After a quiet bank holiday weekend focused mainly on flat-pack assemblage, I got back into the swing of things last night, heading over to the National for a production of Eugene O’Neill’s early work The Emperor Jones.
This particular production was first staged by Thea Sharrock in 2005 over at the teeny tiny Gate Theatre in Notting Hill and appears to have been considerably re-jigged to fit the (much) larger performance space of the Olivier.
The excellent Paterson Joseph reprises his role as the self-declared ruler of a small West Indian island. He plays a black American prisoner who, having killed his prison guard and escaped across the water, talks the island inhabitants into becoming their Emperor. However they soon tire of his despotic rule and turn against him leaving him with little recourse but to flee into the forest, fearing for his life. As the sun beats down, he is forced to discard his Emperor-y accoutrements, to shed his finery (I did try and wedge a ‘new clothes’ reference in there, but I’m a bit lacking in glib this morning) until he is left completely diminished, half naked, sweat-slick and shaking. Joseph’s is, by necessity, both a charismatic and a very physical performance, he is constantly dashing and ducking across the stage, shoulder-rolling and hurling himself to the floor with considerable force as his character becomes increasingly paranoid and desperate, haunted by images of slavery and shadows of his past misdeeds.
Stripped of what was presumably a very claustrophobic setting at the Gate, Sharrock ensures that the play still has the requisite feverish intensity – a sense enhanced by the use of light, filtering it through a huge corrugated metal disc that is suspended from the ceiling (which rather reminded me, to a degree, both of the great orange sun sculpture they had in the Tate Modern Turbine Hall a while back and of the sweatbox scenes in films such as Bridge On The River Kwai). Some superb percussion added to the atmosphere of the piece, but the seeming need to fill this space, with stuff, with bodies, had its drawbacks, and I found the sudden influx of extras filing on stage for a slave auction scene rather unnecessary and detrimental to the overall mood.
Still, it’s a strong, intense, unusual production and I’m sure its 70 minute running time will please some people as it leaves ample time for a post-show glass of red on the National’s terrace. Good as it was, ultimately it really made me wish I'd seen that Gate production, I expect that really would have been something.
6 comments:
Natasha darling We must take issue with you on a point of accuracy. A 70 minute play leaves time for TWO BOTTLES of post-show wine as you well know. We didn't book for this as we reasonably supposed that an O'Neill would mean four hours or so in a theatre. But now we know different, Phil's going to go.
You're absolutely right Andrew, I stand corrected.
Natasha darling. You mention the unnecessary flood of extras in the Emperor Jones auction scene. A slave auction scene is in the script; what would you suggest, fewer extras?
Just interested to hear your thoughts....
Well, while I do understand that, I just felt the sudden wave of people undermined the intensity that had been building up until that point in the production, and seemed like a concession to the size of the Olivier space rather than a dramatic necessity. I have no idea how this scene was handled in the Gate production and would be interested to find out.
At the Gate it was handled in a similar way except, of course, far fewer of us Belles and Dandies (yes I am one of them). There were ten of us in total, which did actually completely fill the tiny Gate space. Thea wanted us extras to be a surprise to the audience and a spectacle. Also to provide a decrescendo in the intensity thus allowing it to build even further to a powerful finale at Jones's eventual demise. Archie Whyld
Thanks Archie. Actually a friend of mine saw the National production the day after I did and found the slave auction scene one of the most powerful things in it, pretty much for the reasons you describe.
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