Category Archives: 7/10

Twelfth Night – March 2012

7/10 (preview)

By William Shakespeare

Directed by David Farr

Venue: RST

Date: Thursday 22nd March 2012

This was an excellent production with very good performances, and a huge improvement on last night. The set was by the same designer, Jon Bausor, and used the same basic design. The floorboards were still there, and there was still no walkway front left. This time the corner area did have water in it, and we were reminded of Singing In The Rain at Chichester last year, so sitting in row C, right by the aisle, we were glad Steve brought a carrier bag to protect the program. As it happened, the ‘tsunami’ didn’t wash up as far as our row, but there were a few wayward splashes – warm water, of course – and others who were nearer did feel the effect. The staff were very good in the interval, sorting out any problems, though some in the audience may have wished they’d provided more of a warning beforehand as well as the towels that were so freely available after the first half!

The crane track had become a girder tonight, and was partly boxed in. There was another girder at right angles to it, also partly covered, and around the join there was an area of crumbling ceiling, very reminiscent of the industrial grunge set of David Farr’s King Lear a few years ago, also a Jon Bausor design. The metal post with ironwork was more visible tonight, and it turned out to be a whole row of them which had been mostly hidden during The Comedy Of Errors. The vertical part of the ramp from yesterday seemed to be at a couple of different angles tonight creating a slightly lower angle, and tonight the objects on there included a bed (reminded Steve of the recent Taming bed, much reduced in size) and a table with a lamp. There was also a bathtub suspended over that general area – took me a while to spot what it was. Behind all of this I could now see the back wall of metal with at least two portholes in it. It’ll be interesting to see how this develops for The Tempest.

At the back of the thrust and to the right of the stage a sloping ramp led off, and was blocked by a revolving door set at the same slanting angle. Just to the left of that was the reception desk area, with lots of pigeonholes behind a short curve of desk. A small screen to the right of this desk, combined with a telephone, allowed Maria to observe who was at the gate, which was a nice touch. This was also the hiding place for Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Fabian during the letter scene. To the left of that was a pillar leaning drunkenly, with a leather seat around it; the leather looked the worse for wear as did most of the furniture on stage. Further to the left was another leather armchair, and beside that a large globe with the land areas positioned round an open mesh. Behind this chair, towards the back of the stage, was a lift, the old fashioned kind with expanding metal doors. With a small platform beside it at the top, the lift shaft was encased in a metal mesh, so we could see a lot of what went on inside it, though it was used for a magnificent reveal later on. Further to the left, a flight of stairs led up to the first balcony, and below that stood a grand piano with a picture of Olivia’s brother on it surrounded by candles, flowers, etc. I didn’t spot this right away, but then there was so much else to look at.

Coming forwards, there was a low padded stool over on the front right of the stage which seemed to have a chess board set up on it; there was still room for people to sit on it or put a tray with coffee things there if need be. A plain chair sat further back from that, while over on the water side there was a diving board built out from almost the centre of the stage to just over the water. The floorboards had a ragged end, in keeping with the style of set, and some dipped down towards the water. The only other thing I remember at this time was the chandelier, which was swathed in black cloth. I first noticed it when someone in Olivia’s household switched it on, a nice reminder of her emphatic mourning.

The costumes were all modern dress, and worked very well I thought. The men usually wore suits, although Sir Toby was in casual gear with a colourful Hawaiian shirt, and Sir Andrew tended towards casual sportswear. Olivia’s maidservants wore black dresses with white aprons, and Malvolio was immaculate in his pinstripe suit, toupee severely slicked down to one side. There were two guards in uniform – white shirts, black trousers – and Antonio wore a large waterproof jacket. Olivia was in black for the first half, a calf-length dress, and changed to a flower print frock during the second half, via an ivory wedding dress. I’ll describe the Viola/Sebastian combo later, along with the nifty outfit Malvolio chose to impress Olivia with.

So to the staging (this may take some time). When the lights went down at the start, I saw various actors come on and take up their positions, mostly lying down. I thought we were going to get the shipwreck stuff first tonight, as the performance opened with Viola emerging suddenly from the water (there’s a long slide apparently, so they don’t have to hold their breath for too long). She stood up in the water, then clambered out, and turning to the audience she asked “What country, friends, is this?” She then spotted the bag lying by the side of the water; it was clearly Sebastian’s, and she knelt there, grieving over the bag and her lost brother while Duke Orsino leapt up, from the chair I think, and carried on with “If music be the food of love”. He was in a pretty rough state with his clothes dishevelled, as you might expect. The good news was that from the beginning tonight we could hear almost every line perfectly well – no worries there. After this scene, the sea captain continued by answering Viola’s opening question, coming on from the back somewhere and bringing on a blanket for her to use. He agreed to help her disguise herself, and I was very aware that with her brother’s bag she would naturally have some of Sebastian’s clothes to wear.

Sir Toby emerged through the revolving door for the next scene, and was as drunk as a skunk, if not drunker (apologies to skunk-lovers, and indeed, skunks everywhere). I think a servant may have switched on the chandelier at this point, but I’m not sure. Sir Toby sat in the armchair, and dangled his feet over the side when he was talking about his boots. Maria was brisk in her chiding, and for once Sir Toby seemed to be in earnest when he complimented Sir Andrew. Given his state of inebriation, he might actually have believed what he was saying.

Sir Andrew’s arrival a short while later was all we could have wished. We heard his horn before we saw the man, and he entered still wearing his biker’s helmet. When the helmet came off, his fair hair erupted into a tousled mop which got a laugh all on its own. Bruce Mackinnon’s performance was absolutely impeccable, and we were soon warmed up and chuckling away at his wonderfully funny delivery of the lines plus his comic expressions and business. He illustrated the “back-trick” by moonwalking backwards – we applauded, eventually – and when he left the stage the audience was definitely in a livelier mood than when he entered.

Valentine and Cesario came on next, and while Valentine sat on the diving board to light up a cigarette, Cesario stood in the middle of the stage, wearing green trousers, a light blue jacket and a patterned shirt, and also lit up. Her inexperience with cigarettes was obvious – she had the cigarette the wrong way round and nearly lit the filter, then coughed a bit once she did get it going – and then Orsino rushed on, clothes still in disarray, to speak with his new favourite. They didn’t make anything of the other servants being sent away that I could see, which is fine, and during their conversation Orsino took the cigarette from Cesario to smoke it himself. Emily Taafe’s Cesario was well done; with her short hair and slight figure she did look boyish, and her voice was low pitched enough to fit with a young lad, so it was believable that the Duke would see the female aspects of Cesario without realising he was actually a woman.

It was at the end of this scene, after Viola’s “myself would be his wife”, that she stood in the middle of the stage with the lights lowered on her and the rest of Orsino’s staff, and then Sebastian also popped up out of the water, sloshing a bit more onto the floor around that corner. He also stood up, slicked back his hair – Viola echoed that movement – and as they were wearing identical costumes it was clear this was the very Sebastian whom Viola had assumed was drowned. He pulled himself out of the water and lay beside it, resting, while the next couple of scenes played out; a little distracting, but not a problem.

The next scene had Maria scolding Feste this time. She brought on some coffee and cups on a tray and put it on the stool near the front. Feste looked hung over and was wearing sunglasses, wincing a bit as he took them off and the light hit him. The jesting between them was pretty good, and then Olivia turned up with her small entourage. She was pretty snippy with Feste at first, but softened as he wormed his way back into her good books with his catechising of her. For this bit she was sitting in the armchair, and he took another upright chair, placed it beside her with the back of the chair between them, as in a confessional box, while he knelt behind the chair to act the priest, as he would do later, of course, with Malvolio.

Malvolio’s reactions during this scene were excellent. He clutched his folder tightly, looking severe and grimacing when something particularly unpleasant happened, such as somebody having fun, even when it wasn’t at his expense. The animosity between him and Fests was palpable, and set us up nicely for his later mistreatment at the hands of Sir Toby and the rest. Olivia echoed his folded hands when she talked of “a known discreet man”, gently reproving him with those lines.

Maria was using the screen on the reception desk when she informed Olivia that there was someone at the door. Sir Toby seemed even drunker than before when he turned up – a lovely performance by Nicholas Day – and had great difficulty getting his words out, the way drunks do when they have to think long and hard about everything, like words, walking, breathing, etc. He reminded me of Frank Gallagher in Shameless at this point.

When Malvolio returned he was clearly disturbed to have spent time with someone who upset the natural order. Olivia had some trouble getting him to describe the young gentleman, and as her back was to me at the relevant point, I’m not sure what it was that piqued her interest enough to have the young man brought before her. She had her maids cover themselves as well, and as at least one of them took off her apron as well, I could see how difficult it would be for anyone who didn’t know the household to tell which woman was Olivia. All four of them sat or stood around the room, so when Cesario arrived, he was immediately unsure of himself.

The dialogue was well done for this bit, and soon Olivia and Cesario were alone. Olivia was well unhappy at Cesario’s insult regarding the tenacity of her looks, but I didn’t spot any particular reaction from Cesario on finding out how beautiful his ‘rival’ was. Later, when Cesario was telling Olivia of the lengths he would go to if he loved her as Orsino does, my view was blocked by Olivia herself, so I’ll have to pick up on their expressions next time, but even from the back I could tell that Cesario’s passion was having an effect on the lady.

That effect continued through Cesario’s departure and her reflections on the speedy nature of infatuation. There was such a loving glow about her that when she gave her ring to Malvolio – she turned her back on him and removed it from a chain about her neck by ripping it off, hiding the chain in her hand – he mistook her radiance combined with the way she put her hand on his arm as a sign of affection towards him, another pointer to his later misapprehension of the letter.

Finally Sebastian was able to get up from the floor, as he responded to Antonio’s question. Their conversation was short, and for once I could have sworn Sebastian actually mentioned Viola’s name, but it’s not in my text and apart from some lovely comedic touches later on, I didn’t spot any significant changes during the play. They did cut some lines, but that’s to be expected. Cesario entered next, and shortly after she came on we heard a beeping sound. It turned out to be the sound of one of those trolley cars, as used by the elderly, only this time it was being driven by Malvolio. Health and safety requirements were well to the fore, as the beeping noises continued throughout the scene (my hearing aids were going nuts!) as well as two flashing amber lights. I liked this staging very much; it not only explained how Malvolio managed to catch up with Cesario, but gave us an extra laugh as he drove the cart round in a large circle before parking it near the back, so we could all see the sign on the back of the seat: For Management Use Only. The ring was dropped contemptuously on the rug in front of the chair (stops it rolling away, I would guess) and after Viola had finished sharing her thoughts on this latest development, she threw it into the water tank. No real splash; it was too small.

Sometime earlier I had noticed an actor sneak on to the left of the stage and lie down behind the piano. I wasn’t sure who it was, but it now became clear – it was Sir Toby, who struggled to his feet to advise Sir Andrew, likewise well gone, on the exact nature of ‘early’. They were both wonderfully drunk, so drunk that a rowdy song was inevitable, and I enjoyed this scene from beginning to end. Feste wasn’t as bad as the other two, but he joined in the merriment, and even took a picture of the three of them together at the appropriate moment on his mobile phone – “Did you ever see the picture of we three?”

Feste had brought on something I didn’t recognise at the start of this scene, and left it on the stool at the front. When he sang ‘O mistress mine, where are you roaming’, this turned out to be an electronic keyboard of some kind, which he used to accompany the song. He also used a microphone. It was a slow, melancholy number, and nicely done. They were soon into the livelier number ‘Hold thy peace’ – I think they cut Sir Andrew’s line about constraining “one to call me knave” – with Sir Toby and Sir Andrew playing bottles, and Feste using the reception desk bell as his instrument. This expanded into Feste banging an oar on the floor, Sir Toby possibly using the microphone(?) and something equally noisy from Sir Andrew.

Maria couldn’t persuade them to keep quiet, and when Malvolio turned up in his dressing gown he was suitably nasty to them all. He even grabbed Maria’s arm when she went to get some wine for Sir Toby, and she was quite shaken by his threat to tell Olivia. The plan to trick Malvolio is always hers, but often the others, especially Sir Toby, are involved to some extent; this time the others are on no fit state to devise any plan whatsoever. Sir Toby’s enquiry as to the reason for Sir Andrew to beat a puritan was dropped (worked well for me, especially as the line itself got a good laugh).

I’m not sure when it happened, but sometime during the first half Sir Andrew took a little dip. (The trouble with non-textual business is that it’s harder to remember where it occurred.) He was sitting on the end of the diving board, with Feste beside him, and I noticed he was gradually edging further back. Finally he fell off, and caused a huge wave of water to wash over the side of the tank, soaking anything on the ground level around it. (Programs were replaced.) I reckon this must have been the scene, presumably when Malvolio turned up, but I really can’t be sure – I’ll pay closer attention next time.

Back at the Duke’s court, Orsino was looking all rumpled again. His chat with Cesario about love was fine, and then Feste turned up again to sing his song ‘Come away death’. He used a guitar this time for accompaniment, but I thought it was little out of tune; he only strummed it occasionally so I wasn’t sure. (It’s always a problem with stringed instruments, bringing them onto a stage under lights – changes the tuning horribly.) I enjoyed his comments to Orsino this time about his mind being an opal; they came across much better than I remember from previous productions. After Cesario’s story of his ‘sister’, which was OK but I missed some of the visuals again, they left the stage and we were into the letter scene.

Fabian made the third in this production, a nice performance by Felix Hayes. The ‘box-tree’ they hid behind was actually the reception desk, and for most of the letter-reading they were peering over the desk with an object held in front of each of them – a vase of flowers, a book and a soda siphon. When one of them made an exclamation, he put down his object, and then had to grab the item held by the person next to him, which went down the line, so the objects were being passed around on a regular basis. Later, Sir Toby left the shelter of the desk and wandered over behind the pillar seat, which he had to dive under to hide himself once or twice. It was all wonderfully funny, including Sir Andrew’s recognition of himself as a “foolish knight”.

Maria left the letter on the stool, propped up on the chessboard I think, which didn’t seem a very obvious place to leave it. Even so, Malvolio managed to spot it, after he’d done a lot of preening and primping beforehand, of course. There was a slight adjustment to the toupee, and a fair amount of posturing, but the main comedy lay in the delivery of the lines, and the comments by the watchers. For “revolve”, Malvolio went over to the revolving door and did a circuit there.  His “smiling” was also funny, although he did actually produce some leering smiles from time to time before that. Maria was anxious to know if her trick had worked, and Sir Toby literally prostrated himself before her when she first came on, so delighted was he with their success.

Next up was Feste, sitting on the pillar seat with his keyboard, playing a little music, so when Cesario came along their conversation began very naturally. The chat with Sir Toby and Sir Andrew was brief but funny, and then Olivia came along to make her declaration of love to Cesario. Rebuffed, the first half ended with her sitting sad and alone on the stage, with the lights going out.

The second half began with Sir Andrew’s determination to leave immediately. He was on his mobile phone calling for a taxi at the start, and at some later point in his conversation with Fabian and Sir Toby said ‘yes, I’ll hold’, all very funny. Sir Toby took his mobile away from him, and ditched it in the water at the end of this bit, before Maria arrived to fetch them to see Malvolio. Then there was the short scene between Sebastian and Antonio, followed by the much anticipated arrival of Malvolio on stage.

In this scene, Olivia entered first, and it was clear that she’s been much affected by her passion for Cesario. I think this may be where she pulled a rope at the side of the stage and removed the black cloth from the chandelier; in any case she’s definitely in a state over her situation, having declared her love to a ‘man’ who doesn’t want her. Malvolio’s appearance, far from being the sober, calm presence she wanted, was entirely unsuitable for any occasion. He came down in the lift, and although the walls were see-through, they obscured enough of his costume for it to be a mystery all the way down. I felt this was a good way to make his entrance – we got the full impact all at once, and it was certainly an eyeful!

He was wearing yellow stockings, and they looked a bit tight from where I sat. They were cross-gartered all the way up, which didn’t help the circulation either. He had on a yellow tie which we could see when his jacket opened up, usually when he spread his arms wide, and little else. The posing pouch which adorned his nether regions was well padded (I cast no aspersions) and had studs; apart from that he was butt-naked, literally. This outfit, plus the grinning, would have sent many another woman screaming from the stage, but Olivia was made of sterner stuff. She did back away from him down the diving board, and for a short while I thought we were in for another splash, but at the last minute she grabbed him so she could swivel him around – he enjoyed that bit – and she was free! (And dry!)

Malvolio’s scene with Sir Toby and the rest was very funny too, and I loved Fabian’s line about “an improbable fiction”. With Malvolio gone, the mischief makers moved on to Sir Andrew when he turned up with his freshly drafted challenge. As Sir Toby read it out, I enjoyed Fabian’s comments; Felix Hayes has a deep resonant voice, and his comments of “good” were perfectly timed to make the most of the humour. After Olivia’s short scene with Cesario, Sir Toby and Fabian returned again to issue the challenge to him. Cesario was terrified, of course, and attempted to flee up the stairs to get back to the house. Fabian blocked his way, and as they were struggling on the steps, Sir Andrew came back on via the walkway. Sir Toby’s comment that “Fabian can scarce hold him yonder” was very apt, and gave Sir Andrew completely the wrong impression. Instead of his horse, he offered to give Cesario his Kawasaki 750 – he handed Sir Toby the keys – which fitted very well with the situation.

Each ‘man’ was given something to fight with – not swords as such, just bits of wood – but there was very little chance of them doing any damage as they never got near the other with their wild swings. Not that Antonio noticed this when he arrived and drew on, as he thought, Sebastian’s side. The officers were there amazingly quickly to arrest him – one of them, Solomon Israel, was using a West Indian accent – and Antonio was almost off the stage before he could even ask ‘Sebastian’ for his money. Viola reacted to being called ‘Sebastian’ – this is the first indication she’d had that her brother might be alive – even before her lines indicated that was the way her thoughts were going.

Feste’s argument with Sebastian was good fun – I was increasingly happy with Kevin McMonagle’s interpretation – and the fight with Sir Toby and Sir Andrew went badly as usual. Sebastian had two of them holding him and still managed to break free, although he took a tumble over the chair as a result. This was the turning point for Sir Toby; Olivia was so angry with him for hurting her beloved that even he realised he couldn’t go on causing problems in her household, and although his lines to that effect don’t come till a later scene, his reaction at this point made it clear. I’m not sure exactly when Olivia changed into her summer frock, but I reckon she was wearing it by this time. Sebastian was ready and willing to go along with whatever this beautiful woman wanted, and she was delighted to find him so amenable.

Now the stage was darkened, and I could just make out a vague shape rising up through a trapdoor in the centre of the stage. I did wonder briefly about the mechanics of the water slide vis-à-vis this trapdoor, but that’s a question for a post-show discussion sometime. Up on the platform by the lift, Maria was kitting Feste out with his Sir Topaz outfit, and after Sir Toby arrived, Feste went down in the lift to visit Malvolio. A faint light allowed us to see the poor man, now stripped of his jacket and tied to his cart, which appeared to be broken although the amber lights were flashing (no beeping this time, thank goodness). Feste’s taunting of Malvolio was soon over, and for once I could see the inference that ignorance was a worse form of darkness than the lack of physical light. When Sir Topaz met Feste himself (a neat trick) he slapped him a couple of times before heading back to the lift.

Sebastian came down the stairs from Olivia’s chamber bare-chested (not an ordeal to watch, by any means) and continued to dress himself as he reflected on the strange situation he was in. When Olivia arrived with the priest, decked out in her wedding dress and saying “Blame not this haste of mine”, I suddenly thought she was worried she might start to show a bump before the marriage and lose her reputation. Sebastian was clearly a quick decision-maker, and accepted her offer of marriage on the spot.

Fabian and Feste were next on, and the short exchange between them was good, with Feste giving Fabian Malvolio’s letter and then taking it back again before he’d had a chance to read it. Mind you, he was pretty slow in that department. With the Duke’s arrival we were into the end game, and it all happened pretty fast from here on. At least Orsino had tidied himself up for this visit; instead of his usual scruffiness he looked smart, and his attendants carried the flowers and chocolates which he intended to give to Olivia. Feste’s fooling was well done, and Antonio’s arrival filled the time nicely till Olivia came along.

She was in a foul mood though, at least with Orsino. She dumped his flowers and chocolates in the water, but kept making sheep’s eyes at Cesario. It was so obvious that Orsino would have had to have been even stupider than Sir Andrew not to have spotted it, and this Duke was no fool. He was already going through the revolving door, with Cesario hard on his heels when Olivia’s “husband” called them back. With the priest confirming Olivia’s matrimonial claims, things already looked bad for Cesario when Sir Andrew came through the door with a smear of blood on his forehead. He shied away from Cesario when he saw him, as did Sir Toby who followed shortly afterwards. His line “I hate a drunken rogue” seemed to give him pause, as if he was starting to realise that he may fall into that category himself.

And then Sebastian turned up, went straight over to Olivia and apologised on bended knee for hurting her kinsman. The crowd were all alarmed – seeing twins seems to have that effect in Shakespeare’s plays. Olivia was standing on the board, Viola front right, Orsino back right and Antonio back left at this point. With Sebastian looking at Olivia to begin with, he didn’t notice Viola at all, and then when he saw Antonio and faced him, Viola was directly behind him. When he did turn round, their reunion was as good as I wanted (sniffled, of course), and Olivia for once seemed perfectly happy with her good fortune, after the initial embarrassment of realising that she had actually fallen in love with a woman!

With these twins having a significant difference in their height, they didn’t go in for further mistaken identities this time, which suited me fine. Malvolio made his entrance clad in just his suit trousers this time, and despite Olivia being conciliatory he was too far gone to do anything but snarl his threat of revenge at them before he left. He even included the audience this time, not nice.  The priest was on stage for this final scene, and reacted a bit to Feste’s admission that he impersonated Sir Topaz, though there’s scope for more there I fancy. Orsino and Olivia were well reconciled by the end, and as Feste settled down to sing us the final song, both couples ended up on the bed at the back; first the women perched themselves on it, then the men followed and snuggled up beside their partner. I was again reminded of the Taming production, where Lucy Bailey had commented that the whole point of a comedy is to get two people into bed together: mission accomplished. We gave them a long round of enthusiastic applause, and left well satisfied that we would be seeing this one again.

What else do I need to say at this stage? The lighting was a bit gloomy for me, until the end when a golden glow brightened the stage considerably. Olivia lay on the bed at the back through all the opening scenes, until shortly before she arrived on stage herself. I didn’t realise it was her at first, but as various characters rose up from their positions on the stage to take part in the play, it became obvious who she had to be. We were both very relieved that the problems with delivering the lines which we’d experienced last night with The Comedy Of Errors were not apparent in this performance, so I apologise if any of my comments on that performance reflected badly on the cast; they’re clearly up to the challenge of Shakespeare already, but perhaps the Comedy production just needs longer to settle than this one. This was only the fourth preview performance of this play, with press night scheduled for 25th April (the Comedy press night is a matinee).

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Being Shakespeare – March 2012

7/10

By Jonathan Bate (with a bit of help from William Shakespeare)

Directed by Tom Cairns

Venue: Trafalgar Studios 1

Date: Saturday 17th March 2012

The set consisted of a square platform with one step along the front and side, placed at an angle to the front of the stage. Four plain wooden chairs were stacked against the dark right-hand wall. The light-coloured wall on the left had two windows high up, and there was another light-coloured part wall behind the platform. Two trees emerged from the darkness at the back of the stage towards the end of the first half, and were replaced by two more trees during the interval; these encroached further forward. The platform held various props – sword, paper crown, globe, cap, books, small mobile with figures dangling from it, etc. – as well as having two trapdoors, one of which provided flames for the early Mark Antony speech from Julius Caesar – “Friends, Romans” – and another occasion later on. There was a sweep of dark marbly bits to the left of the platform – a slight nuisance, as they kept tracking across whenever Simon Callow walked on them – but otherwise the stage seemed bare from our angle.

The play was very interesting and entertaining. Using Shakespeare’s Seven Ages Of Man speech – spoken by Jacques in As You Like It – Jonathan Bate has devised this ramble through Shakespeare’s work and what we know about the historical context in which it was written, both political and personal. Simon Callow delivered it all very well, although at times the lecturing style of the author shone through; not a bad thing, but less dramatic than some other parts of the afternoon. I recognised many of the readings, of course, but there was a lot of newer information as well, and the overall framework made it more easily digestible. Things went a little wobbly around the ‘soldier’ part, with the lack of evidence about Will’s life making it harder to stick to the speech, but with an actor of Simon Callow’s talent we were in safe hands. His delivery was very good, and my only quibble was that he had so little time to set up the speeches that I wasn’t able to make as strong an emotional connection as I would have liked. Still, the purpose of the piece was to take us on the lifetime journey, and that it did very well.

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Travelling Light – February 2012

7/10

By Nicholas Wright

Directed by Nicholas Hytner

Venue: Lyttelton Theatre

Date: Tuesday 21st February 2012

This was the story of a young Jewish man in an Eastern European shtetl, Motl Mendl, being inspired by a motion picture camera to make movies, and his subsequent career in Hollywood – sort of Fiddler On The Roof meets Tales From Hollywood. It’s set around the end of the nineteenth century and in 1936, with the 1936 character being the narrator for the earlier parts, having changed his name to Maurice Montgomery.

The set was craftily designed to double as the inside of a house in the shtetl and a film set of the inside of a house in a shtetl. Curving round the back was a white curtain which acted as a screen for the movie clips, some of which were also shown on the wall of the room facing us. Below the screen were the rooftops of the other houses in the town, screened by the room itself. A long back wall had a door on the left to the aunt’s small room, a main door in the middle and an alcove on the right which seemed to be the developing room; it could be screened off with a curtain. On the far right wall, above the single bed, were photographs taken by Motl’s father, the village photographer. To the left were the table and chairs, sideboard, etc. In the middle stood a Lumière Brothers Cinematograph, facing the wall; it had two gas tanks at the back for the limelight, and a large wooden stand.

