Category Archives: Shakespeare

Love Is My Sin – January 2011

6/10

By: Wiliam Shakespeare

Directed by: Peter Brook

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Friday 7th January 2011

This piece was devised by Peter Brook to link a number of Shakespeare’s sonnets together. First performed in Paris, here we had Michael Pennington and Natasha Parry delivering a series of sonnets exploring love and time from different angles. While I’m fascinated by the sonnets, I find their language too complex to be readily understood, and so although some lines came across really well, for the most part “it was all Greek to me”. I found Natasha Parry’s delivery a little weak, and our position didn’t help, as our view was regularly blocked. The music was charming, but with the heat in the auditorium, I nodded off a few times when the music took over. Still, it was a pleasant evening, and I would still be happy to attend other sonnet readings in future.

The highlight of the evening was an unexpected treat – Peter Brook and Michael Boyd in a post-show conversation. Paul Allen made the third, and I was totally taken with Peter Brook’s deep listening presence, and the tremendously good sense that he talked. His view on professors and their declarations about Will’s work were spot on (and good fun), and although I don’t remember all the details, I thoroughly enjoyed his contributions.

Michael Boyd was equally entertaining. In fact, the two made a great double act. I left the theatre feeling I’d been in the presence of two masters of theatre, that as with great theatre I’d been uplifted and improved just by being there. A great night.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Hamlet – October 2010

Experience: 5/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Nicholas Hytner

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Tuesday 26th October 2010

We met with an unfortunate choice of performance – coughing, phones going off, voice over the public address, an understudy for Polonius, and lots more coughing in the second half – have these people never heard of cough sweets?

The set looked like a pop-up version of the Ken Branagh film, all European military style, with walls that slid on and off, or unfurled from the sides to form lots of different acting spaces. The concealed doors were under the military-style crests, while the windows had folding shutters and carefully concealed ashtrays. Apart from one wall which was gray, the overall colour scheme was off-white, and looked suitably palatial, though it’s a shame Gertrude had to make do with a curtain from Poundstretchers for her little alcove. (It has to be stabbed through and torn down many times, so presumably that’s why the stunt curtain from the rehearsal room got the job.) The costumes were modern, with a strong emphasis on the military, and there were a number of security guards in suits who talked into their cuffs a lot, and gave the production its atmosphere of constant, menacing, surveillance.

The opening scene had the soldiers hiding from each other behind the walls – who else were they expecting to see up there? Although, as the opening sound effect was a plane flying overheard, perhaps they thought the ‘enemy’ might send in paratroopers to land on top of the castle for a midnight attack (bear in mind, Marcellus apparently doesn’t know what the heightened military activity is all about, so just who would the ‘enemy’ be?).

The first court scene was done as a TV broadcast from the new king, up to “For all, our thanks.” Then the royal couple could relax – Gertrude was quick to grab a glass of champagne – and deal with the more pressing matters of state. Cornelius became Cornelia, and the ambassadors to Norway were swiftly sent on their way. Hamlet had been sitting near Claudius’s desk, and brought out some papers. He unfolded one of them and laid it on the desk for Claudius to sign, but Claudius, ignoring him (so much for the caring father image), put his feet up on the desk and tackled Laertes first. His bit of paper was soon signed (I assume it was some kind of pass to let him leave the country), and he was off.

Hamlet was not so lucky. Does Claudius ever think, during the later stages of this play, how much simpler his life would have been if he had just let the man go back to university? Anyway, Hamlet reluctantly agrees to his mother’s request that he stay, and as he does so, he tears up the bit of paper and throws it away.

When the rest of the court has left, we get Hamlet’s first soliloquy, and it was pretty good. Then Horatio and the guards arrive, and I found it a little weird that with a huge picture of the former king still in the room – it was the backdrop to the impromptu TV studio – the line “methinks I see my father”, and Horatio’s response “O where, my lord?”, didn’t acknowledge the elephant in the room. Of course, it helps the newcomers in the audience to know what the previous king looks like, but it undercuts those lines a bit, as I found myself wondering how the picture would be used and why it was being ignored.

Next up was Laertes saying goodbye to Ophelia. She was fine, all modern teenager with her soft toy and CD player. Their conversation was reasonably clear, although I found Laertes had one of the weaker deliveries of this cast; hopefully there’s some improvement to come. The understudy for Polonius was fine, and got across the man’s tedious need to waffle on at great length, while his children sat on the sofa and tried to hide their giggles at his ponderous fatherly lecture. Polonius telling Ophelia to avoid Hamlet in future was fine, and then I think we moved on to the platform scene for the ghost’s appearance.

This was fine, too, nothing much to report, except that the area the ghost took Hamlet to had some walls, which allowed Hamlet to put a smiley face on one of them at the line “villain, villain, smiling, damned villain”, and then write ‘villain’ underneath. (This logo was used later on for the T-shirts he hands out at the play.) For the swearing bit, I wasn’t clear whether Hamlet was following the ghost or avoiding him.

