Watermill, Bagnor
Something very curious happens during Kate Saxon's revival of Beaumarchais's comedy. The play premiered just five years before the 1789 revolution, and provided the inspiration for Mozart's deservedly better-known opera.
Most of this farcical comedy about the attempts of the decent servant Figaro and his fiancee, the quick-witted Suzanne, to prevent the philandering Count from exercising his droit du seigneur on their wedding night, takes place within the tiny theatre. But for the final scene, which unfolds under cover of darkness in the castle grounds, we are ushered out into the garden. That's when the little miracle happens: allowed to breathe, what seems arch and artificial in the theatre suddenly becomes quite charming; comedy too broad for the intimacies of the indoor space blossoms deliciously in the gathering dusk.
Beaumarchais's play may have seemed revolutionary in its day (particularly to Louis XVI, who stormed out of a reading once he recognised its attack on the old order), but goodness, it feels old and creaky now. Ranjit Bolt's over-perky translation knocks what elegance there is out of the comedy by playing up the nod-nod-wink-wink pantomime elements.
Even with three doors on the postage stamp-sized stage, the coiled energy of farce is hard to achieve in such a confined space, and the tendency is to over-play. There are some fine actors here, but the playing style saps the warmth from the characters ? until the final 20 minutes, when the show suddenly bursts into life.
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Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/jun/28/marriage-of-figaro-theatre-review
Music TV Credit crunch Reckitt Benckiser Beach holidays Virginia London
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