Motl’s father had died some time before, and Motl had only just returned to the shtetl, having missed the funeral. He was hopefully employed as a journalist – hopefully because they hadn’t actually published any of his stories yet – and he wanted to sort out his father’s things and get back to the city as soon as possible. With his aunt telling him the express train didn’t always stop at their station (a fib, as we discovered later) and a local family very keen to have a photograph of their son before he went away to the army, Motl ends up taking not just some photographs of the young man and his parents, but also a short moving picture.

The father was so taken with this that he came every day for a week to watch this movie, projected onto the wall of the room. I don’t remember when they started using the back screen as well to show these movies on a larger scale; it could have been from the start, and they also used the bigger screen when there was no action on stage or the projector wasn’t in use. Anyway, Motl has decided he wants to make movies now, but has no money. Jacob, the father, has been so moved by being able to see his son on film that he recognises a money-making opportunity; if he enjoyed seeing this movie, perhaps everyone will enjoy seeing themselves or loved ones on screen. After a lengthy explanation of his background and his rise to prosperity and respect within the shtetl, Jacob agreed to pay for enough film to capture life in their town. His accountant, Itzak, who was also his son-in-law, had arrived by this time, and the author takes a poke at the involvement of money-men in film-making a couple of times, especially when Itzak’s penny-pinching leads to an embarrassing shortfall in the fiddler department (more on that story later).

Jacob also sent along one of his servants, Anna, to help Motl with his film-making. She’s a very attractive young woman and clever too. It took Motl some time to fall for her – he thought it was just about getting her to star in one of his movies – but they were soon spending time together on the mattress. She also had the idea to edit the bits of film from around the shtetl to tell a story, and even though the locals could all tell that it wasn’t the rabbi buying a coat in the tailor’s shop, they still enjoyed the movie, although the initial focus group, set up by Jacob to make sure the movie is as good as it can be, was full of picky complaints – nothing changes.

From this beginning, they moved on to the make another movie which told the sad story of a woman, spurned by her father and sent out into the world with nothing, etc., etc. Jacob’s daughter thought that she would play the lead role, but both Jacob and Motl wanted Anna to do it. The daughter wasn’t too happy with this, and played one of the sulkiest maids you’ve ever seen, but the combination of producer and director proved too much for her. Mind you, the director had a lot of trouble with the producer’s interference during filming – like I said, nothing changes.

With the filming done, Motl left the shtetl and took the train to the city. Anna had told him she was pregnant, but pretended it might not be his, and his desire to make more and better movies made it a relatively easy decision to leave. During the 1936 sections we learned that he was making a movie based on these early experiences, and after he’d explained a lot of this story to a young actor who would be playing him in the movie, we got to hear the rest of the story from the young man himself; it followed the plot of the staged movie remarkably closely.

They finished the piece with Maurice stepping back into the past and the early characters coming into the room for Shabbos. As the aunt placed her hand over her eyes, the lights went down to end the play – a slightly downbeat ending, but OK.

I did wonder if they could have introduced the framing device earlier, perhaps even from the beginning; we didn’t meet the young man and learn of the intended movie until the start of the second half. But this is only a minor point; the real fun was in the rich detail of the shtetl experience and the beginnings of movie-making, with the reminder of the strong Jewish influence on the early days of Hollywood. Although this play covered some familiar territory, I did still learn some things, and the characters and the humour made for an entertaining afternoon. The performances were all excellent, and the ability of the National to get a good size cast on the stage really helps with the group scenes.

And as for the shortfall in the fiddler department? For the scene where Anna‘s character finds out about her long-lost daughter, Motl had wanted a fiddler to play background music to help her produce the emotional responses he needed for the scene – this was silent movies, remember. To cut costs, Itzak hired a youngster as the regular fiddler was going to charge too much. Everyone was disconcerted when a young boy turned up to do the job. Seeing their attitude, he made some scratchy sounds when they first asked him to play, but he was just winding them up. When it came to the real thing, he put bow to strings and played beautifully; it was a very moving piece. A voiceover by the narrator told us who he probably was – Jascha Heifetz!

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Less Than Kind – February 2012

7/10

By Terence Rattigan

Directed by Adrian Brown

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Saturday 18th February 2012

From the program notes, this play had originally been intended as a star vehicle for Gertrude Lawrence, but went through considerable changes when the Lunts became involved. Alfred Lunt led Rattigan to make so many subtle changes that it was effectively rewritten to make his part bigger and more attractive, along with other changes. The title was also changed, to Love In Idleness, and I reckon Steve and I must have seen a production of that many years ago as the plot was so familiar. This was the original version approved by the Lord Chamberlain, although there had already been some changes as the Cabinet Minister was Canadian instead of British, and certainly wasn’t unpleasant as far as we could see.

The set for the first two acts was a drawing room in a fairly posh London apartment. Given that it was a touring production, the furnishings weren’t lavish, but then there was a war on, so that fitted. The main door was centre back, there was another door off to the left (study), a window on the right, a piano on the left wall and a sofa and chairs with the necessary tables. The final act was in a small upper flat in a rundown part of London; doors off left, right and in the centre, the piano on the left wall, a small table and two chairs left of centre, and a small desk with the telephone and a typewriter front right. The ceiling was missing, and we could see the outline of a bombed building behind, and with that, the searchlights, and the smoke which invaded the living room, I was momentarily distracted by the idea that the house we were looking at had itself been bombed and was missing a chunk of the roof. Sara Crowe kept going through the mist, and we didn’t miss anything, but it was a weird moment.

The plot was based on Hamlet. Rattigan had been challenged on how he would handle the situation Hamlet finds himself in, and this play was his response. The connection isn’t just obvious, it’s frequently commented on by the characters in the play, and we enjoyed the humour of the parallels. It’s just a shame The Mousetrap hadn’t opened at this time, as it would have been even funnier if Michael had bought tickets for that instead of Death In The Family, or whatever it was. There was also a passing reference to the Lunts as dinner guests, although whether that was in the original or added for this production I don’t know.

This version of the story concentrates more on the Gertrude character, Olivia, as she negotiates her way through the return of her son from Canada, where he’d been sent to school for safety on the outbreak of war, and her relationship with a very prominent Cabinet Minister, Sir John Fletcher, who’s in charge of tank production. Her son, Michael, knows nothing of her relationship with the Cabinet Minister; his father died while he was away in Canada, and his mother has mentioned Sir John in her letters, but as a good friend, nothing more.

The play begins with Olivia arranging the guests for a dinner party. Her devious cunning is revealed early on, as she tells two reluctant invitees that the other is dying to meet them. Then we meet Sir John as he returns from work, and the arrival of her son is discussed. Sir John agrees to stay away for a day or so until she can bring Michael up to speed; Sir John favours the forthright approach, while Mummy still thinks her little boy – who may be seventeen(?), she can’t really remember – won’t be able to handle such difficult news.

And in a way, she’s right. Arriving earlier than expected, the objectionable little prig who turns up appears to have no sense of the world and sadly no sense of humour either. Michael has become indoctrinated in the new left wing attitude to everything – not communist as such, but still convinced that the order will be swept away once Herr Hitler has been beaten. Capitalism is dead, long live the revolution, that sort of thing. He’s appalled to find out that his mother’s taken up with a class enemy, a rampant capitalist, and is living the high life off her ‘immoral’ earnings. He argues with Sir John, and despite his warning about the ‘closet scene’, persuades his mother to leave Sir John and move back to respectable poverty.

So to the final scene in the flat. The relationship between mother and son is still fine, despite their lack of money, her unhappiness with their lifestyle and his insistence on reading ‘improving’ literature. We soon find out that Michael has a girlfriend, and when he heads out to spend the evening with her, Sir John turns up to try and win Olivia back. When Michael and his girlfriend arrive unexpectedly, Sir John hides in the next room while Olivia goes off for a bath, and the ensuing revelations lead to a satisfactory outcome for all concerned.

The play isn’t Rattigan’s best, but it’s still an enjoyable evening at the theatre. Naturally it’s a bit dated, and I reckon the changing attitudes between then and now may account for Sir John seeming more sympathetic to us now, banking crisis notwithstanding. The left-wing ideas which were taking hold at that time seem naïve and unrealistic today, though that may just be hindsight. The references to Hamlet were very funny, especially when Sir John had a little tirade about Michael’s behaviour, wearing a black tie and looking all mournful. He was too, wearing a big floppy black tie, which made us laugh. There was plenty of humour all round to keep us happy, and while I felt the audience didn’t respond as much as they could, the cast did a very good job and I wish them well on tour.