The briefing of Reynaldo for his trip to France, and Ophelia’s reporting of Hamlet’s madness were OK, and for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s first appearance they shunned the traditional embarrassing confusion on Claudius’s part (finally!). After they left to find Hamlet, the ambassadors are dealt with – no concern whatsoever about an army tramping over the kingdom this time – and Polonius launches into the longwinded dissertation on Hamlet’s madness. Claudius and Gertrude’s reactions were fine, and there were several laughs in this scene. When Hamlet turns up, reading, the set morphs again so we see him arriving in his bedroom and throwing himself down on the bed. Polonius talks to him there, and it was probably the most effective part of Rory Kinnear’s performance, subdued but getting across the feigned madness, his once good relationship with R&G, the onset of suspicion about them, his heaviness of heart about not only the loss of his father but the demands of the situation he finds himself in, and then his sudden quickening when he hears about the players. It’s a lot of changes, and they were done very well.

Now I’m not sure of the order of scenes here – actually, I lost track some time ago, and I’m hoping they were the same as my text, which now has the report back by R&G to the king, followed by Ophelia and Hamlet’s overheard conversation. I think there was another scene put in here – possibly the arrival of the players, but I’m not sure. However, I’ll deal with that next. The players arrived with lots of equipment in the usual modern black and metal cases. Hamlet greeted them all warmly, and the telling of the speech about the dying Priam was moving and more intimate than I’ve seen before. Polonius’s “this is too long” got a good laugh, and for once, the Player King (James Laurenson, doubling with the old Hamlet) looked nervous when Hamlet asked him to play The Murder of Gonzago. He was the first Player King I can remember to seem aware of and concerned about the consequences of performing Hamlet’s chosen play in a court where a recently deceased king has been succeeded by his brother who then marries his sister-in-law. Either the other Player Kings are as thick as two short planks, or they’re comfortable with dangerous political satire.

The overhearing scene was done using modern surveillance equipment, with Claudius and Polonius putting on headphones as they disappeared behind one of the doors. There was nothing special in the scene itself, with Hamlet realising that they’re being overheard.

The play was set up next, with a carpet laid diagonally on the floor for the stage, two chairs to the left of it for the (real) king and queen, various lights around the place, and the sound equipment at the back. The mime at the start is done quickly, with a bed being wheeled on for the king to lie on, and a big blue bottle of poison used by the murderer. The second phase, with the dialogue, was fine, although the reactions from the king and queen weren’t easy to see from our angle. Hamlet was lurking over by the spotlight on the right front of the stage, and turned it on for this part, lighting the players for the relevant part of the plot. When the king stormed off in a temper, the actors were clearly panicked, and rushed off with as much of their stuff as they could grab. The sound equipment at the back was left, though, so Hamlet used it – when he called for music, he simply flicked a switch, and some thumping beat was blasted out through the speakers, not too loud, but not quiet either. And that was the interval, with Hamlet sitting cross-legged at the front of the stage.

The second half started with almost the same setup, although the rest of the players’ equipment had mysteriously vanished to leave a bare stage. The requests for Hamlet to visit his mother were OK, and then Claudius deals with the reports from R&G and Polonius before kneeling in front of his desk to pray. Hamlet appears from behind the wall, sees Claudius through the window, and draws a knife to kill the king, before talking himself out it. Gertrude’s room appears even before Claudius is off the stage, with sofas to left and right, a large portrait of Claudius on the far wall, and the tacky curtain hanging in front of an alcove in the middle of the wall.

Now, this was one scene where our position gave us a problem. The ghost appeared on the far side of the stage, and so when Gertrude turned to look where Hamlet was pointing, we couldn’t see her reaction. It’s possible from what we saw that she actually saw the ghost, or at least something, but was denying it. Hamlet grabbed the portrait of Claudius off the wall to compare with his father’s picture, and it ended up on the floor. Polonius was stabbed through the curtain, and his body dragged off on it. Gertrude certainly didn’t want to be with Claudius after this scene.

Hamlet climbed the ladder at our side of the stage to taunt R&G about Polonius’s missing body, and then Claudius is in what looks like an interrogation room when Hamlet is brought before him. There’s no Polonius to advise Claudius now, of course, and the chap who seems to be the new second-in-command is wearing some sort of military outfit. Later on, he turns out to be Osric. There’s also an interrogation technician with a nasty-looking suitcase, but fortunately Hamlet tells all before he has to get busy with his syringe.

Again, I’m not sure of the order of scenes here, but at some point, Hamlet is handcuffed to the ladder (why?) and thus sees the arrival of Fortinbras and gets to question the lieutenant about him and the forthcoming battle. Fortinbras is well used to the technology of modern warfare, and is followed by his own camera crew, taking every opportunity to record what an excellent leader he is. Hamlet’s change of attitude here was clearly expressed, and the conversation about the small piece of land was also well done.

Now for the dreaded mad scenes. These worked better than I’d hoped. Ophelia comes on pushing a supermarket shopping trolley, filled with various packages and clothes. For the second mad scene, she dishes out these parcels instead of using flowers. One, given to Laertes, was her toy from earlier, which I could now see was Babar the elephant. Claudius got the prop bottle of poison used in The Murder of Gonzago. Nice touch.

Laertes arrived with several other gunmen, following sounds of gunfire outside, and his debate with Claudius was a bit weak, as was his reaction to Ophelia. Later, the plotting to kill Hamlet after his letters have arrived was also underpowered, and I wasn’t that moved by the report of Ophelia’s death. Things started to improve with Hamlet’s reappearance at the graveyard.

The gravedigger was on his own, the banter with Hamlet was trimmed nicely, and so we were soon into the funeral combat. The ‘grave’ was a couple of trapdoors set diagonally towards the front of the stage nearer our side. The skulls (why are there rarely any other bones?) were put in a plastic crate, and Ophelia was in a coffin. I don’t think Laertes actually picks up her body again – would have been difficult anyway with the lid nailed down – and the scuffle between him and Hamlet seemed briefer than usual.

Back in the castle, Hamlet tells Horatio about his travels, and then Osric comes along to invite Hamlet to participate in the fencing competition. At least here they made the fencing into a proper sporting contest, with a strip of matting for the piste and the usual jackets and face masks. Unfortunately, the fencing itself was so-so, and the final deaths felt a bit jumbled, which lost a bit of the tension. Hamlet did slur his speech towards the end as the poison took effect, which was good. Of course, Fortinbras is more than ready to take advantage of this opportunity, making his speech in praise of Hamlet to camera as his first media step in gaining the crown. Then he shakes hands with the remaining members of the court, all eager to be his new bestest friend.

While there were some interesting choices in this staging, on the whole I found the tedium getting to me, and I nodded off a few times as a result. Some of the lines were delivered so badly I thought they were in a foreign language, which didn’t help. Steve reckoned Horatio was the worst offender, speeding up so much with each line that he was unintelligible by about line six. I felt the problem was more widespread, and combined with some fluffed lines (Horatio obligingly leaves the stage after the burial scene although Claudius clearly asks Laertes to go), and some strange cuts, the whole production had a very patchy feel. There were some excellent parts, and Rory Kinnear gave a consistently sound performance, but the rest needs work. It’s only a few weeks since it opened, so it may come together later in its run. I do hope so.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Hamlet YPS – August 2010

7/10

By William Shakespeare, edited by Bijan Sheibani and Tarell Alvin McCraney

Directed by Tarell Alvin McCraney

Company: RSC YPS

Venue: Courtyard Theatre

Date: Saturday 21st August 2010

All sorts of excitement today. We’d only been watching this seriously trimmed production for about ten minutes when the stage manager came on stage and told us all to get out! Well, she actually asked us to evacuate the building, so we did – not raining at the time, thank goodness – and about fifteen minutes later, they let us back in. No official explanation, but at least we got to see the rest of the performance.

The cast handled it very well, I thought. The break came just as Polonius was interrogating Ophelia about Hamlet’s interest in her, so they restarted from the beginning of that scene, and there were no more interruptions before the end.

The story was minimalist, to put it mildly. This is the version that’s done for the young folk, so I can appreciate the need to keep it short and simple, and we both reckoned they’d done a good job of telling the basic story. There was even some audience participation along the way. Fortinbras had obviously gone, as had most of the players’ involvement, though we did get the crucial Mousetrap mime. Horatio was Horatia, although they didn’t change the lines, and the opening scenes in particular were intercut rather than played through in order.

The opening mime showed us the old king dying, and the mourners covered him with their umbrellas so he could sneak off stage. These umbrellas were well used in this production, as they doubled for guns, a nice touch. Then Claudius told us about the Danish royal family’s situation – old king dead, new king married to the widow – and then we saw the ghost walking for the first time. Then it was Laertes leaving, and Peter Peverley as Polonius did a lovely thing with the line ‘He hath, my lord, wrung from me my slow leave’. He only said the ‘He hath’, but held the ‘He’ so long, it fully conveyed the sense of the whole line.

After this, we were pretty much back on track, although everything was very much shortened to fit the seventy minute schedule. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were played almost as twins, wearing identical blazers, and bringing a lot of comic touches to the performance, mostly through their expressions.

