Records
Outward Bound
By JOHN HALE IN contrast to their superb King Lear, the Marlowe Society's latest recordings, Henry V and • Cymbeline (Argo, four records each) will only be of real service to foreigners and the blind. Perhaps the worst of Shakespeare's well-known plays, Henry V needs all the adventitious excitement a director can give it, and this recording has neither voices of sufficient interest nor enough variety of pace to draw attention from the flatness of much of the verse and the fustian of some of it, the alternately jerky and static nature of the plot, and the unpleasing tone of bloodlust on the one hand and, on the other, of self-pity at being in- volved in an unnecessary war of one's own choosing.
A moment's hope that something original was going to happen was raised by the location of the Chorus in, apparently, a bathroom, but thereafter the discs turned slowly round and round in a course of inexorable, tucket-ridden orthodoxy. Critics who, to save the Bard's reputation, have read subtlety and conflict into Henry's character will be baffled by a presentation of him as the bright curate of an Outward Bound school. Only the Chorus, Katharine and the King of France do more than read through their parts with nice intelligence and maddening deliberation.
These are read plays rather than playreadings. There is little sense of conflict or tension, or that the actors are guiding pace and inflection by what they would do if they were on a stage; they read through their speeches, page by page, instead of communicating the 'dramatic intentions of the author. A stage sense as well as an ability to recite is needed even more in Cymbeline, and it is even more important to match maturity of voice to the maturity of these complex, naturalistic characters. An undergraduate can harmlessly dodder away as an Archbishop, who does not have age built into his words, but a Posthumus in whom violence does not seem natural, a Philario without age's deliberation, bring needless con- fusion into a play already sufficiently full of stylistic puzzles for the director. The Marlowe Posthumus is-too light-weight to carry our sym- pathy through his rivalry with a powerfully effective lachimo, or to enlist it for his outburst of woman-loathing; nor can we feel sufficiently the contrition which enables the Gods to inter- vene in his affairs and set in motion the elaborate machinery of reconciliation that provides such a marvellous and challenging conclusion to the play. And Imogen : one note of elocution, one hint of the genteel, one over-conscious varying of inflection, and an actress cane destroy the character's extraordinary truth to life, that fascinating blend of seriousness and gaiety, anger and tenderness. The less pageant-like a character, the more easily it is maimed by an element of recitation. Imogen is thus maimed, and when to this is added an ill-defined Cloten, the play is sadly handicapped. As in all Mr. Ryland's productions, however, the sense of every phrase is meticulously brought out, and we are given an authoritative and a complete text of the play.
For those who wish to tread continuously upon the heights, Argo is bringing out a series of Scenes from Shakespeare in which famous moments from the Marlowe Society recordings are antholo- gised. So far there are two volumes (one record each) of scenes from the tragedies, one from the comedies and one from the histories. Others are to follow; but it seems we shall have little to anticipate save a recorded dictionary of Shake- speare quotations and an anthology of fanfares.
Pye continue with their curious Nonesuch series. In Talking of Wine Andrd Simon and Richary Avery chat away about wine and the wine trade in an atmosphere of calculated informality. The voices drone and blare, knives and forks clash, plates rattle and passages of total inaudibility remind us that we are present at an Actual Occasion: the electronic wizards can at last bring into the home the sound of people eating and drinking and wiping their mouths. As this is a record to listen to once and give away as a thank you present after a well-fed weekend, its odd combination of rambling spontaneity and the formal interview (questions put by John Chandos) does not call for serious grousing, but it seems an expensive way of eavesdropping on a trivial, if at times engaging, conNersation.
In complete contrast, Speaking Personally I: Bertrand Russell is a triumph. There is no arch pretence of eavesdropping about this record. John Chandos talks to Lord Russell, prompting him from one subject to another, while the sounds of trains in the distance and grandchildren playing outside give an unforcedly pleasurable feeling of place. The delicate phrasing of trenchant feelings, the superb ruminative re-creation of memories and meetings, make listening to these two records of reminiscence and opinion an unflaggingly exhilarating experience. Pye annoUnce that Lord Birkett and Aldous Huxley will be among the important people Speaking Personally in this series, but it seems likely that Bertrand Russell will long remain Pick of the Tops. The third new Nonesuch, The Parabolic Revelations of the late Lord Buckley, gets on to one record a definitive impression of this raucous virtuoso of the hipster sermon.
Refreshingly unpretentious are the short poetry reading tapes (thirty minutes each) issued by Music on Tape Ltd., though their first five selections vary alarmingly in quality. At the bottom come two tapes devoted to the drear do- gooding verses of Nigel Shapland; even the earnest patience with which Bryan Kendrick reads them cannot infuse interest into the flat numbers of this Patience Strong of the asphalt jungle. In Brie a Brac, 'a garland of Victorian poesy' is read by Valerie Douglas, Thom Neville and Keith Parry. This is a charming trifle, with poems—patriotic, topographical, pious, temper- ance—chosen from yellowing provincial news- papers and read with proper seriousness. In I Speak My Name Bryan Kendrick is again bat- tling against odds: this time the steady triteness of John Larkman's verse; but in Holy Terrors, a collection of poems by Ralph Pomeroy, he has material worthy of his fine talent, for Pomeroy has the vigour, the intelligence and the imagina- tion that make the other poets in this series look like witting candidates for inclusion in the Brie it Brae of fifty years hence.
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