I am very fond of Theatre 503. I may have mentioned this before. The standard of work they put on is consistently high and, just within the last year, I’ve seen some startlingly good stuff there: George Gotts’ Cocoa, Stephen Brown’s Future Me and Jason Hall’s GBS. Having said that, I have been rather pathetic in getting over there of late and, much to my shame, missed Ben Ellis’ The Final Shot entirely. I was back there last night though, this time to see John Donnelley’s Songs Of Grace and Redemption
The play focuses on a number of characters whose lives intersect: an Icelandic bartender with a violent ex. A none-too-bright thug for hire with a learning disabled sister. A social worker in an unhappy relationship. A chap whose wife has just left him for his own father. It has its fair share of nicely comic moments, some very funny indeed (I certainly will find it difficult not to snigger next time I hear the word ‘crumble’) but often it felt quite heavily derivative – especially in a scene where one character tries to coerce another into shooting him - I felt I had seen near-identical confrontations before.
Despite some good performances, the coincidence-driven narrative really struggled to take shape on stage, I thought. It felt forced and ungainly. Lyn Gardner said it felt like “a pilot for a Channel 4 series” but actually, what I was reminded of again and again, was the wave of low-budget indie cinema that bubbled up in the mid 1990s, films that can be loosely grouped under the banner ‘starring Steve Buscemi’. Night On Earth, Living In Oblivion or Richard Linklater’s Slacker. Something of that ilk. Indeed I heard someone mention Jim Jarmusch’s Coffee and Cigarettes in the bar afterwards so this impression wasn’t mine alone.
I’m sure someone, quite probably someone called Andrew, could weigh in with some lengthy thoughts about theatre that - at least appears to - take its primary creative cues from other media. I just know, in terms of this play, that while my attention was held throughout, I was aware of a creeping need for something more solid, for these characters to be linked together in a more organic fashion and for their stories to lead somewhere a little more unexpected. I think Donnelly has real ability as a writer, but I was just too aware of the mechanics of the writing – and, when one of the characters died, my first thought was “well, I figured one of them wouldn’t make it to the end” which is not what I want to be thinking or feeling at such a juncture. It was however the first play I’ve seen that used Facebook as a narrative device, which I found genuinely interesting.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Monday, November 05, 2007
Plays, Pies and Pints
Knocking off work a little early on Friday, I headed over to London Bridge station where the entrance to Shunt Vaults can be found. This sprawling underground space is playing host to Paines Plough’s latest venture: A Play, A Pie and A Pint.
That’s theatre food and alcohol wrapped up in one neat little package, I obviously had to investigate. I was accompanied on this most strenuous of research exercises by Helen Smith. Neither of us had been inside Shunt vaults before, so were unsure what to expect as an usher led us through the (very) dark meandering corridors to a small, better lit space where we queued for the titular pies and pints – or in my case a glass of red.
For the play part of the evening, we were then herded up a small flight of stairs. The performance space itself was of an ‘intimate’ nature, encompassing a scattering of chairs. There were no tables and the seats were quite close together, but it was just about possible to tackle my pie and wine without upending either in my lap. The play itself, the first of four, was David Greig’s Being Norwegian, a simple sketch of a thing about a man and a woman who meet in a bar. It was a neat, nicely performed two-hander which managed to be both amusing and also quite poignant. It was also only around 45 minutes long so, with a start time of 6pm, it left us with much of the evening to spare afterwards. Fortunately tickets also allow you to linger in the Shunt Vaults themselves, an atmospheric space, a bit self-consciously ramshackle, but actually a rather appealing venue in which to while away the night.
At this point things get a little hazy, as accustomed to the Theatre component of my evening finishing at a slightly later hour, the repeated trips to the bar rather took their toll on me. I suspect I was rather, um, exuberant; certainly the friends we ran into at a later stage in the evening (when I dragged Helen off to Canteen on the South Bank) took every opportunity to snigger when I caught up with them on the weekend.
The whole Play, Pie and Pint experience struck me as a neatly alliterative gimmick at first, entertaining but perhaps a little wobbly in execution. However, it was fun enough for me to want to go back later in the month and catch one of the other plays, perhaps with some more people in tow, though I’ll understand if Helen decides to have ‘other plans’ that night.
That’s theatre food and alcohol wrapped up in one neat little package, I obviously had to investigate. I was accompanied on this most strenuous of research exercises by Helen Smith. Neither of us had been inside Shunt vaults before, so were unsure what to expect as an usher led us through the (very) dark meandering corridors to a small, better lit space where we queued for the titular pies and pints – or in my case a glass of red.
For the play part of the evening, we were then herded up a small flight of stairs. The performance space itself was of an ‘intimate’ nature, encompassing a scattering of chairs. There were no tables and the seats were quite close together, but it was just about possible to tackle my pie and wine without upending either in my lap. The play itself, the first of four, was David Greig’s Being Norwegian, a simple sketch of a thing about a man and a woman who meet in a bar. It was a neat, nicely performed two-hander which managed to be both amusing and also quite poignant. It was also only around 45 minutes long so, with a start time of 6pm, it left us with much of the evening to spare afterwards. Fortunately tickets also allow you to linger in the Shunt Vaults themselves, an atmospheric space, a bit self-consciously ramshackle, but actually a rather appealing venue in which to while away the night.
At this point things get a little hazy, as accustomed to the Theatre component of my evening finishing at a slightly later hour, the repeated trips to the bar rather took their toll on me. I suspect I was rather, um, exuberant; certainly the friends we ran into at a later stage in the evening (when I dragged Helen off to Canteen on the South Bank) took every opportunity to snigger when I caught up with them on the weekend.
The whole Play, Pie and Pint experience struck me as a neatly alliterative gimmick at first, entertaining but perhaps a little wobbly in execution. However, it was fun enough for me to want to go back later in the month and catch one of the other plays, perhaps with some more people in tow, though I’ll understand if Helen decides to have ‘other plans’ that night.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Tagged
I have been meme'd. How exciting. Weeks ago actually, by Ben Ellis. And I was going to respond, I was, but then my computer broke for a bit and then I broke for a bit and I just got sidetracked. But now the Whingers have batted it back in my direction, so I can't put it off any longer.
Here it is: List 5 things that certain people (who are not deserving of being your friend anyway) may consider to be "totally lame," but you are, despite the possible stigma, totally proud of. Own it.
1. I get an Amelie-like surge of pleasure from the tiniest things. The snap that dark chocolate makes when you break it, the smell of fresh basil when you rub it between your fingers, the composition of a well-shaped sentence and, yes, the plink-fizz of an ice cube being dropped into a G&T.
2. As a child I had a blue stuffed rabbit. Which I called Burt. Even though I was adamant it was a girl rabbit. I may possibly still have it somewhere. Not on display or anything, but you know, around. Oh sod it, who am I kidding? It's in the wardrobe at my mum's house and I would never throw it away, ever.
3. I was also a bit of a comic book geek. My uncle had all these old Marvel comics dating back years and they were wonderful. As a result there's still a little corner of my brain that's wholly devoted to trivia about villains in Spiderman and the like. Oh and Tin Tin, I wanted to be Tin Tin so badly.
4. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince. Makes me cry. Every Single Time I Read It.
5. I’m kind of proud of the fact that I can’t drive. I know it’s counter-intuitive to be proud of not being able to do something, but while it was never intended as such, it has come to feel like a minor act of rebellion and I suspect I will resist for some time yet...
There. I am supposed to tag five others, but initially at least I will just extend the baton to Anna Waits, Sean In The Stalls and my friend Juice, who has lost his blogging mojo of late.
Here it is: List 5 things that certain people (who are not deserving of being your friend anyway) may consider to be "totally lame," but you are, despite the possible stigma, totally proud of. Own it.
1. I get an Amelie-like surge of pleasure from the tiniest things. The snap that dark chocolate makes when you break it, the smell of fresh basil when you rub it between your fingers, the composition of a well-shaped sentence and, yes, the plink-fizz of an ice cube being dropped into a G&T.
2. As a child I had a blue stuffed rabbit. Which I called Burt. Even though I was adamant it was a girl rabbit. I may possibly still have it somewhere. Not on display or anything, but you know, around. Oh sod it, who am I kidding? It's in the wardrobe at my mum's house and I would never throw it away, ever.
3. I was also a bit of a comic book geek. My uncle had all these old Marvel comics dating back years and they were wonderful. As a result there's still a little corner of my brain that's wholly devoted to trivia about villains in Spiderman and the like. Oh and Tin Tin, I wanted to be Tin Tin so badly.
4. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince. Makes me cry. Every Single Time I Read It.
5. I’m kind of proud of the fact that I can’t drive. I know it’s counter-intuitive to be proud of not being able to do something, but while it was never intended as such, it has come to feel like a minor act of rebellion and I suspect I will resist for some time yet...
There. I am supposed to tag five others, but initially at least I will just extend the baton to Anna Waits, Sean In The Stalls and my friend Juice, who has lost his blogging mojo of late.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Scotland
Once again I seem to have not been At The Theatre at all this week, in fact I have not even been In London. I’m spending a few days with family in Scotland, up on the north east coast where the sky seems bigger and the air smells of the sea. It’s ridiculously pretty, if a tad nippy. Reality reasserts itself on Wednesday.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
A Major Mamet
Bit of gap in blogging this week, due to there being not so much Theatre in my life and instead a whole lot of Other. Most of this Other was rather tedious and involved Strepsils and deadlines and things, but some of it was fun, encompassing beaches and birthdays and bottles that make a pleasing popping noise when de-corked.
There was room for some Theatre in amongst the Other though, namely the new production of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross at the Apollo in the West End. I sometimes find Mamet a bit too cock-centric for my liking, but there’s something so satisfying about this particular play, it’s a lean, sharp, surgical thing, not a word wasted. Having said that, I was only familiar with it through the 1992 film starring Jack Lemmon, I’d not seen it on stage before. But I really enjoyed James McDonald’s taut production, even if the actors seemed to take a while to warm up to the precise, distinctive rhythms of the language.
The play concerns a group of salesman who are trying to flog Florida land-plots of dubious appeal, all chasing the vital 'leads' that might cement a sale and a chance to win a Cadillac and, more importantly, hang on to their jobs. A strong sense of aggression permeates the writing, the oily lure of money coating everything in sight. The play is short, just over ninety minutes, which includes an interval, though its presence rather punctured the pacing. I suppose it's there to allow for a major set change, from the dreary Edward Hopper-esque diner of the opening scenes to the chaotic office space of the second act (a shift dramatic enough to trigger a round of applause on the night I was in, haven’t seen the set get its own applause in a while). The scenes are also divided by slides showing verdent valleys with evocatove names, like the Glengarry Glen Ross of the title, in a nice contrast to the sludgey, smudgey browns and greys of these men's actual lives.
The acting was also pretty slick with Jonathan Pryce both pitiable and curiously unsympathetic as Shelly ‘the machine’ Levene, a salesman whose best days are clearly long behind him. His eyes still glitter though, when he talks of how it feels to make a sale, to secure that vital signature of some poor sap who has fallen for his patter. I also liked Aidan Gillen’s sweaty, agressive turn as Richard Roma, though I found his moustache unduly hilarious.
There was room for some Theatre in amongst the Other though, namely the new production of David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross at the Apollo in the West End. I sometimes find Mamet a bit too cock-centric for my liking, but there’s something so satisfying about this particular play, it’s a lean, sharp, surgical thing, not a word wasted. Having said that, I was only familiar with it through the 1992 film starring Jack Lemmon, I’d not seen it on stage before. But I really enjoyed James McDonald’s taut production, even if the actors seemed to take a while to warm up to the precise, distinctive rhythms of the language.
The play concerns a group of salesman who are trying to flog Florida land-plots of dubious appeal, all chasing the vital 'leads' that might cement a sale and a chance to win a Cadillac and, more importantly, hang on to their jobs. A strong sense of aggression permeates the writing, the oily lure of money coating everything in sight. The play is short, just over ninety minutes, which includes an interval, though its presence rather punctured the pacing. I suppose it's there to allow for a major set change, from the dreary Edward Hopper-esque diner of the opening scenes to the chaotic office space of the second act (a shift dramatic enough to trigger a round of applause on the night I was in, haven’t seen the set get its own applause in a while). The scenes are also divided by slides showing verdent valleys with evocatove names, like the Glengarry Glen Ross of the title, in a nice contrast to the sludgey, smudgey browns and greys of these men's actual lives.
The acting was also pretty slick with Jonathan Pryce both pitiable and curiously unsympathetic as Shelly ‘the machine’ Levene, a salesman whose best days are clearly long behind him. His eyes still glitter though, when he talks of how it feels to make a sale, to secure that vital signature of some poor sap who has fallen for his patter. I also liked Aidan Gillen’s sweaty, agressive turn as Richard Roma, though I found his moustache unduly hilarious.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Squeak, Whimper, Croak
Eek. I am without voice, in a physical not ideological sense, you understand. It ran away over the weekend and has yet to return. This is not fun, though it does mean I can currently do a rather super impersonation of Kate Winslet at the end of Titanic: “Jack, Jack, I’ll never let you go, Jack.”
Prior to the rebellion of my vocal chords, I finally got around to seeing Punchdrunk’s The Masque Of The Red Death at the BAC, something I’d been looking forwards to for ages. Unfortunately, while I enjoyed much about the experience, I didn’t make it to the finale, (something with hindsight I suspect is not wholly unrelated to my lack of speaking ability); I hit the two hour mark and began to feel distinctly wobbly, something I attributed to the combination of disorientation and the fug of perfume and incense and my innate pathetic-ness. And though a spot of swooning would have been thematically quite in keeping with surroundings, I didn’t really want to chance it, so I had to admit defeat and seek fresh air and a brief perch on the steps outside.
While I’m rather disappointed with myself for not sticking it out (and I do wonder if the narrative tug of the thing had been just that teeny bit stronger, whether I would have sucked it up and persevered) I think I spent enough time in there to get a good sense of the show. Certainly I did my best to explore every nook and cranny of the lavishly decorated space, though I’m far from convinced I saw everything.
Anyway, if you’re reading this, chances are you’ve either been, plan to go or, if not London-based, have read copious articles about it already (here, here or here, for example), so I’ll keep my additional comments brief.
While the design and the lighting have been much commented on, the use of smell was also impressive. The incense, the perfume, it all added to the piece considerably.
It is not advisable to stand too close to the actors. I got forcibly shoved aside when I made the mistake of loitering in the wrong spot during a corridor fight scene. And yes, I know, this was probably my fault and I know the performers need to stay in character. But still, while I would rather my theatre didn’t solely lull and suckle, I’d also prefer it not leave me with bruises.
While the sight of all those white-faced figures swarming around is undeniably striking, those masks are rather like the hip, edgy theatre-going take on bowling shoes, aren’t they? I hope the next person to wear mine didn't pick up my lurgy.
It’s probably stating the obvious but to get the most out of this, you really need to be in the right mood, the right frame of mind, you need to be active, to explore, to embrace what the company are trying to do, otherwise it can be rather frustrating experience.
The future of theatre? I’m not convinced, but I’d certainly like to revisit it later in the run, when I’m physically more up to up it.
Prior to the rebellion of my vocal chords, I finally got around to seeing Punchdrunk’s The Masque Of The Red Death at the BAC, something I’d been looking forwards to for ages. Unfortunately, while I enjoyed much about the experience, I didn’t make it to the finale, (something with hindsight I suspect is not wholly unrelated to my lack of speaking ability); I hit the two hour mark and began to feel distinctly wobbly, something I attributed to the combination of disorientation and the fug of perfume and incense and my innate pathetic-ness. And though a spot of swooning would have been thematically quite in keeping with surroundings, I didn’t really want to chance it, so I had to admit defeat and seek fresh air and a brief perch on the steps outside.
While I’m rather disappointed with myself for not sticking it out (and I do wonder if the narrative tug of the thing had been just that teeny bit stronger, whether I would have sucked it up and persevered) I think I spent enough time in there to get a good sense of the show. Certainly I did my best to explore every nook and cranny of the lavishly decorated space, though I’m far from convinced I saw everything.
Anyway, if you’re reading this, chances are you’ve either been, plan to go or, if not London-based, have read copious articles about it already (here, here or here, for example), so I’ll keep my additional comments brief.
While the design and the lighting have been much commented on, the use of smell was also impressive. The incense, the perfume, it all added to the piece considerably.
It is not advisable to stand too close to the actors. I got forcibly shoved aside when I made the mistake of loitering in the wrong spot during a corridor fight scene. And yes, I know, this was probably my fault and I know the performers need to stay in character. But still, while I would rather my theatre didn’t solely lull and suckle, I’d also prefer it not leave me with bruises.
