ACTORS’ ANTICS ROB PLAY OF TRUTH
SHAW FESTIVAL
There is a towering performance standing at the centre of the Shaw Festival’s troubled production of “The Madness of George III.” It provides thrilling energy and dazzling strength that fortunately props up director Kevin Bennett’s misguided, ramshackle vision of Alan Bennett’s award-winning 1991 play.
Surely, a drama about royals, charlatans, tiresome bores and a monarchy threatening to die before our very eyes should have veracity.
Well, it might, if only the rest of this self-conscious, egotisticallystaged production would settle down and match Tom McCamus’ breathtaking performance as George.
Certainly that happened at The Royal National Theatre in London, when instead of prancing farce we were given a dark look at a monarch drowning in despair.
Yes, Bennett’s play is tinged with humour, but there’s always a black, underlying shroud of evil. More than anything, this is what ought to give the work a corrosive, disturbing edge.
Ministers, doctors and deceitful sons all offer vain, misguided solutions to the king’s condition. They also provide cruel and rough forms of help. Fools and malicious allies, they torment their victim until madness begins to unravel his brain and his heart.
Surely, we are meant to feel both fear and pain here. They enjoy watching their patient scream in terror as reason fails him.
Too often in director Kevin Bennett’s misguided vision, we get ludicrous comedy substituting for truth.
In choosing to have a small company of actors play multiple roles, Bennett has taken a very false step. The transformation suggested
by putting on a hat, taking off a wig, or making a funny face, has suggested something frantic and silly about it. It reminds you of children’s theatre where such devices are used best. In sublimating the play beneath distancing comic nonsense, Bennett robs it of truth.
Worse yet, the actors he has here haven’t the skill to make this perverse vision work.
There are, of course exceptions. Chick Reid’s Charlotte (Mrs. Queen), though a tad shrill, engages us because she makes us care for the man who shares her bed.
Patrick McManus brings thwarted dignity to the role of Dr. Willis, the puritan doctor who wishes to cure his royal patient, perhaps because he has some respect for the role of king. And Jim Mezon, as Dr. Baker, speaks Alan Bennett’s lines with respect for their intent, not some foolish notion the play ought to be played out front like some village pantomime.
Posturing, marionette-like hand waving, and annoying grinning at the audience does nothing to make this “Madness of George III” connect seriously with its audience. If anything, it is an alienation device.
Director Bennett says in his program notes he wants a “spontaneous exchange between actors and audience.” If by this he means a sort of children’s play innocence, where we can all clap and admit that we do believe in fairies, I think he might better take on something with less nuance than “The Madness of George III.”
Shaw artistic director Tim Carroll has said in his program note regarding directors at the Festival that he wants “gardeners” to direct his plays.
“It means we don’t try to nail down the ‘right’ version of a scene: we play inside it and allow it to reveal itself-over the course of a whole season,” Carroll says.
Maybe so. The trouble with that is most of us only see a production once.
And the trouble with gardeners directing a work like “The Madness of George III” is there is too much chance of ending up growing weeds.
Gary Smith has written on theatre and dance for The Hamilton Spectator for more than 35 years.