On Tuesday night, Miriam and I went to see the Royal Shakespeare Company perform
Volpone by Ben Johnson. Why, one might ask, go see a play that was first performed in 1605? Why even produce it? Well, it is about incredibly rich, incredibly privileged people who think they are entitled to anything they want. Henry Goodman played the title role. He is an actor who has had an amazing career on the British stage, but he has appeared in virtually no films. I think the only one in which we in the U.S. might have seen him was
Notting Hill. It is a shame we don't see more of such performers.
Volpone, who keeps a dwarf, a castrato and a hermaphrodite around for kicks, tries to wrest from three other super-rich businessmen all their money. He pretends to be dying and says he will choose his heir based on who gives him the best presents, tries to persuade one of the men to disinherit his son and another to lend him his wife. There's also a subplot with a Kardashian-style female that was absolutely hilarious. In the end, of course, Mosca, the assistant to whom Volpone has taught all his tricks, outfoxes his master. How this large and talented cast managed to keep us all mesmerized for three hours was due in large part to some very creative updating of the script and to Goodman's dynamism. He was onstage nearly every minute and just dominated every scene in which he appeared, including while lying on his (supposed) death bed.
We were fortunate to be attending the play on an evening when the cast comes out afterwards for a Q&A session with the audience. Hearing them talk about their craft, the rehearsal process, and the dynamic between actors and audience was itself a master acting class. I was so enthused by Goodman's performance that Miriam and I have arranged to watch the DVD of
The Merchant of Venice, in which she says he plays the best Shylock she's ever seen.
On Thursday evening, we'll be seeing
Othello in which black actors have been cast both as Othello and as Iago. After all this time, it seems a bit odd that this is still viewed as something of a daring innovation. Nevertheless, it is a production that has gotten much more mixed reviews than
Volpone.
