Month: August 2015

The Importance of Being Earnest

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A tough old bird, this. Oscar Wilde’s 1895 “trivial comedy for serious people” has been revived umpteen times and has survived being a staple of school plays and am-dram societies, and even a film version with Reese Witherspoon. I was slightly wary of yet another West End version, no matter how starry.

I needn’t have worried; the innate quality of the play and David Suchet’s dignified Lady Bracknell bore away all before it. The play itself is the epitome of silliness: two young bachelors (Michael Benz as Jack and Philip Cumbus as Algernon) and their lady friends (Emily Barber as Gwendolen and Imogen Doel as Cecily), mistaken identities, babies removed at birth, and some good old fashioned snobbery (one wonders whether the notion of the “unfashionable side” of Belgrave Square would have seemed as absurd to the 1895 Londoner as it does to the modern Londoner) are pretty much your lot.

But oh, what lines are contained within the script! Cumbus was a delight in Act 1 discussing Bunburyists with great aplomb, and Benz a suitably stiff foil for him. Barber had little to do in this act but established her presence well, and Suchet resisted any temptation to excessive camp, playing Lady Bracknell in as straight a manner as possible. One forgets that along with such classic lines as “To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness,” are truths such as “Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.”

In Acts II and III, the plot (such as it is) comes to fruition and we hear that “flowers are as common here, Miss Fairfax, as people are in London” although I’m not sure we needed Doel to gurn at that point to make the double entendre clear. Act III sees Lady Bracknell’s magnificent return and observations which retain their truth, such as “London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.”

The acting is uniformly excellent. The actors don’t quite manage to make the play seem new again, but that would be extremely difficult. Barber and Doel are quaintly arch throughout, and all of the actors generally resist the temptation to over-egg the pudding. Suchet is, of course, the star of the show. He is excellent but in fairness, could probably do this in his sleep. Ah well, he deserves to enjoy himself after the superlative work he has given us of late (his work in All My Sons and Long Day’s Journey Into Night lives vividly in my memory). Long may his Lady Bracknell tour.

Catch-up Post: Plays Part 2

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A View From the Bridge (Young Vic): A tour de force from Mark Strong. His film career means that he is sometimes overlooked as a stage actor, which is an enormous shame. His presence radiated through the audience like an electric shock and the set design was innovative and extremely effective.

The Audience (WE): Kristin Scott Thomas this time. Someone described this play as “critic-proof,” and that is accurate, as it is not a play so much as a celebration of longevity. KST was suitably imperious, but lacked the humanity that Helen Mirren brought to the role.

Bad Jews (St James): A side-splittingly funny exploration of family, faith and sheer pettiness. I hated and loved all the characters in just about equal measure. I laughed like a drain for an hour and a half and saw it again at the Arts. A tonic.

The Twits (Royal Court): Roald Dahl wrote the original story. All of the actors involved were very talented and, I’m sure, did their best. And yet it was unremittingly awful. Incredibly dull. The best bit was watching children react to David Walliams’s presence among them (he was in the audience).

The Hard Problem (NT): The celebrated return of Sir Tom Stoppard. A rising star in Olivia Vinall. I wondered how it could have been written by the same person who wrote Arcadia, as the subtlety with which he explored science and the human condition in that play was all gone. This exploration of a woman scientist’s faith and career was about as subtle as a brick and very simplistic (and, if one were being uncharitable, sexist). A big disappointment.

Golem (Young Vic): As a frequent theatre-goer, it is rare that a production surprises and delights. This exploration of urban life, capitalism and romance addressed these important subjects in a fascinating manner with a light touch. Beautiful projections made this very unusual production a treat for the eye and the mind.

Antigone (Barbican): I need Greek tragedy to be made palatable for me, as the NT’s Medea and the Almeida’s Greeks season have recently done. This was, I’m afraid, static and one-note (shrieking) throughout, despite the luminous presence of Juliette Binoche and direction by the celebrated Ivo Van Hove.

The Play that Goes Wrong (WE): A very silly play within a play, which was hilariously funny and delightfully performed. If you need a pick me up, go to this. I enjoyed its low budget charms enormously.

Blithe Spirit (WE): There’s not much to be said about this that hasn’t already been said. It’s important to note that Angela Landsbury was fantastic not for an 88-year old, but for a performer of any age. A sparkling, charming production.

The Ruling Class (WE): A very odd play indeed, and dated in many respects. Whilst the aristocracy remains with us and have a great deal of power, we can thank our lucky stars (and the Russians, Chinese and Arabs who are our present ruling class) that they do not have the same power they did in the 1960s. James McAvoy was wonderful as always and the star of the show, as one would expect when spending a significant amount of stage time believing oneself (or pretending) to be Jesus Christ. A curate’s egg.

Happy Days (Young Vic): I often struggle with Beckett, although Waiting for Godot can be a great pleasure with the right pair of actors. Juliet Stevenson shone in this exploration of a woman’s very English captivity, although I cannot in all honesty say I enjoyed it. Appreciated is more the right word.

Taken at Midnight (WE): The mother of a captured German dissident during WWII was a great part for Penelope Wilton and I absolutely understand why she took it. That said, and whilst it was very moving, I’m afraid we’ve seen it all before. Its power on stage was remarkable, however.

The Fever (Almeida, in a WE hotel): Tobias Menzies has rather flown under the radar as a stage actor, although his appearance in U.S. TV blockbusters Game of Thrones and Outlander means that his star appears to be rising. This monologue about a wealthy Westerner musing on the developing world was exquisitely performed in the intimacy of a hotel suite. Unfortunately, its internal inconsistencies and lack of intellectual rigour (wealth is not a zero sum game) meant that I spent the evening admiring the acting rather than being moved by the play.

The Three Lions (St James): A play that was very much meant for television, with three actors impersonating David Cameron, Prince William and David Beckham in their (ultimately doomed) efforts to secure the 2018 World Cup. It was quite funny, with the best jokes being aimed by “Cameron” at Boris Johnson. Enjoyable, but missable.

Ballyturk (NT): Sometimes you go to the theatre and watch a play (in this case an Enda Murphy play set in Ireland amongst possibly brilliant and possibly insane people throwing things at each other) and you are left with the conclusion that either you are an idiot in the presence of genius or what happened on stage was nonsensical. With this one, I lean toward the second conclusion, despite energetic acting by Cillian Murphy, Mikel Murfi and Stephen Rea.

Electra (Old Vic): Another one note Greek tragedy. Impeccable shrieking from Kristin Scott Thomas, but there were few nuances to the performance. I have enjoyed her acting in the past, but I feel that perhaps I have seen all of the notes on offer.

Skylight (WE): A very good play, superbly acted by Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan as former lovers rehashing the past. I found it infuriating, however, as David Hare’s play makes many assumptions about women, the business world and marital fidelity, few of which in my experience are true.

Richard III (WE): I enjoyed Martin Freeman’s Richard III when I saw it, but it is with several months’ distance that I am able to fully appreciate its greatness. He exemplified the banality of evil and the despot lurking in many ordinary men. An unshowy and brilliant performance.

Great Britain (NT): How we waited for the outcome of the Rebekah Brooks trial, so that we would be able to see this play. It was done as befitting a tabloid, cheaply and cheerfully, and with brittle, paper-thin jokes designed for a quick laugh and tomorrow’s fish and chips. Billie Piper was perfect for the role, though, and performed it very well.

Hamlet, Barbican

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The most hyped play of the year. Tickets booked over a year ago for one of the hottest actors around subjecting himself to the ultimate test of an actor’s ability. There was an expectant hush as the hard plastic curtain opened, to reveal the man himself…and then a whisper from off stage: “It’s coming back up!” Which the curtain promptly did, closing up again and ensuring that our first glimpse of BC was a fleeting one. An apologetic stage manager came out to explain this first technical issue, and then Cumberbatch himself came out to profusely apologise for the second issue (a broken trap door), standing directly in front of my in-laws, who almost certainly looked the most calm (and least likely to mob him) of all the front row.

All this to say, it was the fourth performance, during the previews, and things happen. I write this review in full knowledge that the cast and crew must have been very stressed and I’m sure none of them thought they gave their best performance. That said, there is little I can say to fault any of the performances, so I think it is fair for me to review those elements of the production that would have been unaffected by the technical issues. I am not a journalist, after all.

It cannot have been easy, planning a production of such hype and magnitude. The set designer, Es Devlin, deserves special praise for producing a set of enormous dimensions and exquisite beauty. It looked like a palace, but a Scandinavian palace, with all of the elegance and restraint that implies. The colours looked like (but probably weren’t) Farrow and Ball and were very soothing. The modern trend of using greenery indoors (which I first recall seeing at William & Kate’s Westminster Abbey wedding) was used to gorgeous effect. The lighting had that cool Northern aspect that one sees in Scandinavia and in Northern Canada, which is difficult to replicate but unmistakeable, once seen. If there was an overall theme to the costume design it escaped me, as they seemed a bit all over the place, with Gertrude in Edwardian leg of mutton sleeves, Hamlet in (mostly) modern dress and others in military uniforms of the WWII era.

It has been much reported that the play begins with the “To be or not to be” speech. Before seeing it, I was skeptical of this approach, considering that it would be facile to begin with such a crucial point in Hamlet’s emotional tailspin. And it was facile, but in the best possible way. The speech continues at the banquet, where he, a veritable sulky teenager, sits in his own black hole of despair and moodily says extraordinarily beautiful words to the effect of, “I’ll like totally kill myself.” For this is truly a Hamlet for our times, when forty-something people wear hoodies and play video games. Cumberbatch’s Hamlet is extremely smart and extremely emotionally immature.

The production keeps returning to Nat King Cole singing “There was a boy/A very strange enchanted boy” and “The greatest gift you’ll ever learn/Is just to love, and be loved in return.” Hamlet is well acquainted with filial love, but romantic love is not a gift that this Hamlet (a man-child recognisable to all 30-something women) will ever learn. He tells us, most passionately, that he loved Ophelia, but other than a fond look as she plays the piano we are given no evidence of this fact. He says, petulantly, “But I loved her” as though she were a toy that he had on the shelf and wanted to keep for when he was ready to play with her. The toy motif is strong, with a very funny impersonation of a toy soldier exemplifying Cumberbatch’s mastery of physical comedy.

I have long respected Cumberbatch as a stage actor, having enjoyed his Frankenstein with Jonny Lee Miller and having been enormously moved by his performance in Rattigan’s After the Dance. He did not disappoint, with quicksilver speeches that sat trippingly on his tongue. Sometimes, the hype is for a good reason, and it was for a very good reason here. It is a fiercely intelligent, hyper articulate performance and I hope it is feted as it deserves.

I am still of two minds about the production and Lyndsey Turner’s cavalier shifting of the speeches. It worked, definitely it worked, I was on the edge of my seat for 3 hours 45 mins (including the delay). I particularly enjoyed the gravedigger scene, with the second gravedigger recast as an officious Council jobsworth. But sometimes I think that Hamlet is like Wagner in that sitting through the boring bits means that when you get to the “Ride of the Valkyries” or the “To be or not to be,” the payoff means more. Perhaps this is also in keeping with the production, as this generation is not known for its attention span.

The rest of the cast deserves enormous praise. I have never seen Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern cast better, and Matthew Steer and Rudi Dharmalingam played the clueless college buddies to the hilt. Leo Bill’s Horatio could have stepped out of any students’ union in the UK. Jim Norton’s Polonius was moving, although as a devotee of Father Ted, I half expected him to shout “Crilly” at every turn. Anastasia Hille was convincing as a passionate, beautiful, initially clueless Gertrude, although her miking was echoey and distracting. I enjoyed the device of making Sian Brooke’s Ophelia a photographer at the beginning, which gave her an agency that Ophelia often lacks. The mad scene left me cold until the very end, when her exit was moving and, in an odd way, hopeful. Ciaran Hinds was a mountebank as Claudius, but then, Claudius is a mountebank. And Kobna Holdbrook-Smith was a wonderful Laertes. You could see him visibly ageing on stage as he was told of Polonius’s death. A stellar cast. And a worthy addition to the endless discussion that is Hamlet.

