Dido, Queen of Carthage May 3, 2009
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Miscellany , trackbackPerhaps I should be grateful that my first Shakespeare was Macbeth, not the Taming of the Shrew. If this play is anything to go by, there’s a good reason that Shakespeare is venerated as the greatest English playwright, while Christopher Marlowe is an Elizabethan curiosity, occasionally staged for historical interest. Dido, Queen of Carthage was Marlowe’s first play, probably written for a company of boy actors.
The story is based on book 4 of the great Roman epic, the Aeneid. Aeneas, lost at sea after fleeing Troy, finds himself shipwrecked on the shores of the newly-built city of Carthage. Manipulated by the gods, he and the Carthaginian Queen fall in love. Eventually he is pushed to his senses by Jove and leaves for Italy, allowing his descendents to found Rome, and eventually destroy Carthage. She never regain hers, and kills herself.
Marlowe’s Dido is a pathetic creature, absolutely enslaved to her love for Aeneas, giving him her kingdom, re-rigging his ships and then taking the rigging away to prevent him escaping. Even in her seduction of him, she is annoying. Would a mighty queen be so surprised when he fell for her? At least Virgil has her consider the political implications of the alliance, when her sister tells her that Aeneas would be a useful ally.
The cast do a better job than the play deserves, although Anastasia Hille as Dido does occasionally overplay it, and the agonising about Aeneas’ departure became tedious after a while, but that’s the material she had to work with. Mark Bonnar (last seen as Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night) is a fine Aeneas, genuinely torn between his love of Dido and his duty to his destiny.
Unfamiliar Elizabethan verse isn’t always easy to follow, but there was no difficulty understanding the cast and keeping concentration through this three-hour production. Even the extended Latin quotes from the Aeneid were well-spoken (at least as far as I could tell from dim sixth form memories).
The manipulative gods, playing out their own games with the mortals below, are wonderfully surreal. Siobhan Redmond as Venus and Susan Engel as Juno are disdainfully cruel, completely inconsiderate of the humans despite Venus’ supposed concern for her son.
It was worth seeing for curiousity’s sake, not a bad evening out, but perhaps a minority interest.
Dido, Queen of Carthage plays at the National Theatre until 2 June 2009. Seat C17, in the second row, gave an excellent view.
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