Category Archives: Drama

Dangerous Corner – June 2007

6/10

By: J B Priestley

Directed by: Ian Dickens

Company: Ian Dickens Productions

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Tuesday 5th June 2007

This was a reasonably good production, by Connaught standards. Unlike the previous version we saw in London, the set was very 1930s, with bookcases, old leather chairs, and fire seats. Unfortunately, they were having technical problems tonight (first night in Worthing), and so we were late getting in, and the music was also late to arrive, most notably when the musical cigarette box stayed stubbornly silent during the reprise of the opening scene. The radio also came on seconds after everyone turned to look at it. Very embarrassing.

Despite these difficulties, the performances were OK, and I still enjoyed the gradual unravelling of the plot. I forgot to get one of the audio machines tonight, so I did miss some of the dialogue, mostly during the opening scene when everyone seemed muted, but Shirley Anne Field was definitely underpowered. The reprise actually seemed louder – perhaps they’d got up a good head of steam by then. Of course, with the lack of music on cue, the sense of a different outcome was considerably weakened – I’m sure they’ll be working to get rid of those glitches asap.

I particularly liked Georgina Sutton as Frieda, the wife who’s still in love with dead Martin, as she got across both good manners and obsessive passion, with a nice line in bitching as well. Everyone else was up to scratch, and if only the audience had been better (hearing aid twittering, loud coughing, fidgeting, snoring, etc), we’d have enjoyed ourselves a lot more.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Cymbeline – June 2007

8/10

By: William Shakespeare

Directed by: Declan Donnellan

Company: Cheek by Jowl

Venue: Barbican Theatre

Date: Saturday 2nd June 2007

We seem to get lucky with Cymbeline productions – of the six we’ve seen, half have been excellent. This was one of them.

After Kneehigh’s version, it was nice to get back to a more “normal” edition of the play, although the staging certainly wasn’t traditional, unless you count it as traditional Cheek by Jowl, that is. The Barbican had been transformed, yet again, so that the chairs (temporary seating) were raked back in a slight curve from the stage area, which was a large, open expanse, with only two massive pillars, reminiscent of the Globe’s pillars, to either side of centre. Otherwise, all was black, bare and not immediately appealing. For this production, we also had two bars with piles of cloth in front of them – they rose up to be swagged curtains – a couple of chairs, and a table with glasses and a bottle. Once the curtains rose up, we could see a chaise longue by one pillar and a big trunk by the other.

I’d decided to check out the Barbican’s induction loop facilities today, and I was relieved to find they were using a little box with an antenna and headphones. When we go again, I can hopefully use my own headphones, as their ones were still uncomfortable after a while. Anyway, I managed to work it OK, left it switched off till the play began (I don’t need to hear crowd mutterings in detail), and then, as the lights went down I switched it on, only to find it wasn’t working! Oh dear. At the interval I discovered the antenna had come out, and screwed it back in, so the second half came across clearer than the first, but as we were sitting in Row B, this wasn’t really an issue.

So I missed the very opening of the play, as I was cursing (quietly) and fiddling with my knobs. When I started paying attention, the main cast were all posed behind the second curtain, as in a family photo, and two of the men were discussing the situation. What with stolen sons, exiled husbands and second marriages, this play reminds me that people often think that if Shakespeare was alive today he’d be writing for the soaps. Rubbish, that doesn’t pay nearly enough, he’d be a script-doctor in Hollywood! But I digress.

After the introductions, we’re straight into the action (there’s a lot to get through in this play), and Posthumus and Imogen are saying their farewells, supposedly assisted by the new Queen (hiss, boo). It’s clear Imogen doesn’t like her, but the main focus is her love for Posthumus, and the sorrow of their parting. The Queen does her double dealing pretty swiftly (start as you mean to go on), and soon brings the King along to discover the couple. He flies into a rage, and sends Posthumus packing.

The story from here seems pretty standard, although the book given to Posthumus by his parents still wasn’t included. The main interest is in the staging. When Cloten comes on, I didn’t realise at first that it was the same actor playing both Posthumus and this part. [Olivier Award for Best Newcomer 2008] He looked so different, moved so differently, and all through the play, it was absolutely clear which character he was playing. He got across Cloten’s braggadocio and cowardice very well, and also Posthumus’ integrity and studiousness (Posthumus wears glasses, always buttons his jacket, etc.). Cloten had a couple of yes men with him who were happy to flatter him, without showing any signs of actually respecting him.

The emptiness of the stage allowed for quick scene changes. As with the Russian Twelfth Night, the final line or exit from one scene was held as the next scene’s characters came on stage, paused, and then the scenes followed each other seamlessly – finish one, straight into the next. Also, when someone is giving an aside, the others freeze, helping to clarify what’s going on.

The Italian section was fine, and the setting up of the bet worked very well. Posthumus is reasonably intelligent, but he lets himself down badly here. Mind you, we know Imogen’s love is bomb-proof, so he’s not really so daft. Iachimo gets off on the wrong foot with Imogen, and this time she never really trusts him again. However, she’s too innocent to see any problem in keeping his trunk for him, so the trap is set.

The scene where Iachimo convinces Posthumus of Imogen’s unfaithfulness makes it clear that Posthumus isn’t too readily convinced. Unfortunately there’s a mole involved, and finally he succumbs. Off the Italians go to Britain, to sort out the non-payment of tribute.

Imogen’s receipt of Posthumus’ letter was fully as excited as the Kneehigh version. She showed a huge range of emotions in this performance, always with intelligence. The Welsh scenes are well edited (I don’t remember hearing the lads’ Welsh names at all), and the cave is basically a space in the middle of the stage, with some boxes and a record player beside the fire. I like that kind of staging – I’m perfectly capable of using my imagination to fill in the details, and I enjoy productions that encourage me to do that.

Of course, with Cloten and Posthumus being virtual twins, Imogen’s misidentification of Cloten’s body makes a lot of sense. The dream in which Posthumus’ parents speak to him is set as a family picnic, and the God is a disembodied voice. The final scene, with Cymbeline victorious, and the guards apparently ready to shoot all the prisoners out of hand, was considerably more tense than I’ve seen before. The prisoners all have sacks over their heads, so no chance of anyone being recognised. Not that they’re recognised immediately when the sacks come off, mind you, but at least the coverings make the delays more plausible.

None of the above really gets across the sheer energy of this production, nor the amount of detail in each performance. There was a lot of movement, with characters swirling round the stage, or occasionally holding still, or creeping about, like Iachimo. The physical aspects were very important, and added to the energy and tension. I know the story, but still I wanted to find out how it would work out this time. Roll on the next Cheek By Jowl!

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

A Matter Of Life And Death – May 2007

5/10

Based on the film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, adapted by Tom Morris and Emma Rice for the National Theatre

Directed by: Emma Rice

Company: Kneehigh

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Thursday 31st May 2007

I enjoyed Kneehigh’s Cymbeline so much, that I probably expected too much of this production. There was a lot to enjoy, but some of it was just plain dreary. Even so, I cried buckets, and felt happier when we came out, so I’d obviously had a good time.

First off, I tried out the audio devices for the first time here. Although we were in Row E, and I would have expected to hear most of it anyway, I wanted to find out what it was like. The headset is quite nifty, and certainly gave me a louder and clearer listening experience than without it. I found the pressure in my ear a bit uncomfortable, verging on painful, so I may have to investigate other options, but for now this will be a great way to get more out of the many plays we see. I also realised I would have to avoid wearing my pendant, as it kept clattering against the base of the headset. (Audio assisted experiences marked (headset) after seats.)

Before the start, the Olivier stage was bare. At the start, the panel at the back slid open (up and down), and the musicians were wheeled on, on a rectangular bandstand with a white arch at the back. The music was not particularly pleasant – rather wailing and loud – and it went on for far too long, in my view. As the music got under way, the whole stage became awash with the cast – cycling nurses stopping to light up a fag, hospital beds with pyjama-clad military patients, etc. Various people were reading aloud from books, and at one point there was a blaze in the middle of one of the beds – why? They’d already discovered torches under the bedclothes, and strung them up, and then the blaze, and then some fire buckets were brought on and set alight, and I have absolutely no idea why any of this was going on.

Then one of the pyjama men, dressed in a natty pair of star-patterned pj’s, started us off with the description of the universe. This was where it first started to engage me. As this was going on, another arching staircase is brought on, and Peter, the airmen who causes all the trouble, is being set up on it. Then we’re into the famous dialogue between Peter and June, and I cried and cried.

When Peter jumps out of the plane, he’s held aloft by wires for a while, and then comes down on a newly-cleared stage with a (photographic) beach scene plastered all over the back wall, and a couple of sand patches deposited on the floor. This was very evocative. He chats with a small girl, who’s playing in one of the sand patches, then along comes June, and the great romance gets underway.

Meanwhile, up in heaven, or at least the waiting room, Peter’s crewmate is waiting for him. The angels, all in nurses’ uniforms, are booking flyers in, but so far, there’s no sign of Peter. The chief accounting angel has no sooner explained that mistakes aren’t made, but that if one were all the alarms would go off, and that hasn’t happened for over 600 years, than the alarms go off, and it’s all hands to the pump to get that day’s soul receipts balanced.

This is where we’re introduced to Conductor 71. He’s a Norwegian, not that long deceased, who used to be an escape artist, but who suffered the most embarrassing death, as the trick that went wrong was the first one his mother had ever turned up to see. Judging by his completely unsuccessful attempts to vanish in front of everyone’s eyes, she was right to be unhappy about his chosen profession. He claims that the thick fog prevented him from snatching Peter’s soul from the jaws of life, and so he’s sent back down with orders to put things right.

Back on Earth, Peter and June are shown in a more sexually liberated 1940’s Britain than usual. They’re snuggled up together in bed, minus some clothes, and having a swinging time. Literally. The bed is swinging from side to side of the stage, and as Conductor 71 comes along, he show us his gymnastic skills by hanging on underneath. Eventually he emerges, and causes time to freeze, so he can speak to Peter. Spare company members hold the bed in place, while Peter tells Conductor 71 where to go.

The story unfolds as expected – the doctor at the hospital who’s in love with June tries to sort out Peter’s medical problems, and eventually gets caught up in helping him fight his case in heaven. All is resolved happily (yet still I cried!), and I left feeling cleansed. So, what else to say about the staging?

Wheeling the beds on and off was occasionally distracting, but overall, I felt the production settled down into a good rhythm. There was a lovely sub-plot with a wounded airman who’s obviously very affected by his experiences. He’s playing Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as staged by the doctor, and for ass’s ears, he’s got a couple of bedroom slippers strapped to his head. He hangs himself, which was distressing. Later, he sings a lovely song, which was actually a poem written by a deceased airman in the war; it’s quoted in the program notes.

While the doctor and June wait to see how Peter will go, they play ping-pong. This is done by having a ball on the end of a long pole, with one of the non-visible cast members moving it backwards and forwards between the players – great fun.  Finally, the bike crash was well done, with Douglas Hodge, the doctor, being lifted away from the wreckage.

Overall, I enjoyed this well enough, but wouldn’t particularly want to see it again.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Landscape With Weapon – May 2007

8/10

By: Joe Penhall

Directed by: Roger Michell

Venue: Cottesloe Theatre

Date: Thursday 24th May 2007

This was four-hander, exploring some of the issues around the technology of warfare and arms dealing in general. It was great fun, also quite moving, and although nothing particularly surprised me, it was still good to see someone writing this stuff at this time.

The Cottesloe had been set up with a central strip of stage, entrances either end, and simple furniture. To our left, there was a kitchen, and to our right was the entrance to the flat. Tom Hollander, dressed (I use the word loosely) in relaxed mode, plays Ned, who has designed an advanced guidance system for military drones. His brother Dan, played by Julian Rhind-Tutt, is a dentist, venturing into Botox, with a militant anti-war wife. Dan is fond of saying “yeah, no, yeah…” a lot, which is something I find myself doing; now I know how it sounds, I’ll have to stop doing it! It was very funny, though, as was most of their chat. In fact, the play changes mood gradually from the beginning, taking on a greater degree of menace towards the end, when Jason Watkins, as Brooks, the man from security, gets involved.

Ned wants to avoid his design being used in a bad way. He doesn’t mind people being killed as such (it’s fewer people than would be killed the conventional way), but he gets worried after talking with Dan that his application might actually be used to kill people who didn’t deserve it – innocent civilians, for example. In fact, the only surprise in the whole play was that anyone could be that intelligent nowadays and not have a clearer idea of what might be done with such an advanced weapon. Still, we allow our nerds and geeks some leeway in social matters, including how the world works, so it didn’t get in my way.

Pippa Haywood plays Angela Ross, the Commercial Director of the firm which Ned works for, and which wants to get a deal signed with the British government to manufacture the product. There’s a bit of commercial stuff about how the UK government wants 51% of the intellectual copyright, with the intention of selling on the weapon to other countries. Ned’s concern is how that may lead to the weapon being sold to countries that would use it in the wrong way, and he holds out for a controlling share of the IP rights. The Commercial Director does her best to persuade him to sign up to the existing deal, but it’s no go.

The scene shifts to the factory after the interval, and the set is changed quite simply. The carpet runner is removed, revealing aircraft shapes on the floor, the sides are lit differently to show up the glass bricks, and shadows of fighter planes are thrown onto these walls. It reminded me of the museum at Coventry, I think. As Ned is still refusing to play ball, the security man is called in, and Jason gives us a lovely turn as the cheerful chappy who’s all friendly to begin with, but who turns on the pressure to make sure Ned changes his mind.

Next we see Brooks applying the pressure to Dan, as Ned has scarpered, having ballsed up his coding to make the weapon useless. Dan isn’t made of particularly stern stuff, and after a short while “volunteers” to give Brooks all the information he could possibly want. The final scene is another duologue between Dan and Ned, where we find out what happened to Ned after he’s picked up by Brooks.

There was a lot of fun in the language and the performances, all of which were excellent. The play struck me as being more about the people and their relationship within the arms industry, plus Dan’s relationship with Ned. It is a bit scary to consider some of the possibilities for the way weapons are changing now, but the reality as experienced by our troops in Iraq shows that superior firepower only gets you so far. Peace cannot be so easily imposed on people who don’t want it, and increased technological superiority isn’t the final answer.

Must just mention the entertaining fight over the curry take away. I’m often distracted when there’s real food on stage, and this was no exception, but I still enjoyed the scrap between the two men, ending up with them lying, exhausted, across the table. Great fun.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Entertainer – May 2007

5/10

By: John Osborne

Directed by: Sean Holmes

Venue: Old Vic Theatre

Date: Wednesday 23rd May 2007

I would have loved to have given this production a higher rating, but unfortunately this performance was marred by the one thing which I never thought would affect a performance adversely – an appreciative audience. Listen and learn.

I was in a better position to appreciate this play this time, as I’m more aware of the Suez crisis, and other events around that time. I could see how the play was reflecting some aspects of British society at that time, though it still feels very distant to me. As we were much further back than usual, I had more difficulty hearing the lines – I think I’ll check out the induction loop facilities for the future. The afternoon was also warm, and the auditorium very stuffy, with the beginnings of crowded room aroma starting to percolate, so I did find myself nodding off a little before the first interval.

However, I also found the performances very good, especially those of Pam Ferris and Robert Lindsay, in the title role. The structure of the play is interesting, with domestic scenes interspersed with Archie’s increasingly ragged performances on stage. The final scene, with all the backdrops lifted, and the bare, empty stage echoing to Archie’s departure, can be very moving, with a variety of emotions surfacing. Here, however, we had the problem that the audience, instead of stony silence as he disintegrates in front of them, roared with laughter at his final “joke”, and applauded loudly as he walked back to Phoebe to put on his coat and head out the stage door. Not the usual send-off for a failed entertainer. In fact, if this audience had been around in 1956, Archie would probably have had his own TV show!

