Rattigan’s Nijinsky – July 2011

6/10

By: Terence Rattigan and Nicholas Wright

Directed by: Philip Franks

Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Wednesday 20th July 2011

We attended a pre-show talk with the co-author of this piece, Nicholas Wright, which was very interesting. I often find, though, that when I haven’t seen the play, I either learn so much about the production that it spoils my enjoyment, or I don’t fully appreciate the information as I have nothing to relate it to. This one was probably the latter.

The play itself weaves together parts of a screenplay that Rattigan wrote towards the end of his life about the love affair between Nijinsky and Diaghilev – his first overt piece about homosexuality – and a framing piece by Nicholas Wright about the decision Rattigan made to withdraw the screenplay from production due to the threat of being publicly outed by Nijinsky’s widow, Romola. The action of the screenplay appears to Rattigan in his hotel room due to artistic licence and the hallucinogenic effects of a morphine concoction he was taking to dull his pain. (From the pre-show, this potion was introduced to represent Rattigan’s self-medication with the drug when he was in hospital.)

The interlacing of the two plots was well done, and allowed for some fun moments, with Rattigan the only one who could see both ‘realities’. It also allowed him to discuss the screenplay story with Diaghilev directly, and while this was a good way to tie the two stories together, I felt it made the play into too much of drama-doc. Even if Rattigan was writing more openly about a homosexual love affair, he would have done it by showing us the characters, theirs actions and words. Less repressed than usual, perhaps, but still a direct expression rather than via a narrator. This method over-simplified the Diaghilev/Nijinsky story too much for me, and I found it a bit dull as a result. Not the fault of the performers, of course, who all did a great job, often in numerous parts.

My other difficulty with the play was that ballet doesn’t really interest me as an art form, and while I’ve seen a few, and will occasionally watch documentaries on the subject, the characters just didn’t engage me as much as I would have liked. I did find the second half more interesting, as I didn’t know so much of the history after The Rites Of Spring, and I would be happy to watch the program if the screenplay was actually filmed, but overall that part didn’t impress me as Rattigan’s best work.

The framing sections worked quite well, showing us both Romola Nijinksy in her later years and Rattigan’s mother, chatting with him several years after her death – what was in that bottle? – along with Cedric Messina, the producer who wants to film the screenplay. There are a lot of parallels drawn between the two stories. Nijinsky is doubled with a young hotel porter called Donald, who clearly fancies Rattigan and ends up sharing a couch with him. Jonathan Hyde plays both Diaghilev and Cedric Messina, showing us their contrasting production styles. It’s artfully done, but didn’t give me any extra insights to the situation or characters.

What makes the production watchable are the performances, all of which are very good. Faye Castelow is particularly beguiling as the young Romola who sets out to ensnare Nijinsky, and succeeds with the help of a third party. Jonathan Hyde is also excellent as Diaghilev, and I loved Susan Tracy’s cameo as Rattigan’s mother. Malcolm Sinclair is fine as Rattigan himself, and the ensemble support is strong throughout, despite the shortage of lines for many of the small parts. I enjoyed the dancing, even though Petrouchka’s never been my favourite, and the music was very classy, of course. I’m not sure this piece does justice to the screenplay that Rattigan wrote, but it’s an interesting experiment in itself, and for all the polish of this early performance (only the second preview) it may well improve with time.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Cherry Orchard – July 2011

10/10

By: Anton Chekov, in a version by Andrew Upton

Directed by: Howard Davies

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Tuesday 19th July 2011

This was the most wonderful production. Even before the start I liked the look of the set, or what I could see of it in the gloom. Instead of the usual palatial if somewhat dowdy nursery, this was a very rustic house with dilapidated plank walls and drab old furniture. It gave me the sense of a house in the back of beyond as well as creating a stronger contrast with the luxury and style of Paris, and emphasised the rose-tinted aspects of Madam Ranyevskaya’s nostalgia. The telegraph/telephone pole to the right of the stage (there were actually two of them, but the other one was hidden at this point) was a reminder of the technological changes that were underway around that time, and this opening set had me engaged before a line of dialogue had been spoken.

I spotted the body on the seat as well, though I’d forgotten it was Lopakhin who would be under the blanket. I realised this was a structural motif, beginning and ending the play with someone asleep; although Firs could well be dead – in this production he’s simply lying on the floor –  it tops and tails the play nicely. I also spotted the similar technique in the second act, which starts with Dunyasha and Yasha emerging from the long grass and ends with Trofimov and Anya disappearing into it.

The performance itself did not disappoint. The dialogue was crisp and clear – an excellent translation by Andrew Upton – and despite the modernisms it felt right. The story hadn’t been tampered with much, although there was a car instead of a carriage and horses, but I felt there was more being said between the characters this time which may be down to the new version. Not having seen the original Russian version, I can’t tell.

But I did get a lot more out of this production than I have previously. While there was plenty of humour, the performances took the characters and their situations seriously, and set all these in an historical and political framework which made sense of every part. I could see how the cherry orchard symbolised Mother Russia, which had become exhausted through supplying beauty and luxuries to the idle rich, its fresh potential largely untapped due to the nostalgic clinging of the elite landowners. Trees for the few have to be cleared to make houses (i.e. better living conditions) for the many. There’s no place in this new Russia for those who adhere to the old ways, so Madam Ranyevskaya has to leave, and Firs, sadly neglected, can only die. Others have to make new lives as best they can – I wonder what happens to them all? Before the Revolution, that is.

