Month: May 2014

Miss Saigon

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It is fashionable for sophisticated people to sneer at musicals like Miss Saigon and its Boubil/Schonberg predecessor, Les Miserables. Melodrama, soaring music that lacks subtlety and operatic emotions without the opera all combine into that most middlebrow of forms, the big ’80s/’90s musical.

To paraphrase the Swedish synth pop duo Icona Pop in that most inescapable of songs: I don’t care. I love it. I don’t care. It is possible that my views are skewed from first seeing it as an adolescent, when your own emotions are so deeply felt that it comes as a relief to hear trained belters giving you the big ones: love, hate, jealousy, revenge, in an accessible, poppy style. And it is acceptable, as a sensitive teenager, to weep at a musical, when weeping because of your own troubles (petty to everyone else, of immense importance to you) is not always permitted.

It was very interesting to revisit the musical as an adult. Eva Noblezada as Kim acquitted herself very well, with a strong voice and good acting skills (excellent really, considering her age). Alistair Brammer was a very athletic Chris with an excellent American accent (always a bugaboo of mine), but clearly an adult, and I must confess that the age and height differential between the two made it difficult and uncomfortable for me to buy into their romance. Hugh Maynard provided good support as John, although I thought he had excessive rubato and melisma in Bui Doi, which really benefits from being sung straight. Tamsin Carroll was a sympathetic Ellen, and I thought the new song “Maybe” did more to humanise her than the previous “Now That I’ve Seen Her” (formerly “It’s Her or Me”).

But the real star here is Jon Jon Briones as The Engineer. I adored Jonathan Pryce in the role, but Briones really made it his own, and was much more credible in the character. He gets all the best lines and the best songs, especially “The American Dream”, which in his hands was somehow less cynical. In contrast to Pryce, who radiated pure contempt for the suckers he was about to exploit, I felt that while Briones was certainly looking forward to the opportunity to con, there was also genuine love of America in his desperate desire to get there.

The production itself was much more gritty than the original, with emphasis on the sleaziness of the club, the exploitation of the women, and the despair of the Vietnamese. Many of the lyrics were changed, most unremarkably, although I did appreciate the change from “On the other side of the earth/there’s a place where life still has worth” to “On the other side of the earth/there’s a place your life will have worth.” The infamous “Christ I’m an American/How could I fail to do good” was retained, however. I did appreciate John’s incredulous “an April fucking moon?” following that particular line from Chris’s phone call. I thought there was too much speak-singing throughout, and often wished they would simply sing through.

I have not often seen a London audience (other than tourists) give a standing ovation. Billy Elliott and The History Boys are two productions that come to mind that produced such a result. Half of the audience yesterday rose to their feet at Noblezada’s bow, and the other half at Briones. I think the decision to extend booking to May 2015 was a wise one.

Wolf Hall/Bring Up the Bodies

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These plays hardly need more praise from the likes of me, but they’re going to get it anyway. I enjoyed them as books, although it took me a while to get into Hilary Mantel’s world. Once there, however, it was with a slight rush of blood to the head that I returned to modernity, as her descriptions are so vivid that you can feel that you are reading an illicit New Testament by candlelight, rather than a Booker prize-winning modern novel on a kindle.

The plays are a miracle of compression, with actors turning on a dime to change scenes and whole chapters in the book(s) being conveyed in tableaux. You do miss Mantel’s description, at least at first, but the plays bring new insights into these oh-so-familiar characters and are uniformly beautifully acted. As the dialogue is perfectly modern (yet era-appropriate), there is not that period of transition that I always experience at the beginning of a Shakespeare play, where I feel that I have to settle in to the poetry before I can really get the hang of what is going on (it’s like watching a play in a foreign language that I speak tolerably, but not perfectly). None of that here.

I saw Wolf Hall at Stratford in the spring, and the intimacy there was a real joy. The deep thrust stage at the Swan made these transitions beautiful to watch, which I felt was, to a certain extent, lost at the Aldwych with its traditional proscenium arch. If I recall correctly, the initial reviews generally felt that BUtB was the better of the two plays, but having experienced that at the Aldwych and Wolf Hall at the Swan, my opinion is the reverse.

Nathaniel Parker brings swagger, vulnerability and deep (if self-serving) religious faith to Henry VIII, and Lydia Leonard is a monstrous Anne Boleyn for whom somehow we feel sympathy. The minimal presence of Paul Jesson as Cardinal Wolsey in BUtB may well have been the reason that I preferred Wolf Hall, as his avuncular, ruthless presence was sorely missed, the ghost not being enough of him for my taste.

But the plays belong to Ben Miles as Cromwell. He lets you see the cleverness, but never all of it. He shows just enough of the hidden violence for you to believe in it wholeheartedly, but not so much that it is over the top. It is a stunning performance, and all the more so for being a subtle one.  It is tempting to buy into Mantel’s and Miles’s interpretations of Cromwell, but I must confess that my mind keeps wandering back to the Holbein portrait, where I feel that the cunning (and, dare I say, evil) is much less well concealed: 

I thoroughly enjoyed Joshua James’s performance, but it is for another reason that I conclude with Rafe Sadler. As a devotee of historic houses, I thought I had seen everything interesting within the M25, but I only recently discovered Sutton House. Located, somewhat incongruously, in the middle of Hackney, Sutton House was Rafe Sadler’s country house. A miraculous Tudor survival, preserved by the National Trust, it has long been ignored and is well worth a visit.

Antony and Cleopatra, Globe

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Sometimes I think that those in charge of productions forget that (a) we live on a rock in the North Atlantic and (b) Shakespeare’s Globe is exposed to the elements. I have rarely felt such sympathy for actors as I did at today’s freezing, rainy performance of Antony and Cleopatra, shivering even though I was warmly dressed and watching Eve Best, Sirine Saba and Rosie Hilal scamper about the stage in skimpy “Egyptian” draperies, being rained on at every turn and, in the case of the latter two, with dirty costumes throughout due to the directorial choice to end the pre-show dance rolling around on the stage. I hope someone was waiting backstage with warm robes and copious quantities of tea.

I have a love/hate relationship with the Globe. Not so much with the theatre and its management, as I usually enjoy the productions themselves, but its status as a tourist attraction means that quite a lot of the patrons are not particularly interested in theatre and/or do not speak English. Accordingly, there is always a low level hum, particularly at the beginning of plays, when people are informed that no, you cannot sit on the stairs or block the exits as they are fire hazards, and yes, those rules still apply even when it is raining. These discussions, combined with the ludicrously loud rain, meant that the first few scenes were difficult to hear.

However, soon enough both the crowd and the weather subsided sufficiently. Eve Best (Cleopatra) was a suitably imperious Cleopatra, capriciously berating her women and slaves one minute and praising them the next. She was every inch a Queen, and you could easily see a man losing his head over her. I was nervous for her at several points as she cavorted around the stage which was fairly wet; she seemed to have already had a mishap as her left ankle was taped up. Clive Wood made a convincing ageing lion as Antony, albeit a slightly softly spoken lion. They exhibited some passion towards each other, but frankly more tenderness, which was an interesting choice. The acting by both was superb, but I did not detect notable chemistry between them.

Jolyon Coy made an excellent Octavius Caesar (Octavian). He spoke clearly and beautifully and his conflicting desires were apparent to even those of us fortunate enough to be seated towards the back of the theatre. Praise must also go to Phil Daniels, a delightful Enobarbus (assisted by the fact that, of course, he gets all the best lines).

This Antony and Cleopatra is a well done (if unsuitable for the climate) production, continuing the Globe’s tradition of somewhat blood-soaked plays following Titus Andronicus. Make sure to come back to your seat in good time after the interval to see some interesting soothsaying; if you’re squeamish, however, you might want to stay away until the last moment. I must end by praising the two little girls (no older than eight) who were seated near me and who did not utter a peep during the entire performance, even when one fell over (presumably asleep) and hit her head. I think they must have been exceptional, however, and generally do not recommend this one for the under-12s.

Chelsea Flower Show

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As this is a new blog, I will be adding posts from events that I have attended over the past few weeks as well as those I attend going forward. Last week, I attended the Chelsea Flower Show, which is run by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). It is a major event, snarling traffic and causing crowds (albeit well-mannered, middle-aged crowds).

At the outset, I must confess that I am an urban creature, and other than a few pots, I am certainly not a gardener. My appreciation for flowers and gardens is strictly limited to the visual. But Chelsea is an event that anyone can appreciate, even if you don’t have much of an interest in gardening. For me, the highlights are the show gardens, and I also enjoy visits to the Great Pavilion, where commercial providers highlight their products, and the flower arranging tent.

