Theatre review: Cancelling Socrates

Howard Brenton made his name as a topical political playwright, and in recent years has become mostly known for his history plays. Cancelling Socrates, as suggested by a title that mixes a contentious, politicised modern term with a classical figure, is something of both, although in the end maybe not quite enough of either. It's the story of the trial of Socrates in 399 BCE Athens, when he was accused of blasphemy with a side order of corrupting youths. As played by Jonathan Hyde, Socrates isn't necessarily any more of an atheist than anyone else around him, and though he's got some very arch thoughts about the badly-behaved Olympian pantheon he does seem to pray to them and make all the right gestures. The trouble is his famous, eponymous Socratic method of philosophy, which relies on asking questions and seeing where the answers take him. Sooner or later he's going to end up asking questions with dangerous answers.

Such as why, if the gods are infallible, they could have taken different sides in the Trojan War, or the eternal thorny issue of why it's OK for Zeus to be a serial rapist. It's the sort of question he's still asking on his way to trial, where an up-and-coming young politician has tried to make a name for himself by accusing the respected philosopher of blasphemy.

Instead of trying to stage the trial (with a jury of 501) itself, Brenton has instead decided to follow the story from the perspective of the people who care about Socrates, particularly his young wife Xanthippe (Hannah Morrish) and the high-class courtesan Aspasia (Sophie Ward.) They've come up with strategies to help him win his case or at least get a light sentence, but he reverts to type every time; every report they get back from the trial has him treating it as a chance for mischief, questioning and goading the jurors until they end up sentencing him to death - somehow managing to turn even more of them against him between the verdict and the sentencing.

I found Cancelling Socrates too frustrating to really hold my interest - Phill and I agreed at the interval that we were both just waiting for it to resolve itself into what the play was actually about, and by the end concluded that it never did. Its topicality is most evident in the second act, when Socrates is in his cell and his gaoler and prospective executioner (Robert Mountford) takes him to task, accusing the man who's spent much of his life wandering the streets barefoot and filthy of being part of a liberal elite (while fretting over the fact that he needs to shell out on a new slave.) Socrates has become a pawn of a reactionary young politician who's convinced his followers Athens' enlightenment has gone too far, largely to further his own ambitions.

But he's also the victim of his own stubbornness, and even his death is presented as being down to his contrarian nature: Discovering that the death sentence was more or less symbolic, and that he was fully expected to escape with the gaoler's help at the last minute, he instead drinks the poison before he's supposed to. Tom Littler's production hints at this dangerously mischievous nature with a nod to the Elgin Marbles in Isabella Van Braeckel's set design, and the theatre's signs and announcements incorporating Greek translations*. If the element of black humour had been given a stronger push in the play itself I think I might have liked it more.

There's also occasional reminders that this revolutionarily progressive state is very much OK with slavery, but perhaps the most frustrating part is the hints of how interesting a character Aspasia is: If the play's to be believed (and it's plugged as being "based on eyewitness accounts") she's a hugely influential voice behind the scenes, the true power behind the throne of Pericles' reforms† and even wrote the speech (which he ignored, to his peril) for Socrates' defence‡, and Michelle Terry needs to commission a play about her for the Globe right now.

I found the performances in Littler's production mixed, but particularly liked Morrish as Xanthippe, whose concern is now less for her husband's fate (she's resigned herself to his self-destructive tendencies) and more for how their father being executed for heresy will follow their sons' reputation for the rest of their lives. But with a bit too much time spent recreating his philosophical musings, Cancelling Socrates never picks a lane, instead frustratingly suggesting three or four other versions of the story I'd rather be watching.

Cancelling Socrates by Howard Brenton is booking until the 2nd of July at the Jermyn Street Theatre.

Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Steve Gregson/Alastair Muir.

*Modern Greek though, as evidenced by the fact that I could understand it, so not something Socrates would have recognised

†the pull-quote in the play's publicity, “They say Pericles caught democracy from you in bed,” isn't actually a dig at Socrates' fondness for young boys, although there's plenty of those, but is in fact aimed at Aspasia

‡this part is probably dramatic licence though; granted, I'm only going by a quick skim of her Wikipedia page, but there doesn't actually seem to be much evidence that she was still alive in 399