Whose public space?

At 2.30 p.m., on Friday 21 October 2011, St Paul’s officials put out a press release saying they were closing the cathedral for the first time since the Blitz: “We have done this with a very heavy heart, but it is simply not possible to fulfil our day to day obligations to worshippers, visitors and pilgrims in current circumstances.”

Anti-global finance protesters (Occupy London Stock Exchange) had been camped outside cathedral for several days when this widely reported decision was taken, which conveyed the impression that the cathedral was thoroughly barracaded. In fact, Zoe Williams reported (accessed 27.10.11) that she didn’t meet anybody who was inconvenienced in any way:

You would see, by a factor of 100, more people obstructing one another if you walked three minutes to the tube station. And the clarification at the end of the St Paul’s statement – “Today is about our ability, practically, to carry on our mission with free and open access to this public space and treasured place and I hope that the protesters will understand the issues we are facing, recognise that their voice has been legitimately heard, and withdraw peacefully” – did not, frankly, clarify.

Why would a Christian church, supposedly in favour of truth telling, misrepresent reality? Was it because they no longer had the public square all to themselves? Did they see their territory – in this case, the physical space on the western edge of the cathedral – dwindling and did they feel compelled to make a stand?

Britain is an increasingly secular country, and all the better for the change, but beware those who are left behind, who see themselves on a shrinking island of influence, encroached on all sides by people they choose to characterize as their enemies – they do not always act within reason, although they are likely to act in their own interests.

Secularists who advocate a separation of church and state and an end to religious privilege are used to hearing apologists for religion stridently declaring that they will not be driven out of the public square. This is of course a misrepresentation of the secularist position, which simply opposes such political arrangements as, for example, the automatic right of a certain number of bishops to sit in the upper chamber of parliament. As a secularist, I am not interested in what religious believers get up to in the privacy of their own homes, so long as it’s between consenting adults and doesn’t involve child abuse. Equally, religious believers are free to come into the public square and inform the rest of us of their opinion that, say, gay marriage is an abomination. The point about freedom, which some followers of bronze age beliefs haven’t yet caught up with, is that we’re free to disagree and denounce their views, preferably courteously, but always reasonably.

(Incidentally, at last night’s Conway Memorial Lecture, Professor Philip Schofield talked about Jeremy Bentham’s rather low opinion of St Paul, whom he regarded as a power-hungry and opportunistic fraud who relied upon the credulity of his Gentile followers and tirelessly promoted his philosophy of asceticism. As for religion itself, Bentham saw it a series of well-defended fortifications, and that the best strategy was to attack each in turn in order to destroy the whole. He began with St Paul.)

09.10.11 Barry Cryer – Butterfly Brain (Theatre by the Lake Keswick)

A packed theatre for Barry Cryer, the nation’s gagmeister-general and the obligatory clearing house for all jokes, according to Simon Hoggart. His sidekick for the evening was Colin Sell (chuckling along for the most part with the rest of us), the much abused pianist on shows like I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. Cryer wore a showbiz waistcoat while Sell was very smartly turned out as a concert pianist, complete with grand piano and several very silly and very enjoyable songs that he probably rarely gets to play at Carnegie Hall.

In keeping with Cryer’s encyclopaedic comedy store inside his head, the loose theme was a tour from A to Z of anything that took his fancy. Advertising brought to mind Bernard Matthews walking down the aisle of a supermarket, picking up a pack of sliced turkey and saying, “It’s Norfolk and good!” A pack of sausages emblazoned with the handsome features of Antony Worral Thomson provided further information in the form of an instruction: “Prick with fork”.

A psychic wanted to know how superstitious his audience really were, so he asked how many people had seen a ghost? Most people’s hands went up. How many people had ever touched a ghost? Fewer hands went up. For a bit of a laugh, he then asked how many people had had sex with a ghost? He was surprised when a single hand went up, and so he called the gentleman up on stage, and repeated the question. Oh no, said the gentleman, shaking his head, I thought you said, “had sex with a goat”!

A white horse walks into a pub. The guy at the bar is amazed, and says, They’ve named a whiskey after you! What, Eric?