While the sight of all those white-faced figures swarming around is undeniably striking, those masks are rather like the hip, edgy theatre-going take on bowling shoes, aren’t they? I hope the next person to wear mine didn't pick up my lurgy.
It’s probably stating the obvious but to get the most out of this, you really need to be in the right mood, the right frame of mind, you need to be active, to explore, to embrace what the company are trying to do, otherwise it can be rather frustrating experience.
The future of theatre? I’m not convinced, but I’d certainly like to revisit it later in the run, when I’m physically more up to up it.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
A Technical Hitch at the Haymarket
I looked at my watch. 7.45pm. The show was supposed to have started fifteen minutes ago, yet the safety curtain was showing no signs of rising. Hmph. The last couple of days had been really draining and un-fun and I found myself making involuntary grumpy noises. Just as I was starting to ponder exactly when I had turned into my mother, a nervous-looking, black-clad behind-the-scenes person was shoved on stage. “I’m sorry,” she said. “We’re having a few problems with the sound.” The rest of the audience began to make grumpy noises of their own. She disappeared for a few minutes, before returning, looking even more apprehensive. “I’m afraid we’ve not been able to fix it. But we’re going to go ahead with the show anyway.” As the house lights finally fell, the grumpy noises reached a crescendo…
OK, let’s backtrack a bit.
Theatre: Haymarket. The one with the interior that looks like Dubai’s Burj Al Arab hotel just mated with Versailles. My Great Aunt would adore it; she’s never gone in a room she didn’t think could be improved by a bit of gold leaf and some cherubim.
Play: Jonathan Kent’s new production of William Wycherley’s Restoration comedy The Country Wife, last encountered, by me at least, on an A Level theatre outing, some ten (ten!) years ago.
A swaggering Toby Stephens plays the main character Horner. A known cad, the play opens with him conspiring with his doctor to put around a rumour that he is now impotent having picked up something nasty in the trouser-department while overseas (people keep saying "Oh, he's been in France" as way of explanation and then shaking their head sadly as if that explained everything). Horner has realized that his new found eunuch status will allow him to spend time with other men's wives un-chaperoned, something he intends to take full advantage of. His scheme is rather undermined however when the innocent young wife of his insanely jealous and over-protective friend Pinchwife develops a huge crush on him.
The production looks fantastic, on aesthetic terms alone it’s a winner; I loved Paul Brown's perspective-skewing sets, in bright blues and brighter pinks, doors receding into the distance. The outfits are rather wonderful too, blending historical and contemporary elements to striking effect – the men, for example, wear stunning silk frock coats over super tight jeans and billowing shirts.
Unfortunately the rest of the production struck me as rather muddled, a lot of thought and attention has gone into the surface elements but the dark heart of this tale of the corrupting tug of the city has been overlooked, glossed over in every sense. The farcical elements of the plot have been played up to the point of pantomime. It's all smutty asides, suggestive grape consumption and phallic vases. When it should have an edge, when it should get nasty, like when Pinchwife locks up his young wife and threatens to put out her eyes and carve the word ‘whore’ in her face with a pen-knife, well, it fails to have any impact. The audience greet these moments with the same level of laughter as when Horner jests of one of his conquests, revealing a secret door to his bedroom, that “I’m going in round the back” (this witty play on words is repeated a further couple of times for good measure; well, you wouldn’t want a joke of that quality to just get one airing, would you?)
The lack of shock-factor was partly down to the casting of David Haig as Pinchwife. He’s a great actor and can do panic and exasperation with ease, but is less good at conveying menace. However the real fault is with the decision to push forward the bawdy comedy at the expense of the play’s complexities. I also had problems with Fiona Glascott’s performance as Haig’s young wife. I found her, with her foot stamping tantrums, simply too childish and conversely not nearly innocent enough for the role, a bit too breathy and calculating for my liking. Still the production kept me entertained, kept me laughing, and for all the fuss they made at the start, the missing music in the first half was barely noticeable (they fixed it in time for the second act).
It did, however, take me an absolute age to realize that the music the cast take their bows too was a period-appropriate reworking of Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Want To Have Fun.
There was also a cameo by a Real Live Bunny in a hutch, though this clearly doesn’t top The Rose Tattoo’s scene-stealing goat moment in regards to pointless use of animals onstage.
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
A Post Almost Wholly Devoted To Food
Ah, Arcola. I was back over there on Monday night to see their new production of Mustapha Matura’s Meetings, a play set in 1980s Trinidad.
It’s an intriguing but rather stilted play about a well-off, career-minded married couple who employ a cook so that the husband can reacquaint himself with the foods of his childhood. The play isn’t just about food, of course, it’s also about how economic prosperity can make people feel cut off from a more simple, tradition-driven past. But, as I’m sure the themes will be discussed more eloquently elsewhere, I, perhaps predictably, am going to focus on the food.
Designer James Humphrey has installed a working (Ikea) kitchen in the Arcola’s smaller studio space, complete with oven, sink and dishwasher – but it’s not just any kitchen, it’s a magic kitchen. Oh, yes. When Elsa, the young girl employed by the couple as cook, starts to prepare her meals, she opens up pots and pans to reveal lots of pre-chopped food. Actually I don’t really think this is meant to signify anything mystical, rather it is a time-saving device on the part of the director. Unfortunately, having all this food secreted around the set, was rather distracting – I kept thinking, how come this couple never noticed they had bread rolls in their dishwasher before?
Also the (teeny, tiny) portions that Elsa puts on the plates – and that actor Nicholai La Barrie duly eats – never resemble the tempting dishes they’re supposed to be. So she announces the fact she’s made something like ‘hearty, warming Trinidadian sausage and bean stew’ and then serves up a small puddle of watery, tomato-y liquid. I guess this is because it would be difficult to whip up said stew on set, even with most of the ingredients hidden in saucepans beforehand, but this disparity seems like a crucial flaw in a production that revolves around the evocative power of food. It just seems like such a shame; here we have a play – that, at least, superficially – is about food and a working kitchen - and all the food we see looks so miserable, so uninspiring. And this just a week after I saw ordinary (egg on toast, pasta) but at least edible looking fare, cooked up on stage at Soho Theatre in Pure Gold.
In addition to Elsa’s dubious dishes, the couple in Meetings also get through numerous slices of the most anaemic looking toast I’ve ever seen, a carton of chicken and chips, and bottle after bottle of radioactive-hued Caribbean soda (I think there may have been some sort of sponsorship thing going on here, as there was with Ikea for the kitchen). Not that they actually eat all of this, the actors pick and nibble, making yummy noises where necessary, before scraping most of it into the bin. Which could be taken as a comment on the wasteful habits of the wealthy, though I suspect it has more to do with actors not wanting to gain half a stone over the course of the run.
And the play itself, aside from all the food-related issues? Well it was an odd one, initially intriguing, but strangely paced and saddled with a bizarre subplot about Toxic Killer Cigarettes, a heavy-handed moral metaphor if ever there was one. But it was the use of food that lingered the longest and that I found myself thinking about as I rode home on the Big Ol’ Bus of Loud Shouty Drunks.
It’s an intriguing but rather stilted play about a well-off, career-minded married couple who employ a cook so that the husband can reacquaint himself with the foods of his childhood. The play isn’t just about food, of course, it’s also about how economic prosperity can make people feel cut off from a more simple, tradition-driven past. But, as I’m sure the themes will be discussed more eloquently elsewhere, I, perhaps predictably, am going to focus on the food.
Designer James Humphrey has installed a working (Ikea) kitchen in the Arcola’s smaller studio space, complete with oven, sink and dishwasher – but it’s not just any kitchen, it’s a magic kitchen. Oh, yes. When Elsa, the young girl employed by the couple as cook, starts to prepare her meals, she opens up pots and pans to reveal lots of pre-chopped food. Actually I don’t really think this is meant to signify anything mystical, rather it is a time-saving device on the part of the director. Unfortunately, having all this food secreted around the set, was rather distracting – I kept thinking, how come this couple never noticed they had bread rolls in their dishwasher before?
Also the (teeny, tiny) portions that Elsa puts on the plates – and that actor Nicholai La Barrie duly eats – never resemble the tempting dishes they’re supposed to be. So she announces the fact she’s made something like ‘hearty, warming Trinidadian sausage and bean stew’ and then serves up a small puddle of watery, tomato-y liquid. I guess this is because it would be difficult to whip up said stew on set, even with most of the ingredients hidden in saucepans beforehand, but this disparity seems like a crucial flaw in a production that revolves around the evocative power of food. It just seems like such a shame; here we have a play – that, at least, superficially – is about food and a working kitchen - and all the food we see looks so miserable, so uninspiring. And this just a week after I saw ordinary (egg on toast, pasta) but at least edible looking fare, cooked up on stage at Soho Theatre in Pure Gold.
