All posts by Yeside

Race

Hampstead Theatre, Reviews

Race‘Race’ by David Mamet at Hampstead Theatre

13th June, 2013

‘Do you know what you can say to a black man on the subject of race?’

‘Nothing’

The added nuance that comes from these lines is that they are written by a white American writer who, literally, puts words in the mouths of black people.  Within this context, we do have to remember that American life and public discourse in the United States is very formal, albeit anodyne, and not just on the issue of race. Even on network television, you are not even allowed to use the word like ‘bloody’ and follow up questions are rare.  Race is just a taboo subject. As Mamet proclaims: Race, like sex, is a subject on which it is near impossible to tell the truth. We need also to be mindful that the play hit Broadway in 2009 when the country boasted a newly-elected African-American president – a period in its history that could dare to call itself post-racial. David Mamet’s Race slams on the brakes just in time before any sense of being self-congratulatory kicks in.

Over fifty years ago in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ a black man accused of raping a white woman is necessarily found guilty by virtue of the colour of his skin.  Rules are reversed in ‘Race ‘ which begins as a crime mystery, when two high-profile lawyers, Henry Brown(Clarke Peters) who is black, and the white Jack Lawson (Jasper Britton) debate whether to defend a wealthy, white, racist client, Charles Strickland(Charles Daish) who is charged with the rape of a black woman.  Strickland admits that he was intimate with his accuser but claims it wasn’t rape, insisting that the sex was consensual. As one of the characters remarks, it is an almost impossible case for the defence to win. Underpinning this is a barbed jibe at  the exoneration of O.J. Simpson, despite forensic evidence linking him to a crime —an early indicator of the mid-nineties mind-set that informs the play. On the fringe emerges an attack from a young, black, female lawyer, Susan (Nina Tousaint-White)who highlights further how lawyers navigate the unspoken value systems of the jury. Continue reading Race →

If Only

Chichester, Reviews

IfOnly‘If Only’ by David Edgar

27th June, 2013  Minerva Theatre, Chichester

‘It would be more surprising if there was not a ripple of anxiety across both parties.’ Nick Clegg

Orwell’s ‘1984’ may have been visionary enough to sustain it beyond the date of its title but this play was a risk with the ever shifting political seismic plate.  David Edgar could not have foreseen the  dystopian success of UKIP in the local elections last May which was needed to reflect this latest shift in British politics. In an age where we saw Masa Serdarevic, who became the face of the banking crisis when she was pictured on the front pages leaving the Canary Wharf offices of Lehman Brothers for the final time in 2010, making a big impression on Sir David Hare: it led to The Power of Yes, his own take on the crisis. I expected more from David Edgar who has made his reputation as a political playwright.

Structurally, the play is threefold, beginning in April, 2010, the day after the first televised prime ministerial debate; it jumps forward in time to imagine what might have happened by August 2014. The drama opens in Malaga in Spain where a Labour special adviser, a Lib Dem staffer and a Tory MP, who ran into trouble over the Telegraph Expenses scoop, find themselves stranded at the airport as a result of the Icelandic volcanic ash cloud. The dilemma of negotiating the journey home was as plausible as I remember experiencing.

All three of them already recognise that the election could lead to a hung parliament and they discuss what might happen.  It is all so potentially explosive in conversation that the three of them write down a secret that would end their political career if it were revealed, and entrust it to another to ensure that their conversation isn’t leaked.

Ruth Sutcliffe provides a realistic backdrop of constantly changing flight boards which part to allow a clapped-out Peugot 205 convertible to emerge and take centre stage on the revolve. An added frisson is the acquisition of a fourth passenger; an A-level student who is also trying to get home, and holds up  a mirror to the covert negotiations, supposedly offers the challenge of what a first-time voter might think.  The script grates considerably with this caricature of youth with the word ‘like’ inserted at every opportunity.

There are some strong performances from all three key players – Charlotte Lucas, Jamie Glover, and Martin Hutson – as well as from Eve Ponsonby but all  were constrained to type.

When we’ve had ‘Yes Minister’ in the past and the more recently ‘West Wing’ and Denmark’s ‘Borgen’, England’s  Lucy Prebble’s ‘Enron’, this is disappointing. I found the earnest political theorising so dull that I did fall asleep from time to time. Yes, there is wit in identifying the lunacy of the language that’s used and the identifying the authorship of the different manifestos though like Bernard Shaw, Edgar does go on a bit.

