Ah, Venice: setting of my latest novel, The Echoes of Love. Going to Venice and experiencing its beautiful architecture and inspiring culture? Wonderful – but out of reach for many due to the constraints of distance and expense. Going to Venice and experiencing first-hand its history, its days as the Serenissima Republic? Wonderful – but out of reach for all, surely, without the invention of a time machine. Not quite, actually: this month one can get intimately acquainted with historic Venice. Not in the Italian city itself, though, but in London…

… what type of place is this surrounded by water and time – Venice preserv’d – we are in a place where the old preserve so the young must stand up and take what is rightfully theirs – the future – the time could be then or it could be now – morally corrupt and under the threat of flood – what’s new in that…

So says a character in the Prologue to the play Venice Preserv’d, written in the 1680s by Restoration playwright Thomas Otway. The play is a tragedy based around a plot against the Senate of Venice. Here’s a brief synopsis as published by the Londonist:

Jaffier wants to rise against Priuli, one of Venice’s senators, who is against our hero’s marriage to his daughter Belvidera. Jaffier soon finds an ally in Pierre, who is one of his best friends and a plotter against the Serenissima Republic’s Senate.

The action plan is quickly sealed: get rid of the Senate and start a new Venetian era of justice and equality. But Jaffier finds obstacles in his own path, divided between the love he feels for Belvidera and his promise of honour. Soaked with idealism, the conspirators want to preserve Venice from a future of corruption and decadence: it’s the never-ending battle between the new generation and the old system. Will they manage to serve out their idealistic cause?

In its day, the play was hugely popular. In fact, for the next 100 years at least it was revered as one of the great tragedies of the English stage (remember, Otway was writing in the wake of Shakespeare). But at some point it fell from favour, and today it’s been all but forgotten, other than by actors and English literature classicists. Change is afoot, however, with a new, modern-edged production.

In a staging that the company calls ‘classic stagecraft meets site responsive event theatre’, The Spectators’ Guild has resurrected this once-loved work. Audience membersmeet the Doge at the prow of the Cutty Sarkand follow performers ina carnival parade through the streets of maritime Greenwich to the Paynes and Borthwick Wharf, where the story unfolds under the Italianate arches. The Guild explains:

By transforming the heart of old maritime Greenwich into “The Most Serene Republic of Venice” the audience are invited into a fully realised immersive world to join in the carnival before uncovering a tale of love, corruption, friendship, rebellion and betrayal.

To get a feel for the event, take a look at this video on the making of this production:

What comes through so clearly in this short film is the marriage of London and Venice. You may wonder why a play set in Venice works so well staged in London… In fact, Otway intended his seventeenth-century audiences to draw parallels between the story and that of London of the time. The great plot to overthrow the Senate echoes the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, which British people remember to this day on Guy Fawkes’ (Bonfire) Night.

If you’re in the capital between now and the 7th June and would like a brief interlude from your London time to escape to Venice, visit www.venicepreservd.co.uk  for details and tickets.