Category Archives: 7/10

Funny Girl – May 2008

7/10

Music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Bob Merrill, book by Isobel Lennart

Directed by Angus Jackson

Venue: Minerva Theatre

Date: Tuesday 13th May 2008

I’m not a great one for musicals, but I was interested to see this one. Barbara Streisand made the part of Fanny Bryce so much her own that it’s understandable that there’s been no major production of it for many years, so as I haven’t seen the film, this was pretty new territory for me.

Of course, many of the songs were familiar, and the story, despite being based on Fanny Bryce’s life (or parts of it), was incredibly familiar. Piaf, Marie Lloyd, etc. all seemed to have similar themes to their life stories. But here we only get to see the unpromising beginnings, the rise to stardom and the glory days – no descent into post-stardom for this show.

To get across the show-biz nature of the piece, most of the sets showed the back wall of the theatre itself, which also doubled as the outside walls of the apartment blocks in the run down area Fanny comes from. There were some more opulent sets as well, for when she’s made it big, but I really don’t remember noticing the changes, they were done so slickly.

The story is one long reminiscence, as Fanny prepares to go on stage. Starting with her early attempts to get a job, we see her shoehorn her way into a tall, leggy chorus (she’s short and plump), take over the act completely by improvising comic business, and gradually make herself the star of whatever show she happens to be in. She’s helped in this by a tall, good-looking chap, Nick Arnstein, who seems to be well-off, and is certainly charming. He bids up her salary with the current management by claiming to represent another theatre, so she’s naturally grateful. Not that that matters, as she fell hook, line and sinker for the guy as soon as she clapped eyes on him. He, of course, is a chap with no real job, who just loafs around the theatre circuit taking advantage of whatever’s on offer. He soon realises that Fanny is an all-you-can-eat meal ticket, and it’s not long before they’re married. Naturally, there’s another chap who adores Fanny, but whom she regards as a good friend, and who would have been a much better match for her.

To do him justice, Nick does actually want to make his own way in the world; he’s just hopeless at doing it. He invests Fanny’s money in at least one get-rich-quick scheme (a golf course or hotel or casino, or some such), and loses it all. Later on he gets an amazing offer of a job that seems to be right up his street, but he realises it’s too good, and that Fanny has arranged it to give him some self-respect. That proves the clincher, and they split up. Fanny had even given up her career to be Nick’s wife, but now she has to go back on the stage to earn her living, and the play takes us up to her return.

It’s a moving story, with some very good songs, and this cast do it pretty well. The musical numbers with the dancers were all excellent, some of the duets were a bit weaker, but Samantha Spiro gave us a very good Fanny Bryce. Her voice isn’t as strong as Streisand’s, obviously, but she got the vulnerability across, and still got my toes tapping to the songs. I prefer musicals like this which do at least have some depth of character to them, so I enjoyed myself more than I expected.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Glaspell Shorts – April 2008

All three plays by Susan Glaspell

Venue: Orange Tree Theatre

Date: Thursday 17th April 2008

 

Trifles    7/10

Directed by Helen Leblique

The first play in this set of three was Trifles, which I would give a 7/10 rating. The set was a poor family’s kitchen – stove, dresser, table, sink with bucket, wooden chairs. Wind whistling. Three men and two women arrive at the house. Two of the men, the authority figures, hog the stove. They ask the other man to tell them what happened the previous day, and we hear how he found the wife acting strangely and the husband dead. Off they go to check for evidence, leaving the women to get some things for the wife, who’s now in jail. As they talk about the wife and sort through her things, with a great deal more kindness than the men, they discover an empty bird cage, then a dead bird, and realise what’s happened. They tacitly agree to hide the evidence, but there’s a tense moment when the county attorney is checking the stuff they intend to take to the wife. As he looks through the pile of quilting material, will he discover the box with the dead bird inside? It’s a play that rejoices in noticing, and showing, small details, and it was done very well.

The Outside     6/10

Directed by Svetlana Dimcovic

The second play was The Outside, a 6/10, though only just. Several shaped boards with straw grasses set the seaside theme. There were also a couple of ropes hanging down; one to the floor, the other halfway. A chair completed the set. There were the sounds of waves, seabirds calling, and then two seamen attempt to bring a dead body on stage. Their captain tries to revive him, but no luck. The first two men chat, and we find out this is an old life-saving station that’s been closed down and is now lived in by a strange woman who spends most of her time staring at the dunes. Her servant is an older woman who hardly says a word. As in the first play, the men set the scene, and then we see the two women talking. This bit is more Ibsen-like in the language and use of symbolism. Both women are dealing with loss, and somehow seeing the dead body has loosened the older woman’s tongue. She tries to persuade the younger woman to see the positive side of the tussle between the dunes and the woods, and possibly succeeds. It’s a strange debate, and I don’t claim to understand what the author is trying to do here. It certainly didn’t feel as complete as Trifles, although a theme of men not understanding what women experience is coming through loud and clear.

[Thinking about it afterwards, the older woman, Allie, is trying to get the younger one, Mrs Patrick, to accept her loss. Mrs Patrick’s husband is missing, having gone on a long sea voyage, so it’s not absolutely definite he’s dead but it is likely, while Allie’s husband has been drowned at sea. Allie doesn’t want Mrs Patrick to waste so much of her life as she did herself, but the debate drifts into symbolic territory which becomes a bit confusing.]

Suppressed Desires      8/10

Directed by Phoebe Barran

The third play, originally scheduled to be the second one performed, is Suppressed Desires, and a definite 8/10 hoot if ever there was one. The set consists of a sitting room with desk, phonograph, a table with breakfast things, and a settle. This was a comic look at the misguided passion some folk had for the new-fangled invention of psychoanalysis. Henrietta is addicted to it. Her husband Stephen is not so much against psychoanalysis as completely against his wife inflicting it on him. His temper is close to breaking point, and when his sister-in-law, Mabel, who’s visiting for a while, tells Henrietta the dream she had the night before, which Henrietta tries to twist into an expression of suppressed desire, he loses it completely. He heads out, but he’s actually going to see Dr X, whom Henrietta worships, to get himself analyzed. Mabel goes to the doctor, too, and the final scene, when both Stephen and Mabel confront Henrietta with the suppressed desires that the doctor has uncovered, is absolutely hilarious. It would be extremely apt to say that Henrietta’s chickens have come home to roost, and with a vengeance. Her only option is to renounce the religion of psychoanalysis, and live happily with her husband. Wonderful stuff.

The performances were all excellent, as is usual at this theatre. The three plays were an interesting introduction to Susan Glaspell’s writing, covering quite a range of styles. The first play was a clever piece of writing, getting across some subtle points very well. The characters were recognizable very quickly, and the situation was presented clearly at the start, giving plenty of time in an admittedly short play for the dialogue between the two women to gradually reveal what we needed to know – why the wife had killed her husband. Given the amount of time devoted to crime drama these days on TV, the description of the wife’s behaviour and the motivation for the murder all seemed spot on. For a character who doesn’t appear, she’s a strong presence in the play, as is her husband, though to a lesser extent. The growing understanding between the two women is also nicely developed, as the sheriff’s wife moves from supporting the strict legal code to actively suppressing relevant evidence.

The second play started off in similar vein, with the three men setting the scene. This time, though, the women were arguing about how to handle their grief. At least, that’s what it was about on the surface. They were talking a lot about “the outside”, and I didn’t quite get what that was meant to represent. Otherwise, the debate was between life-affirming and life-denying, the dunes swallowing the trees and the trees regrowing over the sand. At one point, the servant had her hands together, demonstrating this constantly evolving pattern, and as she countered the other woman’s argument by saying that the trees would grow through again, her lower fingers crept through like new shoots – a lovely detail, and one of the reasons I like such intimate spaces – I’m close enough to spot such things.

The problem I found with this play was that it was too short to really get its point across. In particular, I found the servant’s abrupt rediscovery of her desire to speak, when we’d barely grasped her silence, was difficult to absorb. It seemed a convenient device from someone who evidently understood human nature very well, and who could have given us much more of that character’s silent eloquence before making better use of her transformation. Several people at the post-show discussion voiced similarly views, and a number clearly enjoyed the piece.

The third play was much livelier. From the off, there was plenty of humour, and it was clear that Susan Glaspell knew these type of people very well, enough to poke loving fun at them. The husband’s exasperation was brilliantly done, along with his remarkable calmness and sadness as he tells his wife that he has a suppressed desire to leave her. Personally I thought his desire was more overt than that, but this fitted perfectly with his wife’s obsession. I did wonder, along with at least one other audience member, whether he was simply setting his wife up to show her the consequences of her beliefs, but it became clear that he wasn’t. The complicated unravelling of Mabel’s dream was a comic masterpiece, and I do hope we’ll get to see more of Glaspell’s work again.

Post-show discussion: Sam Walters was here as usual, together with Kate Saxon, who directs Chains of Dew, and two of the three directors of these pieces – I didn’t get the names, though judging by the accents I’d say one of them was Svetlana Dimcovic. There were various questions about Glaspell’s work, and how these pieces fitted into the overall trend. I think Suppressed Desires was an early piece, while The Outside was a later work. Trifles is apparently her best known piece, as it’s included in a number of anthologies of American plays, but still very few students, even American ones, recognise her name. Sam Walters chose these plays to show the range of her work, and to compliment Chains of Dew, although he could have chosen a number of other pieces.

There was some information about her “set”, the group of American artists, writers, etc, who wanted to create home-grown American theatre. Most of the stuff being put on at the end of the 19th century was taken from the European tradition, and they felt it was time for the authentic American voice to be heard. This group supported Eugene O’Neill, and they were certainly influenced by, amongst others, Ibsen. They would head for the coast during the summer, and put on plays; there was some uncertainty about whether these were performed by themselves, as enthusiastic amateurs, or by professional actors as a bit of fun during the summer. Either way, they produced some good stuff, and Susan Glaspell was not the least amongst them, judging by this set of plays.

On the way out, Steve heard an American lady compliment one of the actors on the accents they used. Apparently she found them all totally authentic, and appropriate to each setting.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

She Stoops To Conquer – April 2008

7/10

By Oliver Goldsmith, additional material by Bryony Lavery

Directed by Jonathan Munby

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Wednesday 2nd April 2008

This was a superb production of this play, with some hugely entertaining updates and a very good cast. To start with, there were three musicians playing on the stage when we entered the auditorium. Dressed in period gear, they were playing a sit-down drum, a violin and a stringed instrument. It was very pleasant. There were also two ushers at the bottom of each aisle and a stage curtain with the name of the play on it.

The musicians finished their set, and then the two ushers started arguing. Apparently the woman wanted the man to go out with her that evening, and he was reluctant. It took me a moment or two to realise these were the two leads, and by this time they were on the stage, and had launched into an updated version of the prologue. During this, the man scarpered, leaving the woman to finish off by asking for a method to teach this guy to be more affectionate towards her in public. Up goes the curtain, and she’s off to get changed.

The set was unusual. It had the requisite three walls and various doors, but the floor was curved, as if the floorboards had sagged over the years. It was also raked back to front, so it must have taken some getting used to. Anyway, we start off by getting to see Mr and Mrs Hardcastle at some meal, possibly breakfast. Colin Baker and Liza Goddard gave us a very good husband and wife. This was obviously a second marriage by a social climber who lost no opportunity to remind everyone of her first husband, Squire Lumpkin. Her affectations were prominent, as were her intentions of keeping her niece’s jewels in the family by marrying her off to her son, Tony Lumpkin, whose age is being kept a secret. Mr Hardcastle is a kindly gentleman, with a bit of a temper at times, but more of the cuddly sort than otherwise. I remember seeing Tom Baker playing him years ago, and choosing to leap around in a very odd way. This was a much more believable performance.

The plots are being set up nicely. The usherette turns up, in a lovely green frock (the couples were colour-coded), and we get a moment of her admiring the gown she’s  wearing before the character of Kate Hardcastle takes over, and she and her father are explaining the situation. She wears what she likes during the day, but dresses more plainly in the evening, to please him. From here on, it’s a jolly romp through all the misunderstandings and manners of the period. Tony Lumpkin misleads the suitors into thinking they’re at an inn when in fact they’ve arrived at their destination, and the confusion gives us some lovely scenes.

I particularly liked the first conversation between Kate and Marlow. She was intelligent and lively, while he was hugely embarrassed and almost incoherent at times. In fact, it’s surprising how well he does manage, although she does help him a lot once they’re left alone. Both of these performances were excellent, and for once I found it believable (just) for a man to be so brash and arrogant with those he considers his inferiors, and so tongue-tied when a posh bird comes along.

I also liked the scene in the garden. Trees were lowered down to create the setting very effectively, and Mrs Hardcastle, all mired with mud and her dress in tatters, was wonderfully funny. Later she tries to use her fan, realises it’s falling to bits, and closes it again with a grimace. Beautifully done.

Jonathan Broadbent as Tony Lumpkin was the best I’ve seen in this role. He’s not so much stupid as uneducated and high-spirited, with a native cunning that will probably get him through life without too much difficulty. He may have caused a lot of the problems that the various couples face, but he’s quick to sort things out when he learns that he is of age by renouncing his cousin immediately, and letting her marry the man of her choice and keep her jewels.

There was a dance to start the second half, one much loathed by the company apparently. I enjoyed it, though others in the audience weren’t sure what it was about. I reckoned it was a kind of reprise of the action so far. At the end of the play, we were treated to another dance, and then an updated epilogue, with some entertaining references. All ends happily, as the bashful usher arrives with some large sheets of card to save him having to speak his words of love out loud. Ah.

All the performances were to the same high standard, and it made for a very enjoyable evening. The director had decided to add the musicians, and they contribute a lot throughout the play, especially when covering the scene changes as well as livening up the tavern scene. The lines came across very clearly, and the dialogue seemed very fresh for once. At the post show I asked if they had cut it much, but apparently they had only dropped a few obscure references. The freshness must have been down to the standard of the production, which was definitely the best I’ve seen of this play.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Late Edwina Black – February 2008

7/10

By William Dinner and William Morum

Directed by Ian Dickens

Company: Ian Dickens Productions

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Friday 1st February 2008

Both Steve and I went to this convinced we’d seen it before, many years ago, but couldn’t remember the details. Having seen it, either our memories are seriously bad on this one, or we hadn’t seen it before at all. I hope the latter is true. Anyway, it meant we were in for an intriguing evening.

The Edwina Black of the title is a Rebecca-like figure. Her loss is mourned by her faithful servant Ellen, but her husband Gregory is glad she’s dead. As is Elizabeth Graham, Edwina’s companion for several years, who appears to have divided her time between helping Edwina and falling in love with Gregory. He has reciprocated, and now the two of them are planning a little trip to the Italian lakes with Edwina’s money. Ah ha, we think, they’ve bumped her off so they can enjoy their life together. Case solved.