As with the dilemmas of the Cameron/Clegg coalition, the topicality of the play does mean it’s unlikely to last despite it warning message. The production is billed as a “witty exploration of the morals dilemmas” that affects coalition parties. If only Gordon Brown had switched his microphone off. If Only…..

Routes

Jerwood Upstairs, Reviews

Routes-photoweb‘Routes’ by Rachel De-lahay

Jerwood Upstairs (Royal Court Theatre) 4th October, 2013

‘I don’t understand. I’m British. – Technically, you’re not.’

Ironically,  the Royal Court Theatre’s press officer coined the phrase; ‘The Angry Young Men’ to promote John Osborne’s 1956 play Look Back in Anger. The label was later applied by British media to describe young British writers who were characterised by disillusionment with traditional English society. The word ‘angry’ is probably inappropriate as it was more a drive to raise awareness for what they perceived as the hypocrisy and aspirations for genuine change.

Similarly, Rachel De-lahay’s Routes is driven predominantly by anger – at the bureaucratic absurdity of the immigration system. Here, we home in on the human cost suffered by migrants coming to the UK from Africa.  The message is, thankfully, devoid of Daily Mail sensationalism or sentimentalism and, no doubt unable to engage support from any UKIP member of the audience. The politics are sound and profound.

Simon Godwin’s 70 minute production is slickly directed. Paul Wills’s angular stark set of two plain chairs as the only props prevents any distraction from the issues explored. Through two interlocking narratives, De-lahay juxtaposes the grim experience of those facing deportation from the UK with that of those trying to come here illegally. Continue reading Routes →

Othello: Cheek by Jowl

Cheek by Jowl, Reviews, Riverside Studios

othello‘Othello’ by William Shakespeare: Cheek by Jowl

Riverside Studios, November, 2004

‘Even now, now, very now, an old black ram
Is topping your white ewe.’   (1.1.9)

The basic plot of the tragedy  of ‘Othello’is well-known: Iago (Jonny Phillips), jealous that he’s been passed over for military promotion in favour of Michael Cassio (Ryan Kiggell), plots revenge against his general, Othello (Nonso Anozie). From beginning to end we have a sense of entrapment.

Declan Donnellan’s modern-dress production, staged with the audience seated on either side of an acting area that runs the whole impressive width of the Riverside auditorium Nick Ormerod’s design is virtually non-existent, consisting of nothing more than five wooden ammunition boxes. The audience is forced into an aural landscape of Shakespeare’s language – the clues to character and situation that any reader or actor needs. The clues are not necessarily in the meanings of the words. We are drawn into the rhythms of the language: the patterns and sounds of the words that contain a great deal of valuable information. Continue reading Othello: Cheek by Jowl →

Othello – NT Live: Chichester New Park Cinema

NT Live, Reviews

othello_ntlive‘Othello’ by

William Shakespeare

28th September, 2013

‘One that loved not wisely but too well.’
(5.2.390), Othello

Here I go again. I’ve lost count of the number of school visits to Shakespeare productions. I tried to resist seeing this production, despite a kind invitation to do so by a friend. I remember subjecting students to the filmed version of Laurence Olivier’s 1965 production in the 70s when videos were a new teaching tool. I writhed in deep embarrassment as Olivier hammed for England, his white eyeballs rolling madly in a weird blue / green / black greasepaint-shiny face with a slash of bright red lipstick. Such was the histrionic style: I puzzled over the Black & White minstrelsy.

Seduction is effective if prolonged so how could I resist Adrian Lester (last seen in Henry V, 10 years ago) and Rory Kinnear, coupled with one of my favourite directors, Nicholas Hytner whose direction of the anti-Iraq Henry V and  later, Hamlet  I loved. Once again NT Live affords me a missed opportunity.

The play opens to the news that Othello is recently married to Desdemona, half his age. He is appointed leader of a military operation to defend Cyprus from the Turks. Iago, his ensign, is passed over for promotion in favour of young Cassio. Immediately the importance of rank and hierarchy that provokes such envy casts a shadow over events to come.