Another good aspect of this production is the additional ensemble that provides the extra characters for the party scene, as well as the extra servants. It does give a much better sense of the community that exists around the estate, even if the quality of the guests isn’t up to the standards of yesteryear (according to Firs).

And so to the individual performances. Conleth Hill as Lopakhin was worth the price of admission alone. He was absolutely spot on as the peasant made good who could never shake off his past but who desperately wanted acceptance from Ranyevskaya. His plans for the estate were lucid and sensible, and his desire to help Ranyevskaya was almost palpable. He’s delighted to have bought the estate at the auction, heady with the success of it, and I felt he was at some level getting back at Madam Ranyevskaya for her rejection of him. When it came to the proposal to Varya, he might have gone ahead with it if he hadn’t been interrupted at the crucial moment. But then again, maybe not.

Emily Taaffe played Dunyasha, the maid with ideas above her station. She’s looking for romance instead of a steady husband and is easily seduced by Yasha, the manservant who has come back from Paris with Madam Ranyevskaya. She’s unlikely to have a happy life, wanting so much that she can never get. Yasha was played by Gerald Kyd and came across as a nasty piece of work, used to satisfying his own pleasure and with little concern for anything or anyone else. Dunyasha’s other suitor, Yepihodov, was played by Pip Carter, and he was brilliant at portraying this character’s complete ineptness. We could tell from his first entrance what he was like, saying all the wrong things and clumsy with it. His attempted wooing of Dunyasha in the garden scene was very funny as he strolled around trying to look manly and failing, while Yasha just sat there oozing testosterone from every pore.

Anya, played by Charity Wakefield, was fine, while Zoe Wanamaker was wonderful as Ravyenskaya. She came across as an emotional junkie, always getting involved with the wrong sort of men and with no grasp of practical matters. When she was given the telegrams in the first act she became quite upset, and it was to help distract her that Gaev, her brother, launched into his paean of praise for the bookcase, looking at her almost all the time to see if she was listening. Everyone else was aware of her unhappiness too, and I noticed several characters glance at her with sympathy.  This was another strong point of this production; the reactions from everyone on stage indicated they were all involved in whatever was going on, which kept a high level of  energy  throughout.

Ranyevskaya’s shock at finding out who had bought the estate was also very moving, and contrasted well with Lopakhin’s jubilation. She was very still, looking out towards the audience and clearly distressed. Despite her flaws I could still understand her point of view – she’d grown up with the cherry orchard and it was all she knew. She couldn’t handle the idea of it being cut down to make way for anything, never mind holiday homes. She was also still mourning the loss of her son years before, and her brittleness was all too evident.

Claudie Blakely as Varya was another gem. She’s held things together for so long, and with so little appreciation and thanks. Her unhappiness at Lopakhin’s failed proposal was very moving. I was strongly reminded of the relationship between Sonya and Vanya from Uncle Vanya when I saw her and Gaev together, although Gaev’s probably never been as productive as Vanya was in the pre-professor days. Gaev was played by James Laurenson, and was a lovely bumbling character with great kindness and verbal diarrhoea. The billiards references weren’t emphasised so much this time, but that wasn’t a problem.

Charlotta was played by Sarah Woodward, an actress I’ve always enjoyed watching on stage. Her Charlotta was bright and snappy, but without any malice, very matter-of-fact. The magic tricks were good fun, and the appearance/disappearance was done next to a folding room divider with tall windows down to about three feet from the floor, so not a lot of room to hide people. Her dog was a cloth puppet, as was the baby at the end, of course.

Simyonov-Pishchik, constantly trying to borrow money, was played by Tim McMullan, and again I enjoyed his performance very much. (What is that white mud the Englishmen are paying him so much for?) Kenneth Cranham as Firs looked more robust than many I’ve seen, but played the faithful retainer very well, while Mark Bonnar as Trofimov caught perfectly all of that character’s passionate idealism, contempt for the past, and reluctance to do any actual work. It was interesting to note that he was just as disturbed by the arrival of the passer-by (Craige Els) as everyone else – perhaps Trofimov won’t do as well in the Revolution as he thinks.

There was plenty of dancing in this production, which made it very lively. The back wall of the nursery at the start opened out to form side walls for the garden scene, and these were then brought back for the living room in Act three. The final Act was also in this room, rather than recreating the nursery. The clarity of the dialogue, the detail in the performances and the relationships, and the superb way the story was contextualised within Russian history makes this one of the best Chekov productions I’ve ever seen, if not the very best. Full marks to the whole team.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Fiddler On The Roof – July 2011

9/10

By: Joseph Stein,  Sheldon Harnick and Jerry Bock

Directed by: Kenn Oldfield

Musical direction by: Martin Waddington

Company: Guildford School of Acting Graduate Company

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Friday 15th July 2011

This was a three-hanky production, and very enjoyable with it. I started sniffling during Tevye’s first monologue, and then I was wiping my eyes loads of times. The graduates from the Guildford School of Acting were superb, and I do hope they go on to have good careers; they certainly have a lot of talent.

The set was the regular one, with lots of wooden slatted buildings, a milk cart and the marvellous sewing machine. The choreography also seemed traditional, appropriately enough. The cast involved us in the story right from the beginning, and although it was obvious that a number of them were much younger than the parts they played, I wasn’t put off at all by the false beards. Of course the music is fantastic, which helps, and the small band also did an excellent job, which made the evening just about perfect.

