Jacobean Chic
Centuries before it was an ill-advised soft drink, Red Bull was a theatre in Shakespeare’s England, a lesser-known competitor to the Globe. Starting around 1606, it was the home of Queen Anne’s Men, whose raucous spectators, sometimes provoked by what they saw onstage, often wound up in court for brawling. (Picture a Jacobean CBGB.) The Puritans banned all theatre in 1642, but didn’t quite succeed: the place was frequently raided for illegally hosting “drolls,” or comic sketches. The playhouse officially reopened after the Restoration, but it was torn down within the decade. Oh, well.
Fittingly, this hotbed of transgression has a namesake Off Broadway. Since 2003, Red Bull Theatre has devoted itself to stylish mountings of the classics, with a nose for the perverse. The company’s ostensible mission is to stage plays with “heightened language”—a draw for actors—but, under the artistic direction of Jesse Berger, its sleek, runway-ready productions specialize in those old standbys sex and violence, typically culminating in a cascade of blood. Naturally, Jacobean drama plays to the company’s strengths: it has staged punky renditions of “The Revenger’s Tragedy,” in 2005 (poison!); “The Witch of Edmonton,” in 2011 (black magic!); and, last spring, “ ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore” (incest!). But the troupe also tackles modern classics, notably Jean Genet’s “The Maids,” in 2012, featuring the superb stage actresses Jeanine Serralles and Ana Reeder. As usual, it all looked smashing.
Perhaps redundantly, Red Bull is calling its new lineup a “season of scandal,” beginning with Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s 1622 tragedy, “The Changeling,” playing at the Lucille Lortel through Jan. 24. (The season continues, in April, with Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s gossip-minded comedy “The School for Scandal.”) In Berger’s staging of “The Changeling,” Sara Topham plays the unhappily betrothed Beatrice, who asks her father’s loathsome servant De Flores (Manoel Felciano) to dispatch her fiancé, freeing her up to marry Alsemero (Christian Coulson). His price for doing the deed, he informs her: “thy virginity.” Arson, lunacy, and murder have the day. It would make Queen Anne’s Men proud.
VOCABULARY
- drolls - шуты
- loathsome - отвратительный, гадкий
- raided - рейд, набег
- ostensible - мнимый