Category Archives: Comedy

Twelfth Night – November 2012

9/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Edward Hall

Company: Propeller

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Wednesday 14th November 2012

What a difference five years and an almost complete change of cast can make! When we saw this production in May 2007, it was paired with The Taming Of The Shrew, the latter being part of the RSC’s Complete Works Festival. Although we like the actors involved in that ensemble, we just didn’t care for their take on these plays, so it was always going to be interesting to see this revival.

The set and staging were almost identical, but the performances were so different that we enjoyed ourselves enormously. They blended the dark and light aspects of this tricky comedy perfectly, and while we missed Tony Bell’s version of Feste, Liam O’Brien did an excellent job as well; not so much a Lord of Misrule this time, but still a strong character and with a lovely voice too. He played a guitar of some sort instead of a fiddle, but the music was still beautiful.

The start was the same, with Christopher Heyward’s Orsino being wonderfully melodramatic in his love-sickness. I was reminded of The Woman Hater at the Orange Tree (January 2008), with the over-the-top couple the Wilmots giving us plenty of laughs at their absurd over-reactions to events. Orsino’s behaviour seemed more in keeping with the grief theme than any form of love, and it also made me think that both he and Olivia are over-reacting to their situations – playing the drama queens – and that Viola and Sebastian bring them back to earth. I was keen to see how Olivia would be played in this respect, and Ben Allen did indeed play the role in keeping with Orsino’s portrayal, all moody and over-sensitive.

During the storm and shipwreck scene, I noticed a large glass bottle with a sailing ship in it which was held up as part of the choreographed storm movements. I suspect this was present in the previous version but I either didn’t notice it or didn’t note it down. The sea captain had some nicely detailed reactions to Viola’s dialogue, which isn’t normally the case.

Maria was played by Gary Shelford this time, who gave a much more memorable performance than the previous Maria. ‘She’ had a very expressive face, giving knowing winks or being serious when required, and really brought the part to life. This casting also explained her affinity with Sir Toby, as it made her a distant cousin of Bardolph (Gary’s role in Henry V). She moved round the stage during her first conversation with Sir Toby, removing the remaining dust sheets and putting the chairs upright. Vince Leigh was an affable Sir Toby, tetchy at times but too much of a drinker to be a real menace – it’s Maria who tricks Malvolio after all. He didn’t throw up properly on stage this time, just gushed some liquid out of his mouth – unpleasant, but not as gross as the earlier version. Sir Andrew, played by John Dougall, was older than usual and the humour was less obvious, but his pathetic attempts to join in and impress people were still good fun, and the sadness behind his silliness was plain to see. He held a long pause before the line “I was adored once, too”, and Sir Toby snatched off his ridiculous wig in the final scene, leaving him exposed and humiliated.

I didn’t realise at first that it was Viola who came through one of the wardrobes and took a grey jacket off the rail, but I did notice the flower in her hair about the same time she did; she threw it away to complete her disguise, and then Curio, in Valentine’s absence, started the next scene. I was concerned that I might not spot the difference between the twins, as both had bleached blond hair and were very similar in looks, but there was enough variation for me to know who was who. I found that Joseph Chance’s Viola was much more manly in disguise as Cesario, and while that lost some aspects of Orsino and Olivia’s confusion in their attraction to the ‘boy’, it did emphasise for me the general sense of ambiguous sexuality pervading the play. This was heightened by Antonio’s attraction to Sebastian which was shown to be clearly physical, although Antonio tried to hide it by making excuses for his ‘love’. Sebastian was uncomfortable with this affection (not averse to Olivia’s advances, fortunately) and I was conscious that Antonio was probably falling in love with Viola through her brother, as Olivia falls in love with Sebastian through his sister.

Olivia warmed up nicely to Feste’s fooling, while Malvolio (Chris Myles) glowered in the background. Chris is shorter than usual for this role, which added another dimension to Malvolio’s arrogance and self-regard. He played the steward’s role pretty straight, until the reveal of the yellow stockings, that is. He also had a badger goatee, with two dark grey strips on either side of a white one, which added to the impression of pomposity.

When Olivia sent the ring after Cesario, she had a devil of a job getting it off her finger, which got a laugh. Sebastian’s description of his sister to Antonio was emphasised by having him look into one of the wardrobe mirrors as he talked, while Viola stood on the other side and the lighting allowed her face to show through.

The late night drinking party went very well to begin with. Feste’s first song was very pleasant, and Sir Andrew and even Sir Toby added some extra vocals. The catch was as rowdy as one could wish, and when Maria turned up I was slightly distracted by the vivid red fluffy mules she was wearing. Mind you, that was nothing compared to the fact that Malvolio had taken the trouble to put his chain of office round his neck over his dressing gown before accosting the reprobates who were having a drunken orgy downstairs. It was a nice touch, and said a lot about Malvolio’s character.

Feste had to leg it pretty quick over to the Duke’s court for the next scene, where he was called on to sing yet another song. Orsino listened to it while sitting on the coffin (oops, forgot to mention that, just wait a bit) with Cesario sitting beside him. During this song, Cesario adopted a more feminine posture, and as Orsino was affected by the song and became emotional, Cesario ended up holding him until Orsino tore himself away at the end of the song.

The coffin: it was brought on when Olivia first arrived and sat centre back, then it was brought forward for the following scenes. Feste lay in it at one point, probably during the drunken revel. As I recall, it was taken off when the stage was cleared for the letter scene, and the triangular box trees were brought on instead. There seemed to be more of them this time, two sets of five, and there were three statues at the back, the same as before. The plinth for Olivia’s statue was front right, and again the statue held the letter out for Malvolio to spot, with two fingers sticking up at him all the while. Sir Andrew’s question about “her c’s, her u’s and her t’s” was answered by Sir Toby whispering in his ear, after which Sir Andrew smothered a laugh and disappeared behind the shrubbery again.

With Fabian not present, Feste took part again in this scene. The other masked actors did plenty of sound effects to cover the noise of the hidden men, mostly in the form of birds cawing and flying off. The statues were more active than the people, and were constantly reforming, often including one of the characters as well. Malvolio was too excited at his discovery to notice much, and rushed through the letter without losing clarity, although his hands were trembling. The “revolve” led to the letter itself being rotated vertically, and his final grimacing ‘smile’ was a sight to behold! The first half ended with Maria’s explanation of the trick and their exit.

No songs during the interval, sadly, but there was plenty of music at the start of the second half on stage. Viola interrupted this with her question to Feste, and the rest of the masked men gradually eased themselves off stage till they were alone for their conversation about cheverel gloves. After Feste left, Sir Toby and Sir Andrew came along, and Sir Andrew was again completely flummoxed by Cesario’s simple French reply to his own greeting.

Olivia seemed to come to terms with Cesario’s refusal to enter into a personal relationship with her, but her feelings got the better of her and she ended up on the floor, clutching Cesario’s hands in a desperate attempt to persuade him to stay – no chance. Sir Andrew entered for the next scene carrying a large suitcase and a smaller bag, and began packing his clothes which were on the rail. Sir Toby and Feste manipulated him into writing a challenge, and then Maria arrived to inform them that Malvolio was about to make a fool of himself.

