The Importance Of Being Earnest – October 2007

6/10

By: Oscar Wilde

Directed by: Michael Lunney

Venue: Connaught Theatre

Date: Tuesday 16th October 2007

This seems to be the year for multiple productions. This production was very enjoyable, and gave us a good balanced version of the play. The two men attempting to be Ernest were well acted, with good reactions between them. Ernest/Jack was indeed very earnest, and even aspired to noble poses once or twice, while Algernon was an aristocratic ne’er-do-well, with charm and not much else. The ladies of the Ernest fan club were a bit more muted, but still well performed, with Cicely showing less sophistication in her manner, and Gwendolyn being all elegance.

Lady Bracknell was a good match for these youngsters. She carried her part off with authority, and dealt with the handbag monster by being so shocked she couldn’t even speak the word – Ernest/Jack had to do it for her. This worked very well. She recovered sufficiently after Miss Prism’s revelations to actually speak the word for Ernest later on. Miss Prism was a bit underpowered, and Tony Britton as the Reverend Chasuble appeared to be having difficulty remembering his lines fluently, which slowed things up a bit in their scenes. Still, they got across the fanning of tiny embers of love very well, and Miss Prism’s confession was still good fun. Merriman and Lane were played by the same actor, who gave Lane a predilection for sherry, and Merriman a shaking hand and a touch of deafness. The shaking hand was useful when pouring tea, and also when Jack and Algernon had a hand-gripping contest, leading them to do their own hand-shaking till Merriman appeared.

The set was simple but effective, with a doorway at the rear, and two disconnected walls or balustrades either side. The backdrop gave us the setting each time, with the London scene being particularly impressive. The costumes were excellent, especially Lady Bracknell’s blue travelling number.

I was impressed with the detail in the production. When Algernon is chatting with his aunt on one sofa, Ernest/Jack and Gwendolyn are on the other, sitting as if they don’t have a thing to say to each other, and making it quite clear that they’re longing for a rampant clinch as soon as possible. They tried sneaking their hands together, but Lady Bracknell was ever alert, and soon stopped their canoodling. There were various examples of this extra working, and I had to be on my toes to get it all. No nodding off tonight! Algernon’s piano playing was also very good, in that it was so obviously bad. The first piece I didn’t recognise, but his attempts at The Wedding March were pretty atrocious, scarcely recognisable, and much enjoyed. One of the better productions at the Connaught this year.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Awake And Sing! – October 2007

5/10

By: Clifford Odets

Directed by: Michael Attenborough

Venue: Almeida Theatre

Date: Saturday 13th October 2007

This is the second play we’ve seen at the Almeida this year which is set around the time of the Depression in America. Big White Fog (16 June 2007) showed us the impact on a poor black family, while this play centres on a Jewish family with a strong mother, a father who’s achieved failure-hood at fifty, a daughter who’s well on the way to becoming a single mother till a marriage is arranged, a son who wants a better life, and a grandfather who has a lot of spirit but no way of doing anything about it, as he’s in a wheelchair. There’s also a chap called Moe Axelrod, whose connection with the family I couldn’t figure out but who eventually runs off with the daughter, and a brother, Uncle Morty, who’s done very well for himself, apparently.

Showing us a particular period through the lives of ordinary people can work very well, but here I felt it came across as more of a domestic drama, on a small scale. I didn’t get any sense of larger forces at work, although what did come across in both this play and Big White Fog was human resourcefulness triumphing in the end. Both plays left me feeling that these folks would get by.

The performances were all good, the set was fine, and Steve noticed that the Almeida is diversifying in order to make ends meet. They’d taken in a load of washing and it was hung up over the stage to dry – presumably the heat from the lights would do the job in double quick time. Or it could just have been set dressing to indicate the washing strung out between apartments. Whatever.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Sweet William – October 2007

6/10

By: Michael Pennington, with lots of input from William Shakespeare

Venue: Minerva Theatre

Date: Friday 12th October 2007

This was the second time we’ve seen this one-man show, and we were delighted to find that the material did change from the earlier performance (29 June 2007). We also like the Minerva Theatre, very much, so it was nice to see this in a different setting.