There was plenty of humour, although I do find myself wondering with this musical whether I should really be laughing at some of the jokes, especially between Tevye and the Constable, but the spirit of the piece and the resilience of the characters are just too infectious. Despite their suffering, I always feel uplifted at the end of Fiddler. Long may it be performed.

People to single out – Jacob Baumila as Tevye did a very good job. I was just a little distracted at first because he looked so much like someone I know, but his singing was excellent, and he delivered the lines very well. Natalie Lipin played Golde, his wife, and she was very good, though it took me a little while to spot that she was the mother as she looked a bit too young to begin with. The daughters, Tzeitel (Alia Grace), Hodel (Alys Metcalf) and Chava (Charlotte Mason-Apps) were all good. Alia Grace had more acting to do, and was very good at that, Alys Metcalf was a very good singer as well as actor, while Charlotte Mason-Apps danced as well as sang and acted – she should go far. Of the rest, I particularly liked Ben Riddle as the rabbi, ever ready to say absolutely nothing, Joe McCourt as the student, Pieter de Groot as the young Russian soldier who falls in love with Chava, and Louise Olley as the matchmaker. They were a great ensemble, and it was a very strong production.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Top Girls – July 2011

8/10

By: Caryl Churchill

Directed by: Max Stafford-Clark

Venue: Minerva Theatre

Date: Thursday 14th July 2011

We’d seen this play back in the early 90s, and I hadn’t cared for it much. However, we do like to see every production in Chichester’s Festival seasons, so we included this production, but kept our expectations low. As so often happens when we do that, the experience turns out to be much better than we’d hoped, and I saw a lot more in the play than I remember from the earlier production.

The opening scene, the dinner party with several dead and fictional guests, was done virtually in the round, with a table towards the front of the space and the entrance to the restaurant at the back, down some steps. The conversation was just as muddled as before, and although it seemed contrived at times, on the whole I found it pretty realistic. Even though several of the guests had their backs to us, I actually heard and understood much more of this party scene than before, and some of the business was much more fun. Dull Gret, for example, with her back to us, could easily be seen tipping as much food as possible into the basket by her side, which gave her plenty of ammunition for the bread-throwing section.

The shift in tone to the rest of the play didn’t jar, as far as I was concerned, even if it was unusual. The kids’ conversation did go on a bit, but it did convey important information. The change to the employment agency was also good, with desks being brought on very quickly, and bales of hay removed just as fast. The final scene, with the confrontation between the two sisters’ perspectives and the confirmation of Angie’s parentage, was well done, and on the whole I can see why this play is regarded as a classic. I wouldn’t go out of my way to see this it again, but it was nice to revisit it and gain a fresh perspective.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Emperor And Galilean – July 2011

8/10

By: Henrik Ibsen, in a new version by Ben Power

Directed by: Jonathan Kent

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Tuesday 12th July 2011

We were always going to be keen to see this rarely performed Ibsen, and this production, of a Ben Power adaptation, didn’t stint when it came to the cast or the set. Andrew Scott’s strong central performance as Julian anchored the piece brilliantly, and while the play doesn’t have a lot of laughs, our attention was hooked throughout.

It came across to me as a debate play, looking at religious conflict in general, and specifically the clash between spiritual and temporal power, self-will or God’s will, hence the title. Would Julian choose to take on the mantle of emperor to bring about the ‘third kingdom’ which would unite man’s worldly and divine natures (yes, I know, nutty as a fruit cake), or would he choose to be subservient to the will of the god represented by Jesus Christ, the Galilean? Given that these early Christians are so full of the Holy Spirit that they joyfully massacre anyone who follows a different path, it’s a tough call, especially as Julian has lived his life on the brink since Constantius had the rest of his family murdered when he and his brother, Gallus, were small boys.

Raised in Cappadocia as a devout Christian, Julian was brought back to Constantinople with his brother Gallus when they were young men, and kept close to the Emperor to prevent them from taking their revenge. Gallus appears to be honoured by Constantius when he’s given the title ‘Caesar’, and anointed as Constantius’s heir, but then he’s immediately sent to wage war against the Persians. I assume Constantius hoped he would be killed in battle, but in fact he’s victorious, and so he’s sent to Cappadocia as Governor, where he cracks down hard on the locals who’ve taken to fighting each other over religious differences. Finally, with Gallus seeming unkillable, Constantius brings him back to Constantinople, where he dies of something or other, i.e. he’s poisoned.

We hear most of this by report, only seeing Gallus himself in the opening scene. Meanwhile Julian, the nervy sensitive type, is worried about his future. He feels he has a destiny, but what is it? His faith in the Christian god is clearly waning, and he deliberately chooses to play hooky in Athens where he can study at university and find out the truth. Sadly, Athens doesn’t live up to his romantically idealised expectations, so when he hears of a local magician who has brought a statue to life, he’s keen to find this man and learn from him. His friends from Cappadocia, who’ve been with him all this while, start to leave him, and the door to madness swings wide to let him in.

