Theatre
Tosca: The Henchman’s Tale
Oran Mor, Glasgow
Mary Brennan
three stars
IN SEASONS past, Play, Pie and Pint productions shifted the end-of-term focus from new writing onto make-overs of existing texts, reducing them in scale to a lunchtime’s menu of Classic Cuts. That enterprise has returned, but – given that we’re at the end of the Mini-Musicals season – for the first ever, the compressed classic is an opera: none other than that so-called “shabby little shocker” by Puccini. In this version, it’s actually Tosca: The Henchman’s Tale.
Alexander Tarbet has pared back the three act plot, and the list of characters, to the essential trio at the heart of Puccini’s tale of love, lust, duplicity and death. In order to unravel the tangled web that connects Tosca with Cavaradossi and Scarpia – the two men who between them govern her fate – he has fixed upon one of Scarpia’s bully-boy henchmen, Spoletta, as a narrator-cum-go-between, not simply linking scenes but adding a commentary with distinctly modern overtones to suggest the political context of the original.
Neil Thomas’s non-singing Spoletta, in his Fascist black shirt and militaristic black 'tache, is quite vilely affable as he relays Tarbet’s somewhat heavy-handed references to fake news and the tactics of torture – references that trawl for laughs and add little to the operatic action itself. The latter meanwhile is a distillation of the “Grand Tunes” that creep in at our ears and make us long for Tosca (a powerfully dramatic Christina Dunwoodie) to find happiness with her beloved Cavaradossi (John Hudson) despite the machinations of Scarpia (Julian Tovey). There’s some fine singing, but despite director Kenny Miller and MD/pianist Julia Strehle-Lynch trying to find both tension and poignancy without set, chorus or orchestral resources, the piece doesn’t gel. Maybe next time – and the hope would be that Dunwoodie and her associates return for that.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here