Theatre review: Venice Preserved

I've seen Venice Preserved once before, but as that particular production was an incoherent car crash that was 50% sales presentation for a property development and 50% people desperately shouting "immersive!" at you while asking for money for four hours, it's probably easiest all round to just treat Thomas Otway's Restoration thriller as completely new to me. Prasanna Puwanarajah directs a mercifully coherent production, although how much sense the plot itself makes remains up for debate. Jaffeir (Michael Grady-Hall) is recruited by his best friend Pierre (Stephen Fewell) to join a bloody rebellion against the corrupt ruling class of Venice; both swear loyalty to the cause, but each also has a personal vendetta against some member of the senate which is the real clincher in wanting to bring them down. In Jaffeir's case, it's his senator father-in-law Priuli (Les Dennis,) who disapproved of the marriage and went out of his way to punish him for it.

Theatre review: Venice Preserv'd

PREVIEW DISCLAIMER: This show hasn't open'd to the press yet, aspects could be chang'd or improv'd.

Of course no amount of previews or re-rehearsals can deal with problems like the wrong venue, or a project that's been misconceiv'd from the word go. Thomas Otway’s Venice Preserv’d is a 17th century tragedy of love, rebellion, elderly submissives and the occasional bit of gaying it up. Jaffier (Ashley Zhangazha) has married Belvidera (Pirate Jessie Buckley) against her father's wishes. Her father isn't the quickest on the uptake, as it's not until they've been married for a while and had a kid that he notices, and takes his revenge on Jaffier by having him cast out of his home penniless. Meanwhile the young people of Venice are plotting a rebellion against the rulers of the city, and the rebel Pierre (Ferdinand Kingsley) uses Jaffier's anger at his current situation to recruit him to his own cause. But Belvidera ends up becoming a pawn in the revolt, and everyone pays for it. Primarily the audience.