Maximus, the magician, is determined to overthrow the Christian religion, and while it’s admirable that he wants to bring light into the world, and sincerely believes what he tells Julian, it’s clear things are not going to end well. Even Maximus is concerned when first Cain and then Judas appear to Julian in a drug-induced vision, but he seems to get over these concerns remarkably quickly when he finds himself advisor-in-chief to the new emperor. At the end, with Julian dead and Jovian, his general, proclaimed emperor in his place, Maximus expresses his disappointment that Julian turned out to be a dud after all, before indulging in a spot of competitive chanting with Peter, Julian’s only remaining friend from Cappadocia who’s reciting the Lord’s prayer over Julian’s dead body. Their positioning, one on either side holding an outstretched hand, and with Julian’s body down to a loincloth, evoked the crucifixion image used at the start of the play and again later. It suggested to me that the same leader, once dead, could be used by different groups to promote their own, conflicting, agendas, and don’t we know all about that today.

I don’t know if I can use the word ‘set’ to talk about the acting space, as it was anything but static. From the opening scene, with half the revolve dropped away to leave a semicircular chasm with a life-size crucifixion sculpture suspended half-way into it, the stage itself never seemed to settle into any particular format. For the most part, the space was open, and the revolve either dropped or rose to create many levels and locations. There was a low platform for Athens, with a very shallow splash pool and a screen backdrop with a view of the Acropolis. There was a throne room in Constantinople with a throne, a rug and not much else. There were the massive walls of a church, and two equally massive doors, as well as walls for other buildings, including a much smaller church in Antioch. There was one particularly gruesome setting which was on three levels, with the lowest being a kind of basement in which Maximus was evidently doing some heavy duty butchery as part of his advisory duties. The plastic bags and lots of fake blood suggested that many animals had been carved open for entrail-checking purposes, but then why had he kept the remains? Eugh.

The costumes were a mixture of modern and Romanesque, which worked fine for me, and overall the production was visually stunning. The dialogue seemed very fresh, and I have no idea how much of that was the new version, and how much Ibsen. The liberal use of extras for the soldiers, students, etc, added to the sense of historical change sweeping across society, and also created a strong contrast with the more solitary scenes. Ultimately, though, the whole performance depended on how well Andrew Scott carried off the part of Julian, especially as he’s on stage for almost the whole of the play; fortunately, he played a blinder. We hadn’t seen him before on stage, but I do hope we see him again. He showed us Julian’s difficult journey through the twists and turns of political and theological upheaval very clearly, and although it would be easy to dismiss Julian’s character as a whiny, spoilt brat, I never felt completely out of sympathy with him, even when he’s being disastrously insane. Mind you, there were other examples of nuttiness to compete with his, such as Helena, Constantius’s sister, who’s been having sex with a priest believing it’s actually Jesus she’s shagging. She’s another one with the gleam of holy murder in her eye – at one point she’s egging Julian on so much I couldn’t help thinking she’d give Lady Macbeth a run for her money.

This tremendous central performance was well supported by all the cast, so praise all round for a terrific production. We were surprised to see very few gaps in the audience for the second half – for all that we enjoyed it, it wouldn’t be the easiest play to relate to, despite the topical nature of the subject matter – but I’m glad it’s getting such a good response.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Much Ado About Nothing – July 2011

7/10

By: William Shakespeare

Directed by: Josie Rourke

Venue: Wyndhams Theatre

Date: Monday 11th July 2011

I was a bit disappointed with tonight’s experience, not so much due to the production as the audience. With so many David and Catherine fans, the laughter came all too easily, and while some of it was very well deserved, there were times when it swamped the dialogue, times when it was strangely absent, and times when it came for no apparent reason at all. This was not your regular Shakespeare audience, and while I’m glad this run has been so successful, and hope that it will turn one or two youngsters on to Shakespeare’s work, I found that the uncritical adulation spoiled my enjoyment a bit.

The set was excellent, with four big pillars on a revolve surrounded by slatted panels and doorways suggesting the warm Mediterranean location perfectly. The costumes were also excellent – modern dress, with military costumes and formal suits rubbing shoulders with scruffy dungarees and T-shirts. Benedict’s costume for the masked ball looked like a cross between Lily Savage and Olivia Newton John in the final scene of Grease, Hero’s wedding dress echoed Diana’s, and Dogberry wore military fatigues with the word ‘officer’ across his chest.

The parts that didn’t work so well for me included the second part of the eavesdropping scene and some of the ruined wedding scene. The eavesdropping scene was staged with a couple of decorators bringing their trolley on stage and touching up the paintwork on a door and then one of the pillars. This allowed Benedict to get white paint on one hand, which then ended up on his face, clothes, etc. All this was very funny, but the trouble is there’s another round of eavesdropping to go, and Beatrice not only has to do something different, it really has to top Benedict’s efforts or the energy will flag. Tonight, Beatrice’s comic business involved covering herself with the painters’ tarpaulin, then groping her way towards the back of the stage where she could be attached to a hook and lifted up. All well and good, and very funny to start with, but then the laughter just drowned out the dialogue and I switched off very quickly. I’ve seen this done better.

The wedding scene started very well, with a nice change of pace into the darker phase of the play. Benedict’s reactions were particularly good here, making it clear that even this joker recognises the enormity of the Prince and Duke’s accusation. Then when Beatrice and Benedict are left alone, the humour of their mutual admissions of love were funny, but the excessive audience reactions jarred with the previous mood, and when Beatrice tells Benedict that she wants him to kill Claudio, this was also greeted with laughter, which is so wrong and certainly not how it was played. Even so, I was very moved by this scene, not as far as needing a hanky, but my eyes were definitely wet. This sort of insensitive response detracts from the performance for me, although not completely, thank goodness.

