tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51673858014971733912024-03-13T06:40:45.432-07:00Addison DeWitt Says...Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.comBlogger40125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-48851440898117976432014-06-09T02:42:00.002-07:002014-06-09T02:57:14.566-07:00Incognito, Squirrels/The After Dinner Joke, Privacy, The Drowned Man, and more<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
How has it taken me so long to discover the Bush Theatre? It's better than the Donmar--it's in a very cool neighborhood and has comfortable seats! What a revelation. And the play I happened to see--Nick Payne's <b><i><span style="color: magenta;">Incognito</span></i></b>--will surely be among the best I'll see this year.<br />
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The backbone of the play, which has a beautifully complicated structure, is the true story of a pathologist in Princeton who performed the autopsy on Albert Einstein soon after his death in 1955, stole his brain, and kept it for over 40 years. Payne's play relies heavily on Michael Paterniti's book <i>Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein's Brain</i> in which he recounts driving the then 84 year old pathologist, Thomas Stolz Harvey, across the U.S with Einstein's brain in a Tupperware bowl in a gray duffel bag in the trunk in order to meet with Einstein's daughter. There are several more story lines in Payne's play related to the vast mystery that is our brain, ingeniously interwoven and miraculously interrelevant. Keeping track of all the strands is thoroughly challenging and engaging. The material--physics, cosmology, and neuroscience has been trendy for so long it's beginning to feel a bit tired, but Payne manages to more than eek out continued interest. His play is as good, better really, than Lucy Preeble's 2012 <i>The Effect</i> dealing with antidepressents effects on the brain and the pharmaceutical industry. It also nods to Oliver Sacks book<i> The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat</i> and the subsequent opera based on his book. Major credit for the success of the play goes to the four actors--Paul Hickey, Amelia Lowdel, Alison O'Donnell and Sargon Yelda--who play up to six characters each with incredible subtlety and aplomb. The range of accents was impressive--though being from New Jersey myself, have to say that one didn't quite work.<br />
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How has it taken me so long to discover the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond? Okay, not so cool a neighborhood, and the seats worse than the Donmar, but a great venue nonetheless. And their recent revivals of David Mamet's<span style="color: magenta;"> <b><i>Squirrels</i></b></span> and Caryl Churchill's<i> <b><span style="color: magenta;">The After-Dinner Joke</span></b></i> very solid stuff. <i>Squirrel</i>s just about perfectly sums up the glories and terrors of the writing process, with a significant nod to the female influence/aspect which I found surprising coming from Mamet, and <i>The After-Dinner Joke</i> just about perfectly sums up the entrenched hypocricy of the left, right, and center, especially when it comes to "charitable works." This short play is perhaps even more relevant today than when it was written. The actors in both plays, were excellent. The Orange Tree Theatre will soon be putting on a festival of new work and rediscoveries and I will certainly be going along.<br />
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<b><i style="background-color: magenta;">Privacy</i></b> at the Donmar about the Snowden leaks and how technology is changing/has changed our entire concept of privacy was an intriguing affair for about 40 minute and then it just felt repetitive. Also, the framing device, a playwright struggling to write a play was weak and annoying.<br />
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If you have never experienced a Punchdrunk full immersion theatrical experience, <b><i><span style="color: magenta;">The Drowned Man</span></i></b> is a great one and I urge you to go. If you have experienced one (I saw their <i>Faust</i> a few years back), I'd still say go, but they haven't improved greatly on the formula. The best thing about the production by far is the truly inspired, meticulously, lovingly, wittily designed sets by Felix Barrett, Livi Vaughan, and Beatrice Minns. Wearing creepy white (death) masks, each audience member is encouraged to go it alone and explore the vast and now defunct Hollywood Temple Studios expanding over several floors. (The building was, in fact, until not too long ago a post office near Paddington Station.) The care, thought, and aesthetic values that went into putting together each room and space is spectacular--and if I do go back to a Punchdrunk production it will be for the sets. The fragmented performances of a script based on Buchner's Woyzeck were far less interesting to me than the Hollywood executive's office full of chicken coops, the medical records room, its walls covered in forms listing on-set injuries and drug treatments for stars, wandering around the trailer park, sitting in the soda shop watching the other masked audience members come and go--and this just a fraction of what's possible. One of the great things about a Punchdrunk production is its comment on perspective. After the show is over, and you gather with your mates in the saloon, you realize that what you saw and experienced was utterly unique.<br />
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For his 18th birthday, I took my son to see cabaret sensation <b><i><span style="color: magenta;">Meow Meow</span></i></b> at Southbank's Wonderground. Seemingly out of control at all times, she gloriously manipulated the hell out of us all for the entire exhilerating performance. Her crowd surfing is one of the most courageous and stupendous acts I've ever seen. Her singing was great, especially her hilarious rendition of "Ne Me Quitte Pas" and a great cover of Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees."<br />
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While in New York over Easter a friend took me to see Stephen Soderbergh's <b><i><span style="color: magenta;">The Library </span></i></b>at The Public. The premise was promising. A student played by 17-year-old going-places actress Chloe Grace Moretz is falsely accused by another student of telling a gunman on a shooting spree at her school where other students are hiding. Unfortunately, the play, written by Scott Z. Burns, who also wrote <i>Contagion</i>, was none too subtle and it was pretty clear how the whole thing was going to unfold after about a half hour.<br />
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Also while in New York, my agent and I snuck off at lunch time to see<i><b><span style="color: magenta;"> The Realistic Jones </span></b></i>by Will Eno, starring Marisa Tomei, Toni Colette, Tracey Letts, and Michael C. Hall. We'd both read Charles Isherwood's rave review in <i>The New York Times.</i> What a disappointment! What a waste of talent! The play, about ALS, was a bunch of clever one liners that never added up to much at all. And the ALS was used, like so often happens with the Holocaust and children, as insto-heartstring-puller. Ugh.<br />
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A while ago I saw a revival at the National of <b><i><span style="color: magenta;">A Taste of Honey</span></i></b> written by Shelagh Delaney when she was eighteen in 1958. A very ambitious play, taking on class, race, gender, and sexual orientatio in Britian in the 50s. The first half is a tour de force but the second half was a letdown, really just a repeat of the first. Still, I was glad to have seen it and actors Lesley Sharp and Kate O'Flynn were wonderfully watchable. <br />
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Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-63413020495312248792014-02-17T01:48:00.000-08:002014-02-17T01:48:31.206-08:00Bad Beckett: Not I, Footfalls, Rockaby<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Granted, it is almost impossible for an actor to do Beckett well, which means when it's bad, it is really very, very bad. I know Lisa Dwan has received lots of praise for taking on these three short Beckett pieces, and I am glad to have seen them, but her interpretation was all gothic, creepy, and Hound of the Baskervilles instead of chilling, angst-ridden, modernist, and funny. Beckett is full of humor and to miss that is, well, a little like missing the humor in Hamlet. Anyway, as I said, I was glad to see it. It was an excruciating hour--not in the right way--but it is so hard to see Beckett done at all that I appreciated Dwan's misguided interpretations nevertheless. </div>
Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-67990157850081709212014-01-26T10:23:00.001-08:002014-02-17T01:34:55.244-08:00Raymond Chandler Meets Othello at Riverside Studios<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Imagine if Othello had been written by Raymond Chandler and that's more or less what you'll get if you go see this Orangutan production at Riverside Studios directed by Rebekah Fortune. Actually, a 1940s classic noir is what this production aspires to but alas does not quite bring off. That said, it's fun to watch what works and doesn't work in a pretty uneven production. The costumes, set, and soundtrack are good--except for the very weak opening sultry nightclub number; a good idea badly executed--as are most of the performances, if uneven. Stephan Adegbola as Othello aquit himself well enough but showed none of the inner torture of either Shakespeare's Moor or any of Chandler's anguished men. Peter Lloyd's Iago was worthy of a good B-noir but not of Chandler or Shakespeare. Gillian Saker's Desdemona belonged in a pre-Raphaelite saga not in a lurid tale of jealousy run amok. I appreciated that the play was shortened to just two hours. I can't say you must run see it, but if you do you won't be completely disappointed.</div>
Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-18188289427131451692014-01-05T09:47:00.000-08:002014-06-07T07:34:30.590-07:00My Year at the Theatre: What I've seen since January 2013<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Metamorphosis *****<br />
Lysistrata ***<br />
Mies Julie **<br />
The Low Road **<br />
Book of Mormon *****<br />
Fences ****<br />
A Season in the Congo *****<br />
Much Ado About Nothing -----<br />
Lizzie Siddal *****<br />
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All in all, I only regret going to one of these of these plays and the Icelandic theatre group Vesturport's interpretation of Kafka's<b> <i>Metamorphosis</i> </b>which I saw at the Lyric will go into my pantheon of Best Plays Ever Seen.<br />
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Theatre Lab Company's <i><b>Lysistrata</b></i> at Riverside Studios was fun, if long, and some of the actors were just so much better than others but I would go again to see something they put on. The energy and intelligence on stage was high.<br />
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<i><b>Mies Julie</b></i> was ok. I don't remember too much about it except a lot of strum and drang in South Africa. It's a weird play. This version was better than the Juliette Binoche French version at the Barbican but that's not saying much.<br />
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<i><b>The Low Road</b></i> was really a disappointment. I loved Bruce Norris's<i><b> Clybourne Park</b></i> and this was just silly and obvious. Actually, this one I could have missed.<br />
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<b><i>Book of Mormon</i></b>: you've got to see it to believe it. If only I thought it was actually helping the cause of female genital mutilation I would truly call it sheer genius. As it is, it's simply genius.<br />
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<b><i>Fences</i></b> was long but great and as relevant today as ever. Lenny Henry truly a great actor.<br />
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<b><i>A Season in the Congo</i></b> was revelatory and also a lot of fun. The Young Vic did a great job with this as did the extraordinary cast with material that could have been preachy and heavy going. I tried to get my 17 year old son to go see it but it was sadly sold out for the rest of the run.<br />
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<b><i>Much Ado About Nothing</i></b> with Vanessa Redgrave and James Earl Jones at the Old Vic directed by Mark Rylance. This may be just about the worst play I've ever seen. Truly excruciating. In some misguided moment I decided my visiting 83 year old father would like to see this. When I told him about the production and who was in it etc. he said, "Where are we going to see it, in a hospital?" The real crime was in the direction. But Rylance has to be forgiven since his performance in <i><b>Twelfth Night</b></i> was the best of 2012.<br />
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<b><i>Lizzie Siddal </i></b>by Jeremy Green at the Arcola was great theatre. A well-written play about a fascinating subject and era, very well acted by every one of the cast, great set, great direction. Entertaining and edifying.<br />
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I will try to do better posting in 2014!</div>
Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-60087106217088168472013-01-31T01:58:00.000-08:002013-01-31T02:15:19.845-08:00Old Times with Kristin Scott Thomas, Lia Williams, and Rufus Sewell<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Will her wig fall off? I kept asking myself. What does either of the women see in the flailing, entirely unappealing, wholly unsexy Rufus Sewall rendition of Deeley? We get the idea that he's supposed to be a domineering creep but there's got to be more nuance to the guy than that. If only Scott Thomas (Anna, the night I saw it) and Williams (Kate) would have swapped roles DURING the performance instead of for alternating performances I would have been so much more entertained. Director Ian Rickson should have thought of that gimmick. As it was, I was lucky because whenever what was happening on stage became too boring I got to watch Anna Wintour who was in the audience. She was wearing a coat appliqued with white daises. Prada? And those snakeskin heels! Was she terribly disappointed not to get the gig as US Ambassador to London? I wondered. Might she get up on stage and play Anna? She certainly wouldn't need to fuss with her wig and she wouldn't have to ACT charmingly aggressive and sexy. I read somewhere the play is supposed to be "darkly comic, erotic and sensual, haunting and poetic." Hmmmm. I suppose there might have been some of those things if there had been ANY emotional connection between the actors, if Kristin Scott Thomas hadn't needed to use the Pinter Pauses to straighten her wig, and if Rufus Sewall wasn't so convinced he was in another Tom Stoppard play (stole that from an excellent comment to the Whingers' review). As far as I could tell, Lia Williams just gave up and let the others take over--in so far as anyone was bothering to take over on stage. Anna Wintour--help! I wanted to fault the play, which I do--I mean a whole play based on an underwear stealing incident is rather quaint but I can imagine how this play could be an incredible challenge for actors if you got the right combo. To plagiarize myself, what I wrote about Kristin Scott Thomas in the production of <i>Betrayal</i> she did at the Harold Pinter Theatre in 2011 could be said of this production:<br />
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<span style="background-color: black; color: #cccccc; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', Trebuchet, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.796875px;">" I saw it very early in the run, and it already felt, well, tired, and so did she. Even her voice seemed to crack a lot. I felt as if the three actors believed that their performance was the sideshow to something really big happening somewhere else--whereas the key to this play is the utter self-absorbtion of its three protagonists, their triangle central to the very functioning of the universe."</span><br />
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Actually, this is the production of <i>Old Times</i> that I would have liked to have seen--yes, that's Liv Ullman behind Michael Gambon from a 1985 production at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO_LApHPojQy71OLlUR9uWIpn5u690dzT15XDbbUWu2mID8aUqO8gFl5ewMdq90_wQm4hx4A-qNwZZi1s0E6VlV0F9KOG3NzDm4Y1PhXOGVM1S7k__CbcyVUo4vzJ_D6eadVv_x8nm5g/s1600/oldtimes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO_LApHPojQy71OLlUR9uWIpn5u690dzT15XDbbUWu2mID8aUqO8gFl5ewMdq90_wQm4hx4A-qNwZZi1s0E6VlV0F9KOG3NzDm4Y1PhXOGVM1S7k__CbcyVUo4vzJ_D6eadVv_x8nm5g/s320/oldtimes.jpg" width="206" /></a><br />
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Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-62274569220108613782012-12-03T00:28:00.000-08:002012-12-03T00:28:09.073-08:00All-Female Julius Caesar and All-Male Twelfth Night: The Most Revelatory Theater of 2012<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Mark Rylance's Olivia in the all-male <b>Twelfth Night </b>now at the Apollo in London was a revelation. I never really understood Olivia. For me she was always one of Shakespeare's disappointing female characters. Not particularly witty or smart, she always seemed to be little more than necessary to the plot. The play was about Viola and Orsino with some hilarious, and very dark, subplot provided by Malvolio and Feste. In Rylance's version Olivia is the plot. This is a play about the nature of woman--and how her true self contrasts, conflicts, and is defined by how she is construed by society. In her guise as Cesaro, Viola makes some discoveries upon this theme but she is too young to know what lies ahead. Olivia, instead, through her bumbling vanity, her primness that belies a boundlessly erotic passion, her mourning for her brother which is in fact a displaced mourning for her lost youth, has much to tell us about the truths and vagaries of womanhood. Maria, Olivia's housekeeper, played excellently by Paul Chahidi, is a perfect complement to Olivia providing the servant's eye view into femaledom. I have seen this play performed perhaps five or six times and I have seen incredible Malvolios (including Derek Jacobi), astonishing Festes, wondrous Sir Toby Belches, but I have never seen such an Olivia. The men who played women in this <b>Twelfth Night </b>were in general more entertaining than the men who played men who were rather, including Stephen Fry, rather run of the mill. But it is rare to have every character in a Shakespeare play equaled by the actor no matter his or her sex. </div>
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Just such a rarity is being performed at the Donmar Warehouse in the all-female cast production of <b>Julius Caesar</b>. It is just plain astonishingly good in every way. I was skeptical about the play being set in a contemporary women's prison, a play within a play, but it works brilliantly, gets us to listen to the play's themes of power brokering, war, dictatorship, regime change in an altered and thus intensified manner. The set, the staging, the lighting, everything is exquisitely done but ultimately the production's true genius lies in the incredible performances of each and every actress which has everything to do with Phyllida Lloyd's outstanding direction. As <b>Twelfth Night</b> is a play fundamentally about femininity, <b>Julius Caesar</b> is a play fundamentally about masculinity--and how public constraints exaggerate, enhance, conflict with, and betray a man's true self. How better to understand this than to see the play performed by an all-female cast? And such a uniformly talented one. Our suspension of disbelief is established straight away allowing a viewer to contemplate in new ways Shakespeare's favorite idea: nothing is as it seems. Who knew that was still possible? Every individual performance is outrageously good but Jenny Jules as Cassius, Harriet Walter as Brutus, Frances Barber as Julius Caesar, and Cush Jumbo as Mark Antony have redefined their roles and as such are historic. The play is performed in just under two hours with no intermission. The time flew by and I didn't want it to end. Each speech, each line spoken, was clear and vital. I hung on every word. I have never witnessed such a profound female exploration of the masculine other. These actresses have given us an extraordinary, innovative, and revelatory excavation of humankind. I greatly look forward to a female Macbeth, Hamlet, Lear... </div>
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Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-5596483026140007522012-11-15T02:46:00.001-08:002012-11-15T02:46:45.211-08:00Racine's Berenice at the Donmar: Excruciatingly Funny<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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We giggled. Sometimes uncontrollably. Especially whenever Dominic Rowan as Antiochus was making his particularly inane observations on the action--whatever little there was of it. Was he channeling, I wondered, that other Rowan? My theatre buddy (Paola) and I are perhaps the harshest critics in theatre-going London, but last night we were not alone. Much of the audience was laughing, and often, throughout this production at the Donmar of Racine's Berenice, starring Anne-Marie Duff as the Queen of Palestine, with a new translation by Alan Hollinghurst. Just to be clear: we were not meant to be laughing. Racine is emphatically not Shakespeare. He's a one-note kind of guy. Hamlet is one of the funniest tragedies ever written, but it's meant to be. The audience last night was laughing but not because the play itself was funny--far from it. As I sat in the intimate and renowned-for-excellence theater watching members of the audience stifle laughter, yawns, whisper to each other, cough, fidget, stare back at me, I tried to identify what was wrong. My conclusion was everything. The set: a "modern" geometrical, spiraling staircase with a bridge that looked like it might collapse at any moment. It resembled something found on a dilapidated housing estate built in the eighties. This was supposed to represent ancient Rome? And what was that inexplicable pile of sand? Last I checked Rome was not located in the desert. The costumes: they looked like they were thrown together last minute for a "Roman Night" fancy dress party in someone's flat on the housing estate. Berenice's sparkly, red, one-shoulder strap dress with a slit up the side, a bargain a few years ago at M&S. The play: a limp love triangle written by a humorless pedant who defiantly rejects subplot or subtext. The translation: the attempt to make Racine's posturing "accessible" renders it risible. The acting: I love Anne-Marie Duff and I think she did what she could but it was as if each of the three actors thought he or she was in a different play. Duff was in an ancient Greek production, Rowan was spoofing formal French tragedy of yore, Stephen Campbell Moore was in an "updated" version in which his Titus had just completed a "sensitive man" training in how to let your girlfriend down easy: stutter a lot, keep your voice so soft as not to be heard, earnestly make her understand that his decision to dump her is in her best interest, hurts him more than it hurts her etc. The direction: the buck stops here. Josie Rourke's direction is so indecisive she has left everyone suspended in ever shifting versions and interpretations of the play. That sounds kind of pomo and edgy but if that was her intention it was not achieved. There's nothing more dreadful than trying for pomo and edgy and missing the mark. The version of Berenice we saw was the unintended comedy. I never will pass up the chance to laugh, but being made to laugh when you know you're not supposed to be laughing is actually rather excruciating for all. </div>
Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-24728127234525792782012-10-25T10:47:00.000-07:002012-10-25T10:47:06.332-07:00An Autumn Theatre Binge: The Judas Kiss, Cabaret, Love and Information, Jumpy, Last of the Haussmans, All That Fall<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="text-align: left;">I wish I could say the binge had been worth it. There were some very decent plays involved, and only one truly dreadful revival of a musical, but I came away from it all with a mild hangover of disappointment and scant enlightenment. Even the gorgeous Italian nude in <b>The </b></span><b style="text-align: left;">Judas Kiss, </b><span style="text-align: left;">who draped himself suggestively over furniture and sauntered about the stage on plein air after a long while became awkward and tedious--a fault not of the Italian's but of Neil Armfield's, the director.</span><b style="text-align: left;"> </b><span style="text-align: left;">David Hare's 1998 play</span><b style="text-align: left;"> </b><span style="text-align: left;">about Oscar Wilde's relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas so far stands the test of time as solid theatre fare, but goes no further. There are some really wonderful speeches but they are so self-consciously really wonderful speeches. Rupert Everett as Wilde was very entertaining, though "role of a lifetime" was everywhere evident in his performance.</span><a href="http://hampsteadtheatre-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/Image/1636-fitandcrop-560x350.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://hampsteadtheatre-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/assets/Image/1636-fitandcrop-560x350.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="text-align: left;"> I would like to see Freddie Fox who plays Bosie in another role in another play sometime soon. And I'd like to see the Italian all alone in my boudoir (that's him on the right next to Bosie, dressed, alas).</span><a href="http://radar.qclick.us/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/10e3judas-kiss-TH.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="247" src="http://radar.qclick.us/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/10e3judas-kiss-TH.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="text-align: left;"> The same cannot be said for any of the actors in the excruciating revival of </span><b style="text-align: left;">Cabaret</b><span style="text-align: left;">. </span><a href="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2012/10/10/1349880210013/Cabaret-at-the-Savoy-010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Arts/Arts_/Pictures/2012/10/10/1349880210013/Cabaret-at-the-Savoy-010.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="text-align: left;">I know it's gotten four stars and everything but the production would have been more entertaining and "edgy" in the hands of some summerstock theatre in the heart of Kansas. (We walked out and the doorman at the Savoy Theatre told us it got better in the second half so my judgement is admittedly half-baked.) We did have a grand time at the American Piano Bar at the Savoy so the evening wasn't a complete waste. Caryl Churchill is one of my favourite playwrights and</span><b style="text-align: left;"> Love and Information</b><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><a href="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/8/29/1346238904237/Extra-Love-and-Informatio-008.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2012/8/29/1346238904237/Extra-Love-and-Informatio-008.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="text-align: left;">was diverting for about half an hour and then it was just repetitive. It's a series of vignettes about communication in our capitalist-techno age but it relies too heavily on the likes of Oliver Sacks, Alan Lightman, and Lydia Davis i.e. the poetry to be found in neurological disorders, theoretical physics, and the quotidien. It felt tired to me, unfresh, and didn't amount to anything, or nothing. Churchill's play </span><i style="text-align: left;">Blue Heart </i><span style="text-align: left;">still fills me with excitement just thinking about it and I saw fifteen years ago in Brooklyn. In this age of revivals, someone should revive that. </span></div>
