The fear of financial ruin and loss of social status permeates Philip Massinger's 380-year-old romp, The City Madam, giving this savage comedy a sharp contemporary edge. The Royal Shakespeare Company gathered a formidably talented group of actors at the Swan (many of them also appearing in Gregory Doran's Cardenio), and they relish this ruthless and rollicking satire on a society driven by rivalry between the newly rich merchant class and the old aristocracy.
Americans
Massinger wrote for Shakespeare’s former theatre company The King’s Men. He was a scattergun satirist who in this play also takes a pop at astrologers and brutal law enforcers, and includes possibly the first dig at the Americans.
The convoluted plot centres on Luke Frugal, who has wasted his fortune and now works as a servant in his rich brother's household, where he is meanly treated by his sister-and-law and nieces. Behind his reformed exterior, he plots with servants to defraud his brother. Meanwhile, that brother made weary by his haughty wife's financial excesses and suspicious of his brother's pious new image, pretends to retire to a monastery. He then returns with his daughters' two rejected suitors in disguise as American Indians (seeking a Christian education) to observe how Luke uses his new found power and fortune.
Dominic Hill's fast-paced, 17th Century costumed production hinges on the role of Luke, and Jo Stone-Fewings emerges from the RSC ranks with a performance of such charisma, energy and passion that it should take his career to a new level. At first he wins the audience's sympathy, but with the phrase "religion, conscience, charity, farewell," wealth and opportunity turn him into a vengeful silver-tongued devil before our very eyes in a production that also makes much use of magic tricks and illusion.
Royal Wedding
Lady Frugal (Sara Crowe) and her daughters (Lucy Briggs-Owen, Matti Houghton) are a monstrous flutter of fans and satin gowns, whilst Nicholas Day brings an engaging fruitiness to the role of elderly aristocrat Lord Lacy.
The broadest comedy comes from the suitors, Alex Hassell as the screeching dandy Sir Maurice and Felix Hughes as his rough bluff northern rival Mr Plenty. Christopher Ettridge becomes an audience favourite as the sharp-tongued servant Holdfast. Pippa Nixon got a big laugh as the Cockney chav prostitute Shave'em, leafing through a Royal Wedding souvenir copy of Hello magazine to find the perfect new carriage.
A puppet show laid on by the 'Indians' seemed a superfluous addition to a three-hour play (including interval) but was certainly ingenious.
Audiences may bridle at the play's neat moralistic conclusion which has the womenfolk promising to be obedient and modest, whilst Luke Frugal is stripped to his underpants, spat upon and cast out in the snow. But when it deals with greed and pretension, The City Madam is a period piece with plenty to say to a modern audience.
It continues in repertoire at the Swan until October 4.
Leon Burakowski - A British journalist based in central England with 28 years experience in newspapers. Writes about travel, theatre, technology, history, ...
