A Yorkshire Tragedy, not by William Shakespeare January 7, 2010
Posted by cathrynsymons in : Reviews , 3 commentsJust after Christmas, little Maisie Copland, 4, and her mother Julie Harrison were killed by the child’s father apparently because he was angry that the mother had left him. What drives men like this, and with a few well-publicised exceptions it is men, to destroy the people they should be most carefully protecting? This most awful of crimes has happened ever since we’ve had families, and in 1605 William Claverley of Claverley Hall in Yorkshire was executed after he killed two of his sons, and tried to kill their mother. It is that tragedy, which shocked Jacobean England, which is the basis for this short play.
Nine young players of Tough Theatre take on over a dozen characters in the tiny theatre space behind the White Bear pub on Kennington Park Road. The floor is covered in straw, with signposts for each location and a few wooden boxes making up the set, which is reshaped by the cast between each scene.
The role of Husband, a man who has gambled away his family estate and blames all his own failings on his long-suffering wife, is played by Lachlan Nieboer, who is well worth watching out for. He’s an unsympathetic character, narcissistic and unwilling to take any responsibility for his situation, who sees killing his family as a kindness, saving them from penury. Even at the end, forgiven by his wife (Jacobean co-dependency, I think) and apparently repentant, its hard to have much regard for him.
The play shows us the motivation behind the crime, but its hard to know what to do with that insight. What can be done about woman-hating self-absorbtion?
Charlotte Powell is the Wife, a woman who takes ‘for better or worse’ a little too seriously. She’s not deceiving herself – she knows what he is, and how badly he is treating her, has friends and lands of her own, but still stays with him to the very end, more loyal to him than even to her children. And sadly that’s not an unusual story either.
Given the subject matter, its no surprise that the play is quite unrelenting, and I left the theatre feeling rung out. When first published, the name William Shakespeare was on the cover, but that’s been fairly definitely discredited. If nothing else, surely the Bard would have leavened it with a little humour or jollity?
This is not an easy play to watch, but it is well presented and challenging, and definitely worth seeing. A Yorkshire Tragedy runs to 24 Jan at the White Bear Theatre.
