Tag Archives: Yvonne Arnaud

See How They Run – August 2008

7/10

By Philip King

Directed by Ian Masters

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Friday 29th August 2008

I enjoyed this performance very much. The play stands the test of time very well, with some of the humour becoming slightly less effective (references to Ladysmith, for example) while some lines gained a whole new meaning. Guy Siner, playing the escaped German, has to say the line “listen very carefully” – well, it had to get a big laugh. After a slight acknowledgement, almost apologetic I thought, the play went on.

The set was recycled (Arsenic and Old Lace, amongst others) but with double doors instead of a window to our right. The stairs were a bit skimpy – the Reverend Toop tripped up a couple of times, but recovered well.

The plot concerns a former actress who has become the wife of the vicar of Merton-cum-Middlewick, her husband the Reverend Toop, their maid Ida, the wife’s uncle who is the Bishop of Lax, a substitute vicar, an old acting friend of the wife’s, an escaped German prisoner, and an embittered old spinster from the village who had hoped to get her claws into the vicar herself, but now has to content herself with bitching about the vicar’s wife to the vicar. It’s a heady brew. We end up with four vicars, a drunken spinster (a remarkably flexible performance from Helen Jeckells – she managed a very slow slide down the side of the sofa) and the arrival of a policeman who’s part of the hunt for the missing German. All ends happily, except for the spinster, though as she’s still nine sheets to the wind and unconscious from being punched, she doesn’t know anything about it.

The punch in question was from Private Lives, as the wife and her actor friend had toured in that play for months some years ago, and could still remember their lines. Naturally they get into an argument about it, and have to go through it again to resolve the dispute, and the spinster, misunderstanding the nature of the physical tussle going on in the vicar’s sitting room, gets herself in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up unconscious on the sofa. I remarked to Steve in the interval that it was handy we’d only just seen Private Lives again, so it was fresh in our memory.

All the performances were good, but the two that made it so enjoyable for me were Helen Jeckells as Miss Skillon, who did the best drunk I’ve seen in a long time, and Harriet Usher as Ida, the maid. She managed to make the simple country girl relatively believable, and provided us with most of the best bits, such as when the Bishop tells her to say ‘your Grace’ when addressing him, and she starts off with ‘for what we are about to receive…’. The usual routine of the chase of the vicars was well done, including the little jumps over legs that are no longer there, and I left feeling well cheered up. Jolly good show.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Gertrude’s Secret – June 2008

6/10

By Benedick West

Directed by Andrew Loudon

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Thursday 26th June 2008

Tonight we saw Maureen, Terence, Candida, Alexander and Tina in the first half, and Eva, Desmond, Gertrude, Emily and Eric in the second half. This confused me a little, as the program had listed all these characters’ stories, and then said we would get a selection from them, potentially different each night. Not so, as it happens. And I’m not complaining.

There was no set as such. For the first half there were a few chairs and a bench, while the second half was more elaborate with a bed and a sofa.  Each story lasted about ten minutes – in some cases I was glad it wasn’t any longer, while others were much more entertaining. On the whole, we felt the women’s parts were better than the men’s, and I would put this down to the writing rather than the performances.

The first story was told by Maureen. Dressed in a vivid red coat and clutching her handbag, she started telling us about the man in her life, name of Derek (possibly). As she burbled on happily about how wonderful their relationship was, even though she had to make all the running, we gradually realised that this match made in heaven is entirely one sided. She’s a deluded stalker, and even when Derek screams “leave me alone” at her, she doesn’t take the hint. As she said, even the policeman agreed with her that she wasn’t doing anything illegal at the time. She gave us a quick flash of the outfit she was wearing under her coat – Derek was certainly in for a treat if he ever changes his mind (think black lacy underwear). At least she did regret poisoning his cat, which was very funny, even if a bit dark.

