Isolde & Tristan

This legend of an Irish princess escorted across the sea by a hero knight to marry a Cornish king is as old as William the Conqueror.  This modern, translated version by German playwright Esther Williams, short and sharp-edged, follows innumerable tellings of this tale of adulterous and unquenchable love, of potions and murder.  

But forget the high romance of the Wagner version.  Williams foregrounds the politics of a nearly conquered nation, a princess whose betrothed was murdered by Tristan, and who’s now bring traded for “peace” to the English and locked in marriage to Cornwall’s King Marke.

Damien Ryan’s production displays his characteristic invention in stage craftsmanship and the detail of performances, all of it afloat the dark decked boat and rigging created by Tom Bannerman for the small stage of the Old Fitz, finely lit by Sophie Pekbilimli. Bernadette Ryan’s costumes hint at different periods but without incongruity, leaving room for the legend’s mystery, and the transportive singing of Wagner snippets by Octavia Barron Martin sensitively backed by pianist Justin Leong.

There’s magic too in the love potion carried by Isolde, here translated into Irish whisky, which stirs the irrepressible desire of the hunky and entitled Tristan (a brooding Tom Wilson) and the spirited Isolde.  Emma Wright plays her with perfect ambivalence:  is Isolde driven by lust, by revenge for her first betrothed, or to find liberation for herself and her newly colonised Ireland. 

When Marke arrives for his bride, and the threesome venture back to sea, the tension quickly grows as does the play’s unexpected humour, especially from Sean O’Shea’s rambling ineffectual King.  He wants Isolde to be a symbol of his hollow reconciliation with a country now without power, and promises no more Irish jokes. 

A well-meshed ensemble, the actors confidently give us full rhetorical volume; but the regularly short scenes would have more tonal variety if some were played more conversationally.  This is still another triumph for Sport for Jove; it’s a hundred minutes of compelling theatre.

Martin Portus

Photographer: Kate Williams