Anders Lustgarten’s big, bold new play juxtaposes Caravaggio’s Naples and modern-day Bootle. The link is the artist’s famous altarpiece, which gives the play its title. While Caravaggio paints it, Mickey, a Bootle boy, seeks to prove to his dying grandfather that the biblical precepts it embodies can still be enacted in the modern world. It’s an ingenious idea that sometimes works, but leads to contrived plotting.
Much the best scene, worthy of I, Daniel Blake, shows Mickey and his grandad being threatened with expulsion from their home because of the council’s mandate to sell off higher-value properties: this both shows the cruelty of current housing policy and prompts Mickey to circumvent the order by following the New Testament principle of: “I was a stranger and ye took me in.” At other times, as when Mickey’s absentee dad turns out to be part of the property development programme, you feel even Dickens might have blushed at the use of coincidence. Similarly, scenes showing Caravaggio at work in 17th-century Naples oscillate between those that capture his reverence for people – such as ones in which he uses a prostitute as a model – and others that overplay his intemperate rage. But, whatever the play’s flaws, it boasts a large heart.
Erica Whyman’s production, aided by Tom Piper’s design, has a sweeping momentum, even if it could afford to turn down the volume. Patrick O’Kane as Caravaggio rages incessantly and it was something of a relief to encounter Allison McKenzie as his independent-minded model and Edmund Kingsley as his quietly dignified patron. The modern scenes are held together by the impressively assured TJ Jones as Mickey, Tom Georgeson as his principled grandad and Gyuri Sarossy as his suddenly returning father: the scene where the three of them compare leading football teams to political parties is hilariously funny and shows Lustgarten even putting the boot into his beloved Arsenal.
It’s a far from perfect play, but one that actively embraces the compassion within Caravaggio’s masterpiece.
- At Swan theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, until 10 February. Box office: 01789 403493.
