Category Archives: Drama

A Life Of Galileo – February 2013

Preview

Experience 5/10

By Bertolt Brecht, translated by Mark Ravenhill

Directed by Roxana Silbert

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Wednesday 6th February 2013

Given the standard of the other two productions in this mini-season, I was a little disappointed to find I didn’t enjoy this third production as much as I’d hoped. There were a number of reasons for this, and since they’re still only halfway to press night it would be unfair to judge the entire run on one early performance. Steve would have rated tonight’s effort slightly higher than I did (6/10) so we were in broad agreement, and we both expect this rating to improve the next time. [Sadly we missed a later performance, due to car trouble. 25/3/13]

We started the evening with a director’s talk. This can be a two-edged sword, as hearing about the production before we see it can spoil our enjoyment or even warp our expectations so much that we have to work hard to get anything at all out of the performance. We intend to see previews before the talks in future, if we can, and we’ll see how that turns out.

For tonight, Paul Allen was in conversation with Roxana Silbert, and we learned plenty about the production and even Roxana’s family background. She had wanted to do this play for many years; with a father and brother who were and are physicists, she grew up in a house where Newton, Galileo and Einstein were part of their regular table talk. Only scoring 9% in her O-level physics, she admitted to being ‘interested, but not able’ in the subject of science. Her brother wrote some program notes for this production (she freely confessed the nepotism) and they had the services of Stuart Clark (scientist and science blogger on The Guardian) to take them through the scientific aspects of the play so that the actors would have enough of an understanding for their parts.

This new translation/adaptation by Mark Ravenhill was an attempt to freshen the play up, although with the Brecht estate being very protective of his work, they had to get approval for all aspects of the production. Fortunately, Galileo is the least Brechtian of Brecht’s plays, and since it was written over a long time span and reflected changes in Brecht’s own attitudes, there are a number of versions which can be blended together for each new interpretation. This production is mercifully short (about two and a half hours) and some of the scene choices reflect the film script rather than the play. (Brecht moved from an absolutist view of rationality and science via Hiroshima to an understanding that scientific work must be tempered with humanity.)

The nature of the material meant that it was difficult to be ‘authentic’ with the costumes or setting. Brecht used Galileo to tell the story of not just Renaissance science but some later discoveries as well, e.g. gravity, so some flexibility was needed in the choice of costumes. When Galileo is demonstrating his telescope to the Venetian senators, for example, the contrast between Galileo’s advanced understanding of the universe and the outdated attitudes of the establishment figures is apparently underscored by having Galileo in modern dress and the others in ruffs etc.

Having an established ensemble to work with had both good and bad points. On the one hand, the actors are working very hard, having got two other productions up and running, plus the understudy work which we hardly ever see, so they’re pretty tired when they arrive for rehearsals with her. On the other hand, they’re already working well together and they’re more prepared to take risks. They’re also familiar with the performance space, so when she asked them to try something out, they would do it immediately, almost before she’d finished explaining it to them. Overall, she reckoned their ensemble experience took three weeks of initial learning off the rehearsal process.

Ian McDiarmid wasn’t cast because of his role in the Star Wars movies; Roxana had worked with him in a Howard Barker play before he was ‘famous’ (for the films). Ian had also played Galileo in another production of this play when he was in his twenties, and one aspect of that production was the use of a puppet to play the young Andrea in the opening scene. Roxana chose to use the same actor throughout as Andrea, rather than cast a young boy and a grown man separately, so that the audience would be able to engage more easily with the father figure/son relationship better. She also felt that this technique emphasised the importance of children in the play, through giving the audience that stronger connection.

Brecht’s theory of theatre inevitably got a mention, as did his tendency to confuse the issue by apparently ignoring his own precepts at every opportunity. Roxana has clearly studied Brecht’s writings on the subject, including one book which showed that his directing style wasn’t that different from any other director. Shortly after this discussion, the fire alarm went off and we all trooped out of the theatre. We were nearly at the end of the talk anyway, so with a short burst of applause in the gardens, we were free to find somewhere warm to huddle until the theatre opened up again, which happened pretty quickly.

The set was interesting. As Roxana mentioned during the pre-show chat, there was graph paper hanging down at the back in three broad strips, with the central one forward of the other two to provide a couple of entrances at the back. We also noticed some obvious markings on the stage – various rectangles of red tape – which fitted in with Brecht’s preference to show the innards of the theatrical machine at work. Someone had asked a question about the red ladders; these were step ladders on wheels of various sizes which were wheeled on and off as needed and which were usually positioned on one of the red rectangles. Not so obvious till the show started were the screens back and sides which showed the location and date of each scene, while other screens, hung vertically, also had information scrolling up or down them which was very hard to read. Some other furniture was used from time to time, all modern including plastic chairs, and as it turned out virtually all the costumes were modern with the occasional ruff or frill here and there. The religious uniforms, especially for the Pope, were timeless, so there was very little sense of a clash of time periods at all, sadly. In fact, with the modern setting I found Galileo’s opening speech made me think how outdated he was, as we now know so much more than they did in his time. I accept that he is one of giants on whose shoulders others stood, but as Galileo’s character himself points out, there is no book which can only be written by one person.

This was only a minor point though; my main concern was that I just couldn’t engage with any of these characters as people. Despite Roxana’s belief that Galileo was a fully rounded person, that didn’t come across in this performance for me, and I simply didn’t care about any of the other characters. The scenes were so bitty, and there seemed to be so much activity at the expense of storytelling that I was feeling bored and looking at my watch long before the first hour was up.

Part of the problem was the wonderful experience I had at the National’s production back in October 2006, with Simon Russell Beale playing Galileo. I do my best not to let past productions influence my experience of each new staging, and in this case I was surprised how much the earlier performance had imprinted itself on me. Those scenes were so much richer, the characters so much clearer, the arguments against the new science were put forward by people who absolutely believed what they were saying, and I felt deeply for so many of the characters. There was none of that tonight; the thrust of the play seemed to be almost entirely didactic, despite Mark Ravenhill cutting a lot of that stuff out.

I’ve often found, though, that when a reworking of a foreign play is significantly different from those I’ve seen before, I need a test drive to recalibrate my perceptions so that I can appreciate the newer version properly. I’m hoping that will be the case here, as we’ve another performance already booked later in the run. And they may well have tweaked things by then or simply bedded the production down so that it works better. We shall see.

I did find some of the later scenes more enjoyable, especially the last scene when Galileo gave Andrea a copy of his final scientific work to smuggle out of Italy and publish. I felt there was little tension in the scene where Galileo’s family and friends were waiting for the result of his meeting with the Inquisitor; apart from Virginia’s constant (and loud) reciting of prayers, nothing much seemed to be happening, and I was surprised when the others suddenly celebrated what they thought was Galileo’s resistance – that section probably went on too long.

I also noticed that there were very few laughs during the evening. Not that I expect this sort of play to be a light comedy, but even The Orphan and Boris, dark though much of those plays are, had plenty of lighter moments to keep us going to the end. It may have been the audience holding things back, of course; I spotted what looked like a school party on the far side (we sat on the left side of the stalls, front row) who seemed bored at times, and there were frequent outbursts of coughing throughout the performance which didn’t help.

Another difficulty was that, despite the use of microphones by various cast members to give us more information between scenes, I couldn’t make out a lot of what they said. The song which opened the second half was typical; I didn’t understand the verses, and I only just got the chorus of ‘Who doesn’t want to be his own master’ before the words were pinned up at the back. I suspect the clarity will improve with practice, and maybe the humour will improve as well.

One final point to make is that the performance seemed to be directed too much to the front, and from our side view we may have missed things which could have helped us engage more with the production. I’m not too downhearted though; this is an excellent ensemble, and with time I’m confident this production will be well worth seeing again, even if it’s not my favourite type of play.

© 2013 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

People – February 2013

Experience: 7/10

By Alan Bennett

Directed by Nicholas Hytner

Venue: Lyttelton Theatre

Date: Saturday 2nd February 2013

A very enjoyable new play by Alan Bennett, poking fun at various establishment targets such as the National Trust, the Church of England (de rigeur these days), eccentric aristocrats and modern technology. The porn industry even took a few hits, but mostly this was a slightly nostalgic look at modern times from the perspective of those who were young adults in the 60s, ripping through some of our modern illusions and preoccupations and giving us plenty of laughs along the way.

The set was fairly elaborate. All the action took place in a large drawing room which at the start looked very dilapidated. A swathe of grey plastic sheeting covered the large central rose in the ceiling, the enormous picture on the back wall was likewise draped with plastic sheeting, and there were dust sheets over a lot of the furniture. I spotted two obvious gaps on the walls where pictures used to hang, and there were various items of furniture and bric-a-brac dotted here and there. I assume the tin bath was a ‘leakage solution’. Two armchairs were positioned near the front of the stage facing a small electric heater, and there were lights, tables, etc. around them. On the far right stood a bureau.

The film crew for the porn shoot didn’t change much of this, but they did bring on a four-poster bed along with all their equipment, having moved the central chairs over to one side. They took their equipment with them when they left, and not long afterwards the restoration work transformed the room to a magnificent version of itself. The sheeting covering the central part of the ceiling was removed (downwards, I think) and a properly restored rose replaced it. The tatty bits of decoration were either removed or covered up, as with the pictures placed over the obvious gaps on the right wall. The ensemble worked their way round the room from left to right, making various scrubbing and polishing actions to indicate the work that was going on, and once they’d finished the room looked splendid, if a lot more formal. One thing puzzled me. The large canvas on the back wall had been removed at the start of this process; all well and good, presumably off for restoration. During and following the changeover there was some dialogue going on, and the area behind that wall suddenly transformed into another room, or so it looked to me at first. Then I thought it might have been a large mirror, and we were seeing a reflection of the room, but the image didn’t quite tie up. Finally the picture was dropped back into position, and I’m still none the wiser as to what was going on with that ‘other room’. [Just checked the play text – the author suggests that during the transformation there may be “a vision of the Adam saloon at the rear of the stage”. But why?]

Apart from that minor point, the story was pretty straightforward. Dorothy Stacpoole (Frances de la Tour) was the elder of two sisters, and living in the family mansion which was now crumbling to bits, located somewhere in the North of England. Her companion Iris (Linda Bassett) was the only other resident, and they spent most of their time huddled in a small part of the large room, trying to keep warm. Dorothy’s sister June (Selina Cadell) was in the Church of England in a middle management position (I have no memory for the ranks of that organisation) and but for the recent vote against giving women too much power, would no doubt have her sights set on the top-job-but-one.

June’s intention was that the house be given to the National Trust, but Dorothy, who actually owned the place, wanted to check out other options. When Bevan, a valuer from one of the big auction houses, suggested selling to a private consortium of the very wealthy who would pay handsomely to keep the house for their exclusive use, she found the idea tempting, but in the meantime there were bills to pay. A ‘quickie’ with the makers of a porn film at least provided hot water and hot meals, as well as a trip down memory lane for Dorothy. The producer/director was someone from her past, when she was a top fashion model, and the chance to wear her 60s haute couture again was irresistible.

At last the decision had to be made, and the Trust won the day. The final scene showed us the visitors wandering around the room while a screen (facing us so we could see the film) showed Dorothy in her bag lady clothes talking about the room and its history. The visitors gradually left and Dorothy had a final encounter with Louise, the makeup lady from the porn film, giving her a farewell gift. As she left the now empty room, Dorothy triggered the recorded announcement “The House is now closed”, and that was that.

The cast were all good, but again we had a triumvirate (or should that be trifeminate?) of excellent performances at the centre of the piece. Frances de la Tour, Linda Bassett and Selina Cadell were magnificent, and although there were good supporting performances, particularly by Peter Egan and Miles Jupp, the women carried the day. It underlines the complaints about the lack of roles for women over thirty, when we have so many talented female actors who can dominate the stage at that age and beyond.

While I enjoyed this play well enough and there were plenty of laughs to be had, I did feel it was a bit thin at times. The targets were easy, even lazy ones, and the slick bon mots occasionally felt recycled. The short opening scene, which set up the idea of the porn film, was entertaining but didn’t flow into the following scene, and this got the play off to an uneven start. I did like the scenes with Bevan though, especially his suggestion that the house might be moved somewhere warmer and more accessible, like Dorset. And I liked the way June changed her attitude towards him once she realised he was involved in the purchase of Winchester Cathedral. They occasionally sang hits from the 60s, such as Downtown, which gave us a very strong sense of time and meant we left the theatre singing to ourselves. Good fun.

© 2013 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Winter’s Tale – January 2013

Experience: 9/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Lucy Bailey

Venue: RST

Date: Tuesday 29th January 2013

So far, the productions we’ve seen this year have been almost universally excellent, and tonight this continued with a stunning interpretation of The Winter’s Tale. We weren’t at all keen on Lucy Bailey’s Julius Caesar a few years back, her Taming last year had some good points and some less good aspects, but this production is sheer brilliance throughout. Bearing in mind this was the fifth preview (press night is tomorrow) and the actors always improve with practice, this looks set to be one of the RSC’s hit shows – good job we’ve already booked a second helping.

Our seats tonight were on the middle aisle of the centre front stalls, close enough to piss on from the stage (which one of the dancers did during the traditional sheep-shearing clog dance – I hope it was just water). There were a few aspects of the staging which may not have been visible to everyone, but on the whole the production seemed to be pretty egalitarian – I’d be interested to hear other people’s experiences on that one.

I’ll go through the set changes first before  describing the action, as I’ve found it a bit complicated to merge the two. The time period was early Victorian, and the opening set looked more like Illyria than Sicilia. The deep blue Mediterranean sparkled brightly in the distance on the back wall (or screen). Rocky outcrops jutted out (up) from the shore, and from the suggestion of a balcony terrace in the left-hand corner, the stage was clearly an open-air space, with a circular raised dais five steps up from the rest of the stage. A bench with a carved back curved round the rear of the dais. Brightly coloured rugs covered the front of the stage, and piles of cushions, a crown, a book, a bowl of fruit, etc. were placed strategically around. A hookah was brought on for the opening scene, when the Sicilian court lay around the stage in a state of stupor during Camillo and Archidamus’s initial exchange.

After the opening scenes, the rugs, cushions and other paraphernalia were carried off and the whole atmosphere changed. The stage was relatively bare, while the video image at the back showed a close-up of some waves rippling at the water’s edge, in sombre colours. Leontes and his men wore black and white, and although the queen and her women were still in bright colours initially, the mood had darkened. The trial scene was (deliberately) reminiscent of Anne Boleyn’s trial and execution, and by now the colour had completely gone. Only Mamillius’s knight’s tabard gave a soft glow of heraldic red and blue to point up Leontes’ loss even more, when the nursemaid brought it on with the news of his son’s death.

After Leontes’ resolution to mourn his lost wife and children, he prostrated himself on the dais, which gradually rose up and became the top of a tower. He was still in a spotlight – I didn’t notice when it went out but it had done so by the interval – while the picture behind the tower changed to a storm-tossed sea with a sailing ship visible on the right hand side. The bear was CGI’d into the storm scene, which looked most peculiar as it was standing in the middle of the waves, and rushed across the screen to chase the old man off the stage. The young shepherd came on along the right hand walkway and stood watching all of this, then after he left the screen changed to show the sailors drowning in the ocean. When the two shepherds met up to discuss their day, the stormy sea was back on the screen, but noticeably without the ship.

For the interval a sheet was lowered in front of the tower – we’d seen it earlier during the director’s talk – and to continue Lucy’s liking for bedsheets this one looked like part of a mattress cover, with holes where the stitching would have been. It showed an image of the tower with the tide rising and falling and a full moon arcing one way while the constellations rotated in the other direction. This evidently took the place of Time, so the second half opened with Polixenes and Camillo talking at the front of the stage. The rest of Bohemia wasn’t clearly visible at this point, but we had seen a deckchair or two being placed on the stage in front of the sheet during the interval. Sure enough, when the lights came up for the first full-on Bohemian country scene, the sheet rose and we could see the whole layout. This Bohemia looked like an industrial Northern coastal town with a pier (bottom left on the screen), some ocean and a lot of dark sky, a tower with a circular sewage pipe running round it and some hungover locals who were sleeping in the deckchairs or on the ground – a mirror image of the Sicilian scene at the start. It was slightly bizarre to have a sheep-shearing festival in this context, but I was enjoying myself so much that I’m prepared to allow artistic licence on this one.

Another interesting point – Leontes was still visible on top of the tower, now in an orangey robe and looking pretty rough. It was a reminder that while Bohemia was all fun and jollity (for the most part) the suffering was still going on in Sicilia. For the final scenes back in Leontes’ court, the tower turned round and showed the inner spiral staircase with a platform part way down. The picture at the back was of calmer waves, rippling gently across the screen. The rotating tower was also used to reveal the statue, initially hidden behind a white curtain which was shaped like a tent. I didn’t notice if the screen had changed for the final dance – crying too much, apart from anything else – so I’ll have to watch out next time.

The costumes were as described above for the Sicilian court, while the nursemaids wore grey uniforms. The Bohemian court was more casual in tone, with both Polixenes and Camillo wearing suits. The ‘country’ folk generally wore rougher clothes; the shepherds had oilskins for their first appearance and smarter suits for the later scenes. The clog dancers had red velvet shorts and white shirts – very natty – and Autolycus wore a variety of clothes which I’ll describe as I go.

Now for the performance itself. When the play started, the three main characters were sprawled together in the middle of the stage, although I didn’t spot this immediately. I found the opening exchange between Archidamus and Camillo a little hard to follow tonight; the lines weren’t as clear as I would have liked. As they discussed the young prince, Mamillius obligingly ran on stage and hid under Leontes’ dressing gown to escape the pursuing nursemaids; they left once Camillo had pointed out where Mamillius was hiding, presumably satisfied that the young prince was in safe hands.

The three royal folk on the central cushions woke up just before Polixenes’ first line, and Leontes and Hermione had a long kiss while Polixenes was talking. All was going well until Leontes’ sudden onset of jealousy. On the line “too hot”, the lighting changed and the court almost froze while Leontes spoke of his feelings to us. Hermione and Polixenes were slightly to the left of the stage, and continued to move in slow motion, with Leontes free to move around in front of them. The stage was awash with red light, and the screen at the back changed to reflect this, with the colours becoming garish and unnatural. I felt this was very effective, and emphasised both the abruptness of Leontes’ madness and how dangerous this delusion might be.

After Leontes’ talk with Camillo, and Camillo’s conversation with Polixenes, all of which were very clear, Hermione came back on with Mamillius, the two nursemaids and some of her staff. The nursemaids teased Mamillius as they prepared him for bed, and Hermione went to the steps to pour a couple of drinks before taking Mamillius over to some cushions at the front of the stage to hear his story. As they sat there, the lights came up on the back of the stage where Leontes and his remaining lords were discussing Polixenes and Camillo’s escape. Leontes strode forward at the appropriate moment and snatched Mamillius away from Hermione. During their argument he slapped Hermione in the face, which was pretty shocking, even though it was apt.

As the lords exited they removed all of the rugs and cushions apart from one lot to the right of the stage. I think Leontes stayed on the platform at the back, lying down so as not to get in the way of the following scene at the prison. Paulina was very insistent about seeing Hermione or one of her women, and although Amelia indicated that the queen had also thought of sending the new baby to the king, this time I was aware it was a very risky option.

This scene was brisk and soon over, and then we saw a video of Leontes falling into the water prior to the real king waking up from a bad dream and complaining about his lot. Paulina arrived wearing a long black coat inside which she held the baby so that it wasn’t visible to begin with. The men were very wary of her, especially her husband, and we enjoyed that part. When she did reveal the baby, she then laid it down on the few cushions which had been left on stage. They all clustered round the little girl as Paulina described her likeness to Leontes, and started grinning those soppy grins people have when they see a cute little bundle of babyhood. Leontes had to climb over the back of the bench to get away from Paulina as she pursued him round the stage with her arguments, which was funny, but I accepted Leontes’ comment that if he had been a tyrant she wouldn’t have dared to speak out as she did. I noticed that one of the courtiers, probably Antigonus, actually sat on the bench while the king was standing; surely a breach of etiquette, but perhaps they just wanted to underline how easy-going Leontes had been up to this point.

Once Paulina was gone, Leontes rounded on Antigonus, and only the support of the other lords saved him from having to throw the baby on a fire. Leontes’ line “I am a feather for every wind that blows” was quite accurate I felt, although the strongest wind was the one blowing through his brain and forcing all sense out of it.

Once the court had left, Cleomenes and Dion came on, dressed like Victorian explorers in tweeds and plus fours, carrying knapsacks and the like. They talked of the wonders they had seen, planning how to report them, and completed each other’s sentences as they did so. They were both uplifted by their journey and hopeful of a positive outcome for Hermione, and it was nice to see these minor characters given such strong characterisations for once.

The trial scene began with four young men being dragged on to the stage, bound and gagged, while an executioner with a huge sword took up his position on the platform. This was meant to represent Anne Boleyn’s trail, though if you didn’t know that it might have seemed a bit strange. The idea was that these men had been tortured to obtain confessions that the queen had been sleeping around – bit pointless in this play as Hermione has only been accused of one adulteress affair, and the man in question is now far away, but this director likes symbolic imagery even if it gets in the way of the performance at times. Not that we were affected by it either way, but the scene works perfectly well without this extra window dressing. (Now if these good-looking young men hadn’t been wearing their shirts, I might have had a different response.)

For the early part of this scene, and the section with the oracle, Leontes sat on the steps at the front of the stage. Hermione came on and initially stood on the first step of the platform. She was wearing a sombre black dress, similar in style to Paulina’s. Everyone looked on edge from the start of this scene, and it didn’t get any easier as it played out.

Hermione’s delivery at the start was a bit jerky, but I took this to represent her fatigue and emotional distress. She became smoother during her argument with Leontes, and like Paulina she followed him around the stage to make her points. At “Therefore proceed”, she sat down on the steps and moved her hair out of the way of her neck to make life easier for the executioner, who raised his sword to deliver the fatal blow. She then interrupted her own execution to deliver the rest of her speech, calling on the oracle to clear her name before she died. The courtier charged with handling this was very eager to get the job done, and brought a sword forward (not the executioner’s) so that Cleomenes and Dion could swear their oath, kiss the sword, and the oracle could be read. I don’t remember hearing Hermione’s lines about her father.

There was great relief all round at first when the oracle was read out, especially by the lord doing the reading. I thought there may have been a little puzzlement when it came to the last bit, but maybe I imagined it.  Only Leontes remained unmoved, sitting on the front steps and considering his options. His choice made, it was only seconds later that one of the nursemaids ran on stage to tell him of his son’s death, holding out the red and blue tabard which Mamillius had worn in the opening scene. Leontes was so overcome that he collapsed and rolled down the steps of the platform, lying unconscious for a bit before continuing the scene. His reformation was instantaneous, and he readily accepted Paulina’s chiding.

At the end of the scene, Leontes stood on the platform and it started to rise up, as previously described. As he stripped off his clothes, the tower finished its upwards journey and Antigonus and the seaman came on stage and sheltered at its base. After the seaman left, Antigonus placed the wicker crib he was carrying down towards the front of the stage, and told us of his dream. He put the necessary items in the basket with the baby and as he went back to the ship, the bear came out of the water and made towards him. Any killing took place out of our sight, and then the video of the seamen drowning came on screen, followed by the storm.

The old shepherd arrived pushing his bike, and left it lying on the right side of the stage before launching into his speech. He walked back and forth across the stage and cast several curious glances at the wicker basket before checking it out and finding the baby. The young shepherd’s description of the ship and bear scenarios seemed a little unnecessary tonight as we’d just seen it all on the screens. As they left, the young shepherd took the bike with him, while his father carried off the basket and the box with the gold.

I’ve already described the interval setup with the sheet and the images, and the second half started with Polixenes talking to Camillo at the front of the stage. The dialogue was clear, and Camillo was, as usual, unhappy with the idea of a disguise.

Before the lights came up, the actors bestowed themselves about the place, echoing the first scene. The young shepherd and his two women were the threesome in the middle of the stage, wrapped around each other in an intimate way. As Autolycus crept on stage, singing his song, he was accompanied by the only other person who was awake – the accordion player who stood or sat by the tower steps. Leontes was still up on top of the tower, in his orange robes.

Autolycus was dressed in a long black coat with a scruffy shirt and trousers. He carried a large umbrella-like structure; after he planted it in the centre of the stage, he opened it up to form a small tent with side openings and a small window. While he told us of his naughty ways, he took a bottle of beer and an ice cream from some of the sleepers in the deck chairs, along with some other items. When the young shepherd woke up, Autolycus hid in his tent, and when he realised there would be rich pickings from the young man, he snuck out and took sunglasses and half a fishing rod (he broke it in two) from the sleeper on the left. Telling the shepherd he was blind, he easily filched his purse from a back pocket before insisting he was fine.

Florizel and Perdita entered, with most of the sleepers still on the stage. Her accent was a bit strong at first so I missed some of her dialogue, but their love for each other shone through. When the guests for the feast arrived, the music started up as well and all the sleepers woke up. Polixenes and Camillo, in disguise, were part of the throng, and Perdita’s welcome to them was lively and funnier than usual, with her references to middle age coming across as quite cheeky. There was a dance (not the clog dance yet) and Mopsa and Dorcas began fighting over the young shepherd. This fight was turning into the main event, with some of the guests sitting down to watch and others trying to hold the women down, when the news of the pedlar came and a truce broke out.

Autolycus was also in disguise, with a grey beard and wearing eastern attire in the form of baggy leggings. He came out of the tent playing an accordion, but it was actually the accordionist inside the tent we were hearing. When Autolycus stopped, the musician carried on, and Autolycus had to tell him to be quiet. He then returned to the tent and started to speak through the window, but the accordionist kept playing which annoyed him, so he broke off to tell the man to stop.

The song was good fun, with Mopsa and Dorcas singing with Autolycus and really getting into their parts (and even some of his!). The young shepherd got jealous then, and dragged them away to buy goods from Autolycus, who followed them off stage.

Instead of a satyr dance they had a clog dance. Florizel took part, though he joined in late as he was still putting his clogs on, with Perdita’s help. He was dragged into the middle of the group to do a little solo, and did it well enough, obviously his way of earning respect in that culture. Autolycus came on with a camera on a tripod, and the dancers tried to freeze in a dancing pose for a picture. He took the cover off the lens and they stood, and they stood, and we laughed, and they stood, until they couldn’t stand any longer and collapsed on the stage, at which point Autolycus removed the camera.

Florizel’s love for Perdita led him to promise marriage to her in public, and when Polixenes became more forceful in challenging Florizel to tell his father, the other dancers grabbed him and took him round to the back of the tower. With a quick change of clothes, he soon came out of the pipe at the front looking extremely messy, but once he revealed himself as the king, no one felt inclined to comment. The rest of the dancers scarpered double quick, leaving Florizel, Perdita and the old shepherd to face Polixenes’ wrath, with Camillo as a bystander. To even things up with Leontes, Polixenes also hit his son several times before rounding on Perdita and her supposed father.

Camillo’s guidance to the young couple was fine, and then Autolycus returned with his tent and his ill-gotten gains. His description of his purse-picking was very well done, and as he talked he removed his turban, placed it on the ground, gradually drew out the purses he had taken and poured the coins into the turban. He was very wary of Camillo’s approach, but soon realised what was going on. He, Florizel and Perdita all ended up in the tent, changing clothes. When they emerged, Florizel still had his red velvet shorts on, but had Autolycus’s black coat over it, Perdita had the baggy leggings on under her dress, and Autolycus was down to his long johns. Camillo’s line “Nay, you shall have no hat” covered Autolycus’s reluctance to part with the (extremely valuable) turban, and Florizel and Perdita then left.

When the shepherds arrived, Autolycus moved his tent over to the back left corner of the stage, and hid in there to listen to their conversation. Polixenes’ white coat had been discarded on the steps earlier, and Autolycus snuck out of the tent to grab it and put it on, tucking his false beard into one of the pockets. With the coat on, he lounged against the tower and made his first enquiries of the shepherds, “How now, rustics, whither are you bound?” He adopted a posher accent, and with some exaggerated mannerisms gave us a number of laughs as he conned the shepherds (to their own good as it turned out).

Next the tower turned back round and we could see its innards, with the spiral staircase and landing over half way up. Leontes was still on the top, and Paulina with Cleomenes and Dion were below. When Florizel and Perdita arrived, it struck me as a little unlikely that they hadn’t changed clothes, although they had tidied themselves up a bit. As Perdita walked beside Florizel to the centre of the stage before turning and bowing to Leontes, I was aware that she was doing her best to mimic Florizel’s manners and appear like a princess. Leontes had come down to the landing to welcome them, keen to see the son of the man whom he’d wronged so many years ago.

The next scene had the lords and Autolycus recounting the details of Polixenes’ arrival and the discovery of Perdita’s true identity. The lords were smoking cigars and were clearly celebrating – I think there was at least one bottle of champagne on view. When the shepherds arrived, I had thought they might have had fresh outfits to reflect their higher status, but no change in that department apart from gold chains around their necks.

For the reunion scene, the tower turned round again (it had rotated back after the previous scene, so that the statue could be set up) and another tent, a white gauzy one this time, was suspended from the landing; we could dimly see a shape inside it. A nun was also present and drew back the curtain to reveal the ‘statue’, while the other characters spaced themselves round the stage. Paulina stayed by the steps, and had to move fast to stop Perdita and then Leontes from touching the statue.

The awakening scene was very moving – I couldn’t quite see it clearly for some reason (sniff) – and I noticed that Polixenes and Hermione wouldn’t look at each other; Leontes had to take their hands to bring them together. The impending nuptials of Camillo and Paulina were just as bizarre as ever – just when did Leontes have time to ”partly know his mind” – and they ended with another dance, occasionally doing some slow motion moves, and with the rest of the cast joining in. There was clapping and slapping of thighs, to echo the clog dance, and hand to hand moves to echo the court dances at the start. The final image was of Florizel and Perdita spotlit together in the middle of the stage, surrounded by the others; I noticed that Hermione had to kneel down so as not to block the audience’s view of the young couple. It was a fitting ending, putting the emphasis on the next generation, and we applauded mightily.

I’ve left my notes on the director’s pre-show talk till after the performance notes this time. Lucy Bailey had worked as an assistant director on a previous RSC production, and had taken against the play as a result. Apparently Michael Boyd is very good at ear-tickling, because she found herself agreeing to direct this production anyway, and then went through the usual process of discovering how wrong she’d been when she actually read the text.

She wanted to bring out the happiness of the original Sicilian scenes, before it all goes horribly wrong, while for the Bohemian scenes she wanted to emphasise the working-class nature of the characters. Hence the way the Bohemian ‘rural’ scenes looked industrial and the Sicilian scenes looked verdant and lush. Threesomes were another important aspect of the play for her, and she wanted to show Polixenes’ jealousy as well as Leontes’, hence the violence towards Florizel.

She was happy to give Pearce Quigley some licence to play around with Autolycus’ part, as she felt that was what the clowns in Shakespeare’s day would have done, plus they updated some of the language to reflect Victorian sheep-shearing practices. There was more which I don’t recall now, but overall the talk accurately reflected the performance we saw, and didn’t hinder our enjoyment in any way.

© 2013 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Effect – January 2013

Experience: 6/10

By Lucy Prebble

Directed by Rupert Goold

Company: NT and Headlong co-production

Venue: Cottesloe Theatre

Date: Wednesday 23rd January 2013

For this new Lucy Prebble play, the Cottesloe had been transformed into a (large) waiting room at a pharmaceutical company facility where trials of a new drug were taking place. We were up on the balcony for this one; our experience of the cramped benches of the House of Commons (This House) had put us off risking more uncomfortable seating from the ‘reality’ school of design. Today’s effort looked quite nice though – simple bench sofas with plenty of legroom – and if you could put up with the ubiquitous mustard yellow colour, it was probably a pleasant experience.

The seating was in two rows and went all the way round a rectangular performance space, with gaps on each side for the entrances which were diagonally opposite each other near the corners. There were low tables in the middle of each row apart from the far end, which had a larger sideboard with a display rack beside it. Vases of flowers stood on the tables, while four more low tables stood in each corner of the central space.

An inner rectangular space was outlined in this central area, and most of the acting was done within it, but occasionally spread throughout the downstairs area. Outlined with subdued strip lighting, the initial set up of this rectangle was in line with the rest of the room: two L-shaped seats stood in diagonal corners, and the flooring and the seats were in the same yellow colour. Above this area hung another rectangle which looked like some kind of lighting, though I didn’t notice it doing anything during the performance. Perhaps it contributed in some way to the projections that appeared beneath it; the central area was frequently adapted with light displays, including laser mapping, a mosaic floor and a video of a brain being flooded with some liquid.

There were also two screens positioned at either end of the balcony which showed various bits of information. At first they displayed the ‘Rauschen’ logo – the company involved in the trial – but they also showed when the drug dosage was being increased, and were used for the Stroop test, where various words are shown and the subjects have to name the colour of the word. All good fun, and for me this set up worked pretty well, with the cast being able to change locations briskly and no real confusion as to location.

The story was pretty simple: we followed two test subjects from their initial interviews through the drug trial and beyond – Connie (Billie Piper) and Tristan (Jonjo O’Neill). There were also two doctors: Dr James (Anastasia Hille) who ran the test and Dr Toby Sealey (Tom Goodman-Hill) who was well up the food chain and involved in senior management at the company. Tristan and Connie developed a relationship and the play was, in part, discussing how much our feelings are controlled by chemicals and how much they are just our emotional reactions to events in our lives. I found this aspect of the play much less interesting. I didn’t care for either of the characters, who seemed bland and featureless, and the extended scenes between them went on for too long; at times it felt like an odd couple relationship drama with some science bits attached. The early scene which set up the pattern of the drug trial, with lots of measurements being taken and showing us the strict timing of each dose, was overlong, and there were plenty of other scenes which started well but continued on past their effectiveness or were simply played at too slow a pace. The cross-cutting of scenes worked well, and both Steve and I reckoned that the play would work much better if around 20 to 30 minutes were surgically removed.

I found I engaged most with Dr James, as she was the only one who really wanted to help others, and on the whole I preferred the exchanges between the two doctors. There were early indications of a prior relationship, and these hints developed through the play to give us a much rounder picture of their characters. The scientific parts of the debate were aired more thoroughly with these two, and although it’s too big a subject to cover fully in one play, it was at least a promising start. Again, trimming the piece to about two hours (it ran for 2 hours 45 minutes, including interval) would help to focus the issues better.

Some aspects of the plotting could also do with more work. It was scarcely believable that Dr James would admit to one of the test subjects that another subject was receiving a placebo despite the emotional tension of the situation, and her vacillation over whether or not Connie could or would stay on the trial was bizarre. There were a number of odd anomalies like that which undercut the impact of the play, and with the sexual scene and nudity, I did wonder if they were just ramping up the sensationalism for the sake of bums on seats to the detriment of the production itself. Not that the nudity was salacious in any way; in many ways that scene was well staged with various brief poses giving a sense of the drug-heightened physicality of the couple’s relationship. But it didn’t add to the central theme of the piece, that we are not just bags of chemical reactions, but something more which is harder to define. The consequence of Dr James placebo revelation was also very predictable in general terms, which blunted the ending for me.

It sounds like I’m asking for a complete re-write, but there was a lot to enjoy as well. Plenty of humour, an interesting subject, and excellent performances from all the cast made for a decent afternoon’s entertainment, and I would be prepared to give this play another try in the future, especially if I hear it’s had further work.

© 2013 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Julius Caesar – January 2013

Experience: 8/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Phyllida Lloyd

Venue: Donmar Warehouse

Date: Thursday 17th January 2013

We only just made this performance with a few minutes to spare. The fire at Victoria station this morning meant our planned train was cancelled, but the next one ran pretty much to schedule and with some faster than usual walking (for us) we made it to the Donmar with just enough time for me to make a quick trip to the ladies – with two hours and no interval, I wanted to be prepared.

Mind you, I wasn’t happy when I entered the auditorium and saw the plastic bucket seats. Friends had warned us about this but I’d forgotten, and after all the stresses of the morning I wasn’t in a good humour when I sat beside Steve and ran through my pre-flight checklist: glasses, clean; phone, OFF (you know who you are); cough sweet, in (ditto); tissues, handy.

My feeling of depression deepened as I took in the ‘realistic’ prison setting: drab walls, locked doors with viewing windows, a scruffy sofa and some chairs in the right hand corner, some institutional paraphernalia in the other and along the back wall, a drum, an electric guitar, etc. There were two levels of balcony with metal steps on the right hand side. The spotlights were like searchlights, and there was strip lighting above the central area, mostly switched off once the play started. There was a trolley of some sort which was used from time to time, but the stage was usually bare of furniture.

The costumes were in keeping with this design concept. The women prisoners wore grey tracksuits with grey hoodies, and used woollen masks to cover their faces when needed. They also wore great coats, army fatigues or dresses as the occasion required, and there was even a spot of nudity, though not in a salacious way. The red rubber gloves will get a mention later on.

I knew that a women’s prison was the setting beforehand, but the full awfulness of the situation only dawned as I came into the acting space. There was some suitably unpleasant stuff at the beginning of the performance as well, with the prisoners being marched on stage and standing in line followed by a short display of anarchy as they ran around, shouted and screamed, hurled some stuff about and generally behaved badly. What pulled them together was the announcement from the first balcony, by Antony as it turned out, that ‘she’ was coming. The dialogue for this bit was mainly invented, but they did include the soothsayer’s first warning to Caesar, and they staged it pretty well. Carrie Rock played the soothsayer as a girl-woman who often sat by herself cradling a baby doll. The others regarded her as crazy or off her head with drugs, so when she approached Antony on the balcony she was allowed through. She was holding a magazine and pointed to it when she warned of the Ides of March; Antony took the magazine and made it clear this was an astrological prediction with some lines about Libra being very successful but having to watch out you don’t upset others.

With Caesar’s arrival (Frances Barber), things took a more orderly and more menacing turn. She spoke to the crowd and had them in the palm of her hand, and then they started a little exercise routine which had me laughing. Designed to show Caesar’s power over her followers, it made me think that Frances Barber was playing a megalomaniac criminal aerobics instructor. She had the group moving to one side, then the other, going down then up, and the whole thing was hilarious. Some face masks had been thrown down before this, and when the group turned round there was the strange effect of seeing so many Caesars facing us. I assume this was also meant to be chilling or disturbing in some way, but it reminded me of Frances Barber’s recent role in Doctor Who, and I suspected they were trading on that to impress the younger audience members. Whatever the reason, it didn’t engage me, and I was already thinking I’d give the performance fifteen minutes before walking out, something I don’t even consider normally.

Fortunately, once Caesar went off with her followers to an upstairs corner, we were left with Cassius (Jenny Jules) and Brutus (Harriet Walter), and there was no way anything short of a nuclear explosion was going to get me out of my seat once those two got started. Their delivery of the lines was crystal clear and their portrayal of these two characters was the best I’ve ever seen. Admittedly there was a lot missing in this heavily cut production, but the set pieces between these two were pretty much intact and gave us a very detailed picture of their difficult relationship. When they were talking, the setting disappeared into the background (the lights were lowered at this point as well) and the play began to come alive. Cassius’s passion came across strongly, and I could believe for once that there was an existing close friendship between these two people. The accounts of Caesar’s weakness, especially the swim across the river, were so vivid that Cassius’s resentment of Caesar’s success became very clear and understandable.

During this scene there were the necessary cheers from the upper corner, and when Caesar came back down with her followers they made a lot more of this short section than usual. They had placed a table and two chairs in the middle of the stage some time before Cassius and Brutus started their dialogue, and now Caesar put what looked like a pizza box down on the table, threw back the lid and invited everyone to grab a slice. Later, I realised it must have been a box of doughnuts, or perhaps it was a mixture, who knows? Cassius held aloof over on the right of the stage, but Brutus dived in as fast as the others and ate her food by one of the pillars under the balcony, just on Caesar’s left. Caesar’s comment about ‘fat, sleek-headed men’ was accompanied by her stroking Brutus’s head very affectionately, and instead of the rest of the speech being done as a side conversation, or as an open insult by ignoring Cassius’s presence, here Cassius was brought over to sit on one of the chairs and had half a doughnut stuffed in her mouth by Caesar. I didn’t have the presence of mind to check out Brutus’s response to this, as the tension had built up and I was focused on Cassius and Caesar. The derogatory description of Cassius was then given to all and sundry, including Brutus, and this demonstration of total power was rounded off by Caesar biting off the other bit of doughnut that was sticking out of Cassius’s mouth and then giving her a kiss. Cassius was mostly frozen during this scene, but her anger was evident and I noticed that she clenched her fists during the kiss.

Once Caesar had established her authority, she left with Antony and the gang and the other two sat down with Casca to find out what the cheering had been about. Ishia Bennison was excellent as Casca, with a rueful, world-weary cynicism that brought out the humour of her speech perfectly. With the foundations of the plot laid, they skipped the storm scenes altogether and immediately returned to Brutus’s house with Brutus calling for the sleepy Lucius. Again Harriet Walter delivered Brutus’s lines superbly well, and I was particularly struck by the line “Th’abuse of greatness is when it disjoins Remorse from power.” How true.

The letter was thrown down from the balcony instead of brought in by Lucius, and when the conspirators arrived they all wore woollen masks. These were gradually removed as the scene progressed, and when the oath was suggested by Cassius, all the others came and knelt in a circle by Brutus, holding out their hands to swear whatever was required. Brutus spoiled the party, as usual, but her words were inspiring, reminding them all of their common bond and their noble nature. Mind you, Cassius was really starting to get hacked off when Brutus also shoved her oar in about killing Mark Antony. I got the impression that Cassius respected Brutus too much to cause a fuss, and went along with her interpretation of the situation with fewer misgivings than Cassius often shows.

Once the other conspirators had left, Brutus was confronted by Portia, played by Clare Dunne (doubled with Octavius). This is normally the part where I start to lose interest, but again the relationship between these characters fairly crackled with energy, and I enjoyed this scene more than I ever have before. I did find Clare’s Irish brogue a little strong at times, but the fact that she was several months pregnant, with a significant bump, added to both Brutus’s concerns for her welfare and Portia’s own argument that Brutus is neglecting her own health. Her thigh wound was made just before the line “I have made strong proof of my constancy”, and I didn’t spot any fake blood this time, though as Brutus covered her wound very quickly I may have missed it.

The Caius Ligarius part was axed, so the next scene was Caesar’s decision to go to the senate/not to go to the senate/go to the senate. At first Caesar was helped into her black coat by a couple of servants, then she took it off when Calpurnia’s persuasions succeeded, and put it back on again once Casca (instead of Decius Brutus) had her say. Caesar responded very angrily when Casca asked for a reason to give the senate, and everyone else looked cowed. After walking across the stage, Caesar softened enough to give her reasons, for Casca’s ear only, and Casca had to work fast to think of an alternative interpretation of Calpurnia’s dream. This began to change Caesar’s mind, but the absolute clincher was the mention of a crown – how Caesar’s eyes lit up at that word! She was scathing towards Calpurnia after that, and soon had her coat back on for the trip to the senate.

The soothsayer’s part was trimmed to “Caesar, beware ……. It is bent against Caesar”. She said these lines in a disjointed way, wandering around the stage and eventually leaving it, followed by the short scene between Portia and Lucius in which the soothsayer didn’t appear at all. It was very clear that Portia, now knowing about the plot, was extremely worried about Brutus’s safety, and equally as worried about letting slip any information which would spoil the assassination.

As Caesar was arriving at the Senate House, Mark Antony approached a woman in the front row, almost directly in front of us, and asked her to move to another chair which, along with a few others, had been placed just in front of the area covered by the balcony. This left the central seat for Caesar to sit on, and the audience became “his Senate”. We had a very good view of the pleas by Metellus and the others for the repeal of Publius Cimber, and both the best and worst of views for the actual assassination itself. I spotted Casca coming along our row shortly before the deed, and she was right behind Caesar when she delivered the line “Speak hands for me” and stabbed Caesar in the back (or neck; as I said before, in some ways we had the worst of views). The other conspirators took their turns, and when Brutus stepped up to finish Caesar off, looking deeply unhappy that such an act was necessary, we could see her face as she almost hugged Caesar while stabbing her. Caesar came out of the chair and clung to Brutus for a few moments, trying to get out her last line; eventually she collapsed, centre stage, and like a true drama queen wrung every last gasp out of the death.

It was at this point that someone drew forward a basket with red gloves in it. As they hadn’t used fake blood for this scene either, I had wondered how they were going to dip their hands, but as they discussed their actions and their next steps, they put the gloves on their hands to represent the blood, which I found very effective. I also thought it was a typical woman’s approach – don’t use fake blood, we’ll only have to clean it up afterwards.

Mark Antony arrived immediately, without a herald, and shook hands with the conspirators. Again Brutus overruled Cassius about the funeral arrangements, and this time Cassius was less happy to acquiesce. After the conspirators left, Antony drew her right hand out of her pocket and it now wore a red glove; this was the hand which had grasped the conspirators’ gloves. The servant from Octavius was soon moved to tears at the sight of Caesar’s corpse, and Antony was very angry when she said “Get thee apart and weep”, driving the poor servant away from the body; bit possessive, I thought.

For the crowd scene, the lines about some of the people going off to hear what Cassius has to say were dropped, and the ‘plebs’ raced around the stage in a state of panic, with one or another coming to rest, often at a significant moment in Brutus’s speech. Brutus herself was on the trolley, which had been wheeled into the middle of the stage, and with all the helter-skelter activity it was hard to hear her initial lines. This was a decent representation of the very panic which she and the rest of the conspirators had been keen to avoid, but it did detract from important aspects of Brutus’s rhetoric. Given Harriet Walter’s excellent delivery, this seemed too much like dumbing down, emphasising the ‘important’ bits with movement in case the dummies in the audience weren’t up to the language, and naturally it got up my nose. What I did like was the final part of this section, where the crowd congregated around Brutus while they expressed their approval of her actions; as they touched her and moved her around I noticed that they removed her red gloves, a very visual indication that they absolved Brutus of all blame for the murder of Caesar. At the very end, they clustered tightly round Brutus, and when they parted the body of Caesar was lying on the ground, still in the black coat (although it was another actress playing the corpse). The action then moved seamlessly into Antony’s oration, and that’s when things turned ugly.

Antony stood on the ground level to speak to the crowd, and the ‘mantle’ was another version of the black coat, which appeared to have some rips and tears where the shivs had entered. Cush Jumbo delivered Antony’s speech pretty well, and it wasn’t long before there was a mini-riot, with people rushing off the stage to do lots of damage. Antony spoke briefly with Octavius’s servant, and then Cinna the poet arrived for her date with destiny.

The first Cinna was taken away by the guards for some reason – Steve thinks it was to get her medication. Another Cinna had to be pressganged into the role, and since she didn’t know the lines she was given a copy of the text to read from. The rioters were pretty rough with her; she was punched and kicked and slammed against one of the metal pillars. This led to a nosebleed which threatened to stop the whole performance. Two (female) guards arrived, I think the lights came on, and it was only the intervention of Caesar herself, who was apparently also the director of the play, that got things back on track. Cinna was given a hanky to deal with the blood, and the others got on with the play. (This was presumably one reason for not using fake blood during the assassination and other scenes; it would be confusing to have fake blood playing both ‘fake’ blood and ‘real’ blood.)

Antony, Lepidus and Octavius delivered their short scene well. A prisoner was kneeling at the front of the stage, head covered in a hood, while the three leaders stood along the back. After Lepidus left, Antony and Octavius took turns shooting the prisoner, who fell down and then obligingly lifted herself back up to a kneeling position for the next execution. At the very end, Octavius took pity on the prisoner and released her, only to shoot her as she headed off stage, an early indication of Octavius’s ruthlessness.

Brutus’s tent was created by dropping a divided sheet down for the tent opening and having a sofa on one side and a table with stools on the other. The meeting of Cassius and Brutus took place outside this tent, but once they sent off their officers, the lighting changed and we were immediately inside. The scene began with Cassius’s arrival, and was another strong episode in this performance. The dialogue was still crystal clear, and the strength of the relationship between the two characters was very evident. The ‘dagger’ drawn by Cassius was actually a plastic gun, and the entrance of the poet was dropped.

After the passion of the early heated exchange, there was a moment, perhaps inspired by the Poet’s contribution, when Harriet Walter snapped at some sound and swore at the actors who were behind the curtain. I forget what she said, but it was clear her prison character was very angry. It did release some of the tension, and at the time I wasn’t happy about that, but they soon had the scene up and running again with the revelation of Portia’s death and the rest of the scene flowed through very well, with Brutus again overriding Cassius’s better military strategy to hand a clear tactical advantage to the enemy.

The ghost scene was kept simple, with Lucius having a brass instrument and still managing to fall asleep, and Caesar’s ghost appearing for the brief exchange with Brutus. There were no others in the tent, so we were soon on to Octavius and Antony discussing their battle plans up on the balcony. Octavius began to show her tougher side, insisting on taking the right flank, and Antony seemed to be more petulant than a good general should. The confrontation between the two sides’ generals took place on the ground level, and instead of swords they drew their plastic guns again, pointing them at different people depending on the state of the slanging match.

The battle scenes were cut a bit: I remember Brutus and Cassius taking leave of each other, just in case, and then Cassius went through her despair and death, followed by Brutus’s recognition of defeat and her death. Both bodies were still on the floor as Antony and Octavius arrived. With a camera giving us the newsreel footage on the screens, we saw Lucius accepted by Octavius, and then Antony began the closing speeches with “this was the noblest Roman of them all”. She spoke these lines to the camera while the spare cast members picked up Brutus’s body and held it upright behind Antony so it was in shot. Octavius interrupted Antony and spoke over her, taking her lines before she was meant to, and walking in front of Antony to take centre stage. The ‘play’ ended with Octavius’s final lines, and a strong sense that Antony wouldn’t be in charge for long (but that’s another play).

Shortly before the action finished, there had been a reminder from the guards that lock up was only ten minutes away. The prisoners just had time to complete their performance before the guards came back again to take the prisoners back to their cells. It was at this point that we realised that Francis Barber had been a guard all along, which explained her authority and why the play continued after the bloody nose incident. The performance ended with the prisoners being trooped off stage and the lights going out, after which they returned and we gave them rousing applause.

I’m not sure where it happened, but in the later stages the soothsayer wandered naked around the stage carrying her doll, while other actors came on and stood randomly about the place. The soothsayer may have spoken some lines – I don’t remember – and I have absolutely no idea what it was about.

I felt the choice to set the play in a women’s prison was OK, but they didn’t do enough to fully justify it for me. There was the suggestion of lesbian relationships with the ‘wife’ characters, but that wasn’t emphasised nor did it enlighten; on the whole this was a pretty straight reading of the play, albeit a curtailed version. I didn’t have any sense of the way this play impacted on the prisoners’ lives, nor how their experiences influenced their performances or the staging choices, other than the obvious areas of props and furniture. We, the audience, were clearly part of the context, members of the public who had come to see what these prisoners could achieve thanks to the programs paid for by our tax contributions. There were some snarling references to that during the crowd scenes, but nothing worth noting up specifically. Steve did remark on the importance of the play to Harriet Walter’s prison character – her short temper during the tent scene for example, and he saw that she was in tears at the end – but most of the prisoners didn’t seem to care one way or the other. I accept that this setting gave a ready-made explanation for an all-women cast, but again I feel that this sells everyone short: the writer, whose work transcends the ‘realistic’ approach and often works much better when the setting is kept indistinct, the audience, who (mostly) have good imaginations and can go with well-delivered Shakespearean dialogue to just about anywhere, and the actors themselves, who in this case delivered such brilliant readings of their characters that I would happily see this again if I could have a comfy seat. (Actually, I’d probably be willing to forego the comfy seat.)

I left feeling very happy that we’d made it in time to see this production, and also that we’ll be lucky to see such tremendous central performances again. I noticed that Harriet Walter’s slight lisp was more pronounced today, but it didn’t interfere with her delivery, which was impeccable.

© 2013 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Boris Godunov – January 2013

Experience: 8/10

By Pushkin, adapted by Adrian Mitchell

Directed by Michael Boyd

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Friday 11th January 2013

This has come on a lot since last November. The story-telling was clearer overall (although not as good as The Orphan Of Zhao) and they’d either managed to make the plot more connected or our greater familiarity helped us handle the storyline’s somewhat chaotic nature. I suspect a lot of the improvement was down to the performances as I saw a lot more detail tonight in most of the major parts, and there was a stronger sense of energy and drive through most of the play. I was more engaged with the characters than before, and some aspects of the staging which I had found distracting before, such as the use of the hanging coats at the back of the stage, weren’t so prominent from our position round the side tonight, allowing me to focus more on the plot.

The opening scene, where the inhabitants of the city rushed off to beg Boris Godunov to be their Tsar, was fine, although again it helped that we knew what was going on. Vorotynskii and Shuiskii, the aristocrats left in the city, explained things nicely, and I noticed that James Tucker seemed to be giving Shuiskii a colder, creepier edge; we were on the other side last time and mainly saw his back, so it may just have been our better angle that allowed us to see his performance more clearly. The baby battering sequence was a bit funny at first, but I found it impossible to laugh second time around. I saw more of the details in this crowd scene, undoubtedly a combination of more performances and prior knowledge.

I noticed that the first scene with the old monk took a while to connect up with what we’d already heard, and I found myself contrasting this with the superb connectivity of Orphan, where the scenes flowed together almost organically. Fortunately the young monk, Grigory (Gethin Anthony), brought up the subject of the murder of the young Tsarevich, Dmitry, and we were back on track. I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on with the younger monk who encouraged Grigory to launch his career as pretender to the throne in a later scene; he appeared in the scene after that as well, apparently criticizing Grigory as being led by the devil, so I can only assume he was playing both ends against the middle. Perhaps the meddling monk is a regular feature of Russian literature – they certainly turn up in droves in Shakespeare – but this one was under-explained for me.

Still, we were soon into the fun and games of Grigory’s escape to Lithuania. At a tavern in a frontier town Grigory turned up in the company of two monks-on-the-make. They drank plenty, he stuck with water, and when a couple of guards turned up looking for a runaway monk, Grigory took advantage of a general state of illiteracy to point the finger at one of his travelling companions. This was understandable, since the chief guard had made it clear that when the warrant said ‘arrest’ it meant ‘arrest and hang’; for someone who couldn’t read, he was remarkably good at reading between the lines. When his ruse was discovered, Grigory had to make a quick escape, aided by the tavern’s barmaid, and so to freedom and his new life as Dmitry.

Meanwhile Boris was having a tough time as Tsar. He did his best for the people, fed them when there was famine, and rebuilt their houses when they burned down, but did they thank him for it? Not a bit! They blamed him for the fire and kept on grumbling, ungrateful sods.

His daughter was having a tough time too. Her fiancé died before their weeding, and she spent her time carrying his portrait around with her and mourning his loss, excessively. This was represented by her character walking round the stage holding on to a large picture frame on the other side of which was an actor dressed up as her fiancé. They walked around for a bit, then as I recall the fiancé actor left the stage and she simply held the frame to remind us of her obsession. Her lines from the text seemed to be drastically reduced, so it wasn’t entirely clear first time round what was going on. Boris made a reference to her situation, so we did find out, but even knowing this I found her character rather irrelevant without her lines.

Perhaps they made this choice to concentrate our attention on Boris’s young son Fyodor. Even though the real lad was much older, they showed him here as a young boy, about the age of the deceased Tsarevich, Dmitry, which meant that the boy kept reminding Boris of his guilty secret. When we first saw Fyodor, he was up a step ladder painting red blobs onto a huge map of Russia to represent towns. (Geography lessons were much more sedate in my day.) Boris was pleased to see his heir taking his future responsibilities seriously, but later, after discussing the news of the pretender in Poland, Boris saw the boy again at the back of the stage with a red gash on his neck. As he’d just been going over the details of Dmitry’s death with Shuiskii, the connection was clear, but it turned out to be his own son who’d simply had an accident with the paint brush. They used this crossover again, but this was the most powerful occasion, and according to the text, this was where Boris made more than a passing reference to Henry IV with the line “Oh heavy is the crown worn by a Tsar”.

