Betrayal – July 2007

5/10

By: Harold Pinter

Directed by: Roger Michell

Venue: Donmar Warehouse

Date: Thursday 12th July 2007

We’ve seen this play before, so I knew the general setup before it started. It’s basically the story of a love affair, told in reverse, with the final outcome shown first, and the start of the affair at the end. It’s an interesting structure, and means I have to pay attention even more.

With such an excellent cast – Sam West, Dervla Kirwan and Toby Stephens – I tried to keep my expectations low so as not to be disappointed. What I felt with this production was that the play is actually quite slight, that the reverse order is necessary to hide this fact, and that the interest is in the acting performances, which in this case were superb. Dervla as Emma came across as quite vulnerable at first, a person of refinement and sensitivity who rarely unleashes her emotions. In fact, she spends most of the play looking miserable, with only a short spell of actual happiness in the middle of the affair, and a sense of anticipation at the start (which we see at the end).

Toby Stephens as Jerry, Robert’s best friend who also sleeps with his wife, was wonderfully louche. He was stunned to find out that Robert had known about the affair for years, and was practically stalking Emma to get the affair started. Robert, played by Sam West, is rather prissy, wears velvet suits, and could come across as quite cruel at times. However, Steve reckoned his reported confession of his own affairs was a sham, designed to make it easier to end the marriage. I’m not so sure; it seemed to me he was simply concerned to keep his relationship with Jerry more than his marriage.

The set was fairly plain. There were long, lightweight curtains floating down from a track, and these were moved around, almost like a soft furnishing train set, not to create settings but to indicate the passage of time, usually in reverse. Bed, table and chairs were brought on and off as needed, often obscured by the curtains, and a range of years were projected onto the back wall and curtains as they moved. The year of each scene was clearly defined before it started.

Looking back, I find it hard to understand why Emma married Robert in the first place, but then that’s a natural part of other people’s relationships. I can’t fault anything with the performances, I just didn’t find this totally satisfying.

The Merchant Of Venice – July 2007

Jul11

5/10

By: William Shakespeare

Directed by: Rebecca Gatward

Venue: Globe Theatre

Date: Tuesday 10th July 2007

It was good to get back to the Globe again, after a long gap. Unfortunately, there were knee and back problems again today, although it was the other way round – the lady in front kept leaning back into me for the first half, and I found it difficult to keep my knees out of her way. She sat further along for the second half, so I was able to concentrate more. We were also distracted by a number of late arrivals finding their seats around us – I do feel they should have a better way of doing this, as the wooden floor and seats make it all noisier than the average theatre.

This was a good basic production of The Merchant Of Venice, with some nice touches, but not a lot of depth. The performances were fine, and some were very good. We particularly liked Launcelot Gobbo (Craig Gazey), who did a good job in the RSC’s Complete Works season in The Tempest and Antony And Cleopatra. His dithering over the advice of his Fiend (cupcake) and Conscience (picked clean bone) was very entertaining, and he did pretty well with that part which is usually dropped – the duologue with his father. The final scene was also excellent, as the cast got the full measure of humour out of that little ring misunderstanding.

The Globe had been decked out with a Venetian bridge, a jetty and another set of steps. There were five balconies – the usual three and two extras between them. Before the start, we were treated to a scene of Venetian life, with small shop fronts in the back wall, goods being transported into a storeroom, a courtesan wandering around looking for business, a tailor’s dummy displaying his wares, and drinks being served on a barrel. Several young Venetian men were frolicking around, making fools of themselves, and the crowd was enjoying all the sights. Eventually, a more sombre man appeared, with two companions, and as others started packing away their wares, they launched into the play proper.

This Antonio was more responsive than many I’ve seen, making faces at his friends’ constant attempts to find a reason for his melancholy. When Bassanio, Lorenzo and Gratiano stagger on (Bassanio carrying the other two) and collapse in a drunken heap, the first two beat a hasty retreat, evidently keen to be on their way. For once, Bassanio seems to be as much of a merrymaker as Gratiano. It’s clear from the way Antonio pats Bassanio’s knee that he’s absolutely smitten with him, and while this message gets across clearly, it didn’t feel overdone. It’s also noticeable that he might have done better to show his affections to Gratiano, who looks at him longingly on several occasions.

It’s clear Bassanio is only after Portia to make good his depleted fortunes. He doesn’t even remember her name at first, and I got the impression he was telling himself “Sounds like a car … Porsche!”. With such rampant greed and shallowness, I wondered how he was ever going to get past Portia’s father’s cunning traps, but I also wondered if Portia would use the “hazard” to give him a clue. I can only assume both Antonio and Portia fell for this Bassanio’s looks, as he really doesn’t have much else going for him. His gratitude for Antonio’s help is expressed with a kiss, causing the usual reaction from the youngsters in the audience, and a hug. Poor old Antonio – getting what he wants, but not in the way he wants it.

At Belmont, we first see Portia being greeted by her current crop of suitors. There are various lewd gestures and movements, and indeed this production makes extensive use of the bawdy elements in the play. Portia’s descriptions of the suitors are good fun, and include the Scottish lord for once. In fact, this production was as full as I’ve known it – there may have been no cuts at all, or only a very few. The actress playing Portia had originally been cast as Nerissa, and was now promoted, while another actress had been brought in to play Nerissa. Both were good, though I really liked Jennifer Kidd (Nerissa) and look forward to seeing her again. I don’t know how long the new arrangement had been in place, but their performances were very assured, so I assume they’d had some time to get into their parts.

The meeting with Shylock went OK, but I didn’t get as much of a sense of past history between him and Antonio as I have done in other productions. This Shylock (John McEnery) was no grotesque caricature, but seemed a much more ordinary man, albeit one who had more rules about what to wear than clothes in his wardrobe. His coat had a yellow spot on it, very reminiscent of Nazi Germany, but in fact it was required for Jews in Venice at that time to wear a yellow symbol if they left their getto during the day (they weren’t allowed to leave it at night – yes, I read the program notes beforehand). His hatred for Antonio is clear, and there’s no love lost the other way, either.

The Prince of Morocco makes a good show on his entrance, and is soon off to make his choice from the caskets. Launcelot Gobbo gives us his entertaining thoughts on decision making, ends up with a blob of cream on his nose, and chats with his father, then asks Bassanio for a job, which is granted. Gratiano also asks for a favour – to go with Bassanio to Belmont, and Bassanio agrees, but asks that Gratiano checks his natural exuberance.

Now we see Launcelot again, in his new livery, dragging a large case behind him and sobbing as if his heart would break. He’s sad at having to leave Jessica, Shylock’s daughter. This was another good comic scene by him, helped by his livery, which was as varied a combination of different tartans as you could imagine. (Actually, don’t try imagining it, you might make yourself sick.)

The plot for Lorenzo and Jessica’s elopement develops nicely, but wasn’t as clear as some of the other bits. What was clear was Shylock’s dislike of going to feast with Christians, and for a moment or two it looked like he might not go, but he does. Jessica chucked down a casket, then scarpers herself, and it’s not definite with this relationship how grasping Lorenzo is. Does he really love her, or is he only after her father’s money? I felt there was more of a relationship here than just gold-digging, but maybe I missed some clues.

By this time the audience had pretty much settled down, and knees aside, I was able to focus more on the action on stage. The caskets were large, orb-like creations, mounted on tall glass plinths, and covered with cloths. Portia stood in the balcony, while the Prince of Morocco made his choice below. I wasn’t sure if Portia already knew which casket held her picture – I got the impression she probably didn’t, and finds out through the two suitors who choose wrongly – but it wasn’t emphasised either way for me. The Prince gives us a good round-up of all the inscriptions, handy for future reference. Once he’s made his choice, the keys are presented to him on a cushion, and he takes the golden one only to find …. a grinning skull. While he read the scroll out, the head rotated, which got a good laugh.

Back in Venice, Antonio’s mates give us the first intimations of how the bond plot will develop. Shylock is making a spectacle of himself round Venice, weeping and wailing for his daughter and his ducats, while Antonio’s fortunes seem to be on the wane. Oo er. In Belmont, the next suitor to try his luck with the caskets is the Prince of Arragon. He chooses silver, silly boy, and gets a jack-in-the-box for his trouble. He’s evidently not impressed at having to pick the key up himself from the proffered cushion, but he does redeem himself a bit by giving us his final lines very well – “With one fool’s head I came to woo, But I go away with two.”

Antonio’s mates now tackle Shylock directly, and find him committed to revenge on Antonio. Tubal also helps to feed that desire, by describing Jessica and Lorenzo’s behaviour in Genoa. There’s no shading here, no sense of grief at Jessica giving away Leah’s ring for a monkey, just bitterness and anger.

Bassanio’s turn to choose has come, and in this production, Portia definitely gives him a clue when she pauses to emphasise the word “hazard”. We can see Nerissa and Gratiano conspiring down below, and when Bassanio comes down to make his choice, he looks to Gratiano for guidance, the first time I’ve seen that done. I must say, Bassanio’s speech about outward show being deceptive sounds strange coming from a man of his character, but I suppose you could argue that he knows that truth better than anyone. Still, it comes as a change of pace; after all, he hasn’t been through any real challenges so far. The director seems to consider he only falls in love with Portia when he sees her picture – debatable – and he hasn’t yet experienced the anguish he’ll be going through later, when Antonio’s life is almost ended, an experience that could cause him to grow up fast. So I guess we’ll just have allow for artistic licence, and go with the flow.

The image of Portia is in fact a little doll, dressed exactly as she is, and Bassanio does indeed speak rapturously over it, but he does also assert that the doll, though beautiful, is far behind the real Portia in every way. Gratiano obviously bears Bassanio’s words of caution about his behaviour in mind when telling the two lovebirds about his match with Nerissa – he’s quite stilted, holding his arms in unnatural postures, and looking very uncomfortable. Fortunately, all is well, until the bad news comes from Venice. Bassanio’s confession to Portia that he “was worse than nothing” was very honestly done, and showed courage, and Portia takes it all in her stride. She is one very wealthy woman. In Venice, Antonio attempts to talk with Shylock, who refuses to hear him, while Portia and Nerissa also head off to Venice, to have some fun. Interval.