Terence sat in a pub, drinking his beer and telling us how proud he was of his son. Again, there’s a shift from light to dark, as we find out that his son is in prison for having knifed some other boys. I found this a bit dreary. It was well enough acted, but the rhythm of speech was very predictable – each section had a gentle piece followed by a bit of bellowing – and it was too soporific for me. I didn’t spot any humour to lighten the load, so I was glad when it finished.

Candida, named after the disease rather than the play, clearly had issues around sex. The recent arrival, and then departure of a foreign au pair led her to express  her dislike for messy sex with a man and speculate on the pleasures of woman on woman action. A few times the actress also showed us the au pair; she stood centre stage and was spotlit with the other lights lowered. This piece was mildly entertaining, though the best joke was probably at the start, when she was rubbing the stem of a highly suggestible plant with a view to pollinating it.

Alexander started his story at the front of the stage, and spotlit so that only head and shoulders were visible. He gave a rant along football supporter lines, then the lights came on and he became himself, dragging a drip round with him, the victim of an attack by that same rabid football hooligan. He was telling us about his experience, and gave us a another couple of glimpses of his attacker during the story. This was another section with little humour, and I found it hard to relate to these stories. There was little depth or insight to them, and without a funny line or two they couldn’t do more than pass the time.

Tina completed the first half. Pushing a pram, and wearing a bright yellow coat with matching accessories, she lets us into her world of cheap housing (condemned, even), poorly paid jobs, and a husband who’s just been sacked and is suffering from depression due to having fallen in the cement mix in a previous job. It’s funnier on the page than the stage. For all her best efforts, Ann Micklethwaite couldn’t rescue this piece. It didn’t seem to know what it was doing, and neither did I. Was it meant to be funny, sad, dark, some combination of these? The dialogue jumped around from place to place and never settled, so I just couldn’t get involved in what was a sad story with comic potential. If that had been it, I might have given the evening a 3/10 rating. Fortunately the second half proved to have a few gems to raise the standard.

To start us off, Eva treated us to a series of sexually confused malapropisms that were good fun. She was a cleaner, from a long line of cleaners, who’d cleaned for the best. As she tidied the bed and sofa, she chatted to us about her friends and so on. There were a number of good jokes, but all I can remember now is “penis colada”, a car called a “vulva”, and how uncomfortable her new “brasserie” was. We really had to pay attention with this one.

Desmond arrived on stage on a mobility buggy. He told us all about his success story, how he’d built up the best printers business in the area, and now sold it for a packet. He used a lot of printer’s jargon, which certainly made the character real, but also helped me keep my distance. His wife had left him, as he couldn’t provide anything but money, but he wasn’t downhearted. He was still full of energy and had plans for the future. He was going to open a sex shop cum strip joint, the first in the area. We were treated to some of the details – no expense spared – and then he was off to get the project started before we could pinch his idea.

Again, this was only mildly entertaining. The actor chose to go for volume jumps during this, talking quietly and conversationally for some parts, then for no apparent reason, shouting a line or two. I’ve never heard anyone talk like that in real life, at least not to such an extreme, so I’ve no idea what was intended.

Gertrude, the lady in the title, was played by Prunella Scales. Clad in dressing gown and slippers, she fretted for a while by the phone, anxious not to miss a call from her daughter. It was Gertrude’s birthday, and despite problems in their relationship, Gertrude was hoping her daughter would call.

Actually, relationship problems were nothing new to Gertrude, as she had a terrible time of it with her husband, what with the drinking, and then the beatings. The use of the past tense suggested she’d been on her own for quite a while, but it turned out she’d given herself a birthday present and stabbed the horrible man. His body was behind the sofa (she’d already made it clear she was house-proud, so she wouldn’t leave a messy body in full view), but she did remove the large carving knife she’d stuck in him, so we could see for ourselves she meant business. This was one of the better sections, and Prunella Scales added plenty of experience to make it very enjoyable.

