Chichester Festival: Bingo - 20 May 2010

Severe. Austere. Strict.

Edward Bond is a good reader of Shakespeare. Nowhere more evident than in the heterodox and brilliant The Sea (seen in an unforgettable production at the Haymarket with Harry Lloyd as the lead). As a biographer, here in Bingo (subtitled Scenes of Money and Death) he is unusual. Here he strips of William Shakespeare of his prominent feature: his love of words. Bond's Shakespeare is curiously inarticulate, silent at crucial times, his voice is low. As if he had grown wearing of always fighting for (and with) words. This is a weary Shakespeare but not a poor-health one; he is not fragile, he retreats by choice. Patrick Stewart's performance is full of restraint and alienness - confirms Stewart as one of the most exciting and risky actors nowadays, nevermind his experience and fame. He was in synch with the (sombre) tone of the production perfectly.

Like Howard Barker, Edward Bond is admirably stubborn. He has no use for the conventional worries of entertaining the audience in a predictable way, or offering an easy way out. It is almost taxing, seeing this Bingo of his. The narrative is barely there: glimpses of the last months of Shakespeare's life, barely a plot at all. The hero is no such thing: he sees injustices but he is too coward to do anything about it, too preocupied with his own status and comfort, when he regrets not helping out, it's too late, redemption is too feeble, his death is mediocre and petty. It is a grim business and you have to work hard through it. Bond is always demanding with his audiences. But there is much of worth to be found here. The sense of alienation, usual in Bond, works. It's not meant to be a period piece but you get the feeling that these are real people of their times, the clothes are worn just like the faces. The production works for the play and its ideas, it's austere but rich, the settling, the lights, everything, as a production is top-notch. The cast is solid for the most part, with the always reliable Jason Watkins, and hey how nice to see Alex Price, the best thing that ever happened to BBC's Merlin - he is one to watch, full of energy and anger and focus.

Chichester is worth a visit: Edward Bond is, Patrick Stewart is, and if not, there's always the Arundel Tomb and the gorgeous breakfasts at The Buttery.

REVIEW: Private Lives, Vaudeville Theatre, 19 March 2010

Neither with you nor without you.

Of course there are an awful lot of "Oh Dear"s involved. And an awful lot of "Awful"s and "Positively"s and "Precisely"s and all sorts of adverbs that tell us that we are, unmistakenly, in a 1920s-1930s comedy of high society and misunderstandings. There's also quite a repeated use of the word "Cad" (to describe Matthew Macfadyen's character) which makes the audience cringe and feel nostalgic at the same time.

It's a thoroughly predictable affair, the way ex-husband and wife Elyot and Amanda meet each other after years while on their respective honeymoons with their respective, adequately dull and pathetic, new partners. One gets out the theatre with a terrible urge to pop in one's DVD copy of The Philadelphia Story. That's usually the case with Noel Coward, isn't it? - Not that I know, as this was my first Noel Coward production.

But underneath all that wit and charm and misunderstanding and inspired one-liners (my favourite American sitcom, Frasier, owes so much to Coward, after all) one appreciates the touch of darkness, the violence and, above all, the frank depiction of sex and sexual desire the play offers. Richard Eyre's production is incredibly charming and aptly superficial; there are many interesting things about these characters but they are never explored, except by chance and perhaps by the actors accidentally scratching beneath the surface. No matter how much I enjoyed the performance I was a bit underwhelmed by the shallowness of the whole business; and by the audience incapacity to follow theatre etiquette. I wondered: Have this people never been to a play before? There was clapping during the performance, and talking and general rudeness.

(As a side note, yes, I agree with the elderly woman in the first row with us: 49 pounds IS A SCAM for what can only be described as "restricted view" seats. We paid them because we have been waiting to see Matthew Macfadyen for ages, but it is a scandal. For some mysterious reason the Vaudeville's usual policy of having Day Tickets didn't apply to this play, possibly because of the limited run. So yes, we were utterly robbed.)

