Dominic Rowan, as the Duke who causes all this trouble by swanning off disguised as a monk (complete with a joke-shop baldy wig), doesn’t help matters, either.
Caught between comedy and serious law enforcement, he winds up like an Elizabethan Basil Fawlty, improvising on waves of mounting hysteria.
Chastened though he is at the end, he remains a figure of fun who, like the production, leaves the play’s contradictions only partially resolved.
A giant helping of bawd from the Bard!
One way of solving the problem of Shakespeare’s oddball play about sex, law and death is to turn it into a good old bawdy romp. This is the strategy adopted by Dominic Dromgoole for his valedictory production as Artistic Director at Shakespeare’s Globe.
Where sometimes the tale of the Duke of Vienna abandoning the debauched city to the zero tolerance of his deputy Angelo is taken seriously, Dromgoole chooses hearty satire.
The greatest pleasure is taken in the play’s disreputable triumvirate of bawds — Trevor Fox’s pimp Pompey, Petra Massey’s brothel keeper Mistress Overdone and Brendan O’Hea as their seedy regular, Lucio. They fall out of wheelbarrows, pull down the pants of defendants and cavort like randy primates.
Dominic Rowan, as the Duke who causes all this trouble by swanning off disguised as a monk (complete with a joke-shop baldy wig), doesn’t help matters, either.
Caught between comedy and serious law enforcement, he winds up like an Elizabethan Basil Fawlty, improvising on waves of mounting hysteria.
Chastened though he is at the end, he remains a figure of fun who, like the production, leaves the play’s contradictions only partially resolved.
Dominic Rowan, as the Duke who causes all this trouble by swanning off disguised as a monk (complete with a joke-shop baldy wig), doesn’t help matters, either.
Caught between comedy and serious law enforcement, he winds up like an Elizabethan Basil Fawlty, improvising on waves of mounting hysteria.
Chastened though he is at the end, he remains a figure of fun who, like the production, leaves the play’s contradictions only partially resolved.