Review: Pericles (Open Air Theatre)

Review: Anne Boleyn (Shakespeare's Globe)

 

Howard Brenton’s salty, irreverent and post-modern take on the life and influence of Henry VIII’s second wife (returning for a second run after garnering great acclaim last season) very much belongs to the Globe. The sociable, inclusive atmosphere where characters take the audience into their confidence and the certain excesses in performances and direction wouldn’t be the same in any other venue.

In linking Anne Boleyn’s story with that of her daughter Elizabeth’s successor, James I of England/VI of Scotland, it’s the ghost of the ‘Boleyn whore,’ an advocate of the ‘heretic’ William Tyndale, whose 1520s translation of the Bible would lay the foundation for James’s own project, the King James Bible, several years later.

The newly crowned James I (James Garnon) is ill at ease in England and full of (rather overstated) nervous tics and twitches. This is an eccentric figure with ideas about extending tolerance to Catholics and who dons Anne’s coronation gown to perform a dance full of ambitious lifts with his handsome favourite George Villiers (Ben Deery), an outsider who probably would have been more comfortable as a scholar than a king. Anne, however, has been dead long enough to relish her notoriety, and walks on stage clad in a white nightgown and carrying a blood- stained bag. She teases the audience about its contents before proudly displaying her severed head. Miranda Raison makes a radiant and delightfully mischievous and personable Anne, who can wrap her spectators around her little finger. After a harrowing recollection of her execution, she proclaims, “And now I’m with Jesus!” with childlike glee.

As with most historical fiction, Brenton takes certain liberties with the facts – there’s no historical evidence that Anne Boleyn and William Tyndale (a charismatically rustic Peter Hamilton Dyer, living a furtive existence with his band of outcasts in the forest) ever met. Rather than being a victim of an aspirational family (who are absent from the play, as is Catherine of Aragon) or a heartless schemer, Brenton presents Anne as a deeply religious figure being motivated by the idea of becoming the first Protestant queen and introducing religious reform to England than by self interest (though a cynic could argue that both are interlinked).

Contrary to the popular image of an obese monster, Anthony Howell portrays a slim, refined and loving Henry (Anne maintains that he was “a good husband” – apparentlyit’s different amongst royals). He and Raison evoke a palpable sense of a man and a woman passionately in love. The idea that a king, used to having his way in all matters, would sustain a five-year chaste relationship, as forcing himself upon his beloved would lead to his own emasculation, is the stuff of courtly romances. The audience is dismissed with an interval when Anne, certain of marriage, finally agrees to sleep with him.

Julius D’Silva is superb as a thoroughly chilling Thomas Cromwell, a workaholic whose influence extends everywhere. The fact that he and Anne are allies on matters of religion doesn’t lend her any protection. No nonsense to the end, following Anne’s arrest, he barks at his minions to get on with the paperwork. There is also fine support from Sophie Duval as Anne’s nervy sister-in-law Lady Rochford, not willingly treacherous but a victim of Cromwell’s bullying, and Colin Hurley as a gluttonous Cardinal Wolsey.

Anne’s downfall is underplayed, perhaps because the accusations of incest and witchcraft are too ridiculous to rebuff. In a parallel scene to the community and hymn singing of the first act, we see Tyndale and his followers receive her less than cordially, but we don’t get to see Henry turn against her, denying us the full arc of a love that became as poisonous as it once was ardent. While not a perfectly constructed play with a rather weak conclusion, much of that can be forgiven.

John Dove’s exuberant direction with its rich detail (he previously directed Brenton’s In Extremis at the Globe) makes full use of the Globe’s innate sense of pageantry, filling the stage with luxurious velvets and satins. The fact that Brenton seems rather smitten with Anne Boleyn is hardly surprising – this was a formidably well-educated, intelligent and principled woman living in extraordinary times, who made the most of every opportunity that came her way.

