Or You Could Kiss Me - National Theatre, Saturday 30th October 2010

Synopsis:

In the winter of 2036, in a shabby apartment in Port Elizabeth, two old men search for a way to say goodbye after a lifetime spent together. In the perfect summer of 1971, in a very different South Africa, their handsome younger selves search for the courage to fall in love. And poised halfway between these two stories – one imagined, one remembered – their real-life counterparts bear witness to both the beginning and the ending of an incredible journey.

Cast: /puppeteers:

Adjon Andoh

Basil Jones

Finn Caldwell

Adrian Kohler

Craig Leo

Tommy Luther

Mervyn Miller

Marcus Tilt

Creative team:

Director : Neil Bartlett

Designer: Rae Smith

Lighting Designer: Chris Davey

Music: Marcus Tilt

Puppet design: Adrian Kohler

Lets face it – most of the audience were there to see the puppets. OK, all of the audience were there to see the puppets. . Most of them had probably seen War Horse. OK, all of them had seen War Horse. I think most of them were disappointed. OK, all of ….. well, I know I was. And after about an hour, I was thinking “Frankly, I’ve had enough of this”. And so, judging by the enormous amount of fidgeting going on, I think everyone else had as well. And so Handspring Puppet Company cynically played their ace card – a puppet dog. I say cynically because, up to this point, the dog has only been heard and imagined, not seen. The audience immediately perked up, stopped concentrating on the play and zeroed in on the dog. I’ve said it before (stop me if you’ve heard this one) that you can put on a fantastic, all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza and the audience will enjoy it. Put a live animal into it and the audience will go beserk. It appears to work with puppet shows as well. Put on an experimental and extremely gloomy play about a difficult subject but make the main human characters puppets. And then put a puppet dog on the stage and your audience will love you. And your play.

I think Handspring have seriously misjudged their audience here. Sure, they don’t want to get pigeonholed into doing cutesy plays about farmyard animals but this is what their audience are waiting for, so they should have gone with something like Alice in Wonderland, Black Beauty or maybe Charlotte’s Web. I’d have gone been head of the ticket queue for all three – and cried buckets at the end of the last two. War Horse was such a roaring success because it gave the public something they couldn’t normally have seen on stage. But, apart from the puppet dog, you could have done Or You Could Kiss Me with a cast of humans and nobody would have batted an eyelid. In fact, I predict that if the author wrote out the puppets he could sell his script to every drama school in the land and have it performed by angst-ridden teenagers dressed entirely in black at the Edinburgh Festival on a more or less annual basis. It was all a bit too self-consciously clever-clever and experimental for my tastes – and certainly not what I wanted to see. I wanted a puppet horse winning the Derby for its blind owner whose parents were killed in a car crash when he was five (or so he thinks…..) and whose evil landlord is about to foreclose on the farm - “Gee, Blackie. I sure am gonna miss this place. Look at that sunset. Shame about not being able to see the ducklings hatch next week. Unless, of course, you overcome all the odds, a major personal romantic crisis and that gammy leg – which you injured rescuing me from the abandoned well on the old Tucker place - and win the Derby tomorrow in front of Sally who can’t afford to leave her job at the restaurant and marry me” (cue music from Chariots of Fire and cut to Sally in the crowd at the racecourse selling her last pillowcase and putting the money on Blackie to win at 300:1 just before the starting gun). Now THAT’S a puppet show. Not the problems of two old South African men coping with the hospitalisation of one of them while remembering the golden summer when they were teenagers and first met on the beach while the rain pours down and the cleaner fields telephone calls from angry solicitors.

Having the teenagers and old men represented by puppets and their middle-aged selves by live actors was a decent idea, but not when both actors were bland and essentially unsympathetically portrayed. And having everyone dressed in black and constantly delivering their dialogue into handheld microphones while reacting to messages crackling out of an old answering machine was just so Sixth Form DramaSoc that I lost both my patience and all feeling in my right buttock. Never have an hour and 35 minutes passed so slowly (and with no interval – what is it with directors that nothing has an interval these days?) It all felt so god-dammed worthy and right on and it irritated the hell out of me when I wanted an essentially daft but heart-warming story with a friggin’ puppet horse in it. Give me what I want and I will love you for it and sing your praises in my review. Or, of course, You Could Kiss Me and I’ll leave the theatre unfulfilled and grumpy.

What the reviews said:

http://webcowgirl.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/review-or-you-could-kiss-me-handspring-at-the-national-theatre/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/8046437/Or-You-Could-Kiss-Me-National-Theatre-review.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/oct/10/or-you-could-kiss-me-review

http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/29867/or-you-could-kiss-me

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/or-you-could-kiss-me-national-theatre-cottesloe-london-2104910.html

Hamlet - National Theatre - Saturday 2nd October 2010

Synopsis:

Hamlet stands around for a long time worry-budgeting over what he should do and why.  Practically everyone, including Hamlet, is dead by the end.

