![]() Lindsey Turner’s production starts with a surprise. ![]() Done effectively, Arthur Miller’s drama about witch trials keeps an audience riveted from the opening beat. The Crucible has a strong claim to be the best American play of the last century. This is a show for politicians and it seems strangely topical at a time when Westminster is strewn with ousted titans (Rishi, Boris, Gove), all plotting their next move. What keeps Borkman alive is his half-mad ambition to make a comeback and to return to the realm where he was best able to express his flawed genius. In this play, Ibsen finds bankers guilty of corruption and greed while honouring the essential benevolence of capitalism. He regarded banking as a sacred art and he saw himself as a charitable sorcerer who could conjure wealth from the resources of nature and spread it across the world. We can see the reality of the fallen hero – ‘a great wounded eagle’ as he calls himself – but we also detect traces of Borkman’s magnificence in his heyday. And the portrait straddles several decades. He gives the proud and haughty Borkman an approachable, witty side and at times he makes him cuddly and loveable. His caustic jibes often become comedic and Simon Russell Beale encompasses both extremes in a performance of enormous charm and depth. ‘Everyone gets run over from the time to time,’ shrugs Borkman. Later Willhelm returns, having been knocked off his bike by a speeding car. ‘You are not and never were a writer,’ says Borkman with devastating cruelty. ‘Name me a single woman who is any use to anyone?’ His magnetism and intellect make him a great social animal but he destroys the affection of his only friend, Willhelm, who aspires to become a novelist. He was once a keen lover of women and he now talks like a gross misogynist. He could be Kevin Spacey, Robert Maxwell, Prince Andrew or Bernie Madoff. The character of Borkman repels and fascinates. His one hope, his son Erhart, openly shuns him and prefers the company of a sexy local seductress. Gunhild loathes her twin sister, Ella, while Borkman blames both women for his downfall. The family are more riven with feuds than the royals. After his release, he began a life of self-destructive solitude. The reclusive Borkman was once the country’s best-known banker until envious colleagues accused him of embezzlement and got him sent to jail for five years. The whole place stinks of stagnation and failure. On a beaten-up sofa lies Gunhild, his estranged wife, who guzzles Coke and watches TV game shows. John Gabriel Borkman opens with the obsessive footfalls of a disgraced banker as he prowls the attic of a shabby townhouse.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |