Peter Viney's Blog

Eyam
by Matt Hartley

Directed by Adele Thomas
Designer Hannah Clarke
Composer Orlando Gough

Shakespeare’s Globe, London
Saturday 13th October 2018, 14.00

CAST:
Annette Badland – Rev Thomas Stanley, Puritan minister
Zora Bishop – Elizabeth Hancock / Elizabeth Sheldon
Adrian Bower- Phillip Sheldon, local landowner
Priyanga Burford – Katherine Mompesson
Sam Crane – Rev William Mompesson, new vicar
John Paul Connolly – John Hancock
Becci Gemmell- Elizabeth Sydell /Mary Talbot
Will Keen – John Sydall
Norah Lopez Holden – Emmott Sydall+
Luke McGregor – Edward Cooper / Rolland Torre
Jordan Metcalfe- Francis Bockinge / George Viccars
Oliver Ryan – Unwin
Sirine Saba – Mary Cooper
Howard Ward – Marshall Howe
Rose Wardlaw – Harriet Stubbs

Eyam was a plague village in Derbyshire, that is one where most of the population died in one fell swoop in 1665. What put it into history is that the population quarantined themselves to avoid spreading the sickness. I’ve always been fascinated by Knowlton in Dorset, another plague village. The church was inside an ancient earthwork, and is all that remains of a once thriving community. Spookier are the two ancient twisted yews which must have marked the entrance gate. There were outbreaks of bubonic plague for over 300 years. Note that therefore we are all mainly descended from plague survivors, or those with natural immunity.  Sounds like a Dan Brown novel plot. Oh, yes, so it is.

The Globe has had some good modern plays recently (set in the past): Boudica in 2017, Nell Gwynne in 2015, Farinelli & The King in 2015, Pitcairn in 2014. We continue the tradition. For this they have added two zig zag stage extensions into the audience.

Eyam is a village divided, just five years after the Restoration of the monarchy under Charles II in 1660. Memories of recent divides in the Civil War are strong. Royalists v Parliamentarians. Anglicans v Non-conformists, which might be exactly the same thing. Anyway, they are all dressed in dusty musty fusty Puritan black which suggests which side they are on. We open with a wild stomping dance as they proceed to hang the Church of England vicar. For the rest of the play they say he was “hung”, perhaps well-hung? That could get him into trouble. Apparently he was a fornicator, which is appropriate.  Anyway, he was then, it is reported later, dragged to death behind a horse. So if the hanging didn’t kill him, maybe he WAS hung for a bit rather than hanged, but that was a hangman’s noose. Pedantic? Yes, but kids would get marked wrong in an exam for confusing ‘hung’ and ‘hanged.’ Let’s just say Derbyshire lead miners in 1665 were ignorant of the distinction.

So the local aristocrat, Sir Saville, or maybe Sir something Saville (not Jimmy, I hope), has appointed a new Anglican vicar from Yorkshire, William Mompesson (Samuel Crane) who wears dark grey rather than black – initially anyway, and arrives with his wife Katherine (Priyanga Burford). They are outsiders, they will never be local, and no one has told them the last vicar’s fate in advance. Katherine is a strong character, her husband, initially is trepidatious, and wants to get out of the place.

Annette Badland as Reverend Thomas Stanley

Thing is, the vicar before the deceased well-hung one, was chucked out for being a Dissenter, I.e. Non-conformist Puritan. This is the Reverend Thomas Stanley, who has returned to Eyam on the same day. In a wildly bizarre casting decision he is played by Annette Badland with a wispy stuck-on beard. This is a deliberate bit of cross-gender casting in a play which is 50/50 anyway. I guess it wouldn’t have been seven men / seven women without doing that, though there’s so much doubling up that they could have managed it. Would 8:6 be such a crime? There are more appropriate male roles for a woman to dress up as too, and I can see recasting and keeping it 50 / 50. She works hard, acts well, is a bit too quiet compared to the rest, but she is very petite (a polite but sexist word?) and just never, never looks or sounds the part. Weird casting. Totally ludicrous decision. Hellfire and damnation preacher? No!!!