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Iolanthe – February 2012

7/10

By Gilbert and Sullivan

Directed by Peter Mulloy

Carla Rosa Company

Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Monday 13th February 2012

This was definitely a game of two halves; the first half was a bit dull, and even a G&S fan like me was nodding off from time, while the second half opened well with the song from Private Willis and the contributions of the Earls of Mountararat and Tolloller, and it felt a lot livelier after that. I enjoyed the performance overall, though I found the Queen of the Fairies and the Lord Chamberlain were weaker than the rest of the cast; we couldn’t make out their lyrics so well, and they didn’t sustain the energy during their sections. The nightmare song isn’t my favourite patter song anyway, and this wasn’t the best version I’ve heard by a long way.

The set was fairly simple. Two flats of trees stood on either side of the stage to create the entrances, and a backdrop behind had an arch of flowers and greenery over a cobweb, through which the small orchestra could be seen. The costumes were again based on Victorian designs, so the fairies were pretty and the peers were in formal robes, as was the Lord Chancellor. The Queen of the Fairies had a black outfit with extra sleeves, as for a spider, Strephon was in a fairly bland shepherd’s outfit and Phyllis had a nice pink shepherdess dress.

That was the first half. For the second half the backdrop had changed to the Houses of Parliament, and a sentry box stood on the left hand side of the stage. The orchestra was still visible through the screen, but without the large hole they’d had in the first half, the conductor had a long journey to get to the front to take his bows at the end. The costumes were largely the same; the fairies wore sashes with ‘Strephon’ on them, while Strephon and Phyllis were much better dressed. Sergeant Willis was splendid, as usual, in an impressive Guards uniform – I fully understand his attraction for the Queen of the Fairies. Incidentally, she was dressed as Queen Victoria for this half; a nice touch.

Despite the weaker aspects of the production, it was well worth the visit for the second half alone, and it’s always good to see a company prepared to do a Savoy opera in the traditional manner.

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Yes, Prime Minister – January 2012

7/10

By Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn

Directed by Jonathan Lynn and Tim Hoare

Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Tuesday 31st January 2012

Nice to see this one again. Although it’s a touring production they’re getting a couple of weeks in Chichester, where the play premiered last year, before heading off round the country. We saw it twice last year, and really enjoyed it – how would this version fare?

The set was almost identical to last year’s; the only change I noticed was the removal of the trailing greenery around the edge of the stage – a practical necessity for a touring production. The post-show chat confirmed that the script had been revised, and it certainly seemed tighter than last year although I couldn’t name any specific changes. It did seem to flow better, though whether that was the changes or our familiarity I can’t say.

The performances were very good for so early in the run. Graham Seed was wonderfully scatty as the Prime Minister, and although he seemed to stumble over his lines occasionally, he could get away with it given this characterisation. Michael Simkins, whom we remember fondly from A Small Family Business many years ago at the National, was very good as Sir Humphrey, and both of his set speeches were warmly applauded. His gravitas combined with his comic timing were a perfect foil for the PM.

Clive Woodward gave us another good performance as Bernard Woolley, and was suitably naïve as well as erudite; Sir Humphrey has a lot of exposition in the early stages, and Bernard is his excuse for all of that. Polly Maberly was good as the SPAD, Claire, and Sam Dastor reprised his role as the Kumranistan ambassador very entertainingly. Tim Wallers, the ersatz Paxman, was strongly reminiscent of the man himself, and Tony Boncza was fine as the Director General of the BBC (but was this part trimmed since last year?).

The post-show was unusually low-key tonight and we had to be quick as the stage crew needed to strike the set for a concert tomorrow. The three leads and Tim Hoare, the associate director, came and chatted with us for a while. They felt the history of the TV version was largely irrelevant as they had to find their own ways to play the parts, but the TV characters hovered in the background providing some guidelines; as Michael Simkins put it, he wouldn’t get away with playing Sir Humphrey as Arthur Mullard. They found the Chichester stage demanding, as usual, and not entirely suited to farce, although you do get a good connection with the audience compared to a pros arch. The problems with hearing the dialogue were mentioned, and the actors agreed this was an issue in this sort of space; even though Chichester uses a subtle form of sound enhancement, it’s hard to get a balance that will work for everyone.

They were asked if it was distracting having a sign language interpreter working beside them for the signed performances. Not after the first minute or so, they said, although there was the danger of becoming too interested in what was being signed and forgetting what you were meant to do. They start blocking for the pros arch stages tomorrow, and from the sound of it they’re all looking forward to the tour. Despite our small numbers, we were very appreciative, and went away happy with our evening. This is an enjoyable revival, and I hope they have a great time on tour.

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Taming Of The Shrew – January 2012

7/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Lucy Bailey

Venue: RST

Date: Thursday 26th January 2012

For an early performance, this wasn’t bad. We were right round the side in Row D, so although we inevitably missed some things, we did get a reasonable idea of the whole production, and as we’re seeing it again soon we can hopefully catch up on what we missed. And given that it’s early in the run and they’ve had to adjust to an accident which has meant recasting one of the actresses, they may well come on quite a bit for an extra couple of weeks.

We went to the director’s talk on Tuesday, so we were aware that the overall production concept was the marital bed. From a talk earlier today by Michael Dobson and Nicola Watson we learned that a previous experience of watching Henry V had been incorporated into this production by means of a brown cloth area. So it was that we were confronted by a massive hump of mattress and brown cover, raising the level of the RST stage enough so that we couldn’t see the faces of the people across from us. What this was like for the people in Row A I’ve no idea; I do know that one woman asked to move further back because she couldn’t see, and she had started in row B! (They found her another seat, bless ‘em.)

The back of the stage was covered by a curtain in some nondescript brownish colour. From this, a lumpy ramp (pillows) led down to the stage floor. The cast had some difficulty travelling down this ramp at times; although it wasn’t nearly as steep as the Heart of Robin Hood ramp, it was still difficult enough to suggest why a broken ankle had happened so early in the run. When the curtains were drawn back, we could see wooden panels behind them, which turned out to be multi-faceted doors – they could open wide top to bottom or smaller panels within them could be opened as needed. There was also a space behind these in which several of the cast waited to appear for various scenes. I noticed the servant types early on, but I’ve no idea if we could see them because of our acute angle or if they were visible from the front. Time will tell.

The time period for this production was post WWII in Italy, a setting which allowed for the sort of attitudes towards women which would fit with the play, and yet be contemporary enough for an audience to relate to. We had also learned from the director’s talk that the induction would feature prominently in this production, and it did. There was music and a rumpus behind the curtain, and then Christopher Sly was thrown out of the pub, rolling down the slope to land on the stage. I didn’t follow much of the dialogue for this bit, and I was a bit worried that I might not hear enough of the lines to enjoy myself, but it turned out to be only a short spell at the start, thank goodness. Sly ended up near the front of the stage, asleep or comatose, and then the bar staff and customers turned into dogs and started having a go at Sly’s body. Fortunately the huntsmen turned up in time and called them off, and the Lord also arrived, fresh from some hunting. I recall some discussion of the relative merits of a couple of hounds, and then the Lord spotted the sleeping Sly. As he came up with his plan to give Sly a fantasy makeover, I found myself thinking that this play has a strong theme of people learning their place, both in terms of gender and class. I also reckoned that Will might have been saying to those that would listen that the only things differentiating a lord from the common people were his clothes and the way people treated him.

There were plenty of servants in this production, but even so they could hardly move Sly, who was stoutly built. They did manage to get his outer clothes off, and despite his existing smell, and the additional burden of a loud fart, they had him snug in bed in no time in a corner of the stage. We had a few laughs during this part, especially when one servant waved his smoking censer in the vicinity of the bed after the fart.

The plans for the masquerade were pretty long-winded, but we got the gist. Bartholomew, the servant who was to play Sly’s ‘Lady’ had been sent off with the players, and was back again sorting out the curtains when he was taken away to become a woman. Meantime everyone else was fawning over Sly, and doing their best to convince him he was indeed a lord. When he asked if he had ever spoken in the fifteen years he had been out of his wits, only one man answered, and everyone looked at him; he was really on the spot. He got out of it well, though, and after this Sly seemed to be convinced that they were telling the truth. Then his ‘Lady’ arrived, and she looked very fetching indeed. She wasn’t too happy when the rest left him alone with Sly on his command, and despite several attempts to get out of the room, she eventually had to reason her way out of it.

There was plenty of crudity in this production, and here it took the form of Sly masturbating when he found he couldn’t have sex with his ‘wife’; I don’t mind it as such, but I’m not sure if it’s necessary to make the point. Anyway, Sly and his wife settled down in one of the front corners to watch the players, pulling the bedspread over them. I did wonder how good the view would be for anyone over that way; it might be us next time.

With the play proper starting, the doors at the back opened up and for the first time we saw sunshine. Lucentio was a bookish sort, definitely wet behind the ears, while Tranio was OK but not as well defined as some I’ve seen. When they stood to one side it was because of the music; a brass band heralded the arrival of Baptista Minola and his daughters, while I had already noticed Gremio lurking around the doors at the back.

