Tag Archives: NT

The Emperor Jones – October 2007

6/10

By: Eugene O’Neill

Directed by: Thea Sharrock

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Tuesday 30th October 2007

This was a pretty unusual O’Neill play, one we may not see again for a long time. It was experimental for its time, which makes it seem quite modern. The play looks at racism, oppression, and the effect this sort of abuse has on the human psyche. We see the Emperor at the point where his subjects have deserted him, and are about to boot him out. He flees, and his journey through a forest takes him, and us, through a montage of experiences, some from his own past, some even earlier. We see his escape from a chain gang after killing a guard, a slave auction, and what I think must have been part of a journey across the Atlantic on a slave ship. As all these ghosts appear, he fires off his bullets, until only the silver one is left, the one he’s keeping for himself. Finally, the madness drives him to kill himself, and the natives of his former realm achieve their goal without appearing to have done anything.

The play is basically a one-man piece, and demands a great deal from the lead actor. There are a few other speaking parts, and a dancing role, but Brutus Jones dominates from early on. Fortunately, Patterson Joseph is well up to the challenge, and gives an excellent performance as the swaggerer brought low by his own fears and fantasies. He’s a charming rogue, and it’s easy to see how he could have hoodwinked the natives on his island, but his lies catch up with him, and he can’t handle being alone in the forest. The other parts mainly serve to pad out his story, as with the white trader who helped him after he escaped from the chain gang.

The set was fantastic, and was another good example of how to use the vast Olivier stage. A central disc was surrounded by a crescent slope. The back wall of the central part had steps leading up to a platform with a gaudy throne, and not much else, apart from a carpet and a couple of doorways. After an initial scene where the white trader meets the last woman to run away from the emperor, there’s a long conversation between the trader and Brutus Jones, during which we learn all we need to know of his past. He’s already laid plans to escape once the natives rumble him, only he didn’t think it would be so soon. Still, he’s confident, and sets off for the forest sure that he’ll make it to a waiting ship.

For the forest scenes, the back walls are lifted away, and another disc, ragged this time, descends to form a sloping roof to the action. It’s a patchwork of corrugated iron, interwoven with wood and other materials, with strategic slits which allow the moonlight to shine through. Along with the lighting, it gave the whole stage an eerie feel. And in the background was the constant beat of the drums, enough to drive anyone mad.

For this part, Patterson Joseph had to be fit, as he spent a lot of it running around the place. I spotted the black men secretively creeping onto the stage a good while before they clambered onto the disc and started to form the chain gang – this all added to the spookiness. The final arrival of the natives looking for him gave us some lively dancing, and then the expected end – there was no way Emperor Jones was getting out of this alive.

While it was interesting to see this style of a play from this period, I wouldn’t say it was a complete success. The performances were great, especially the lead, of course, but that was all there really was to it. The points about slavery and abuse leading to more abuse were well made, but without any real context to give the play greater substance. On the whole, I left feeling glad I’d seen the play, and the performances, but not entirely satisfied with the afternoon.

© 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 Hothouse – August 2007

Experience: 7/10

By Harold Pinter

Directed by Ian Rickson

Venue: Lyttelton Theatre

Date: Friday 31st August 2007

This was a real treat. We were up in London for other reasons this weekend, and got to see an evening performance at the National. Wow. I suspected the atmosphere would be different from matinees, and it certainly seemed to be – more lively, more of a buzz.

I hadn’t seen this play before, and I found it very typical of Pinter’s style, though clearly dated. It shows a version of Stalinist Russia, where people disappear and odd things happen, and the person in charge has to watch their back in case their second-in-command wants to take over. A bit like a Klingon ship, but less overt.

The set was a series of angled walls, which gave us Roote’s office, a staff room, and a wider view including the stairs with another room above. The décor was very fifties/sixties institutional drab. The plot was simple – a patient has died and another patient has given birth. Everybody skirts around these facts, and one of the junior members of staff is tortured to confess to being the father. Eventually, Roote (Stephen Moore) is bumped off and Gibbs (Finbar Lynch), as the last man standing, takes over the institution. There’s also a woman member of staff, Miss Cutts (Lia Williams), who seems to spend all her time latching on to whichever man is in power to ensure her safety, and Lush (Paul Ritter), the only other member of staff who could stand against Gibbs, but who seems to be on the downward slope.

