Hedda Gabler - The Old Vic - Thursday 6th September 2012

Synopsis:

Hedda Gabler, daughter of an aristocratic general, has just returned from her honeymoon. Her husband is Jørgen Tesman, an aspiring, reliable (but not brilliant) academic who has combined their honeymoon with research for his next book. The reappearance of Tesman's academic rival, Ejlert Løvborg, throws their lives into disarray. Løvborg, a writer, is also a recovered alcoholic who has wasted his talent until now. Thanks to a relationship with Hedda's old schoolmate Thea Elvsted (who has left her husband for him), Løvborg shows signs of rehabilitation and has just completed a bestseller in the same field as Tesman.

The critical success of his recently published work transforms Løvborg into a threat to Tesman, as he becomes a competitor for the university professorship Tesman had been counting on. The Tesman's are financially overstretched, and Tesman tells Hedda that he will not be able to finance the regular entertaining or luxurious housekeeping that Gabler had been expecting. Upon meeting Løvborg, however, the couple discover that he has no intention of competing for the professorship, but rather has spent the last few years labouring with Mrs. Elvsted over what he considers to be his masterpiece, the "sequel" to his recently published work.

Apparently jealous of Mrs. Elvsted's influence over Løvborg, Gabler hopes to come between them. She provokes Løvborg to get drunk and go to a party. Tesman returns home from the party and reveals that he found Løvborg's manuscript, which he has lost while drunk. When Gabler next sees Løvborg, he confesses to her, despairingly, that he has lost the manuscript. Instead of telling him that the manuscript has been found, Gabler encourages him to commit suicide, giving him a pistol. She then burns the manuscript and tells Tesman she has destroyed it to secure their future.

When the news comes that Løvborg has killed himself, Tesman and Mrs. Elvsted are determined to try to reconstruct his book from the comprehensive notes, which Mrs. Elvsted has kept. Gabler is shocked to discover from Judge Brack (a friend of Tesman's), that Løvborg's death, in a brothel, was messy and probably accidental.  Worse, Brack knows the origins of the pistol. He tells Gabler that if he reveals what he knows, a scandal will likely arise. Gabler realizes that this places Brack in a position of power over her. Leaving the others, she goes into her room and shoots herself in the head.

Cast:
Darrell D’Silva - Dr. Brack
Buffy Davis - Bertha, the maid
Daniel Lapaine - Eilert Loevborg
Anne Reid - Aunt Julie
Adrian Scarborough - Tesman
Sheridan Smith - Hedda Gabler
Fenella Woolgar - Mrs. Elvstead

Creative Team:
Director - Anna Mackmin
Designer - Lez Brotherston
Lighting - Mark Henderson
Music - Paul Englishby
Sound - Simon Baker
Casting - Sarah Bird

Once upon a time, when the world was young, you went to drama school and then learnt the nuts and bolts of your craft in the theatre. You started out playing maids or butlers, progressed to small supporting parts, and eventually played the lead. Then your agent sent you off to audition for a TV programme or a film, and you took all that you learned in the theatre and hopefully made a success of your latest exciting venture. Now it seems that you finish drama school, do a soap or a sitcom, become an overnight success and then head back to the stage to show how in touch you are with your artistic roots. Unfortunately, what you learn dong a soap or a sitcom often doesn’t stand you in very good stead for the rigours of the stage. There are no retakes, no opportunity to cover up your lack of stage experience, no technique to fall back on if something happens in the auditorium and distracts your attention. Stage fright? Tough. You are on your own. If you are lucky, you are part of a cast of experienced actors who can support your performance and help you look better than you really are. If you’ve got any common sense, you don’t tackle the classical repertoire until you’ve got a good few years stage experience under your belt, at which point you may decide that you have always longed to play Hamlet and that now is the time.

Before taking on this part, Sheridan Smith freely admitted in a Time Out interview that she had never heard of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. In fact, she had to look it up on the internet, and was almost put off playing the title role by what she read. Would that she had listened to that inner voice that said “Now is not yet the time”. A reasonably competent actress she may be, but now is not the time that she should be playing Hedda Gabler. She should have left it to someone with a bit more training, a bit more experience, a bit more technique. She should have taken a supporting role (there is an ideal role in which she could have excelled in this play), watched the actress playing Hedda carefully and learned from what she saw. And then waited her opportunity to play the role with all guns blazing. She certainly shouldn’t have admitted to her ignorance in an interview. But what the heck, the Casting Director must have thought. She’ll fill the theatre with people who liked her in Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps or Legally Blonde and who will come to see her rather than those who have come to see Hedda Gabler. In terms of bums on seats, it’s a winner. In terms of artistic success, it’s a definite maybe.

In terms of the audience, it’s a mistake. Yes, the theatre was full. But (as an apocryphal story about a returning WW1 solder goes) “My dear, the people! And the noise!”. I don’t think I’ve ever sat in such a badly behaved audience. There were those who can’t sit for 15 minutes without checking their mobile and those who didn’t have the intelligence or the courtesy to turn them off before the performance started (of course, their phones always start ringing just when the drama is at its height). There were the sniffers without handkerchiefs, the constant fidgeters during the wordy bits, the people who think its appropriate to chat to their friends during the performance. The sweet wrapper rustlers. Those who think that the leading lady should be roundly “whooped” at the curtain call. You know, those people who think that going to the theatre is the same as watching something on the TV. All, without exception, under 30. There to see Sheridan Smith and with little or no appreciation or understanding of the play. Thankfully, Him Indoors explained their presence with the immortal line “She [Ms. Smith] has a large following among The Youth”. Honestly, all that was missing was a string of pearls and a lorgnette.

