“For a title character who spends so much of the play talking about himself, it is no small achievement that Wolfe has found so much new to say about the Danish Prince.”
Editorial Rating:4 Stars (Outstanding)
Shakespeare is rightly considered one of the greatest historical portrait artists of all time if not always the most accurate. In a memorable and powerful quartet of monologues, Lexi Wolfe adds background to four of the most familiar of the Bard’s heroes and villains.
We enter to find a medieval barfly, someone who is used to taverns and the telling of tall tales. Henry V is descanting on his own deformity, an arrow wound received at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403. The subject of Henry V’s facial surgery (and his ugliness) is the subject of numerous scholarly articles, but few of these treatments come close to Wolfe’s searing portrait of a very human monster. This is not the shining exemplar of patriotic valour rendered by a quill of the Swan of Avon. This is a less forgiving autopsy of power.
Through Portia, Wolfe is able to flex a different set of dramatic muscles. She delivers a kinder, though not more gentle, insight into a young woman trapped by circumstances in a gilded cage. This would have been a good moment to really change the pace and delivery style into something lighter and perhaps more humorous, a scalpel rather than a broadsword. Portia played a great trick on her nearest and dearest, as well as society at large I would have liked to have seen more twinkle and less brooding.
As Hamlet, Wolfe is more successful in unravelling the character’s motivations and internal processes. Each of the quartet is a scholarly essay on themes relating both to the drama on stage as well as to the play in historical context. Here this is most pronounced. Wolfe’s formidable scholarship is spotlit to best advantage. For a title character who spends so much of the play talking about himself, it is no small achievement that Wolfe has found so much new to say about the Danish Prince, or perhaps she simply says it more concisely.
It is as Lady Macbeth that Wolfe really brings her dramatic stage presence to bear. It’s like having meditatively watched a tank rolling up the garden path only to be surprised when it opens fire, demolishing the potting shed with a sudden, unleashed violence. It helps that physically, this is the character Wolfe seems most at home in. This finale could have been the alpha as well as the omega of the performance not simply for the power of the delivery, but for the length and breadth of the underpinning contextual analysis.
In their infinite wisdom and capacity to pick winners, EdFringe punters have not been slow to identify ‘After Shakespeare’ as one of this year’s standout shows, one not to be missed. Here is unapologetic Shakespeare nerdism. Here is an unforgettable performance. Here is an essay, or rather here are four essays, that deliver on the promise of adding colours to the chameleons. It is an exceptional piece of theatre which may age like a butt of malmsey wine and become a reliable favourite for those of us with a passion for new and clever ways to explore the Shakespearian universe.
Come for the story-retelling. Stay for the scholarship. Get your doublets on and go see this!
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