What I enjoyed most about this production was the wonderful language. Pinter has a musical way with words. He finds not just a minor key, but a menace key, and manages to keep it going. It’s partly what’s not said that does it. There’s also a lovely use of repetition, when Gibbs is sort of informing Roote about the two patients (two digits are transposed, hence the confusion), the one who’s died and the one who’s given birth. The dialogue is virtually identical, with some details changed to suit the different circumstances, but otherwise it’s a straightforward reprise. Until the end, that is, when after plying Gibbs with lots of descriptive statements about the woman, Roote ends up saying “Never met her!”.

There’s also a lot of silence and stillness in this production, which are very effective. In addition, there were some wonderfully menacing sound effects, a susurration of suffering, which made the staff nervous and suggested the unrest growing in the asylum. Lovely stuff, and I’m glad we could fit it in.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Enchantment – August 2007

2/10

By: Victoria Benedictsson

Directed by: Paul Miller

Venue: Cottesloe Theatre

Date: Tuesday 21st August 2007

This was a less than thrilling afternoon’s entertainment, which left me hoping the problems with the play were partly down to the adaptation, although I suspect they’re more fundamental than that.

The basic story is simple. A Swedish woman, who has lost her family through illness and death, has herself been ill and is recuperating in Paris, tended by some compatriots she’s met there and who live in the same building. She’s already keen on a particular sculptor and when he arrives, she’s drawn into a destructive relationship, from her point of view. He seems quite happy with the arrangement, confusing free love with consequence-free sex, as many do. She ends up killing herself by jumping fully clothed into the Seine – in those outfits, any woman would sink like a stone in seconds.

I found it hard to relate to these characters. The woman herself, Louise, seems to be a loser through and through. We don’t really get to see what she was like before, although people keep mentioning how she’s changed, and she doesn’t do anything – no hobbies, no work, nothing. What does she do all day? She’s a cipher, so perhaps it’s not surprising she falls for someone who simply wants to use her to fuel his art.

The sculptor is also an enigma – I couldn’t get any real sense of his personality, just his behaviour, and that’s not enough to keep me interested for this long. The other characters in Paris were drawn equally crudely; the step-brother, the woman artist who’s nursed her and who was the sculptor’s previous great love (coincidence, eh?), her husband, and her sister(?) who’s in love with the step-brother. If this sounds confusing, it’s because none of this was introduced as clearly as I would have liked.

Back in Sweden, there were more characters, and this was the most entertaining bit of the play. The housekeeper, Botilda, is a cheerful soul, who can’t see why anyone goes to Paris since they’re all so gloomy when they come back! She has some lovely lines. There’s also a mother and daughter who give us a glimpse of the middle-class Sweden that the author knew only too well, and was presumably avoiding. This daughter is also keen on the step-brother, entertainingly so, but no chance. Finally, there’s an older man, the bank manager, who’s been keen on Louise since she was twelve, and who’s been proposing regularly to her for years. He offers her one final chance to snap him up, but she’s still too wrapped up in her passion for the sculptor to consider him.

All the actors gave good performances, and I don’t intend any criticism of them. I particularly liked Marlene Sidaway as Botilda and Niamh Cusack as Erna, the lady artist. At least she was playing a spiky character, which is so unlike most of the women in drama of this period. There were also physical problems, too. The set was as spread out as for The Five Wives Of Maurice Pinder, and the seats we had were poor. We were off to one side, but facing in to the centre of the stage, so that when anything happened on the part of the stage behind us, we were completely cut off from it. Unfortunately, this happened fairly often, so I felt rather detached a lot of the time. The theatre was also very stuffy during the first half, so I found myself nodding off a few times, especially as nothing much was happening on stage to keep me alert.

Steve described this afterwards as “a poor man’s Ibsen”, and that just about nails it. The writer herself had been shattered by finding that her lover, the leading arts critic of their generation who had fostered a regeneration of Scandinavian art, wouldn’t review her work because she was a woman! From what I can glean from the program notes, she wrote this, her one and only play, shortly before she killed herself in despair, and while suffering can inspire great creativity, it doesn’t seem to have worked here, partly because her characters are so empty (reflecting her own feelings, presumably), and partly because she didn’t have experience writing drama. It may be that another adaptation would bring out more of the original, but don’t hold your breath.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Five Wives Of Maurice Pinder – August 2007

7/10

By: Matt Charman

Directed by: Sarah Frankcom

Venue: Cottesloe Theatre

Date: Wednesday 15th August 2007

This was an interesting new play. Without getting into any great debate, it shows an alternative form of relationships, somewhat akin to polygamy but more open-ended. Maurice Pinder, a scaffolder with his own business, has three “wives” at the start of the play. We don’t find out all the details straightaway, and I quite liked the teasing way in which the play took its time to clarify the relationships. I’ll cut to the chase: Maurice (Larry Lamb) has been divorcing one wife and then marrying another for some time. His first wife, Esther (Sorcha Cusack), couldn’t have children, so she agreed to her husband taking another wife in order to have a family. This was Fay (Clare Holman), who provided them all with a son, Vincent (Adam Gillen), now seventeen. Next up was Lydia (Martina Laird), who has a young baby, provisionally called Fergus. When the play begins, we get to see these wives plus Vincent, before Maurice brings home Rowena (Carla Henry), who’s heavily pregnant with another man’s child. This man was beating her up, so Maurice decided to take her into the family.

The relationships are apparently stable at this point. Vincent is about to go to university, Esther is the overall mother-figure, taking care of everyone, Fay is working (loosely) at telesales, and Lydia is a Reiki practitioner who prefers to live in the caravan in the back garden. They seem to get on fine, and in some ways the play almost became dull in the early stages, with very little conflict or dramatic interest. The performances were fine, and I felt I was getting to know the characters, but there wasn’t quite enough bite to it for me. All that changed when Fay brings home Jason (Steve John Shepherd) for a shag, against family rules. He’s disturbed by the setup, although he likes Fay, and despite his impending marriage (this is Tuesday, and the wedding is on Saturday) wants to continue their relationship. She doesn’t. Unfortunately, this means she’s pissing off a local planning inspector, and as Maurice is in the process of building an unapproved extension on the back of the house, Jason starts to take his disturbance out on the family.

This was the only character who didn’t ring true for me. He represented the “average” reaction, combining fascination with how such an arrangement works, with revulsion at such a different set of norms. However, his abrupt changes of attitude made it hard to relate to him as a real person, while the other characters seemed more real, more rounded, and I could relate to their experiences.

Anyway, Jason’s antagonism isn’t the only problem. Lydia is the restless sort, and finally decides to leave them and travel with her baby. This leaves a huge gap in the family structure, and Maurice tries to fill it with Irene (Tessa Peake-Jones), his office manager and a bossy sort. When Vincent comes back from university, he finds the situation seriously changed (though not so much in terms of the extension). His actual mother, Fay, is drinking way too much, and taking to even more meaningless shags in car parks, presumably to find what she’s not getting from Maurice on their one night a week together. Esther is even more withdrawn, trying to be supportive, yet being even more excluded by Irene, who doesn’t seem to have got the hang of the sharing nature of the family yet. Rowena seems to have settled in, but even she is planning to leave once she gets some money together. She’s already married Maurice, so what we get to see this time is the wedding ceremony between Maurice and Irene. They stand in the sitting room, facing each other, reading out prepared vows. Maurice’s are well-worn; they’re the same ones he’s used for each wedding from the sounds of it. Irene seems to be looking for someone she can devote herself to, but lets it slip that she doesn’t see the need for any of the others once she and Maurice are hitched. Fortunately, the rest of the family, so noticeably absent from the vows, turn up in force with some atrocious behaviour, and put her off altogether. The play ends somewhat weakly, with Vincent breaking up the extension, and Fay, Lydia and Rowena talking about their futures away from Maurice. There’s a line about how the two babies have open futures, and then the lights go out. Personally, I would prefer a stronger ending.

