As soon as Nic ‘heard’ that I was in a funk a couple of days
ago, he dropped what he was doing and insisted that I call him right away—he’s so
wonderful! We spent some time chatting, and while we were doing so he was
determined to find something that might cheer me up: he succeeded.
Nic found out that the incomparable Sir Patrick Stewart—favored by me
particularly for his portrayal of Captain Jean-Luc Picard—was starring in a play called Bingo not far from me! And,
doubly fortunate, there was one open seat available for last night’s (3 March)
performance. Within moments, I had a ticket for said-seat.
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| NB: This is not my photo! |
So, last night I found myself headed to the Young Vic, sister-theatre to the famous Old Vic. Not surprisingly, I got there about an hour early (I prefer to be early
rather than late), leaving me a bit of time to wander around and enjoy a glass
of wine, since the theatre itself is attached to a pub.
That’s when it happened…
I had just received my wine and was standing off to the side
of the bar (people-watching), when a door to my right whispered open and out
stepped a bald man, sporting a thick but well-manicured white beard, in blue
jeans and a casual yellow-and-green-checked shirt.
No
way, I thought, that can’t be him!
The man moved to the bar and proceeded to order two drinks:
‘Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.’ (By the way, can I just note how amused I am that there's a YouTube compilation of that?)
At any rate, I didn’t actually hear the man order ala Picard—and at this point I still
wasn’t sure that it was even really him, because no one else in the entire
place seemed to notice him except for me—but the man was given two carry-out
cups of some hot liquid, which he paid for out of his own pocket just like an
ordinary customer (and not like a knighted star-performer who surely has
minions for dealing with such tasks).
Having paid, the man took his two cups of (hopefully) Earl
Grey tea and turned once more toward the door from whence he had first emerged.
As he walked by me, our eyes met—for the briefest flicker of a moment—and I
knew in an instant that it really was
Patrick Stewart standing less than three feet away from me!
Holy Lwaxana Troi!
Fortunately, I had enough of my wits about me in that moment
that I didn’t just fall to the floor and start begging him to do the
‘Engage’-flick-of-the-wrist-gesture, or ask him if I could polish either the Enterprise or his sexy-ass 71 year-old
dome.
Instead, I offered him a coy smile that simply said, ‘Yes, I know who you
are—I recognized you at once—and I’ll be right here after the show if you’re
looking for someone who’ll do all of those things that Beverly refuses to.
Alas, he did not smile back—he’s probably already got an army
of equally sexy Will Wheaton-types making that offer on a daily basis—but, damn
it, our eyes met and in that moment we were soulmates (even if he doesn’t know
it).
But enough about my ‘encounter at farpoint’ with the sexiest
(male) septuagenarian I can think of. Let’s get on with the show itself…
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| NB: This is not my photo! |
[NB: I’m going to talk about the show in three parts: the
story, the set, and the acting—I think this is the easiest way for me to
describe the whys and hows some aspects of the show were wonderful and others were
decidedly less-so.]
Bingo was written
in the 1970s by a playwright with Marxist leanings named Edward Bond. As such, on top of being a tale about William Shakespeare’s later years
and death, Bingo also contains a
cautionary—or, at the very least, a disapproving—note about the wickedness of
greed and class disparity.
Sadly, Bingo
could have been so much more than what it actually turned out to be. (This is
especially true when viewed in the context of our current, global socioeconomic
situation, and especially when paired with something like the Occupy movement.) Instead, it seems as if Bond doesn’t know what he wanted the show to really be
about: is it a play about the frustrations of a popular artist? is it about
greed? is it about mental illness? is it all of these things and, if so, wasn’t
there a better way to weave them all together?
In fact, the Shakespeare character himself—though onstage
for almost every moment—is given so little to do and say that it wasn’t until
halfway through the second act that I realized Bond was portraying him as a
villain, and not someone (as I had been led to believe through earlier words,
gestures, and staging) who was trying to thwart ‘the man’ from within.
As regards the set and staging, they did a really good job.
Like Les Mis, Bingo uses a revolving stage. Throughout the course of the show, the stage
goes from being a garden, to a public square, to a pub, to a snow-covered
hilltop, and finally to Shakespeare’s bedroom.
The usage of color and simple
signifier props was very aesthetically pleasing in the outdoor scenes (e.g.,
in the hilltop scene, the only decoration(?) is the freshly fallen ‘snow’ and
an all-black background—and I don’t know what they used to make the snow, but
Patrick Stewart and another actor were able to pack it into something that
looked and eventually ‘exploded’ like a legitimate snowball).
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| Shakespeare with his daughter. [NB: This photo is not mine!] |
On the other
hand, the interior sets were all heavily paneled, and had that air of
controlled clutter that we tend to think of when we imagine interiors from the
Elizabethan era. They were equally appealing in their lack of simplicity!
As wonderful as all of the sets were—the hilltop and the pub
being especially well-executed (I swear I’ve been in that exact pub before!)—my
favorite setting was the public square.
Before I can say why, however, it is necessary to provide a
bit of exposition. In the first scene we are introduced to the character of a
nameless young woman whose family has just died, and who is in search of food or money.
