Antony and Cleopatra
Haymarket Theatre, London

King Lear
Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon

Stuart Simpson

The Royal Shakespeare Company is currently in a process of reinvention. The bricks and mortar side, the creation of a 'theatre village' in Stratford-upon-Avon, will not be complete for several years. This £100 million project involves the redesign of the Company's theatres, the creation of a permanent home for the newly formed RSC Academy, and even a traffic policy.

There are, however, more immediate, and perhaps more significant effects of the Company's new vision, some of which are embodied in the productions of Antony and Cleopatra, and the RSC Academy's debut production, King Lear.

One of the Company's new initiatives has been to implement a more flexible approach towards its contractual agreements with its actors. The traditional two year stint, involving prolonged periods in which the actors are sent to Coventry, sorry Stratford-upon-Avon, are being rethought. Although it may seem at times that every actor upon the stage was once a patient in Holby City, or a mugger on The Bill, the fact is that the RSC's terms have limited the options open to its actors, and more importantly limited the range of actors that would sign with the RSC.

This may not have been of great importance for attracting lesser know actors, who understand that having Hamlet RSC on their CV is more advantageous that Villain No.3 The Bill. However, any actor with the possibility of doing a Shakleton or a Bond movie will never be seen in an RSC production. To its credit the RSC seems to have taken note of the fact that today anyone who is anyone now wants to do a stint on the London stage. At the time of writing you can catch Woody Harrelson, Glenn Close, and John Hurt among others.

The Company's production of Antony and Cleopatra is the first step towards what may become a more high-profile presence in London. The shows publicity made much of the leads' 'star' status. Stuart Wilson performs with the company after ten years in Hollywood. A comparison may be made between the Royal National Theatre and the new self-promoting RSC. The National has made it clear that one of its main objectives is to entice the young to its shows; hence the recent Transformation season was widely judged a success based on the demographics of the audience rather than the quality of the productions. However, having decided to move from the Coventry of London, the Barbican, to the Haymarket Theatre in heart of the West End, the RSC seems to want to make it clear that this is still the RSC. Antony and Cleopatra is not a crowd puller, and rarely a crowd pleaser, and neither Stuart Wilson nor Sinead Cusack are in the same league as Glenn Close. Both actors have a proven record with the RSC. This is not just a populist stunt, is the message.

Unfortunately, the performances of Cusack and Wilson were the disappointments of the production. Cusack, rather than the embodiment of the sensual freedom and civilised decadence of the East, come across as more of a nuisance, an annoyance to be shaken off by Antony. It was hard to believe Antony when he remarked 'I' the east my pleasure lies'. Wilson, playing Antony, may have looked the part, but his stint in Hollywood seems to robbed him of the knowledge that in a large theatre you need to sound the part, and speak up. Antony was the quietest character on the stage. Hence, upon Antony's death Cleopatra's words, 'The breaking of so great a thing should make/A greater crack', seem to be more of reproach upon Wilson than an expression of grief. The star of the show was the lesser-known Clive Wood, playing Enobarbus, who seemed to take upon himself that which Wilson had dropped; the weight of embodying the sense of an honourable man, whose time has passed.

The Company may want to take note that although absence makes the heart grow fonder, an absence of ten years or more from the stage means directors must be wary of habits their actors have picked up from the screen, habits that are not transferable to the stage. You may be able to speak softly to a camera, you cannot speak softly to a theatre audience. Having said this, if the RSC is successful in luring Judi Dench or Ian McKellen back from Hollywood, the occasional mediocre performance may be tolerated.

Not content with bringing back the cream of former RSC actors to the stage, the Company's new project, the Academy, hopes to create a new generation of classically trained actors. The company of 16 actors have all graduated from drama school this year, but the choice of King Lear as the debut, directed by Declan Donnellan (Cheek by Jowl), is a clear statement that those involved should not be considered as amateurs. King Lear is perhaps one demanding of plays for both actors and director, so to chose this play before all others is a clear attempt to aim high, an attempt which in many respects pays off.

There are faults with the production. The main fault being that King Lear himself descends into childishness. However, any production that can represent the truly apocalyptic nature of King Lear, his descent into a increasingly knowing madness as the world seems to tear itself apart around his ears, a descent that leads to an ambiguous salvation which still leaves the world broken; any production that can even approach this would be remarkable.

The Academy's production is no masterpiece, and some reviews have more or less dimissed it, but what is really noticeable from the production is its inventiveness. Gloucester and Kent show sides of themselves you may not have suspected were even there. But above all else, it is the fool that makes the show.

Gloucester is a good man placed in situation where his strong sense of duty, of right and wrong force him to act as a traitor to save his king. He is duped into turning his back on his honest son, an act that breaks his heart. Well, this is how it normally works, Donellan has different ideas. Gloucester is an overbearing bully, and his sense of duty is mere self-importance. Rather than being unfairly duped by Edmond, he had it coming. His fall is of his own making, it is his distrustful nature that leads him to believe the worst of Edgar; 'What paper are you reading…Give me the letter Sir'. Gloucester is not a simple honest man who is shown the true nature of the world, but a selfish bully who has been broken by the world. 'You see how the world goes' says Lear, 'I see it feelingly'.

Kent is joy to watch. Normally he is portrayed as the 'true blank of thine eye', the moral centre of the play, almost untouched by the events that are destroying the world around him. Banished from the kingdom by the King he has loyally and truly served and loved all his life, he returns a few scenes later without a beard and with a strange accent to take up his former post. When this Kent returns he gives the fool a run for his money, donning a Groucho Marx like get-up, inch-thick black-rimmed glasses and a blond mop of a wig, along with a ridiculous cockney accent. We are given a sense that Kent will do anything to ingratiate himself with the King; he become as rudderless as the rest of the world. Only his sense of a world lost remains from what was the 'true blank'.

King Lear is often described as a rather dour play, which is understandable given the theme of a world at war with itself. It is certainly not devoid of comedy, however, and the Academy's production is possibly the funniest I've ever seen. The fool becomes a Blackpool nightclub entertainer, complete with greasy slicked back hair, microphone and catch phrase ('Where's my coxcomb'). At one stage Goneril's tirade against the king and his retinue is entirely drowned out by the laughter of the audience as the fool, sat on the king's knee like a ventriloquist's dummy mocks her in the most debased manner imaginable. When the comedy of this scene works, and the fool becomes center stage, the tragedy of the king's decline hits home just that bit harder.

The Academy's King Lear is a brave production, and it is hoped that many more will follow. We are still the beginning of the process of what may turn out to be a more innovative and vibrant RSC. Clearly tampering with an institution such as the RSC is a risky business. If it ain't broke don't fix it, may seem like a safer option. However, the RSC has considerably more room to maneuver than institutions such as the National. The RSC will almost certainly always have an audience, even if it may be made up of tourists and school students.

The RSC proudly boasts that a large proportion of its audience are young people. This is not a consequence of any initiative on the part of the RSC, other than the fact they they produce Shakespeare plays. All this means that their productions can be free to a certain extent from the current obsession with courting an audience. The Academy itself is set up with actors, not spectators in mind. So long as the play's the thing, we may expect great things to come.

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