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Review: Carousel (Landor Theatre)

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel (which is set in 1878, but in this production is updated to 1945) premiered on Broadway in 1945, the year World War II ended and two years before Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire appeared. The Bigelow and Kowlasky marriages are both based on an sexual attraction that is somewhat animalistic; one of the differences being that Carousel’s Julie, unlike Streetcar’s Stella, isn’t aroused by violence and sees in Billy a childlike vulnerability that Stanley hasn’t really got. There is something of the Angry Young Man of the 1950s in Billy Bigelow (based on the eponymous anti-hero of Ferenc Molnar’s 1909 play Liliom) in this musical that combines domesticity with fantasy and an emotionalism that’s made all the more powerful by so much that goes unsaid.

Jeremy Lloyd Thomas’s production for Almost-Normal, featuring a young cast of predominantly Mountview graduates, is very rough around the edges. It rolls along at a brisk pace, but several crucial moments are brushed over, denying the piece its full emotional impact. The direction is fairly pedestrian with awkward transitions between scenes, the American accents are seriously dubious, and several soloists struggle to fill the small space. The reduction of the orchestral score played by a piano duo is hit and miss. There are passages of the truncated Carousel Waltz (much 

of which the cast vocalise acapella-style) and Louise’s Ballet that sound unrecognisable or out of tune.

There is a dreamlike atmosphere to the opening sequence as Louise (a feisty Georgia Bevis), the fifteen-year old daughter of the brief union between Julie Jordan and Billy Bigelow, wanders amidst the ensemble as the seedy seaside carnival springs into action. The rough-and-ready choreography by Lainie Baird and Jodie-Lee Wilde serves its purpose and is energetically performed. Rachel Stone’s functional set comprises of a doorway framed with jagged wooden strips with the titular carousel represented by a single carousel horse and piled-up wooden crates, which the lovers scramble around on, and also acts a viewing platform from the heavenly waiting room.

Sean-Paul Jenkinson is miscast as Billy Bigelow; he conveys the thuggish side of the character well, but rushes through his lines and is strained vocally, without the bad boy allure and suppressed tenderness that makes Billy something other than just a yob. At the end of ‘If I Loved You’, he and Julie kiss because they’re supposed to, rather than it being a glorious culmination of two people overwhelmed by an erotic charge that neither can quite explain. Ebony Buckle is more impressive as Julie, with her elegant bearing and flashing eyes. Her performance of the death scene is outstanding, as she cradles the dead Billy in her arms, kisses him for the final time and wavers between anger and tenderness before breaking down in despair.

In a production that relies too heavily on mugging, Iddon Jones’s Mr Snow (the fisherman intended of Julie’s best friend Carrie) is a delight when he appears in his flannel shorts and knee socks, interrupting Carrie’s (Chelsea Corfield) wedding fantasy enacted with a dust-sheet veil and dustpan-and-brush bouquet (one of the most creative touches in the show). There’s a self-deprecating charm to this mismatched pair, with Jones showcasing the finest voice in the cast.

Richard Rodgers deemed Carousel his crowning achievement, but this isn’t the most satisfying production. The 1945 setting, which surely would have hit too close to home at the time of writing, doesn’t jar with the material, but under the conservative direction ultimately feels rather superficial, as if there is a finer point to be made.

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Review: Eden End (Richmond Theatre)

 Life upon the wicked stage ain’t ever what a girl supposes. There was certainly very little glamour to be found amongst the minor ranks of the Edwardian repertory system. The protagonist of this slow-burning family drama dealing with change, belonging and the importance of maintaining illusions is Stella Kirby (an effervescent Charlotte Emmerson), an actress who returns to the titular family nest after several years of silence, seeking respite from dingy dressing rooms, dreary provincial towns and far-reaching but aimless travel, breathlessly expressing her delight at coming home. During her absence, her mother, who never approved of having a daughter on the stage, has died; her doctor father is worn out; and her two younger siblings have grown up and are trying to make sense of their own positions in the world.

