Tangram Theatre’s new version of Fuente Ovejuna is billed as 'a pastoral tragicomedy with songs, romance and lynching’, which makes it sound like a mixture of Quentin Tarantino, As You Like It and Glee.
Daniel Goldman’s young company has a decidedly cocky approach to making theatre, and here the result is a bright, lively, imaginative interpretation, though it’s far removed from the idiom of the play’s author Lope de Vega, who
was born two years before Shakespeare.
The subject matter — a village community rising up against a tyrannical military commander in 15th-century Andalusia — isn’t immediately compelling. But the play’s celebration of solidarity becomes absorbing, and Goldman’s production has wit as well as heart.
Early on, a character explains that this is "one of those interactive theatre things". It’s not, in fact, especially taxing in the demands it makes of the audience but this is not a show for people who want to sit still. We’re expected to put on paper hats and blow party horns. Later, we graduate to more active engagement, such as chanting revolutionary slogans and "stoning" a villain to death — albeit with water-filled balloons.
There are opportunities to mingle with the cast and even dance with them. The musical accompaniment will vary over the course of the run; on the press night the band was bracingly tight.
The 11-strong cast relish musical moments of their own, including numbers inspired by Dolly Parton and the Flaming Lips. However, this playfulness compromises the clarity of tone.
Equally problematic is cast members’ movement through the audience, which adds little and at one point involves unwelcome blasts of air freshener (one of life’s great misnomers, surely).
Among Lope’s distinguishing skills is his quick exposition. Here, though, it takes too long to get to grips with exactly what’s at stake. Lope’s weakness is arguably an inability to create truly complex characters, and that isn’t remedied in the reworked text by Goldman and Carolina Ortega.
In short, this is a boldly conceived production, performed with conviction by a versatile company — the standout is Hannah Boyde. But I found myself wanting a crisper sense of the play’s setting and of Lope’s original voice.
Until August 28. Information: 020 7407 0324.
Fuente Ovejuna
Southwark Playhouse
Shipwright Yard, corner of Tooley Street and Bermondsey Street, SE1 2TF