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<b style="text-align: left;">Jumpy,</b><span style="text-align: left;"> about a mother-daughter relationship, was surprisingly much darker than I had been lead to expect from reviews and full of very disturbing--and very funny--writing, but I had a fair amount of trouble with just how thoroughly awful the daughter was. </span><a href="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTBw4DfV4pAH1x0cgGwO7TLOIvuUdmi-sGO6baU4uTbhURaPoiIEQ" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTBw4DfV4pAH1x0cgGwO7TLOIvuUdmi-sGO6baU4uTbhURaPoiIEQ" /></a><span style="text-align: left;">Some of the problem no doubt is with the actress but by no means all...she was almost not allowed to be human. I went to the play really to see Tamsin Greig--she's one of those actresses that I just want to see what she's doing. I also went because I wanted to support a woman playwright--there are far too few. And I am eager to see whatever it is April De Angelis does next. </span><a href="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSEDoIXk7XEaNseA-GGZcL4PSVDKNXabzJY-icc5ls2aZLdFZQE4g" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSEDoIXk7XEaNseA-GGZcL4PSVDKNXabzJY-icc5ls2aZLdFZQE4g" /></a><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><b style="text-align: left;">Last of the Haussmans</b><span style="text-align: left;"> at the National was enjoyable enough though too long and full of plausibility issues. Julie Walters exquisite performance as the dying hippy completely stole the show. Rory Kinear, whom I very much like as an actor, was over-channeling Simon Russell Beale. I like Helen McCrory too but she was a bit wasted. The best speech in the play is when the Rory tells his ex-flower girl mother that while she was off at ashrams in India ostensibly changing the world, the real revolution was taking place with Thatcher and Reagan back home. The truth of that observation stings deep. </span></div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">What an absolute treat to see the absolutely brilliant (so yes there was some brilliance in my binge) Eileen Aitkens so up close in the Jermyn Street Theatre's production of an old Beckett radio play entitled </span><b style="text-align: left;">All That Fall.</b><span style="text-align: left;"> Trevor Nunn writes the primer on how to stage a radio play here but ultimately the play itself, though full of wonderful Beckettian moments, is not a prime example of his genius. Michael Gambon's part is small but he, of course, makes it very big. </span><a href="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTv_7_9hbQQOWOHSPmx46_rZbfADv2PMTzke0SQbOkFnN3llDASew" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTv_7_9hbQQOWOHSPmx46_rZbfADv2PMTzke0SQbOkFnN3llDASew" /></a></div>
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Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-57448924603060668562012-10-01T01:39:00.000-07:002012-12-02T09:54:04.714-08:00Decadence explored in Four London Plays: Zelda, Save Me, Timon of Athens, Mademoiselle Julie<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
For a while now, there's been an eerie feeling that we've been living in an era not unlike the 1930s, an era of extreme decadence just before something terrible is about to happen. Four recent plays in London reflect this zietgeist, the excellent and very intense one-woman play<i> <b>Zelda</b> </i>at Trafalgar Studios, the ambitious Spilt Milk production of Caroline af Petersens' play <i><b>Save Me--</b></i>also about the meteoric rise, decline, and fall of Zelda and Scott Fitzgerald, the National's trenchant production of <b><i>Timon of Athens</i> </b>with Simon Russell Beale, and <i><b>Mademoiselle Julie</b></i>, a French adaptation of Strindberg's classic at the Barbican starring Juliette Binoche.<br />
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The most overall impressive of these four plays has to be <i><b>Zelda</b></i>, a 70-minute monologue in the voice of Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, written and performed by the actress Kelly Burke. It is hard to say which is better, the writing of the piece based on Zelda's letters or Burke's performance. Burke, uncannily resembling a young Annette Benning, grabs us from the very start and never let's us go as she encapsulates in her words and acting both Zelda's particular story and the universal story of female creativity thwarted and the descent into madness. The story of what truly happened between Zelda and F. Scott can never be known, but it is sure that Scott used sections of Zelda's diary verbatim in his novels, published several of her short stories under his name, and adamantly discouraged her from becoming a writer herself. <br />
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<b><i>Save Me</i></b> at the Union Theatre captured the glamour and rampant indulgence of the Jazz Age while also providing a searing look into Zelda and Scott's tortured relationship. The performances by Sherry Newton as Zelda, Francis Moore as Scott, and William Harrison-Wallis as Maxwell Perkins, Scott and Zelda's editor and guardian angel, were compelling and fun to watch, if a tad overwrought. The play, based in large part on the brilliant biography of Zelda by Nancy Milford, is admirable for its ambition. Unfortunately, there is no real development after the first half. The second half of the play was just a reiteration of what we had already seen. I would have been much more enthusiastic about the production had I left at the interval.<br />
Both <i><b>Zelda</b></i> and <i><b>Save Me</b></i> were performed in very small theatres in which the audience is practically a part of the production. Many hate this intimacy whereas I find it integral to my definition of theatre--far more challenging for everyone involved and therefore always a more vital experience than a play seen on a remote stage.<br />
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As if to reinforce this lack of connection or intimacy between the audience and the play, the Barbican's French production of Strindberg's Miss Julie has a big glass wall at the front of the stage behind which the action takes place. Subtle. The story revolves around the mutual manipulation of a rich woman trapped by society's prescribed femininity and the ambitious family chauffer trapped by his class. The production was a near complete disaster--why I keep going to these movie-star fueled things I don't know. There is a sucker born every minute and I am one! Banality wrapped up in style is so over! But did I nevertheless glean through all of the alienated pomp a thoroughly radical playwright who must have influenced Beckett? (btw I've never seen a Strindberg play before--so sad this was my first.)<br />
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All I can say about the <b><i>Timon of Athens</i></b> at the National is get thee to the play! It is all about us! How greedy and hypocritical we all are. How the only thing we truly hold sacred is gold. How we are willing to sacrifice liberty itself to the pursuit of money all in the name of liberty. And it is hilarious, moving, chilling, beautiful, start to finish. I have heard complaints about the second act but my god Simon Russell Beale goes beyond his usual genius precisely in the second act. And such gorgeous speeches:<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma;">I 'll example you with thievery:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma;">The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma;">Robs the vast sea; the moon's an arrant thief,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma;">And her pale fire she snatches from the sun;</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma;">The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma;">The moon into salt tears; the earth's a thief,</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma;">That feeds and breeds by a composture stolen</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Verdana, Tahoma;">From general excrement: each thing's a thief.</span><br />
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If I can, I think I will go see it again and take my sixteen-year-old son. Shakespeare never ceases to astonish me.<br />
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Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-71644161964717315312012-07-02T12:12:00.001-07:002012-07-02T12:12:55.521-07:00<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
So, I have been a complete slacker, not about going to the theater, but in terms of writing about what I've seen. I've disappointed myself but I also finished that novel I've been working on forever so there is a silver lining. I know, excuses, excuses.What follows here is really just a glorified list of what I've seen since my last post, and in no particular order though I'll begin with the most recent:<br />
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<b>Birthday</b> by Joe Penhall directed by Roger Michell at The Royal Court<br />
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What if men could have babies? Joe Penhall sets up and delivers on this premise in a both excruciating and hilarious play. In 90 minutes he explores the subject to the hilt, and provides a searing condemnation of the NHS--and those who use it--along the way. I went with three women and afterwards we were all so glad we had no plans for having any more children. Steve Mangan was so perfectly cast I can't imagine anyone else in the role. The play ultimately rings only one-note, if smashingly. I wish there had been a subplot, but what could that have possible been?<br />
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<b>Uncle Vanya</b> by Anton Chekhov in a new version by Mike Poulton directed by Lucy Bailey at The Print Room<br />
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I love The Print Room, a small theater in a '50s warehouse in Notting Hill (very close to Hereford Road where we had dinner afterwards) and I loved this production of Uncle Vanya, which is on for one more week so go, go, go. I saw it during its previous run and found it exhilerating. I had actually never seen the play before and my companion Paola said this interpretation took broad liberties, but any translation worth its salt does just that. Besides it was very funny. I know Chekov can be funny but you don't usually think of him as a comedic playwright. Uncle Vanya, was played brilliantly by Iain Glen of Downton Abbey (Mary's suitor, the Rupert Murdoch of his day).<br />
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<b>The Physicists</b> by Friedrich Durrenmatt in a new version by Jack Thorne, directed by Josie Rourke at the Donmar Warehouse<br />
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What a terrible disappointment! An absurdist play from the '60s about theoretical physics--it was as if the play had been written for me. (I'm serious. My first novel combined quantum mechanics and classic Hollywood cinema). But, alas, it was tedious, not that funny, and so very dated. I can't imagine why anyone thought it was a good idea to revive this. I took some enjoyment in the fabulous performance by Sophie Thompson as the hunchbacked founder of the insane asylum in which the play is set, where she specializes in the mental disorders of physicists (it sounds great but isn't). She was some combination of Igor in Young Frankenstein and Greta Garbo.<br />
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<b>Wild Swans</b> by Jung Chang directed by Sacha Wares at The Young Vic<br />
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Communism seems to be all the rage these days, in terms of things cultural at any rate, and this play was a didactic view of an oppressive system, with extraordinary sets. It was edifying to be reminded of how China has come to take over the world. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, but do it better.<br />
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<b>Collaborators</b> by John Hodge directed by Nicholas Hytner at The National<br />
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Simon Russell Beale playing Stalin? Irresistible, and he was. Only SRB could make this hideous tyrant sympathetic while maintaining his monstrousness. Collaborators was inspired by a footnote in a biography of the young Stalin, stating that Mikhail Bulgakov had been commisioned by Stalin to write a play about his youth in Batumi. Bulgakov's play was written in 1939, approved by the cultural apparatchiks, but never produced. John Hodge has written a very clever play about Bulgakov's flirtation/collaboration/compromise with his hated leader and does wonders with the old theme of the fine line between the oppressor and the oppressed. In 1940, just before he died, Bulgakov, would publish his anti-Stalinist masterpiece <i>The Master and Margarita</i> in which the devil comes to Moscow<i>.</i><br />
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<b>The Master and Margarita</b> based on the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov adapted by Simon McBurney at The Barbican<br />
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Butchery. Somewhere else in a previous blog I swore to never see another Simon McBurney production, but at my peril I took another risk because when he is good he is very, very good, but when he's bad...I left at the interval along with at least half of the audience.<br />