This comparatively neglected play by JB Priestley, written in the midst of a new wave of political turmoil in 1934 and set in 1912, lays the dramatic irony of the ordeal ahead thick and fast, with remarks such as, “1916 should be a marvellous year” and the interspersion of a music hall routine entitled ‘I Want to Be a Military Man’. Priestley and the audience are all too aware that this solid middle class existence is about to change forever, while the frail Dr Kirby (an odd performance by William Chubb, who seems quite uncomfortable) anticipates a tranquil era ahead, while wondering if he made the right decision by choosing stability over taking a chance in London.

This co-production between English Touring Theatre and Royal & Derngate Northampton is very patchy technically (at least on the night I saw it): I’m not sure if it was faulty sound design or poor vocal projection, but I strained to hear much of it. The lighting is amongst the least effective I’ve ever seen; the action takes place on an elliptical platform filled with furniture and knick-knacks (designed by Sara Perks), evoking a stage within the stage that’s surrounded with floodlights and hanging light bulbs at the back. It’s a clever concept, but the execution is terribly clumsy, particularly the central hanging lamp that keeps flickering.

Several critics have commented on the Chekhovian influence, highlighted by the weariness of characters in stifled existences wishing for a brighter and more stimulating future. Having seen Uncle Vanya recently, there seemed to be echoes of Sonya and Yelena in the spinsterish sister, Lilian, who does all the work but gets none of the credit, while her more glamorous sister only has to breeze in and dominate all the male attention – namely the local squire Geoffrey Farrant (Jonathan Firth), whom Lilian herself is in love with. The mark of a wedding ring on Stella’s ring finger enables Lilian to cut Stella’s visit short by inviting her estranged husband Charlie Appleby (a miscast Daniel Betts) to disrupt the idyll.

There’s a tedious drunk scene (a theatrical device that bores me senseless) between Appleby and the theatre-mad younger brother Wilfred (Nick Hendrix in a confident professional debut, though I found him a little too much like a modern hyperactive teenager). Wilfred is also in transition, on leave from his job with the East African Development Company in Nigeria, where he is a figure of authority, but at home is still a little boy to the faithful old housekeeper Sarah (played with warmth and exasperation by Carol MacReady), with whom he becomes increasingly snappy. Daisy Douglas gives an effectively waspish performance as Lilian, the daughter who has kept the home in order, fearful that Stella’s re-appearance will destroy the stability she has worked towards.

This isn’t a play that lends itself naturally to experimentalism, though director Laurie Sansom dabbles with some expressionist touches, complementing the way in which Stella plays out her delights and anguishes like a drama (which Lilian snidely suggests that she enjoys), culminating when she and Appleby get their own show on the road and Eden End returns to the way it was. I’m a magpie for plays of this period, and while I’m not convinced that Eden End (a favourite of Priestley himself) is a neglected gem, nor that this is a great production, it has its moments of genuine pathos amidst the chattering. The wistfulness of the road not taken is something that will always be resonant – there is a very different path ahead, but not one that the Kirbys expect.

Written for A Younger Theatre

Review: The Turn of the Screw (King's Head Theatre)

One of the questions that strikes any reader of Henry James’s 1898 novella is whether the unnamed Governess (undoubtedly one of the most unreliable narrators in literature) really is seeing ghosts, or if she was being driven towards madness by a repressed imagination. When re-reading it in preparation for Edward Dick’s production of Benjamin Britten’s 1954 opera, it seemed extraordinary just how quickly she jumps to her conclusions – not only are these figures the walking dead, but their intention is to ‘contaminate’ the angelic children in her care (surmised before she learns that Peter Quint, the remote Master’s late valet, was ‘too free’ with young Miles). She seems all too keen to assume the worst, so that she can ‘save’ them and earn the attention of her charges’ unobtainable uncle.

