Golden reward
Patrick Camegy
The Dog in the Manger
Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon
Welcome to the Golden Age of Spanish drama. Even if the names of Shakespeare's near-contemporaries Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina and Calderon are not unknown, their plays are rarely seen. Back in the early 1990s, London's Gate Theatre put on a Golden Age season directed by Laurence Boswell, who also staged Calderon's The Painter of Dishonour for the RSC in 1995. Nearly ten years on, Boswell's in charge of the RSC's Spanish festival at the Swan. No CalderOn this time, but works by Lope de Vega and Tirso de Molina (both priests), by the seriously obscure Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (a Mexican nun) and by Cervantes, the one we've all heard of, and, yes, he did write the odd play as well, in this case Pedro, the Great Pretender.
As the religious vocations suggest, this is a very different world from that of our own
Elizabethan and Jacobean playwrights. The Lope who invented the art of Spanish comedia was also a minor official of the Inquisition and churned out sacramental verse plays for Corpus Christi. He adored women and had at least seven wives or mistresses and children galore. Passionately patriotic, he couldn't stand the Brits. He sailed with the Armada and wrote a furious diatribe, La Dragontea, against Sir Francis Drake and Elizabeth I. Shakespeare's plays and his own drew on several common sources, but there's no evidence that either was aware of the other's existence. Lope is certainly an intriguing figure, and the good news is that Boswell's terrifically stylish production of The Dog in the Manger (c.1615) shows it to be a crackingly good play.
Lope's immense lifetime popularity was earned by sailing closer to the wind than anyone else. His theatre offered playgoers the gratification of seeing the mickey taken, with consummate panache, out of the controlling values of the strict Catholic monarchy. At the Swan, the costumes are handsomely in period, while the burnished glow from the pierced metal sheeting covering the stage and forming great doors behind it suggests the opulence of 'la Edad de Oro'. In so far as a non-Spanish speaker should offer an opinion, David Johnston's free-verse translation seems altogether excellent. The sheer verve and momentum of the show enable Boswell to get away — just — with the wicked anachronism of advertising the existence of an off-stage tavern by captioning a devotional image of the Virgin and Child with the neon letters, 'Bar Maria'. On such juxtapositions have Catholic societies ever thrived.
But most invigorating of all are the performances of a first-rate cast. As Diana, Countess of Belflor, Rebecca Johnson revels in a role actually written not for a boy but for a woman — in 1600 the archbishop of Madrid had lifted the ban on actresses on the grounds that the presence on stage of boys in female clothing only encouraged immoral ideas. Johnson exudes exactly the right tone of haughty yet mischievous froideur which veils Diana's infatuation with her secretary, Teodoro. He's a notch or so beneath her own exalted station and thus disallowed by 'honour' from being her suitor. The trouble is that Diana's gameplan of blowing hot and cold keeps going wrong. For no sooner has she frozen Teodoro off than she discovers him reclaimed by her ever-eager lady-in-waiting Marcela (the delightfully spirited Claire Cox). Caught in the middle is Teodoro, played by Joseph Millson who has saturnine good looks and a voice with a thrillingly wide range of expression. Of course Teodoro's in no mind to profit from the torrent of warnings about love as an unmitigated catastrophe from his smart servant Tristan — a gift of a comic role taken with tremendous zest by Simon Trinder. Part of the fun is that Teodoro's passions are actually pretty unstable — it takes precious little for him to swap one lover for another as advantage decrees.
It's a treat to watch Mil!son respond to Diana's overtures — at first with innocent incomprehension, then incredulity and finally vaulting ambition. Even when it appears he may have won his prize — and she, hers — this Teodoro's on a rollercoaster, with the ever-jealous Diana always firmly in the driving seat. At one point she gives him a thorough thrashing, and again there's the shock of dazed recognition on Millson's face as Teodoro realises that he couldn't boast any surer token of her adulation than his seriously bloody nose. Lope's skill in keeping you guessing, in sustaining the dramatic tension by springing surprises, never lets up. So I'll not give his endgame away but just observe that it's spiced with irony and applaud the courtly dance which rounds off a hugely exhilarating evening,
The Spanish season runs until 2 October and is supported by a programme of introductory talks and events (information from 01789 403492). If you want the 'authentic audience' experience, sign up for the 'Girls on Top' package on 24 July when men will be segregated into the stalls, women into the balcony and gallery. The matinee of Sor Juana's House of Desires will be followed in the evening by Dog in the Manger. The RSC disclaims moral responsibility for anything that may happen at the post-show salsa party.
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