I forget at which point they first asked for help from the audience. Hamlet brought a little girl up from the front row, by the left side aisle, and used her hands like a puppet to speak to another character, but I’ve completely blanked when. The second time was for the play-in-a-play. Ophelia, as one of the players and using a very strange accent, asked for a volunteer from the audience. A young woman from the circle put her hand up straightaway, and came down to help out. She had to be the pretend player king who gets the poison put in his ear, so all she had to do was wear a big fur coat and lie on the ground. Actually, she also had a line to say. Hamlet did an abbreviated version of his speech to the players about how to act, and she replied, ‘I will, my lord.’ Then we had the play itself. Both volunteers were applauded before they left the stage.

Ophelia’s drowning was demonstrated by means of a blue cloth, and for the burial scene she was carried in wrapped in the same cloth. When Hamlet’s ghost was describing his own murder (and there’s a scene that deserves to be seriously cut in any production) Claudius helpfully appeared on stage and showed, in mime, the actions the ghost was describing. As the ghost, Patrick Romer wore a small mask and moved in a slow, stately manner, which I found quite creepy. Polonius hid behind an open umbrella instead of an arras, and the execution of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern was also demonstrated in mime at the rear of the stage while Hamlet described it.

The fencing was reasonably brisk – nearly at the end – and Hamlet’s death was the quickest on record. I think he only said a couple of lines, finishing with the usual ending. And that was the end. The cast only took one set of bows, but then we had been delayed, and there was a matinee of King Lear due on in just over an hour, so I assume they were under orders to keep it short. The audience could have gone another round, but that’s how it goes sometimes. An excellent effort, and nice to see some of the minor role actors getting a chance to show what they can do, even in such a modified version.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

King Lear – August 2010

8/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by David Farr

Venue: Courtyard Theatre

Date: Friday 20th August 2010

What a difference from the first performance we saw in February. The set wasn’t so intrusive, perhaps because we were used to it, although there may have been some changes. But the main change was in the performances, which were much more detailed and authoritative throughout. The opening scene, particularly, worked brilliantly this time for me, with Lear clearly trying to wheedle a ‘loving’ response from Cordelia so as not to ruin his planned praise-fest. Greg Hicks had told us at the Summer School this morning that he had now learned to speak more directly to the audience, for regular dialogue as well as soliloquies, and the change was amazing. I also agreed with Greg Hicks that Lear already has the seeds of madness in him at the start of the play; here we get to see those seeds sprouting very quickly.

For the very start, Edgar was on stage, hunkered down at the back. He stood up and walked to the centre of the stage, looking at the flickering light. Cordelia and the other characters for the first scene also came on, looking the same way. Suddenly, Edgar broke off, and ran off stage at the back. The rest of the cast formed up, and the play began. I reckon this was the way it started back in February, I just forgot that detail when I was writing my notes (and I probably didn’t realise it was Edgar we were seeing, either).

Several of the lines came across more clearly, and with much greater meaning tonight. Both Cordelia and Edmund have improved their delivery enormously – their accents made their dialogue seem very flat before, but they’ve got more flexibility into their voices.

Greg mentioned the possibility of incest this morning, and while it wasn’t emphasised, there was much too much physical contact between him and Regan when he’s talking with her at Gloucester’s place. I was also aware of how unreasonable his behaviour was, and what sort of strain that could put his daughters under, which would explain a lot about their attitudes to him.

No changes to the staging that we noticed, so the improvement is entirely down to the acting. I’m looking forward to seeing this again, probably when they open the new theatre, and hopefully I’ll be in better health so I can enjoy the performance even more.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Antony and Cleopatra – July 2010

9/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Michael Boyd

Venue: Courtyard Theatre

Date: Thursday 1st July 2010

This has really come on. Darrell D’Silva now has both hands working fully, and with the extra experience his performance as Antony shows much greater assurance and authority. He’s the passionate military man, loving life to the full, and with admirable qualities which inspire devotion in his men. However, he isn’t as politically astute as either Cleopatra or Caesar, and that, rather than his infatuation with Cleopatra, seems to be the root of his downfall in this production.

John Mackay’s Caesar is even more the politician. He’s always in his suit this time – I think he wore fatigues during the battles last time – and the subtle suggestion that Caesar himself is making the marriage proposal via Agrippa, which we picked up on in the understudies run, has developed into a full-blown political manoeuvre now, with Caesar clearly tipping the wink to Agrippa while declaring, in all pretend innocence, that ‘if I knew of….’. As we were sitting by the walkway tonight, I could see the smirk on Caesar’s face as he left the meeting, together with an expression of relief – he seemed to think that bringing Antony into the family would solve a lot of problems.

I mean no disrespect when I say that Kathryn Hunter was just as good as Cleopatra. It’s a measure of her acting skills that her performance back in April was much more developed, so there were fewer obvious changes tonight, although with the stronger output all round, she had more to play against. I know there are murmurings about the ‘courageous’ casting decisions for this production, but personally speaking, both Steve and I find this portrayal believable and powerful. So there.