The second half (actually the final third, as the first part took the best part of two hours, and there was only another hour to go) began with Launcelot and Jessica quarrelling. This time it was fairly gentle, and Jessica isn’t too disturbed by it. Launcelot, accurately described by Shylock earlier as “a huge feeder”, has a plate of chipolatas and ham in his hand, and toys with a sausage all through the discussion. When Lorenzo finally gets him to go and get dinner ready, he stuffs the remainder in his mouth, and sulks off.

It’s been a while coming, but now it’s here. The court scene. It’s much as you might expect from the production so far, with Antonio giving a good performance as a man ready to die, and Shylock sharpening his knife on his boot. The Duke was standing on the bridge to begin with, and as the clouds had come over, I was a bit worried he might get wet, but the rain stayed off for the whole performance, thank goodness.

Portia and Nerissa manage to carry off their disguises by the miracle of disbelief suspension, as they’re nothing like as manly as some we’ve seen. The “quality of mercy” speech is done well, run into the general dialogue between Shylock and Portia, rather than a set piece which the whole cast lumbers up to. The best parts are the way Portia only thinks of the catch that will prevent Shylock getting his pound of flesh at the last minute – the very last second, in fact – and the wives’ comments to their blissfully ignorant husbands about how their wives would react to their proposed self-sacrifices on Antonio’s behalf. Afterwards, when Antonio has persuaded Bassanio to send his ring after the clerk, Gratiano is noticeably distracted by the courtesan, who’s back in business.

Now we’re on the last lap, and the finishing post is in sight. Lorenzo and Jessica are more teasing here with their litany of unhappy lovers, and I didn’t get any sense that their relationship is on trouble. Portia and Nerissa have changed back into female attire before returning, and Bassanio and Gratiano have at least thought to do a little shopping before they come back, as both are carrying small carrier bags – presents for the wives. It’s not long before the first fight breaks out, and then the women are in fine fettle, working the men up brilliantly. Bassanio tries to sneak off down the steps, and hide the missing ring by pulling his long cuff down over his hand. No use, he ends up having to confess all. Antonio helps out by pledging his soul that Bassanio will be a good boy in the future, and Portia accepts this, bringing all their misery to an end.

It was such a good finish to the performance that I felt really upbeat as we left. I always enjoy that scene, and they’d done it so well. I still feel there was more to be got out of the play, even given this interpretation, but it was an enjoyable afternoon overall.

The Waltz Of The Toreadors – July 2007

Jul10

6/10

By: Jean Anouilh, translated by Ranjit Bolt

Directed by: Angus Jackson

Venue: Minerva Theatre

Date: Monday 9th July 2007

This performance was all knees, shoulders, and trips to the loo. As a result, I missed some of it, and couldn’t focus well enough on the rest, so I’m giving it a six star rating overall, allowing for distractions.

Our seats were prime, I thought, central and not too far back. This was until I found I needed to lean back to get comfortable (I prefer more upright seats), and found the knees behind were almost permanently jammed into my shoulders. The people attached to them moved around a fair bit as well – obviously they had less leg room than was comfortable – so not a good advert for the theatre’s designers. For the second half, I was able to move into the seat the other side of Steve, and the lady behind me there was so small that there was no chance of her knees reaching anywhere near me. Thank goodness. Then I felt a need to dash just before the final scene, and again during the post-show, but we won’t go into details on that one. Suffice it to say that the screen outside the auditorium came in very handy, and the staff were very solicitous – thank you.

Three paragraphs in, and now I can start to talk about the play. It’s a “gritty” comedy, one that Anouilh intended to have a darker edge to it, making for uncomfortable viewing. (I don’t think he intended the discomfort to be quite as literal as I experienced.) The play tells the story of an older couple, a soldier and an actress, whose love has disintegrated over the years and now they spend their time tearing each other to shreds. There’s a long-lost lover, a newly discovered child, a couple of ugly sisters and a sensible doctor. It’s like a cross between Chekov and Molière.

Peter Bowles had been ill just a few days before and they’d managed to cover for him, but he was back now and in fine form, although not fully recovered yet. Even so, his performance was excellent. He played the husband, General St Pé, whose cynical and often cutting observations on marriage, his wife and his two daughters, provided most of the humour. This is a man who can loathe his wife and at the same time be enraged at the idea of any other man enjoying her. He keeps trying to challenge the doctor to a duel over her, as he believes the doctor has had an affair with his wife. Actually, it turns out she’s had lots of affairs, none of which he knew about.

The wife, Amélie, was played by Maggie Steed, and this was another brilliant performance. We don’t get to see her for some time, as she spends the first part of the first scene screeching at her husband from her bedroom next door. She’s convinced he’s off rogering some maid or other, while he’s just trying to get a few moments of peace and quiet to write his memoirs. Eventually, he shuts the door on her – she’s unable to leave her bed – but his day doesn’t get any better.

At first, I felt a bit more sympathy for the husband here. He seems to be stuck with a horribly nagging wife and gets little peace. But then we find out about his former lover who has waited seventeen years for him to be free, seventeen sexless years, and who now arrives to suggest they get started on their relationship. Then, later, we learn from his wife about her loneliness as he flirted with everything in a skirt, and how she went home from a dance, escorted by another officer, and started her string of affairs that very night. It’s the same night the General, then a junior officer, met his lover, Mlle Ghislaine de Ste-Euverte, and they danced to The Waltz Of The Toreadors. By this time my sympathies are with no-one, as they’ve both shown how unpleasant their possessive love can be, and I could just sit back and watch the plot unravel.

The lover, Ghislaine, tries to kill herself by throwing herself out of the window, but falls instead on top of the General’s secretary, who carries her upstairs. At the same time, the General and the doctor bring Amélie back in her wheelchair – turns out the inability to walk was a sham; she’s been skipping round the neighbourhood like a perky lamb as soon as everyone’s back was turned. There was an uncomfortable moment tonight when the General got Ghislaine’s hair caught in his over-abundant braid. Catherine Russell, playing Ghislaine, found it very funny, but composed herself, and Peter Bowles finally managed to detach himself without help. We did wonder whether the secretary was meant to carry Amélie off, or if that had been a quick bit of recovery.

Left alone with the secretary, Ghislaine finds out just what she’s been missing all these years, and although at first she thinks it’s the General who’s kissed her, she soon finds out, and decides to go for the younger model who’s more like the General was when she fell in love with him. With other revelations, it all ends happily enough for the average comedy, but with the darker aspects of this one, I’m not sure any of this lot are going to be happy for long.

All the performances were excellent. The set was simple, but did have to be changed a couple of times. Two walls festooned with crossed swords (handy for such a temperamental dueller), a desk, chaise longue, chairs and carpet for the study, and for the bedroom, the other sides of the walls, the same desk (too difficult to move?) a bed and bedside tables.

I don’t remember all the funny bits, but one is worth a mention. When the General finds out his Ghislaine is now attached to his secretary, he naturally challenges him to a duel, but can’t get the swords down off the wall. He actually asks the secretary to help him, then realises how inappropriate that is.

In all, this was a very funny piece, but I felt the darker aspects were never explored enough to be interesting, so they fell a bit flat for me. I wouldn’t mind seeing it again, but hopefully in more comfortable circumstances.

The post-show brought out some interesting information, mainly about the way the parts had been covered while Peter Bowles was out of action. Nicholas Woodeson had played the General, the Curé had played the doctor, and someone from the mass of actors available in Chichester this time of year had popped in to play the Curé. When asked about how they felt having the audience so close to them, Catherine Russell confessed she’d been really worried when she saw the layout, but in fact, once they were playing the piece, she saw how well it worked and now she liked it. They were also asked how they coped getting on and off stage in the blackouts, and referring to the earlier question, one actress pointed out how handy it was to have the audience so close, as they could always feel for the front row’s knees, and grope their way out!

Mutton – July 2007

Jul6

6/10

Devised and performed by Julia Munrow, Donna Flinn and Jean Heard

Venue: Mill Studio, Guildford

Date: Thursday 5th July 2007

This was a series of sketches based on the experiences of women getting older, past their prime. It started with a slide show. First we were welcomed to the show, and as we didn’t respond, the next slide welcomed us a bit louder! This went on for a little while, getting us warmed up, and made use of various techniques, such as the diminishing letter sizes on an optician’s chart, to get across the problems we face as we age. Then there were some video sketches, mostly very funny. I especially liked the woman (played by Donna) who was trying to use her daughter’s mobile to change the channel on her TV. She also played a woman who was visiting her doctor, and was so relieved to find out she might have dementia, as she had been worried it was the menopause. We also get to see a number of these characters in the later parts of the show.

The first sketch was called Changing Rooms, and had the three main actors trying on clothes in a changing room. Julia was attempting to get into one of those tops that’s all straps and a few scraps of material – how on earth are you meant to put them on? She was certainly having problems. They were actually looking for outfits for Donna’s daughter’s wedding (Donna’s the one who confuses the mobile and the remote), and it was even more bizarre to see them wearing teeny fashions.

Now the stage is set for the next sketch, Wine Bar. A table and three chairs are brought forward by a supposed stage hand, wearing red heels. She grumbles a lot about how this will do in her back, etc., and after a while this was quite funny. She later joins in some of their sketches – once she’d got a pair of trainers on – but sadly, I can’t find any credit for her anywhere.

At the wine bar, the three ladies weave their way over to the only available table, carrying their bottle of wine. They get caught up in the price of it – £35! There’s some humour in the way none of them can work out how much it costs per glass, including Jean not being able to use her mobile phone as a calculator. Donna tries to call her daughter, who’s really clever, but she can’t get the remote control she’s brought with her to dial correctly. They settle for 6 glasses at £6 a glass, and then tackle the trickier subject of how much per sip. This then leads to some unpleasantness, as Julia has sipped more than the others, so should pay more for the bottle – haven’t they already paid, then? They end up getting another bottle, so even if they can’t figure out how much each one owes, they’ll be too sloshed to care.

More grumbling as the table and chairs are removed, then enter the three with yoga mats. Donna is teaching yoga to the others, but during this oasis of peace and calm, Jean has a thought. (Don’t laugh, it can still happen to women of our age!) I don’t remember all the details, but basically she talks with her spirit guide, and comes up with a dead tropical fish, that’s still angry at being accidentally cooked by Julia, and served up to her kids! At the end of their session, they do a “mantra”, chanting for Jean, as Tara, to get a job.