Dick’s minimalist production for Opera UpClose seems to promote the idea of the Governess’s insanity, choosing to frame the action by portraying her as a patient in a psychiatric hospital, not that that really ‘proves’ anything either way. Surely anyone who claimed to have witnessed what she has seen would be labelled ‘mad.’ The isolated country house is represented by Signe Beckmann’s monochromatic grey set with three doors. The only props on stage are two wooden chairs (which the Governess clings to constantly) and there’s blank screen onto which scenes from the idyllic summer are projected. The lighting, however, isn’t quite atmospheric enough and the elongated stage at the King’s Head isn’t particularly effective when it comes to creating a sense of intimacy and claustrophobia. The production eschews restrictive corsets and rustling taffeta for trainers and T-shirts emblazoned with cartoon characters (Miles’s Superman T-shirt provides a wry dig at the Governess’s own hero complex), while the Governess, tellingly, is clad all in white.

The Turn of the Screw is deeply rooted in nineteenth-century sensitivities about class (particularly the idea of a lady having a sexual relationship with a man who is not a gentleman), requiring a certain amount of creativity to make it resonate with a contemporary setting. Laura Casey’s marshmallow-munching Mrs Grose becomes a slovenly babysitter and overgrown child, dressed in a pink velour tracksuit. While the grotesquery is overstated, she all the same retains the cryptic knowingness of James's Mrs Grose.

There’s something very solid about James’s ghosts, who aren’t fleeting spectres at all; the Governess’s description of Quint’s appearance, right down to the length of his whiskers and the colour of his eyebrows, could hold up in court. The intensity of the eye contact between the ghosts and Governess is underplayed, the scenes between the ghosts alone being the most successfully gothic. David Menezes’sQuint and Catrine Kirkman’s Miss Jessel are distinctive from the living characters by louche sophistication as they hatch their malevolent plans like something out of a film noir; Quint clad in leather and Jessel in a slinky cocktail dress. Menezes masterfully communicates the confidence and dangerous allure of this arch-manipulator, his tenor voice equally lulling and commanding, with Kirkman seductively conveying his ally’s disturbed compliance.

Katie Bird is vocally stunning as the Governess and delivers a very credible portrayal of an idealistic young woman’s descent into a state that defies comprehension, while never ceasing to justify her actions to herself. The children are remarkably assured: Eleanor Burke sings Flora beautifully, while Samuel Woof ably captures Miles’s eerie, otherworldly creepiness. Musical director David Eaton is not so much an accompanist as he is a one-man orchestra, playing with exceptional flair and passion.

The Turn of the Screw is so open to interpretation that it’s probably impossible to stage it in a way that’s going to please everyone (I personally don’t sympathise with Dick’s interpretation of Miles’s demise). While Dick’s production is thin on full-blooded horror, it’s nevertheless a sleek and impressively sung rendition of a challenging opera.

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Review: Then The Snow Came and Winter (Orange Tree Theatre)

The Orange Tree Theatre’s spring season traditionally ends with a showcase by their trainee directors: this year, a double-bill directed by Jimmy Grimes and Teunkie van der Sluijs that features several of the actors from the theatre’s recent Three Farces.

Grimes’s devised piece Then The Snow Came, interweaving Oscar Wilde’s fairytale The Happy Prince with a look into the less leafy side of Richmond, and van der Sluijs’s production of Norwegian playwright Jon Fosse’s oblique two-hander Winter both deal with isolation and desperation (as well as being profanity-heavy) – the former drawing on real life characters and situations, while the latter is absolutely impersonal and clinical.

Grimes conceived Then The Snow Came after talking to a rough sleeper when stranded on the streets in Richmond on a cold night. The piece was crafted alongside the Richmond homelessness charity SPEAR and the richness of his research is evident with a real sense of collaboration; some of the dialogue is verbatim and the integration of The Happy Prince, a tale about compassion, devotion and sacrifice, is very much in sympathy with the story of these two men and adds another layer lyricism to the narrative without feeling contrived.

