Category Archives: 7/10

Cardenio – August 2011

7/10

By: God only knows

Directed by: Gregory Doran

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Wednesday 24th August 2011

It was good to see this again, and as I suspected, we got a lot more out of it, mainly because we had a much better view. From the front row, no less, which led to some unexpected audience participation on my part.

The dialogue was easier to hear too, so I understood Luscinda’s arguments much better during her first scene with Cardenio. I enjoyed the way she kept trying to speak and he kept talking over her, especially as he then found his father doing the same thing to him when he tried to broach the subject of a possible marriage with Luscinda. It took a little time for the audience to warm up, I felt, but we were soon laughing at the humour, especially when Fernando was strutting his stuff. Mind you, there are parts of this play where the humour isn’t clear, and occasionally I felt the audience was a bit quiet, but overall we seemed to give the actors a decent enough response.

It’s hard to tell from such a different angle, but I suspect the performances have come on a bit since June. I didn’t spot any specific changes, but the storytelling seemed a bit sharper all round, which usually happens with experience. We were talking with our neighbours during the interval about the risks the front row audience run of finding someone in your lap, or some similar event, and then there was an extended struggle in the second half with several actors throwing themselves round the stage quite vigorously. I found myself thinking that they actually rehearse these bits thoroughly so that there are no accidents, and then I realised that Cardenio himself was lunging towards me, restrained by two other characters, and ended up with his hand just a couple of inches from my throat. I was surprisingly calm about the whole thing – Steve tells me I didn’t even flinch – and I felt honoured to be this night’s ‘victim’.

With more familiarity, the only part of the play where I thought Shakespeare might have had an influence was the scene where Dorotea, disguised as a boy, unknowingly reveals her plight to the concealed Cardenio and his two helpers (this was just after he attempted to strangle me). It was a moving scene, with typical Shakespearean features, so I wouldn’t entirely dismiss the Shakespeare DNA concept, but I’d still need much better evidence to believe it.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Homecoming – August 2011

7/10

By: Harold Pinter

Directed by: David Farr

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Tuesday 23rd August 2011

I was keen to see this play again. We’d seen it back in February 2008, and despite the nastiness of the characters, the language gave it tremendous power. I probably took longer to tune in to this production because of the memories of that earlier one, but by the second half I was well in.

The set was more open due to the nature of the Swan. The walkways at the front had been cut off to leave a square stage which held the sitting room. A red carpet sat in the middle of the floor, with a red comfy chair back left, a wooden chair back right with a small table beside it, and another wooden chair front right, facing across the front of the stage. There was a cupboard of some kind behind the other chairs, and a gap to the stairs and front door further back. The front door was on the left, while the stairs went from midway up to the right, and had a long sideboard in front of them. The kitchen was offstage back right, and we could hear the clattering of pots and plates when Sam was washing up. The stairs went up in two flights to the second balcony, and we could see when characters were coming down them. Beside the front door hung a number of garments, coats presumably, which seemed to be stained with blood. I took this to be a reminder of the butcher’s shop that Max owned. The blank bits at the start of each scene also had the sound of flies buzzing, which was another reminder. The stage would be dark at these times except for several strips of light along the edge of the stage and up above – I have no idea what this was meant to suggest.

The performance style was similar to the earlier production, but I felt there was a lot less menace in the atmosphere. This may be partly down to the audience, with plenty of laughter coming early on and throughout the first half which diluted the tension, making it more of a light comedy. I also found it hard to hear Jonathan Slinger at times, as he kept his voice relatively soft which meant it didn’t carry as much. As a result, I found the first half less interesting, and nearly nodded off a couple of times, but Ruth and Teddy’s arrival sorted that out.

The second half started with all the men lighting up cigars while Ruth hands round the coffee cups. This was very funny, seeing all these men smartly dressed in their suits because Ruth was there. I enjoyed this half much more, and I saw some different shades of meaning in the performance. For example, I realised that Ruth may actually want to get away from Teddy, and her choice to stay may be based on the power and freedom she feels she has with his family compared to the constraints of her roles as wife and mother with Teddy. She was certainly very snappy and demanding with the family, ordering them to fetch food and drinks – reminded me of the V queen – and she negotiated a very sweet deal to set herself up as a prostitute. I felt she was installed as queen of the household from the start of the second half – possibly earlier – whereas in the Almeida production that was delayed till the end. I hadn’t remembered Sam and Max collapsing towards the end, and again that suggested a shift in power to the new kid on the block.