So in the next scene, Job For Tara, she’s got one. At this point I should mention that the whole evening is sponsored by Tena, the purveyors of feminine hygiene products. Indeed, as we came in to the Mill, there were sample incontinence pads scattered about the seating, in case we were “laughing too much to care”. When her friends arrive to check out the new career, it turns out Tara’s doing promotional work, dressed as a Tena pad. She’s hugely embarrassed. And then Julia suggests she goes back into children’s entertainment, which she and Donna used to do. It’s such a good idea, that the next sketch, Party Entertainers, shows us their skills at that particular job.

Of course, there are no spare actors to play the kids, so they use the audience. I haven’t felt so young for a long time. This is the audience participation number, and they do it brilliantly. Tara is some superwoman type, Donna is sort of dressed as a mutant ninja turtle (complete with tail), and Julia plays a master of ceremonies. They split us into three. This caused one poor child to cry, as he/she thought they were going to chop us up, but it turned out it was three groups, so no one was harmed. In fact, Julia kindly escorted one of the children in the front row off to the toilet so she wouldn’t wet herself. The little girl even had her mummy’s handbag with her.

Then came the singsong. We were in the middle group, so after those on our right had sung about hot flushes, turning into power surges, we got to sing “I’ve got the memory loss blues in my head…”, with clapping! We were really good, but then the third group got to do a great number, with movements, about the pelvic floor rock, so we looked a bit poor by comparison. Then they got us all standing up and doing all three songs together, which, amazingly enough, we did. It was great fun, and left the place buzzing at the end of the first half.

The second half opened with Women in Power, where all three ladies play Prime Minister types from their respective countries. Julia is from Russia, and wore a silly fur hat to prove it, Donna was the British PM, and Jean played a French Premier. They quickly put the world to rights, abolishing war and deciding all feminine hygiene products should be free. If only it were that simple!

Chez Gordon Ramsay gave us Jean and Donna as friends coming in to a restaurant where Julia is a seriously menopausal waitress. Actually, she comes across as more of stroppy teenager at first, but then the hormones kick in and the threats of violence escalate. Mind you, I have some sympathy, as the two customers are having a good old time changing their minds every five seconds. Julia finally crawls off as the two women scarper.

At the Spa has a conversation between Julia and Jean being interrupted by Donna, who’s in the middle chair. They’re all waiting for various layers of paint to dry, and Donna, who seems to be one of the ladies from the video sketches, is complaining about her terrible day, having to cancel her bridge lesson to see her chiropractor, only to be told there was nothing wrong with her back. Across her, Jean and Julia are discussing their lives and problems. Jean was having some problem with a supermarket (that’s what set Donna off, having to pick up her own groceries that the delivery man had left by the door!), while Julia’s husband was annoyed she didn’t read her emails. If she had, she would have known to iron his shirt for him. (And he was only next door!) Jean’s story about the supermarket includes one comment where the person serving her asks for something, and Julia is dismissive. She doesn’t believe it, because Jean states that the supermarket employee said “please” (as if).

The Queue was preceded by the grumbling stage hand commenting on how she wouldn’t mind doing some of this stuff – if those three could do, it couldn’t be all that hard! She then joins them in the queue, getting some strange looks from the others. Julia comes on first, in leathers, and then Jean and Donna join her, obviously together. Finally the stage hand comes on, and tags along at the back. We don’t know what they’re queuing for at this stage. Attempting to make polite conversation, Jean finds out Julia’s character’s name, and assumes from her manner and dress that she’s a lesbian. Turns out she’s going to enrol in a car maintenance class, ‘cos that’s where the men are. Jean and Donna tell her they go to the golf course for that, and when Julia says she doesn’t know how to play, they inform her that they don’t either. So they agree to meet up at the golf course.

Golf! When Jean brings on her golf bag and plonks it down in the middle of the stage, and then puts a fake golf ball on the floor and starts to wiggle her way into a golfing stance, I was a little concerned because she was aiming straight at me. Fortunately she was right when she said she didn’t know how to play – she swings and misses. What a relief! She’s joined by the others, and it’s clear they’re beyond hopeless – they don’t even know which direction the hole is in! Julia is totally obsessed with the rules, and reckons Donna was out of order peeing beside a bush – she’s supposed to use a tree. After a low-flying ball narrowly misses them, they agree that the rules are silly (typical men’s thing), and head off to the bar for a drink.

In Dating Agency, Donna plays Sarah, and older woman who’s trying out the dating game after what’s presumably a long gap. Turns out she’s lost her husband – “lost” as in he stayed on the Piccadilly line train after she got off, and she hasn’t seen him since. She doesn’t rate high enough in the agency’s scoring system, so she’s offered the chance to be a model in the Trusty Trendsetters setup (next sketch). She lost out because of her looks (5), dropping down to a 4 because she didn’t have money, dropping to a 3 because she didn’t have any celebrity friends, etc. Jean, as the head of the agency, keeps calling her Sally instead of Sarah, but she gets it right in the next section.

Trusty Trendsetters is one of those operations that sells you stuff you don’t want at ridiculous prices in the comfort of someone’s home, or in this case, a hotel function room. The humour is mainly visual here, as Donna looks absolutely ridiculous in the outfits she’s wearing. There’s a Trusty Trendsetters apron, which doubles as a bag (in case you have to jet off to foreign climes with only half an hour to pack) and finally as a waterproof hat. The basic black top is long enough for Donna/Sarah, the short one, to wear as a dress, and can be worn either way round, giving two distinct looks – the black dress with round neck, and the black dress with V-neck. Fantastic! Underneath, Sarah is wearing the multifunctional underwear and swimsuit, all in black, and there’s also a wrap which can do service as a throw, a beach rug and a skirt! Whew! And all a mere snip at £499! There’s also a range of Trusty Trendsetters cosmetics which can make you look ever so much younger, though if they work, Sarah hadn’t been using them. All in all, a very entertaining sketch. For the finale, they did a song, with the stage hand joining them on plastic electric guitar.

There was a lot of good material in this show, and it was generally very well received by the audience. I did notice some other jokes that just seemed to slip under the radar, and I couldn’t help feeling there was more to be got out of this. Perhaps a good director could help them tighten it up? Anyway, I was very glad I’d seen it, and it gave us a lot of laughs.

Macbeth – July 2007

Jul4

6/10

By: William Shakespeare

Directed by: Rupert Goold

Venue: Minerva Theatre

Date: Tuesday 3rd July 2007

What a difference from the recent version we saw at Stratford. This was a much more coherent production, with filmic aspects adding another layer to the effect.

The setting was Russia in the 1950s, although to Steve it looked more like the 1920s. The stage layout was simple and bleak – the back walls, both on the slant, were institutional whitewashed brick, the floor plain, and to the left front stood a large sink with taps plumbed in from above. Central in the back wall was a lift, with metal concertina doors. It all seemed very functional, semi-industrial, and stark. Old style light shades hung from the ceiling, and different ones were lit at different times, to fit in with some very dramatic and effective lighting. To the right of the lift doors was a radiator, and to the right of that a fridge, with a small TV on top of it. A shelf on the left wall held a record player.

The opening scene here shows Duncan arriving at a field hospital, and talking with a wounded soldier who has been wheeled in on a hospital trolley, and is being attended to by a couple of nurses. There were three nurses in all on this ward – you have been warned. I found all the details in this scene a bit distracting. There was so much to look at that it was hard to concentrate on the soldier’s speech, so I didn’t get such a clear sense of what had gone on as I usually do. It was also very noisy at the start, as the battle was still going on, so I had to fiddle a bit with the headset. Still, it got a lot quieter after Duncan left, especially as the three “ward” sisters bumped off the wounded man – a chilling start.

We then get their “when shall we three…” stuff, followed by Macbeth and Banquo’s arrival. The witches had constructed a figure using one of those drip stands, a bag of blood (for the face), and an overcoat. As they had their backs to the front (sorry, that sounds so crazy), we could only see them in side view, so I’ve no idea how it looked to Macbeth and Banquo, but they did seem to be using the figure like a puppet. Macbeth & Banquo’s reactions were interesting. They were preparing to leave, when the witches start up their hailstorm, and Macbeth’s attention is caught by his additional titles. He’s obviously got ambition, and although he queries the plausibility of their words, he’s not that disinterested. Banquo is much more cheerful in this production. He’s almost bantering with the witches, and also sounds the note of caution about believing what they say. I’ll just mention here that the nurses/witches were dressed in simple grey uniforms, with white bib aprons, and white caps. At other times, they changed the caps to become servants, so they turned up in all sorts of places.

In order to melt into thin air, the witches took to the elevator, but instead of simply going up, there’s a blackout and some wibbly noises, and then when the lights come up they’ve disappeared! Amazing. Macbeth and Banquo are certainly astonished, the more so when Ross and Angus, the messengers from the King, arrive and start calling Macbeth Cawdor. I liked the way Angus, the military man, shows impatience with the way Ross, the suited civil servant(?) or diplomat(?), takes ages to get to the point. Macbeth is enthralled by the prospect of the witches’ final prophecy coming true, and with such ambition on show it was hard to believe that this Macbeth would be so reluctant to “catch the nearest way”. But not impossible.

Duncan and his entourage now emerge, and they’re full of praise for Macbeth’s abilities. When Macbeth arrives, there’s lots of congratulations, etc. Malcolm comes over to shake Macbeth’s hand, so he’s standing right beside him when Duncan makes his announcement about his heir, and for a moment, it looks like he’s going to name Macbeth. He even takes a small step forwards to accept, only to be caught out by Duncan’s actual choice. Of course, he covers it up well, congratulating Malcolm along with the rest (so he can act after all). Off they all go to Glamis castle.

Now the stage changes again, and this setting will apply through several scenes. There’s a metal trolley table to our left, and two trestle tables are brought on, middle and right. This is Glamis’ castle kitchen, and it’s a nice touch to give us such a domestic, even cosy setting, for the coming acts of darkness.

