Venice Preserv’d
The Daily Telegraph 13th April 1984, John Barber
Not one welcome gift but two. Having lately added the remarkable Michael Pennington
to its strength, the National Theatre has now signed on Ian McKellan, a heroic actor
unique in his generation.
These two splendid artists rise to the challenge of Thomas Otway’s “Venice Preserv’d”
at the Lyttelton – a sensation in its day (1682) when conspiracies against Charles
II made it painfully topical.
It tells of a plot against the tyrannical Venetian state, supported for a time by
two lifelong friends. Mr McKellan – gaunt, raw-boned and defiantly recalcitrant –
plays misanthropic Pierre, whose nerves have always been set jangling by the vileness
of the world.
Mr Pennington is Jaffier, the gentler weaker soul, a man of tender feelings and wavering
loyalties. He is persuaded by the wife he adores to reveal the plot to the Senate.
When Pierre is arrested, he cuts his remorseful friend to the heart by denouncing
him as a traitor. But Pierre forgives him before they both go to their death.
A bare synopsis can give no idea of a play which depends on verse so eloquent it
often catches you by the throat and reminds you that Goldsmith ranked Otway next
to Shakespeare.
Peter gill’s taut and thrilling production goes all out, unashamed, for the high-toned
magnificence of the great speeches. This is not humdrum stuff but the drama of mighty
oaths, curses to heaven, breast-knocking confessions, pitiful prayers and cries of
“O my poor heart, when wilt thou break?”
Dramatically, it opposes senator to revolutionary, father to daughter, wife to husband
and, above all, friend to friend. It is so well written and played that what might
have been bombast leaves one exalted. It is as near grand opera as the theatre can
get without music. If reality is not like this, so much the worse for reality!
The piece is grimly set, in a dark crumbling Venetian interior, by Alison Chitty
– at once frightening and imposing, Jane Lapotaire, as Jaffier’s wife, reminds us
of her aptitude for eloquent avowals of passion. The notorious sado-masochist scene
for a corrupt senator (Hugh Paddick) and his mistress (Stephanie Beacham) is the
only tame episode in a revival which otherwise aims for the big bow-wow and comes
off resoundingly well.
The Guardian 14th April 1984, Michael Billington
Watching a fringe production of Otway’s “Venice Preserv’d” two years ago, I recorded
my astonishment at the play’s neglect by our major companies. So let me be the first
to say that Peter Gill’s crepuscular new production at the Lyttelton is the most
thrilling classic revival the National has given us in many a season, and that the
central trio of performances by Michael Pennington, Ian McKellan, and Jane Lapotaire
proves that the art of heroic acting is not dead.
What I like is Mr Gill’s downright, unapologetic approach. From the first moment,
when the central doors of Alison Chitty’s brooding, ruin-arched set burst open, we
are thrust into a world of forceful passion. And this seems to me entirely fitting
for Otway, whose theme is betrayed friendship, ruined love and political corruption.
He shows us Jaffier and Pierre, two Venetian malcontents, harbouring personal grudges,
joining a plot to kill the city’s Senate. But when Jaffier’s wife, Belvidera, is
seduced by a fellow-conspirator, this Brutus-like waverer is spurred into revealing
the coup to the Duke and Senators. What follows is a positive ecstasy of remorse
and atonement, in which Jaffier comes to realise that his love for his shopped friend
is even greater that that for his wife and child.
Otway’s 1681 verse tragedy may derive from Titus Oate’s Popish plot of three years
earlier; but what makes it a dark masterpiece is its ability to present us with a
series of agonising moral choices in bold, unashamed outline. Seizing on this, Mr
Gill calls forth a style of acting that recalls the Zoffany painting of Garrick and
Mrs Cibber, but that at the same time acknowledges the play’s homo-erotic undertow.
Thus Michael Pennington’s superb Jaffier is from the start a man of intemperate passion
in silken cuffs who is easily incited by Pierre to seek revenge for being reduced
to penury by his father-in-law. But Mr Pennington saves his best until after the
betrayal when he utters to his wife a rafter-shaking cry of “Where’s my friend, my
friend, thou smiling mischief?” And it is no accident that in his death he falls
on Pierre’s body in voluptuous union.
Ian McKellan’s Pierre is a no less striking creation: a single minded Cassius-liked
destroyer inflamed by the idea of Venice, the Adriatic whore, being devoured by flame
and avid for ruination. But although he presents us with a man who equates liberty
with chaos, he also evokes Pierre’s personal valour and his hunger for reconciliation.
It is a fascinating performance, in that it is full of restrained bravura that leaves
to Mr Pennington the hand-on-heart approach. And Jane Lapotaire’s Belvidera completes
the triangle with a bold, forthright style that denotes tears, for instance, with
the backs of hands stretched across the brow. Otway’s play calls for unbuttoned,
emotional acting.
But Otway is cunning enough to give us evidence of the sexual corruption that vindicates
the complots; and the famous scenes of perverse comedy came off excellently thanks
to Hugh Paddick’s portrayal of a bent, grovelling masochistic Senator. Mr Paddick
crawls on all four, barks like a dog, craves the whip and is thrown into ecstasy
at the prospect of a blow from the foot of Stephanie Beacham’s hoity-toity mistress.
This is comic and pathetic at the same time; and is works because it is handled with
the same frank, declaratory, fearless style that characterises Mr Gill’s whole approach.
Out of a dark, sombre background emerges a production that is strong, clear, and
ripe with the kind of passion which often seems a stranger to our stage.
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