'Zastrozzi' Gothic drama at Court

Press, 22 September 1980, Page 4

'Zastrozzi' Gothic drama at Court

; By

HOWARD McNAUGHTON

“Zastrozzi,” by George -M-> Walker. Directed by Bryan Aitken for The Court Theatre, Christchurch Arts Centre. Running time: 8 p.m. to 9.50 p.m. • ,'The punk sixth-former is ah, affliction which most schoolteachers regard as ■■ being a plague without precedent. So it is perhaps , heartening to reflect on the plight of the master at Eton ; ifi-1810 who, discovering a : particularly, riotous banquet, , learned that one of his pupils was drinking away his- advance royalties oh' an • unusually lurid "Gothic ro- ' mahce- entitled “Zastrozzi.” 1 One can forigve the 18-year-old Shelley a lot when one remembers the context of this, his first book cation. The style is appall- . ing, but strictly Latinate; the i narrative is hopelessly ; unorganised, but probably I the more suspenseful bei caiise of. this. The erotic i detail is bizarre, but much i of/ that . was supplied by I Shelley’s cousin -Harriet; ‘whose precociousness'■ must ! have paralleled.his own. ; ; George ■ F. Walker,: how-

ever, has none of Shelley’s excuses. He was 30 when the play had its preniiere. (in 1977) and he already had. 10 plays behind him, including several which are regarded as minor classics of the contemporary Canadian • theatre; Partly because he Worked from a plot synapsis.'rather than from the novella itself, his play easily remedies Shelley’s shortcomings but introduces so many new ones that it is difficult to understand why he kept the title and characters. Shellev’s novella .does not need to be made more offensive;: Nobody who read /■Zastrozzi” in 1810 /could have ; </been very , surprised when -its." author was expelled from Oxford within a year," and it ‘should be possible to translate some of the shock value into the .term's of the contemporary theatre without adding extra sensational detail or distorting the tone into melodramatic farce.

Five of Walker’s six characters are taken from Shelley and bear some resemblance to their.originals. Shelley’s title character is a cunning but gullible rogue with “a smile of contemptuous atheism playing over his

features,” who dies on the rack “with a wild, convulsive laugh of exulting revenge.” Walker’s character, however, only plays at atheism and at the end if allowed to remain - alive, to continue the game. Cliff Wood’s interpretation of “the evil genius of all Europe” is strong Vocally and reasonably athletic, but a vacant facial expression and an incongruous leather costume combine to reduce the character to suggest an emblem of evil which we may indulge for our sport. The technical cohesion of the production seems very fluid, and Simon Allison’s set, with numerous acting levels, isrideal for an action drama. The. play does not work in suspense terms — and the comic performances of Alistair Browning and John Curry (in un-Shelleyan roles) suggest that it is not meant to. But as a comedy or comic parody it also seems somewhat thin in its effects, and one is left dwelling nostalgically on Mr Aitken’s atmospheric production of “The Nuns” three years ago for an -idea of how Gothic melodrama may Still work.