The next story was definitely darker in tone. A young girl, Emily, appeared lying on the bed in her pyjamas, holding her teddy bear. She was in a hotel in Amsterdam, and her father had left her on her own so he could attend some business meetings. She was scared, and the TV in her room only showed weird stuff that she wasn’t interested in. She did her best to cheer herself up, and told us of a new friend she’d made via the internet. It was another girl just like her, same age, same hair colour and everything. She even lived very close to Emily’s house back in the UK. Emily had told her all about a secret place she goes to in the woods nearby, and she was going to meet her new friend there secretly once she got back. She was ever so excited about it. And she wasn’t going to tell her parents, so there. Oh dear. This was heart-rending stuff, though still in a fairly light vein, despite the subject matter.

The final scene involved Eric, a short-sighted old man wheeling a shopper around with him, and complaining bitterly to a cardboard cut out of a woman, whom he thinks is a shop assistant. I don’t remember any of the jokes now – they were pretty slight at the time – but it did raise one or two good laughs. All in all I enjoyed myself well enough, but I thought there was very little atmosphere in the theatre tonight, with relatively few seats sold, and perhaps these short pieces would do better in a smaller, more intimate space.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

London Assurance – June 2008

7/10

By Dion Boucicault

Directed by Nikolai Foster

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Friday 20th June 2008

We would all have enjoyed this play a lot more with a better audience. One chap fell asleep and was snoring for most of the first half. As he was on his own, and surrounded by empty seats, there was nobody to give him a delicate nudge, and so it continued. The couple next to me took a while to settle down, preferring their own conversation to the offering on stage, and although one of them did turn her mobile phone off, she waited till the play had already started! The rest of the audience was remarkably quiet – although it does take a while to get into gear, the cast were working very hard, and there was more to enjoy in the first half than you would have guessed from the audience’s reactions. All in all not the best reception for what was a very good production of a dated but still entertaining play.

As it’s a touring production, the set was compact. Basically a large circle, there was plenty of room left on the Yvonne Arnaud stage. There were two French windows on either side of the central door, curving round the rear of the circle, and seats and tables were moved around to create the different settings. All very efficient. Backdrops gave us the general locale, and there may have been some other scenery behind the windows.

We’d seen this play before, at Chichester, but I couldn’t remember much until the play got going. Sir Harcourt Courtly has a son whom he believes to be very straight-laced and shy of company, thanks to the many and varied lies told to him by his servant, Cool. In truth, his son is the complete man-about town, staying out till the cows have come home, been milked, had a kip and gone out again. Like his father, he usually sees sunrise before bedtime.

As this is a comedy, there has to be some unusual circumstance to complicate matters. In this case, it’s the extraordinary set up whereby Sir Harcourt will regain the lands he mortgaged to his neighbour provided he marries the neighbour’s daughter, Grace. If Grace doesn’t marry him (and she does have a say in the matter), all the lands will revert to Sir Harcourt’s heir, i.e. his son, Charles. When Grace and Charles take an instant and serious liking to one another, the opportunities for confusion and a happy ending are set up at the same time, for when they meet, he’s pretending to be another man, Augustus Hastings. Although she sees through his imposture very quickly when the time comes for him to reappear as himself, she’s not going to give him an easy time of it. This situation, coupled with Sir Harcourt’s fancy to seduce another, married, lady only days before his wedding to Grace, give us the main comedy of the play. There’s some humour in one of the subplots – a wannabe lawyer who tries to persuade everyone else to sue someone so he can make money. He eavesdrops freely, and comments on the action, which led to some laughs, but although the performance was good, either the production or tonight’s audience let it down.

