Inventive retellings of ancient tales can be a joy to experience: the old is made new in crazy, sexy, wondrous ways.
Kneehigh’s Tristan & Yseult is such a show; its U.S. tour ended recently with a two-week run at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, where I saw it. I’m glad I did, in part because I’d forgotten the details of this doomed lovers’ story, which dates to the 12th century and informs both the Arthurian Lancelot and Guinevere and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
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The story of Tristan and Yseult goes like this: an Irish king invades Cornwall (the craggy arm of land that juts westward from the base of England) and is slaughtered. For the spoils, the Cornwall king asks his nephew Tristan to travel to Ireland and return with the dead king’s sister. She will be the Cornwall king’s bride.
Tristan is injured on his journey and nursed to health by Yseult, the king’s sister. Before they set sail to Cornwall, Yseult asks for a love potion, as she fears she will be unable to love the King. There’s a mix up, and both Tristan and Yseult drink the potion. Theirs is a heated romance.
Still, Yseult is promised and delivered to the King, who falls deeply in love with her. Tristan and Yseult continue their affair; they can’t help themselves. (Is it true love? Is it the potion?) When the lovers are discovered, the King spares their lives. Finally, though, the King banishes Tristan and keeps Yseult. The lovers vow to be reunited, but that comes too late.
This story lives on, currently Off Broadway, in Richard Maxwell’s contemporary play Isolde. Too, it was a 2006 movie starring James Franco. http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/tristan-and-isolde-2006. Calling it a tale of “the bliss and wretchedness of love,†the German composer premiered his Tristan und Isolde in 1865. It’s been on a world tour ever since. http://www.classicfm.com/composers/wagner/music/tristan-and-isolde/
But back to our show: Kneehigh is a Cornwall-based experimental theater group, since 1980. http://www.kneehigh.co.uk/page/kneehigh_history.php Their Tristan & Yseult is head-spinning: it’s loud, colorful, musical, and intensely physical. For a story seeped in sadness, their reworking of the story is madcap, even silly.
The actors rarely stop moving, and turn seamlessly from royalty to “the unloved†others on stage. Yseult’s maid Brangian is played by the barrel chested actor Craig Johnson; his/her “morning after†speech is a very quiet moment in this raucous work, and holds the audience in its grip. Stuart Goodman’s King Mark is similarly captivating; his bearing and grace and ability to forgive when betrayed are well-played moments.
I have some gripes about the Kneehigh production. Tristan (the character, not the actor) is a simpering fool. Never mind love: I couldn’t even summon a “like.†And Yseult (the actress, not the character) is miscast: I hate to be an age-ist and a fat-ist but a younger, slimmer actress should have played the Irish princess. Tristan was fresh-faced, fit and sexy; the King was magnificently handsome…so, why a hefty, middle-aged Yseult?
That said, a dazzling night of theater. Bravo, Kneehigh! Thank you, Chicago Shakespeare Theater. www.chicagoshakes.com/‎
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