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<b>The Oresteia</b> by Aeschylus in a translation by Ted Hughes by Theatre Lab Company at Riverside Studios<br />
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I would see anything these guys do. It was totally sublime. And in that tiny theater at Riverside, it's all so intimate, gory, and in your face. Took my 15 year old son, who also admitted to being glad I had dragged him--or he knew that if he said so I was more likely to allow him to go to a Mud Honey concert the following week.<br />
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<b>Gross und Klein (Big and Small)</b> by Botho Strauss via the Sydney Theatre Company at the Barbican<br />
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Like The Physicists, why, I ask? This avant-garde German play from 1978 does not hold up well, even with Cate Blanchett's muscular performance to aid it. They did better with A Street Car Named Desire, which I saw in NYC though Blanchett again stole the show. Hmmmm.<br />
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<b>Venus in Fur</b> by David Ives, originally at the Classic Stage Company in NYC.<br />
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I saw this in New York and I can't tell you how many people told me I would love this. And I did. I was thoroughly entertained by this drama exploring relations between the sexes via heady intellectual literary discussion and S&M paradigms. Just my cup of tea! But ultimately, after I left the theater and thought about it for half an hour I realized it was the same old story. In the battle between the sexes, no matter how smart, witty, intelligent, domantrix a woman is portrayed, if she has to perform for nearly two hours practically nude, often with her legs splayed, while her male interlocuter on stage is fully dressed, she is the object of humiliation.<br />
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<br /></div>Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-50802614208962214352011-12-04T09:32:00.000-08:002011-12-05T01:33:52.532-08:00The Comedy of Errors at the National a Triumph--and the one error I didn't make in what I chose to see on stage this autumn in London...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpG_UjUUV0deZfR2bn1U6JlDuZ_KP0_afttnmnB695C-iwitjUm2PC-ekeHgzJh4wO6QlGW21MqZhZ3mj1UEAAjZLtY-GKH0F91O_2pANeqcLebXQKcOR-rhQMhq1kXLd_5G6-1cAONg/s1600/comedy+of+errors.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpG_UjUUV0deZfR2bn1U6JlDuZ_KP0_afttnmnB695C-iwitjUm2PC-ekeHgzJh4wO6QlGW21MqZhZ3mj1UEAAjZLtY-GKH0F91O_2pANeqcLebXQKcOR-rhQMhq1kXLd_5G6-1cAONg/s400/comedy+of+errors.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5682327640710288930" /></a><br /><br />(<strong>i.e. The Last of the Duchess, The Faith Machine, South Pacific</strong>)<br /><br /> Thank god I finally saw something grand, splashy, fun, exalted, roll-on-the-floor funny and intelligent at the theater this autumn. If you take your kids to see one panto may it be this one (age 10+). The farting sequence alone is worth the ticket. But OMG the sets! As a truly great set designer (Bunny Christie) will do, not only do the sets reflect the ambitiously wild imagination of the entire production, they create it. As my colleague over at Sans Taste writes: "Vast but nimble, the set effortlessly evokes everything from disused warehouses to yuppy flats, and red light districts to Harley Street grandeur." In one particularly wonderful over-the-top keystones cop moment, an ambulence drives on stage and becomes an integral part of the action. <br /> Shakespeare freak that I am, I had never before seen a production of <em>The Comedy of Errors</em> and I can see why there aren't many: an almost impossible story to pull off from a gazillion points of view. The Bard's hubris from the title onwards is (as usual) breathtaking. Suspension of disbelief never a worry for the playwright, he goes all out on this story of double sets of twins, shipwrecks, separations, mistaken identity galore. Director Dominic Cooke and his incredible cast rise with extraordiary slapstick wit and aplomb to the task, setting the story in a 20th century-ish London-ish Ephesus, by way of the Carribean and Nigeria with a Mariachi quartet as the Greek Chorus. Lenny Henry as Antipholus of Syracuse hits his stride here (his Othello disappointed), both Dromios (Lucian Msamati and Daniel Poyser) are adorable, the entire and considerable cast just so good. <br />If the show could be stolen (which it sublimely cannot be), Claudie Blakely as Adriana, wife to Antipholus of Syracuse, and Michelle Terry who plays her sister Luciana, would stride off in their form fitting frocks and five-inch stiletto heels with ne'er a wobble, their crimsoned lips slicing up the air with Essex-accented banter, taking with them all the gold chains in Christendom. Do as I say and: Get thee to the National. <br /><br /> <strong>The Last of the Duchess </strong><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh64oBD9OqYm2HOBTXehL9sRb_VTZToueoJmjr0kaWZM9irFzyTDongFZOgbf9q2QmXzGk2Wf_KJq7rcvPzWQuAcqGRHTF933XtY-GmRmZILTKLbiaX8tvOCmMUulwkD0fLNCFnsZ67-w/s1600/duchess.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 225px; height: 297px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh64oBD9OqYm2HOBTXehL9sRb_VTZToueoJmjr0kaWZM9irFzyTDongFZOgbf9q2QmXzGk2Wf_KJq7rcvPzWQuAcqGRHTF933XtY-GmRmZILTKLbiaX8tvOCmMUulwkD0fLNCFnsZ67-w/s400/duchess.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5682350943781363810" /></a><br />We're having a Wallis moment. "That American woman" has turned up in a number of places recently, most famously in Madonna's movie, but Gillian Anderson excellently portrayed her in Channel 4's weirdly ungripping adaptation of <em>Any Human Heart</em>, and she was done a nice turn by Eve Best in <em>The King's Speech</em>. And she is the subject of a fascinating new biography, <em>That Woman</em>, by Anne Sebba. So of course she should also make an appearance in Hampstead. Everybody loved this play by Nicholas Wright, directed by Richard Eyre, but I most emphatically did not. I went because I love Anna Chancellor (she was the best thing about <em>The Hour</em>). She plays Caroline Blackwood, the aristocrat journalist with all the illustrious husbands (Lucien Freud, Israel Citkowitz, Robert Lowell) who goes to Paris to try to get an interview with the ailing Wallis who is holed up (or imprisoned? Do I care?) in a luxurious apartment, her protector/jailer Suzanne Blum, lawyer to the stars. Blackwood is really only interested in herself, but has to make good on her trip so turns to a profile of the lawyer instead. As far as I was concerned, no one on stage interested me much either as character or actor--including Chancellor who overdid Blackwood as lush. I saw the play in previews and besides the fact that none of the actors seemed to know their lines, I was mostly bored with the non-story. All this obsession with the titled and entitled--Lady Mosely and Lord Snowdon and Lady Caroline--just didn't do it for me. I was, however, thoroughly intrigued by Wallis (Helen Bradbury) herself during her sublime five-minute appearance early in the play. She did steal this show--and I kept hoping, in vain, that she would reappear. I suppose we can't be reminded enough of the fact that the British aristocracy in the 1930s was awfully soft on Hitler. This may be the last we hear from the Duchess for a while, but I have no doubt that she'll be back.<br /><br /><strong>The Faith Machine</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpuTIJ9SW00AzhF_sVdqRUehh14nliQpvBKJhxjByMzd2YhsvdwgRwWeWCJQeuANpBYJsbO_UiieKEhtCeoXbhG_T8mdEh9YLlpqaUvRCRx7UPcllPau2u0im3ap4YJP0SlQMQpj3y7A/s1600/the+faith+machine.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 240px; height: 160px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpuTIJ9SW00AzhF_sVdqRUehh14nliQpvBKJhxjByMzd2YhsvdwgRwWeWCJQeuANpBYJsbO_UiieKEhtCeoXbhG_T8mdEh9YLlpqaUvRCRx7UPcllPau2u0im3ap4YJP0SlQMQpj3y7A/s400/the+faith+machine.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5682366031106094258" /></a><br />I love The Royal Court Theatre. Such good value no matter what you see. New plays, always interesting, even if they don't really work. At least the ensemble really are trying in myriad ways to explore the craft. The Faith Machine was one of those that didn't quite work. It was too long, preachy, and overacted, but so earnest in a good way about theatre as artform. Rachel Cooke's review in the Observer says it all: (http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/sep/04/faith-machine-god-soho-review) <br /><br /><strong>South Pacific</strong><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_jeJeni0KTvit6nAzcpoZGKQ17GKS0JankZSlV_Y7Enw6NHbmtRUnyn2mB9JuP_4_A5pDKKzYpdM7-tzscj05p9DrLGWs9Jn5eAVAQ9d9xvwmof2bLt8r0EcW1hpSEhZdHBXviuq4pg/s1600/25082011-pacific.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_jeJeni0KTvit6nAzcpoZGKQ17GKS0JankZSlV_Y7Enw6NHbmtRUnyn2mB9JuP_4_A5pDKKzYpdM7-tzscj05p9DrLGWs9Jn5eAVAQ9d9xvwmof2bLt8r0EcW1hpSEhZdHBXviuq4pg/s400/25082011-pacific.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5682370382556618674" /></a><br /><br />I'm beginning to really get the idea that venue is almost as important as the play itself (duh). So when my sister told me I had to go see South Pacific when it came to London because she had just seen it in New York and it was "out of this world wonderful" I bought tickets right away. When I heard this classic musical was going to be at The Barbican I thought, odd, that's not the kind of thing they do well, really. The Barbican is good for "edgier" fare--though the racial theme in South Pacific might qualify. Anyway, it was a disappointment. Despite the wonderful numbers, the great sets, and lively choreography, it was just flat. It's almost impossible to get "I'm gonna wash that man right out of my hair" wrong and yet it fizzled. The whole cast seemed already exhausted right from the opening number. Apparently, it was a difficult crossing.Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-16501834341289760252011-08-09T06:58:00.001-07:002011-08-09T07:02:22.973-07:003 Revivals from the '70s, '80s and '90s for August: Pinter, Churchill, Shanley<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXM1jeEaDT2MrzbHiK8W6UyYXBi0VkMgjo5-vpsGcLsKtmf8HxKpfJNymuB13-N9anT3JQG2SwT8FkdU5sewjWuIyB3uDBFuu7oGQc7CNvek4b_zFT37oVhnhDhByBQ0MA0sWi0sAtuA/s1600/_53469615_kristinscott1.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 225px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXM1jeEaDT2MrzbHiK8W6UyYXBi0VkMgjo5-vpsGcLsKtmf8HxKpfJNymuB13-N9anT3JQG2SwT8FkdU5sewjWuIyB3uDBFuu7oGQc7CNvek4b_zFT37oVhnhDhByBQ0MA0sWi0sAtuA/s400/_53469615_kristinscott1.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5638804423865615826" /></a>
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<br />Harold Pinter's 1978 play Betrayal is utterly timeless even if the production at the Comedy Theatre (a less than pleasant venue) makes the most of the era with a fetching Kristin Scott Thomas bedecked in fashionable seventies peasant-wear by Yves Saint Laurent. The story about a woman's seven year affair with her husband's best friend (husband: Ben Miles; Lover: Douglas Henshall) is told backwards and the play's intriguing structure is as much of a character in the play as any of the actors on stage. The experience is riveting even after multiple viewings (I've seen both a previous production of the play and the excellent 1983 movie with Jeremy Irons, Ben Kingsley, and Patricia Hodge). Many claim it's Pinter's best play and from what I've seen of his opus I agree. The Pinter Pause is here used to genius effect and the Pinter Pretention is advantageously contained. Kristin Scott Thomas is my idea of a diva--her intelligence and particular beauty always working together to make any character she inhabits larger than life. I have seen her on the London stage over the past few years both in <em>The Seagull </em>and in Pirandello's<em> As You Desire Me </em>and she was magnificent to watch in both. Alas, somewhat less so in this production of Betrayal, directed by Ian Rickson. I saw it very early in the run, and it already felt, well, tired, and so did she. Even her voice seemed to crack a lot. I felt as if the three actors believed that their performance was the sideshow to something really big happening somewhere else--whereas the key to this play is the utter self-absorbtion of its three protagonists, their triangle central to the very functioning of the universe.
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<br />I'd given up on Trafalgar Studios as a venue. For one, it always smells horribly of bathroom and toilet cleaners. And if the production is just mediocre--which they tend to be here--that's a bad combination. But Caryl Churchill is in my top 3 living playwrights list and I'd never seen Top Girls so I got myself a ticket. Sure enough, upon entering the theatre I was immediately greeted by the wafting odor of sickly sweet disinfectants. But I didn't lose heart as the set looked promising and a slide show of Great Women images kept me distracted as I waited for the play to begin. The first Act is Churchill at her very best. Gathered in a restaurant are a bunch of imaginary dead women from history or literature--a cross-dressed Pope, a Japanese concubine, a 19th century Scottish traveler, a Viking housewife, a Medieval peasant who marries up (suggesting to this audience shades of Kate Middleton), and their interaction is both hilarious and relevatory. Acts II and III are more in the realism vein and tell the story of the rise of feminsim and its effects in the 1980s Britian under Thatcher by following the trajectory of Marlene, the new "modern woman" as she struggles with career, family, motherhood. The play's overriding message is: change for women is a Grand Illusion, and the fact that this play was written in 1982 and is as relevant today as ever confirms that message. Despite my adoration of Churchill, this play, as with some others of hers, suffers from a tad too much Agenda. That said, it's a great play, just not up to the more subtle Genius of say <em>Blue Heart, Cloud Nine</em>, or <em>A Number</em>.
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<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwJxmNzLphfF6lfXWKSr2chZc9uyi-Z_PkwhakQ0M1ni4iDO5lssZbhO90K4nXESEfZreGac48UV2QxRPZhKUiEBtrFhMfC6MiFX79lvR22n8v_MuuWqtkyv0JDqvp2kDdx8fnGfZEmA/s1600/Shanley.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 295px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwJxmNzLphfF6lfXWKSr2chZc9uyi-Z_PkwhakQ0M1ni4iDO5lssZbhO90K4nXESEfZreGac48UV2QxRPZhKUiEBtrFhMfC6MiFX79lvR22n8v_MuuWqtkyv0JDqvp2kDdx8fnGfZEmA/s400/Shanley.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5638818195016108706" /></a>
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<br />For something really off the beaten path and performed in a truly raunchy little dive (I can't even name the smells, there were so many) head to the Phoenix Artists' Club just off Tottenham Court Road to see Rock 'n' Roll Theatre's production of John Patrick Shanley's 1992 play <em>Four Dogs and A Bone.</em> For a tenner, this actually might be your best bet of the three as this tiny troupe has thrown their heart and soul into the revival of Shanley's blistering satire of Hollywood greed. The venue is so small the audience is practically on stage with the actors making for a rather intense experience. For some, including the friend I went with, this was just one of the aspects of the performance she found excruciating. I, instead, rather liked the InYourFaceness of it all, including the actors' over-the-top performances. But mostly, I thought Shanley's script a hell of a lot of fun, replete with crackling one-liners, and in the hands and mouths of Amy Tez's company, it fully lives up to its reputation as a "butt-sniffing romp through Hollywood's flea-bitten underbelly." (until August 20, for tickets: fourdogs.moonfruit.com)
<br /> Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-54688563529565166442011-07-05T02:07:00.000-07:002011-07-05T03:44:34.764-07:00Haunting Julia by Alan Ayckbourn at Riverside Studios<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEielc2g_4aCvJDtHziaLOk-yyDMF8lh-OGSOwdiedd4TILcWukWqypRWSoxpofFhmzQ55jkqo4ZI7EhzpHveg-QPnlheEr5ilPdEsTAepBz71NGS0FbZ_fe_BRW7gHPmtTIfPmCBKWlNA/s1600/Haunting+Julia.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEielc2g_4aCvJDtHziaLOk-yyDMF8lh-OGSOwdiedd4TILcWukWqypRWSoxpofFhmzQ55jkqo4ZI7EhzpHveg-QPnlheEr5ilPdEsTAepBz71NGS0FbZ_fe_BRW7gHPmtTIfPmCBKWlNA/s400/Haunting+Julia.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625794844276893202" /></a><br /><br />Go, go, go. It's £15 very well spent. This production is wonderful: the play is a great ghost story/pychological thriller, the acting beyond superb, the production excellent. It's so often hit or miss at Riverside Studios but this is a hit. Go early and have dinner on their lovely terrace overlooking the Hammersmith Bridge and then prepare to be thoroughly entertained with a whodunnit of sorts. The dead person is Julia Lukin, a young music prodigy who committed suicide seven years earlier. The three most significant men in her life--Christopher Timothy as her father Joe Lukin, Dominic Hecht as her boyfriend Andy Rollinson, and Richard O'Callaghan as the wild card Ken Chase--are brought together cleverly by the playwright to unravel the whys and wherefores of her death. She, however, is very much in the room, figuratively, spiritually, and, we wonder while sitting on the edge of our seats, will she appear actually? All the performances were very good but I thought Richard O'Callaghan as the janitor/psychic especially strong. (Loved the Yorkshire accents!) The play's ending (last ten minutes) relies far too heavily on cliche (ah, the perils of endings) but by I wasn't too bothered, the evening had been mostly well spent.Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-421003348032235382011-06-26T03:43:00.000-07:002011-07-05T03:32:00.252-07:00A Hit and a Flop: this weekend at the theatre in London<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1kv9U-rY2s-bZC_KVV-6GNsM5UYSzqCok-NlaWw0Em4kWvgLKNKj6UvNE_PxKS1hFmBvgYm1r_ZjLRp0l7dLVhny8lfhcm87dBPIoynA-LqHJO1WJqnnYQ1b9ciWH61h20DWs7dLXdw/s1600/richard%252520iii.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 279px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1kv9U-rY2s-bZC_KVV-6GNsM5UYSzqCok-NlaWw0Em4kWvgLKNKj6UvNE_PxKS1hFmBvgYm1r_ZjLRp0l7dLVhny8lfhcm87dBPIoynA-LqHJO1WJqnnYQ1b9ciWH61h20DWs7dLXdw/s400/richard%252520iii.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5622493027803686946" /></a>On Friday night I went to see Kevin Spacey in Richard III directed by Sam Mendes and was thoroughly entertained by this timeless thriller about a power hungry, deformed royal who murders his way to the throne. Shakespeare was a funny man and here his humor teamed with horror is deeply pleasurable and wonderfully uncomfortable. The necromancing Bard manages to manipulate his audience into rooting for a serial killer.<br />The Old Vic has had it's ups and downs while in Spacey's hands but this is decidely an up. Actually, in this case the play would have been better titled "King Kevin" as everything about the production works to highlight Kevin Spacey's acting talents which are considerable given the right material. His rendition of evil is wickedly funny and deadly charming, coming dangerously and tantalizing close to ham but never giving into the temptation. At moments, Spacey's Richard was channeling Keyser Soze from "The Usual Suspects."<br />The supporting cast was very strong. Especially the women. Gemma Jones as Margaret is very powerful. And that usually preposterous seduction scene early in the play between Richard and (Annabel Scholey's excellent) Lady Anne was so erotic my disbelief was, in this context, suspended for the first time ever. In the final scenes, Jeremy Bobb's Richmond was weak making Spacey's performance have to uphold the entire battle of Bosworth sequence which was more than even he could quite pull off. <br />The production was modernized--40s costumes, tv screens, one hilarious remote video scene, and projected titles such as NOW, ELIZABETH, CLARENCE, THE PEOPLE, helping us in this multi-stimulus age to stay focused and keep our attention on track. <br /><br />I hear the Propeller production of Richard III at the Hampstead Theatre is even better than this one.<br /> <br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7v08c3Kf6-LY-Xyb1ZFPDknSOiJc2KU2AymBDQnSMXWa1GXcLh5RVGprquj-oxzkZjCc8cSvGvb6TT7q4R2hTfa6k_AtY1JWkGEareoHR09ffiG51eaoeMrEb6w2vYz-UKDQ42HqFzQ/s1600/jacobi+daughter+of+time.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 176px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7v08c3Kf6-LY-Xyb1ZFPDknSOiJc2KU2AymBDQnSMXWa1GXcLh5RVGprquj-oxzkZjCc8cSvGvb6TT7q4R2hTfa6k_AtY1JWkGEareoHR09ffiG51eaoeMrEb6w2vYz-UKDQ42HqFzQ/s200/jacobi+daughter+of+time.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5622565908936291890" /></a>Of course, Richard III is entirely inaccurate historically. Richard was actually a really nice guy with no physical deformities at all. And he never killed anyone, not even the young princes. Only long after Richard III was dead did historical accounts (including the one Shakespeare relied upon) start depicting him as a murderous monster on scant evidence to serve the purposes of later monarchs. For more on this subject read Josephine Tey's brilliant novel "The Daughter of Time" or better yet do as I did and have it read to you by Derek Jacobi.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibgHaqwF9rCAAbuUv3CBqbu3LpTkXoL3dn4hZmL2vCUEufIWEmjMo9uCnllUya4fLJuN2_EMGsu1LQBU_MFp5Ha_MWjhDMcBE5aQQ-2qZNTcd_NUqgvgEcrmR8f56XmCADS2yx71EICA/s1600/beggars_opera.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 174px; height: 131px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibgHaqwF9rCAAbuUv3CBqbu3LpTkXoL3dn4hZmL2vCUEufIWEmjMo9uCnllUya4fLJuN2_EMGsu1LQBU_MFp5Ha_MWjhDMcBE5aQQ-2qZNTcd_NUqgvgEcrmR8f56XmCADS2yx71EICA/s200/beggars_opera.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5622567403526284274" /></a><br /><br />It took about 30 seconds of Lucy Bailey's production of The Beggar's Opera at the Open Air Theatre in Regent's Park to know it was a disaster. I gave it five more minutes to be sure but my god was that bad. Where to begin. None of the actors could sing. I understand that this is an "anti-opera" but the terrible voices did not seem in any way purposefully bad, just plain bad. The sound system to boot was terrible and on the night we saw it unintentional, very loud speaker farts soon became the funniest thing about the play. The set and costumes were worse than uninspired--flat, predictable, yawn-worthy. Any amateur regional production would have attempted something more imaginative. The worst part of the whole thing, however, was the excruciating portrayal of the Bawdy. As the whores humped posts and bared their breasts in banal displays of the Lewd, I doubt there was an erotic tingle in even one member of the audience. Any Hogarth print is far more animated, scandalous, and naugtily enticing than anything that happened on the stage that evening. How did this play go so terribly wrong? I think the simple answer is that Bailey made the very mistaken decision to mount a straightforward production without any ironic referencing to our own time. Still I would wager that any one of the 62 original performances of John Gay's ballad opera in 1728 at Lincoln Inn Field's theatre was far more entertaining than this one. Several people stood up and left during the first half. Our party of five waited until the interval but reluctantly so. The attendant at the door apologized sheepishly to us as we left.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit89IWHo7QGGy5YpmKDG0I44zTbzCtthcYCJ7zJA6QOi4If6FoBmB-9qeEiaU22arA5JdHNtSF1j37xsFJIhd-p0TrvoMJcuFdYsAF22AlDucVMq9YIKwGQgiYIzItIqwlmC4GKDgFYA/s1600/lord+of+the+flies.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 124px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit89IWHo7QGGy5YpmKDG0I44zTbzCtthcYCJ7zJA6QOi4If6FoBmB-9qeEiaU22arA5JdHNtSF1j37xsFJIhd-p0TrvoMJcuFdYsAF22AlDucVMq9YIKwGQgiYIzItIqwlmC4GKDgFYA/s200/lord+of+the+flies.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625802586053876818" /></a><br />The Open Air Theatre is not ususally so off the mark and I recently saw there a very solid production of <strong>Lord of the Flies</strong>. The set was magnificent, the acting (mostly teenage boys) superb, a show that very much succeeded in complementing the book and film. <br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg97dCS_jMp29DB9Vnce1iwaAfymmAhr3mmJS5X0TOFpW5172e_D123nId4qA90G60Ks9C-MMlPuVSycncxtOYP667d4h90RMlZ18RUTGCzIR9wknzU7QZfMM6sGWheP4TTj2DuX3tzJw/s1600/rosencrantz.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg97dCS_jMp29DB9Vnce1iwaAfymmAhr3mmJS5X0TOFpW5172e_D123nId4qA90G60Ks9C-MMlPuVSycncxtOYP667d4h90RMlZ18RUTGCzIR9wknzU7QZfMM6sGWheP4TTj2DuX3tzJw/s200/rosencrantz.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625804591924873474" /></a>Further London theatre I have seen over the past few months (and failed to write about--busy me) are: an excellent revival of Tom Stoppard's <strong>Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead </strong>directed by Trevor Nunn with great performances by Samuel Burnett as Rosencrantz and Jamie Parker as Guildenstern--or is that the other way around? The play made me yearn for the days when pseudo-philosophizing was fashionable--and no one does it better than Stoppard--still my favorite living playwright despite some recent faltering. The influence of Beckett and Ionesco is here but really Shakespeare himself is the mentor. Reminded me a lot of Hamlet's conversation with Yorick's skull. My fifteen year old loved it, perhaps even a little more than he did "Deathtrap" last year. <br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjymv3j0DmGllkVoLfwG18VXNF3D-H0qdMLL86zn_lTj8wMErE8eI3WWeo3VeZbxwbFQU3xOghxyBc15a_f8A1Sb2L3Nk2U4xEtU6r2Wlqgsz3y_O2s2fhmLKqJCBvQvvYSIjY26ySjlA/s1600/Naomi-Frederick-and-Laura-001.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 120px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjymv3j0DmGllkVoLfwG18VXNF3D-H0qdMLL86zn_lTj8wMErE8eI3WWeo3VeZbxwbFQU3xOghxyBc15a_f8A1Sb2L3Nk2U4xEtU6r2Wlqgsz3y_O2s2fhmLKqJCBvQvvYSIjY26ySjlA/s200/Naomi-Frederick-and-Laura-001.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625805963857582610" /></a><br />Thea Sharrock's <strong>As You Like It </strong>at the Globe is entirely delightful and well worth enduring the horrible seats. The Globe productions just seem to get better and better and are close to rivaling the RSC. Naomi Frederick's Rosalind and Laura Rogers Celia are a pair made in heaven and in many ways made sense to me for the first time. Their energy, repartee, palpable mutual attraction, and perfect comic timeing almost stole the show but there is so much to praise here. I have to say I really did feel the woman director's touch.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAKbloKCGf7tvZJXsW9Gn61OxChitzYMXBnV-wbjAnouOQ19M3KLpW0Uu8n17qy6jamy648yyVFiu3QiYY_gtoOtwF1EHxzEjNe07I3pRUg9lXXfpfj3TPHm5r_mjdtxictEcoagPIrw/s1600/School-for-Scand_1903064b.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 125px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAKbloKCGf7tvZJXsW9Gn61OxChitzYMXBnV-wbjAnouOQ19M3KLpW0Uu8n17qy6jamy648yyVFiu3QiYY_gtoOtwF1EHxzEjNe07I3pRUg9lXXfpfj3TPHm5r_mjdtxictEcoagPIrw/s200/School-for-Scand_1903064b.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625807082897484946" /></a>Deborah Warner's <strong>School for Scandal</strong> at the Barbican was most excellent, the pomo electronic effects put to exciting use. These between scene projected titles seem to be the thing these days, and so far they are working well to assist our addled brains.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC4LmWGB7wTiIrhY-HXMy5JQpHWkKvXNDoNwOYyApSMX_eM7aq78_2iBoXKFm5r-EF9W_tjj8UNtVGL8k7P6F_6lELRX7mFPzq1OJhiX7CZ3JAiypxyoy4mrLrF_Yd0D5o-sM8ClZuhA/s1600/one-flea-spare-mid-729x1024.