Helen at Shakespeare’s Globe
Complementing Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida is a new production of Euripides’ Helen in a version by Frank McGuiness. This is the first time the theatre, which reproduces the building of Shakespeare’s time, has put on a Greek drama http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/theatre/annualtheatreseason/helen/. One of Euripides’ lightest tragedies, it was played largely for laughs but the rapid production managed to slip from the comedy to the more serious almost seamlessly. Penny Downie was a sexy, lively Helen reaching up to the top of galleries with her appeals to the gods to rescue her from her fate of being abandoned in Egypt among barbarians.
For this is of course the real Helen: the one who went to Troy was merely an idolon. Menelaus (a strong and sympathetic Paul McGann) is shipwrecked on her shore on his return from the war and is surprised to find his real wife already there. These two fill the stage and the whole theatrical space, and take us through their disbelief, wariness and ultimate joy in their mutual recognition. This plot device of course enables Euripides to play with the idea of the war being fought for nothing, for an illusion: a thought that is always relevant to whichever war is being fought. It also enables him to include some clever wordplay over misidentification and misunderstanding. We can see the origin of all those future comedies of separation and reunification, of loss and restoration in Menander and Plautus and then the whole of European comedy, here in a so-called tragedy of Euripides. McGuiness’s version is in what is called “muscular” free verse, that is a kind of heightened poetic prose which suits the style of Greek drama well. It is the same solution adopted by Ted Hughes in his version of Racine’s version of Euripides (see the post above on Phèdre). Deborah Bruce as director has solved the problem of what to do with the chorus in the current fashion: a collection of individuals half recite their lines, half sing them to simple tunes (though the professional singer brought in to strengthen the music should have been left in the box with the musicians or incorporated properly into the chorus, not dressed in a dinner jacket and allowed to wander over the stage). I know the deus ex machina is difficult to deal with too, but the knockabout act of Castor and Pollux was unfunny and spoiled the hard work of the two principals.
A curious incident before the play started. One of the great things about the Globe is that you can often go along at the last minute and get a standing ticket for five pounds (six Euros), as was possible for Shakespeare’s public. (They paid one penny.) However to our surprise we were greeted with House Full posters and asked to wait for returns. While we were waiting a well dressed and well spoken woman came to the head of the queue offering two standing tickets. Someone in front of us took one and as we wanted two we passed her back to the person behind us who took the second ticket for five pounds. We continued to wait while a couple came up having a huge public row about whether to go the show or not (something about the last train, but not wanting to waste 40 pounds). Then the man who had just bought the standing ticket came back out of the theatre, furious. He had been sold a ticket for last night’s Romeo and Juliet, but in the transaction had not looked closely at the ticket. I immediately began to have suspicions abut the piece of street theatre we had just witnessed. Was this a scam too? Then a member of the box office team came up with two standing tickets and we got in just in time. Who would have thought that a) a Greek Tragedy would be sold out and b) that a rogue would pull a stunt like that outside the Globe? It was full of pickpockets, rascals and coney-catchers in Shakespeare’s time too apparently.
Complementing Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida is a new production of Euripides’ Helen in a version by Frank McGuiness. This is the first time the theatre, which reproduces the building of Shakespeare’s time, has put on a Greek drama http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/theatre/annualtheatreseason/helen/. One of Euripides’ lightest tragedies, it was played largely for laughs but the rapid production managed to slip from the comedy to the more serious almost seamlessly. Penny Downie was a sexy, lively Helen reaching up to the top of galleries with her appeals to the gods to rescue her from her fate of being abandoned in Egypt among barbarians.
For this is of course the real Helen: the one who went to Troy was merely an idolon. Menelaus (a strong and sympathetic Paul McGann) is shipwrecked on her shore on his return from the war and is surprised to find his real wife already there. These two fill the stage and the whole theatrical space, and take us through their disbelief, wariness and ultimate joy in their mutual recognition. This plot device of course enables Euripides to play with the idea of the war being fought for nothing, for an illusion: a thought that is always relevant to whichever war is being fought. It also enables him to include some clever wordplay over misidentification and misunderstanding. We can see the origin of all those future comedies of separation and reunification, of loss and restoration in Menander and Plautus and then the whole of European comedy, here in a so-called tragedy of Euripides. McGuiness’s version is in what is called “muscular” free verse, that is a kind of heightened poetic prose which suits the style of Greek drama well. It is the same solution adopted by Ted Hughes in his version of Racine’s version of Euripides (see the post above on Phèdre). Deborah Bruce as director has solved the problem of what to do with the chorus in the current fashion: a collection of individuals half recite their lines, half sing them to simple tunes (though the professional singer brought in to strengthen the music should have been left in the box with the musicians or incorporated properly into the chorus, not dressed in a dinner jacket and allowed to wander over the stage). I know the deus ex machina is difficult to deal with too, but the knockabout act of Castor and Pollux was unfunny and spoiled the hard work of the two principals.
A curious incident before the play started. One of the great things about the Globe is that you can often go along at the last minute and get a standing ticket for five pounds (six Euros), as was possible for Shakespeare’s public. (They paid one penny.) However to our surprise we were greeted with House Full posters and asked to wait for returns. While we were waiting a well dressed and well spoken woman came to the head of the queue offering two standing tickets. Someone in front of us took one and as we wanted two we passed her back to the person behind us who took the second ticket for five pounds. We continued to wait while a couple came up having a huge public row about whether to go the show or not (something about the last train, but not wanting to waste 40 pounds). Then the man who had just bought the standing ticket came back out of the theatre, furious. He had been sold a ticket for last night’s Romeo and Juliet, but in the transaction had not looked closely at the ticket. I immediately began to have suspicions abut the piece of street theatre we had just witnessed. Was this a scam too? Then a member of the box office team came up with two standing tickets and we got in just in time. Who would have thought that a) a Greek Tragedy would be sold out and b) that a rogue would pull a stunt like that outside the Globe? It was full of pickpockets, rascals and coney-catchers in Shakespeare’s time too apparently.
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