Cinderella at the Lyric

Is there such a thing as too dark for children? I’m not sure; I seem to recall my tastes ran to the macabre when I was small. I remember adoring a book of Slavic folk tales as a child in which all manner of nasty things happened to people and I have, in fact, become far more squeamish as I’ve gotten older.

The point of all this being that, while there’s a decent drizzle of gore in Melly Still’s staging of Cinderella at the Lyric, I suspect all but the smallest will be fine with it. However, as Webcowgirl's experience bears out, this is probably not the show for sensitibve five year olds.

Still has created a de-Disneyed family production that adults will respond to as much as children. The show takes its cues from the fairy-godmother-free Brothers Grimm version of the tale, with a few borrowed myths thrown in for good measure. The acting is fine, if a bit hampered by the story-telling nature of the production and the mass of back-story, but it’s the invention with which the tale is told that really lift this above the level of standard Christmas fare. That and the music. The music is quite wonderful.

This is provided by very tall Norwegian musician called Terje Isungset who sits in a small nest at the top of the stage playing an array of unusual instruments including an old bicycle, a mouth harp which apparently was made from part of a Second World War fighter plane and a trumpet made of ice. His unique percussion is an integral part of the show, driving it along.

The set is also glorious-looking, full of silver birch trees. Suspended above the stage is a circle of paper snow pigeons strung together like a mobile. More of these same paper birds are worn by the actors as glove puppets (yes, more puppets) who then flutter their fingers and make cooing noises to bring the pigeons to life.

At the interval, the production spills over into the bar (hurrah). This is where the Royal Ball, in which the Prince will search for his future bride (having already met, fallen for and then forgotten Cinderella while hunting a stag in the forest), takes place. For reasons that will become clear during the show, audience members on leaving their seats are draped in blue pashminas before filing downstairs. The Lyric has employed extra ‘guests’ to mingle during the ball, and while sipping my wine and looking wall-flowery, I was approached by a leggy thing in a blue evening gown who was apparently channeling my great aunt, as she told me I would never land myself a husband if I didn’t join in and dance.

The last few scenes are quite gleefully nasty in a way, which if you know the Grimm version of the story, you will have anticipated. Feet and eyeballs are both involved. This actually seems a bit excessive given that the not all that ugly sisters in Still’s production (entertainingly played by Katherine Manners and Kelly William) are cruel in a recognizably childish way rather than simply evil, but even so they are made to pay for being awful to their slightly simpering step-sister.

None of the children sitting around me seemed horribly trauamtised by all this - though I saw a couple of adults hiding their faces - and at around two hours, including a lengthier than normal interval to account for the ball, it didn’t outstay its welcome at all.

Incidently the prince is played by Daniel Weyman, who I stalked a tiny weeny bit once, but only for a few minutes by mistake, more of a walking-in-the-same-direction-as than a stalking really.

The Revenger's Tragedy at the National

For the first five minutes of Melly Still's staging of The Revenger's Tragedy not a word is spoken, instead the set spins and music pounds and the audience are pulled into dark, forbidding world, a world replete with a sense of menace, decadent and dangerous.

After this throbbing, attention-grabbing opening sequence the play proper begins. A bedraggled Vindice is still in mourning for his beloved Gloriana, who was killed, poisoned, by the Duke for refusing his sexual advances. Vindice has shut himself away for nine years, brooding in his room, letting his hair grow lank and long, occasionally taking her skull out from the box in which he keeps it to ponder his loss. Finally, prompted into action by the death of his father, he vows revenge on those who took her from him.

To achieve his goal he resorts to disguise – which in this case means shearing his hair and donning tight silver jeans and a white jacket – so he can infiltrate the Duke's court. The world he enters is one of corruption and debauchery: we first encounter Lussurioso, the Duke's legitimate heir, as he is enthusiastically pleasuring himself in a corridor. Lussurioso has taken a fancy to Vindice's virginal and dignified sister, and recruits him to procure her for his malign uses.

The programme quotes Confucius: "Before you embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves", but this is Jacobean tragedy, so two graves wouldn't even start to cover it, not given the amount of bodies that inevitably pile up by the end of the play. The death of the Duke, forced into a fatal embrace with a poisoned skull, is a particularly strong scene, bloody and brutal. The final masque scene, though visually striking in the way it was performed – by a troupe of black-clad acrobatic dancers, Still drawing on her background as a choreographer – was disappointing in comparison, too clean, too quick.

As Vindice, Rory Kinnear has the single-minded glint in his eye of a man set on revenge; he is also adept at striking the right balance between this clear-eyed desire for vengeance and the sardonic humour the play calls for. Katherine Manners, in the small but pivotal role of Castiza, Vindice’s sister, brings an openness to the part, an appealing straight-forwardness. Elliot Cowan is also excellent as the long-limbed playboy Duke-in-waiting, strutting and cocky, but not completely oblivious to the consequences of his action.

Still's production, which blends modern dress with a historical sensibility – the men still carry swords – successfully cuts through the play’s rather knotty plot. It creates a world where death by poisoned skull is an, if not plausible, than at least an appropriate way to go. She even injects this scene, where Vindice waltzes with his long dead love, now a hideous mannequin and instrument of death, with a degree of poignancy.

The set, designed by Still along with Ti Green, peppered with frescoes and computer generated skulls, is part Italian court, part urban night spot – and is full of dark corners where illicit deeds can take place. The exhilarating music, blending operatic voices with beats provided by DJ duo DifferentGear, add to the production’s sense of momentum.

This is a production of spectacle and excess: unsubtle, aggressive, but fittingly so. The final few minutes, that last spin of the set, the vacant throne, the damage done, have a particular power.

Written for musicOMH.com, posted here because sometimes a girl has to sleep - please insert own gin references.