REVIEW: Asking Rembrandt, Old Red Lion Theatre ✭✭✭✭✭

Asking Rembrandt. Photo: Chris Gardner Asking Rembrandt

Old Red Lion Theatre, Islington

25 June 2015

5 Stars

Book Tickets The National Gallery’s exhibition on Rembrandt’s Late Works, back at the turn of the year, focused on the painter’s output during the 1650s and 1660s. Its overarching but tacit lesson spoke of the triumphant persistence and energetic, evolution of the painter’s creativity in the face of bankruptcy, the deaths of loved ones, legal troubles and increased infirmity. Technical daring and innovation in the capturing of character continued especially in his later portraits: was this because or despite of the turmoil and eventual collapse of the certainties that had supported the great public successes of his early career? This is one of the several absorbing questions posed in Steve Gooch’s memorable Asking Rembrandt, now playing at the Old Red Lion in Islington. This is the third play in which Gooch has looked at the way an artist’s priorities and creative choices are shaped by his society. Just as in the exhibition, the action of the play focuses on the painter’s middle years as we approach the crisis of bankruptcy in 1656. We encounter the painter at home in his studio in the company of his common-law wife Hendrikje (Henni), and his surviving son, Titus. Drifting in and out of the house at intervals is Rembrandt’s wealthy patron, the magistrate, poet and art collector, Jan Six: indeed the meat of the play comprises their discussions about art in general and Rembrandt’s own in particular, with the tone varying from friendly banter to edgy sparring. Rembrandt is essentially facing three problems: for many years he has lived well beyond his means in a lavishly furnished but heavily mortgaged property, and as a result has become entirely dependent on a continuous flow of lucrative portrait commissions just to keep all the plates spinning. However the commissions have begun to dry up partly because of his rudeness towards clients, particularly if they have objected in any respect to the finished likeness, and partly because he has taken longer and longer to complete each work. He argues in his own defence that he does not ‘prevaricate’ but ‘marinates’ in the cause of finding new techniques of expressing character. These problems are augmented by his refusal to marry Henni, thus incurring the enmity and social strictures of the local Calvinist church, which accuses them of living in sin. Finally he has an awkward relationship with his teenage son, whom he both increasingly relies on as a salesman but disparages for his own artistic efforts. In sum, we see him as the classic heroic artist riding for a fall, and we are as an audience invited to reflect on whether what happens is just punishment, with nemesis inevitably following on hubris, or an example of the unique creative figure who by virtue of his art deserves exemption from the conventions of ordinary social life.

Surprisingly the historical record is sparse for this period of Rembrandt’s life, and thus there is ample opportunity for the writer to fill in the gaps dramatically. Gooch makes particularly good use of the fact that Six provided Rembrandt with a substantial loan at the same time as sitting for the very fine portrait that still remains in his family’s possession today. We also know that they fell out shortly thereafter. From these meagre scraps Gooch fashions a particularly fine scene as the climax of the play, which knits together all the earlier themes to great dramatic effect and analytical success. Should we think of a dealer or patron as a Maecenas, Svengali or Mephistopheles? Should the artist pay attention to the patron’s wishes, or follow his own creative instincts wherever they lead? Who owns the right to interpret a portrait – the artist, the sitter, or the wider community? Can friendship and shared aesthetic priorities survive the pull of class difference and disparity in talent and understanding? These are some of the issues that crystallise memorably in this confrontation in a way worthy of Bernard Shaw at his best.

The actors all deliver very fine performances. Liam McKenna captures the expansive large-heartedness we imagine Rembrandt to have had together with the ready ribaldry, hot temper and wiliness over money and relationships that we glimpse in those famous self-portraits. He has the burly physical presence, wit, sparkle and animation needed to bring to life the long discussions on the nature of his craft. You also get a sense of someone who has not lost touch with his roots and humble origins, a man possessing a strong sense of family and of life as something to be lived, enjoyed and grasped in the here and now, both in person and in terms of his artistic persona. Genius is notoriously difficult to portray on stage – over-acting and a sense of unreality and self-aggrandising beckon. It is a sign of the skill of his performance that McKenna is equally convincing both as a mendacious, vulnerable, flawed figure and as someone plausibly pushing at the boundaries of what can be expressed in oils.

In appealing contrast, John Gorick as Six is all silky cosmopolitan sophistication and world-weariness on the surface, but with plenty of steel and self-regard underneath. You are in no doubt that he is a formidable negotiator and businessman and no mere aesthete. In looks and style he reminds you rather of Simon Callow, but without the mannerisms. He has the task of arguing the case of commonsense and worldly sweet-reasonableness, and he does this well, revealing humanity and depth in his portrayal as much as self-control and a strong sense of his position in the community. His starchy body-language also contrasts effectively with McKenna’s unbuttoned rambunctiousness.

As Henni and Titus, Esme Patey-Ford and Loz Keystone have roles that are more supportive than central, but they both take their opportunities well. Patey-Ford makes you see why Rembrandt found Henni such a charming and endearing contrast to his dead wife Saskia: she has a lightness and irreverence that provides a good foil to the seriousness of the discussion elsewhere, but you also feel for her as the person who, rather than Rembrandt himself, has to suffer the slings and arrows of society’s disdain for their unresolved relationship. The acting makes you fully aware of her sacrifice, and therefore of the depth of her love for the painter. She is no cipher in either the plot or in the emotional matrix of the play. We know very little about Titus, but Keystone creates a character of considerable physical dynamism, much more of a natural salesman than his father, and a touching mixture of both gaucheness and savvy street-wisdom.

There is not much room for manoeuvre upstairs at the Old Red Lion, but the creative team, led by director Jonathan Kemp, have put together a flexible and well dressed set that provides a richly textured backdrop for the play, full of relevant artistic clutter and debris and gorgeous fabrics – self-consciously theatrical in a way that is entirely appropriate for the paintings from this period in Rembrandt’s life. The intimate atmosphere and finely calibrated acting draw you into the relationships and the issues very quickly, and as a result we have a properly tough-minded, and warm-hearted night at the theatre. The play runs until mid-July and is rewarding in every respect. But next time you put on a pair of gloves you may never think of them in quite the same way ever again….

Asking Rembrandt runs at the Old Red Lion Theatre until 18th July 2015