Bell Shakespeare, 2014
 |
Photo
by Michele Mossop for
|
Showing posts with label John Bell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Bell. Show all posts
05/04/2014
Faustus
 |
| Photo by Rob Maccoll for Queensland Theatre Company. |
While strictly
not Shakespeare, Michael Gow’s adaptation of Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus fused the Elizabethan tragedy with Goethe’s Faust, as well as fragments of puppetry,
opera, video projections and a devilishly good dose of audacity, while seeming
to utilise every theatrical style imaginable. John Bell dancing in a steel-blue
suit as Mephistopheles, Ben Winspear’s rock-god Faustus; a trio of devils
singing a Schubert lieder, and a
beautifully school-girlish Gretchen in Kathryn Marquet,
gave us a vision of hell quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. It was
sexy, dangerous, edgy and above all, deliciously good fun.
Much Ado About Nothing
 |
Photo
by Wendy McDougall for
|
Directed by
John Bell, Shakespeare’s battle-of-the-wits (and -sexes), suitably played by
Toby Schmitz and Blazey Best, erupted in a riot of triumph, colour and joy, set
in a mid-twentieth century Italian villa. Beatrice and Benedict’s verbal
sparring was a match for their physical antics, and as they fell for each other
despite their best intentions and the infidelity plot untangled, you felt the
passions, the heart and the life at the centre of Shaksespeare’s great verbal
duel.
King Lear
 |
| Photo
by Wendy McDougall for |
Bell
Shakespeare’s 20th anniversary production was a sparse staging of
this popular tragedy. Beautifully minimalist, John Bell’s Lear raged with all
the futility of man against the storm as the revolving platform spun and spun
and spun, as Bree van Reyk’s percussion whipped and buffeted them, stripping Lear
and his Fool to their cores. While it didn’t quite hit the heights expected of
it, it was nonetheless a poetic and strong production, suitably majestic as
befitted the occasion.
Pericles
 |
Photo by Wendy McDougall for
|
Wearing its
collaboration with percussion group TaikOz on its sleeve, John Bell’s
production of Pericles was a whirl of
colour and rhythm, full of the ebb and flow or the ocean, bound within a dream
of a Japanese fable. From old Gower’s couplet-rhymed prologue and interludes to
the raucous and unsettling humour of the brothel scene, to its
wonder-upon-wonder conclusion, Julie Lynch’s costumes and set were drenched
with an oceanic aesthetic, crowned by the haunting shipwreck scene. If memory
serves, this was the first Bell Shakespeare production I saw and still that
shipwreck haunts me. It was so simple, so poetic, so visually compelling and
clever that you couldn’t help but watch in awe. And while I might not remember
much else of the production, I have no doubt the image of Marcus Graham’s
Pericles drowning will stay with me for a long time yet.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)