Now, before the Sheridan Smith fans give me the same treatment as the James Corden fans, I’m not saying that she didn’t make a game stab at the role. But the role of Hedda has been described as “the female Hamlet”. The role belongs to the Juliet Stephensons, Maggie Smiths and Maria Ewings of the acting world. You need the solid weight of experience behind you to fully make it yours. And, as yet, she doesn’t have it. There are times when she is on very uncertain ground, and its evident. Playing a role is not merely following your Director’s instructions and learning the lines, and there are many occasions when Ms. Smith is simply doing both. Her inexperience and uncertainty shows. Now is not the time. OK, this was a preview performance and Ms. Smith may have the good luck and/or the nous to follow a very steep learning curve during the run, but the work should be evident at the first performance, not the last. Her projection needs a lot of work (but then, to be fair, so does the projection of a lot of the cast. Anne Reid, in particular, should know a lot better because a lot of the time she is barely audible). Hedda is a power-player, a manipulator, but on many occasions Smith’s Hedda is a pawn, not a queen. She’s a bit frigid as well; there is no evidence of sexual tension between her character and Darrell Da Silva’s Judge Brack. When Fenella Woolgar is on stage with her, Woolgar is the one you are watching, because she can act with her body as well as her voice. She doesn’t need to even open her mouth before you can tell that she is pulled taught as a bowstring and is ready to snap. Woolgar knows how to fiddle with the handle of a bag, smooth back an errant lock of hair, stand there in awkward embarrassment. This is the role that Smith should have been cast in; a role which makes an impact but doesn’t have to carry the full weight of the play. One gets the feeling that when Smith hasn’t been told to do something, she doesn’t do anything, and the performance dips and peaks accordingly. Woolgar, in comparison, doesn’t stop. If she’s on stage, she’s acting.

Adrian Scarborough gives a full throttle Tesman – bumptious, tedious, irritating and petty, and its obvious why Hedda comes to loathe him; she’s like a clever canary which has the cat right where she wants him. Daniel Lapaine does his best with the difficult and near-impossible role of Loevborg (a part that is given such a build up before he appears on stage that it is apparently an uphill struggle to justify it afterwards). Anne Reid is a competent Aunt Juliana, but was practically inaudible in many places (particularly the second act). There is, however, little you can do with the part I would imagine other than be a fussy old spinster. I was shocked that she was not given a second costume; at the end, when her sister’s death is discussed, Aunt Juliana should be in full mourning. In this production, however, the character is simply wearing a black paletot (a kind of three-quarter length jacket worn over the bodice of an Edwardian day-dress) over the costume she wore in Act I. This is particularly noticeable as Smith is at that point dolled up to the tens in a slinky mourning dress worthy of Scarlett O’Hara – or perhaps Vampira.

Him Indoors accuses me of never noticing or commenting on direction, but even I noticed various points where direction was awkward or superfluous. There are many doors on the set, which is designed to be a “room within a room”, and several times characters seemed to do a full tour of the entire set to reach a particular door when in reality they would have simply entered or exited by the nearest one to hand. There is a certain “filmic” quality to some of the direction, particularly that before the dialogue starts; the play is almost told in flashback so that what you see at the very beginning is actually the very end. The lighting is very pretty and effective, but to me it felt as if the lighting technicians hadn’t quite mastered their “daylight quality” until the second act.

The Brian Friel version of Ibsen’s text is a bit clunky and peppered with constant references to Americanisms, along the lines of “What a corker, as I think the new-fangled American expression is”. Do I suspect a certain sense of wishing to amuse our Colonial Friends in the audience, or is it something to do with the fact that a trip to the Old Vic is now more or less a corporate experience with “American Airlines” plastered all over the building in various guises? Whoever decided to put that “American Airlines Bar” in the main foyer, right at the bottom of the stairs is a fool; it obstructs what is already a very cramped space (you really do have to fight your way through the champagne quaffers before the performance) interrupts the flow of the audience coming down the stairs afterwards. In case you miss your opportunity to buy a vastly overpriced drink in the foyer, there is another “American Airlines Bar” on the lower ground floor which obstructs the queue for the toilets. I doubt whether Lilian Baylis, founder of the Old Vic, would have approved, and I certainly disapprove of her portrait being relegated to the very top of the staircase where only the brave souls mountaineering up three floors to go to the toilet will ever see it.

And now, let us stand back and wait for the Sheridan Smith fans to pour scorn and vitriol on my review of their heroine.

This was a preview performance, pro reviews posted after opening night.

The Doctor's Dilemma - National Theatre, Friday 20th July 2012

Synopsis:

The story opens on the day that Ridgeon, a prominent research doctor, is knighted. His friends gather to congratulate him. The friends include Sir Patrick, a distinguished old physician; Walpole, an aggressive surgeon; Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington, a charismatic society doctor; and Blenkinsop, a threadbare but honest government doctor. Each one has his favorite theory of illness and method of cure. These are incompatible--one man's cure is another man's poison. Nonetheless, they all get along.

A young woman (Mrs. Dubedat) desperately seeks help for her husband, a talented artist,  from Ridgeon, who has apparently found a way to cure consumption. Ridgeon initially refuses, but changes his mind for two reasons - Dubechat is a fine artist and Ridgeon is smitten with his wife.

When the doctors meet Dubedat, however, they find that he is a dishonest scoundrel. Ridgeon eventually decides to treat Blenkinsop (who also has consumption) and refer the artist to Bloomfield Bonington, this insuring that he will die. In the end Ridgeon justifies his behavior as a plan to let Dubedat die before his wife find out what an amoral cad he actually was. This, in fact, happens and Dubedat's artistic reputation soars.

Cast:

Redpenny - William Belchambers
Dubedat- Tom Burke
Sir Patrick Cullen - David Calder
Sir Colenso Ridgeon - Aden Gillett
Minnie Tinwell - Amy Hall
Dr Schutzmacher - Paul Herzberg
Dr Blenkinsop - Derek Hutchinson
Emmy - Maggie McCarthy
Mrs Jennifer Dubedat - Genevieve O’Reilly
Mr Cutler Walpole - Robert Portal
Sir Ralph Bloomfield Bonington - Malcolm Sinclair
Newspaper Man - Samuel Taylor
Mr Danby - Richard Teverson

Creative Team –
Author: George Bernard Shaw
Director - Nadia Fall
Designer - Peter McKintosh
Lighting Designer - Neil Austin Music - Matthew Scot
Sound Designer - Gregory Clarke

Verily, we must give thanks. The sun is finally shining after months of rain and gloom (although personally I would prefer the heat to be slightly less ferocious, thank you very much). The Olympics will soon be over, leaving only a team of rubbish collectors chasing plastic bottles and cardboard cups around Stratford and Greenwich Park to get on with the long process of being dug up, built on, trampled all over and generally abused. The Accounts Department will serve Lord Coe with the final bill (“Well, that will be fifty six trillion, two hundred million, four hundred and eighty seven thousand, four hundred and eight pounds and 26 pence please. And no, we don’t take Visa”) who will then gesture towards Joe Public and say “My friends are paying”. And the National are once again showing a classic play, given it a lush production and a good cast and (for once) a decent poster.

This really is the kind of thing the National should be doing all the time (or at least a good deal more often). Presenting plays that may have fallen slightly out of fashion for various reasons, but which are worthy of being wheeled up from the morgue, being given a shot of something in the arm to perk them up a bit and exposure to the oxygen of applause. Voila, we have brought a classic play back to life, simply by stimulating its phagocytes. I mean, look at how successful London Assurance was a while back. People like this kind of stuff. It sells. And it’s a bloody good piece of writing. Its intelligent, addresses important points and is very funny, Yes, it might show signs of its age by being a bit wordy on occasion, but it honestly didn’t feel like it had a 2 ½ hour running time. In fact, the interval took me completely by surprise. And honestly, people can concentrate for that long because we’re not all idiots with the attention span of – sorry, I have to go check Facebook for a second.

Part of the productions’ appeal is its grand set design, which is wonderful. Before curtain up, a chap in the row behind us was reading the programme and gasped “Oooh look, each of the scenes is set in a different place” (perhaps he doesn't go to the theatre very often, bless him). I don’t think he was disappointed either, because no seemingly no expense has been spared. Sir Bingelybat Picnic-Hamper’s consulting rooms (really, Shaw outdid himself with stupid names in this play) are extremely grand, even if the windows do need a bit of a scrub. It’s the first time I’ve seen a dining table rise up out of the floor in the Lyttleton auditorium, even if the candelabra should have been placed parallel with the long sides rather than the short ones. And all the artist’s studio needs to make it perfect is a trio of merrily starving students (preferably a poet, a painter and a playwright) and a consumptive needlewoman expiring on the chaise lounge (which sounds like it needs to be a very big chaise lounge in order for them all to expire on it, but you know what I mean). The only gripe I have is that, in the final scene, the paintings are more or less obscured by the dropped in wall – although this does allow for some nice bits of direction as Aiden Gillet and Genevieve O’Reilly spar verbally while viewing them.

Although the lead character is ostensibly Sir Colenso (which to me sounds like something you would pour down a drain to unblock it), he is actually somewhat of a minor character in the play. Most of the best lines are given not to him but to one of the other three medical men – personally I think that Malcolm Sinclair walks away with the entire evening purely because he has the most perfect comic timing, and looks like he has just stepped out of an Edwardian painting of a doctor (I initially thought the one I was seeing in my minds eye was that by Sir Luke Fildes, but it turns out I am wrong.  The one I am thinking of can be seen in the Hogwarts Infirmary with its companion piece called "The Nurse" but I can't remember who it is by.  Answers on a postcard please). There is the opportunity for a number of minor characters to have their time in the spotlight – notably Emmy, Sir Colenso’s housekeeper, lumbering up and down like a kindly old elephant. All that Maggie McCarthy is missing in this role is a glass of warm milk and some digestive biscuits on a tray (I did wonder whether it was implied or whether I just imagined it that this character was once Sir Colenso’s Nanny?). There is a fine cameo of an incredibly insensitive reporter by Samuel Taylor and Tom Burke is louche, caddish, completely reprehensible but devilishly sexy as Dubedat, handling the switch from pathos to bathos and back again particularly well in his deathbed scene. The only weak link is Genevieve O’Reilly’s Mrs. Dubedat – I found her shrill, unconvincing and far too “theatrical” in her performance – if she had been playing an actress her performance would have been great, but to me she seemed both shallow and completely over the top. In fact, I would say that in her case, you could actually see her acting. Listen for the susurration from the audience when she slips off her robe and strides about naked – its very funny and sounds like the audience are not entirely sure whether they should be scandalised by her nudity but then decide that its ok for a woman to get her baps out because this is a play by GBS, after all, and therefore acceptable.

I do have a gripe about her costumes, too. They are extremely pretty and very “period” – but she wears them at incorrect times. In the first scene, which takes place mid-morning, she is wearing pretty walking outfit, but appears in it again (with the addition of a long motoring coat) at the evening dinner party, when she should be in evening dress. She finally appears in an evening dress at the end of scene four – but has apparently managed to lace herself into a corset and a tight fitting bodice without any human assistance. Yes, yes, I know, I’m a nitpicker. Live with it.

And finally, finally, run to the roof and shout hurrah; the National Theatre Publicity Department have seen the light and have designed an appropriate poster/programme cover for this production. A couple of years ago, if not more, the decision was taken (I believe by Nick Hytner) that all NT production posters would henceforth be photographic, in an “in house” style and with a standardised, sans serif font in gaudy paintbox colours. This has led to many hideous, boring images that really have very little to do with the productions they advertise. Thankfully this policy has been rescinded and the production is graced by an appropriate, painted image. However, one wonders, as the production was planned two years ago, and casting presumably sewn up shortly after that, why the image doesn’t actually show Genevieve O’Reilly? As one of the themes of the play is Dubedat’s almost obsessive need to draw and paint his wife, surely an image of the actress playing her would be appropriate?

Aaaaanyway, minor carps aside, this is a good solid production which achieved the practically impossible – it cheered me up after a major domestic the night before and for that alone it is worthy of commendation. People who haven’t rowed with their Other Half will still enjoy it.

What the critics said:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/9426772/The-Doctors-Dilemma-National-Theatre-review.html

http://www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/doctors-dilemma-national-theatre

http://www.whatsonstage.com/reviews/theatre/london/E8831343208959/The+Doctor's+Dilemma.html

http://oughttobeclowns.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/review-doctors-dilemma-national-theatre.html

Timon of Athens - National Theatre, Friday 13th July 2012

Synopsis:

Timon of Athens likes nothing better than to please his friends. He lavishes gifts on them, holds entertainments for them, grants dowries to them. The word around Athens is that if you ask Timon for something, you shall receive it in abundance. Give Timon a gift, and he shall give you one with triple the value. So it is that the citizens of Athens flock to him to flatter, praise, and esteem him.

One citizen, the cynical philosopher Apemantus, warns Timon that his friends are parasites who care only for his gold. If Timon continues to squander money on them, Apemantus says, he will bankrupt himself. Timon’s honest and loyal steward, Flavius, also cautions Timon that his extravagance will one day lead to his ruin. Ruin eventually arrives in the form of unpaid bills.

When Timon turns for help to the very people upon whom he showered his favours, they give him only cold shoulders and excuses. Their friendship, it seems, is as empty as Timon’s purse. He then announces a great banquet and invites these same people to partake. Believing he must have come into new wealth, they gladly accept his invitation. However, after they arrive, Timon serves them only rotten meat and cold water, Throwing dishes at them, he drives them out of his house and then quits Athens vowing never to return. Turning to look at the wall of the city one last time, he heaps a soliloquy of curses upon Athens and its citizens.

Taking up residence in a cave near the sea, he lives off the land and spends most of his waking hours bitterly denouncing fickle humankind. One day, while digging for roots to eat, he finds gold, a great cache of it. He is rich once again. It so happens that General Alcibiades, who has also been wronged by the Athenians and has been banished from Athens, comes upon Timon in the woods near the cave.. When Alcibiades mentions that he is gathering an army to make war on Athens, Timon sees an opportunity for revenge and gives him gold to finance the venture.

Word of Timon’s new-found gold spreads, and three bandits descend upon the cave to it. Timon does not shrink from the robbers; nor does he try to protect his cache of gold. Instead, he willingly gives them gold. His hatred for humankind is so strong that it nearly shocks the bandits into becoming honest men. After the bandits leave, the good and worthy Flavius arrives at the cave seeking the company and love of his master. At first Timon rebukes him, too. Later, when he realizes that Flavius has come in search of companionship, not gold, Timon praises him as the only honest man on earth, then gives him a large portion of gold and bids him adieu.

Representatives of the Athenian senate arrive and praise Timon and then ask for gold to purchase the means to shore up their defenses against the invading army of Alcibiades. But Timon dashes their hopes when he explains that the kindness he has in mind is an invitation to Athenians to come out and hang themselves on a useless tree that he plans to cut down. Timon then dismisses the senators. Thus, their only recourse is to prostrate themselves before Alcibiades and beg mercy. Back at the walls of Athens, Alcibiades agrees to spare the innocent and destroy only those who wronged him and Timon. A soldier then arrives with news that Timon has died.

Cast:

Timon of Athens – Simon Russell Beale
Flavia, his Steward – Deborah Findlay
Flaminia – Olivia Llewellyn
Servillius – Tim Samuels        } Timon's staff
Philotus – Alfred Enoch
Lucillius, an errant slave – Stavros Demetraki,Apemantus, a philosopher – Hilton McRae
A poet – Nick Sampson
A painter – Penny Layden
A jeweller – Jo Dockery
Lucullus, a banker – Paul Bentall
Sempronia, a politician – Lynette Edwards
Alcibiades, a rebel – Ciaran McMenamin

Creative team:
Director: Nicholas Hytner
Designer: Tim Hatley
Lighting: Bruno Poet
Music: Grant Olding

No doubt you will have heard me rant on about modern-dress productions of Shakespeare before. If so, you won’t need to be reminded that I don’t generally approve, believing as I do that it’s a cheap and easy cop-out by a director not only wishing to ease up on his costume budget but who has scraped the bottom of the barrel for some production ideas and hasn’t really come up with anything, glossing over this fact by saying “it makes the play more relevant to today’s audience” (I wonder why nobody has ever set a Shakespeare play in the future? You know, by having the TARDIS appear on stage and a couple of lost time-travellers staggering out of it to start the action of the story rolling?). So my heart sank like the proverbial stone when we pitched up at the theatre to find that this was yet another modern-dress production. And then….some magic happened. The play started and it was about today. A small army of the dispossessed live in tents while bankers, commercially-successful artists, celebrities and politicians quaff champagne and nibble canapés, pat each other on the back, and attend glamorous receptions in art galleries. A man over-reaches himself financially through lavish entertainments for people he thinks like him, goes to those friends for a short term loan and finds himself turned down for credit by all and sundry. Forced to admit that his “friends” are worthless parasites, he has to lay off his staff, sell up his home and sleep rough, while the dispossessed riot in the streets. Inside the barricades, the parties continue unabated as the bloodsuckers find fresh victims to suck dry.

Oh Shakespeare, you clever clever man, you really did have a TARDIS all the while, didn’t you? You travelled forward in time, saw what was happening and left us a clue to show you had been here. For once, the dark suits, modern hairstyles and contemporary settings became starkly relevant to the action as the story unfolded, and I found myself literally clinging onto the timbers of the raft as it swept downstream through the white waters of the first act, throwing me up against a sandbank signposted “INTERVAL” and leaving me gasping for breath and picking twigs out of my hair. The lights went down, I took a deep breath and plunged back in – and found no rapids but a slow, eddying pool of murky and slightly rank water in which I bobbed up and down for the next 45 minutes and barely moved.