Sebastian and Antonio’s scene was straightforward, and then Olivia came back for her first encounter with the new Malvolio. He leaned on the side of the door, grinning broadly at her, until stepping forward to strip off his trousers and reveal what lay underneath. Yellow stockings covered in black fishnet tights were complimented by a leather studded codpiece of considerable proportions. We laughed, and kept on laughing as Malvolio chased Olivia round the stage. Then when Sir Toby, Feste and Maria turned up, they had to use a large syringe to sedate him, leaving him fast asleep at the front of the stage as Feste delivered the “improbable fiction” line to much laughter.

Sir Andrew’s outfit for the fight scene was almost as funny as Malvolio’s. He still wore his evening jacket but with white satin boxing shorts and boxing gloves, and his hair was pulled up through the holes in his protective helmet giving him a very strange and funny appearance. The challenge was read out, with Maria giving Fabian’s responses. The mock duel was well done, with lots of struggling to avoid the fight on the part of both duellers, and never a blow struck in earnest with the boxing gloves. Antonio soon parted them and was arrested, and Cesario reacted noticeably to the mention of Sebastian’s name.

The real Sebastian threw Antonio’s purse at Feste to get rid of him – very generous – and after his fight with Sir Toby he was quite happy to accept Olivia’s offer of entertainment, while she was absolutely thrilled at his acceptance. With two such similar ‘twins’, there was no difficulty believing that one could be mistaken for the other, quite a change from recent productions.

The stage was darkened for the next scene, with Maria, Sir Toby and Feste up on top of the wardrobes looking down on Malvolio beneath them. Malvolio was down to only the codpiece this time, and chained up. Sir Topas stayed up on the wardrobe for his initial conversation with Malvolio, while Feste came down afterwards to talk to the man directly. Sir Toby’s parting instruction to Maria – “Come by and by to my chamber” – suggested a close personal encounter was in the offing.

Sebastian was again in bed for the start of the next scene, and again the sheet which he’d wrapped around himself fell off when Olivia arrived with the priest – nice. Fabian’s request to see the letter was dropped, so the next scene began with Orsino’s entrance and rattled along very nicely, with all the fun of the revelations and a few sniffles as well. The reunion between the twins was moving; it was understandable that they would both be reluctant to believe the evidence of their eyes, given what they’d been through.

Maria was on stage for this scene, although she did try to sneak off when the letter was handed to Olivia. No such luck; she was called back, and gave Fabian’s speech, suitably altered, in which she announced her marriage to Sir Toby and flashed her ring, a large gaudy one, at the assembled throng. Malvolio mustered some dignity as he limped off, and the performance ended with Feste’s final song. Despite this seeming a rather downbeat ending, we were all very happy as we applauded, and even carried on singing the song as we left. A huge improvement on last time, and a reminder that it’s well worth seeing this sort of production more than once, as even with the same cast there can be lots of changes.

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Good Grief – November 2012

7/10

By Keith Waterhouse

Directed by Tom Littler

Theatre Royal Bath Productions

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Thursday 1st November 2012

I think this sort of thing is called a ‘gentle’ comedy, as there aren’t quite as many laughs as you get with a robust comedy. Based on a Keith Waterhouse novel, this play covers a few months in the life of a recently widowed woman whose husband had been an editor in Fleet Street. She tried to follow his deathbed instruction to her that she write a diary of her feelings after he died, but she ended up talking to him instead which effectively meant we heard her inner thoughts about the people she was dealing with, plus the occasional discourse on things in general. The comments were often very funny, and the situation provided some humour as well, though it wasn’t the strongest I’ve seen for this kind of story.

The set was fairly elaborate and provided two main locations – the living room of the widow’s house and an area of the local pub. There were one or two other places which were usually just spotlit areas of the main stage, but mostly we were in one or other of those two settings. The living room went from the front bay window on our left across the sofa, table and chairs to the folding dining table and kitchen door on the right. The front door was just off back left with a door to the garage beside it. The stairs started next to the main entrance and went up to the landing which had one cupboard door on the left and a couple of bedroom doors. For the pub, these stairs slid to the right and the pub seating slid forward – an L-shaped nook with a table. The bar was round by the garage, and the stairs became the stairs of the pub, leading to the loos. Occasionally the characters came forward and used the sofa area as part of the pub, and though I found this a little confusing, overall it worked pretty well, and it did make the scene changes a bit quicker.

The main problem for me was the casting. Penelope Keith is very good at certain things, but she can’t do Northern grit for love nor money. Her accent toured round the British Isles, touching base most often in the Home Counties, but with a fair amount of reference to her character’s point of origin. Her comic timing was still fine, but without the biting delivery that gives that kind of humour a real kick. She did her best and it wasn’t bad, just adequate, which was a shame for the others in the cast who were, I felt, capable of more if they’d had a more suitable leading lady. Maybe we’ll see another production of this in years to come and be able to judge it better.

Christopher Ravenscroft was fine as the potential love interest, a downsized office worker whose attempts to set himself up as a handyman were doomed to failure, judging by the refitting of the widow’s fridge door. Flora Montgomery played the step-daughter, whose relationship with her step-mother changed after some revelations, while Jonathan Firth was wonderfully smarmy as the recently deceased journalist’s ex-boss – you knew he was a wrong ‘un the minute he walked in the room. The understudies also saw some action as the other people in the pub – waitresses and customers – which must have been more fun than doing crosswords in their dressing rooms, and gave us the momentary pleasure of checking out who would have understudied whom.

Not the greatest production we’ll see this year by any means, but with Ms Keith in the lead role they should do good business.

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Merry Wives Of Windsor – October 2012

7/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Philip Breen

Venue: RST

Date: Tuesday 30th October 2012

They’ve had some technical difficulties with this production and cancelled the first previews, so this was only the second performance. The cast need a bit longer to get into their full stride, but already this is shaping up to be a classic production of this play, on a par with the famed Bill Alexander version. I even detected a nod to that earlier staging in the pumpkin lantern placed in the corner of an upstairs window of Master Page’s house, the opening backdrop to the performance. The pumpkin lantern also helped to identify the very specific time of this version – late autumn 2012 – and the rest of the design supported that setting beautifully.

In fact, the set design was the first thing that made us hopeful of a good evening’s entertainment. Finally, we saw a design which used the thrust stage as a performance space rather than as the venue for an art installation which would do its best to trip up the actors, obscure them from view or generally get in the way of the actor/audience relationship. Mind you, there were plenty of technical ‘challenges’ to this design as well, and I suspect there are already a few aspects which the actors would like to ditch altogether, but on the whole this was a ‘proper’ set which supported the performance instead of competing with it.

The flooring across the whole of the stage (as far as I could tell) was a diamond pattern of wooden boards with occasional insets of patterned wood. Behind the thrust at the start was the front of the Page’s mock-Tudor manor house, complete with embossed wooden door, lots of windows and a rampant ivy which spread its gnarled limbs across the full width of the stage. It had dropped a lot of its leaves, this being the autumn, but the remaining clumps were vivid red, a lovely sight to see.

This façade was lifted up when not in use, and a number of different settings became available behind it, from the relatively open rugby pitch, through the back wall of the Garter pub to the simple and elegant glass and metal décor of the Ford’s luxury home. I did like the emphasis on Ford and Page being middle class nouveau riche people. It explained Falstaff’s interest in them, or rather their wives, much better, and although they kept to the original text for the various sums of money, I found it easier to grasp that Anne Page’s seven hundred pounds was a huge amount when the design made it clear that her parents were rolling in it.