In addition to Elsa’s dubious dishes, the couple in Meetings also get through numerous slices of the most anaemic looking toast I’ve ever seen, a carton of chicken and chips, and bottle after bottle of radioactive-hued Caribbean soda (I think there may have been some sort of sponsorship thing going on here, as there was with Ikea for the kitchen). Not that they actually eat all of this, the actors pick and nibble, making yummy noises where necessary, before scraping most of it into the bin. Which could be taken as a comment on the wasteful habits of the wealthy, though I suspect it has more to do with actors not wanting to gain half a stone over the course of the run.
And the play itself, aside from all the food-related issues? Well it was an odd one, initially intriguing, but strangely paced and saddled with a bizarre subplot about Toxic Killer Cigarettes, a heavy-handed moral metaphor if ever there was one. But it was the use of food that lingered the longest and that I found myself thinking about as I rode home on the Big Ol’ Bus of Loud Shouty Drunks.
Monday, October 08, 2007
A Winning Hand
So, I went to the Menier last Thursday for their revival of Patrick Marber’s Dealer’s Choice. Though – small admission – I wasn’t really looking forward to it; I was curious yes, I’d not seen the play the first time around and was intrigued, but I wasn’t really open to the idea I might enjoy it. After all, the usually reliable Menier tends to flounder when it comes to non-musicals, as the stodgy All Mouth attested, and though I’ve seen several good fringe productions of Marber’s best known play, Closer, I’ve never really warmed to it, indeed have come to actively dislike its unrelentingly bleak outlook. But one of my friends is seriously into poker, a game I’ve never really got to grips with, so hoping for insight, I went along.
For him poker is more than just a hobby, he would certainly snort at my use of the word ‘game.’ No, to him, poker is a beautiful thing, a pure and perfect exercise, demanding wit, skill and empathy from the player. There was nothing that happened in his life that couldn’t be summed up with a poker metaphor and he talked about his poker experiences with intensity and passion, often employing a near-impenetrable poker-centric language, peppered with references to Hold 'Em and Omaha and wild cards and what not. He often tried to convey what it was about poker that made him feel so awake, so connected, but though I nodded along, I don’t think I ever really got it.
And I’m still not sure I do. But I am a little nearer. Marber’s play really gets across what poker means to those (men) who play it, the power it exerts. The play is set in a London restaurant where the staff hold weekly Sunday poker sessions, run by the restaurant's owner, the calm, meticulous Stephen. These games are also the only time he sees his son Carl, so they have particular significance to him. The remaining players consist of a young waiter called Mugsy, an eternally optimistic fellow with a mad scheme of turning a Mile End public lav into a posh restaurant of his very own; the other waiter, Frankie, is a bit more together; and there’s also a cook, Sweeney, (played by Ross Boatman, who I gather is a bit of a poker legend himself) who’s divorced with a young daughter and hopes to cry off that night's game so he can save his cash to take her to the zoo the next day. (It’s giving away little to say his good intentions come to nothing).
The first half carefully sets up these characters, the way they interact and their various motivations. It's deftly done, the material enhanced by some genuinely superb ensemble stage acting, particularly from Malcolm Sinclair as Stephen. I really liked his measured, controlled performance – you could sense so much going on beneath the calm exterior. I also liked Stephen Wight’s Mugsy, a man whose mouth seems to be permanently two steps ahead of his brain. I suspect it takes really great timing to play dim with such proficiency. Roger Lloyd Pack was also entertaining, exuding deadpan menace as Ash, the professional poker player to whom Carl owes a hefty sum of money – though there’s something a bit wrong about seeing Trigger from Only Fools and Horses calling a man a cunt..
The already simmering tension builds up considerably in the second half when the poker game proper begins and the striking restaurant kitchen set, with its mirrored back wall, is replaced by that of the basement poker room. (I came back from the bar in time to see them changing the set around, a complex process involving ramps and motors and winches and things, fascinating, but I thought rather too susceptible to things snapping or sticking or generally going awry). The play runs at well over two hours but it flits by, every moment used wisely. I didn’t look at my watch once, and while I still couldn’t tell you what a river card is, or anything like that, I came away feeling I understood a little more of what this 'game' means to my friend.
Oh, and more musings on matinees here.
For him poker is more than just a hobby, he would certainly snort at my use of the word ‘game.’ No, to him, poker is a beautiful thing, a pure and perfect exercise, demanding wit, skill and empathy from the player. There was nothing that happened in his life that couldn’t be summed up with a poker metaphor and he talked about his poker experiences with intensity and passion, often employing a near-impenetrable poker-centric language, peppered with references to Hold 'Em and Omaha and wild cards and what not. He often tried to convey what it was about poker that made him feel so awake, so connected, but though I nodded along, I don’t think I ever really got it.
And I’m still not sure I do. But I am a little nearer. Marber’s play really gets across what poker means to those (men) who play it, the power it exerts. The play is set in a London restaurant where the staff hold weekly Sunday poker sessions, run by the restaurant's owner, the calm, meticulous Stephen. These games are also the only time he sees his son Carl, so they have particular significance to him. The remaining players consist of a young waiter called Mugsy, an eternally optimistic fellow with a mad scheme of turning a Mile End public lav into a posh restaurant of his very own; the other waiter, Frankie, is a bit more together; and there’s also a cook, Sweeney, (played by Ross Boatman, who I gather is a bit of a poker legend himself) who’s divorced with a young daughter and hopes to cry off that night's game so he can save his cash to take her to the zoo the next day. (It’s giving away little to say his good intentions come to nothing).
The first half carefully sets up these characters, the way they interact and their various motivations. It's deftly done, the material enhanced by some genuinely superb ensemble stage acting, particularly from Malcolm Sinclair as Stephen. I really liked his measured, controlled performance – you could sense so much going on beneath the calm exterior. I also liked Stephen Wight’s Mugsy, a man whose mouth seems to be permanently two steps ahead of his brain. I suspect it takes really great timing to play dim with such proficiency. Roger Lloyd Pack was also entertaining, exuding deadpan menace as Ash, the professional poker player to whom Carl owes a hefty sum of money – though there’s something a bit wrong about seeing Trigger from Only Fools and Horses calling a man a cunt..
The already simmering tension builds up considerably in the second half when the poker game proper begins and the striking restaurant kitchen set, with its mirrored back wall, is replaced by that of the basement poker room. (I came back from the bar in time to see them changing the set around, a complex process involving ramps and motors and winches and things, fascinating, but I thought rather too susceptible to things snapping or sticking or generally going awry). The play runs at well over two hours but it flits by, every moment used wisely. I didn’t look at my watch once, and while I still couldn’t tell you what a river card is, or anything like that, I came away feeling I understood a little more of what this 'game' means to my friend.
Oh, and more musings on matinees here.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Precious Metal
Over to Soho Theatre last night, which is conveniently very near my office. However, what with my working late coupled with some general faffery, I had just enough time to nip over to Chinatown and grab a red bean bun before the show started.
Oh, and the show? That was Talawa’s production of Pure Gold, a play by Michael Bhim. It concerns a married couple, Simon and Marsha, who are seriously struggling with money after Simon loses his job as a bus driver. As a result, Marsha has had to give up her studies (in, um, something. Actually, I don’t think we ever find out) to take a job in a supermarket, and their young son Anthony, a smart and talented kid, considerate but still essentially a twelve-year-old boy, is asking for a piano for his birthday, not realising the pressure this is putting on his already stressed parents.
Further pressure comes in the form of Simon’s cousin Paul, who offers him a driving job – not mini-cabbing as he tells Marsha – but ferrying illegal immigrants into the country, and an envelope full of cash to do it without asking too many questions. And though Simon makes a big show of talking about choices, the importance of doing the right thing, of taking action and not making excuses, the pull of having all that money in his pocket is just too strong.
While I really liked Golda Rosheuvel’s performance as the infinitely calm Marsha, other aspects of Bhim’s play felt rather raw and underdeveloped. There were some superbly tense scenes between Simon and Marsha in the second half, but while these domestic scenes resonated, a lot of the remaining writing felt in need of a good red pen session. The inclusion of the illegal immigrant thing was a clunky plot device, nothing more, and the brief appearance of a local Irish villain (intended to be menacing I suspect, but really, really not) felt wildly out of place.
I did like Mike Britton’s set though. He's the man responsible for the design of Ben Yeoh’s Nakamitsu and the fantastically evocative indoors-outdoors orchard look of Hampstead Theatre’s Comfort Me With Apples. The family's council flat was very naturalistically depicted, with a working kettle and sink and a shabby sofa, but the furniture was housed in this concrete-effect box, that rather made it appear as if Marsha and Simon were living in some random corner of the National Theatre. And, were they not currently in Peru, I’m sure the Whingers would have delighted in the onstage cooking and consumption of a fried egg on toast plus some sort of pasta concoction.
Oh, and the role of the couple’s curmudgeonly but kind-hearted neighbour George is played by Leonard Fenton, who was Doctor Legg in Eastenders. I know this because I was sitting near the front and when he came on stage for the first time I heard an amusing verbal ripple of ‘Ooh, it’s Dr Legg’ travel back through the audience. Which just goes to show you can do all the Beckett and Shakespeare in the world but you can’t escape the ‘Enders.
Oh, and the show? That was Talawa’s production of Pure Gold, a play by Michael Bhim. It concerns a married couple, Simon and Marsha, who are seriously struggling with money after Simon loses his job as a bus driver. As a result, Marsha has had to give up her studies (in, um, something. Actually, I don’t think we ever find out) to take a job in a supermarket, and their young son Anthony, a smart and talented kid, considerate but still essentially a twelve-year-old boy, is asking for a piano for his birthday, not realising the pressure this is putting on his already stressed parents.
Further pressure comes in the form of Simon’s cousin Paul, who offers him a driving job – not mini-cabbing as he tells Marsha – but ferrying illegal immigrants into the country, and an envelope full of cash to do it without asking too many questions. And though Simon makes a big show of talking about choices, the importance of doing the right thing, of taking action and not making excuses, the pull of having all that money in his pocket is just too strong.
While I really liked Golda Rosheuvel’s performance as the infinitely calm Marsha, other aspects of Bhim’s play felt rather raw and underdeveloped. There were some superbly tense scenes between Simon and Marsha in the second half, but while these domestic scenes resonated, a lot of the remaining writing felt in need of a good red pen session. The inclusion of the illegal immigrant thing was a clunky plot device, nothing more, and the brief appearance of a local Irish villain (intended to be menacing I suspect, but really, really not) felt wildly out of place.
I did like Mike Britton’s set though. He's the man responsible for the design of Ben Yeoh’s Nakamitsu and the fantastically evocative indoors-outdoors orchard look of Hampstead Theatre’s Comfort Me With Apples. The family's council flat was very naturalistically depicted, with a working kettle and sink and a shabby sofa, but the furniture was housed in this concrete-effect box, that rather made it appear as if Marsha and Simon were living in some random corner of the National Theatre. And, were they not currently in Peru, I’m sure the Whingers would have delighted in the onstage cooking and consumption of a fried egg on toast plus some sort of pasta concoction.
Oh, and the role of the couple’s curmudgeonly but kind-hearted neighbour George is played by Leonard Fenton, who was Doctor Legg in Eastenders. I know this because I was sitting near the front and when he came on stage for the first time I heard an amusing verbal ripple of ‘Ooh, it’s Dr Legg’ travel back through the audience. Which just goes to show you can do all the Beckett and Shakespeare in the world but you can’t escape the ‘Enders.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Matinees And Musicals
I do like matinees. There’s something rather illicit and exciting about doing during the day what one normally does in the evening (intensified considerably if it happens to be a midweek matinee).
I have a whole other routine with matinees as well, facilitated by the welcome lack of post-work dash – I potter, I dawdle, I browse, I caffeinate myself in an agreeably lingering fashion, and arrive at the theatre with ample time to spare and not breathless and watch-wary and flustered as is often the case in the evening. I used to see a lot more matinees when I lived out in the Surrey suburbs, and a journey into town required a long, crawling train journey, but now, well, my day job precludes daytime cultural activities during the week, and my weekends tend to be eaten up by stuff.
So I was looking forward to seeing Saturday afternoon’s staging of Parade at the Donmar Warehouse. I knew it wasn’t likely to be the cheeriest of things, but I’d enjoyed Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years when it played at the Menier Chocolate Factory last year and was eager to see how you could possibly tackle such a grim subject in song.
Parade is set in Atlanta, Georgia, in the early years of the 20th century. On Confederate Memorial Day, a 13 year old girl is found raped and murdered in the pencil factory where she worked. Suspicion falls on the factory superintendent, Leo Frank, a Jewish man from Brooklyn, an outsider in every sense. He is arrested, tried and sentenced to death. According to the play, a hysteria built up around his case, with several other girls who worked in his factory accusing him of inappropriate behaviour. The police also found an eye witness (an African American former convict) to testify to his guilt. Eventually however his sentence is commuted to life imprisonment. Perhaps predictably, this does not go down well with the local community, who are eager to blame someone for the girl’s death, and they exert a 'justice' of their own – the kind of justice that involves hoods with eye-holes and a long length of rope.
So, there you go. Frothy it is not. It is however very well done. Bertie Carvel is simply superb as Frank, all anxious and twitchy; cold, nervy and somewhat prim. Lara Pulver was also excellent as Frank’s wife Lucille, but I found her character harder to get a handle on, her total devotion and abundant stoic dignity was a little too neat for my liking. Going on what I remember of Five Years, I don’t think Brown does women very well. Frank is such an intriguing, ambiguous figure and Lucille just seemed a bit flat in comparison.
There is much to admire about this production: vocal performances (though I thought the pretty blonde chap in the cheesy civil war prologue was a little shaky), choreography - everything is very well done. There’s just something about the whole enterprise that didn’t sit very well with me. It’s not that musicals need to be all fluff and uplift (indeed those are the shows I usually avoid), but in the case of this complex story, I think I would actually have preferred a more conventional dramatic approach.
Interesting critical split on this one too, with Michael Billington applauding its eloquence and Christopher Hart getting all squeamish about the subject matter - I think I fall somewhere in between (I’d much rather this than Wicked any day), still, it was relief to emerge after two-and-a-bit hours of such darkness to find it still daylight outside.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Scandalised (Or Not, Actually)
What is the sound of one arm shrugging? Or two arms for that matter? I’m not entirely sure. If I could think of a good word to encapsulate a sense of not-bothered-ness, a general lack of whelm, I would use it here, because that’s how I felt after watching Robin Soans’ latest at Hampstead Theatre.
This is another verbatim theatre piece in line with his previous work Talking To Terrorists. Only, in the case of Life After Scandal, this time it is more a matter of Talking To Disgraced Aristocrats – which doesn’t really have the same ring to it.
The play consists of a series of interwoven interviews with various public figures who have been involved in scandal – sexual, political, often a blend of the both – and whose lives subsequently became tabloid fodder, meat for the media. So we have contributions from Jonathan Aitken, Lord Brocket, the Ingrams (they of the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire coughing farrago), an embittered Edwina Currie, Duncan Roy, who passed himself off as a Lord for some years, and Craig Murray, the vilified former ambassador to Uzbekistan. Oh, and Neil and Christine Hamilton. Because.
Anyway, Soans clearly has a knack for drawing people out of themselves and the stories were cleverly interlaced, I’ll give it that. But I simply struggled to care about these people and their predicaments. There were exceptions, there was pathos of sorts in the story of the elderly Lord Montagu who was embroiled in a homosexual scandal in the 1950s, a time when such things devastated lives rather than paving your way onto I’m A Celebrity, get me Out Of Here!. But often the juxtaposition between the more weighty issues – Murray discussing horrific human rights abuses in Uzbekistan – and, say the Hamiltons taking tea as they described their appearances on This Morning, felt more than a little awkward. Everything was slick and smooth and tautly (and, in the main, sympathetically) performed and it’s not that documentary techniques such as these have to be confined to Big Serious Themes only, but, still. I wanted more bite, more insight, more focus, and none was forthcoming. Oh and there was singing. A fair bit of singing. I really, really couldn’t fathom the point of the singing.
It was also press night and thus there were actors aplenty in the audience, as is the norm at such things. Post-show, they were doling out Brocket’s beer (yes, really, and no, I was not tempted to try any), though I did find the sight of the Hamiltons meeting ‘The Hamiltons’ (Caroline Quentin and Michael Mears) fairly amusing.
