Review: Play: Volpone

The performances were highly variable. Stephen Jameson as Dromio of Syracuse was charmingly sympathetic and wholly and endearingly at a loss to account for the various unjust beatings he received. Adriana and Luciana (played by Jill Brassington and Gina Landor respectively) were suitably hysterical and straightforward. There was a nice moment when Luciana began to succumb to the protestations of Antipholus of Syracuse (whom she takes for her brother-in-law) and for a moment the production successfully complicated the simple double-take of the twins and focussed on the dynamics of human relationships, but this was short-lived. Mark Anstee's Antipholus of Ephesus was a wooden and verbally declamatory performance and failed to complement the engagement of his opposite (John Elmes). Some of the production was simply bewildering. The courtesan was played (for no apparent reason) by a man, Ben Ellison, and Bob Hewis's Pinch was an embarrassing witch doctor complete with voo-doo doll and pins-not the puritanically shrivelled skeleton that Antipholus describes, but a rather fulsome and hyperbolic oaf. The most theatrically disappointing moment was the entry of the boys from Syracuse and the reunion of the two sets of twins. This point in the play-its denouement-was tackled in the most unimaginative way. The action of the play simply stopped (not freezing into a tableau but merely grinding to a halt) and the lights dimmed to near blackout. The Syracusians entered upstage while the Ephesians stood downstage. The 'revelation' simply involved the Ephesians turnin.g round. while the whole episode was accompanied inexplicably with more oceamc groaning. Presumably, the intention of all this was to be experimental and innovative. The ESC certainly explored the histories in these ways and was completely successful in doing so. In the case of this hydromanic Errors, however, the thrust and clarity have come sadly adrift. PJ.S.