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Bartholomew Fair is a sprawling work with a multitude of characters, situations, and scenes that defy accurate description. Firmly tied to its London roots, this 1614 play by Ben Jonson isn’t the strongest display of the power of community, nor does it hold the appeal of Jonson’s more widely-produced work Volpone. So why did the Stratford Shakespeare Festival decide to stage it? In the words of its director (and Festival co-director) Antoni Cimolino, the work is “a very warm and deliciously funny argument for tolerance.” But it plays much more like an extended Jacobean sitcom, with multiple plots, a myriad of characters, and the kind of bawdy, puerile humour that relies on fat suits and fart jokes for laughs.
The play opens with John Littlewit (Matt Steinberg), a pseudo stand-in for Jonson himself, talking about the Fair, his wife Win, and the suitors to her mother. No sooner has he cut up playwrights like Jonson and Shakespeare, than the character of Tom Quarrulous (Jonathan Goad) appears, looking, for all the world, like the recently-unveiled portrait of the Bard. Whether this was an intentional on the parts of Cimolino and designer Carolyn M. Smith, or simply incidental, is up for debate, but there’s no denying the powerful effect Quarlous has on the play.

As with all the characters, his name reflects his character, with Quarlous and his friend Winwife (Christopher Prentice) getting up to all kinds of trouble and mischief at the fair, where they meet Jonson’s cast of Jacobean London characters. There’s Juan Choiran, giving a hilariously over-the-top performance as Zeal-of-the-Land Busy, a Puritan elder and outright hypocrite. There’s also Tom McCamus as Justice Overdue, in disguise for the Fair and offering “common man” observations to the audience. He wanders into the crowd and addresses us first-hand, telling us what’s going on (sort of, though we’re not even sure he gets it) and offering witty insights into the human condition – until he’s caught and put in the stocks by Michael Spencer-Davis’ belligerent officer Bristle.

The theme of tolerance seems most at odds with the actual material Jonson has provided. Festival veteran Lucy Peacock gets no end of guffaws as Ursla, the pig lady. Padded in a comically gargantuan costume, with stumpy legs and watermelon-sized breasts, Peacock acts every inch the rough-and-tumble lady of the street. Many of the laughs in the first act are generated from the humour that arises from Ursla’s size, as characters try to pick her up, take her shoes off, and so on. Hahaha, fat people funny, we get it. It strikes me as a bit dated, a bit hoary, and not exactly tolerant.

The staging, at the long (and narrow) thrust stage at the Tom Patterson, is inventive and visually arresting, even if the huge cast size (I counted over 30 members) implies that a larger space would’ve been more suitable. The cast crowd onto the stage, and at points, out into the audience too, highlighting the sprawling, unfocused nature of both Jonson’s work and the lackadaisical direction. And these choices in staging distract from the main action, reducing the focus Cimolino had intended –that of unity (I think) and its connection with community.

For instance, while McCamus outlines his plans for the Fair and its attendees, a major change onstage occurs, as we move from the Littlewit’s parlour to the hoisting of maypoles and the setting-out of carts and shops, taking us to the actual Fair. It’s immensely perplexing, for not only does it not place us firmly in the world Jonson had intended – the wonders and winsome distractions of a Fair setting – but it takes away from the dexterity and intelligence of McCamus’ work. Never mind that the sumptuousness of the production’s design frequently is too visually overwhelming for the space. Imagine the opening of the Beijing Olympics in a bathroom stall.

It takes a lot of confidence – perhaps over-confidence is a better term – to stand out from the noise and flurry of frilly costuming and staging overload, and in this, the company does not disappoint. As well as Choiran, Randy Hughson and Victor Ertmanis are hilariously over-the-top as Jordan Knockem and Whit the pimp, respectively, while Christopher Prentice, as Winwife, is suitably subdued and arch to Jonathan Goad’s hotly passionately Quarlous.

For all the incredible talents of this fine ensemble, there is a discernible lack of control and consistency. It’s as if you’ve been dropped into the middle of theatre camp, where every conceivable possibility is being explored and presented and camped up to the nth degree. To quote inversely from Spinal Tap, please turn it down from eleven. The “chaotic improvisation” Cimolino writes of in the program notes only tends to work if there’s a clear through-theme to the work, and with Bartholomew Fair, that’s non-existent. Jonson has scene after scene of comedy featuring vivid characters who soon grow wearisome through over-writing of dialogue and lack of thematic focus. We’re not given a particular reason to care about either the characters or the action.

Additionally, being frequently close to the actors does nothing to add to our understanding, but serves as a monstrous distraction bigger than Ursla’s stumpy thighs. The frequent forays of various cast members into the audience, combined with the overuse of general public exits, add to the unfocused, sprawling feel of the production. We understand the point Cimolino is trying to make –that we are all part of the world Bartholomew Fair presents –but that theme feels laboured.

A firmer directorial hand, to reign in both the nature of the material, and the wildly inconsistent performances, would’ve gone a long ways to help clarify the theme and set out some kind of structure to enhance our understanding. Instead, the wild staging has the opposite effect of what’s intended, distancing us more than ever from the action. Alas, it makes poor old Jonson’s work that much more messy and anachronistic; not the call for tolerance Cimolino had in mind at all.

In watching Bartholomew Fair, I was reminded of the overture to an opera by Johann Christian Bach I’d heard driving into Stratford earlier; it was pretty, detailed, frilly, and soon lost my attention. It’s like eating a whole bowl of meringue: after a while, you want not just the pie that goes with it, but the meal that comes before.