The award-winning Theatre North company brings a daring one-person adaptation of Shakespeare’s play The Tempest to the Jermyn Street Theatre after performing around the UK and Europe. The performance features Martin Lewton wearing sparkly earrings and nothing else, though he is covered in silver paint from head to toe. The performance uses The Tempest to celebrate marriage equality in an intimate and accessible manner, relying heavily on Lewton’s charisma. Yet I can’t help but feel that something is missing, resulting in an almost tense disconnection between the audience and the performance.

As we enter the small theatre, Lewton is already in make-up and stripped down, sitting on a chair and conversing openly with his audience. He candidly tells us about the different places this piece has been performed in: abroad, in private, in a living room. The Jermyn Street space does allude to the atmosphere of private performances. It is small and intimate, allowing us to connect with the happenings on stage. But this spell sadly breaks when Lewton starts his performance. His down-to-earth way of speaking and openness towards the audience turns into a self-aware presentation of Shakespeare’s quite dense text. Directed by Andrew McKinnon, this long monologue is certainly challenging, and if you don’t know the play, you might feel completely lost. Due to the nearly bare stage, which is lit only by a couple of pink LED lights and a black light for UV effects, we are left with Lewton’s physicality to be our anchor, and sadly his changes of posture often aren’t enough to clarify exactly what is happening. Unfortunately, his time spent on the floor does not help either, because unless you sit in the first row, most of the action on the floor is obscured by the rows in front of you.

The text is dense and long, often overpowering the actual intention of the performance. The highlights include Lewton presenting the quite beautiful moments of love between Mirando and Ferdinand, and when he transforms into Miss Juno by putting on a blonde wig to sing a song to his two friends in the audience. In these moments, the piece becomes a bit more playful and approachable, presenting an openness that connects the audience and the performance. Maybe the show itself should have focused more on these glimpses of purity, and should have taken more chances with Shakespeare’s text in order to successfully merge Theatre North’s naked, experimental form with a text so heavy with tradition.

 

Mirando The Gay Tempest played at the Jermyn Street Theatre on 14 February. For more information about the performance, see www.jermynstreettheatre.co.ukmirando-the-gay-tempset and to find out about future performances, see www.theatrenorth.co.uk