Tag Archives: NT

One Man, Two Guvnors – July 2011

9/10

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

Songs by Grant Olding

Directed by: Nicholas Hytner

Venue: Lyttelton Theatre

Date: Tuesday 5th July 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Holy Rosenbergs – May 2011

8/10

By: Ryan Craig

Directed by: Laurie Sansom

Venue: Cottesloe Theatre

Date: Thursday 5th May 2011

The Cottesloe was in an unfamiliar arrangement for this play, an interesting cross between a standard domestic drama and an airing of viewpoints on the Israel/Palestinian conflict. Speaking as someone with no vested interest, and with a less than perfect knowledge of the recent history of this subject matter, I can only comment that as far as I could tell, the views expressed seemed to be balanced overall, with no ‘side’ coming out on top, although individual characters naturally took up strong positions to allow the debate to take place. I certainly felt I knew a bit more about the subject than when I arrived, though that wouldn’t be difficult.

The set was a living/dining room, placed diagonally across the Cottesloe space. We were on the dining table side of the room; to our right was the exit to the kitchen, and round from that were the sofas at right angles to each other, with coffee table. Opposite us was the door from the hall, and along the left side as we looked at it was a long sideboard with many family pictures in frames. The seating rose up steeply on all sides, so naturally there was nothing on the ‘walls’, and even the front row was looking down on the action.

The Rosenberg family are kosher caterers in the Edgware area. David, the father, and Lesley, the mother, have been working hard to rebuild their business after an unfortunate death at an event they catered. Although it wasn’t caused by food poisoning, the mud stuck, and now the business is on the verge of collapse. Their son, Jonny, appears to be a waster, sponging off his parents but having grand schemes to get rich quick – internet gambling is the current wheeze – and with no intention of going into the family business. Their daughter, Ruth, is an over-achiever, a high-flying lawyer who’s working on a UN inquiry into possible war crimes in Gaza. She’s come back to the family home for the funeral of the other son, Danny, who was a pilot out in Israel, and died in action there. There’s a lot of scope for discussion just among these four people, but we also get a young rabbi, Simon, who was once Ruth’s boyfriend, the chairman of the synagogue, Saul, whom David hopes will book his firm to do the catering for his (Saul’s) daughter’s wedding, and Stephen, the chairman of the inquiry that Ruth is working for, who drops by to leave her some entirely relevant papers on the evening of the funeral. A bit far-fetched, but that’s drama for you.

There was plenty of humour throughout the play, and although there were serious moments too, it never got preachy or too heavy. The antagonism felt in the Jewish community towards Ruth for her part in the UN investigation into potential war crimes leads Simon, and later Saul, to suggest that she stay away from the service, while David is suffering from unacknowledged guilt because he put pressure on Danny to stay in the danger zone, even though Danny himself wanted to come home. All these factors are woven together very skilfully, and the production was a delight to watch, with excellent performances all round.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Frankenstein 1 & 2 – April 2011

10/10

By: Nick Dear, based on the novel by Mary Shelley

Directed by: Danny Boyle

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Dates: Tuesday 12th and Thursday 14th April 2011

This was another amazing experience from beginning to end. As we were taking our seats, I noticed the mirrored panel hung from the ceiling, with a myriad of light bulbs hung from it. Some were the old fashioned type, some the low energy ones, and some had old-fashioned shades on them. We speculated that there could be all sorts of interesting effects with this set up, and we weren’t wrong.

The set, in fact the whole auditorium, was swathed in textured paper, which reminded me of the set for Fram, and immediately created the impression of an arctic wilderness. Since we knew where the story would end up, that made sense. A large bell was hung over the central aisle, just in front of the balcony, and from time to time one of the cast rang it – boy was it loud! There was background music as well, those low-pitched, thrumming sounds that seemed familiar as a way of suggesting menace, often with an industrial/technological aspect. What I realised second time around was that there were other sounds as well, muffled as from a distance – a man talking, people singing, and then I got it. This was a church service, presumably the reason for Frankenstein’s absence, and an extra nuance to the birth scene – born on a Sunday, during a church service.

I also spotted a coat hanging over on the left wall, but the centrepiece of the initial setting (look away now if you don’t want me to spoil the surprise) was a wooden frame with an artificial womb attached, made of leather or some sort of skin. The strips of skin were cunningly crossed over each other to create a pouch, and inside that pouch something was stirring.

Outside, we’d seen the sign about the auditorium not being opened till fifteen minutes before the performance, and Steve knew right away that meant someone would be on the stage at the beginning. So we weren’t surprised by this so much as enthralled by the imagery. Also, we couldn’t remember which way round we’d booked for these – would it be Benedict Cumberbatch or Jonny Lee Miller emerging from the womb today? (It was Benedict first, then Jonny.)

Whoever it was, we could just see that they were writhing about very slowly within the womb, with the occasional hand or foot being pressed against the skin and becoming easier to see. The frame was on the revolve, and moved round quite a bit during this pre-performance performance, ending up on the right hand side of the stage. With the audience all settled in their seats (we were warned to come early), the lights went down, and the sound of a heartbeat started. Next thing, the lights in the overhead panel lit up, flashing across the ceiling, and the creature began to emerge from its pouch, first one arm, then another, jerkily responding to the lightning flashes until it flopped out completely onto the floor.

The next section was an extended session of movement work. First twitching, then flailing, the creature began to move across the stage, attempting to get its body to do something, but was it remembering movement, or was it finding out for the first time? It became quite painful to watch its struggle, and then gradually it managed a greater degree of control, and started to get to its feet. Naturally, there were failures at first, but the creature’s determination finally got it up and walking, albeit in a very strange way. We also had the first chance to laugh, not so much at the creature, but at its delight at being able to walk, and its comical gait.

With great delight, the creature began to run around the stage, finally collapsing back down near the pouch, and it’s at this point that Frankenstein arrives. He goes over to the creature, presumably thinking it’s fallen out of the pouch, and is horrified when it moves. (What did he think he was making in his lab? It’s not as if he hasn’t seen it before.) Snarling at it to get back, and obey him, he throws his coat over it and runs off. Not a nice man, then.

The poor creature only wanted some affection, some nurturing, but sadly life isn’t always that kind. He manages to walk out of the lab – the location isn’t as specific as some of the later scenes – and then we have the only bit that I didn’t care for so much in this production. The heavy beat of the music starts up, and a mechanical doodly-whatsit appears through the central doors at the back. It has large cog wheels, emits a great deal of steam, and the various cast members are riding it or walking beside it. I had no idea what was meant by this – it all seemed very surreal, although afterwards I reckoned it represented the town of Ingolstadt.

Second time around I found it much clearer. The contraption appeared to be a train, and when it stopped the workers jumped off and started using their hammers. Sparks streamed out from under the train, and then the work stopped and the men and women lined up as the train was moved back. The women appeared to be prostitutes, and one of them, who was having a bit of client trouble, is grateful when the creature scares that man off. Mind you, she’s not too keen on the man in the cloak when she catches sight of his face, and as he’s not yet able to speak properly, it’s perhaps understandable that they see him as a monster. We, on the other hand, are very much on his side. I know I was.

When the mechanical gubbins is removed, there’s a strip of grass laid down the centre of the stage. Now the creature gets to experience the countryside, starting with the dawn, using lights and a large orange disc on the back wall. Then some birds fly up from the bushes, singing beautifully, and he gets soaked by a shower of rain. He’s been trying to find something to eat, poor lad, and he even tries the grass, but spits it out immediately. (Second time around, he eats it with pleasure, then takes a dump.) He finds a book in one of the coat pockets, and can’t eat that either, although he does find out that it has pages.

Later, some men come along with a fire and cooking pot, and once he’s scared them off, he tries his hand at eating the meat. Finding the pot too hot to handle, he realises that the spoon is touchable, and although the meat is also very hot, he does at least get some food down him. The fire dies down, and he uses the bag the men left as a pillow and falls asleep. The men come back with sticks, though, and give him a beating, before taking their stuff away, so again he has to move on. (Second time around, I noticed he gets some clothes from the bag as the men are grabbing it from him.)

A see-through hut appears beside the grass, and we meet the old, blind man and his son and daughter-in-law. While the couple go off to clear a field of stones, the creature sneaks in and finally finds someone who isn’t terrified of him. This section shows the creature learning to speak and to read. There’s humour in it, with some of the creature’s comments, and the standard of his reading matter – Milton’s Paradise Lost, for example – but then his teacher was a university professor, so naturally he focuses on the classics.

The creature also sees the young couple kissing and canoodling, which leads him to fantasise about a possible partner for himself. A ‘rock’ appears at the front of the stage, where the walkway down the central aisle meets the stage, and metamorphoses into a beautiful woman, though made up and dressed to resemble the creature. She dances with him, he dreams, and then she’s gone.  This situation holds out the possibility of a better life, but sadly, despite the old man’s promises, the son and daughter aren’t so ready to accept the creature, and drive him off, thinking he’s a threat to the old man. One disadvantage of having learned so much from the classics is that the creature’s role models are dramatic kings and heroes, whose natural inclination when faced with an attack or injury is to fight back and revenge themselves. And so the creature commits his first crime; he burns down the hut with the family inside.

Having learned to read, the creature now knows from the book he found in the coat pocket, that he was ‘made’ by Victor Frankenstein, who lives in Geneva. He immediately heads for that city, and the set shifts, with the hut removed and the grass covered by wooden paths which are lowered down to the stage. As this is being set up, there’s a little group at the front of the stage, some adults and children, and one of the women puts a blindfold on one of the boy’s eyes. They head off and re-emerge on one of the wooden walkways – they’re off to play a game of blind man’s buff. When the boy is left on the end of the walkway, the creature appears, and again the child isn’t afraid of him, although as he’s told not to turn round, he doesn’t actually see the man he’s talking to. When the creature finds out that the boy is William Frankenstein, Victor’s brother, he snatches him as a means of getting to Victor.

The rest of the party are soon out looking for the boy, along with Victor and William’s father. Victor is remarkably tactless, telling his fiancée, Elizabeth, that she was responsible for losing him. Given that he’s spent all his time skulking in his room since coming back from Ingolstadt, you’d think their relationship would be on the rocks, but amazingly, Elizabeth is still keen to marry the man. Anyway, the boy’s body turns up in a boat that floats over to their side of the lake, and there are pages from Victor’s missing journal beside him. Victor knows what he has to do.

He heads up the mountain, and soon meets up with the creature. This encounter is pivotal, and was very well done. A semi-circle opens up on the revolve, at the back, presumably to represent a crevasse or cliff, but otherwise, the stage is bare. (The grass strips were taken up with the wooden walkways.) Victor and his creation meet, fight, argue, and eventually, whether by accident or design, the creature provides Victor with the perfect temptation, the chance to create another living being, but this time, to get it right! Pride was always his downfall.

Their debate covered some interesting areas, such as the responsibility of the scientist toward the repercussions of his work, and how responsible the creature could be for his actions, given the lack of nurture and education when he was ‘born’. Frankenstein certainly comes across as a callous, arrogant chap, with a great mind perhaps, but little understanding of the consequences of his actions, and a tendency to pin the blame on others when things go wrong. The creature has difficulty handling his emotions, and lashes out in a rage when he doesn’t get what he wants, but then he is a child, despite the adult body, and needs guidance to help him adjust to his own peculiar brand of life. Overall, my sympathies were with the creature, and my only regret is that Victor doesn’t get his proper comeuppance at the end.

However, he does agree to the creature’s request that he make another creature, a female one, so that his original could have a companion. Only we know that he won’t keep his promise, you can just tell. With this promise, the creature agrees to leave Victor and his family alone, and scampers off up the mountain. Victor heads off, and personally, I thought this would a suitable place for an interval, but I’m not directing the piece so I don’t get a say.

Victor goes straight back to his father to inform him that he, Victor, is leaving immediately. Never mind the death of his brother and the funeral, never mind his fiancée, whom he’s kept waiting for five years already, he’s off and that’s that. His father does at least insist that Victor give the news to Elizabeth himself, which is how I know that she’s still keen to marry him. Poor girl. She’s even willing to go with him and help with his studies, despite her lack of education and not knowing one end of a Bunsen burner from the other. Turning down her offer of help, rather churlishly I thought, he does at least promise to come back and settle down with her, and even give her some regular kids, but with his track record? At least we now know he’s off to Oxford, to study in the libraries there, and then to Scotland, a terrible place, completely unsuitable for a young lady. How we laughed. So when the revolve turns again, and his father’s study (with a strangely sloping floor) moves round to the back, it’s no surprise to see a stone built Scottish cottage emerge from the gloom.

Once arrived, Frankenstein’s first action is to enquire of his two helpers where he can get a supply of freshly dead women. An unusual request, which troubles the younger man, while the older one is keen to have his conscience assuaged by the assurance that it’s all for medical research which will be of great benefit to humanity. That, and a purse of money, seals the deal.

At the dead of night, and right at the front of the stage, they exhume the body of a recently deceased young woman, and take her off to Frankenstein. Soon, we see a familiar wooden frame appear in the cottage, and the figure draped on it is unmistakably female. When there’s a knock on the door – a final delivery of fresh body parts – Frankenstein quickly conceals his work with a blanket. Then, as he rests, he has a dream where his brother, William, rises out of one of the sacks just delivered and questions Victor about his work. He asks a lot of questions, and gradually they come round to the area that concerns Victor most – will the creatures be able to breed (Victor supposes they will), and what will happen when they do? This is clearly a case of Victor’s subconscious trying to get a message through to his waking mind, and for the first time it seems that Frankenstein is starting to consider the consequences of his actions.

When the creature arrives, bounding into the room through the crumbling roof, he’s delighted with the she-creature, not yet fully animated, but able to walk already. Victor questions the creature about love (I did wonder what the man knew about the subject – we’ve seen precious little evidence of that quality in his character so far) and finally seems satisfied that the creature really does have the capacity to love his future companion.

Telling the creature to wait while he completes the animation process, Frankenstein takes her back behind the screen to finish the job. With the dream fresh in his mind, however, he’s decided that the risk of these creatures breeding and populating the world with what he presumably regards as ‘corrupt’ offspring was too great, and so he kills the woman rather than giving her life and the creature his companion. Naturally enough, the creature doesn’t take too kindly to this, and swears to revenge himself on Victor’s own beloved. Finally, Victor sees the danger to Elizabeth, and instantly decides to rush back to Geneva and marry her.

Back in Geneva, the study has now become the bride’s bedroom, where Elizabeth is preparing to receive her new husband on their wedding night. There’s some humour in the conversation with her maid, and then Victor sweeps in with two armed guards, not the usual companions for an eager new husband. He’s made sure that the grounds have been thoroughly searched, there are guards everywhere, and yet instead of staying with Elizabeth to enjoy their first night together, he’s off again the check the perimeter, or some such. (Second time round, I got that he intends to kill the creature first, before enjoying a night with his new bride. And they called the man a genius.)

I was totally surprised when, after he left and Elizabeth was on her own, the creature leapt from the bed where he’d been hiding under the covers. A good trick – I certainly didn’t spot it in advance. He grabs Elizabeth to stop her screaming, but lets her go when she promises to be quiet. This is the first time he’s spoken to a kind person since the old man, a long time ago, and she’s probably the first to treat him kindly despite his looks. Even so, he’s too strongly hooked on revenge for her kindness to have any effect. After admitting that one of the hard lessons he’s learned is how to lie, he throws her on the bed and rapes her. Frankenstein rushes in at this point, but instead of shooting the creature, stands there in horror, giving the creature time to finish the job by killing Elizabeth, after which he pulls up his trousers, and escapes. Victor is keen to take Elizabeth to his room, where he knows he can revive her, being so recently killed, but his father and the other attendants restrain him, thinking him mad. So Elizabeth is gone forever.

The final scene is in the arctic. The creature arrives, puts down his bundle, and takes out some silverware for a meal. With the central revolve now lowered, there’s a flat surface for Frankenstein to drag his sledge over. (In fact, he and his sled rise up as the flat stage is replaced.) All the while the creature is explaining the situation, how he left Geneva and travelled over Europe, through Russia, up to the frozen expanse of ice and snow, with Frankenstein always following. Now he’s caught up again, he can eat the food the creature has put out for him, but the effort seems to be too much, and he’s suddenly still. The creature cradles him in his arms, feeling the loss of the only person in his life, and tries to revive him with the wine. No response. The creature grieves, and then Victor suddenly comes back to life, and the chase continues. This time, as Victor follows the creature off the back of the stage, they’re heading towards a brilliant display of lights, shining in our eyes through the door at the back. Rapturous applause.

And so to round two. Of course, the first time round was always going to have the benefit of surprise, and the second viewing didn’t have the same emotional charge as a result, but then I did get more out of the piece the second time around, and I find that it’s those performances that have stayed with me more.

I’ve mentioned some of the differences above, so now I want to concentrate on the variations in the central performances. I felt both actors did a good job of both parts. I know some people commented on the wig that Jonny Lee Miller was wearing, but it didn’t bother me. Benedict Cumberbatch had opted for a bald cap to play the creature, so that he had his own hair for the part of Frankenstein, while Jonny Lee Miller had gone the other way – fine with me. Benedict’s creature seemed to have less personality, and took considerably longer to find his feet, literally and metaphorically. His opening sequence of learning to move took several minutes more than Jonny’s version, and was harder to watch. Benedict’s creature seemed to be more of a blank slate for a longer time, and I think there was less humour as a result. Jonny’s creature developed quicker and had a more recognisable personality sooner, which engaged my sympathy on a personal level, whereas first time round I was sympathetic in a more general sense, as I would be for any creature that was treated so badly.

