Lucy Mackay Archives - thespyinthestalls.com

★★

“Wendy Beckett’s script is uncertain and seems not to trust itself.”

Georgie Fellows shines as Sappho in an otherwise uncertain muddle of a play.

The story is set in an alternative history, circa 600 BC. It follows the imagined life of Sappho, the Ancient Greek poet, whose real life we know little about. In this play Sappho is engaged to be married, a marriage of convenience to further her parents’ political ambitions. However she is in love with a woman, not the man she is marrying.

While the premise seems simple enough, it is complicated by convoluted sub-plots about her parents’ politics. They want to spread democracy across the land. Since it’s neither historically accurate, nor particularly clear in the play, this becomes a political drama with no context. The broad strokes commentary against the elite falls flat.

This points to the bigger issue with this play, which is that it doesn’t know what it is. The tone is a mishmash of campy asides and panto acting, with boppy dance numbers and earnest calls to arms. Every chance at emotional depth is undermined by jokey asides, but it’s not quite funny enough to make that worth it.

Wendy Beckett’s script is uncertain and seems not to trust itself. The simple love story at the heart of this play, is nice, and it would’ve been stronger had it stripped back the tangled layers around it.

Wendy Beckett co-directs with Adam Fitzgerald and again this uncertainty comes through. Every performer seems to be in a different play and every scene is a different tone. There is a Greek chorus, which at times are used for beautiful discordant singing and moments of dance (well-choreographed by Fotis Diamantopoulos) but in many scenes confuse and crowd the stage.

The performances are broadly strong, if uneven tonally. Emmanuel Akwafo is a strong comic narrator, though sometimes his asides become a little repetitive. However the show stealer is Georgie Fellows as Sappho, who manages to ride the tonal rollercoaster of this play, and carries its emotional heart, such as it is.

Adam King’s lighting stands out in a moment where the stage in bathed in rainbow light, in what should’ve been a moving commentary about Sappho’s legacy. Halcyon Pratt’s set is simple and versatile, if not particularly memorable.

Mehdi Bourayou’s sound design and score provide boppy pop style numbers and more traditional Greek chorus songs, many of which are really fun. It would’ve been great to have more music in this, as it might have hung it together more fluidly.

Sappho’s importance not only as a poet but as a queer poet is unquestionable, and her poetry speaks through the ages. This play hasn’t quite decided how to tell her story – should it be a campy and fun musical or a hard-hitting political drama. By not making that decision, the play is neither satisfying as a comedy nor a political biopic.

The Prince of Homburg

The Space

Reviewed – 12th December 2019

★★★★

“The Space is an always welcoming venue which has a reputation for programming important drama. This production of The Prince of Homburg is no exception”

Kleist’s The Prince of Homburg, written around 1810, is a play shot through with ambiguity and altered states. It was also seen, at the time of its creation, as a direct challenge to the authority of the ruling classes. Now recognized as one of the masterpieces of German theatre, the play is rarely seen on British stages, and not just because of the difficulty of rendering this work into English. Neil Bartlett’s translation, however, does a fine job of capturing Kleist’s unique energy of expression and style. So what The Prince of Homburg is actually about? In many ways, the play is essentially unknowable. But on the face of it, it is a story about a soldier whose response, after being tricked into a waking dream where he is crowned with a wreath of victory, is to promptly go into battle, disobey his orders, and—win a great victory for his side.

After the battle (often the end of the story in a more conventional play) is where this drama really begins. Kleist sets the audience an intriguing puzzle: since the Prince did not know whether he was awake or dreaming when he was crowned with the victor’s wreath, can he be held responsible for disobeying orders to achieve the dream? Is his commanding officer, the Elector, really to blame, since it was he who set up the whole scene for his own amusement? This enlightened despot disingenuously argues that he must follow the law when the courts sentence Homburg to death, but then the officers in his army rebel. When the Princess Natalie, who has fallen in love with Homburg, makes an impassioned plea for her lover’s life—it is not her emotions that carry weight with the Elector, but her cleverly nuanced argument that he will look bad if he allows a man of honour to be executed for following his heart. At this point the Elector caves of course, but sets up a poison pill for Homburg. The Prince must now decide whether to make the expedient argument to save his life, or do what a man of honour would do, which is to sacrifice himself willingly for his country.

Kleist pulls off a remarkable sleight of hand with this material, managing all these reversals of fortune in a way that undercuts expectations, while paradoxically heightening the audience’s experience through the dramatization of highly ambiguous dream states. In these states, the characters confront all the big stuff like life and love; death and immortality. Coupled with crafting a language uniquely suited to these dramatic innovations, Kleist engages the our imaginations, and our sense of what is possible in the theatre. The Prince of Homburg is like Hamlet in this regard, in that the more we engage with it, the greater it becomes.

Júlia Leval, freely adapting and directing this production of The Prince of Homburg, has come up with some innovative ideas for casting and staging. The Prince is played by Lucy Mackay, a fine actress, but lacking the experience for such a difficult role. Most of the cast (recently graduated from LAMDA) also seems rather adrift in the stormy waters of Kleist’s rhetoric, though Will Bishop is a confident Elector. A pared down set designed by Zoe Brennan has some beautifully ironic touches—a small bush for the laurel tree that Homburg uses to build the wreath for example, and a small white house that stands in for palaces and churches as well as a throne. Alistair Lax’s sound design helps to heighten the dream sequences.

Don’t miss your chance to see this seldom performed masterpiece. It’s worth making the journey to The Isle of Dogs to see it, and The Space is an always welcoming venue which has a reputation for programming important drama. This production of The Prince of Homburg is no exception.

SAPPHO at Southwark Playhouse Elephant

★★

“Wendy Beckett’s script is uncertain and seems not to trust itself.”

SAPPHO at Southwark Playhouse Elephant

Reviewed on 8th May 2024

by Auriol Reddaway

Photography by Mark Senior

Previously reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues

Sappho

Sappho

The Space

Reviewed – 12th December 2019

★★★★

“The Space is an always welcoming venue which has a reputation for programming important drama. This production of The Prince of Homburg is no exception”

Don’t miss your chance to see this seldom performed masterpiece. It’s worth making the journey to The Isle of Dogs to see it, and The Space is an always welcoming venue which has a reputation for programming important drama. This production of The Prince of Homburg is no exception.

Reviewed by Dominica Plummer

The Prince of Homburg

The Space until 14th December

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue: