The Ghost and Mrs Muir – October 2010

5/10

By: R A Dick

Directed by: Patric Kearns

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Wednesday 6th October 2010

This was an enjoyable enough performance for the Connaught. Steve had seen this story before, via the TV series, while it was new to me, though I can’t say there were any real surprises. The adaptation worked well enough; the pace was pretty slow throughout, but the performances were fine, though as the main acting area was set back from the front of the stage, we were too far to hear and see everything clearly for the first half. We moved nearer for the second half (sadly, the theatre was half empty), and that went better for me. I even noticed that the lifebelt on the wall had the word ‘scarlet’ painted on it.

There were gasps when the bastard boyfriend callously suggested that Mrs Muir abandon her children to live with him. At that point it was hard to relate to a mother who would be so in love that she would even consider that option, rather than show the man the door straightaway, but the ghost soon dealt with the intruder and saw him off. Hurrah!

The set looked like it was designed to fit much smaller stages, as is often the case with touring productions, but it had all the necessary ingredients, and the two main characters would often come to the front to talk in a spotlight for a bit, or act out a small scene which wasn’t in Gull Cottage, such as Mrs Muir selling her diamond brooch, with a little help from her friend.

So not a bad evening, and I’m glad to be back in action again.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

A Month In The Country – September 2010

4/10

By Brian Friel, freely adapted from the play by Turgenev

Directed by Jonathan Kent

Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Tuesday 28th September 2010

My experience of this performance was affected by a number of factors. My knee was hurting from time to time which made it hard to concentrate, I nodded off during the ‘quieter’ bits, the audience weren’t the best – lots of coughing and other noises – and this very free adaptation lacked any real depth to keep me interested. No complaints about the performances, although as this was only a few days after the production opened, there may be more to come in that department. No, the main problem was that the story was very weak, and both Steve and I felt we were watching a soap opera on stage (and I don’t mean that in a nice way).

The set was unusual, in that the trees spread their canopy out into the auditorium, which made us feel included in the location, if not the action. The back of the stage was filled with the house and veranda, sloping diagonally back from our left. The rest was garden, including a vegetable patch and water pump. Very effective, but I did find myself thinking that with so much foliage cover, the lawn wouldn’t actually be in the sun very much, if at all, yet the dialogue suggested baking summer heat. Just one of those things, I suppose.

The story was very simple. At a country estate in Russia, the wife, Natasha, has fallen for her son’s new tutor, Alexis, as has her ward, Vera. Natasha also has a lover-on-a-string, Michel. These romantic entanglements all come to a head during the play, with hurt and disappointment all round. The only exceptions were those who hadn’t bought into the notion of romantic love, such as the doctor and the companion, and just about everyone leaves the place, or is planning to, at the end of the play. I enjoyed the scene of the doctor wooing the companion, especially his offer to wait for her reply for a month, six months, a year, to which she replies, ‘you’ll have your answer tomorrow morning’.

The post show started off OK, then paused while we acknowledged all the actors as they came onto the stage in dribs and drabs. Then it became a free-for-all, with many people talking and few listening – I’ve no idea what went on during this phase – and finally things settled down and we got a few questions and answers that were fairly interesting. Alexis’s Scottish accent was the actor’s own; the accents had been chosen to reflect the characters’ class and position. The actors had done an exercise early on in the rehearsal period, of describing each of the characters with a single adjective. Apparently all the women had described Alexis as fiery and virile, while the men had all described him as a selfish little git. This free adaptation of the much longer Turgenev play was first performed in Dublin in the 1990s. Very much an ensemble piece. Most of the cast liked their characters. Some of the audience much preferred this version of the play to others they’d seen; one chap commented that previously he’d left after a fortnight! In fact, there were more empty seats during the second half than there had been during the first.

I’m glad I’ve seen it, but equally glad we haven’t booked for another performance.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Enron – September 2010

8/10

By Lucy Prebble

Directed by Rupert Goold

Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Thursday 16th September 2010

Fantastic! We’d wanted to see this again, after enjoying it so much last year in the Minerva, and we weren’t disappointed. This cast were almost as good as the originals, and the production hadn’t changed much; a lot of the video clips had been dropped, we noticed, including the ones with the three blind mice in the Enron advert, which may have been confusing for some of the audience. But the raptors were still there, the lights, the music, the dancing, the humour, and, sadly, the massive financial collapse.