This is another verbatim theatre piece in line with his previous work Talking To Terrorists. Only, in the case of Life After Scandal, this time it is more a matter of Talking To Disgraced Aristocrats – which doesn’t really have the same ring to it.
The play consists of a series of interwoven interviews with various public figures who have been involved in scandal – sexual, political, often a blend of the both – and whose lives subsequently became tabloid fodder, meat for the media. So we have contributions from Jonathan Aitken, Lord Brocket, the Ingrams (they of the Who Wants To Be A Millionaire coughing farrago), an embittered Edwina Currie, Duncan Roy, who passed himself off as a Lord for some years, and Craig Murray, the vilified former ambassador to Uzbekistan. Oh, and Neil and Christine Hamilton. Because.
Anyway, Soans clearly has a knack for drawing people out of themselves and the stories were cleverly interlaced, I’ll give it that. But I simply struggled to care about these people and their predicaments. There were exceptions, there was pathos of sorts in the story of the elderly Lord Montagu who was embroiled in a homosexual scandal in the 1950s, a time when such things devastated lives rather than paving your way onto I’m A Celebrity, get me Out Of Here!. But often the juxtaposition between the more weighty issues – Murray discussing horrific human rights abuses in Uzbekistan – and, say the Hamiltons taking tea as they described their appearances on This Morning, felt more than a little awkward. Everything was slick and smooth and tautly (and, in the main, sympathetically) performed and it’s not that documentary techniques such as these have to be confined to Big Serious Themes only, but, still. I wanted more bite, more insight, more focus, and none was forthcoming. Oh and there was singing. A fair bit of singing. I really, really couldn’t fathom the point of the singing.
It was also press night and thus there were actors aplenty in the audience, as is the norm at such things. Post-show, they were doling out Brocket’s beer (yes, really, and no, I was not tempted to try any), though I did find the sight of the Hamiltons meeting ‘The Hamiltons’ (Caroline Quentin and Michael Mears) fairly amusing.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
High Flying
Monday night and after the briefest of catch-ups with my flatmate Lisa in a Soho coffee bar, I darted over to Shepherd’s Bush, to the Bush Theatre for their new production of David Watson’s Flight Path.
Watson is 22 and this is his second play. A pretty conventional thing, structurally speaking, Flight Path concerns the problems and worries of eighteen year old Jonathan, an A level student whose parents have recently split up. He’s about to sit his exams and his 25 year old brother, who has learning disabilities, has just returned from a residential home so he’s having to help care for him as well. At the same time, his friend Joe is pestering him into joining him in a spot of house breaking. Pressure is piling on him from all directions and it soon takes its toll.
Inarticulacy is difficult to write and harder to perform. The stutters, the pauses, the half-finished sentences, it’s not that easy to replicate in any convincing fashion. But it’s something that Watson (not to mention the younger members of the cast) do well. You can see his characters searching for words, struggling to express themselves, their unvoiced feelings floating just beneath the surface.
While there’s nothing soul-piercingly brilliant about this play, I admired the way it avoided certain narrative traps, the way that it subtly subverted expectations. Jonathan’s social worker mother, for example, screams of cliché when she first appears but she is allowed to be more than that. A woman who wallows in other people’s problems all day, she is as baffled and frustrated by life as her son. Jonathan’s relationship with his brother is also very tenderly sketched, his love muddied by frustration and the burden of responsibility.
I’ve seen a fair bit of this kind of theatre, theatre that, with its blurts of hip-hop between scenes attempts to be all urban and gritty and whatnot – it rarely convinces – but this was written with an uncommon level of compassion. Watson can also do dialogue, be it convincing street-smart banter or awkward father-son small-talk. And it’s, in the main, an emotionally plausible piece of writing, though it could do with being trimmed in some places and fleshed out in others (the episode with the suitcase full of cocaine felt like it had floated in from a completely different play – even though it provided the springboard for one of the funniest scenes - and it’s difficult to believe that the level-headed Jonathan would get so easily involved with serious criminal activity). Cary Crankson’s performance in the central role was excellent as well, striking just the right balance between snotty, adolescent arrogance and a more weighed down, worn out air.
The reviews for this one have been mixed, with most of the criticisms fair, though I thought Nicholas de Jongh was being picky in the extreme (he questions the realism of Jonathan having a menial job. Hello? Most people I know took on crappy jobs to see them through their A Levels, I certainly spent several mind-sapping weeks packing boxes in a factory, not to mention all those hours of my life poured into the retail machine).
Anyway, I'm spinning off-topic - an actual conclusion would be good at this point, wouldn't it? Flight Path has a number of flaws, without a doubt, but it's a very promising piece of work and it left me genuinely intrigued to see what Watson will do next.
Oh, and for more on the moonwalking, head over here.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Moonwalking
It’s Friday evening and Soho’s streets are filled with after-work drinkers and pavement tables and the general jabber of people released from their desks for the weekend. And I am off to the theatre. To Soho Theatre in fact, up the stairs to their studio space where a mah jong game is in session and tinny music plays on a radio in the corner. Someone hands me a coloured tile (a red one) and, before I or the other assembled audience members have time to fully orientate ourselves, we are waved and prodded back out of the door, following a girl with a paper lantern back downstairs and out into Dean Street.
If anything it’s noisier outside than before but our attention is drawn to one particularly shouty couple, having an argument outside a restaurant, a Chinese woman and her boyfriend. She has a family party to attend and is worried about bringing him along, as she’s neglected to tell her family that he’s not Chinese. I don’t want to give away too much about the story, both because the narrative was rather on the thin side and because the uncertainty factor is one of the key joys of this production – it constantly surprises you and you’re never quite sure what was a planned part of the show and what was just random Friday night Soho stuff.
Naturally our small procession began attracting attention and soon we had tourists and people out on the town watching us with some curiosity. Some were moved to call out questions, some began tagging along to find out what was going on, and as a result I started to feel as much part of the show as the performers. Which was a rather fun feeling. The production took us all around Chinatown, past shops and restaurants, via the pagoda, and then off down alleys full of kitchen smells and cardboard boxes, before returning to Soho proper and ending up in a hidden residential courtyard where the disparate plot strands came together over a moon festival feast (and with a bit of rudimentary shadow puppetry thrown in to boot).
It was an exhilarating experience that succeeded in making me look anew at familiar streets, streets I walk through nearly everyday without really looking at them, always going somewhere, never fully awake to what’s around me. And yet, and yet, though I’m loathe to criticize what was such an enjoyable theatrical experience, in many ways it felt like something of a missed opportunity. Justin Young’s script felt disappointingly soapy, the acting was very broad and basic and the play doesn’t really say much about the history of the neighbourhood or what it means to be young and British Chinese above the very obvious. I wonder if my expectations were simply too high, because as I said I did enjoy it, and I’m probably not fully grasping the logistical complexity of staging something like this, I just thought it could have been more than it was.
It’s still an experience worth having though, and I’d love to see similar projects put on by other theatres, the Bush and the Arcola springing most immediately to mind.
If anything it’s noisier outside than before but our attention is drawn to one particularly shouty couple, having an argument outside a restaurant, a Chinese woman and her boyfriend. She has a family party to attend and is worried about bringing him along, as she’s neglected to tell her family that he’s not Chinese. I don’t want to give away too much about the story, both because the narrative was rather on the thin side and because the uncertainty factor is one of the key joys of this production – it constantly surprises you and you’re never quite sure what was a planned part of the show and what was just random Friday night Soho stuff.
Naturally our small procession began attracting attention and soon we had tourists and people out on the town watching us with some curiosity. Some were moved to call out questions, some began tagging along to find out what was going on, and as a result I started to feel as much part of the show as the performers. Which was a rather fun feeling. The production took us all around Chinatown, past shops and restaurants, via the pagoda, and then off down alleys full of kitchen smells and cardboard boxes, before returning to Soho proper and ending up in a hidden residential courtyard where the disparate plot strands came together over a moon festival feast (and with a bit of rudimentary shadow puppetry thrown in to boot).
It was an exhilarating experience that succeeded in making me look anew at familiar streets, streets I walk through nearly everyday without really looking at them, always going somewhere, never fully awake to what’s around me. And yet, and yet, though I’m loathe to criticize what was such an enjoyable theatrical experience, in many ways it felt like something of a missed opportunity. Justin Young’s script felt disappointingly soapy, the acting was very broad and basic and the play doesn’t really say much about the history of the neighbourhood or what it means to be young and British Chinese above the very obvious. I wonder if my expectations were simply too high, because as I said I did enjoy it, and I’m probably not fully grasping the logistical complexity of staging something like this, I just thought it could have been more than it was.