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 142px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC4LmWGB7wTiIrhY-HXMy5JQpHWkKvXNDoNwOYyApSMX_eM7aq78_2iBoXKFm5r-EF9W_tjj8UNtVGL8k7P6F_6lELRX7mFPzq1OJhiX7CZ3JAiypxyoy4mrLrF_Yd0D5o-sM8ClZuhA/s200/one-flea-spare-mid-729x1024.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625808030217892818" /></a><strong>One Flea Spare </strong> written by Naomi Wallace about four people quarantined together in a house in plague-ridden London in 1665 is a great premise and mostly successful. A little didactic though and made me wish I taken the kids (my poor kids). I loved the intimacy of the space, if not so much the pub smells.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgApXJIkjEUtkpJ9VMoOBYB5OXOrWS3xrT6FKn-u6emruHUYBK2butCiCMo1SOjAbfFGGUsIZzevUEX3fbfhLyTF2zdFR7XzgkcoqeVi-5iDA2DSIPNRBddZyCNJFd4siVeZ4Yo4yxrMQ/s1600/causecelebre_1860137b.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 125px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgApXJIkjEUtkpJ9VMoOBYB5OXOrWS3xrT6FKn-u6emruHUYBK2butCiCMo1SOjAbfFGGUsIZzevUEX3fbfhLyTF2zdFR7XzgkcoqeVi-5iDA2DSIPNRBddZyCNJFd4siVeZ4Yo4yxrMQ/s200/causecelebre_1860137b.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625808664724925154" /></a><br /><strong>Cause Celebre </strong>at the Old Vic was a great vehicle for Anne-Marie Duff. She's a wonderful actress though hasn't yet mustered the stage presence and confidence to create that frisson in her audience as will, say, a Kristin Scott Thomas.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_5zgDCJdPqUHwuSNUzqFkN6BhcbJqYBurHg91C7gUrnHE3jZyPq_n-IWj05EG1-3emA28-cxV3pm_7z7x1YF_508yxOGgSd1IRD10xdk_crnvZmkrp616EqVlGZd8LBhcir7ode2tow/s1600/the-childrens-hour-billin-007.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 120px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_5zgDCJdPqUHwuSNUzqFkN6BhcbJqYBurHg91C7gUrnHE3jZyPq_n-IWj05EG1-3emA28-cxV3pm_7z7x1YF_508yxOGgSd1IRD10xdk_crnvZmkrp616EqVlGZd8LBhcir7ode2tow/s200/the-childrens-hour-billin-007.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625810025443787026" /></a>I should have walked out of <strong>The Children's Hour </strong> starring Keira Knightly and Elisabeth Moss. It was torture. Terrible acting all around.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2WXIQGkulHzd5BrZGp1yTAZ_wptQIMb2LqBG4k5GZiIfP1II5lZlPUM77WKsZKNEHqWQ72cMsBrJ6iy7INw3ivsKIHd1yaWk3_GP-RSR_XAoJMF2yghGMcLL7zFzYt48LsFjEfrAl1g/s1600/Extra-Edward-Fox-007.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 120px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2WXIQGkulHzd5BrZGp1yTAZ_wptQIMb2LqBG4k5GZiIfP1II5lZlPUM77WKsZKNEHqWQ72cMsBrJ6iy7INw3ivsKIHd1yaWk3_GP-RSR_XAoJMF2yghGMcLL7zFzYt48LsFjEfrAl1g/s200/Extra-Edward-Fox-007.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625810792296347714" /></a><br /> <strong>Trollope in Barsetshire </strong>with Edward Fox at Riverside Studios a snooze. I love Trollope and couldn't bear this stuffy interpretation.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK1m17B9nMK8chVS-iIYuw8CnnkJgbMkPGW0UMykieRi4-tva0BFXUMDQfF32YV44NoX5msKNccWHLES8Y2MBoEejTA_5sHNrEo4EmEaOnGwxehLTOWdfBXhF29Smo-mH3kr3U9t1tJw/s1600/ClybournePark_789.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 167px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjK1m17B9nMK8chVS-iIYuw8CnnkJgbMkPGW0UMykieRi4-tva0BFXUMDQfF32YV44NoX5msKNccWHLES8Y2MBoEejTA_5sHNrEo4EmEaOnGwxehLTOWdfBXhF29Smo-mH3kr3U9t1tJw/s200/ClybournePark_789.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625812013062566834" /></a><br /> One of the best and funniest plays of this year so far was certainly <strong>Clynebourne Park</strong> by Bruce Norris who justly won the Pulitzer Prize for this play. Norris hits very close to the bone here and I found myself identifying with characters I didn't like. Many in the audience when I saw it were mystified by the message--just plain couldn't get why a black middle class family might not want a white middle class family to move into their neighborhood. It all comes down to a matter of taste--so very true. Aesthetics is all. I look forward to seeing Norris' new play "A Parallelogram," whenever it comes to London. And last but not least, I saw Derek Jacobi playing King Lear for a second time at BAM in Brooklyn. It was probably even better than at the Donmar, the cast at the very top of their game. My three sisters and I took my father for his eightieth birthday. We all had a blast, especially as we vied for Cordelia status in his eyes. <br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiREM-xhUv0VhRm0_YI3f0n-_y3SpOLtB-WGreel4tLpL9tHV-rZkFluqlUbqR8V70cyK_K9lLC5B_wYwtuT_PzgpnjN9E0wtxmS31dp71wnnpyikLU76h2qfeh_UoWYJbvrfrR_hzUTQ/s1600/Derek-Jacobi-007.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 120px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiREM-xhUv0VhRm0_YI3f0n-_y3SpOLtB-WGreel4tLpL9tHV-rZkFluqlUbqR8V70cyK_K9lLC5B_wYwtuT_PzgpnjN9E0wtxmS31dp71wnnpyikLU76h2qfeh_UoWYJbvrfrR_hzUTQ/s200/Derek-Jacobi-007.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5625801983375778322" /></a>Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-65480855377058430222011-02-15T01:57:00.000-08:002011-02-15T07:23:11.968-08:00End and Beginning of Year Round-Up<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHD1MnL22jGJcPjdfb7p1jH6nHumGqxM7E079MoMKarHRGzzwUwy9o0TCnOZxVrjhN-_oem5p77uTSv_tPLyQOfHLdm5aSn0oXzTry-1RMLlO4yAIk1c8lM-gBgcn-YmHQ6AfndUGfcA/s1600/ProductionPage.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 146px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHD1MnL22jGJcPjdfb7p1jH6nHumGqxM7E079MoMKarHRGzzwUwy9o0TCnOZxVrjhN-_oem5p77uTSv_tPLyQOfHLdm5aSn0oXzTry-1RMLlO4yAIk1c8lM-gBgcn-YmHQ6AfndUGfcA/s200/ProductionPage.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5573867566025018626" /></a> Over the holiday season it all just got too much for me. I had been drinking too much so I started to write down exactly how much I was drinking on the calender: a vodka on Monday, two glasses of wine on Tuesday, a mohito and a glass of port on Wednesday (that hurt) etc. etc. I decided to do the same with my theatre addiction in hopes that I would realize the extremity of my indulgence and cut way back. It started to spin out of control in early December with <strong>The Master Builder </strong>at the Almeida. "If I've said it once, I'll say it again," I said to myself as I sat through this less than cohesive star vehicle (Gemma Arterton/Stephen Dillane) that was trying to be "edgy" but was just bad, "no more plays with movie stars!" But what did I go see the next week in New York? <strong>The Merchant of Venice </strong> with Al Pacino.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZBZKiq9rEnxEgycQg-kpO1Yo9Ab8J-gLNaRmIxByTEX7pmUoEBMqR5xVMUjty2bD6IEbIlZal5LLegY9CYnCuHWJRS7HQTIGw_kMmTiN4f8Wjdhz72btoypHKGbZv7vp_zCgfMHxQ4w/s1600/merchantbway200.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 141px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZBZKiq9rEnxEgycQg-kpO1Yo9Ab8J-gLNaRmIxByTEX7pmUoEBMqR5xVMUjty2bD6IEbIlZal5LLegY9CYnCuHWJRS7HQTIGw_kMmTiN4f8Wjdhz72btoypHKGbZv7vp_zCgfMHxQ4w/s200/merchantbway200.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5573861752072748450" /></a><br />He did all right but the production was a mess, made-for-Broadway Shakespeare, (though I'm told it was much better when The Public Theatre did it in Central Park). The actors used all manner of strange accents and did that declarative thing to compensate for the fact that they have no idea what they're saying (alas, so common to American actors doing Shakespeare). Lily Rabe was gorgeous but played Portia as a Southern Belle. Why oh why did I do it to myself? The Russians sitting next to me whispering during the entire performance were a welcome distraction from the confusion on stage. Next up, much to my relief, was a very solid RSC <strong>As You Like It </strong>at the Roundhouse. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtB-y-g5UKsc3XWdqB7ahqw5El39JjPn8Ti344Im0O581UW5Y0t7XHrfPQIZW0y1uw3EuhKMFUKT5uFNZSkC3DINk7An4jI-9DUku9HX1ZLCWpvrzDhKgtM8v-ZT3ax3kXsJsJCWbinQ/s1600/0118_ayli.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 128px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtB-y-g5UKsc3XWdqB7ahqw5El39JjPn8Ti344Im0O581UW5Y0t7XHrfPQIZW0y1uw3EuhKMFUKT5uFNZSkC3DINk7An4jI-9DUku9HX1ZLCWpvrzDhKgtM8v-ZT3ax3kXsJsJCWbinQ/s200/0118_ayli.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5573867014171631730" /></a><br />I took three ten-year-old boys and they absolutely loved it. The English just know how to do Shakespeare and especially the RSC. Plenty of laughs and slapstick, audience participation, and when they do the music it's not an afterthought or bad or just trying to fit it in somehow, it's an important and integral part of the show. And Rosalind is just one of the great characters of all time. A temporary respite because very soon I had fallen off the wagon at the Old Vic (how many times have I promised myself never to go back there?) sitting through a terribly unfunny production of Georges Feydeau's <strong> A Flea In Her Ear</strong>.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_QFm6UrhWZo2NDkNJrmdgyD7aWDTxOcTH63DBsL2VJwLVc3y-cucb_1pr3FJVT8u1XZ0crO-y7ZmpGqW8KwTuvqSOou1SvyMBigFg1P1qww3oEfWEGiqTuEV54tIdaCeSaQxjXEidbw/s1600/smallposter.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 126px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_QFm6UrhWZo2NDkNJrmdgyD7aWDTxOcTH63DBsL2VJwLVc3y-cucb_1pr3FJVT8u1XZ0crO-y7ZmpGqW8KwTuvqSOou1SvyMBigFg1P1qww3oEfWEGiqTuEV54tIdaCeSaQxjXEidbw/s200/smallposter.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5573870990571590914" /></a><br /> This time I took my fourteen-year-old son and he just shook his head in despair. Any street credit I had gained by taking him to see Deathtrap was hopelessly lost. To be fair, the night we saw it Tom Hollander was sick and the entire cast just seemed to have lost their timing but I don't think it was salvagable, with or without Hollander. The question is: if the devil were to tempt me with the chance to see the 1966 Albert Finney production would I go? <br />I am a sucker for the National Theatre. Ten pounds a ticket how can you go wrong? You can go wrong. Very, very wrong. As in Danny Boyle's <strong>Frankenstein </strong>wrong. <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr7eJxJuaUojpPuAgciO7F-azk-94UTwtu6QtukShFADHvI2s4If4BE3EbWlhpZX-Ag21MJHIzAv2HD9_NK381mpEYAZ0oFos5trgBXbQ-EDnpGmcLfm67KqZSFpXHrPo_BIM1p1O3pw/s1600/frank1_1808807b.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 125px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr7eJxJuaUojpPuAgciO7F-azk-94UTwtu6QtukShFADHvI2s4If4BE3EbWlhpZX-Ag21MJHIzAv2HD9_NK381mpEYAZ0oFos5trgBXbQ-EDnpGmcLfm67KqZSFpXHrPo_BIM1p1O3pw/s200/frank1_1808807b.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5573878574124576690" /></a><br />Johnny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch alternate roles each night to emphasize the interchangablity of man and monster. Just the first of a number of facile tricks that riddle this travesty. The monster grunts and frets naked on stage (and whichever that was, he isn't Ian McKellen--if you saw his Lear you'll know precisely what I'm talking about) for what seemed like the first half hour of the play signifying what exactly? Maybe it's a lad thing I just don't get. Massive pulleys lift and lower irrelevant scenery and a train engine is rolled on stage for a few seconds a propos of nothing. At that point, I was seriously hoping the cast would break out in song and dance. By the end of the play, the audience was so lost they ended up laughing raucously at a horrible rape scene. The only consolation is that it surely cost less than Spider-Man and Danny Boyle's career isn't at risk the way Julie Taymor's is. I saw two other productions at the National: <strong>Men Should Weep </strong>by Ena Lamont Stewart <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwcmK_jPV2cELbhe3NfDPzl49_GlBIORgFDIfa8w7vD2QciAPNatmv3CH5qiXx3nxfvmTO91jdpFutb5Er4lDnHMkW3JGq_tVYLftkGgqtq99NTBVNZCCSWRkJZOwHbfVT1uDnNxF15Q/s1600/men-should-weep-billingto-006.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 120px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwcmK_jPV2cELbhe3NfDPzl49_GlBIORgFDIfa8w7vD2QciAPNatmv3CH5qiXx3nxfvmTO91jdpFutb5Er4lDnHMkW3JGq_tVYLftkGgqtq99NTBVNZCCSWRkJZOwHbfVT1uDnNxF15Q/s200/men-should-weep-billingto-006.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5573879038160446098" /></a><br />(I try my hardest to see anything by a woman) which was fabulous for the clothes, set, and thick Scottish accents but overlong; and the ancient and accomplished theatre director Peter Hall's <strong>Twelfth Night </strong> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJonWPuZ1P9Qs_jF_nVh8d7q1xOPyE7H2rANWHEt5bsq7fRHV_tY2l0tUJWWntTDRE8ZwVju7Q2lZipWF0vyoni4WKwGt9kC4uNFWYXYe6fd5msEhRrs8h61VgiG9e2z9XrelGG0IflA/s1600/TWELFTH%252520NIGHT_a_p.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJonWPuZ1P9Qs_jF_nVh8d7q1xOPyE7H2rANWHEt5bsq7fRHV_tY2l0tUJWWntTDRE8ZwVju7Q2lZipWF0vyoni4WKwGt9kC4uNFWYXYe6fd5msEhRrs8h61VgiG9e2z9XrelGG0IflA/s200/TWELFTH%252520NIGHT_a_p.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5573879994378632514" /></a><br />starring his daughter Rebecca Hall was drab (especially the shiny red costumes) and flat, unfunny and unmusical (this is the play, remember, which begins "If music be the food of love, play on"). What was I saying about the Brits and Shakespeare again? I sat in the National's wonderfully intimate Cottesloe theatre thinking, okay that's it, I'm done with Shakespeare, done with the theatre. I've seen too much and I'm drowning. From now on it's cold turkey for me. <br />Of course, the following week I went to the Donmar to see Derek Jacobi as<strong> King Lear.</strong> The experience was like being reborn. I left the theatre with all critical faculties suspended, utterly transported, the whole world new to me again. Ripe for readdiction.