The house style of the RSC (especially in the Main House) has, for the majority of recent shows, been characterised by lucidity and straightforwardness - nothing exciting or radical - witness the Rome MMXVII season, especially the leaden Julius Caesar directed by Angus Jackson. More interesting or experimental work (for good or ill) tends to be presented in the Swan, whether it be the splendidly farcical new play, Vice Versa by Phil Porter (a Carry On meets Benny Hill Show mash-up of Plautus, directed by Janice Honeyman) or the utterly disastrous and entirely incomprehensible version of Wilde’s Salome, directed by Owen Horsley.
Kimberley Sykes’ production of Dido combined the rare pleasure of seeing this play staged (at all) as well as an astonishingly refreshing departure from the prevailing “safe” house style of the company. This was a modern dress production which thoughtfully fused the soaring rhythms of Marlowe’s stunning verse with contemporary concerns about the status and safety of refugees. In its unembarrassed attention to the script’s jealousies and sexualities, it also engaged with questions of desire and social mores and especially the tensions between them. Ti Green’s bare design, Ciaran Bagnall’s stark lighting and Mike Fletcher’s frequently dissonant score worked brilliantly together to underline the effrontery of Marlowe’s vision and the modernity of the issues it raised. Without doubt and by a clear mile, this is the best show in the RSC’s current season.
The action took place on a beach of dark grey sand and as Aeneas (Sandy Grierson) remarked that “we are strangers driven on this shore, / And scarcely know within what clime we are” (2.1.43-44), there was a real sense that this coastline represented threat as much as haven. In fact, the featureless landscape had previously been occupied by a group of gods who were quite out of control. Nicholas Day’s Jupiter presided in white three-piece suit over a drug-fuelled orgy in which Ellie Beaven’s Venus shot up with intravenous drugs administered via a port permanently fixed in her forearm by Ben Goffe’s schoolboy Cupid (whose arrow tips were neatly translated here into a hypodermic). Will Bliss’ Hermes in 1980s “Frankie Goes to Hollywood” costume and Andro Cowperthwaite’s white-suited but shirtless Ganymede personified a camp iconography while Bridgitta Roy’s Juno, in full-length sequinned dress, assaulted Ganymede for spilling her drink. Loud chaotic music and whirligig dancing demonstrated, as if the story were not enough, that these deities were as impulsive and volatile as their earthly counterparts.
As the gods exited so Aeneas and his exiled companions were washed ashore under a screen of pouring rain to take their breathless place on the sand. Venus, in a leopard-print coat, made her assiduous enquiries as to her son’s well-being before clattering off in a pair of stilettoes which added a nice touch to Aeneas’ sudden recognition of her: “’tis my mother that is fled: / I know her by the movings of her feet” (1.1.240-41).
Aeneas and his comrades appeared as awkward guests at Dido’s banquet and the opening celebrations and luxuriant dancing quickly quietened to the horror of his account of the fall of Troy and the deaths of innocent Trojans at the hands of the Greek soldiers concealed in the Wooden Horse. Grierson’s Scottish accent distinguished him from those of his new surroundings and in spite of Dido’s rapid adoption of him as her favourite and her dressing of him in a loose gown, the dislocation between him and his new location was something to which the production was closely attentive. Grierson’s performance was distinctly anti-heroic, as though Aeneas was battered and exhausted by the sufferings of his escape and subsequent voyage. His eventual departure seemed more to do with the behest of Hermes than any willingness on his own part so that he remained a creature of the gods rather than autonomous. To this extent, Grierson’s rather etiolated mien suited his character’s submissiveness - to Dido, Hermes or circumstances.
Chipo Chung’s Carthaginian queen had much in common with Shakespeare’s Cleopatra - her rapid reversals of mood and demeanour fuelled the sense that she was both steadfast in her love for him (a steadfastness that would cost her her life) and playfully fickle in her pursuit. Her unwillingness to spill the beans in the cave was eventually overtaken by her rampant longing and her nervous hesitation - “And yet I’ll speak, and yet I’ll hold my peace” (3.4.26) - collapsed into a sexual lunge. The pathos of her attempts to purchase his affections - “take these jewels at thy lover’s hand, / These golden bracelets, and this wedding-ring” (
Following the agonising exit of Aeneas, Dido busily organised the lengths of sailcloth confiscated from his ships into a large circle. Into these she tossed a dozen or so love letters together with Aeneas’ weapons and cloak. As she walked around the circumference splashing the sails with petrol from a large copper jug, she took on the appearance of a Macbeth witch intent on the destruction of somebody else, that is, until she stepped into the circle and poured the petrol all over her chest and head. It was a sickening realisation that she intended to share the destruction of Aeneas’ possessions as though she were one of them and her last autonomous act was to destroy her autonomy. As she burned, her body writhed and rolled in the sand so that she took on the colour of ashes. She rested in death, propped awkwardly in a seated position, her hands splayed oddly, her expression enigmatic. Iarbas (Daniel York) followed her perfunctorily in death with the aid of Aeneas’ sword. The final moments of Marlowe’s play stage the death of Anna presumably by stabbing herself; she talks of “mix[ing] her blood with” that of Iarbas (5.1.325). Sykes intensified the horror of this death by having Anna drink from the petrol jug, gagging uncontrollably but keeping just enough down to overpower her. It was a fitting and appalling climax to such a powerful show - one that underlined the achievement of this impressive and evocative production.
1 Marlowe, Christopher. The Complete Plays. Ed. Mark Thornton Burnett. London : Everyman, 1999. Print.
By Peter J. Smith
