Posted by Bonnie on 24 October 2005 at
12:00
Antony Sher swung upside down on a rope in a memorable revival in the early Nineties for the RSC. Now Greg Hicks takes on the role of the Scythian shepherd who becomes "the scourge of God" and an all-conquering warrior/maniac. The play is part of the Barbican's "Young Genius" season (it moves to London after its Bristol run) because Christopher Marlowe wrote it in his early twenties, though how young that was considered in Elizabethan times is a moot point.
It's an evening of mighty verse, glittering imagery and compulsive violence. The two-part play (the sequel is shoehorned into a single three-hour show) sees Tamburlaine hack his way through ancient Persia, Turkey and Egypt.
The evening's trump card is Hicks, exuding Olympian disdain, a sardonic touch and a Bond villain's obsession with global domination. As the atrocities pile up like a pyramid of skulls, Tamburlaine's barbarity has a certain razzle-dazzle about it. Whether using a captive king as a foot stool or having civilians drowned en masse, no one can accuse him of a lack of style.
There's not a lot of fun for his captives. King Bajazeth (the superb Jeffery Kissoon) beats his own brains out rather than suffer the indignities of his cage. And Tamburlaine is quite prepared to kill one of his own sons — "an effeminate brat" — with the same contempt he reserves for his foes.
Zenocrate (played by a dignified Rachael Stirling) provides a note of romance and some rare diplomacy. The grieving Tamburlaine, at her wasting death scene, conjures up an echo of his own eventual demise.
Tamburlaine calls, as he dies, for a world map to see how much territory "the great Tartaric thief" has pinched. King Lear wanted to give all his away. Tamburlaine, mortally ill, has still got places to go.
The mixed-race cast and ethnic string music seem appropriate considering the global nature of the military project. The staging isn't inspirational; but with the bombast and savagery intact, it makes the point that war crimes and the cult of personality are nothing new.
It is above all a rare treat to be exposed to Marlowe, Shakespeare's equal, in full flight. Hicks, with his vinegary voice and sinuous presence, certainly leaves the play's soaring poetry and bloodthirsty blasphemies ringing in the ears.
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Posted by Bonnie on 20 October 2005 at
10:11
Just a quick update to say that Claire and I leave for Bristol tomorrow (Friday) morning. We won't be back until Monday evening, so there won't be any updates until then, or possibly Tuesday morning.
Unfortunately we don't have the seats we thought we had for Tamburlaine and are therefore not in the front row (or in fact anywhere near the front). This is due to some misleading codes on the Bristol Old Vic website. 
I was very disappointed about this when we realised yesterday, but never mind — I'm sure we'll enjoy the play regardless of where we're sitting. We're attending the 2pm performance on Saturday, and I promise to write a review when we return! We'll be sure to pick up a copy of the programme, too, in case there are any new photos of Rachael in it.
Look after the website while we're gone. 
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Posted by Bonnie on 18 October 2005 at
07:21
"While the capital is awash with new writing, staples from the repertoire are in far shorter supply; it's outside London that audiences are getting to see the classics, and done with real aplomb."
I have just added another fantastic review of Tamburlaine to the site, this time from The Telegraph. It describes Rachael as "ravishing" and is altogether very positive indeed about the play. The fact that "the actors nip in and out of costumes at the side of the stage" is something I find quite intriguing…!
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Posted by Bonnie on 17 October 2005 at
12:00
He hacked his way across Asia, slaughtering and subjugating millions, terrifying millions more. Tamburlaine — or Timur-i Leng — was the 14th-century's consummate risk-taker — and, though "risk" wasn't a word in Christopher Marlowe's vocabulary, having yet to arrive on these shores, any actor who accepts the challenge of playing Marlowe's first great villain-hero (1587) must himself risk all, or lose all; this isn't a role that admits to half-measures.
At the Bristol Old Vic, in an adaptation by David Farr that is as lean and muscular as its star, Greg Hicks gambles everything — and emerges triumphant — by exercising an astonishing, potentially deathly degree of restraint.
Where you might expect him to break the habit of a career and let slip a more savage side to his nature, Hicks digs his heels in. His outwardly civilised Tamburlaine, almost dapper in flowing robes, belts and boots, is worlds removed from the bloodthirsty Tartar Antony Sher gave us with the RSC in 1992.
Where Marlowe's luxuriant poetry revels in the Scythian shepherd's ascent towards God-defying omnipotence, Hicks counters with austerity and understatement. He holds the stage with the coiled concentration of a martial-arts fighter, looking as though he could smash whole citadels with a single slicing-action.
By refusing to deviate in his approach, his metallic, strangely sardonic voice never yielding to softness, Hicks becomes a terrifying embodiment of the will to power. There's a brutal comedy in his matter-of-factness — the way he uses the captured, caged king Bajazeth (Jeffery Kissoon) as his footstool, for instance, has an almost camp insouciance about it — but Hicks himself makes no direct effort to invite laughter. Even when he mourns his beloved Zenocrate — the ravishing Rachael Stirling — Hicks is too remote of mien to make us feel for him, which means he remains, to the end, an infernal enigma.
Farr's stark, swift production is equally poised, executing abrupt switches of scene through sudden volte-face movements, stylised battle sequences and surgically precise lighting effects. There's no unnecessary ornamentation — crates are used for thrones, the actors nip in and out of costumes at the side of the stage — so it all feels modern, without being pointedly so.
You can't help thinking of Hitler when Tamburlaine supervises the burning of Babylon's books, but there are warlords out there today, Farr cleverly insinuates, who, precisely because they appear to live in the medieval past, are much more perturbing contemporary parallels.
It struck me, watching Tamburlaine, that we're actually experiencing a golden age of regional theatre at the moment. There's a palpable mood of confidence these days — and a confidence to tackle work that might be sniffed at as too obvious. While the capital is awash with new writing, staples from the repertoire are in far shorter supply; it's outside London that audiences are getting to see the classics, and done with real aplomb.
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Posted by Bonnie on 16 October 2005 at
12:22
I have just added a new Tamburlaine review to the site, this time from The Guardian newspaper.
It certainly sounds interesting!
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