Scenes from an Execution, National Theatre, Lyttelton - review

Fiona is a Shaw-fire hit... but the play is still a hard one to love
p29 Fiona Shaw
Tristram Kenton
5 October 2012

No one could accuse Howard Barker’s writing of being easy to love. The work of this self-proclaimed outsider and scourge of the British cultural establishment, which even in his National Theatre programme note he describes as ‘utilitarian, entertainment-obsessed and awash with moral platitudes’, has its devotees, but it is rarely seen except in productions by Barker’s own company, The Wrestling School. Full marks to the National, then, for reviving what is probably Barker’s best known and most accessible piece, which comes complete with a hulking great central part for a semi-clad Fiona Shaw.

Shaw batters about the cavernous Lyttelton stage with legs akimbo and breasts out, even when in the company of the Doge of Venice (Tim McInnerny). She plays Galactia, the strenuously unconventional painter entrusted by the Venetian Republic to immortalise the bloody Battle of Lepanto (1571) on 1000 square foot of canvas. Quite why anyone thought the end result would be a flag-waving celebration of martial triumph is unclear, for Galactia gives no suggestion of being a ‘land of hope and glory’-type artist. Her unconcealed aim is rather to portray the hideous loss of limb and life.

Thus the play could morph into a blazing feminist tract or a fierce discussion about the compromises inherent in state-funded art. It dabbles tantalisingly with both these possibilities, but as ever Barker tilts at too many windmills in one go and ends up saying nothing particularly original. It doesn’t help that every character is perpetually overstated and a fierce insistence on anachronism is a further impediment. A peculiar personage called The Sketchbook (Gerrard McArthur) sits suspended in a stark white cube above the action, talking like an art critic about this year’s Turner Prize.

Still, it’s an overripe plum of a role for Shaw and there’s no doubting her commitment to the part’s physicality, as she mauls her younger lover Carpeta (an overwhelmed-looking Jamie Ballard) while waxing lyrical about the ‘shoals of matted buttocks’ after the battle. Galactia’s unfettered sexuality is one of the things the Venetian patriarchy apparently finds threatening about her, but again this potentially fascinating line of enquiry is left under-explored. McInnerny’s equivocating Doge, benevolent patron cum uncompromising tyrant, is a constant pleasure to watch, although the sightlines of Tom Cairns’s production, which was halted for ten minutes due to technical problems, often leave a lot to be desired.

In rep until Dec 9 (020 7452 3000, nationaltheatre.org.uk)

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