Visiting my friend Miriam at her home in Stratford has become something of a summer tradition as it is easy to add a visit of several days before or after my course at the International Summer School in Cambridge. After stopping overnight in London last Monday, I took the train to Stratford where good food, great conversations and lots of theater awaited my arrival.
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| Sir John and Lady Brute |
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| John Vanbrugh |
On Tuesday night, we saw
The Provoked Wife, a 1697 Restoration comedy by John Vanbrugh, who was also the architect of both Castle Howard (think
Brideshead Revisited on Masterpiece Theater) and Blenheim, the Churchill home. I had never seen the play before and it turned out to be a much more thought-provoking romp than the usual Restoration comedies, although equally licentious.
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| Lady Fancyfull |
Lady Brute has made a bargain with the devil in marrying the alcoholic and very debauched Sir John Brute, but she sought both his title and his wealth in marriage thinking she could tame him. Now, some years later, she is wrestling with her conscience about whether she should take a lover and a young man named Constant is more than ready to oblige. There are the usual round of sub-plots, including one featuring Lady Fancyfull, who covers her gray hair with a wig that is almost orange and whose makeup resembles the face of a kewpie doll -- all with the aim of attracting young admirers. In the end Lady Brute retains her virtue but a mirror is exposed to all the foibles of society. The production, in period costume, was sumptuous and the acting superb.
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| Scene from Measure for Measure: Isabella and her tormentor |
On Wednesday, in a complete change of authors and mood -- thought not of subject -- we saw Shakespeare's
Measure for Measure. In this play, a Duke who has promulgated all sorts of laws against licentiousness and depravity but not bothered to enforce them, leaves town and puts his seemingly pure deputy in charge of cleaning things up. Claudio is one of the young men condemned to death for having bedded his fiancé. His sister Isabella, a novice in a convent, pleads with the deputy for her brother's life and is offered the option of giving up her own chastity to save him. She declines, but through a series of subterfuges and strategies, abetted by the Duke who has returned to town disguised as a monk (that's an outrage in and of itself), both Claudio and his sister's honor are saved. The sexual politics here are absolutely chilling - made even more powerful by the splendid acting of Lucy Phelps as Isabella - and are not changed by the resolution at the end. Indeed, the Duke's fundamental corruption only underscores that predatory behavior will continue as before -- even unto this day.
This production was set in Vienna at the dawn of the twentieth century, a perfect location. As one of the local reviews noted: "Setting the play in the Vienna of the 1900s is also something of a masterstroke. It lends this rather squalid tale a veneer of gentility and elegance".
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| Simon Russell Beale in The Lehman Trilogy |
Miriam and I enjoyed a great dinner at Salt, one of our favorite Stratford restaurants, on Thursday and then I returned to London on Friday.
That evening, I was able to attend a performance of
The Lehman Trilogy, which is, along with
Wolf Hall, one of the most thrilling theatrical events of this decade. Written in Italian by Stafano Massini, it has been translated into English and adapted for this production. With only three actors, it tells the story of the Lehman Brothers banking business from its beginnings in Alabama in the 1840s until its collapse in 2008. Sam Mendes directs Simon Russell Beale, one of the greatest performers on the British stage today, Adam Godley and Ben Miles as the Lehman Brothers, their sons and grandsons (and a few wives and daughters) in a set that is a revolving glass cube. It is just brilliant. I understand that, just like the Met in HD, there will eventually be the opportunity to see it in a Seattle movie theater. Look for the National Theatre in HD. I urge all of you to see it if you can. It is a thrilling theatrical event.
Dinner with friends at Ottolenghi's NOPI on Saturday night and then on to Cambridge on Sunday.
