A
tormented reign in Spain
A censer swings hypnotically back and forth across the stage,
sending out gusts of stifling incense over the stalls. We're in
17th-century Spain, and the oppressiveness of the Catholic, priest-ridden
court of Philip II is brilliantly conveyed in the gloom of Christopher
Oram's spare, louring set with its barred, prison-like windows
and the infinitely subtle lighting by Paule Constable, which sculpts
sepulchral atmospheres out of the space. This is a fearful domain
of informers disguised as monks, of obsession with heresy and
of the use of "terror" (a word with a modern toll to
it) to suppress any spring-like bids for freedom that try to push
through the permanent winter of rigid orthodoxy.
Michael Grandage's production of Schiller's great 1787 tragedy
won uniformly rapturous reviews when it opened in Sheffield. But
in this West End transfer, it seems to have achieved an even greater
pitch of intensity. The last half hour, as the terrible waste
of youth and the closing down of possibility grind forward like
some uncontrolled waking nightmare, is one of the most emotionally
wringing sequences that I have ever experienced in a theatre.
At the heart of this play is the tortured relationship between
Philip of Spain and his eponymous unstable, freedom-loving son
The woolly-haired, wonderfully natural Richard Coyle
has grown in power in the transition to the character. He brings
a superbly bitter, mocking, end-of-his-tether humour to Carlos,
as the character dashes himself against the burning ice block
of his father's aloof distaste. Relations between the two were
never good. The mother died in childbirth and now, by a hideous
irony, Philip has married the very girl, Princess Elizabeth (Claire
Price), whom Carlos loves. This sense of emotional usurpation
is compounded when the young man's best friend, the Marquis of
Posa (Elliot Cowan) returns to court to fire the Prince's idealistic
support for a rebellion in the Spanish Netherlands. Once again,
Philip muscles in - seeing in Posa the son he wishes he had had.
As the king, Derek Jacobi gives one of the finest performances
of his career, and it's all the more admirable because to some
extent he is having to play directly against his own personality.
The reined-in hauteur; the explosively punctilious manner of speaking;
the flinching recoil from the mere touch of his son ("Spare
us the playhouse pathos," he rasps in Mike Poulton's mordant
translation, as Carlos kneels beseechingly before him) - all these
bespeak a man who has let childless priests replace his heart
with a dogmatic rule book.
But the brilliance of Jacobi's performance resides in two related
aspects. One is that, without for a second sentimentalising the
character, he gives tiny hints of the better person Philip might
been have before religion got to him. You see this in sense of
mysterious near-nostalgia with which he probingly gazes into the
eyes of Posa. The other is that he always checks himself, and
becomes even more viciously autocratic - petty, even - after these
moments of weakness.
Peter Eyre is a truly frightening Grand Inquisitor, like an enormous,
blind, red bug, shaking with fastidious fury between a pair of
walking sticks. Not a poster boy for tolerance. In short, this
is a triumph.