But along comes a detective, Henry Martin, to announce that the Home Office isn’t entirely satisfied with the death certificate and the funeral, scheduled for the next day, will have to be postponed. Concern from both potential murderers. As the story unwinds, we get to see each of them go through the mental strain of the investigation. However, it soon becomes clear (or does it?) that each of them thinks the other one has killed Edwina. They manoeuvre round one another, and it becomes obvious that their relationship isn’t going to survive. All sorts of accusations are flung back and forth, and it’s fascinating to see these two crumbling under the pressure. Eventually, the dogged persistence of the policeman pays off, and with a nice little test involving a cup of tea the guilty culprit is finally exposed. Relief! (For us, not for the two lovers.)

I sort of guessed the answer early on but got distracted by all the other possibilities they were going through, so I can’t claim to have solved it at all. I don’t often get taken on such a roller-coaster ride by thrillers these days (I’ve seen too many of them) so this was a refreshing change. The performances were all fine, and I heard just about everything. The set was standard Victorian drawing-room; chairs by the fire on our left, table and chairs to the right, doors either side, stairs in far right corner, French windows centre back. There were also some wind chimes by the window, Edwina’s favourites, and after establishing these with a breeze blowing through the open doors early on they occasionally moved about when the doors were closed, just to remind the lovers of Edwina’s presence. Spooky. And good fun.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Othello – January 2008

7/10

By: William Shakespeare

Directed by: Michael Grandage

Venue: Donmar Theatre

Date: Thursday 31st Janaury 2008

The advantage of the Donmar is that, even at the back of the stalls, we were only four rows away from the action. I do love this theatre.

This production was pretty good too. I haven’t seen Shakespeare done in this more than intimate space before, and it worked pretty well. The down side is that there’s no room to put extra characters on stage to pad out the larger scenes, so here the Duke is in conference with only one other member of Venice’s governing body, a trifle sparse for realism. But it does trim everything down to the essentials, and some aspects of these plays come out all the clearer for that.

Here the staging was minimalist, as you might expect. A grating ran along the floor in front of the back wall, and allowed for some dripping water. There were just a few hints of a canal-based society, in the rings attached to the back wall, for example. There was a lovely effect when some golden curtains dropped down from above to create the bedroom scene – a beautiful mist of golden rain. There were also some canopies used earlier in the play, but as we were in the back row, I didn’t get a very good view of these.

I also didn’t get a good view of James Laurenson as Brabantio, as he was located above us on the balcony for the opening scene. This wasn’t a problem, as most of the dialogue came across perfectly well, and Brabantio was soon downstairs, determined to get his revenge for his lost daughter. It was an OK performance, but again I found I lost a lot of his dialogue during the play. Roderigo was good, a gullible nobleman, but not quite as stupid as some I’ve seen.

Othello’s speech to the court was interesting. I got the distinct impression he’s a real storyteller, embellishing real incidents to get the most drama out of them – a drama queen but with some basis in truth. He also seems to believe the stories he tells, and this suggested to me his readiness to believe other people’s stories. Chiwetel Ejiofor paced his performance very well. At first he just didn’t seem to get what Iago was trying to tell him, showing he was free from any suspicions of Desdemona, then as he grasped what was being said, he was all too ready to embellish it himself. This man has never learned to temper his emotions with thought, unlike Iago, who has more thought than emotion in this production. At times I felt that Othello was falling into the traps as fast as Iago could set them, and some indication of Iago reacting to his good fortune would have been welcome. However.

Back to the earlier scenes. I was aware of Desdemona’s willingness to deceive her father – despite her demureness, there’s a real spirit there, and perhaps less pure innocence than she would have us believe. I did think her love for Othello was pure, but she’s not as above board as is often made out. After all, she prevaricates about the handkerchief instead of coming clean, so she’s certainly capable of lying. I found her less convincing towards the end, although these are difficult scenes for any actress.

The killing worked well, with Othello strangling her on the floor, then putting her on the bed. As we were in the back row, we could easily hear the “noises off” – they were right behind us – including Amelia’s calls which interrupt Othello in the act. This final scene has a strange rhythm. There are lots of long speeches from Othello, while others stand around, amazed, “and know not what to say” (Hermia, Dream), which can seem a little odd. Likewise, Amelia, determined to dish the dirt on her husband, now she knows just what he’s been up to, spends most of her time telling us she’s going to tell all, before getting round to actually doing it. I did feel this time that it was touch and go as to whether the listeners would believe her or her husband, but once he’d stabbed her, it was obvious to everyone who was telling the truth. This interpretation made a lot of sense to me.

So, overall I enjoyed the performance, even though I found myself nodding off a little at the start of the second half (more tired than I realised, and not enough happening on stage). My main concern was the weakness of Iago. He told us that he hated Othello and why, then he did everything he could to bring about his downfall, so I have to believe he meant it, yet I couldn’t have told from his body language or delivery of the lines that he was remotely bothered about the man. I don’t need actors to writhe around in fits of agony, nor go bouncing off walls, but I do think such apparent passion for revenge would give us some tell-tale signs, especially during the soliloquies. There are people who bottle up their emotions, true, but they’re a lot less interesting to see performed on stage than in other media – we’re there, for God’s sake, so give us something to work with! Anyway, the lines were spoken well, and I understood from those what was going on inside this Iago, so that will have to do.

