026 – A Servant to Two Masters, by Carlo Goldoni (& One Man Two Guvnors by Richard Bean)
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Carlo Goldoni devised his classic Commedia dell’Arte play A Servant to Two Masters in 1746 as a series of sketches and prompts for a company of actors to improvise on. Disappointed by the inconsistency of their performances he determined to write out a full script to ensure that his vision would be properly presented and preserved. Goldoni’s wonderful theatrical construction combines a hopelessly convoluted plot, an array of archetypal comic characters, moments of improvised inspiration, and knockdown slapstick routines, and it became a template for what we know as farce and pantomime.
The story of the hapless servant who takes on two jobs in a bid to secure his next meal has been revived many times over, most recently in Lee Hall’s adaptation for the Royal Shakespeare Company, a version that has become a set text on the A Level Drama curriculum, and in Richard Bean’s hilarious update One Man Two Guvnors, which the National Theatre produced in 2011 with James Corden in incomparable form as the wily servant. The NT production went on to transfer to London’s West End and to Broadway, and was streamed on TV to a global audience during the pandemic lockdown in the Summer of 2020.
I’m joined in this episode by writer and director Justine Greene to explore both Goldoni’s original play and the world of Commedia dell’Arte, as well as Richard Bean’s smash hit. One Podcast Two Plays!
Justin Greene
Justin Greene is a director, writer and producer for theatre, television and radio. His writing credits include the musical Spend Spend Spend, which he wrote the book and lyrics for with composer Steve Brown, and also directed. The show won the Evening Standard, Critics Circle and Barclays Theatre awards for Best Musical and was nominated for an Olivier in the same category. He co-authored with Steve Cooke the sci-fi comedy Totally Foxed, which premiered at the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton and later toured nationally, an adaptation of Boccaccio’s The Decameron for Paines Plough, which won an Edinburgh Festival Fringe First award, and Ludwig & Bertie, a farce about the meeting of Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
As a director Justin has been Associate Director at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre and Paines Plough, and for four years was Artistic Director of the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton. He has directed shows in the West End and in countless theatres around the country.
Recommended Play
Justin recommended Gas by George Kaiser.
The Footnotes to our episode on A Servant to Two Masters and One Man Two Guvnors include a cast list of Commedia dell’Arte characters, notes on the harlequin’s hunger and cross-dressing for power in a patriarchal world.
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113 – Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
Published 24th August
Tom Stoppard’s 1993 play, Arcadia is viewed by many as his finest play, renowned for the breadth of its intellectual interrogations and its formal invention. The play is a structural masterpiece of ideas, as well as a teasing detective story, joyous comedy, and emotionally rich exploration of love and loss.
As we record this episode a wonderful new production of Arcadia is playing at the Duke of York’s theatre in London’s West End, following its acclaimed run at the Old Vic theatre earlier this year. I am delighted to share the challenge and the pleasure of exploring Stoppard’s dazzling drama with the director of the new production, Carrie Cracknell.
112 – Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet
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David Mamet’s modern American classic, Glengarry Glen Ross, is a blistering commentary on the cut-throat reality of the American dream, and its poisonous impact on those who have bought into the myth and machismo of that dream. The play had its world premiere in the small Cottesloe theatre at the National Theatre in London in September 1983, and was first performed in New York the following year, winning the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Mamet also wrote the extended screenplay for the star-studded 1992 film version.
As we recorded this episode a new production of the play was playing at the Old Vic theatre in London, with an all-female cast. This is a particularly provocative idea, because one of the primary themes of this play is masculine identity, and the salesmen in this Chicago office do not hold back in their display of machismo.
To explore Mamet’s unflinching slice of 1980s dog-eat-dog capitalism, I am joined by arts journalist Mark Lawson.
111 – The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht
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Bertolt Brecht’s ‘gangster spectacle’, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, is both an exuberant and funny piece of theatre, and a chillingly topical political satire. Set in the 1930s Chicago of Al Capone, Brecht presents a parody of the rise of Hitler through the character of the gangster Arturo Ui. The play is a universal cry for vigilance against the rise of unscrupulous, populist leaders who threaten democratic societies and global peace.
As we recorded this episode a new production of the play by the Royal Shakespeare Company was playing in Stratford-upon-Avon, starring Mark Gatiss as the title character.
I am delighted to be joined by both the show’s translator, playwright Stephen Sharkey, and by Brecht scholar, Professor Tom Kuhn, to guide us through Brecht’s political parody.
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