She’s trying to make her way to another town where, she explains, she has an
aunt who will take her in. Shakespeare immediately agrees to give the young
woman both food and money—this is one of the first things that confused me
about his ‘true’ feelings—but before he can help her, a series of events leads
to her capture by Combe, the town magistrate (and the most clear-cut villain of
the piece). Combe has the woman brutally whipped and beaten—to the point where
she is left physically and mentally handicapped. In revenge, she begins setting
fire to buildings around the town. Eventually, Combe recaptures her (after
Shakespeare once again tries—and fails, thanks to his obnoxious daughter—to
help), and she is publicly executed.
So, the public square set consists of the actress—whose
appearance has been made-up to look like someone who’s been dead for some
time—hung upon a gibbet near the back of the stage, approximately 12’ above the other actors. Though the actress never
speaks—her character’s already dead—she is the undeniable focal point of the
set. Even from the balcony (where I was sitting) one cannot help but escape her
lifeless gaze, and the impact of its attendant commentary on issues of class,
gender, and societal controls.
Finally, we come to my thoughts on the acting...
In some
cases—such as with the men who portrayed Combe and Son—I’ve borne witness to
better acting in high school plays. They were awful! That being said, Patrick Stewart and JohnMcEnery were phenomenal!
McEnery—who also played Mercutio in the famous 1968 film-version of
Romeo & Juliet (among other things)—plays the role of Shakespeare’s gardener. His wife
speaks highly of their time together before he was abducted by a press gang. At some point during that period, the gardener tried to help someone who was about to be executed, and was struck in
the head with the blunt end of an ax. As a result, he has been left with (what
his wife describes repeatedly as) ‘the needs of a man and mind of a child.’ The
effect is a character that is often portrayed as mischievous and fun.
In fact, one of the funniest scenes within Bingo takes place as a drunken
Shakespeare is crossing the snow-covered hilltop described earlier, delivering
the start of a heavy monologue, when suddenly a snowball thrown by the gardener
pelts him hard in the back. What ensues is a ‘snowball fight’ between the
show’s best actors—which Shakespeare inevitably loses because (much like Nic)
the gardener’s ‘score’ is increased exponentially every time he announces it.
Sadly, however, McEnery’s character doesn’t fare any better
in Bingo than he did in Romeo & Juliet, and by the
end of the hilltop scene he is dead.
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| The Gardener and Unnamed Woman [NB: This is not my photo!] |
Finally we come to Sir Stewart’s performance. In some ways,
this is like me trying to describe my longing to be with Nic again—it seems a
‘futile’ endeavor.
He’s Patrick Stewart, and he’s amazing as always. The only
problem is that he is so severely underutilized. True, he’s onstage at almost
every moment, and through his gesturing and facial expressions he ensures that
the audience never forgets him despite those long moments wherein we don’t hear
him speak—but he nonetheless seemed constrained by a convoluted script.
But when he is
allowed to speak, it’s phenomenal! During the third scene (the one in the
public square), he yells at the gardener’s wife about people’s seemingly
limitless ability to inflict pain upon others. As part of this powerful
monologue, he describes the vile ‘sport’ of bear-baiting that was so popular at
the time. For almost five minutes, Stewart rails in highly descriptive detail about the bears being blinded, chained down, stabbed,
and set-upon by vicious dogs that tore at their throats—all the while throwing
in approximations of the sound a whip makes (‘lash! lash!’) and violent gestures for emphasis—all of this going on, Stewart's Shakespeare laments, whilst the crowd
cheered and ‘The Virgin [Queen
Elizabeth I] cheered them on in shrill
Latin!’
The Patrick Stewart in this scene—and in the hilltop scene,
once the gardener leaves and he’s allowed to finish the monologue he started—is
the one that I am so in love with. This is
the Patrick Stewart that agonizingly refused to see five lights when there were only four!
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| Shakespeare in the Snow [NB: This is not my photo!] |
And so, after 2 ½ hours in this legendary man’s presence, it
was time to go. I waited by the stage door for a bit after the show (hoping for
an autograph), and though I saw everyone else come out, apparently Patrick left
by means of a different back door. Oh, well—that doesn’t change in the least
what an awesome experience it was to see him performing live!
One final note before I go: since I was already in the Soho
area, and since I was still feeling the need to be around people, I went out
again last night. The original plan was to meet TvH et al., but they wound up not being able to make it at the last
minute. So, it was just me. At any rate, I went to Heaven, where I spent a few hours just dancing and enjoying being around so many
other people.
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| [NB: This is not my photo!] |
Nonetheless, being the shy, self-conscious introvert and
crowd-phobic that I am, I never made it too far on to the dancefloor, preferring
instead to stand near an escape route at all times. However, in terms of what I
was talking about the other day about desiring benign human contact, it worked
out perfectly! I kept getting (politely) jostled and bumped aside by people
going to and from the bar, and instead of being annoyed in the slightest, it
was wonderful! I left feeling quite recharged!
Oh, also: this place is even more like my old stomping grounds than KuBar (which is the comparison I made here)!
Okay, this one wound up being quite a bit longer than
expected, so I’ll close now. Ciao for now!
PS: I'm now quasi-officially 'one' degree away from Her Majesty! YES!
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| NB: This is not my photo! |