As for the acting, the ensemble worked very well. It was a strong cast and the performance had no cracks on its armour. Kim Catrall didn't jar but she wasn't impressive either - she had easily the most likeable character of the four and did well with it, even if a couple of times she didn't ring as true as she should: her confusion and conflicted emotions upon finding herself attracted to Elyot again lacked the honesty of Macfadyen's reactions, for one. Her Amanda is charming and sympathetic, but there's the nagging feeling she could have done so much more with the part. Predictably (at least for us, because we rate him so) Matthew Macfadyen delivered the best performance; more aware that he is actually in a tragedy within a comedy, his Elyot is appalling, short-tempered and sexist, but his claims at flippancy are only skin-deep. There was a moment when he declares "I'm depressed" to Amanda's husband and sits on stage like a beaten dog, and what at first drew laughs from the audience in a moment of true theatrical magic turned into a moment of genuine emotion, as Macfadyen allowed Elyot a bit of self-reflection and loneliness. And on top of all that, he is amazingly funny. His perfomance was unusual, his Elyot nervous and exquisitely camp at times - one almost wishes Macfadyen to reprise Colin Firth's role in Relative Values, also by Coward. Simon Paisley Day and Lisa Dillon are both excellent as Amanda's and Elyot's mismatched new partners and as clichéd as their roles might be they never forget to add that touch of subtle humanity to their characters. The four actors have perfect comic timing and the humour of the play relies so much on the physical, refreshing when considered how verbal Coward's wit is.

All in all, the play might not haunt our memory as a life-changing experience, but it sure was a good night out.


Other reviews:
The Guardian.
musicOMH.
There Ought To Be Clowns.
West End Whingers.
Telegraph.

MUSIC: Rufus Wainwright @ Sadler's Wells - 13 April 2010

Cracking jokes about Wagner and Alistair Crowe and being appropriately arrogant and self-deprecating about his own debut as opera writer Rufus Wainwright presented his new upcoming record - All Days Are Night: Songs For Lulu - in London last night, in a concert as uncompromising and awe-inspiring as ever.

The new album is equally inspired by Shakespeare's sonnets and by Louise Brooks' rendition of Lulu, directed by Pabst. It is a musically-sparse, heartwrenching record, with Wainwright at the piano without any orchestra, unlike his previous, grand album Release The Stars. The new songs took up the first half of his performance at Sadler's Wells, sung in order and without breaks, in costume, surrounded by bits of the set for Prima Donna, all very theatrical. Of the dozen of times I have seen Wainwright in concert (yes, long-time fan here) I don't think I've ever heard his voice sound so well - sharp and healthy and powerful. He gets better and better each year. Despite his frequent false-starts and fuck-ups (more in the second half of the show) he is also a very compelling pianist. Even if the evening lacked his guitar-based classics ("California" or "Gay Messiah" I missed the most) it was a memorable chance to see a piano-only concert from Wainwright.

The new songs are spectacular and highlights included the rendering of Shakespeare's "A Woman's Face" and the ode of an old high school crush, "Zebulon". It's still too new an album to review it properly - by the time I see Wainwright at Oxford next month, or in the Kenwood House concert series in July, I will be more able to go past the "Oh My God! New Rufus Wainwright music!" stage that comes with each new released material. The new stuff is more direct but no less poetic; it shows Wainwright's determination of stepping out his comfort zone every time he seems successful with a formula. After flying as high as he could with the baroque and full of light Release The Stars it seems like Wainwright goes back to the basic, to see if his songs can work at their minimal expression. Only the true artist is so restless.

The second half of the show was more informal: Rufus Wainwright, out of coustume, and speaking to the audience, joking and moaning and laughing (& sharing one genuine moment of emotion as he talked about her late mother, the folk singer Kate McGarrigle). The playlist was compelling, oddly nostalgic in ways (he played "Millbrook", "Foolish Love") and even surprising. The real highlight of the night (apart from Wainwright covering one of his mother's songs) was "Dinner at Eight", chosen by the fans to be performed through the artist's official website.

bits & odds

- Yes, you all saw it. The Oliviers (see, for example, Webcowgirl's account here) were last night and The Mountaintop is the success story of the year. If anything, it makes for some interesting debate: the Guardian asks if this will be a boost to the black theatre in UK.

- On the other hand, Ruth Wilson looked very pretty. That's almost enough to calm my fury at my favourite plays of the year not being even nominated. At least there was a win for Cock so I'm counting it as an Andrew Scott win.

- National Theatre pictures of their production The White Guard, starring among others our favourite Pip Carter.

- Speaking of the National Theatre and how it continues to love me personally, one of my favourite actors in the whole world, Benedict Cumberbatch, has been cast in the upcoming production of Terence Rattigan's After the Dance, directed by Thea Sharrock. In other Benedict Cumberbatch news, there was a nice article in The Guardian this week about Steven Moffatt's Sherlock that's worth a read. (thanks to the wonderful Sherlocking site for the heads up)

- The Sheffield Telegraph has a new video in its website with a backstage tour of everybody's (well, at least mine) favourite theatre, the Crucible and the improvements made in its £15.3 million redevelopment.

- Article on the Times about the Royal Court's production of Posh, by Laura Wade, starting next April Downstairs, with a cast including the very talented Leo Bill and the promising Tom Mison.

- The Classical Serial at BBC Radio 4 is being extremely brilliant with its adaptation of Samuel Richardson's Clarissa, starring Richard Armitage and Zoe Waites. Not to be missed.

Review: Ghosts, Duchess Theatre, 20 March 2010

I think Ibsen is an acquired taste: I came upon this revelation during my trip to Sheffield to see An Enemy of the People at the gorgeous new Crucible. I mean, the first time I encountered Ibsen (at college) I didn't like it very much. And even when I saw new versions by authors I like (Lucy Kirkwood's Hedda) or excellent productions (the Donmar's A Doll's House) I remained lukewarm.

Then last year I attended a small rehearsed reading of Ghosts at the Young Vic, version via Frank McGuiness, directed by Ian Glenn and with Lesley Sharp and my favourite Tom Brooke as mother and son. It was a powerful piece of theatre, despite it being a reading (although many of my favourite theatrical experiences have come by the way of readings) and started turning my head around about Ibsen. I guess it will always remain my favourite work from him and even if the scandal that the mentioning of syphillis caused in Ibsen's era might sound alien to modern audience Ghosts is every bit as much a poignant, taxing and moving play as when it was written.

So why is it that the power of that rehearsed reading doesn't translate as well to a finished production? Even though I didn't dislike this play as much, I can understand the sense of bafflement from one of my favourite theatre bloggers about the piece. I still think the early notices are unfair but there is something severly lacking here. It's not the actors - Lesley Sharp is as fabulous and refreshing as ever, she gives an unhindered Mrs.Alving and that performance only is worth the money of the ticket. Glenn's Manders is as spineless in comparsion as he should be, on the verge of pathetic but sympathetic just for that. Harry Treadaway does a comendable job in a hard, vital role - but I'm afraid that I spent most of the play remembering Harry Lloyd's take on the character in the Arcola production last year. Lloyd's Oswald will be hard to forget in years to come, I'm afraid, but still Treadaway seems like a great hope for the future, we must remember his stage debut was only last year, and he did brilliantly, in Mark Ravenhill's Over There. I was also cheered by the presence of Jessica Raine as Regina: I feel as if I had seen this girl grow up, after her great performances in Harper Regan and Gethsemane at the National.

Maybe it was the elaborated set and costumes; although I appreciated the airy and well-lit stage, a change from the usual dark and somber productions. Maybe the play worked better in the reading because of its rawness, with minimal props and some light effects. Maybe it's that I believe this play should be performed without interval. Maybe it was the early notices affecting the whole mood. Whatever the case, I didn't find it as poignant. The audience, icy, might have contributed. I left the theatre (after spotting Dominic Cooke some seats behind me, by the way) oddly unsatisfied.

Other reviews:
The Telegraph.
musicOMH.
There Ought To Be Clowns.
The Londonist.
The Independent.

Review: Six Degrees of Separation, Old Vic, 10 March 2010

photo by Martin Pope

I rather like how the brilliant Aleks Sierz calls this play "insubstantial" in his review because what I felt when I came out of the Old Vic theatre after this matinee was absolute numbness. I had wasted my time with this - fortunately not my money, as the tickets were free.

The story of con-man Paul and his upper class victims in their hollow lives of money and conventions won the Olivier award in 1993 and as I read this fact in the shiny but pricey programme I wondered if 1992 had been a particularly bad year in the British theatre or if the Oliviers have always as nonesensical as in recent years. Maybe I am being injustifiably cruel: Six Degrees of Separation is not a bad play. It is not, in my opinion, a good play either.

Everything about the play just sounded bland and unsubtle. It had the makings of a great play but ultimately no punch to it. And this was not because of the production - although it is a very forgetteable one - but because of the writing. Neither the plot or the themes seemed to grab my attention and the characters were not engaging, hard as they tried. Only Lesley Manville and her natural brilliance, made me sympatize a bit with her Ouisa but at the same time it made me wonder about what a waste her performance was, wishing I was back at National seeing Her Naked Skin. Everybody else was bland, and the only funny and truthful moments came when the teenage sons and daughters of the lead characters were on stage, hilariously grumpy and clichéd to the point where one can't help but fondness for the kids. Paul had some interest as a character, if only a more charming actor than Obi Abili had played him. One can imagine that in the play's debut at the Royal Court things were a lot different, they had Adrian Lester then. Like Phil from the Whingers I found these people and the play oddly irritating.

In short, a morning wasted but at least I hadn't paid for it so I came out shrugging rather than in a bitter fit.

Other reviews:
The Telegraph.
The Times.
West End Whingers.
The Stage.
The Guardian.
Interval Drinks.
The Independent.

An Enemy Of The People, Sheffield Crucible, 11 Feb 2010

Where theatre moves you.

Art should move you. Intimately. Violently. Sometimes, even, physically. Like in this case: theatre made me take a train to a city I didn't know to a theatre I had never been to. It's part of the fun. I treasure those journeys - sometimes lonely, hard, miserable journeys - I've made just to see a good piece of theatre. Or a particular actor. Those trips to Straford-upon-Avon because of the RSC. That very memorable journey to the unknown aka Stafford and its castle to see Joseph Millson's Hamlet. Oh yes now that you mention Hamlet... My visit to the newly rebuilt, born-again Sheffield Crucible (now under the guidance of AD Daniel Evans, wonderful actor and great speaker during the latest Royal Court anniversary celebrations) served a double purpose: I went to see Lucy Cohu in the role of Katrine - the wife of the lead Dr.Stockmann, played by Anthony Sher - because last year's Speaking in Tongues still burns in my memory as my favourite piece of theatre and Cohu was an essential factor in that, becoming part of the "Actors I would go anywhere to see perform" list that I have. On the other hand I wanted to familiarize myself with the city and with the theatre because since the annoucement of John Simm future involment taking on the role of Hamlet in a Crucible production next autumn I have been curious (and excited) about this building, this place and its dynamic - and because I suspect, come September, I'll be making a lot of trips to Sheffield, so I'd better start learning train timetables and streets layouts. Theatre moves me. Literally.


On the other hand I have come to the conclusion that Ibsen is an acquired taste, at least in my case. I had always been afraid to admit it but I found Ibsen's plays a bit... well, a bit boring, actually. Maybe it had to do with the fact that my final essays for drama classes at college had to be about Chekov, Beckett and Ibsen and after reading Ibsen's plays I found them completely unexciting compared to the other two authors. "Not for me" I decided. But then slowly, things started to change. Lucy Kirkwood's version of Hedda Gabler wasn't exactly a succees but it made re-examine my prejudices. And then came the rehearsed reading of Ghosts at the Old Vic with Lesley Sharp, Ian Glenn and Tom Brooke that was actually sublime by the end. And the Donmar's A Doll's House in an energetic version by Zinnie Harris and perfect performances from Chris Eccleston, Tara Fitzgerald, Toby Stephens and Anton Lesser. Then Ghosts again at the Arcola with a magnificent Harry Lloyd. I started to think "Well maybe Ibsen is for me".