The music and procession went on for some time, and when we finally saw Kate I realised that she had been taken round the streets in a scold’s fiddle – a fiddle-shaped form of the stocks which went round a person’s neck and held the wrists in two other holes to one side; a nasty implement for publicly humiliating someone who didn’t conform to society’s norms. This was quite a shocking image to deal with early on, and I felt the comic tone of the rest of the scene jarred slightly with this entrance. Once out of the ‘fiddle’ though, Kate soon took her revenge, and there were few characters left on stage who didn’t feel the force of her anger. The reason for the ‘fiddle’ was also evident; one poor chap had been walking behind her with his face bandaged up, clearly one of her previous victims. And also a current one, as she got in a good swipe at him again.

Bianca was slightly taller than Kate, and looked all demure and innocent, but we women know how these things work and Kate’s comment about sticking a finger in your eye was clearly based on knowledge – Bianca milked the sympathy vote for all it could give. I don’t know if they dropped Lucentio and Tranio’s asides, or if I just didn’t hear them as they were on the other side of a very busy stage. We did get to hear their lines after everyone else had left, and Lucentio was wonderfully silly, skipping around like a new-born lamb with delight at the thought of his love. Tranio was more practical, as ever, and fortunately they were a similar size, so swapping clothes wasn’t a problem. Sadly, they left it at the jackets and hats tonight – no trousers were removed.

After a comment or two from Sly the play continued with Petruchio’s arrival. At the talk this morning, Michael Dobson had passed on a comment from one of his daughters that if David Caves took his shirt off, he’d do fine as Petruchio. He did take his shirt off later as it happened, but I think it only fair to point out that even before that action sealed his performance, he was already doing pretty well fully dressed. The doors at the back had been closed, and during the fight with Grumio, Petruchio battered at it with Grumio’s head (Simon Gregor used his forearm to thump the door – one of the advantages of the side view). The Ulster accents of both men worked very well; they not only indicated they were relative outsiders to this community, but a sense of wildness and unpredictability came with it which suited the characters down to the ground. Petruchio certainly seemed wild, and definitely only interested in money at this stage, but would that change?

A nice touch with Hortensio was to have him a bit phobic about bodily fluids. When Petruchio spat on his hand before they shook on their deal, Hortensio took it willingly enough but wiped his hand immediately afterwards, and also put his handkerchief on the ground before he sat beside Petruchio on the ramp. He also put in a lovely pause after “Her only fault” when describing Kate; we filled in the gap and obligingly laughed. The gathering of the suitors was good fun too, and soon they were off a-wooing.

For the next scene, Kate came through the doors first, smoking. No sign of Bianca. She did turn up, though, bound hand and foot, and with something in her mouth. She had to hop through the door, and roll down the ramp before spitting out the gag and getting into the fight with her sister. They went at it pretty hard, and Baptista had to break things up before Kate smothered Bianca with a pillow. Of course Bianca did her victim number again – bitch – but she showed her true nature with lots of rude gestures at Kate behind their father’s back.

With the girls off stage the suitors turned up, and this was another entertaining run through the various characters, many of whom were in disguise. I always love the way Baptista responds to Petruchio’s first question – “Pray, have you not a daughter call’d Katherina, fair and virtuous?” with “I have a daughter, sir, call’d Katherina”. This was as good as usual, and as Steve pointed out, it’s just the sort of thing comedy writers are doing nowadays.

The tutors were presented, and Baptista gave the books to the musician and the lyre to the academic. They exchanged the gifts when they left the stage to go to Baptista’s daughters, and soon we heard the sound of a lute, played not very well, coming from behind the doors. We also heard the sound of the lute being broken over Hortensio’s head, and he re-emerged shortly afterwards to show us the damage. This whetted Petruchio’s appetite, and he was really keen to meet this woman who might actually be worth his while. I wasn’t sure about Baptista’s reactions to some of this part as he had his back to us for most of it, so I’m hoping to get a better view of that next time.

Kate came through the doors and kept herself aloof beside them, smoking again and with a hip flask. I got the impression that Petruchio was taken with her on first sight, whether by her looks or her attitude I couldn’t tell. They were soon sparring verbally, although Kate took a long pause before one of her early responses, and there were plenty of sexual references in the physical actions accompanying their joust. Petruchio mirrored Kate’s actions whenever she threw a tantrum, like banging on the doors, and this made her stop what she was doing; it was clearly the first time she’d met someone who wasn’t frightened or put off by her behaviour. Although he threatened to hit her if she struck him again, he didn’t beat her up, just had a fun time wrestling with her. She seemed to realise pretty quickly that she couldn’t get the better of him physically – he was a good deal taller than her – so she stuck to words, and even there he kept going past her ability to respond. She did seem to find his body attractive as well, so I was aware that they were potentially well matched, which made the dialogue easier to accept.

There was another unpleasant moment during this confrontation, when Kate, on the left walkway, lifted up her skirt and apparently peed on the floor. Of course it was faked, and there was a bit of a delay as the contraption didn’t work at first; it’s another thing I don’t mind but which didn’t actually help the production. Those nearby who were splashed weren’t so happy, though.

The financial fisticuffs between Gremio and Tranio-as-Lucentio was amusing, though I found myself remembering the wonderful Generation Game conveyor belt scene from our first Taming many years ago. (Just taken a quick break to review the cast at http://calm.shakespeare.org.uk/dserve/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqDb=Performance&dsqSearch=PerfCode==’TAM198304’&dsqCmd=Show.tcl – great fun!) The competition between the tutors was also entertaining, and although she wasn’t entirely convinced, Bianca was clearly favouring Cambio over Licio. There were two chairs on stage at this point, and each tutor kept pulling one of them away so the other chap fell down, which was more amusing than it sounds. Cambio in particular got himself into all sorts of contorted positions while he was ‘construing’ with Bianca, while Licio sang each line of his ‘gamut’ after Bianca read it out – very funny.

The wedding itself was pretty lively. We were given the full text, as far as I could tell, so Biondello had his chance to romp through the almost unintelligible speech about Petruchio and his nag – he did this very well, using postures to illustrate the descriptions. Petruchio and Grumio looked like they’d come straight from a particularly bawdy stag do – Petruchio had ‘Petruchio and Kate’ written on his chest in big black letters, while Grumio had ‘Grumio’ on his. They were scantily clad in what might loosely be called trousers, with greenery attached at strategic points and a large salami down Grumio’s trousers; this became his ‘weapon’ later. Kate was wearing a simple white tailored dress, while Bianca was in a pink ensemble. It took some effort for Kate to actually utter the word ’entreat’, but she managed it, and still she ended up being wrapped in Petruchio’s coat (or cloak) and carried off. There was a good laugh when she said ‘Father, be quiet’, given that he was behind her at that point.

They took the interval here, which meant that Sly had to get off stage as well. They’d kept him on throughout this first half, and between the early scenes they’d done a bit of under the covers rummaging. At first it was Bartholomew escaping his lord’s clutches, then Marion Hackett appeared for some unknown reason and stole Sly’s underpants. By the time of the interval, he was the only one of the induction scene characters left, and when he realised everyone else had left the stage, he held his vest over his willy and eventually made his way off. I found this stuff mildly amusing, but as they didn’t do much with it in the second half it was rather wasted for me, especially as it disrupted the rhythm of the play. They moved the bedspread around so much during those bits that some cast or crew had to come on and straighten everything out again before the action could continue.

Sly also came on at the start of the second half, on his own, holding a small saucepan over his nether regions. He went off stage at the back beside the pillows, as I recall, but he was hanging around during the next scene for a while, watching the action among the players. There was hardly any Curtis at all with this production – lost in rehearsal, poor chap – and they prepared for the scene by having lots of actors come on and pose themselves on the stage, asleep. The chairs which had been left there were put on their sides with somebody draped over the one nearest us. There were actors lying on the pillows, on the stage and hanging out of the back area, all fast asleep. Grumio woke them up and Petruchio came in soon after, with Kate crawling in after him. Her dress was a bit mucky, and I think she was shoeless, but otherwise she seemed fine. They skipped through this scene pretty quickly and after a short report from Curtis about the non-event in the bedchamber, Petruchio returned to give us a situation report. He waited quite a long time to see if anyone in the audience could suggest another way to achieve the desired result – no response.

The next scene is where Tranio craftily gets Hortensio to swear off Bianca, and although I couldn’t see all the action behind the doors, I got a clear idea of what was going on. Basically, Lucentio and Bianca were pre-empting the marriage vows and going at it, hammer and tongs. They started by kissing, but were soon into rampant sexual intercourse in all sorts of positions, culminating in pleasurable exhaustion when they finally joined Tranio. The activity was revealed by opening various panels in the doors, showing different parts of the lovers as they got it on. Early on, both Tranio and Hortensio were right by the doors, but fortunately the lovers were oblivious; later on it was just Tranio winding Hortensio up by opening yet another panel.