Other negatives in the staging included the strange bit after Claudio has read the poem over Hero’s grave. He has a portable CD player and some booze with him for his all-night vigil, and by dint of playing loud music, swigging the booze and throwing himself around a lot, I deduced we were to understand that he was truly sorry for what he’d done. In case we hadn’t taken the hint, he even took out a gun, and was about to shoot himself when Hero walked in, dressed in black. He’s so amazed by her appearance that he collapses on the floor, where the Prince finds him the next morning. Neither Steve nor I could figure this one out. Was it Hero herself stopping him, in which case how did she get there at just the right moment, or was it a vision he was having, in which case why was she in a completely different outfit? I’m all for ambiguity, but this was just vague.

I was also suspicious of the semi-corpsing when Beatrice came to call Benedict in to dinner. We’ve seen this sort of rehearsed improv before, and it didn’t ring completely true for me, while Steve was out and sure it was a fake. I noticed tonight that Catherine Tate reappeared in the wings briefly after her final departure – no idea why.

The other main problem I had with the performance was Catherine Tate’s weak delivery. She started off well, but in any prolonged speech she tended to lose energy and volume. This wouldn’t have been a problem in a more average production, but with such high-powered performers around her it was very noticeable. I also found Don John and Borachio hard to follow, Don John because of his rather jerky delivery, and Borachio because I couldn’t tune in to the accent he was using. Choosing to replace Leonato’s brother with his wife was an interesting move – trying to balance up the sexes perhaps? – but her part was seriously underwritten as a result, with nothing to say in the wedding scene, and no threat to fight the Prince either. Her delivery was even weaker than Catherine Tate’s, so perhaps it was a blessing she had so few lines.

So what did I enjoy about the play? Well, the other performances were excellent, and even Dogberry came out funnier than usual. John Ramm still struggled with that first scene – when no-one is pointing out the errors it can fall a little flat – but his later appearances went down well, especially his final leave-taking of Leonato. He had a thing with his sidekick, Verges, where they put their fists together and said ‘boom’. He tried to go through the motions of this with Leonato as well, but realised it wasn’t going to be reciprocated, or appreciated. His insistence on being ‘written down an ass’ went down very well with this crowd, which made up for them missing some of the other gems.

David Tennant was, as expected, excellent, with great comic timing and clear delivery of the lines. I noticed he was more static than in his RSC roles, but that’s probably the proscenium arch for you. He did have to mug it up a bit for this audience, but he does that so well, who cares? Both Adam James as the Prince and Tom Bateman as Claudio were very good, and I was impressed with what I could hear of Sarah Macrae as Hero – her part suffered the worst from the excessive laughter. I enjoyed Jonathan Coy’s excellent Leonato, and although I couldn’t always make out Don John’s dialogue, I appreciated Elliot Levey’s portrayal of the part. It reminded me of Richard Nixon, all stiff and formal, and with inappropriate attempts to be one of the boys, including offering a cigarette to the young lad.

The pre-wedding stag and hen nights were a very good piece of staging, and allowed ‘Hero’s’ infidelity to be staged as a shag against the wall in a dark space with Margaret wearing Hero’s bridal veil. It also allowed Don John to craftily get both his brother and Claudio well drunk before showing them the ‘proof’.

When the Prince proposed to Beatrice, he was in earnest, and her embarrassment when she realises this was evident. He’s clearly hurt by her rejection, and Leonato’s request for her to ‘look to those things I told you of’ is solely an excuse to get her out of there, for which she’s very grateful.

The young boy was excellent, too – don’t know which one it was tonight, their pictures in the program are too similar. He brought the book back just at the wrong time, and finally Benedict threw it off the stage to get rid of it and him. Later, when Benedict is attempting to compose a love-song to Beatrice using an electronic keyboard, he pushes a button which starts the machine playing some music, and can’t get it to stop. Needless to say, when the young lad walks across the back of the stage, he sees that Benedict’s in trouble, and with the resigned air of the technically savvy youth, walks over, pushes the right button, and leaves. Beautifully done. Benedict then starts checking out some of the other options, before giving up entirely. I think this scene was put before his request to Margaret to fetch Beatrice, but I can’t be sure.

During the wedding scene, the reactions from Don John and Margaret were easy to miss, but well worth catching. Don John was smirking a bit when Hero was accused, while Margaret looked shocked, then worried, then guilty, and her mother hustled her out of the church quickly at the end.

Overall, it was a lively and fairly straightforward interpretation of the play, with lots of humour and affection between the characters, and despite the audience reactions, I enjoyed it very much.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Richard III – July 2011

8/10

By: William Shakespeare

Directed by: Edward Hall

Company: Propeller

Venue: Hampstead Theatre

Date: Saturday 9th July 2011

This was a fantastic production, with a great central performance by Richard Clothier which was well supported by a strong and balanced ensemble.

