The Business Of Murder – May 2008

6/10

By Richard Harris

Directed by Ian Dickens

Company: Ian Dickens Productions

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Friday 16th May 2008

Steve and I saw this play years ago, when it was in the West End, the old Mayfair Theatre, Steve reckons. I couldn’t remember the details at all, just that Richard Todd played a creepy type with specs and a ‘tache. It made it all the more enjoyable to see it tonight. It’s a very well constructed play, and this was a decent production. Some of the twists were visible in advance, some I didn’t get till the end.

Nick Waring was a suitably sinister Stone, the wrongly accused from a previous murder. He seemed a little young, but that was easy to put to one side, as his weird behaviour became more apparent. Todd Carty was the brash, forceful policeman Hallett, and Jacqueline Roberts played Dee, the journalist who reported the earlier crime, and is now a writer. All were fine in their roles, and took us through the twists and turns very capably. It’s a wordy play, although there are some spells of business, as Stone prepares his evidence to set the others up. Once or twice I felt there was too much explanation, but on the whole the pace was good, and there was definite tension as the situation developed. One of the better productions at the Connaught this year.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Small Change – May 2008

2/10

By Peter Gill

Directed by Peter Gill

Venue: Donmar Theatre

Date: Thursday 15th May 2008

The performances were all excellent, honest, it’s just that the play didn’t really work for me. Both Steve and I came up with the same word afterwards – pretentious.

Written in 1976, this appeared to be an attempt by Peter Gill to write in a Greek tragedy style, but based on ordinary lives, and while there was much to enjoy in some aspects, there was a lot of terribly dull stuff, too. For example, I very much liked the dialogue between the two mothers; it was well observed and reminded me of the Fifties, what little I could remember. The halting, jerky exchanges between the two sons also came across well – the way they didn’t answer each other’s questions and the sudden changes of direction. For humour, there was the chase sequence as young Gerard runs round the stage to keep away from a mother hell bent on giving him a hiding.

But apart from these things, there was nothing to keep me from nodding off, as I did occasionally in the second half. Once the two men had admitted their obvious feelings for one another, going right back to their childhoods, there was a long section where they simply yelled at each other, to no useful purpose. Very dull.

There was no set, just the four actors and four chairs, which were moved around a few times. The action was mainly in flashback, topped and tailed by Gerard’s poetic reminiscences of two photographs from his childhood. In between, there was a generally forward momentum, but I wasn’t always sure where we were, time-wise, and that definitely reduced my enjoyment. It was also a bit confusing having Vincent’s mother alive again after she’d died. I wasn’t sure if that was a flashback or an alternative storyline, and while I normally love ambiguity in a play, the impression here was that the writing wasn’t up to the job.

Not a play I’d see again, but superb performances from the whole cast.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Funny Girl – May 2008

7/10

Music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Bob Merrill, book by Isobel Lennart

Directed by Angus Jackson

Venue: Minerva Theatre

Date: Tuesday 13th May 2008

I’m not a great one for musicals, but I was interested to see this one. Barbara Streisand made the part of Fanny Bryce so much her own that it’s understandable that there’s been no major production of it for many years, so as I haven’t seen the film, this was pretty new territory for me.

Of course, many of the songs were familiar, and the story, despite being based on Fanny Bryce’s life (or parts of it), was incredibly familiar. Piaf, Marie Lloyd, etc. all seemed to have similar themes to their life stories. But here we only get to see the unpromising beginnings, the rise to stardom and the glory days – no descent into post-stardom for this show.

To get across the show-biz nature of the piece, most of the sets showed the back wall of the theatre itself, which also doubled as the outside walls of the apartment blocks in the run down area Fanny comes from. There were some more opulent sets as well, for when she’s made it big, but I really don’t remember noticing the changes, they were done so slickly.

The story is one long reminiscence, as Fanny prepares to go on stage. Starting with her early attempts to get a job, we see her shoehorn her way into a tall, leggy chorus (she’s short and plump), take over the act completely by improvising comic business, and gradually make herself the star of whatever show she happens to be in. She’s helped in this by a tall, good-looking chap, Nick Arnstein, who seems to be well-off, and is certainly charming. He bids up her salary with the current management by claiming to represent another theatre, so she’s naturally grateful. Not that that matters, as she fell hook, line and sinker for the guy as soon as she clapped eyes on him. He, of course, is a chap with no real job, who just loafs around the theatre circuit taking advantage of whatever’s on offer. He soon realises that Fanny is an all-you-can-eat meal ticket, and it’s not long before they’re married. Naturally, there’s another chap who adores Fanny, but whom she regards as a good friend, and who would have been a much better match for her.

To do him justice, Nick does actually want to make his own way in the world; he’s just hopeless at doing it. He invests Fanny’s money in at least one get-rich-quick scheme (a golf course or hotel or casino, or some such), and loses it all. Later on he gets an amazing offer of a job that seems to be right up his street, but he realises it’s too good, and that Fanny has arranged it to give him some self-respect. That proves the clincher, and they split up. Fanny had even given up her career to be Nick’s wife, but now she has to go back on the stage to earn her living, and the play takes us up to her return.

It’s a moving story, with some very good songs, and this cast do it pretty well. The musical numbers with the dancers were all excellent, some of the duets were a bit weaker, but Samantha Spiro gave us a very good Fanny Bryce. Her voice isn’t as strong as Streisand’s, obviously, but she got the vulnerability across, and still got my toes tapping to the songs. I prefer musicals like this which do at least have some depth of character to them, so I enjoyed myself more than I expected.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The English Game – May 2008

8/10

By Richard Bean

Directed by Sean Holmes

Company: Headlong

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Monday 12th May 2008

This was the sixth public performance of this new play, if our calculations are right, and also the press night. There were probably a large number of friends and family in as well, as the early laughter from some parts of the audience, some of whom were right behind us, seemed over the top for the action on stage or the dialogue. I always find this off-putting, as it distracts me from my own enjoyment, but fortunately this play was good enough to have me warmed up by the end of the first act, so it wasn’t too much of a problem.

We did manage to get ourselves into the wrong seats at the start, though. We hadn’t realised that the entire first row had been taken over by the cricket pitch, so instead of being five rows from the front, we were only four. Still, it’s only the second time that’s happened in all our years of going to the theatre, so that’s not bad.

The whole stage (including the first row) was covered in grass, with a few bits of concrete off to our left to represent a burnt down pavilion, a few trees behind that, a litter bin far right, and a big juicy dog turd in the midst of the grass. Simple, but effective. The action took a while to get going. First Will arrives, with his father Len, who’s well past his prime and needs a lot of help to get about. Len’s put down in a folding chair to our right, and shows us his character from the off. After demanding a cup for his water, he waits till the filled cup is in his hand, and when Will’s back is turned, tips it onto the grass.

Gradually the other players arrive for the match, and with one replacement player – Gary’s neighbour, Reg – we get to know who everyone is through the introductions and greetings. The banter is good fun; Thiz (the aging rock band member) tells some entertaining jokes, and all the elements of an amateur Sunday team were present. The first act takes us up to the start of play, the second covers the lunch interval, while the third skips nimbly through the team’s innings and the packing up afterwards.

All the performances were excellent. The various relationships were pretty clear from the start, though there were some interesting developments as the game progressed. In particular, a number of people found loud mouth Reg easier to get on with once he’d scored some good runs for them. There’s a long debate on the LBW rule, but mostly the conversation is about their friendships, wives, children, jobs, etc. Towards the end of the match, it’s discovered that Len has finally gone to the pavilion in the sky, and some of the players help Will to get the body off the pitch and back into the van. At the end of the play, the set is as empty as it was at the start, and minus one dog turd.

I enjoyed this play very much. It reminded me of Steaming, the Nell Dunn play which looks at the relationships between a group of women using the setting of an old-fashioned steam bath. This was the male equivalent, all the more so because women were banned from the team, so the men had to provide their own sandwiches and tea. Never having been part of an all-male group, I don’t know for certain how realistic this was, but it seemed pretty accurate to me. Along with the laughs, there were some moving bits, but it never got too heavy, and left me feeling I’d spent an entertaining evening in the company of people I might never have met otherwise.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

De Montfort – May 2008

5/10

By Joanna Baillie

Directed by Imogen Bond

Venue: Orange Tree Theatre

Date: Thursday 8th May 2008

I’m not quite sure what to make of this play. The characters are interesting, and reasonably well drawn (the performances were, of course, excellent), but the language is so flowery that it sometimes gets in the way. The degree of psychological insight makes it a powerful piece, but the style is not my cup of tea at all. A mixed bag, then.

The set is the simplest I’ve seen at the Orange Tree. A square platform, cut across the corners, with four glass panels to show some uplighting, and stools and a table to tell us which room we’re in. Apart from decoration which looks like someone threw up on the set (speckles of light paint and a wet-look varnish?), this is as basic as it gets. Given the rapid changes of location involved, this was obviously the right choice, and Sam Walters underlined this in the post-show when he said that with a piece that’s new to the audience, it’s important to hold back on the detail and allow the text to speak more directly to the audience.

The setting is a bit vague. It appears to be in Germany, although the location, Amberg(?), is fictional. The director suggested this was because Joanna Baillie needed some remote locations for the play to work, and with the spread of towns and cities at that time in Britain, there were few such remote spots locally that she could use. For once we had consistent period costumes, and given the lack of detail in other areas, I found that helped to stabilise the piece.

The plot concerns the eponymous “hero”, who from childhood has had an unexplained hatred for another man, Count Rezenvelt. We are given a few reasons for this though; De Montfort felt slighted by Rezenvelt, not given his proper due, and Rezenvelt himself admits he was never taken with De Montfort’s pride and  his expectation that others would admire him. Shortly before the action of the play, De Montfort had challenged Rezenvelt to a duel over the flimsiest imagined provocation, and matters went from bad to worse when Rezenvelt not only disarmed De Montfort, but refused to kill him, and wanted to be his friend! This was too much for De Montfort, who ran off, with luggage and servants, only to find Rezenvelt in the very town he was hoping to sulk in.

De Montfort’s sister Jane turns up, and she’s so sweet and gracious that almost everyone falls in love with her at first sight. There’s a lovely bit of comedy when a servant, describing this unknown arrival, goes into lengthy raptures about her beauty, her nobility, the simplicity of her dress, etc. The only person not to join the admiration party is Countess Freberg, an older woman of less than attractive appearance, who nevertheless wants to be admired, at least by her husband. He, poor fool, is the unthinking type, full of good will to his fellow man, and letting us know all about it at full volume.

Jane had been staying with her brother, but left him on his own for a while to visit one of their sisters. He slipped off while she was away, but De Montfort’s servant left her a note so she was able to catch her brother up, and arrives at the Freberg’s house in time to be invited to the party they’re giving. De Montfort, Rezenvelt, and a host of beauties are due to be there, and although she’s reluctant at first, she eventually agrees to attend, provided she wears a heavy veil. Her intention is to sound out her brother, and this she does, by telling the gathering that she, as a veiled lady, has been deserted by her brother. De Montfort, not knowing who she is, gets into one of those “my sister’s a wonderful woman, not that you aren’t” kind of arguments. Then, when Rezenvelt tries to step in on the unknown lady’s side, they’re about to come to blows when Jane reveals herself.

The attempted rapprochement the next day doesn’t help. Despite Jane persuading her brother to at least appear to be reconciled to Rezenvelt, he refuses the offered hug, and simply re-offends with his coldness. At this point we get to hear Rezenvelt’s version of events, and I was glad we did. It would be too easy to take De Montfort’s word for the man’s character flaws, or to completely discount them given De Montfort’s extreme prejudice. However, the antipathy is confirmed by Rezenvelt, and although he claims to have done all he can to be a friend to De Montfort, by now he’s willing to treat him as a sworn enemy.

The Countess Freberg comes back into the picture about this time. She was really upset that so many men, and especially her husband, praised Jane excessively at the party. She’s a woman who tries too hard, and despite her maid’s efforts to flatter her, she resolves to spite the newcomer by putting about a rumour that she didn’t come all that way in difficult weather and over rough terrain to be with her brother, but to find her lover, Rezenvelt. She justifies herself by claiming that the rumour might very well be true, but we saw trouble ahead. Unfortunately, this isn’t a moral piece, so the conniving bitch doesn’t get her comeuppance. Ah well.

De Montfort hears this rumour (of his sister’s lover) from a man seeking his assistance. This newcomer has been told about the animosity between the two men, and reckons he can get help from De Montfort by claiming to have been held back from a promotion by none other than Rezenvelt. De Montfort is eager to pounce on this opportunity, but then the man blows it completely with a passing comment about how Rezenvelt will soon be De Montfort’s relation. De Montfort sends him packing, and then experiences one of those wonderful strokes of luck that so rarely happen in real life but which abound in plays. His servant informs him that Rezenvelt is heading for a very remote house (to see a friend), and will be walking alone, across a wooded area, at night, and it’s a place well known for robbers and murderers. What will De Montfort do? It’s a tough decision, but he’s just the hard-boiled cookie to make it. (Actually, he’s a real softie, which explains why he lost the duel with Rezenvelt – as soon as he realises he’s about to hurt someone he backs off. What a wimp!)

Anyway, his anger carries him through. Rezenvelt is all Pollyanna about the darkness, the hooting owl, the distant tolling of a bell, the risk, etc. The bell is being rung at a nearby nunnery, where the nuns, with some monks, are about to say prayers for a recently deceased sister. Various extra monks arrive, giving us all the news of a dead body, and the deranged murderer, so soon we have both the corpse and its killer on stage, locked in the same small room of the abbey. I found this part less interesting, until Jane turns up, trying to comfort her brother by reassuring him that God forgives all. De Montfort suddenly realises from Jane’s general kindness in grieving for Rezenvelt, that she hadn’t been in love with him, and the full horror of what he’s done grips De Montfort as strongly as his hatred had before. It’s interesting that he doesn’t get to clarify this with his sister; he’s dragged off in chains before they get a chance to talk, and then we hear the reports of his severe illness and death. He dies from being too noble to live with the knowledge of what he’s done, although I suspect heart failure will be the entry on the death certificate.

It’s quite a ride through the emotions, this one, and I found the play not entirely satisfying. However, I did appreciate the intensity created by the production, so that the characters seemed to be colourful and detailed, while the setting was vague and uncluttered. According to the post-show, that was the intention. I enjoyed all the performances, although I particularly liked Christina Greatrex as the Countess Freberg; her character’s dislike for Jane was so clearly visible, as was the effort she had to make to be pleasant at times. Justin Avoth as De Montfort provided a strong central performance. I felt he got across the shades of his character’s darkness very well, and Alice Barclay as Jane was believable as the woman that all fall in love with at first sight. I was distracted occasionally by some noisy people behind us, but on the whole the afternoon passed quickly and pleasantly.

I think I’ve mentioned all the post-show points I can remember in the notes, so I’ll leave it there.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Fram – May 2008

5/10

By Tony Harrison

Directed by Tony Harrison and Bob Crowley

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Thursday 1st May 2008

This was an interesting play, at least for the first half. The subject matter was relatively unknown to me, and the choice of characters seemed really weird until they all came together for the final scene before the interval. Perhaps I should mention here that Sian Phillips’s speech as Sybil Thorndike in that scene nearly put me off my ice cream! (I said nearly.)

The play starts in Westminster Cathedral. There’s a pillar with a marble decorated ledge, two large stained glass windows, one suspended at the front of the stage, the other at the back, and lots of echoing darkness. The stained glass windows were actually projections, which made them easy to remove and replace. The floor was covered with black cloth, also easily removed to reveal the arctic ice. Film projection was used quite a bit, both at the back and on a screen lowered towards the front of the stage. There was also a proscenium arch set with two side boxes, a drawing room type scenario (where Sybil gives her stomach-churning speech), and some good interpretations of snowy wastes. The first of these consisted of a central area with some jagged ice blocks sticking up at an angle, and lots of flat floes around it. The temporary hut was set up beside these blocks. Later, when Nansen and Johansen return to the Arctic, their ship, Fram (means “forward” in Norwegian), rises up majestically out of the floor, as the central part rotates. It was reasonably impressive, but I noticed that the ship’s masts were at right angles to the stage, although the ship itself was angled as if it were a submarine rising from the depths, and at speed. Very peculiar.

The play opens with the sounds of locks being turned, doors creaking open, and footsteps echoing along stone floors – slightly reminiscent of Tales of Old Dartmoor, a Goon classic. Eventually we get to see a character, Gilbert Murray, a dead professor who not only translated ancient Greek dramas into English verse, he also speaks the stuff, and at considerable length. He’s a little miffed that his translation of the Oresteia wasn’t used for the National’s production some years ago (funnily enough, they used Tony Harrison’s instead), but exceedingly miffed to find he’s buried only a short distance from T S Eliot, a man he obviously detested (and who didn’t speak highly of him).  Fortunately he gets another character to explain things to, and this is Sybil Thorndike. He tells her he’s writing a play, in verse, about Fridtjof Nansen, a man they both knew, and there’s a part for her in it. Nothing gets an actress’s attention quicker than that, and despite the total lack of a script, set, costumes, rehearsal time etc, she’s persuaded to join in this ‘improv’ piece. She’s none too happy when she finds her dress is the wrong colour and she’s only in one scene, but those come later. And given the amount of time she does spend on stage (and screen) it’s hardly a bit part.

Anyway, they head off to the National, and the screens at the back show us their progress, including their arrival at the entrance to the auditorium. It’s no surprise when they come down the side aisles, Sybil to our right, Gilbert to our left, although from the audience reaction, you’d have thought this was the first time it had ever been done.

I should mention that canned applause was used frequently throughout the production, and it’s a good job too, as this audience seemed reluctant to play the part of the audience within the play. With one notable exception, we restrained ourselves from laughing, clapping, oohing and ahhing as much as possible – I suspect I would have enjoyed the play more if the audience had been a bit more giving. In fact, there were noticeable gaps amongst us for the second half, and I don’t usually see so many folk leave during the applause at the end. From the first scene, I felt there were jokes that didn’t get a suitable response, and Steve and I reckon those who came just weren’t expecting so much humour. Ah well.

Once Gilbert and Sybil were on stage (again), there was some faffing about with a Greek tragedy mask before we get to meet the subject of the play, Fridtjof Nansen. The screen comes down, and we see a slide projected onto it – Nansen is giving a talk about his Arctic experiences. He gives us a reasonably long opening spiel, introduces us to his colleague from the ice, Johansen, then repeats the opening bit twice more, as slides for his talks in Newcastle and Aberdeen appear on either side of the London one. At least the audience was warming up a bit by this time, so we got a chance to laugh at the humour of the repetition.

The screen at the front also covered up the set changes behind, so when Nansen moves from slide show to dramatic reconstruction, all that’s needed is for the screen to lift, and for the black cloth to be surreptitiously whisked off to the wings, like some dead body being dragged away by an alien creature on Doctor Who.

Nansen and Johansen showed us their ‘roomy’ hut (it was tiny), their bear fur sleeping bag which they planned to split in two now they had the luxury of separate sides of the hut, and their complete inability to communicate with each other. They were described as each other’s opposite, with Johansen being the dark side of Nansen’s soul. Personally I wouldn’t have wanted to spend much time with either of them by choice, but I can see how extreme need makes for stranger bedfellows than ordinary necessity. Nansen believed that, as the seas were cooling, the planet would end up covered in ice and snow – everywhere would be like the Arctic. It’s a chilling prospect, though shot through with irony given current concerns about the climate, and it made him a less than comfortable companion. Johansen puts the blame for his own suicide squarely on Nansen’s shoulders; he claims it was the depressing effect of Nansen’s beliefs that led to his drinking and terminal despair. I can see the man’s point. However, being dead means nothing in this play, where ghosts have a remarkably physical presence, so Johansen isn’t gone. Oh no, he becomes Nansen’s conscience and biggest critic, and probably gets more lines in that role than he did when he was (supposedly) alive.

Nansen’s successful trip meant he was welcomed back to Norway as a great hero. His achievement (he reached furthest north) was surpassed a few years later, so he also faced the challenge of despair and discouragement. However, he avoided the bullet, and chose instead to focus his energies on helping the rest of humanity in any way he could. This leads to the scene in a open-plan drawing room, which was using the very slow revolve to subtly change the perspective. It took me some time to spot, and I find that sort of thing helpful in what are otherwise quite static scenes. Various characters were present, all deeply involved in the relief effort for Russian famine victims. There’s some debate about the best way forward – film, radio, newspapers, acting – and the scorn heaped on the influence of the actors is so great that Sybil has to show them what she’s made of. Her moving speech as a starving Russian woman and mother was a little too long, but was also tremendously powerful, and even stomach-churning. The descriptions of eating cooked human flesh have stayed with me longer than I would like, and her wrecking of the buffet was entirely appropriate, if somewhat messy. Delivered as it was by a well-nourished, well-dressed woman, this speech ably demonstrated the power of performance to move people, and Sian Thomas got the loudest round of applause for her superb acting when Sybil made her triumphant exit.

The second half showed us Nansen’s tour to raise awareness and funds to help with the famine relief effort. He was using the slide show again, only this time the pictures were horrific and sadly not unknown today. He left, and Johansen’s ghost harangued us for a while, exhorting us to look at the pictures in case one of the dead bodies moved. He also stomped off, leaving us with the picture of two dead bodies, supposedly a brother and sister. After a very long pause, there was indeed some movement, which was startling, but I have no idea what any of that was supposed to convey to the audience.

From there, Gilbert and Sybil returned to Westminster Abbey, and after reviling T S Eliot some more, they were interrupted by a Kurdish poet with his mouth sewn up (don’t ask me). He struggled to express himself, and that was that. For a final scene, we get to see Nansen and Johansen on the ice again, this time on Fram, as it rose up from the depths. God knows what that bit was about. Nansen meets a couple of African kids, who’ve apparently been frozen to death because they stowed away in the undercarriage recess on a plane, and were taken too high to survive. The idea of these two being explorers of the frozen air appeals to Nansen; didn’t do it for me, though.

There was also a ballet during the first half, an actual ballet, inspired by Nansen’s drawings of the aurora borealis. It went on too long for me, as ballet has never been my thing, although I’m sure the dancer did a great job.

The ooh moment came during Nansen’s second slide show. To soften us up, he commented that when he showed his pictures of the animals on his arctic expeditions, it was only in England that people went… and the audience this time obliged with an “ahh” (a particularly lovely husky was on the screen at that point).

The performances were all fine, given the tedious nature of some of the dialogue, and the confusing jumble of symbolism and realistic, biography and fantasy. The constant use of rhyming couplets can jar after a while, especially when the rhymes are emphasised, as they often were here. There were a lot of in jokes, mainly to do with the Olivier itself, and although we got most of them, it did take the emphasis completely away from the subject matter, assuming the subject matter was something to do with Nansen and his career. The time spent on the ice was less than I’d expected from the pre-publicity, especially as almost all the photos used that part of the set. It was spectacular enough, although not the only good aspect of the set design.

Overall, it was a disappointing play with some good scenes, which could do with some serious editing if it wants a life beyond the Olivier stage.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Sleuth – April 2008

6/10

By Anthony Shaffer

Directed by Joe Harmston

Venue: Richmond Theatre

Date: Wednesday 30th April 2008

Steve and I have seen this before, so I was aware of the story, although I didn’t remember all the details. It was entertaining to see a cast of five listed in the program.

The set was the typical old house in the country, all wooden beams and nooks and crannies. The performances were excellent, as I would expect from actors of the calibre of Simon MacCorkindale and Michael Praed. Simon’s Andrew Wyke was suitably theatrical, but with enough menace when needed to create tension, and Michael’s Milo was believably the son of an Italian, well versed in Latin ideas of intrigue and vendetta.

If we had been seeing this first time around, I would probably have given it 8/10 for the standard of production and the performances. As we were no longer virgins, so to speak, it couldn’t grip us in quite the same way, hence the rating of 6/10.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Chains Of Dew – April 2008

8/10

By Susan Glaspell

Directed by Kaye Saxon

Venue: Orange Tree Theatre

Date: Saturday 26th April 2008

First off, the set. We start with an office environment. Tables, printing press to our left, telephone and small models of people to our right. Across from us a bench with open boxes, and other boxes strewn about. A poster on the floor gives contraceptive advice. There are three wooden chairs, and a map of America on the door far right to us, with a number of white tags stuck on it. The second scene is in the Mid-western town where Seymour has his lair, or home, as it’s sometimes called. Rug, settee, chairs, and some fancier desk ornaments give us the picture. There are also two rag dolls on one of the chairs. This set carries us through the rest of the play.

The play took some time to get going. We meet four characters; Nora, a free-thinking, bob-haired woman who’s passionate about birth control; Leon, who’s a publisher and who wants to encourage Seymour to develop into the great poet he believes him to be; O’Brien, an Irish chap who also wants to be a poet, and who provides a useful outsider’s point of view; and Seymour himself. Even at this early stage, it’s possible to see the sanctimonious, conceited prig in Seymour’s language and behaviour. Anyone who sets himself up as a complete ignoramus by telling everyone else how ignorant and immature they are compared to him, is asking for a thoroughly deserved comeuppance, which he gets, to a certain extent, although he’s spared the full suffering of the husband in A Doll’s House.

Of course, we don’t get to see the full range of this man’s self-centred chauvinism until we meet his family in the second scene. The first scene introduces the four characters whose lives are so closely linked in New York. There’s even a semi-jocular attempt to pair up Seymour and Nora, to help Seymour free himself from his social acceptability (by shocking his straight-laced fellow Mid-westerners), but Seymour ducks the opportunity, as he regularly does, we learn. Back in his Mid West home, Seymour’s wife Dottie/Diantha, has been conducting a little rebellion of her own. She’s been skipping the social events – dinner, afternoon tea – to study, and to study poetry at that. She clearly wants to support Seymour in his dream of being free to write poetry, as a good wife should. She hasn’t yet realised that Seymour likes fitting his writing into those few brief moments allowed to him when he doesn’t have to sacrifice his talent to take care of everyone else. Naturally he’s horrified to find his wife is trying to think for herself, but before he can restore normal service, Nora turns up for a visit. We learned in the first scene that she’s been asked to go out in the field, to spread the Birth Control message, so the first place she goes to is Seymour’s home town, where she immediately stirs up a whole heap of trouble, much to our amusement.

Dottie/Diantha is young, very attractive, and gentle, though it’s possible to see real strength of character in her. Seymour’s mother is a wonderful character. She’s the one who makes the dolls, and I reckoned she had a lovely mischievous streak even before she admitted to making the dolls with carefully designed features as a form of revenge. She has some marvellous lines. As a mother of seven children, it carries some weight when she says seven is too many, and that turns to hilarity when Seymour points out that he was her seventh child! Despite her support for the Birth Control ideas, she’s the one who finally convinces Diantha to let go of her new ways and support Seymour by allowing herself to be a burden to him (yes, I know it sounds weird, but it makes perfect sense in context).

There was some discomfort expressed in the post-show that the wife should give up her new-found interests to support her husband’s career. Personally, I think it’s the better option – how on earth would the writer have ended the play otherwise? We’ve already had A Doll’s House, so we don’t need a rehash of that, and it’s a dilemma that many women face, even now, and both options are valid in their own way. Again, the accents were excellent, as were the performances, and apart from the slow start it was a thoroughly enjoyable play which I wouldn’t mind seeing again, as if I’m likely to get the chance.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Romeo And Juliet – April 2008

6/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Barry Rutter

Company: Northern Broadsides

Venue: Rose Theatre, Kingston

Date: Wednesday 23rd April 2008

It’s good to see Northern Broadsides down here in the south. I very much like their no-nonsense approach and deep faith in the text. Plus, of course, their willingness to give the audience a good time – that’s always welcome.

On the way up, Steve and I were speculating on which part Barry Rutter would have snaffled for himself. We were sure it would be either the Friar or Pops Capulet. Who knew he would opt for Romeo? (Only joking.) Capulet was his role this time, although he also gave us the prologue.

I must admit to nodding off a bit during the first half, between the ball and Mercutio’s fight with Tybalt. I found the production took a while to get going. I don’t know if it was the performance space or, as Steve suspected, the high proportion of school kids in the audience, but I didn’t feel as involved as I would normally expect in a Northern Broadsides production. Fortunately the second half worked better for me – I felt the audience had warmed up more, although Barry Rutter had to cool down some of the youngsters by stopping his opening line and redoing it once they settled down.

The overall style was typical Northern Broadsides. The set consisted of a paved square-ish area with a two-level raised platform on top of it. The first raised level acted as a step, but didn’t run all the way around the top level. This platform was set slightly to the right of centre, allowing space for a large set of stairs leading up to a balcony to the left of the stage. There was plenty of room around all this, and sometimes the actors had to walk quite a long way to get to the “stage”.