<br /><br /> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgERYao_TVTa0ZRaZ-7T7AlCZEMX66eY_C-3OwZ2zHtCa-ORNylX3HpAMO7SyMrVY-kmAO7Gjv3lCRDrVgHBPrkpaAMB72uOg7rj1966kAK7JrqdyqA7WHKGNSZtBsW0u4_RK3__nfkng/s1600/Derek-Jacobi-007.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgERYao_TVTa0ZRaZ-7T7AlCZEMX66eY_C-3OwZ2zHtCa-ORNylX3HpAMO7SyMrVY-kmAO7Gjv3lCRDrVgHBPrkpaAMB72uOg7rj1966kAK7JrqdyqA7WHKGNSZtBsW0u4_RK3__nfkng/s400/Derek-Jacobi-007.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5573881699910324610" /></a>Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-1292163156371558832010-11-25T01:46:00.001-08:002010-11-26T04:15:56.036-08:00Fabrication by Pier Paolo Pasolini<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKAUyfqFBCSlcx1kVfhugmhdokiGOr4zq0czCoWAWsko0TAc_pMXqrNk0-muFMBCXvpNEAxZ8KY3fVXZWAWFYnMfuLs0Qk0AQlyh5GDsMxcl_QLrRKXBTEXL2Df-mVJbsnW0Fq9Rm-GQ/s1600/fabrication-at-print-room-006.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKAUyfqFBCSlcx1kVfhugmhdokiGOr4zq0czCoWAWsko0TAc_pMXqrNk0-muFMBCXvpNEAxZ8KY3fVXZWAWFYnMfuLs0Qk0AQlyh5GDsMxcl_QLrRKXBTEXL2Df-mVJbsnW0Fq9Rm-GQ/s400/fabrication-at-print-room-006.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5543421654617919602" /></a><br />What joy and rapture to discover a new small theatre willing to take risks and bring London audiences challenging theatre. Riverside, Tricycle, Hampstead look out. The Print Room not only brings stiff competition, it could challenge you to up your game. I will admit that I was rather skeptical when I heard they would be putting on a rarely performed play by Pier Paolo Pasolini in a new translation by Jamie McKendrick. I am a huge Pasolini fan but he's not to everyone's taste, in the way that Beckett or Jean Genet or Inge or Antonioni or even Pinter aren't. Pasolini is not an entertainer, he makes his audiences work for their culture. Furthermore, he is one of those artists, again like Beckett, who is very easy to get wrong. And when it's wrong, it's excruciating. It can fall heavily into nonsense and pretention. So it was with a fair amount of trepidation that I went along to Notting Hill's new theatre fashioned out of an old warehouse. The theatre design actually feels more like a Roman triclinium, the audience intimately crowded around a central square, the stage. It lacks the comfort of a triclinium--the seat cushions were far from luxurious--but you are sitting so close to the action as to feel part of it. This can be a good thing or a bad thing. Luckily, the actors in Fabrication were of such a high caliber that being right up close to them added to the brilliance and intensity of their performances. I don't like to summarize plots and Pasolini certainly resists summary; let's just say a wealthy Milanese industrialist has a mid-life crisis and becomes obsessed with his blond-haired son. In very dramatic ways Pasolini explores the nature of masculinity and the Oedipus complex from the father's point of view. Few artists have been truly brave enough to dig so deeply into the male psyche and expose the wrenching vulnerabilities within. Shakespeare's King Lear comes to mind and Pasolini's play made me wonder: What if King Lear had had a son? Sophocles began it all, of course, with his play Oedipus Rex and appears in Pasolini's play as an apparition, much in the way of Hamlet's father, warning ominously about the pitfalls of the artistic life and the fundamental inadequacy of literature. Fabrication is a mightily ambitious, disturbing, surprising, edifying, and very funny play. Jasper Britton is magnificent as the Father, no small feat, and Geraldine Alexander is the perfect combination of brittleness, fear, and indifference as the bourgeoise Mother. Handsome Max Bennett does well with his role as the Son, at once defiant, curious, and terrified by his father's relentless assaults upon him. This production is what theatre is all about and I send a hearty congratulations to The Print Room's Artistic Directors Anda Winters and Lucy Bailey and thank them for their bravery, innovation, and vision. I look forward to seeing Alan Ayckbourn's "Snake in the Grass," playing at The Print Room in the new year.Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-13777521418728834742010-10-04T02:42:00.000-07:002010-10-04T09:58:52.271-07:00Deathtrap<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmAU_AEp2Xjf59m__FhjQiPU7UYKQ7wV4IHoNzcgLrzugMq8DB2nKF_MAvV-YUF8FUxOBd1tO6q2xosBS8jIQWnHFOg3GRY7XUHJKXBJxuFvI1fjtjTMFDkbDhruv8l1tWUlr84n9lrg/s1600/deathtrap-groff-beale.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 315px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmAU_AEp2Xjf59m__FhjQiPU7UYKQ7wV4IHoNzcgLrzugMq8DB2nKF_MAvV-YUF8FUxOBd1tO6q2xosBS8jIQWnHFOg3GRY7XUHJKXBJxuFvI1fjtjTMFDkbDhruv8l1tWUlr84n9lrg/s400/deathtrap-groff-beale.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5524140460908613314" /></a><br />My fourteen-year-old son has attended a fair amount of theatre in his day. With me, he has seen two Hamlets (David Tenant, Jude Law), two Macbeths (Patrick Stewart, Cheek by Jowl), Antony and Cleopatra (Patrick Stewart), two Twelfth Nights (Derek Jacoby, RSC), Much Ado About Nothing (National with Simon Russell Beale and Zoe Wannamaker), A Midummer Night's Dream (Judi Dench), Cymbeline (Regent's Park), two Tempests (Patrick Stewart, RSC), and, believe it or not, I could go on. So when at the interval of Ira Levin's Deathtrap (at the Noel Coward Theatre) he turned to me with a beaming face and said, "I never knew plays could be this good," I had something of a bittersweet comeuppance. <br />I chose this play because the West End Whingers were postively operatic in their praise on Twitter and because of a gut feeling I've had lately that I better ease up on the Shakespeare or I would alienate my son from the theatre forever more, if I hadn't already. The premise of the play--a playwright past his prime contemplates killing a younger playwright and stealing his play in hopes of a last chance at fame and fortune--is evidently so primal that even a teenager can relate. Or perhaps it's the theme of going to any extreme to kill your wife that my son was relating to. In any case, the first act is very nearly perfect with sharp dialogue and unforseeable plot twists. But what makes this production soar is the casting. Simon Russell Beale's timing and delivery is so impeccable, he can elicit a burst of spontaneous laughter with a raised eyebrow. The very adorable Jonathan Groff's (Glee) combination of sleaze and ingenue is delectable, and Claire Skinner (Outnumbered) outdoes herself as the playwright's wife, at once suspicious and unsuspecting, fawning and fed up. Estelle Parson's as the pyschic neighbor displays sheer comic genius. When Ira Levin dreamed her character up he must have known he had a hit. The set--a refurbished Connecticut barn full of ancient and vintage weaponry--is stunning, Skinner demurely carries off her costume of shiny polyester blouse and spandex trousers with a big belt, and every visual detail is right on as opposed to retro. <br />If there was anything inappropriately dated about the play, we found it in the audience. We went with a friend of my son's and his mother who ran into an elderly couple she knew during the interval. The woman surveyed the four of us and said, "Now that's very cheeky of you, leaving your husbands at home and coming out to the theatre with your sons. My daughter does the same thing, goes to the theatre without him, but of course she's divorced."<br />Divorce may be in my future, but I will live in sincere regret for the rest of my life if I have managed to, through imposing my obsessive zeal for The Bard, forever inure my son to the theatre's infinite joys. I am, therefore, eternally grateful to the West End Whingers for their enthusiastic whinging but even more so to Mathew Warchus and his magnificently entertaining production of Deathtrap for giving us such a spectacular evening out. On the way home my son said to me, "motivation, if there's a flaw in the play, Sydney Bruhl's motivation is questionable--does he do it for love or money?" I think he's hooked for life.Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-64952444755110797242010-09-26T02:50:00.000-07:002010-09-26T04:04:46.057-07:00Danton's Death<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtZnJ3mq33SvGGsLfPVwRAPpvPYwMfGSKnMX4hkZkmL80wFk35hBCpwQ-xUebc9Tgrlte_cTeU1yNu9vf8ezvbBtac1u_hQdbRpsy-t80TCGu2zGKTRf6MRJGn4XIsue3m-IPcMeAKQw/s1600/0723_dantons_death.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 250px; height: 391px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtZnJ3mq33SvGGsLfPVwRAPpvPYwMfGSKnMX4hkZkmL80wFk35hBCpwQ-xUebc9Tgrlte_cTeU1yNu9vf8ezvbBtac1u_hQdbRpsy-t80TCGu2zGKTRf6MRJGn4XIsue3m-IPcMeAKQw/s400/0723_dantons_death.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5521163449497958354" /></a><br />When even the sexy, charming, bad boy Toby Stephens can't keep you awake, you're in trouble. I wasn't going to go see this because how could you improve on Gerard Depardieu in the movie? (Apparently, you can't.) But when one of my charming theatre buddies (Selina) asked me along, I went in hopes of a French Revolution refresher, and having vaguely heard the claim that Georg Buchner's play was the "greatest political tragedy ever written." I was to learn that indeed the play was a tragedy but of another sort: tragically boring. I have since read the West End Whingers review (http://bit.ly/cFwKNd) and wish I had thought, as they did, to bring along my knitting. As I woke up now and again to bad costumes, tedious speeches, and absolutely terrible acting by all the women (albeit their parts were also terribly written), I kept wondering: "Won't the interval ever come?" Alas, it would not since there was none. It is Selina's theory that when a theatre production knows it's dodgy, the interval is quickly done away so as to keep everyone from escaping at the earliest opportunity (which had been my plan exactly). Early in the play, Elliot Levey's Robespierre was creepy enough to keep me from dozing but given the text he couldn't sustain it, and poor Toby's utterly unconvincing philandering, not to mention his political discourse, sent me straight to sleep. Despite the fact that he is adorable, as far as I was concerned, my eyes mostly closed and everything, he might as well have looked like the real Danton--<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw5lOOrVXjy_NFDLvfXhi-dPljF84mE_obDZEcgw3Lj8goHFsx1WHyelrcmQuLNG_7lLKz_Z3DwjUBvV2VO6x3zqN9LHtGC1OQK3baDEeKbazpvjGaBZaRM-_HnSuErIZCASybrX-pFw/s1600/danton.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 201px; height: 257px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhw5lOOrVXjy_NFDLvfXhi-dPljF84mE_obDZEcgw3Lj8goHFsx1WHyelrcmQuLNG_7lLKz_Z3DwjUBvV2VO6x3zqN9LHtGC1OQK3baDEeKbazpvjGaBZaRM-_HnSuErIZCASybrX-pFw/s320/danton.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5521167459244928194" /></a> <br />who was so ugly, his obsessive philandering would make more sense. Toby Stephens is really too handsome to play Danton. Even Depardieu is in the hideous kinky category of men.<br />The best part of the play was most definitely the end and not entirely because the play was almost over. There was a fantastic guillotine on the stage and we got to watch the Dantonists have their heads chopped off, which seemed fitting punishment for all that tortuous nodding off I was forced into for almost two hours nonstop. I'm not sure how they did it, but heads really do plop off into a basket and Selina and I were, for the first time that evening, utterly riveted. <br /><br />If, for whatever reason, you have a hankering for some French Revolution fare, I would recommend this instead:<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuzoOyZHwW_xThQNvsD43SZ224FXj6T_N2Xyi6aD-IDDH-5b3RaMA0QgWWKdu7plU4rlTIBZLOmYbhMFC2BiXcMIUuYSQnMiIn3aixBVRKX6li32Okn7J3H8HcBFhYNFqaZ8bbIT3xwg/s1600/Danton+movie+poster.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 120px; height: 222px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhuzoOyZHwW_xThQNvsD43SZ224FXj6T_N2Xyi6aD-IDDH-5b3RaMA0QgWWKdu7plU4rlTIBZLOmYbhMFC2BiXcMIUuYSQnMiIn3aixBVRKX6li32Okn7J3H8HcBFhYNFqaZ8bbIT3xwg/s400/Danton+movie+poster.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5521170577537028434" /></a>Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-72080534296530540352010-07-29T11:48:00.000-07:002010-07-29T12:55:22.849-07:00The Great Game: Afghanistan Part 2<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsuzcEy45M6-RP2K5lTGMFjAZcc-UtPMLEIOJdhdE_tO8BuIgemOyypOUqR7hnIGPaPSaP1WNcx1FLowe-2XOt0-o5O9cupDVa6kkN80AtI4rNe8KsqvICz0M5D7u3hcZAhYTIDGOQnA/s1600/The+great+game+afghanistan.jpg"><img style="float:right; margin:0 0 10px 10px;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 251px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsuzcEy45M6-RP2K5lTGMFjAZcc-UtPMLEIOJdhdE_tO8BuIgemOyypOUqR7hnIGPaPSaP1WNcx1FLowe-2XOt0-o5O9cupDVa6kkN80AtI4rNe8KsqvICz0M5D7u3hcZAhYTIDGOQnA/s400/The+great+game+afghanistan.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499404062074754850" /></a><br /><br />So I suppose it is predictable of me to reject the West End in favor of the Tricycle but if there is any real theatre going on in London it's in Kilburn or Hammersmith or Battersea, in other words, of course, the fringe. The seven hour marathon of 12 short plays by 12 playwrights about Afghanistan set from 1842 to the present put on earlier this year by the Tricycle is risky and ambitious and has evidently paid off. The production is back by popular demand for a short run this summer and I caught Part II. The four 1/2 hour plays I saw covered the years 1979-1996, and was subtitled "Communism, the Mujahideen & the Taliban." The pieces were all excellent and uniquely imagined, covering various aspects of Russia's failure in Afghanistan and the rise of the Taliban with American support via the Pakistanis. It made for some pretty vital theatre, an animated history lesson. Especially, when the New York Times headlines the next morning declared that leaked classified US government documents from the most recent war in that beleagured country confirmed the production's predominant message: history repeats itself with impunity. The Pakistanis are still supporting the Taliban, the Americans and Nato never really stood a chance. But was I transported? I was certainly very interested, and thought the writing and the acting above average. Blatantly agenda driven theatre does not generally turn me on. I appreciate but don't love, say, George Bernard Shaw or Eve Ensler. And there was certainly an element here of preaching to the converted: the CIA is bad, the Taliban is worse, the human spirit will abide. Nevertheless, if I weren't about to leave town and lived a little closer to Kilburn I would be heading back there for parts I and III. Edifying and entertaining for £12 a ticket. You can't go wrong.Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-4378415909688190012010-07-29T00:26:00.000-07:002010-07-29T01:22:23.524-07:00All My Sons<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGIwT_97pUquH89bOkdegoM2SqwHUknCj-W5x4zSP8vrxEOJt7Imt6FMtybIUkKi1WTMm9c1qIXWuVCyFOg-IdZRFTEF-UAF7TmG9Ay6h9elTaT5J9iuBSzOTFORRGik_93kpZse5S-g/s1600/All-My-Sons-by-Arthur-Mil-004.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGIwT_97pUquH89bOkdegoM2SqwHUknCj-W5x4zSP8vrxEOJt7Imt6FMtybIUkKi1WTMm9c1qIXWuVCyFOg-IdZRFTEF-UAF7TmG9Ay6h9elTaT5J9iuBSzOTFORRGik_93kpZse5S-g/s400/All-My-Sons-by-Arthur-Mil-004.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5499226499061737410" /></a><br /><br />I had promised myself that I wasn't going to see another West End production but then my theatre buddy Paola said someone (who?!) had told her Howard Davies' revivial of his revival (red flags flying) ten years ago at the National of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" was worth the journey and the price tag, and really was as good as all the critics' raves. I knew in my heart it wasn't going to be true but I relented because I always relent, but also because I'll go see anything with Paola just to be with her she's that great. Besides, I cajoled myself, the West End production of "The Crucible" a few years ago was mind-bogglingly good so I thought maybe the Brits get Miller better than we do. Well, you know where I'm going. It was terrible, yes, terrible, well not that bad, but disappointing for sure. The level of acting was only slightly above regional summer fare, all declarative self-consciousness. I hate watching actors act when exposing the mechanics is not intended. And these guys--Zoe Wannamaker (not a fan--she screamed all the way through "Electra" and totally overdid Serafina in "The Rose Tattoo" at the National) and David Suchet--are veterans! Stephen Campbell Moore's performance as the brother who survived the war and wants to marry his dead brother's girlfriend was, however, fine and layered. Of course, the play itself is just not a great play. It's a good play, an early play, a test run for Death of a Salesman. It's the work of a young genius who is ambitiously trying to imitate and compete with his fathers--Ibsen and Chekov (including the requisite gun shot), George Bernard Shaw (grand dicourses on the evils of moral compromise), and Tennessee Williams (but here only a weak attempt to grapple with the oddities of human sexuality). The set was fabulous, but had more of a southern than midwestern feel--as did some of the accents. Supposedly, this play has been making grown men in the audience soak their handkerchiefs with tears. Paola's comment, "Give me Toy Story III for emotional content over this any day."Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-65097194517259657092010-07-18T09:21:00.000-07:002010-07-29T12:56:12.117-07:00Henry IV Part I<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdstqUO4WhGTrNRVwovZsxJTbLJA-5nd9yubIi-_FXMf5z854wzTOYnD5Y9wTmUgebPOsInGTEm_JFPb_k13BSZUfkH36-vmnLkrhUAeI_4-xEx4TYYekwliopo82b5_FbI_Pkt546cQ/s1600/falstaff.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 354px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdstqUO4WhGTrNRVwovZsxJTbLJA-5nd9yubIi-_FXMf5z854wzTOYnD5Y9wTmUgebPOsInGTEm_JFPb_k13BSZUfkH36-vmnLkrhUAeI_4-xEx4TYYekwliopo82b5_FbI_Pkt546cQ/s400/falstaff.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5495282839805229938" /></a><br /><br /><br />Yesterday, upon seeing the Globe production of Henry IV, Part 1, under Dominic Dromgoole's direction (luckily his talent is up to his name), it became, at least for a good 24 hours my favorite of Shakespeare's plays. After the blush of such a rollicking performance began to fade, I remembered The Tempest, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, As You Like It--but it certainly remains in my top five. I am just always so amazed at how funny Shakespeare is, even in the Histories and Tragedies. I have seen two other productions of Henry IV, Part 1 in the past few years--Nick Hytner's at the National with Michael Gambon as a woozy Falstaff and the RSC/Michael Boyd production as part of the phenomenal Histories Cycle at the Roundhouse, but I can easily say I laughed the longest and the loudest at the Globe and Roger Allam's Falstaff was perfection itself. Jamie Parker's Prince Hal was equally impressive (I found myself wondering if he was on his way to becoming the next Kenneth Branagh and then prematurely mourning his loss to egomania) and the chemistry between the prince and his unlikely consort was a phenomenon to behold. Oliver Cotton's King is superb, and the conflict with his rebellious son finely played. Sam Crane's Hotspur was a force of nature (I'm not sure why I didn't have the Kenneth Branagh wonderment with him, but could be I marked the wrong man). Even the scenes with the wives--which I can find irksome--were pulled off with aplomb. It was one of those rare experiences--including a lager afterwards in the courtyard of The King George--that makes London great.Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-54997078657273333362010-07-14T00:24:00.000-07:002010-07-14T01:01:03.254-07:00The Tempest<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvncmT12APB9KVvr2sCXnNh6aUafEi6jcuC0ik2Ozra-6biFCvgr1gMsif3E0in3Ekctosz7xziJQzOn9qyOzN_s6ArtwImj0utMgoEij8bGLSYVCfB_CeNQBPzXFwW_bZMdMrGk3JFw/s1600/bridge+project.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 217px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvncmT12APB9KVvr2sCXnNh6aUafEi6jcuC0ik2Ozra-6biFCvgr1gMsif3E0in3Ekctosz7xziJQzOn9qyOzN_s6ArtwImj0utMgoEij8bGLSYVCfB_CeNQBPzXFwW_bZMdMrGk3JFw/s400/bridge+project.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5493659711483780130" /></a><br /><br />I was told by many trusted theatregoing friends and family members not to see this latest effort from Sam Mendez's The Bridge Project but I went anyway and it really wasn't that bad. Bland, blah, lacking imagination, yes, but viable. There was decidely no magic to this production which is rather a shame in a play essentially about the vicissitudes of magic. Christian Camargo played Ariel more as a vampire than a sprite. Juliet Rylance's Miranda would have been outstanding if this were an amateur production. Prospero was appropriately brooding but couldn't seem to muster much more. The innovations here were unhappy. The slide show depicting scenes from Miranda's childhood, though admirable in its ambition, did not work at all and nor did the dire marriage dance. Ariel's metallic wing contraption was intriguing though incongruous, as if he had borrowed the thing from a sadomasochistic Icarus who happened to be trudging by. I wish Ariel had stayed in his mermaid evening dress for the entire play. His dark suit with no shirt made me think he was on his way to a rave straight after the play. And the mishmash of accents could have been interesting but was just annoying. Still, I was glad I saw it because though the production was devoid of pizzazz, bereft of animation, the actors did admirable justice to Shakespeare's words in this most excellent play--perhaps my favorite. Doubt I'll go to another Bridge Project production though. I bet this is their last year in any case.Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-5663789800636553002010-06-14T03:54:00.000-07:002010-06-14T04:22:14.565-07:00Women Beware Women<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizRsK30urA1INAxZS_G4fxY88KxPimRoKVs0yKB1I2M0OmENLCCaJV-cn3pTH4jtW2FMN3I0lr5lYPtuVRq2g3KKxd2nUx5atbqnbCGF_UU_x4QBYTgMHjO82KcrOmnM3fGdD7Da0htQ/s1600/0428_women.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 260px; height: 396px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizRsK30urA1INAxZS_G4fxY88KxPimRoKVs0yKB1I2M0OmENLCCaJV-cn3pTH4jtW2FMN3I0lr5lYPtuVRq2g3KKxd2nUx5atbqnbCGF_UU_x4QBYTgMHjO82KcrOmnM3fGdD7Da0htQ/s400/0428_women.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5482581738366606226" /></a><br /><br />A revelation! Okay, Middleton is not Shakespeare but he's really pretty good. A fantastic play about a woman's lot from a clever male's point of view. After all, women are so endlessly fascinating and so fun to dominate and be dominated by. Many juicy plots and subplots, very erotic and overtly sexual, some great speeches and many quotable lines. Harriet Walter stole the show as Livia but the rest of the cast mostly held their own. I didn't see the necessity of the 1940s updating, nor the very mediocre nightclub jazz singer who nearly ruined the play for me. It did ruin the experience for my theatre pal who can be even more critical and intolerant than I am--bless her. She had just returned from Paris where she saw Irina Brook's La Tempete! at the Bouffes du Nord, and could suffer no mediocrity after that. She left at the interval but I stayed on and was glad of it.Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-30998143302576647772010-05-23T07:19:00.000-07:002010-05-24T00:51:32.496-07:00Ruined<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWdE1T_2Ct2ETKFsvRGx6Rj0CB8uQpUMllPSY541Sx6jTHdlmoMDApCmE0GiKCt8pIoX66S2r7MA_3nTiuXop6fKdUvV5TuHQvlWP5TkKPtuSV-nv1rscNwUz3n0ZaLkb5VMN0UYpp0g/s1600/Ruined-theatre-Almeida-001.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWdE1T_2Ct2ETKFsvRGx6Rj0CB8uQpUMllPSY541Sx6jTHdlmoMDApCmE0GiKCt8pIoX66S2r7MA_3nTiuXop6fKdUvV5TuHQvlWP5TkKPtuSV-nv1rscNwUz3n0ZaLkb5VMN0UYpp0g/s400/Ruined-theatre-Almeida-001.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5474474594768087602" /></a><br /><br />As someone who is called "too feminist" by various members of my extended family, I am actually adverse to seeing agenda driven plays, so despite the great reviews avoided seeing "Ruined," the play by Lynn Nottage set in a Congolese brothel while war rages just outside its doors. But when a friend offered me a ticket I went. By the interval I thought I might have made a mistake. The set-up was traditional and there was a strong sense of the usual placating voyeurism that often accompanies art made in the name of the oppressed--the whores were enticingly whorish, the soldiers convincingly threatening. The second half, however, proved to me that Nottage knew just what she was doing and I left the theatre having been in some way transformed. The acting throughout was suberb and the set one of the best and most thoughtful I have seen in a while.Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5167385801497173391.post-59082678202143432702010-05-12T00:08:00.000-07:002010-05-12T00:54:01.686-07:00Posh<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvOjiGVwnJzLxybXc-psXQhkQSHj2dgJdj6NxYI8nhhVvxQmDwFwC9oZneDeQ8ByKnRm8Zk_BK0qNc-DuAywiHaxpsdUM0dcBilPFIy4c7V0FZaeVDOqceobDH2L14EvIptvMJqNYsxQ/s1600/posh.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvOjiGVwnJzLxybXc-psXQhkQSHj2dgJdj6NxYI8nhhVvxQmDwFwC9oZneDeQ8ByKnRm8Zk_BK0qNc-DuAywiHaxpsdUM0dcBilPFIy4c7V0FZaeVDOqceobDH2L14EvIptvMJqNYsxQ/s400/posh.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5470277286150873970" /></a><br />If it hadn't been for the fact that there were a lot of attractive young men on stage for nearly three hours, most of whom have promising careers in acting ahead, I would have been terribly bored by this play after the first half hour. Actually, I couldn't wait for it to be over and sympathized with Rachel Johnson, journalist and London Mayor Boris Johnson's sister, who left at the interval, pleading fatigue and suggesting the playwright Laura Wade send her a draft next time so that she get some of the details right (apparently one does not refer to Oxbridge as "college"). Boris Johnson, along with new PM Cameron and Chancellor George Osborne, were all members of the Bullingdon Club at Oxford upon which this play is based. The point of the club is two-fold: to get blind-drunk, then destroy the dining room where you have eaten, afterwards offering the proprietor full compensation for the damage in cash, which he will take gratefully. Its second purpose is to maintain the old boy network in all its power and glory in perpetuity. Though the play is packed with sharply written repartee, it lacks any depth or subtlety, and frankly I got much more out of reading the Wikipedia entry on the Bullingdon Club then on watching "Posh." The title alone reveals the one-note that will be hit relentlessly for two hours and forty-five minutes. As a title, it's vague and all-encompassing, lacks any metaphor or detail. If this was supposed to be a social critique of entitled power, it failed, and almost drove one left-wing theatre critic for the Independent to vote Tory. (Aha! Perhaps the secret motiviation of this play was to drive the populous into the arms of the Tories--and lo and behold it worked! So I take it all back, the play is a roaring success!) The sport of rich people bashing is fun, but if rich people envy isn't part of the equipment, it becomes, well, rather like watching a game of cricket. That this play, and the like, are at a theatre called The Royal Court, now that's dramatic irony of some caliber.Jennyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14012328881405654410noreply@blogger.com0