George Washington University

Shakespeare at the Old Globe, 1970Author(s): Lynn K. HorobetzSource: Shakespeare Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Autumn, 1970), pp. 469-471Published by: Folger Shakespeare Library in association with George Washington UniversityStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2868437 .

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Shakespeare at the Old Globe, 1970 LYNN K. HOROBETZ

HE Old Globe Theatre, in lovely Balboa Park, offers both advantages and disadvantages as a home for the San Diego National Shakespeare Festival. A small semi-reconstruction of Shakespeare's Globe, it is ideal for intimate theater, providing excellent actor/audience contact. On the other hand, pano- ramic effects such as those possible on the Ashland stage are

futile at the Globe. Financially, the small size of the theater is a major handi- cap; even with consistently sold-out houses, income from ticket sales cannot begin to support the quality productions desired by the directors of the Festival. Under the circumstances, Craig Noel must be commended for the number of fine productions offered to San Diego audiences during his many years as Producing Director.

The problems of this year's Festival seemed to reside mainly with the three guest directors, Stephen Porter, Louis Criss, and Pirie MacDonald. Although there were excellent aspects to all three productions, no director seemed to have come to grips fully with his play. The results were a misinterpreted Cymbeline, a dull Richard II, and an indescribable Much Ado About Nothing.

Richard II, as directed by Stephen Porter, committed the unforgivable dramatic sin: it was boring. All around me, heads were nodding, hands were stifling yawns, and, after the interval, a number of seats were empty. This was especially unfortunate because the Globe, which seats only 420, is ideal for conveying the intricate character of Richard II. But subtlety was totally lacking in Richard Kneeland's performance. In fact, his Richard was almost devoid of personality. Granted, the King is at all times superbly conscious of his royalty, his divine right to govern. This Kneeland conveyed, but in a robot-like fashion. Missing were the small moments which make Richard human, and likeable almost in spite of himself. For example, we should sense the King's almost child-like delight as he stages the combat between Bolingbroke and Mowbray and then theatrically halts it at the last possible moment. Like Lear, Richard must come to terms with the fallibility of his human nature through suffering; the Richard of Pomfret Castle is a wiser, braver man than the Child-King who ate the flattery of Bushy, Bagot, and Greene like bonbons. But Kneeland's Richard never changed; from first to last, he was a pasteboard king.

By way of contrast, Stephen D. Newman offered a masterful Bolingbroke, cool and refined, his face a mask which occasionally revealed glimpses of the un- certainty and pain within. Throughout the Deposition scene, he lounged cat- like on a bench, sympathetically allowing Richard his final moments, but ob- viously eager to end the dramatics and begin the business of ruling. He would not be a lovable king, but he would be a competent one. In fact, Newman's Bolingbroke had few misconceptions about the nature of kingship and its

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470 SHAKESPEARE QUARTERLY

powers. When Richard commuted his banishment from ten to six years, there was just the right amount of cynicism in his muttered response: "How long a time lies in one little word.... Such is the breath of kings."

Tom Toner was moving as Gaunt, and Christopher Shelton excellent as Aumerle, but Ellen Geer's Queen was suffocatingly melodramatic. There was little new in the staging of the play, although the cutting of Act V, scenes ii and iii, was significant. We did not hear of Bolingbroke's welcome and Richard's rejection by the populace, nor the new King's spoken wish for the death of Richard. Instead, a brief tableau of the coronation was inserted, with a cross- fade as Henry looked significantly at the murderers-to-be. Visually, the pro- duction was enlivened by the superb costumes of Peggy Kellner, whose work has for many years enriched the San Diego Festival.

Cymbeline has not been a staple of American Festivals, and this year marked its first presentation at the Old Globe. The play is a particular favorite of mine, and I eagerly looked forward to seeing it. I fear I must wait awhile longer, for the play I saw was certainly not the Cymbeline I remember. This was a rare example of a play almost wholly misinterpreted and at the same time utterly delightful. It was played as comedy, pure and simple, and, as directed by Louis Criss, Cymbeline was funny indeed. The play moved at a sparkling pace, and the intricate revelations of Act Five were as amusing to the characters as they were to the audience. The cutting of the Jupiter scene was unfortunate, for it removed the miraculous and left in its place the less satisfying coincidental.