At the end of this scene, Tranio persuaded the travelling pedant to pose as his father, and then we were back in Petruchio’s house, with Kate trying to get hold of some food from Grumio. When Petruchio and Hortensio came on with the dish of meat, Hortensio ended up straddling Kate, who was face down on the stage, and as there was too much to eat he stuffed some items in his pockets to clear the plate.

The argument over the dress was good fun. The dress and hat themselves were very attractive, and the dressmaker arrived with a live model to show off his work. She was rather upset at having her sleeve ripped off, and Kate took the sleeve back off Petruchio and put it back on the model, only for it to be ripped off again, along with the other one and the cape. I think this was the scene where Kate paused the argument, got one of the chairs, put it in front of Petruchio, and stood on it so she could argue with him face to face – excellent fun.

The scene where Baptista met the fake Vincentio and then Biondello explained to Lucentio the basics of elopement, was pretty standard and then we saw Petruchio, Kate and Grumio returning to Padua for a family reunion. Kate finally decided to stop arguing, couldn’t tell why, and then the real Vincentio turned up. Dressed in a very natty suit, and wearing sunglasses, he was also accompanied by a bodyguard who wasn’t keen on letting these strangers anywhere near his boss, especially when they talked so weirdly. Vincentio wasn’t bothered though, and waved him away. After Kate and Petruchio had their fun, and Petruchio spoke to the new arrival to find out who he was, Vincentio joined in the game by addressing Kate as ‘Fair sir’ and Petruchio with ‘and you my merry mistress’. So at least he has a sense of humour; he’ll need it later after Tranio abuses him.

The party was going full swing when they arrived at Padua, and the melee in front of the house was mildly entertaining. Petruchio and Kate stood over at the far side of the stage, so I couldn’t see what they were up to, but I got the impression that they were chatting to each other instead of watching the action.

For the final scene, the rest of the cast entered through the doors, and Kate and Petruchio were a bit behind them. Kate was clearly embarrassed that they were still wearing their soiled clothes, and the other two wives were clearly sneering at her. She went back to the doors and stood along from Petruchio there, having nicked his hat and put it on her head. There was dancing, and Bianca was enjoying herself with Gremio as they did the tango.

The bickering was entertaining enough, with Kate really having a go at the widow over her ‘mean’ comment. Bianca was very lively, and then the women left the stage. The men were more laddish once they’d gone, and the money for the bet was soon on the floor in the middle of the stage. A chair was placed beside the money, and each husband waited on it, expectantly. Biondello gave the bad news to two of them, then Grumio went off for the final message, with Petruchio hoping for a good result. Even he was surprised by Kate’s arrival, and I always reckon this is where he goes a bit over the top because he’s worried she’s no longer got any spirit to her.

When he challenged her to tell the other two wives about their duty, she had to think about it for a while, and everyone else assumed she wasn’t going to do it. She sat on one of the chairs and lit up a cigarette, but just as the rest had given up on her, she started on the speech. I couldn’t decide on her motivation; it wasn’t clear to me why she’d decided to speak up, although the lines themselves were very clear. Her final offer to put her hand beneath Petruchio’s foot was OK, and he seemed to have realised that she was still the Kate he fell in love with. He took her in his arms, and then they were kissing, and rushing to the back of the stage to get their kit off and snuggle under the bedclothes.

The rest of the play was a bit of a blur. I don’t remember how the rest of the cast left the stage, but soon it was bare and in relative darkness. Sly staggered back on and collapsed on the far side of the stage, and from the noise behind the doors he was outside the inn we’d started from. Two characters came on and went over to him; Steve reckoned they were the Lord and Bartholomew, while I wasn’t sure it was the Lord himself. Either way, he left some money on Sly’s chest, while Bartholomew ran back to leave his scarf with Sly. The performance ended with Marion Hackett standing on top of the ramp and looking at Sly, while he held up some of the money and then collapsed back again on the stage.

I wasn’t taken with this ending; it wasn’t clear to me what was going on, and I only realised it was money on Sly’s chest when he held some of it up at the end. Since Lucy Bailey had described the play as the journey to get the two leads into bed, why carry on after that’s been done? And with the Sly subplot petering out during the second half, why go back to it? Maybe we’ll understand it better next time we see it as our angle will be better, although the way this bed set blocks the view, I’m not so sure.

This was a lively retelling of the story with lots of physical humour, some of which worked for me, some of which didn’t. The relationship between Kate and Petruchio was believable, and the rest of the performance was at least watchable with some nice touches. Steve wondered if Kate was actually challenging Petruchio at the end by offering her hand, testing him to see how he would take it. That’s possible, and we’ll both be watching closely next time to see if it becomes clearer.

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Neighbourhood Watch – January 2012

7/10

Written and directed by Alan Ayckbourn

Stephen Joseph Theatre Company

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Monday 23rd January 2012

This was an enjoyable evening which ended rather unfortunately. A memorial statue which was meant to be revealed at the end refused to drop into place – looked like it was hanging the wrong way up – and so the cast had to take their bows without the punch line having been delivered, a real shame for them after their hard work. And it was hard work with this audience; we both felt, despite it being one of Ayckbourn’s darker offerings, that there was more humour in this play than the audience response indicated. It may be that the subject matter was a bit too close to home for comfort; we noticed that several jokes about Daily Mail readers received a lukewarm chuckle, but a similar disparaging remark about Guardian readers a few lines later got a huge laugh.

The play covered current concerns about security, and the trend towards high-security compounds for the ‘posh’ folk to protect them from the ‘yobs’ from the sink estates. We followed the experiences of a brother and sister, newly arrived at the Bluebell Hill development, from their housewarming party to the memorial service for the brother, Martin, after his sad demise while fighting to protect the standard of life for the local residents. The opening scene, and what would have been the last had it worked, were set at the memorial service; the rest of the scenes were in chronological order.

The set was straightforward. There were black walls at the back with gaps right and left, and two curved sofas on either side covered in a plain fabric with large flower outlines and with three matching cushions on each. In the centre was a fake circular fireplace with a flicker effect which they turned on whenever there were guests, and a large rim which doubled as a table. There were also two side tables on the audience side of the sofas. An extra chair was brought on for some of the meetings, and there was carpet on the floor up to the patio door on the right, where a section of the stage had been tiled to show the outside area. They acted the patio door, thank goodness.

The characters were a lovely mixed bunch. Martin and Hilda, brother and sister, were very prim and proper, with a strong moral and religious streak. Actually she was much more rigid than he was, and during the course of the play he even developed a relationship with another woman and planned to leave his sister. His death shortly afterwards meant she could ignore this inconvenient fact in her eulogy, while freeing her up to develop her own unconventional relationship.

Rod was one of their neighbours who was retired from some kind of security job, and was positively rabid about the threats they faced from the scum who lived in the estate nearby, across a field. He had even forced his way into someone’s house to retrieve a hedge trimmer which he knew this man had stolen, searching the place while the man was there. He eventually found his hedge trimmer and walked off with it, only to find himself in trouble with the police! His hedge trimmer was now in custody as it was evidence, and he was livid about the whole incident. He certainly showed us the potential for violence and law-breaking from the self-righteous, aggrieved middle classes, who feel everyone else is out to get them.

Dorothy was another retired neighbour who used to work on the local paper. We were led to believe she was a reporter, so there was a good laugh when she finally admitted that she worked on small ads. She was a good source for the local gossip which allowed us to find out a lot about the situation and the people, and she took on the media work for their neighbourhood watch scheme when it attracted lots of media attention.

Luther and Magda were the next door neighbours. He was a bully and a wife beater, she was a woman who had been abused from an early age and who ended up staying with Martin and Hilda for protection. Luther was the one person who spoke up against the rather extreme measures taken by the neighbourhood watch committee, and he was also the Guardian reader, but he seemed a bit underwritten compared to the others. Magda was a musician who also gave lessons, and her description of her early experiences was quite hard to listen to. Her final choices indicated that she’d found another strong character to take charge of her life.

Gareth and Amy were the final two characters. He was an older man who liked tinkering in his shed, but his main motivation for supporting the neighbourhood watch was that his wife, Amy, was a total slut, sleeping around with every man on the development regardless of their marital status. She’d married Gareth on the rebound, and he’d been regretting it ever since. It did give him an interest in various forms of public punishment, including the stocks, the pillory, scold’s bridle, etc., and the committee made good use of his woodworking talents and this interest. Amy wore very fitting dresses with very high hems with red hair and lots of makeup. She was very interested to find that Martin and Hilda were siblings rather than married, and we weren’t surprised to find Martin’s attitudes changing a bit over the course of the play.

