Goldoni betrayed
From Professor G.H. Mc William
Sir: Isn't it time you got yourself a new the- atre critic? Sheridan Morley's enthusiastic review of Goldoni's The Servant to Two Masters (Arts, 19 February) at the Young Vic was totally undeserved, and betrayed his appalling ignorance of the way the Ital- ian comic genius intended that his plays should be performed.
Goldoni sets out his manifesto in .11 teatro comico (1750), where he points out that comedy was invented to correct vices and ridicule bad manners. He insists that 'obscenities, filthy innuendos and improper dialogue' should be banished from the stage, and that 'this habit of talking to the audience is an intolerably bad practice. It shouldn't be permitted on any account.'
Here is a small sample of the un-Goldo- nian phrases that are spattered like fan- directed faeces across the RSC Young Vic production: You little shit! Wanker! Cheeky little bastard! Bugger off! Oh sod it! You deceitful little arse!
As for the habit of talking to the audi- ence, the actors in this travesty of Goldoni's play do little else. In the scene where Truf- faldino serves separate meals simultaneous- ly to his two masters, Goldoni's 'English dish' is transformed into a spotted dick, leading to a tiresome series of innuendos, allowing the actor at one point to accuse a member of the audience of licking his dick.
'Do you understand this complex sentence, senator?' If this is an example of Sheridan Morley's claim that the RSC is firing on all cylinders for the first time in about three years, sensi- ble playgoers would be well advised to look elsewhere for their theatrical entertainment.
G.H. Mc William
Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire
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