Let’s start with the show gardens. The Laurent-Perrier garden won best in show, and it was certainly very beautiful. I appreciated the juxtaposition of the wild beds, with height and colour, with the strict lines of the architectural elements and the pool. The garden was a bit subdued for my taste, however, being almost aggressively tasteful. I prefer a bit more vulgarity.

My two favourite show gardens were the Garden for First Touch at St. George’s and the Cloudy Bay Sensory Garden. They had areas of calm and areas of order. But they also had bursts of bright colour and (the St. George’s garden in particular) overwhelmingly sensual areas of wild planting. I could have looked at them forever. Unfortunately, one of the realities of Chelsea is that there are far too many people there, and looking at anything for any length of time is very difficult. From talking to friends who have visited Chelsea for many years, I understand that not so many tickets were sold in previous years and it was much more pleasant to walk around. But nowadays, you need sharp elbows and comfortable shoes (and a glass of something to take the edge off).

This year is, of course, the centenary of the beginning of The First World War. Accordingly, there were several reminders of that conflict, as well as gardens in support of the armed forces today. The No Man’s Land garden, by the Soldiers’ Charity, was very moving, and the Help for Heroes garden provided salutary reminders of the difficulties that many soldiers face when returning from conflict. My favourite such garden was really a display, which was in the Great Pavilion and was sponsored by the City of Birmingham. There were trains and aeroplanes made of flowers and inspiration from JRR Tolkien and Benjamin Zephaniah, both of Birmingham. When I wondered aloud what the cylinder-like objects in the display were, a friendly lady in the crowd (who was clearly from somewhere in the West Midlands) told me that the whistles that sent the troops “over the top” were made in Birmingham. Somehow, that detail struck me as very poignant.

You don’t have to be an RHS member to attend Chelsea, just get on the mailing list for either the RHS or the Ticket Factory, and they will let you know when the tickets go on sale. They sell out every year, but go on sale around 6 months in advance.

Der Rosenkavalier, Glyndebourne

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My first review is of a production that has received a great deal of media attention, Der Rosenkavalier at Glyndebourne. Glyndebourne is a stunning venue in rural Sussex. You are surrounded by fields, and inquisitive sheep often placidly venture to observe the opera-goers. Operas begin early (after a stroll in the beautiful grounds) and there is a long interval lasting around 80 minutes, at which people eat dinner. Hardier visitors picnic in the grounds, but I tend to prefer the restaurant, at least when the temperature is as cold as it was yesterday.

Yesterday’s production was Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, which has caused a minor media storm because many London critics had harsh words for the Irish mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught’s body size and shape, which they considered unsuitable for the role of Octavian. She sang utterly beautifully, with a warm, rounded mezzo voice of considerable brilliance, and was extremely well received by the audience. Her German was of particularly excellent quality, which one would expect from her training in Germany.

A few notes on her appearance: she was ill served by the two costumes that have received the most publicity, the bathrobe in scene 1 and the blue suit in act 2. The other masculine costumes, in acts 1 and 3, were darker and better tailored, and made her look sufficiently male, and in my opinion she looked similar to the actor Jonah Hill. The other problem was that the two costumes in which she was meant to be a man pretending to be a woman, in acts 1 and 3, were too flattering and simply made her look like what she is, an attractive curvy woman. Frankly, the costume designer needed to make her look more dumpy, not less, in those scenes.

The other aspect that may have contributed to the critics’ words was that she had very good facial acting, but she did not have male body language. Women are socialised to take up as little space as possible, and she did that even in her masculine guise, which contributed to her femininity. She stood up straight, but did not stick her chest out. She always stood with her legs precisely together, never even shoulder length apart. She sang one scene seated, but kept her legs together at all times, which a man would rarely do. So I think I understand what the critics were trying to get at, but criticising her body type and shape was simply unnecessary and insulting.

The production itself was rather bizarre, a mish-mash of decorative styles. One of our party remarked that the second act set was so 70s that you expected Michael Sheen to enter, in his David Frost character. But the singing was beautiful throughout. Kate Royal’s Marschallin was well done, with a silvery, flexible soprano. Teodora Gheorgiu’s Sophie looked and sounded young, but it worked in the production. She had a somewhat small but crystal clear voice. One of the highlights, for me, was Lars Woldt’s Baron Ochs. Beautifully sung, with a delightful colloquial German accent, he was younger than the usual Baron Ochs but greatly enjoyable. His aggressive masculinity also contrasted with Erraught’s femininity and may also have contributed to the critics’ views. A very enjoyable evening, in a very beautiful place.

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