In fact, all the performances were good. Gerard Murphy gave us a fairly robust Sir Harcourt, and this set off his affectations nicely. Geraldine McNulty played Lady Gay Spanker really well. With a name like that the laughs should come easily anyway, but she went beyond the basics. So despite the difficulties, and my own tendency to nap a bit during the early stages, I enjoyed this performance very much.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The English Game – May 2008

8/10

By Richard Bean

Directed by Sean Holmes

Company: Headlong

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Monday 12th May 2008

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

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

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

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

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

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

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The 39 Steps – April 2008

8/10

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

Directed by Maria Aitken, redirected for tour by David Newman

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Tuesday 22nd April 2008

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Clean House – April 2008

6/10

By Sarah Ruhl

Directed by John Dove

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Wednesday 9th April 2008

On the drive back, Steve and I decided this play was like a cross between Terms of Endearment and Art. There was quite an emphasis on relationships, and the play had several emotional moments, but the whole piece had an abstract, almost surreal air to it, and the emotions were never allowed to get too sentimental. The casting was excellent, and the performances likewise, but I found I never really got into the play as much as I would have liked.

What I did like was the set, the crossover action, the performances and the humour. The set was fairly simple. At the back was a doorway with some classical looking architecture above it which later turned into a balcony overlooking the sea. To our right was a window, and to our left a wall with a moveable table – a cross between a breakfast bar and an ironing board – and various cubby holes. Just off centre was a large white sofa with coffee table, and another chair completed the set. In addition, there were two large TV screens on either side, which gave us important information from time to time.

The plot: a seriously important lady doctor (Lane) has hired a young Brazilian woman to clean her house. She doesn’t have time to do it herself, and probably wouldn’t know how. (She didn’t know where her blankets were kept, for a start.) The young woman, Matilde, pronounced, as far as I could make out, Ma-til-je, is the daughter of the two funniest people in Brazil, or at least in her small home town in Brazil, and since they only died less than a year ago, and she doesn’t actually like cleaning (it makes her sad), she’s depressed. Lane has helped her as much as she could – got her into hospital, made sure she got anti-depressants – but to no avail. The play effectively starts with Lane’s sister, Virginia, offering to spend her free and all too empty afternoons cleaning her sister’s house in Matilde’s place. Apparently cleaning makes her feel good, although from her confidences to the audience, it mainly seems to stave off thoughts of suicide, death and other morbid subjects.

In the course of cleaning her sister’s house, Virginia and Matilde discover signs that Charles, Lane’s husband, is cheating on his wife. Flamboyant underpants are not Lane’s style, and when various pairs of sexy knickers turn up in the wash, it’s pretty clear what’s going on. Shortly afterwards, Lane discovers Virginia’s contribution to the clean house, and Charles announces he’s found his soul mate. (He used a Jewish term which I have no idea how to spell, always assuming I could remember it.) Apparently, in Jewish custom, this means he’s compelled to leave his wife for the other woman, who in this case is Ana, someone Charles has been treating for breast cancer (he’s a surgeon). Lane isn’t impressed by this decision, Virginia is happy for the new couple, and Matilde gets to split her time between the two households, on condition she tells Ana a joke every day. (Matilde is trying to think up the perfect joke – it’s a family thing.) Ana gets ill again, Charles heads off to Alaska to find a specific type of yew tree to bring back and plant in their garden to help cure her, but Ana dies from laughing at Matilde’s perfect joke before he can get back. Weird, or what?

What saved us all from maudlin sentimentality was the humour. Some of this came through the crossovers between the two locations. When the balcony comes forward during the second half, the characters on it throw various items over the rail, where they not only land on the stage below, they also land on the characters who are still in the sitting room, and who definitely notice them. First it’s apples, then it’s clothes. Also, just as we learn of Ana’s recurrence of her cancer, we see Charles on his quest for the special yew, all kitted out in winter gear, walking across the back of the stage as snow descends from the flies. Hilarious. He walks across a few times, and each time the snow pours down. Finally, we see him carrying this enormous tree that he’s cut down, and there’s a message about how he can’t get it on the plane, so he’s coming back some other way.

Another trick was to show us Matilde’s parents during her conversations with the audience. Oliver Cotton and Eleanor Bron doubled these parts with Charles and Ana. They would be trundled across the back of the stage on some seat or platform, doing whatever Matilde recalled them doing. Later, when Lane is imagining what Charles and Ana are up to, these two appear again, and when Matilde arrives on stage she’s horrified to find her parents in someone else’s imagination. It was a nice touch, and went along well with these overlapping realities.