For the Garter, they brought on a pool table which sat centrally near the front of the stage, while the bar itself was a U-shaped projection which came forward once the house front was lifted. It was a traditional country pub bar with glasses above and wooden bar below with old fashioned real ale pump handles. Steve spotted Bardolph with a dartboard first time round; he gave it to a member of the audience to hold then made as if to throw a dart at it, but of course health and safety wouldn’t let him actually do it.

For the Ford household, a white carpet was brought on and rolled out to cover the middle of the stage, the back of the stage had glass panels and glass double doors and there were metal stairs rising to either side with a metal balcony across the back. The sofa came up via a trapdoor about two thirds of the way back; it was complete with a side table which held a table lamp and a recalcitrant vase and flower, but the latter were only there the first time around.

The rugby pitch was done very well; two rugby posts were lowered down towards the back of the thrust and these were roughly to scale, while a second set, in miniature, were placed further back to give a false perspective. A folding chair and coolbox had been brought on by Anne Page and young William at the start of the scene and stayed there till the end. Falstaff’s upper room at the Garter was simply a bed which came up through the same trap as the sofa, and another long trapdoor which opened up at the very front of the stage to give access. I don’t remember how they screened off the back of the stage for those scenes.

For the very brief scene where the host of the Garter arranged to hire out his horses to some Germans, a red phone box rose up in the front left corner of the stage, and two characters – I realised later it had to be the doctor and the parson – crammed themselves into it to make their hoax phone call. The host took their call up on the balcony of Ford’s house, but as the lights had been lowered and only these two locations were lit, it could have been anywhere.

Doctor Caius’s surgery was a modern office space. There were two metal chairs to the right for waiting patients, and a desk with a computer came up through the trap along with Mistress Quickly. The back wall had a half-timbered look and there was one modern door with a glass panel in it for the cupboard. For the finale, Herne’s oak was a magnificent change from the urban to the rural. With the backdrops lifted, the space behind was filled with the shape of a fallen oak trunk and branches – the trunk was so big that they had to wait till the wall had been lifted before they could swing it round, and its roots stuck out into the stage a fair way. The little ‘elves’ had an actual pit to hide in at the front of the stage; this appeared and disappeared depending on the action – don’t want those little children falling and hurting themselves. Apart from these, there were a couple of locations which were pretty much blank stage, as with the places where the doctor and parson had been told to meet for their duel.

The costumes were similarly rich and varied. Mistress Page was the tweedy country wife to perfection, with welly boots for the rugger match and a headscarf most of the time. Mistress Ford was much more alluring. She’d kept her figure and believed in showing it off, although to be fair she only dressed seductively for Falstaff as part of the deception. Ford himself was the sporty type; he was in his kit after the rugby match and was also carrying a racquet later on, while Page had also been playing rugby from the looks of it and often wore a sports-type anorak. The doctor was a natty dresser and even had the full fencing gear for the duel, unlike the parson who was less well dressed and certainly didn’t look like he knew which end of a rapier was which. Falstaff was mostly in tweed or similar, apart from his brief spell in drag, and the rest of the cast wore appropriate clothes for their station. I’ll describe the final scene’s costumes later.

The opening scene with Justice Shallow having a rant at Falstaff was OK, but I had some lovely views of people’s backs and missed some of the dialogue – they’ll be much clearer once they’ve bedded the production down I’m sure. Slender had his right arm in a sling – don’t know if that was related to the cancelled previews or to the treatment he received at the hands of Pistol, Nym and Bardolph. He wasn’t wearing it later, so we assume it was the latter.

When they knocked on Page’s door, there was a laugh when young William opened it as they were expecting someone a good deal taller. His father soon appeared behind him, however, and I noticed that William stayed on stage during the rest of the scene until most of the group went back in to dinner. This was something mentioned by the director in his pre-show chat, that the children were always present in the play; they certainly were tonight.

Falstaff’s first appearance was a treat. Desmond Barrit wore a fat suit to create a very rotund Sir John, and he made the most of his bulk throughout the performance. Slender was noticeably nervous of Pistol and Nym – nobody seemed to mind Bardolph – and with Mistress Ford’s arrival, sadly obscured from my view, all but Slender went inside to enjoy the venison pasty announced by Mistress Page.

Slender rushed over to Peter Simple when he appeared and gave him a big hug; I wasn’t sure if this was a sign of deeper affection than usual or just an indication of Slender’s nerves. The parson and Shallow came out to talk with him, followed by Anne and then her father. The dialogue was still a bit limp at this point, and with Slender being so central to these exchanges I felt this portrayal needs more work. His final exit into the house was nicely awkward, and then Sir Hugh came out to give Simple a letter to take to Mistress Quickly.

The first Garter scene followed, with Sir John lying on the pool table when they wheeled it on. It took him a while to come to, and then he began downsizing his entourage. I suspect the host regretted his offer to take Bardolph on almost immediately, as Bardolph managed to fall down the stairs to the cellar and from the subsequent sounds of breakages he’s likely to be an expensive employee.

As Sir John expanded on his financial plight to the other two, he gradually shifted himself off the table and was standing to one side when Pistol cracked the joke about Falstaff’s girth. They ditched the line “No quips now, Pistol”, and Falstaff acknowledged the truth of Pistol’s jest before turning to the serious matter of cozening money out of the wealthy of Windsor. His men turned their noses up at being mere messengers so young Robin, who had been sitting on a bar stool all the while, was sent in their place. Falstaff‘s rejection of Pistol and Nym was followed by their decision to land him in it with the two husbands, and that was that.

In Dr Caius’s surgery, Jack Rugby took an age to come when Mistress Quickly called him, but eventually he turned up to act as lookout and she could attend to Peter Simple. Dressed in a fitted grey suit, Anita Dobson played Mistress Quickly as a kindly busybody, using a light girlish voice for the most part and very occasionally dropping the pitch a couple of octaves to the deep tone she used when playing Joan Crawford in a recent tour, but without the American accent of course. It was quite effective, and added to the humour. She also had a tendency to bend down as if talking to a child, which was fine when she was talking to one of the children, but as she was usually doing it with adults it was amusingly patronising, though entirely in keeping with her character. Having said that, she was the only one who noticeably deferred to Sir John, curtsying regularly whenever she was in his presence, apart from her last visit to his room.

When Dr Caius turned up he was almost unintelligible, which is fine in one way as he’s meant to have a poor grasp of English, but I wasn’t even able to tell when he was speaking English or French, it was such a jumble. He did settle down in the later scenes, and his “by Gar” was clearly “bugger”. For now, he was in a rage when he discovered Peter Simple in his closet, dragging him out and throwing him on the floor. Jack Rugby brought the rapier, and despite Simple trying to slip away, he ended up on the floor again and about to be skewered when Dr Caius finally allowed him to explain his presence. Dr Caius left the room to write his letter, and after his massive tantrum it was fun to hear Mistress Quickly comment “I am glad he is so quiet”.

Dr Caius sent Simple off with the challenge for the parson, and Mistress Quickly smoothed the doctor’s ruffled feathers with assurances that Anne Page would be his. Fenton arrived after the doctor left, and was also reassured that Anne loved him. I caught the reference to the wart this time – never noticed it before – and it seemed an amusingly absurd item for Anne to be talking about with Mistress Quickly; from Fenton’s expression he was puzzled about it as well.

