I was very excited to see 13 because Earthquakes in London was one of my favourite plays of last year. However 13 did not quite have the emotional punch of Earthquakes. I think this was because Earthquakes concentrated on presenting a terrifying view of climate change, confronting us with a selfish present and a dystopian future that was very close to the bone. 13 on the other hand tried to represent a much wider issue of belief and apathy in today's society. Although the points about whether we can change our world in a big way or whether it is best to compromise to affect the changes we can were interesting, the issues were a bit too broad and therefore lacked impact. I didn't really like the way religious faith was associated with demanding political change through protest because I don't see a link between those things in real life people.
It was slightly unsatisfying to watch the idealist and symbol of hope in the play be confronted with the harsh reality. His protest, a result of his speeches in Hyde Park going viral on YouTube, arrives at Westminster and he is granted a meeting with the Prime minister. The PM is a popular liberal conservative who also happens to be the mother of his friend who died as a result of a drunken stunt a couple of years previously.
The resulting negotiations are too complicated for the audience to choose a side, these issues are not black and white. But while that might be very realistic, it doesn't make for the most satisfying play to watch.
What did make the play great to watch were the sparkling snappy clever dialogue you'd expect from Mike Bartlett and the colourful realistic characters who you just had to empathise with. The overarching metaphor of peeking inside the box was brilliantly realised with an enormous revolving box which made up the set in the first half which the characters would act around and inside. I felt a bit bereft when this box was removed in the interval because I liked it so much.
The touches of London that crept onto the stage made the production feel very contemporary, at one point a Barclays bike whizzed across the stage. However the play's claim to be set in a slightly alternative London where strange things happen did not make sense to me. There was nothing explicitly supernatural going on, many of the characters and events were certainly bizarre, like the brilliant old lady playing and singing a Rhianna song on the piano. But the real London is full of bizarre characters doing funny things, so the only reason to set the play in "a dark and magical landscape, a London both familiar and strange" was so the play could portray a realistic London but include a Prime Minister, US envoy etc without satirising real people. I thought this was a bit of a cop-out for the playwright.
Reading this post back, it seems a little negative. I actually loved this play, it was funny and deep and engaging and contemporary. I'm being a bit hard on it because I loved Earthqakes so much. And this is not quite as brilliant as Earthquakes.
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Sunday, 13 November 2011
43 - Sweeney Todd, Chichester Festival Theatre
I love Sweeney Todd, Tim Burton's film is one of my favourite DVDs. But I didn't really appreciate the powerful operatic music until I saw this production. And for me to appreciate music in a production is quite a feat as I am severely musically challenged.
This truly spectacular production is transferring to the West End shortly and I would urge you to see it. It is grand in every way, the set is a behemoth of complexity, complete with a working barber's chair with trap door leading to a lower level where Mrs Lovett prepares her gruesome pies in an enormous roaring oven. The music is beautiful, the dialogue sparkles, the blood splatters all over the place and for fans of dark comedy there are more laughs than a Nighty Night Christmas special.
Imelda Staunton plays a hilarious Mrs Lovett, her rendition of Try The Priest with Michael Ball is a highlight of the show.
Michael Ball really exceeded my expectations, resisting the urge towards camp which the role can lean towards, he was brooding and menacing providing the perfect contrast to the exuberant Staunton. I suspect I won't quite see him in the same way ever again.
Look out for Peter Polycarpou as Beedle Bamford too, he was excellent and really make me giggle.
If I had a criticism of this production it would be of the decision to set it in the early 20th century. I mean, when you go to see Sweeney Todd you do want to see grimy Victorian London and I felt a bit cheated by the more modern dress and neon-lit pie shop. It was a bit like going to see Oliver! only to find it set in the 1980s. I don't feel like this added much to the production and don't think it necessary to chance the setting merely to hammer home a message that corruption and down-trodden working classes still exist today.
This truly spectacular production is transferring to the West End shortly and I would urge you to see it. It is grand in every way, the set is a behemoth of complexity, complete with a working barber's chair with trap door leading to a lower level where Mrs Lovett prepares her gruesome pies in an enormous roaring oven. The music is beautiful, the dialogue sparkles, the blood splatters all over the place and for fans of dark comedy there are more laughs than a Nighty Night Christmas special.
Imelda Staunton plays a hilarious Mrs Lovett, her rendition of Try The Priest with Michael Ball is a highlight of the show.
Michael Ball really exceeded my expectations, resisting the urge towards camp which the role can lean towards, he was brooding and menacing providing the perfect contrast to the exuberant Staunton. I suspect I won't quite see him in the same way ever again.
Look out for Peter Polycarpou as Beedle Bamford too, he was excellent and really make me giggle.
If I had a criticism of this production it would be of the decision to set it in the early 20th century. I mean, when you go to see Sweeney Todd you do want to see grimy Victorian London and I felt a bit cheated by the more modern dress and neon-lit pie shop. It was a bit like going to see Oliver! only to find it set in the 1980s. I don't feel like this added much to the production and don't think it necessary to chance the setting merely to hammer home a message that corruption and down-trodden working classes still exist today.
Saturday, 15 October 2011
42 - The Mummy's Tomb, Exit Theatre at the Charles Cryer, Carshalton
I really enjoyed the big colourful characters in this production, but probably would have cut it down as it lacked the substance needed to keep our attention for such a long play.
This typical egyptian Mummy story sees an egyptologist, his daughter and her suitors on a quest to discover a lost tomb, only to uncover a cursed undead Mummy.
The best performances were those played in the required cartoonish style, so the characters which really shone were inevitably the baddies. Scott Nicholson was very funny as a posh trigger-happy Lord Soaper, but I did think a comedy walk would have completed the character. Sarah Jane was a real gem as the evil Egyptian queen and dominated the stage. James Farr played an excellent Nazi villain with a great stage presence who perhaps just needed to be a bit louder when talking in Arabic gibberish to the Egyptians.
The fights and action scenes should have been more cartoonish too to give a definite style to the whole thing, the best parts were the comic punches where there was a batman style sound effect.
Overall the acting felt like the actors had been asked to reign in the ott characters to make it more naturalistic like Indiana Jones, which didn't work. We didn't sympathise with the one dimensional characters, so we just wanted it to be funny.
This was one of the things which gave me the feeling the director, Graham Butler, did not seem to know what he was directing. The play was billed as a farce in the literature which it definitely wasn't. If anything it was a spoof, but not one which made any particularly knowing comments or jokes on the genre. The script was a melodrama, but Exit had cut out the songs so it no longer held together as one. It did occur to me that perhaps it was a family production for kids, who might have enjoyed it if it had been cut down a bit. However the promotional material did seem to be aimed at adults so I was left a bit bemused about who the target audience was, and what we were supposed to be watching.
There was some clever set construction, I particularly really liked the boat which folded up from the raised back area of the stage with the black curtains at the back pulled apart in a triange shape so the white wall behind created the appearance of sails. There was also a scne in which Lucy Hamilton as the archeologist's dim but attractive daughter was shown in silhouette in a tent being attacked by a snake which was very well executed technically and ended with a hillarious rescue with James Farr fighting a toy snake.
Overall this was fun but too serious at points and far too long, there is a reason Scooby Doo is only a ten minute cartoon and we grew rather weary by the end of the show!
This typical egyptian Mummy story sees an egyptologist, his daughter and her suitors on a quest to discover a lost tomb, only to uncover a cursed undead Mummy.
The best performances were those played in the required cartoonish style, so the characters which really shone were inevitably the baddies. Scott Nicholson was very funny as a posh trigger-happy Lord Soaper, but I did think a comedy walk would have completed the character. Sarah Jane was a real gem as the evil Egyptian queen and dominated the stage. James Farr played an excellent Nazi villain with a great stage presence who perhaps just needed to be a bit louder when talking in Arabic gibberish to the Egyptians.
The fights and action scenes should have been more cartoonish too to give a definite style to the whole thing, the best parts were the comic punches where there was a batman style sound effect.
Overall the acting felt like the actors had been asked to reign in the ott characters to make it more naturalistic like Indiana Jones, which didn't work. We didn't sympathise with the one dimensional characters, so we just wanted it to be funny.
This was one of the things which gave me the feeling the director, Graham Butler, did not seem to know what he was directing. The play was billed as a farce in the literature which it definitely wasn't. If anything it was a spoof, but not one which made any particularly knowing comments or jokes on the genre. The script was a melodrama, but Exit had cut out the songs so it no longer held together as one. It did occur to me that perhaps it was a family production for kids, who might have enjoyed it if it had been cut down a bit. However the promotional material did seem to be aimed at adults so I was left a bit bemused about who the target audience was, and what we were supposed to be watching.
There was some clever set construction, I particularly really liked the boat which folded up from the raised back area of the stage with the black curtains at the back pulled apart in a triange shape so the white wall behind created the appearance of sails. There was also a scne in which Lucy Hamilton as the archeologist's dim but attractive daughter was shown in silhouette in a tent being attacked by a snake which was very well executed technically and ended with a hillarious rescue with James Farr fighting a toy snake.
Overall this was fun but too serious at points and far too long, there is a reason Scooby Doo is only a ten minute cartoon and we grew rather weary by the end of the show!
Wednesday, 28 September 2011
38 - Kiss Me Like You Mean It Bench Theatre at The Spring
I don't think this is a brilliant play, but four spectacular performances and skilled direction from Callum West made it a brilliant production.
Dan Finch was hilarious as soon as he emerged on stage dancing around with an inflatable shark singing Tom Jones' 'Sex Bomb'. He played Tony, a slightly drunk young man emerging into the yard from a house party to get some air. Soon he was joined by the cool, slightly sarcastic Ruth (Rosie Carter) and they attempted a conversation which evolved from embarrassing small talk and chat up lines to warm affection and chemistry. The delivery of the dialogue was varied and funny, some of the awkward moments between the two of them could have been from Peep Show or The Inbetweeners. While it's always funny to watch an awkward young man failing to find the words to chat up a pretty girl, this had the added bonus of a well developed and realistically flawed female character which made the performance much warmer. It was easy to identify with Ruth's obvious frustration as she talked about her life, a life she clearly felt had veered of course somehow, and didn't know quite what to do to put it right again. Carter's Ruth was fiery and stroppy which contrasted with Finch's laid-back slightly philosophical Tony brilliantly.
The staging of this first half could easily have been quite static, but I thought it was blocked out very well with just enough movement to keep the scene interesting without being distracting.
Much of the conversation at the interval was about the plausibility of the young couple's situation. It's true, I don't think the sudden attraction between the two of them is particularly realistic. I've been to a few similar parties and I can't see two twenty-somethings who have never met abandoning their respective partners inside a party to sit in the garden, form an attraction and make declarations of love to each other within the space of an evening. Unless they were on drugs or really drunk or something. And even then they'd probably just have sex.
However I also believe that a play can show something true without being particularly realistic. And accelerating a relationship to develop in just an evening between two very believable characters is just one of those things you can do in a play but not in a film. Particularly when it creates such lovely symmetry with the narrative of the other two characters.
However that's not to say I thought this was a great script, at times it tended towards the mawkish and contrived. But the great comic timing of all the actors involved meant it was touching and enjoyable.
The relationship between the young couple, the staging and the costumes seemed very fresh and modern, I don't know if that was just because I found them so recognisable. However this meant the slightly retro references in the first half jarred and felt a bit anachronistic, I think these could have been easily swapped out to bring the play bang up to date and give more contrast between the new couple and the old. I didn't see any reason to keep the play set in some recent decade rather than the present.
What really got to me about the play was the spellbinding performances by Sally Hartley and Peter Woodward as the older couple, Edie and Don. Having spent 50 years together, Edie and Don are reaching the end. Don has a brain tumour and they plan to inject themselves with insulin as the sun rises, ending life on their own terms. So they spend the night drinking all the old alcohol hanging around their flat and having rampant sex in full view of their window, which is where we, and Tony and Ruth, first glimpse them. The energy and sparkle both actors put into everything made their impending death all the more heartbreaking. From the hilarious scantily clad wiggling in the window to Edie's rush out to plant their house plants in the yard and Don's quest to source a curry flavoured condom, with the help of a perplexed Tony they took us with them all the way and portrayed a brilliantly believable partnership. But while Edie and Don still had much to give, they clearly wanted to go now, while they still shone brightly after a happy life, not eaten away cancer or lonely old age and there was no arguing with this decision.
We cried buckets. I had tears streaming down my face and could hear my mum sobbing away behind me. Edie and Don reminded me of my grandparents, even while not actually being anything like them really, and made me hope I find someone to love like that into old age and beyond.
Dan Finch was hilarious as soon as he emerged on stage dancing around with an inflatable shark singing Tom Jones' 'Sex Bomb'. He played Tony, a slightly drunk young man emerging into the yard from a house party to get some air. Soon he was joined by the cool, slightly sarcastic Ruth (Rosie Carter) and they attempted a conversation which evolved from embarrassing small talk and chat up lines to warm affection and chemistry. The delivery of the dialogue was varied and funny, some of the awkward moments between the two of them could have been from Peep Show or The Inbetweeners. While it's always funny to watch an awkward young man failing to find the words to chat up a pretty girl, this had the added bonus of a well developed and realistically flawed female character which made the performance much warmer. It was easy to identify with Ruth's obvious frustration as she talked about her life, a life she clearly felt had veered of course somehow, and didn't know quite what to do to put it right again. Carter's Ruth was fiery and stroppy which contrasted with Finch's laid-back slightly philosophical Tony brilliantly.
The staging of this first half could easily have been quite static, but I thought it was blocked out very well with just enough movement to keep the scene interesting without being distracting.
Much of the conversation at the interval was about the plausibility of the young couple's situation. It's true, I don't think the sudden attraction between the two of them is particularly realistic. I've been to a few similar parties and I can't see two twenty-somethings who have never met abandoning their respective partners inside a party to sit in the garden, form an attraction and make declarations of love to each other within the space of an evening. Unless they were on drugs or really drunk or something. And even then they'd probably just have sex.
However I also believe that a play can show something true without being particularly realistic. And accelerating a relationship to develop in just an evening between two very believable characters is just one of those things you can do in a play but not in a film. Particularly when it creates such lovely symmetry with the narrative of the other two characters.
However that's not to say I thought this was a great script, at times it tended towards the mawkish and contrived. But the great comic timing of all the actors involved meant it was touching and enjoyable.
The relationship between the young couple, the staging and the costumes seemed very fresh and modern, I don't know if that was just because I found them so recognisable. However this meant the slightly retro references in the first half jarred and felt a bit anachronistic, I think these could have been easily swapped out to bring the play bang up to date and give more contrast between the new couple and the old. I didn't see any reason to keep the play set in some recent decade rather than the present.
What really got to me about the play was the spellbinding performances by Sally Hartley and Peter Woodward as the older couple, Edie and Don. Having spent 50 years together, Edie and Don are reaching the end. Don has a brain tumour and they plan to inject themselves with insulin as the sun rises, ending life on their own terms. So they spend the night drinking all the old alcohol hanging around their flat and having rampant sex in full view of their window, which is where we, and Tony and Ruth, first glimpse them. The energy and sparkle both actors put into everything made their impending death all the more heartbreaking. From the hilarious scantily clad wiggling in the window to Edie's rush out to plant their house plants in the yard and Don's quest to source a curry flavoured condom, with the help of a perplexed Tony they took us with them all the way and portrayed a brilliantly believable partnership. But while Edie and Don still had much to give, they clearly wanted to go now, while they still shone brightly after a happy life, not eaten away cancer or lonely old age and there was no arguing with this decision.
We cried buckets. I had tears streaming down my face and could hear my mum sobbing away behind me. Edie and Don reminded me of my grandparents, even while not actually being anything like them really, and made me hope I find someone to love like that into old age and beyond.
Sunday, 18 September 2011
36 - Peer Gynt, Theatre Collection at the Lord Stanley in Camden
Theatre Collection use physical theatre and dance in a bare studio space to tell the story of Ibsen's Peer Gynt like a fairy tale. There was some skilful physical theatre, the highlight for me was when all the actors came together to create the Troll king, simple techniques like using another actor's hands as his own meant the central figure was able to represent an otherworldly creature in a really effective way.
I also loved the dark comedy when Peer came across what appeared to be an asylum in Egypt. Sebastian Canciglia as the raving Egyptian introducing the madmen was brilliantly comic and disturbing.
There was scarcely much of Ibsen's epic play remaining which meant that from the start the piece was very fast-paced. This meant that as I didn't know the play very well I felt a little confused about what the bigger questions of the text were and what it was saying. After seeing Ibsen's Emporer and Galilean at The National where you come away thinking about the human condition, religion and our place in the world, I found it a little difficult to adjust to taking Peer Gynt more as a simple fairy tale. However as the play is very narrative and there was a narrator figure guiding us through the plot was not difficult to follow.
The fast pace made the play into a series of strange visions, rather like being in someone else's dream which was complemented by the live music and interesting instruments the cast used. This was really clever and helped create the traditional story telling atmosphere.
There was also some lovely singing particularly the refrain from Nicola Fox playing Peer's love Solveig who waits for him and grows old as he travels the world.
Oliver Hollis-Leick played Peer Gynt very convincingly both as a young and impulsive dreamer and later as a more reflective older man. His charismatic and naive charm made him the ideal central fairytale hero, which was in ironic contrast to his flawed actions.
Don't go to see this to see Ibsen, go to see a slice of traditional skilful storytelling and you will enjoy it immensely.
I also loved the dark comedy when Peer came across what appeared to be an asylum in Egypt. Sebastian Canciglia as the raving Egyptian introducing the madmen was brilliantly comic and disturbing.
There was scarcely much of Ibsen's epic play remaining which meant that from the start the piece was very fast-paced. This meant that as I didn't know the play very well I felt a little confused about what the bigger questions of the text were and what it was saying. After seeing Ibsen's Emporer and Galilean at The National where you come away thinking about the human condition, religion and our place in the world, I found it a little difficult to adjust to taking Peer Gynt more as a simple fairy tale. However as the play is very narrative and there was a narrator figure guiding us through the plot was not difficult to follow.
The fast pace made the play into a series of strange visions, rather like being in someone else's dream which was complemented by the live music and interesting instruments the cast used. This was really clever and helped create the traditional story telling atmosphere.
