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Love comes with strings attached in Greg Doran’s tragic romance. The first one happened 22 years agoThis fascinating version of Shakespeare’s great poem about unrequited love is now lovingly narrated by Simon Russell Beale. With artful puppetry and a seductive air, it’s no wonder that Venus in search of the beautiful Adonis has had many lives. Like love – and heartbreak – its magic is timeless.
No air is wasted with these cheeky dolls, wooden in nature, designed and manufactured by Lyndie Wright. An angry Venus weeps and pleads while the beautiful, sometimes bored Adonis rejects her allure, more interested in hunting than in love. Venus walks so freely, you can’t see a group of puppets holding her hands as she throws herself at Adonis’ feet, or curling her legs in self-pity. Five puppets swim around their characters, providing head control and hand holding with surgical skills. Marionettes, puppets, sticks, Bunraku and other puppets are used to build this beautiful little world – including the pride of one angry, weak boar.
Wit is ahead of Doran’s detailed instructions: it’s in the horseplay, the momentary pause of the rabbit on the head of an audience member, and the moment when Nick Lee’s guitar suddenly stops, knowing that Adonis is stopping Venus’s hand from moving up his muscular leg. Lee’s music selections amplify these moments of comedy and shed light on the tragedy, as Venus goes from floating with joy to dancing with death on Robert Jones’ golden set – which hides her secret.
Reading from a chair at the side of the stage, Beale takes every word carefully: now wise, now funny, now sharp. Take your eyes off the stage for a moment and you can catch him showing off the toys by holding a loving hand over his heart. “Good queen,” he says, imitating the Venusian eye that looks up from her reluctant lover, “it will never happen.” But who among us has not been advised to give up love, but to double it and be left with nothing but a heartbeat?