For this is a strange chimera of a play. A note in the programme explains that:

“In 1623 the publisher of the first collection edition of Mr. Shakepeare’s Comedies, Tragedies and Histories was having trouble securing the rights to print Troilus and Cressida which was supposed to follow Romeo and Juliet in the “tragedies” section. The printers delayed as long as they could and then grabbed Timon of Athens to fill the gap. Apparently never polished into a final version, perhaps long forgotten, probably never performed, possibly never intended to be in the First Folio, this odd play [was] written by Shakespeare and his younger contemporary Thomas Middleton”

So what we have here is a botched committee job, only half formed, sent into the world before its time. And by god does it show. The first half of the play is electrifying, scarily relevant to early 21st century London and could have been written yesterday. The second half of the play descends rapidly into weary and tiresome speechifying that reminded me of the worst excesses of Beckett's Waiting for Godot – not that I have ever seen Waiting for Godot but this is what I imagine the worst excesses of it would be like. You know, one mad, shambling old tramp maundering on to himself, finding a horde of buried treasure and then killing himself. Rather than, as I found myself fervently hoping, taking back his place in society, shouting “I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you” and doing so in a variety of interesting and humiliating ways. Damn. Timon doesn’t even have the good grace to stick around to the end of the play, merely shambling off stage and topping himself. What a cop out. I felt like going to the box office and demanding half my money back.

The first half moves along at such a pace that it is hard to keep up with the clever, yet simple set changes. An enormous picture (El Greco, if anyone should care to remark that the play is set in Athens) is covered with lavish drop curtain which then rises to reveal that the picture has disappeared and that the frame is now the proscenium of a small stage, which then disappears and the picture frame becomes a window frame, through which can be glimpsed the shining towers of Canary Wharf or the Houses of Parliament (confusingly pinning the play’s location to London instead). A dining table set for 14 glides on and is serviced by an elegantly choreographed team of waters. A couple of elegant leather sofas cleverly mark out a location as the reception area of a posh-git hedge fund. Its all very spare, yet very elegant in a reductive 20teens way. Costumes are the usual blend of sharp city suits and elegant designer dresses (a style which would normally bring on a fit of the heebie jeebies for me but which is here entirely and frighteningly appropriate, for possibly the first time in my theatregoing experience).

And the cast, with one or two notable exceptions, is really good. Yet there remains the problem of the second half, which is a problem that cannot be overcome. It really is a play of two halves; one is fast-paced and exciting in a way that I have rarely experienced before (and extremely rarely in Shakespeare) and the other is a rambling disappointment. After a good half an hour of maundering, the ending feels rushed, tacked on and incomplete. If I had had to leave at the interval, I would have come away feeling cheated of the rest of the evening. As it is, I saw the second half and felt cheated of what could have been Shakespeare’s most exciting play had he ever got round to finishing it.

Highlighs from the Chicago 2009 Festival of Shakespeare production:

A Doll's House - Young Vic, Thursday 29th June 2012

Synopsis:

Nora Helmer is, for once, enjoying life. Mrs. Linde, an old friend stops by hoping to find a job. Nora's husband Torvald recently earned a promotion, so Nora recommends Mrs. Linde’s services to her husband, Torvald. Nora, however, is carrying a dark secret. When Torvald was very ill, she forged her dead father's signature in order to illegally obtain a loan to support the family, and has secretly been paying back the loan in small installments saved from her housekeeping money.

Nils Krogstad, an employee at Torvald’s bank, collects the debt payments and knows Nora’s secret, as he has a copy of the loan agreement. Trying to consolidate his position at the bank, which he has obtained with difficulty after being arrested himself for forgery in order to gain money, he attempts blackmail. Nora manages to conceal her guilt from her husband and from Dr. Rank, a kind yet sickly friend of the Helmers.

Suspicious that Krogstad has criminial tendencies, Torvald attempts to remove him from his post and replace him with Mrs. Linde; Nora is forced to try to dissuade him. She attempts to gain Dr. Rank’s confidence and help, but is repulsed when she finds that Rank has always loved her.

Mrs. Linde tells Nora that she had a romantic attachment to Krogstad in the past, and that she can perhaps persuade him to relent. However, Krogstad does not sway in his position. It seems that Torvald is bound to discover the truth and Nora contemplates suicide. She believes that if she does not commit suicide, Torvald will bravely assume responsibility for her crimes, going to jail on her behalf.

Krogstad and Mrs. Linde are reconciled, and the loan agreement is destroyed. However, Krogstad’s letter of denciation is still in the glass-fronted mailbox, where Nora can see it but not retrieve it.

After returning from a party , Nora and Torvald unwind at home. Torvald discusses how he enjoys watching her at parties, pretending that he is encountering her for the first time. Dr. Rank interrupts them, hinting that he will be shutting himself up in his room until his sickness finally wins.

Torvald discovers Krogstad's incriminating note. He declares that Nora is immoral, unfit as a wife and mother. The irony is that moments before, Torvald has been discussing how he wished that Nora faced some sort of peril, so that he could prove his love for her. Yet, once that peril is actually presented, he has no intention of saving her, only condemning her actions.

Krogstad drops another note saying that he has rediscovered love, and that he no longer wants to blackmail the Helmer family. Torvald rejoices, declaring that they are saved. He then, in a moment of sheer hypocrisy, states that he forgives Nora, and that he still loves her as his little "caged song bird."

In a flash, Nora realizes that Torvald is not the loving, selfless husband she had once envisioned. With that epiphany, she also comes to understand that their marriage has been a lie, and that she herself has been an active part in the deception. Torvald desperately begs her to stay.

Cast:

Torvald Helmer, a banker – Dominic Rowan

Nora, his wife – Hattie Morahan

Helene, their maid – Yolanda Kettle

Anna, their children’s nurse – Lynne Verrall

Dr Rank, a family friend – Steve Toussaint

Nils Krogstad, a junior colleague of Helmer – Nick Fletcher

Kristine Lind, an old friend of Nora – Susannah Wise

Creative Team

Original text by Henrik Ibsen

Adapted by Simon Stephens

Director – Carrie Cracknell

Design – Ian MacNeil

Costumes – Gabrielle Dalton

Set by Miraculous Engineering

This play is set in Norway. This may well explain why the Young Vic had the air conditioning turned up to such an extent that people were sitting in the auditorium shivering with the cold. Take a coat. Or a blanket. Or both. Try not to laugh ironically when one of the characters complains “how hot it is tonight”.

