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DIDO, QUEEN OF CARTHAGE,
BY CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE
PRESENTED BY THE COMPANY OF MEN AND WOMEN AT
SHAKESPEARE’S GLOBE, JUNE – AUGUST 2003
REVIEW BY ANNALIESE CONNOLLY
(SHEFFIELD HALLAM)
A production of Marlowe’s Dido, Queen of Carthage at the Globe theatre; this
season was a first in all sorts of ways. It was Marlowe’s earliest play; it was
the first Marlowe play to have been performed at the reconstructed Globe;
and was joined in The Season of Regime Change 2003 at the Globe by
another of Marlowe’s plays, Edward II. It was also quite possibly the first
time that this play of Marlowe’s had been performed in an open air theatre
on Bankside, as the play’s performance history indicates that the play was
originally written for the Children of the Chapel Royal and was probably
first put on at a private indoor theatre such as the first Blackfriars or at
court. The play was later revived in 1598 and the entries for it in
Henslowe’s diary suggest that it was again performed at an indoor private
theatre. In view of all this and because it is so rarely performed anywhere
there was a real atmosphere of expectation surrounding this production of
Dido.
The buzz of curiosity was amplified by the production team’s
decision not to restrict themselves to simply trying to recreate the original
playing conditions of Dido but to make use of contemporary set design,
costume and casting. The modernity of the set design was certainly striking,
as a children’s playground had been superimposed onto the Globe stage. A
steel slide stretching from the balcony to the front of the stage, over which
stood a climbing frame and swing dominated the stage. The modern
colours and textures of the grey steel and plastic toys scattered over the
stage contrasted with the red pillars and gilt work of the Globe’s ceiling.
As a design concept the playground set was used to convey the
connection between the divine and the mortal worlds, with the slide and
climbing frame used to comic effect by the gods as they observed and
intervened in the lives of Dido and Aeneas. In the opening scene Venus,
observing the arrival of Aeneas in Carthage from the balcony, remarks ‘Now
is the time to play my part’ (I.1.182) and slides down to speak to her son.
The set design was used to emphasise the childishness of the gods, which
was also signalled by the choice of their costumes. Jupiter sported an
oversized tweed jacket and Hermes wore a huge baggy jumper, the arms of
which he flapped like wings to denote his role as messenger to the gods.
Venus and Juno were also styled as children dressing up, this time in
mummy’s clothes as they wore oversized high heels, with Juno wielding a
huge gold handbag and compact, while Venus had a gauzy gown with boa
trim, which neatly underlined their attempts at something like divine
behaviour. The decision to emphasise the child-like qualities of the gods
through their costume, in which they are presented as children playing at
being adults, was also a subtle nod to the play’s stage history when the parts
of the gods were taken by boys who would have worn adults’ clothing to
play at being adults.
The Company of Men and Women for Dido comprised only six
adults, so that doubling of parts was necessary. The parts which benefited
from their doubling were those of Iarbus and Hermes performed by Dave
Fishley. I thought Fishley gave an excellent performance as Dido’s thwarted
lover, with the comedy of his role really coming through. During Dido’s
description to Aeneas of her suitors, Iarbus not only listened with the rest of
the courtiers, but also doubled as the gallery of suitors, as a hula-hoop was
used to frame his face as Dido described each one in turn. I particularly
liked the way in which the doubling of these parts highlighted the fact that it
is the role of both Iarbus and Hermes to facilitate Aeneas’s departure from
Carthage, albeit for very different reasons. Earlier Iarbus is shown making
a sacrifice to the gods to bring about his departure, as he offers to shoot a
plastic Action Man doll with a plastic gun. Virgil certainly presents Aeneas
as an action man, but Marlowe’s is anything but. Later in Act V scene 1, the
scene opens with the stage direction ‘Enter Aeneas with a paper in his hand,
drawing the platform of the city’. The production offers a tongue in cheek
interpretation of this by having Aeneas on stage with a toy truck filled with
sand: here the rebuilding of Carthage is represented by sandcastles, offering
a further ironic touch to his opening lines ‘Here will Aeneas build a statelier
Troy’ (V.1.2).
Discussion of his plans for Carthage are interrupted by the arrival of
Hermes in huge trainers who promptly stamps on the sandcastles, reproving
his behaviour with: ‘Why, cousin stand you building cities here / And
beautifying the empire of this Queen while Italy is clean out of thy mind?’
(V.1.27-29). I thought the use of the sandcastles to represent Aeneas’s
vision of Carthage summed up not only the transitory and impossible nature
of his plans, but also fed into Marlowe’s characterisation of his Trojan
protagonist: he is not the heroic founder of Rome, but the child who gets
sand kicked in his face.
