Review: The Tempest (Little Angel Theatre)

 

Four Things meme

A bit of frivolity circulating around the internet; a little break from theatre reviews.


Four books I recommend

1. No Fond Return of Love by Barbara Pym
2. An Education by Lynn Barber
3. Magic Flutes by Eva Ibbotson
4. My Turn To Make The Tea by Monica Dickens

Four jobs I've had

1. Theatre reviewer (I've yet to make any money out of it, but one day...)
2. Assistant Administrator/general dogsbody
3. Trademark monitor
4. Assistant stage manager (only once, but so much fun)

Last four films seen

1. The Tempest (new version with Helen Mirren)
2. Morning Glory
3. Black Swan
4. Tangled (by far my favourite of the four

Four favourite TV shows

1. Lost
2. Being Human
3. The Office (US version)
4. Outnumbered

 Four places I have visited

1. St Petersburg, Russia
2. Dubrovnik, Croatia
3. Dalyan, Turkey
4. Paris, France

Four favourite foods

1. Olives
2. Cottage pie
3. Smoked salmon and cream cheese bagels
4. Peanut butter on toast

 Four celebrity crushes

1. Aidan Turner
2. Naveen Andrews
3. John Krasinski
4. Julian Ovenden

Four things I'm looking forward to

1. My holiday in Chicago next month
2. Seeing my review in print tomorrow.
3. Visiting Wilton's Music Hall for the first time on Saturday- I keep hearing about how extraordinary the building is.
4. Meeting a rather interesting long lost relative next week.

Review: Lines (Rosemary Branch Theatre)

One of the many provocative points raised by James Fritz’s faux-verbatim drama Lines (which premiered at the Rosemary Branch’s new writing festival last autumn) is what it means to ‘enjoy’ a show. It’s possible to find something interesting and moving whilst wondering if it’s in poor taste to take pleasure from the experience, particularly when the subject is a recent tragedy that’s still in the headlines.


Fritz’s conceit is that a certain Kilburn theatre renowned for cutting edge political drama produces a verbatim play called Ian and Bill, about the death of Ian Tomlinson at the G20 protests. During the run, one of the cast members, Michael, is murdered by Terry Stein, the police officer he portrayed in the show. As we enter the auditorium, the actors are engaged in their warm-up exercises, and then form a line to express their feelings about this tragedy.

The writer, Robin (Ian Mairs) and director (Tom Berish) are young, confident types who are more than a little pleased with themselves. Robin expresses his sympathy, but is too wrapped up in his ‘art’ to accept the fact that he might be partially responsible. The parental loss is acutely captured in David Vale and Jeryl Burgess’s exquisite portrayals of quiet devastation. There’s also a thought-provoking turn from John Canmore’s Sergeant, a man with no artistic pretensions and who volunteered to be interviewed for the project simply as a chance to defend the Met’s reputation regarding their involvement in the Tomlinson case.

Flamboyant characters often register most strongly on stage, the creatives seizing on Stein’s enthusiasm at having at audience to perform to. Michael’s portrayal of Stein, with an emphasis on a childlike hero complex and the embellishment of a slight speech impediment, becomes the light relief amidst the bleakness. While we never see Stein and only hear his voice at the end (having the last word lends a certain gravitas), it’s remarkable how vivid and human he becomes.

Does a verbatim play have a writer? The words might come directly from the speakers’ mouths, but they become part of an arc of stories that can easily be twisted. It’s all carefully contrived as to what’s included and what’s left out, who speaks when and who gets the final say. It seems more like an editor’s role than a writer’s.

What could have been quite a specialised, theoretical exercise is turned into a beautifully observed human drama. Fritz’s writing is perfectly served by the sensitive cast and Thomas Martin’s understated direction. The premise might be extreme, but it becomes frighteningly plausible. Mimicry can be incredibly hurtful.

Written for A Younger Theatre

Review: Bed and Sofa (Finborough Theatre)

A silent film from the Soviet Union is unusual source material for a musical. Although I haven’t seen Abram Room’s 1927 film Bed and Sofa, it’s easy to see why the subject matter caused controversy, with a portrayal of a ménage a trois, abortion (which is still something of a taboo subject in films today) and, according to librettist Laurence Klavan, the question of what a ‘free’ society is. The last point is perhaps less obvious in this re-telling.

This musical adaptation by composer Polly Pen and librettist Laurence Klavan has arrived in London fifteen years after its premiere Off-Broadway, where it received seven Drama Desk nominations. While the cosy Finborough Theatre is an ideal venue for a chamber musical with a domestic setting (a typically lovely Finborough design by David Woodhead, with the musicians on the roof), it’s difficult for director Luke Sheppard to overcome the fact that the show is sustained on one recurring joke (who gets the bed, and who gets the sofa). Although there are a number of interesting themes to explore, they’re suppressed underneath the veneer of whimsy.

The setting is Moscow in 1926, in the midst of a housing shortage. Volodya, a young man with “blonde hair and a sensitive face” arrives in the city to take a job as a newspaper printer (there are some hints of radicalism that are never explored), and finds himself homeless. His old friend Kolya comes to the rescue, offering him the sofa in the cramped apartment he shares with his wife Ludmilla. When Kolya is transferred to Rostov for a few weeks, Volodya and Ludmilla fall in love over a trip to the cinema. Kolya soon learns that his place is now on the sofa, but can’t leave due to the housing shortage. Ludmilla inevitably falls pregnant and rather than being pressurised into having an abortion, she walks out to start a new life, leaving the two men in a state of resigned amusement.

The transformation of a silent film into a musical is most successful when directly paying homage to the genre, offering some witty pastiches of the music that accompany the films that give Ludmilla so much pleasure (while she is in a version of one herself- how confusingly meta). The ‘Bed and Sofa’ refrain is certainly memorable as it accounts for a large percentage of the text. Taking the place of the title cards is the all-knowing Announcer, sharing various witticisms and tips for harmonious living under the Soviet regime, though I wouldn’t imagine the voice of Communism to have the quintessentially English headmistress-y tones of Penelope Keith.

Kaisa Hammarlund gives a thoughtful performance as the housewife longing for romance and finally independence, while Alastair Parker is bear-like and boorish as the cuckolded roofer Kolya and Alastair Brookshaw is aptly fresh-faced as Volodya. An uncomplicated plot doesn’t have to make for diluted drama. Bed and Sofa doesn’t feel complete because the characters never become anything more than archetypes. There is something charmingly quirky about this piece that could have been distilled into a pithy twenty-minute sketch. Stretched out over nearly an hour and a half, however, the joke wears very thin indeed.

Written for Exeunt