So is it to be 50/50 at The Globe regardless of role or common sense? It’s one hell of an imposition on the female actor, knowing that ANY of the men would have impressed more. What with it being such a very male role. What worries me about British theatre, is that the professional critics mainly didn’t think this bit of absurd imposed casting worthy of mention.  In fact, they avoid mentioning the character at all. Miriam Gillinson in The Guardian was the honourable exception.

Oliver Ryan as Unwin, and Rose Wardlaw as the mad Harriet. They plan to sell fake remedies.

In the first act we see that the main occupations of Eyam are beating each other, indulging in wife abuse, fornication, saying ‘fuck’ a lot, shouting at each other and tolerating the odder members of the community, such as Harriet (Rose Wardlaw) who has a girl’s name, dresses like a boy and digs up dead people’s fingers; or the pale and stuttering Francis (Jordan Metcalfe). Mark Rylance was in this afternoon’s audience, and I wondered how he rated Jordan Metcalfe’s stutter, an area of his expertise.  (It was very good). Four of the cast had to drift on and off as ravens of death from time to time, but maybe more than four shared that task which runs throughout. I agree with the reviewer who says the play is often incoherent. Some of them are speaking too fast with a strong accent as well.

The local rich guy Philip Sheldon (Adrian Bower) has a randy young wife (Zora Bishop) who in spite of having brightly coloured clothes as a respite from the universal black, and pretty curls, can’t get her obnoxious husband interested in sex. He seems in league with Reverend Taylor, but not out of piety.

A tailor, George Viccars,  turns up from London and lodges with Mary Cooper and her mummy’s boy son, Edward. Sirine Saba is powerful and funny as Mary Cooper throughout, as is Luke MacGregor as the soppy son. Mrs Sheldon (the colourful rich wife)  turns up wanting a bright new frock, and the material will have to be brought from London. They don’t do coloured cloth in Derbyshire. Like the Ford Model T you can have any colour you like as long as it’s black. Long standing legend is that plague spread through fleas in infected cloth, but surely that would be secondhand or used (or pre-loved) rather than expensive new silk? Or was it because the cloth came from Asia? By now, George and Edward have embarked on a gay romance. George is the first one to come down with the plague, demonstrating perhaps the other often held belief that a stranger brought it to the area from a city, which makes sense. Edward is next, and it’s a shock. I couldn’t help thinking that this was extremely risky ground in a PC world, or are they so extremely PC at the Globe that the very strong statistical collocation of ‘gay’ and ‘plague’ (i.e. AIDS) escapes them? I would certainly have avoided having two gay characters being the first to succumb.

Luke McGregor as Edward Cooper in that suspect cloth. Crows (or ravens) of death behind.

There is a lot of this. Undoubtedly at 95 minutes, the first act was far too long, because some of it was repetitive. The point was made and repeated. We were past ready for an interval. First though, poor Edward has to appear in a dress made from the suspect cloth, then be presented bollock-naked to the audience. I always think that demeaning to the actor, and a loincloth would not have detracted from the effect at all. I also wonder what the Globe heirarchy would have said if the director had suggested presenting a woman full-frontal naked. Jane Edwardes in the Sunday Times complains that everyone is named John, Elizabeth or Mary. She is actually quoting the vicar, William Mompesson in the play text, who makes that observation.

After the interval … there are little mounds of brown earth everywhere. We are into the burials. Mompesson persuades the villagers to quarantines themselves, initially for 28 days after the last death. It turns out to be a self-imposed siege of thirteen months. They discuss “immunity” a word not in common use at the time. It was first recorded in 60 BC, relating to snake venom, but really, the populace of 1665 did not have the concept.

After the interval: the burials start

Oliver Ryan stands out as Unwin, getting better as the play progresses. Howard Ward as the Sexton / gravedigger is another marvelous performance. Will Keen as vicious holy joe John Sydall was also outstanding. All strong, aggressive performances in fact. Brutal men in a brutal place.