As for the Victors, Benedict’s version was more about the intellectual challenge, while Jonny’s was stronger in terms of the arrogance – I really didn’t like his Victor as a person, while I might have got on with Benedict’s, at least for a short while. I’m still not sure why Frankenstein doesn’t shoot the creature during Elizabeth’s rape and murder, but from the second performance I’ve reckoned that he may not have been willing to kill the very being he, and he alone, has created. Arrogance again.

So overall this was a doubly fantastic experience – not only a really good version of the Frankenstein story, but two slightly different interpretations of it. Brilliant.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Twelfth Night – February 2011

7/10

By: William Shakespeare

Directed by: Peter Hall

Venue: Cottesloe Theatre

Date: Thursday, 24th February 2011

A slightly weaker production than I would have expected. Some performances were excellent, especially Charles Edwards as Sir Andrew Aguecheek, but Viola and Olivia were remarkably bland. Both actresses were reduced to grinning and simpering a lot, with no sign of the grief that both characters are supposedly suffering. Most peculiar. Malvolio was a nasty piece of work, and his mistreatment particularly unpleasant, as he was penned in a large bird cage and had to crouch on the perch with his knees up around his chin. His later appearance indicates how this has affected his knees. Sir Toby was full of life, and Feste was an older version, with good delivery of the lines, but overall the piece felt lacking in pace and focus.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Hamlet – January 2011

7/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Nicholas Hytner

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Wednesday 19th January 2011

This has really come on since we saw it last. There are still some weak areas, which is why it only gets seven out of ten, but there are also some gems amongst the performances.

Some of the things I noticed this time will have been in the previous performance as well; I just forgot them when I was doing the notes. For example, Polonius shows Ophelia surveillance photos when he confronts her about her relationship with Hamlet, which adds to the feeling of control. Also, the papers Hamlet and Laertes put in front of Claudius are clearly official – both are carrying their passports as well.

Things that may be new, or we saw from a different angle, include Gertrude giving a little squeal of pleasure when Claudius calls Hamlet his ‘son’, a reference which is picked up again when Hamlet says “I am too much i’ th’ ‘son'”. I don’t remember Laertes’s fellow insurgents being led off at gunpoint by palace security before, but it’s probably the same as I do have a vague memory of Ophelia being similarly dragged off, which we see just afterwards. This set me thinking about Gertrude’s report of her death – was she actually murdered? If so, it could be staged by having Gertrude read a report of the death,,,,,,but that’s another production. The actors were taken off at gunpoint after the play as well.

Laertes spoke his lines much better, but was still a weak link overall. Claudius seemed rather stilted, and his delivery was a bit rushed. We got to see David Calder this time, and he turned in a good performance as Polonius, and an absolute peach as the gravedigger, recognizing Hamlet and mouthing ‘is it him?’ at Horatio. It brought an extra poignancy to Hamlet’s recollections of Yorrick, as the gravedigger could remember the man too.

This production seemed to lose sight of the consequences of some of the staging choices. Despite being ‘realistic’ – modern dress, guns, security staff talking into their cuffs, etc. – there were some strange changes of lighting for no apparent reason (other than the need for darkness to cover the change of scenery?), and a number of line readings and other aspects didn’t fit either. For example, Gertrude has a good pair of lungs on her, so when she calls, loudly, for help, is it likely that such a massive security presence would have missed it? These were all fairly minor niggles, but they were a distraction, and showed that the production wasn’t gripping me in the way the last RSC one did.

One thing we specifically wanted to see again from this new angle was Gertrude’s reactions in the closet scene. These suggested she did see the ghost, but wanted to convince herself she hadn’t. I found Laertes’s reaction to Ophelia’s mad scene unconvincing – why doesn’t he follow her and try to protect her? He didn’t seem that affected by her suffering, mind you, so perhaps that’s why.

I was much more aware this time that the characters don’t know what’s going on, and that they’re making every attempt to sort out the situation to their own satisfaction.

The fight scene was much better, though even to my untrained eye Laertes didn’t look like much of a fencer. Again, Claudius seemed relatively unmoved by Gertrude’s imminent death, and just stood around by the far wall after Hamlet has called for the doors to be locked. Not much of a life, not much of a death.

I noticed during the play scene that Polonius reacted more than Claudius to the poisoning of Gonzago – did he know of the plot that put Claudius on the throne? Was he involved? I think we should be told.

I nodded off during the ghost scene – after Ophelia’s mad scenes, it’s my least favourite of the play, although recent mad scenes have been a lot better (or maybe I’m just able to handle them better), but I don’t think I missed much.

Hamlet’s “speak the speech trippingly…” was set up by a mime showing him rehearsing the player queen – a nice touch. Not just a critic, then, also a nervy author.

For the Fortinbras scene, Hamlet was handcuffed to the ladder far left as before, but this time I didn’t see it being set up, so it just seemed peculiar that he would be handcuffed somewhere and left unprotected like that.

It was interesting to see this again, and although I’m a little disappointed that Rory Kinnear’s Hamlet wasn’t supported by a better production, I enjoyed myself well enough.

© 2011 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Hamlet – October 2010

Experience: 5/10

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Nicholas Hytner

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Tuesday 26th October 2010

We met with an unfortunate choice of performance – coughing, phones going off, voice over the public address, an understudy for Polonius, and lots more coughing in the second half – have these people never heard of cough sweets?

The set looked like a pop-up version of the Ken Branagh film, all European military style, with walls that slid on and off, or unfurled from the sides to form lots of different acting spaces. The concealed doors were under the military-style crests, while the windows had folding shutters and carefully concealed ashtrays. Apart from one wall which was gray, the overall colour scheme was off-white, and looked suitably palatial, though it’s a shame Gertrude had to make do with a curtain from Poundstretchers for her little alcove. (It has to be stabbed through and torn down many times, so presumably that’s why the stunt curtain from the rehearsal room got the job.) The costumes were modern, with a strong emphasis on the military, and there were a number of security guards in suits who talked into their cuffs a lot, and gave the production its atmosphere of constant, menacing, surveillance.

The opening scene had the soldiers hiding from each other behind the walls – who else were they expecting to see up there? Although, as the opening sound effect was a plane flying overheard, perhaps they thought the ‘enemy’ might send in paratroopers to land on top of the castle for a midnight attack (bear in mind, Marcellus apparently doesn’t know what the heightened military activity is all about, so just who would the ‘enemy’ be?).

The first court scene was done as a TV broadcast from the new king, up to “For all, our thanks.” Then the royal couple could relax – Gertrude was quick to grab a glass of champagne – and deal with the more pressing matters of state. Cornelius became Cornelia, and the ambassadors to Norway were swiftly sent on their way. Hamlet had been sitting near Claudius’s desk, and brought out some papers. He unfolded one of them and laid it on the desk for Claudius to sign, but Claudius, ignoring him (so much for the caring father image), put his feet up on the desk and tackled Laertes first. His bit of paper was soon signed (I assume it was some kind of pass to let him leave the country), and he was off.

Hamlet was not so lucky. Does Claudius ever think, during the later stages of this play, how much simpler his life would have been if he had just let the man go back to university? Anyway, Hamlet reluctantly agrees to his mother’s request that he stay, and as he does so, he tears up the bit of paper and throws it away.

When the rest of the court has left, we get Hamlet’s first soliloquy, and it was pretty good. Then Horatio and the guards arrive, and I found it a little weird that with a huge picture of the former king still in the room – it was the backdrop to the impromptu TV studio – the line “methinks I see my father”, and Horatio’s response “O where, my lord?”, didn’t acknowledge the elephant in the room. Of course, it helps the newcomers in the audience to know what the previous king looks like, but it undercuts those lines a bit, as I found myself wondering how the picture would be used and why it was being ignored.

Next up was Laertes saying goodbye to Ophelia. She was fine, all modern teenager with her soft toy and CD player. Their conversation was reasonably clear, although I found Laertes had one of the weaker deliveries of this cast; hopefully there’s some improvement to come. The understudy for Polonius was fine, and got across the man’s tedious need to waffle on at great length, while his children sat on the sofa and tried to hide their giggles at his ponderous fatherly lecture. Polonius telling Ophelia to avoid Hamlet in future was fine, and then I think we moved on to the platform scene for the ghost’s appearance.

This was fine, too, nothing much to report, except that the area the ghost took Hamlet to had some walls, which allowed Hamlet to put a smiley face on one of them at the line “villain, villain, smiling, damned villain”, and then write ‘villain’ underneath. (This logo was used later on for the T-shirts he hands out at the play.) For the swearing bit, I wasn’t clear whether Hamlet was following the ghost or avoiding him.

The briefing of Reynaldo for his trip to France, and Ophelia’s reporting of Hamlet’s madness were OK, and for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s first appearance they shunned the traditional embarrassing confusion on Claudius’s part (finally!). After they left to find Hamlet, the ambassadors are dealt with – no concern whatsoever about an army tramping over the kingdom this time – and Polonius launches into the longwinded dissertation on Hamlet’s madness. Claudius and Gertrude’s reactions were fine, and there were several laughs in this scene. When Hamlet turns up, reading, the set morphs again so we see him arriving in his bedroom and throwing himself down on the bed. Polonius talks to him there, and it was probably the most effective part of Rory Kinnear’s performance, subdued but getting across the feigned madness, his once good relationship with R&G, the onset of suspicion about them, his heaviness of heart about not only the loss of his father but the demands of the situation he finds himself in, and then his sudden quickening when he hears about the players. It’s a lot of changes, and they were done very well.

Now I’m not sure of the order of scenes here – actually, I lost track some time ago, and I’m hoping they were the same as my text, which now has the report back by R&G to the king, followed by Ophelia and Hamlet’s overheard conversation. I think there was another scene put in here – possibly the arrival of the players, but I’m not sure. However, I’ll deal with that next. The players arrived with lots of equipment in the usual modern black and metal cases. Hamlet greeted them all warmly, and the telling of the speech about the dying Priam was moving and more intimate than I’ve seen before. Polonius’s “this is too long” got a good laugh, and for once, the Player King (James Laurenson, doubling with the old Hamlet) looked nervous when Hamlet asked him to play The Murder of Gonzago. He was the first Player King I can remember to seem aware of and concerned about the consequences of performing Hamlet’s chosen play in a court where a recently deceased king has been succeeded by his brother who then marries his sister-in-law. Either the other Player Kings are as thick as two short planks, or they’re comfortable with dangerous political satire.

The overhearing scene was done using modern surveillance equipment, with Claudius and Polonius putting on headphones as they disappeared behind one of the doors. There was nothing special in the scene itself, with Hamlet realising that they’re being overheard.

The play was set up next, with a carpet laid diagonally on the floor for the stage, two chairs to the left of it for the (real) king and queen, various lights around the place, and the sound equipment at the back. The mime at the start is done quickly, with a bed being wheeled on for the king to lie on, and a big blue bottle of poison used by the murderer. The second phase, with the dialogue, was fine, although the reactions from the king and queen weren’t easy to see from our angle. Hamlet was lurking over by the spotlight on the right front of the stage, and turned it on for this part, lighting the players for the relevant part of the plot. When the king stormed off in a temper, the actors were clearly panicked, and rushed off with as much of their stuff as they could grab. The sound equipment at the back was left, though, so Hamlet used it – when he called for music, he simply flicked a switch, and some thumping beat was blasted out through the speakers, not too loud, but not quiet either. And that was the interval, with Hamlet sitting cross-legged at the front of the stage.

The second half started with almost the same setup, although the rest of the players’ equipment had mysteriously vanished to leave a bare stage. The requests for Hamlet to visit his mother were OK, and then Claudius deals with the reports from R&G and Polonius before kneeling in front of his desk to pray. Hamlet appears from behind the wall, sees Claudius through the window, and draws a knife to kill the king, before talking himself out it. Gertrude’s room appears even before Claudius is off the stage, with sofas to left and right, a large portrait of Claudius on the far wall, and the tacky curtain hanging in front of an alcove in the middle of the wall.