Cast:

Hamlet: Rory Kinear
Ghost of Hamlet’s Father: James Laurenson
Claudius, King of Denmark and Hamlet’s uncle: Patrick Malahide
Gertrude, Queen of Demark and Hamlet’s mother: Clare Higgins
Horatio, friend of Hamlet: Giles Tererra
Polonius, Chief Minister: David Calder
Laertes, his son: Alex Lanipekun
Ophelia, his daughter: Ruth Negga
Fortinbras: Prince of Norway: Jake Fairbrother
Rosencrantz: Ferdinand Kingsley
Guildernstern: Praswanna Puwanarajah


Creative Team:
Director: Nicholas Hytner
Designer: Vicki Mortimer
Lighting: Jon Clarke
Fight Director: Kate Walters

An open letter to Nicholas Hytner after a watching a preview performance

Dear Nick

Because it was pissing down in stair-rods last night, it was a pleasure to be safely ensconced in Seat 17B last night (we note that Seat 2B is on permanent reserve for the West End Whingers during the run of this show so that they can make witty remarks about it). However, this is the only reason it was a pleasure to be in your chilly, over-airconditioned auditorium for nearly 3 ¾ hours; I would rather go and stand out in the rain than sit through this production of Hamlet again. Thankfully, the seat’s arms had not been taken to fight against a sea of troubles or I would have fallen out of it as I dozed fitfully in the freezing darkness – perhaps you were trying to recreate the frozen wastes of Denmark? Sitting there I began to think that this production was a big, fat, frozen waste of my time, when I could have been at home with a bowl of soup and Strictly Come Dancing.

The question I would like to ask is “Do we really need another black and white, modern dress production of Hamlet? Perhaps you saw the David Tennant version last year and decided to recreate the experience for those of us who couldn’t get a ticket in the hysteria?” Honestly, Nick, the paying public are getting really, really fed up with modern dress productions of period plays – they’re so old hat. Oh, how we long for the occasional farthingale and elegantly pleated ruff. Even a rough old ruff would be a nice change. And if you are going to spend an outrageous fortune on suits, fatigues and cocktail frocks, how about a bit of colour for once? This black-and-white palate may have been avant garde for ENO’s Mikado 20 years or so ago, but its getting very dreary, particularly when your set is heavier on the pale than Procul Harum. In a word, sweetie – its sterile. About as visually interesting as Ed Milliband. Give the audience something to look at as they wait for the “Alas, poor Yorick” speech. Him Indoors got quite agitated in the interval – apparently even opera directors are realising that audiences have had enough and going back to traditional, period productions. And how about ditching the “we all live in a surveillance society” theme with stage-managed TV broadcasts and guards looking ominous in shades and ear-pieces for once? You can hear their agents now: “Dharling how are you? Listen love, the National want you for their Hamlet. No, not actually Hamlet, couldn’t swing that one. They want you to play “Guard”. You’ll get 3 short lines in Act 1 and then the next 3 ½ hours is just standing around in a dark grey suit wearing shades and an ear-piece and looking ominous. You said on your CV that you could do “ominous”, didn’t you? Yes, perhaps a little tedious, love, but you can at least hook the ear-piece up to your iPod and catch up on The Archers. Fabulous, dharling. Can you provide a dark grey suit? Fabulous. Must dash, New York’s holding on the other line. Ciao!”

While we’re on the subject, how about getting some decent actors? Ones who can project. Failing that, ones who can actually speak coherently and don’t mutter or gabble. Projection and coherence would be nice, but we know we can’t have everything. One would have thought that an actress of the standing of Clare Higgins would have made a better go of Gertrude and played it with a little more panache. Ms. Higgins is strident and unfocussed, lacking only a trail of cigarette ash down her front to resemble a drunken fishwife from Eastenders. We had to strain to hear Giles Terera’s Horatio and we really think you should do something about your Ophelia. Yes, we know that you subscribe to the fashionable “colour-blind casting” theory but its embarrassing for all of us when another character refers to her “milky-white bosom” when the lady in question is…erm…. Definitely Not Milky White. Did you run out of money during casting? Is this why Polonius, having been stabbed behind an incredibly tatty curtain, turned up again at the end as the Gravedigger? Or was this a comment about reincarnation? Were you hoping to bring the audiences’ interest back from the dead? Thank goodness you could afford Rory Kinnear, because a lot of the time he was relatively OK.

Can we have a synopsis in the programme at some point? We notice that none of your productions have this any more, and some of us would like to know what is going to be happening during the next 3 ¾ hours so that we can schedule a nap during any potentially boring bits. You know, like the many bits where Hamlet maunders on about dreary, introspective stuff? Can we have the heating on instead of the air-conditioning? Its October and its pissing down outside. Can we have cough sweets given out free like they have at the Royal Opera House, because last night it was like sitting in a TB ward. A woman down in the stalls practically coughed up a lung at one point. She was the one sitting behind the large, blonde woman wearing the bright red jacket in the side section of the front row. The one who was so well lit up all the time. You must have seen her – everyone else in the auditorium did. Wasn’t it a shame that she fell very visibly asleep so early on in the evening? And for chrissakes can you find that idiot whose mobile went off just after Hamlet croaked “The rest is silence” before being drowned out by DiddleDeeeDeeDiddleDeeeDee Dummmm…… and ban him from the National? For Ever?

Your production is a not a hit.  Its a miss.  A palpable miss.

Best wishes,
Yours sincerely



Russell’s Theatre Reviews

Passion - Donmar Theatre, Monday 13th September 2010

Synopsis:

Italy, 1863. Giorgio, a young soldier, is bidding farewell to his mistress, Clara. He is to join his new regiment in the outposts of northern Italy . She, already being married, cannot accompany him, but they agree to write to each other regularly. Giorgio is a man going places; he has the confidence of his commanding officer, Colonel Ricci and is well-liked by his fellow officers.

Doctor Tambourri, the regimental doctor, is caring for a special patient, Fosca, the cousin of the garrison commander. She is ugly, ungainly and a recluse, seeking seclusion in books, which are her only passion and which are in short supply in the garrison. Giorgio lends her some of his. He is somewhat a dreamer but Fosca craves intellectual stimulus, and though frail and with an illness that manifests itself in hysterical convulsions, she clings to him.