The Bible never describes Jesus as laughing or having a sense of humour, so telling any kind of joke could be seen as a deeply irreligious and impious activity. (Similarly, Jesus is never described as masturbating or having sex, so naturally these activities too are rarely promoted in the pulpit. Joking about sex is beyond the priestly pale.) So, perhaps inspired by the immortal line, “Blessed are the cheesemakers!”, Cryer pulls on a surplice and launches into evangelical preacher mode, inviting us to “find cheeses” and “to talk about cheeses” and so on in a marvellous sing-song gospel style.

Keeping with the holy theme, a priest, a vicar and a rabbi were talking about their miracle experiences. The priest recalled being in a light plane during a terrible storm, and he prayed and prayed and then – praise the lord! – for 100 yards all around the plane the storm abated and he landed safely. The vicar told the story of when he was on a trawler off Grimsby during a raging sea, and he prayed and then – praise the lord! – for 100 yards all around the sea became calm and he made it to shore safely. The rabbi thought for a moment, and then remembered walking down the street on his way to synagogue on a Saturday when he came across a bag of money, which of course he couldn’t pick up since it was the Sabbath. He prayed and prayed, and suddenly – praise the lord! – for 100 yards all around it was Wednesday.

(Colin Sell recently performed his 22nd symphony. Everyone who heard it agreed it was quite long enough at twenty seconds.)

Humanism at the heart of Christianity?

In a word, no, although many Christians like to talk about humanist values as if they were Christian values. Phil Mercer, Dean of Christchurch Cathedral, New Zealand, talks about the aftermath of the earthquake (Sunday 02.10.11):

There’s been a strong sense of the presence of God for those of us who are Christians...

Nothing objective available to a non-believer? If I bump into a friend in the supermarket, the sense of my friend’s presence leads me to form the relevant belief. The point is, even strangers could form this belief about my friend’s presence.

This is not an act of God, this is the planet doing what the planet does. . .

But isn’t the planet, according to Christianity, a part of God’s creation? And aren’t creators usually responsible for the proper functioning of their creations?

We’re now talking about the really important things. . . we think we’re in control of everything that goes on around us. . .

It doesn’t take an earthquake for me to think I’m not in control of everything in my own life.

We’re not actually [in control of everything that goes on around us]

We don’t need to appeal to a supernatural reality to accept this conclusion. One reason we’re not in control is because we’re not omnipotent. But, again according to Christianity, isn’t God in control? Why does God, who is supposed to be all powerful and all good, allow natural disasters to occur?

We’re caught in this life that we’re part of and it’s uncertain, and there’s risks and there’s dangers as well as wonderful opportunity and delight. . . What’s really important in life?

Not believing in magic sky gods for starters.

The really important things are about relationships, about family, about caring for one another, and community . . .

A Christian making a very good case for humanism!

. . . and those are the sorts of things at the heart of the Christian faith.

Then he spoils it by mentioning religion. In fact, he’s wrong about what’s at the heart of the Christian faith. The things he lists are not exclusive to Christianity, and are nothing to do with having faith in the religious sense, so they can hardly be said to be defining elements of that faith. As Cunningham (2010, p. 174) points out:

I acknowledge that Christians have provided compassion for the less fortunate, comfort for people in time of loss, and  ministry to the sick, but all these good works are possible without adding the religious element.

What is at the heart of the Christian faith is a set of irrational beliefs about a supernatural realm that doesn’t exist. Phil Mercer is perhaps taking inspiration from Humpty Dumpty when he offers this rose-tinted view of Christianity, but the moral of Lewis Carroll’s (himself Dean of Christ Church College) great story is that playing with words doesn’t change objective reality.

Paint Christianity inch deep in PR gloss, its dirty little secret remains: you have to believe what is (according to any reasonable account) untrue to be true.

01.10.11 (10.00 a.m.) Pocket Comedy of Errors (Propeller at the Hampstead Theatre)

It wasn’t just the text that had been exquisitely cut to fit into an hour’s traffic on the stage, the set had also had to accommodate itself to the main production (No Naughty Bits). Against the backdrop of a bright blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds, two large blue bins, stuffed and overflowing with last night’s rubbish, flanked a single graffitied corrugated steel door. Appropriately, it was as if Propeller was squatting for a bit of guerilla theatre, adapting superbly to the constraints of the time and space available. The company also adapted to the younger audience, for many of whom this was probably their first encounter with this play, and possibly with Shakespeare. Judging from their enjoyment of the show and the many intelligent questions in the Q&A afterwards, Propeller have again proved their versatility. This is a show that’s aimed at kids that grownups can enjoy. Indeed, I think it was Kelsey Brookfield who confessed they had left quite a bit of the filthy innuendo in to keep the mums and dads amused (although a nun in a miniskirt thwacking a riding crop doesn’t leave much room for an innocent interpretation). For blogs on the full version see Propeller at Norwich and Propeller at Hampstead.

There was a smaller cast to match the reduced set and text, with three of the six players from the full-length production. The one thing that wasn’t cut down in any way was the talent, and the energy and clarity they packed into this performance. As the audience assembled, half the cast was on stage, getting into musical character, half hidden by sombreros. Dominic Tighe was patrolling the aisles as the strict Hispanic Officer, sadly lacking the squeaky leather trousers since he was doubling up as Antipholus of Syracuse, whose costume was purple trousers and a lurid tropical shirt. “Your iphone will become my phone” was his novel take on the usually officious announcement.

There are not many interludes in the action, with so much to pack into a single hour, but one thing I liked was making room to focus on a speech. For example, for the drop of water speech Tighe comes forward and addresses the audience directly, which both spelled out an important detail of the story as well as showing us all how well blank verse can  convey a beautiful image:

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE. He that commends me to mine own content
Commends me to the thing I cannot get.
I to the world am like a drop of water
That in the ocean seeks another drop,
Who, falling there to find his fellow forth,
Unseen, inquisitive, confounds himself.
So I, to find a mother and a brother,
In quest of them, unhappy, lose myself.

It’s not long before we get back to some funny business, as he reasons

They say this town is full of cozenage. . .

while three creep up behind, with whistly things, and he puts hands over eyes: “Mother always used to say, close your eyes, they’ll go away.”

Instead of Luciana unpeeling a banana, on mention of possible “troubles of the marriage bed” one of the characters holding a bunch of flowers lets them droop, exactly the kind of adult-orientated symbol that (I hope!) would pass by without meaning for the children in the audience.

There’s plenty of knockabout that’s comprehensible by all, as the epistemic comedy gets going. Antipholus thinks his (real) servant Dromio is jesting - “Yea, dost thou jeer and flout me in the teeth?” - when he’s remembering giving gold to the other Dromio (he has a highly justified false belief), and the multiple stage directions - “Beating him” is very common - are accompanied by a range of slapstick whistles and bells and bangs. Huge fun, and a philosophical illustration of the problem of knowledge. The combination produced a big reading on the GB dial.

When Adriana appears, and (mistakenly) recognizes them, they look puzzled, and it’s nothing to do with her being played by Jonathan Livingstone in tiger print tights and a gaudy yellow jacket.

How can she thus, then, call us by our names,
Unless it be by inspiration?

This version keeps the suspension of action as Antipholus unclasps himself from Adriana’s embrace as well as the suggestion of action as Antipholus reclasps himself to Adriana (”I’ll entertain the offer’d fallacy”). Again, that adults-only meaning is layered on the more obvious “this is the fairy land” expressions of wonder and mystification. A rousing When the Saints Come Marching In is played on the trombone, and two traffic cones double up as megaphones for the two Dromios’ closed door scene. The fart joke is kept (of course) and played up a notch, with a machine gunning mime. Tam Williams as Antipholus of Ephesus, is as flummoxed as his yet unrecognized twin, but for different reasons: he can’t get into his own house, and neither can his servant. The scene ends in chaos as the alarm is pulled from the door (a comedy unspooling to reveal an unconnected lead), an alarm that seems to have a life of its own, a swing of the crow that knocks out a tooth from poor Dromio.