The housewarming scene led to the inaugural meeting to set up the neighbourhood watch scheme. When the police were unable to attend to give advice, and someone threw Martin’s garden gnome through the window, destroying it completely, Martin decided they should go it alone and include some people who weren’t keen to be involved if the police were part of it. These turned out to be the local crime boss and his two thuggish sons; patrols were very effective and crime was slashed, but their methods were rather drastic, and when a house on the estate was burned down when they went to ‘have a word’ with its occupant, the police turned up at the Bluebell Hill security gatehouse demanding to get in to arrest the two sons.

After making sure that the stocks weren’t visible, Martin authorised the security chief (Rod) to radio the gatehouse to let them in. Unfortunately, they only caught one of the sons, which meant that an angry armed sociopath was hiding within the security fence, waiting to get his revenge for being shopped to the police. Fortunately he was too stupid to count properly, so it was the house next door to Martin and Hilda’s that went up in flames, and it was when the fire service and police were trying to deal with that problem that Martin, armed only with a statue of Jesus, went out into his garden and met his fate.

The final scene showed us the aftermath through the preparations for the memorial service, and then a curtain came down to shield the fireplace from our view while they lowered the statue chosen to commemorate Martin’s life. Being so close, we could see a bit of it, and at first it looked like a giant dildo which made us laugh to ourselves. But then we realised it was the hat of a large garden gnome, about three feet high I would guess, and gold coloured, which had slipped onto its side and just wouldn’t come down onto the fireplace. A stage hand came on at the back and realised he couldn’t do anything, so they just had to leave things there and take their bows. We felt for them; it was clearly meant to be a funny punchline as Hilda’s opening speech had claimed this was not only a fitting memorial, but also a symbol of much greater and higher things. A garden gnome would have been very funny, but alas not tonight.

The performances were all fine, and there was plenty to enjoy, but the audience, like the gnome, weren’t as cooperative as we would have liked.

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Swallows And Amazons – January 2012

7/10

By Helen Edmundson and Neil Hannon, based on the book by Arthur Ransome

Directed by Tom Morris

Company: Children’s Touring Partnership/Bristol Old Vic

Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Friday 20th January 2012

I think I would have been better off not to have re-read the book shortly before going to see this wonderful adaptation. It took me a fair while to adjust my ideas, much as I loved some of the staging choices, and I would have probably found it an 8/10 experience if I’d warmed up sooner. As it is, I was thoroughly hooked by the end, joining in the shouts of ‘plank’ with enthusiasm. The cast all did a great job, and I hope they have a great time on tour.

The stage was littered with all sorts of objects before the start, some of which didn’t become clear until they were used. There were four tall irregular-shaped pillars along the back of the set, which each had a large band of white on them – I noticed during the interval that these were painted, and looked like brick. There was a picture frame hanging centre stage, and some musical instruments over in the far right corner, including a piano. I don’t remember anything else specifically, and they brought so much other stuff on during the play that I’d be misleading myself to attempt any more detail.

The play began with an old lady walking on to the stage, and sitting on a chair in the middle. She’d been carrying a pair of secateurs and a feather duster with bright red, green and yellow sections, and put them down to one side of the chair. As she looked through an old album of photographs, the characters of the Walker family started appearing on stage, with Mother and Father posing together in the central picture frame, Mother holding Fat Vicky, and other picture frames being held up for the rest of the family to pose behind. The old lady herself turned into Titty, and the feather duster and secateurs became the parrot. So now we had the four children, the baby and their parents. Father sailed away, and the action began with Roger arriving, breathless, with the telegram which would give them Father’s answer – to sail or not to sail.

Before I go any further, I must point out that the casting was weird and wonderful. Roger, the youngest child, nearly eight, was played by the tallest actor, and there aren’t many eight-year-olds with a beard! This worked really well, and gave us some humour from the start. The other ‘children’ were mostly to scale, although Susan was a bit on the small side. I always find the telegram a bit sniffly – “Better drowned than duffers. If not duffers won’t drown” – so this got me going early on, and then they were soon through the planning stage and off to the island. This was a musical, and the songs were pretty good, although I couldn’t always make out the words. The packing phase was done to music, and Swallow herself was a prow, a couple of wheeled dollies, a mast with a sail, some ropes and some ribbons – blue ribbons which other members of the cast held out and moved around to represent the water.

The story was told briskly, and while some bits were dropped – going to the farm to get the milk, for example – we didn’t miss much, and it made for a good piece of theatre. Other characters came on as needed, and there was plenty of music all the way through – this is a really talented bunch. Titty’s experience near Cormorant Island was staged as a dream sequence, with lots of pirate types carrying lots of boxes and singing a song, while the two ship’s companies and Captain Flint found the box the first time they searched the island. For the attack on Captain Flint’s ship, they passed out sponges to the audience, and we were told to throw them on the command ‘attack!’ which we did, and a fine old mess it made of the auditorium – great fun. When Captain Flint begged for mercy we were merciless, calling for the plank as loudly as we could (told you I was well into it by then). He dropped down through a trapdoor for this bit, and when he came back up and all was forgiven, they were about to head off for a feast on shore when he decided to give Titty a present for finding his book. The parrot was duly handed over, and with a final rousing song we were done.

The Amazons were also very good; two women with war paint and feathered headdresses. Peggy in particular had a great voice, and Nancy was all scowls, even when you’d expect her to be happy! Titty’s spell alone on the island came across better than the book for me – the way she read out her log entries was very funny. When anyone used the telescope, a round frame was held up and showed what they were seeing, whether it was Captain Flint sitting at his desk writing or Mother on her way to the island. Captain Flint’s ship was represented by a massive prow at the back of the stage, and it had a large mast too which may have been lowered down – I lost track a bit during the busy times. The reed beds were very well done, with the spare cast members holding long sticks and moving around the Swallow to show the way the reeds separated and came together again. The charcoal burners were included, but only to give the message about Captain Flint’s ship needing a lock – we didn’t get to see the snake – and this also allowed us to see John’s embarrassment at being called a liar when he tried to deliver the message to the Captain. It was good to see the way these children learned from their experiences, and from each other’s way of handling things. I also liked the way they meshed their fantasy versions of the lake and its islands, with Nancy recognising that Rio was a good name for the town and the Walkers accepting the Blackett’s name for the island.

Susan was much more priggish than I remember from the book, but it worked well enough for me, and the storm came early in this version, during the night raid on the Amazon’s boat shed. The sailing terminology was used sparingly – terms like ‘leading lights’ were demonstrated down at the harbour – so although it didn’t feel quite as inspiring in terms of the sailing, it still had that sense of adventure and freedom to use one’s imagination which is so strong in the book. The cormorants were quite scary. They were made out of bin bags and garden shears, and flew around in an intimidating manner.

Quite a few of us older children stayed behind for the post-show, and there was much praise from all sections for their performance. There were many stories of children young and old being introduced to the books and loving them; one chap has only got one more book before his wife divorces him, apparently – I hope for his sake that she’s a slow reader. It all went quite well until one man asked a rather hostile sounding question about what they were doing to take this sort of show to disadvantaged kids who might never see a play or read many books. The cast handled it very well, explaining the purpose of the Children’s Touring Partnership, and we finished on a lighter note, thankfully.

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Lion In Winter – January 2012

7/10

By James Goldman

Directed by Trevor Nunn

Venue: Theatre Royal, Haymarket

Date: Thursday 19th January 2012

We were a bit closer for this one than we like – Row B – because we didn’t book early enough. Even so, we had a good view of the action and heard every word, which made for an enjoyable afternoon. Unfortunately we also heard the mobile phone right behind us, and it was at a bad time (there’s a good time?) when Eleanor had just cut her arm. It’s all a ploy to manipulate Richard into giving her what she wants, so nothing to worry about, but the effect was spoiled by the ringtone. Anyway it’s a good old workhorse, this play, and this was a better than average production with some very good performances and a lot of humour. It’s mostly in the first half, true, but there’s still fun to be had in the second half, including one of the best lines – ‘all families have their ups and downs’; in context, it was hilarious.

This play is the archetypal family-from-hell Christmas. Everyone is plotting against everyone else, with the possible exception of Alais, and if I didn’t know the history I would have expected dead bodies to litter the stage. The bickering does get a little tiresome towards the end, but this cast kept our attention all the way through. I really enjoyed Joseph Drake as Prince John; we enjoyed his Nijinsky last summer at Chichester, and this snivelling Prince made a nice contrast.

The set was quite elaborate, making use of two revolves to change the scenery. They had small apartments for intimate gatherings, a larger reception area with a huge Christmas tree – the anachronisms were deliberate – two bedrooms and a wine cellar, all created with the minimum of fuss. I particularly liked the scene in the French King’s bedroom, with two Princes hiding behind the tapestry, another in the four-poster screened by the curtains, and King Henry himself knocking on the door to have a word. The costumes were mock mediaeval, in keeping with the setting, and worked very well.

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me