Farinelli and the King
Belasco Theatre, NYC, February 21, 2018
Reviewed by Chris Struck for Cabaret Scenes
Photos by Joan Marcus
It would be devastatingly simple to harp on the excellent acting job done yet again by the brilliant Mark Rylance, whose uncanny sense of timing and undeniably impressive consistency breathed fresh comedic zest into this satirical tale of mad King Philippe V of Spain. However, the top-heavy script gave ample opportunity for Rylance to get a most clever drop on his counterparts. You could enjoy this play exclusively for Rylance. His panache and momentum will ensnare your attention, whether he’s leaning in to listen or merely breaking into a laugh as he mimics a rolling chopped head.
Instead, Farinelli and the King rather offers a glimpse into a perhaps cunning, perhaps entirely unplanned drama of an actor’s life within a play. For while it was Farinelli, played largely by an adequate Sam Crane, who voiced introspective lines about being yet another bird in a cage, lived out his own moment eerily behind.
Farinelli, in real life, left a lucratively successful career as an opera singer across the whole of Europe to join King Philippe’s court where he spent his days singing duets with the Queen and becoming influential in Spain’s highest court, even after the death of the King he came to cure. The play alters this utterly to follow the thread of equating Farinelli to a bird. Early on, Farinelli essentially says, “I can only remember something if it is set to song” and, in response to the King likening that to a bird, he agrees, “Yes, rather much like a bird.”
When Farinelli plans to leave Spain in act 2, the Queen hands him a jeweled bird in a cage, a gift he attempts to trade to a tailor for a jacket at the end of the play. Set in the treasure trove of an attic in a home in Bologna, Farinelli decides to tear up the last offer he receives from famous English opera producer John Rich (a fantastic Simon Jones) to return to the stage after singing one last song, “Let Me Weep” (“Lascia Ch’io Pianga” from the opera Rinaldo by Handel, arr. Jacob de Haan) for the old tailor’s jacket.
But, it was never Crane, cut sharply in well-tailored gold, who flashed like the jeweled bird in the cage. In fact, had I been blind, I’d never have imagined Crane existed at all. For sitting patiently alone in the darkness, behind the harp, in identical clothing, cutting a slightly less astonishing figure, was the real bird to be wound up, Iestyn Davies. Without the aid of a microphone or even a particularly acoustically friendly building, Davies’ voice stung a sharp line through a crowd which may not have truly appreciated the depth of other worldly skill on display.
Davies was magnificent and yet solemn. He left a tender tear in one’s eye, yet he exited even before a quiet applause would sneak out of the back rows. He showered the stage in confetti, yet there would be no confetti for him. He would only wait off-stage for his cue: much, much more of a bird than the real Farinelli ever was, cast only for his voice—on stage only for his voice. And yet, so perfect, barely able to believe in the songs he sang, for he sang them for a chance at watching someone else live his dream up close. All the passion of this play indeed is held at last fully in his sweet counter-tenor and his stunning “Let Me Weep.”