I should also explain that some of the characters each have several goes at talking to the audience. In fact, the play opens that way. The TV screens showed various headings – character’s names, dates and places, and one time a translation of the Portuguese that Ana and Matilde are communicating in. Meantime, the characters Matilde, Lane and Virginia get to talk to us directly, setting the scene for what’s to come. Matilde probably did this the most. Her first “soliloquy” was done standing centre stage and telling jokes in Portuguese, to the accompaniment of rapturous canned laughter. Apparently, she’s very good at jokes. In Portuguese.

Apart from all this, there’s a lovely moment when Virginia loses it completely and wrecks Lane’s sitting room, even pulling the curtain rail and curtains off the window. It made for a messy end to the play, as there was no time to tidy anything up, but it was fun to see her let rip.

As I’ve said, the performances were excellent. Matilde was played by Natalia Tena, whom we’ve seen in the Shared Experience Bronte. Lane was played by Patricia Hodge, and Virginia by Joanna McCallum, so it was a pretty high-powered production all round. Probably not a play we’d choose to see again, but still good fun on the night.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

She Stoops To Conquer – April 2008

7/10

By Oliver Goldsmith, additional material by Bryony Lavery

Directed by Jonathan Munby

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Wednesday 2nd April 2008

This was a superb production of this play, with some hugely entertaining updates and a very good cast. To start with, there were three musicians playing on the stage when we entered the auditorium. Dressed in period gear, they were playing a sit-down drum, a violin and a stringed instrument. It was very pleasant. There were also two ushers at the bottom of each aisle and a stage curtain with the name of the play on it.

The musicians finished their set, and then the two ushers started arguing. Apparently the woman wanted the man to go out with her that evening, and he was reluctant. It took me a moment or two to realise these were the two leads, and by this time they were on the stage, and had launched into an updated version of the prologue. During this, the man scarpered, leaving the woman to finish off by asking for a method to teach this guy to be more affectionate towards her in public. Up goes the curtain, and she’s off to get changed.

The set was unusual. It had the requisite three walls and various doors, but the floor was curved, as if the floorboards had sagged over the years. It was also raked back to front, so it must have taken some getting used to. Anyway, we start off by getting to see Mr and Mrs Hardcastle at some meal, possibly breakfast. Colin Baker and Liza Goddard gave us a very good husband and wife. This was obviously a second marriage by a social climber who lost no opportunity to remind everyone of her first husband, Squire Lumpkin. Her affectations were prominent, as were her intentions of keeping her niece’s jewels in the family by marrying her off to her son, Tony Lumpkin, whose age is being kept a secret. Mr Hardcastle is a kindly gentleman, with a bit of a temper at times, but more of the cuddly sort than otherwise. I remember seeing Tom Baker playing him years ago, and choosing to leap around in a very odd way. This was a much more believable performance.

The plots are being set up nicely. The usherette turns up, in a lovely green frock (the couples were colour-coded), and we get a moment of her admiring the gown she’s  wearing before the character of Kate Hardcastle takes over, and she and her father are explaining the situation. She wears what she likes during the day, but dresses more plainly in the evening, to please him. From here on, it’s a jolly romp through all the misunderstandings and manners of the period. Tony Lumpkin misleads the suitors into thinking they’re at an inn when in fact they’ve arrived at their destination, and the confusion gives us some lovely scenes.

I particularly liked the first conversation between Kate and Marlow. She was intelligent and lively, while he was hugely embarrassed and almost incoherent at times. In fact, it’s surprising how well he does manage, although she does help him a lot once they’re left alone. Both of these performances were excellent, and for once I found it believable (just) for a man to be so brash and arrogant with those he considers his inferiors, and so tongue-tied when a posh bird comes along.

