Enjoy - A Play by Alan Bennett

A play with remarkable performances by Alison Steadman and David Troughton. Their performances probably eclipse some of the flaws with the play - Mr Bennett is clearly trying to get several things off his chest.

Table Manners at the Old Vic

Waste by Harley Granville Barker

A Midsummer Night's Dream

An open air production by the Chapterhouse Theatre Company. With actors taking on multiple roles they really played this for laughs. Shakespeare can be very dull and high brow but this was excellent - really going for the humour and entertaining an audience with lots of children.

Doing open air productions in the English summer is risky, and although it was cold it didn't rain. We were glad that this went at a realyy fast pace and kept us all entralled. The cast were all excellent and projected well so that all could be heard. Rating 8/10.

The Deep Blue Sea

A play by Terence Rattigan starring Greta Scacchi and Simon Williams at the Vaudeville Theatre. This playwright went out of fashion - but like many others needs to get far more coverage in the West End - because the themes touched upon in this play are universal and contemporary. The play opens in a seedy flat in 1950s London. Hester is discovered after a failed suicide attempt. She has left her successful (but dull) judge husband in favour of exciting younger WWII fighter pilot ace who cannot commit to anything at all. Both know that the relationship cannot work - but neither can face up to ending it - except by suicide or totally reckless behaviour. The house contains several interesting people (the struck off German Jewish doctor, the landlay with immense common sense, the young married couple finding little to keep their marriage on the straight and narrow) who all contribute advice. The acting was excellent, and although the play is a touch melodramatic for modern tastes it still interests and entertains. Rating: 8/10

God of Carnage

A play at the Gielgud Theatre starring Ralph Fiennes, Tasmin Greig, Janet McTeer and Ken Stott. I was so glad I had this recommended to me - by two totally different sources. It a French play by Yasmina Reza, translated by Christopher Hampton (a wonderful pedigree then) and centres on the veneer of middle class respectability that is so easily punctured. Janet McTeer is a very caring liberal mother who is shocked when her son is hit by a stick wielding son of Ralph Fiennes' high flying lawyer currently defending a pharmaceutical company's latest, dubious pain relief 'cure'. He spemds most of the evening arguing on a mobile phone - how many people do we know like that? During the summit meeting between the two sets of parents things quickly fall apart as each oscillate between conciliation and aggression, desire to apportion blame, and escape labelling as a bad parent. Far from supporting one another Tasmin Greig and Ken Stott (respective wife and husband) regularly put the boot in to both their spouses and the opposing couple. Middle class pretentions are lampooned and laid bare - but not in the usual obvious semi-envious way much beloved of the comedians of the 1980s and 1990s, there isn't much ridicule. The intensity is maintained throughout the whole on act production, and this is very funny - probably because it is realistic - we all know people who are either exactly like one (or all) of these characters, or we ourselves contain enough elements as to make the humour slightly uneasy. Well wort seeing - even if Ralph Fiennes did appear to be doing an impression of Leonard Rossiter from time to time. Rating: 9/10

Pygmalion

A production at the Old Vic starring Tim Piggott-Smith as Henry Higgins and Michelle Dockery as Eliza Doolittle and featuring the wonderful Una Stubbs as Mrs Pearce the housekeeper. Although this must be a century old, George Bernard Shaw's play about the English class structure, language, women's role in relation to men, and the bizarre nature of modern 'sciences' remains as fresh and funny as it was when it was written. Tim Piggott-Smith might have been born to the role of the 'phoneticist' who proclaims that he can tell where anyone was born and grew up from a few spoken words, and believes that every person betrays their place in society every time they open their mouth. He accepts a bet from fellow language student Col Pickering that he can pluck a lowly flower girl from 'the gutter' and pass them off as a Duchess at an Embassy reception within six months. Despite warnings from his mother and his housekeeper he launches into the project without considering what the girl (Eliza) will do once her independence has been taken away - because with the accent of a flower girl from Lissom Grove she can earn a meagre living and a livelihood, with the accent of a Duchess she cannot obtain any kind of work. In passing Higgins gives Eliza's father a fiver and thereby raises him from the ranks of the 'undeserving poor' - a position that allows him to be a dustman and he can 'touch' any man for a sub - into employment at £3,000 a year as a philosophy lecturer - a position that means 'every man touches him for money'. The cast is superb in this production - Shaw is very wordy, and must require some learning, but none seemed to be delivering their lines or declaiming them, the diction was clear, the timing wonderful, the humour precise - the actor playing Eliza's father has several long speeches, all spoken with feeling and made the audience (containing several school parties) laugh out loud. Una Stubbs as Mrs Pearce proves what an excellent comic actress she is in her scenes. Even though there are many reminders of the musical adaptation My Fair Lady this play is certainly worth reviving. Rating 9/10