Almost forgot – the play started very abruptly, as is appropriate, without the usual dimming of the lights. Just Iago and Roderigo rushing on, yelling out to Brabantio. Nice touch, and it meant we were all awake for the opening scene.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

I Am Shakespeare – September 2007

7/10

By: Mark Rylance (with adjustments by the rest of the cast)

Directed by: Mark Rylance and Matthew Warchus

Venue: Minerva Theatre

Date: Tuesday 4th September 2007

I found myself getting a bit negative in the early stages of this play. Mark Rylance has been working on Shakespeare’s plays for many years now, and became interested in the authorship question over those years. A professed agnostic himself, he believes it’s important for this question to be aired, and for the various pieces of evidence to be acknowledged and discussed, instead of covered up. Never having come across a serious argument against Will himself, I wasn’t perhaps as open-minded as I like to think at the start of this, but I grew into it. I’m still fine with Will being the man (I voted for him at the end), but I agree that studying a wider range of contemporaneous ideas can be useful in understanding the plays. However I still didn’t hear anything remotely convincing in any of the arguments put forward, so I can’t blame anyone who regards authorship questioners as Looney Tunes.

The Minerva theatre, lovely space that it is, had been taken over by Frank Charlton’s garage, a leaky den filled with Shakespearean authorship reference works. Frank hosts an internet chat show discussing the authorship question, with the only drawback being that nobody actually calls in to join the discussion. Apparently they did want the audience to ring in, but as no one told us not to switch off our mobiles, given how often we’ve been reminded to do that very thing, very few people actually realised we could phone in if we wanted, so no calls tonight. Other than the planned ones, that is.

Barry is Frank’s mate and musical director for the show, and to help his friend he pretends to be Derek Jacobi phoning in, but got the accent wrong by a few hundred miles. Everything’s going as badly as usual, until the bad weather and the internet combine to bring Shakespeare’s ghost into the garage. Dressed as a large tomato (I’m kidding – his red outfit was just a bit big, that’s all), he reads minds, writes a sonnet on the fly-leaf of Frank’s Complete Works, and heads off to the kitchen for some beer. To help us hear the arguments for a number of possible contenders we also get to meet Francis Bacon, the Earl of Oxford, and Mary Sidney, so the garage became quite crowded. Eventually, after Barry and Will came back from the pub, they open up the garage door, and the audience becomes the neighbours who’ve also come back from the pub. The various characters came out and chatted with us, trying to muster support – Will was totally sozzled, and sitting on the stairs to our left, only popping up occasionally to make some witty comment. After that, we voted, and the alternatives got short shrift, with Will being the resounding victor – hooray!

There’s an argument between Barry and Frank, and as a result, the internet connection is shut off temporarily, and all the ghosts disappear off into the night. Frank thinks he’s got it all on tape, but he finds it didn’t record, and now he’s in despair. He wanted so badly to know who wrote Shakespeare’s works, and now he’s lost the people who could tell him ( they all refused to give him a direct answer earlier, always making suggestions, but never coming clean), and he has to face the possibility that Will did do it himself, after all. He’s in a bad way, and Barry’s left him (as did his wife some months earlier), but then he finds renewed hope in the concept of Shakespeare as being part of each one of us. The tape he was searching has the famous scene from Spartacus on it, and the play ends with Frank and Barry, and some brave folk in the audience, jumping up and saying “I am Shakespeare” in response to a question from a policeman (who’d been involved earlier when the Earl of Oxford got out of hand and who was persuaded by Mary Sidney that they were just rehearsing a play) about who was this Shakespeare fella? It was an uplifting ending, and a good way to unite everyone after the disagreements expressed earlier.

I did enjoy this play. There was plenty of humour – Will saying “God, I wish I’d kept better records” was a highlight – and the different characters came across very well, though I’m no expert. I did get the sense of how this question could take over people’s lives, and I’m determined not to get that deeply involved, as I don’t want to lose sight of the real objective – enjoying the plays themselves, regardless of who wrote them. But I still think that only an ordinary person from a relatively lowly background could have brought to life the ordinary folk in the plays, and given them such good parts.

It wasn’t the end of things, though, as we had a post-show to attend. I think this was about the most lively post-show discussion we’ve been to. There were plenty of comments and questions, and although we nearly got bogged down with one man’s opinions, on the whole it was a very interesting and wide-ranging chat. The cast had ended up doing a fair bit of research themselves, but without losing their sense of humour, so it was informative without being dogmatic. Some potential alternatives had been left out. Kit Marlowe, for example, had originally been envisaged as a dead body lying outside the garage, but eventually disappeared, as there was too much material to include everything. This was just a taster. The costumes were amazing (I managed to insult the Earl of Oxford by asking him why he was dressed like a bumble bee!) and had apparently cost thousands of pounds to make in splendid period detail. Barry’s costume cost £48.50. Money well spent, Barry.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Hothouse – August 2007

Experience: 7/10

By Harold Pinter

Directed by Ian Rickson

Venue: Lyttelton Theatre

Date: Friday 31st August 2007

This was a real treat. We were up in London for other reasons this weekend, and got to see an evening performance at the National. Wow. I suspected the atmosphere would be different from matinees, and it certainly seemed to be – more lively, more of a buzz.

I hadn’t seen this play before, and I found it very typical of Pinter’s style, though clearly dated. It shows a version of Stalinist Russia, where people disappear and odd things happen, and the person in charge has to watch their back in case their second-in-command wants to take over. A bit like a Klingon ship, but less overt.

The set was a series of angled walls, which gave us Roote’s office, a staff room, and a wider view including the stairs with another room above. The décor was very fifties/sixties institutional drab. The plot was simple – a patient has died and another patient has given birth. Everybody skirts around these facts, and one of the junior members of staff is tortured to confess to being the father. Eventually, Roote (Stephen Moore) is bumped off and Gibbs (Finbar Lynch), as the last man standing, takes over the institution. There’s also a woman member of staff, Miss Cutts (Lia Williams), who seems to spend all her time latching on to whichever man is in power to ensure her safety, and Lush (Paul Ritter), the only other member of staff who could stand against Gibbs, but who seems to be on the downward slope.

What I enjoyed most about this production was the wonderful language. Pinter has a musical way with words. He finds not just a minor key, but a menace key, and manages to keep it going. It’s partly what’s not said that does it. There’s also a lovely use of repetition, when Gibbs is sort of informing Roote about the two patients (two digits are transposed, hence the confusion), the one who’s died and the one who’s given birth. The dialogue is virtually identical, with some details changed to suit the different circumstances, but otherwise it’s a straightforward reprise. Until the end, that is, when after plying Gibbs with lots of descriptive statements about the woman, Roote ends up saying “Never met her!”.

There’s also a lot of silence and stillness in this production, which are very effective. In addition, there were some wonderfully menacing sound effects, a susurration of suffering, which made the staff nervous and suggested the unrest growing in the asylum. Lovely stuff, and I’m glad we could fit it in.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Five Wives Of Maurice Pinder – August 2007

7/10

By: Matt Charman

Directed by: Sarah Frankcom

Venue: Cottesloe Theatre

Date: Wednesday 15th August 2007

This was an interesting new play. Without getting into any great debate, it shows an alternative form of relationships, somewhat akin to polygamy but more open-ended. Maurice Pinder, a scaffolder with his own business, has three “wives” at the start of the play. We don’t find out all the details straightaway, and I quite liked the teasing way in which the play took its time to clarify the relationships. I’ll cut to the chase: Maurice (Larry Lamb) has been divorcing one wife and then marrying another for some time. His first wife, Esther (Sorcha Cusack), couldn’t have children, so she agreed to her husband taking another wife in order to have a family. This was Fay (Clare Holman), who provided them all with a son, Vincent (Adam Gillen), now seventeen. Next up was Lydia (Martina Laird), who has a young baby, provisionally called Fergus. When the play begins, we get to see these wives plus Vincent, before Maurice brings home Rowena (Carla Henry), who’s heavily pregnant with another man’s child. This man was beating her up, so Maurice decided to take her into the family.

The relationships are apparently stable at this point. Vincent is about to go to university, Esther is the overall mother-figure, taking care of everyone, Fay is working (loosely) at telesales, and Lydia is a Reiki practitioner who prefers to live in the caravan in the back garden. They seem to get on fine, and in some ways the play almost became dull in the early stages, with very little conflict or dramatic interest. The performances were fine, and I felt I was getting to know the characters, but there wasn’t quite enough bite to it for me. All that changed when Fay brings home Jason (Steve John Shepherd) for a shag, against family rules. He’s disturbed by the setup, although he likes Fay, and despite his impending marriage (this is Tuesday, and the wedding is on Saturday) wants to continue their relationship. She doesn’t. Unfortunately, this means she’s pissing off a local planning inspector, and as Maurice is in the process of building an unapproved extension on the back of the house, Jason starts to take his disturbance out on the family.

This was the only character who didn’t ring true for me. He represented the “average” reaction, combining fascination with how such an arrangement works, with revulsion at such a different set of norms. However, his abrupt changes of attitude made it hard to relate to him as a real person, while the other characters seemed more real, more rounded, and I could relate to their experiences.

Anyway, Jason’s antagonism isn’t the only problem. Lydia is the restless sort, and finally decides to leave them and travel with her baby. This leaves a huge gap in the family structure, and Maurice tries to fill it with Irene (Tessa Peake-Jones), his office manager and a bossy sort. When Vincent comes back from university, he finds the situation seriously changed (though not so much in terms of the extension). His actual mother, Fay, is drinking way too much, and taking to even more meaningless shags in car parks, presumably to find what she’s not getting from Maurice on their one night a week together. Esther is even more withdrawn, trying to be supportive, yet being even more excluded by Irene, who doesn’t seem to have got the hang of the sharing nature of the family yet. Rowena seems to have settled in, but even she is planning to leave once she gets some money together. She’s already married Maurice, so what we get to see this time is the wedding ceremony between Maurice and Irene. They stand in the sitting room, facing each other, reading out prepared vows. Maurice’s are well-worn; they’re the same ones he’s used for each wedding from the sounds of it. Irene seems to be looking for someone she can devote herself to, but lets it slip that she doesn’t see the need for any of the others once she and Maurice are hitched. Fortunately, the rest of the family, so noticeably absent from the vows, turn up in force with some atrocious behaviour, and put her off altogether. The play ends somewhat weakly, with Vincent breaking up the extension, and Fay, Lydia and Rowena talking about their futures away from Maurice. There’s a line about how the two babies have open futures, and then the lights go out. Personally, I would prefer a stronger ending.

The set was a section of the house, from the front door and sitting room on our left, through the extension into the garden and down to the caravan at the end. To our right, there was a wooden gate, which Vincent preferred to climb over rather than go through. The small, domestic details helped to make the family situation seem more normal, not particularly weird or troublesome. It certainly favoured Maurice, although keeping so many women happy was obviously beyond him. Esther hits the nail on the head when she bursts out with the truth – that none of the others would have been there if she could have had children.

On the whole, the relationships had their problems, and perhaps no one of them was worse than any individual couple faces, but they did seem to be compounded when so many people were attempting to live such intimate lives. It was all too easy for Maurice to get another, younger wife to keep him supplied with kids, rather than tackling his main relationship with Esther, and either living together childless or exploring the other options. I wasn’t sure if his aversion to convention was a cause or an effect of his lifestyle. I did wonder if any of the women had considered what would happen to them when he died, and perhaps no one but his latest wife had any claim on the estate. These are the kind of practicalities the play doesn’t go into, and that’s fair enough, but I felt there was a lot more to explore in this subject, and this play didn’t go quite as deep as perhaps it could have.

Having said all that, this was still a very enjoyable experience. There was a lot of humour, all the performances were very good, especially Adam Gillen as Vincent, and the time flew past. A good way to spend the afternoon.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Coriolanus – March 2007

7/10

By: William Shakespeare

Directed by: Greg Doran

Venue: RST

Date: Wednesday 28th March 2007

This is the last production, and performance, we’ll be seeing in this version of the main house – ever! I felt quite sad at the end, although given that the seat I was in tonight wasn’t at the best angle for my back, I’m sure I’ll appreciate the improvements when they come. Still, we’ve had many a happy hour in this theatre, and I’m looking forward to a backstage tour on Friday.

Coriolanus is a fascinating play. It’s not done very often, though Steve says he’s always surprised by this – each production we’ve seen has shown it’s a very interesting piece. There’s so much to it that I’d be up all night if I tried to report everything I saw tonight, so here’s the gist.

First off, I recognised so much in this production that echoed other Roman and Greek productions in this Complete Works Festival. I don’t know if this was deliberate, or just the natural effect of seeing so many Shakespeare plays together – all the common threads are highlighted. The Titus Andronicus was represented by the steps leading up to the stage, the Julius Caesar by the opening scene of plebeians causing a rumpus, the Troilus and Cressida by the angled wall, and the Antony and Cleopatra by smeared paint across the columns and the wall. Quite an achievement (or quite a coincidence, depending).

The set featured the steps at the front, a wall which could move down towards the front and which had a window high up on the right giving a view of the Volscian flag, and large doors on the left and right. It also angled to form a sloping roof. There was a series of square arches going off into the distance – these were raised and lowered as required, and formed the opening set. For some scenes, all these items disappeared, and we had a bare stage – very effective during Volumnia’s pleading scene.

The costumes used red for Romans and grey for Volscians. It’s a common technique, and does at least distinguish the two sides effectively, but like any colour coding, it can look a bit naff when it’s overdone. The style was a kind of Elizabethan version of Roman, with pleated skirts for the Roman soldiers, and bog standard olde worlde rough clothes for the workers. The pleated skirts had an extra frill at the top, which frankly looked absurd, especially on the Tribunes. However, the women had decent costumes, and the performances largely rose above such mundane matters.

The performance I liked best was Janet Suzman as Volumnia. She portrayed all her authority and total commitment to Roman patrician values (state before family) without making her a blinkered battleaxe. This Volumnia obviously knew exactly what price her son would have to pay in letting Rome off the hook, and her dignified grief on her return to Rome was very moving. At the same time, her enthusiasm for sending her son off to war at an early age so that he could earn honour is still appalling – if fewer women took that attitude today the world might be a bit safer.

Timothy West as Menenius was as good as I’ve seen in the part. I followed all his long-winded speeches this time, and although I think there’s more humour to be got out of his mistaken beliefs in the second half (that Coriolanus will listen to him, then that he won’t listen to the women), I really got the sense of Menenius’ laid-back authority with the people.

Coriolanus was played by William Houston, whom we’ve seen before as Sejanus, and as Roman General in Believe What you Will. Is this a trend? I find his physical behaviours tend to be repetitive, even mannered. He has a stance which he adopts at every opportunity, wide-legged, elbows bent, and hands clasped, and while he may deliver the lines well enough, I find this monotonous position rather distracting. (It wasn’t helped tonight by the pleated skirt.) However, this was a good performance, and showed more versatility than I’d seen before, so there’s hope yet. I was particularly impressed with his appearance at Aufidius’ feast, and his delayed emotional response to Volumnia’s pleading. What also came across very clearly is that Coriolanus is haughty, but not vain; he doesn’t seek glory or riches for himself, it’s all done for the good of Rome. However, he’s a warrior through and through, and doesn’t see why the common folk who don’t fight for Rome should have a say in how the city is run, and that includes voicing their approval of him as consul. His outspokenness gets him into trouble time and again, and while I can respect and admire his skills as a warrior, they cannot compensate for his lack of social and political skills.