It’s still an experience worth having though, and I’d love to see similar projects put on by other theatres, the Bush and the Arcola springing most immediately to mind.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Ugly Beautiful (And Lessons In Excess)
The heavy-set man in front of me looked on the verge of expiring after climbing all the stairs up which you must climb in order to reach the Royal Court’s attic-y upstairs space. He had gone a worrying shade of puce, was sweating rather profusely and looking generally rather unwell – for a moment I really thought the show might be cancelled due to some kind of ‘shit, call an ambulance’ collapse situation. However he eventually recovered (and presumably took the lift on the way down) and his little episode was unconnected to the mysterious delay that bumped the start time of the play back by fifteen minutes.
I never did find out what that was about. But anyway. The play itself was Marius von Mayenburg's The Ugly One and it's a study in the strengths of keeping things concise, playing at just under an hour, with a staging stripped down to the bare essentials. There is no set as such, instead the stage has been left to resemble a bare rehearsal space, with only a couple of benches and an office chair. There are no real props or costumes and a ladder and a rail of clothes have been left, seemingly randomly, in the background. The actors were milling about in a corner chatting for some minutes before the play started. It's a basic approach - and one that is somewhat appropriate in a play that is all about surfaces and the power of the visual.
A man called Lette, a designer of plugs by trade, is told by his boss that he can’t go to a conference because, to put it plainly, he is too ugly. "You can't sell anything with that face," his boss casually informs him, a fact his wife seems only to happy to confirm, in her words his face is "disastrous." Though Lette had never considered himself ugly before now, indeed had never really given the matter much thought, he quickly decides to get the problem rectified surgically, to get a doctor to build him a whole new face. Once he has been un-uglified, Lette’s whole life changes. Women are throwing themselves at him and people start wanting to look like him, coveting his face itself.
The play touches on so many themes, notions of identity and attraction and the like, of the value that is placed on how a person looks over who they are. I like Michael Gould’s performance as Lette. In this most subtle of ways he conveyed a man changed, both enraptured and repelled by this ‘new’ him. I also enjoyed Mark Lockyer’s smooth, supercilious delivery – it seemed so in tune with the tone of the writing. The remaining roles are played by Frank McCusker and Amanda Drew, switching from character to character at rapid speed, indeed all the performances have a kind of cranked up intensity, and though von Mayenburg has chosen to give all the smaller roles the same names, it was never difficult to follow who was who. The satirical elements of the play where at times a bit too, I don’t know, overdone for my liking, but as an exercise in how much can be achieved with so little – and indeed how little you actually need to feed an audience, in terms of visual cues, for them to follow along – this was a truly exciting piece of theatre.
And despite the ample drinking time afforded by the early finish (even with the delay), I took the bus straight home after the show, still feel a little, um, delicate after ill advisedly consuming a rather large quantity of champagne the night before.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Swishy-Kicky
Last night I took my mother to the bland, boxy Peacock Theatre on Kingsway for an evening of what my great aunt would call, with a dismissive wave of her hand, that ‘clicky-clicky stuff you like.’ And what PR folk would probably term an ‘international dance spectacular’ or words to that effect.
The show was Tango Fire, a blend of music and dance from Buenos Aires – more swishy-kicky than clicky-clicky if we’re to be precise about such things (and we are). And it was, well, it was very disappointing actually. In my mind tango exists as a seductive and deeply sexual form of dance, and this show, while it was technically incredible – legs moving at lightning speed, all manner of acrobatic flips and spins, and a fair bit of, for want of a better term, what we’ll call lady juggling – had something rather cold and clinical about it, it was too polished, and the musical interludes, from the accompanying band Quatrotango, though enjoyable, dragged on for far too long. It just wasn’t as sexy as I was expecting, unless your idea of sexy involves being twirled and tossed across the stage at frightening speed or being repeatedly thrown in the air and caught just before you crash to the ground.
The costumes though, the costumes deserve a post in themselves, lots of unflattering satin and baffling cutaways, plus one shimmery purple outfit that seemed to consist of one leg (yes, just one leg) of a velour tracksuit combined with a bodice made purely of flimsy ribbons of chiffon. That alone made the evening worth it in my book.
The show was Tango Fire, a blend of music and dance from Buenos Aires – more swishy-kicky than clicky-clicky if we’re to be precise about such things (and we are). And it was, well, it was very disappointing actually. In my mind tango exists as a seductive and deeply sexual form of dance, and this show, while it was technically incredible – legs moving at lightning speed, all manner of acrobatic flips and spins, and a fair bit of, for want of a better term, what we’ll call lady juggling – had something rather cold and clinical about it, it was too polished, and the musical interludes, from the accompanying band Quatrotango, though enjoyable, dragged on for far too long. It just wasn’t as sexy as I was expecting, unless your idea of sexy involves being twirled and tossed across the stage at frightening speed or being repeatedly thrown in the air and caught just before you crash to the ground.
The costumes though, the costumes deserve a post in themselves, lots of unflattering satin and baffling cutaways, plus one shimmery purple outfit that seemed to consist of one leg (yes, just one leg) of a velour tracksuit combined with a bodice made purely of flimsy ribbons of chiffon. That alone made the evening worth it in my book.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Future Perfect
Lyric Hammersmith again yesterday. This time to the smaller Studio space for Vanishing Point’s new production, Subway. This is one that had been glittering near the top of my list of post-Edinburgh transfers which I was determined to catch, mainly I must admit, due to the prospect of a seven-piece Kosovan band providing the music.
The play offers up a vision of a futuristic Edinburgh where the gulf between rich and poor has widened to the point where the ill and uninsured buy lottery tickets for hospital treatment and the vending machines offer advice on getting your all important eight-a-day while declining to serve Irn Bru to the unemployed. The plot is a slivery thing: after a ten year absence from the city, Patrick returns with hopes of some sort of reconciliation with his estranged father. However it’s superbly played by Sandy Grierson, as Patrick, and Rosalind Sydney, as pretty much everyone else. Everything about the production is well choreographed and well executed and the music provided by the onstage band complemented the action wonderfully, drawing out the internal music of the Scottish accents, creating beautiful patterns from words.
This is a production that revels in language in such a way I was easily able to overlook its narrative flaws. (The plot became unnecessarily convoluted, I thought, as the piece progressed and the dystopian imagery wasn’t exactly fresh). But the marriage of music and performance worked perfectly, each element of the staging was in harmony and none of the theatrical devices felt tacked on or gimmicky, as they did in The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents.
So, yes, good, I liked this one a lot. It was also interesting to note that, as a result I suspect of the presence of the Kosovan musicians, the audience contained an unusually large percentage of eastern Europeans. And much of the post-show debate that I heard appeared to revolve around the, er, intensity of the actors’ Scottish accents and the difficulty in understanding everything that was said. Still, despite the lost-in-translation factor, the overall buzz seemed to be positive.
In things un-theatre, my weekend was spent in Brussels (to mark, what I believe is politely termed, a landmark birthday for my mother). We shopped, we ate, we drank of the Kriek and of the Hoegaarden and failed to do anything at all cultural or mind-widening. Our waistlines on the other hand…
The play offers up a vision of a futuristic Edinburgh where the gulf between rich and poor has widened to the point where the ill and uninsured buy lottery tickets for hospital treatment and the vending machines offer advice on getting your all important eight-a-day while declining to serve Irn Bru to the unemployed. The plot is a slivery thing: after a ten year absence from the city, Patrick returns with hopes of some sort of reconciliation with his estranged father. However it’s superbly played by Sandy Grierson, as Patrick, and Rosalind Sydney, as pretty much everyone else. Everything about the production is well choreographed and well executed and the music provided by the onstage band complemented the action wonderfully, drawing out the internal music of the Scottish accents, creating beautiful patterns from words.
This is a production that revels in language in such a way I was easily able to overlook its narrative flaws. (The plot became unnecessarily convoluted, I thought, as the piece progressed and the dystopian imagery wasn’t exactly fresh). But the marriage of music and performance worked perfectly, each element of the staging was in harmony and none of the theatrical devices felt tacked on or gimmicky, as they did in The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents.
So, yes, good, I liked this one a lot. It was also interesting to note that, as a result I suspect of the presence of the Kosovan musicians, the audience contained an unusually large percentage of eastern Europeans. And much of the post-show debate that I heard appeared to revolve around the, er, intensity of the actors’ Scottish accents and the difficulty in understanding everything that was said. Still, despite the lost-in-translation factor, the overall buzz seemed to be positive.