Susannah - an opera by Carlisle Floyd

Now I think there is a problem with modern 'operas'. Since the invention of the musical (bit of singing, bit of acting) 'operas' seem to have gone in one of three ways - they either go so 'serious' that the music is almost impenetrable (Stockhausen?) or they ape the classics (Gershwin) or they are musicals aspiring to be something more, by using operatic singers. Susannah falls into the last category. Unfortunately the other problem with operas in the English language (unless you're watching the ENO) is that they theatre doesn't provide surtitles. Enunciation becomes essential. I'm sure that Donna Bateman (starring as the eponymous heroine) is an excellent singer but what with her operatic style and a very loud orchestra I had terrible problems working out what exactly she was going on about half the time. I've just thought of another disadvantage of modern operas versus musicals - they don't seem to go in for great memorable singalong melodies. I think you might guess by now I didn't enjoy this offering, although I think it was mainly the fact that I couldn't hear the words that spoiled it for me, the music was pleasant enough and the singers were of a good standard, but if I must go and see a tale of repressed emotions in the Southern States of America give me Oklahoma! every time. So in brief this opera is your standard American tale - community of buttoned up people with one person (Susannah) feeling liberated and cheerful - thereby attracting the approbation of the God fearing churchgoers. A hellfire preacher turns up on an evangelising mission, Susannah is observed (and condemned) for outraging public decency (swimming?) and is cast out by the Church. A boy is forced to denounce her, she is required to publicly repent, (which she refuses to do) and the Preacher (seeking her immortal soul) rapes her. Susannah's drunken brother then shoots preacher. An average happy day in Tennessee then. Rating? 5/10

Anna Bolena @ The Hackney Empire

This little performed Donizetti opera sung by the English Touring Opera in a very dramatic production. Although the scenery was minimal the costumes were sumptuous and the orchestra appropriately competent and understated. I hate it when the orchestra is intrusive to prevent clarity of the singers' voices. The singers on this occasion were all excellent, especially the title role and Percy. I'm having a week of the life of Anne Boleyn - (see the entry for The Other Boleyn Girl on my film blog). Donizetti certainly takes a very different take on the life of the ill-fated Tudor Queen. In his opera Henry is already stuck inot a steamy affair with Jane Seymour and is plotting to entrap his 'innocent' wife Anne in infidelity, with former beau Percy. Meanwhile lovelorn page Smeaton (confusingly sung by a woman) provides the 'evidence' which convicts Anna Bolena, her brother, Percy and Smeaton. The English T0uring Opera are a very good ensemble and guarantee excellent productions. Alas this particular opera doesn't provide any themes or set pieces to set you humming as you leave the theatre. Donizetti goes for constant frenetic energy and you can end up feeling bludgeoned by the constant emotion. Rating: 8/10

Marilyn & Ella

I saw this two handed musical drama written by Bonnie Greer and starring Nicola Hughes and Wendy Morgan at the Theatre Royal, Stratford East. This was my first experience of this venue - and it is a lovely building, and seems to get a very good cross-section of the local population in its audience. The production tells the tale of two famous women. Marilyn Munro was at the height of her fame as a sex symbol - but wanted to be a 'serious actress' and an intellectual (hence her involvement with Arthur Miller). Ella Fitzgerald faced all the problems of racism in entertainment in the 1950s and just wanted to be the best entertainer in America. Much of the time the two actresses in this drama speak parallel monologues examining their concerns and emotions, but in the final section the two meet and argue through their differences. The actress playing Ella had a superb voice and belted out some of her most famous recordings - although this was no parody or pastiche of her style. A very successful production, sensitively and almost movingly performed. Rating 8/10