The set was a section of the house, from the front door and sitting room on our left, through the extension into the garden and down to the caravan at the end. To our right, there was a wooden gate, which Vincent preferred to climb over rather than go through. The small, domestic details helped to make the family situation seem more normal, not particularly weird or troublesome. It certainly favoured Maurice, although keeping so many women happy was obviously beyond him. Esther hits the nail on the head when she bursts out with the truth – that none of the others would have been there if she could have had children.

On the whole, the relationships had their problems, and perhaps no one of them was worse than any individual couple faces, but they did seem to be compounded when so many people were attempting to live such intimate lives. It was all too easy for Maurice to get another, younger wife to keep him supplied with kids, rather than tackling his main relationship with Esther, and either living together childless or exploring the other options. I wasn’t sure if his aversion to convention was a cause or an effect of his lifestyle. I did wonder if any of the women had considered what would happen to them when he died, and perhaps no one but his latest wife had any claim on the estate. These are the kind of practicalities the play doesn’t go into, and that’s fair enough, but I felt there was a lot more to explore in this subject, and this play didn’t go quite as deep as perhaps it could have.

Having said all that, this was still a very enjoyable experience. There was a lot of humour, all the performances were very good, especially Adam Gillen as Vincent, and the time flew past. A good way to spend the afternoon.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Rafta, Rafta – June 2007

6/10

By: Ayub Khan-Din, based on All In Good Time by Bill Naughton

Directed by: Nicholas Hytner

Venue: Lyttelton Theatre

Date: Tuesday 6th June 2007

This was based on an English play from quite a while ago, and has been really well adapted. I was mildly concerned that so many attitudes that we consider old-fashioned in mainstream British culture seem to be easily expressed by transferring them to modern-day Asian communities. I also noted the unusual number of Asians in the audience, and it seemed a pity that it takes a production like this to get them coming to the theatre, especially as the whole point of this play seems to be how much ground we have in common. However.

A young couple have to live with his parents after their marriage, until they can get a place of their own. As they don’t have a honeymoon, their attempts to consummate their relationship are hampered by the close proximity of the rest of the family, especially the father (Harish Patel). He’s a larger-than life character, who came to Britain many years ago, and worked hard to establish himself and bring his wife over as well. He’s the domineering sort, always having to be right, but with a good heart and a lot of kindness, when it can be brought out of him. His wife (Meera Syal), is more sympathetic, and appreciates the difficulties the couple are having, but even she doesn’t realise how long it’s taking them to get down to it. It takes some strong confrontations and a row to get them into bed and shagging, and there are lots of comedy opportunities along the way, together with some not-too-surprising revelations.

The set was interesting. At the beginning, as we sat down, there was a screen across the front of the stage, showing a view of a terraced street. As the play started, a couple of lads walked onto the street, and into one of the doors. Behind the screen, the set then began to revolve, as the front door turned towards the right, and the sitting room and kitchen came into view. The screen then rose, and we had an unimpeded view of the house, including the two bedrooms upstairs which would see most of the inaction. I liked this very much.

The performances were excellent, again. It took a while to sort out which character is which, and who’s married to whom, and I also took some time to get used to the accents. Some of the characters spoke with Indian accents, some with Lancashire accents, and some flip-flopped between, as often happens within multi-lingual groups. There was a great sense of family life, of the difficulties any young couple can feel in establishing themselves, and I enjoyed it enormously. I would certainly be interested in anything else this chap writes.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

A Matter Of Life And Death – May 2007

5/10

Based on the film by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, adapted by Tom Morris and Emma Rice for the National Theatre

Directed by: Emma Rice

Company: Kneehigh

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Thursday 31st May 2007

I enjoyed Kneehigh’s Cymbeline so much, that I probably expected too much of this production. There was a lot to enjoy, but some of it was just plain dreary. Even so, I cried buckets, and felt happier when we came out, so I’d obviously had a good time.

First off, I tried out the audio devices for the first time here. Although we were in Row E, and I would have expected to hear most of it anyway, I wanted to find out what it was like. The headset is quite nifty, and certainly gave me a louder and clearer listening experience than without it. I found the pressure in my ear a bit uncomfortable, verging on painful, so I may have to investigate other options, but for now this will be a great way to get more out of the many plays we see. I also realised I would have to avoid wearing my pendant, as it kept clattering against the base of the headset. (Audio assisted experiences marked (headset) after seats.)

Before the start, the Olivier stage was bare. At the start, the panel at the back slid open (up and down), and the musicians were wheeled on, on a rectangular bandstand with a white arch at the back. The music was not particularly pleasant – rather wailing and loud – and it went on for far too long, in my view. As the music got under way, the whole stage became awash with the cast – cycling nurses stopping to light up a fag, hospital beds with pyjama-clad military patients, etc. Various people were reading aloud from books, and at one point there was a blaze in the middle of one of the beds – why? They’d already discovered torches under the bedclothes, and strung them up, and then the blaze, and then some fire buckets were brought on and set alight, and I have absolutely no idea why any of this was going on.

Then one of the pyjama men, dressed in a natty pair of star-patterned pj’s, started us off with the description of the universe. This was where it first started to engage me. As this was going on, another arching staircase is brought on, and Peter, the airmen who causes all the trouble, is being set up on it. Then we’re into the famous dialogue between Peter and June, and I cried and cried.

When Peter jumps out of the plane, he’s held aloft by wires for a while, and then comes down on a newly-cleared stage with a (photographic) beach scene plastered all over the back wall, and a couple of sand patches deposited on the floor. This was very evocative. He chats with a small girl, who’s playing in one of the sand patches, then along comes June, and the great romance gets underway.

Meanwhile, up in heaven, or at least the waiting room, Peter’s crewmate is waiting for him. The angels, all in nurses’ uniforms, are booking flyers in, but so far, there’s no sign of Peter. The chief accounting angel has no sooner explained that mistakes aren’t made, but that if one were all the alarms would go off, and that hasn’t happened for over 600 years, than the alarms go off, and it’s all hands to the pump to get that day’s soul receipts balanced.

This is where we’re introduced to Conductor 71. He’s a Norwegian, not that long deceased, who used to be an escape artist, but who suffered the most embarrassing death, as the trick that went wrong was the first one his mother had ever turned up to see. Judging by his completely unsuccessful attempts to vanish in front of everyone’s eyes, she was right to be unhappy about his chosen profession. He claims that the thick fog prevented him from snatching Peter’s soul from the jaws of life, and so he’s sent back down with orders to put things right.

Back on Earth, Peter and June are shown in a more sexually liberated 1940’s Britain than usual. They’re snuggled up together in bed, minus some clothes, and having a swinging time. Literally. The bed is swinging from side to side of the stage, and as Conductor 71 comes along, he show us his gymnastic skills by hanging on underneath. Eventually he emerges, and causes time to freeze, so he can speak to Peter. Spare company members hold the bed in place, while Peter tells Conductor 71 where to go.

The story unfolds as expected – the doctor at the hospital who’s in love with June tries to sort out Peter’s medical problems, and eventually gets caught up in helping him fight his case in heaven. All is resolved happily (yet still I cried!), and I left feeling cleansed. So, what else to say about the staging?

Wheeling the beds on and off was occasionally distracting, but overall, I felt the production settled down into a good rhythm. There was a lovely sub-plot with a wounded airman who’s obviously very affected by his experiences. He’s playing Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as staged by the doctor, and for ass’s ears, he’s got a couple of bedroom slippers strapped to his head. He hangs himself, which was distressing. Later, he sings a lovely song, which was actually a poem written by a deceased airman in the war; it’s quoted in the program notes.

While the doctor and June wait to see how Peter will go, they play ping-pong. This is done by having a ball on the end of a long pole, with one of the non-visible cast members moving it backwards and forwards between the players – great fun.  Finally, the bike crash was well done, with Douglas Hodge, the doctor, being lifted away from the wreckage.

Overall, I enjoyed this well enough, but wouldn’t particularly want to see it again.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Landscape With Weapon – May 2007

8/10

By: Joe Penhall

Directed by: Roger Michell

Venue: Cottesloe Theatre

Date: Thursday 24th May 2007

This was four-hander, exploring some of the issues around the technology of warfare and arms dealing in general. It was great fun, also quite moving, and although nothing particularly surprised me, it was still good to see someone writing this stuff at this time.