Of course, playing Cymbeline as comedy renders certain scenes incongru- ous. For instance, the lovely "Fear no more the heat o' the sun" was an un- welcome blight in Eden. For Cymbeline is not comedy, but tragicomedy. In the former, the audience endures the trials of the characters with the certainty that everything will come out all right. In tragicomedy, this certainty is lacking. Suffering is not inevitable, as in tragedy, but neither is a happy ending. Tragicomedy has a precarious balance which provides its own kind of excitement. When Imogen awakens from her drugged sleep and mistakes the headless body of Cloten for Postumus, her anguish is no less real for being unnecessary. Interpreting the play as comedy obscures the delicate ambiguity of scenes like this and makes them farcical.

For the most part, the actors acquitted themselves well, given Criss's in- terpretation of the play. Best of all was Richard Kneeland's Iachimo, a charm- ing rogue, whose machinations were irresistibly funny. There was nothing of lago in this Iachimo. Well, of course he did naughty things, but who cared? The audience loved him. Tom Toner's Cymbeline was a broad caricature, and it was impossible to believe that he was not the natural father of Cloten, well played by Dale Helward. Versatile John McMurtry was a good Pisanio, and Tom McCorry stole his brief scene as the Jailer. Ellen Geer's Imogen was sometimes vulnerable and charming, but she has a tendency to posture over- dramatically, while Theodore Sorel failed to bring the colorless Posthumus to life.

Pirie MacDonald's Much Ado About Nothing was the strangest produc- tion of any play that I have ever seen. It was a director's grab-bag of tricks, full of left-over ideas he had never been able to use-until now. How to de- scribe it? The opening was a classic anti-war commentary. Soldiers in World

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SHAKESPEARE AT THE OLD GLOBE, 1970 471

War I uniforms, illuminated by flashing overhead spots, posed in the grimacing contortions of agonized death to the accompaniment of weird electronic music. Who would have guessed a comedy was to follow? The production was de- signed (if "design" is the proper word) by John Conklin, who provided a cer- tain amount of suspense as we waited to see what he would come up with next. The costumes were black, white, brown, and gray, highly textured, and re- lieved by occasional washed-out rainbow stripes. Beatrice sometimes wore a quasi-pantsuit, and Benedick was mod in bell-bottom trousers, while other costumes were selected at random from several historical periods. Set pieces were free-form multicolored pieces from a Disney animator gone mad.

The masked ball found everyone garbed in flowing black performing a danse macabre to funereal organ music. But worse was to come. For the Chapel scene, a procession of white-cloaked actors bearing futuristic torches passed down the aisles to the stage, where there was enshrined a strangely robed creature with no face (it turned out to be the priest) guarded by gro- tesquely masked attendants. An enormous moon brooded in the background. It was a scene transplanted from Star Trek, visually magnificent and absolutely senseless. I was especially entranced by the helmets of the gentlemen of the watch and recognized several pipe sections, pieces from a vegetable slicer, and a papertowel rack. Someone's kitchen was sadly depleted for these fascinating monstrosities.

The audience had a choice with this production. It could concentrate fiercely on the play and ignore the contortions of director and designer, or it could sit in amazement at the latter and forget the play altogether. The actors were brave in their attempt to surmount the obstacles with which they were sur- rounded. Stephen D. Newman was especially good as Don Pedro and should have been playing Benedick, for his charm was just what Theodore Sorel lacked in the role. Dale Helward was a properly villainous Don John, while Tom Toner and John McMurtry delighted the audience as Dogberry and Verges. But acting could not save this play, and a restless gentleman behind me summed up the production in one incredulous whisper: "What on earth is going on here?" A valid question.

I have come to expect better work than this from the Old Globe, having enjoyed in the past the work of such directors as William Ball, Allen Fletcher, and Ellis Rabb, who guided the twenty-one-year-old festival towards artistic maturity. This year, one could not help longing for the days of their incum- bency. The Combined Arts and Education Council of San Diego (COMBO) has been formed to aid such endeavors as the Shakespeare Festival, and I hope to see the results of their efforts reflected on the stage of the Globe in years to come.

University of San Diego

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