Aufidius is another important part, and this time I found the performance somewhat crude. This actor has a tendency to wide-eyed declamation, possibly with some nostril-flares creeping in as well. This, coupled with some stiffness in movement made the part less interesting for me this time, although the dialogue all came across pretty well, and his changing motivations were clearly, if a little crudely, expressed.

The Tribunes were also a bit weak, I felt. It may be a bit unfair to compare them to the excellent performances we saw with the touring production a few years back (Tom Mannion and Geoffrey Freshwater), but I couldn’t help noticing the lack of detail in these roles this time. Other supporting actors were very good. I liked the servants at Aufidius’ feast, and the plebeians worked very well in this production – it was a good strong start to the play.

Other points I noticed: the turning point in Menenius’ persuasion of the plebeians at the start seems to be his opportunity to ridicule the chief troublemaker by likening him to a big toe. Once that chap’s lost his authority, Menenius has no opposition to his point of view. This fits very well with my understanding of Roman society, where rhetoric was more important than facts, even in court cases. The turning point for Coriolanus, listening to Volumnia, is her threat that he will be remembered shamefully, not as a hero. The fickleness of the people is a theme shared with Julius Caesar, and jealousy and envy have plenty of work to do, along with pride. The constant dilemma is this – the mass of people want leaders, but don’t want to be held to a discipline. Bugger. So heroes come and heroes go, each one discarded when they threaten the masses’ comfort zone, or are no longer required, or when the war crimes tribunal is sitting. I have no idea how this will ever be resolved, so Coriolanus should be doing good business for many centuries to come.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Sizwe Banzi Is Dead – March 2007

7/10

Devised by: Athol Fugard, John Kani, Winston Ntshona

Directed by: Aubrey Sekhabi

Venue: Lyttelton Theatre

Date: Thursday 22nd March 2007

This was a great performance of a really good play. I hadn’t heard of it before, and didn’t know what to expect – perhaps something a bit serious and weighty. Not a bit of it. The proceedings start with John Kani coming on stage with a newspaper. He’s wearing a white coat over his clothes, and he takes the chair to the front of the stage, sits on it, and starts to read the paper, chatting to the audience all the while. The house lights are up, so there’s no hiding place. The rest of the stage is almost bare – there’s just a table, a board on an easel at the back with Styles Photographic Studio across it, covered with lots of photos and indications of his work – “Weddings”, “Passports”, etc. To the left is an old-fashioned camera on a tripod, and to the right a smaller table with a telephone and some bits and bobs. Nothing else, although even these items are removed when not needed, leaving a very bare acting space.

John Kani chats to us in the persona of Styles for quite some time – almost 45 minutes, I think. The production only lasts 90 minutes, so I did wonder when we would be seeing Winston Ntshona. But the chat was so entertaining. He laughed a lot, this character, telling us what was in the paper, then telling us about his time at the factory (very funny, especially when he was translating for the “baas”), and then telling us about the magic of his studio, where people come to live out their dreams. He even gets a couple of audience members up from the front row to show them his pictures. Today, Sophie Okonedo was one of those selected, and she looked so shy getting up onto the stage. Styles chatted with them, as he chatted with all of us, including us all as part of his community.

Of course, there were more moving parts of his dialogue, along with massive amounts of humour, but most of the difficult stuff was in the second half, after the man who had been Sizwe Banzi arrived to have his picture taken. The mood shifted gradually, without ever becoming bleak or terribly dark, yet we were shown the lengths many black people had to go to in order to survive under apartheid. Sizwe Banzi, played by Winston Ntshona, was a simple man from the country, come to town to make some money for his family. By the time he arrives at Styles’ studio, he’s lost his name, and we get to see the process by which this happens. He’s not allowed to stay in town, and his passport has been stamped as such by white officials. He’ll be in real trouble if he doesn’t get back to his family by yesterday. Out on the town with a helpful chap, Buntu, they come across a dead black guy, who happens to have the right kind of stamps in his passport. With much reluctance, Sizwe agrees to take on the dead man’s identity. The next day he goes to the studio to have his picture taken, so he can send it to his wife, and let her know that her “husband” is dead, but that he, Robert, will be sending her money and hopefully a permit so that she and the family can join him in town.

His story is very moving, and still there’s plenty of humour on show. Even the ridiculous lengths to which Sizwe would have to go to get permission to move back to the town is turned to laughter. Buntu spells out in great detail how Sizwe would have to get this letter, then that letter, then this stamp and that stamp, etc., and after a great long speech, sums it up with one word – “Simple!”

The performances were just superb throughout. These two actors helped to devise this piece, and originally played it thirty-five years ago, as much younger men. Not only is it still fresh today (they had reworked it quite a bit in the first half to make it more topical), but their skills have presumably only improved over the years. We’re unlikely to see this play done better. (I enjoyed it so much we bought the play text afterwards, hence my knowledge of the reworking).

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me