This play also has a baby in it. A real live baby. Get ready for the baby’s appearance as you will be able to coo appreciatively with the vast majority of the rest of the audience. Comments elsewhere on this blog about live animals in productions are now superseded in favour of the appearance of a human baby on the set if you want your audience to go home talking about the show.

“What was the play like?”

“It was OK. But there was a BABY in it! A REAL baby! It was soooooooo cute! It was being carried by someone! In a blanket! It was soooooooo cute! It had a nose! And eyes! And little hands! And some hair!”

“Really? Wow!”

Try not to mix this play up beforehand with other Scandinavian plays by the same author. Ones about syphilis. You will be disappointed when it is not mentioned. Acknowledge the fact that he was well ahead of his time in a) writing great parts for women and b) tackling important social issues from a female point of view. Afterwards, try not to snigger as Him Indoors says that “The play sees life through a different prism”. Try not to get pissed off when Him Indoors says “Have you never seen another Ibsen play? Well, its not surprising; after all, you don’t have any theatrical pedigree do you?” Remind him that you did, in fact, once see Juliet Stephenson playing Hedda Gabbler at the National.

Admire the set. It is very, very lovely and very clever. It is another revolving house, and allows parents to play games of hide and seek with their children and suchlike, while opening up the action from what could be a very static production if done on a set representing only one room, as the original stage directions dictate. It also allows you little glimpses of what is going on elsewhere in the house which add to your appreciation of the plot, and also becomes a character in the story in its own right. It is elegant, yet claustrophobic (there is a marvellous scene played out in the cramped confines of the hallway between Nora and Krogstad), and the inhabitants are permanently on view, both to ourselves and to the other inhabitants. There is little privacy. It is, in fact, A Doll’s House. Try desperately not to get irked by the fact that, although it is 1878, there are incandescent gas filaments along the hall but both an electric light switch on the wall of the main living room and a modern table lamp on the bedside cabinet, the flex of which can be seen clearly coiling under the bed. Try to screen out the hideous modern plastic Christmas tree, lest you be thought a nit-picker. Try to blank out the articles of furniture which are obviously modern and instead convince yourself that they are from the 1877 IKEA catalogue and that the Norwegians were obviously 120 years or so ahead of everyone else in terms of furniture design, because the set is still very pretty and very clever regardless of these points. It allows for some very clever and “filmic” direction because, as it revolves, you will be able to see someone’s back as they walk from one room and then their face as they stick their head round the door to speak to the occupant of another room. Try not to hope desperately that, as the set revolves, two characters who are entering the house will miss the front door as it passes and have to wait for it to come round again, because that would be childish. Admire and applaud the director for their set design and for cleverly incorporating 360 degree directing into the play, bringing a sense of film to the theatre stage.

Amuse yourself for a couple of seconds thinking how much piss the West End Whingers are going to take of the “on stage meal” (they are obsessed by these, and also by garden benches, for some obviously Freudian reason) when said on stage meal consists of a single slice of smoked salmon wiggled onto a plate. No lemon juice? No black pepper? No brown buttered bread? Tight bitch.

Try frantically, but vainly, to blank out the fact that a major plot device is a lockable mailbox with a clear glass front, through which an important letter can be seen but frustratingly (and vitally important to the plot) not retrieved, because you will not locate the mailbox anywhere on the set, but only see a modern front door with a letterbox from which the covering metal flap has been removed and replaced with a strip of Perspex each side. This is apparently now the lockable mailbox, and although it is only 9” or so wide and the thickness of the door in which it is set, it is apparently capable of holding about three days’ worth of post within it. Do not mention this point to Him Indoors afterwards as you will be told you are a nit-picker.

Do wonder why the male characters are wearing business suits of a 21st century style and cut, and whether women’s fashions of the year 1878 really did consist of tightly fitting bodices with no sleeves. Wonder why a period-correct costume is being worn by the female lead on the cover of the programme when she is not wearing one on stage. Do, however, admire the costumes which are of the correct style and cut for the period.

Do applaud the stunning performance by Hattie Morahan as Nora, as it will leave you wondering how anyone would be able to give such an intense performance of roller-coaster emotions 8 times a week for the next month and not need psychotherapy (or at least a damned good holiday) afterwards. Do wonder if Nick Fletcher is playing his part that way because he thinks that villains should be cold, inaudible and emotionally sterile or whether it is merely because he is the worst actor you have ever seen on stage and has all the acting talent of a potted chrysanthemum. Do wonder why the character of Dr. Rank, who is apparently old and frail and dying of some terminal illness, is played by a youngish man seemingly in complete and vital full health according to the way in which he bounds around the stage. Do bemoan the fact that Ms. Morahan is not given a solo bow at the end, but has to take her bow with the entire cast, even though some characters have five lines or less in the entire evening. Thank your lucky stars that the baby does not come on to take a bow.

Enjoy your evening. But get your tickets quick because this looks like a hit.  Wait a couple of days for the opening night reviews.

One Man, Two Guvnors - a postscript

I was having a nap this afternoon (still feeling somewhat grotty) when there was a ring on the doorbell and a delivery man from Amazon on the mat.  Perplexed, I took the proferred parcel and thought "This must be a mistake, I haven't ordered anything from them lately".

I open the box to find a rather expensive book from my Amazon wish list along with the following message:

Dear Russell

I do hope you enjoy this small gift.  I am the father of James Corden and guilty of giving you a little grief over your review of his NT play last year.  Enjoy, and thanks for your forbearance. 

Malcolm Corden.

Well, if you are reading this, Mr. Corden Snr., thank you very much.  Your kind gift is much appreciated, and can be said to be a rare example of something which rendered me completely speechless for a number of minutes.   I do, however, stand by my review, as I have always done, despite the shedloads of abuse received (not all of which was suitable for consumption by a family audience and therefore not published on this blog) for expressing my opinions and which continues to come in some 12  months or more after publishing my review.  However, it is nice to know that someone feels sufficiently guilty about their attack to take the time and effort to send a gift.  Should anyone else who felt it necessary to be vicious feel similarly contrite, then the link to my Amazon Wish List can be found further down the page in the far right hand margin.  Until then, I salute the generosity of Mr. Corden Snr., and accept his apology.  Your son has many fans, Mr. C; it is however such a shame that they express their feelings with such vitriol and contempt for the opinions of others. 