It’s a tough balance to strike, putting across that this guy isn’t very good, and is deteriorating fast, while casting top-class actors in the part, as it needs a lot of skill to pull it off. Robert Lindsay did a very good job, though as I know how good he is at song and dance, my own “baggage” saw him as a better performer than he was meant to be. The audience just couldn’t get enough of him, and I don’t know what he would have to do to put them off. I’ve looked at the possibility that this is a perfectly acceptable way to stage it, but I keep coming up against the text – music hall was on its last, tottery, leg and no audience would have reacted that way to this guy. Ah well, at least the Old Vic is doing good business out of it.

Pam Ferris gave us an excellent portrait of an alcoholic air-head who will just not stop talking. I often find with Osborne’s characters that his observation is pretty sharp, but there isn’t the compassion to go with it. Someone like Alan Bennett, for example, can have me howling with laughter at a character, while also recognising their humanity and feeling warmth, respect and a greater understanding for their plight. These characters were unpleasant, and the case for the defence never really got going, in my view, so I left the theatre feeling a little “underdone” – cheated by the audience and to a certain extent by the play.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Kiss Of The Spider Woman – May 2007

8/10

By: Manuel Puig, translated by Allan Baker

Directed by: Charlotte Westenra

Venue: Donmar Warehouse

Date: Thursday 17th May 2007

As this play got underway, I felt a sense of misgiving. I wasn’t sure I’d find two men talking together in a prison for two hours either interesting or enjoyable. (I hadn’t seen the film, and knew practically nothing about it.) I changed my opinion pretty soon, though, as the characters began to develop and the relationship emerged.

Will Keen as Molina starts things off. He’s talking about the storyline of a film he’s seen, about a panther woman. He’s a bit camp, and the softness of his voice meant I missed a lot of this bit. Once Rupert Evans, as Valentin, gets more involved, though, I found I could follow it a lot more.

As the days pass (Molina takes the pages off a calendar, so we can see when each scene happens) we get to know them better. Molina considers himself a woman – at least he aspires to be one. Slightly different from being a homosexual, as he doesn’t want to be a man having sex with another man. We’re not told exactly what he’s in jail for (or I didn’t hear it, possibly), but I assume it’s because he’s gay. His mother, whom he worships, is ill, and that appears to be his main worry during his time in prison. He’s always being kind to Valentin, and getting precious little back. Valentin is a young idealistic political activist. In Argentina. This means he’s determined to suffer for the cause, and continues to pump himself full of Marxist theory during his spare time. His disgust at the exploitation of others doesn’t include his own exploitation of Molina, although he does try to refuse his help as often as he can – it’s one of the main sources of tension between the two men.

At the end of the first half we get confirmation that Molina is being asked to spy on Valentin by the prison officials, and it’s also clear that he’s becoming more and more reluctant to rat on his cellmate. He keeps telling Valentin not to tell him things – names, etc. – in case he gets interrogated. Valentin is a bit naive, and doesn’t seem to grasp the danger. He’s finding he’d rather be with a woman who left the organisation, instead of the woman in the organisation who’s nominally his girlfriend. She’s off shagging someone else now he’s in prison, as dedication to the cause precludes personal attachments.

The two men grow closer, and eventually, they have sex. Molina’s time is nearly up. As he hasn’t got any information from Valentin, the prison officials have decided to release him, and then follow him to see who he contacts on Valentin’s behalf. At the end, Molina asks Valentin for the information that Valentin’s being anxious to give him, and the two men embrace. That’s the end of the play, and we’re left in delicious ambiguity as to what Molina’s going to do with the information. He’s in love with Valentin, but will he betray him deliberately, or just accidentally, by being followed?

I loved both performances. Will Keen was excellent as a man-woman, and Rupert Evans got across the self-righteousness of the idealist very well. I could see nothing but problems for both men, given the system they’re living under, and it’s a great example of how to make a protest and show the bigger picture by focusing on the personal and the individual. I’m really glad I saw this.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Rose Tattoo – May 2007

8/10

By: Tennessee Williams

Directed by: Steven Pimlott and Nicholas Hytner

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Tuesday 15th May 2007

Steve and I had seen this play many years ago, with a good cast, and a good director, but just hadn’t got it at all. Neither of us could remember much about it, apart from this sense of bewilderment. We’re both Williams fans though, so we wanted to give it another try. And we’re very glad we did.