Iago (Rory Kinnear) remains the invidious catalyst throughout. ‘I will wear my heart upon my sleeve for daws to peck at; I am not what I am.’ Iago finds that people who are what they seem are foolish. Kinnear’s camp-thuggish tones are so finely tuned that his dark humour engages the audience who then immediately revile him for his moral vacuity.  We are drawn, too, into Iago’s sporting with Roderigo (Tom Robertson) who is in love with Desdemona. Robertson’s portrayal of the gullible, wimpy, privileged nerd adds a welcome touch of comedy. Continue reading Othello – NT Live: Chichester New Park Cinema →

Frankenstein: a stage adaptation by Nick Dear of Mary Shelley’s novel

NT Live, Reviews

Frankenstein‘Frankenstein’:Part of the National Theatre Live programme

14th June, 2012

 

“Did I request thee, Maker from my clay

To mould Me man? Did I solicit thee

From darkness to promote me?”         John Milton, Paradise Lost

I cannot believe that I was narrow minded enough to dismiss the National Theatre’s forthcoming production of Frankenstein when the Pre-booking season landed in my email -inbox.  Visions were conjured of the “Hammer Horror” Boris Karloff with a bolt through his neck leaping from the bowels of the stage. Perhaps I had doubts, too, of the Oscar-winning director Danny Boyle’s directorial debut here. Luckily, there was an opportunity to see the production, albeit, through NT Live. Phew!

I loved teaching the novel to 15 year old boys who were particularly engaged with ideas about Nature and human fallibility.  Interestingly, Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” is subtitled “or, the modern Prometheus”.  The boys loved the Greek legend  which tells of Prometheus, the Titan who created the human race against the wishes of the gods – his experiment. Zeus punished him by binding him to a rock in the Caucasus and sending an eagle to eat his liver (which grew back every day so the punishment would be everlasting). The subtitle of Shelley’s novel clearly casts Victor Frankenstein in the role of Prometheus. Like the Titan, Frankenstein creates a man and gives him life, and, also like Prometheus, he ultimately endures great torment.

Boyle’s focus is the torment.  The opening fifteen minutes delivers a fine piece of physical theatre with the galvanised genesis of the Creature (Cumberbatch) in a startling nude tour de force. A haunting overlay of the Underworld‘s soundtrack reinforces that this ‘birth’ of an adult is not natural; he struggles with horrible spasms and tremors.  Cumberbatch inhabits his monster, contorting his body in painful yet visceral contortions; I could not help but wonder whether his body could sustain weekly performances. Continue reading Frankenstein: a stage adaptation by Nick Dear of Mary Shelley’s novel →

Table

National Theatre, Reviews

TheTable‘Table’ by Tanya Ronder at The Shed, National Theatre.

April 19th, 2013

‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.’                                     William Shakespeare

Starring the Table which spans generations: marriage in Lichfield in 1898, and continues through the two world wars to a missionary outpost in 1950s Tanganyika,(now Tanzania) then returns to a hippie commune in late 1960s Herefordshire, and ends up in south London today. Gideon (Paul Hilton) becomes the spirit of the table, leading through song and narrative, the journey of the table.  Marks and scratches on the table are inheritance tracks of a troubled man in his eventual attempt to reconnect and find forgiveness.

The weight of the generations carried by the cast of nine, playing twenty three characters between them, is superb even though the character of the Su Linn is irritating.

For a short play, it covers a lot of ground. This is a cleverly written play by Tanya Ronder, and sensitively directed by her partner, Rufus Norris. Their own table which is a record of their relationship provides the inspiration for the play. Yet, three years of intermittent workshops to develop the play have left a slight trace of imbalance particularly in the abrupt sections set in Lichfield. Time-frames are beautifully and seamlessly interwoven by hymns and songs. I wanted to scream when the table’s legs are chopped off! I had to tell myself it’s just a bloody table.

————–

Table is part of the eclectic kick-start of many projects to come in The Shed, the National Theatre’s new space. The theatre’s square construction painted bright red, is located just outside its main entrance in Theatre Square: a substitute venue whilst the Cottosloe becomes the Dorfman, (accolade to Travelex Chairman Lloyd Dorfman).

These Shining Lives

Park Theatre, Reviews

TheseShiningLives‘These Shining Lives’ at Park Theatre, Finsbury Park. May 18th, 2013

“The definition of a company doctor is a doctor who takes care of the company”

‘These Shining Lives’ is an unusual play to launch the inaugural season of the new Park Theatre. The timing of this production comes in the wake of  the deaths of workers caught in the fire in the garment district of Dhaka Ashulia in November, 2012. It made public one of Bangladeshi’s best secrets: scandalous wages, deathly conditions, and the union-blocking legal code that help keep one of the world’s largest textile communities enslaved by savage corporate profiteering.