Overall, I felt the language was delivered better in the Almeida production, but this one also had good performances, and was well worth seeing. We’re booked again, and I hope to get even more out it next time.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Alarms And Excursions – August 2011

7/10

By: Michael Frayn

Directed by: Joe Harmston

Venue: Theatre Royal, Brighton

Date: Thursday 4th August 2011

This production consists of a number of short plays by Michael Frayn, all loosely connected by the impact of modern technology on our lives, particularly the difficulties the technology itself causes and our inability to handle them. The set was therefore generic, with lots of flats sliding on and off and furniture trundling hither, thither and yon between each play. None of this was a problem; the set design created each location very effectively, although the actors will no doubt have their own view on all the quick changes they had to manage. With a good crowd, it all made for an enjoyable afternoon.

We missed the first couple of minutes due to heavy traffic in Brighton – we’ll take the train next time – but I don’t think we missed much. We were able to slip into aisle seats as well, so hopefully we didn’t disturb anyone. The first play was called Alarms, and when we arrived it was clear that a dinner party was being interrupted by an irritating beep. It sounded very much like the beep of a smoke alarm with a low battery – the chap behind us recognised it too – but the group having the party didn’t know what it was. While they tried all sort of options, other alarms and buzzers started going off, including the oven timer and a car alarm. The phone system in this house was apparently state-of-the art, which meant no one understood how to work it, so when an urgent call came in for the husband, he couldn’t actually speak to the person on the other end until he’d assaulted the phone out of sheer frustration.

The dialogue was marvellously tailored to the events. The caller was still trying to get the husband to pick up the phone, and saying things like ‘you can’t hide under the table’, while at the same time the visiting wife had accidentally been covered up by the dining table for reasons I won’t go into now. All of this was great fun, and although this is an extreme version of reality, much of it was recognisable in our own lives.

The second play, Doubles, was set in two adjacent hotel rooms. Two couples arrive at almost the same time, and we see their identikit lives play out. The walls are thin enough for sounds to carry, and this leads to some hilarious misunderstandings, with couple one (Serena Evans and Robert Daws) believing they’ve heard couple two (Belinda Lang and Aden Gillet) having sex when they’ve actually been trying to kill a mosquito, and couple two thinking couple one are called Kevin and Sharon, when that’s the names they’ve been using for couple two. It took a little while to set up the situation, but then we had a great time seeing all the variables of social embarrassment play out. The final situation is that both couples are staying in their rooms until they see the other couple get into their car – it could be a long wait.

After the interval came Leavings, the sequel to Alarms, with the two original couples going through the end-of-party process of leave-taking. The husband has fallen asleep, and there’s not much conversation going on amongst the rest of them. After several declarations that they must leave, the visiting couple finally get up to go, but when the husband wakes up, he assumes he’s the visitor and starts to head off himself. We then see all the last minute conversations that crop up at these times. The husbands get into a rambling, pointless conversation about things being unnaturally natural, while the wives are subsequently distracted by some gossip about an affair. This eventually draws the men in as well, and the upshot is that the visiting couple decide to make themselves something to eat as they’re so hungry.

Pig In The Middle is a short conversation between a husband and wife about the message left by a repair man about some thingy that needs fixing. The husband has a rant about the message, because he knew the man would say it was the bit inside that needs fixing when it was always the bit around the back, and the wife gets a bit fed up with being the one to pass on all these messages instead of her husband dealing with it himself. She gets her own back, though. After checking the shopping he’s brought back with him, she points out that he’s got the wrong sort of something. When he claims that they never have the right sort, she tells him he always goes to the place inside instead of going round the back! It was a lovely piece of word play, and Steve and I could both recognise our own liberal use of the word ‘thingy’, although we’re lucky enough to actually understand what we mean most of the time.

Toasters had three of the cast in office outfits, standing next to a plant on a stand and carrying a folder, a plate and a glass. While the company’s boss makes a tedious rambling speech, they have to juggle these items to keep up, opening the folders to all the mentioned pages, raising their glasses to toast some success story, and putting their stuff down when they have to applaud even more success. Or are they meant to toast? Or applaud? The uncertainty had them squirming, and kept us laughing.

Finishing Touches was another short piece, with a husband and wife sitting at a restaurant table at the end of a meal. He has a very slow delivery, with lots of very long pauses, so she finishes his sentences for him. This goes on for a short while, then he starts finishing her sentences as well – it’s the only time he can talk quickly. Their snippiness is evident, and I noticed there was at least one couple who laughed loudly all through this sketch (not us, as it happens). Clearly this situation was closer to home for some of the audience.

Look Away Now was a funny variation on the safety demonstration given at the beginning of each plane flight. The passengers were actually told not to pay attention, but one of the three on this flight was a new boy (reminded me of my first time – the only pair of eyes in a sea of papers) and he was actually watching. He did open a paper to show willing, but because he was listening, he realised the air hostess was actually taking her clothes off! The expression on his face was wonderfully funny. Unfortunately for him, he’d been spotted, and the final part of the announcement was to the effect that he wouldn’t be getting any dessert because he’d peeked.

The final play was called Immobiles, and a voiceover explained to the audience before it started that it was set in the past, at a time when people had to use landlines and public phones if they wanted to talk to one another. We’d seen Alarms And Excursions before, in 1999, and this was the scene I remembered best from the previous occasion. Dieter has arrived in Britain to visit some friends, and calls to leave a message on their answer phone. The husband also calls to leave a message – he’s at Heathrow to pick up Dieter but can’t find him. The wife, when she gets in, uses the answer phone announcement to tell them what to do, and then heads off to pick up Dieter, at Gatwick! She’s forgotten that her mother is also due to arrive, so in a short time we have four people making phone calls, leaving messages and eventually blocking each other’s calls. With so much going on, the poor answer phone blows up, and I don’t blame it. Makes me glad we have mobiles now.

I enjoyed all of these plays, although I do think they might have been better ending the show with Leavings, to top and tail the performance with the same couples. However, it’s only a minor point, and doesn’t take away from the excellent performances. All four actors are superb with this sort of comedy, and we’re glad we saw this again. According to the program notes, Michael Frayn had added some new material for this production; I don’t know which bits exactly, as it all seemed to mesh very well.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

First Episode – July 2011

7/10

By: Terence Rattigan and Philip Heimann

Directed by: Philip Franks

Venue: Minerva Theatre

Date: Sunday 31st July 2011

This was a rehearsed reading of a play which Rattigan wrote with a friend while at university and it was fascinating to see it, even just as a rehearsed reading. No one knows who wrote what, but there were enough of the Rattigan themes to make this definitely one of his. Although they didn’t play the homosexual relationship strongly, the accusation flung at one of the central characters, that he’s a ‘degenerate’, was a clear indicator of the original intention.

The story is mostly set in the sitting room of some student lodgings. Four young men live there – Tony who’s into theatre and is directing a play, David who’s his close friend, Bertie who’s the nerdy one, working hard and trying to follow the rules – he wants his future wife to be ‘pure’, then falls for the easiest woman in town – and Philip who’s pretty laid back and enjoys the good life as much as he can. He’s the one who has a bet on the big race with his bookie (this is set before the bookies were allowed to trade openly on the high street, so telephone calls and aliases were the order of the day), and eventually everyone else joins in; even Bertie, who’s acted all prudish about gambling, has his own bookie.

This is a side issue, though, as the main focus is the three-way relationship between Tony, David and Margot, a professional actress who’s agreed to appear in Tony’s production of Antony and Cleopatra. It’s hard to say who seduces whom; both Tony and Margot are up for it from an early stage, but it’s a temporary thing for Tony whereas she wants more. While visiting her at night to tell her to stay away from his friend, David gets caught by the university beadles, and is sent down.

There’s another romance going on, as Joan, a young woman with an easy-going nature, is also cast in Antony and Cleopatra, and starts off with a crush on Tony. As time goes on, she finds a more sympathetic companion in Bertie, and by the end of the play they announce their engagement. The horse race doesn’t turn out as expected, so David is leaving university with no degree and no money, but still with Tony’s friendship – purely platonic in this version.

