The fascination of medieval literature is in truly
understanding the mind of those who wrote it; we may not know the name of the person
who wrote Gawain but we know a lot about how he thought and what his
preoccupations were.
Tonight, what better place to reconnect with the medieval
mind than inside an 11th Century church that predates the Conqueror
and which opened its doors three hundred years before Sir Gawayn and þe Grene Knyȝt was composed. In this place there’s a
Saxon window beyond an exquisite Norman arch and the walls are covered with frescoes
of Christ and crucifixion drawn by hands in fear and wonder. St Leonard’s is
Hertford’s oldest building and has lived a life, from the time of King Cnut the
Great to Cromwell using it to keep horses during the Civil War and its modern-day
restoration.
It is a beautiful, slightly pagan place and the perfect
venue for tonight’s performance. Michael Smith is a man of Cheshire and he has
spent years crafting a new translation of this alliterative poem written by
that unknown hand from the same county. These words run deep and for the
Warrington-born medievalist, writer, performer and print maker, there’s a
connection with soil and soul.
This was the second performance of Smith’s new
translation and the production has advanced very quickly into a tightly-wrought
folk-theatre. The director is Mike Ashman, who in addition to a CV including
stints directing at the Royal Opera and Welsh Opera, is Hertford born and grew
up opposite this very church. His direction saw the players use the full length
of the church to superb effect, pulling in a packed house to this wondrous but
not necessarily immediately-accessible world.
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| Jon Banks and Mike Smith |
Musical accompanist Jon Banks has an international
profile too and is a medieval multi-tasker playing countless arcane instruments
whether as Musical Director of the Globe Theatre, a member of the Burning Bush
(who did the music for the BBC series Inside the Medieval Mind) and the Dufay
Collective. Tonight, Jon’s improvisations weaved around the words,
under-scoring with practiced precision as well as adding dramatic weight to the
swing of axe and the fall of head.
Michael Smith took the lead role as speaker and was ably
supported by Stuart Handysides (now there’s a name with some ancient heritage!)
as second speaker and the mighty Alex Young as Narrator, a role created to
bridge parts of the original narrative in order to enable more concise word
play.
The three were fascinating to watch as the poem
flowed between them and I really enjoyed the overlapping segments of the
original (and enjoyably impenetrable) Middle English (North Western dialect) and the new translation: you
felt the translation was happening afresh in front of your very eyes. The audience was face to face with the actors as they
read mostly underneath that Norman arch, which was bathed in bright green lighting
for the evening. With Jon Banks set up behind them it created a focused poetic
momentum that pulled us in and drove us on.
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| Stuart Handysides and Michael Smith |
The story involves the testing of Sir Gawain, the youngest
of King Arthur’s knights who takes up a deadly challenge when the imposing Green
Knight arrives in Camelot on New Year’s Day. The Green Knight weilds a huge axe
and, refusing to fight any of the knights on the grounds that they are too weak,
he offers to exchange a single strike of the axe in exchange for a return blow
in a year’s time. Sir Gawain duly slices the axe down clean through the Knight’s
proffered neck but, still standing, he picks his head up and, climbing back on
his green steed, tells Gawain he will see him at the Green Chapel to complete the exchange.
Sir Gawain sets off in search of the Chapel and has many
adventures en route, travelling through North Wales, Anglessey, “Holy Head”
(not Holyhead but more probably Holywell near Flint) and from there across the
wastelands of the Wirral (have you seen some of the fairways on Heswall Golf
Course?!).
It’s not hard to imagine how treacherous these paths
would have been for a single traveller, even one armed with sword and on
horseback: Gawain is all alone and his real trials have yet to begin. Eventually
he arrives at the estate of Lord Bertilak de Hautdesert (possibly Swythamley near
Macclesfield) who tells him the Green Chapel is close by and that he can stay as
his guest until his appointment with green. Also present is Lady Bertilak and a mysterious
old lady. Soon there is much sport as Gawain goes hunting with the Lord and is
sorely tempted by his Lady… these are tests of chastity, chivalric honour and
Christian faith; in the Fourteenth Century there was little more important.
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| Michael Smith |
How Gawain conducts himself give fascinating insights
into the rules of the game and his life and his soul, will depend on it.
Mr Smith’s translation brings this language and its true
eloquence to life and the vigour of the performance brought a visceral edge to medieval
mannerisms. The three speakers worked very well as they took turns in carrying the narrative
and I was particularly impressed as Messrs Handysides and Smith handled the amorous
teasing of the good Lady B. It’s a play with humour as well as honour which,
together with faith, were pretty much the whole world for men and women of the
1300s.
Michael Smith’s illustrated translation featuring his
unique linocuts, is published on 26th July and is available from
Unbound (where you can still get the high-quality collectors first edition), Penguin online and Amazon – I look forward to reading the
full story and relishing this uncanny tale.
Hopefully there’ll be more performances though as this is
language that really must be recited and performed – a living link to ancient
concerns that drive us still!
IThankYou Theatre Rating: ***** A visceral meeting of modern and medieval mind.
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| Green light through yonder window glaze... |
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| Three watchers without |
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| Frescoes drawn from fear and faith |
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