The story then moved to Poland, where Grigory was winning over the various groups whose support he needed to make a challenge for the Tsardom. These included the Church, disaffected Russians, the Poles, Cossacks and even a poet! Everyone was captivated by the young ‘prince’, except for his potential bride, Maryna (Lucy Briggs-Owen). She wasn’t just playing hard-to-get either; she knew her own worth, perhaps too much, and she wouldn’t settle for anything less than a Tsar. Concerned that she didn’t love him for himself, he decided to come clean and she was appalled. Love was not on the agenda for her; he had to have rank, even pretend rank, or she wasn’t interested. At her response he decided to man up and tell her where to shove it; ironically the ideal wooing tactic for Maryna, as it showed that he could cut it as a serious pretender to the throne. Women!

There were some scenes back in Moscow concerning apparent miracles done by the dead Dmitry and the attitudes of the common people, and then we had a few battle scenes where the horses were actors; when Grigory’s horse died under him on the battlefield it was actually an actor whose back he’d been standing on. Boris then became a monk just before his death – a tradition for Russian Tsars at that time – and his general Basmanov decided to change allegiance and support Grigory. The play finished with the announcement of Grigory as the new Tsar Dmitry, though there was still a lot of tension in the situation.

These final scenes were quite short, with a lot of rushing about followed by quieter moments. The whole performance felt a little uneven, but at least I did follow the story better this time. Overall I liked the staging; it was relatively simple and flowing, and created the locations effectively. I’m still not sure about the coats hanging at the back, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. The fountain (for the wooing scene with Maryna) was made of actors holding bowls and jugs; it was a nice idea but they couldn’t sustain it, so the fountain headed off stage before the end of the scene, which was a bit bizarre.

© 2013 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Orphan Of Zhao – January 2013

Experience: 9/10

By James Fenton, based on a traditional Chinese story

Directed by Greg Doran

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Thursday 10th January 2013

Well, this was another great theatrical experience. I’d have to say the cast haven’t come on all that much, but as they were pretty close to perfect when we saw the second performance, that isn’t an insult. They’ve taken things up a notch, the story-telling seemed even clearer (but perhaps that’s just our familiarity?) and I noticed a few extra details which are worth noting up. Otherwise it was just as good as before, and with a substantial audience, though sadly still not a full house, the atmosphere was great.

The beginning had changed slightly. The cast processed onto the stage after forming up at the back, which took a few minutes. Then they stayed on stage for the first lines of Tu’An Gu’s opening speech. The Emperor was standing behind Tu’An Gu with the rest of the court bowing to him, which did at least give us some idea of who was who at the start, and then they left the stage fairly briskly so that Tu’An Gu could continue to entertain us with his villainy. He stood, holding his helmet in one hand, and said “To be…”, which amused us regular Shakespeare watchers very much. The dog was introduced to us again and was just as vicious as before, although we noticed the trainer had managed to stop it thrusting its nose into Tu’An Gu’s crotch.

When Zhao Dun was offered the three suicide options, I spotted this time that the Emperor, a nasty piece of work, was standing on the far balcony observing the ritual. I didn’t notice this last time, but he may have been there. Skipping further on, I understood tonight that the severed heads were actually the heads of the court doctors who had been executed so that they couldn’t betray the Emperor, presumably by hiding the Princess’s baby. While our position at the back round one side did seem to reduce the volume of some of the lines, I was able to follow the story perfectly well, and some points such as this one came across more clearly; whether this is repetition, clearer delivery or some change to the dialogue I have no idea.

The sniffles started earlier tonight than last time; knowing the story I found the difficult choices the characters had to make very moving. When Cheng Ying’s wife had to give up her own baby to raise another woman’s child, I felt her suffering. If I’d had a box of tissues with me I might have used them all; as it was I had to ration myself to a single pack of pocket size tissues, but they did the job.

At the start of the second half, I remember in the previous performance that Cheng Ying said some lines about allowing Cheng Bo one more day as a boy – that didn’t happen tonight, it was all down to the ballad singer. I was in floods of tears all through General Wei Jiang’s confrontation with Cheng Ying – I found Cheng Ying’s predicament particularly moving – and from there the staging was as before. One detail which Steve had spotted last time – the petals fell for every death except Tu’An Gu’s. There were a few petals during Wei Jiang’s takeover of the Palace Guard which presumably represented the Emperor’s death, and I realised the number of petals related to that person’s ‘goodness’ – Cheng Ying had a huge cascade of petals at the end – mega sniffles!

This is such a great production that it deserves full houses and standing ovations every night. I don’t know if it will get them, but we are looking forward to seeing this again in a couple of months, so 2013 is off to a very good start.

[Sadly missed the third session – car problems. 25/3/13]

© 2013 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Boris Godunov – November 2012

Experience: 6/10

By Pushkin, adapted by Adrian Mitchell

Directed by Michael Boyd

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Friday 23rd November 2012

We saw the Declan Donnellan production of this play with the Chekov International Festival Theatre company, in Russian with surtitles (May 2008). Reviewing my notes I realise that I’d grasped the gist and enjoyed the staging, but now I was looking to get more of the details of the story, in English – hooray! As it turns out, I was probably better off in some ways with the Russian version, as Pushkin’s play seems to be a rambling piece with no clear focus, and in English this deficiency became more apparent. However the performances were all very good and made up for some of the gaps in the writing, and I definitely understood the story better this time around. As it’s still in preview, it will undoubtedly get stronger and it will be interesting to see it again next year.

The opening scene with the conversation between the two princes was a good start. They explained the situation, and one of the princes, Shuiskii, had actually been sent to investigate the death of the crown prince Dmitry and report back to the Tsar, so he knew the facts of the case. His prophecy that Boris would keep refusing the crown until the people practically forced him to take it proved true, and these scenes were a nice counterpoint to the equivalent bits in Richard III. I felt I could have done with more of these two throughout the play, as their conversations were both informative and fun, but they were relatively minor characters.

Boris’s suffering did come across, though I wasn’t entirely clear about the causes. Some of the crowd scenes were a bit of a jumble, though we did laugh at the treatment of a baby. First it was told to be quiet and got hit when it wouldn’t stop crying, then they wanted it to cry to show Boris their suffering, and it was hit again and even thrown on the ground to make it cry. Nasty stuff, but it was funny at the time.

Grigory’s wooing of the Polish princess Maryna was good fun. Lucy Briggs-Owen was clearly not interested in declarations of love, and his acting like a wimp didn’t attract her at all. There was enough of a change in Grigory’s behaviour to make sense of her change of heart, and I enjoyed her performance as much as those of the two princes.

The set mainly consisted of an open balcony at the back; there was a forest of coats hanging under this, and these were taken by characters as they came on stage so they gradually disappeared. There were ladders up to the central section of the balcony, and a large map of Russia hung in front of it for one scene. Otherwise, the furniture was brought on and off as needed, and there was only one use of a trapdoor as I recall. That’s it for now – so many plays and so little time.

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Duet For One – November 2012

8/10

By Tom Kempinski

Directed by Robin Herford

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Thursday 8th November 2012

What a shame this had such a small audience tonight. I know it’s not the most cheerful of subjects, but it’s a good play and with Hadyn Gwynne and William Gaunt as the cast I would have expected a better turnout. Still, they gave us excellent performances and we enjoyed this production even more than the Almeida’s 2009 revival.

The set was as required for the piece: music stacked on shelves on the left – CD format – with the player, bookcase beside that, windows centre back with a plant on a table in front of them, desk and chair to the right with more bookcases behind, stacked with books. There was a picture on the wall, a rug in the middle of the floor, an armchair which the doctor moved before his patient arrived and that was about it.

This play definitely isn’t about the set, though, it’s about the performances. Hadyn Gwynne was very believable as the virtuoso violinist whose MS has left her without a reason for living and who isn’t yet ready to deal with the emotional issues this is bringing up for her. Despite her sarcasm and attempts to plead ‘normality’ we could see the vulnerability and despair lurking under the surface, and her gradual discovery of her inner workings was judged to perfection.

Her performance was well matched by William Gaunt as the doctor. He didn’t go in for the tremendously long pauses and distinctly odd behaviour we’ve seen before; his behaviour was measured and kind, and completely believable for a doctor who had seen a lot of human suffering and done his best to help each patient come to terms with it in their own way. His strong outburst when he saw the danger his patient was in was very moving, and certainly affected her as well. Her final realisation of her situation, not yet ‘cured’ but at least willing to do the work, was a fitting end to the play.

We applauded as loudly as we could to make up for the small numbers; I do hope they get the full houses they deserve on the rest of the tour.

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Orphan Of Zhao – October 2012

8/10

Adapted from a traditional Chinese story by James Fenton

Directed by Gregory Doran

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Wednesday 31st October 2012

This was amazing, and only their second performance! The house wasn’t full but we did our best to be appreciative at the end, calling them back on for a second set of bows. And they deserved it. This is another dynastic difficulties piece, similar to A Soldier In Every Son, but thankfully the names were easier to pronounce. A corrupt emperor, an ambitious captain of the guard who arranges to become the emperor’s chief minister, a loyal minister forced to commit suicide leaving his pregnant wife defenceless (although she’s the emperor’s daughter so killing her is out of the question) and an orphan boy who grows up not knowing who his real father is nor the destiny he has to fulfil. That’s the short version; now read on.

The set was wonderfully simple and evocative. Chinese style fretwork delineated the circular arches – one large one at the back and smaller ones round the side balcony openings. Four large Chinese lanterns hung above the stage, and apart from the severed heads being lowered down and a few items of furniture being brought on and off, that was it. The costumes were also in the Chinese style, including some of the elaborate headdresses, but thankfully the music had been seriously westernised – I have no desire to attune my ears to the sound of traditional Chinese music. And although there were several in the cast of Asian descent, there were no problems with heavy foreign accents, which gave the play the best possible chance for a British audience.

