Last night was the Festival production of Yeomen of the Guard. The Festival production, like Savoynet and the Young Artistes, is cast remotely in advance, and the cast assembles for the first time at the festival, rehearses for something like one intensive week, then performs. It’s an intense experience, and one of my favorite ways to perform. (Obviously, there are drawbacks. For one, you only get one change to be perfect. For another, you have a very limited time to get things just the way you want them.) But I think Yeomen lends itself well to this kind of a schedule. It doesn’t call for a great deal of crisp choreography in the chorus, or for anything else that would obviously require a tremendous amount of drilling. Yeomen is driven by good characters and good drama, and thoughtful and sensitive performers can make that happen without the benefit of weeks of rehearsal. This was the case last night. It was a strong cast, supported by a large and diverse chorus. The Festival production this year was one of the best of the festival, I think. (Last year, I thought their Pinafore was only about average. This Yeomen was excellent.)
(The cast observed the front of the stage floor, so my theory is secure. There was only one violation — a woman in the chorus extended one toe past the line near the end of the Act I finale.)
The night began strongly with a good overture. After the troubles with the orchestra the previous night, it was good to hear that they’re still capable of a tight and glorious sound. The bigger brass bits near the end were especially moving. They did have some action behind a scrim during the second half of the overture. There were Yeomen moving about frantically, apparently searching for something. Eventually, I was able to guess that they were reacting to the fire in the Beauchamp, and moving a prisoner. (It might have been Fairfax? I’m not sure.) I had to invoke my knowledge of what happens before the curtain to understand it, so I’m not sure that the action contributed much. And the overture was wonderful anyway, so I could have done without it.
Helen Lever played a likable, sincere Pheobe. I was happy to see they had her with a spinning wheel. Her voice was pleasant, but only sometimes carried well. She had a bit of a thinner, ‘pop’ tone. I think she had trouble connecting both her singing and her speech to her breath throughout the night. This resulted in some unclear dialogue, especially the bits that are charged with emotion, and some pitch insecurities on the music, especially on extended notes. But she related well to her castmates, and was a very likable character.
I had the pleasure of seeing Stephen Godward reprise his Wilfred Shadbolt. He was the first Shadbolt I ever saw, when he did the role with Trent two years ago. He’s brilliant. I think I wrote last year that he may be my favorite regular performer at this festival; I’m happy to stand by that assessment. His Shadbolt was familiar, with basically the same mannerisms and characterizations. That’s just fine — he’s the best Shadbolt I’ve ever seen, and by far the funniest. (I get to see him again tonight as the Sergeant of Police with Derby!)
The entrance of the townspeople and the yeomen was very strong. It was an extremely large chorus; they filled the stage well. The double-chorus sound was excellent. The yeomen looked and sounded impressive. There were a lot of them — perhaps ten or twelve. Tony Smith was a very large, imposing yeoman with a very large, imposing voice. The chorus work was strong throughout, with the Act I finale producing a particularly glorious sound. The only weak moment from the chorus that I noticed was at the very start of “Night has spread her pall once more”. Maybe people had trouble seeing the conductor? It quickly gained strength, and the end of that number was excellent.
Alison Davis gave an interesting Dame Carruthers. She started out as a kindly, gentle soul, until she turned terrifying on her “silence, silly girl”. It felt like a sort of fanatic religious fetishism about the Tower. It was pretty creepy. I liked it. She gave a strong song, too.
Paul Thompson’s Sergeant Meryll had a gruff, weathered voice. He had strong presence on stage, and he did feel like an old military man. They restored “A laughing boy”, which seems to happen a lot. It was well-sung, but I really do think that song is just not interesting enough to justify inclusion in a very long first act. David Turner made a good observation — we missed the fatherly affection from Sergeant Meryll. There was lots of military gruffness, and not much humanity. I also had difficulty seeing his face for the whole night — it was covered, from my high gallery seat, by a hat. I thought there was a bit of an odd decision made in the Act I Finale, during Pheobe’s scene with ‘Leonard’/Fairfax. Three times, she started to get affectionate with Fairfax, and Sergeant Meryll would forcibly pull her away and reprimand her. This seemed at odds with the earlier line that he “leaves thee pretty well to thine own ways”. I’d expect a Sergeant Meryll to chuckle quietly at his silly daughter in that scene. I lost some of his musical lines in the duet with Carruthers at the end; his solo lines were strong, but I lost him when he was singing together with her in harmony.