The post-show was entertaining as well. Apparently the show had started out as a musical (made sense – that’s what we’d felt last year). American critics hated the show, but many Americans enjoyed seeing it – a sort of guilty pleasure. There were some veterans in the cast and some new folk, and keeping up with the changes had been hard work. I’ve forgotten the rest now, but it was a very good evening.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Hamlet YPS – August 2010

7/10

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

Directed by Tarell Alvin McCraney

Company: RSC YPS

Venue: Courtyard Theatre

Date: Saturday 21st August 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

King Lear – August 2010

8/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by David Farr

Venue: Courtyard Theatre

Date: Friday 20th August 2010

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

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

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

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

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

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Critic – July 2010

6/10

By R B Sheridan

Directed by Jonathan Church and Sean Foley

Venue: Minerva Theatre

Date: Monday 5th July 2010

Second play of the double bill, this wasn’t quite as sparkly as I remembered from the National production, where the collapsing scenery at the end was massively impressive. To be fair, this is a smaller theatre and Health and Safety would probably be a bit squeamish about putting the audience at risk, but even so the theatrical effects were still pretty good. I liked the waves and ships, and the final falling wall providing a Buster Keaton moment was good fun. The costumes were spot on, literally in some cases, and the dialogue was pretty good, although Sheridan can be pretty impenetrable at times to the modern ear.

Again, I found Nicholas Le Provost’s delivery less clear than the others, but overall the performances were fine, with Una Stubbs again turning in a superb performance as the largely unspeaking maid.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Real Inspector Hound – July 2010

7/10

By Tom Stoppard

Directed by Jonathan Church and Sean Foley

Venue: Minerva Theatre

Date: Monday 5th July 2010

This was the first play of the double bill. Even though I knew the play, it took me a few moments to realise what was going on, as the Minerva’s seating has been rearranged to include seats at the back before. This time, I spotted Richard McCabe, and realised the seats at the back were for the cast.

When the second critic arrived, the lights had already gone down so he had to sneak on past the audience like a regular latecomer. The extra cast members sitting around the two critics were a plus this time – I think the two men sat in splendid isolation in the National production – although it did seem a little odd that they weren’t bothered by two men chatting away next to them.

The set was excellent for the stylised crime piece the critics are watching. A few pieces of furniture places around the central square created the drawing room, and across the corner nearest us was the sofa which concealed the dead body. Una Stubbs was marvellous as the charlady, the rest of the cast were also excellent at conveying the mannered delivery of the time/genre, and the only let down was Nicholas Le Provost’s delivery, which lost a lot of the dialogue as far as I was concerned.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Antony and Cleopatra – July 2010

9/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Michael Boyd

Venue: Courtyard Theatre

Date: Thursday 1st July 2010

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

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

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

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

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

As You Like It – June 2010

6/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Sam Mendes

Company: Old Vic Bridge Project

Venue: Old Vic

Date: Wednesday 30th June 2010

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

42nd Street – June 2010

9/10

Music by Harry Warren, lyrics by Al Dubin, book by Michael Stewart and Mark Bramble

Directed by Paul Kerryson

Venue: Chichester Festival Theatre

Date: Monday 28th June 2010

This was great fun. We may well have seen this before, and if so, I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed it. This was an excellent production, full of excellent performances, with a great set and costumes. The story is a bit of flim-flam, but with fantastic songs and great dancing, mostly my favourite tap as well, who cares?

The set did a star turn on its own. The back of the stage had a large art deco frame, with six moving panels making a sliding wall, which opened at the start to reveal the band – sorry, orchestra – snuggled into the space behind, giving the overture plenty of welly. At other times, the panels rotated to show a shiny side, giving a mirror effect which showed us ourselves. And a fine bunch we were too. We laughed out loud at many of the jokes, clapped long and hard at every opportunity, and many of us stayed behind for extra homework, or in this case, the post-show discussion.

Apart from the dancing panels, the stage was relatively free of clutter – great for dancing. The rehearsal piano lurked back left, there was the odd table or chair brought on, and they also used the central area with the swivelling trapdoors to bring up special sets, such as the dressing room and the bed for the dramatic shooting incident in the dance section. The rear panels were also used as a screen, where newspaper headlines about the Great Depression were shown during the opening to We’re In The Money, just in case the younger members of the audience didn’t know what was going on in the 1930s. Incidentally, I felt this version of We’re In The Money was a bit weak – it may come on for more practice, and one of the woman dancer’s coin hat fell off during the dance, which gave the impression that there’s a bit of work needed. (See also the post-show point below)

So we sat there, enjoyed the songs, loved the dancing, and laughed at the humour. What more could we ask for?

The post-show was enjoyable enough, but didn’t reveal much that was new. I did learn that the stage surface will need to be reworked, as the dancers kept slipping on it tonight. They have to paint it with something to make it right for tap dancing, apparently.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me