Pilgrim's Perplexity

You don’t get many chances to see Ralph Vaughan Williams’ opera “The Pilgrim’s Progress” so I thought I had better go along to the current ENO production even though I did so in some trepidation when I saw that the director was a Yoshida Oido, Japanese theatre director with little obvious operatic experience.   Clearly it would be absurd to suggest that only a director who happens to be a believing Christian should be entrusted with the piece (especially given RVW’s own complex religious position) but I was a little concerned at how someone who came from a cultural background very remote in every way from the 17^th century English radical religious world which gave birth to the original book might approach the piece.   His lack of operatic background was another worry.  Regular readers will know my issues with ENO’s propensity for using “celebrity” directors who’ve no feel for opera as a genre and one contributory factor in “Pilgrim’s Progress”’ patchy production record appears to be that the first staging back in 1951 was directed by Professor Neville Coghill, a very distinguished literary historian and sometime theatre director but evidently all at sea with opera- he even made Vanity Fair look dreary.   The show certainly wasn’t the horror story I feared it might be but I’m still in two minds about it- and indeed about what exactly Oida’s interpretation is trying to say.

RVW himself accepted that “Pilgrim’s Progress” might be a hard sell as an opera (he actually preferred to call it a “morality”- though he was insistent that its proper home was the opera house rather than, say, a cathedral).   It’s very episodic and quite static for long periods.  There’s no major female role- RVG wrote the Pilgrim’s family out of the story when he created the libretto.   Even after he simplified the story line substantially in this process there are lots of minor characters who pop up in one scene and never appear again (which means either a massive but rather under-employed cast or lots of doubling and tripling up- ENO take the latter option).  As a book, “The Pilgrim’s Progress” has (perhaps surprisingly) a strong element of movement through a clearly defined physical environment (for instance the Slough of Despond is as much a physical marsh as a spiritual one, as is the river the pilgrim has to cross before reaching the City of Salvation and it appears Bunyan mapped the early stages of his character’s journey on to a very specific and identifiable landscape round Bedford).   Clearly this is almost impossible to convey convincingly on stage.

It’s probably an even harder sell now than it was in 1951.  John Bunyan’s book may still be hailed as a classic of English literature but I suspect it’s more hailed than read in a largely de-Christianised society where even Bunyan’s Baptist heirs are generally closer to Mr By-Ends in their religious sentiments than to the clear cut simplicities of his own faith.  Bunyan reborn in 21st century Britain would probably be regarded as a deranged fanatic - indeed my suspicion is that history would repeat itself and he would fetch up in prison (or perhaps mental hospital).   You certainly can’t assume the very high levels of basic scriptural literacy which would have been found amongst even those without any religious faith back in the early 1950’s.

This last group arguably included RVW himself.   Although he was the son of an Anglican clergyman, he was also related to Charles Darwin and grew up with the disputes over faith and science echoing around his home environment.   At one point early in his career he asked (one imagines rather belligerently) why an atheist couldn’t write a mass if he wanted to.   He was a however a rather odd sort of atheist; a man who wrote a lot of very fine church music and clearly responded very strongly to the language of the King James Bible (which he plundered ruthlessly in creating the “Pilgrim’s Progress” libretto) as well as the poetry of 17^th century religious writers (have a listen to his “Five Mystical Songs”…).   At other times he defined himself as a Christian agnostic.    He certainly wasn’t an atheist of a narrowly dogmatic and exclusionary bent- there’s a deeply mystical strain to much of his music and a very strong sense of the transcendent.   It is interesting that his adaptation of Bunyan’s book sees Pilgrim (renamed from Bunyan’s Christian with the explicit aim of universalising the character) very much on his own in his pilgrimage- not only do his family drop out of the picture but his companions Faithful and Hopeful disappear from the story- and in a very direct personal relationship with the spiritual forces around him, after the manner of mystics in all religious traditions.

