State Theatre Company. Dunstan Playhouse. 25 August 2015
Shakespeare wasn't the only playwright in town at the beginning of the 17th Century when Ben Jonson was in full bloom during the English reign of King James I (1603-25). Writing wasn't his first career choice - he was apprenticed as a bricklayer to his stepfather when he volunteered for the army and is considered to have killed an enemy soldier in single combat in Flanders. On return to England, he started as an actor. Queen Elizabeth I banned his co-written play, Isle of Dogs, and Jonson did time for "leude and mutynous behavior." A year later, he killed one of the actors in that play in a duel, and also wrote his first successful script, ironically titled, Every Man in His Humour. He was/is regarded paradoxically as a bit of a hot-head and one of the best writers of satire in his time.
Whereas Shakespeare is performed verbatim, Jonson's Volpone (or The Fox) needed a bit of a massage by adaptor Emily Steel. Volpone in the first scene appears bound to his deathbed in Venice and, seemingly soon to be departed from his fabulous wealth, manages to extract even more treasure from three friends who are promised to be his sole heir by Volpone's mischief-making manservant, Mosca. I could see the Jacobean masses ripping laughter at the unadulterated greed of these rich bastards while they manipulate each other for ever more booty, work their way through corrupt courts with crooked, smooth-talking lawyers to protect their assets, and finally get unjust comeuppances.
But that was then and this is now. I didn't peal with laughter or feel anything often enough to make this a great night out. Director Nescha Jelk seemed to have all the design elements in place: Jonathon Oxlade's modern Italianate pillars and arches making a colonnade or peristyle as required, Geoff Cobham's lighting palate complementing Oxlade's colourful personality-bespoke costumes, and Will Spartalis's spoof music. Jelk and her cast invest the characters with over-the-top and physically comedic idiosyncrasies that were at first startling and laugh-fetching. But after the initial intrigue had been set, the script followed the course of a morality tale, and production values that were initially stimulating and unusual became loud and overloaded.
It was great to see some of the old favourites foiled with a younger crop of actors. Edwin Hodgeman charmed with his aged Corbaccio. Geoff Revell made his schtick comfortable in a variety of guises, and Paul Blackwell infused the eponymous role with his comic complexity. James Smith, Patrick Graham and Elizabeth Hay are the future on stage and no doubt we'll see a lot more of them. With Caroline Mignone and Matt Crook, director Welk guided the cast in script-enhancing physical comedy.
I think my lack of enthusiasm for this production is that the characterisations were fully understood once the key creative elements were established, and the story's wending didn't sustain my interest. Upon being told that Shakespeare never blotted (i.e., crossed out) a line when he wrote, Jonson apparently said, "Would he had blotted a thousand!" Careful, Ben.
David Grybowski
When: 21 August to 12 September
Where: Dunstan Playhouse
Bookings: bass.net.au
