Gabriel – review Jul 21st 2013, 17:00
Shakespeare's Globe, London
Most theatre falls into familiar categories. This, however, is a piece that gloriously defies definition. It can best be described as a series of short plays by Samuel Adamson celebrating the rackety London of the 1690s, the genius of Henry Purcell, and the limitless potential of the solo trumpet, here played by Alison Balsom, who inspired the whole enterprise. It makes for one of the most enjoyable evenings I've spent at the Globe.
Even if he never appears, Purcell is a contant presence in Adamson's dramatic fragments. The tragic, brain-swollen Duke of Gloucester, nephew to Queen Mary, is obsessed by the martial capacity of the trumpet, which prompts Purcell to write a famous birthday ode. A garrulous waterman, the equivalent of a modern London cabbie, anounces that "I've had that Henry Purcell in my boat", and assures us that he was a good fellow who liked a drink and a song. But the most moving story concerns the soprano, Arabella Hunt, who was briefly married to a woman, was the subject of much lascivious male mockery and who found both sanctuary and freedom by singing Purcell's melodies at court.
With an on-stage orchestra in The English Concert, we get generous helpings of Purcell's music. But what binds the piece together is the trumpet's ability to mix strength and sweetness, and the comparable blend, in 1690s London, of dirt and delicacy. The robust sexuality of the period emerges in a love tangle among a quartet of actor-singers in The Fairy Queen that echoes that of Purcell's source, A Midsummer Night's Dream; this reaches its apogee when Matthew Raymond's Peter dives under the skirts of Jessie Buckley's Kate and proves himself a most cunning linguist. But a few moments later, Buckley sings Purcell's plaint, O, Let Me Forever Weep, accompanied by Balsom's valveless trumpet, with heartbreaking directness and simplicity.
Even if the combination of so many ingredients is sometimes overwhelming, you get a vivid picture of the "noisily Protestant England" of William and Mary, in which music played a key role. In addition to Buckley, who doubles as Arabella and Kate, there are striking performances from Joshua James as the sickly duke, Sam Cox as the vainglorious waterman, and Trevor Fox as a drunken musician for whom the trumpet becomes a supremely phallic object. Balsom, on stage virtually throughout, also uses her renowned skill to display the instrument's versatile eloquence. It is an exceptional evening unified by Dominic Dromgoole's production, which marries the bawdy and the beautiful, and provides, in the solemn funeral procession for Queen Mary that snakes through the auditorium, an unforgettable image of grief.
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Rating: 4/5
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