Witold Gombrowicz’s absurdist satire ‘Ivona’ imagines a monarchic match with a difference. It’s given
a very proficient spin by the Sturdy Beggars company, whose characterful actors remain a pleasure to watch even as the play struggles to sustain its opening burst of subversive silliness.
Trouble, for the rulers of Burgundia, starts when Prince Philip selects an unprepossessing nobody to be his bride. Is this a snook cocked at convention? Neither Philip nor Gombrowicz is telling. Either way, Ivona causes chaos as court, where her wordless passivity (or is it defiance?) draws out the
anxieties and prejudices of this overprivileged brood.
Against a white backdrop, the show is sumptuously costumed by Josie Martin, and the all-male cast give larger-than-life performances to match. The cross-dressing conceit heightens the playfulness of Gombrowicz’s zestily translated text. Under Kos Mantzakos’s direction, the show’s cartoon-macabre style motors the first half along nicely, but fails to enliven act two, which plunges Gombrowicz’s royal rogues gallery into paralysed introspection. But, even when sluggish, this regal black comedy is played with a relish that’s fit for a king.