Following its successful debut at The Old Vic, director Emma Rice takes her joyful musical comedy ‘Wise Children’ on tour. See it while you can at Richmond Theatre until Saturday 30 March says Richard Davies...
OUR VERDICT
Banished into exile by the panjandrums of Shakespeare’s Globe theatre for her too-modern use of lighting effects (yes, really!), Director Emma Rice returns stronger, bolder and definitely wiser. Wise Children, as well as being the title of the play, is also the name of her new theatre company, a troupe of travelling players who evoke the spirit of Shakespearean London mashed up with a good dollop of saucy seaside end-of-pier bawdiness.
Rice has adapted Wise Children from the book by the late Angela Carter, one of Britain finest magical realist writers who specialized in subversive stories about the myths that underpin our culture. In this case, the core theme is the relationship between legitimacy and identity. The play’s title refers to a line from ‘The Merchant of Venice’: “it is a wise child that knows his own father”.
The play opens as identical twins and former chorus girls Dora and Nora Chance celebrate their 75th birthday. They discover they have been invited to attend the 100th birthday celebration of their real father, renowned Shakespearean actor and preposterous pseud, Melchior Hazard, which by coincidence falls on the same day (also Shakespeare’s birthday). Melchior has never acknowledged his daughters and it’s generally believed they were sired by his twin brother, Peregrine, a prancing butterfly collector in loud checked trousers. But what no one suspects is that Peregrine is actually the father of Melchior’s legitimate twin daughters, Imogen and Saskia, after a night of passion with their mother, Lady Atalanta. Fortunately for them, Dora and Nora were raised by their Grandma Chance, a lovable, if somewhat potty-mouthed nudist.
The play tells the stories of all these characters at breathtaking pace through song, dance, comedy and puppetry. There are many twists and turns and as you would expect in a homage to Shakespeare, much-confused identity, such as the touching scene when Dora falls for Nora’s lover and begs her to switch places, which Nora agrees to in an act of sisterly love
Six pairs of actors play three sets of twins at various life stages, often with more than one pair on stage at the same time, though it’s rarely as confusing as that sounds. Nor are they really identical; Rice cast the actors because they ‘feel alike’ not because they look alike. Who would have thought that identical twins could be so convincingly played by actors who are neither the same race nor gender? Emma Rice herself plays the older Nora, alongside Mike Shepherd (her collaborator from her Kneehigh Theatre days) as Dora, who resembles Alan Carr as a pantomime dame. Omari Douglas and Melissa James are both sensational as Nora and Dora in their glamorous, leggy showgirl days.
The standout comedy act is Katy Owen who is hilarious as Grandma Chance, especially in her ‘nude’ suit that must be seen to be believed. Indeed, the other real star is designer, Vicki Mortimer, who has created a stunning set around a mobile caravan, which magically rotates to create multiple scenes from the girls’ lives. And not forgetting the splendid lighting design by Malcolm Rippeth, which of course you would never get at The Globe.
Wise Children is total theatre at its best, full of life, fizzing with ideas and energy, confident but not afraid to fail. The line ‘what a joy it is to dance and sing’ perfectly sums it up. I loved it.
Venue: Richmond Theatre, Richmond
Dates:
Google
Yahoo
Outlook
ical