Luciana puts a remarkable question to Antipholus of Syracuse and follows it with a remarkable piece of advice:

LUCIANA. . . . Shall, Antipholus,
Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs rot?
. . . if you like elsewhere, do it by stealth

The unmarried (younger?) sister is herself looking for a husband, and cannot help flirting a little even with her sister’s husband (as she thinks, mistakenly). On “Gaze where you should” Kelsey Brookfield as Luciana remembers herself and pulls her tiny white cardigan across her (hairy) chest.

Richard Frame as Dromio of Antipholus gets to do his spherical speech, a routine that worked perfectly in the full-length version and was ready made for this kind of production. When he later encounters the other Antipholus, there is the usual uncomprehending exchange:

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. A ship you sent me to, to hire waftage.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. Thou drunken slave! I sent thee for a rope;
And told thee to what purpose and what end.
DROMIO OF SYRACUSE. You sent me for a rope’s end as soon
You sent me to the bay, sir, for a bark.
ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS. I will debate this matter at more leisure,
And teach your ears to list me with more heed.
To Adriana, villain, hie thee straight;
Give her this key. . .

Even though Antipholus has just had good evidence that his servant has either gone mad or is playing the fool, he hands him the key and sends him on a crucial errand. This struck me as odd, perhaps simply demanded by the plot, and yet it’s psychologically plausible on two counts: Antipholus hasn’t got much choice but to trust his servant, and it’s very difficult to dislodge a highly justified belief (think how difficult it is to dislodge religious beliefs, and their justification is on much weaker ground than the direct evidence of your senses).

Given the growing evidence of madness, it’s not surprising the quack Doctor Pinch is called upon. (That famous invocation “packetofcrispus” has already failed to work.) He has the (supposed) power to heal the body and cleanse the spirit of all those imaginary demons he persuades you are real. His zha-zham works on selected believers but not on Antipholus of Ephesus, who remains unmoved, until he is bundled into a wheelie bin along with one of the Dromios. A nice touch was the credit card machine to take $500 payment for his “cleansing” services.

The duke, essential for the resolution, is a lisping, white-bathrobed hedonist sipping a cocktail, who has to make sense of the story. Since changing costumes at this point just isn’t possible, the expedient of simply holding up the costume on a hanger solved the problem of presenting the character. The duke might well say, “This is stwange!”

The mayhem makes way for a series of moving meetings between four pairs of characters who each thought they would never see the other again, a real TJ, culminating in: “Embrace thy brother”. Silence, eyes closed, the rest of the cast leave the stage to the two Dromios, who open their eyes in wonder as they see themselves reflected in another human being, as if in a mirror.

Q&A

Lots of good questions, including why an all-male company? According to Tam Williams, it was an accident arising out of Edward Hall’s gathering a particular group of friends – who happened to be male – for a production. There was no political agenda. Another good question about how to play a woman, and I think Jonathan Livingstone said there’s the main problem of playing another character, and the fact that the character is of the opposite sex is just one more layer. One of the cast said it was all a bit of a “head fry” (actually a better expression than the unexpurgated version).

One girl asked who wrote it? Shakespeare, was the simple answer, and the question complimented this production, since it obviously came across as relatively modern. About 97% was original Shakespeare.

Why wheelie bins? The company’s interpretation of the “dark place” the two characters are taken to – I think this was a real “Ah-aah!” moment for the questioner, and goes to show how important this kind of work is, to develop these ways of thinking about theatre and story telling and so on.

Any teachers wanting an introduction to Shakespeare, this kind of Pocket production is a no-brainer with a company as talented as Propeller, precisely because it stretches the brain as far as it can go. Brilliant.

(A bonus in the bar afterwards, bumping into Tony Bell, who played Dr Pinch in the full version. Like the cast of The Belle’s Stratagem, I got the feeling the cast really enjoy working together, and that comes through in the quality of the show.)

06.07.11 The Comedy of Errors (Propeller at the Hampstead Theatre)

In the previous blog I didn’t quite get round to finishing writing up the production we saw in Norwich in February this year, so in this blog I’ll pick up where I left off with the same production second time round. Our two theatre-going American friends who came along on our recommendation loved the show – apparently, blokes dressing up as women for comedy has never taken off over there.

