Theatre This article is more than 9 years oldReviewArden of Faversham review – Elizabethan tragedy goes modern
This article is more than 9 years oldSwan theatre, Stratford-upon-AvonLaudable performances and stage design save the RSC's contemporary makeover of this 16th-century true-crime drama
Much as I welcome the idea of a Swan season devoted to female protagonists, I am increasingly puzzled by the approach. First The Roaring Girl was transposed to the 1890s. Now this quintessentially Elizabethan domestic tragedy, penned anonymously in 1591, has been given a modern makeover.
For all the bravura of Polly Findlay's production, that decision defies common sense. The play, which reeks of documentary realism, was based on a notorious case in which Arden, a local landowner, was murdered in 1551 in Faversham at the instigation of his wife, Alice, and her low-born lover, Mosby. Here the action has been updated to the present, and Arden, apart from being a land-grabber, mass-manufactures cheap toys. Alice, meanwhile, is seen as a bottom-wiggling floozy who more resembles the stereotypical idea of an Essex girl than a Kentish wife. And Mosby, who is constantly condemned as a "butcher's boy", is a sharp-suited arriviste swathed in bling.
The purpose, apparently, is to show how murder is the logical outcome of a society based on commodification. But updating the action leads to logical absurdities: "Wilt thou to London and leave me here?" says Alice to her departing husband as if the City were a world away, rather than something that could be reached by a commuter train. More significantly, the play belongs to an Elizabethan-Jacobean true-crime genre, in which the chief threat to security came from some inexplicable darkness within the domestic arena. Today we are used to stories, from Thérèse Raquin to The Postman Always Rings Twice, that hinge on adulterous murder. If you are going to revive this particular play, it would make sense to treat it for what it is: a fascinating historical document.
Even if I dispute the production's premise, I have no quarrel with the execution. Sharon Small vividly interprets Alice as a tight-skirted swinger who is prone to sudden fits of conscience, while Ian Redford brings out Arden's capitalist rapacity. There is good work from Keir Charles as Alice's lover, and from Jay Simpson and Tony Jayawardena as bungling assassins. I also admired Merle Hensel's design, in which the white stuffing that lines Arden's factory packing cases is visually echoed by the snow in which his body is finally abandoned. But I'd still prefer to see a production that roots what the author described as a "naked tragedy" in the Elizabethan past rather than clothing it in the fashionable present.
Until 2 October. Box Office: 0844 800 1110. Venue: The Swan, Stratford-upon-Avon.
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