There was also some lovely singing particularly the refrain from Nicola Fox playing Peer's love Solveig who waits for him and grows old as he travels the world.
Oliver Hollis-Leick played Peer Gynt very convincingly both as a young and impulsive dreamer and later as a more reflective older man. His charismatic and naive charm made him the ideal central fairytale hero, which was in ironic contrast to his flawed actions.
Don't go to see this to see Ibsen, go to see a slice of traditional skilful storytelling and you will enjoy it immensely.
Wednesday, 3 August 2011
31 - Daisy pulls it off, Bench Theatre at The Spring
It was all jolly hockey sticks in this brilliant production of a silly play about young gels at school.
I have a real nostalgia for cheerful tales of boarding schools and midnight feasts. As a childhood Enid Blyton fan and a current Harry Potter enthusiast nothing cheers me up like a jolly story of treasure hunting in a boarding school.
Mark Wakeman really knows his stage comedy and the clever staging here was a case in point. He understands that we don't want to hang around waiting for the next laugh so scene changes were accomplished with the blink of an eye, hilarious grumpy cameos by the backstage crew served as book cases in the library and portraits in the great hall.
The character of Daisy Meredith, plucky scholarship girl who is good at literally everything, is hard to fall in love with. I'm sure I would have hated her at school - no-one should be good at lessons AND sport. Luckily Beth Evans played her with such warmth and the whole play was so tongue in cheek we were all rooting for her anyway. This was helped by the brilliantly evil Draco Malfoy-esque snob Sybil Burlington (Fern Bicheno) and crony Monica Smithers (Rosie Carter) who were great fun to hate.
Tamsin Halford really stole the show as Daisy's poetic, scatty friend Trixie Martin. Her state of perpetual wide-eyed excitement was infectious and the way she ran on and off stage was especially funny, it really reminded me of how my own sister Daisy used to run around.
The whole cast was really brilliant but my other personal favourites were the dynamic duo of head girl Clare Beaumont (Alice Corrigan) and her friend Alice (Jo Gardner.) They took what could have been the duller parts of the play and made them the best with terrific over the top poses and speeches, they could have stepped straight out of a comic.
What made this the best fun to watch was the feeling that everyone on stage was enjoying themselves immensely. I hope Bench Theatre finds more plays in the future to showcase this amazing amount of young female talent. Such fun.
I have a real nostalgia for cheerful tales of boarding schools and midnight feasts. As a childhood Enid Blyton fan and a current Harry Potter enthusiast nothing cheers me up like a jolly story of treasure hunting in a boarding school.
Mark Wakeman really knows his stage comedy and the clever staging here was a case in point. He understands that we don't want to hang around waiting for the next laugh so scene changes were accomplished with the blink of an eye, hilarious grumpy cameos by the backstage crew served as book cases in the library and portraits in the great hall.
The character of Daisy Meredith, plucky scholarship girl who is good at literally everything, is hard to fall in love with. I'm sure I would have hated her at school - no-one should be good at lessons AND sport. Luckily Beth Evans played her with such warmth and the whole play was so tongue in cheek we were all rooting for her anyway. This was helped by the brilliantly evil Draco Malfoy-esque snob Sybil Burlington (Fern Bicheno) and crony Monica Smithers (Rosie Carter) who were great fun to hate.
Tamsin Halford really stole the show as Daisy's poetic, scatty friend Trixie Martin. Her state of perpetual wide-eyed excitement was infectious and the way she ran on and off stage was especially funny, it really reminded me of how my own sister Daisy used to run around.
The whole cast was really brilliant but my other personal favourites were the dynamic duo of head girl Clare Beaumont (Alice Corrigan) and her friend Alice (Jo Gardner.) They took what could have been the duller parts of the play and made them the best with terrific over the top poses and speeches, they could have stepped straight out of a comic.
What made this the best fun to watch was the feeling that everyone on stage was enjoying themselves immensely. I hope Bench Theatre finds more plays in the future to showcase this amazing amount of young female talent. Such fun.
Monday, 25 July 2011
30 - Doctor Faustus, The Globe
I have had an emotional connection to this play for a rather long time. For one thing, I remember a great school production when I was young, and a great English teacher teaching us the play at GCSE level. I later helped a friend who had missed a lot of college put on a stripped down version of the play so she could still get a great mark for the drama assessment she had missed. Then during the heady summer before heading off to university I was an extra in a fantastic professional production at Chichester Festival Theatre where I, naturally, fell in love with Sam West who played Faustus. It is irretrievably linked in my brain with happy times.
Doctor Faustus also connects with me on an academic level. It is the culmination of centuries of medieval mystery plays evolving from a celebration of religious dogma into a play written purely for entertainment by an alleged anarchist. Doctor Faustus isn't a mystery play of course, but when you watch it you can feel the mystery plays behind it, like looking at a child's face and seeing both his parents at the same time. I got my first 1st at university for a prompt book I wrote for a hypothetical planned production of Doctor Faustus, complete with little pop-up set design.
Just as well then that my sister Daisy, another Faustus fan, and I enjoyed this production immensely. I think if I saw a poor production of Doctor Faustus it would be like watching someone stamp on a kitten.
In this production at The Globe it was all about the comedy. Even the dramatic conjuring scene and the close in which Faustus is dragged to hell were funny, with Faustus failing to light candles with great comic timing. I was surprised by this as, particularly at a midnight showing, I expected more of a creepy atmosphere. At times I did think this detracted from the more powerful sections of the play, those bits we think were most likely written by Marlowe. Likes like "O soul, be changed into little water-drops, And fall into the ocean ne'er be found" tend to lose their power a bit when the demons entering to carry Faustus away are quite cartoonish and enter after the bow for a comical dance with bloodied puppet babies.
Having the comedy bleed such a lot into the more serious scenes meant the play felt a lot more complete, rather than a disjointed bundle of slapstick scenes sandwiched between a powerfully tragic beginning and end. Paul Hilton played a very physical and comical Faustus rather than a lyrical and wordy one and this was a production that concentrated on the spectacle of the play over the language.
And the spectacle was truly magnificent. Ghostly aristocrats in white masks danced obscene dances, Mephistopheles and Faustus rode on giant skeletal dragons, books erupted into flame and Faustus was decapitated on stage, only for his removed head to start chatting away and leap back onto his body. Every minute there was something new and clever going on. Pearce Quigley's deadpan delivery for Robin was truly hilarious from the minute he emerged on stage and started urinating against a pillar.
It was half way through the production when I realised Mephistopheles was Arthur Darvill of Rory-from-Doctor-Who fame. He was really excellent, not super villain evil all the time but charismatic and tortured as Mephistopheles should be. Amongst all the energy and comedy it was Darvill who managed to retain the power of some of the real gut-wrenching lines of the play. I went from feeling a terrible sympathy for Mephistopheles "why this is Hell, nor am I out of it" to hating him for deceiving Faustus and leading him to his downfall "I do confess it Faustus and rejoice." Of course I have now developed a crush on Arthur Darvill which should make watching post-Tennant Doctor Who more interesting.
This might not have been the greatest production I have seen so far this year, but I think it is the one I have most totally fallen in love with. There is a hole in my heart where this production should be. I want to watch it again. I want it on DVD so I can watch it every night before I go to sleep. Is it a bit weird to be in love with a play and develop a life-long crush on any actor who performs brilliantly in it? Never mind, yard tickets at The Globe are a fiver people, go go go go go.
Doctor Faustus also connects with me on an academic level. It is the culmination of centuries of medieval mystery plays evolving from a celebration of religious dogma into a play written purely for entertainment by an alleged anarchist. Doctor Faustus isn't a mystery play of course, but when you watch it you can feel the mystery plays behind it, like looking at a child's face and seeing both his parents at the same time. I got my first 1st at university for a prompt book I wrote for a hypothetical planned production of Doctor Faustus, complete with little pop-up set design.
Just as well then that my sister Daisy, another Faustus fan, and I enjoyed this production immensely. I think if I saw a poor production of Doctor Faustus it would be like watching someone stamp on a kitten.
In this production at The Globe it was all about the comedy. Even the dramatic conjuring scene and the close in which Faustus is dragged to hell were funny, with Faustus failing to light candles with great comic timing. I was surprised by this as, particularly at a midnight showing, I expected more of a creepy atmosphere. At times I did think this detracted from the more powerful sections of the play, those bits we think were most likely written by Marlowe. Likes like "O soul, be changed into little water-drops, And fall into the ocean ne'er be found" tend to lose their power a bit when the demons entering to carry Faustus away are quite cartoonish and enter after the bow for a comical dance with bloodied puppet babies.
Having the comedy bleed such a lot into the more serious scenes meant the play felt a lot more complete, rather than a disjointed bundle of slapstick scenes sandwiched between a powerfully tragic beginning and end. Paul Hilton played a very physical and comical Faustus rather than a lyrical and wordy one and this was a production that concentrated on the spectacle of the play over the language.
And the spectacle was truly magnificent. Ghostly aristocrats in white masks danced obscene dances, Mephistopheles and Faustus rode on giant skeletal dragons, books erupted into flame and Faustus was decapitated on stage, only for his removed head to start chatting away and leap back onto his body. Every minute there was something new and clever going on. Pearce Quigley's deadpan delivery for Robin was truly hilarious from the minute he emerged on stage and started urinating against a pillar.
