The Recruiting Officer - Donmar Warehouse - April 7 and 10

I don’t often say this – I don’t think I’ve ever said this – I recently saw a play that was pure theatrical magic. I saw John Farquhar’s The Recruiting Officer at London’s Donmar Warehouse on the evening of Saturday, April 7 and on an impulse, again on Tuesday, April 10. Something I’d never done before: my phone call to the box office went something like this “It’s my last night in London, I saw the play on Saturday, do you have ANY tickets available for this evening?” – I ended up with a standing ticket. Fan-tas-tic!

Let’s begin with the venue: Donmar Warehouse. I had never been to the Donmar before and the space alone is wonderful. Only a few rows in Stalls and a few rows in Dress Circle – a maximum capacity of 250, it couldn't get more intimate, and yet it does: in order to access the first several rows in the stalls, the audience must step either on the stage itself or on the boards going from each front corner of the stage diagonally to the back of the house. I was supposed to have one of those front row seats, but was sent a front row Circle ticket instead, but that’s another story. The seats are padded wooden benches, the balustrade is also wood – it couldn’t look any more rustic if it tried. Shielded lights line the stage on the three audience-facing sides as well as the circle but the mood lighting comes mainly from 4 giant round chandeliers with at least 30 candles on each, lowered while the musicians played pre-show folksy music reminiscent of Cape Breton fiddling tunes a la Sandy McIntyre (location specific reference to many a Sunday afternoon spent in a Toronto pub on Yonge Street called the Bow & Arrow listening to wonderful folk music), and lit by members of the cast before being raised again – and providing a gorgeous sort of heat I was very grateful for. I think it was the first time I’d been warm in an indoor environment since I arrived in London 2 days prior.

The Recruiting Officer is technically not Restoration Theatre, the 18^th century resurgence in writing for theatre as well as production after the Puritan, no-nonsense rule of Oliver Cromwell. Restoration technically ended with the death of Queen Mary in 1698, this play was written in 1706 but retains the “comedy of manners” flavour, with sobering undertones. What I did not realise at the time was that John Farquhar actually was a recruiting officer in the early 1700s before becoming a playwright. Thank you for that information and more, my 3 pound programme. The tactics used in the play are historically accurate, even if the characters themselves: Captains Plume and Brazen, Mssrs Worthy, Balance, and Scales, for instance, are not.

I have to say I felt a little bad for Tobias Menzies (Captain Plume). He seemed to have to work at least twice as hard to get a fraction of the laughs that Mark Gatiss (Captain Brazen) got. Gatiss played his captain rather camp and it was delightful. Menzies played his captain fairly straight, which let his many words delivered in a raspy/husky voice speak to their best advantage, and it also made sense because the two male characters he had the most to do with, Sgt Kite and Mister Worthy, were melodramatic in their own ways. Worthy as a love-struck and underappreciated suitor of Melinda, and Sgt Kite as a resourceful and cunning recruiting officer who is at his most over-the-top as the German-gypsy fortune teller Conundrum. Someone has to be the grounding influence and that was Plume. His intellectual and emotional counterpart (and functional, as far as the dynamics of the play are concerned), was Silvia, which brings me to the women.   

Without exception, they are a laugh riot in their own right: Rachael Stirling as the newly-rich and newly-proud Melinda, her smart and ambitious maid Lucy played by Kathryn Drysdale, and Melinda’s cousin Silvia (played by Nancy Carroll), who is in love with Captain Plume but in a Twelfth Night sort of deception, dresses up in her deceased brother’s clothing so she can join her intended’s ranks after she learns she has become her father’s sole heir, and therefore out of Plume’s social class. Even a Captain of the Grenadiers has limits as to how high into society he can marry. A Justice’s daughter – no problem; a Justice’s heir to 1200 a year –major obstacle. Aimee-Ffion Edwards plays the country women, mainly Rose, a potential conquest of Plume’s, but also a pregnant young girl called to court when her baby’s father is ‘listed’ to the army. She also sings one (or was it two?) songs and had a very pleasant, young-sounding voice, underscoring the youth of the characters she plays. The airs, the vocal and inflective range, the dialogue – it was such fun. The humour amongst the women is chiefly about men and manners. The humour around the men was mainly around wenching and methods of recruiting. We’re not so different now, I think.

Unlike the musicians in the National Theatre’s production of The Comedy of Errors that I recently saw, the musicians in this play set the mood between scenes and each were proper members of the Company (speaking parts at least one each, some more) in their own right. At the NT, I’m sure the musicians were “filler” during set changes – familiar songs in a foreign language with rhythms and instrumentation that were a bit gypsy-like, I suppose. This play had no set to speak of: a sky-blue backdrop painted with white fluffy clouds in front of which rows of votive candles cascaded down, a virtual waterfall of candlelight. The musicians were fine instrumentalists as well as singers: Flute, fiddle, double-bass, guitar, drum/bodhran/tambourine. During one five-part harmony a capella piece, the flautist sang the top tenor part so incredibly beautifully. They and the music they played, were core components of the play, and the recurrence of the song “Over the Hills and far away” did much to influence mood and pathos.  

I did not understand the significance of the court scene – even after seeing it twice. MAYBE it has to do with the Justice’s verdict to Plume never to discharge Wilful from his army. Silvia, as Jack Wilful, her male alter-ego, had been arrested because of something to do with Rose. Then before we get to her/his part of the hearing, we meet two conscripts – the first is a father of five who is the sole provider for his wife and family and the second is a collier. According to the Acts of Parliament, they should never have been ‘listed because the first was the sole breadwinner and the other because he had a trade/profession. It does not take long to understand (I hope) that the Acts had been passed to protect people exactly like that, but even in a court of law, the ways in which those same Acts were interpreted rendered them virtually useless. I understand that part. Morally, these are the most important cases of the court session. Then we get to Silvia, the spurious charge against her, in a guise so complete her own father presiding over the court does not recognise her. Does there need to be a court case surrounding this upper class woman in man’s garb in order for there to BE a court case? In other words, was society so structured that the moral centre of the scene had to be disguised as a lead-in to the “main event” – a person of the upper classes becomes the focus and retains it until her true identity is revealed? Since 400 years later there is still discussion on the endurance of England’s class system, my feeling is that I have already answered my queries, and the answers are in the affirmative. But also see my first point regarding the verdict.  

The theatre, the play, this production: it was a truly magical night. Perfection. Twice. I cannot sufficiently express how special this production is. It is enjoyable, heart warming, hopeful, and sobering. There are truisms in spades that are as representative of the 21st century as they were in the 18th. The refreshing earnestness, the sublime pretensions, any plotting is done without any 'real' malice, set against the ever-present tension of what actually would await those poor 'listed men. Sometimes sub-text, sometimes metaphorical, and sometimes just blunt. This is what theatre should be. Rarely have I felt as privileged as I did to have seen this cast and production as often as I did. I would have gone nightly if it had been possible. 

The final performance of this production of The Recruiting Officer was on Saturday, April 14, 2012. For images and further links, visit http://www.donmarwarehouse.com/pl142.html