The clue’s in the title as to what kind of play this is, but as with much of Shakespeare, his comedy is rarely straightforward. In the very first scene we must digest a tragic tale, of a family torn asunder in several ways. That is bad enough, but then added into the mix is an enmity between two cities that makes the Arabs and Israelis seem like good neighbours. Simply for being a Syracusan, Egeon must die. The duke himself draws a gun and is about to execute Egeon when he decides instead to let the old man ramble on, seemingly interminably if done badly, but John Dougall mismatches a powerful voice to his broken spirit and tattered clothes and delivers a gripping prologue. So effective is his telling that the duke gives him till sundown to raise a ransom, and we don’t see them again until the final resolution.

Husband and wife (Antipholus of Ephesus and Adriana) are going through a sticky patch (not unlike the tension between Oberon and Titania and between Theseus and Hippolyta in A Midsummer Night’s Dream). Meanwhile, Antipholus of Syracuse and Dromio of Syracuse have been bantering on the themes of baldness and time (typically Shakespearean) when they see a strange woman looking their way (2.2.99–100):

. . . soft, who wafts us yonder?

Adriana has made a big entrance from the rear doors, taken a stance centre stage, and beckoned her wayward husband (as she thinks) with a gesture that is to wafting as steel is to gossamer. Then she embarks upon a big speech, the kind of diatribe her husband quite probably richly deserves, every line of which reminds us of her belief that she is actually addressing her husband. Of course her real husband would feign surprise, play the injured party, have a “who me?” expression. Of course he will throw glances of amazement at Dromio (and he return them) as she reveals a little too much of her private life in this public space.

The lookers-on serve a dual purpose. The first is to provide a prurient audience that on the final syllables of (2.2.131–32)

I am possess’d with an adulterate blot;
My blood is mingled with the crime of lust;

go “Ooh!” and “Aah!” in cringing unison. The second is to reinforce her belief, because they too mistake the Syracusans for their Ephesian brothers.

Antipholus responds to this long speech with a simple truth that is simply ignored (2.2.138):

Plead you to me, fair dame? I know you not . . .

By now, however, and given the long list of marital crimes of which he is accused, he would say that, wouldn’t he? He is proving her point with this further outrage, and this time Luciana steps in to take her sister’s part.

Antipholus reasons perfectly (2.2.157–58):

How can she thus then call us by our names? Unless it be by inspiration.

Inspiration here means “divine or magical revelation” and so a supernatural wildcard is thrown into the mix. What else could explain the carry on? There is, it seems, evidence of such forces at work, however inclined we are to purely natural explanations. As a means of acquiring knowledge, revelation, of course, does not exist (because the gods or spirits who would do the revealing do not exist), but in this fictional world, as well as in Elizabethan England, such a belief was more reasonable than it is today. Regardless of the degraded epistemic nature of revelation, the overwhelming tenor of the play is one of rational dialogue working towards the truth. In the end it is reason and a respect for the facts that resolve the play.

On (2.2.165)

Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine . . .

Adriana twines herself around Antipholus in classic style, crotch to crotch, with leg raised and wrapped round his hip. Antipholus, admirably, continues to reason (2.2.172–77):

To me she speaks; she moves me for her theme.
What, was I married to her in my dream?
Or sleep I now, and think I hear all this?
What error drives our eyes and ears amiss?
Until I know this sure uncertainty,
I’ll entertain the offered fallacy.

During this aside, the whole cast freeze frame and hold their pose while Antipholus unclasps himself and steps back to ask himself, is this real? In one of the key lines of the play he recognizes the possibility of fallibility. As Lynch argues (2004, p. 29):

Skepticism is the Janus face of our concern for truth. The very fact that objective truth is a goal of our inquiries is what opens the door to skepticism, and vice versa. The possibility that we could be wrong implies that truth is independent of our beliefs; and the objectivity of truth in turn implies that we could always be wrong.