Some bits I hadn’t noted before: the blue sheet before the first sea battle was pulled out through the doors, while the overhanging blue sheet was pulled back after the battle. The play started with Cleopatra kneeling centre stage, declaiming a couple of lines. Antony joined her, and while they were in a serious clinch, the two Romans entered to speak the opening lines proper.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

As You Like It – June 2010

6/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Sam Mendes

Company: Old Vic Bridge Project

Venue: Old Vic

Date: Wednesday 30th June 2010

This was a bizarre mixture. The Bridge Project brings together British and American actors for joint productions – this year’s offerings are As You Like It and The Tempest – but we expected they would rehearse in one group. Today’s effort looked liked they’d rehearsed separately, and were still trying to figure out how to put the two halves together. For the most part, the Brits were good, with clear delivery of lines and some animation to their performances. For the most part, the U.S. team were OK, despite noticeably weaker delivery, but with Christian Camargo as Orlando the standard of performance nose-dived. His delivery never rose above the mechanical, his demeanour was lacklustre, his expression deeply depressed, and I even wondered if he was on some form of medication, he seemed so out of it. This obvious weakness brought the whole production down, and it was all the worse for us because Edward Bennett was in the cast, playing Oliver, the younger-looking older brother to Orlando – ‘unless the master were the man.’ One quick cast change would improve this production enormously; as it is, the better performances saved it from a miserable 2/10 rating, and judging by the empty seats which appeared after the interval, we weren’t the only ones suffering. I did nod off a bit in the second half, but according to Steve, I didn’t miss much.

The set was pretty good, though. The stage had been brought forward again, and there were exits through the first boxes on either side, as well as stairs at the front left of the stage. A couple of tall skinny tree trunks sat one on either side of the forestage, and there were stacks of chopped wood nestling in each of the boxes. A long garden bench sat further back on the left for the opening scenes, and during the play all sorts of furniture, carts, etc. were whisked on and off, so efficiently that I really didn’t notice them.

For the opening scenes, there was a full length wooden wall not far behind the bench, with a door in the centre. Once into the forest, this wall rose up and exposed the rest of the stage, with lots more tree trunks and a ramp up to the central exit at the back. In the summer, the undergrowth was rampant, and there were plenty of locations for an ardent romantic poet to stick his oeuvre. The costumes were modern.

Last year there were lots of interesting aspects to the productions; this time I found little to excite me, but there was one gem nestling amongst the straw. When Touchstone was describing the seven degrees of quarrelling, he involved the Duke and Jacques, encouraging them to act out the various stages. When he came to the end and made the reference to a quarrel being patched up with an ‘if’, he looked meaningfully at the Duke. I caught the reference to the two men being ‘sworn brothers’ afterwards, and at first I thought the Duke’s reaction was his recollection of how his own brother had treated him. But then his words to Touchstone were accompanied by a gesture, touching his nose I think, which made me realise that Touchstone had been referring to something in the past between the Duke and his brother. We enjoyed that idea very much.

I wasn’t so taken with Jacques imitating Bob Dylan for his verse of the first song in the forest. It was a good enough impression, especially with the mouth organ, but it distorted the words so that I couldn’t hear the ‘Ducdame’ line. Since I know the play well enough I still got the humour of Jacques’ next line, but it was weakened for me.

Touchstone was pretty good, Audrey, Phoebe and their swains were fine (William headbutted Touchstone, good for him), Celia was OK, and LeBeau was fine if a bit too affected with his very slow delivery. Antony O’Donnell was fine as Corin, and Michael Williams as both Dukes did very well. I liked the changeover, although it took a little time. Duke baddie discovered his daughter’s flight at court, standing in a square of light. The scene ended, the wall rose, and the Duke and his men walked back to where some boxes sat, took out the extra clothes they needed and put them on, while the boxes were repositioned for the next scene. It worked quite well, and at least we were clear that the same actor was playing two parts.

Charles was the skinniest wrestler I’ve ever seen, not much bigger than Orlando. The fight scene was played out under a swinging light, à la Callan, which made it harder to see what was going on. Perhaps they weren’t confident in the fight director, as the little I could make out wasn’t very convincing.

I’ve already put the boot into Orlando, so that just leaves Juliet Rylance as Rosalind. It sounds like faint praise to say she was fine, but with such a limp Orlando I don’t know that she could have done any better. I did like the way she ran the lines together into unintelligibilty when questioning Celia about Orlando – it got the point across even better than clear enunciation of every word. She’s certainly a good actress to make us believe Rosalind was actually in love with the big lump. Better luck next time.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

King Lear – May 2010

Experience: 6/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Vik Sivalingam

Company: RSC Understudies

Venue: Courtyard Theatre

Date: Tuesday 4th May 2010

The first time we saw this was back in February, when it had only just opened. Today’s understudies run had a few differences, but it was basically the same, and no more interesting than before as a production, though the understudies gave good to excellent performances. Several of them were preferred to the original cast, though to be fair we would need to see this again to see how it’s come on.