In letters, Clara warns Giorgio to keep Fosca at arm's length but she becomes increasingly dependent on him, passing him surreptitious notes. Giorgio, realising the deep involvement Fosca has with him, asks for leave which is reluctantly granted. As he departs, Fosca asks him to write to her. When she finds out that Clara is already married, she becomes even more of a recluse shunning all contact with anyone except the doctor, who believes that her condition will only improve if, and when, Giorgio returns. When he does, Fosca dictates a letter that turns out to be a love letter from her to him.

Colonel Ricci tells Giorgio about Fosca's marriage to a worthless count, whose profligate ways and harsh treatment made her ill and left her penniless. They visit an overgrown garden and are caught in a rainstorm which affects Fosca so much that she faints and has to be carried back to camp by Giorgio. He too falls ill and is granted sick leave to recuperate in Milan. Fosca follows him to the train which will take him away from her. He begs her to give him up and return to the camp where she can receive medical attention.

Clara, meanwhile, has made a decision; she will stay with her husband and bring up her family - the affair with Giorgio is over.

Back at the camp, a transfer notice organised by the doctor arrives for Giorgio. This devastates Fosca who once again repairs to her room in much distress. The colonel discovers the love-letter, written by Giorgio although dictated by Fosca, and challenges him to a duel. That night Giorgio visits Fosca's room and acknowledges his love for her. The following morning, both he and the colonel are injured in the duel.. Months later a letter from the doctor informs Giorgio of Fosca's death just three days after the duel - which she knew nothing about. Having lost both the women who loved him, he is alone.

Cast:
Clara: Scarlett Strallen
Giorgio: David Thaxton
Colonel Ricci: David Birrel
Lt. Torasso: Simon Bailey
Dr. Tambouri: Allun Corduner
Sgt. Lombardi: Hadyn Oakley
Lt. Barri: Ross Dawes
Major Rizzoli: Tim Morgan
Pvt. Augenti: Iwan Lewis
Signora Fosca: Elena Roger

Creative Team:
Music and Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim
Book: James Lapine
Director: Jamie Lloyd
Designer: Christopher Oram
Lighting: Neil Austin
Choreography: Scott Ambler

Passion is not Sondheim’s most immediately accessible work, there are some (initially) unsympathetic characters, and there’s not a lot  from the score that you can hum during the walk back to the station afterwards. Its all too easy to get it all wrong, particularly when its on a relatively small scale. But in this production, everything is very well judged and done with just the right amount of reserve, so that later in the show when stops need to be pulled out a bit, there’s room to spare for the full histrionics to come to the fore (things do get a bit – well – operatic towards the end). Indeed, the character who banged his chair down just that bit too emphatically in one of the opening scenes probably learned his lesson as the entire back came off and there followed a few sticky moments during which he struggled to regain his hold on both his composure and his furniture. As the chair had to remain on stage for several minutes afterwards, the audience – or possibly just me - then had a great deal of pleasure watching various people sit on said chair and wondering if they were going to fall off it. Alas no – a quick slop of wood glue and the application of a rubber hammer to the joints backstage and all seemed to be well.

Scarlett Strallen looked ravishing (both in and out of her crinolines), like a cross between Anna Leonowens and a Botticelli angel, but it was difficult to imagine her falling for David Thaxton’s rather anaemic Giorgio. Somehow, he seemed just that bit too dull and ordinary to inspire Clara’s passion. Elena Roger, however, proceeded to wipe not just the floor but the walls and the ceiling as well with both of them as the embittered and ugly Fosca. Although standing at least a head shorter than anyone else in the cast, she wrestled with the inherent absurdity of her role like a prize-fighter and quickly subdued any misgivings that the audience might have had about how this ugly duckling could possibly tempt her prize away from Strallen’s gorgeous swan. In the bar beforehand, I’d said to a fellow audience member who had never seen the show before that, if she wasn’t in tears by the end, it meant that she had no soul; fortunately for me, there were several points when my own eyes began to prickle as the story reached a climax – although personally I could have done without the thunderstorm at this point.. Having had my English Literature teacher drum into my head constantly that “thunderstorms are a device which indicate a breakdown in society or relationships” (Shakespeare and Thomas Hardy are full of them), and having endured many operas with Him Indoors in which dramatic moments are underscored by someone backstage rattling a metal sheet like buggery while rapidly flicking switches on the lighting desk, (Rossini never wrote anything that didn’t contain at least one Force 8 gale), I’m now on constant “Thunderstorm alert” at the theatre, rather like a taller and prettier version of Michael Fish, and I find them hackneyed and rather OTT.

This was a preview performance and I hope that the professional critics will give this revival all the plaudits and superlatives it well deserves.

Full marks to the set designer for clever use of the restricted space – a wall pierced with three arches and covered in crumbling frescoes of scenes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses; I spotted Leda and the Swan, Daphne and Apollo and (possibly) Diana and Acteon, subtly and cleverly highlighting not only the gradual crumbling away of the three central characters’ happiness, but also the idea that love given or received is capable of transforming even the ugliest duckling into something beautiful. Clever also was the incorporation of the Donmar’s upper balcony into the set design. Not so clever were the two idiots sitting next to me who sat cackling like a pair of ugly and demented ducklings through all the dramatic bits near the end and ruining things for those sitting around them. I shot one of them with a pointed comment in the hope that they might transform into adults who know how to conduct themselves at the theatre. But I don’t hold out much hope. Some ugly ducklings merely become big, ugly, noisy ducks.

