Is this the real reason Pope Benedict resigned?
The Pope
Royal & Derngate, Northampton
What went through the mind of Pope Benedict XVI in early 2013 as he contemplated stepping down as leader of the Catholic Church – the first pope to vacate the Holy See since Gregory XII in 1415? Anguish, guilt, clarity, relief?
And what went through the mind of the Argentinian – Cardinal Bergoglio – who, adopting the papal name Francis after Saint Francis of Assisi, would take his place as the spiritual leader of some 1.3billion faithful? Resolve, trepidation, indignation? The sudden departure of the Bavarian-born Benedict, citing advancing infirmity at 85, left the world stunned and the church reeling, but this momentous event hasn’t had a theatrical response until now.
Step forward Anthony Mccarten, returning to playwriting after a 20-year hiatus. His standout speciality is men who make an international mark – weaving fact and fiction to go behind the scenes and look at sensitive souls under pressure: Stephen Hawking pitting brains, youth and fortitude against illness and the great unknowns in The Theory of Everything; Churchill
facing the Nazi onslaught in Darkest Hour; and rock-god Freddie Mercury, in Bohemian Rhapsody.
The Pope, premiering in Northampton under the polished direction of James Dacre, couldn’t be less bohemian – it’s a model of oldfashioned disquisition. And yet it achieves a rhapsodic intensity.
Mccarten has done copious research upon which foundation he has sprinkled supposition, leavening a potentially arid evening with welcome gossipy humour. On a serious note, there are (slightly cursory) allusions to Benedict’s brush with the Hitler Youth and lack of leadership over sex-abuse scandals; equally, taints in Bergoglio’s life-story, especially his dealings with his homeland’s military junta, are brought to the fore in reciprocal moments of personal confession. Yet this isn’t a sustained finger-pointing exercise.
The modest, valid aim is a doubleportraiture, teasing out the differences the two men embody – traditionalism versus liberalism – but daring to suggest points of affinity and friendship, a compact insinuated whereby the older man, conscious of how much needs to be done, invites the younger to take over.
The delicate approach is matched by two candle-flicker-subtle performances from Anton Lesser and Nicholas Woodeson, challenging even sceptics to resist admiration. Showing the defanged side of “God’s rottweiler”, Lesser gently dominates the first half – his white-haired Benedict is a figure of piercing solitude, even when he heads across Rome, mid storm, for a chat with a German nun acquaintance. The latter (Lynsey Beauchamp in one of the too-few instances of significant feminine input) is shocked when he hints that he’s not going to follow Christ’s example and toil to the death.
“Let us agree I will not rank among the most romantically experienced of popes!” he jokes, in a typical moment of self-deprecation. By contrast with his frail bookishness, signalled by telltale taps to an overworked head, Woodeson – as Bergoglio, football-lover and tango-dancer – has a beetling earthiness. Yet under the skullcap lurk the same concerns for the future of humanity and the capacity of God’s anointed servant to save it.
Amid much marbled, Vaticanimitating splendour, the production leaves the door open for us to speculate how the new man and the emeritus Pope can coexist (not easily, if reports are to be believed). As for the next stage for the play: an afterlife in the West End wouldn’t be a cardinal error.