So what of the actual production?    As I said at the outset, I’m still not sure about it- especially the second section (ENO chose to split the performance in the middle of Act III when Pilgrim is imprisoned in the town of Vanity for condemning the goings on at Vanity Fair).    Oida sets the entire action within the prison where we first encounter John Bunyan working on his text.  When he falls asleep and dreams the story of Pilgrim (played by the same performer- who is on stage for just about the entire piece), the dream very largely plays out within that environment, with the other characters mostly wearing the grey uniforms of the other inmates or the military khaki of the guards.   Obviously this doesn’t apply in all cases but it’s a dream so a certain lack of logic is allowed….    In the first section this actually works reasonably well; the somewhat claustrophobic atmosphere may be a bit at odds with Bunyan but corresponds quite well a reading of the story which sees Pilgrim’s journey as essentially an internal one conducted within the character’s soul.    Admittedly he looks a bit like a dismounted Don Quixote when kitted out in the distinctly rusty armour of faith prior to the fight with Apollyon but the fight itself (done as a puppet show, with the Foul Fiend incarnated in a massive figure cobbled together from what looks like the prison rubbish dump) works surprisingly well.   Oida nods to RVW’s hope that the piece could be valid for people of any faith or none by introducing elements of non-Christian ritual- it becomes a bit of a game to spot a piece of Parsi fire ritual here and Hindu prayer scarves there- though I doubt if Bunyan would have been very happy at his use of elements of 17^th century European magical practice (at one point Pilgrim takes refuge within a consecrated circle drawn in sand on the floor, for instance) and I don’t quite understand why Evangelist, Pilgrim’s initial spiritual helper, turns up carrying an open umbrella.

Vanity Fair is convincingly lurid- a strange mix of circus costumes and self conscious night club style decadence.   I wondered if Oida would slot in a bit of cross-dressing and I wasn’t disappointed- see above.   It’s a little bizarre that he chose to put the group of biblical villains who frequent the Fair into drag- I doubt if there’s much scriptural warrant for Judas Iscariot dressing like a stripper with tassels on the breasts of a body suit- but I suppose it sets the decadent tone.   They’re also a bit too over-the-top for my taste, though Demas (the Bad Thief from Calvary- normally known as Dismas) would be well worth a second look if encountered in a suitably sinful club.

After Pilgrim is consigned to prison in Vanity the production becomes decidedly odd.   As he laments what he regards as his abandonment by God film footage of the First World War is projected over his head.   Is this some kind of nod to RVW’s own war service?   A (somewhat hackneyed) image of horror?   Then he remembers that he has the Key of Promise, opens his cell door and gets away.   On the road again, he meets a Woodcutter Boy. Or at least that’s what the casting and programme synopsis says, but the part is clearly cast as female -the libretto as projected in the surtitles clearly says “she” and Pilgrim even enjoys a little gentle flirtation with her.   He encounters the affected and spiritually luke-warm Mr and Mrs By-Ends in the only piece of comedy in the piece.  Then, as the libretto has him heading for the Delectable Mountains, the stage action sees him recaptured and put back in prison (no Key of Promise to get him out this time, it seems).  The scene in which the Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains offer him comfort and calm is played out in the condemned cell, with the shepherds sung by the priest, lawyer and doctor who are present to oversee his execution.  The opera climaxes with Pilgrim ascending a staircase to an electric chair; as the music celebrates his entry into the City of Salvation he is executed- then, resuming the identity of Bunyan, returns to his cell to complete his book.

My first thought when watching this was that this was at best a rather tasteless reading of the libretto, at worst a downright offensive undercutting of Bunyan (and indeed RVW)’s intentions.  My second thought, about five minutes later and still watching the piece, was to wonder if Oida was actually playing a very clever game indeed by making the audience interrogate their own presuppositions and look at things in the way their 17^th century ancestors might have done.  At first sight (and hearing) it seems incongruous to hear the music and words given to the Shepherds, full of comfort and consolation and hope, allocated to authority figures dealing with a prisoner facing execution, whom 21^st century Western cultural attitudes would view in a pretty negative light if they took such a line.   This, however, was not at all the view that 17^th century people took of such matters (nor, I suspect, the view that would be taken in many contemporary cultures in, say, Africa or Asia).   In Bunyan’s day it would have been generally accepted that spiritual comfort offered to a condemned man was totally valid and potentially highly effective if the recipient took up what was on offer.    Indeed a condemned man who made a “good end” potentially stood closer to God and to salvation than most of those who turned out to see him executed- after the model of Gestas, Demas’ Good counterpart on the cross, who was assured of immediate entry into Heaven because of his faith in Jesus.   Maybe I’m being too clever here and projecting my own historical knowledge on to the staging- I hope not, though, because otherwise the staging is a travesty of both Bunyan and RVW and an annoyance even to someone as basically godless as myself.

Musically the production was very fine.  RVW’s score blends the strains of hymns and Anglican church music with the sort of modal, folk inflected, material he was such a master of to sublime effect.   Malcolm Brabbins got the best out of the orchestra and Roland Wood did a fine job as Bunyan/Pilgrim in a very strenuous role (he’s on stage virtually throughout the piece).  The rest of the cast have to double and treble up to good (if somewhat confusing) effect.    An intriguing evening, then- but I’m still not sure whether I should be damning Oida’s lack of sympathy with the piece or lauding the subtlety of his engagement with it.