REVIEW: Marco Polo, Shaw Theatre ✭✭✭

Marco Polo

Shaw Theatre

3 Stars

Book Tickets

If ever there was a story that needed to be told, and a time when it needed to be heard, it's this tale of the fabled Venetian explorer and today's world of global conflicts and political uncertainty. Rogelio Saldo Chua's well-focussed epic pits the lone, enquiring mind of the Western mentality - as exemplified in the merchant from the tiny maritime republic - against the wealth and power of gigantic Asian economies, as embodied in the sprawling remnants of the Mongol Empire, as ruled by Kublai Kahn (Aidan Bradley) to give us his interpretation of what it might mean to us now.

Chua has the great - and unusual - advantage of being thoroughly versed in both western and eastern traditions, and - even better - has the sensitivity and intelligence to see what the histories of both can teach us about how we might live more harmoniously together today. He has also got the theatrical instincts to focus his tale on a well-chosen handful of characters with whom we can identify strongly and simply, forming a powerful emotional connection that opens the heart and mind to what he has to say.

In David Bianco, in the title role, we find a lead with a first class ability to present Polo's psychological struggles: and these are what make him a modern character. There is a lot of sense in that: the author of 'The Travels' lived in the generation just before Dante. This was the era when individualism was just beginning to arise, and not for nothing is Polo considered to be one of its founding geniuses. Far from being the first westerner to visit China, he was original in identifying and promoting a viewpoint of it in his book. If much of the actual writing was done by a purveyor of Arthurian romances, then his was the motivating impulse driving the work into new and exotic territory. Bianco makes us believe in all sides of the character, connecting with his gloriously clear, powerful, beautiful voice, and his natural acting style.

The set design here, by Mio Infante (essentially a large circular rostrum filling the stage, with a circular space behind - perhaps the moon, or the sun, or the ring of the horizon, or the world), immediately conjures up the operatic stage, and indeed would not look out of place in a production of, say, 'Tristan and Isolde'. In fact, in the plot of this show, there is a similar clash of love-versus-duty, in a scenario that plausibly fills in gaps in surviving historical records. Despite the best efforts of choreographer, Remus Villanueva, this does not lend itself to dynamic stage action.

Instead, our interest centres on how Marco gets on with one of the two daughters of the Khan: Toragana (Gian Gloria) is married off to the King of Cathay, while Kogajin (Stephanie Reese) dons general's uniform and gets to know Marco in the field long before he finally discovers her gender - and falls in love. It is one of the script's great strengths that it presents the sheer modernity of the Asian world in a matter-of-fact way, gradually building up a picture of a society infinitely more complex and sophisticated than anything that had even been dreamt of in the West. The climax of this process comes in the Civil Service examination scene, where Marco Polo - aiming to win social acceptance by becoming a baron, via entry to the governing class - has to respond to interrogation about the ideas of Confucius, Buddha, the Koran, the Torah and the Bible. We discover that it is knowledge and tolerance of all these different ideas that make for the Pax Mongolica: the peaceful co-existence of peoples with wildly varying beliefs.

The crunch comes when individual desires run up against the greater good of society, founded as that is upon such the unstoppable forces of prestige, pride, competitiveness, ambition. Kogajin is promised in a political union to a ruler who is the equal of her brother-in-law. Although mum, Empress Wu (Pinky Marquez-Cancio, in gloriously fine voice), may help Marco to run off with his intended, but Kogajin is too much of a realist to take up this reckless offer.

If a lot of this sounds rather lofty and removed from the world that you and I inhabit, then it is. An interesting parallel might be 'Camelot', a musical play in which a lot of humour managed to bridge the gap between Malory's imagination and the Kennedy administration (although it doesn't manage the same trick now). Another comparison might be 'Les Miserables', which connects strongly through the Threnardiers, and also the generally low-born status of most of its characters. The longer we stay in the company of the characters in 'Marco Polo', however, the more we become aware of how far removed from our everyday world they are. This doesn't matter in, say, 'The King and I', because Hammerstein puts nearly all the cards into the hands of Anna, who is only a governess, and fills the stage with children who are, when all is said and done, only ever children, in whichever era they appear.

'Marco Polo' has a tougher job in reaching out to us, where the balance of the script is often tipped towards Asian power-politics of the 13th century. But it does reach out. And what enables it to do so is the often thrilling score. Chua writes everything here, and when everything is firing on all cylinders, it's a wonderful ride. There are lots and lots of magnificent moments, not least in the closing minutes, when the emotional power of the show really hits home to splendid effect.

Chua has been working on this for 10 years, and the job isn't done yet. What we have so far, after workshops conducted in his homeland of the Philippines, and in Paris (his second home is in Belgium), is a very well realised and complex first production, where all the essential elements of the story are in play. It is perhaps now time to refine, to polish, to perfect: the musical arrangements may change their instrumental colouring; the stage design may be transformed; casting may change; direction and choreography may develop. Who knows? But the message this work has to speak to us is not going to be dismissed: in an era when the management of the world by politicians is so signally lacking in hope, this story reminds us that there are other ways of doing things, there are other attitudes that can be assumed and there are other ways of responding to others than relentless, unwinnable wars.

BOOK NOW FOR MARCO POLO AT THE SHAW THEATRE