The Rape of Lucrece Performance by Gerard Logan Review

A couple of nights ago, I went to the theatre to see a performance of Shakespeare's poem The Rape of Lucrece delivered by Gerard Logan.

The poem is based on the story told by the Roman historian Livy about the rape of a virtuous Roman matron Lucretia, by  Tarquin son of King Tarquin Superbus ("the Proud"). Lucretia tells her husband Collatinus what has happened before witnesses and then kills herself. This inspires Marcus Junius Brutus to swear an oath that they will be avenged against this grievous assault upon Collatinus' wife. Ultimately this leads to Tarquin being driven into exile and the inauguration of the Roman Republic.
The actor was wearing a sort of dun coloured salwar kamez which was remeniscient of a Roman tunica (the trousers were a wise addition for performance in the winter months). Over his shoulder he draped a length of white cloth to produce the effect of a Roman toga. The cloth was to fulfil many roles in the course of the narrative. The actor came and stood alone in the centre of the unadorned stage, with only drumroll from offstage as accessory. He spoke the parts clearly, most of the time powerfully conveying the emotions of the protagonists, Tarquin as he debates with himself talking himself round his doubts about the propriety of outraging his hostess.
When he spoke the part of Lucretia the effect was a little jarring in a way that was possibly deliberate. Shakespeare starts by laying cloying emphasis on her helplessness and purity calling her "dove", "lamb" and such like. Too whole hearted an expression of this depiction of the heroine can leave the reader/speaker in the uncomfortable position of joining with the rapist in objectifying Lucretia, the building up of her chastity and vulnerablility rendering her violation the more piquant. It was perhaps his discomfort with or wish to question these lines that seemed to give his expression of Lucretia's pleas and distress a kind of mocking falsetto. Later, when the raped woman finally pulls herself together, giving expression to anger and thoughts of vengeance and of how her honour might be restored, his delivery of her voice improved, although admittedly it also became more definitely masculine, scarcely distinguishable from the raging Tarquin so it could just be a limitation of range that produced the effect.
Lucretia's self condemnation arouses a complex of responses and interpretations. On one level she seems to be acquiesing to the Roman cultural assessment of  the rape of a respectable woman as significant as an egregious insult to her respectable  husband. There is little sense that she personally has been violated or only in so far as she is a wife rather than simply a human being. She insists that though innocent she must die or else her example may allow other adulterous women to get away with it. On the other hand, Lucretia's taking of her own life is arguably the only way she can regain control over her own body and situation, her act of violence in which she anniliates herself can be seen as both negating and confirming the annihiliating act of Tarquin. As the poem drew to a close, the white cloth had become Lucretia's corpse, first mourned over by husband and father who argued over who had the greater claim upon it and later paraded about the streets of Rome as a political tool.