THEATRE: Peter Frost
DARIO FO is primarily an entertainer, and his Elizabeth (Almost by Chance a Woman) is just that: entertainment, albeit it lengthy and convoluted. But the buzz on the streets is not so much the script’s success, as the enormous talent it has unearthed.
Robyn Scott, making her stage debut as the aging monarch obsessed with the conniving Earl of Essex, has almost indecent quantities of talent, insight and passion for one so young. A 1995 UCT graduate, this actress manages an over-60 with the aplomb of a Judy Dench or Glenda Jackson, yet crucially, fully understands the nature of anarchic Fo’s Marxist, anti-establishment message and his popularist feel.
Elizabeth is his sideways squiz at not just the enigmatic woman — monarch, lover, villain, megalomaniac — but the dizzyingly complex politics of the time, too. Fo’s fascination is, as always, with women in power (Female Parts, Woman Alone), exposing the hypocrisy of power (Accidental Death of an Anarchist) and the humanity behind even the most grandiose of faades. Good Queen Bess is great fodder for all of the above.
His approach to British material is predictably popularist. Aided by Gillian Hanna’s sensitive 1987 English translation from the Italian, the play becomes a contemporary piece making full use of traditional English working-class language (Bess calls her Essex ”a rentboy” in a fit of pique).
It takes place in 1601, during a coup d’etat organised by the Earl of Essex, Elizabeth’s ex-lover. The scene is her bedchamber, from where she can view the goings on of court.
However, Bess’s primary preoccupation is not with Essex’s treachery, but with his alluring beauty. She is infatuated with him and decries the fact that she is aging, convinced it is this that has sent him running from her. In an effort to regain her firmness, if not beauty, she and faithful lady-in-waiting Martha (Anthea Thompson) co-opt the services of one Lady Grosslady (Neels Coetzee), a borderline sorceress who dispenses hideous concoctions to aid beauty.
Grosslady, always played in drag, is Fo’s favourite creation, and she speaks a bizarre form of Euro-funigalore. The problem is that the role must be performed to perfection, or it doesn’t work. Coetzee’s showing is accomplished, but ultimately not enough. Much of the rhythm-based language goes astray, lost in bad phrasing or unfamiliarity with the script.
No such quibble with the other lead: Anthea Thompson as Martha. Her character is sense personified, a foil to Elizabeth’s ranting and her violent temper. But Thompson finds nuances in this woman which make her as interesting as Elizabeth, especially in the opening sequences.
A fine play, tainted by an iffy script towards the end, but directed, staged and performed well enough to warrant a recommendation.
Elizabeth (Almost by Chance a Woman) is at the Nico Arena in Cape Town until March 30