The cast did an excellent job with very little preparation. They had a few items of furniture – a sofa, a chair or two and a small table at the front of the stage with the telephone. There was one scene change – to Margot’s hotel room – but the rest of the play was in the student’s room. No costumes of course, though Alex Waldmann did wear a pair of black spectacles as Bertie, which made him look the swotty type. It would be interesting to see a full production, of course, but this may be all we get. It’s still remarkably good for a first attempt.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Much Ado About Nothing – July 2011

7/10

By: William Shakespeare

Directed by: Josie Rourke

Venue: Wyndhams Theatre

Date: Monday 11th July 2011

I was a bit disappointed with tonight’s experience, not so much due to the production as the audience. With so many David and Catherine fans, the laughter came all too easily, and while some of it was very well deserved, there were times when it swamped the dialogue, times when it was strangely absent, and times when it came for no apparent reason at all. This was not your regular Shakespeare audience, and while I’m glad this run has been so successful, and hope that it will turn one or two youngsters on to Shakespeare’s work, I found that the uncritical adulation spoiled my enjoyment a bit.

The set was excellent, with four big pillars on a revolve surrounded by slatted panels and doorways suggesting the warm Mediterranean location perfectly. The costumes were also excellent – modern dress, with military costumes and formal suits rubbing shoulders with scruffy dungarees and T-shirts. Benedict’s costume for the masked ball looked like a cross between Lily Savage and Olivia Newton John in the final scene of Grease, Hero’s wedding dress echoed Diana’s, and Dogberry wore military fatigues with the word ‘officer’ across his chest.

The parts that didn’t work so well for me included the second part of the eavesdropping scene and some of the ruined wedding scene. The eavesdropping scene was staged with a couple of decorators bringing their trolley on stage and touching up the paintwork on a door and then one of the pillars. This allowed Benedict to get white paint on one hand, which then ended up on his face, clothes, etc. All this was very funny, but the trouble is there’s another round of eavesdropping to go, and Beatrice not only has to do something different, it really has to top Benedict’s efforts or the energy will flag. Tonight, Beatrice’s comic business involved covering herself with the painters’ tarpaulin, then groping her way towards the back of the stage where she could be attached to a hook and lifted up. All well and good, and very funny to start with, but then the laughter just drowned out the dialogue and I switched off very quickly. I’ve seen this done better.

The wedding scene started very well, with a nice change of pace into the darker phase of the play. Benedict’s reactions were particularly good here, making it clear that even this joker recognises the enormity of the Prince and Duke’s accusation. Then when Beatrice and Benedict are left alone, the humour of their mutual admissions of love were funny, but the excessive audience reactions jarred with the previous mood, and when Beatrice tells Benedict that she wants him to kill Claudio, this was also greeted with laughter, which is so wrong and certainly not how it was played. Even so, I was very moved by this scene, not as far as needing a hanky, but my eyes were definitely wet. This sort of insensitive response detracts from the performance for me, although not completely, thank goodness.

Other negatives in the staging included the strange bit after Claudio has read the poem over Hero’s grave. He has a portable CD player and some booze with him for his all-night vigil, and by dint of playing loud music, swigging the booze and throwing himself around a lot, I deduced we were to understand that he was truly sorry for what he’d done. In case we hadn’t taken the hint, he even took out a gun, and was about to shoot himself when Hero walked in, dressed in black. He’s so amazed by her appearance that he collapses on the floor, where the Prince finds him the next morning. Neither Steve nor I could figure this one out. Was it Hero herself stopping him, in which case how did she get there at just the right moment, or was it a vision he was having, in which case why was she in a completely different outfit? I’m all for ambiguity, but this was just vague.

I was also suspicious of the semi-corpsing when Beatrice came to call Benedict in to dinner. We’ve seen this sort of rehearsed improv before, and it didn’t ring completely true for me, while Steve was out and sure it was a fake. I noticed tonight that Catherine Tate reappeared in the wings briefly after her final departure – no idea why.

The other main problem I had with the performance was Catherine Tate’s weak delivery. She started off well, but in any prolonged speech she tended to lose energy and volume. This wouldn’t have been a problem in a more average production, but with such high-powered performers around her it was very noticeable. I also found Don John and Borachio hard to follow, Don John because of his rather jerky delivery, and Borachio because I couldn’t tune in to the accent he was using. Choosing to replace Leonato’s brother with his wife was an interesting move – trying to balance up the sexes perhaps? – but her part was seriously underwritten as a result, with nothing to say in the wedding scene, and no threat to fight the Prince either. Her delivery was even weaker than Catherine Tate’s, so perhaps it was a blessing she had so few lines.

So what did I enjoy about the play? Well, the other performances were excellent, and even Dogberry came out funnier than usual. John Ramm still struggled with that first scene – when no-one is pointing out the errors it can fall a little flat – but his later appearances went down well, especially his final leave-taking of Leonato. He had a thing with his sidekick, Verges, where they put their fists together and said ‘boom’. He tried to go through the motions of this with Leonato as well, but realised it wasn’t going to be reciprocated, or appreciated. His insistence on being ‘written down an ass’ went down very well with this crowd, which made up for them missing some of the other gems.