As this was in the Olivier, the set design was basically the small house that Serafina lives in (minus a few of the rooms) on the revolve, so scene changes could be pretty brisk. The entire set was based on roses – a pattern of roses was etched onto the flooring underneath the house, and rose patterns appeared on many of the costumes (not just Serafina’s), and in much of the fabric. There was even a goat (no roses to be seen there) which was led round the front of the set a couple of times.

The fairly realistic setting certainly helped, but this production was much better than the one we’d seen before. I lost a fair bit of the dialogue at the start, as it took me a while to tune into the accents. The older generation are Italian immigrants, while the younger generation speak the southern way, except when speaking Italian. There was much more humour than I expected, although Tennessee isn’t the dourest writer by any means.

The story concerns an Italian woman, very prideful of her marriage to an Italian Baron, and even more prideful of his faithfulness, who eventually learns, years after her husband’s death during an intercepted drug delivery, that he hasn’t been faithful at all. She’s already spent those years mourning his death excessively, and this discovery threatens to tip her over the edge. Amazingly enough, this is the very day on which her daughter graduates from High School; she’s met a young man to whom she’s attracted, and this causes a bout of over-protectiveness from her mother. Serafina also meets a replacement man, another truck driver, who arranges to have a rose tattoo put on his chest to help him woo the lady. Everything seems to work out OK, though it’s a bumpy ride.

Having read the notes in the program, this was intended to be a more optimistic play than his usual, and it certainly comes across that way. Instead of a picture of domestic entanglements which are driving everyone crazy (or crazier), we get a greater sense of progression with this one, partly because of the long time gap between the husband’s death and the rest of the action, but also because the relationships are more open. The outside world is more involved through the female “chorus” of her Italian neighbours and their children, plus a few others, including the priest.

I was clear about who these people were this time, and the difficulties in the relationship between mother and daughter were both moving and entertaining. I could see how Serafina is driven by her passion, and I just enjoyed watching the events unfold. Nice one.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Attempts On Her Life – May 2007

3/10

By: Martin Crimp

Directed by: Katie Mitchell + company

Venue: Lyttelton Theatre

Date: Thursday 10th May 2007

This was dreadful. Not all the way through, but it’s an hour and three quarters I’ll never have back again.

The performance style was based on modern media. The actors didn’t play specific characters, instead they morphed in and out of various roles, as well as moving cameras and lights around, filming other actors, then becoming the focus of the cameras themselves. There was a huge screen lowered down so the audience could see what was being filmed, intercut with footage shot previously and with pictures layered and superimposed. All very technical, but to what end?

The general idea seemed to be to look at the role of women in our media-driven society, and particularly issues around women committing suicide. There was no specific woman – it’s any woman. There’s a good section looking at the use of women as sexual objects of desire in advertising, in this case, advertising a car. The advert (in Russian?) was translated into English, so we could get the humour. At the end, the usual caveats are scrolled across the screen, and the combination of these over pictures of a sexy woman, make it clear that we’re not meant to read the words – it’s the advertising equivalent of small print.

Another good part was the Abba imitation – the style is as for one of their Eighties’ hits, but the words are much tougher. The police interrogation sketch didn’t work so well for me – there have been so many comedy send-ups, never mind Life On Mars, that I found most of it just boring. There was one good line, though, when the coppers are pushing this guy to sign his statement, and he says he hasn’t got a pen.

Apart from that, I enjoyed the Newsnight Review sketch, with recognisable imitations of regular participants, e.g. Germaine Greer. Otherwise, I could barely get through the turgid stuff that was passing for a theatrical performance. No criticism of the actors is intended, even though they participated in the staging. I just didn’t find this performance style remotely engaging, in fact, quite the reverse. The use of cameras, the screen, mikes for the actors, etc., meant the whole piece was distanced from the audience – we might as well have watched a film, and the actors might as well have been acting in an empty theatre for all the exchange that was going on between us.

