Reginald Theatre, October 4<\/strong>
Until October 21<\/strong>
Reviewed by JOHN SHAND
\u2605\u2605\u2605\u2605\u00bd
<\/strong><\/p>\n
Held in the wings while the plague passed, Damien Ryan\u2019s Venus & Adonis<\/em> became a feature film instead. Twenty-one months later we finally have the play, and can luxuriate in its velvety prose, made all the plusher by incorporating several Shakespeare sonnets, lines from his plays and the epically erotic poem of the title.<\/p>\n Set in the 1590s, Ryan\u2019s play has Shakespeare (Anthony Gooley) suffering from syphilis, yet still bedding England\u2019s first professional female poet, Aemilia Lanyer (Adele Querol), and poaching her lines. Historically, Lanyer was a contender for the sonnets\u2019 Dark Lady. Ryan removes the doubt (often along with the clothes), setting up a world steaming with sex, ribaldry, rivalry and supercharged creativity.<\/p>\n Shakespeare (Anthony Gooley) poaches the lines of Aemilia Lanyer (Adele Querol).<\/span>Credit: <\/span>Kate Williams <\/cite><\/p>\n The conceit is that Shakespeare presents a dramatised version of his epic poem for the queen. Ryan\u2019s play is of epic proportions, too, having a cast of 13 and lasting three hours. But it whizzes past on parallel plot lines of Will\u2019s affair with Lanyer, his dysfunctional relationship with his wife, Anne (Bernadette Ryan), the death of his son and the performance of Venus & Adonis<\/em>. It\u2019s also about words. They are the play\u2019s dense undergrowth, often pollinated with double meanings.<\/p>\n The epicentre is a long rehearsal scene, where Will directs Lanyer as Venus and Nathaniel Field (Jerome Meyer) as Adonis, while Christopher Tomkinson\u2019s Richard Burbage narrates, aided by Kevin MacIsaac\u2019s Robert Armin. Here is all the camaraderie, collaboration and petty conflicts of the theatre, the performance slowly bent to an increasingly exasperated Shakespeare\u2019s will \u2013 until the rehearsal is gate-crashed by the queen, whereupon Belinda Giblin magnificently commands the stage.<\/p>\n Ryan depicts Shakespeare as living hard, writing fast and liberally stealing ideas. Gooley\u2019s enthralling performance completes the picture of a man of towering intellect, boiling passions and quick wit, who\u2019s less interested in applause or even family than he is in his art.<\/p>\n Querol\u2019s Lanyer fizzes with vivacity, unabashed lust, sharp-tongued intelligence and frustration at a world of dunce-like men. She\u2019s heretically dismissive of the Bible with its \u201ctalking snake on page one\u201d, and its convenient blame of Eve for all that befalls humanity. Lanyer\u2019s astonishing proto-feminist poem, Eve\u2019s Apology<\/em>, asking every Adam, \u201cWhy should you disdain\/Our being your equals, free from tyranny?\u201d, is movingly delivered by Giblin to end the play.<\/p>\n Meyer fills out the role of Nathaniel \u2013 the pretty boy who plays the female role in Burbage\u2019s company \u2013 much more effectively than in the film, and Tomkinson infuses Burbage \u2013 the first Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Lear, and others \u2013 with a larger-than-life invincibility.<\/p>\n The parallel story of the death of Hamnet, Shakespeare\u2019s son, and the poet\u2019s hopelessness as husband and father, is neatly intertwined.<\/p>\n Anne might be illiterate, but she has the wisdom to decipher the world. When Nathaniel sends her the sonnets (as revenge on Will for making him play a boy) she learns via her daughter Judith (Akasha Hazard), who can read, that, atop the grief for her son, she\u2019s not numbered among the heavenly bodies in the night sky of her husband\u2019s loves.<\/p>\n Ryan directs this Sport for Jove production with verve and vigour (including brilliantly using a picture frame \u2013 to echo Titian\u2019s titular painting \u2013 in the performance of the poem). Nonetheless, the pitching of some emotional highs and lows could still be finessed. Jay Cameron\u2019s stately music dovetails with Bernadette Ryan\u2019s charming period design, lit with candle-like softness by Sophie Parker. The production pumps with blood and revels in its own theatricality, while presenting the most credible representation of Shakespeare you\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n The Booklist is a weekly newsletter for book lovers from books editor Jason Steger. <\/i><\/b>Get it delivered every Friday<\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Most Viewed in Culture<\/h2>\n
From our partners<\/h3>\n