Lust, greed and hypocrisy are eternally fashionable, constantly ripe for satire and never better exposed than in Volpone, Ben Jonson’s thoroughly modern classic comedy of 1606.
Returning to Stratford to direct it with a sterling cast led by Henry Goodman, Trevor Nunn pulls out all the stops to deliver an elegant, hilarious production, which recalls elements of his glory days at the helm of the RSC.
Jonson, unlike his contemporary Shakespeare, virtually ignored romantic love. His delight was to create highly immoral characters in the workaday world, allow them enough rope to incriminate themselves and then subject them to the full force of poetic justice.
The said characters here are wealthy cheats trying to cheat other wealthy cheats. And they are given miles of exuberant line before justice reels them in. Sophisticated modern dress and Stephen Brimson Lewis’ luxurious steel and glass hi-tech set, reset the action in 2015.
Volpone – a Venetian nobleman, has ‘earned’ the great riches he gloats over by confidence trickery. His only concerns are to increase his store of gold and to live his life to a sensual full.
He maintains a household which includes a eunuch, a hermaphrodite and a dwarf for entertainment. Unmarried and heirless, he hatches a plot with his servant and accomplice Mosca, pretending to be terminally ill in order to receive fabulous gifts from those hoping to be included in his will.
As Volpone, Henry Goodman is in his element. Energetic and jocular he takes great joy in his tempestuous life and every twist of his schemes. He confides winningly to the audience, lapses into a delightful cod Italian accent with matching gestures to impersonate a fake medicine salesman, and instantly ages thirty years every time the security cameras spy an approaching visitor.
Jonson was content to work with stock characters and here their Italian surnames even spell out their venal characteristics. Yet as a trio of would-be inheritors: Miles Richardson as a cunning lawyer, Geoffrey Freshwater is a landowner prepared to disown his son to gain favour and Matthew Kelly as a merchant ready to surrender his wife’s favours, all place palpable dramatic flesh on their outlines.
As the son and the wife, Andy Apollo and Rhiannon Handy display a fine level of impassioned valour and purity. Whilst as Mosca, Orion Lee wears a Mao Se Tung suit and an admiring expression. He learns and leaps ahead in his master’s black arts, and carries an effective transformation when thieves fall out.
In a very loosely connected sub-plot Steven Pacey contributes a convincingly eccentric, conspiracy imagining English MP, with Annette McLaughlin effective as his loud, ever-talking, media seeking wife – she even has a TV cameraman in her entourage! Whilst Colin Ryan is sprightly as a young traveller caught up in their games.
The script has been revised by Ranjit Bolt, with fun topical inclusions including mention of plastic surgery, Greeks and Euros. Perhaps a little more could be excised too as Jonson’s 400 year old plot judders at times.
Such minor qualms though are nothing compared with an overall mastery, imaginatively served by a first rate production and a leading performance that will go down in theatre history. ★★★★☆ Derek Briggs 12/07/15
