The Changeling, a Curtain Up London review

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A CurtainUp London Review

The Changeling

by Lizzie Loveridge

Oh, my blood! Methinks I feel her in mine arms already,
Her wanton fingers combing out this beard,
And being pleased, praising this bad face!
Hunger and pleasure, they'll commend sometimes
Slovenly dishes and feed heartily on 'em,
Nay, which is stranger, refuse daintier for 'em.
Some women are odd feeders.
— De Flores

Daniel Cerqueira as De Flores
(Photo: Keith Pattison)

The Changeling is a curiously lurid and notoriously difficult Jacobean play by Middleton and Rowley with a sub plot set in a lunatic asylum which is sometimes left out of the main play. In this version at the Young Vic, Joe Hill-Gibbins and designer Ultz have set the whole play in a lunatic asylum, with a collection of locking wooden cabinets and cages to contain the inmates. The audience in The Maria are on all four sides, some sitting downstairs in boxes of their own like a listening jury, others, able bodied but sitting in wheel chairs for the performance while above the stage are galleries where on all four sides the audience can look down on the players beneath through those black nets used to protect the crowd from a basket ball game.

In the main play, in modern dress, Beatrice-Joanna (Jessica Raine) lures the severely psoriatic, inflamed and peeling, faced De Flores (Daniel Cerqueira) to kill her fiancé Alonzo (Duncan Wisbey) so that she might marry the man she has fallen for, Alsemero (Kobna Holdbrook-Smith). De Flores obliges drowning Alonzo by holding his head in a bowl of red punch. But that is where things go pear shaped as De Flores, already obsessed with Joanna, insists on a sexual payment rather than money and sweet faced Joanna develops a dark and insatiable passion for the hired murderer. The maid Diaphanta (Charlotte Lucas) is employed first to demonstrate to Joanna, so she may imitate them, the effects of a virgin detecting potion on a true virgin and secondly to bed a blindfolded Alsemero. With custard, red jelly and trifle on hand the gory effects are reproduced with red food.

In the sub plot Henry Lloyd-Hughes as Antonio disguises as one with cerebral palsy in a wheel chair in order to attempt to seduce the lunatic asylum’s superintendent Alibius’ (Duncan Wisbey) wife Isabella (Charlotte Lucas). Isabella’s resistance of the three seducers contrasts with Beatrice-Joanna’s fall into ignominy. Because of the set being the same and several of the roles doubled up I would advise anyone not familiar with the plot of The Changeling to research this before seeing this production.

There were moments in this unconventional production that are thrilling: Maxine Doyle’s choreographed wedding dance, not just the dance but the ceremony. . .the speeches and routine all synchronised, arm jabbing, and cheesy grins all round to a selection of pop music. Excellent too are the performances too from Jessica Raine as off the rails formerly conventional and demure Beatrice-Joanna and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith as her sincere but tricked husband covered in jelly are convincing and Daniel Cerqueira conveyed some sympathy rather than evil and revulsion. It may not be a conventional rendering of The Changeling but it is memorable!

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The Changeling
Written by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley
Directed by Joe Hill-Gibbins

Starring: Daneiel Cerqueira, Jessica Raine, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith
With: Alex Beckett, Daniel Cerqueira, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, Henry Lloyd-Hughes, Charlotte Lucas, Howard Ward, Duncan Wisbey
Designed by Ultz
Lighting: James Farncombe
Sound: Paul Arditti
Choreography: Maxine Doyle
Running time: One hour 50 minutes without an interval
Box Office: 020 7922 2922
Booking to 18th February 2012
Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge based on the 3rd February 2012 performance at the Maria, The Young Vic, The Cut SE1 8LZT(Rail/Tube: Waterloo)

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