Tristan & Yseult has made its return to stages after its debut in 2003. Director Emma Rice tests tradition as usual, and this production is no exception to her other masterpieces. Rice repurposes the ancient lyric, turning it into a crazy musical circus of love.
Under the playful yet careful direction of Rice, the actors are forceful. Edward Rowe commands the production as the antagonistic yet equally downtrodden King Mark. His new lover matches the same energy: Yseult, played by Nandi Bhebhe, sweeps up the audience in a shower of radiant vocals, and a confidence juxtaposing the feeble men who are scattered around her. While initially it takes a while to adjust to her relationship with Tristan (John Leader), the second half tenderly highlights Yseult’s strange helplessness while also retaining power as a woman.
Rice optimises the audience as a delicate springboard, consistently inviting them into the production. She adapts the script using characters like Morholt (Tom Fox) to metatheatrically play the pantomime dame and tell the audience off for their lack of reaction to jokes. These figures tread perfectly on the side of losing utter control of the scene, reflecting how characters criticise and test their own roles in the traditional tale.
Sometimes such moments of comedy and inserts into the story detract slightly from the audience’s interpretation of the text, becoming too slapstick and on the nose. The hustle and bustle of the club in which the story is told is so vibrantly delivered that the diegesis is a little muddied. At the end of the production, all becomes crystal clear through the explanation of the fairy godmother-like narrator Whitehands (Stephanie Hockley), although wading through this production feels a little hapless. But maybe this is all Rice’s charm, for at the closure you feel highly content with the script, and satisfied with her characters.
Rice makes use of larger-than-life characters such as the haphazard Frocin (Mathew Churcher) before cleverly showing how they are members of the onstage group of hooded figures as the ‘unloved’ — those who makeup the ensemble of the loveless and rejected. All characters become synonymous in their lack of love with the star-crossed Tristan and Yseult.
Rice’s onstage band builds a sense of playfulness. This blends a rock, pop, and jazz score that is sublimely delivered and integrated. Ensembles are Rice’s forte, and the team impose and celebrate the work of the two leads with real power.
Although at first it may take a little breathing into, Rice’s Tristan & Yseult has had life breathed back into it, in all its glory.
Image by Steve Tanner, provided to The Student for press use.