The final word I will leave to my husband, who patiently accompanies me to the theatre and the opera (as I patiently accompany him to the cricket). When’s the movie coming out?

Catch-up Post: Plays Part 1

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And here is the post with a few words about all the plays I’ve seen over the past year. Looking back, I saw many good plays and very few poor productions.

Bakkhai (Almeida): Not quite the stunner that Oresteia was, but a very memorable afternoon. Ben Whishaw’s Dionysus was clearly influenced by the likes of Conchita Wurst and Russell Brand, but memorably his own. But it was Bertie Carvel who stole the show for me, both as a buttoned-up Pentheus (channelling Margaret Atwood as he whispered, “It’s very important that the women don’t make fun of me”) and a suitably mad Agave. Compelling, but I could have done with less of the Chorus.

The Heresy of Love (Globe): I had not previously heard of Helen Edmundson’s play, but was entranced by this exploration of love and faith in 17th century Mexico. Naomi Frederick was forthright, elegant, and ultimately very moving as Sor Juana.

The Motherfucker with the Hat (NT): Definitely not the usual National Theatre fare, this New York-set play about infidelity and a conman trying to go straight had a vivid, earthy (and profane) energy. For once, the American accents were spot-on throughout. The acting was very strong, but the play ultimately a trifle shallow.

Everyman (NT): An interesting experiment. Well-acted by a strong cast, including Chiwetel Ejiofor, written by one of my favourite poets (Carol Ann Duffy), and yet it didn’t completely grab me. The subject matter (meaning of life) was a little too well worn.

Oresteia (Almeida): An incredibly strong beginning to the Almeida’s Greeks season. It was very long, but not difficult to sit through as the intervals were well timed. And it was beyond compelling. Lia Williams was mesmerising as Klytemnestra, Angus Wright’s agony as Agamemnon seemed to come from his very bones, and the death of Iphigenia was almost unwatchable. Its West End transfer is richly deserved.

The Elephant Man (WE): I’ll admit it, I was there for Bradley Cooper. And he did not disappoint, contorting his body admirably and speaking with a suitably distorted but accurate mid-Victorian accent. The play, however, was short and so pointless that I couldn’t quite believe it was over, as so little had happened.

Constellations (WE): I had missed this play the first time around, so I was very pleased to see it return to Trafalgar Studios this summer. It was well-acted and the physics was interesting, but I didn’t find the conceit of the repetition as moving as I was clearly intended to. Science and art can be combined beautifully (as in Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, the most sublime example) but sometimes the science can be just a gimmick.

Rules for Living (NT): An uproariously funny play about a dysfunctional family at Christmas, oddly scheduled in the NT’s spring season. It would have been much more suited to a Christmas season. The “rules” were a unique concept and the scoreboard certainly noisy, but not necessary for the family dynamics to play out. A delightful curio.

Temple (Donmar): A play about the dilemma facing the leadership of St Paul’s Cathedral during the time its courtyard was taken over by Occupy. Simon Russell Beale turned the part of the finely tuned senior cleric into an exquisitely tortured man undergoing a profound moral dilemma. Paul Higgins (always a favourite since his legendary Jamie in The Thick of It) was marvellously passionate as the Canon Chancellor.

Man and Superman (NT): This should not have worked. Over 3 hours long, with an unrelated and frankly bizarre second act, lots of Shavian repetition and a leading man (Ralph Fiennes) who was much too old for the part. It was wonderful, engaging from start to finish and with beautiful chemistry between Fiennes and Indira Varma. We don’t see enough Shaw. More like that from the NT, please.

The Beaux Stratagem (NT): I should have loved this Restoration comedy. It had elements of country-house farce, which I normally adore, it was strongly acted and had some lovely singing. And yet I was bored stiff and longing for it to be over. There just wasn’t enough zing, and I didn’t care about any of the characters. A dud.