(24th September - pro reviews are just in - and I wrote my review before the one mentioning ugly ducklings was published online or in the paper)

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/reviews/article-1314694/PASSION-review-Stephen-Sondheims-steamy-tale-desire-rejection.html?ito=feeds-newsxml (four star rating)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/8017873/Passion-Donmar-Warehouse-review.html (four star rating)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/8017873/Passion-Donmar-Warehouse-review.html (four star rating)

The Times gives it 5 stars but, because of their naff "subscription only" policy, I'm unable to provide you with a link to this.

Into The Woods - Open Air Theatre@Regents Park, Thursday 2nd September 2010 (Matinee)

Synopsis:

When a Baker and his wife learn they've been cursed with childlessness by the Witch next door, they embark on a quest for the special objects required to break the spell - a cow as white as milk, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn and a slipper as pure as gold-  variously swindling, lying to and stealing from Cinderella (attending the Royal Ball wearing the slipper) Little Red Riding Hood (wearing a cape as red as blood), Rapunzel (who has hair as yellow as corn) and Jack (who has exchanged his white cow for a sack of magic beans). By the end of act 1, the spell has been lifted and everyone seems happy - the baker's wife is expecting a child, Cinderella has married her Prince, Little Red Riding Hood and Granny have been rescued from the wolf and Jack has killed the giant and solved his mother's financial problems with the aid of a stolen hen which lays golden eggs.  Even the witch is now young and beautiful, having been cursed with age and ugliness in return for losing the magic beans from her garden and locking Rapunzel up in a doorless tower -  but the consequences of everyone's actions return to haunt them later, with disastrous results. 

The baker doesn't cope well with fatherhood, Cinderella discovers that her Prince is a serial womaniser, Rapunzel loses her sanity after being locked up for so long, the Witch has lost her magical powers, Red Riding Hood has lost her childish innocence and trust of strangers and the Giant's wife comes to take her revenge on Jack.  The narrator of the story becomes embroiled in the plot itself as it shakes free from convention and starts to spiral wildly out of his control. Lives are lost before the survivors realize that they have to act together in order to overcome the problems they created by wishing.  In fact, it becomes obvious that "Happy Ever After" isn't where the story ends, but only where the problems really start.   

Cast:

Narrator: Ethan Beer/Eddie Manning/Joshua Swinney

Cinderella: Helen Dallimore
Jack: Ben Stott
Baker: Mark Hadfield
Baker’s wife: Jenna Russell
Stepmother: Gaye Brown
Stepsisters: Amy Richardson and Amy Griffiths
Jack’s mother: Marilyn Cutts
Little Red Riding Hood: Beverley Rudd
Witch: Hannah Waddington
Mysterious Man: Billy Boyle
Wolf/Cinderella’s Prince: Michael Xavier
Rapunzel: Alice Fearn
Rapunzel’s Prince: Simon Thomas
Voice of the Giantess: Judi Dench
Creative Team:
Book: Stephen Sondheim
Director: Timothy Sheader
Movement: Liam Steel
Designer: Soutra Gilmour
Puppet Designer: Rachael Canning

You can hide in the woods, certainly. But you can’t hide in Into the Woods – this is very much an ensemble piece and shortcomings can be brutally exposed. Just like the ingredients bubbling away in a cauldron, occasionally something appears which brings delight, sometimes its wiser not to look too closely. Some of the performances here are very bad, some others are merely badly served by the production. And overall, I would say that the darker aspects of the show are those which lose out – perhaps literally because this isn’t a show best seen by bright daylight. The bosky darkness of the Open Air Theatre by night may well bring added depth – but hey, we could only get tickets for a matinee.

The set is fantastic – a maze of walkways, stairs and ladders, punctuated by trees. Its used inventively to suggest the disorientation of being alone in the woods, yet by its very nature this makes it very hard to zoom in on individuals or small groups when there are other things happening elsewhere. And far too much takes place in the space underneath the structure, where only those in the really expensive seats at the front can see clearly. But when its good, its really really good – a group of characters standing on a spiral staircase and opening green umbrellas becomes a beanstalk both credible and incredible, a saddle on the seat of a swing makes a horse (just add imagination) and a huge birds nest perched on top does double duty as Rapunzel’s tower and the baker’s hideout for the finale. And elsewhere there are wonderful visual jokes to enjoy – never before have I seen the Three Little Pigs appear in Into the Woods, but their presence carrying straw, sticks and a hod full of bricks is funny and welcome and feels entirely natural, as does that of birds made of branches, a puppet cow a la War Horse and a chicken (one that lays golden eggs) made out of a push-along lawnmower. It’s a shame that the costumes didn’t match up – there was far too much of the “Swampy” eco-warrior look for my liking. Where Cinderella’s sisters should don silks and satins to go to the ball, here they just go in the tweed knickerbockers outfits they’ve worn all along. Rapunzel’s Prince was wearing a boring suit that looked like it had been donated by one of his peasants. Again, on the flip side, some costumes were wonderful – the Witch was decked out in shiny “mould green”, the skirt of which had been pleated at the back to fall into cobweb shapes.