As if to drive the point home, Antipholus slots himself back into Adriana’s embrace on “offered fallacy”, a phrase with added oomph in this all-male production.

The magical theme echoes A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and when Luciana asks Dromio to “go bid the servants spread for dinner” he concludes, again with some reason (2.2.180):

This is the fairy land.

The scene ends with Adriana unwittingly sowing a few more seeds of confusion, as she and her sister insist that Antipholus comes in for dinner and Dromio act as porter, letting no one enter. This could be a creaky plot twist, but there are good psychological reasons why Adriana doesn’t want to be disturbed, as she makes more than peace, she hopes, with her husband. Her lascivious enunciation of words like “shrive” makes clear what she has in mind, and privacy is what’s needed.

As one master–servant pair exit, the other enters, and the next scene (3.1) begins with master and servant at odds, each disbelieving the other’s account of recent events. They are soon united (as were their brothers in the previous scene) in their amazement at being locked out of their own house.

The front door is part of the rear wall pushed forward, with an intercom attached, into which both Dromio (of Ephesus) and Antipholus (of Ephesus) speak to Dromio (of Syracuse), in growing frustration (Antipholus of Syracuse being busy upstairs in the bedroom department). The presence of Angelo and Balthazar is important for all sorts of reasons. First, Antipholus has invited them in, which is why he’s trying to enter the house now. Second, Balthazar eventually counsels restraint, once Antipholus has called for a crowbar to force his way in (if he breaks down the door the twin Dromios will be discovered too soon). Third, Balthazar persuades Antipholus to “depart in patience” (3.1.102) and to return later to “know the reason of this strange restraint” (3.1.105), which again prevents premature discovery. Fourth, having public witnesses to any activity contributes epistemologically to the maintenance of a coherent web of beliefs – Balthazar points to “some cause to you unknown” (3.1.99). Fifth, it’s funny. Angelo and Balthazar are standing by, looking on at this crazy scene, and we can understand their confusion and sympathize with it because we know what’s really going on. Thomas Padden and Wayne Cater as Angelo and Balthazar are like Laurel and Hardy in more than just their respective shapes (lean and starved-looking versus rotund and well-fed), generating lots of comedy.

Propeller make sure we get the fart joke (”break it not behind” 3.1.84) with some excellent wafting, reminding us just how lowbrow Shakespeare can be, and by the end of the scene the intercom is buzzing constantly and being ripped out with a never-ending comedy cable spooling out, still buzzing as Antipholus stamps on it, manically. Even a piece of disconnected electronic equipment is possessed in Ephesus.

It’s not just intercoms that are misbehaving. Antipholus, legitimately as far as he’s concerned, fancies Luciana, and begins a long speech of love with “Sweet mistress” (3.2.29–52). Luciana, of course, sees things rather differently, although is a little more ready to step into what she thinks are her sister’s shoes than you might think. (If shrewish Adriana is not going to warm his bed, why not lonely Luciana?) She repulses him at first (3.2.54–54):

What, are you mad, that you do reason so?

Antipholus replies:

Not mad, but mated . . .

and when he commands – “Give me thy hand” (71) – she complies, only to retract her arm speedily, once it has been kissed. Got a big laugh.

As Luciana exits Dromio returns with tales of the kitchen wench, with wonder written on his face as if he has just visited all the continents of the earth, which in a sense he has. Richard Frame delivers a fantastic comic interlude, utterly pointless plotwise but epistemically priceless: the knowledge he recounts testifies to his working senses, and goes to further establishing his capacity for forming rational beliefs about the external world, this particular world being made of grease and tallow (“it’s not funny” is his extra-textual deadpan as he paces out the width of the stage to measure her width “from hip to hip” (101)). He returns to centre stage and, arms outstretched, he revolves them into a vertical position, concluding: “she is spherical” (105). Another big laugh.

Actually, such jesting is not quite immaterial to the plot, since it sets up Angelo’s final line, after he has handed over the gold chain (a very bling triple looped affair, entirely in keeping with Thomas Padden’s gold-toothed, stubble-chinned, lamé-jacket-wearing, shifty-looking character, far removed from the respectable city gents that were the forerunners of bankers – oh, perhaps not so far removed) (162):

You are a merry man, sir; fare you well.