We had a very good Lady Macbeth last time, and this production was no slouch in that area either. Kate Fleetwood gave us a more passionate woman, driven by ambition and desire. Her invocation to the powers of darkness was very focused and intense, and showed none of the nervy character that Derbhle Crotty gave to her performance. At this point, Lady Macbeth is totally in control, but so focused that she’s effectively blinkered. I’ve always felt that she has this hunger for power, but thinks that killing Duncan will be enough to do it – nobody else needs to die. Macbeth, being better versed in killing, knows there are consequences, and it’s this that holds him back. He wants the same result, but he also wants to “be safely thus”. (It’s often those who don’t have to get involved in the process who are so enthusiastic about the benefits of murder.) Anyway, once Macbeth arrives, Lady Macbeth is already so wound up she’d have spent time persuading him even if he’d been equally as primed to go.

The kitchen staff turn up, and start preparing the evening feast, with Lady Macbeth helping out. Duncan and his crew actually arrive through the kitchen, which is pretty realistic for Scottish families. Seems a bit unlikely for a castle, mind you, but it does emphasise how intimate all these people are, despite their grand titles. Macbeth and his family are relatives of Duncan’s, after all. Lady Macbeth is remarkably coy in greeting Duncan, but all goes well. With the banquet in progress, Macbeth slips out to the kitchen to get some more wine. As he opens a bottle and decants it, he gives us his thoughts on “If it were done..”. Again the emphasis on him being the host, and the sense of family comes across strongly. Lady Macbeth joins him, and has to push him hard again to refocus his intentions. I noticed very much this time how Macbeth considers the witches words as promises – he’s easily led when it’s where he wants to go, although Lady Macbeth does have her hands full on the method side. Her excuse for popping out to the kitchen was getting the gateau for dessert – it looked lovely, and borders on distracting, but the actors are on top of it (the scene, that is), and I hardly noticed the cake.

Fleance, however, has obviously noticed the cake, as he sneaks into the kitchen for a late night snack and raids a piece from the fridge. He only gets a mouthful, though. Banquo arrives and chats with him, and then Macbeth turns up. I found it a bit surprising that Banquo, as the text has it, should draw his sword and challenge him, before he knows who Macbeth is. He is in a castle after all, in safe territory, and in its kitchen, too. But this production places a lot of emphasis on the idea of surveillance, and nobody being able to fully relax and trust each other, especially once the murder has happened. Macbeth takes the uneaten cake and returns it to the fridge – a surprising lack of hospitality for a Scotsman. Banquo takes his leave, and Macbeth is left alone to chat to a dagger. Will it be invisible this time? We can clearly see three kitchen knives left on the tables, so the opportunities are there, but Macbeth ignores them, and focuses on empty air. Once he’s got himself wound up again, and the bell strikes, he’s off to murder Duncan, who appears to be sleeping just off the kitchen (do all these Scots nobles like midnight snacks?).

Lady Macbeth comes on, and now her nervousness begins to show. She’s been all steel up to now, but the heat of action is starting to melt her resolve. She’s got the grooms drunk, left the daggers for Macbeth, but she’s also seen the sleeping Duncan, and been reminded of her father. Mind you, she’s still wife enough to nag at her husband when he comes back from doing the deed. I don’t know, give a woman exactly what she says she wants, and she still complains! That’s marriage for you. She returns with plenty of blood on her hands and throat, and manages to get her husband off to their bedchamber, just as the first knockings occur.

The porter. Well, we’ve seen all sorts here, some very good, others snoozable, but this was unique in terms of audience participation. He comes down in the lift, opens both the doors, and then gives us some of the lines we know so well. He’s carrying a torch, and uses it to shine on particular people in the audience, and then he picks on one guy, a teacher, whose students have obviously set him up to be the victim. Mr Wright is “encouraged” by the porter to take his place, and this porter, like Lady Macbeth, doesn’t take no for an answer. So we’re treated to the sight of Mr Wright, standing on the stage, holding the torch and something else the porter had (I forget what), looking thoroughly pissed off, and then deciding to give us “To be or not to be”. The porter, probably worried he was going to be upstaged, decided he’d had enough fun with the audience by this time, and let him go back to his seat. He got a good round of applause for being such a good sport.

Fortunately, the knocking had let up during this bit, but now it started again, and at long last the porter lets in family Macduff. This was a surprise in some ways, although I’d noticed Suzanne Burden was playing Lady Macduff, so I was half expecting she’d be given more to do than the usual one scene. The kids are there as well, one son and two daughters, all dressed for school. Obviously not a two-car family. Macbeth comes back, in his dressing-gown, and Macduff heads off to waken Duncan. The lines Lennox speaks in this scene are taken by Lady Macduff and her son.

I don’t remember exactly when all the other nobles arrive, but I think some do before Macduff returns. In any case, they’re all roused once he does, and Macbeth heads off to check on what he says, even though he knows it’s all too true. Macbeth’s attempt to excuse his killing of the grooms does come across as too much, but he does make a valid point, had he been innocent of Duncan’s murder. Lady Macbeth collapses as usual, and Malcolm and Donalbain head for safer ground.

Banquo is troubled by all of this. I think at one point during his soliloquy he rips a listening device from the underside of one of the tables, again pointing up the surveillance theme, although as he’d already said most of what he had to say, it seemed a bit late to be doing that. Perhaps he should have checked for bugs first, before he spoke.

After inviting Banquo to that night’s feast, Macbeth sends everyone away, including Lady Macbeth, who’s already starting to look concerned at the distance he’s keeping between them. Now Macbeth lets the scorpions out of his mind and plays with them for a bit. It seems to give him an appetite, because as the potential murderers are brought on, he gets a platter out of the fridge and makes himself a ham sandwich. I don’t know if there was some deeper meaning in the food aspects of this production, but in this case I simply found the sandwich making a distraction. It stopped the energy of the scene building up, and kept it too domestic. It may have been useful to show Macbeth giving a part of the sandwich to each of the murderers once they’ve “signed up”, but I really didn’t find this staging helpful. Perhaps the director is suggesting that Macbeth’s a compulsive snacker?

Later, when he’s talking with Lady Macbeth, she’s definitely feeling the pressure, due to his coldness towards her. They’re getting dressed for the feast, and while she would like to get physical, he’s not interested. Towards the end of the scene, where Macbeth calls on the powers of darkness, she’s disturbed by it, and especially because he so clearly echoes her original invocation after she’s read his letter.

Now the scene shifts, and all the tables are moved, while a collection of chairs is placed in two rows diagonally across the stage. Various characters take their seats, along with Banquo and Fleance, and suddenly we’re on a train, a strange form of riding, perhaps, but maybe Banquo’s a dedicated train spotter? The third murderer is Lennox, and instead of stabbing, Banquo is shot after a scuffle, but Fleance gets away. One of the murderers shoots one of his fellows, and then he heads off to tell Macbeth what’s happened. The rest of the people in the carriage don’t want to get involved. In that sense, it was a good staging, bringing out the wider sense of fear in society as a whole.

To cover the removal of the chairs, I think this is where the cast come on and sing a Russian-sounding song; something like a hymn. The chairs are away, and the tables are brought back on for the feast. No flying wine and bloody fruit here, thank goodness. The table runs from back to front of the stage, and the witches are among the servants tonight. All is going well, with Macbeth serving up the wine, and then stepping to one side to hear from the murderer. They stood just to our right, so we got a good view of their dialogue. Then Macbeth returns to the table, as the witches are serving up the soup. As he stands to one side, two of the witches are standing in front of his place, so he can’t see where he is to sit. They move away, and he sits down, and all begin to eat. Then the lift starts to descend, a film clip of red liquid dispersing is projected onto the back walls, spreading away from the lift entrance, and finally Banquo emerges, all gory, and walks straight up on to the table and along to the end to confront Macbeth, who recoils in horror. The witches are on either side of the table, arms outstretched, joining in the tableau. And there the first half ends!

This was a very good example of how this production, on several occasions, created a large gap between lines that are often run together. Even ignoring the interval, we have a long gap between “Here, my good lord.” And “What is’t that moves your highness?”. The initial staging of this scene is reprised after the interval, only this time, the conversation Macbeth has with the murderer is done silently, allowing us to focus on the action at the table. This follows the same pattern as before, except that Banquo doesn’t appear, so that when Macbeth starts violently back from the table, we know what he’s seeing, but we can also appreciate the point of view of the others at the feast. I found this very effective, giving us two different images to help us flesh out the scene.

After Macbeth’s first recovery, there’s a lovely bit of dancing, which reminded me very much of how Stalin apparently tormented his acolytes. The guests all pair up and start dancing – the record player comes into its own here – but as Banquo’s missing, someone has to dance with the mop! Everyone does their best to avoid it, and when the music stops, they all dash around to get another partner before the next dance. When Lady Macbeth ends up with the mop, she bangs it on the floor in time to the music, and it all gets a bit rowdy. Then the “ghost” makes another “appearance”, at least to Macbeth, and the party breaks up.

Hecate is not part of this production, so the next scene involves a chat between Lennox and another lord. This was staged strangely. I couldn’t see a lot of it, as Lennox was standing with his back to us, blocking off the view of Ross, the other lord in this case. Ross was sitting on a chair, and seemed to be being interrogated by Lennox. There was certainly a sense of intimidation in the air, although the lines themselves don’t help that interpretation. I can’t really supply any more information here, as I just couldn’t see enough to know what was going on.

Macbeth’s second meeting with the witches takes place in some chamber, possibly in his castle(?), where they bring on three corpses. Definitely not nurses you’d want to meet if you were ill. There’s a cut-off hand, and they sing a modern style song while clambering provocatively over the dead bodies. Whatever turns you on. The corpses are done up in white body bags, centrally zipped. Macbeth arrives via the lift, descending, of course. The information comes from the corpses, the one on the right being the first to speak. The one in the middle gets partly unzipped for his contribution, and for the final pronouncement, images are projected onto the back walls which I presume are meant to represent Banquo’s line of royal descendants. I could see the picture of Banquo himself, but I really couldn’t make out what the other images were, so I can’t help much there either.

