2 JULY 1983, Page 26

Arts

Overactive

Giles Gordon

A New Way to Pay Old Debts (The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon) King Henry VIII (Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon) Exit the King ((Lyric Studio, Hammersmith) Buried Inside Extra (Royal Court)

A drian Noble and his designer, Bob r-xCrowley, have worked hard — at times too hard — to recreate the sociology of Philip Massinger's A New Way to Pay Old Debts (circa 1625): play, period, people, place. Set in Nottinghamshire, it concerns a wicked landlord (or, as the dramatis per- sonae has it, 'cruel extortioner'), Sir Giles Overreach (Emrys James) who defrauds a nephew, Welborne (Miles Anderson) of his inheritance. The baddie is bolstered up by petty sycophants, of whom the silliest is Greedy, an ever-ravenous but — in the per- son of John Cater — skinny JP, and the most evil, Marrall (Anthony O'Donnell, a venal, despoiled turkey). They, and others, could be out of Ben Jonson. There's a cook — from a Jacobean Night Kitchen — with chef's hat, cleaver at the ready, wooden kit- chen accoutrements slung round his waist; a sinister, because stupid, innkeeper and his wife; the Lord Lovell (Lewis Jones, elegant and honest), returned from the wars in the Low Countries; his page, Alworth; the Lady Alworth, a wealthy widow (Jane Booker, prettily dressed and, perhaps because of her widowhood, much given to frowning); divers creditors; and a vicar, Will-do, who marries — as Sir Giles sees it — the wrong man to his daughter, Mar- garet (Julia Peasgood, tearful). Sweeties are thrown to the audience — I gobbled up two. There's a jolly little pub band with piano, woodwind and trumpet playing Colin Sell's lively score. The grey and deliberately dowdy set — on the four sides of the acting area, a very wrestling ring — accommodates, obscurely, what look like rejects from Norman St John-Stevas's col- lection of stuffed birds.

What this leaves out of account is the ef- fect the central character — and Emrys Jones's playing of Sir Giles — has on the proceedings. Overreach was one of Kean's most acclaimed vehicles and Mr James, as is his wont, plays it flat out and, if not larger than life, larger than the lives and perfor- mances of those around him. He's a melodrama villain curling his lip, shaking his fists, spitting, conniving, stamping his foot like Rumplestiltskin. When he realises all his plots have failed, he goes mad. We're less moved by his plight than persuaded he's received his deserts. Mr Jones doesn't pretend the part is a subtle one, nor does he play it for sympathy, but his forceful, physical performance is almost too ex- travagant for the tiny space. I look forward to seeing the production again — it'll get better, particularly if the slapstick and rushing around is toned down — and not only because British Rail caused me to miss the first few minutes.

Richard Griffiths's fluting Henry VIII enters a bare stage, casting state papers about him, as if he's a farmer sowing seed. Later, John Thaw's stocky Wolsey says to the nobles who've planned his overthrow: 'Where's your commission? Words cannot carry authority so weighty'. Howard Davies sees this England as a realm shored up by paper, much as India is today. Progress isn't made, decisions aren't taken as a result of discussion and debate but by signatures scratched secretly on parchment. Buck- ingham (David Schofield, grinning to death) is executed; Katherine of Aragon (a radiant performance by Gemma Jones, recalling our Queen Mother in her dedica- tion to duty) divorced; Wolsey trapped; Gardiner (Oliver Ford Davies, very power- ful) rises — all as a result of words written down, discovered, betrayed. If words were but spoken there might be less drama in Henry's England but life would be more secure.

Deirdre Clancy's oatmeal-coloured costumes — tinged with colour in the upper regions, below the neck — are a constant feast to the eyes. They suggest not Holbein's oils but his drawings, and the sets, like wings and flies from a toy theatre, Mantegna. Indeed, the contrast between. the staginess of the play — mostly, little more than pageant, a run through the middle years of the fat king's reign — and Mr Davies's Brechtian treatment of it is, if eccentric, more appropriate to 1983 than Tree or Irving spectacle. Why the play's been done at all is another matter. Ilona Sekacz's Berlin nightclub music punctuates the action ironically. Mr Griffiths's modest, learning king is vocally lightweight, though his Tudor ancestry evident when he's angry. Richard O'Callaghan's Cranmer is curious- ly shrill, a quill pen to the life. Mr Thaw's scarlet Cardinal is the coolest of portraits of the Ipswich butcher's son having made it, more Cecil Parkinson than Lord Whitelaw.

Back in London, Christopher Fettes directs Ionesco's Exit the King as if it's by Racine, and his admirable, serious cast play it as if it's classical tragedy. Unfortunately, the text is less significant than banal. James Aubrey injects more life into King Berenger the First, aged over 400 and about to die, than Alec Guinness did in 1963. On the other hand, Sir Alec achieved an ethereal dignity which escapes Mr Aubrey. 'Why was I born if it wasn't for ever?' he says, an Ubu if not a Macbeth come to judgment. Julia Blalock is the icy queen who prepares him for death, Gayle Hunnicutt the one who loves him. lonesco is one of the best short order clowns in the history of theatre. He wasn't cut out to do Hamlet or Lear. The Royal Court's programme for New York Public Theater's production by Joseph Papp of Thomas Babe's Buried in- side Extra declares that Mr Babe was a speechwriter for former Mayor Lindsay, which probably explains why only one line in the play rings true: 'I don't trust a man who doesn't pick his nose in public.' It's about the last night and final editicin of a long-established small-town newspaper and in the most winsome, sentimental, phoney way the dreary lives of the journalists are taken as a paradigm for ... true life, the kind of people the journalists write about. The distinguished actors (including Hal Holbrook, Vincent Gardenia and Sandy Dennis) cannot be blamed for their bland, knowing performances. The evening's a parody of cliche from start to finish. Derek Godfrey, who has just died, was one of the finest and most stylish classical actors in the country, an adornment season after season to the RSC. His Ulysses, Claudius, Petruchio immediately come to mind. It was characteristic of his integrity and selflessness that he could play Benedick in 1971 and be the best of Don Pedros in the current production of Much Ado About Nothing. it was almost prophetic, alas, when I wrote a few weeks ago that 'he ends the play alone, and the audience feels mild- ly disturbed.' No one could speak the greatest dramatic poetry in the language with more finesse.