The first half was much the same, and I did find myself nodding a little during it, but I became a lot more alert for the second half, and really enjoyed another romp through the life and times of Will, the master playwright. There was an acknowledgement of the ESC’s time at Chichester with the Wars of the Roses, which we saw, and several of the speeches were different. I’m always impressed by Michael Pennington’s ability to shift into the role that’s speaking, without any changes of lighting, costume, etc. It all comes across clearly, and we’ll be happy to see this show again in the future.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Whipping It Up – October 2007

2/10

By: Steve Thompson

Directed by: Terry Johnson

Venue: Theatre Royal, Brighton

Date: Thursday 11th October 2007

This was a bit disappointing. After the show, Steve described it as stilted, while I preferred lacklustre. The actors did their best, and perhaps the length of time they’ve been doing it was beginning to show, or perhaps the lack of a full house affected them. Any which way, this wasn’t the best piece of political writing I’ve seen, not by a long chalk.

The set was a rather drab office space – the office of the deputy chief whip. I did like the mugshots on the back wall, with the word “backbenchers” struck out and “peasants” substituted. Otherwise it was rather odd for a stage set, as the large armchair centre front tended to block the view of the action most of the time. The lighting was also strange. Not because it varied as much as it did, but that it was so flat. I almost felt I was watching a TV show being shot.

For those of us brought up on political satire and comedy since TW3, some of the jokes were very green – recycled several times. There was also a lot of explanation of the whip’s purpose and power, which I can understand being necessary for the new folk, but for the rest of us made it seem very clunky. The second half was better, once that was all out of the way, and there was a lot more humour to be had. I noticed how much easier it is to laugh at crudities like “shit” and “tosser” when they’re said on stage. This strength of language has been long outdated on TV, yet the experience is different when I’m not sitting in private in front of the telly.

Despite all this, we did manage to enjoy ourselves a bit, and the lines were delivered very well by a cast who deserve better than this.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Terms Of Endearment – October 2007

6/10

By: Dan Gordon, based on the novel by Larry McMurtry and the screenplay by James L Brooks

Directed by: David Taylor

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Monday 8th October 2007

This stage adaptation is apparently different from the film, though it borrows at least one of the film’s conflations – that of the character Garrett Breedlove (what a name!). Not having read the book nor seen the movie, I had very little idea of what to expect, other than some tear jerking moments. For someone who likes a good sob on a regular basis, and who is often known to indulge, I found my eyes only became moist at the ending of this play, though as I did have a few laughs along the way, I still enjoyed myself well enough.

The plot. Mother and daughter disagree over daughter’s choice of husband, then come together over daughter’s illness and death. During all this, mother rediscovers sex. That’s about it.

The set had two platforms to the rear, and space at the front of the stage with doors either side. Mostly, these spaces stayed the same, but there were changes for the hospital scenes and after the initial scene with the daughter smoking pot with her best friend in the bathroom. Theatre of burglary was well to the fore again, and we were also treated to the ludicrous sight of a long black pole sliding a seat and table onto the stage from one of the forward doorways.

The performances varied. John Bowe was excellent as Garrett Breedlove, giving the most rounded performance of the cast, and making the most of what was one of the better parts, if not the best. He certainly made it look that way. The best scene of all was his almost casual threatening of the oncologist supposedly looking after the daughter, but he boosted the energy every time he appeared. I particularly liked his expression when he almost gets away without commenting on the mother’s “I love you”. Linda Gray as Aurora, the mother, still has a good body, if the parts showing through the diaphanous nightgown are anything to go by. Her acting range doesn’t appear to extend to depth of characterisation, nor to subtlety of performance, but she made up for it by semaphoring wildly and rapidly during the opening scenes, and with the range of her grimaces, most of which we saw during the first half. This was all tempered after the interval – it’s amazing what a good orgasm can do for a woman – and she made it to the end OK. The daughter, the other main part, was OK, but I felt it was seriously underwritten. The final deathbed scene was moving, though I think I had been more affected by Garrett’s concern for the daughter than anything else.

Not a play I would choose to see again, but not a complete loss of an evening, either, thanks to Mr Bowe.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

All About My Mother – October 2007

8/10

By: Samuel Adamson, based on the film by Pedro Almodóvar

Directed by: Tom Cairns

Venue: Old Vic Theatre

Date: Wednesday 3rd October 2007

This was a very moving experience. I haven’t seen any of Almodóvar’s movies, and so didn’t know what to expect. I found the start a little jerky, but as we got to know the characters I was drawn into their stories, and felt very emotional at the end. I wept buckets, of course, so it was fine.

The main character is a mother (Manuela) who loses her son (Esteban) early on in the story. Esteban also acts as narrator, so we have a lovely sense of ambiguity throughout – is this just a story he’s writing, or is it actually happening? He wants to get a famous actress’s autograph, and as she rushes away from him, he follows her out into the road and is knocked down, dying later in hospital. Manuela then tries to find her husband, the boy’s father, about whom Esteban knew nothing at all, and we find out the father is a transvestite prostitute – dick and boobs – who’s run off, leaving another woman, a nun (Rosa), both pregnant and HIV positive. A cheerful story then.

Actually, there’s a lot of humour, mainly from Agrado (Mark Gatiss), another transvestite hooker, who talks directly to the audience several times. Agrado’s a friend of Manuela and Lola, the father of Esteban (do keep up).

With Lola gone, Manuela visits the actress, Huma (Diana Rigg), and gets involved with her life, including her partner, a junkie lesbian actress who’s also in A Streetcar Named Desire, the play Esteban saw with his mother on the night of his death. Various complications lead us to the point where Rosa’s mother is at last involved with her daughter enough to be present when the baby is born and Rosa herself dies. As Lola was the father of both boys (this second son is also named Esteban), Manuela is closely involved with looking after him. Finally, Lola turns up, and as he’s dying too, it’s a emotional moment when he gets to see at least one of the sons he fathered.

The final scene has five women (I include Agrado) sitting in a semicircle, after Lola’s funeral, with the baby. Rosa’s mother (Eleanor Bron) asks Huma for a speech from Lorca’s Blood Wedding, the next play she’s doing. After refusing, she’s persuaded to do it, and the lines were very moving, and very appropriate.

There’s an amazing sense of life in this play, for all it has so much to do with death. There’s the narration by a dead man, the way the scenery was moved on and off, sometimes dropping down, sometimes sliding on. All of this gave the production a dream-like quality. The scenes were very focused on the essentials, very spare, but still we got to know the characters very well in a short time, and to feel for them. There was a huge sense of acceptance, as most of the characters were on the fringes of society, and although Rosa’s mother was unaccepting at first, even that began to change. (It didn’t help that Manuela (Lesley Manville) was dressed up like a tart when she first meets her.) I felt more affected by the story than I expected, and glad to have seen this. I suspect there will be a lot more thoughts coming up over the next few weeks, as I sense some of this play went deep. I shall enjoy watching the experience unfold even more. A very good play, and, I trust, a good adaptation.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

How The Other Half Loves – October 2007

6/10

By: Alan Ayckbourn

Directed by: Alan Strachan

Company: Peter Hall Company

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Monday 1st October 2007

We hadn’t seen this play for many years, but we had enjoyed it before, and were looking forward to seeing it again. The plot is simple. Bob, who works for Frank, is having an affair with Frank’s wife, Fiona. When Bob’s wife, Teresa, demands to know where Bob was till 3 a.m. last night, he uses another work colleague, William, as an excuse. He claimed William is upset because his wife, Mary, is having a (fictitious) affair. Bob mentions this to Fiona during a surreptitious call, and she also uses this excuse to Frank when he quizzes her, only for her it’s Mary she was giving support to. When William and Mary turn up to dinner at Frank and Fiona’s one night, and Bob and Teresa’s the next, mayhem ensues.

This was a very enjoyable production. I felt the set wasn’t as clearly defined as we’ve seen before, but good enough, and the intermingling of the characters’ actions was still amazing, and very funny. I’d forgotten how the guests arrive at the combined dinner parties, each coming in one door or the other, and of course the swivelling chairs are a highlight. I liked all the performances, although Amanda Royle as Mary probably stood out just a bit from the rest – it’s always fun when the worm turns, and of all the characters, she’s the least repulsive. Marsha Fitzalan as Fiona gets about as many costume changes as the entire cast of Nicholas Nickleby, and Nicholas le Provost as Frank was wonderfully well-meaning and dangerously destructive at the same time. Good fun.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Twelfth Night – September 2007

2/10

By: William Shakespeare

Directed by: Neil Bartlett

Venue: Courtyard Theatre

Date: Friday 28th September 2007

I was a bit disappointed with this production, and there were several reasons for this, not all to do with what was happening on the stage. To begin with, this was the first time we’d sat so far back, under the overhang, and I just didn’t feel connected to the performance emotionally at all. I felt the action was a long way away, and I just couldn’t get involved. This may be because we’ve been so close for so long that we’ve adjusted to that, or it may be the performance wasn’t being “sent out” enough, I don’t know. Either way, it made the evening less enjoyable, sadly.

Another difficulty was that we’ve seen the Chichester Festival version of Twelfth Night so recently, and it was so magnificent, that echoes are bound to carry over, and it’s hard not to compare. While this production is clearly different, the fact that I couldn’t engage with it meant I could never overcome the comparison, and it fell short on that score as well. This was unfortunate, as normally we’d have months if not years between productions.

The set was also unfortunate. The acting space went right to the back of the theatre, from what I could see, although there was a door at the back so the set wasn’t right up to the back wall. The walls were clad in backstage plasterboard, and there were racks with clothes either side at the rear, so the setting was clearly meant to remind us that all the characters are playing a part. There was a screen at the front of all this, at the upper level, which created a deep overhang for the rear part of the stage, and which separated later on to show us Malvolio imprisoned in the drying room, but was otherwise a sombre presence, not entirely helpful to a comedy. All of this was in drab colours, and with the black of many of the costumes, which were unequivocally Edwardian, the whole effect was depressing rather than uplifting. The attempt to create a space with no clear time and location might have been better served in other ways than precise period costume and immediately recognisable setting, but that’s life.

The biggest problem I found with the performance itself was that Viola, played by Chris New, was the most masculine Viola I’ve ever seen. Apart from a little bit of simpering, some semi-mincing and some hair patting, this was basically another Sebastian. I was never able to see him as a woman, and there was very little of Viola’s vulnerability, or at least her awareness of her vulnerable position, and no real sign of her grief. Other performances were OK, and any weaknesses I’d put down to the production. The cross-casting of males and females, which seemed to be mainly to get the right proportions for the companion Comedy of Errors, meant that Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Fabian were played by women, and done pretty well, while Viola was still the only female part played by a man. Sir Andrew, in particular, was well done, as an aristocratic silly-ass, who was obviously trying to emulate Sir Toby in everything. Sir Toby was a weaker character than some I’ve seen. His drinking had obviously got the better of him some time ago, and Maria (Siobhan Redmond), all wiggles, was clearly going to have the upper hand in their relationship. They snuck off with their luggage while everyone else is partying at the end.

John Lithgow as Malvolio was also very entertaining. Starched upright, he moved as gracefully and sedately as if dancing a mournful minuet, so when he did break into a trot, to catch up with Viola, he looked wonderfully absurd. His fantasises about being married to Olivia built us up nicely for the actual letter reading, and with no attempt at greenery, the attempts of the watchers to hide themselves were even more funny. Malvolio’s excessive joy at finding his dreams have come true was expressed by rubbing the letter all over his face, and the practice smiles, which took a bit of doing, were wonderfully grotesque. This was undoubtedly the best scene of the play.