It was half way through the production when I realised Mephistopheles was Arthur Darvill of Rory-from-Doctor-Who fame. He was really excellent, not super villain evil all the time but charismatic and tortured as Mephistopheles should be. Amongst all the energy and comedy it was Darvill who managed to retain the power of some of the real gut-wrenching lines of the play. I went from feeling a terrible sympathy for Mephistopheles "why this is Hell, nor am I out of it" to hating him for deceiving Faustus and leading him to his downfall "I do confess it Faustus and rejoice." Of course I have now developed a crush on Arthur Darvill which should make watching post-Tennant Doctor Who more interesting.
This might not have been the greatest production I have seen so far this year, but I think it is the one I have most totally fallen in love with. There is a hole in my heart where this production should be. I want to watch it again. I want it on DVD so I can watch it every night before I go to sleep. Is it a bit weird to be in love with a play and develop a life-long crush on any actor who performs brilliantly in it? Never mind, yard tickets at The Globe are a fiver people, go go go go go.
28 - Confusions, Charles Cryer
James and I directed this and I was really pleased with how it went. Clearly I can't write a review of my own play so here instead is someone else's:
Not sure what to make of 'competently directed' and would have thought he might mention our scene changer skits in between plays and other clever things we added to the script. However it is a positive review and mentions a few of the actors' names which is the important thing. On the whole I'd describe this as competently reviewed.
Here are some pictures, taken by Rafal Lacki http://photo.mackraph.co.uk:
Not sure what to make of 'competently directed' and would have thought he might mention our scene changer skits in between plays and other clever things we added to the script. However it is a positive review and mentions a few of the actors' names which is the important thing. On the whole I'd describe this as competently reviewed.
Here are some pictures, taken by Rafal Lacki http://photo.mackraph.co.uk:
Friday, 17 June 2011
28 - Jeffery Bernard is unwell
This hilarious tour-de-force by Robert Powell seemed to give us a glimpse of a time that has now passed. A time when journalists could get drunk and fail to turn in articles and no-one seemed to mind particularly. It was an evening of nostalgia for many in the audience.
The play takes place in a pub in Soho where Jeffery Bernard has managed to get locked in overnight and wakes up to find himself trapped. Unperturbed he begins helping himself to the spirits behind the bar and regales us with anecdotes and descriptions of the colourful characters he has met living a life of hard-drink, gambling and womanising.
Watching the play is like having the good fortune to sit with someone in the pub who has not only led a fascinating life but also has the skill to tell you about it in a witty and engaging fashion. Robert Powell was a surprisingly cheerful Jeffery Bernard, I think we were expecting a little bit more bitterness from the character but his performance was altogether more philosophical. He was assisted in telling his hilarious tales by a strong supporting cast who emerged in the pub, conjured by Jeffery's imagination and memories, as dozens of different characters each one different and engaging.
The play takes place in a pub in Soho where Jeffery Bernard has managed to get locked in overnight and wakes up to find himself trapped. Unperturbed he begins helping himself to the spirits behind the bar and regales us with anecdotes and descriptions of the colourful characters he has met living a life of hard-drink, gambling and womanising.
Watching the play is like having the good fortune to sit with someone in the pub who has not only led a fascinating life but also has the skill to tell you about it in a witty and engaging fashion. Robert Powell was a surprisingly cheerful Jeffery Bernard, I think we were expecting a little bit more bitterness from the character but his performance was altogether more philosophical. He was assisted in telling his hilarious tales by a strong supporting cast who emerged in the pub, conjured by Jeffery's imagination and memories, as dozens of different characters each one different and engaging.
Friday, 3 June 2011
25 - Much Ado About Nothing, Wyndhams Theatre
Having spent 6 hours on the booking line trying to get tickets to see David Tennant's Hamlet last year with no success, I was ridiculously excited to get seats to see him and Catherine Tate in Much Ado.
Judging by the audience reactions I wasn't the only one a little bit in love with David Tennant. From the minute he arrived on stage driving a golf buggy, his every word was met with cheers. I thought, that's going to get annoying. However the fans calmed down after a while and we were able to enjoy the play.
And we really did enjoy it. The production is set in gibratar in the 1980's and was full of great culture references from rubix cubes to massive speakers. They occasioanlly were a bit gimmicky but really created the atmosphere.
The best scene in the play came when the men and women split up to go out for a hen night, and stag do before the wedding. It's difficult to create the amosphere of a club on stage but this production really capturd it. The set rotated to reveal scenes from both nights out in turn, from women dancing around their handbags to the men getting lap dances from a stripper culminating in the scene where Don John's leitenant has sex with margaret up against the wall in an alleyway. This graphic representation of a scene which is traditionally left off stage made it easier to sympathise with Claudio, because Margaret was wearing Hero's veil it was very easy to see how he was deceived.
Catherine Tate was very well cast as Beatrice. At times she reverted to comedy faces we recognised from her TV impressions and she did look like a TV actor placed on stage. However her character was believeable, the way she rcited the verse was very accesible and funny and I felt like she held her own.
David Tennant though is a great stage actor. I was prepared to feel a bit sorry for the other actors, particularly those playing Hero and Claudio. But actually it wasn't that they were not famous, they actually didn't have as much stage presence as Tennant.
This was a great production for capturing atmosphere. As well as the night club, there was also the wedding scene, which opened with the chairs being set up and a child just running excitedly round the room. Simple touches like this projected the image of 'family wedding' and made you feel it instantly, a bit like watching a John Lewis advert.
The watchmen were hilarious and really cracked us up. The final great touch was the music: Shakesperian song lyrics set to 80's pop style tunes. Watching the actors dance to 'hey nonny nonny' with Adam Ant dance moves was a joy.
Judging by the audience reactions I wasn't the only one a little bit in love with David Tennant. From the minute he arrived on stage driving a golf buggy, his every word was met with cheers. I thought, that's going to get annoying. However the fans calmed down after a while and we were able to enjoy the play.
And we really did enjoy it. The production is set in gibratar in the 1980's and was full of great culture references from rubix cubes to massive speakers. They occasioanlly were a bit gimmicky but really created the atmosphere.
The best scene in the play came when the men and women split up to go out for a hen night, and stag do before the wedding. It's difficult to create the amosphere of a club on stage but this production really capturd it. The set rotated to reveal scenes from both nights out in turn, from women dancing around their handbags to the men getting lap dances from a stripper culminating in the scene where Don John's leitenant has sex with margaret up against the wall in an alleyway. This graphic representation of a scene which is traditionally left off stage made it easier to sympathise with Claudio, because Margaret was wearing Hero's veil it was very easy to see how he was deceived.
Catherine Tate was very well cast as Beatrice. At times she reverted to comedy faces we recognised from her TV impressions and she did look like a TV actor placed on stage. However her character was believeable, the way she rcited the verse was very accesible and funny and I felt like she held her own.
David Tennant though is a great stage actor. I was prepared to feel a bit sorry for the other actors, particularly those playing Hero and Claudio. But actually it wasn't that they were not famous, they actually didn't have as much stage presence as Tennant.
This was a great production for capturing atmosphere. As well as the night club, there was also the wedding scene, which opened with the chairs being set up and a child just running excitedly round the room. Simple touches like this projected the image of 'family wedding' and made you feel it instantly, a bit like watching a John Lewis advert.
The watchmen were hilarious and really cracked us up. The final great touch was the music: Shakesperian song lyrics set to 80's pop style tunes. Watching the actors dance to 'hey nonny nonny' with Adam Ant dance moves was a joy.
Monday, 16 May 2011
24 - London Road, National Theatre
I don't have a lot of time to write a review of this performance so here's a rushed one!
I was really lucky to get a last minute return ticket for this as it seems to be sold out forever and no wonder. It's so refreshing to see something unlike anything I've seen before. London Road is a musical but one presented entirely by a chorus without any specific main characters. The lyrics and all the lines are spoken in that very specific way of talking that a next door neighbour uses when you point a local news camera at them.
It's clever, funny and surprisingly for a production about prostitutes murdered in Ipswich, uplifting. That's because it's not really about the prostitutes who only feature briefly or the murderer Steve Wright who we don't see at all. It's about a very English community bonding over a tragedy, discovering pride they didn't know they had for their area until people on the news started calling it a red light district.
The songs feature catchy refrains including 'Everyone is very very nervous and very uncertain of everything, basically' or 'I've got 17 hanging baskets in this back garden believe it or not' or 'You automatically think 'it could be him' yeah, I'm just gonna, like, cry.' They are by turns hilarious and unsettling.
The characters that emerge are not stereotypes, but they are as recognisable as if they were. They are the bloke next door who dropped your post round, or that woman who Gordon Brown called a bigot on TV. The audience warms to them because they are so clearly people they know, even though we're not told any of their back story or even their names (until a few of them, right at the end when they are announced as the winners of a gardening competition.)
I thought the production would show an overly optimistic view of a community banding together, but it didn't. Some of the community were pleased that the murders had at least driven the prostitutes from the end of their road. Some of them enjoyed seeing their house on TV and followed the trial as if it were a soap opera. As their road is shut off by police, most quickly begin to feel more inconvenienced than shocked or depressed. The whole play is very real, and offers a snapshot into human existence. I love it.
