“We offer this reading to David, Angela, Matthew, Pat and their family, with our love – and to all those caught up in the events of 7th July” [The Hampstead Players, Sunday 10th July]
All of us, as we met together on Saturday evening, must have been aware of David and his family close to us. The evening had indeed a strange quality – summer light blazed from the windows above the altar, though the church itself was shadowed. We had come to hear a reading – but something more than that. In listening to this lay which it had been [and still is] David’s strong ambition to direct and perform in, to follow his masterly Hamlet and Macbeth, we were part of a piece of the savage history of violence.
It is of course amongst other things a violent play. It dives quickly into action – the Feast of Lupercal and the Ides of March cast their threat, and we are plunged into the conspiracy, the torments of Brutus, the waning but still powerful image of the doomed Caesar, the duplicity of Cassius, the golden phrases of Mark Antony. All those taking part brought these – and the other characters – vividly to life. We heard the gentle voice of Portia who epitomises Brutus’ ‘nobler self’, and as we moved inexorably through the mental torment of Brutus and the persuasions of Cassius, we were spell-bound, almost hoping that Caesar would listen to his wife and stay away from the Capitol – until of course he decides to go, and the great moment comes and crimson light floods the chancel and Caesar adds to the world’s history of famous last words.
The los of the eponymous hero so early in the play always provides a problem – but this is Shakespeare’s fault. In this production the second half of the play skilfully leads us on, with a changed light on the Chancel and the deeply buried emotions of the protagonists rising to the surface, as in the sharp-edged quarrel between Brutus and Cassius; the ill-burring taper which heralds the appearance of the ghost of Casear, the steady movement towards the death of Cassius and Brutus – ‘the noblest Roman of them all’.
The whole history moves wih a fine streamlined certainty. At the end we understand how this play has been termed a ‘bridge’ between the histories and the great tragedies – that in meeting Brutus we are as it were, half way to Hamlet; a memorable evening, for all of us. Thank you, David. And thank you to all those who through voice, passion, sound effects, music and colour brought his vision of the play to such splendid life on the evening of the 16th July 2005.
The next date will of course be when David is able to return and take up his part of Brutus, as he was meant to do.
Diana Raymond