Now, this was one scene where our position gave us a problem. The ghost appeared on the far side of the stage, and so when Gertrude turned to look where Hamlet was pointing, we couldn’t see her reaction. It’s possible from what we saw that she actually saw the ghost, or at least something, but was denying it. Hamlet grabbed the portrait of Claudius off the wall to compare with his father’s picture, and it ended up on the floor. Polonius was stabbed through the curtain, and his body dragged off on it. Gertrude certainly didn’t want to be with Claudius after this scene.

Hamlet climbed the ladder at our side of the stage to taunt R&G about Polonius’s missing body, and then Claudius is in what looks like an interrogation room when Hamlet is brought before him. There’s no Polonius to advise Claudius now, of course, and the chap who seems to be the new second-in-command is wearing some sort of military outfit. Later on, he turns out to be Osric. There’s also an interrogation technician with a nasty-looking suitcase, but fortunately Hamlet tells all before he has to get busy with his syringe.

Again, I’m not sure of the order of scenes here, but at some point, Hamlet is handcuffed to the ladder (why?) and thus sees the arrival of Fortinbras and gets to question the lieutenant about him and the forthcoming battle. Fortinbras is well used to the technology of modern warfare, and is followed by his own camera crew, taking every opportunity to record what an excellent leader he is. Hamlet’s change of attitude here was clearly expressed, and the conversation about the small piece of land was also well done.

Now for the dreaded mad scenes. These worked better than I’d hoped. Ophelia comes on pushing a supermarket shopping trolley, filled with various packages and clothes. For the second mad scene, she dishes out these parcels instead of using flowers. One, given to Laertes, was her toy from earlier, which I could now see was Babar the elephant. Claudius got the prop bottle of poison used in The Murder of Gonzago. Nice touch.

Laertes arrived with several other gunmen, following sounds of gunfire outside, and his debate with Claudius was a bit weak, as was his reaction to Ophelia. Later, the plotting to kill Hamlet after his letters have arrived was also underpowered, and I wasn’t that moved by the report of Ophelia’s death. Things started to improve with Hamlet’s reappearance at the graveyard.

The gravedigger was on his own, the banter with Hamlet was trimmed nicely, and so we were soon into the funeral combat. The ‘grave’ was a couple of trapdoors set diagonally towards the front of the stage nearer our side. The skulls (why are there rarely any other bones?) were put in a plastic crate, and Ophelia was in a coffin. I don’t think Laertes actually picks up her body again – would have been difficult anyway with the lid nailed down – and the scuffle between him and Hamlet seemed briefer than usual.

Back in the castle, Hamlet tells Horatio about his travels, and then Osric comes along to invite Hamlet to participate in the fencing competition. At least here they made the fencing into a proper sporting contest, with a strip of matting for the piste and the usual jackets and face masks. Unfortunately, the fencing itself was so-so, and the final deaths felt a bit jumbled, which lost a bit of the tension. Hamlet did slur his speech towards the end as the poison took effect, which was good. Of course, Fortinbras is more than ready to take advantage of this opportunity, making his speech in praise of Hamlet to camera as his first media step in gaining the crown. Then he shakes hands with the remaining members of the court, all eager to be his new bestest friend.

While there were some interesting choices in this staging, on the whole I found the tedium getting to me, and I nodded off a few times as a result. Some of the lines were delivered so badly I thought they were in a foreign language, which didn’t help. Steve reckoned Horatio was the worst offender, speeding up so much with each line that he was unintelligible by about line six. I felt the problem was more widespread, and combined with some fluffed lines (Horatio obligingly leaves the stage after the burial scene although Claudius clearly asks Laertes to go), and some strange cuts, the whole production had a very patchy feel. There were some excellent parts, and Rory Kinnear gave a consistently sound performance, but the rest needs work. It’s only a few weeks since it opened, so it may come together later in its run. I do hope so.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Love The Sinner – June 2010

5/10

By Drew Pautz

Directed by Matthew Dunster

Venue: Cottesloe Theatre

Date: Thursday 17th June 2010

This play set its stall out very effectively, but in a misleading way. The opening scene was set in a meeting room somewhere in a posh hotel in a major African city – I didn’t catch any names, and I got the impression it was meant to be generic. The attendees were all clerics, dog collars well to the fore, and since one was a woman, I assumed this was an Anglican shindig. The initial point being clarified was who wanted what to drink. It emerged later that this group had sequestered itself away to thrash out an agreement which included a wording about accepting different lifestyle choices (i.e. homosexuality), and for all we know that may have been the sole purpose of the meeting. The African delegates were having none of it, the lone woman was the only one who dared to speak up for the European and American congregations, and the archbishop, Stephen, was trying to encourage them all to play nice. Some hope! When I talked about them ‘thrashing’ out an agreement, it wasn’t entirely metaphorical.

When the coffee arrived, the group all closed their eyes, so as not to be influenced by any outsider. There was some humour in the way they chatted with the waiter, and he was certainly surprised to find everyone had their eyes shut. Only Jonathan Cullen’s character Michael opened his for a short spell near the end, as he tried to give the waiter a tip from the general contributions. After he left, the arguments went on, and showed no sign of doing anything but entrenching the opposing views even deeper.

This was good stuff, and since there were no program notes to give us a clue as to the overall direction of the piece, we naturally assumed that the themes of reconciliation, attitudes to homosexuality, and the way the west treats the rest of the world and vice versa, would be given a good airing. But no. The next scene shows us Michael and the waiter, Joseph, after they’ve had sex. Joseph wants Michael to take him back to England. Michael is appalled at the idea, and there’s a very stuttering conversation which darkens into menace and even violence, when Joseph shows Michael that he’s taken Michael’s wallet and passport. He refuses to give the passport back, but Michael is saved by the arrival of Daniel (yes, they all had tediously obvious biblical names, apart from Shelley, Michael’s wife). This scene felt very dated. Homosexuality may not always get an easy ride still, but it is talked about more openly than was shown here, and if all we were meant to understand from this scene was Michael’s discomfort with his own actions, then we could cheerfully lose about three-quarters of the dialogue, as we got that point very early on.

The next scene, which took us up to the interval, was set back in England, in winter, in Michael and Shelley’s house. I must confess to dozing off a bit at this point – there was so little to keep me awake. Basically, they dodge and spar around three subjects – at least Michael does the dodging – but they’re both showing the wear and tear of a problematic relationship. The subjects are their difficulty having a child, Michael’s recent obsession with reading the Bible at home, even on weekdays, and the removal of a squirrel family from their loft. I have no idea what we were meant to get from this, none whatsoever.

The second half also began with a good scene, this time Michael having a management meeting at the envelope-making company which he owns. He wants to add church donation envelopes to their range, what with the reduction in letter sending, but his team aren’t enthusiastic. They’ve clearly had enough of his attempts to sanctify the workplace by removing the porno calendars and putting up religiously symbolic pictures of light shining through clouds instead. One chap was brave enough to point out that they didn’t know what to expect when he came into work – nice Michael who was considerate and understanding, or money-man Michael, all nose to the grindstone and telling the staff off if they made a mistake. When Michael asked what they thought he should do, the lone woman (again) suggested he kill off one of the Michaels, so that at least the other one would have a chance to make things work, a very funny moment.

Shortly after this, Shelley arrives. She wants to know who Joseph is, Michael is reluctant to tell her, they bicker (the staff have left the room by this time), and before you know it, they’re getting ready to have sex on the table. The scene ends with a knock on the door at a most inopportune time. Very funny.

I think the next scene is the final one. Daniel and Stephen, the nice Archbishop, turn up in the basement of Michael’s local church, to prepare for some speech that Stephen will be making shortly upstairs. They discover Joseph hiding out there, with Michael’s help, and the whole story unravels. Daniel, who appears to be some kind of spin doctor for the Archbishop, is totally wound up at the prospect of a gay liaison being uncovered at a local church, and while the Archbishop is actually there! Stephen seems to be more concerned about the welfare of Michael and Joseph.

We also get to see the scars on Joseph’s back, so we know just how bad things were for him back in Africa. Other than that, there’s not a lot to this scene. It ends with Joseph, smartly dressed in a suit, heading up the stairs to the main body of the church, but to do what, we hadn’t a clue. Michael is left, cringing in despair in the basement, but again, we’ve no idea why. The music swells, the light shines through the stained glass window, and all to no effect as far as I was concerned.

With plays like this, I feel I miss out because I was never brought up in an organised religion. I’ve learned a few things along the way, but sometimes the arcane methods and practices of these groups are so obscure to me that I reckon a lot of the subtler points miss me by a mile. I have no idea why we were being shown these things, or what we were supposed to get out of the piece. We both felt there was a good play in there, with some moments that work very well on stage, but it needs a lot of work to make the grade from our point of view.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

London Assurance – May 2010

9/10

By Dion Boucicault

Directed by Nicholas Hytner

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Saturday 29th May 2010

The only reason this isn’t rated 10/10 is our unfortunate lateness, arriving half an hour after the start, and having to stand at the back of the circle till the interval. (A trespasser on the line between Haywards Heath and Three Bridges, or a suspected blockage in the Balcombe tunnel, depending on which of the many apologetic announcements you believe.) Even so, we were laughing loudly within a couple of minutes, at the servant, Cool’s comment ‘How polite. Must be a lawyer.’ And we kept on laughing, even before we took our seats for the second half.

It was good to see Simon Russell Beale giving us a fop again. It’s a good few years since his grounding in such roles at the RSC, and he hasn’t lost his touch, just refined it superbly with experience. His clothes weren’t as OTT as is usual with fops, but his affected mannerisms told the story just as well, possibly better. The way he threw a cushion to the floor in preparation for dramatically throwing himself on it in his pursuit of Lady Gay, was almost as funny as his pained expression when he did manage to collapse onto said cushion. There comes a time in life when romantic gestures have to become more restrained – Sir Harcourt is long past that time.

Fiona Shaw was perfect as Lady Gay Spanker – her entrance alone had both her and the audience hooting with laughter, never mind her excellent delivery of the lines. I would have loved to be closer to see her racing-commentator-style description of a recent steeplechase, but even from the gods it was good fun.

The set was just right, too. Enough detail to evoke the country squire’s manor, but not too fussy. The walls were a z-shape, with the inside portion showing us the drawing-room, and the other side, courtesy of the revolve, showing us the outside of the property. The hunting theme was established early on with lots of stuffed heads on the walls, and given that I know nothing about these things, I assume the furniture and costumes were period perfection – the NT knows how to do these things properly. Of course, we missed the earlier scenes in London, so I’ve no idea what that bit looked like; if we can get to see this again, I’ll be keen to get there on time to enjoy that part as well.

I believe I’ve described the story well enough in a previous set of notes, and although Richard Bean had assisted with some updates, there were no changes to the overall plot. The most notable updating was that Solomon Isaacs, the moneylender from whom Charles Courtly has been hiding, turns out to be from the East. Not Cheltenham, as one character suggests, but farther east than that. A gentleman of Chinese extraction, in fact. The look of surprise on the faces of the assembled throng were a joy to behold, with Lord Harcourt’s expression of astonishment topping them all. Before he leaves, Solomon Isaacs rounds it off by advertising that he’s willing to give anyone with money troubles a consolidated loan, interest-free for the first eighteen months. Lady Gay was quick to take a card, I noticed.

The other performances were also excellent. It was a shame Richard Briers had so little to do as Lady Gay’s husband, but he did all of it brilliantly. Matt Cross as Dazzle, the high-living, lower-class scrounger, doesn’t have so much to do after the start (which we missed), but we both enjoyed his contemporary-sounding ‘walk away’ lines when breaking up a fight. And all the rest were equally as good in this top-notch production.