I also liked the scene in the garden. Trees were lowered down to create the setting very effectively, and Mrs Hardcastle, all mired with mud and her dress in tatters, was wonderfully funny. Later she tries to use her fan, realises it’s falling to bits, and closes it again with a grimace. Beautifully done.

Jonathan Broadbent as Tony Lumpkin was the best I’ve seen in this role. He’s not so much stupid as uneducated and high-spirited, with a native cunning that will probably get him through life without too much difficulty. He may have caused a lot of the problems that the various couples face, but he’s quick to sort things out when he learns that he is of age by renouncing his cousin immediately, and letting her marry the man of her choice and keep her jewels.

There was a dance to start the second half, one much loathed by the company apparently. I enjoyed it, though others in the audience weren’t sure what it was about. I reckoned it was a kind of reprise of the action so far. At the end of the play, we were treated to another dance, and then an updated epilogue, with some entertaining references. All ends happily, as the bashful usher arrives with some large sheets of card to save him having to speak his words of love out loud. Ah.

All the performances were to the same high standard, and it made for a very enjoyable evening. The director had decided to add the musicians, and they contribute a lot throughout the play, especially when covering the scene changes as well as livening up the tavern scene. The lines came across very clearly, and the dialogue seemed very fresh for once. At the post show I asked if they had cut it much, but apparently they had only dropped a few obscure references. The freshness must have been down to the standard of the production, which was definitely the best I’ve seen of this play.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Uncle Vanya – March 2008

6/10

By Anton Chekov, translated by Stephen Mulrine

Directed by Peter Hall

Company: Peter Hall Company

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Wednesday 12th March 2008

This is one of the few plays where I saw a fantastic production first time out, which makes it difficult for me to be entirely fair to all subsequent productions. This one didn’t do too badly, mind you, and the translation was excellent – suitably up-to-date and flowing without jarring at all.

It was the first production put on in the new Rose Theatre at Kingston, and the set reflects that acting space. The stage is basically an open space, with no flats and minimal dressing. There’s a tree to reflect the countryside, but otherwise it’s just tables, chairs, a piano and an easel, all of which are moved around to create the appropriate rooms. It’s an interesting use of space, giving a very open feel, and acknowledging the theatricality of the piece while still giving us fairly precise locations to frame the action. I liked that awareness of the artificiality. This is the first time I’ve seen a production of a Chekov play where the comedic emphasis really worked. I could see what the writer was trying to achieve – these are comedies after all – and could appreciate the humour he was bringing out by having such over-the-top reactions from such ordinary folk. I still feel there’s more to be got out of the play on the emotional side than I saw tonight, but I have a better understanding of Chekov’s sense of humour now, which I hope will help when I see his other plays.

The performances were good overall. The best for me was Loo Brealy as Sonya. She got across the range of that character’s emotions very well, from her rampant explanation of the doctor’s ideas to her attempt to comfort her uncle at the end of the play. I also liked Ronald Pickup as the professor, as I found I could relate both to his feelings as he goes through his pain and discomfort, and to the effect he’s having on everyone around him, making them dance attendance and disrupting the smooth running of the household. It’s Yelena’s beauty that disrupts the emotional life of the estate, but it’s his presence in the first place that throws the rhythm of their lives out of balance and makes them more vulnerable to the other temptations (I reckon). His grumpiness was mainly down to his ill-health, and once the nanny character gave him some sympathy, he was putty in her hands.

I also noticed how much the characters seemed to be throwing their lines at each other, and not really communicating at all, except sporadically. The soliloquies were also presented clearly, with each soliloquiser coming to the centre front of the stage to speak to the audience. No musing out loud here, which is another way the theatricality of the piece was emphasised.

The doctor, played by Neil Pearson, was sneaking vodka into his tea during the first scene. I was less sure this time that the doctor actually does as much work as he says he does. Like most of the men in this play, he’s good at grumbling, including grumbling about how much other people grumble. Michelle Dockery as Yelena gave me the impression of a fish out of water. She had no idea how to live in the country, and although she was honest enough about her feelings for her husband, that was about the extent of her virtues. She doesn’t want to work, she’s trapped in a loveless marriage, and she doesn’t seem to realise how much of an effect she’s having on the people around her, apart from her husband. I didn’t get the feeling that she’s really interrogating the doctor about Sonya in order to snare him for herself this time.