The rugby pitch was the next location, and after Anne and William had brought on the chair and coolbox, Mistress Page arrived in her welly boots. I don’t remember if she sent them off or they just left, but once she was on her own she took out the letter she’d received and read it out loud. Despite her initial scorn at receiving a love letter at her age, she was quite affected to find herself complimented so much, even making allowances for the tactless remark about her age given that the writer was equally blunt about his. Even though she wouldn’t have acted on the offer of a liaison, she was clearly enjoying the flattery until she turned the page over and read the last couple of lines followed by the signature. That changed everything. She was amazed and appalled in equal measure. Mistress Ford turned up a few moments later, and the two women were soon comparing the letters and planning revenge.

When their husbands arrived, Page tried for some time to open the coolbox to get a beer but it refused to budge. His wife walked over, lifted the lid and handed him a bottle – how we laughed. The chat between the two men was very clear, and although I noticed a strong physical similarity between Ford and Page in this scene – they were of a height, both bald and with a similar build – I was aware of who was who. I don’t know if this casting was deliberate or just a chance occurrence.

When Brook (Ford) turned up in Falstaff’s room, he was wearing a wig, quite a reasonable one for once, but it had a life of its own as we shall see and in any case stage wigs are funny, especially in farce. He also carried an attaché case filled with banknotes, and although Falstaff had it in his hands a couple of times, he didn’t get the full contents at this visit. Mind you, he did have several bundles of notes in his hands by the end of the scene, though I suspected they wouldn’t stay there long. When Brook was telling Falstaff of his suffering at being denied by Mistress Ford, he sat beside Falstaff on the bed and sank his face into his hands. Bent over like that, his wig flopped forward, and we laughed at the expressions on Falstaff’s face as he gave it his attention. He presumably decided that another man’s vanity was no business of his, so Ford’s disguise still worked while we had some fun. Ford wasn’t so over-the-top with his jealousy this time, which was less funny than we’ve seen before but did fit well with this production.

The failed duel came next, and the difference between the two ‘combatants’ was very evident. The doctor arrived on the bare stage in his fencing gear and fully equipped with his rapier, and began to do various exercises to warm himself up while Jack Rugby drove off in the car – an old Morris Minor I think. When the parson entered on his bike, he was normally dressed and his sword was on the back of the bike. I didn’t follow all the dialogue for this bit, but their reaction to the trick played on them by the host of the Garter was clear, and at least it had the effect of resolving their dispute, whatever it was. The car was good fun, too – not quite up to the Ferrari standard, but still enjoyable.

Falstaff’s first visit to Mistress Ford involved the setting up of the buck basket, a huge wicker basket with two handles. Some laundry was already in there, and the basket was placed just off stage on the left walkway. Mistress Page put the vase with a single flower on it at first, but soon realised it looked strange there so put it back on the side table where it didn’t stay long, falling off at the first opportunity – ripe for cutting?

With the room set up, Meg left Alice to her assignation, and Falstaff was soon at the door. To add to the occasion, he’d brought her some Roses – not the flowers, but a small box of chocolates of that name. He put them down on the sofa and got on with his wooing, which was deliciously absurd. Soon Meg was knocking at the door, interrupting their bliss with a warning that Ford himself was on his way to catch her red-handed. With such spartan furnishings, there was nowhere for Falstaff (or anyone else for that matter) to hide, so he was sent up the stairs – torment itself for such a man – and hid behind the curtain which Alice lowered by means of a remote control. Meg had to redo her entrance three or four times because the curtain descended so slowly it took an age to cover Falstaff, another enjoyable bit of business.

With Falstaff out of sight, Meg and Alice sat on the sofa and enjoyed a chocolate or two while they went through their dialogue about Ford’s sudden return. When the buck basket was suggested, Falstaff was downstairs surprisingly quickly and into the basket without quibbling – the women had moved it into the centre of the stage at this point. The two servants were about to take it away when Ford arrived with the others, demanding that the doors be locked and the house searched. As they stood around the basket, Falstaff farted loudly, we all laughed, and after a long pause Alice said “Meg”, and gave a disappointed look at her friend. Meg wasn’t too happy with this attribution, but gallantly took one for the team, which was even funnier.

The servants almost didn’t make it out of the door with the basket, it was so heavy, but once they got it sliding it moved quite quickly and they were gone. With the domestic trivia out of the way, Ford went berserk, chasing round the house, searching every room – sounds off indicated the violent nature of the search – while the wives waited below for his eventual defeat and planned the next phase of their revenge on Falstaff.

The next scene showed us the competing claims of Fenton and Slender for the hand of Anne Page, together with the competition between her mother and father to choose her husband. Very few people seemed to be interested in what Anne herself wanted, and I could see her choice of Fenton as possibly being more to do with teenage rebellion than actual love.

Back at the Garter, Falstaff arrived, wet, dirty and unhappy. Mistress Quickly soon had him interested in another tryst with Mistress Ford, and when Brooke heard the details of Falstaff’s first escape he was naturally furious. The next scene involved a number of the young boys playing around the stage, clearly not in school although they were in uniform. Mistress Page called her son over and asked the parson to test him on his lessons, and the other boys stood in a group near the front of the stage while William came out with his answers, and by their rections we could see how funny it all was. Some of the answers were funny in themselves, some of the humour lay in Mistress Quickly’s misunderstanding of the Latin words, and some was down to the parson’s Welsh pronunciation – “focative” was especially funny and had the boys in fits of laughter. As a demonstration of schoolboy humour this staging worked very well, and made much more sense of the wordplay in the scene.

The second visit to Mistress Ford was even funnier than the first. With the basic set in place, Alice threw some cushions on the floor at the front of the stage, and used the remote control to lower the lights and play some mood music. She was wearing a diaphanous white top and animal print leggings and slinked seductively round the stage, dancing to the music. Falstaff was enchanted, and even joined in the dance a little, but his main aim was to get her into a clinch as fast as he could, while she did her best to fend him off till Meg got there.

When Meg did arrive, Falstaff threw himself onto the carpet and rolled himself up in it, a totally ineffective hiding place. After the women had hit on the idea of using a disguise to get Falstaff out of the house, he was sent upstairs with Meg to get ready, and while servants brought the buck basket out again, Alice went to get some extra items from the kitchen. She returned with two melons, held close to her chest, which drew the attention of the servants (and the audience as well). She told the servants off when she realised what they were grinning at, and dashed upstairs to help with the disguise. This left the men to carry the surprisingly light buck basket towards the door just as Ford and the others came in. As usual, the dirty linen went everywhere, the buck basket was toppled over and Ford even crawled inside to check for hidden compartments before acknowledging the knight wasn’t there.

In the commotion, various items had been thrown around and broken, and when Mistress Ford came down I saw her pick up the bottom end of a snooker cue and hold it behind her back. After she called to Mistress Page to come down with “the old woman”, and her husband had flown into a rage that the old woman of Brent was in his house, she held out the stick for her husband to take on his way up the stairs, even as she was saying “Good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman”. But he did, and mercilessly too, chasing her out of the house before locking the doors and conducting yet another fruitless search.

The women decided this time to tell their husbands the whole story, but before we saw the result of that there was the trick to be played on the host of the Garter; I’ve described the staging of that earlier on. Once done, the lighting rose again on the rest of the stage and the husbands and their wives, together with the other characters, planned their revenge on Falstaff.