Our seats were on the opposite side, giving us an interesting change of perspective. We lost some things – couldn’t see the nuns in the upper level, for instance – but gained on others, although I still didn’t pay close attention to the blinding scene. The flickering lights were still unnecessary, but from the side the industrial shambles set wasn’t so intrusive, which helped.

Darrell d’Silva took a break, presumably to help his hand injury heal, so there were fewer ‘other part’ players available. The march across the diagonals by each side in the battle was reduced to one side only – Lear, Cordelia and one other – and the rabble of knights seemed depleted from the off, but that may have been our angle. Lear was joined on the platform during the thunderstorm by the fool, an interesting doubling with Cordelia, but this production was predicated on two separate actors so couldn’t make anything of it. Hannah Young played Goneril today, but as she understudies Regan as well, Katy Stephens played her own part. I must say, the understudies didn’t seem out of place at all.

The performances were more broad-brush this time around, which may have worked better for us, but we were still moved during the later scenes, such as Edgar’s discovery of his father’s blinding. I did nod off a bit during the first half, but since the World Snooker Championship final didn’t finish till well after midnight last night, it was only to be expected.

Paul Hamilton did well as Kent (and didn’t block our view once), Adam Burton was nicely evil as Edmund, Ansu Kabia did a good job of Edgar, and I liked Sophie Russell both as the fool and as Cordelia. James Gale did well enough as Lear, though there’s so much range to the part that it’s asking a lot for an understudy to get a performance up to speed so quickly. Still, I could see him as the kind of man to revel in flattery and then go insane when he comes into contact with harsh reality.

An interesting afternoon then, if not the most enjoyable one.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Antony And Cleopatra – April 2010

Experience: 7/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Michael Boyd

Venue: Courtyard Theatre

Date: Tuesday 13th April 2010

This is a pretty impressive standard for an early preview performance to set – here’s hoping that the next time we see it we enjoy it as much, if not more.

It was easy to recognise the Michael Boyd touch tonight, even before I checked the program for the director. The large, curved drum sticking out into the stage space, the curved boards on the floor echoing that shape, the use of ringing chimes to highlight certain words (though I’ve no idea what the connection was this time – it was much more straightforward during the Histories) the emphasis on prophecy and well-depicted battle scenes, though fortunately without the gore should attend it. And the story came across clearly, and with much better balance than I’ve seen before, the recent SATTF production notwithstanding.

The set had the industrial drum shape at the back, on two levels, and with various doors. At the start, a large piece of blue fabric was spread from the centre of this drum at the top out to the sides, with the corners being suspended from the ceiling. This was removed at some point, but the fabric reappeared when Cleopatra welcomed Antony back from his victorious battle. She stood on the upper platform, with the cloth draped round her and falling to the ground. There was also a platform which could be thrust forward between the lower doors, and served as the Monument (of course) as well as another vantage point from time to time. There were posh chairs, basic chairs, and at the end, a couple of suitcases and a trunk which formed Cleopatra’s throne for the final death scene.

The costumes were contemporary, which meant soldiers could report news they were hearing through their earpieces, and guns were as much in evidence as swords. When Cleopatra was buckling on Antony’s armour, it was modern-day webbing with all the boxes on it that she was trying to sort out. Personally, I think this worked very well and I wasn’t troubled by any anachronism, though no doubt there will be complaints from some quarters (there were, in the interval). Cleopatra’s costumes were not just modern but sumptuous, and she had a new set of clothes for each scene which really underlined her status. Mind you, her servants, Charmian and Iras, were changing as often, and into co-ordinated outfits, while even Octavia had more than one ensemble to draw on for her part. Impressive.

So to the staging. The whole balance of the play was completely different from any production I’ve seen before. Instead of focusing heavily on the two central characters, this version took a wider look at the whole picture, giving more attention to all the characters, and showing the political context clearly. The love affair Antony and Cleopatra are carrying on is doomed within this context, as the ambition of Octavius Caesar could only have been restrained by an Antony who was on the ball.

Darrell d’Silva played Antony with his hand bandaged from a recent injury, and had his arm in a sling as well. We’d heard that last night’s performance had been a free one, intended as a run-through for his understudy, but that Darrell had insisted on playing the part himself. His performance will undoubtedly be helped when his hand is better, but that’s not a criticism of his efforts tonight.