In things un-theatre, my weekend was spent in Brussels (to mark, what I believe is politely termed, a landmark birthday for my mother). We shopped, we ate, we drank of the Kriek and of the Hoegaarden and failed to do anything at all cultural or mind-widening. Our waistlines on the other hand…
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
The Drugs Don't Work
Does a banana muffin and a coffee make for a balanced dinner? I think not. But it’s all I had time to grab as I headed over to Notting Hill after work yesterday to see the Gate Theatre’s production of The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents.
I had some problems with this one I must admit. It’s a play designed to unsettle – and it does, but not I suspect, always in the ways intended. The play is about a girl called Dora who has learning disabilities and has been on medication since she was a child. Her mother decides to take her off the pills, which have kept her docile, to lift the ‘pharmaceutical curtain’ and rediscover who her daughter is inside. This device is used to explore Dora’s sudden sexualisation. Off the pills, she becomes increasingly uninhibited and fascinated with the physical.
It wasn’t the subject matter that made me feel a little squirmy, rather the play itself, which felt primarily as if it were out to press buttons, to provoke a response, which is fine to a point, but I thought here it was trying a little too hard. It had this overly slick quality, making it near-impossible to get an emotional hook on the action or the characters.
The set appears to have been designed to make the characters look like part of an installation or an experiment, with the audience looking down on them from either side of the stage. The space is filled with a number of black blocks, which the cast shift around as the scene changes require. These scene changes are denoted by little bursts of music (triggered by the actors pressing a buzzer in the corner), during which they dance around, lifting one another up or occasionally jumping over one of the black blocks. There is even a little paper screen that they jump through at the start and I must admit when this happened I did jot the words ‘Legz Akimbo!’ down in my notepad (a reference to the 'educational' theatre troupe in The League Of Gentlemen, if that needs to be clarified).
That’s perhaps a bit harsh, I think I could see what was trying to be achieved, I just thought all these little theatrical devices worked against the material – in fact, I thought the main problem here was the material itself, I just don’t think it was a very good play to start with, too obvious, too button-pushy, as I said. The girl playing Dora, Cath Whitefield, was very good though, pitching the role just right I thought, giving the play a necessary human centre. The play was only ninety minutes long but I felt more than a little fidgety towards the end, though I concede this may have something to do with the twin-pronged sugar and caffeine attack on my system. I should really learn to stick with the gin.
I had some problems with this one I must admit. It’s a play designed to unsettle – and it does, but not I suspect, always in the ways intended. The play is about a girl called Dora who has learning disabilities and has been on medication since she was a child. Her mother decides to take her off the pills, which have kept her docile, to lift the ‘pharmaceutical curtain’ and rediscover who her daughter is inside. This device is used to explore Dora’s sudden sexualisation. Off the pills, she becomes increasingly uninhibited and fascinated with the physical.
It wasn’t the subject matter that made me feel a little squirmy, rather the play itself, which felt primarily as if it were out to press buttons, to provoke a response, which is fine to a point, but I thought here it was trying a little too hard. It had this overly slick quality, making it near-impossible to get an emotional hook on the action or the characters.
The set appears to have been designed to make the characters look like part of an installation or an experiment, with the audience looking down on them from either side of the stage. The space is filled with a number of black blocks, which the cast shift around as the scene changes require. These scene changes are denoted by little bursts of music (triggered by the actors pressing a buzzer in the corner), during which they dance around, lifting one another up or occasionally jumping over one of the black blocks. There is even a little paper screen that they jump through at the start and I must admit when this happened I did jot the words ‘Legz Akimbo!’ down in my notepad (a reference to the 'educational' theatre troupe in The League Of Gentlemen, if that needs to be clarified).
That’s perhaps a bit harsh, I think I could see what was trying to be achieved, I just thought all these little theatrical devices worked against the material – in fact, I thought the main problem here was the material itself, I just don’t think it was a very good play to start with, too obvious, too button-pushy, as I said. The girl playing Dora, Cath Whitefield, was very good though, pitching the role just right I thought, giving the play a necessary human centre. The play was only ninety minutes long but I felt more than a little fidgety towards the end, though I concede this may have something to do with the twin-pronged sugar and caffeine attack on my system. I should really learn to stick with the gin.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
The Orange Tree Delivers
Last week’s bumper week o’ theatre ended on a pleasant high. I was off to the Orange Tree, out in Richmond, for the first play in their new autumn season. I have a real soft spot for the Orange Tree. Their last season, composed of work by George Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries, was genuinely fascinating and this new production of the The Years Between, a play by Daphne Du Maurier, was well chosen, echoing themes – about the shifting position of women in society in the late 19th and early 20th century – that had provided something of a spine for those previous productions.
Years is set during the Second World War and concerns a woman whose husband is missing in action, his plane was shot down over the sea and he is most likely dead. In his absence, his wife Diana sets about rebuilding and reshaping her life. Reluctantly she stands as a Member of Parliament in her husband’s stead and makes plans to marry another man. Three years pass before a phone call brings news that her husband is still alive and the play then focuses on how Diana deals with this fact and the knowledge that the life she has built in his absence will be irreparably changed.
The play makes it clear that her husband was a difficult and particular man before he went away, so when he returns, gaunt and weak, he is keen for everything to be as it once was. But, of course, this cannot be. Diana has grown in confidence during the intervening years, and her husband, Michael, comes back to a life – and wife – very distant and different from what he left behind.
Years is a compelling if not outstanding piece of writing, it doesn’t really have the macabre edge of du Maurier’s novels and stories (apparently she was drawing here on unhappiness in her own marriage plus a real event that happened near to where she lived in Cornwall) but, get this, I cared about the characters, I got caught up in these people’s lives in a way that just didn’t happen during, hmm, say, Awake and Sing! It helped that the acting was good, especially Mark Tandy as the twitchy, emotionally complex colonel.
This wasn’t an absolutely blow-you-away production but I enjoyed it more than anything else I’ve seen this week, despite – or perhaps – because of the Orange Tree’s quirks. Sets are usually cluttered with rugs, mahogany side tables, antimacassars and the like – they’re clearly not big fans of the minimalist approach to set design – and they take an absolute age shifting this stuff about between scenes. The theatre is also in-the-round so at least one pivotal moment is guaranteed to be obscured by the back of someone’s head, but the Orange Tree knows its strengths, it knows its core audience (older than me by a good few decades) and it does a certain kind of production very well indeed. Measure of quality at the Orange Tree? The number of people having a bit of a nap during the play (easy to ascertain given the layout) and, for once, I didn’t spot one lolling head.
Years is set during the Second World War and concerns a woman whose husband is missing in action, his plane was shot down over the sea and he is most likely dead. In his absence, his wife Diana sets about rebuilding and reshaping her life. Reluctantly she stands as a Member of Parliament in her husband’s stead and makes plans to marry another man. Three years pass before a phone call brings news that her husband is still alive and the play then focuses on how Diana deals with this fact and the knowledge that the life she has built in his absence will be irreparably changed.
The play makes it clear that her husband was a difficult and particular man before he went away, so when he returns, gaunt and weak, he is keen for everything to be as it once was. But, of course, this cannot be. Diana has grown in confidence during the intervening years, and her husband, Michael, comes back to a life – and wife – very distant and different from what he left behind.
Years is a compelling if not outstanding piece of writing, it doesn’t really have the macabre edge of du Maurier’s novels and stories (apparently she was drawing here on unhappiness in her own marriage plus a real event that happened near to where she lived in Cornwall) but, get this, I cared about the characters, I got caught up in these people’s lives in a way that just didn’t happen during, hmm, say, Awake and Sing! It helped that the acting was good, especially Mark Tandy as the twitchy, emotionally complex colonel.
This wasn’t an absolutely blow-you-away production but I enjoyed it more than anything else I’ve seen this week, despite – or perhaps – because of the Orange Tree’s quirks. Sets are usually cluttered with rugs, mahogany side tables, antimacassars and the like – they’re clearly not big fans of the minimalist approach to set design – and they take an absolute age shifting this stuff about between scenes. The theatre is also in-the-round so at least one pivotal moment is guaranteed to be obscured by the back of someone’s head, but the Orange Tree knows its strengths, it knows its core audience (older than me by a good few decades) and it does a certain kind of production very well indeed. Measure of quality at the Orange Tree? The number of people having a bit of a nap during the play (easy to ascertain given the layout) and, for once, I didn’t spot one lolling head.
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