At a time when cast sizes are diminishing, and actors playing many roles over an evening has become the norm, there is something potentially thrilling about a cast of 20 on the stage. But quantity is not always synonymous with quality and so it proves with The Faction’s latest staging.
The Faction’s productions are typically presented without sets and with few props, and the large cast come into their own when playing inanimate objects. But too often there is so much acting going on around the edges of the stage that it’s horribly distracting. Not everybody is up to their roles and there is a considerable gap between the better, often more experienced actors, and some of the rest.
Christopher York’s Richard is always watchable and boasts an intriguing approach to the would-be king’s disability in which psychological uncertainty has a physical manifestation. But he has a tendency to gabble the lines as if speed equals modernity.
What’s odd is that in some cases an actor is entirely indifferent in one scene but then makes a mark in another. The characterisations of Elizabeth, Margaret and the Duchess eventually rise above a production that is lacking in both urgency of purpose and delivery.
There are also a number of misplaced and giggle-inducing sound effects: when the wounds on the corpse of Henry VI suddenly start to bleed, it sounds as if somebody is having a piddle; when Clarence is drowned in a butt of malmsey wine, it sounds as if he’s being executed by a flushing toilet. Despite a few nice moments – one of Clarence’s executioners’ overenthusiasm for the task brings a neat comic tone to the proceedings – on the whole this is not just “woe for England” but for Shakespeare too.
- At the New Diorama, London, until 6 February. Box office: 020-7383 9034.