The opening section showed a bit of promise. The prison doors of the stage curtain creaked open to reveal a vast open space, filled with the cameras, etc that took such a central role later on. All the cast are milling around, and finally come forward to talk through some ideas about a woman, like a group of creatives at an advertising agency. There are a few good lines, but mostly, it’s a jumble, and not at all clear where it’s going. However, I stuck with it (unlike one gentleman behind us), and, sadly, was disappointed. The chorus line effect was repeated at the end, only in an even more incoherent fashion, though as I’d pretty much lost interest by this time, I really didn’t care.

With no characters, plot or anything resembling a play taking place on stage, it was impossible to get involved in these performances or any of the issues raised. The distancing effects previously mentioned added to that, and I actually felt disrespected as an audience member, and increasingly irrelevant. For the first time, I chose not to applaud at the end. I will go a long way to avoid seeing anything this banal again.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Last Confession – May 2007

8/10

By: Roger Crane

Directed by: David Jones

Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Thursday 3rd May 2007

This is a world premiere of the first produced play by a New York lawyer in his fifties. It has seventeen speaking parts, only one double, and has taken ten years to be staged. It was an amazing debut, a fine play, and also proves the Chichester Festival Theatre management are still willing to take risks.

We attended a pre-show talk by the author, which was very informative, and entertaining, although I didn’t manage to hear everything. I’m hoping to eventually download their podcast to re-hear it all, but for now I’ll just mention that it was very funny – he has a good sense of humour – and didn’t give anything away about the plot, apart from suggesting that there’s a twist. Apparently someone had been coming on in a different costume at the end, and people weren’t recognising who he was, so now he comes on in the same costume, and people get it, whatever “it” is. Roger also stressed that he would be available at the end of the performance tonight, and positively encouraged us to come up and tell him how it went. We did so, and he kindly signed our copy of the play text. Wonderful. Now for the play itself.

The play tells the story of the year of the three Popes, as seen by insiders in the Vatican. It’s a story of the power struggle within the Catholic hierarchy (not that different from power struggles anywhere, it must be said), but heightened by the possibility that a Pope has been bumped off to make way for a more malleable or even reactionary pontiff, one who will unravel the gains made by the liberal reformers of recent years. We see the developments through the eyes of Cardinal Benelli, played by David Suchet, who is making his final confession to a monk/priest, and insists on going over the sad events of 1978. He appears to be confessing to killing the emissary of God, but experienced theatregoers such as ourselves take this sort of thing with a large chunk of salt, and don’t assume it’s literally true. (One of these days it will – won’t we be surprised!)

Benelli himself rejects being elected as Pope once Paul dies, and instead engineers the election of Luciani, who takes the name John Paul I. He is a saintly man, more Christ-like than anyone else in the play, or even in the entire Vatican, for that matter. His ideas shock the Curia, the Vatican establishment, and he even plans to replace many of those in positions of power. It is as these plans are being made that the Pope is found dead, in bed, with a heart attack being declared to be the cause of death. Benelli insists on an investigation, but it soon becomes clear that it’s just a superficial attempt to allay public suspicions. No autopsy is done, and there’s a clear possibility that the Pope may have been denied his medicine at a crucial time. In any case, murder cannot be proved, and cannot be ruled out.

That’s one of the joys of this play. It’s good at presenting the facts as far as they are known, with some reasonably inferred glosses, but leaves us entirely to make up our own minds. However, it’s clear Cardinal Benelli’s sense of guilt relates to his manoeuvring Luciani into the Papacy, to whose pressures he then succumbed. We then have the delight of seeing the various political groupings within the Cardinals locking horns over John Paul’s successor, and eventually compromising on the first non-Italian Pope for 500 years, John Paul II. Benelli has lost his chance to be Pope.