Henry V - Shakespeare's Globe, Wednesday 20th June 2012

Synopsis:

Henry hears the legal arguments in favour of his claim to the French crown, and tells the French Ambassador that he will reclaim the former English possessions in France. 

In London, the old companions of Henry’s youth – Pistol, Bardolph, Nym, Mistress Quickly and Falstaff’s former page- lament Falstaff’s death. The men and the boy decide to seek their fortunes in the King’s campaign, but are more interested in looting than in fighting. The town of Harfleur is taken, and at the French Court, Princess Katherine learns English from Alice, her lady in waiting. The French send a great force to meet the English army.

At Agincourt, Henry visits his soldiers by night and in disguise. He rejects all representations from the French for ransom and, against enormous odds, engages them in battle and takes Agincourt. When the French regroup, Henry orders the execution of his French prisoners, while the boys left behind to guard the English camp are killed by the French in retaliation.

To reinforce his right to the throne, Henry woos and wins Princess Katherine.

Cast:
Chorus/Queen – Brid Brennan
Exeter – Nigel Cooke
Pistol – Sam Cox
The Dauphin - Kurt Egyiawwan
Gower – Matthew Flynn
King of France/Nym – David Hargreaves
York – Beruce Khan
MacMorris – James Lailey
Fluellen – Brendan O’Hea
Henry – Jamie Parker
Bardolph – Paul Rider
Boy/Katherine – Olivia Ross
Mistress Quickly/Alice – Lisa Stevenson

Creative Team:
Director – Dominic Dromgole
Designer – Jonathan Fensom
Choreographer – Sian Williams

This is, by necessity, a mini-review. I was feeling distinctly unwell, and perhaps should have stayed home in bed. I wasn’t really in the mood for sitting through a three hour play, and didn’t have the energy to do anything except sit passively in my seat and let the words wash over me. I always find a trip to the Globe a bit of a chore at the very best of times, what with the problems with sightlines (I always seem to end up sitting slap behind a pillar), audibility (theatre “in the round” always means that some of the actors are going to be facing away from you at any given point – when the theatre is open to the elements, this problem is intensified tenfold), uncomfortable wooden seating and the constant tooing and froing of “groundlings”. Last night, a group of sulky teenagers (who turned out to be French, so no wonder they were sulky given the play’s subject matter) with an enormous collection of paper and plastic shopping bags between them were a major distraction, parading in and out and rearranging their shopping at every conceivable opportunity. So my critical facilities were really in “standby” mode for most of the evening, and I think I may even have dozed off at one point.

The rest of the audience, however, seemed to be having a good time, so I guess the production was fairly decent. There were a couple of excellent performances, notably that of Jamie Parker as Henry, who seemed the epitome of English gilded youth, striding about the stage as if he owned it during scenes ambassadorial and battle, yet with a gawky, bashful charm in his long and important final scene with the Princess of France. His impassioned yet quiet and calm “St. Crispian’s Day” speech seemed to bring the entire auditorium to a reverent hush – perhaps in some surprise as this is a great “rabble rousing” speech and is usually delivered at the top of one’s lungs and with all arms flailing. Olivia Parker was an excellent Princess, played much younger and far less coldly regal as a consequence than I believe is the norm, and the famous “learning the English language” scene was a joy, helped terrifically by Lisa Stevenson as a wonderfully pompous Alice. Kurt Egyiawan deserves mention as his Dauphin was perfectly delivered acoustics-wise; you could hear every word even when his back was turned, and showed a great understanding of how projection can overcome the difficulties of playing this challenging space.  Alice and Katheriine are, for some reason, the only French people on stage who attempt any kind of French accent.

I did find the “low comedy” characters even more irritating than normal, probably exacerbated by the fact that I was feeling lousy. I did see a very creative and enjoyable performance of this play a while back, in which most of the Nym/Bardolph/Pistol/Fluellen subplots were cut completely and thought that this tightened up the play no end. Otherwise Henry V is an incredibly wordy play, with so much of the dreary “comedy interludes” that turn people off Shakespeare for good. Even the current production has a three hour running time, although great chunks of it have been jettisoned because they are Very Bloody Boring – Him Indoors always and without fail reminds me that the opening scene in which the Archbishops set up the legal and ambassadorial background to the action is one of Shakespeare’s most wordy, static and tedious. Here, however, it has been thankfully pruned to the necessary minimum, and further lightened by having both stuffy clerics take turns on the close stool while speechifying; possibly the first time at the Globe that actors have had to lift up their cassocks and wipe their backsides while in full view of the audience, although I am happy to be corrected on this point if necessary!

Battles are always difficult to portray convincingly on stage, even though Henry V is the one play of Shakespeare’s in which your powers of imagination are called upon most (the Chorus effectively pleads your indulgence throughout the text) and again the director has turned the battles into stylised dance sequences, which somehow fail to provide the necessary spark. Personally I would like to see Agincourt done in the manner of Stomp – or perhaps not portrayed at all on stage and left completely to the imagination by sound effects and pyrotechnics.

Anyway, as I said before, the rest of the audience seemed to have a good time and the other reviews have been more or less in praise of the production, so Dear Reader, let their opinions guide you on this occasion.

What the critics said:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/9344141/Henry-V-at-Shakespeares-Globe-Seven-magazine-review.html

http://londonist.com/2012/06/theatre-review-henry-v-at-shakespeares-globe.php

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/326621/Stage-Review-Henry-V-Globe-Theatre-London

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2012/jun/14/henry-v-review

The Last of the Hausmanns - National Theatre, Thursday 14th June 2012

Synopsis:

Anarchic, feisty but growing old, high society drop-out Judy Haussman remains in spirit with the Ashrams of the 1960s while holding court in her dilapidated Art Deco house on the Devon coast.