So overall it was an enjoyable evening, with some interesting variations that have given me a fair bit to think about. The post-show discussion added a few pieces of information, which I’ve incorporated into the notes.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

The Deep Blue Sea – March 2008

6/10

By Terence Rattigan

Directed by Edward Hall

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Monday 3rd March 2008

This is one of my favourite plays, but I have seen productions I prefer to this one. Rattigan is the master of restrained emotions, of showing people who have deep feelings within themselves that rarely, if ever, find expression, and when they do, it’s usually not convenient for themselves or others. Here the emotions were clearly displayed, almost overly so, and that feeling of social restraint was completely lost. I couldn’t see why Hester, the wife, wouldn’t just say, “Sod this for a game of soldiers”, and leave with the husband the first time he came calling, but then we wouldn’t have had a full evening, which would have been a shame.

The set was the usual tatty flat. This one was tattier than most, and the back wall had a see-through cut-away so that we could see the action on the landing and stairs. The performances were fine – no criticism of the actors is intended here – but the direction made the whole play seem flabbier than it is. There’s a lot of power under the surface, but when it’s not held back, it doesn’t come across as strongly. Greta Scacchi was a fairly robust Hester, who looked as if she’d be perfectly capable of seeing off several Freddies. Probably captained her school hockey team, you know the sort. She was more restrained in the final scene with Mr Miller, and that worked better for me. Simon Williams was almost too good as the husband. He came across as more understanding and less straight-laced than I’ve seen before, which was fine in terms of relating to the way his character suffers as he sees the woman he loves going under, but doesn’t help to explain why she doesn’t just pack a bag and scarper back to a reasonably good life with a loving husband. I would have.

And given this Freddie, I might not have waited till my husband turned up. I couldn’t make out why Dugald Bruce-Lockhart was veering into campness in his portrayal of Freddie. I realised afterwards that they might have been trying to suggest that the problem with the relationship was that Freddie was a closet homosexual, and so couldn’t love Hester as she wanted to be loved. If so, I can see where they’re coming from. Rattigan was gay, and this play was triggered by his own grief at an ex-lover’s suicide. Not being able to put such matters explicitly on the stage (although the first draft was apparently about two gay men), Rattigan changed the characters round to be more acceptable.

It’s a fine idea, and with another play, or another production, it might work, but although Rattigan has plenty going on inside each character, he doesn’t have a lot of ambiguity going on in his plays. Freddie is clearly an ex-RAF pilot who is having trouble adjusting to regular life after the excitement and lack of responsibility of the war years. If he is a closet gay, he’s not out even to himself, and if they were trying to insert this as a possible motivation for his character, then I feel they did the play a disservice. Trust the text. Whatever the cause, I felt this portrayal unbalanced the play, making it more about Freddie than about Hester’s unreasoning and uncontrollable passion. Given all that, Dugald gave a fine performance of a character that Rattigan didn’t write. His borrowing of the shilling to leave for Hester brought a gasp from the audience. It’s certainly a shocking moment, and came across as well as I can remember.

The other supports were fine. Jacqueline Tong was good as the gossipy landlady Mrs Elton, while Geoff Breton and Rebecca O’Mara grated just enough as the unsophisticated young couple determined to help, and gave us a nice insight into other people’s relationships. Jack Tarlton as Jackie Jackson did a good job of showing us just how embarrassing Freddie had become. But the accolades for the evening had to go to Tim McMullan as Mr Miller, the foreign ex-doctor who helps Hester in more ways than just the medical. He conveyed a sense of that character’s hinterland, which I often feel is as big as most people’s countries. I was moved to tears as he did his best to persuade Hester not to have another go at suicide.