Angelo is clearly used to the Ephesian twins jesting with each other and their friends, and simply takes this in his stride. He is not about to ask too many questions or hang around to trip up the plot.

By the interval, we hadn’t seen anything of Tony Bell, but he came on stage to chivvy us all out into the bar to see the cast perform a medley of 80s classics, with I think most of them taking a solo turn. Brilliant, and they weren’t shy about saying how much they’d raised on their tour for charity, so the buckets were soon filling up to the sound of  “Material girl”. An all-male company ending on “Sisters are doing it for themselves” rounded off by far and away the best interval ever. Not much rest for the cast, but more great entertainment for us. In Norwich, they followed us down the stairs and onto the stage via the stalls. Here in Hampstead they were first back through the doors. Dominic Tighe as the Officer was one of the first back on stage, singing the bossa nova song The Girl from Ipanema, except she is from Epidamium and sitting in the front row.

Given that music saturates this production, it’s entirely appropriate that the chain – one of the essential epistemic props – has its very own musical signature, a ting that sounds every time it’s mentioned, a running joke that gets funnier as it gets more frequent.

Entrances are dramatic opportunities. We’ve already had Adriana’s, which left the Syracusans’ jaws well dropped. This time they are amazed by the Courtesan’s entrance: Kelsey Brookfield in afro wig, playboy bunny ears, miniskirt, tightly corsetted pneumatic bosom, eyelashes that could stand in for the steel hawsers on the Golden Gate bridge, and a pose inspired by a cross between the streets of San Francisco and Raymond’s Revue Bar.

She is not a character right-thinking citizens are supposed to approve of, though her reception – “Satan, avoid!” (4.3.39) – immediately attracts some sympathy from us. Being accused of being “Mistress Satan” by a stranger is a bit harsh, especially since she happens to be epistemically crucial, providing a rational commentary on the Syracusans’ behaviour (see Sell A Door at the Greenwich Playhouse [ADD ref]).

She is also important in setting up the most striking (literally) character in the whole play, by provoking talk of the devil. Pinch is listed as a schoolmaster, but Tony Bell plays him (worringly convincingly) as a revivalist evangelical faith-healing preacher man from Bible-belt Barnsley or thereabouts, and his entrance outdoes all others: dry ice machine on full blast as he swims through the smoke from the rear in a blaze of light. Ironically, as soon as this man of God appears all hell breaks loose. He is keen on casting out devils, so first he must of course find some, and he enquires of the poor lady just in front of us in the front row: “Do you have the devil inside you, madam?”

In Norwich, he appealed to the devils Delia-style – “Let’s be having you!” – and to Norwich City Council to cleanse the city of them. In Hampstead, the devils were commanded to get back to Peckham, which might be a bit rough for even a seasoned demon. Dromio and Antipholus of Ephesus have just been arguing over the rope’s end, on which the master believes the servant has spent 500 ducats. They are, to say the least, agitated, and good candidates for accusing of being possessed, if you’re in the exorcism racket. So, on come a couple of wheelie bins, courtesy of Camden Borough Council, and Pinch asks the devil-woman: “Did you put the cat in the bin, madam?”

Authority in the person of the Officer is somewhat sidelined as Pinch works his tricks, and undermined every time he strides across the stage to arrest a character by his squeaking leather trousers (a duck whistle, I think, blown in time amplified the squeak). Again, epistemically speaking, this is crucial, since authority often represents security of knowledge as well as law enforcement.

Antipholus, in the bin, is in a rage, naturally, and bounces along, bunny jumping towards Dromio, one of the objects of his anger. They are wheeled off, and Pinch doesn’t exit of his own accord either, but is assisted off stage: “Have you come to take me away?” That’s not the last we see of him, but for the moment sanity resumes, until Dromio and Antipholus miraculously reappear (4.4.137–38):

LUCIANA. God for thy mercy, they are loose again.
ADRIANA. And come with naked swords.