Music played an important part in this production, as usual. There were several instruments sitting beside the balcony, including a double bass, and we were treated to some lively stuff for the feast (clog dancing included), a lovely wedding song which counterpointed the dead body of Juliet, a short requiem for the funeral, and probably some other bits which I just don’t remember. We also got the altercation between the servants and the musicians after the discovery of Juliet’s body, which is a very rare scene to see.

The costumes were a mixture; 50s style, I’d guess, with some contemporary clothes thrown in. The only furniture I can remember was the bed, which came on during the interval, and was used later on as kind of shroud to remove Juliet’s body. Sadly this deft piece of stage work caused some titters from the less mature audience members. For the funeral, a pallet was brought on to sit in the hole left by the bed, and Juliet and Tybalt walked on, now dressed in black, to take their places in Capel’s monument. I felt that was very effective, and that continued when, after the requiem, the others went, leaving Paris and his servant in the perfect position to start the next scene.

As the bed was “on” from the start of the second half, we got to see Romeo and Juliet lying together in it, another cause for immaturity in the audience to show itself, but a touching moment for the rest of us. I thought it was well done, and helped to show the characters growing up. I also thought what a big step one’s first sexual experience can be, but how much there still is to learn after that.

I always like the clarity of these productions, and today was no exception. Friar Lawrence can seem a real busybody, interfering in two young lives and screwing them up right royally. Today I could see that he’s doing his best to help, and there’s even a chance it could work. When Romeo is banished, and it all seems to be going horribly wrong, the friar’s plan to get Juliet away from her family and the arranged marriage makes sense. She’d be dead, for all her family knew, so no one would be looking for her. The impact of the undelivered letter is all the greater because, but for that, the plan would have worked. Shame about the audience, but even so, the youngsters did seem to appreciate the performance at the end.

Post-show.

Chaired by Stephen Unwin, this was a talk about language in the theatre, and Barry gave us his views in his usual forthright manner.  He doesn’t go in for all the psychological stuff with Shakespeare – even Stanislavsky reckoned his method was only good for contemporary Russian writers, and recommended ignoring it for the likes of Shakespeare, Ibsen, Shaw, etc. For Barry, the text is the important thing, and Will had written his lines with a particular rhythm, to give the actors the key to their delivery. This is what he, and the company, try to bring out in their productions.

He talked a bit about how and why he set up Northern Broadsides. Basically, he wanted work, and decided the best way to do that was to employ himself. He thought the company would only last a short while, and now they’ve been going for years, and tour to even more places. The only place they can’t go to is London, some silliness to do with the Arts Council grant, I think. He’s a good talker is Barry, and there was lots more entertaining stuff, but that’s the main points, and enough for now.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The 39 Steps – April 2008

8/10

By John Buchan, adapted by Patrick Barlow from the Hitchcock film of the novel

Directed by Maria Aitken, redirected for tour by David Newman

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Tuesday 22nd April 2008

There were so many visual images in this production that I’m not sure I’ll get even half of them down. Unlike Doctor in the House last week, this show managed to get just the right tone when making use of their “mistakes”. Early on, Hannay and Annabella Schmidt are in his flat, and both look at the phone. He says, ‘it’s the phone’, and then it rings. Very funny.

It’s all good fun, with lots of knockabout silly humour. When escaping through a window, Hannay shoves his head and shoulders through, then realises he won’t be able to get any further, so he just lets the window frame slide down and steps out of it, handing it back to his lovely Scottish hostess afterwards. What a thoughtful man.

The performance started with an announcement about switching off phones, watches, etc, done old style, which was good fun, and then there was a period of strobe lighting as the cast brought on furniture for Hannay’s flat. I couldn’t watch the strobe, so for me the action began when the lights came on to reveal Hannay sitting in his flat. There was a comfy chair, table, hat stand, window frame and some other shapes covered in sheets. Otherwise the set was a bare stage, with the brick wall showing at the back. On either side there were theatre boxes, for use at the London Palladium.

Hannay talks about his disillusionment with life in London – no friends, nothing interesting to do, sigh. It’s a lovely performance, mixing the stiff upper lip gentleman, man of action, and tongue in cheek approach very nicely. When he brings an exotic woman back to his flat, she’s wary of being seen at the window, insisting he lower the blinds before he puts the light on. He does so, and when he checks out her story that there are two men waiting underneath a lamppost in the street below, the other two actors rush on in great coats, carrying a lamppost to stand under. When Hannay releases the blind, they dash off again, only to reappear the next time he checks. The third time, Hannay can’t quite make up his mind whether to look or not, leading to a stop-start bit of confusion, and some exasperation from the men, as they eventually head back into the wings, trailing their lamppost.

These men were played by Colin Mace and Alan Perrin, who played a vast number of parts between them, often more than one at the same time. They carried spare hats with them for some very quick changes, and also swapped coats so that the two hoteliers could talk to the two fake policemen. At the end, Colin Mace also put his police coat on, but only on one side, so that by turning from side to side he could play two people having a conversation. It’s remarkable how well it all came across, and it’s a testament to how hard these actors were working.