Here's an interview with the playwright:
I was really lucky to get a last minute return ticket for this as it seems to be sold out forever and no wonder. It's so refreshing to see something unlike anything I've seen before. London Road is a musical but one presented entirely by a chorus without any specific main characters. The lyrics and all the lines are spoken in that very specific way of talking that a next door neighbour uses when you point a local news camera at them.
It's clever, funny and surprisingly for a production about prostitutes murdered in Ipswich, uplifting. That's because it's not really about the prostitutes who only feature briefly or the murderer Steve Wright who we don't see at all. It's about a very English community bonding over a tragedy, discovering pride they didn't know they had for their area until people on the news started calling it a red light district.
The songs feature catchy refrains including 'Everyone is very very nervous and very uncertain of everything, basically' or 'I've got 17 hanging baskets in this back garden believe it or not' or 'You automatically think 'it could be him' yeah, I'm just gonna, like, cry.' They are by turns hilarious and unsettling.
The characters that emerge are not stereotypes, but they are as recognisable as if they were. They are the bloke next door who dropped your post round, or that woman who Gordon Brown called a bigot on TV. The audience warms to them because they are so clearly people they know, even though we're not told any of their back story or even their names (until a few of them, right at the end when they are announced as the winners of a gardening competition.)
I thought the production would show an overly optimistic view of a community banding together, but it didn't. Some of the community were pleased that the murders had at least driven the prostitutes from the end of their road. Some of them enjoyed seeing their house on TV and followed the trial as if it were a soap opera. As their road is shut off by police, most quickly begin to feel more inconvenienced than shocked or depressed. The whole play is very real, and offers a snapshot into human existence. I love it.
Here's an interview with the playwright:
Friday, 6 May 2011
23 - The Winslow boy, One Off Productions
I really enjoyed the acting performances in this well constructed production.
The play is about the Winslow family. One day the youngest son Ronnie is sent home from the Royal Naval College accused of stealing a postal order. His expulsion and his protests that he didn't commit the crime he was accused of result in his father starting a long legal battle against the college to fight for a fair trial for his son.
The costs of the trial tear the family apart. Ronnie's sister Kate's engagement is in jeopardy, his brother Dickie is forced to drop out of his degree when funds run low and his father's heath rapidly deteriorates leaving him in a bath chair. We are watching someone sacrificing everything so they can stand up for what they believe is right.
The play at times was a little dry and tedious but these moments were dispersed with great displays by the vivid characters which made it all of a sudden a joy to watch. The father, Mr Winslow, was charismatic but not too over the top. He had great comic timing, I particularly enjoyed the scene where he had to discuss with John Watherstone his prospects of marrying Kate which was very funny.
The real star of the show was the actor playing Violet the over famililar maid who the family were 'constantly having to explain to people.' She was I'm afraid too old for the part, the text described her joining them from an orphanage but she seemed far too close in age to Mr and Mrs Winslow. However I'm very glad the company cast her anyway as her interjections were the funniest in the play, particularly her account of the final verdict towards the end.
I also thought the boy playing the young Ronnie Winslow gave a very accomplished performance for his age, his acting was both varied and believable.
The benefit of the play being set all in one room was the company was able to put together an excellent naturalistic set. I did think it was a shame that they chose to have a couple of essential elements of the room invisible on the fourth wall (a bell which Mr Winslow pushed to summon Violet and later the curtains which were discussed at length by a female journalist.) This device didn't fit in with the style of the production and felt a bit like a cop-out. An unnecessary one too: when they had managed to source a gramophone and build French doors surely some fancy curtains would not have proved much of a problem?
On the whole though a very polished production which was a credit to the company. Very well done to all involved.
The play is about the Winslow family. One day the youngest son Ronnie is sent home from the Royal Naval College accused of stealing a postal order. His expulsion and his protests that he didn't commit the crime he was accused of result in his father starting a long legal battle against the college to fight for a fair trial for his son.
The costs of the trial tear the family apart. Ronnie's sister Kate's engagement is in jeopardy, his brother Dickie is forced to drop out of his degree when funds run low and his father's heath rapidly deteriorates leaving him in a bath chair. We are watching someone sacrificing everything so they can stand up for what they believe is right.
The play at times was a little dry and tedious but these moments were dispersed with great displays by the vivid characters which made it all of a sudden a joy to watch. The father, Mr Winslow, was charismatic but not too over the top. He had great comic timing, I particularly enjoyed the scene where he had to discuss with John Watherstone his prospects of marrying Kate which was very funny.
The real star of the show was the actor playing Violet the over famililar maid who the family were 'constantly having to explain to people.' She was I'm afraid too old for the part, the text described her joining them from an orphanage but she seemed far too close in age to Mr and Mrs Winslow. However I'm very glad the company cast her anyway as her interjections were the funniest in the play, particularly her account of the final verdict towards the end.
I also thought the boy playing the young Ronnie Winslow gave a very accomplished performance for his age, his acting was both varied and believable.
The benefit of the play being set all in one room was the company was able to put together an excellent naturalistic set. I did think it was a shame that they chose to have a couple of essential elements of the room invisible on the fourth wall (a bell which Mr Winslow pushed to summon Violet and later the curtains which were discussed at length by a female journalist.) This device didn't fit in with the style of the production and felt a bit like a cop-out. An unnecessary one too: when they had managed to source a gramophone and build French doors surely some fancy curtains would not have proved much of a problem?
On the whole though a very polished production which was a credit to the company. Very well done to all involved.
Tuesday, 19 April 2011
22 - Most Drink in Secret, FellSwoop at The Spring
Daisy and I took a bit of a risk and took my little cousin Aiden to see this Checkov adaptation. Checkov is pretty weighty stuff and I didn't want Aiden to be bored. But as this was a young and emerging company I had confidence they would bring something different to The Seagull, and I was right. The performance was fresh, engaging and funny.
This was a three man show with each actor playing 2 or 3 characters. Fiona Mikel was a joy to watch, she differentiated the characters without making them too over the top or stereotypical. Another favourite was Clem Garritty as the hilarious chirpy doctor character who is sleeping with the gloomy Masha.
The introduction of modern music, with characters stepping out of the action and singing into a mic was interesting. I liked the way it broke up the action and added to the atmosphere, the songs were performed beautifully with the other actors playing props as percussion instruments.
I'm not sure the modernisation of the play was entirely successful. I liked that the play had been made into a film and it made it much more believable that Anna would not be sure about how good the final film was even though she was in it having not seen the final cut. However I think more recent political references could have been bought into the conversations about censorship and the arts as sometimes these felt a bit anachronistic where I wasn't sure what was referring to modern Russia and what had simply been taken from The Seagull.
There was great theatricality in the play, the way it looked has clearly been very well blocked and thought out. Clever moments included Garitty holding a drawer to become a chest of drawers, and Fiona Mikel and Bertrand Lesca standing up holding a duvet in front of them and a bedside lamp with the top of it facing the audience, so it was like we were seeing them sleeping in bed from above.
I also liked that they had a live goldfish on stage in a bowl in the centre of the table. It's funny how having a live unpredictable animal on stage, even if it's just a fish, makes a performance seem more spontaneous, lively and keeps the audience rivetted from the start. Particularly after the line 'swear on this fish's life,' I kept glancing back at the fish to check if it was still alive, and thinking how awful it would be if it died during the show.
I'm not entirely sure what the company was hoping to bring to Checkov by adapting it, or whther they wanted to say anything new. Perhaps they were showing that arguments about what is valid as art and what art is for are the same today as they were in 1895. Or perhaps they just borrowed a great story to create an exciting new piece of theatre. Either way this is definately worth a watch, and will transfer to Bristol's Tobacco Factory in June.
This was a three man show with each actor playing 2 or 3 characters. Fiona Mikel was a joy to watch, she differentiated the characters without making them too over the top or stereotypical. Another favourite was Clem Garritty as the hilarious chirpy doctor character who is sleeping with the gloomy Masha.
The introduction of modern music, with characters stepping out of the action and singing into a mic was interesting. I liked the way it broke up the action and added to the atmosphere, the songs were performed beautifully with the other actors playing props as percussion instruments.
I'm not sure the modernisation of the play was entirely successful. I liked that the play had been made into a film and it made it much more believable that Anna would not be sure about how good the final film was even though she was in it having not seen the final cut. However I think more recent political references could have been bought into the conversations about censorship and the arts as sometimes these felt a bit anachronistic where I wasn't sure what was referring to modern Russia and what had simply been taken from The Seagull.
There was great theatricality in the play, the way it looked has clearly been very well blocked and thought out. Clever moments included Garitty holding a drawer to become a chest of drawers, and Fiona Mikel and Bertrand Lesca standing up holding a duvet in front of them and a bedside lamp with the top of it facing the audience, so it was like we were seeing them sleeping in bed from above.
I also liked that they had a live goldfish on stage in a bowl in the centre of the table. It's funny how having a live unpredictable animal on stage, even if it's just a fish, makes a performance seem more spontaneous, lively and keeps the audience rivetted from the start. Particularly after the line 'swear on this fish's life,' I kept glancing back at the fish to check if it was still alive, and thinking how awful it would be if it died during the show.