The sea battle was staged in a very imaginative manner. The people involved on each side came walking slowly on from opposite corners in battle fatigues (sand colour for Antony, blue for Caesar). Each carried a paper boat held above their heads. At first, I found this funny and absurd, but as they continued with their stately progress across the stage to confront the opposition, with Antony’s fleet executing some deft twirls in the process, it became more engrossing, and I decided it was a very good way to show something as unstageable as a sea battle. When the two sides came together, most of the combatants screwed up their paper ships and threw them over their heads into the audience (one landed on us), and then got stuck in to the fighting. Cleopatra and her girls, however, keeping their ships intact, turned and moved slowly away, causing Antony to follow and abandon the battle. It was a very clear demonstration of what went on, and contributed to my greater understanding of the story this time around.

The feasting scene worked very well, I thought. Lepidus was clearly drunk, and even Caesar enjoyed the way Antony made fun of him with his non-description of a crocodile. When Menas and Pompey have their little chat, everyone else was moving in slow motion, carrying on the party.

Tonight we got to see the scene where Ventidius tells us of his success against the Parthians. There was a captive on the upper level of the drum with a bag over his head to illustrate the point, and the comments about how risky it can be for the lieutenant to outdo his general came across very clearly. I don’t know if we’ve ever seen this bit before; the way it was staged it felt like a completely new scene. They also included the scene where some soldiers on guard duty see a light and follow it off stage.

There was no asp merchant – the basket was simply stored somewhere, and Charmian went under the stage to retrieve it. This worked well, as this production wasn’t so strong on the emotional side, so injecting humour at this point wouldn’t have helped.

John Mackay as Octavius gave a very good performance. He got across the ruler’s coldness and lack of the social skills that made Antony a great general. Still, Octavius has the wit to see clearly where his advantage lies, and doesn’t hesitate to take every opportunity to improve his situation. Antony is so besotted with Cleopatra that his judgement goes completely. He even tells Cleopatra to trust Proculeius, when he’s definitely Caesar’s tool. There was a nice bit of humour when the news comes to Antony that Cleopatra’s not actually dead. He reacted with a resigned sigh that suggested he was really kicking himself for believing the lie.

Octavius Caesar and Antony each used the audience during a speech, Antony at the start of the second half, when he was telling his men to leave and save themselves, and Octavius when he was trying to persuade us that he’d been scrupulously fair and moral in all his dealings. It was a good start to second half – quiet, but Darrell d’Silva held the stage, and got the energy going again very quickly.

Greg Hicks was good as the soothsayer, a nice straightforward performance, and Paul Hamilton was very good as the hapless messenger who incurs the wrath of Cleopatra for telling the truth. He learned the error of his ways, though, and lied convincingly the second time around. Even so, he still got off stage as fast as he could afterwards, despite her smiles. I was aware for the first time how Shakespeare contrasts Antony’s approach and Cleopatra’s. He wants the truth, however unpleasant – she wants to hear only good news.

Another contrast I was aware of was between the choices made by Ventidius and Enobarbus. Ventidius shows the military choice, that Antony has lost his judgement. Enobarbus shows the personal choice, based on Antony’s nobility.

There was a lot more to this production that I just can’t note up in time. The overall impression was of a very fresh version, with lots of energy and many fascinating details. Roll on performance two.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Macbeth – April 2010

6/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Declan Donnellan

Company: Cheek By Jowl

Venue: Silk Street Theatre

Date: Monday 5th April 2010

Two hours without an interval! And on less padded seats than I would like! And it’s a Cheek By Jowl production, which may be great, but then I didn’t go the distance with their Troilus And Cressida! God help us.

So far, so good. It’s a nice little theatre, attached to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and although the seats are firm, they’re not uncomfortable. The set is gloomy and misty, an open space with boxes and upended long crates flanking either side of the stage. That’s it.

Well, I managed to stay the distance, but I nodded off towards the end as the going got heavy. Steve and I agreed on this one – some 8/10 good bits, but some equally dull 4/10 sections, so overall a 6/10 rating is appropriate.

The cast were all in basic black, apart from the porter – more on that story later – and were often visible on stage, at first at the edges, then increasingly in the middle, surrounding the action without distracting from it, although I did find that they took away the focus from the active characters at times. During ‘If ’twere done…’, I found myself wondering what difference it would make if Macbeth were alone on the stage, and I decided it would be harder work for the actor to really make his presence felt, and also much more intense for the audience. I wasn’t convinced that Will Keen, much as I like his work, could have done that with this interpretation, although Anastasia Hille as Lady Macbeth was managing fine.

The staging had some good aspects, but there were puzzles. Why were some of the accents obviously Scottish, and others not? Lady Macbeth stayed on the stage after the sleepwalking scene – why? It seemed to work as Macbeth was seeing her there, sitting on a stool, but then the news of her death came – she had left the stage just beforehand – so presumably he was looking at a….what? A vision? A ghost?

