The Canterbury Tales
by
Geoffrey Chaucer
At the Kingston Rose
We booked months in advance for our last trip
to the Rose Theatre in Kingston, in
order to secure our tickets to see Dame Judy in Midsummer Night’s Dream.
For this trip, I phoned up at 3.00pm on Saturday afternoon to see if we could
get in for the evening performance. Understandably, a touring performance by Northern Broadsides featuring no stars
of stage and screen was not fully booked – though there was a highly
respectable audience all of whom were, I am sure, delighted to be there. I have a lot of time for Barrie Rutter’s Northern
Broadsides company. They were the first professional group to play at The Rose, back when it was an unfinished
building site. They claim to be happy and able to play anywhere, and over the
years have proved it. Having put Lenny Henry up front in last year’s acclaimed Othello there
are no stars in this piece; an authentic ensemble if ever there was.
This was an evening of pure drama.
Everyone on stage not only acted but played something musical, sang, mostly did
some puppetry or mime or clog dancing... Sixteen actors took multiple roles in
a three hour romp of absolute delight. They were even unfazed by an injury to
Mathew Rixon, who played the Miller, meaning that all his ‘active’ parts had to
be played by others reading from their scripts. Frankly, it really didn’t
matter. This version, written by Mike Poulton was intended to stress as much of
the original as possible, and feature some of the less well known tales.
The plot is well known, the actual stories
less so. Since starting on my historical odyssey three years ago I have come to
understand the importance of Canterbury
Tales, one of a tiny number of literary original sources from the 14th
century and as such a vital source for the views, habits and beliefs of
‘ordinary’ people. The distressing conclusion for academia is that ordinary
people loved stories of sexual cheating and fart jokes. Both are deliciously
present in the Reeve’s tale. As the young men bed hop in the darkened mill, the
entire farce is played out to a chorus of under-blanket farts. The Reeve’s tale
is, of course, a revenge on the Miller for his own depiction of a rather stupid
carpenter and how he lets his young, precious and pretty wife cuckold him with
a young intellectual. The staging of this story could be a problem since at one
point the astrologer gets a red hot poker shoved up his arse... This was done with
very rude puppets – no doubt for health and safety reasons!
Perhaps the most beautiful and
troubling story is that of the Clerk of Oxenford. His story of the pure
Grisilde who is constantly challenged by her noble husband to display her total
obedience and continence to the extent of having her children taken away is a difficult
one for the modern audience. It echoes the biblical tale of the sacrifice of
Isaac (another story which modernity struggles with) but is a good illustration
of the medieval concept of unquestioning constancy. There are some fabulous
grotesques for the cast to get stuck into, none better than the Merchant’s tale
of a lecherous old knight and his teenage bride. The actor instantly transforms
himself into a horrible, tongue hanging out lecher, literally dribbling over
his young bride.
The final conundrum arrives as this
group of lecherous, foul-mouthed, irreverent pilgrims arrive at Canterbury,
light their candles and sing their way with true devotion into the sanctuary of
St Thomas with all due piety. The real message of this, the first great piece
of literature written in the English language, is that Medieval man and woman
was just as frustratingly complex and full of contradictions as we are. A
cracking show – try and catch it on tour.
www.rosetheatrekingston.org
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