The performance began with a character called the ballad-singer. His opening number was a long song which conveyed the idea of grief and suffering without being specific about the story we were going to see. During the song the other characters processed onto the stage, taking up their positions round the outside and facing inwards for the end of the song. The cast then left the stage to Tu’An Gu, the villain of the piece, superbly played by Joe Dixon. He had us laughing within a very few minutes as he described the frustration he felt at not being the clear top dog amongst the Emperor’s advisors. Speaking of dogs, he had one to show us, a huge mastiff which he had trained to attack anyone wearing a purple robe. The dog was a puppet and looked really vicious, although it was quite sweet when it cuddled up to Tu’An Gu, even if he had to shove its muzzle out of his crotch a couple of times.

Having explained his dastardly plans to us, we were then introduced to the three honourable ministers, one of whom, Zhao Dun, wore a purple robe. Oh dear. They were following an old yearly tradition of going out to the peasants to encourage them in their farming, but had to do without the Emperor’s help as this incumbent was only interested in pleasure of every kind. His Peach Gardens had been built by Tu’An Gu as the location for all this fun, and within it the new Crimson Cloud Tower rose high above the ground. From here, the Emperor informed us, the people looked like ants, so he decided to use them for target practice. The first arrow stuck in the middle of the stage but the rest of the shots missed the audience completely, although from the descriptions, the people in the Peach Gardens were being killed unmercifully by the lunatic ruler. Zhao Dun rushed back on, exclaiming against the slaughter, and Tu’An Gu tried to use his rash statements against him. He didn’t quite manage it, but the senseless killing so upset the three good ministers that one of them retired, one sent himself into exile, guarding the country’s borders, while Zhao Dun stayed in the court – bad move.

After a failed assassination attempt – the assassin killed himself rather than execute such a noble man as Zhao Dun – Zhao Dun tried to accuse Tu’An Gu of the attempt but was brought down by the mastiff which naturally ran straight for the purple robe which Zhao Dun was wearing. Zhao Dun’s servant tried to help him, stabbing the mastiff in the process, but his master was eventually found in his own garden and given a choice of three suicide methods – poison, dagger and bowstring. He chose the dagger and showed his courage by killing himself. His wife, the princess, was kept prisoner in her palace to wait for the baby to be born, and the rest of the Zhao clan were executed. And if you’re worried about the mastiff, it was put out of its misery by Tu’An Gu, poor thing.

With a baby on the way, a country doctor, Cheng Ying, was sent for – none of the regular doctors would take the risk – and he came along next and introduced himself to us. In his discussion with the palace guard he learned of the severed heads, and the guard was already picking out the spot where he would hang Cheng Ying’s head if he was given the task of executing him. Cheng Ying was eventually shown in to see the princess and discovered that she was no longer pregnant as she’d had the baby during the night. She entrusted it to Cheng Ying and made him promise to take care of him, bring him up and teach him of his heritage so that he could avenge the wrong done to the Zhao clan.

The next section was a bit complicated, but it boiled down to this: to save the orphan of Zhao, Cheng Ying substituted his own baby boy for the orphan and placed his son with one of the exiled ministers, Gongsun Chujiu. Cheng Ying then ‘betrayed’ this minister, with his connivance, to Tu’An Gu so that Tu’An Gu would kill the baby believing it to be the orphan. Cheng Ying would then be free to raise the orphan as his own boy, but fate had another twist in store for the lad.

Tu’An Gu was so pleased with Cheng Ying for leading him to the orphan of Zhao, as he thought, that he offered to adopt Cheng Ying’s son (the real orphan of Zhao) as his heir. He would bring the boy up to learn the martial arts, while Cheng Ying would teach him medicine. The self-sacrifice of both Gongsun Chujiu and Cheng Ying himself was remarkable, although his wife’s point of view was different. She wanted to save her son and have the real orphan returned to the court no matter what happened to him. Eventually she realised that all the children were in danger, as a decree had been issued that all young boys would be killed if the orphan wasn’t found – sound familiar? Even so, she was damaged by the actual exchange of one baby for the other, and we learned later that she died of sorrow.

The final scene of the first half showed us General Wei Jiang, the other exiled minister, who brought us up-to-date. Eighteen years had passed since he left the court and he was now on the furthest edge of the Emperor’s lands, constantly fighting against the enemy. A young man was brought to him, a student of medicine who was collecting rare plants and who had a message for the general: the Emperor was dying, and the general was needed back at court. Although the young man wasn’t introduced to us or the general, we realised he was the orphan of Zhao, and fortunately the general liked his attitude so took good care of him. The first half ended with the general considering his next moves and the risk he took if he went back to the court too soon.

The second half opened with another song, this time about the orphan Cheng Bo’s coming of age. He was given his bow and arrows and set off to do some hunting while his supposed biological father, Cheng Ying, decided to give him one more day as a carefree child without knowing his true identity. However in the next scene Cheng Ying was spotted by the returning general Wei Jiang, who considered him a traitor for giving away the hiding place of the orphan of Zhao and getting his friend Gongsun Chujiu killed as well. His soldiers gave Cheng Ying a good beating, but he managed to tell the general that he knew a secret which must not die with him, and so the general listened to him for a while. Cheng Ying told him the situation, that the orphan was alive and only he knew his identity. The general finally believed him, and was amazed to find he had already met the orphan himself (I think the sniffles started about now).

Cheng Bo himself came forward next to tell us his story. The journey to give General Wei Jiang the message (and to gather the plants) had changed the young man completely. From a relative innocent who loved both of his fathers equally, he had come to realise that there was much suffering in the country, and a lot of it was either caused by Tu’An Gu and the Emperor or allowed to flourish due to their indifference to good government. An interesting paragraph in the text has been cut for performance, but it explains how the tax system had been corrupted so that the ordinary people were suffering exorbitant penalties while the Emperor still only got his regular income. I don’t know why they cut it – maybe taxation isn’t a popular enough subject – but it helped me understand the situation better afterwards.

Tu’An Gu had a short speech next before joining his son on a hunting expedition. The horses were two actors who held the bridle end of the reins in their hands while father and son rode on. After Cheng Bo shot two geese with one arrow, they dismounted and held on to the reins of their horses. The bridle ends were held higher this time, to reflect their position relative to their horses, and every so often one or other ‘horse’ would snort and shake its head – not quite War Horse but still pretty good.

In retrieving the geese, Cheng Bo entered the garden of his mother’s palace where she was still being kept prisoner. He spoke with the guard and with her, briefly, but it was enough to give him some troubling thoughts. On his return to the horses, he lied to his second father for the first time, which Tu’An Gu immediately spotted.

Back in the capital, the Emperor gave Wei Jiang his imperial seal, effectively putting him in charge. The Emperor spoke to the general from behind a wispy curtain, which was held up on poles by two servants. Every so often the Emperor would walk through the curtain to speak to Wei Jiang directly, and it was interesting to see the choices here. Then came the difficult scene where Cheng Ying told Cheng Bo of his true identity. Prompted by the ghost of Gongsun Chujiu, Cheng Ying started to paint a scroll telling of the events which happened in the Peach Gardens all those years ago. Cheng Bo joined him, and while the full details weren’t exposed on the scroll yet, Cheng Bo was able to reveal that he suspected he wasn’t Cheng Ying’s son, and this led to the exposure of his true identity.

Wei Jiang accosted the captain of the guard and ensured his cooperation. Cheng Bo paid another visit to his mother and it seemed he received her blessing, and then came the climax of the play – the revenge of the many Zhao clan ghosts against the man who had had them killed – Tu’An Gu. He was standing in the audience room, doing up his shirt, while guards and others rushed about, ignoring him. He tried to get hold of the captain of the guard, but not only did the other guards ignore him, one of them went up to him and slapped him in the face, followed by another. He realised that power was slipping from his grasp, but he didn’t yet know that it was already safely tucked up in another’s bed.

Cheng Bo came on and stood still, just looking at him. Tu’An Gu naturally assumed that Cheng Bo was still on his side and gave him instructions about organising the guards etc. However Cheng Bo stayed where he was to begin with, and when he did move it was to set out the three suicide options for Tu’An Gu. It was clearly difficult for Tu’An Gu to realise what was going on, and even when he did he couldn’t bring himself to kill Cheng Bo, despite having the opportunity. He also couldn’t bring himself to commit suicide, so Cheng Bo had to help him. The general and the Princess arrived, and the revenge scene ended with the Princess holding Cheng Bo as the ballad-singer sang of the dead calling to him while the ghosts walked along the outer edge of the auditorium and on to the stage.

The final scene was the saddest of the lot, but a very fitting ending all the same. Cheng Ying stumbled through a graveyard to find the resting place of his true son’s body. The ghost of that son, now grown up, talked with him, and accused him of hating his son. He denied it; he had always loved his son. But the ghost said he had always loved the orphan of Zhao. Cheng Ying was only there to kill himself, and did so with the ghost’s help. The final image was of the ghost cuddling his dead father’s body, realising at last that he had been loved all along. It was a very moving moment, and a good way to end the story.

There were excellent performances all round from the cast, and some lovely touches in the staging which added to the atmosphere of the story. When someone died, red petals were dropped down onto the stage, which was a beautiful and simple effect. When the two babies were together on the stage, waiting for the decision to be made about swapping them, the relevant actors sat cross-legged diagonally opposite each other on the same side as their baby and made the crying noises – very effective. The story was complicated but told so well that we followed it quite easily, and if this is the standard when they’ve only just started, what will it be like when we see it next?

© 2012 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me