Sam Crane as Reverend William Mompesson

At the end, Sam Crane, as Reverend William Mompesson, who has survived the plague but lost his wife, reads us a list of the 273 dead. We say an actor is so good that he/she can read the telephone directory (if they still existed), That’s precisely what Sam Crane does, including repetitions and losing alphabetical order. It takes 13 minutes. That is some list. Some critics found it the deeply-moving highlight of the play. Others thought it terminally dull. Remembering such a list without notes is an acting tour de force, but why? Wouldn’t a scroll of paper have fulfilled the same role? It was a legitimate place to read it aloud. He didn’t. He learned it. Hugely admirable as technical acting, but just those dead people we have actually seen in the play and their families would have sufficed. I thought it brilliant work from Sam Crane, but it was 350 years ago. I found tears in my eyes at the Vietnam wall in Washington DC, as these were my contemporaries. I felt sadness at the war memorial in my grandad’s village, but so many people have died in 350 years that, no, I was not moved.

I didn’t really like the play as it stands. A good editor could make it 30 minutes shorter and therefore better. Great efforts from the cast, however. It’s been easily the poorest year from the Globe since I started this blog.  Overall? Two stars.

**

THE PROGRAMME

Excellent. An interview with Matt Hartley and two fascinating essays. Worth every penny, but I do wish they would separate the actor credits from the other creatives. In the 10 minute wait before a play begins, it is the actors we want to know about.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID:

3 star
Domenic Cavendish, Telegraph ***

At its best, often in maniacal, wild-limbed dancing (with soulful music composed by Orlando Gough), the play communicates the strangeness and dread of those distant times. At its worst, and I’m afraid I include the interminable final roll-call of victims, it feels like glorified home-work.

Jane Edwardes, Sunday Times ***

Apart from the shouting, fighting and unfortunate choreography, too much of the initial action is incoherent, not helped by the fact that everyone wears black and is called John, Elizabeth and Mary.

Adrezej Lukowski, Time Out ***

It’s frustrating that Hartley devotes the best part of 90 minutes (ie the entire first half) to preamble. He opts for a kaleidoscopic view of the assorted feuding eccentrics and rogues who live in the village. Some of his creations are highly entertaining, foremost Rose Wardlaw as ghoulish young nutter Harriet Stubbs. But it’s still too much and Adele Thomas’s production doesn’t have the razzle dazzle to style out so much exposition.

Alex Wood, What’s On Stage ***
Tom Birchenough, The Arts Desk ***

(It) makes full use of an extended front stage, with perpendicular flanks that come right out into the Globe’s pit. The amplified space is used for all sorts of action, from dialogue between characters cut off from one another, to a procession of burials that gives Eyam the quality of Hamlet on speed. It may reduce the space for groundings considerably, but lack of room for audiences is not going to be an issue here.

2 star
Miriam Gillinson, The Guardian **

In a distracting move, Stanley is played by a woman. Annette Badland performs the role with exacting gravitas but this isolated bit of gender-blind casting doesn’t feel like it serves a purpose. Countless other stories are thrown into the mix: of gay lovers, doomed sweethearts and black-toothed butchers. There’s an awful lot of sound and fury in Adele Thomas’s production but it signifies little.

Henry Hitchings, Evening Standard **

The potent simplicity of the final 10 minutes can’t compensate for the previous meandering noisiness.

LINKS ON THIS BLOG

Many of the cast also appear in:
The Winter’s Tale, Globe 2018

ADELE THOMAS, Director
The Night of The Burning Pestle, by Beaumont, Wanamaker Playhouse 2014
The Weir, by Conor McPherson, English Touring Theatre 2017

ANNETTE BADLAND
The Winter’s Tale, Globe 2018

OLIVER RYAN
The Winter’s Tale, Globe 2018
Doctor Faustus, RSC 2016
As You Like It, RSC 2013
Hamlet, RSC 2013

SAM CRANE
Farinelli & The King by Claire van Kampen, Wanamaker Playhouse 2015

HOWARD WARD
The Winter’s Tale, Globe 2018
Monsieur Popular, by Labiche, Bath 2015

WILL KEEN
The Winter’s Tale, Globe 2018
Quartermaine’s Terms, Brighton 2013
Hysteria, by Terry Johnson,  Bath 2012

SIRINE SABA
The Winter’s Tale, Globe 2018
King Lear, Globe 2017

LUKE McGREGOR
The Winter’s Tale, Globe 2018
Titus Andronicus, RSC 2017