At Macduff castle, we see the mother and her three children. I realised after a bit that the program being shown on the TV on the fridge was a kiddie’s program, which Macduff junior was watching, while his sisters did their homework. Is this why boys aren’t doing so well in school? His lines were shared out between him and the older sister, and then they all get killed. I couldn’t help feeling she was a silly cow, this woman. How many times do folk have to tell her to flee before she takes the hint? But no, she stays, complaining bitterly about how her husband has left her in such danger, not even packing a bag, as she does in some productions. What an idiot. Ross was brought back on stage by the murderers at the end of this scene, and I thought he was also going to be killed, but as he pops up in the next scene, alive and well, I have absolutely no idea what that was about.

The meeting between Malcolm and Macduff was an interesting staging. The chairs were on again, in rows, so that the English gentry could enjoy a music recital. Macduff crept on with his suitcase during the song, and sat at the back, waiting to speak to Malcolm. Once it was over, everyone else left, and they could talk in private. Their discussion was well performed, and brought out all the concerns of both men – Macduff to get a better king for Scotland, and Malcolm to check out whether Macduff is one of Macbeth’s agents or not. When Ross arrives, I felt unhappy with his initial hiding of Macduff’s great loss. I’ve no idea why Shakespeare does it this way, although I usually find it very moving once Macduff has been told what’s happened, but here I felt it could have been addressed a bit more clearly. However, the resulting reaction was even better than I could have expected. Despite the clearly emotional impact, Michael Feast as Macduff keeps it physically simple – his fingers just touch the back of the chair he’s next to. And then there’s silence, a long silence which allowed the emotional connection to deepen and spread. I thought at the time that it was great they had the courage to hold it so long. It didn’t overstay its welcome either, as Malcolm very gently returned us to speech. Beautifully done.

Now we’re back in Macbeth’s castle, and Lady Macbeth is about to take her nocturnal ramble. The servant talking with the doctor is one of the witches, although this time it may just be doubling, it’s not clear. One special effect here – as Lady Macbeth goes to wash her hands in the big sink, having poured bleach all over them, a torrent of red liquid gushes out of the taps, to her horror. Naturally the doctor and servant are oblivious to this. I haven’t always commented on the way through these notes, but Kate Fleetwood judged Lady Macbeth’s decent into madness very well, I thought, and although I didn’t feel a lot of sympathy for her character’s suffering, I could understand why she’d done it to herself. Like Macbeth, she regarded the witches utterances as destiny, and felt totally justified in committing any sort of atrocity to get her way. Then she finds the consequences not to her liking, and the emotional energy she put into achieving their greatness has nowhere to go but crazy. Sad, but true.

Macbeth is now over-confident, as he’s been seduced by the corpses’ pronouncements into believing himself invulnerable. Still, he’s not a happy bunny, and as he thrashes around verbally, he calls for “Satan”, as I heard it. It’s “Seyton” in the text, but it’s fine to pronounce it Satan, and in this case, very appropriate. It’s the porter who answers to this name here, again appropriate.

We’re rapidly coming to the end now, and the scenes fly thick and fast. Finally, Macduff confronts Macbeth, and despite finding out that Macduff was not born of a woman, Macbeth decides to fight on. In fact, he briefly considers ending it all by shooting himself, but holsters his gun to fight Macduff with a knife. It’s always a difficulty when setting these plays in more modern times, to deal with the sword fighting when the characters would more naturally use a gun, or somesuch. It’s sorted here by having the gun empty, so Macbeth has to resort to more basic methods. He roars his lines, concluding with “and damn’d be him that first cries, “Hold””. I paid attention, and for definite, the “enough” part of that line was missing. For once, Macduff doesn’t get the better of Macbeth, but as Macbeth is about to deliver the killer blow, the three witches appear at the sides, and Macbeth pauses. Now he says “enough”, with resignation, and allows Macduff to kill him. A very interesting staging.

Other than mentioning that Siward is genuinely unmoved by his son’s death, once he knows he died honourably, there’s nothing more to report on the play. But there was more to come, as we’d come tonight to take advantage of the post-show (naturally), so we hung on to hear what more we could from the cast. The audience contained a lot of school kids (Mr Wright’s class), many of whom stayed on for the post-show. After some initial reluctance to ask questions themselves, they started to get more into it, and some interesting points emerged. But the main event was when Patrick Stewart very firmly told off a lot of those present for their behaviour during the performance. He pointed out that theatre is a combination of three things – a text or narrative, the actors, and the audience. All three have to work together to get the best out of the evening. As another actress had already mentioned, some of the younger folk had been chatting and making noises, and this had been distracting to the cast. (Apparently they talk about us backstage – good job my ears are fireproof!) He was quite firm without being unpleasant, and he certainly got across the message that those who had made more noise than they needed to had brought the performance down a bit from what it could have been. His words were warmly appreciated by those of us who have often felt such a speech would be useful.

Although I was aware of some noise from our right during the evening, I wasn’t too distracted myself, but I must allow for that in my final assessment of the performance. Looking back on it now, and writing down the staging and my reactions, I’m aware that it comes across better than I experienced it at the time. I did like a number of bits, such as the feast and its reprise, the long silence with Macduff and Malcolm, but overall I didn’t feel as engaged emotionally as I would like. Of course, that’s partly because I don’t relate to calling on the powers of evil, but even so, I found it more cerebral than emotionally charged.

The use of film was OK, but didn’t add much for me, other than the seeping blood bit just before the interval. The music was also OK, but without any significance that I could see. I liked the general setting, but the attempt to twist some parts of the play to emphasise that context left me cold. I thought the ensemble worked very well together, and I enjoyed many of the performances, but I found it lacking in depth, perhaps because the director didn’t trust the text enough to get the story across? All in all, though, a good production, with some classy moments.

Almost forgot, during the banquet scene, Macbeth took a cigarette off one of the guests who was about to light up, and crumbled it over his head. We didn’t know if this was a reference to the newly introduced smoking ban or not, but it was a good reminder of Macbeth’s abuse of power.

Sweet William – June 2007

Jun30

6/10

By: Michael Pennington

Venue: Mill Studio, Guildford

Date: Friday 29th June 2007

This was a lovely evening in the company of an actor with tremendous in-depth knowledge of Shakespeare and his work. We’d heard Michael Pennington describe his introduction to Shakespeare at the age of eleven before, at the RSC Summer School, but apart from that enjoyable reprise, everything was new and all of it was very interesting.

He combined a trip through Shakespeare’s life with extracts from the plays. So for Will’s childhood, we got the dialogue between Mamillius and Leontes from The Winter’s Tale. He emphasised that very little is known about Shakespeare’s life, and he adds in one of his own ideas to explain Will’s disappearance for several years before emerging as an actor in London. He reckons that Will was himself working and travelling with the strolling players who were common in England at that time. He backed this up with one of the sonnets – sorry, don’t know which one – about returning to one’s true love after straying, which suggests to him the experience of a young man travelling about the country and enjoying the freedoms of many young players at that time.

I don’t remember all the details of his performance now, but it was a delightful evening, full of interest and moving performances.

Pete & Dud: Come Again – June 2007

Jun27

3/10

By: Chris Bartlett and Nick Awde

Directed by: Owen Lewis

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Tuesday 26th June 2007

This performance suffered from a number of factors. Firstly, the audience was as sparse as I’ve seen in the Connaught for a long while. They normally get better attendances than this, but tonight there was very little atmosphere from our side of the curtain. Secondly, the comedy material in the show was not really designed to get the audience involved. The Morecambe and Wise tribute show, The Play What I Wrote, is the opposite of this. They did their time learning how to get an audience on their side, and the material in that show gives the actors plenty of opportunity to interact with the crowd. But the Peter Cook and Dudley Moore stuff is at the start of alternative comedy – satirical and surreal – so it’s more up to the audience to get themselves involved, and if they’re not interested, tough.

Thirdly, the structure of the show didn’t help too much, either. It was done as a chat show from the 80s, with Dudley Moore being interviewed by a combination of Russell Harty and Terry Wogan, and Peter Cook showing up part-way through. We got flashbacks of their days with Beyond the Fringe, etc, so we did get to see a fair bit of their material, but we also got snippets of behind the scenes stuff. I felt this made the whole evening rather clunky. To get into the flashback, they had to get props, etc, and while the set was well constructed to allow for all the different settings, it did limit their movements. Also, the need to dispose of the props, hats, and the rest, after the flashback, meant there were longer gaps than I would have liked between scenes.

Finally, the contents of the play are well known, and have already been explored well on TV, so it’s hard to know just who this play was intended for. Aficionados of their work would only get a modest amount of the humour presented to them, and the darker side of their relationship wasn’t explored in enough depth to be really satisfying.

What did I like? Well, the performances were good enough, and some of the sketches were still fun to see, although it’s very difficult to impersonate such a one-off as Peter Cook effectively. I did like the way that neither Pete nor Dud was made the scapegoat for the problems in their relationship. The various TV programs I’ve seen about them often seem to take one side or the other, but while there’s no doubt that in his later years the drinking made Peter Cook a difficult man to deal with, it’s also likely that there were other factors as well. So well done for keeping a balance. I also liked the way the action often contradicted what was being said on the chat show.

All in all, I was glad when it ended, though I hope it has better luck and bigger audiences for the rest of its run.

Macbeth – June 2007

Jun22

3/10

By: William Shakespeare

Directed by: Conall Morrison

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Thursday 21st June 2007

I found this a very ramshackle production. There were some interesting ideas, and some good performances, but it didn’t work satisfactorily as a whole. I felt disinterested and often bored, which I don’t experience too often at the RSC.

There was a scene inserted at the start which I presume was intended to give focus and meaning to the whole production. To begin with, there were a number of chairs placed on the stage in rows, with one on its side. At the start, the doors at the back opened, and with much screaming, yelling and clashing of swords, various people rushed onto the stage, some pulling carts. The men grabbed the chairs, and piled them up as a barricade against the doors, while the women got the wagons into a circle… sorry, wrong genre. The women hid behind the carts as best they could. To no avail. The marauding forces under Macbeth forced the doors open, and Macbeth himself took on and killed the men, then turned his attention to the women and children. We could see he was barely alive, in that his humanity had been squashed out of sight by all the killing he had endured, and although he held one of the babies quite tenderly for a while, he still wrung its neck without compassion.