Doubling within the rest of the production worked less well as it was
not always clear which parts the actors were playing. For example, James
Garnon began as Jupiter in an oversized suit jacket, removing his jacket to
become Achates. The confusion began, however, with the decision to have
the roles of Ganymede and Ascanius acted out with dolls, their voices being
ventriloquised by Garnon. In the induction for instance Garnon as Jupiter
provided the voice for Ganymede and later as Cupid he also provided the
voice for Ascanius. For members of the audience not familiar with the play
it was impossible to properly follow these sequences as all efforts were
focussed on working out who Garnon was playing and for whom he was
voicing. In particular, the decision to have Ganymede played by a Tiny
Tears doll, with Garnon (as Jupiter) providing a squeaky child’s voice for
him, reduced Ganymede’s significance. Ganymede is not simply a petulant
child making demands of a fatherly Jupiter. His cruel humour is played
down, as is Jupiter’s infatuation for the youth, which prevents the audience
from seeing the parallels between Jupiter and Dido, with gods and mortals
alike governed by their passions.
Cupid disguised as Ascanius was played by another Tiny Tears doll,
with Garnon providing another squeaky voice over. The production’s
interpretation of Cupid’s role was rather one-dimensional: Garnon played
him simply for laughs as a rather gormless schoolboy playing pranks on his
unsuspecting victims as he strikes them with a toy bow and suckered arrows.
The characterisation of Cupid and Ganymede’s behaviour as harmless fun
and which played down their malicious streak meant that the production
with its playground framework failed to capitalise on the less palatable
playground behaviour of bullying and manipulation which Marlowe clearly
presents.
The role of the Nurse also suffered from doubling, as there was no
clear indication that that was who Clare Swinburne was meant to be.
Swinburne was easily identifiable as Venus with fluffy mules and a yellow
wrap, and even as Aeneas’s follower Sergestus in a white top and trousers,
but when she continued in the same costume for the part of the Nurse, the
character change was unclear, with the Nurse’s scene treated as a bit of an
afterthought. The Nurse, like Dido before her, however, offers another
example of what J. B. Steane calls Marlowe’s ‘humour of discomfiture’ as
Cupid takes a sadistic pleasure at the grotesque effect his arrows have upon
the Nurse, mocking her for thinking of love at her years: ‘A husband and no
teeth!’ (IV.5.24). Cupid’s game-playing invites the audience to observe with
a detached amusement her emotional see-sawing. The production’s failure
to offer a clearly defined sketch of the Nurse, as well as its use of a doll for
the role of Cupid as Ascanius, obscured a rare Marlovian comic character, as
well as defusing the darker comedy of this scene, which was a real shame.
The production’s emphasis on the gods had the effect of making the
play feel a little unbalanced, with other areas appearing rather neglected.
The costumes of Dido and Aeneas compared with those of the gods were a
case in point, with Aeneas in jeans and a t-shirt and Dido in vest top and
leggings. I didn’t necessarily want opulent costuming for the lovers, and
Rakie Ayola certainly gave a regal performance, but her black socks and
trainers left me wishing for a grown-up glamour that would outshine that of
Venus and Juno.
I waited eagerly to see how the production would handle the tricky
stage management of the deaths of Dido, Iarbus and Anna by immolation.
The picture in the programme from the illustrated edition of Dyden’s
translation of the Aeneid has Dido balancing on top of a precariously built
pyre with a sword at her side. The production chose to depict the deaths
symbolically with Dido holding a handful of sparklers, with Iarbus and Anna
each taking one in turn. Dido’s death is one of muted triumph as she isn’t
given the last word and the production did capture the play’s sense of anticlimax, particularly as members of the audience hesitated to clap, unsure in
fact whether it was the end. All in all, despite certain failings, I congratulate
the production for its inventiveness and look forward to my next Dido.
Bibliography
Christopher Marlowe, Dido, Queen of Carthage. In Dido, Queen of Carthage
and The Massacre at Paris. The Revels Plays. Ed. H. J. Oliver. London:
Methuen, 1968.
J. B. Steane, Christopher Marlowe: A Critical Study. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1965.
Fred B. Tromly, Playing With Desire: Christopher Marlowe and the Art of
Tantalization. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998.
Dido, Queen of Carthage, by Christopher Marlowe, presented by the Company of Men
and Women at Shakespeare’s Globe, London, England. June 2003 – August 2003.
Directed by Tim Carroll (Master of Play). Designed by Laura Hopkins. Music by
Claire van Campen. Choreography by Siân Williams. With James Garnon
(Jupiter/Ganymede/Achates/Ascanius/Cupid);
Clare
Swinburne
(Venus/
Sergestus/Nurse); Will Keen (Aeneas); Caitlin Mottram (Ilioneus/Anna/Juno); Dave
Fishley (Iarbus/Hermes); and Rakie Ayola (Dido).
Annaliese Connolly is a Ph.D. student at Sheffield Hallam University and is
researching the performance of female rule in the plays of Lyly, Marlowe,
Shakespeare and Webster. To respond to the review please e-mail:
[email protected]