Except of course these are the Syracusans, not the Ephesians, and for swords they have a plastic spade and a toy net, which they swoosh around like Elizabethan light sabres. They exit and then come back on to meet the merchant and Angelo. Dromio brandishes his net, but the merchant (I think) takes out a lighter and sets off a small blaze, which finally makes them seek sanctuary in the priory.

Whether they would have done so if they had seen the abbess is another matter. The final entrance doesn’t quite top the earlier ones, but Chris Myles as the abbess Emilia cuts another striking figure, a high white collar and wimple affair framing his face, a little black dress leaving lots of fishnet stockinged leg on show, and purple calf-length boots. She is not the stereotypical holy woman, at least in appearance, but she shows why she is in charge of the priory with her first words (5.1.38):

Be quiet, people.

She soon turns agony aunt, and seems well-equipped to advise Adriana on her marital problems. Now, we are used to celibate priests dishing out all kinds of advice about how people should conduct their sex lives (or even whether they should have any kind of sex life), and we rightly mock them for their trouble, and restrain their influence wherever we can. As we will soon find out, however, the abbess is not entirely without experience in this department of human life, and shows some insight in her questioning.

Her counsel consists not merely of words (5.1.57–59):

ABBESS. You should for that have reprehended him.
ADRIANA. Why, so I did.
ABBESS. Ay, but not rough enough.

She flexes her whip and has a glint in her eye. Even the feisty Adriana is no match for this woman (which is perhaps why, when she later demands justice “against the Abbess” (5.1.135), she grinds the word out through gritted teeth).

The return of the duke signals that the plot is winding up to its resolution. Egeon is on too, silent for the moment, awaiting execution. A messenger enters and ends with “they will kill the conjurer” (5.1.159). Adriana in a couple of lines sums up the epistemological nature of this play (5.1.180–81):

Peace, fool, thy master and his man are here,
And that is false thou dost report to us.

Her beliefs about the nature of the world are well justified, and she therefore believes them to be true, and the messenger’s to be false, and she reacts as many do to the idiocy of others who hold false beliefs. As Lynch (2004, p. 24) points out:

We assume that our mind more or less perceives the world as it is.

But of course we can be wrong, and all the characters will soon discover this universal and rather important truth about themselves.

Rather overshadowing this delicate philosophical enquiry is the final appearance of Pinch, who comes rushing on stage, starkers as well as stark raving mad, with a lit sparkler stuck up his bum (actually held in place by a strategically placed hand, else we all would have been shamed). He dashes across the stage and exits through the auditorium, brushing close to those sitting on the row ends. Spectacular in all sorts of ways, and surprising how bright a sparkler can be in a darkened space.

Sam Swainsbury as Antipholus of Ephesus, by this time beside himself, delivers a highly charged speech summarizing all his actions and beliefs, laying his rational case with some emotion before the duke (5.1.216–19):

My liege, I am advised what I say;
Neither disturbed with the effect of wine,
Nor heady-rash, provoked with raging ire. . .

Some agree with him, others don’t, the chain figures prominently (the tinging becomes incessant) and tempers fray, so everyone is at someone else’s throat. The duke intervenes (5.1.271–72), Richard Clothier dryly commenting as he observes the mayhem around him:

Why, what an intricate impeach is this!
I think you all have drunk of Circe’s cup.

On “intricate impeach” everyone freezes, forming a tableaux of one-on-one violence. Luciana (who has previously produced a set of numchuks before going all chest-pumping pub carpark) is mid karate kick, leg raised and the edge of her foot an inch away from the face of one of the Dromios, who’s bent over backwards to avoid the kick.

Once Emilia brings on the Syracusans, all begins to be resolved. Brother is reunited with brother, wife with husband, parents with children. This kind of thing always gets the needle pushing into the wet zone on the TJ dial, but the waterworks really start when the stage clears to leave the twin Dromios alone, to marvel at each other. The final lines, spoken by Dromio of Ephesus, are a wonderful celebration of unity and amity (5.1.428–29):

We came into the world like brother and brother,
And now let’s go hand in hand, not one before another.

Outstanding.