It was a powerful scene, and in many ways it promised well for the rest of the performance, but even so, I found myself wondering, in the midst of all this emotive force, where does he go from here? This Macbeth has none of “the milk of human kindness” left in him. There’s nothing in his life but senseless slaughter – he’s an empty shell. He’s already at “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow…”, yet the rest of us are three hours away from it. It would take some masterstroke to connect the dots to give us a satisfying explanation of this character’s journey from here, and sadly, we didn’t get one. There were some good bits to the central performance, true, but overall the range was limited and the verse-speaking not quite up to the job. Lots of energy, but not enough detail – “Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”.

The opening scene hadn’t quite finished, however. The three women that Macbeth had killed, jerked alive again after he’d gone. I had suspected this might happen – come on, three women, in Macbeth, can’t just be coincidence. Sure enough, these lately deceased became the three weird sisters, and their motivation was plain and stark – they wanted revenge for their slaughtered children. Steve saw them as avenging angels, though not necessarily heavenly ones, and that’s a good image. They thoughtfully removed the bodies, which allowed the rest of the action to continue, but they did linger over it, and I felt the first intimations of the boredom that was to become all too familiar during the evening.

Next up was the pirate king. You don’t remember him from Macbeth? Well, he’s called Duncan, and David Troughton played him in what Steve reckoned was a West Country accent with Scottish moments, long straggly hair, and a leather coat. What else were we meant to think? I had to work hard to stifle a fit of the giggles at this point, because the wounded soldier who arrived to tell the King what had happened was speaking with one of the worst Scots accents I’ve heard in a while. It wasn’t helped by the fact that some of the cast were putting on a Scottish accent, some had Caribbean inflections, the Irish contingent apparently felt their own brogue to be sufficiently Scots-like not to bother, and we had a Welsh second murderer. Most of the black actors chose the West Indian/African route, so it was doubly surprising to hear one of their number attempt a comedy version of the Scottish accent. I barely suppressed my giggles, but suppress them I did. I have no idea why these choices were made – we could tell from the post-show yesterday that the actors mostly weren’t using their own accents, so it had to be a deliberate decision. (At least it helps to explain why David Troughton kept correcting himself when referring to “English” actors in the post-show.)

The scene where the three witches greet Macbeth was fine, nothing special to report. The women left through the back door, which Macbeth and Banquo were apparently oblivious to. Likewise the arrival of Ross and Angus to inform Macbeth that the first prophecy has come true was also OK, but added nothing to my understanding of the play. Duncan’s thanks to Macbeth and Banquo were fine, and Macbeth did at least register well his shock at hearing Malcolm created heir to the throne.

I’ve never quite understood exactly when Macbeth wrote the letter he sends to Lady Macbeth. He’s riding furiously to prepare for Duncan’s arrival chez lui, yet he manages to knock off a reasonably lengthy letter (Lady Macbeth is obviously part-way through when we first see her), and the postman’s quicker than he is. This is one time when text-messaging would seem to be the answer, but sadly they didn’t have it in those days. Anyway, next up was Lady Macbeth and the letter, and boy, was she good. Derbhle Crotty managed to get across a sense of an ordinary woman gone seriously bad. No histrionics, nothing over the top, just plain negativity focused and concentrated. Her invocation was very grounded and, as she spoke her final lines, and with Macbeth appearing in the doorway behind her, she froze with her eyes wide and staring, as if her later madness was already within her. Which of course it was.

Duncan’s arrival was again average, and this time my view of Lady Macbeth was blocked by all the entourage standing about, so I felt my attention slipping again. Macbeth’s soliloquy “If it were done” was OK, but with one very good piece of interpretation, given this production’s focus on the personal: for “we still have judgement here”, there was a long pause before the “here”, and as he said it, he placed his right hand on his heart, indicating that his own conscience was what he meant, rather than the usual reference to the world in general. That I liked very much.

Again, there was the difficulty from the opening scene in getting to grips with how Lady Macbeth persuades her husband to kill Duncan. From Terminator-like assassin, he’d become a picky wimp, and she had to work hard to get him to change his mind. Frankly, I didn’t think she’d manage it, good though her performance was, but then I wasn’t buying much of Macbeth’s emotional posturing at this point. However, I did enjoy Derbhle’s performance. She managed to be hard as nails, yet a little nervy with it, taking us a bit further along Lady Macbeth’s descent into hell.

The opening to the next scene, Banquo’s arrival leading into the dagger speech, was a bit hesitant. The language didn’t seem to come across too well, but the arrival of the witches certainly helped. One came on and dropped a dagger onto the stage in perfect time for Macbeth to give his speech. As he went to grab it, she whisked it away, and another of the three, having already come on, dropped another dagger on another part of the stage. And so it went on, a nice piece of staging and perfectly timed, with the last dagger being removed just before “There’s no such thing”. As the bell tolled, he climbed up the ladder to go to Duncan’s room.

Lady Macbeth appeared, and was now showing her nervousness more clearly. Their dialogue was largely lost for me, as it was rushed through so quickly. I know they’re agitated, but there’s no need to lose it altogether. Lady Macbeth might be able to speak brave words to her husband, but her face gave her away when she grabbed the daggers – she wasn’t looking forward to this at all.

The porter was played by all three witches, tossing a pig’s head between them – not a scene that I’ll be fondly remembering anytime soon. The words were too garbled (keen to get past the unintelligible stuff quickly, perhaps?) and the actions not particularly helpful. The one witch who stayed behind to actually talk to Macduff and Lennox was pretty graphic about standing to and not standing to, and really enjoyed her own joke, but it wasn’t the best porter scene I’ve experienced. Of course, they need time for Macbeth to get cleaned up, as he would be back on stage pretty soon to greet Macduff himself. Then we had the discovery of the murder, lots of people rushing on stage in various states of attire, Macbeth admitting to having killed the grooms, and Lady Macbeth throwing up over the top balcony railing, before collapsing and being carried off. As so much was going on, I’m not sure how she was playing that bit; whether it was a device to distract the others from Macbeth’s maladroit justification of his actions, or just because it’s all got too much for her. Anyway, my main thought at this time was a forensic one. Macbeth’s really smart here, because not only has he got rid of two potential witnesses in the grooms, he’s covered up any evidence of him killing Duncan – if the CSI people were to check him for blood, he could always claim he got Duncan’s blood on him from the grooms. When I find myself thinking like this during a performance, it’s not usually a good sign.

The play trundled on in the usual way – I must say, they did at least stick pretty much to the standard version, and after a year of viewing Shakespeare from just about every angle except right way up, this was a pleasant change. Donalbain and Malcolm fled, people chatted about what’s going on, Banquo was getting his hopes up, King Macbeth and his Queen were looking happy with the world, Banquo went off riding, Macbeth invited the murderers onto the stage, the Queen talked with him afterwards, and was even more worried by him not confiding in her, and then the murderers, joined by one of the witches as the third murderer, tackled Banquo and Fleance.

Having a witch as the third murderer worked very well, I thought. Remember, the witches are working to bring down Macbeth, and in this scene she was the one who put out the light, making it harder for the murderers to do their job. If I heard correctly, she told Fleance to flee even before his father did, and although she went after him, she showed no signs of attacking him. This was a good way to interpret the scene, I found – one of the better ways in which the witches were woven into the fabric of the staging.

When Banquo was killed, he was lying to our right, near the front corner of the stage. I remember thinking, that’ll be handy for him when it comes time to join in the feast. Sure enough, when the time came, the weird women helped him up, smeared his face with blood, and placed him in the empty chair. Macbeth freaked out, as usual, and sent him packing, and they took him off. A little later, I noticed the tablecloth twitch a bit, and reckoned he’d be coming up through the trapdoor for his next entrance. Sure enough, he did. Some blood had been dripped over the fruit in the middle of the table, and then he rose up, sending the middle trestle flying, and the food and fruit went everywhere. I took a moment or two to stop a bloody apple from landing in my lap. As Lady Macbeth tried to calm her husband down, off to our left, a grinning Banquo was seated at what remained of the table, and the witches were waving his hand at them. It was both funny and scary – I could understand why Macbeth was freaking out. Unfortunately, he was so upset that he let fly with his hand and swept a cup off the table, so that Steve and I (and people for several rows back) were sprayed with a large amount of fake wine. It was a bit of a shock, as I’m not used to this sort of audience participation, so I really didn’t notice much of the rest of that scene, but it finished pretty soon anyway, and we could begin to clear up the mess. As did the stage staff.

We wiped ourselves down, and Steve went to change the program, as that had been splashed. He likes to keep them, so a clean copy is essential. As he did this, I realised I wasn’t happy sitting there any longer. Rather than just leave (although I was tempted), I asked if there were any other seats available. I must say the RSC staff were very helpful, and it turned out there were tickets for two seats in Row H which hadn’t been collected, so as these seemed perfectly good, we took them. There was more cleaning up to do, but fortunately, we were both wearing red or pink tops (I was in the pink), so the evidence of our splashing was fast disappearing.

I was happy with the change because I had felt too close to the action during the first half. That’s not usually my complaint, but this production had evidently taken “sound and fury” to heart, and there was so much going on at times, and on different parts of the stage, that I was having to look round a lot more than usual to be aware of what was going on. This isn’t a criticism of the staging, as I like productions to use the Swan to the full, but in this case I felt happier being further back, so that I could get a better overview of the action (and no more wine).

Hecate was dropped, as I would expect with this interpretation, and so they restarted with the review of the story when Lennox and another Lord had a little chat. Fortunately, I had been paying attention, so it didn’t matter that this didn’t come across clearly. The witches came on carrying suitacses for their consultation with Macbeth. Instead of the various items they were chanting about, they took dolls and babies’ clothes out of the suitcases to put in the cauldron/pit. I found this very moving. When Macbeth arrived, demanding answers, there was a strange extra section where the witches sat him in a chair, put a bag over his head and then a noose, and proceeded to hang him. Not to death, obviously, but just a bit. Why? Time of the month? No explanation was forthcoming, and it didn’t add to the play for me. They used dolls to represent the various apparitions. To show Banquo’s line, lots of dolls dropped down from the ceiling.

