Reviews 2015
Reviews 2015
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by Jean Cocteau, translated by Carl Wildman, directed by Luke Gallo
Fish2Frÿ Productions, Pia Bouman Scotiabank Theatre, Toronto
March 15-29, 2015
Queen : “If you don’t kill me, I will kill you”
Fish2Frÿ Productions, a new theatre company, has chosen to launch itself with the English Canadian premiere of Jean Cocteau’s 1946 play The Eagle With Two Heads (L’Aigle à deux têtes). It’s a perplexing play by the French master, that is still performed in Francophone countries but has never done well in translation. That is unfortunately also the situation here which is not improved by a lacklustre production. Yet, Aidan Black Allen gives a superb performance in the complex role of the Queen along with M. Jon Kennedy as her main antagonist, the Minister of Police.
Cocteau’s primary inspiration for the play was the assassination of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1837-98) by an Italian anarchist in Geneva, out to kill the next person he saw of royal blood. To Elisabeth’s story Cocteau adds some of the mystery surrounding the drowning of King Ludwig II of Bavaria (1845-86), claimed by some to be due to court intrigue. Those familiar with British theatre will find the play’s opening image of a woman sheltering an armed man who has climbed into her bedchamber at night through the window far too reminiscent of the opening of Shaw’s comedy Arms and the Man (1894). But Eagle, far from being a comedy, seeks to be a tragedy in the grand style and, far from puncturing notions of romantic love as Shaw does, exalts them.
Part of the reason she does so is that ever since her husband’s death she has been longing to die. The assassin’s likeness to the King makes her believe he is the one who has been sent to fulfill her wish. She tells the assassin Stanislas (Christian Martel), that if he does not kill her within three days, she will kill him.
Though Stanislas has been recruited by an anti-monarchist organization, his real reason for taking on the mission is that he has always loved the Queen from afar and has become so frustrated by the distance she keeps between herself and the people that he wants to kill her to kill his love for such an unobtainable object. Once in her bedchamber and welcomed there, the two fall in love. Stanislas encourages the Queen to throw off her mourning and rule as she should while the Queen promotes Stanislas, who is also a poet, to Edith’s post as reader.
Countering this love story are the machinations of the court who are fed up with the Queen’s neglect of her duties. This faction is led by the late King’s mother, the Archduchess (a character who never appears) who works in league with the Minister of Police, Count Von Foëhn (Kennedy). The Archduchess’s plan is to have the Queen declared mad and to rule as Regent.
Anyone looking for the wonderful surrealism of Cocteau’s films such La Belle et la Bête (1946) or Orphée (1950), will not find it here. We essentially have to be willing to soak up the legends and history of the imaginary country Cocteau has created, seemingly on the model of Austria since its emblem is also a two-headed eagle. One problem is that the court machinations as Cocteau outlines them are so involved, both on the Queen’s side and the Archduchess’s, that we eventually tune them out as tedious when, unfortunately, they are vital to the play’s dénouement.
The second problem is that we have to share the morbidity of Cocteau’s view of romantic love. Shakespeare’s poetry helps us accept that true love should end in death as in Romeo and Juliet or Antony and Cleopatra as does Wagner’s music in Tristan und Isolde, an opera that had a great influence on Cocteau. Yet, Cocteau’s prose, however heightened, fails to elevate the love of Stanislas and the Queen sufficiently to make their murder suicide seem desirable or necessary. It may be here that English translations, like Carl Wildman’s, cannot capture convincingly the exaltation of Cocteau’s French prose, and Wildman’s translation desperately needs to be updated. Even if one follows the course of the court intrigues closely, it is hard to understand why Stanislas should commit suicide except to set up the symbolic conclusion of the play.
It would be easier to get into the play if the entire cast gave riveting performances, but they do not. Aidan Black Allen as the Queen basically carries the entire show. She is deep into her role and she makes us understand the Queen’s profound longing to die, even beneath her capricious behaviour. The strength of her gestures and the precision of her diction make her command the stage whenever she appears.
The actor who does have such command is M. John Kennedy, who makes Count Von Foëhn a deliciously insidious character and worthy opponent to Allen’s Queen. The cat-and-mouse game they play in their most extensive discussion with each other is probably the highlight of the show.
Both Freya Ravensbergen as Edith and Reece Presley as the Queen’s underling Felix Von Willenstein begin the show speaking far too rapidly and indistinctly – a pity since those initial scenes form the exposition for the rest of the play. As the action proceeds, however, both calm themselves and by the end are giving very creditable performances, though both could stand to expand the range of their gestural language.
Director Luke Gallo claims that he has set the play in a dystopian future, but that is nowhere evident in the romantic set Karis Malszecki has created or in the 19-century-influenced costumes Amanda Shaw has designed. Lighting and sound designer Yehuda Fisher obtains maximum effects with minimal means.
Some may wish to see The Eagle With Two Heads for the sheer rarity of the event but, I fear, the novelty value is all they will come away with. Nevertheless, Fish2Frÿ was brave to have chosen one of Cocteau’s most recalcitrant works as its debut. Let’s hope that if they wish to continue with Cocteau, they choose one of his more accessible plays like La Machine infernale (1934) or Les Parents terribles (1938). Yet, presenting the English Canadian premiere of a play always has its value and helps broaden our knowledge of world drama.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is of the world premiere of Spoon River in November 2014
Photos: (from top) Christian Martel and Aidan Black Allen; Aidan Black Allen and Christian Martel; Aidan Black Allen and M. John Kennedy. ©2015 Dahlia Katz.
For tickets, visit http://fish2fryproductions.com.
2015-03-26
The Eagle With Two Heads