The later Malvolio scenes – the cross-gartering, the madness and the revenge – were all good, with Malvolio showing more dignity in the latter two than I’ve seen before. Finally, the discovery sequence was good, although I wonder if that’s just the quality of the writing rather the performances, and I particularly liked the way in which Olivia is in turmoil after finding out she’s married a man she doesn’t know, and who isn’t the man she took him to be (after all, she doesn’t know Cesario that well either). She has to think really hard about whether she’ll accept this marriage or not, but eventually decides to make the best of it. A good level of ambiguity with which to end the performance.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Saint Joan -September 2007

8/10

By: George Bernard Shaw

Directed by: Marianne Elliot

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Tuesday 25th September 2007

This was an amazing production. At first, I wasn’t sure if I would take to it, but once I got used to the style being used, I became completely enthralled, and cried buckets. It’s as if, finally, we’re starting to get enough distance from Shaw to do proper modern productions, without the concern for his detailed stage directions and vision. This was such a contemporary version, that both Steve and I felt the dialogue had been updated – it seemed so modern.

The set was reminiscent of the Romeo and Juliet directed by Nancy Meckler as part of the RSC’s Complete Works Festival. There was a square raised area in the centre of the stage, sloping slightly from back to front, and around the back of the stage were blasted tree trunks at various angles. Otherwise, the stage seemed completely bare. A stack of chairs stood on the platform, all piled up higgledy-piggledy, and the opening to the play had a number of the cast (there was one woman and about twenty men) come on from the back in slow motion, and gradually unpack the chairs. They stood for a moment at the back, doing what looked like tai chi hand movements – don’t know what that was meant to represent – then a number went round the sides of the platform and stood there, while others got onto the platform and passed chairs down to them. All of this was done in slow motion, very gracefully, almost balletic, and all the while there was haunting music filling the space. There was also a woman’s voice, with a song that was somewhat medieval, somewhat religious, somewhat folk music.

Given the staging, I wasn’t surprised to find the chairs being slammed down onto the stage from time to time – in similar vein to the poles in Romeo and Juliet – as a stylised form of combat. At one point, a chair had taken too much punishment and disintegrated, having to be carried off in pieces by the actor.

Almost forgot – at the very start, there was a church cross on a pole at the back of the stage, and some chap took it off. OK, so there we were with two rows of chaps on either side of the platform, holding chairs, and obviously going to slam them down all at the same time, which they did. I had hoped this would lead us straight into the wonderful opening line – one of the best in all drama – but there was more slow-motion stuff as the stage was prepared. When we did finally get “No eggs!”, there wasn’t much energy around to give it any punch, which I do feel is a waste. I also found it distracting to have all the other actors standing around, or sitting, as the scenes were acted on the platform. The slow motion was also used a lot, as characters would suddenly “go slow” as they left the platform, and either stand still waiting for their next entrance, or walk off very slowly. At first this was distracting, then the play started to work its magic, and I found it all helped to build a superb atmosphere.

The platform in the middle also showed more flexibility than I expected. I thought it might be a bit dull having such a sparse set, but as the scenes changed, the platform rotated (on the revolve) and later rose up, to create a slope for the walls of Orleans, and a lean-to effect behind the political discussion between the English and the Catholic Church’s representative. For some scenes, the revolve was slow but continuous, creating interesting changes of perspective throughout the scene.

All the performances were terrific. Anne-Marie Duff was a great Joan. She gave us the wilfulness and naivety along with her courage and absolute faith in her connection to God through her voices. This only wavered when she was confronted with the horror of being burned at the stake, and her fear of physical pain came to the fore. Her renewal of her faith once she realises she could be kept a prisoner for the rest of her life was very moving, and I sobbed. (Actually, I sobbed many times during the performance, this was only one of them.) I was very aware of the fact that there were no other women on the stage, and that hers was a lone voice speaking up against the dogmatism of learned men, some honourable, some not, but all out of touch with the reality of Spirit. In some ways I’m amazed at the marvellous lines Shaw gives Joan and the other characters. I’ve not always thought of Shaw as the greatest observer of human nature – good, but not the greatest – but here he showed such compassion and balance in the writing that I may have to consider this his masterpiece.