Present Laughter

I saw this Noel Coward play at the National Theatre, and as you would expect from this company the acting was superb. I'm guessing that any Noel Coward play is tricky to perform but this piece is much wordier than most of Noel's works. The central character - Gary is on stage for virtually the whole play, and outstanding he certainly was. I hadn't seen 'Present Laughter' before, and I must admit I had it confused with another play, and this distracted me for the first half hour or so. Coward is very good on human emotions, and teeters on the boundary between insightfulness and downright cattiness. The comedy in 'Present Laughter' can only be described as brittle, although in the final act it turns into fairly standard French farce. The plot is probably fairly irrelevant. Gary is a just turned 40 star of stage and film and the devotion of his doting fans and friends is in turn flattering and annoying. In the days before a tour of Africa he has a succession of girls throwing themselves at him, and he needs the protection and advice of his staff (a wonderful secretary, valet and housekeeper) and his separated wife, to prevent him from letting his life go rapidly downhill into total decadency. Coward is so clever with his script and he does allow some truths to seep through the lightness of touch. I'm glad Mr Coward has come back into favour, and hope more of his plays will appear in the West End. Rating 8/10

The Letter - Somerset Maugham

Starring Jenny Seagrove and Anthony Andrews at Wyndham's Theatre in Leicester Square. Firstly I'll mention that the theatre was pleasant and intimate, good leg room (always important) although there are so many stairs!

Now, Somerset Maugham is another underated playwright, probably because he appears, superficially to be of his time and class - forever writing about colonial situations - and from the perspective of the 1980s and 90s appearing old fashioned and racist. However, now that we're in the twenty first century attitudes to him and his work have changed - I wrote a bit about this in my film review of 'The Painted Veil' another adaptation of a Somerset Maugham novel. (Go to my complete profile and look at the bottom for the films blog, and go through my archives). Here again we're in the Far East - this time in Malaya. It opens with a death - the Jenny Seagrove character (played by Bette Davis in the film version) has shot Geoff Hammond - six times. She explains that the man had tried to rape her and she shot him in her determination to protect herself. Her husband was away in Singapore for a few days. Anthony Andrews plays the lawyer brought in to defend her - although the British colonial view is that the man was a cad and a bounder and any right thinking white man would support the 'plucky girl' who used a gun to 'shoot the bounder like a dog'. This view is re-enforced when it is found that Geoff Hammond has been living with a Chinese girl - clearly he had broken every possible rule, and was possibly insane, with lust and passion. Naturally things are not quite as they seem - a letter is found which casts a totally different light on things, and Anthony Andrews decides to buy the note to prevent his client from going to the gallows, and to protect her husband from scandal.

Maugham is examining the relationship between the rulers and the ruled, attitudes to race and class. Maugham never portrays the native populations as unintelligent or quiescent. They behave with dignity, amusement and ridicule the foolishness of their colonial masters. The writer is also looking at the lack of comprehension in marriage - Jenny Seagrove's husband clearly knows nothing about his wife - her feelings and emotions. Anthony Andrews too underestimates his Chinese Clerk's cleverness. He is examining relationships and moods in a tightly knit isolated community where the superficial social norms hide depths of passions. Social convention is hideously stultifying.

The acting in this play was excleent - the minor characters were especially good - even the silent servants (the houseboys who overheard the conversations, and watched the behaviour of their masters with wonderful expressions). Jenny Seagrove was outstanding, as she wheedled her way through Anthony Andrews defences to save her own skin. Anthony Andrews' delivery was bizarre in places, and I almost became irritated as he barked out his lines, but overall a memorable performance. If you think you'll know this if you've seen the film - this play doesn't end in the same way.