The train sequence was excellent. The sheets had been whipped off the trunks in Hannay’s flat by the cleaning lady who discovers the dead woman (do keep up), so they’re easily moved to form two rows of seats. As the train chugs along towards Scotland, the actors move with it (from the post show, this took some time to get the hang of, jiggling and talking at the same time, but it all fell into place eventually). When the train stops in Edinburgh (the platform sign moves across the stage, then comes to a halt), the guard and a paper seller materialise, and have a long conversation. Rather too long, I felt, and then Hannay himself asks them to get a move on. With the police now searching the train, Hannay opts for the snogging disguise, only the young woman he’s just assaulted takes exception to this and gives him away. He then climbs out of the window, and clambers back along the train (you know the sequence), eventually being pursued along the top of the train. As the woman and policeman look out of the window after him, they’re buffeted by the wind – she holds the brim of her hat, and gets it to shake in very realistic way, and the policeman does something similar. Hannay’s coat is blowing out behind him, and it all looked very effective. Eventually he gets on to the bridge, and there’s a ramp brought on across the back of the stage to show him falling into the river. It’s a great way to do an action sequence on stage, and it was both exciting and funny, an unusual combination.

Later, after Hannay has climbed out of the window, he’s chased across the hills, and escapes on the other side of the loch. This is the bit we see in silhouette. A white sheet comes down, and cut-outs of the banks of the loch come in on each side. Wee figures run down the hillside, then Hannay appears on the other side, as does a stag, and he’s off to apparent safety. The story followed the Hitchcock film so closely that we even got the mandatory appearance by the great man himself. During this part, as Hannay was racing up the far side of the loch, a silhouette of Hitchcock came on and walked about a bit on the left hillside. Then a plane appears from our left, and starts to follow him (Hannay, that is). The pole it’s on isn’t long enough to stop us seeing the hand holding it, as the plane flies over the loch and the far bank. Then, as the cut-outs are taken away, the actor involved has to make a quick getaway, though not too quick for us to miss the fun. There’s still some silhouette work, but with Hannay running around behind the sheet – he really did work hard, that chap.

The section in the house on the other side of the loch (the one owned by the man with the missing part of one finger – and we all know what that means!) involved a lot of doors. Actually, there was one door, but Mrs X (don’t remember her name) kept leading Hannay through it, then wheeling it around to give them another doorway opportunity.

The hotel that Hannay stays in with the young woman he’s handcuffed to (look, watch the film on DVD if you don’t know what’s going on!) had a wonderfully silly couple in charge. The room they’re shown to was a large wardrobe, which opened out to reveal a fold-up bed. They also had a fireplace, and frankly I’ve stayed in worse. The woman manages to slip the handcuff off her wrist, and creeps downstairs, just in time to hear the two fake policemen discuss bumping both of them off, so now she’s on Hannay’s side.

Hannay heads back down to London to stop the villain getting the secret plans out of the country. He heads for the London Palladium, a tip based on the woman overhearing the fake policemen’s conversation, and he realises the plans are securely hidden in the mind of Mr Memory. We’d seen Mr Memory before, and been amazed at his prodigious powers of recall. Sadly, we weren’t actually able to ask any questions ourselves, and less kind people might have thought the questions were possibly planted, but we put those ideas to one side, and just enjoyed seeing a master at work. Alas, the poor chap gets shot, and then the villain gets killed by a fifth man. He dies (and that takes long enough!) complaining that there’s only supposed to be four people in the cast, so whose arm was it that came through the curtain and shot him? We’ll never know. His dead body tumbled to the ground, looking suspiciously like a dummy.

After that, Mr Memory dies backstage, while the policeman and the stage manager have their two-in-one conversation. Hannay and the woman shake hands and he heads back to his lonely flat, now clear of dead bodies, to have a proper brood in a manly way. I think she turns up later, but I’m getting a bit hazy on some of the details. Anyway, it was a fun ending, and we all applauded very loudly as we’d enjoyed ourselves so much.

There was a post-show. A large number of folk stayed behind, mostly youngsters, and they asked some interesting questions. A couple got the seal of approval from the cast: how many people were helping out behind the scenes so that they could do all the quick changes, etc., and what did they do between a matinee and evening performance, given that they were working really hard during each show. I forget how many people there were helping out (but lots), but for the second question the point was made that when performance time comes round, there’s an adrenalin boost that sees them through – “Doctor Theatre”. They also explained that, unlike most tours of a West End show, they were a completely new cast, and had to learn how the play was currently being done, rather than developing their own characters, although it was inevitable that they would end up doing things according to their own styles. Their favourite scene was the train sequence, and they did mention that in an earlier performance elsewhere, which a member of this audience had been to, the lights hadn’t worked for the silhouette part, so it briefly turned into a radio play for that night only.

It was an interesting post-show with lots of questions, and all the cast getting a chance to participate, so we went home well happy. Definitely one to see again, and possibly the West End version, to see if there are any significant differences?

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me