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Author
Friedrich
Schiller
Director
Michael Grandage
Music
Adam Cork
Philip
II of Spain
Derek Jacobi
Duchess
of Olivarez
Una Stubbs
Queen
Elizabeth
Claire Price
Don
Carlos
Richard
Coyle
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Gielgud
Theatre
28
January - 30 April 2005 |
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Early
reports from Sheffield told
that Mike Poulton's and Michael
Grandage's version of Schiller's
Don
Carlos
was a runaway success, playing
to packed audiences and rave
reviews.
There's much to praise in
this production, but not without
some significant reservations.
The most spectacularly pervasive
elements of the production
are the set and the lighting.
The play's claustrophobic
concentration on the spy-
and betrayal-ridden court
of Philip II is magnificently
conveyed both when Don Carlos
in is in prison, and, perhaps
more impressively, in the
great early scene when Philip
II enters. Even more impressive
is in Act V when the ninety-year
old Grand Inquisitor gives
his terrifying advice to Philip
II, the deeply troubled king
of Spain, and much more besides.
Schiller's play is arguably
more about Philip II than
Don Carlos. It is an exploration
of freedom of conscience,
loyalty and oppression. It
invents a ruler whose commands
are law for his subjects,
and whose religion will admit
no deviation from its own,
apparently divine, regulations
and precepts. But Philip is
torn between the iron rod
of his rule, and its successful
subjugation of the Spaniards,
and his much suppressed love
for his son, Don Carlos, whom
he has deprived of his expected
wife, Elizabeth de Valois.
Don Carlos,in his turn, has
espoused a more permissive
view of the growing Protestantism
in the Netherlands. Politics
and sexual jealousy permeate
the play from frisson to frisson.
Derek Jacobi gives a masterful
performance as Philip II,
particularly in the scenes
when he appears to have crushed
his feelings and affections,
and rules without mercy. He
has to remain master of his
malicious court, and bear
in mind that he is as much
the creator of the oppressive
atmosphere as its victim.
The price Philip pays for
such subjugation is isolation.
Alone, for a scene in Act
3, he asks God for a confidante
of "pure and open heart,
of judgment clear, and eye
unprejudiced", but he
cannot find one because none
dare speak anything other
than what the king wants to
hear. Only God, whose "eye
doth penetrate all hidden
thingsÖcan grant the boon."
He is not perceptive enough
to realise that Don Carlos
might be that man. In the
end he is urged by Carlos's
closest friend, Rodrigo, the
Marquis of Posa, to put his
trust in him instead. Also
in Act 3, Posa comes to Philip
and tries to persuade Philip
that tolerating religious
difference in the Netherlands
would help secure Spain's
future and continued greatness.
Posa's argument is a very
Enlightenment one about human
nature and liberal government.
It would probably not have
been entertained by the real
Philip, and was never going
to be supported by the Catholic
church in the strife-ridden
late sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. Such views in Schiller's
day stood on the brink of
the French Revolution, in
Philip II's day they were
tantamount to heresy and inevitable
death.
This great scene of ideas
when Philip keeps reassuring
the ever bolder Posa that
he will listen to his ideas
without becoming a Nero to
him is at the heart of Schiller's
play and is the counterpoint
to the Act 5 scene between
Philip and the Grand Inquisitor.
The impassioned Posa tries
hard to move the stern Philip
and appeals to his sense of
a king's destiny. "Amidst
a thousand kings, a kind indeed!...
The kings of Europe pay homage
to the name of Spain. Be you
the leader of these kings.
One pen-stroke now, one motion
of your hand, can new create
the earth!- but grant us liberty
of thought... Look round on
all the glorious face of nature,
on freedom it is founded ‚
see how rich, through freedom,
it has grown. The great Creator
bestows upon the work its
drop of dew, and gives free-will
a triumph, in abodes where
lone corruption reigns."
These are great thoughts.
They are the thoughts behind
the Schiller words Beethoven
set in his 9th symphony. They
are the underlying thoughts
of Beethoven's Fidelio. Yet,
the night I saw Don Carlos,
the audience tittered . Why?
because though Jacobi as Philip
and Elliot Cowan as Posa produced
the best character-portrayals
of the evening, even they
could not quite live up to
such a scene of ideas, and
offered not so much the "words,
as the implication of the
words" as Kenneth Tynan
once remarked. Of course,
the audience was shallow not
to remember that every step
Posa took could have cost
him instant execution; maybe
that's what the audience found
funny, forgetting how the
speech would sound in Iran,
Zimbabwe or even the United
States. But they were not
wholly to blame, as too often
such ideas were presented
in so over-acted a way as
to seem ridiculous. Schiller's
play is a play of ideas and
should be played as such or
not at all. It should not
be played as a melodrama set
in a series of dungeons.
Poor characterisation and
over-acting were the order
of the day in far too much
of the play. Richard Coyle
as Don Carlos was amongst
the worst, hurling himself
dementedly about the stage
in a kind of manic representation
of a distraught lover and
frustrated son. You would
never think his Don Carlos
was capable of any serious
thought, yet Posa merely puts
to Philip ideas that originated
with Don Carlos. Don Carlos
could be the new king with
tolerant religious views,
the king leading kings, but
he is frustrated and mistrusted
by his tyrannous father, Philip.
His is dignified and tragic
role, not one that should
be played as a moody teenager
frustrated in love.
In places, other characters
seemed more at home with Schiller's
mood, though neither Elizabeth,
nor particularly the perfidious
Eboli, carry any conviction.
I kept remembering how they
appeared in Verdi's opera
and wished the director and
actors had taken his lessons
on board. But maybe Verdi
in the 1850s and 60s found
freedom more urgently serious
than the producers of the
play.
Only in one sustained scene,
as opposed to occasional moments,
was the terror, and magnificence,
of Schiller's play really
compelling. This was the Act
5 encounter between Philip
and the Cardinal Grand Inquisitor.
Ninety, blind and leaning
on sticks his presence was
chilling, and Peter Eyre's
portrayal of this aged servant
of the Catholic church was
awesomely compelling. Here
Philip's power confronts the
altogether greater power of
the church. Posa appealed
to nature in his confrontation
with Philip, the Inquisitor
asserts "The voice of
nature avails not over faith."
The scene in Schiller's mind
resonates with King Saul in
the Bible consulting Samuel.
Like Saul over David, Philip
is perplexed by Don Carlos;
and like Saul, Philip wants
to kill his son, but with
what justification. The Church
cannot justify his vengeance
on Carlos; this would be murder.
Carlos is a heretic in the
eyes of the Church, and should
be tried and punished by the
Church not by the King. The
price of Philip's kingship
is his obedience to the one
power that transcends his.
Philip's increasing irresolution
is countered by the rock-like
and magisterial presence of
the Church's representative.
This was a great scene, superbly
played and powerfully lit.
Oh! that the whole production
could have matched it.
Roderick Swanston |
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