At the Garter, Falstaff reappeared in his own likeness, gave some entertaining answers to Simple and then the host learned how he had been tricked and his horses stolen. Mistress Quickly lured Sir John away to his room to excuse his beating and set up the final assignation, and during his absence Fenton explained to the host (and us) the plans for the marriage of Anne Page to three different men. There only remained the brief visit by Master Brooke to whet Falstaff’s appetite, some short scenes where Anne’s suitors were informed of their signals and then we were off to the forest, to Herne’s oak, for the final scene of the play.

The set change took a little while, but gave us another beautiful setting for the action. The children came on in their fairy disguises with the parson and hid in the pit before Falstaff entered, done up as a stag with antlers on his head. He looked ridiculous, of course. The women arrived shortly afterwards, and they were also done up in deer disguises; Mistress Ford as a sexy doe with a white scut and short horns, and Mistress Page like the front end of a pantomime deer with the back end sticking out behind – very unglamorous. They were soon startled by a noise and ran off, while Falstaff hid behind the trunk. The sprites and goblins came out of the pit and stood listening to the fairy queen’s instructions. The fairy queen was Mistress Quickly, and she was done up like Elizabeth II in the white full length gown with blue sash, another topical reference to the recent Jubilee celebrations.

Once Sir John was spotted, the fairies gave him a hard time, and I didn’t really notice the disappearance of the three Anne Pages. The revelation of the trick left Falstaff down but not out, and the announcements of the weddings were good fun, with Page and his wife finally coming round to accepting their new son-in-law. With the closing lines, Ford grabbed his wife and ran off with her, obviously planning to carry out the lying with Ford’s wife sooner rather than later. The others left as well, apart from Falstaff, who sat in the pit with the leaves falling on him as the lights went down, a fitting end.

Given the difficulties they’ve had this was a very good start to the run, and we’re looking forward to seeing it again. Once they can get the dialogue across better it should be a very entertaining experience.

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

This House – October 2012

7/10

By James Graham

Directed by Jeremy Herrin

Venue: Cottesloe Theatre

Date: Thursday 18th October 2012

I enjoyed this play a lot. I would have enjoyed it more if the seat layout hadn’t involved a lot of twisting to see the action, leaving me with a sore neck – the transfer to the Olivier next year should make things easier. The action spanned the troubled years of the 1970s between Heath and Thatcher’s governments, when Labour whips had to use every trick in the book and invent a few new ones to hang on to power. I felt I knew too much and too little simultaneously – too much to be surprised by the events and too little to follow some of the fast-flowing short scenes. The use of the MPs’ constituency names instead of their personal names was another drawback, although I was pleased to find I remembered more of these than I expected.

The set was basically the House of Commons debating chamber. There were two long rows of green seats on either side of a central space, with cross benches at the main entrance and the speaker’s chair at the far end. Down the centre were situated the two whips’ offices with the Government one nearer the Speaker. A corridor ran across the middle of the stage, and the narrow gaps between the offices and the front benches were also used as corridors. There were balconies on two levels which gave some extra acting points, and at the far end there was a large image of the clock face of Big Ben with a spiral staircase leading down in the far right corner. The Speaker’s chair could be rotated to give a pub dartboard and other locations, and they used the whole space very creatively for all sorts of other locations although the majority of the action took place in the Palace of Westminster. The band was located by Big Ben, on the left of the balcony.

The political events are a matter of record, so I won’t repeat them here. The play started with a musical number, and involved a lot of MPs and the Speaker doing a processional dance along the stage until the Speaker arrived at his chair and sat down. The Speaker mainly stayed in his chair, announcing each MP (by constituency) as they joined the action and providing the knocking sound when MPs were knocking on doors. The actor had to disappear occasionally to play another part, but the Speaker’s presence was a strong one in both halves.

The two sets of whips were introduced to us, and each team had a newcomer which is always useful for introductions and explanations. We were already aware of the whips’ role in government at that time so it wasn’t difficult to follow, but I found I was losing some of the dialogue, especially when the action was down the other end, which didn’t help. The relationship between the two groups deteriorated as things became more and more difficult for the Labour government, and some ‘cheating’ by the Labour whips to win one particular vote brought about total war. No more pairing meant that all MPs had to be physically present (and preferably alive) in the Palace for their vote to count, and with a slender or no majority the Labour whips had to work flat out to keep their government’s head above water. Losing John Stonehouse to an apparent drowning didn’t help, and they staged that very nicely.

With the others off stage, Stonehouse stood at one end of the central strip and took his shirt and trousers off; he was wearing red underpants, a party man to the last. From the other end a group of actors brought on a white sheet to represent the water, and as the music played Storehouse walked forward onto it, finding the hole in the centre. As the sheet was lifted up, he waded, then swam, and then the tempo became more urgent and he was being thrown around, stepping up onto the chairs as he was gradually swept along and disappearing under the waves as he left the stage. This was nicely done, and with several other deaths taking place during the play, they set up a convention of the dead walking out of that same door while a light shone through it and some mist curled round the sides.

Of course, nobody ever dies in the Palace, so the tradition is to get the body off site pdq and declare the death as having happened elsewhere. One death actually did happen elsewhere. Having caused the original problem which lost them access to pairing, Walter Harrison had to face a tough dilemma during the run-up to the final vote of no confidence in the Labour Government. One old MP whose health was really bad would come and vote for them, but he probably wouldn’t make it out of the Palace alive. His wife wanted him left in peace, while the MP himself wanted to do his duty. The government was down one vote – what to do? In the end, the whips chose to leave him alone, the government lost by one vote, and Maggie Thatcher was returned to power with a large majority.

Along the way there was a lot of manoeuvring, manipulation and negotiation, some of which was very entertaining. I liked David’s Steel’s comment about why Labour and the Conservatives lose elections, and I suspect I would have liked more of the Irish contingent’s comments if I could have understood them – the accents were a bit variable and hard to follow. Despite the setting there were some strong female characters in the mix, and I liked the way the only female Labour whip swore at an intrusion by a Tory whip late in the play. The language was strong at times, but entirely appropriate in my view, and didn’t give either of us any problems.

I did find the overall structure with a lot of very short scenes made it hard to get any momentum going, and I also didn’t care much about any of the characters. Phil Daniels was good as Bob Mellish, the original Chief whip who had to resign after backing the wrong man in the Labour leadership election which Callaghan won. As he’d been given some numbers by Walter Harrison on which he’d based his choice, it was clear that Walter was staging a coup of his own, and his subsequent frustration at not getting the promotion he was after was richly deserved. Phil Daniels came back to sing a song in the second half up on the balcony, shortly after the beginning as I remember.

The second half began with the election of a new Speaker. The previous one stood by the door, surveying the crowd, and then there was a pretend chase with the new incumbent being dragged to the chair and given his gown and wig, after which it was handshakes all round and this new Speaker took charge. I’m not sure now which of the Speakers had the rant about Heseltine’s mace-waving, but it was good fun. Apparently the mace had been replaced the wrong way round and so Parliament couldn’t sit until it was replaced properly, a job reserved for one particular official. Talk about demarcation disputes!

I very much liked Redditch’s ranting complaint about his constituency; his comment “it’s Birmingham” was very funny – no offence to Redditch. Another excellent scene involved Coventry SW being penalised for some offence which I don’t remember. She came down to the whips’ office, apparently to write a letter of apology, but instead took her time to count out the exact amount of the fine, snapped her handbag shut and left the room. The whips were silent until Walter’s approving comment got things moving again.