David Tennant was, as expected, excellent, with great comic timing and clear delivery of the lines. I noticed he was more static than in his RSC roles, but that’s probably the proscenium arch for you. He did have to mug it up a bit for this audience, but he does that so well, who cares? Both Adam James as the Prince and Tom Bateman as Claudio were very good, and I was impressed with what I could hear of Sarah Macrae as Hero – her part suffered the worst from the excessive laughter. I enjoyed Jonathan Coy’s excellent Leonato, and although I couldn’t always make out Don John’s dialogue, I appreciated Elliot Levey’s portrayal of the part. It reminded me of Richard Nixon, all stiff and formal, and with inappropriate attempts to be one of the boys, including offering a cigarette to the young lad.

The pre-wedding stag and hen nights were a very good piece of staging, and allowed ‘Hero’s’ infidelity to be staged as a shag against the wall in a dark space with Margaret wearing Hero’s bridal veil. It also allowed Don John to craftily get both his brother and Claudio well drunk before showing them the ‘proof’.

When the Prince proposed to Beatrice, he was in earnest, and her embarrassment when she realises this was evident. He’s clearly hurt by her rejection, and Leonato’s request for her to ‘look to those things I told you of’ is solely an excuse to get her out of there, for which she’s very grateful.

The young boy was excellent, too – don’t know which one it was tonight, their pictures in the program are too similar. He brought the book back just at the wrong time, and finally Benedict threw it off the stage to get rid of it and him. Later, when Benedict is attempting to compose a love-song to Beatrice using an electronic keyboard, he pushes a button which starts the machine playing some music, and can’t get it to stop. Needless to say, when the young lad walks across the back of the stage, he sees that Benedict’s in trouble, and with the resigned air of the technically savvy youth, walks over, pushes the right button, and leaves. Beautifully done. Benedict then starts checking out some of the other options, before giving up entirely. I think this scene was put before his request to Margaret to fetch Beatrice, but I can’t be sure.

During the wedding scene, the reactions from Don John and Margaret were easy to miss, but well worth catching. Don John was smirking a bit when Hero was accused, while Margaret looked shocked, then worried, then guilty, and her mother hustled her out of the church quickly at the end.

Overall, it was a lively and fairly straightforward interpretation of the play, with lots of humour and affection between the characters, and despite the audience reactions, I enjoyed it very much.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Cardenio – June 2011

7/10

By: Very good question – lots and lots of people, but probably not Shakespeare (see below)

Directed by: Greg Doran

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Saturday 11th June 2011

Our view was obscured again tonight as a pillar blocked a fair bit of the stage, and being so far round one side meant we couldn’t see the balcony scenes on that side. The cramped leg room didn’t help either. However, this play was much more accessible than The City Madam – we knew who every character was from an early stage, and the plot developments were clear throughout, not to mention very familiar from a lot of other sources.

First, the authorship question. We attended a talk this afternoon by Greg Doran and Tiffany Stern, hosted by Paul Edmonson, at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust (listen to the podcast at http://bloggingshakespeare.com/listen-to-cardenio-in-conversation). The historical evidence, limited as it is, was unequivocal; there’s no definite evidence that Shakespeare ever co-wrote a play called Cardenio, or any other play based on the story of Cardenio as told in Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Of course, there were lots of caveats and perhapses during the afternoon, but having seen the version presented by the RSC at this time, of a play adapted from an earlier play which may have been based on a possible manuscript of a play that may have been in the vicinity of Fletcher and/or Shakespeare at some time, my conclusion is that any hypothetical input Will may have had has been so squeezed out by the reworking that it’s almost a breach of the Trades Descriptions Act to put his name anywhere near the play’s title on the advertising, two inserted Hamlet lines notwithstanding. Having said that, I’m very fond of the RSC, and in these difficult times I see no real harm in them milking this ephemeral ‘connection’ for all it’s worth.