There are two outstanding central performances: the brash Mickey (Kieron Jecchinis), and his more poetically-minded, softly-spoken Liverpudlian friend, Stu (Daniel Cheyne). Ed Bennett also provides agile support in all his cameos, particularly the policeman who bookends the piece. These men carry all their worldly possessions in bedraggled rucksacks from spot one to another, when Mickey’s ex-partner is rushed to hospital and he has to raise the train fare to Middlesbrough. Jecchinis’s highly physical performance makes Mickey engaging and charismatic; we want him to succeed, but he’s held back by his circumstances and by himself. Wilde’s tale concludes with the Happy Prince and his devoted swallow being whisked off to heaven by an angel, while Grimes ends on a bleak note with the destruction of a friendship and the inability to move on. A thoughtful, haunting piece that’s accentuated with puppetry – something that could be developed even further.

On the other hand, Jon Fosse’s 2000 play Winter is a frosty affair that’s completely devoid of warmth or humanity. The recent production of his play I Am The Wind at the Young Vic seemed to suggest that Fosse is an acquired taste who creates works that are mesmerising to some and insufferably tedious and pretentious to others. On his way to a meeting, a mild mannered businessman (Stuart Fox) encounters an unhinged young woman (Jennifer Higham) in a city park. She’s completely spaced-out (surely a drug addict or a prostitute – maybe both), they go back to his hotel room together and he decides to leave his family and job for her. When we see her again, she’s all glammed-up and less childlike – was it all an act? And why should we care?

Fosse’s interminably repetitive writing is as drab and colourless as the concrete slabs on stage. It’s hard not to feel sorry for the waif-like Higham, who is forced to declare, “I am your lady” over and over again like a broken record. Fox and Higham’s commitment can’t be faulted and van der Sluijs’s direction is effectively spare, but to this Fosse sceptic, it’s more of a slog than a challenge that very much outstays any initial spark of interest.

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Review: Faith, Hope and Charity (Southwark Playhouse)

Leonie Kubigsteltig’s revival of Odön von Horváth’s 1932 play Faith, Hope and Charity (translated by Christopher Hampton) is wonderfully timely. The Austro-Hungarian born Horváth observed the poverty of the 1920s and 30s and the horrors of the newly implemented Nazi regime first hand, creating a mix of social commentary and surrealism with a deeply subversive streak. This vicious circle of deprivation and unemployment set in an unnamed state was banned upon its intended premiere in Germany and is still all too recognisable today.

The aesthetic is strikingly modern, even slightly futuristic and it’s something of a jolt when the protagonist, Elisabeth, appears in her 1930s dress. Designer Signe Beckmann creates a forbidding screen of clouded windows (expertly lit by Richard Howell) that slide open to provide the settings for each of the five scenes: the exterior of a mortuary, an office, the street, a love nest and a police station. Modern music plays before the lights abruptly go down and in the vignettes between scenes (particularly aggressively during the love scene), evoking a nightmarish world of manipulated chaos.

In an act of desperation, Elisabeth, a corset saleswoman, offers to sell her body to the Anatomical Institute to raise the 150 marks she needs to get a sales license in order to trade legally. She could go home to her father (and others wonder why she doesn’t), but is determined to earn an independent living. A kindly Dissector (Julien Ball) with a love of animals lends her the sum, only to discover that he has been double-crossed. Following a brief jail sentence, she takes up with a solider (Jude Monk McGowan), which falls apart when her past is revealed.

Rebecca Oldfield is endearingly perky as Elisabeth, steadfast in her optimism that humanity will prevail. Most of the cast play multiple roles, not all of which work, but Penelope McGhie is particularly good as the Magistrate’s Wife, pretending to only sell corsets and garters as a hobby and Paul Bhattacharjee is menacingly leering at the interrogative Police Inspector.

Perhaps what’s most chilling about this play is the matter-of-fact attitude towards death – Elisabeth’s demise is met with mild disappointment; her rescuer wonders why he bothered to try to be heroic and her lover mutters half-heartedly about his bad luck. Horváth works with archetypes and it’s hard to say that any of the characters really transcend their types. Faith hope and charity ought to be linked together, but when lives are dictated by the state, leaving little room for people to find their own way, these virtues become entirely abstract, replaced by blind obedience to a dictatorship. Bureaucratic jargon never changes.

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