I'm not entirely sure what the company was hoping to bring to Checkov by adapting it, or whther they wanted to say anything new. Perhaps they were showing that arguments about what is valid as art and what art is for are the same today as they were in 1895. Or perhaps they just borrowed a great story to create an exciting new piece of theatre. Either way this is definately worth a watch, and will transfer to Bristol's Tobacco Factory in June.
Wednesday, 13 April 2011
21- Project Snowflake by Sasha C. Damjanovski at Brockley Jack Studio Theatre
As Brockley Jack studio theatre is right near James' house we thought it was high time we checked it out and headed over there to see Project Snowflake.
It's a cracking little theatre with friendly front of house, really comfy seats and an eclectic offering, round the back of a nice bar which looked like it served very tasty food.
Project Snowflake is set in an Orwellian future, year 2060. The main characters Martha and Jeremy work in the Creativy Institute a branch of the government where their lives are tightly controlled. If they do not meet their targets at work they risk losing their jobs, and in Martha's case, her 'baby licence.' Unfortunately for Martha and Jeremy, their target is to turn their invention, a dream recorder, into a dream manipulator which will make the wearer have happy dreams.
The play started off really well, with a scene between the two main characters Martha and Jeremy in which Martha says nothing but read out case reports which Jeremy repeats as he types them into an appropriately futuristic looking computer. We see the relationship develop between the two of them as they bicker, flirt and sulk, all without saying anything other than reading the reports. When they do not work quickly enough an alarm goes off, and when Martha goes to make coffee she displays the cups to a wheeled security camera she takes with her at all times. Jeremy has a personal camera too, as do all the employees, it monitors their work progress and every word. This first scene cleverly introduced the characters and situation without clunky exposition and I really enjoyed it.
There were several examples like this of clever writing. My favourite was a very funny argument between two high up executives in the organisation, where they prefaced every insult they threw at each other with a lengthy disclaimer to say the following statement was their personal view and may not represent the views of their company or department.
The plot of the play could have used some more work, it seemed to cop out at the end without showing any real conclusion which left us feeling dissatisfied. There were a couple of confusing holes in the plot: why did Martha and Jeremy go from typing up reports, administrative work, to working in a lab on the dream recorder? Also one smaller character came on stage without a camera on wheels, seemingly because they didn't have enough of them backstage. Maybe there was reasoning behind that but if so I couldn't spot it.
The play was billed as if it would tackle the moral dilemma of whether it is ethical for the government department to control people's dreams. But this was only briefly mentioned and the main focus was the fate of the two main characters should they fail. This meant we were rooting for them to find a way to build the required machine, which I'm not quite sure was what the playwright intended.
Despite there being some aspects of the play that didn't work, there were some great ideas here, and some very engaging performances. Well worth the fringe ticket price.
It's a cracking little theatre with friendly front of house, really comfy seats and an eclectic offering, round the back of a nice bar which looked like it served very tasty food.
Project Snowflake is set in an Orwellian future, year 2060. The main characters Martha and Jeremy work in the Creativy Institute a branch of the government where their lives are tightly controlled. If they do not meet their targets at work they risk losing their jobs, and in Martha's case, her 'baby licence.' Unfortunately for Martha and Jeremy, their target is to turn their invention, a dream recorder, into a dream manipulator which will make the wearer have happy dreams.
The play started off really well, with a scene between the two main characters Martha and Jeremy in which Martha says nothing but read out case reports which Jeremy repeats as he types them into an appropriately futuristic looking computer. We see the relationship develop between the two of them as they bicker, flirt and sulk, all without saying anything other than reading the reports. When they do not work quickly enough an alarm goes off, and when Martha goes to make coffee she displays the cups to a wheeled security camera she takes with her at all times. Jeremy has a personal camera too, as do all the employees, it monitors their work progress and every word. This first scene cleverly introduced the characters and situation without clunky exposition and I really enjoyed it.
There were several examples like this of clever writing. My favourite was a very funny argument between two high up executives in the organisation, where they prefaced every insult they threw at each other with a lengthy disclaimer to say the following statement was their personal view and may not represent the views of their company or department.
The plot of the play could have used some more work, it seemed to cop out at the end without showing any real conclusion which left us feeling dissatisfied. There were a couple of confusing holes in the plot: why did Martha and Jeremy go from typing up reports, administrative work, to working in a lab on the dream recorder? Also one smaller character came on stage without a camera on wheels, seemingly because they didn't have enough of them backstage. Maybe there was reasoning behind that but if so I couldn't spot it.
The play was billed as if it would tackle the moral dilemma of whether it is ethical for the government department to control people's dreams. But this was only briefly mentioned and the main focus was the fate of the two main characters should they fail. This meant we were rooting for them to find a way to build the required machine, which I'm not quite sure was what the playwright intended.
Despite there being some aspects of the play that didn't work, there were some great ideas here, and some very engaging performances. Well worth the fringe ticket price.
Wednesday, 6 April 2011
18 - The Graduate, CODA at the Ashcroft Theatre, Croydon
There were some strong performances in this production of The Graduate which were a joy to watch. Danielle Lautier was an enigmatic and very sexy Mrs Robinson, perfectly cast. Christopher Rudd was engaging as the young graduate Benjamin who she seduces. His wide ranging performance had the right balance of stuttering insecurity and arrogant rebellion. I also particularly enjoyed David Sanders’ performance as Ben’s father Frank which was very funny.
I quite liked the atmospheric set but there were too many clunky and slow scene changes for me which left me feeling like this hadn’t been an entirely successfully adaptation for the stage. The muted palate of the set also made the scenes very samey especially as the characters spend most of the play sitting about talking nonsense.
They just don’t talk or act like real people these characters, and this is a problem with the play rather than the actors in this production. Elaine seems to impress Ben on their first date with her intelligent and sparkling conversation, but later she’s presented as an unoriginal thinker who has simply acted to please her parents all her life. She finds out her mother has slept with her boyfriend, then hangs around drinking with her all afternoon like a world-weary pragmatist. But she isn’t one, she’s supposed to be a relatively naive young women, who surely would react to the news by locking herself in her room, crying and playing pop music.
These undeveloped characters might work in a novel where their changeability and unrealistic nature might come across as existentialism or surrealism. (I can’t be sure, I haven’t read it.) But in a naturalistically acted play they were just irritating.
It felt a bit like this play had been wheeled out by CODA as an audience-pleaser because it was a popular film and men love to see a sexy cougar. But I was less than pleased, because the play pretended to have something clever to say about the human condition and in the end I don’t think it did. I want to see an experienced and well-established group like CODA in the large Ashcroft theatre give me as an audience member a bit more credit and put on some good plays rather than movie blockbusters please. Let’s have some Checkov next time, or better yet some Brecht.
I quite liked the atmospheric set but there were too many clunky and slow scene changes for me which left me feeling like this hadn’t been an entirely successfully adaptation for the stage. The muted palate of the set also made the scenes very samey especially as the characters spend most of the play sitting about talking nonsense.
They just don’t talk or act like real people these characters, and this is a problem with the play rather than the actors in this production. Elaine seems to impress Ben on their first date with her intelligent and sparkling conversation, but later she’s presented as an unoriginal thinker who has simply acted to please her parents all her life. She finds out her mother has slept with her boyfriend, then hangs around drinking with her all afternoon like a world-weary pragmatist. But she isn’t one, she’s supposed to be a relatively naive young women, who surely would react to the news by locking herself in her room, crying and playing pop music.
These undeveloped characters might work in a novel where their changeability and unrealistic nature might come across as existentialism or surrealism. (I can’t be sure, I haven’t read it.) But in a naturalistically acted play they were just irritating.
It felt a bit like this play had been wheeled out by CODA as an audience-pleaser because it was a popular film and men love to see a sexy cougar. But I was less than pleased, because the play pretended to have something clever to say about the human condition and in the end I don’t think it did. I want to see an experienced and well-established group like CODA in the large Ashcroft theatre give me as an audience member a bit more credit and put on some good plays rather than movie blockbusters please. Let’s have some Checkov next time, or better yet some Brecht.
17 - If Destroyed Still True, Sedated by a Brick at Tobacco Factory Theatre, Bristol
Sedated by a Brick is a performance company featuring Fraisia Dunn, Neil Puttick and Gareth Mayer, who has been my friend since we were both five. Gareth and I have a long-standing agreement to differ on our views of theatre and performance: Gareth thinks I don’t ‘get’ his kind of contemporary performance and I think no one does and people pretend to ‘get it’ because they are pretentious and anyway can’t we just go and see a nice Shakespeare? In the good natured spirit of this long-standing clash of perspectives I hope he won’t mind me reviewing their latest production from my perspective.
All three members of Sedated by a Brick are talented performers and they have a knack for presenting strong imagery on stage. If Destroyed Still True is a classic example of their style: a collision between theatre and performance art. However I felt that it was just missing the most vital elements of both, and reinstating these would turn it into a more powerful theatrical experience.
Theatre is about telling stories. This performance hinted at a story, but didn’t present us with any characters so we were not emotionally involved enough to care. And there were not quite enough hints for us to piece together a story out of the string of vaguely connected images we were shown.