Similarly, This Shining Lives exposes the tragedy of exploited female office workers in the 1930s, who worked in a Chicago watch-maker’s sweatshop in the 1920s, delicately apply radium-soaked treatment that would make the dials glow in the dark. By licking the tip of the paintbrush, they made a fine point.  Gradually, the girls realise the process of ingestion is poisoning them despite being told otherwise.  Through the true story of one victim, Catherine Donohue and her colleagues, the play tracks her campaign to right this wrong, despite suffering bone cancer and necrosis of the jaw.

Charity Wakefield( as Kate)) successfully conveys the combined naivety in the excitement of the opportunities newly available to women in the world of the roaring twenties with tradtional expectations. The tension that arises from Catherine’s vow to make more money than her husband, instead of staying home with her young children, is part of the changing culture of the time. In contrast is the brash yet humane worker, Charlotte,  deftly portrayed by Honeysuckle Weeks. Continue reading These Shining Lives →

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time

National Theatre, Reviews

CuriousIncident‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’: Mark Haddon’s award-winning novel, adapted by Simon Stephens at National Theatre: 8th August, 2012

‘…most people are almost blind and they don’t see most things and there is lots of spare capacity in their heads and it is filled with things which aren’t connected and are silly’

When I first read the Mark Haddon’s novel on which this play is based, I recalled the set book for my teacher training: John Berger’s ‘Ways of Seeing’. Although it is targeted to the effects and uses of advertising and Fine art, and outdated now, it focuses on the need to understand new ways of seeing an object differently. Therefore I had serious doubts as to whether Simon Stephens’s stage adaptation of ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ would work as the book relied on first person narrative. Exploring the mind of the teenage protagonist, Christopher Boone, is fraught with unexpected complexity of family relationships and as Christopher self-defines ‘a mathematician with some behavioural difficulties.’ The assumption then is that he has Asperger’s Syndrome – a milder form of Autism that characterises his world view so that there is difficulty in understanding the subtleties of language and social situations, recognising and interpreting other people’s feelings and hates physical contact. As Mark Haddon wished, terminology is rendered redundant.

Christopher turns detective after he discovers a neighbour’s dog has been brutally killed. This very act leads him into situations that are terrifying for him as they are outside his daily routine: his timetable. Later, when Christopher learns the truth about the dead dog, we are totally absorbed by his meticulously building of a railway track around the stage.

Despite being far older than the scripted 15 year old, Luke Treadaway’s outstanding performance as Christopher Boone is both engaging and disabling for the audience, for like him, we become outsiders. The set design by Bunny Christie and digital technology from Finn Ross is breath-taking in the intimate space of the Cottlesloe. One minute glowing, geometric grids convey the comfort zone that the regimen of numbers and logic provides Christopher; another moment, we are seamlessly transported from classroom to the London Underground network. Continue reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time →

Edward II

National Theatre, Reviews

EdwardII‘Edward II’ by Christopher Marlowe at The National Theatre.

5th September, 2013

‘What are kings, when regiment is gone,

But perfect shadows in a sunshine day?’

 

‘Edward II’ is not a play I would normally choose but I was curious to see John Heffernan in his first major titled role and Kyle Soller, a young American actor who have had recent praise. As a student, the conspiracy theory that Marlowe may have written the works attributed to Shakespeare also intrigued me.

It is clear from the pregnant pauses during the opening coronation ceremony that Edward is going to battle between his private indulgences and his public duty to state and church. Soon we are launched into Heffernan’s frenzied, petulant portrayal of Edward as a young king who is unable to surrender his passionate and corrosive relationship with Gaveston. Unlike  Shakespeare’s ‘Henry V‘  Edward is unable to distance himself as kingship demands. Passions drive the pace of the play that at times the language gets lost in the noise of the corrupting power of entertainment and military conflict. Conscious repetitive thrusts  of ‘Music‘ and characters’ intolerance through the word ‘brook’  did grate.

The incompetence of the sovereign to manage his royal duties makes the body politic vulnerable.  The Wheel of Fortune kicks into action and hubris is a defining weakness. The turning of the Wheel removes Edward II from the throne, and, in turn sets up Mortimer confidently delivered by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith. Vanessa Kirby’s neglected Isabella lost control as affections switched from Edward to Mortimer.  Next Mortimer falls and is replaced by the young Edward III played by a diminutive adult female. Further gender swapping of Kent, Edward’s brother ( Kirsty Bushell) and Pembroke ( Penny Laden) proves clumsy rather than innovative. Continue reading Edward II →