Perhaps we should start a campaign - on the lines of those for real ale and organic vegetables - for theatrical theatre. If we did, then Schiller's Don Carlos, with its blend of power, politics, romantic passion and heroic self-sacrifice, would be an exemplar; and Gale Edwards's superb RSC production, on its transfer from Stratford to the Pit, shows how you can create epic grandeur even in an intimate setting.
On second viewing I was more conscious of Schiller's shift of interest during the play's long period of composition in the 1780s. In the first, superior half the focus is on the distrait Hamletesque figure of Don Carlos, who suffers a fatal passion for his stepmother and a furious relationship with his brutal father, Philip II. But, in the intrigue-packed second half, Schiller clearly becomes more fascinated by Philip's isolation and by the complex idealism of the Marquis of Posa, who yearns to free the Netherlands from the Spanish yoke. Posa sacrifices himself to save Don Carlos and the Low Countries; but, theatrically, Schiller sacrifices his titular hero to an exploration of the dynamics of power.
If this makes the play somewhat unwieldy, it also throws up a disturbingly ambivalent figure in the character of Posa. What Ray Fearon, in rimless specs and well-cut suit, brings out very well is the fanaticism lurking under Posa's idealism. In his protestations about freedom to Philip II, he is a passionate libertarian. But his manipulation of Carlos, by having him arrested and showing his letters to the king, suggests that he enjoys playing God. The parallel that Fearon brings to mind is the Duke in Measure for Measure, another figure who, in the name of justice, treats people like puppets.
Even if the play becomes over-labyrinthine, it yields tremendous scenes and fine gestural acting from a first-rate cast. John Woodvine has done nothing better than his Philip - a testy despot, flinching at his son's touch, but also one racked by guilt, insomnia and fears of his wife's adultery. As the character disintegrates, so Woodvine's performance grows ever stronger. Seizing on the endless Shakespearean references in Robert David MacDonald's sparky translation, Rupert Penry-Jones turns Don Carlos into a capricious Spanish Hamlet clearly more concerned by the expression of his passion for Josette Simon's fiery Elizabeth of Valois than the oppression of Flanders and Brabant. And by a nice irony the grand inquisitor, who finally appears to show where the real power lies, is played by John Rogan not as a majestic prelate but as someone small, wiry and sightless.
Each to his taste; but if you have an appetite for romantic tragedy, where private passions intersect with public politics, then Gale Edwards's beautifully designed and lit production is the real, right thing. In short, theatre at its most theatrical.
