Classic Greek tragedy still speaks loud, clear and significant to us today. But I doubt whether ancient Greek comedy has this timeless capacity. Certainly Kathryn Hunter's almost mirth-free production of Aristophanes's The Birds, presented in collaboration with Mamaloucos Circus, is an object lesson in dumbed-down desperation. Its use of circus performers on trapezes and trampolines, and a version of the original text from Sean O'Brien that consists of embarrassingly inept couplets, hashed up in contemporary yob-speak, contributes little. By her efforts, Hunter betrays a conviction that Aristophanes must be spectacularly decorated rather than played.
The circus performers achieve tremendous acrobatic and athletic feats of the sort that will be familiar to aficionados of Archaos and Cirque de Soleil. They play a variety of avian roles - from Eagle to Vulture - that allow an opportunity to hurtle and somersault high in the air, swinging riskily into the auditorium on ropes. But these soaring, bird-like flights are incidental rather than integral. Aristophanes's comedy, you vaguely discern through the dank, straggling undergrowth of O'Brien's doggerel, has serious comic intent.
Pez and Eck, as O'Brien laddishly names them, are fellows escaping from Athens's political crisis. They are the prime figures in Aristophanes's magic, comic fantasy about the longing for Utopia and how fine ideals often end up compromised. When the lads find Tereus, the king-turned-bird, their hopes soar of founding a city in the skies with the avians. They dream of privatising air and usurping the Gods' powers. Pez's victory is a hollow one, not that you would know from the jovial musical accompaniment to the final marriage ceremony. O'Brien's vulgar, plodding doggerel suppresses any comic potential. "In party gear with neither fronts nor backs/Some nice lap-dancing nymphomaniacs" represents the best of him.
The production abounds with music, from rap to Gilbert and Sullivan, but its frantic air of activity, on Liz Cooke's drab set, fails to disguise the prevailing vacuity. Marcello Magni, as Pez, is insufficiently at ease with English to speak rhyming couplets. He's very hard to follow. As his fellow male traveller to bird-land, Hayley Carmichael swaggers with arch winsomeness, while Josette Bushell-Mingo rants and postures. Ghastly.
? Showing at the National's Lyttelton, until 14 August. Box office: 020 7452 3000.
The Birds