And as it happens, they’ve come up with quite a good play, Shakespeare or no. I don’t know the original story, which isn’t told in proper sequence anyway, so I can’t comment on that, but after a short spell of introducing the characters and setting up the plot, there was a great deal to like about this piece. Cardenio, the son of Don Camillo, is a friend of Fernando, the ne’er-do-well second son of Duke Ricardo, a very important man. This duke, by the way, likes to stage dry runs of his own funeral, so as to leave nothing to chance, and the opening of the play has Fernando, unknown to us at this time, sneaking on stage to have a practice go in the empty coffin. This was both weird and puzzling, but we were soon into the dialogue so I let it go.

The duke and his elder son, Pedro, are concerned about Fernando, who’s off on a horse-buying spree. Pedro has found out that Cardenio is Fernando’s friend, and also involved in the horse purchasing, so the duke sends for Cardenio to enlist his help in monitoring Fernando’s activities. The timing is a bit unfortunate, as Cardenio has just got up the courage to ask for his father’s approval of his choice of bride – Luscinda, a neighbour’s daughter and a real feisty woman as well – but the duke’s summons and his father’s excitement at the potential for preferment, get in the way. When Cardenio and Fernando end up in the vicinity of Luscinda during their travels, Cardenio takes the opportunity to visit her, and shows her off to Fernando, and that’s where the problems begin.

Fernando has already impressed us with his fickleness, rampant lust, etc. He’s wooed a young woman, Dorotea, of too low a class to be considered suitable as his bride. Using promises and a ring, he gets a chance to have sex with her, and it’s not entirely clear whether she’s given reluctant consent or none at all. With the deed done, Fernando’s love is gone, so he’s primed and ready to ‘fall in love’ again, this time with Luscinda. The ins and outs of his attempts to wed Luscinda, her attempts to put him off, Dorotea’s experiences as she follows Fernando, and Cardenio’s suffering make up the rest of the play.

There was plenty of humour throughout the performance. The subject matter – betrayal, with a side order of rape – was serious, but still there was a lot to laugh at. Alex Hassell as Fernando did a particularly good job of getting the humour out of the part without becoming either a fop or a buffoon, and all the other performances were good too. The situation was resolved in a neat manner, although I have serious doubts about Fernando and Dorotea’s marriage surviving, never mind being happy. So we’re looking forward to seeing this again, from a better position, and I’ve no doubt we’ll get even more out of it next time.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Communicating Doors – June 2011

7/10

By Alan Ayckbourn

Directed by Alan Ayckbourn

Venue: Theatre Royal, Brighton

Date: Thursday 9th June 2011

I do like an Ayckbourn, and this one is no exception. It’s an older play, first performed in 1994, and unless the author made some changes, it’s amazing how well it predicted life in 2011. Excellent performances all round, as usual, and the whole time-travel thriller concept was good fun to watch. I didn’t get many of the film references – Psycho was obvious, but I didn’t recognise any others – but this didn’t spoil my enjoyment one bit.

The action all took place in one room on the top floor of a posh hotel. There was a door on the far right to a cupboard, which also had a door into the room next to this one, which was only used for storage. When the characters entered this cupboard, either to hide or to go through to the next room, the lights went down, the cupboard space swivelled round and they emerged into a different time period. We started in 2031, a character called Poopay went back to 2011, and another character called Ruella went further back, to 1991. As a result of this complicated to-ing and fro-ing, lives were saved and one psychopath was killed, twice. The final scene showed us how these changes had affected Poopay’s life, and it was a nice happy ending to finish with.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Three Farces – June 2011

7/10

By: John Maddison Morton

Edited by: Colin Chambers

Directed by: Henry Bell

Venue: Orange Tree Theatre

Date: Thursday 2nd June 2011

To create a suitable atmosphere for these three Victorian farces, we were treated to Mr Daniel Cheyne acting as Master of Ceremonies, resplendent in a fine purple frock coat, and carrying a small guitar (or large ukulele) with which he accompanied himself during the performance. He chatted with various audience members as we foregathered in the auditorium, and when proceedings were about to get underway, he introduced the cast to us, using the formal designations of the Victorian era. Each actor, as they were introduced, appeared in the far corner, glided across towards us, and exited gracefully through the nearer doorway, all to warm applause. The only exception was Mr Edward Bennett, who remained in the far doorway, and simply closed the doors to effect his exit. Mr Daniel Cheyne then sang a little song which recounted the story of the play we were about to see, to the tune of When I’m Cleaning Windows, if I remember correctly. Similar songs were sung before the other two plays as well. He also filled in as a messenger in the first play, and was fairly reliable at providing ‘noises off’.

