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The emperor jones
by Eugene O’Neill
Director Thea Sharrock
Designer Robin Don
Sound Designer Gregory Clarke
Music by Sister Bliss
Choreographer Fin Walker
Olivier Theatre at the National Theatre
South Bank, London SE1 9PX
Call +44 (0) 20 7452 3000 Tickets £10 - £27.50
In repertoire
Running time 1 hour 10 mins without intermission
Emperor Jones’ New Clothes
Notting Hill’s tiny Gate Theatre has given its offspring to the amphitheatre size Olivier stage at the National Theatre. In the process, an intimate, intricate piece has been inflated to fit the vast venue, and has not been improved, if the reception the play got at its first outing is to be believed.
Now over 50 people are deployed to provide in attractive visual detail what is often grippingly achieved in this play by a cast of 2. That the 39 walk-ons are described in the programme as ‘supernumeraries’ is unfortunate in its accuracy. For they are, as the dictionary describes, neither needed nor desired, but superfluous and unnecessary. That they are there at all speaks to a company resorting to spending bucketsful of money on stage dressing that the director Thea Sharrock should have done without. For it would have been forced her to examine the fascinating, tortuous journey from fugitive to potentate and back again, of a groundbreaking characterisation.
Eugene O’Neill’s study is of a man’s hijacking of power, and his descent from swaggering bully into a hunted and haunted madness of his own making. It is a brilliantly prescient portrait of a man who, in his years of being exploited as a black slave, has learned how to put these practices to good use himself. This incarnation is an expressionist vehicle for a bravura performance by Paterson Joseph as Brutus Jones. However, it is little more than a greedy, poor man’s Wizard of Oz, with no surprises on the road travelled by character or actor. The man of the closing scenes was still the man of the opening ones. He refers to his subjects as ‘bush niggers’ and his contempt for their welfare or wellbeing should have given us an insight into the Idi Amins and the Robert Mugabes to come. A later Africa would be kept in turmoil by these dictators who had learned the techniques of power husbandry Jones was lacking. He was on his way pretty quickly, once the going got risky.
John Marquez, as Henry Smithers, never ventured into the rich detail of a sycophantic, obsequious, cynical, and untrustworthy British officer of doubtful rank, with the ability to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds. Speaking in an unnatural volume in keeping with the demands on the actors to entertain on a large scale, his performance veered close to parody.
The scenes involving the ‘supernumeraries’ were impressively costumed and grouped, but there was a strangely unthreatening quality to the nightmare figures of Jones’ fevered imagination. None of his torments had to be imagined for they were all demonstrated for us. Mr Joseph threw himself around and about them with much gusto, and presumably to keep the thing moving, went on periodic runs around the revolve, which did its work well, to no real advantage. But, what the heck, it’s there, why not use it?
Opportunities for a bit of scary atmosphere were mostly sacrificed by lighting designer Neil Austin on the altar of looking pretty. Robin Don’s beautiful design for Dwayne Barnaby’s witch-doctor gave him a gift few performers are given, and he was up to the task. Pity his entrance had to be straight out of Live and Let Die and the ever reliable Olivier trapdoor.
One winning aspect of the production was the inspired, exploding percussion and wind instrument work of Oroh Angiama, Rachel Brown, Alan Brown, Ras Happa, and Magnus Mehta. Shame about the overkill volume.
Somewhat Recommended
Saul Reichlin
London correspondent
Talk Theatre in Chicago Podcast
www.ChicagoCritic.com
29 August 2007
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