Theatre
Revelations
Giles Gordon
Strange Interlude (Duke of York's) The Merchant of Venice (Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon) Poppie Nongena (Riverside Studios) Saturday Night at the Palace (Old Vic)
Someone has done a disservice to Keith Hack's lively production of Eugene O'Neill's Strange Interlude (1927) by allow- ing the play to start at 6 pm and run for five hours. It's an illuminating, engrossing five hours, but blue-pencilled (losing, say, 90 minutes from the nine acts) the piece could only gain in shape and dramatic in- tensity. Like most of O'Neill's plays, it is composed in great slabs of prose as if, as an artist, he lacked confidence in his medium, the precision of the word as opposed to the prolixity of the paragraph. Nina Leeds (Glenda Jackson), to get away from the family home and her pro- fessor father (John Phillips) after the death of her sweetheart in the first world war, marries a wimp, Sam Evans (James Hazeldine). She soon becomes pregnant, to be informed by Sam's mother (Sheila Bur- rell) that there's a history of insanity in the family and she must abort the child, which she does. She persuades a neurologist friend, Ned Darrell (Brian Cox), to im- pregnate her, and he dispassionately obliges. Sam believes the boy to be his and the rest of the play, which chronologically takes us beyond World War II, charts the progress of their lives. Edward Petherbridge as Charles Mars- den, the family friend who always loved Nina but doesn't have the energy to do anything about it, gives a peach of a perfor- mance (although he's inaudible from the back stalls: I moved forWard). His wry, ironic comments and style suggest Scott Fitzgerald. As for Miss Jackson, she uses that voice which sounds like corrugated iron or rusty razor blades and hones it to a precision instrument to render in Nina a character who needs five men in her life (the
fourth and fifth are father and child) yet declines to be in thrall to any of them.
The characters use the device of interior monologue — to themselves and eavesdrop- ping audience — to express what they really think as opposed to what society expects them to say. What could be cumbersome is handled quite naturally by the excellent cast. Voytek's set is a beauty, slatted grey boards standing for the exterior of a New England house, with interiors dropped from the flies as needed. Clouds move against the set as time passes. The produc- tion is a revelation particularly in that, as the play progresses, O'Neill comes across as a very funny writer, a gentle, glancing ironist; and he's all the better for it. In the preview I saw of John Caird's un- compelling production of The Merchant of Venice, Shylock (Ian McDiarmid) nearly dropped the knife he was sharpening on the sole of his foot before going for Antonio's flesh. He caught it by the blade and the Jew did not bleed. Maybe this was why it hadn't occurred to him that his bond forbad the shedding of blood. I've seen Shylocks more manic (O'Toole), more histrionic (Olivier), more emotional (Emrys James), more cun- ning (Patrick Stewart), more mercenary (David Suchet) but not one so complex. Mr McDiarmid's money lender is all things to all Christians, who never forgets he's an alien in the Venetian republic. It is but his job to lend money, the metal itself being of little consequence to him, so affluent is he. Tubal (Sebastian Shaw) realises this, and disapproves. Shylock's greatest agony is not that Jessica has swiped his ducats but that she's eloped with a Christian, and the atten- dant shame. When Portia (Frances Tomel- ty) reveals in the court scene that the game is up, that blood would have blood, Shylock hardly protests as his worldly goods are distributed. He creeps out, remembering to leave behind his pointed yellow hat having, perforce, become a Christian.
The rest is much less impressive, partly as a result of Ultz, having filled the stage with curtains of various reds, two large organs — Ilona Sekacz's cod 17th-century Vene- tian church music vibrates around the theatre — and three giant caskets which dominate the stage and judder up and down on huge hydraulic platforms. The costumes are exotic too, based on paintings, in the usual clashing Ultz colours and textures. The Venice evoked is more the interior of Doge's palace than piazza and Rialto, and the Belmont scenes especially have a most inappropriate sense of place.
Antonio wears. black, and is utterly col- ourless: Christopher Ravenscroft doesn't play him, as has recently been the mode, as uncloseted queen. His gang, Bassanio (Adam Bareham) apart, are indis- tinguishable in their cream costumes that glitter and wink. Frances Tomelty is severe as Portia — she hasn't yet discovered the fun of the part — and her Nerissa (Josette Simon) looks, as she might, disapproving of her mistress's remarks about Morocco's colour.
Poppie Nongena, beautifully directed bY Hilary Blecher, has traditional songs ar- ranged by Sophie Mgcina. Written by San. dra Kotze and Elsa Joubert, it is based on the latter's novel Poppie, itself based on the life of a black woman in Capetown whose children were arrested during the student riots of the late Seventies. Thuli Dumakude is marvellous as Poppie who, in spite of everything including a sick husband, fin" jobs and sees her children into adulthood, no thanks to the vile behaviour of the government's servants. The entire cast sings and acts with control and passion. M in- spiring and uplifting evening. Also from the Market Theatre in Johan' nesburg comes Saturday Night at the Palace, an unpalatable anecdote bY Paul Slabolepszy (who is also one of the cast oi three, and acts as if he's suffering from worms) about how two lower-class whitest! the early hours humiliate a black slur"; order cook at a roadhouse, Rocco's Bulle Palace. The best thing about the play is tha,t it has been shown in South Africa. It s Athol Fugard's Master Harold out of SO, Shepard and, in Bobby Heaney's detailed production and against Norman Coates,, naturalistic set, the violence of the last 1103J hour seems gratuitous because anticipated and inevitable from the beginning.
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