One thing that was disappointing throughout was the lack of singing talent; everyone seemed to be a singing actor, rather than an acting singer – apart from Cinderella, who could neither sing nor act. She wowed everyone with her creation of the role of Glinda in the original production of Wicked, but there was nothing of her sparkle on show this afternoon The Mysterious Man’s “phoned-in” performance was mirrored by Beverley Rudd’s practically faultless Little Red Riding Hood, who lit up and practically walked away with every scene she was in. Congratulations to the casting director for picking up on the clues in the next about LRRH’s physical appearance and engaging Rudd for the part. Those in the “chorus” parts (people like the Wolf and Steward, who otherwise have very little to do) were kept busy and useful on stage and there was excellent group choreography, although generally the “chorus” were on the opposite side of the set from the principals and it was nearly impossible to pay attention to both at the same time.

What shocked me to my theatre-going core was the dreadful “performance” by Judi Dench, who voiced the Giant’s wife (fantastic enormous “puppet” – just hands, eyes and mouth made of bits of “junk” – which “peered over the trees”). I know that the role consists of less than 20 lines, but really Judi, I do think you could have put a lot more than your very bland reading of them. Even if you are a “Giantess” of the Stage. Tsk, its enough to put you completely off your Capri-Sun.

Danton's Death - National Theatre, Wednesday 11th August 2010

Synopsis:

Three revolutionary groups are presented at the start of the play - Danton's supporters, Robespierre's supporters, and those who do not agree with how the Revolution has evolved. Danton and Robespierre have different views on how to pursue the revolution - Danton's supporters back the end of Robespierre's repressive measures, which have already caused great suffering among the people, and they dod not find in the Revolution the answer to the material and moral questions facing mankind. One citizen deplores the fact that his daughter has been forced into prostitution to support her family. Danton accepts his friends' proposal to meet Robespierre but this meeting proves to be fruitless and Robespierre resolves that Danton must be killed, though he still doubts that this decision is just.

Danton's friends press him to fight or flee Robespierre's supporters, but Danton does not see any need to do so and does not believe that the French National Convention will dare to act against him. Danton confides the guilt he feels for the September Massacres in his wife Julie. Danton is imprisoned and led before the National Assembly, which is divided - it feels it has no choice but to acquit him. However, Robespierre and Saint-Just reverse its opinion.

The prisoners discuss the existence of God and life, and an attempt to prove that God does not exist fails. Danton's supporters are transferred to the Conciergerie. During this time the revolutionary tribunal arranges for its jury to be made up of honest and faithful men. Danton appears confidently before the tribunal, impressing the public with his willingness for justice to be done. Seeing the hearers' sympathy for Danton, the court is adjourned. The tribunal's members invent a plot to change the public's mind. At the tribunal's second sitting, the people stop supporting Danton, due to his lifestyle. Danton's liberal programme is revealed as unacceptable to the masses.

Danton and his supporters are condemned to death. Danton and his friend Camille Desmoulins exchange thoughts on life and death. Danton's wife Julie, to whom he has pledged to be loyal beyond death, posions herself at their home. The people show themselves to be curious and ironic on Danton's way to the scaffold. When Lucile Desmoulins sees her husband Camille mount the scaffold, she goes mad and resolves to die too, crying "Long live the king!" and thus guaranteeing her own death sentence.

Cast:
Danton: Toby Stevens
Legendre: Ashley Zhangazha
Desmoulins: Barnaby Kay
Lacroix (sweetie!): Gwilym Lee
Julie: Kirsty Bushell
Lucille: Rebecca O'Mara
Marion: Eleanor Matsuura
Robespierre: Eliot Levey

Creative Team:
Adapted by Howard Brenton from Georg Buchner
Director: Michael Grandage
Designer: Christopher Oram
Lighting: Paule Constable.

Yes, yes, this is three weeks or so late, I know.  Its been hell around Castle TheatreReviews of late, and all my spare time recently has been taken up playing Farmville on Facebook and writing outraged Emails to my local branch of Sainbury's about their new Self Service tills.  Such is life. 

Even if I hadn't had to go to the dentists and have two fillings on the morning of this show, I don't think I would have enjoyed this very much; in fact I can best describe it as "fucking dreary".  To paraphrase Victoria Wood's sketch about Othello:  "I don't think its got a plot; its just various people talking - and sometimes they do things in brackets".  Fortunately, there was no interval so the agony was over within an hour and a half.  The set was just as dreary as the play itself , evoking the interior of the Donmar Warehouse and circled with enormous shutters that required constant opening and closing by a couple of "Citizens" who had nothing else to do but walk round and open them, wait for a couple of minutes while a couple of lines got spouted by various people standing on tables declaiming to the downtrodden masses metaphorically waving their pitchforks and making outraged "rhubarbe rhubarbe" noises in French accents, and then go round and close them all again.  One of the problems of this type of play, much like January's The White Guard, is that you have to have a very good grounding in all the historical comings and goings to fully understand what is going on and why, and who everybody is, and why everyone is getting in such a flap about things.  If you don't, then you spend much of the time trying to sort out the good guys from the bad and trying to decide who's side you are on and why.  Once you start to realise that you've set yourself an impossible task, you eventually start to tune out and stop caring, particularly when the lead character is played as an arrogant c*nt.  And so it was here - I know some odds and ends about the French Revolution, but my interest rather peters out once Marie Antoinette's head has fallen in the bucket; my understanding about the political upheaval in the years which followed this event is - to put it bluntly - nil points.  Until the bloke playing Robespierre was addressed as "Citizen Robespierre", I thought he was Talleyrand, ffs. 