I enjoyed this play and it deserves a rating of 8/10

The Rose Tattoo - Tennessee Williams

I went to see the play at the National Theatre. It has a vast cast but the star is Zoe Wanamaker. The cast numbers 35 and includes a chorus of women, a further chorus of children, and a goat (totally live) comes on twice! The set was excellent too - a revolving wooden cabin used to great effect.
The play is not the usual moody Tennessee Williams. It is a vehicle for a tour de force performance by Ms Wanamake. A story about a Scicilian woman in the deep south of the United States who believes she has the perfect husband and a perfect marriage. Naturally this is not true, as she discovers when her husband is killed in suspicious circumstances. She keeps his urn of ashes in front of a shrine to St Mary. A devout, if not fanatical Catholic she believes in miracles (including the appearance of a tattoo of a rose just like the one her husband used to sport at critical moments). After becoming a widow her grief drives her to bizarre behaviour and she cossets her daughter to prevent her falling into sin.
Really this is a stary of delusion - she refuses to accept her husband's infidelity, that her daughter has grown up, that the rose tattoo did not appear at the moment of her daughter's conception, etc.
Zoe is superb, her accent wonderful, and many of the supporting cast are excellent, but some have trouble with the accent - it veers from sub cockney to godfather Italian, New York Jewish to West Coast Hollywood - sometimes in the same sentence!
This was a theatrical occassion - and probably the performance of Zoe's life - she must be exhausted as she is on stage for almost all of the three hours.
My rating: 9/10

The Entertainer

I couldn't find a picture showing the cast from the present run at the Old Vic. The illustration here is from the film starring Lawrence Olivier. It is said that the great actor told Robert Lindsay that he would be ideal in the lead role. Mr Lindsay has only just reached the appropriate age to take on this monster of a part, requiring incredible dexterity, skill and determination - Robert Lindsay took on the role with tremendous verve.

This play is set in Britain at the time of Suez and is intended to be a metaphor for the decline of the British Empire - as the leading character (Archie Rice) is a music hall entertainer at the end of the era of variety. Perhaps this was one of the great triumphs of television that it hammered several nails into the coffin of this 'artform'. Like Britain, Archie has lost his way and can't quite find a role in the new world. His wife, played by Pam Ferris, is a total revelation - she changes her mood rapidly and expresses every emotion with superb timing.

The action is set in the lodging house Archie has taken for the season. There lives his father - who is a retired actor - clearly of greater standing than Archie - his wife and one of his sons, who had refused to be conscripted into National Service. The other son is away in the army, and his fate forms the centre of the piece. the play opens with the arrive of their daughter, who is going through some tricky relationship difficulties. Although this is a comedy it darkens as it progresses, and is very thought provoking. Archie himself is extremely repulsive in his behaviour and attitude, but somehow induces sympathy. The remainder of the family also parade less than attractive qualities, but somehow you empathise with them.

The play is rarely revived - and it isn't surprising because it is rare to find such quality of acting from a cast and this play demands such high standards. It is worth reviving more often. My rating: 8/10

The Lady from Dubuque

What a superb actress Dame Maggie Smith is! She truly transformed this play that I saw at the Theatre Royal Haymarket recently.

The Lady from DuBurque is not often produced but it is an excellent vehicle for Maggie Smith, who dominates the second act totally. The play is by the same writer as 'Whose afraid of Virginia Woolf' and is as verbally violent as that play, famously starring on screen Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. The Lady from Duburque opens at the end of a social evening involving three couples, who are 'friends' but appear to have absolutely nothing in common, but in reality hate one another - or do they. One woman is dying of cancer and is in enormous pain - and takes this out on everyone else - her husband, her old college friend, her weak husband, their boorish male friend and his seemingly unsophisticated girlfriend.

The humour is harsh and bitter, sharp and pointed, to the extent that it almost offensive. When things appear to be on the brink of open warfare the actors address the audience and demand answers. (Of course as a British audience we resolutely stared at our shoes and hoped not to have to respond).

The woman who is dying is bemoaning the fact that her mother has abandoned her and ignored her even at the moment of her death. And then Maggie Smith appears with her black 'friend/lover?' and claims to be the long estranged mother. But is she - she is the lady from DuBurque. These two characters inject a great deal of humour (still extremely sharp) and pathos but prevents it from turning into total bathos and melodrama.