Macduff’s family was next in line to be killed. Again, I found this to be less clear than I’ve seen before, although choosing to show Lady Macduff about eight months gone added to the emotional emphasis on childlessness. One of the three witches came on to advise Lady Macduff to fly, and she was apparently speaking out of turn: the other witches made this clear when they turned up. The killings were added to by the killers raping her, largely out of sight, but still unnecessary, even in this context. I was looking forward to the end already.

About this time I was beginning to despair. I felt I’d lost my ability to keep an open mind, and to adapt to new productions and different ways of doing things. Then I thought back to all the performances we’d seen over the past year, and which I’d written up in these notes. I realised this was just a temporary blip, that actually we’re pretty good at accepting these productions on their own terms, and I felt much better. Thank goodness for this writing – it’s something concrete I can refer back to if I lose track again.

The meeting between Macduff and Malcolm worked better than a lot of the scenes. In particular, the line “He has no children” was fairly howled out by Macduff – very moving. Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking confirmed the madness that had been set up earlier and beautifully developed, and was one of the best versions I’ve heard. Then we’re basically into the battle preparation and final fights, and then home. The messenger who came on to tell Macbeth about the forest moving was one of the witches, and she grinned as she left, knowing she’s just told him something fearful. The cry of women was done by the three sisters from the top balcony, and was piercing and eerie. The final confrontation between Macduff and Macbeth worked well enough, and so to bed.

As I write this, I feel I haven’t quite done it justice. It wasn’t as boring as it might seem from my terse descriptions, although I don’t regret any of them. The delivery of lines was poorer than I’m used to, and some of the contrived extras – the rape, the hanging – did nothing for me. Having seen all these actors in Macbett the night before, we know they’re all good at their job, so I have to put the problems down entirely to the director and his concept for the piece. The idea of having the three witches as women avenging the deaths of themselves and their children is superficially tempting, but it shifts the balance of the play too much for me. It became partly a revenge drama, rather than a tragedy based on extremes of ambition. I liked the emphasis on inner psychology in places, but then the witches were definitely supernatural, which contradicts that reading a bit. All in all, it was too unbalanced to be really enjoyable, though I will remember some bits with great pleasure.

Macbett – June 2007

Jun21

3/10

By: Eugene Ionesco, English version by Tanya Ronder

Directed by: Silviu Purcarete

Venue: Swan Theatre

Date: Wednesday 20th June 2007

What a bum-number! Don’t get me wrong, great performances from all of the cast, and probably the best production we Brits are likely to get, but still, what a bum-number! At least it kept to two and a half hours, and there were some really funny bits, plus the post-show was interesting, so the evening wasn’t a complete waste (though it came as close as I can remember!).

This version of Macbeth clearly expresses Ionesco’s own antipathy to any form of totalitarian state, be it Fascist or Communist. It can be summed up quite succinctly in the quote “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” [Lord Acton] Duncan is a despot who rules a Dukedom in an unspecified place (OK, the play says Scotland, but this is Absurdist theatre, so nothing’s that straightforward). We actually get to see Glamiss and Candor (Cawdor) plotting their coup. They’re unhappy about how much of their wealth the King/Archduke is creaming off, particularly when it comes to chickens and eggs. There’s a mention of how many virgins he’s taken, but they do seem to come some way down the list. During their plotting session, a huge picture of the Archduke is positioned behind them, and from time to time others come on and bow reverentially. Both Banco and Macbett come on and chat to the two men, so we get to see how they fit in – they’re 110% loyal to the current ruler. Even so, Glamiss and Candor agree to rise up and overthrow the tyrant.

On the one hand, this staging does get across the situation pretty well, and there’s some humour in it. Everyone’s carrying a case of some kind – briefcase, suitcase – and the two plotters interact well with the audience. What comes across very nicely is how they move from specific personal grievances to glossing it with the idea that they’re acting “for the public good”, a typical trick of power-crazed megalomaniacs. On the other hand, we’re much more aware of state surveillance nowadays, and so any sense of real menace was sadly lacking.

The war between the two sides was reasonably entertaining. Lots of soldiers in bulky combat-type gear loped about – it’s a physical style that I found very reminiscent of Rhinoceros, years ago at Chichester. (Mind you, they probably didn’t have many options for how to move in those outfits.) There was an Absurdist touch with a lemonade seller, wandering about, trying to sell restorative lemonade to people, and who gets into a confrontation with a killing machine, fresh from the battlefield. At least, I assume that’s what it was meant to be. The actor had lots of clunky bits of costume, and moved a bit robotically, with lines suggesting a great relish for slaughter. Various soldiers were killed, and then revived, soldiers chased each other, then swapped places – all the ways to represent mayhem and senseless bloodshed you can think of, without actually using fake blood. (Or real blood, of course.)

The bloody theme was emphasised by a duet of speeches from Macbett and Banco. I say duet, although what actually happened was that they took it in turns, each one stepping aside from the battle temporarily to reflect on the situation. Both speeches were identical, and portrayed in very similar ways. From the post-show, we learned that in France, these speeches are meant to be delivered identically (must be a nightmare if the first guy farts!), but for this production, they felt the audience would get the repetition (we did), and would appreciate the variations according to character (we did).

The speeches give numbers to those killed, and start off with a few men shot, more burned, thousands buried under rubble, millions killed in other ways, etc. The death theme is certainly given a vigorous outing here. Both men also shoot the lemonade seller. (Well, she’s groaning a bit from being beaten up by the killing machine earlier, so you can understand them just wanting a bit of peace and quiet.)

The Archduke finally turns up, accompanied by his wife, Lady Duncan. He is clutching his throne – a small chair, almost a stool, with a picture of a crown on the backrest. He cuddles this throughout the play, at least while he’s alive, and there’s an entertaining tussle over it later on when Macol comes to revenge his fathers and claim his crown from Macbett. More on that story later. The Archduke’s a complete coward, but like a lot of that type, totally critical of anyone else’s weakness. An injured soldier turns up – he’s got a spear through his middle – and they question him to find out what’s going on at the front. The soldier can’t tell them much – he was press ganged by the rebels, then captured by the Archduke’s troops and forced to fight for them. He was wounded (not by the spear, that must have come later, as if it matters in Absurdia), and when he woke up the battle had moved on. Lady Duncan is about to kill him with her knife (she’s a bloodthirsty cow, that one), but her tells her not to trouble herself, he can top himself and save her the effort. So off he goes with his grenade and blows himself up. Thoughtful of him. The Archduke’s servant and his wife’s maid also feature in this scene, and do a lovely job. The servant, so loyal he beheads himself later after bringing Duncan bad news, seems to reappear with a reattached head later, while the maid spends most of this first scene holding onto a rope that leads off behind the plush red curtain, possibly attached to her Ladyship’s horse? Who knows? She spends most of her time carrying suitcases around.

Duncan sends his wife off to the front to check on how things are going. While all around are diving for cover, she breezes in, hardly bothering to check for stray bullets, and asks for info. Banco’s there first, and tells her what he can, then swaps with Macbett. Finally the fighting’s over, Duncan’s troops have won, and Glamiss and Candor are prisoners awaiting their fate. It’s now safe for the King to arrive, which he does eventually, after many announcements that he’s just coming. (Funny at first, soon gave way to dull. Apparently that’s just how the French like it.)

The first to be brought on for execution is Candor, wrapped up in black plastic sheeting. He’s given a final speech to read out, and there’s some fun while he tries to get his hands free of the sheeting to be able to hold it, and then to be able to hold the megaphone. Megaphones are well used throughout this production, especially in the battle scenes, and at a lot of other times as well.

Now the slaughter begins. The King sentences Candor and Glamiss to have their heads cut off, together with all their followers, and he expects the executioners to make it snappy – they’re all to be done by tonight. Macbett is told to sit by the Queen/Archduchess as they watch, and he’s soon on the receiving end of her orgasmic pleasure at seeing so much bloodshed, which he thoroughly enjoys. The staging has a large white curtain at the back, behind which the King’s men disappear, emerging with heads in bags which they dump down the central pit. As each head is removed, an artistic blood spatter appears on the sheet, so pretty soon it’s more red than white, while the number of heads carried to the dump keeps increasing. We get the message.

Sadly, with all this fun on the go, the servant turns up to tell Duncan that Glamiss has escaped. This leads to the order for his execution, as mentioned before. The King is mightily unhappy, and sends Banco and Macbett off to find him asap. And so darkness descends. Literally. I don’t know if the Swan auditorium has ever been so dark during a performance before. Banco and Macbett are searching for Glamiss in the dark and in the rain, so Banco heads off to find a horse. This leaves Macbett alone, in the dark, in the countryside, and we all know what he’s likely to find in the dark, in the countryside, in a version of Macbeth, don’t we? Yes, it’s finally the witches’ turn to give us all a laugh, and they manage it very well, I must say.

The two witches are done with actual masks covering the actresses’ heads, giving them wrinkles long before their time. They also walk with a stoop, using canes, and brilliantly manage to be both old dames waiting for a bus (it’s those suitcases again), and unearthly hags. Their scene with Macbett is echoed later with Banco, but with more changes than in the earlier repeated scene, as each character is told different information. The lights do come on for a short while, in a circle enclosing the central ironwork, and this relates directly to the time when the witches are talking to Banco and Macbett. As the witches move around, we hear the voices coming from different places, and sounding more and more like Lady Duncan.

What’s good here is seeing how the two characters react to the information they’re given. We get to see how their minds work, although with this type of theatre it’s a kind of generic reasoning. They’re both warned that Duncan will refuse to give Banco his title (Glamiss), and will give it instead to Macbett, though without the land and money that should really go with it. They also inform both men that Glamiss is already dead, drowned in the river and washed into the sea. This is the start of both men’s disaffection, though for different reasons – Banco feels he’s been treated unfairly, while Macbett sees his opportunity to get the Queen for himself by taking the throne. David Troughton produced some marvellously excessive facial expressions during this part, really getting across how manic Macbett has become under the witches’ influence. There’s also a lovely bit where one witch informs Macbett that Duncan has a son, Macol, who’s away studying, and another son, Donalbain, but he doesn’t come into Macbett’s story much.

Later (and I’ve lost track of what happens when by this time), we see the witches appear at the back and transform themselves into Lady Duncan and her maid. It’s not clear at this time that the first witch has simply taken Lady Duncan’s place, after kidnapping her and locking her in the dungeon. What I understood was that Lady Duncan was actually a witch, and even after the real Lady Duncan emerges later, I’m still not sure when the witch is meant to have taken over, or even if it matters.

