Love's Victory

Don’t tell anyone, but when I see a rarely performed play from one of Shakespeare’s contemporaries, I usually find myself thinking, at some point during the performance, that I can see why it is only rarely performed. Usually, by the end of the performance of an obscure early modern play, I have a strong, unspoken feeling that it ought to sink back into the obscurity from whence it came. I can’t tell anyone, because I know that this is the sort of thing I ought to be interested in. That is my secret shame. It was due that disappointingly low-brow tendency of mine that I drove to Kent this weekend with mixed feelings. Love’s Victory, a play by Mary Wroth, was being performed for the first time by professional actors at her onetime home, Penshurst Place. Wroth, who was writing around the same time as Shakespeare, was a defiant, trailblazing woman, both in her writing and in her private life. Her poetry also happens to be the subject of the PhD thesis I’m working on, so I knew I couldn’t miss this momentous occasion despite my misgivings. I started the long drive to Tonbridge feeling a little grumpy, but consoling myself with the idea that I’d be spending an evening in a beautiful place, and that I’d probably get some Percy Pigs on the way.

Well, despite my bad attitude, and the profound lack of Percy Pigs at my chosen motorway service station, my trepidation was wholly unfounded. Seeing Love’s Victory at Penshurst Place made for a hugely enjoyable evening. Penshurst Place was, of course, beautiful in the evening. As many visitors will know, the house and grounds are also famously spectacular by day, but the glimmering of candlelight, the warm floodlights peeking through the trees, and the fluttering of bats in the summer night’s air was particularly special. The performance took place in the Baron’s Hall, a huge medieval space, with a cavernous beamed roof, a musicians’ gallery, and an octagonal fire pit in the centre of the floor. A stage was set up at the back of the room and each of the gothic windows contained a huge, lit candelabra glimmering away. As I took my seat, I thought that I could see why it was such a popular wedding venue, before turning to my program to banish such trivial musings. When the performance began, my mind stopped wandering and I was immediately engaged, not least because the actor playing Lissius (Jonny McPherson) was incredibly handsome! The play was funny, clever, and charming, and the two hours went by in the blink of an eye.

The performance, as all good performances of any play should, gave me new insight into the text. The actors’ delivery really highlighted the witty banter and conversational moments in Love’s Victory. This is one of the features that really sets Wroth’s play apart from the work of many of her aristocratic peers, whose dramatic writing for private audiences (unlike that written for the public stage) often sits squarely in the ‘closet drama’ style of endless monologues. In contrast Wroth’s work is theatrical and vivacious. The cast’s excellent singing – one of the real strengths of the performance – transformed the text back into what it was originally intended to be: a piece of entertainment. The long songs in plays of this period are often difficult for a reader presented with a text and nothing else (this is true of Shakespeare’s plays too). In modern performances of early modern drama, songs are more or less always cut out, or spoken, and almost never sung. In my opinion this is a recipe for interminable, bizarre, and confusing disaster. This production was different. The songs, skillfully performed and accompanied by live musicians playing contemporary renaissance music, were brought to life as witty, comic, moving, and joyful in turn. The songs also helped the play make more sense to me structurally, as the action basically revolves around the young shepherds and shepherdesses meeting up to entertain one another. The songs last night were very entertaining, in a way that I had not imagined from the black and white of my copy of the play.

The cast, directed by Martin Hodgson, made their characters engaging and charming, and managed to pitch each moment with expert precision, leading their audience from laughter to anguish, and back again. I thought Rachel Winters (as Dalina) and Nichole Bird (as Musella) were particularly strong, but the entire cast shone with talent and succeeded in giving a nuanced and relevant performance of a 400 year old text, which, however good a play might be, is no mean feat. The combination of the excellent cast and crew, the beautiful setting, and Mary Wroth’s script made magic. A bad play will always be boring, but it is very easy to make a good play boring too. Perhaps the reason why I secretly keep thinking that these rare renaissance plays should remain so, is because they’re rarely given a chance. Millions of pounds, and the entire careers of generations of talented actors, designers and directors are lavished upon Shakespeare’s plays, so it’s little wonder that the rehearsed readings, performed by a few shy humanities students working hard in their spare time  that are the usual lot of Shakespeare’s lesser known contemporaries don’t quite compare. By supporting this production Penshurst Place, the AHRC, Lancaster University, and Alison Findlay (the driving force behind the project) gave Mary Wroth a chance. I think their investment paid off.

The Baron's Hall, Penshurst Place
Photograph from www.penshurstplace.com

Learn more about Penshurst Place: https://www.penshurstplace.com/

Learn more about Prof Alison Findlay's project: http://wp.lancs.ac.uk/shakespeare-and-his-sisters/penshurst-place/