The only thing worthwhile in this production, which seemed to go on all night even though it was very short (there's only so much declaiming and rhubarbe that you can take in one go) was the final couple of minutes in which we were mercifully rid of Dreary Monsieur Danton and his equally Dreary Amis with the aid of Madame Guillotine's hairdressing device ("Just a little bit more off the top, I think") - even though the machine itself was woefully small, it was so spectacularly cleverly done that real heads appeared to be falling into the basket It even seems to have shut Les Madames Defarge up for five minutes or so (which is always a Very Good Thing).   In fact, Danton's Death was the most interesting bit of his entire life. 

 
What the critics thought:
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/jul/23/dantons-death-theatre-review-billington
 
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/7906168/Dantons-Death-National-Theatre-review.html
 
http://oughttobeclowns.blogspot.com/2010/07/review-dantons-death-national-theatre.html
 
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/dantonrsquos-death-national-theatre-olivier-london-2035299.html
 
 
 

Le Corsaire [The Pirate] - Bolshoi Ballet @ The Royal Opera House, Wednesday 4th August 2010

Synopsis (pay attention, this is long and complicated!):

A crowd of Turks, Greeks and Armenians throng a square where slaves girls are for sale. A band of pirates appears, led by Conrad. Medora, the ward of Lankendem, throws a bouquet to Conrad, who realises she loves him. The Pasha arrives to buy slaves but none please him. He sees Medora and wants her but Lankendem says that she is not for sale. But the Pasha is determined and offers a price that Lankendem is unable to resist. The Pasha orders Medora be bought to his harem; she is distraught. Conrad swears he will save her. The pirates “kidnap” all the slave girls including Medora, with Lankendem in hot pursuit.

The pirates arrive at their hideout. Medora pleads for the release of the other slave girls and Conrad agrees, but Birbanto (another pirate) protests and tries to raise a mutiny. Meanwhile, Lankendem is caught by the pirates, and he suggests a plot to retrieve Medora. Birbanto sprays a flower with poison and tells Lankendem to give it to Conrad who, overcome with the poison, collapses. Medora is frightened by this and manages to stab Birbanto in the arm. She then faints and is carried away by Birbanto’s friends, followed again by Lankendem Birbanto is about to kill Conrad when he wakes. Hearing that Medora has been abducted for real he and his loyal pirates give chase.

Back at the harem, the Pasha’s harem girls are amusing themselves. Zulma, the Sultana, demands respect but Gulnara (the chief Odalisque) and her friends mock her. Lankendem arrives to deliver Medora to the Pasha. She begs for her freedom, complaining that Lankendem has treated her cruelly. He is banished by the Pasha. Pilgrims arrive, asking for lodgings for the night. Medora discovers that they are really Conrad and his friends in disguise. There is an entertainment, after which the pirates throw off their disguises. Conrad and Medora are reunited. Gulnare pleads for help to escape the harem. Birbanto and his friends arrive at the harem and try to capture Gulnare. Medora recognises Birbanto and tells Conrad of their treachery, identifying him by the wound on his arm. He and Conrad fight and Birbanto runs off. The Pasha’s guard arrive; Conrad’s band is routed and he is sentenced to death.

During the preparations for the Pasha’s wedding to Medora, Conrad is prepared for his execution. She begs the Pasha to spare him, and he agrees on the condition that she marries him. Medora tells Conrad of the Pasha’s conditions and the two lovers decide to take their own lives. However, they are overheard by Gulnare who suggests a plan.

The wedding procession arrives, with the bride veiled and the ceremony takes place. Medora dances for the Pasha and is given an ornamental dagger by him. He begs for her love, also giving her a handkerchief. Threatening the Pasha with the dagger and tying him to a chair with the handkerchief, Medora and Conrad escape the harem. Gulnare runs in and unties the Pasha. It is announced by a guard that the pirate ship, with Conrad and Medora aboard, has left the harbour. The Pasha is outraged at the escape of Medora, believing her to be his wife. Gulnare produces the ring used at the ceremony; it was not Medora who was veiled, but her!

A storm overtakes the pirate ship, on which Birbanto has hidden. He tries to stir up a mutiny and is thrown overboard by Conrad. The ship hits a rock and sinks, but Conrad and Medora climb onto the rock and are saved.

Cast:
Medora: Ekaterina Krysanova
Conrad: Ruslan Skvortsov
Gulnare: Marianna Ryzhkina
Birbanto: Vitaly Biktimorov
The Pasha: Alexei Loparevich
Zulna, the Sultana: Irina Zibrovna

Creative Team:
Music: Adolphe Adam (with additions by Delibes, Pugni, von Oldenburg, Drigo, Zabel and Gerber – and probably Drooper, Snorky, Fleegle and Bingo, for all I know)
Choreography: Alexei Ratmansky and Yuri Burlaka (after Petipa)
Design: Boris Kaminsky
Costumes: Yelena Zaytseva

Well, I have to say that I spent a great deal of time being confused (and with a running time of over three hours, there was plenty of time for me to do it in) being confused and at times downright bloody mystified as to what exactly was going on and who the feck certain people were during this performance. The synopsis given above is a cut-down version from the one given in the programme, which was so confusing as to bring on brain stem death in anyone trying to make sense of it. I wasn’t helped by several things; the principals used every opportunity to change their costumes, often appearing in two or three different ones in the course of a single act; various characters mentioned in the cast list didn’t appear in the synopsis (who the hell was Mufti when he was at home?); several times an unidentified person in an important-looking costume would rush onto the stage, do a big solo and then rush off again, never to be seen or heard of again; and this version bore only a passing resemblance to other productions of Corsair that I’ve seen. I was therefore reduced to soliciting help with what was going on from various other audience members during the intervals along the lines of “Who was the woman wearing the green dress?” and “Was the woman on the balcony wearing the white dress the same woman who did a dance in the red spangly one?” and “Do YOU understand what’s going on?” Fortunately a lady in the row in front took pity on me and said “One should never worry about the plot of Corsair – one should just enjoy the dancing” (they speak like that at Covent Garden). So I took her advice and just sat back and let it wash over me. Unfortunately, there was so much washing over me that I thought I was going to drown at several points in the evening. By heck, this was a long night. I can do no better than to paraphrase one of the reviews below and say “It was so lovely that I hoped it would go on for ever – and then some time later began to fear that it might”.

