The Pimp

Review: Time Out 24.05.06

Charles Baudelaire was a big pimpin’ lyricist of nineteenth century Paris, dropping couplets while hustlin’ hoes – a Snoopy Froggy Frogg, if you will.

This being a man of sensitivity and standing,,, however, the relationship with his mulatto mistress was complicated, emotional and symbiotic. His living arrangement with Jeanne Duval inspired him to write sensual poetry and her to play the cosseted courtesan. “I must live the paradox” he exclaims; as a bourgeois with an inheritance to fritter on absinthe and poesy, the starving artist in the garret lark was always just an act.

Until, that is, his mother finds out he is living with a black prostitute (“how black” she replies). Buckling under pressure from her meddling scaremongering solicitor (who is inspired by jealousy and the upholding of a culture of “double-entry bookkeeping), she stops the inheritance from Charles’s late father…

This is all suitably silly – we have thankfully been spared a po-faced, righteous riff on “Jefferson in Paris”. The absurd dresses balloon in this tiny space like monstrous jellyfish. Will Tosh interprets the dandy from a sideways slant, yet he also lets you see the slow unfurling of stanzas in his raddled mind.
Dic Edwards has written a funny and lyrical piece, punctuated by glistening detail: Jeanne’s hair “smells of distances”; Baudelaire harbours an irrational hatred of Belgians. The play is surprisingly relevant with a recognisable French bourgeois panic in the face of negritude despite a more innocent age of pimpin’. He didn’t even have a pole in his garret. Benjamin Davi

Poet and dandy Charles Baudelaire sets up home with an actress prompting his doting mother to launch a seemingly endless campaign to expel her from his life. Dic Edwards new play touches upon a selection of themes such as rebellion and racism as the Western world begins a new era of modernity.
The language of Edward’s script is delightfully classical and yet its heavy use of the vernacular works remarkably well thanks to tight performances and a wonderful sense of pace given by director Ana Dirckinck-Holmfeld.

Anna Lindup give a fine, multi-layered performance as Baudelaire’s intriguing and emotional mother. Hers is not the expected dowager widow and the hints of the passion beneath the crinoline. Her ally in battle is the ridiculous lawyer Narcisee Desire Ancelle played by Timothy Dodd whose scenes as the go-between bring much humour to the play. Dodd masters this role beautifully and tinges the lawyers philosophies with an almost innocent menace.

Lara Agar-Stoby obviously relishes her role as Jeanne and plays it to perfection. Edwards has given the character a lively voice and it is this role which lifts the play. Will Tosh as Charles seems to take some time settling into the role and in the early scenes he appears very awkward on stage. Fortunately, the later scenes and his final demise are well handled.
Tandis Jenhudson has created a thoughtful score to compliment the piece and Ellen Kyriacou’s costume designs offer a flamboyant contrast to Sadie Tilbury’s Spartan setting.

The characters are acutely defined in true Oscar Wilde tradition. Ex-prostitute Jeanne is a maverick who, after claiming she’s “lived on the streets and the world that put (her) there is a world of contracts” enters a contract with Baudelaire that ultimately breaks her spirit far more than the streets ever could. Ancelle, the self-proclaimed “crusader for the values of wealth against anarchy” and firm proponent of double-entry book-keeping, who has a self-destroying penchant for black prostitutes, is a staunch traditionalist.
Stunning period costume in a classy design is perhaps, however, a saving grace for some. See this play you like the wit of Wilde. Don’t if you despair at hatchet racist commentary or crude characterisations.