Don Carlos is play of epic themes. Similar to Hamlet, it explores the intrigues, incestuous relationships and murderous power games of the Royal Court. Don Carlos, Crown Prince of Spain, is in love with Elizabeth, who his father the King has just married. The play opens with him shut away in seclusion, nursing his broken heart, while the courtiers play on the King’s paranoia about his son.
Spies and suspicions are everywhere and the audience enters as hooded figures solemnly pace, chanting Latin and swinging censers. The atmosphere is brilliantly conveyed, with superb costumes and set design by Bethany Greenaway and Ellie Tranter respectively. The stage is shadowed and claustrophobic, candles and smoke are a constant presence. The tone is set early on and continued throughout for this magnificent production.
The performances are brilliant, with Matt Maltby as Don Carlos portraying an emotional wreck of a man, with consummate skill. So, too, his humanitarian friend Rodrigo played by Etiene Ekpo-Utip, their friendship one of heightened, desperate emotion. They cling to each other, struggling to keep some sense of humanity in their lives. But even though they have the only true relationship in the play, it is not a comfort to them: both are too trapped in their own tragedies to enjoy their friendship and are even forced to manipulate each other and the Court for the benefit of their higher goals. Even these two heroes are not innocent.
The other relationships are ones of even worse dysfunction. While Don Carlos is emotional and talks only of love, his father is cold and distant. Neither can understand the other or overcome the distance between them. Desperate for affection, Don Carlos is driven to cling to his father’s feet begging for approval while the king yells at him to stop embarrassing himself and to act like a man for a change. Ed Chalk as King Phillip II is as tragic a figure as Don Carlos. Interestingly the play gives equal weight to the King himself and gives focus to his own personal torments, his paranoia, his loneliness and his frustrations. He is not a simple evil tyrant, and Ed Chalk gives a magisterial insight into the helpless rationale of this man who causes so much pain to others. The play is as much about the tragedy of Philip as it is about Don Carlos.
The other characters are equally well played. And the other villains, the fiendishly manipulative priest and the brutal Duke of Alba, are also given their motivations and their personal tragedies. Both are trapped by the situation they helped to create and forced to play the games of deceit and death until the inevitable end.
The direction is brilliant, with powerful control of a play that, with so many heightened emotions, needs a strong hand to stop it edging away into farce. Will Maynard is that strong hand and makes sure everything remains firmly rooted in dark tragedy and the depths of human misery and self-destruction.
All in all, this is a magnificent production and if you like your plays without humour or hope then this is definitely one of the best. A treat to watch.
Spies and suspicions are everywhere and the audience enters as hooded figures solemnly pace, chanting Latin and swinging censers. The atmosphere is brilliantly conveyed, with superb costumes and set design by Bethany Greenaway and Ellie Tranter respectively. The stage is shadowed and claustrophobic, candles and smoke are a constant presence. The tone is set early on and continued throughout for this magnificent production.
The performances are brilliant, with Matt Maltby as Don Carlos portraying an emotional wreck of a man, with consummate skill. So, too, his humanitarian friend Rodrigo played by Etiene Ekpo-Utip, their friendship one of heightened, desperate emotion. They cling to each other, struggling to keep some sense of humanity in their lives. But even though they have the only true relationship in the play, it is not a comfort to them: both are too trapped in their own tragedies to enjoy their friendship and are even forced to manipulate each other and the Court for the benefit of their higher goals. Even these two heroes are not innocent.
The other relationships are ones of even worse dysfunction. While Don Carlos is emotional and talks only of love, his father is cold and distant. Neither can understand the other or overcome the distance between them. Desperate for affection, Don Carlos is driven to cling to his father’s feet begging for approval while the king yells at him to stop embarrassing himself and to act like a man for a change. Ed Chalk as King Phillip II is as tragic a figure as Don Carlos. Interestingly the play gives equal weight to the King himself and gives focus to his own personal torments, his paranoia, his loneliness and his frustrations. He is not a simple evil tyrant, and Ed Chalk gives a magisterial insight into the helpless rationale of this man who causes so much pain to others. The play is as much about the tragedy of Philip as it is about Don Carlos.
The other characters are equally well played. And the other villains, the fiendishly manipulative priest and the brutal Duke of Alba, are also given their motivations and their personal tragedies. Both are trapped by the situation they helped to create and forced to play the games of deceit and death until the inevitable end.
The direction is brilliant, with powerful control of a play that, with so many heightened emotions, needs a strong hand to stop it edging away into farce. Will Maynard is that strong hand and makes sure everything remains firmly rooted in dark tragedy and the depths of human misery and self-destruction.
All in all, this is a magnificent production and if you like your plays without humour or hope then this is definitely one of the best. A treat to watch.