Performance art on the other hand, and actually I think all art, should be about emoting an emotional response from the person watching it or putting across a message or thought of some kind. When I have seen iconic performance art in the past I have felt strongly afterwards: whether disturbed, upset, amused, drained. Here too I don’t think this performance quite succeeds. Because we didn’t have any context for the events or characters, we didn’t know what was happening and couldn’t derive anything from it. An image I particularly liked involved Gareth breathing into the mouth of an inanimate Fraisia who is lying next to Neil with their necks overlapping. Gareth then compresses Fraisia’s chest and this action inflates Neil’s chest. He compresses Neil’s chest and as he breathes out, Fraisia’s chest inflates again. This action seems to imply Gareth is resurrecting the inanimate figures and bringing them back to life, but this conflicts with what he does shortly afterwards- removing their clothes and wrapping Fraisia, Neil and the clothes in bin liners. This left me confused and with the impression that the performance didn’t actually communicate anything.
In the bar afterwards another member of the audience said it a disdaining tone of voice ‘there were a lot of people laughing in the audience.’ I said ‘yeah, it was funny.’ And at many points it was. Whether developing this piece further or working on their next project, Sedated by a Brick should look hard at the audience’s response and build on it. Organic performance like this can’t be about deciding how the audience should respond to something and then, if they react differently, dismissing them as not intelligent enough. Happily Sedated by a Brick are a company that is interested in the audience’s reaction to their work, to the extent that in the foyer after the performance we were invited to react to it by finishing a basis line drawing of a face which was printed on the back of the programme. These were put up on the wall for everyone to see and added to the mood of creativity among the audience who had just emerged. Conversations about interpreting the piece were flying around the bar and I liked the way the performance had provoked discussion among so many different people.
Sedated by a Brick are a talented and experimental group. By polishing their production and feeding from the audience responses they have provoked I think they will continue to develop and produce divisive and challenging work. Go and see their next production and let me know what you think, I’ll be there.
Sunday, 20 March 2011
16 - Richard II, Tobacco Factory Bristol
I love adaptations of Shakespare, but it is nice to know some companies are still producing productions which concentrate on and showcase the language and poetry of the plays.
This deceptively simple staging was cleverly blocked for a theatre with audience sitting on all sides. The simple set consisted of a few pieces of set bought on for some scenes with a wooden throne like the one in the best known picture of Richard II framed from behind by a lovely stained glass set of doors. The setting was dressed by the fabulous costumes, flowing coats, authentic-looking fabrics and each person had a distinctively different outfit.
This was a very strong cast, we particularly enjoyed Benjamin Whitrow's performance as John of Gaunt chastising the King on his death bed, and he returned in the second half to give another engaging performance as the gardener.
The real star of the show of was Richard II, played by John Heffernan. Before his deposition he strode around the stage like a spoiled child, occasionally throwing a hilarious tantrum. But when he realised his kingdom had been won from him, we felt genuinely sorry for him. I felt like he was a young man who had been cruelly deceived into thinking his position as king was divinely appointed and therefore unshakable and watching him disillusioned was very affecting. When he wasn't on stage, although the other actors were all great, I felt eager for him to appear again and he represented a complicated character with a wide range.
It was a bit of a shock to find the play didn't seem to have been cut at all. I didn't expect to be emerging from the theatre at 11.20 and if the length was a little bit much for me it was certainly a killer for the large group of young girls sitting around us who I think were on a school or college trip. One of them fell asleep half way through the second half and while they were well behaved and polite they were certainly getting restless by the end, as was I. By the time Richard's moving speech in the tower came up and he proclaimed "I wasted time, and now doth time waste me" my immediate reaction was "tell me about it!"
That aside it was lovely to see the play in a way which showcased the beautiful language and I'd definately recommend this production to Shakespeare fans.
Tuesday, 15 March 2011
15 - The Children's Hour, Comedy Theatre
And so I return to the West End, this time to see The Children's Hour.
Forgive this rather hurried review here, I'm a few behind after a busy period of seeing 3 plays a week so I'm ahead on play viewing but a bit behind on play reviewing.
This was an engaging play. The heartbreaking tale of what happens when a little girl doesn't like it at school so she tells a lie, that the two teachers are engaged in a lesbian love affair. Immediately as the story spreads, all the parents pull their daughters out of the school and the reputation, business and lives of the two teachers are ruined. I love Keira Knightly on stage, she's not the most stellar stage presence ever but she is an enthalling and watchable actor. Elisabeth Moss was also enrgetic and gave a heart-tugging performance. I also enjoyed seeing Bryony Hannah as the obstinate young Mary who tells the lie who I saw in Earthquakes in London, one of my favourite plays of last year. She was vulnerable and frightening by turn, a really complex character.
While I enjoyed the production it did leave me a bit bemused though about why this play was being revived. It's from the 30s when they didn't say 'lesbian' and even this script about a lesbian romance that didn't happen was banned for being offensive. But we don't really live in that world any more. Surely there are plays that would say something about the kinds of prejudice gay people experience in today's world that would be more relevant and still get the audience rush that combining the words 'Kiera Knightly' and 'Lesbian' have no doubt provided. Compare it to the refreshing modern and relevant reinterpretation of The Misanthrope, Knightley's recent West End debut, and this all falls a little flat.
Forgive this rather hurried review here, I'm a few behind after a busy period of seeing 3 plays a week so I'm ahead on play viewing but a bit behind on play reviewing.
This was an engaging play. The heartbreaking tale of what happens when a little girl doesn't like it at school so she tells a lie, that the two teachers are engaged in a lesbian love affair. Immediately as the story spreads, all the parents pull their daughters out of the school and the reputation, business and lives of the two teachers are ruined. I love Keira Knightly on stage, she's not the most stellar stage presence ever but she is an enthalling and watchable actor. Elisabeth Moss was also enrgetic and gave a heart-tugging performance. I also enjoyed seeing Bryony Hannah as the obstinate young Mary who tells the lie who I saw in Earthquakes in London, one of my favourite plays of last year. She was vulnerable and frightening by turn, a really complex character.
While I enjoyed the production it did leave me a bit bemused though about why this play was being revived. It's from the 30s when they didn't say 'lesbian' and even this script about a lesbian romance that didn't happen was banned for being offensive. But we don't really live in that world any more. Surely there are plays that would say something about the kinds of prejudice gay people experience in today's world that would be more relevant and still get the audience rush that combining the words 'Kiera Knightly' and 'Lesbian' have no doubt provided. Compare it to the refreshing modern and relevant reinterpretation of The Misanthrope, Knightley's recent West End debut, and this all falls a little flat.
Sunday, 6 March 2011
12- Hanging Hooke by Siobhán Nicholas, Take the Space
It's a great feeling when you go to the theatre and are told a new story you have never heard before.
Hanging Hooke tells the story of Robert Hooke. Before seeing the play I thought I knew that Saint Paul's Cathedral was designed by Christophen Wren. Turns out he designed it with Robert Hooke, a man who until now I'd never heard of.
I'm not alone in this. This relatively new play written by Siobhán Nicholas, tells the story of a man effectively written out of history. And not just any man, Hooke is described as the English Leonardo Da Vinci. He is a gifted architect and engineer, he designed a prototype flying machine, a clock that would work on a ship and some of the most sophisticated microscopes and telescopes of the day. He was also a fine artist, drawing amazing illustrations for the books he published on the natural world. He was a scientific genius, he wrote about natural selection before Darwin, figured out gravity before Isaac Newton and is the person who told us all how springs worked.
In the first part of the play Chris Barnes plays the painter Jack Hoskins, describing his friend Hooke who he brought to London as a child. He is working on a painting of Hooke and turns the easel around for the audience to see. When he does so, we realise that the props on stage feature in the painting and he moves them into place to mirror its composition. Then he takes his place amongst them and removes his coat to reveal the same suit Hooke is wearing. As he steps into the painting he transforms before our eyes into Hooke himself. The physical difference between the two characters is starling. As Jack Hoskins, Barnes moved precisely and sedately and the character had a quiet contemplative tone. As Hooke, he hunches over and walks with a limp, but nevertheless darts around the stage with a feverish energy, particularly when describing his scientific theories. One experiment he decribes features Hooke encased in a sealed tank before an audience, from which the air is gradually pumped. Barnes recreates this painful and disconcerting feeling by standing on his head in the middle of the stage while describing it, an impressive feat. The character's passion and enthusiasm for his subject is infectious and we feel as passionate and fascinated as he is. This really drew the audience in to empathise with Hooke, I felt real affection and love for the character. So when Hooke discovers he has been betrayed, his ideas stolen and his name written out of history we are enraged and heartbroken on his behalf.
For this play is no dry scientific lecture, it has a plot as compelling as Dan Brown's Da Vinci code, (only well written and not based on a load of conspiracy theory guff.) Hooke has a brainwave and comes up with a theory of gravity, how it keeps planets in orbit around the sun and how all things attract each other. He writes to Newton who he feels would be the ideal colleague to aid him in working out the specific mathematical ratios for this but doesn't receive a reply. A number of years later Newton publishes a book with Hooke's idea in it and claims it as his own. He destroys Hooke's portrait hanging in the halls of the Royal Society and works to discredit and remove him from office. Finally he sends a fellow member of the shadowy secret college, bound to him by a secret oath, to steal Hooke's folio of papers, the only records Hooke has of his work and ideas. The man Newton sends is none other than Hooke's oldest friend, the painter Jack Hoskins.