Smasher & Crasher

7/10

Set: there was a piano between seats which in our row were split in the middle, a partially filled bookcase in the entrance to the left of that. Next came a sofa, and there were two chairs and a couple of side tables around the place, with double doors to my right and in the opposite entrance. Beside each pair of doors was a pair of cupboard doors – this time the cupboard on my right, which was reasonably spacious, led to the preserve store.

Two men, Slasher and Crasher, are to be married to Mr Blowhard’s niece and sister, and the play is almost over before it’s begun. But a letter arrives exposing both men as cowards, and the marriages are off. An ex-military man, Blowhard can’t stand the idea of his family money being passed on to the lily-livered, so he sends both men packing. Crasher conceives the idea of a fake fight between them, to convince Blowhard that they’re made of the right stuff, but things become a little more heated when Crasher lets slip that he was the one who knocked Smasher’s hat off at the races the day before – it was swallowing this insult that got Smasher in trouble with Blowhard in the first place. Their duel becomes more vigorous than planned, and a good deal of Blowhard’s property is damaged, including a cow (off stage) and the sofa (onstage). All is happily resolved, however, and the end of the play is a reprise of the start, this time with applause from us.

A Most Unwarrantable Intrusion

6/10

The demolished sofa was removed and a desk and larger round table added, along with a pot plant stand, comfy chair, and a portrait of Mr Snoozle on an easel. The tables have some food on them, and also a goldfish bowl with two rather static goldfish. There’s another, smaller, portrait on the desk, of a grim-looking older lady, looking a bit like Whistler’s Mother.

It’s a simple plot. Mr Snoozle has the house to himself – wife, daughter and niece are all out for the day and the servants have all been dismissed. He’s looking forward to a day of total peace and quiet, but finds he has to stop a young man from drowning himself in the fish pond, and said young man proceeds to make himself at home in a very intrusive way. We’ve already heard about a Mr John Johnson Junior, who wants to marry Snoozle’s daughter; Snoozle has turned him down and not replied to his subsequent letters. We weren’t fooled for a minute – this young man was the daughter’s suitor, and he made himself increasingly impossible to deal with until Snoozle finally threatens him with this Mr John Johnson Junior. He even writes a letter to Mr John Johnson Junior to say that Mr John Johnson Junior can marry his daughter, and have five, no, ten thousand pounds into the bargain. At this point, the young man reveals his identity, takes the cheque, and…… The script peters out, so the actors have to improvise the final appeal to the audience. They did this very well, and again we applauded them mightily.

Grimshaw, Bagshaw & Bradshaw 

7/10

Out went everything except the desk and comfy chair, while the piano was covered up. We’re now in a bedroom, with a single bed to our left, leading away from the piano and with a semi-circle of rug at its foot, a chest of drawers and plain chair middle of the next side, desk and plain chair middle of the opposite side, with a fire grate towards the corner entrance, and the comfy chair and side table in the middle of the side to our right.

This is Grimshaw’s room. He’s a shop assistant, on his feet all day and just getting ready for bed at 9 pm when there’s a knock at his door. Who can it be? The new arrival is Fanny, a lady whom Grimshaw met recently, and who has lodgings across the street. He offered to share his umbrella with her when it was raining, she took the whole thing, and now he’s smitten. She asks him to let her stay in his room till morning. He’s thrilled, of course, because he naturally thinks she wants him to be there as well. When she tells him to go, he’s more than a little put out, and despite being an agreeable sort of chap, he does at least put his foot down a bit. She soon prises it up again, though, and sends him packing.

Her need for the room is soon explained. There’s a sliding door in the cupboard on our right that allows Emily to slip through from the next room. She’s hiding from her uncle Towzer, who’s some kind of bailiff, because she wants to marry Bradshaw and her uncle won’t allow it – he wants to keep £300 that’s supposed to be hers when she marries. Bradshaw has taken lodgings a few streets away, but Towzer seems to be keeping an eye on Emily’s room, so Fanny has devised this scheme to help her sneak out without her uncle seeing her. (Don’t ask me how Fanny and Emily met. They skated over it pretty fast, and it was clearly one of those unlikely coincidences so necessary for plot development in farces.)