The setting was a mix of hospital and abattoir. Open metal girders on either side, curtains of plastic strips which were held back by chains, and a box frame which had assorted cutting and drilling implements dangling from it represented the abattoir, while hospital screens in drab grey, white coats on the non-specific characters, and trolley tables represented the hospital. The characters in white coats were basically those not directly involved in each scene, and they also wore masks with holes for the eyes and mouth, which made them look very sinister. When characters arrived in the middle of a scene, for example Hastings’ release from the Tower, they had the white coats pull two sets of screens across the stage from opposite sides, and when they finished crossing over, the new arrival would be discovered in the middle of the stage. This worked very effectively.

It took me longer than Steve, but we both realised that the murders in the play were being done in the manner of various horror movies, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre being the most obvious. This certainly got across the nastiness of the violence, and I suspect it freed up Richard Clothier to present the humour of Richard’s part more strongly for the rest of the time, which he did brilliantly. I couldn’t place all the other references as I’m not into horror movies, but the association was clear, even to me.

The performance began with the actors done up in the white coats and masks gradually taking up positions on the stage, silently. They were not so much menacing at this time as strangely disturbing, as they stood there gazing out at us. I don’t remember now exactly how they got into the first line of the play – I think there was some kind of mime first? –  but once started, they went along at a fair clip.

The wooing scene went very well, despite the dead body in the middle of the stage, and I felt this time, as I have before, that it’s Richard’s flattering comments about her beauty that do the trick with Anne. Jon Trenchard played Lady Anne, and made her much more feminine than Propeller usually does; in fact all the women were noticeably less butch than usual – is this a change of policy?

The two young princes were represented by puppets, which worked really well. They had shop dummy faces, which reminded me of the Autons in Doctor Who, another creepy reference. They were slightly nervous children though, hanging round their mother’s skirts a lot, except when they arrived at the Tower and the younger lad was being cheeky to his uncle Richard.

The murderers were good fun. In suits, and acting well ‘ard, they almost came a cropper with their bursts of conscience, but managed to kill poor Clarence just in time. Richard turned up just afterwards, and instead of giving them their reward, killed them both. Nasty.

After Edward’s death, when the court has agreed to bring the Prince back to London for his coronation, Buckingham’s comment to Richard about being in the party that accompanies the Prince came across as the first time that Buckingham has sided with Richard against the other factions. I also felt that Richard was acting the innocent with Buckingham at this stage, allowing himself to be led in the direction he intended to go anyway. This made their disagreement after Richard’s coronation easier to understand.

At the meeting to arrange the Prince’s coronation, Richard’s accusations against Lord Hastings are clearly preposterous, but it’s equally clear than no one dares to speak up against the most powerful man in the country. Tyrrel, the murderer of the two princes, is another creepy character. He wears a grinning mask and a tool belt with some nasty-looking pieces of equipment dangling from it. I didn’t get the film reference, but I assume it must be one. After he killed the two young boys I noticed he also had a small teddy bear attached to the belt – I think it was the same as the teddy bear which Richard gave him as the token to gain access to the princes.

The alternating scenes before the final battle were also well done, with both Richard and Henry sleeping in the middle of the stage, side by side, while the ghosts lined up behind them and then came round in front to deliver their curses/blessings. The only trouble I had with this was that the dialogue overlapped, so it was hard to hear either part clearly, but as I’m familiar with this scene it didn’t bother me too much.

I also found that the production flagged a bit once Richard was downcast. His personality had driven the action and kept us entertained, and once his light dimmed, the whole energy of the piece dropped as well. This made the final scenes less interesting, and although the ensemble worked very well together, this was a production based on the central performance, and it suffered as a result. Mind you, the rest of it had been good enough to beat most other productions, so it’s not a major complaint.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Winter – July 2011

2/10

By: Jon Fosse

Directed by: Teunkie van der Sluijs

Venue: Orange Tree Theatre

Date: Thursday 7th July 2011

God, this was dull. Mind you, I slept through most of it, which is probably why I didn’t hate it as much as some of the audience at the post-show. We’ve added this writer to our do-not-see-again list.

It’s a two-hander. A man, clearly a businessman, enters a park and seems to be waiting for someone. A woman in scruffy clothes runs in looking like she’s drunk or on drugs, or possibly ill, and starts to talk to him. He tries to avoid her and leaves, but she calls after him and for no apparent reason he stops and becomes involved in a conversation of sorts. They end up in his hotel bedroom – he’s in town for work, but seems happy to blow that off – they have sex, and then she leaves him. He’s infatuated, and when she doesn’t meet up with him later as she promised to do, he hangs around the town looking for her. When he does spot her again in the park, she’s wearing the nice coat he gave her, and they again go to his room, where their relationship goes absolutely nowhere. End of the play.

My difficulty with this piece was the banal nature of the dialogue. Instead of being mysterious and absorbing, such as Pinter often achieves, it sounded very much like the writer had taken lines from a lot of soap opera episodes and cut and pasted them together. As a result there was no sense of real conversation, of character, of an interesting background to either of them, of any insight into the human condition beyond the basic level, and so there was nothing to engage with at all as far as I was concerned. It was inkblot theatre, and I don’t get on with that style at all.