Phil Abbott was an eager, earnest Leonard Meryll. His dialogue was a little bit affected — sometimes I thought I was listening to Dudley Do-Right — but once I got used to it, it was a little charming. And he sang very well.
Howard Turnbull, as Sir Richard, was similar in many ways to Thompson’s Meryll. He was gruff and serious, with solid dialogue. And his hat covered his face, too. He had a pleasant voice, but not a powerful one — I couldn’t really hear his line in the Act I trio, and he didn’t have the imposing threatening presence a Lieutenant should have in either finale.
I hope the Pheobes, Shadbolts, Carrutherses, and Merylls of the world will forgive me this, but I do tend to think of the first half hour or so of Yeomen as a long prologue. The story doesn’t really get going, I think, until Fairfax’s entrance, and then especially Point and Elsie’s. So the first appearance of Colonel Fairfax is a big deal. John Hurst’s Fairfax was young and ‘ansome, with a clear speaking and singing voice. His song was delivered simply and effectively. I did think that he could have had a bit more personality to him. He wasn’t charmingly oddly morbidly funny in his first scene. I felt like instead of an attractive sort of earnest bravado, we saw a genuine indifference about living or dying. It made him difficult to relate to and understand. His dialogue also seemed all to be delivered with pretty much the same inflection. His Act II song was excellent, and he worked well with Elsie.
I sat up much straighter during the opening chords for “Here’s a man of jollity”. So much depends on Point and Elsie. Up to that point last night, the show had been solid but not amazing. As is the case in so many Yeomens, I could see that these last two characters would make or break the show. They made it.
The entrance itself was a little awkward, I thought. It didn’t look especially threatening; townspeople danced in circles around Elsie and Jack Point; he looked to be enjoying himself; she was uncomfortable. But it wasn’t clear why. And when they attacked them after the song, it felt a little out of the blue. It was especially jarring since that attack was actually a very violent one — the Second Citizen punctuated his “there is humor in all things” line with kicks at Jack Point, who was lying on the ground!
Elsie was played by Penny Daw, and she gave a strong performance, with a good balance of strength of character and her status as a victim of circumstance. There were a couple of tender moments in the beginning between Point and Elsie, which I think is important. I thought her first music, in “I have a song to sing, o!” was rather uncertain. She was blocked pretty far upstage and there were people sitting downstage in front of her — it may be that she could neither hear the orchestra nor see the conductor, which would explain the tentative singing. Her later material was much stronger. And her acting in Act II was excellent. The “wicked words” scene was especially strong.
I’m very picky about Jack Points. I know it’s because I love the role and have strong feelings about it, but when I review shows I’m expressing my own opinion, not trying to treat everyone the same way. I have strong opinions about Jack Point, and most Points disappoint me. I’ve only ever seen two Jack Points that I thought were on the whole good. One was the very first one I ever saw, when Simon Theobald did the role for Trent at the Festival in 2004. The second was Adam Hepkin last night. Simon’s Jack Point was very dark and bitter — an older, jaded man who hasn’t ever figured out how to succeed at life. Adam’s was young and charismatic, with excited enthusiasm and just the first touches of weariness at the harshness of the world. (Adam’s Jack Point is in many ways similar to mine.) He did the two things in Act I that I think are most often neglected by Points: he had enough charisma to be both likable to the audience and plausible as a jester, and he demonstrated some genuine affection toward Elsie. (The latter came out particularly in the line, “Elsie is a good girl.” Another place that can happen is “But men and women marry every day.”) He also had a very strong singing voice, and moved well on stage.