There is so much material in this play that it takes a while to absorb a lot of the details. The characters of the various Cardinals are beautifully sketched in – each has their own agenda, and to an extent they overlap, but I felt that dissension and rivalry could burst out anywhere, at any time, over the slightest thing. There was no serious commitment to serving God in any of them, other than Luciani. The Catholic religion was merely the product the Church was selling that year; given time, they might have moved into many other areas, as Marcinkus was doing with the Vatican Bank. Roger Crane mentioned that one senior Church Official, who read his play, considered that he was trying to bring down the Catholic Church. I certainly didn’t get that impression from this production, but in any case, he couldn’t do nearly as good a job as the people in charge of it are doing.

Now for the details. The set was all cages – right angles of iron bars which could be moved around easily to create offices, open spaces, etc. They made the Vatican seem like a prison – heavily fortified, an effect referred to in the text when someone mentions the Pope as being a prisoner in his own apartments. The desks and chairs, etc, were fairly plain, and costumes were naturally based on actual designs – I’m still not sure why some cardinals wear red, and some wear black trimmed with red – perhaps my resident Catholic will enlighten me. (Speaking of which, he gave me a very useful run down of the three Popes storyline before the off, which came in very handy as I didn’t have time to read the program notes beforehand.) [P.S. no, he doesn’t know why there are different colour schemes either.]

Performances. David Suchet was excellent, as always. He oozed power and intelligence, reminding me a bit of the Robert Maxwell portrayal by Michael Pennington (not that weird, we just haven’t seen David Suchet’s version yet (on TV)). Maxwell was the sort of person who might happily have made someone into a Pope, too. Michael Jayston as the confessor had a more difficult job, as he mainly seemed to be devil’s advocate (sorry) to Benelli within the structure of the play, to get him to expand on his views. His character develops in unexpected ways, however, and I thoroughly enjoyed seeing him on stage again.

Luciani (Richard O’Callaghan) was superb. His simplicity and strength made the piece work. Roger Crane made some reference to the question of how the Christian churches would react if Christ were to return, and that he feels his play addresses that issue. It certainly does, as Luciani is as close to Christ as you’re likely to get in the upper strata of any major church nowadays. I felt he was a lamb to the slaughter fairly early on, though it was good to see him standing up to the lions and doing a bit of roaring himself. Of the other cardinals, Baggio and Felici made the most impression, although that’s not to diminish my appreciation of the others. Baggio (Bruce Purchase) was the most blunt, and the only one to openly defy the new Pope. Felici (Charles Kay) was more suave, a real politician, who had seen much over the years and learned how to finesse each opportunity to his, or rather the Church’s, greatest advantage.

One final mention for Sister Vincenza (Maroussia Frank), a stroppy nun who really knows how to serve, but doesn’t see any need to soften the blow.

Finally, I must just emphasise how entertaining this was. Often funny, it was also tense, gripping and invariably powerful. The insights into human nature were accurate, and the drama built to a very satisfactory conclusion, in the sense that we knew when it was finished, and felt complete, rather than we thought it was a happy outcome for all concerned. Life’s like that.

I thoroughly enjoyed the evening and would happily see this play again. Hopefully other managements will be courageous enough to stage it, now they know it’s a hit.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

September Tide – April 2007

2/10

By: Daphne Du Maurier, adapted by Mark Rayment

Directed by: Ian Dickens

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Tuesday 17th April 2007

Oh dear, this was a dismal evening for the usually reliable Connaught. The play concerns a young (in his 30s) artist, who marries the daughter, and falls in love with the mother. Eventually he informs her of this, they have one night alone together because a tremendous storm stops the daughter from getting back to the house (this is Cornwall, after all), and then she tells him he must leave for all their sakes, and he does. Ho hum. It may be the original play has more to it (and I’ve no idea why an existing play should need an adapter, anyway), but this version was decidedly slight and humdrum. Very Mills and Boon (and that may be an insult to Mills and Boon, I’ve no idea). The cast did their best, but there wasn’t much give in the text, so sadly the evening was not that enjoyable.

Kate O’Mara was too old to play the mother convincingly, and there was no psychological depth to any of the characters, at least none that I could see. Admittedly I did nod off a few times, but that’s partly because there was so little going on. Last night’s performance didn’t lose its grip for a second, so tonight I have to assume that it was the play rather than me.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me