Having said that, the actors did a great job with their parts, and I could feel that for them there was a great deal of tension in the scene. Pity it didn’t translate itself to me, but that’s life, or rather, art.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Then The Snow Came – July 2011

6/10

Based on The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde, adpated by Jimmy Grimes

Directed by: Jimmy Grimes

Venue: Orange Tree Theatre

Date: Thursday 7th July 2011

This was a devised piece, incorporating the story of The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde and experiences of the homeless around Richmond. The stage floor was covered with gray paving, and two lines of inset light panels marked a wide lane. This flooring was mainly for the second piece, but didn’t feel out of place for this one. There were two slanted gray panels beside opposite entrances, to our right and far left, and these had strip lights attached. The far right entrance had a blue fire door with graffiti, and the initial setup included a hospital bed and two chairs, one with a woman’s cardigan draped over the back and a handbag on the seat, the other with a rucksack lying beside it. The scenes were short, and involved a lot of quick changes, with furniture being brought on and off, and sometimes rearranged, to give the different locations. They even provided a dead bird and a rolled-up woodlouse – how’s that for realistic!

The story was fairly simple. We were introduced to one homeless man, Mickey Flynn, by a policeman narrator, who popped up now and again to add a bit more information. Mickey had been on drugs, in jail, and was now living rough in Richmond. One day he gets a call from his son Ben to let him know that his mother, Mickey’s wife, was going in for an operation, and from then on Mickey’s determined to get up to Middlesbrough to see them. His mate, Stu, has some money, but won’t ‘lend’ it to him, so finally Mickey attacks Stu and takes his money to pay for his rail fare. There’s a scene in the wife’s hospital room – hence the bed, but no wife – and the play finishes with Mickey being arrested after causing a disturbance on Richmond green, upset because he’s lost his son for good.

The story, The Happy Prince, is woven into the play by having Stu tell it to Mickey bit by bit. He even does hand movements for the swallow. Later, they use a couple of puppets for the part where the swallow takes the statue’s other eye and then refuses to leave him; lots of moisture in my eye department for that bit. I wasn’t clear about the parallels between the two stories, even after the writer/director explained them in the post-show, but it was enough for me that Stu liked the story, and was telling it to his friend.

I was moved by the stories, and it seemed to me that one of the problems facing the homeless is not just the lack of resources to help them, but the bureaucratic hoops they have to jump through to get that help – forms, assessments, etc. I was slightly surprised at how much these two were eating, but I assume that was based on the information the homeless folk had given the director.

All the performances were great, and Ed Bennett deserves a special mention for his multi-tasking abilities – he played every authority figure from the policeman through some kind of social worker to the MacDonald’s staff member, and did a really good job with all of them.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

One Man, Two Guvnors – July 2011

9/10

By: Richard Bean, based on The Servant of Two Masters by Carlo Goldini

Songs by Grant Olding

Directed by: Nicholas Hytner

Venue: Lyttelton Theatre

Date: Tuesday 5th July 2011

What a difference from the other day! Still a modern reworking of a classic comedy, but this time the period setting (1963 Brighton) and the TV comedy talent (James Cordon) both worked brilliantly, as did everything else about this wonderful production. It did take me a little while to warm to this adaptation, mind you, as we saw another superb production of The Servant of Two Masters many years ago, and it took me some time to shake off the memories and get down to enjoying this performance fully, but I reckon anyone seeing it for the first time would have loved it.

The pre-show was good, too. A four-piece band, The Craze, was on stage doing parodies of the song styles of the 50s and 60s. I didn’t catch all the words, but I did recognise the references to the Kinks and the Beatles in the interval set. They provided music for the scene changes, too, and most of the cast helped out with these numbers at one time or another. The three ladies did a song, all wearing identical pink frocks and blond wigs, Trevor Laird contributed on steel drum for one number with Derek Elroy funking it up beside him, Martyn Ellis was good on the ukulele, singing a song about his dad, and Chris Oliver contributed some horn tooting on the final change. James Cordon did a lovely snippet on the xylophone, but for me the funniest guest spot was Daniel Rigby, who did a musical chest-slapping sequence which was amazing and hilarious. Of course, they did a song at the end of the show to round it off, so we went out both happy and humming!

As I recall, the previous version went straight into the action, with the characters having to explain a lot of the background direct to the audience. This time, there’s an opening scene in Charlie Clench’s living room, where his daughter Pauline and Alan Dangle are celebrating their engagement. It’s clear we’re in Brighton – the silhouette of the pier in the distance helps, if you missed the actual dialogue – and in the 1960s, and the characters involved are not the most scrupulously honest bunch in the world. Charlie has done time, though less than he should have done thanks to his lawyer, Harry Dangle, also Alan’s dad. Also present are Dolly, Charlie’s bookkeeper who’s an emancipated working woman, and Lloyd Boateng, who’s also done time in Parkhurst and has many fond memories of his time there. He runs the Cricketers Arms pub, a pub that also does food, and is not so much a friend of Charlie’s as trying to get the catering contract for the wedding.

Pauline and Alan are very much in love. She’s as thick as two short planks, while he wants to be an ac-tor, and struts around declaiming mangled bits of plays and striking dramatic poses – all very funny. It turns out that they’re only able to get engaged because her previous betrothed, Roscoe Crabbe was killed recently. She didn’t love this Roscoe – it was a marriage of convenience to mask his preference for men – so everyone’s happy that she can now marry the man she truly loves. Until there’s a knock on the door, and Roscoe’s minder turns up to tell them all that Roscoe’s alive, and wanting both his bride and the money Charlie owes him. Oo-er.