Quite why the Bolshoi perform this version is beyond me – it was all so glitzy and overstuffed that I can only compare it to eating an entire box of liqueur chocolates in one go; one is nice as a treat, and having a second one makes you feel wickedly self-indulgent. After the fourth you’re starting to regret the entire thing, and when you realise that there’s another layer underneath, you begin to wonder about the availability of plastic buckets in the immediate vicinity. It was all so piled on that I began to lose the ability to be discriminating about what was good and what was merely indifferent, and there seemed to be plenty of indifferent being presented on the stage, with lots of very strained “ballet acting” by any poor bugger not actually involved in the dancing -  You want to buy a rug? Very nice rug, Effendi, cheap cheap. You no want to buy good rug? May the fleas of a thousand camels infect your armpits, Infidel!  The sets didn’t help – in the main they seemed designed for a much wider stage, and seriously cramped a lot of the action, particularly the set for the Pasha’s palace, which suffered from looking like a bizarre hybrid of Old Peking (Its behiiiiiind you!) and Carry On Follow That Camel with leftover bits of Chu Chin Chow thrown in just in case there was any unused space (which there invariably wasn’t). This on occasion meant that there was an odd column whack bang in the middle of where people needed to dance on the left, which wasn’t then mirrored by another one on the right, forcing those on the left to dance round the column and those on the right to wonder where their column was. In the jardin anime section, there were so many tutu’d and turbaned bodies trying to pick their way through the forests of vaguely horticultural scenery while maintaining a fixed rictus smile and worrying about whether Zvetlana on the opposite side could manage her watering can what with her dodgy elbow and all that that I seriously began to long for Alan Titchmarsh and Charlie Dimmock to stroll on, spray the entire scene with RoundUp and put York stone paving down. Corsair can be done with a (relatively) coherent plot without truckloads of unnecessary stuff – but this wasn’t it. The final hair on this particularly overladen camel’s back was an entire animatronic pirate ship going down with all hands behind a front-projected curtain of crashing waves at the very end. Interesting to see – but it didn’t add anything to the plot, was practically unnecessary and just slowed the climax down to a complete crawl.

Strangest of all was the complete excision of the role of the Slave (a famous Nureyv role) and the resultant section of Act 3 in which it appears, leading to more head scratching. Perhaps it was the fleas from that camel.

To paraphrase a well-known saying: over-long, over-done and over ‘ere.

What the critics thought:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/dance/7927105/Le-Corsaire-Bolshoi-ballet-at-the-Royal-Opera-House-review.html

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/190968/Le-Corsaire-Bolshoi-Ballet-Royal-Opera-HouseLe-Corsaire-Bolshoi-Ballet-Royal-Opera-HouseLe-Corsaire-Bolshoi-Ballet-Royal-Opera-HouseLe-Corsaire-Bolshoi-Ballet-Royal-Opera-House

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/aug/03/le-corsaire-bolshoi-review

American Ballet Theatre's version with the deleted role of the slave (played by a guy with gorgeous hair):

The Tempest - The Old Vic, Monday 2nd August 2010

Synopsis:

The magician Prospero, rightful Duke of Milan, and his daughter, Miranda, have been stranded for twelve years on an island after Prospero's jealous brother Antonio—helped by Alonso, the King of Naples—deposed him and set him adrift with the then three-year-old Miranda. Gonzalo, the King's counsellor, had secretly supplied their boat with plenty of food, water, clothes and the most-prized books from Prospero's library. Possessing magic powers due to his great learning, Prospero is reluctantly served by a spirit, Ariel, whom Prospero had rescued from a tree in which he had been trapped by the witch Sycorax.  Her son, Caliban,  taught Prospero how to survive on the island, while Prospero . Following Caliban's attempted rape of Miranda, he had been compelled by Prospero to serve as the sorcerer's slave. In slavery, Caliban has come to view Prospero as a usurper and has grown to resent him and his daughter.

The play opens as Prospero, having divined that his brother, Antonio, is on a ship passing close by the island, has raised a tempest which causes the ship to run aground. Also on the ship are King Alonso of Naples, Alonso's brother Sebastian and son Ferdinand, and advisor, Gonzalo. All these passengers are returning from the wedding of Alonso's daughter Claribel with the King of Tunis. Prospero, by his spells, contrives to separate the survivors of the wreck into several groups. Alonso and Ferdinand are separated and believe one another to be dead.

Caliban falls in with Stephano and Trinculo, two drunkards, whom he believes to have come from the moon. They attempt to raise a rebellion against Prospero, which ultimately fails.  Prospero works to establish a romantic relationship between Ferdinand and Miranda; the two fall immediately in love, but Prospero worries that "too light winning [may] make the prize light", and compels Ferdinand to become his servant, pretending that he regards him as a spy. In the third subplot, Antonio and Sebastian conspire to kill Alonso and Gonzalo so that Sebastian can become King. They are thwarted by Ariel, at Prospero's command. Ariel appears to Alonso, Antonio and Sebastian as a harpy, reprimanding them for their betrayal of Prospero. Prospero manipulates the course of his enemies' path through the island, drawing them closer and closer to him.