The performances were all excellent, and with most of the actors having to swap character rapidly there were a lot of props sitting back stage to help with the quick changes. Phil Daniels (Bob Mellish) and Philip Glenister (Walter Harrison) gave two strong central performances, matched by Vincent Franklin as Michael Cocks, who took over as chief whip once Bob Mellish left. For the Tory side, Julian Wadham and Charles Edwards were suitably patrician as Humphrey Atkins and Jack Weatherill, with plenty of other posh types swanning in and out of their office during the play. I was surprised to see Norman Tebbit as a dandy, camping his way around the Commons, but it was entertaining, and may have been a reasonable portrayal for all I know.

The image of the clock face was important during the play. Michael Cocks liked to visit the clock when Parliament rose, and there were a few scenes where he did this, giving us some extra background information in the process. The first half ended with such a visit, and it was the moment when the mechanism broke, with the ominous silence sounding louder than the chimes. The play’s final image was of Cocks standing on the balcony looking at the clock as the lights went out.

There was obviously a lot more to the play than these few snippets I’ve noted down here, but this gives a flavour of the performance. I would be interested to see it when it transfers to the bigger space to see how they re-stage it, and it was enjoyable enough to warrant a second trip – we’ll see if we can fit it in.

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Dry Rot – October 2012

6/10

By John Chapman

Directed by Keith Myers

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Wednesday 17th October 2012

This is an old Whitehall farce involving a small country house hotel and a race-fixing plan. Despite the best efforts of the cast and a willing audience, we felt this touring production didn’t quite sparkle – not so much a decent handicapper, more of a selling plater. Steve thought a few of the cast weren’t quite right for the parts they played and the timing needed to be slicker, but there was still a lot of laughter from the half-full auditorium and there’s always the question in my mind of how well this sort of humour lasts; I’d have to see a top-notch production to be sure.

The set showed the reception area of the hotel, with French windows to the left, the main entrance beside them, dog leg stairs to the upper level beside the door with wooden panelling underneath, and a door and bar area to the right of the stage with the kitchen door in front of that. A radio stood on a table beside the French windows, there was a couch along from that and a table with two chairs stood in front of the bar area. There was also a bell positioned front right beside the kitchen door which refused to work as a bell but when kicked it opened a secret door in the panelling under the stairs, a fact discovered by the gang involved in race fixing but unknown to the owners of the hotel.

The owners were Colonel Wagstaff and his wife, and their daughter was also living with them. They had bought the hotel as a retirement home which would give Mrs Wagstaff something to do, but after six months they still hadn’t entertained any guests. They did have the ‘help’ of Beth, the retarded maid who spoke in a ‘comical’ West Country accent, slouched and broke a lot of things. The plot was under starters’ orders as soon as Beth produced a letter which she’d forgotten to hand over the day before and it turned out to be their first booking. The Wagstaffs assumed that ‘next Tuesday’ meant next week, but when you know farces….. The unexpected knock on the front door came soon after, and they’re off!

The plot is too convoluted to note up in detail, but involved substituting a doped ringer for the French favourite, The Cardinal. When that plan dropped out of contention, the fortunate coincidence which brought The Cardinal’s jockey to the same hotel suggested another option to the gang. There was a hidden passage to add to the fun, and with lots of night-time prowling going on the police were called in. As a result there was a strange police woman on the premises for much of the second half, as well as the diminutive French jockey. The Wagstaff’s daughter Susan was attracted to the young secretary, John Danby, who had been employed by Mr Tubbs, the gang leader, as camouflage, and so we had a little romance going on as well. Frankly, all it needed was a vicar running through the room at some point and we’ve have had a clean sweep.

I thought the cast looked uncomfortable during the curtain calls, though we were appreciative enough. Neil Stacy and Liza Goddard are always dependable and they did well enough in their roles as the Wagstaffs; their conversation about the non-existence of a piano was one of the highlights of the evening for me. Steve Blakeley as Fred, the hapless dogsbody of Mr Tubbs, did the comic business very well, and I liked the Gallic gesturing of Michael Keane as the jockey who spoke not a word of English. The two ingénues were played by newcomers Evelyn Adams and Mark Martin and were OK, and the rest of the cast did their best without distinguishing themselves. I did find the radio commentary of the race was very hard to hear, even when the radio was working, and overall the performance was enjoyable without being memorable.

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Private Lives – October 2012

10/10

By Noel Coward

Directed by Jonathan Kent

Venue: Minerva Theatre

Date: Wednesday 10th October 2012

Another excellent performance from all the cast, with even more detail and even more laughs. No changes to report on the set or staging, although I forgot to mention last time about the Rites Of Spring dance which Amanda did specifically to annoy Elyot during Act 2. She did the modernistic choreography very well, and we learned in the post-show that Amanda’s flat was in the same street where Diaghilev’s company performed, so the choice of music and dance was both deliberate and effective.

Anna-Louise Plowman was much more kittenish tonight as Sybil, while Anthony Calf gave Victor a wider range of emotions. Toby Stephens was clearer tonight, and delivered some great lines with impeccable timing, and his scenes with Anna Chancellor showed a greater intimacy between the two main characters. The fight was still good fun too. The whole evening was just about as good as you can get with this play.

From the post-show we learned that they had deliberately avoided doing Noel Coward impersonations, which led to the dialogue sounding very modern and fresh. The director had insisted on running acts one and two together, which meant the technical crew had to work very hard to change the set in less than one minute! The cast had all contributed to the creation of each character, and had done a lot of work on the back stories too, including how they would have got to Deauville, how the cars would have been lifted off the ferry, etc. They weren’t expected to know their lines in advance – Jonathan Kent is apparently very good at creating a relaxed rehearsal room – but Anna Chancellor found that when the scene was right, the memorising would happen, not before. There were no understudies for this run – they just had to go on, which led to some stories from other productions where substitute actors had to read a part. Apparently Jonathan Kent had to go on for a missing actor during The Tempest at the Almeida, reading from the script. (You might think that would have taught him to cast understudies in the future, but obviously not.) The cast seemed to be having a good time with this production, and from the numbers staying behind tonight they were clearly doing a good job.

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Twelfth Night – September 2012

7/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by David Farr

Venue: RST

Date: Wednesday 26th September 2012

We’ve seen this twice before and liked it both times. Our view tonight was even better – we were in the circle – but I felt more distanced from the stage and the action as we were further away than I expected. Still, apart from the revolving door we could see every part of the set, and there was plenty of audience response to help things along.

No changes to report on the staging. There was one thing missing though: Malvolio’s cart must have malfunctioned tonight as although we heard the beeping sound, which caused Viola to look round and pause, Malvolio walked on stage to deliver the ring to Cesario. The recalcitrant vehicle still turned up in Malvolio’s darkened room, but it couldn’t get a laugh as most people didn’t know the significance. I also noticed Feste’s use of electrodes on Malvolio this time – couldn’t remember if this was new or not, but it certainly tied up well with Dr Pinch’s treatment policy in Comedy.

