Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay: Scene 8

Para1This scene features the climactic victory of Friar Bacon’s fun, English magic over the arrogant German Vandermast. The SQM actors’ adoption of clowning created characters that were comical and yet could still offer the debate a sense of intellectual gravity. David Kynaston (Vandermast) for example adopted a German accent and used it for comic effect but also gave his character a proud grandeur that made him a worthy opponent of the English friars. The debate between Vandermast and Bungay is one of the most impressive rhetorical achievements in the SQM repertory productions. The stage directions for the magic in this scene call for some spectacle and received relatively high-tech treatment with the use of elaborate props and flash-paper for pyrotechnics. Our hope was to create a sense of power and wonder but with our limited budget and tight fire regulations, it remained more funny than awe-inspiring. The tone of the magic, however, is secondary to the fact that a foreign power is brought to heel by a great Englishman—a familiar theme in the repertoire of the SQM company and the Queen’s Men. The magic in the performance served the political agenda of the Queen’s Men by representing the victory of jolly old England over a stuffy, foreign power.