Peter Pan (Open Air): This production made me nervous at the beginning. Linking Peter Pan’s lost boys to the lost boys of WWI was an inspired and moving idea. It was just rather difficult to explain to the child accompanying me, who was understandably asking questions about why the boys were hurt and who was the enemy. But it was a lovely production, if a bit challenging for the lower end of the recommended age bracket.

American Buffalo (WE): Plenty of star power was on offer with this David Mamet three-hander, which involved John Goodman, Damian Lewis and Tom Sturridge. It was very well acted (particularly by Sturridge, who I had never seen before) but the play itself was about stupid people and I found it a rather stupid play. Mamet and I clearly do not get on.

Farinelli and the King (Globe): A gem. Mary Rylance’s performance in this play about the effect of the castrato Farinelli on his King of Spain was a quiet miracle, his eyes alone conveying every emotion that one could wish. Stunning singing from Iestyn Davies. I will go again during the West End transfer but that first experience in the tiny Sam Wanamaker Playhouse will be a treasured memory.

Catch-up Post: Musicals

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Since I’ve been gone for so long, I thought I would publish a catch-up post with a few words about each of the productions I’ve seen over the past year. That way, I will have caught up and not feel so guilty! I’ve seen a lot, just haven’t reported it here.

Bend it like Beckham (WE): The football loses its power in the transition to the stage, but this is an utterly charming ode to multicultural London and the power of female friendship.

Memphis (WE): Beverley Knight is amazing as always, but dodgy American accents and a slightly odd book made this one nice to see, rather than must-see.

Gypsy (WE): Imelda Staunton is an absolute revelation and surely a lock for the Olivier. A triumph and a delight.

Fiddler on the Roof (Grange Park): Bryn Terfel is, shall we say, not a natural choice for the role of Tevye, but his singing was exquisite and his acting gaining in subtlety. So glad I caught this one.

High Society (Old Vic): Now THAT’s how you do a fluffy musical. Enjoyable from beginning to end, with beautiful staging using very little; a scene where the staff set out lights around the “pool” was extraordinarily beautiful.  Kate Fleetwood a delight as usual.

Sweeney Todd (ENO): Emma Thompson had a surprisingly good singing voice, but her frankly cartoonish acting choices did not impress me (I am aware I am in the minority on this one). Similarly, Bryn Terfel’s singing was stunning but his acting lacking here. Memories of the fantastic Imelda Staunton/Michael Ball production were too strong for me.

Cats (WE): I wanted to see it because I had never seen it on stage and loved the soundtrack when I was growing up. I was impressed by Nicole Scherzinger, to whom I had never given much thought. Other than that, it was utterly silly and best left to children.

Sunny Afternoon (WE): I was not expecting much from this (never thought much about the Kinks before) but the songs were strong and the book matched them. A very British musical, and an unexpected pleasure.

Beautiful (WE): Katie Brayben was wonderful as Carole King. It was probably impossible to mess this one up, given Carole King’s superlative back catalogue, but it was a lovely and moving musical.

Made in Dagenham (WE): Gemma Arterton was charming, but there was very little “there” there. A slight concoction, and I’m not surprised it closed relatively early.

From Here to Eternity (WE): A talented cast and a strong story and they made this mediocrity? The book was all right but the songs were forgettable. I was pleased to see Darius from Pop Idol, though.

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (WE): This was a silly musical that relied entirely on charm. Robert Lindsay was charming enough, but I was not part of the target demographic. The target audience lapped it up but it left me a trifle cold. The presence of the always wonderful Samantha Bond saved it for me.

The Scottsboro Boys (WE from Young Vic): I bought tickets to this at least three times, and something always prevented me from going. Finally, I made it and I’m so glad I did. Funny, moving and ultimately enraging, it was a triumph.

Porgy and Bess (Open Air): A beautiful production that worked well in the Open  Air format. Gorgeous singing and impeccable acting made for a delightful afternoon.

Next up: the epic plays catch-up post.