Medieval, modern and extremely entertaining
Date Posted: Sunday, March 04, 2007Author: Christen Pears
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Written in the 14th century, the Canterbury Tales is one of the great works of Western literature. With a diverse cast of characters and rich selection of stories, it offers a theatre company both a challenge and an opportunity to show off. Aquila’s production didn’t disappoint.
The show has been described as "what you might expect if Monty Python met Uberto Eco at a medieval pageant", and was fast-paced, funny and thought-provoking. There were strong performances from all of the cast but the production’s strength – its uncompromising modernity – was also its weakness. The minimalist costumes and set, which consisted of a wooden bench and a tree, placed the focus firmly on the actors, but deprived the audience of the riotous colour of the medieaval pageant which characterises Chaucer’s remarkable work.
The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories told by a group of pilgrims on their way from London to the shrine of St Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. Some are comic, some serious, but taken together they are both a microcosm of the medieval world and an exploration of human nature.
Aquila’s production, devised by Peter Meineck and Robert Richmond, took some of the best-known tales and brought them bang up to date, proving that the 600-year-old work is as relevant today as it was when it was written. The Miller became a baseball cap-wearing, gun-toting redneck, while the hooligans in The Pardoner’s Tale wore hoodies and carried baseball bats.
Some of the tales worked better than others. The Knight’s Tale, which examines the concept of courtly love, fell a little flat while the bawdy Miller’s Tale elicited much laughter from the audience. One of the highlights was The Wife of Bath’s Tale. Basienka Blake played the five-times married widow as a sassy proto-feminist with a wit as sharp as the business suit she was wearing.
Each of the actors took on multiple roles, switching easily between characters. Lindsay Ray Taylor, for example, transformed from nun to hooligan, teenage temptress to old hag.
Clever lighting and an evocative score added to the atmosphere as the action moved from serious to satire and ensuredThe Canterbury Tales was as entertaining and enlightening as Chaucer intended.