Theatre: Hecuba, Albery
Thursday, May 5th, 2005 06:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranthSaw Vanessa Redgrave as Hecuba last night. Her voice was ever so much more compelling, convincing and beautiful than her physical acting, and at times she risked descending into farce or bitter, underplayed irony. And at times she was as earnest, in cadence and gesture, as a Labour counsellor. Hang on ...
Not sure I liked the translation either. It's all very well making it relevant and dropping in modern terms (Coalition, ADC) but sometimes it seemed over-familiar (if that's the term). Also, the alliteration got annoying. "Gash my girl's gullet", indeed!
The choir sung, rather than speaking, their lines. Some of them had lovely voices, and the music -- reminiscent of Philip Glass -- was interesting, and fitted nicely with the feel. Occasionally I couldn't hear what they were singing, though.
I didn't think Odysseus was played right. Here's a man with a reputation, a three-thousand year reputation, for being clever and witty and wily. He was a brusque bully.
And I wanted to slap Polyxena, going so meekly and selflessly to her death. (I also wanted to slap the chattering couple on the next bank of seats. Boo to skool parties. At the end they were leaving the theatre just in front of us, saying that they hadn't enjoyed it: one of their friends had. Was very tempted to query this on the basis that, having talked all the way through, they couldn't possibly have understood what was going on.)
All this is very negative: but I did enjoy the play, and found it very powerful. No one wants Hecuba: they are not interested in her dying beside her daughter, and Agamemnon's only too happy to get rid of her. "Your freedom's granted easily enough." She's utterly powerless. So are the Trojan women (this text glosses over their situation, really; but it seems to me that they are not only slaves but victims of rape and violence). In a sense, then, this is a play about female empowerment. I suppose one could compare and contrast Polyxena with her daughterly meekness and biddability, virgin sacrifice for Achilles' tomb, to her mother, and her mother's savage (unfeminine, unnatural) revenge.
Not sure I liked the translation either. It's all very well making it relevant and dropping in modern terms (Coalition, ADC) but sometimes it seemed over-familiar (if that's the term). Also, the alliteration got annoying. "Gash my girl's gullet", indeed!
The choir sung, rather than speaking, their lines. Some of them had lovely voices, and the music -- reminiscent of Philip Glass -- was interesting, and fitted nicely with the feel. Occasionally I couldn't hear what they were singing, though.
I didn't think Odysseus was played right. Here's a man with a reputation, a three-thousand year reputation, for being clever and witty and wily. He was a brusque bully.
And I wanted to slap Polyxena, going so meekly and selflessly to her death. (I also wanted to slap the chattering couple on the next bank of seats. Boo to skool parties. At the end they were leaving the theatre just in front of us, saying that they hadn't enjoyed it: one of their friends had. Was very tempted to query this on the basis that, having talked all the way through, they couldn't possibly have understood what was going on.)
All this is very negative: but I did enjoy the play, and found it very powerful. No one wants Hecuba: they are not interested in her dying beside her daughter, and Agamemnon's only too happy to get rid of her. "Your freedom's granted easily enough." She's utterly powerless. So are the Trojan women (this text glosses over their situation, really; but it seems to me that they are not only slaves but victims of rape and violence). In a sense, then, this is a play about female empowerment. I suppose one could compare and contrast Polyxena with her daughterly meekness and biddability, virgin sacrifice for Achilles' tomb, to her mother, and her mother's savage (unfeminine, unnatural) revenge.