Other performances I want to mention include Michael Thomas, Angus Wright and Paterson Joseph as the three plotters who perhaps contribute the most to Joan’s downfall. Michael Thomas plays the Chaplain de Stogumber, Angus Wright plays the Earl of Warwick, and Paterson Joseph plays the Bishop of Beauvais. The chaplain seems to be anti everything – a Daily Mail reader, but with more right-wing views. His character gets to express straightforward anti-Semitism in a way that would be virtually impossible in a modern play, but in this context it simply shows what sort of ideas these people had. The Earl of Warwick is educated, but doesn’t let that stand in his way. He’s a political animal, looking for the best solution for English interests, and prepared to make a pact with the devil if that will do the job. He generally smoothes over the feathers ruffled by his outspoken chaplain, but is capable of ruffling a few himself. The Bishop is concerned for the Church’s position, and also for Joan’s soul, but as the Church’s position has often relied upon political manoeuvring, he and the Earl can come to an accommodation. The discussion among these characters was fascinating and showed understandable motivations for the aspects of society they represent. They’re not villains, but they are dangerous if you’re on the “wrong” side.

Finally, Paul Ready as the Dauphin was wonderfully pouty and reluctant, a spoilt royal brat with no interest in taking charge. Unfortunately, when he finally does, it’s to renounce Joan and her advice, so he’s obviously not much good at gratitude either.

The production includes a final scene that I don’t remember from before, but that may just be my bad memory. After she’s been killed, all those involved reappear and discuss their parts in her killing. Some have changed their minds about her, some haven’t. She confronts them, and gradually they all head off, leaving her alone on stage. She also leaves, and we see the opening process of unstacking chairs gone through again, leading right up to the opening of the play, but stopping before the first line.

This is of course suggestive of a repeating cycle, but here I found it inappropriate, as I don’t see Joan’s story as cyclical. Aspects of what happened on stage are constantly recurring, but I didn’t feel the repetition angle was justified by what we’d seen. I was very aware how dangerous dogma can be, especially when people see being different as being wrong. I also felt that somehow France wasn’t in as much danger once the Dauphin had been crowned, that the men who were now in charge would sort things out, eventually, and that they were very concerned to do that themselves, not with the help of a gurl. In fact, perhaps the contrast between then and now in terms of how women are treated, is what makes me feel there isn’t a repeating cycle. The misogyny expressed so clearly would be less likely today, with so much attention to political correctness, however much it may still lurk beneath the surface. I see the relevance of this story to today more in standing up to authority according to the dictates of your heart. Comparisons of Joan to modern-day terrorists seem to miss the point of the play – she was right, and history appears to have vindicated her.

Most of all, I liked this production because it seems to be the first to really shake off the Shavian legacy, and present the play just as a play. I hope to see more such productions, although how well they’ll respond to such treatment remains to be seen.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Importance Of Being Earnest – September 2007

6/10

By: Oscar Wilde

Directed by: Peter Gill

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Monday 24th September 2007

This was a little disappointing. With Penelope Keith being the main attraction we were worried it might be a star vehicle, and although it wasn’t quite that bad, it did seem to have been let down a bit by the strange emphasis on Victorian cultural references. By this I mean that on several occasions I found myself thinking how topical a line would have been in Wilde’s day, probably hot off the press, but as I didn’t know the background, I couldn’t find it particularly funny. I had read the program notes, so some lines made more sense, but there were others that I was still clueless about.

Still, there was a lot to enjoy, mainly because Wilde’s writing is so good that no production can keep it down for long. I found the men a bit dull in the opening scene. Although they’d been well cast to resemble each other, they didn’t have much sparkle, and made up for it by being brisk, which doesn’t really help. The women, however, were splendid (and had better costumes, of course). This Gwendolyn will be a magnificent match for Lady Bracknell in a relatively short time, and Cecily was as conceited a romantic little bunny as one could wish to find in Hertfordshire. The parson was good and Miss Prism was excellent – I’ve never seen a better performance of the part. Penelope Keith was good enough as Lady Bracknell, although she was probably the worst for losing lines – delivering them in as inconspicuous a way as possible, just in case we enjoyed them.

With this strange direction, the play lost some of its sparkle, but rose above the difficulties many times. Even knowing what line is about to come doesn’t spoil it. I remain impressed with Wilde’s work, and dubious about the motives behind this production. However, we’re seeing another touring production later this year, so it will be interesting to compare notes.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me