Maybe I should have started with An Enemy of the People. It tells a very political story about a man doing the right thing even if that costs him everything that is dear to him - I have a soft spot for those stories (specially in film, from Mr.Smith Goes To Washington to Good Night And Good Luck) and here Ibsen delivers a classic one. Dr. Stockmann (Anthony Sher) is a well-known and well-loved citizen of a small town in Norway. Together with his brother Peter, the Mayor of the town, he is helping develop the new baths of the village, expected to bring tourism and prosperity. But just as the dream of this wonderful enterprise seems close to coming true Dr.Stockmann discovers that the local tannery is contaminating the waters of the town and that the new baths could be very dangerous for the health of those using them. He expects that this discovery will have a great impact on the city - the bath will have to close and a long time will be needed until the waters are safe and healthy again. But much to his bafflemente the authorities (including and specially his brother) try to silence his discovery. What's more, the townspeople refuse to believe Stockmann and give up their dream of prosperity. They treat him like a lunatic who's lying to them, they start harassing him and his family, even his friends turn on him, until Stockmann denounces that the individual is wiser than the multitude and the strong man stands alone against a brainless community.

There are two important themes going on here: first, the individual against the masses. An Enemy of the People was written by Ibsen as a response of the general public's rejection of his previous play, the polemic Ghosts. As such it's a play with a very clear agenda. Amazingly enough this does not hurt the quality of the play, as it happens in many occasions when an author tackles a very particular political subject he feels passional about. An Enemy of the People is not preachy, it's fantastic theatre that makes you feel what Ibsen wanted you to: anger at the sense of injustice, and impotence. Here the good man, the hero, is treated by the people of his own town like a villain, like a theatre. At the same time Ibsen tells the story of the sacrifices Stockmann has to make to defend his beliefs. Not just to his status but the comfort of his family. Stories of martyrs, or those who refuse to be, in the name of what they believe to be the right, just choice have always fascinated me: theatre has seen many great version of this dilemma, from Life of Galileo to The Winslow Boy to Every Good Boy Deserves A Favour. It's easy to believe yourself uncompromising but what's the price you pay?

Great, engaging play, then. Christopher Hampton's version full of energy and a good deal of comedy. And the theatre? Well, to put it simply the Crucible is beautiful. Classy, easy to walk through, and the staff are helpful. I was hoping to buy a proper programme but they didn't have (I wondered, panicked, will they have them for Hamlet?). There was a delightful art exhibition with paintings and drawings by Anthony Sher, very enjoyable. And the stage? The stage was breathtaking. The seats on a semi-circle around it, every seat has amazing view. Designer Ben Stone made used of its possibilities with a simple, open and gorgeous set. Ibsen is usually all dark and confined spaces but this production let the play breathe and it was a clever move. It wasn't afraid of being epic (this play is epic, let's face it). This was a stage made for the epic and the intimate at the same time.

As for the performances, Daniel Evans has reunited a very solid cast - though I'll be straight here and admit I wasn't very impressed by Anthony Sher. This was the first time I ever saw him in theatre and I wasn't starstruck as I guessed I'd be, given his good reputation. He was good but at times a bit tiring, his acting too grand. It added a nice ambiguity to the character (if Stockmann believes himself to be so much bigger-than-life it's easy to imagine how he throws himself so happily at the possibility of being a moral hero, martyrdom and all) but in the end it made it harder to connect with Stockmann. Another kind of actor - perhaps more low-key - would have transformed this great production into something complately unforgettable. What was really unforgettable was Lucy Cohu's performance as Stockmann's wife - it was strange at first, after all those times I saw her in Speaking in Tongues - to see her embody another character. Cohu excells at being quietly powerful here, and she handles the complexity of Katrine (she knows she should fight for the good cause of her husband but at times her earthly desire for a comfortable life gets the better of her, but in the end she comes through) admirably. Against Sher's vitality she might seem subdued but there is a strength to her performance that makes the character completely believable. The rest of the cast - with John Shrapnel as Stockmann's brother - is very reliable if not actually brilliant, and under Daniel Evans' flawless direction they work together and mesh perfectly.

Theatre moves you, if it's worth anything at all. Sometimes it takes you to really great places, like the Sheffield Crucible.