In 2007, Peter Brook invited Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod to form a company of French actors to stage Andromaque by Racine. Some of these same actors are now performing in Périclès, Prince de Tyr, the first time Cheek by Jowl has produced Shakespeare in French.
Pericles, by William Shakespeare (and George Wilkins) is a play about a man on a journey. He finds love and new kingdoms, loses them and finally is reunited with them again. A lot of the action takes place at sea and Nick Ormerod’s set indeed conjures the sea in its very blueness. But we are in a blue walled hospital ward with a man lying still in bed, hooked up to a drip. It’s a calm scene with a radio chattering in French quietly in the background. A doctor checks his blood pressure and medical charts. Two male nurses enter and prop the man up with pillows in readiness for his visitors. A woman and a young couple arrive, presumably his family.
What has this got to do with Pericles, you might ask. Well, now the play begins, the man in bed awakes and starts talking as Périclès to Antiochus about solving a riddle in order to win the hand of his daughter. We hear the sound of waves crashing and we are seamlessly in another land by the sea. The bed becomes a ship and the nurses become fishermen. Then the characters are back in hospital with the ever -present radio and medical staff tending to their patient. The switch is effortless and I accepted immediately that here, the story of Pericles may simply be the hallucinations of a sick man.
This is a wonderful ensemble piece. The seven actors play all parts and the performance runs without interval at 1hr 40 mins, a much shorter version of the play. However, having reminded myself of the plot, I didn’t feel any of the story was lost and by setting the play in one place, there were no time consuming or distracting scene changes. The atmosphere and sense of place is created by clever lighting and a diverse soundtrack. There is light relief in a gyrating dance off when three knights compete for Thaïsa’s hand and poignant humour in Périclès dancing with her in a straight-jacket.
Nick Ormerod and Declan Donnellan have produced a well thought through interpretation of this lesser known Shakespeare play, with superb performances from a brilliant French cast. Having Shakespeare’s verse broken into bite size chunks on the surtitles allowed me to really savour the words and listening to spoken French is always a joy. Beg, borrow or steal a ticket in Oxford this week before it continues its tour back to France. ★★★★★ Karin Andre 25th April 2018