After an operation, she’s joined by wayward offspring Nick and Libby, sharp-eyed granddaughter Summer, local doctor Peter, and Daniel, a troubled teenager who makes use of the family’s crumbling swimming pool. Together they share a few sweltering months as they alternately cling to and flee this louche and chaotic world of all-day drinking, infatuations, long-held resentments, free love and failure.

Cast:
Libby: Helen McCrory
Nick: Rory Kinnear
Summer: Isabella Laughland
Judy: Julie Walters
Peter, Matthew Marsh
Daniel: Taron Egerton

Creative Team:
Written by Stephen Beresford
Director: Howard Davies
Designer: Vicki Mortimer
Lighting: Mark Henderson

How to get your first play seen by thousands of people:

1) Write a part in it for Julie Walters. If the part is broadly similar to how Julie Walters is anyway, so much the better

2) Once she has accepted it, offer it to the National Theatre

However good, bad or indifferent your play is, it will receive national coverage in the reviews and be an almost guaranteed sell out at the box office. If you can manage to base your play on something that has already been written, a lot of your work will already have been done for you by someone else. You can set it in the same provincial town, adapt a lot of the dialogue, re-tread many of the same basic ideas and POW – you will have the punters storming the box office, laughing fit to wet themselves every time your leading lady twitches her left eyebrow. You might further decide to adapt the basic premise of a hit TV show such as “Absolutely fabulous” by having three generations of women all cooped up in the same house throwing one-liners at each other, and further plagiarise the idea by writing in a “gay son” character. Throw in a mysterious doctor (Is he all he seems? Which of the characters is he shagging/will he be shagging?), a cute young boy with “plot device” written all over his Speedos (which of the characters will fall prey to his masculine charms first?) a few problems with paying for the upkeep of the house and a bit about the evils of “equity release”, mix in a bit of Chekovian angst along the lines of “a long hot summer – the last in the old family home before society as the occupants know it breaks down” and all you have left to do is pen a few decently funny lines and you can then pat yourself firmly on the back and tell everyone you have “arrived”. The fact that your play remains as essentially empty and as devoid of any real story as Coward’s Hay Fever need not trouble you as the applause rings in your ears and the box office receipts roll in. Until, of course, people with some kind of critical facility view your play and start to think “hang on a minute….”

Now, I fully realise that this kind of review isn’t going to go down well with some people. Having dragged me to the theatre willingly or unwillingly over the space of the last ten years and thus self-cast himself in the role of Dr. Frankenstein, Him Indoors has started to realise that he has created a monster; one with a rapidly developing critical sense and which he cannot necessarily influence any more. So the interval conversations (the ones which start with “Well, go on then – propound”) are starting to get a bit fraught (to the amusement and/or annoyance of people sitting nearby) and reviews are skimmed through and dismissed as “overly picky”. I don’t expect that he will like this one, either. And perhaps neither will you, dear reader. No doubt in the past you have chortled away at some of my more outrageous offerings but the beast seems to be mutating and I admit that it is becoming harder and harder to write “laugh a minute” reviews. This might be seen as A Bad Thing in some quarters. I try to put the occasional flash of humour or bitchy comment in sometimes, but they ain’t coming so easily these days. Perhaps I am getting old and cynical and should take a long sabbatical from this blog….. don’t think I haven’t considered it.

Aaaaaaaaanyway, I enjoyed The Last of the Haussmans, as did the rest of the audience. This is a decent enough first play, although I think shares all the faults that first plays are subject to. Its too long, slightly too desperate to get its message across, slightly unsure what its message actually is and, most importantly, unsure whether it is a comedy with serious undertones or a serious play with lots of funny one-liners. It is, perhaps, un peu grandiose in many aspects. Beresford may well learn in time how to get a point across to his audience without Hammering It Home Repeatedly And With All The Subtlety Of A Brick, but he hasn’t managed this yet. What the play IS is most definitely a showcase for Julie Walters. If you are a connoisseur of a well turned bon mot a la Victoria Wood that you can throw into various conversations (“She sleeps all day and then gets up when she’s hungry, just like a fucking badger”) then you will like this play. If you venerate Julie Walters as A National Treasure then you will like this play (at this performance, quite a few people ovated and I would imagine that quite a few more ovulated). If you like Rory Kinnear you will like this play. If you are a fan of great set design you will like this play (there is a wonderful set – an entire 1930s Art Deco house complete with messy interior and a garden terrace so untidy and unkempt that I found myself fantasising about taking a bucket of hot soapy water, scrubbing brush, broom and pair of secateurs to it), because during the long, wordy, dull bits (of which there are quite a few) you can let your eyes wander all over it and appreciate how detailed it is (there are even stacks of old boxes in the loft). If that is all you desire from a night out at the theatre, that’s all well and good – you will come away happy and have had value for your money. And that’s exactly what many people want, and exactly what many people who see this play will get. Its funny, its bitter, its sad, there’s the great “each character will now make a long, violently impassioned speech giving us the key to their motivation” scene around the kitchen table, followed very quickly by the “we can solve all our problems if we just believe in each other and love each other” scene, ending in a group hug, lights fade to black moment. Many of the key dramatic moments are underscored with appropriate pop songs should you need them signposted for you. It's decently and competently directed.  But Hamlet it ain’t.

In ten years time the play will probably be a staple of the amateur dramatic scene for directors wanting to do something “a bit more edgy than An Inspector Calls yet again” – The Alexandra Players present The Last of the Haussmans, all this week at the Village Hall. Until then, Julie Walters has a sure-fire success on her hands. But personally I found it as hollow as an Easter Egg, prettily wrapped and well presented but with only the thinnest of chocolate veneers around a completely empty centre.

What the critics said:

http://www.theartsdesk.com/theatre/last-haussmans-national-theatre

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/9342365/The-Last-of-the-Haussmans-National-Theatre-review.html

http://www.whatsonstage.com/reviews/theatre/london/E8831340181442/The+Last+of+the+Haussmans.html

http://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/review.php/36531/the-last-of-the-haussmans