its life, the genius. Dryden's Shakespeare is commonly
called a perversion; it is in fact a reduction.
I would like to be able to salute more than the Vic's
enterprise, but am bound to say I found the experience a beautiful bore.
No fault of the com- pany : Douglas Seale has produced brilliantly in
Finlay James's conch-shell settings; the musical interludes are truly
operatic, except that we can actually make out the words; Miles Malleson
is on hand as Trinculo, working the old familiar collywobble charm as
hard as ever; there is a pleasant, distinctive-voiced newcomer,
Christine Finn, as the Dryden-invented Hippolito; and Joss Ackland's
Caliban is a splendidly blab and bloated lizard, another Oxford man gone
wrong. Everyone, indeed, works hard and well, and if the overall
effect is bloodless, the fault is with Dryden and Davenant; in
particular Prospero exemplifies the way Shakespeare's creation in depth
is turned into a one-dimension, flat-wash, strip-cartoon character.
Perhaps, too, our modern convention of the well-behaved audience is
wrong in an enter- tainment clearly designed for a more turbulent crowd,
coming and going. As a collector's piece, it is obviously worth a
visit, but for this occasion the Old Vic tradition of visits from
schools might be discouraged, for I can only think that this would put
children off both Shakespeare and Dryden, though they might like the
'machines.'
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