Review: Tristan & Yseult (Kneehigh at Chicago Shakespeare)

  
  
Tristan & Yseult

Written by Carl Grose and Anne Maria Murphy
Adapted and Directed by Emma Rice
at Chicago Shakespeare, Navy Pier (map)
thru April 13  |  tickets: $60-$70   |  more info
  
Check for half-price tickets 
  
  
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One of the most riveting theatrical adventures of the season

Kneehigh i/a/w Chicago Shakespeare Theater presents

Tristan & Yseult

Review by Oliver Sava

Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s World’s Stage Series is a true gift for this city, regularly providing the season’s most remarkable productions by inviting theater companies from around the globe to share their talents. Kneehigh of Cornwall, England is the latest international troupe to create magic on the Pier with their unique adaptation of the medieval legend of “Tristan and Yseult,” a stylized production that uses movement, music, and humor to create a transcendent theatrical experience.

Before the story begins, the audience is treated to the musical stylings of songstress Whitehands (Carly Bawden) and the band of The Club of the Unloved, a place populated by those that have never felt affection or who have had it but lost it. Patrons of the club walk around the theater and interact with audience members while Bawden croons smooth jazz and rock songs from the 20th century, creating an environment not unlike what Chicago residents can normally find at a House or Hypocrites production at the Chopin. But once the romance of French heartthrob Tristan (Andrew Durand) and Irish princess Yseult (Etta Murfitt) begins to unfold, the show becomes an entirely new experience.

Whitehands also serves as the play’s main narrator, with assistance from the various Unloved club members, and Bawden’s charisma makes Whitehands one of the most intriguing characters on stage. The character has a secret that she keeps until the play’s final moments, and that brilliant final reveal changes the story’s context, forcing the audience to reinterpret what it’s just seen. Whitehands’ identity adds a layer of emotional complexity to a production that is already packed with ideas and imagination, and the journey to that reveal is one of the most riveting theatrical adventures of the season.

After a brief introduction from Whitehands showing a bleeding Tristan at the end of his life, the play jumps back to show how Tristan came to Cornwall, befriended King Mark (Stuart Goodwin), and crossed paths with the Irish princess who holds both their fates in her healing hands. The plot begins with the king’s aid Frocin (Giles King) getting ambushed by enemy soldiers, who he eliminates while lip synching to Yma Sumac. That scene combines fight and musical choreography for an exciting opening, and throughout the show, music is ingeniously applied to illuminate the mood of specific scenes. The use of Wagner’s score for Tristan und Isolde is particularly exceptional, elevating the impact of the story to operatic levels when it plays.

The most remarkable aspect of Emma Rice’s staging is the physicality of her performers, who leap and swing and dance and fight with boundless energy. The sweeping movements contribute to much of the show’s spectacle, but what’s even more impressive is the specificity of the smaller motions and physical details. Each act begins with a sequence of motions that doesn’t make sense until these motions unfold in the story, and the way the cast members make these undefined movements feel important and universal shows a level of craft that we aren’t exposed to very often in the states.

As the titular lovers, Durand and Murfitt have an instant connection that strengthens once a mystical love potion enters their lives. The scene where they act on their new passion is an exhilaratingly joyous sequence that has the actors swinging through the air with ecstasy, and the rush of that sequence amplifies the heartbreak when Yseult leaves Tristan for King Mark, the man she’s been promised to. The true tragedy is that all three of these people love each other in different ways, and the performances of Durand, Murfitt, and Goodwin capture that shared affection to lift the stakes when these characters are forced to hurt the people they care about most.

One of the show’s most textured performances comes from Craig Johnson, who plays both Morholt, Yseult’s fallen brother, and Brangian, Yseult’s female companion. His performance of Brangian is one of the big surprises of the production, starting as drag comic relief in the first act, then becoming something deeply complex and sympathetic in the second. The change between Johnson’s two characters is seismic, and his chameleonic abilities are shared among the entire cast.

Except for Bawden, all of the performers also play patrons of The Club of the Unloved, and when they slip into the gray hoods and brown jackets of their club uniforms, their former characters disappear completely as the actors take on their depressed but delightful clown personas. The homogenized appearance and behavior of those club dwellers suggests that a person isn’t truly defined until they are loved, and the affectionate performances of Kneehigh’s production make the characters real as the staging takes the audience on a marvelous theatrical thrill ride.

Rating: ★★★★

Tristan & Yseult continues through April 13th at Chicago Shakespeare, 800 E. Grand (map).  Tickets are $60-$70, and are available by phone (312-595-5600) or online through their website (check for half-price tickets at Goldstar.com). More information at ChicagoShakes.com.  (Running time: 2 hours, includes an intermission)

Photos by Steve Tanner and Heidi Bohnenkamp 

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artists

cast

Carly Bawden (Whitehands), Gareth Charlton (Lovespotter, Brute, Animator), Andrew Durand (Tristan), Stuart Goodwin (King Mark), Craig Johnson (Brangian, Morholt), Giles King (Frocin), Róbert Lučkay (Lovespotter, Brute, Animator), Etta Murfitt (Yseult), Ian Ross, Russ Gold, Pat Moran, Lizzy Westcott (musicians),

behind the scenes

Emma Rice (director, adaptor), Stu Barker (original music, music director),  Bill Mitchell (designer), Malcolm Rippeth (lighting design), Gregory Clarke (sound design), Helen Atkinson (asst. sound design), Paul Crews (producer), Steve Tanner, Heidi Bohnenkamp (photos)

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