Worth seeing - even if only for Maggie Smith's wonderful performance. Rating 7/10

Porgy & Bess

I went to see this marvellous, vibrant production at the Savoy Theatre yesterday. It was a matinee performance and so it was full of coach parties, mainly women from the Home Counties.

This is a period piece. The Gershwins were trying to produce a twentieth century opera dealing with modern themes. George Gershwin always wanted to write classical music but this is really just a popular musical play. That isn't to devalue it though, 'Summertime', 'I got Plenty of Nothing', 'I Love You Porgy' 'It Ain't Necessarily So' are all time popular standards. This is the usual love story of tart with a heart who is reformed by the love of a good man, but led into temptation by the bad guys. In this production there isn't really anything operatic, it is good American Musical through and through. None of the cast are duds. The dancing is superb, and the audience were engaged from the start.

However, this is a production written by whites and performed by a black cast. I became a touch uneasy at times because the roles were so stereotyped, and I wonder how comfortable some of the cast were in portraying these parodies of black lives - the great dancers, the negro spirituals, the language of subjection. Would it be performed in America nowadays I wonder.

Underneath the Lintel

Starring Richard Schiff - previously seen on TV's 'The West Wing'. This play is currently been performed at London's Duchess Theatre. An amazing one-man show - only one act but Richard Schiff is on stage (alone) for 80 minutes - and how well he does it too! He holds the audience from the moment he walks on stage. This is a voyage of self discovery. The play begins with the actor arriving on stage with the pretence of giving a lecture about what? An ex-librarian becomes obsessed with discovery the truth behind the book he finds in the returns file - it is over a century overdue. He then attempts to trace the owner of the book through a dry cleaning ticket from London, a tram ticket from Bonn, and so on and so on. This is good, old-fashioned story telling, and depends so much on the abilities of the actor - it is a monologue but Schiff uses his voice and body and the few artifacts with tremendous skill. There are a few visual aids, and some sound effects, but remarkably understated. Schiff's self discovery is about religion, the existence of God and about a man finding out about himself and his relationship with the world.
A remarkably good play. Rating: 8/10

The Thirty Nine Steps

Today I went to see a performance of 'The Thirty Nine Steps' at the Criterion Theatre at Piccadilly Circus. Based (extremely loosely) on the John Buchan story of daring-do, espionage and international politics.
This version, however, bears much more resemblance to the Alfred Hitchcock film of 1935. I think when I tell you that 4 actors (3 men and 1 woman) play 120 characters you'll begin to understand that this production is for laughs rather than tension or thrills. I won't give away how they achieve the feat of reproducing a crashing biplane - on stage with sound and fury.
Tracing Richard Hannay's adventures in pursuit of those in possession of 'state secrets' before they can be taken abroad, we travel from a West End theatre via his private apartment (including a dead lady picked up at the show), unlikely disguise as a milkman, a highspeed rail journey (including the famous scene on the Forth Bridge), a Highlands workman's cottage, a crashing plane, high speed car chases and a return to the theatre for the denouement. All this is done with remarkably few items of scenary.
A fun afternoon for anyone with a sense of humour. The run has been extended - and the theatre was packed. My rating 8/10

Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks

Starring Claire Bloom and Billy Zane. Excellent play. I saw this at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. It is the story of an elderly woman who hires a dance teacher - mainly for company, and gradually a quirky relationship developes between the two of them. Played by just two actors, this bitter sweet comedy/drama examines all sorts of feelings and emotions. It examines prejudices and bigotry, the needs of young and old, family and friendship. The dance teacher is gay and escaping a past, the woman is suffering from cancer and trying to deal with a life that she fears is wasted. Entertaining and thought provoking.
My rating? 8/10

Sitting Pretty - Amy Rosenthal

Written by Maureen Lipman's daughter. I saw a production by the Loughton Amateur Dramatic Society.
I was impressed by the play - and the production. A tale of an older woman who finds the solution to unemployment related depression by becoming a life model. It describes a journey of self-discovery. She thought she had nothing to offer, but manages to solve the problems of the dysfunctional art class (and their teacher) and in so doing grows in all sorts of new ways herself.
Great to see such a well-written vehicle for several older actresses.
My rating: 8/10