Theatre
The Virtuoso (Swan, Stratford)
Sex and science
Christopher Edwards
The RSC is offering a rare delight with this revival of a neglected Restoration play by an even more neglected playwright, Thomas Shadwell (1642-92). Despite their popularity many Restoration comedies deserve the criticism that they are merely vehicles for a mechanical wit deployed to air an arid, cynical view of sexual relations. While these characteristics may, in their way, be revealing about the plays' life and times they do not always tell us much more about their society. Shadwell's The Virtuoso is a notable exception. He may not have possessed the moral authority of his model, Ben Jonson, but he satirises his age's mania for amateur science with great verve and insight. Of course there is the interest in sex too, but Shadwell's perspectives are wider than say those of Etherege or Wycherley. Shadwell can be crude, but like Jonson his is the crudeness of vigour rather than degeneracy.
Some idea of what Shadwell is satirising can be seen in our first encounter with Sir Nicholas Gimcrack, the Virtuoso himself. Prone on a trolley, dressed in an Edwardian striped bathing costume, and with a cord leading from his mouth to the loins of a frog in a jam-jar, Sir Nicholas is learning to swim. Not that he intends to sully the purity of speculation by actually taking to the water. He just plans to become theoretically amphibious. Other discoveries include the light-emitting prop- erties of putrid meat. Why, only the other day he was reading the Geneva bible by the illumination of a leg of pork. As for his blood transfusions, Sir Nicholas is especial- ly proud that he treated a madman by transfusing into his veins the blood of a Northamptonshire sheep. The lunatic was cured. He also grew a tail from his arse-end and produced a crop of wool. You don't believe it? Sir Nicholas produces a ball of wool from a drawer — a present from one of his 'flock'. Sir Nicholas is a glorious satire on the influence of the Royal Society on amateur scientists. Freddie Jones catch- es all the distraction and solipsism of the part to comic perfection.
Even more significant than his dotty sci- entific pursuits, however, is Sir Nicholas's possession of two nubile nieces, Clarinda (Josette Bushell-Mingo) and Miranda (Saskia Reeves), whom he keeps locked up. These spirited and witty girls fall for two young blades, Tom Bruce (Barry Lynch) and Jack Longvil (Sean Murray). Much of the plot is taken up with their various attempts to resolve who loves whom. Not that the men mind that much. Tom sounds a true Restoration note of cynicism when, before a tryst with one of the girls, he says piously, 'Now, love inspire me'. He then takes out a small portable mirror to check his teeth are clean.
But sensual appetite in its most hilarious, brazen form appears in Sir Nicholas's predatory wife of a certain age, Lady Gimcrack. Linda Marlowe turns her into a scheming Gothic vamp, complete with dress slit up to the throat, purple streak in the hair and an ache in her whole body every time she sees a beddable male. She is extremely funny. Both young men are 'had' by her, in several senses.
Shadwell had other targets too, and he hits home wherever he strikes. Sir Samuel Hearty (Richard Bonneville) and Sir Formal Trifle (Guy Henry) are the age's false wits. The one is a noisy, optimistic fatso who, despite a spectacularly unsuc- cessful romantic career, barges into the next amorous venture with unabated gusto. The other fancies himself an orator of Ciceronian eloquence and is quite eaten up with narcissism. Both characters are prize boobies. Both actors are brilliantly funny, notably during a scene in a dungeon where (thanks to circumstances too complicated to explain here) Sir Formal tries to ravish Sir Samuel who is disguised as a Scottish underwear saleswoman.
In the meantime, hypocritical old age is well and truly skewered by Shadwell's por- trait of Snarl (Ken Wynne). Snarl shuffles about in a Chelsea Pensioner's uniform, castigating the moral depravity of the younger generation and banging on about how the world was a more chivalrous place in his youth. We later discover him in bed with Mrs Figgup (Sheila Reid), his whore, on the verge of enjoying his principal sexu- al pleasure — a good spanking.
The director, Phyllida Lloyd, and the designer, Anthony Ward, take inventive and clever liberties with the production's historical setting. So, while the lovers are splendidly dressed in period costume, the seedy hotel room rented out for bonking is evoked by a flashing neon 'No Vacancies' sign straight out of Earl's Court. Or again, the depravity of the masked ball is con- jured up by setting the scene in a Felliniesque night-club. None of these touches seems forced. They are all fresh, genuinely illuminating and, above all, very funny. This is certainly an auspicious start to the season.
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