3 STARS, Sep 7 - Oct 20. Bizarre costumes, constant chatter and a succession of peculiar scenes. Simon Collins struggles to make sense of Orange Tree’s Losing Venice
Helen Maybanks
Christopher Logan, Remus Brooks, Tim Delap in Losing Venice
A carnivalesque romp, written in 1985 and last seen thirty years ago, emerges from heaps of surreal fancy as a satire on the madness of our times when politicians’ enthusiasm for war is incomprehensible to the public.
Apparently, topicality is one of the reasons for reviving it according to director, Paul Miller, who had worked on the original production and said to me the play is a “neglected masterpiece.” But you have to search carefully to find a contemporary resonance. Florence Roberts, the star of an exemplary cast, aptly describes it as a mash-up of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Blackadder, Monty Python, Alice in Wonderland, but also its own thing.
I was reminded of The Simpsons in that there is a continual succession of peculiar scenes in which the same group of four or five madcap characters comically quarrel and witticise interminably with one another providing lots of chuckles for the audience. At the interval a woman behind me declared, ”It’s wonderful!”
Unlike The Simpsons, however, there is only a minimal narrative architecture. One can discern a floor plan of sorts beneath the fantasy. It is supposedly set in the Spanish Golden Age of the early 17th century but there is very little sense of place or time, or of stable characters. Throughout a mild smoke-haze wafts around the auditorium and what with the bizarre punkish costumes the experience of the play is like a phantasmagoric reverie.
Helen Maybanks
Florence Roberts in Losing Venice
Nevertheless, the bare story has a duke justifying war as a unifying social principle. He marries a bitch; their relationship is echoed by that of two servants whose rapport is more sympathetic. A satirical poet represents the crazy artistic energy of the court. Admirably played by Christopher Logan, he forever spouts caustic verses. The hideous, half-insane, king arrives staggering, maggots crawling between his toes, to grant the Duke’s petition for a military adventure. The Duke is appointed to lead the capture of Venice and govern there as Viceroy. (Shades of regime change in Iraq? Libya? Syria?… Iran?)
Act Two takes place in a strangely serene, devastated Venice. Unlike anywhere on earth it is a sweetly sinister city beyond the clouds. Then suddenly we are in the bedroom of the Doge and his wife, Mrs Doge, so-called, a room of such vast proportions that they cannot find their bed. This vignette alone is worth the price of admission. Mr and Mrs Doge (for no reason) are portrayed like Alan Bennett characters moaning at each other in northern tones. At the end the Duke is bereft of followers, deserted. But narrative is not the point.
Jo Clifford, the play’s author, told me oddly that when writing she does not visualise the finished work. Yet a casual glance at the script shows visualised stage directions on almost every page. What she meant, I think, besides accepting the director’s freedom to interpret, is that her emphasis is on language. The strength of her writing and this play is its verbal energy. A constant lively chatter fills the stage. What ultimately of substance is said remains uncertain; rather the effect is of speechmusic. It is an unusual play.
Tickets: orangetreetheatre.co.uk
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