Frustrated ambition
Patrick Carnegy
Pedro, the Great Pretender Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
The creator of Don Quixote is not exactly known to the world as a dramatist. It turns out that Cervantes entertained no small ambition in this direction, not quite churning out plays with the abandon of his rival Lope de Vega but still leaving a fair number behind. From these the RSC has chosen Pedro de Urdemalas with which to round off its season of Gulden Age theatre by Shakespeare's Spanish contemporaries. What's extraordinary is that so far as the RSC is aware, this is the play's professional premiere in the UK and maybe even its premiere pretty well anywhere.
Pedro, the Great Pretender may not be Cervantes's finest hour, but the mystery remains of why what Spanish-expert Melveena McKendrick has described as 'arguably his best and certainly his most delightful play' has remained so long unperformed. True, it's a succession of episodic scenes rather than a comedy of conflicts and resolution, but that's scarcely an unusual or reprehensible scheme. These richly comic scenes are staging posts in Pedro's discovery of himself as not just a mischiefmaker and con artist but as an actor and doubtless as a dramatist, too. It is a barely disguised autobiographical sketch by Cervantes, rich in self-irony (as you would expect) and sideswipes at those like Lope who effectively saw to it that his fame as the author of Don Quixote was not compounded with equivalent success in the theatre.
On this first historic outing, the RSC has been wise to let us see the play 'as it is' in what comes across as a wittily skilled translation by Philip Osment. It would, though, have been improved by trimming back on Cenfantes's predilection for self-disclosure and on the interminable revelations of a decrepit courtier. This cavil aside, there's an immense amount to enjoy in Mike Alfreds's production.
The influence of the Italian commedia dell'arte and its stock characters is never far away. The mischievous Pedro is played with a broad grin and relaxed, easy-going manner by John Ramm. At times he's perhaps a little too genial — making you wonder what a rather more cussed joker like Billy Connolly might have done with this gift of a role. Pedro is the smart servant amusing himself by solving the problems of a world very much stupider than himself. This world is one of lovelorn peasants, a chubby-cheeked mayor (Julius d'Silva) and minor officialdom, a gypsy-bandit (John Stahl) and his dancing girls, and a neurotic young king (Joseph Millson) whose infatuation with one of the gypsy girls (Claire Cox) ignites the wrath of his jealous queen (Rebecca Johnson). There's an especially good scene in which Rarnm, disguised as a friar, milks a stingy widow (Melanie MacHugh) of her life savings on the grounds that they'll ransom her dead relatives from the fires of hell.
The RSC's first-rate Spanish ensemble relishes the delightfully over-the-top characterisations, often variations of roles they've taken in the season's other three plays. The music is an ill-at-ease hybrid, but there's a great company dance number with leafy branches for St John's night, a wonderfully funny drag dance by 'lads dressed as lasses from the hills with lots of little tinkling bells', and a flouncy flowers-in-thehair gypsy extravaganza. This, as planned by Pedro, lands the king's proud beauty in his lap, provoking an all-out pillow-fight between the monarch and his queen.
In all this Pedro's not out for money, women, revenge or even justice, but seemingly only for fun. The obvious dramatic weakness is that he meets so little resistance until he comes up against the queen, who foils the king's errant passion not just with a pillow but by throwing his gypsy girl into prison. Until this point Pedro's happy enough with his tricks, but an hilarious attempt to con a clucking peasant out of a couple of hens finds him exposed by passing actors — they recognise his skills and welcome him as one of their own. At last the trickster realises who he is, and that he has no reason not to celebrate himself as an actor and all the world as his stage. 'Pikes and staves and muskets' will prevent us from seeing the special show that's being rehearsed for the king, but never mind, says Pedro, come back tomorrow and enjoy his own artful story all over again.
The RSC's Spanish season has perforce done no more than sample the dramatic riches of the Golden Age. Two absolute hits in Lope's Dog in the Manger and Sor Juana's House of Desires, a curiosity in Tirso de Molina's Tamar's Revenge, and in Pedro an unmissable insight into the frustrated ambition of Cervantes the drama tist. Let us hope that the season will inspire a great many more revivals of a huge repertory ripe for rediscovery, not least by the Spanish themselves who've been so impressed that they've invited the company to perform in the Teatro Espagnol in Madrid. Unfortunately, no news yet of a possible London transfer.
Until 30 Sept. at the Swan, 0870 609 1110.
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