This minder is Francis Henshall, played by James Corden, and when he’s not menacing those at the party with threats of Roscoe not being very happy, he’s looking round for some food to scoff, as he’s very, very hungry. He does get hold of some peanuts and throws them up to catch in his mouth. This got a good response from the audience; frankly, as long as the actor doesn’t actually choke himself, it’s always a sure-fired winner. For the final peanut he ends up going backwards over a chair, and claims he caught it when he got up – this is how it’s actually written in the text, which is remarkably detailed for comic business.

When Roscoe turns up, it’s clear to us that he’s actually a she – Rachel Crabbe, in fact, Roscoe’s non-identical twin sister. She uses Roscoe’s reputation to put the fear of god into the group, and claims Pauline, Roscoe’s bride, for him/herself. It’s a strange choice, but Roscoe was killed by her lover, Stanley Stubbers, and both she and he are on the run from the police. Rachel’s just come to get the money Charlie owes Roscoe so she and Stanley can leave the country.

She sends Francis to the Cricketers Arms where she’s going to stay, and after a song and a scene change, we see him outside the pub, still starving, and reduced to drinking off the dregs of several other drinks, after he’s removed the cigarette stub of course – eugh. He’s about to rummage in the dustbin for leftovers when Stanley Stubbers turns up, also planning to stay at the pub, but without knowing about Rachel’s plans. Francis doesn’t know about Stanley either – he thinks Rachel is Roscoe – but when Stanley hires Francis to be his man, Francis sees a chance to make double the money, and presumably eat twice the food. From here on, it’s a helter-skelter ride of mistaken identity and crossed letters, as Francis tries to keep both of his guvnors happy without either of them finding out about the other.

The trouble is that Francis doesn’t have a very good memory, and both Stanley and Rachel have identical trunks. It’s much too complicated to explain all the twists and turns, but each one ends up thinking the other’s dead, and heads off to the pier to commit suicide. But as they’re both there at the same time, they find out the other one’s alive and it’s a lovely happy ending for them, as it is for Pauline and Alan, who can now get married. Francis, on the other hand, has some explaining to do, but by getting each guvnor on their own, he manages to wangle two weeks paid holiday in Majorca, and a decent bit of spending money into the bargain. Then all he has to do is persuade Dolly to go with him, and he’s in heaven. Naturally she says yes, so happiness for everyone, including the audience, and a rousing song to finish.

The performances were all great, and after the situation had been set up in the opening scene, the humour came thick and fast. James Corden had plenty of comic business to keep us all amused. Apart from the peanut-throwing, there was a very heavy trunk to move after Stanley had employed Francis. Far too heavy, as it turned out; Francis couldn’t move it at all. So he asked for help from the audience, and brought a couple of gents on stage from the front row. Despite their great strength – they almost managed to lift it even with James Corden sitting on it – it took a while to get it off stage, and we had a lot of laughs in the process.

In the first half, possibly before the trunk bit, Francis is going on about how hungry he is, and asks if anyone has a sandwich he can have. Several people in the audience offer him theirs. Despite looking bemused by the whole thing, I assume he’s had to deal with this response before, so we had an entertaining few minutes while he found out what the sandwich fillings were, making funny comments about the situation all the while. Eventually he got things back on track when another character came on stage – he’d been glancing over that way as if desperate to be saved – and the sandwiches were spared.

The meal scene was absolutely brilliant. This is where both Stanley and Rachel, as Roscoe, are having a meal in the Cricketers Arms in different private rooms, and Francis’s job is to serve both of them. He’s helped by the pub’s own waiters, Gareth and Alfie. Gareth is the senior waiter, but even though Alfie’s the new boy – it’s his first day – he looks like he’s got more than one foot in the grave. A lot of the humour came from his attempts to carry the food up the stairs without spilling anything, and the poor man took a lot of knocks for the sake of comedy.

We also got our second dose of audience participation in this scene. Francis is keen to have a food stash for later – a little bit from each course that he can indulge in after the bosses have dined. He starts with the remains of the soup by handing the tureen over to a lady in the front row, Christine Patterson. As the courses go by, and more and more food is being put in the tureen, he brings her up on stage, and then has to hide her behind a cut out figure of a cricketer. Later he tries to shove her under the table, and by this time, both Steve and I had spotted that the lady in question was not an innocent member of the public, although the actress did good job with her small part. At the end of the scene she has water thrown over her and gets sprayed by a fire extinguisher, so that’s when they take the interval. All good fun, and well set up by the earlier audience participation.

The second half started really well too, with Francis pointing out that in commedia dell’arte terms, the Harlequin character needs some new motivation to drive his actions now that his hunger’s been satisfied. Just after he tells us that we have to try and spot what that might be, Dolly walks on, and we’re all immediately clear on the subject. There was also a lot of emphasis on the non-identical twins theme, with Rachel even going into great technical detail in the final scene about monozygotic and dizygotic twins. It wasn’t the funniest thing all the time, but that last episode paid for all, with a lovely pause from Charlie before he said ‘What’s your point?’

The whole ensemble worked really well together, and it didn’t feel like a star vehicle, despite the focus on James Corden’s role. Oliver Chris was superb as Stanley Stubbers, the posh boy who’s an accidental murderer, Fred Ridegway was excellent as Charlie Clench, and Daniel Rigby was brilliant as Alan, the wannabe posh actor, whose accent slips under pressure to reveal his true origins. The rest of the cast weren’t far behind, and the band was excellent too. A magical afternoon of comedy.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me