The Cottesloe had been set up with a central strip of stage, entrances either end, and simple furniture. To our left, there was a kitchen, and to our right was the entrance to the flat. Tom Hollander, dressed (I use the word loosely) in relaxed mode, plays Ned, who has designed an advanced guidance system for military drones. His brother Dan, played by Julian Rhind-Tutt, is a dentist, venturing into Botox, with a militant anti-war wife. Dan is fond of saying “yeah, no, yeah…” a lot, which is something I find myself doing; now I know how it sounds, I’ll have to stop doing it! It was very funny, though, as was most of their chat. In fact, the play changes mood gradually from the beginning, taking on a greater degree of menace towards the end, when Jason Watkins, as Brooks, the man from security, gets involved.

Ned wants to avoid his design being used in a bad way. He doesn’t mind people being killed as such (it’s fewer people than would be killed the conventional way), but he gets worried after talking with Dan that his application might actually be used to kill people who didn’t deserve it – innocent civilians, for example. In fact, the only surprise in the whole play was that anyone could be that intelligent nowadays and not have a clearer idea of what might be done with such an advanced weapon. Still, we allow our nerds and geeks some leeway in social matters, including how the world works, so it didn’t get in my way.

Pippa Haywood plays Angela Ross, the Commercial Director of the firm which Ned works for, and which wants to get a deal signed with the British government to manufacture the product. There’s a bit of commercial stuff about how the UK government wants 51% of the intellectual copyright, with the intention of selling on the weapon to other countries. Ned’s concern is how that may lead to the weapon being sold to countries that would use it in the wrong way, and he holds out for a controlling share of the IP rights. The Commercial Director does her best to persuade him to sign up to the existing deal, but it’s no go.

The scene shifts to the factory after the interval, and the set is changed quite simply. The carpet runner is removed, revealing aircraft shapes on the floor, the sides are lit differently to show up the glass bricks, and shadows of fighter planes are thrown onto these walls. It reminded me of the museum at Coventry, I think. As Ned is still refusing to play ball, the security man is called in, and Jason gives us a lovely turn as the cheerful chappy who’s all friendly to begin with, but who turns on the pressure to make sure Ned changes his mind.

Next we see Brooks applying the pressure to Dan, as Ned has scarpered, having ballsed up his coding to make the weapon useless. Dan isn’t made of particularly stern stuff, and after a short while “volunteers” to give Brooks all the information he could possibly want. The final scene is another duologue between Dan and Ned, where we find out what happened to Ned after he’s picked up by Brooks.

There was a lot of fun in the language and the performances, all of which were excellent. The play struck me as being more about the people and their relationship within the arms industry, plus Dan’s relationship with Ned. It is a bit scary to consider some of the possibilities for the way weapons are changing now, but the reality as experienced by our troops in Iraq shows that superior firepower only gets you so far. Peace cannot be so easily imposed on people who don’t want it, and increased technological superiority isn’t the final answer.

Must just mention the entertaining fight over the curry take away. I’m often distracted when there’s real food on stage, and this was no exception, but I still enjoyed the scrap between the two men, ending up with them lying, exhausted, across the table. Great fun.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Rose Tattoo – May 2007

8/10

By: Tennessee Williams

Directed by: Steven Pimlott and Nicholas Hytner

Venue: Olivier Theatre

Date: Tuesday 15th May 2007

Steve and I had seen this play many years ago, with a good cast, and a good director, but just hadn’t got it at all. Neither of us could remember much about it, apart from this sense of bewilderment. We’re both Williams fans though, so we wanted to give it another try. And we’re very glad we did.

As this was in the Olivier, the set design was basically the small house that Serafina lives in (minus a few of the rooms) on the revolve, so scene changes could be pretty brisk. The entire set was based on roses – a pattern of roses was etched onto the flooring underneath the house, and rose patterns appeared on many of the costumes (not just Serafina’s), and in much of the fabric. There was even a goat (no roses to be seen there) which was led round the front of the set a couple of times.

The fairly realistic setting certainly helped, but this production was much better than the one we’d seen before. I lost a fair bit of the dialogue at the start, as it took me a while to tune into the accents. The older generation are Italian immigrants, while the younger generation speak the southern way, except when speaking Italian. There was much more humour than I expected, although Tennessee isn’t the dourest writer by any means.