Malvolio’s exhibition of himself in his cross-gartered yellow stockings was just as daring as before and the audience loved it, especially the cheeky way he went up the stairs at the end. We thought the shipwrecked twins were more careful when they left the water not to make too big a splash, but Sir Andrew couldn’t help it – he fell, he splashed. Sargon Yelda, last night’s limping Angelo, appeared briefly tonight as Valentine to deliver the bad news about Olivia in the opening scene, but I didn’t see him again so hopefully he was resting that leg. The youngsters near us were very vocal in their appreciation of the snogging aspects of the production (in a good way) and from what little I heard of their chat during the interval they seemed to be enjoying the performance a lot; this cast are certainly doing a good job of entertaining people.

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Comedy Of Errors – September 2012

7/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Amir Nizar Zuabi

Venue: RST

Date: Tuesday 25th September 2012

The performances tonight seemed as good as last time, and the crowd were certainly having a good time. I noticed one or two moments which I hadn’t remembered to note down or hadn’t seen before and overall we still enjoyed ourselves, but as this was the fourth performance we’d seen it didn’t surprise us and some of the non-textual humour was wearing a bit thin, hence the lower experience rating.

          Being close to the front this time meant I could check out the pool of water in the corner, and I saw that a shopping trolley had been submerged in it; I assume this was an extra protection for A/E to stop him rolling into the water. Angelo was limping tonight, and we learned that he had damaged his calf and was in a lot of pain, poor lamb. I spotted the fish which Luciana spat out after her first head dunking this time. Earlier, when D/E reported that his master wouldn’t come home to dinner, “send some other messenger”, he indicated Luciana – she backed off, alarmed, and gestured ‘no way’ with her hands. The two Dromios didn’t look through the letterbox at each other tonight during the dinner scene, and I think their positions were reversed for the final part of the play tonight, with D/S on the left and D/E on the right. Maybe it was deliberate, maybe not. The audience responded well to them holding hands, then the hug, then the door slamming shut, so again it was a very good ending which I saw through the sniffles.

          It was interesting to see this production so often through its run. The first time we saw it was during its previews in March when we rated it at 5/10, recognising its potential but not really liking the heavy emphasis on violence. The cast were clearly struggling a bit at that time to handle the demands of the set along with the demands of the play itself, but we knew that they would improve with practice.

The second time we saw the production was in July, and we gave it 7/10. Some of the business had changed, the current ending was in place, and the cast were much more settled and giving stronger performances all round. Our view wasn’t as good that night, but the improvements made up for that.

Our third experience was in August, and earned 8/10. The performance had come on even more from July, and we had great fun with the enjoyable parts of the production. Our sight lines were good, and there was a sparkle to the evening. I didn’t feel that same sparkle tonight, though whether that was them or me I don’t know. The violent bits were still unpleasant and even boring, and I found that knowing that the young man who leapt out of the crate early on would be dead by the interval took all the fun out of the event for me. Steve reckoned the dialogue wasn’t as clear tonight, and certainly a lot of lines were obscured by the comic business. Our view was also blocked in different ways tonight, and so we missed out on some of the visual humour we’d seen before, though in the case of Nell’s marrow that was probably just as well.

From my observations tonight I would suggest that non-textual business, though it can be great fun at times, doesn’t last as well as text-based humour, be it verbal or physical, and when the comic business is allowed to dominate at the expense of the dialogue, it shows a level of disrespect for the text which may be indicative of other problems. Anyone seeing this production only once may well love the way the comedy is presented, but there doesn’t seem to be anything more to gain from repeated viewings, unlike some other productions we’ve seen a number of times. Still, I’m glad the cast have overcome the inherent difficulties imposed on them by the designer and director to produce a lively and engaging piece of work – good for them.

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Private Lives – September 2012

9/10

By Noel Coward

Directed by Jonathan Kent

Venue: Minerva Theatre

Date: Friday 21st September 2012

The very first performance, and already they’ve got the characters established. We were a good audience as well, laughing early and plentifully throughout the evening, so we got them off to a good start. With such strong casting for all the parts the two leading roles didn’t dominate as much as usual, and the overall production was the better for it. The final argument between Sybil and Victor was very strong, and made Elyot and Amanda’s sneaky exit even funnier, partly because it echoed Victor and Sybil’s entrance at the end of the second act beautifully.

The sets were also beautiful. The stage itself had been raised up for this production, with Art Deco scalloped edges at the front and stylish black herringbone floorboards running front to back. About halfway back there were a number of small lights set into the floor which glowed like the lights of the town for the first act and were covered with a carpet for the rest of the play. The balconies themselves were splendid. A large picture frame spanned the width of the stage, with the two sets of French windows underneath. The balconies were also curved outwards a little, and the ironwork of the railings was all curves. There were tall gauzy curtains behind all this, and the effect was of sumptuous luxury. The costumes were a perfect match for all of this elegance.

The interval was taken after the second act, so the scene change between acts one and two had to be brisk. Victor and Sybil remained on their respective balconies when the lights went out, and the crew immediately brought on the furniture for the flat and started setting it up. There was a chaise on the left of the stage, a scooped sofa at the front and a single chair with side table on the right further back. A carpet was rolled out in the centre. Meanwhile, the balconies which were on the revolve had rotated round to the back, revealing the rest of the flat with its Art Deco Chinoiserie style wallpaper, contemporary pictures on the walls, concealed swing door to the kitchen (identifiable by the decorative plate hanging there), dining table and chairs and a grand piano on the left hand side. The main door was in the centre, and when it opened up the balcony railings became the landing railings – a nice touch. There were also two bedroom doors, one on each side of the stage, and plenty of other matching items, with masses of cushions everywhere.

I won’t go into the story: the performances, however, are another matter. I’ve already commented on the strong casting of the supporting roles; now it’s the turn of the leads. Toby Stephens was excellent as Elyot. He’s good at upper class roles anyway, but here he conveyed all the louche arrogance of this immature but charming character extremely well. The only minor point was that I couldn’t always hear him when he spoke softly – the Minerva is deceptively small, and even softer speech has to be given a boost – but I’m confident he’ll sort that out before we see it next time. Anna Chancellor matched him perfectly with Amanda’s waywardness and elegance. They managed to make the long second act bearable and even enjoyable, which is some feat. I’ve found before that spending such a long time in the company of two people who are so immature, who can be intermittently charming but are ultimately shallow, self-absorbed and uninteresting, usually palls about half-way through this act; not so tonight. The two actors have so much class that they gave these rather two-dimensional characters a hint of 3D, a sense that they might be real after all (god help us!) with real feelings and experiences. The resulting twists and turns in their relationship, as they unfolded in the second act, became compelling viewing, from the gushy happiness of the post-dinner glow through the inevitable bickering held less and less in check by ‘Solomon Isaacs’, to the final all out blazing row with full-on violence. I did feel a little bit of tedium creep in towards the end, but compared to my usual experience this was a huge improvement, and as the punch-up started soon afterwards I didn’t have anything to complain about.

Anthony Calf as Victor and Anna-Louise Plowman as Sybil did a fine job in these often underplayed roles. Their stiffness and conventionality are just as important to the play as Amanda and Elyot’s wild and carefree existence, and these two nailed their characters to perfection. The result was a great deal more humour, especially in the third act and particularly when Victor and Sybil finally erupted into their own flaming row, no doubt the first of many. I must also mention Maggie McCarthy as the maid. She wasn’t on stage for long, and along with Victor and Sybil I didn’t understand everything she said (it’s a long time since I did French at school) but she was wonderfully grumpy about everything, and again this was strong casting for such a small part. Maggie seems to have cornered the market in maids and nurses; this year already we’ve seen her in Uncle Vanya (Minerva again), The Doctor’s Dilemma (Lyttelton) and here – she’s been a busy woman.