There’s a lovely scene where Duncan sits at a table stacked high with eggs, and starts eating them, apparently raw. This got quite a few “Yeughs” from the younger section of the audience. This is where Macbett and Banco each confront Duncan, Banco complaining about Macbett being given the title he was promised, and Macbett saying he didn’t want the title, and it should be given to Banco instead. Duncan’s having none of this, and this confirmation of the witches’ prophecy, together with Duncan’s intransigence, pushes the two generals into rebellion, just as the witches wanted. Their plotting scene is a reprise of the earlier one, between Glamiss and Candor, except that Banco and Macbett are also getting changed after playing some racquet sport. The end result is the same – another agreement to topple Duncan, with Macbett becoming King and Banco, Prime Minister.

The assassination starts with Duncan coming on, stripped to the waist, carrying his throne. He sets it down, and there’s various lines about a healing ceremony he’s about to do. He’s anointed with black and white face paint, and then wrapped in a large clear plastic sheet, held together with a big “X” of black tape over his heart. It’s even placed slightly to the left side, as I saw it.

First off, a lot of actors wearing the witch-type masks appear at the back, and Duncan “heals” them, represented by them taking off their masks and jumping for joy. After this, Macbett, Banco and the Queen surround Duncan, and mimed stabbing him. Apparently these mimes were too much for Duncan, and he’s finally dead.

Now Macbett is King, and marries the woman whom he thinks to be Lady Duncan. Banco is in the throne room, fantasising about the future the witches promised him, and as he lies there, presumably asleep, Macbett walks in and decides to castrate him, to prevent his children taking away the crown. This isn’t particularly gory, although again the younger audience members reacted pretty strongly to some of it. Macbett appears to eat the off-cuts, only to blow ping-pong balls out at the audience. Sort of good fun.

Now their plan has come to fruition, the witches resume their masked form, and head back to their boss, carried on a flying suitcase. (Actually, it’s a sliding suitcase – you just have to use a bit of imagination.) Macbett holds a banquet, at which he shows he’s losing it big time, and eventually the real Lady Duncan appears, claiming the crown. When challenged about how she knows so much of what’s gone on, she replies that her fellow prisoners tapped out messages – it’s the prison grapevine.

When Macol turns up, he and Macbett have a lovely tug-o-war over the throne. It’s more like they’re both caressing it. Macol wins, and Macbett points out that no man born of woman can kill him. Sadly for Macbett, it turns out that Macol is Banco’s love-child, born of a gazelle, who was transformed into a woman for the sexual act, then re-transformed to carry the child. Damn. But at least Macbett can’t be killed unless there’s a forest present. In an instant, lots of huge flower arrangements are carried on stage, cellophane crackling, and put in a circle round Macbett. Curses, foiled again.

After Macol shoots Macbett, and thrusts him down the pit, he sits down to give his inaugural speech as King. A microphone is placed in front of him, and he gets underway. The speech is taken directly from Macbeth, using Malcolm’s lines when he’s checking out Macduff’s intentions, so it comes across as pretty unpleasant. However, the problem with tyrannies is that society can crumble eventually, with so many needed people killed off, and so it is here. As Macol continues to give his speech, the stage hands come on and start clearing the set, taking away the flower arrangements, his microphone, etc, until the stage is pretty clear. Then the Henry (vacuum cleaner) comes on, and Macol has to skip nimbly out of the way of the wire, as he uses a megaphone to try to get his message across. Finally, David Troughton comes on, dressed for the off, and taps his watch to show Macol his time is up. End of play.

All the above description sounds more interesting than I found the actual presentation to be. The play clearly spells out the corrupting effects of power, that absolute rulers aren’t to be trusted, and that even the most loyal of supporters can turn nasty, given the right circumstances. It also shows that extreme loyalty can lead to ridiculous acts of self-sacrifice. But we already knew this, so I didn’t feel I’d gained any greater understanding. The generalised sense of dictatorship allows for audience members to colour in the background themselves. Sadly, I tend to find that diminishes a portrayal, rather than enhancing it for me. I like ambiguity a lot, but not on a blank canvas. (I’m probably no good at ink blot tests, either.)

The apparent misogyny in the play (I read the program notes) didn’t really come across for me, mainly because of my confusion about the Lady Duncan/witch combo, and partly because none of the men are up to much either. The physicality of the performance was good; although I can always do with less gore, I do enjoy the liveliness and energy, especially when the actions are almost balletic. I’ll be interested to see if the Macbeth is similar in terms of the movement.

The post-show only had male cast members – I assume the ladies are working hard to get The Penelopiad on stage (opens soon). There were some interesting questions, and we learned that the director, a Romanian, liked to work from the outside in, typical of Continental directors. Because of the way the performances have been developed, externally rather than internally, the actors find they’re still getting to know the piece, and still developing it. Both David Troughton (Macbett) and Sean Keans (Banco) admitted to a competitive streak – each tries to outdo the other in their repetitive speeches in the battle sequence. The suitcases are also in their Macbeth, and it was suggested that we’d seen these plays the wrong way round, as Macbett probably took the Macbeth ideas to a different level, whereas the Macbett might undercut our enjoyment of Macbeth. Ah well.

Another character who fitted in well with the overall effect was a rag and bone man, actually a woman. We heard the call a few times, and she wandered across the stage a bit, but her most telling moment was after the battle scenes, when all the victorious soldiers were saluting Duncan. There were lines about the dead soldiers, and we hear the rag and bone cry from behind us. She’s summoned onto the stage, and while the soldiers take off their outfits (they’re all wearing suits underneath), she bends over as the discarded clothes are heaped up on her back. A couple of the cast lead her off. I remember thinking how appropriate that was, as so many people in the play are now only rag and bone. It reminded Steve of Mother Courage, as did the lemonade seller. I was reminded earlier of Oh What A Lovely War, when the lights around the stage lit up, as if we were in a music hall.

I wanted to leave one of the best bits to the end. There was a butterfly woman, who came on with a butterfly on a long pole, and carrying a net, which she used to try and catch the butterfly. As the pole was too long, she kept missing, but it was lovely to watch as the butterfly flitted here and there, looked like it was about land on someone’s head, then moved on. This created a lovely sense of peace amidst all the turmoil, especially as the lights had been lowered as well, so there was a peaceful gloom everywhere. The only odd note was the headless body of the faithful servant. He had gone to cut off his own head, then returned to deposit it himself in the pit. What loyalty. The headless body then stood there, as everyone else got off the stage, and remained there until the butterfly catcher guided it off, using its hand to hold the net. This was a remarkably beautiful section. We see the butterfly catcher once more, later on, but I don’t remember anything specific about it.

Big White Fog – June 2007

Jun17

5/10

By: Theodore Ward

Directed by: Michael Attenborough

Venu: Almeida Theatre

Date: Saturday 16th June 2007

This is a play, written in the 1930s, dealing with the various ways that black folk in US northern cities (Chicago, in this case) handled the discrimination they experienced every day. The family is a mixture. The wife, Ella, is the daughter of a woman (Martha) who’s part-white, born out of wedlock, and inordinately proud of being a Dupree. Ella has married Victor, a fully black man who’s heavily involved in the movement set up by Marcus Garvey, encouraging black people in America to return to Africa to set up a modern state there. Ella’s sister, Juanita, has married Daniel, who’s a wheeler-dealer type, trying to work the system to his advantage, and doing OK at this time, though the Depression gets even him in the end. Daughter Wanda chooses to drop out of school to work in a shop, as she doesn’t see education helping her much, while Les, the son, has received an ambiguous letter suggesting he’ll be accepted for a scholarship to study chemistry at college.

We see how things develop over several years, eventually ending up in the middle of the Depression. Les is turned down for a place at college because he’s black, and the scholarship committee is specifically forbidden from granting scholarships to black people. He turns to communism as an alternative, supported by a Jewish friend. Marcus Garvey does a runner with the money raised to found the Black Star Line, and is eventually put in jail, but Victor stays resolute to the end, becoming even more important in the organisation, and even less able to provide for his family as he’s put all their savings into Black Star Line shares. Wanda, influenced by her friend Claudine, ends up with a white sugar daddy, only she’s the one who has to be sweet to get any money out of him. And there’s also Uncle Percy, Victor’s brother, who spends all his time having fun, drinking and spending his money on clothes (and, presumably, women). He ends up a serious drunk. Meantime, Ella has done her best to keep her family together and cared for, but eventually even she has to speak up and complain.

One of the most interesting aspects of this production is that it’s the complete opposite of the colour-blind casting we’re so used to. It’s totally colour-sensitive. I noticed this first when Claudine comes in, as she’s light-skinned enough for me to be unsure that she’s playing a “black” character. Later, the racism amongst African-Americans comes to the fore, as Martha lets rip at Victor because he’s a black man! I know that no group is free of its own prejudices, but it’s rare to see this shown on stage. We get a touch of Queen Lear at this point, as Martha flounces off to her other daughter, only to return years later, saying she can’t stay with Juanita another night.

The other point of interest is how much the Depression affects everyone, black and white. Given that the Communists are racially integrated, it’s a sign of hope, but given that the whole country is suffering, it’s a setback for those trying to improve the lot of black people.

I did enjoy this play. It was amazing to see such a huge cast on the Almeida stage, and good to see an “authentic” piece – written by a black playwright at the time. I didn’t feel it was particularly shocking or even that powerful; it seemed quite gentle given the subject it’s covering, but that may be down to my detachment in time and experience from the events depicted. All the performances were excellent, though Novella Nelson (Martha) and Clint Dyer (Percy) were my favourites. The set reminded me of the Eric Sykes show, with the stairs, door and sitting room. Good fun.

ilovetheatre

Notes on theatre performances since 2006

Category Archives: Theatre

Betrayal – July 2007

The Merchant Of Venice – July 2007

The Waltz Of The Toreadors – July 2007

Mutton – July 2007

Macbeth – July 2007

Sweet William – June 2007

Pete & Dud: Come Again – June 2007

Macbeth – June 2007

Macbett – June 2007

Big White Fog – June 2007