There was a lot of mime used to replace props and gore. In many ways this was good – speeds up the action as actors don’t have to deal with the props or bother with blood bags – but again there were questions. The bloody man at the start appears to stab himself for no apparent reason. Steve reckoned it may have been to explain to the uninitiated why he’s called the ‘bloody man’, as they might think Duncan is just swearing, but the mime was unclear to me, so maybe I just didn’t get it. The victims of murder (and there are quite a few in even this edited version) all mimed their own killing, which I thought worked very well.

The witches were done as disembodied voices – there were only two women in the cast – and with the cast standing behind Banquo and Macbeth at the start; I found this very effective. For the prophecy scene, the rest of the cast carried children (dolls, that is) in a circle around Macbeth, ending with Banquo himself. Also good, as was the use of lights to represent the other spirits.

There were some long pauses during the staging, which were at odds with the rest of it. Lady Macbeth takes the pretty route when coming on stage to greet Duncan, and by the way, why was Duncan blind? Don’t ask me. Macduff was posed with his family before the killing scene, and stayed there for a bit as his wife and son had a very truncated dialogue about the wickedness of men. It made the point, emphasised in some other productions, that Macbeth does not have children to follow him, but it was also a bit distracting as well.

The porter was extremely memorable. The other woman in the cast played this part, and was done up in the only colourful costume of the production. Day-glo almost. And she was definitely the worse for wear – been out with her mates for a long pub crawl by the looks of her. Her cubby-hole was in one of the tall crates which was wheeled round to the centre of the stage. She spoke into an entrance phone, and was the liveliest character on stage, and with the broadest Scots accent, if I remember correctly.

All the other performances were fine, and the set, if I can call it that, was certainly atmospheric. But the production had too many flaws for me to rate it any higher.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Romeo And Juliet – March 2010 (2)

7/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Michael Fentiman

Company: RSC Understudies

Venue: Courtyard Theatre

Date: Tuesday 30th March 2010

This was much better than yesterday, with less of the excessive comic business, and some very good performances from this permutation of the ensemble.

The introduction by Michael Fentiman was a stumbling effort – he was clearly nervous – but he still managed to make us laugh a few times. The initial staging for the prologue was the same, but Romeo took some time to get his headphones untangled, so there were fewer pictures taken of the inside of whatever building we were in. Capulet, Montague and the Prince were all much better today, with more gravitas, and the scene where Juliet defies her father was very strongly acted. But Mercutio showed the greatest improvement, and not only increased our enjoyment of the performance, but also cut the running time by ten minutes by not doing all the unnecessary stuff we saw last night.

As it was the understudies’ run, Mrs Montague wasn’t in the final scene tonight, but her death was still not announced. Balthasar spoke the closing two couplets, and the second song he sang was as the friar heads down to the crypt. The Romeo/rosemary lines were missing today, as was almost all of Mercutio’s miming – hooray. This Mercutio was much better, clear and lively and intelligent. I was sorry to see him go this time, but there was a lot more blood and he was clearly wounded. Romeo was just as good (Peter from yesterday), and the Friar was also pretty good.

There was a lot of coughing in the second half. I’d noticed this last night, and where we were sitting today I found out why. All the smoke from the nurse’s pipe and Lady Capulet’s cigarettes drifted over our way, and I felt my throat tickle a few times. Juliet was less sulky today, twirling her toy thingy for fun, because she’s still a child, although this interpretation doesn’t fit so well with her clever sharing of the sonnet form with Romeo.

For the potion scene, Juliet wasn’t writhing around in pain this time, she just moved a little bit and then lay still. Her reactions weren’t so ludicrous during the death scene either. Lady Capulet didn’t do her keep fit routine at all today – hooray! We could see better today from this position – consider for future. The hip-hop references by Romeo and Juliet were dropped. I was more aware of Paris’s plight, poor man, in love but doomed to failure. Steve spotted that, during the party when Lady Capulet leaves the upper level, she went past Tybalt and kissed him – something you want to tell us, m’Lady? Steve reckoned she may have been closer to Tybalt than anyone’s ever suggested before.

During the confrontation between Mercutio and Tybalt, Mercutio used the bicycle pump to ‘inflate’ first one finger, then a second. Just as crude as yesterday, perhaps, but much funnier. After he bent Tybalt’s sword, he used it as a fishing rod today, instead of playing cricket. Romeo rode around the stage in circles when he first visited Friar Laurence, who stopped him with a hand on the handlebars when he guessed, correctly, that Romeo hasn’t been to bed. Romeo siad ‘nope’ when the friar guessed he was up early, and when he told the friar that he wanted him to conduct the marriage ceremony between himself and Juliet, he did an imaginary drum roll before saying ‘today’.

When Capulet was first speaking to Paris, there were various sellers walking around with boxes on their heads – fruit, flowers, that sort of thing – and Paris selected a bunch of flowers from one of them.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me