REVIEW: The Score, Theatre Royal Bath – ‘A big theatrical event, but sadly a damp squib’

Without a doubt, it’s a big theatrical event when veteran Scottish actor and superstar Brian Cox opens a play at Theatre Royal Bath. We’re very lucky to have him. He’s directed by Trevor Nunn and that’s of course, also big theatrical news. It’s therefore a very real shame that their script is not very good. This is never just the writer’s fault – but this should not have reached the stage in this state.

The Score tells the tale of composer Johann Sebastian Bach’s encounter with Prussia’s ruler Frederick the Great in 1747, after the Silesian Wars (between Prussia and Austria). Celebrated for his talent and output, Bach is now in his early sixties, (he dies shortly after, in 1750), and is invited to court in Potsdam.

Here he meets Voltaire, spends time with his son Carl, unwittingly confounds a musical prank (“we bet he can’t improvise a three-part fugue on a simple theme devised by the King”) and tells the King that his soldiers are committing war crimes – namely, raping a blind 14 year-old in a park outside a church. He returns home to Leipzig, and while recovering from an eye operation (ie, while blind himself) he composes many, many more wonderful pieces based on that earlier prank theme. His son takes this sheet music to the King, who never looks at it because he’s busy invading Poland.

Brian Cox as Bach

It’s clearly an interesting period of history, but Oliver Cotton’s script doesn’t feel as though it has decided what it is yet. We are teased with many possible themes but they’re all under-explored and therefore poorly served. I kept thinking in hope, “Aha, this is where we’re going!”, only to find yet another dead end.

For instance, we’re teased with Bach telling us at the start that he’s most fascinated by the space between intention and action – but this idea never resurfaces. When he argues with the King about his faith and god’s presence in music and war, I thought we might be on a wave which would carry us to an interesting conflict around, say, the role of the artist to speak truth to power. But no.

Stephen Hagan as Frederick

There are three court composers who – understandably – work for patronage, for an income, and I wondered whether they might offer us some editorial comment…. But in each of these threads (and more), there are hints, the slightest whiffs of drama on the way, but again and again the script fails to commit. Instead (as sadly, too many history-based plays do at the moment) we are given a history lesson on stage, with a light dusting of drama; but no more.

Most of the first half – sweating with historical exposition – could easily be cut. Of course, this story evokes parallels with today’s Russia – and more. But in which case, surely, such subject deserves far than what’s on offer. Today’s appalling conflicts deserve far more than a theatrically wry, ‘ahhhh – I see what you did there’. Ethically, we can’t just point and say, ‘look – a similarity!’

Stephen Hagan as Frederick, Peter De Jersey as Voltaire, Brian Cox as Bach

This is an outstanding cast, so it breaks my heart to write a review like this. The very excellent Peter de Jersey plays a one-dimensional Voltaire; Stephen Hagan delivers a Hugh Laurie-like (fun – I’m talking Blackadder / Bertie Wooster) Frederick and the outstandingly talented Doña Croll has the ambiguous privilege of playing “the maid who has to make up for all the women who aren’t on stage” – ie, an implausible everywoman who has no dramatic purpose and little plausibility.

Sadly, without a clear dramatic engine, this play is just a damp squib – that firework that fizzles then fails. Brian Cox’s energy carries it along but even with that, we’re left wanting. The second half – thankfully – lifts, as we hit the Court and meet the comic turns. There’s real energy and great writing here in parts – but the whole just doesn’t work.

Doña Croll as Emilia

That said, going by the applause, lots of people loved it. Theatre Royal Bath had a full house for press night with some of Bath’s great and good in the audience. The sets are outstanding and the costumes are spot-on (designer Robert Jones).

But I have said it here before (I won’t cause pain by naming shows), and at the risk of being a pompous bore, will say it again. Theatrical stars lending their considerable heft to less-than-good scripts undermines public faith in the theatre that so many of us love.

Big name shows outside London bring people to the theatre who wouldn’t normally spend. When you serve up something that wouldn’t get off the ground without its famous attachments, you discourage audiences from taking a risk on lesser known names. Ultimately, theatre will lose out. Big names, we need you, but we need you doing your best.

(l-r) G Towers, S Hagan, C Staines, B Salter, J Gladdon, E Sirakian, T Webster

The Score is at Theatre Royal Bath until October 28 at 7.30pm, with additional 2.30pm matinee shows on 21, 26 and 28 October. Tickets are available at www.theatreroyal.org.uk.

All photos: Manuel Harlan

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