It's all just so interesting. Just the facts of the story are gripping but add in the fascinating 17th Century scientific theories and the lovable tragic character bought to life so skillfully by Chris Barnes and you have a real masterpiece.
Hanging Hooke tells the story of Robert Hooke. Before seeing the play I thought I knew that Saint Paul's Cathedral was designed by Christophen Wren. Turns out he designed it with Robert Hooke, a man who until now I'd never heard of.
I'm not alone in this. This relatively new play written by Siobhán Nicholas, tells the story of a man effectively written out of history. And not just any man, Hooke is described as the English Leonardo Da Vinci. He is a gifted architect and engineer, he designed a prototype flying machine, a clock that would work on a ship and some of the most sophisticated microscopes and telescopes of the day. He was also a fine artist, drawing amazing illustrations for the books he published on the natural world. He was a scientific genius, he wrote about natural selection before Darwin, figured out gravity before Isaac Newton and is the person who told us all how springs worked.
In the first part of the play Chris Barnes plays the painter Jack Hoskins, describing his friend Hooke who he brought to London as a child. He is working on a painting of Hooke and turns the easel around for the audience to see. When he does so, we realise that the props on stage feature in the painting and he moves them into place to mirror its composition. Then he takes his place amongst them and removes his coat to reveal the same suit Hooke is wearing. As he steps into the painting he transforms before our eyes into Hooke himself. The physical difference between the two characters is starling. As Jack Hoskins, Barnes moved precisely and sedately and the character had a quiet contemplative tone. As Hooke, he hunches over and walks with a limp, but nevertheless darts around the stage with a feverish energy, particularly when describing his scientific theories. One experiment he decribes features Hooke encased in a sealed tank before an audience, from which the air is gradually pumped. Barnes recreates this painful and disconcerting feeling by standing on his head in the middle of the stage while describing it, an impressive feat. The character's passion and enthusiasm for his subject is infectious and we feel as passionate and fascinated as he is. This really drew the audience in to empathise with Hooke, I felt real affection and love for the character. So when Hooke discovers he has been betrayed, his ideas stolen and his name written out of history we are enraged and heartbroken on his behalf.
For this play is no dry scientific lecture, it has a plot as compelling as Dan Brown's Da Vinci code, (only well written and not based on a load of conspiracy theory guff.) Hooke has a brainwave and comes up with a theory of gravity, how it keeps planets in orbit around the sun and how all things attract each other. He writes to Newton who he feels would be the ideal colleague to aid him in working out the specific mathematical ratios for this but doesn't receive a reply. A number of years later Newton publishes a book with Hooke's idea in it and claims it as his own. He destroys Hooke's portrait hanging in the halls of the Royal Society and works to discredit and remove him from office. Finally he sends a fellow member of the shadowy secret college, bound to him by a secret oath, to steal Hooke's folio of papers, the only records Hooke has of his work and ideas. The man Newton sends is none other than Hooke's oldest friend, the painter Jack Hoskins.
It's all just so interesting. Just the facts of the story are gripping but add in the fascinating 17th Century scientific theories and the lovable tragic character bought to life so skillfully by Chris Barnes and you have a real masterpiece.
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
9 - Othello, Swivel Theatre Company at Baron's Court Theatre
In the programme for Othello it says that the company "aims to invite our audience to steal a look into the secret and private world of Shakespeare's characters." This intimate and highly charged production did just that. The close underground theatre with the audience surrounding three sides of a small stage was ideal for a play as psychologically intense as Othello. We could see every facial expression very clearly so the actors were able to include subtle expressions, winks and glances to give a very rich interpretation of the characters.
The director's Baz Lurhmann influence, which she also mentions in the programme, was particularly apparent in the drunken fight scene in which repetition of lines, modern music and over energetic movement really created the atmosphere and put across the mood of the scene very well and reminded me of the Queen Mab speech in Lurhmann's Romeo + Juliet film. The fight, choreographed by Dominic Leeder who also played a fine Lodovico, was first rate; more than once I cringed and looked away at a particularly realistic punch or kick.
This was a high energy production throughout, keeping the pace fast with characters moving around the stage constantly. This also meant that despite the difficulties of having to play to audiences on all sides we were never looking at the back of anyone's head for long. The supporting roles were especially lively and energetic; Gemma Barret as Bianca and Chris Paddon as Roderigo were particularly fun to watch
When El Razzougui first emerged on stage as Othello my initial thought was that he was too handsome for the role, Othello is described in the play as being significantly older and lines such as "In my youth" seemed a bit incongruous with his youthful appearance. However he gave a powerful performance and there was palpable chemistry between him and Devon Lang Wilton as Desdemona which helped draw us in and added to the tragedy of the second act.
Of course the real central character of the play is the scheming Iago, who brings about Othello's downfall by suggesting his wife Desdemona is going behind his back with his lieutenant Cassio. Iago is the ultimate villain, he seems to have no concrete reason for concocting this terrible revenge and shows not a shred of remorse. Tom Fava was truly excellent in the role. He resisted the easy temptation of becoming a pantomime baddy and gave us just the right mixture of the camp super-villian and the creepy guy at the back of the bus. His sneering smile was chilling and I felt privileged to see such a talented actor in his London Fringe debut.
The women in Othello can be problematic for a modern interpretation, particularly towards the end as a blameless Desdemona constantly pleads forgiveness from her husband who murders her. This production balanced the anti-feminist undertones of the play by making other strong women characters. The Duke was turned into a female character played by an excellently authoritative Rowena Lennon. Bianca was also brilliantly reinvented to be a communications private so she came across as more of a modern independent feisty woman than the more usual slutty hanger-on. Possibly the strongest woman though was Iago's wife Emilia whose speech to Desdemona about how men should we wary of how they treat their women was one of my favourite moments. Exposing her husband loudly and with fury in the end scene, fighting her husband all the way, her death was a real contrast to Desdemona's. The only problem was it was difficult for us to understand why, as she seemed so modern and outspoken, she had handed Desdemona's handkerchief over to Iago without demanding to know the reason he wanted it. I thought we could have seen a little bit more of a realisation and dilemma from her earlier on to combat this.
I liked the way the production was not afraid to retain some comedy in the play, lighter moments helped break the tension in order for it to be built back up again. The production ranged from being disconcerting to being darkly funny and this kept it highly entertaining throughout.
The director's Baz Lurhmann influence, which she also mentions in the programme, was particularly apparent in the drunken fight scene in which repetition of lines, modern music and over energetic movement really created the atmosphere and put across the mood of the scene very well and reminded me of the Queen Mab speech in Lurhmann's Romeo + Juliet film. The fight, choreographed by Dominic Leeder who also played a fine Lodovico, was first rate; more than once I cringed and looked away at a particularly realistic punch or kick.
This was a high energy production throughout, keeping the pace fast with characters moving around the stage constantly. This also meant that despite the difficulties of having to play to audiences on all sides we were never looking at the back of anyone's head for long. The supporting roles were especially lively and energetic; Gemma Barret as Bianca and Chris Paddon as Roderigo were particularly fun to watch
When El Razzougui first emerged on stage as Othello my initial thought was that he was too handsome for the role, Othello is described in the play as being significantly older and lines such as "In my youth" seemed a bit incongruous with his youthful appearance. However he gave a powerful performance and there was palpable chemistry between him and Devon Lang Wilton as Desdemona which helped draw us in and added to the tragedy of the second act.
Of course the real central character of the play is the scheming Iago, who brings about Othello's downfall by suggesting his wife Desdemona is going behind his back with his lieutenant Cassio. Iago is the ultimate villain, he seems to have no concrete reason for concocting this terrible revenge and shows not a shred of remorse. Tom Fava was truly excellent in the role. He resisted the easy temptation of becoming a pantomime baddy and gave us just the right mixture of the camp super-villian and the creepy guy at the back of the bus. His sneering smile was chilling and I felt privileged to see such a talented actor in his London Fringe debut.
The women in Othello can be problematic for a modern interpretation, particularly towards the end as a blameless Desdemona constantly pleads forgiveness from her husband who murders her. This production balanced the anti-feminist undertones of the play by making other strong women characters. The Duke was turned into a female character played by an excellently authoritative Rowena Lennon. Bianca was also brilliantly reinvented to be a communications private so she came across as more of a modern independent feisty woman than the more usual slutty hanger-on. Possibly the strongest woman though was Iago's wife Emilia whose speech to Desdemona about how men should we wary of how they treat their women was one of my favourite moments. Exposing her husband loudly and with fury in the end scene, fighting her husband all the way, her death was a real contrast to Desdemona's. The only problem was it was difficult for us to understand why, as she seemed so modern and outspoken, she had handed Desdemona's handkerchief over to Iago without demanding to know the reason he wanted it. I thought we could have seen a little bit more of a realisation and dilemma from her earlier on to combat this.
I liked the way the production was not afraid to retain some comedy in the play, lighter moments helped break the tension in order for it to be built back up again. The production ranged from being disconcerting to being darkly funny and this kept it highly entertaining throughout.
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