Meanwhile, Bagshaw emerges through the communicating door on the other side; the door had been nailed up, but clearly the Victorians liked their comedy to be destructive, and Bagshaw soon kicked it open. He’s a young man with a taste for cheap cigars and fine clothes, but an aversion to paying his tailor’s bill. For this reason he too is avoiding Towzer, who has been chasing him for several weeks to get said tailor’s bill paid. Add in a returning Grimshaw, determined to find out Fanny’s secret, and copious use of the communicating doors, and there’s a fair bit of fun to be had, with all ending happily yet again, apart from Grimshaw not getting any Fanny, that is.

With all three plays complete, it’s time for a final song from the assembled company, much applause from us, and finish. Except for the post-show discussion, of course. There was a great deal of interesting information about the writer and Victorian theatre in general from the Sam Walters, Henry Bell and Colin Chambers, but the most interesting thing for me was that so many of us had found the humour not only funny, but very modern. Monty Python and the Goons were mentioned, amongst others, and I was reminded of the word-play of the Two Ronnies sketches, especially with the names of the characters. It was good to see how the Victorians liked their humour – Morton was a very popular writer in his day – as it shows a different side to their character, and reminds us that we’re not so different after all.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Hanging Hooke – March 2011

Rating: 7/10

By: Siobhan Nicholas

Directed by: Siobhan Nicholas and Chris Barnes

Venue: Mill Studio, Guildford

Date: Thursday 3rd March 2011

This was a  very interesting one man show covering the life of Robert Hooke, an amazing member of the scientific community in England right at the time science was being developed on the basis of experimentation rather than philosophy. His contemporaries included Robert Boyle, Christopher Wren and Isaac Newton, and but for the latter’s apparent hostility to Hooke, we might all know his contribution to science much better than we do. Fortunately, a collection of his papers was discovered back in 2006; their discovery and possible auction triggered the writing of this play.

The first half was narrated by a painter and friend of Hooke, who knew him as he was growing up, mentored him, and brought him to London so he could develop and use his considerable talents. Unfortunately, his friend also became involved in the Rosicrucians, a secret group dedicated to the discovery of hidden knowledge, and the oath he took at that time caused him to betray his promise to support Hooke. Isaac Newton was also a member of the Rosicrucians, and eventually became its Grand Master, and there the troubles began. Newton disliked Hooke intensely, and Hooke’s achievements threatened to eclipse Newton’s, so Newton instructed this friend to spy on Hooke and pass on details of what work he was doing, what he was investigating, etc.

The second half showed us Hooke himself, who gave us his version of events. He was well aware that his erstwhile friend was working for Newton, and because of this he became ever more fearful of his work being stolen or worse still, destroyed. Hence he hid a bundle of papers away secretly, the same bundle that was rediscovered a few years ago. The halves were topped and tailed with sounds from the auction room, and I found myself getting quite tense about who would buy the papers and how much they would fetch. In the end, they were bought privately by the Royal Society who have had them transcribed and put on their website for all the world to view. This was tremendously good news, all the more so because Hooke believed in sharing knowledge and being open with his discoveries, unlike Newton who wanted to keep things secret until he could claim credit for them.

The biggest story of the night was Hooke’s realisation of gravity as the force by which the planets keep their places in the celestial dance. He sent his ideas to Newton, hoping the talented mathematician would collaborate on developing the theory, but was dismayed to find Newton publishing the theory of gravity as his own discovery several years later. With the finding of these papers, scientific history will have to be reassessed. In fact, Chris Barnes, after taking his bows at the end, pointed out that, with the work that’s been done on Hooke’s papers, some of the play’s lines will have to be changed. Never mind.

This was an interesting play which gave me a greater insight into the life and work of this most fascinating man. Chris Barnes’ dual performances as the painter and Hooke were marvellous, and there was a good deal of humour, which is so necessary for a subject like this.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Twelfth Night – February 2011

7/10

By: William Shakespeare

Directed by: Peter Hall

Venue: Cottesloe Theatre

Date: Thursday, 24th February 2011

A slightly weaker production than I would have expected. Some performances were excellent, especially Charles Edwards as Sir Andrew Aguecheek, but Viola and Olivia were remarkably bland. Both actresses were reduced to grinning and simpering a lot, with no sign of the grief that both characters are supposedly suffering. Most peculiar. Malvolio was a nasty piece of work, and his mistreatment particularly unpleasant, as he was penned in a large bird cage and had to crouch on the perch with his knees up around his chin. His later appearance indicates how this has affected his knees. Sir Toby was full of life, and Feste was an older version, with good delivery of the lines, but overall the piece felt lacking in pace and focus.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me