Walter Ralegh’s tragedy poignantly recreated
When Sir Walter Ralegh came before a hostile court at Winchester Great Hall in 1603, he didn’t stand a chance. The great Elizabethan polymath explorer had been accused of conspiring to bring down James I, following the death of his patron Elizabeth. The court was determined to have its bogeyman and stacked the case against him.
This modern-dress, gender-neutral production is written by Oliver Chris, who played Prince William in Mike Bartlett’s lauded King Charles III. Chris reconstructs the trial using original verbatim testimonies, and allows us to make up our own minds.
Twelve volunteer audience members are the jury; everyone else sits as members of the courtroom before the baleful glare of Ralegh himself, played by a magnetically gaunt Simon Paisley Day, austere, aloof and elegantly contemptuous in a black suit.
The case is fascinating because Ralegh used the law itself against the prosecution, whose case mainly consisted of hearsay, and whose sole piece of evidence was an accusatory letter, apparently written by Ralegh’s co-conspirator Lord Cobham. Again and again, Paisley Day pierces the hot air of prosecuting attorney Lord Edward Coke’s (here turned into Lady Coke) arguments and in vain demands that Cobham appear in person. The prosecution’s persistent obfuscation takes on a powerfully resonant, almost metaphysical absurdity.
Yet the production’s insistence on gender parity – usually an admirable commitment – doesn’t serve this piece well. There is precious little sparring chemistry between Paisley Day and Nathalie Armin’s Coke. You never fully feel the cold, implacable – and yes, what would have been wholly masculine – establishment power that Ralegh was up against.
The meeting of a modern world with one 500 years older is inherently acknowledged yet the realm that the play inhabits is an uneasy hybrid. The play is further constrained by the verbatim format in which, while Ralegh’s tragedy poignantly emerges, other real historical figures stay remote.
Ultimately, the power of the piece lies in the drama of the verdict. Perhaps this is the biggest truth of the play: that to some extent justice always will be a piece of theatre.
Until Nov 30. shakespearesglobe.com; 020 7902 1400