Villainous emperor

The thin, dramatic line that separates the horrific from the blackly comic is gleefully crossed in Philip Massinger's engrossing study of a mad, bad dictator. But contemporary though this view of the destructive havoc of tyranny may sound, The Roman Actor was written in 1626.

Set in ancient Rome during the reign of one awful emperor, Massinger transmits a veiled warning about the threat to parliamentary power when Stuart monarchs asserted the divine right of Kings. Sean Holmes's dynamic production, the first to reach London in centuries, duly seizes upon the potential for rare, dark comedy, with Antony Sher's shavenheaded, psychopathic emperor Domitian basking in cruelty rather as if it were a delicious alternative to sunbathing. For Massinger has a flair for catching the casual way in which the powerfully lunatic revel in amorality.

"I am tortur'd in their want of feeling torments," Sher's distinctly camp Domitian complains in mild bewilderment when two Roman dissidents stoically show no sign of pain as hooks are employed to inflict terminal damage upon them. "You were his taster in this heavenly nectar," the emperor's messenger tells Aelius, whose wife, Domitia, is subjected to an instant divorce so that the emperor can have his free, legal fill of her. These situations, played to dramatic effect on Anthony Lamble's atmospheric, Roman set, reveal the emperor in typical narcissism and cruelty, and are well played for shockappeal and comic impact.

Sher, at his best playing monstrous, megalomanic villains, sees the emperor as an actor manque, fascinated by performance. He speaks in tones of caressing politeness when chilling the blood. Dressed in black with eye sockets painted livid red, he is given to small smiles and shudders, with tiny, fluttering finger gestures to dismiss his victims. He opens a little black book to scribble their names. This masterly performance, qualified by a failure to rage convincingly, incarnates an insecure, imperious evil.

Evil, though, is the play's less original aspect. The actor of the title, Paris, whom Joe Dixon makes too lyrically one-dimensional and selfabsorbed, eloquently defends the morality of drama and actors. Yet the scenes that Paris performs precipitate

catastrophe. They inspire Domitia, whom Anna Madeley allows merely to scale the heights of petulance, with wild lust and lead to Paris's death. It's as though, in this riveting black comedy, Massinger laid dramatic stress on theatre's magical, unpredictable power.

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