Content area
Full Text
The Tragedy of Soliman and Perseda
Presented by Trifle Productions, at the Rose Theatre, Bankside, London. April 26-May 1, 2010. Directed by Sophie Hickman. Editing and Textual Assistance by Luke Beattie. Fights by Gordon Kemp. With Israel Oyelumade (Soliman), Ben Galpin (Erastus), Cassandra Hodges (Perseda), Stephen Barden (Brusor), Carsten Hayes (Basilisco), Michael Linsey (Piston), Carly Jukes (Lucina, Crier), Eve Winters (Love), Kaye Conway (Fortune), Maya Thomas (Death), Mark Mansell (Philippo, Lord Marshall), Andres Ortiz (Ferdinando, Amurath, Witness), Alexander Devrient (Prince of Cyprus, Haleb, Witness), Sam Benjamin (Guelpio, English Knight), John Triggs (Julio, French Knight), and Steve Lee (Mule)
Paradoxically, one of the highlights of the first decade of "Shakespeare's Globe" was the theatre's attention to Shakespeare's contemporaries, reviving neglected plays alongside canonical plays for a popular audience. This aspect of the theatre's work has, regrettably, been sidelined under the directorship of Dominic Dromgoole. Yet around the corner, the Globe's less glamorous cousin continues Bankside's reclamation of the wider early modern repertory. By day the Rose is part of the Globe's exhibition and tour, an archaeological curiosity of lifeless foundations; but at night it opens its doors to young and amateur companies who, infected by the Rose's spirit of archaeological curiosity, are excavating forgotten Elizabethan plays including this, Thomas Kyd's Soliman and Perseda.
Behind a narrow performance space constructed on a viewing gallery, the Rose itself was an evocative backdrop-a low-ceilinged cavern, extending back into darkness, with water dripping into a pool that filled the foundations. Illuminated in red, it became the hell from which Love, Fortune, and Death emerged to introduce the play. As a violin screeched below, the trio performed a series of stylized motions that evoked their conflict: Love fired darts that...