The one complaint I have about Adam’s Jack Point is that he sometimes took too long to move through his long speeches. Both in the excited, energetic parts, like his opening speech to the crowd, and in his depressed rants, he put in several large gaps for effect. I think that these gaps are a mistake for two reasons. First, they’re just too hard on the audience. Those speeches are long anyway, and they need to move along if they’re to hold attention. (And in the case of the heavy dramatic stuff in Act II, it’s very risky to put in those big gaps; when you’re playing for real pathos, if you put in too much, if you lose audience focus then you’ve lost the emotional energy of the scene.) And second, I don’t know that they’re plausible for the character. As someone remarked in the Festival Club, Jack Point is not a stylized character. He’s not one to pause for five seconds of introspection in the middle of a line, or before repeating a line. Particularly in that opening scene, he’s working hard to keep the focus of the townspeople. So I thought he got a little heavier than he needed to early in Act II, and I wish that some of those long speeches had moved along faster. But on the whole, I loved Adam’s Jack Point. I’d consider him a strong candidate for the ‘Best Male Performance’ award.
Both patter songs were strong. The Act II song featured different accents for different characters, and no pauses at all in the first four verses. It made for an interesting effect. I would have guessed that it’d be hard to understand the lyrics without those pauses, but it wasn’t. It worked just fine.
One small quibble: when reading from Hugh Ambrose, Point turned pages, thus:
“The Merrie Jestes of Hugh Ambrose, number seven thousand, eight-hundred sixty-[PAGE TURN]-three. ‘The Poor Wit and the Rich Councillor.’ A certayne poor wit, being an-hungered, did meet a well-fed councillor. “Marry, fool,” quothe the councillor, “whither away?” [PAGE TURN] “In truth,” said the poor wag, “in that I have eaten naught these two dayes, I do wither away, and that right rapidly!” The Councillor laughed hugely, and gave him [PAGE TURN] a sausage.”
(I’m sure about the first and last page turns, and I think there was a third one, and I think it was about where I marked it, but I could be mistaken about that one.) How big is the print in this book? Also, was the joke number really written out in a way that there could be a page turn in the middle of the number? I know it’s such a tiny thing, but it was weird.
I also noticed near-perfection in accuracy from Point’s dialogue, and indeed, from the whole cast. I think that this was the most libretto-accurate production of the festival. Well done to the cast for that one.
Act II was very strong. “Cock and Bull” was as excellent as it would have to be, with performers that strong, and Elsie’s scene with Fairfax was outstanding. There was a very strong arquebus sound; it was fun to see the whole house jump. And that heart-wretching trio/quartet scene was really effective. I thought that “A man who would woo a fair maid” was staged a little statically for my taste, but it was well-acted. And the dialogue afterward was done very well. There was one bit of staging in particular that I found to be extremely effective. Fairfax tells Point, “nay, that is for Elsie to decide”. And Point extends a hand to Elsie, who remains motionless. Point looks on, shocked, as Fairfax continues, “I promised thee I would show thee how to woo. And herein,” and he extends his hand to Elsie, while still looking at Point, “lies the proof of the virtue of my teaching.” And she takes Fairfax’s hand. It’s poignantly effective as a crushing blow to Point, and it also has the advantage, if you’re like me and consider this an advantage, of having Fairfax act like a really smooth jerk who can use Elsie however he wants to. I cried.
Fairfax was a jerk again the Act II finale.. It really is cruel to let Elsie go on so upset for such a long time like that. Last night, the Lieutenant tried to step in to reassure her early on, but Fairfax stopped him. “No,” he seemed to be saying. “Let’s see where she’s going with this. She seems really upset.”
I did think that Elsie’s final verse to Jack Point in the Act II finale was odd. She didn’t sing to him. She went to him, and stood near him, but didn’t look at him. Indeed, she danced happily, even as she sang, as she did sing, that she ‘dropped a tear’. I didn’t really understand that.
But on the whole, it was a very successful production. I call it the best Yeomen I’ve ever seen, including the professional production earlier this festival. I’d never seen Alistair’s Yeomen before. I thought that I would love it, based on conversations I’ve had with him about Jack Point in Houston over the years. I was right.
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