One final moment to remember – the look of horrified astonishment from Sir Harcourt Courtly as his son, confessing his earlier deception in pretending to be Mr. Hastings, whipped off his glasses to show that he and Mr. Hastings are one and the same! Hilarious, and worth the price of a ticket on its own.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Habit Of Art – May 2010

9/10

By Alan Bennett

Directed by Nicholas Hytner

Venue: Lyttelton Theatre

Date: Saturday 15th May 2010

At last we made it! We had to miss an earlier performance due to ill health or travel problems or somesuch, so I was very glad to get here today. This is probably the best thing we’ve seen this year so far, almost 10/10, but unfortunately it not only included some of Auden’s poetry (not a fan) but the format is a play within a play, where the fictional author’s work is meant to have some less good bits in it, such as talking furniture, talking facial creases, etc. These were fine up to a point, and did give us some very good laughs, but they do have the drawback of being not very good, and however much I put them in quotation marks they still tend to lower the standard. There were a few other areas that became unnecessarily dull as well, but overall the experience was very great fun.

The set was excellent. I’ve never been in a rehearsal room at the National, but the design looked very similar to the workshops which we saw on a backstage tour. Left and back walls were white brick, apart from an area of black panels in the back wall, while the right wall was wooden strips. The fictional play’s set was mocked up in the middle – small raked area with desk, two chairs, piano behind, door to the right of that, kitchen area to the left (bits were labelled ‘fridge’ and cooker’), bed raised up behind piano, and an upper level on the left with a grand piano and chair – destined for the Cottesloe, then. Around this ‘set’ there were several chairs front left, and a string of desks to the right, including a keyboard. The ‘real’ sink was against the left wall, behind the entrance door. Even the ceiling lights were authentic. And there were all sorts of books and other junk cluttering up the ‘set’.

The performance started early, with the ASM arriving first to set things up. The audience pretty much ignored this, so I was glad when they finally twigged that we were under way and shut up in time for us to hear the dialogue. The second half was much the same, with cast members arriving back in the rehearsal room in dribs and drabs, and chatting away to each other. The audience were a bit more alert second time around, thank goodness.

The play within the play concerned a meeting between Auden and Benjamin Britten after a gap of some thirty years in which they discussed, amongst other things, Britten’s next project, an opera based on Death In Venice, the Thomas Mann novel. It also covered Auden’s complete lack of hygiene, his preference for sucking off rent boys to a very strict schedule, and various other musings on the lives of these and other famous men. We got the inevitable ‘more fucking elves’ comment about Tolkien’s work, and of course the music was largely Britten’s, although Show Me The Way To Go Home also featured.

The contextual play allowed for frequent interruptions to question the facts, the dialogue, the staging, etc., and meant that a good deal of extra information could be brought out without having to double-dramatise it. And there was all the fun of watching a ‘rehearsal’ in progress, with many wry observations on the way these things work, the way actors behave, the diplomacy skills required to keep it all on track (Frances de la Tour was excellent as the stage manager) and the way the National itself operates. For example, two of the actors couldn’t make the rehearsal because they were in the Chekov matinee, although one of them did turn up during the interval chit-chat on stage in full Russian peasant gear.

The performances were, as usual, excellent, with many lovely touches. Adrian Scarborough’s actor character, who played Carpenter, the biographer of both Auden and Britten, was deeply distressed to find out that his part was simply a dramatic device, and his attempt to bring out more of Carpenter’s background by dressing up and singing a song about the wind made for a great start to the second half. Alex Jennings’ character Henry contributed some interesting revelations about his time as a rent boy when he was studying at RADA, thinly disguised as the experiences of ‘a friend’, while Elliot Levey as the author gave Bennett a chance to poke fun at the writer’s lack of authority in the rehearsal room. All good fun, and worth the wait to see it.

© 2010 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Mother Courage And Her Children – December 2009

6/10

By Bertolt Brecht, translated by Tony Kushner

Directed by Deborah Warner

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Saturday 5th December 2009

Straight off I was worried by the setup, especially the droning music in the background. Actually, it was more like the foreground. It was a really unpleasant sound, and, like the Therese Raquin earlier (Lyttelton, November 2006) I was considering leaving, only this time it would have been before the play began!

The set suggested some kind of protest situation, with an area roped off, cones and tape everywhere, and an industrial feel to the stage. When the play started, with the army recruiters meeting up to discuss business, the music stopped (thankfully), but the stage was the same. It was only at Mother Courage’s entrance that things started to liven up.

The gaping hole in the middle of the stage allowed a platform to be raised up, and on it was the travelling van Mother Courage used to peddle her wares. It was being pulled by two of her children, and once it had reached stage level, it went on a long journey round the place. All the while, Mother Courage (Fiona Shaw) was standing on top of the van, singing her song, wearing a peculiar costume which suggested both modern and old, and demonstrating her star status with a pair of sunglasses. The musicians may also have started to appear on stage around this time, as they frequently did. The band, led by Duke Special, did some excellent numbers throughout, ranging across styles, and making the production much more entertaining.

The sets changed frequently, always using the simplest techniques to create the locations. For an army tent, one canvas sheet would be lowered, with flaps for windows and doors. There were more elaborate pieces for the scene where Courage’s daughter warns the sleeping townsfolk, and often the van was the centre of it all. We were also treated to short readings by Gore Vidal of the bits between the scenes, telling us what was happening in the war, and what life was like for the people (usually dire). Brecht’s dry wit shone through, despite the horrors being related.

Fiona Shaw’s performance was excellent. She gave us a very clear picture of a woman who thought she was taking advantage of the war, but who was completely caught up in it, and eventually almost destroyed by it. Her family certainly was, as all three children died as a result of the war, and she was left alone, trying to keep going.  Her courage and brazen rapaciousness were both attractive and repellent, but it’s her greed for life that stands out most for me. Even after the beating that life gives her, she’s still battling on, perhaps stupidly, and perhaps bringing about her own downfall, but still keeping on. And clearly a punk, as Fiona’s dancing during one of the numbers indicated.

The other performances were also good, and I’m glad I stayed to watch it, but even so, it’s still Brecht, and there were lots of tedious patches which simply had to be endured. I also find it difficult to relate to these characters, which reduces my enjoyment, but for those who like this sort of thing, I suspect this was a very good production. It certainly got an enthusiastic response from the audience, and I’m glad to report that there were plenty of youngsters around us today.

© 2009 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me