With such a strong cast and excellent production I’m sure this will sell out, so we’re glad we’ve already booked for another performance, the last for this year and the last before the main theatre is revamped.

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Much Ado About Nothing – September 2012

9/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Iqbal Khan

Venue: Courtyard Theatre

Date: Thursday 13th September 2012

Third time around and there was much more detail in the performances, including some more changes by the director, especially in the gulling scenes. This was part of the Supporters evening, and was followed by a lovely meal in the Ashcroft room, which was so well attended that they only had enough cast for one per table. We were honoured to have Madhav Sharma, Leonato himself, sitting next to us for the entire meal, and he was an entertaining companion with plenty of amusing and interesting stories.

For the play itself, I may not be able to get the changes noted up in order, but here goes. The bickering between Beatrice and Benedick in the first scene was a dead giveaway – they could have been married already. I heard three “Bendy Dick”s tonight – the first when Benedick left the Prince and Claudio alone, the second one I’ve forgotten, and the third just before the weddings at the end, which I’d spotted during an earlier performance. When Hero and Claudio bumped into each other, I couldn’t tell if it was deliberate on either part or just an accident.

This time I noticed that when the women came on before the party scene, singing their rowdy song and dressed up in the soldier’s clothes, Hero and Margaret were smoking and drinking. When Leonato arrived, they hastily passed their cigarette and drink to Verges, who stood there looking guilty while the ‘princess’ and her maid looked as innocent as new born babes. As with Desdemona, this father’s ‘jewel’ is quite capable of deceit when she cares to use it. Beatrice held on to her drink, presumably not a problem for her. After the prince proposed to Beatrice, she reacted with laughter and Leonato gestured to warn her that the prince had been serious and she’d hurt his feelings, hence her abrupt change of tack and the apologies for her behaviour.

The biggest change was in the first gulling scene. After Benedick sent the maidservant for his book, the speech about his ideal woman was much better this time, getting smallish laughs several times on the way through. Then after the Prince, Claudio and Leonato started their trickery, Benedick avoided the roof and instead came down to the ground level after climbing the tree; he was behind the house façade, but we could see him through the open doors. He took a blanket off Dogberry (loud sounds of arguing just before this) and wrapped it round himself, then came on stage for the final section of the gulling pretending to be a servant. He also had a broom and used it to sweep up some fallen leaves rather ineffectively. The servant girl was less distracting in this bit – she did less of a performance – but the acting she did do helped to cover Benedick’s presence and allowed the others to appear to ignore him more easily. They treated him as a servant, so he ended up cleaning Claudio’s shoes and then the prince’s, planting himself in turn on the stools in each front corner. When Don Pedro insulted Benedick, he spat on the prince’s shoe, all in order to clean it of course. This worked a lot better than the previous version.

When Beatrice came to call Benedick in to dinner, Benedick was on the swing, grinning happily and swinging so much that she broke off the line “against my will” and just looked at him, amazed. After a few moments (to give us time to finish laughing) she regained her composure and carried on. And for Beatrice’s gulling, Hero stayed in front of the window on the balcony this time for the early part of the conversation with Verges and so the dialogue was much clearer.  Otherwise it was the same.

When the watch were doing their duty outside Leonato’s house, they had removed the umbrella that got in my way the first time, and Borachio had been to the loo before he came on stage so no pissing all over the constable (thank goodness). There was still thunder, but they just pretended it was raining. This time I noticed that Don John came on to the balcony and saw the watch apprehending Borachio and Conrade. This certainly explained his flight after the wedding, though the man has some balls to risk staying that long – his men might have given him up before the ceremony.

Speaking of which, the wedding scene had a few more changes. Leonato was at ground level from the start of this scene, bustling the servants along and greeting the guests who arrived from the audience. This made the dialogue with Dogberry and Verges, still holding up the two pairs of trousers, much easier to follow. Leonato’s interpolated “no thanks” after Claudio offered Hero back was not appreciated by Madhav, who felt that it wasn’t necessary to add to the text in this way, and I agree with him. Overall though, the denouncement of Hero was just as shocking this time, and I do feel that the use of the microphone made it worse for Hero, as it was clear there were a large number of people witnessing this event.

Benedick and Beatrice were very strong in the “kill Claudio” scene, and I could see how their relationship and the challenge to Claudio are woven skilfully together, the one leading to the other and back again. Paul’s hand was better tonight, so he was able to grab Beatrice by the arms as planned.

I was aware when the watch did their interrogation tonight that the down side of having the household servants play these characters as well is that they already know what’s happened in the wedding scene, so it’s hard for them to react appropriately as the story comes out. The wedding platform was partly removed during this inquisition of the prisoners, and Borachio and Conrade were actually placed on the last section of it and wheeled off, waving to the crowd. This speeded up the scene change a lot which was helpful. This time, the look of sadness on Verges’ face as she held together the red ribbons, waiting for them to be lowered, showed us the grief, the loss of what should have been. The ribbons were also whisked off stage much sooner leaving Leonato and Antonio alone on stage for more of their dialogue in the following scene. I still found Leonato’s delivery too slow tonight, especially during this scene and the wedding scene, but overall the pace was better.

When the prince and Claudio turned up, they reacted much more strongly to Leonato’s criticisms, and from their reactions I was aware tonight that this was the first they had heard of Hero’s death – Benedick was obviously a bit slow to get the news to them. The rest of the play was as I remembered it, though with a smaller audience the atmosphere wasn’t quite as lively as last time. The side stalls were relatively empty during the first half, but they filled up a bit for the second, more than compensating for the few gaps which had appeared.

Just a couple of other points: I forgot to mention in previous notes that the Prince looked amazingly like Chuck’s friend Morgan (from the TV series Chuck) which was a momentary distraction for me. Also I noticed tonight that Don John accosted the servant girl in an unpleasant way in an early scene, and Verges protected her. The singer’s treatment of the girl later wasn’t pleasant either, given that he’d invited her to join in the dancing, but when she became over-enthusiastic he grabbed her roughly to make her stop.

This has become an amazingly good production, and the cast are clearly enjoying themselves now that the director has (hopefully!) stopped tinkering with it. I gather that the atmosphere in rehearsals wasn’t particularly comfortable; the director likes to push his actors well beyond any comfort zones, and isn’t as open to discussion as we understood from his talk earlier in the run.

The problem of Asian actors not being cast as widely as black actors now are, still rumbles on, and I’m in two minds about this sort of all-Asian production. On the one hand, it’s absolutely valid to show how Shakespeare’s plays work in all sorts of cultures; after all it’s why he’s so admired and performed all over the world. And given that, it would be awkward to people the world of the performance with non-Asian actors, as that would raise other issues such as the colonial ones which the director here has chosen to avoid. But when these productions are staged, I can’t help feeling that they blur the statistics and make it seem as if there are more employment opportunities for Asian actors than is the case. I don’t know what the answer to this conundrum is, but I look forward to seeing another Asian Hamlet or perhaps a first Asian Henry V within a mixed cast, not as a box-ticking exercise but as a valid recognition of this pool of talent.

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me