In the conclusion, all the main characters are brought together before Prospero, who forgives Alonso. He also forgives Antonio and Sebastian, but warns them against further betrayal. Ariel is charged to prepare the proper sailing weather to guide Alonso and his entourage (including Prospero and Miranda) back to the Royal fleet and then to Naples, where Ferdinand and Miranda will be married. After discharging this task, Ariel will finally be free. Prospero pardons Caliban, who is sent to prepare Prospero's cell, to which Alonso and his party are invited for a final night before their departure  Prospero has resolved to break and bury his wizard's staff and  book of magic. In his epilogue, shorn of his magic powers, he invites the audience to set him free from the island with their applause.

Cast:

Prospero: Stephen Dillane

Ariel: Christian Camargo

Caliban: Ron Cephas Jones

Boatswain: Ross Waiton

Alonso: Jonathan Lincoln Fried

Gonzalo: Alvin Epstein

Sebastian: Richard Hansell

Antonio: Michael Thomas

Miranda: Juliet Rylance

Ferdinand: Edward Bennett

Trinculo: Anthony O’Donnell

Stephano: Thomas Sadowski

 

I wasn’t quite so sleepy this time round as I was when I saw this company’s production of As You Like It – but honestly, the pace they took it at was enough to cure anyone’s insomnia. Obviously the Director had given them all the instruction “The best way to do Shakespeare so that everyone understands what is going on Is. To. Speak. Very. Very. Slowly. And. Pause. Between. Each. Word”. During the opening scene, everybody thankfully ignored this, but remembered in time for the next one, so that by the (non-existent) interval, I was glancing at my watch every couple of minutes and making strenuous “Get ON with it!” movements with both my hands. There were places where the pace mercifully picked up but the average pace could kindly be described as “stately” or rudely as “bloody slow”. Still, at least most of the cast were audible this time round. Mr. Dillane, playing Prospero, had been roundly criticised by the press for his lack of projection in As You Like It, and for the most part managed to rev this up several notches, until about half an hour before the end when decided to inject a bit of variety into his rather bland performance by playing about with the sound levels:

“We. Are. Such. Things. As. Dreams. Are. Made On. And.

Our. Little. Life. Is. Rounded. Off. With. A. Sleep”

which made the last act appear like the sound technician was buggering about with his knob (steady!) in his little booth and twisting it left and then right and then back again to keep himself from dropping off through hypnotic speech pattern overload. No such problems from Juliet Rylance who gave her performance by megaphone again – any louder and she could have saved the director of a production some 15 miles away the expense of having a Miranda on stage, merely having to open the theatre doors so that Miss Rylance’s performance could be heard from afar. Alvin Epstein, as Gonzalo, had either switched his throat mike off completely, was making sure that the bats in the rafters got their fill of Shakespeare or was just inaudible.

Rather than present Prospero’s Island with any attempt at realism, the set designer had tried to be tricksy and cute by having no set other than a large, round circle of sand in the middle of the stage. There was a large, shallow trough across the width of the stage at the back, filled with water and enough wooden chairs to start a small furniture store (“Hello? DFS Prospero’s Island branch. How may we help you?”) on which any member of the cast not currently performing had to go and sit and await their next entrance. Pity the poor bugger playing the Boatswain who gets about 10 lines in the first act and then nothing until 2 pages from the very end who had to sit there all night in full view, rather than being able to return to the dressing room, take his sea boots off, catch up with Coronation Street for two hours and have a good scratch. I hope that everyone had been issued with waterproof footwear, or there will be a run on treatment for Foot Rot at Boots in Waterloo Road by the end of the run. The casting director had also seemingly balked at using the full company – when the Goddesses conjured up the Nymphs and Shepherds for the wedding masque, nary a Nymph nor indeed Shepherd responded to their call and so they had to do the best they could with assorted castaways, which made for a rather rum pastoral sequence, especially as a lot of it was accompanied by back-projected old home movies of what I think we were meant to understand to be Miranda's early childhood.

On the subject of rum, this being a tropical island (that's a joke btw), the other inhabitants were extremely odd indeed. Ariel was played as a very fey, palefaced cross between Edward Scissorhands and one of the sparkly vampires from the Twilight series – less Ariel than Emo  (still, I suppose we were lucky it wasn't Elmo). Quite why, when commanded to disguise himself as a water sprite, he decided to don a long green sleeveless cocktail dress is beyond me, and I found the characterisation of Caliban somewhat tasteless; yes, OK, have Caliban played by a black actor in order to emphasise his difference from the rest of the characters (and make a political point about slavery), but is it not somewhat crass to then have him “white up” in Caucasian-toned body paint? Other characters seemed to have grabbed their costumes from the nearest hamper marked “Dressing Up” and were representative of no particular era or location. Whether this was making about point about the “timeless” quality of Shakepeare’s play I don’t know but I do know that having no interval makes you very aware of every passing minute when you need to go to the toilet.

What the critics thought:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/7851088/The-Tempest-As-You-Like-It-at-the-Old-Vic-review.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/jun/24/review-tempest-as-you-like-it

http://www.curtainup.com/tempestbam10.html

http://nick730.livejournal.com/459755.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/theatre-dance/reviews/as-you-like-it--the-tempest-old-vic-london-brwelcome-to-thebes-nt-olivier-london-brsucker-punch-royal-court-downstairs-london-2011307.html