For once, Hester’s paintings were actually visible on the stage, including a study of Freddie. Unfortunately, they were of a quality to stretch credulity when Hester’s husband professed to like one of them. The earlier piece over the fireplace was better, but now I see why they’re often left invisible to the audience.

Although it wasn’t entirely to my liking, I still enjoyed the evening, as it’s a very good play, and the production did have its good moments.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me

Testing The Echo – February 2008

5/10

By David Edgar

Directed by Matthew Dunster

Company: Out of Joint

Venue: Yvonne Arnaud Theatre

Date: Tuesday 26th February 2008

This is a new play, dealing with the experience of becoming a British citizen. In a number of short scenes, we follow the difficulties and successes of a varied group of people, some who are taking a language class and integrating their citizenship training within that, and some who are studying individually. We also get to know their reasons for wanting citizenship, although I realise I’m completely unsure of the motivation of one of the most important characters in the play, Nasrim. She’s the hijab-wearing Muslim woman who finds great difficulty in adapting to the British approach to life, objecting to even looking at a picture of a cooked breakfast as it contains pork. She eventually makes a complaint against the teacher of the class, Emma, and succeeds in driving her out of that school, and possibly out of teaching altogether

This was one of the good aspects of the production – it didn’t try to preach or moralise about the rights and wrongs of any situation, but did its best to let the characters tell their stories and leave the audience to take from it what they would. At the time, I felt that Nasrim was sincere in her beliefs, but without more information on her point of view, other than her holy book says this, or her culture says that, I’m left feeling that her character is ultimately the loser, as she remains ignorant of other possibilities for relating to people. I’m also in the dark as to why she wanted citizenship in the first place, and therefore it’s hard to assess her responses. If she wanted greater freedom and equality, then she needed to learn that other people are free too, free to choose what they want to do. It’s difficult to balance the operation of a tolerant society when there are those within it who are intolerant of those liberties – and that applies as much to our politicians as it does to immigrants or existing citizens. Still, it obviously got us thinking, and that’s no bad thing.

To help the audience understand the new citizenship test, there were lots of information snippets through the play, more at the beginning and less later on as the characters developed and their situations took over the play. I did find some of the info stuff a bit boring. It was more like a lesson than a play at times. There was a screen along the back of the acting area, and a couple of times they used this to demonstrate the difference between the original citizenship manual “Life in the UK – A Journey to Citizenship”, and the second edition, which had been “simplified”. I suspect the excerpts used were meant to make a point, but I just found them confusing, apart from a couple of comparisons in the second set, which did at least make a small joke. It wasn’t always clear how the second version had been changed from the first, and so the effort was wasted on me.

Apart from the screen, there was only the acting space, eight actors, lots of chairs and a couple of tables. The actors carried off numerous parts really well, and as their stories started to emerge, I began to enjoy the performance. At first it was dry and rather dull, but there were some interesting observations. The personal stories gave me more of an insight into some of the difficulties faced by immigrants who don’t know English particularly well, and whose cultures do nothing to prepare them for ours. One chap was constantly teased at work by his colleagues, who took his test book and kept asking him questions and poking fun at him. But they were silenced when he turned out to know a lot about football. And when one woman got her citizenship certificate, she was finally able to negotiate a better deal from her partner, who had been treating her more like property than a person. The fact that incomers to this country even have to be told that it’s an offence to be violent towards their partner is a shocking indictment of the treatment of women worldwide, and one reason why I still consider our culture more advantageous than some on the planet. We’re not perfect, but at least we seem to have learned some valuable lessons; I hope we don’t unlearn them in trying to treat all other cultures as equal to ours.

We also attended the post-show discussion, but although there were some interesting comments, I didn’t learn more about the production than I’d already seen. Sadly, I didn’t think to ask what the title meant, so I’ve no idea how that relates to the play. On the whole I enjoyed it, but there were dull moments.

© 2008 Sheila Evans at ilovetheatre.me