The story concerns an Italian woman, very prideful of her marriage to an Italian Baron, and even more prideful of his faithfulness, who eventually learns, years after her husband’s death during an intercepted drug delivery, that he hasn’t been faithful at all. She’s already spent those years mourning his death excessively, and this discovery threatens to tip her over the edge. Amazingly enough, this is the very day on which her daughter graduates from High School; she’s met a young man to whom she’s attracted, and this causes a bout of over-protectiveness from her mother. Serafina also meets a replacement man, another truck driver, who arranges to have a rose tattoo put on his chest to help him woo the lady. Everything seems to work out OK, though it’s a bumpy ride.

Having read the notes in the program, this was intended to be a more optimistic play than his usual, and it certainly comes across that way. Instead of a picture of domestic entanglements which are driving everyone crazy (or crazier), we get a greater sense of progression with this one, partly because of the long time gap between the husband’s death and the rest of the action, but also because the relationships are more open. The outside world is more involved through the female “chorus” of her Italian neighbours and their children, plus a few others, including the priest.

I was clear about who these people were this time, and the difficulties in the relationship between mother and daughter were both moving and entertaining. I could see how Serafina is driven by her passion, and I just enjoyed watching the events unfold. Nice one.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Attempts On Her Life – May 2007

3/10

By: Martin Crimp

Directed by: Katie Mitchell + company

Venue: Lyttelton Theatre

Date: Thursday 10th May 2007

This was dreadful. Not all the way through, but it’s an hour and three quarters I’ll never have back again.

The performance style was based on modern media. The actors didn’t play specific characters, instead they morphed in and out of various roles, as well as moving cameras and lights around, filming other actors, then becoming the focus of the cameras themselves. There was a huge screen lowered down so the audience could see what was being filmed, intercut with footage shot previously and with pictures layered and superimposed. All very technical, but to what end?

The general idea seemed to be to look at the role of women in our media-driven society, and particularly issues around women committing suicide. There was no specific woman – it’s any woman. There’s a good section looking at the use of women as sexual objects of desire in advertising, in this case, advertising a car. The advert (in Russian?) was translated into English, so we could get the humour. At the end, the usual caveats are scrolled across the screen, and the combination of these over pictures of a sexy woman, make it clear that we’re not meant to read the words – it’s the advertising equivalent of small print.

Another good part was the Abba imitation – the style is as for one of their Eighties’ hits, but the words are much tougher. The police interrogation sketch didn’t work so well for me – there have been so many comedy send-ups, never mind Life On Mars, that I found most of it just boring. There was one good line, though, when the coppers are pushing this guy to sign his statement, and he says he hasn’t got a pen.

Apart from that, I enjoyed the Newsnight Review sketch, with recognisable imitations of regular participants, e.g. Germaine Greer. Otherwise, I could barely get through the turgid stuff that was passing for a theatrical performance. No criticism of the actors is intended, even though they participated in the staging. I just didn’t find this performance style remotely engaging, in fact, quite the reverse. The use of cameras, the screen, mikes for the actors, etc., meant the whole piece was distanced from the audience – we might as well have watched a film, and the actors might as well have been acting in an empty theatre for all the exchange that was going on between us.

The opening section showed a bit of promise. The prison doors of the stage curtain creaked open to reveal a vast open space, filled with the cameras, etc that took such a central role later on. All the cast are milling around, and finally come forward to talk through some ideas about a woman, like a group of creatives at an advertising agency. There are a few good lines, but mostly, it’s a jumble, and not at all clear where it’s going. However, I stuck with it (unlike one gentleman behind us), and, sadly, was disappointed. The chorus line effect was repeated at the end, only in an even more incoherent fashion, though as I’d pretty much lost interest by this time, I really didn’t care.

With no characters, plot or anything resembling a play taking place on stage, it was impossible to get involved in these performances or any of the issues raised. The distancing effects previously mentioned added to that, and I actually felt disrespected as an audience member, and increasingly irrelevant. For the first time, I chose not to applaud at the end. I will go a long way to avoid seeing anything this banal again.

© 2007 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me