Mini-review – Antony and Cleopatra – Shakespeare’s Globe

This year I took a vow to see no plays I’d seen before. To remind you, this is primarily because of the glut of Shakespearean shows currently clogging London theaters. Now, I could forgive am dram and fringe groups for wanting copyright free texts, but frequently I think the Bard is done by big houses out of laziness. Instead of investing money in getting new works on stage – in keeping the theater ecology alive – they waste A-list talent and opportunity (to get people watching theater) by sticking, oh, some famous TV actor in Richard III. Or Coriolanus. Or whatever. So I’m staging a one woman protest and NOT seeing Shakespeare this year.

With one exception: shows I haven’t seen before. And under this rubrik I agreed to go to the Globe for only the second time to see Antony and Cleopatra. The last time I went it was for a visiting company whose bellowing and capering put me off so much I left after about 10 minutes; this time I was finally going to see The Globe’s take on the bard, only not while standing because I’m too damned old for that (so 35 quid stall seats, ouch but my bad for not booking earlier).

To my surprise, bellowing and capering were once more the order of the day. No, I’m not just talking about the groundlings as they alternately sweltered and dodged raindrops; it was the actors making sure they could be heard in the back of the second balcony … of Saint Paul’s. Only it didn’t work: every time an actor faced away from me, I heard MRNNR mRRNF MRRff until they turned around again. From a third of the way around, I thought I was guaranteed good acoustics, but no such luck.

And this, really, was the end of it for me. At 9:45 I was actively encouraging Antony to stick that sword in his gut and casting around hoping against hopes that baskets full of asps would shower the stage … and yet there was still forty five minutes to go. I found myself wondering just what “historical” costuming looked like in Shakespeare’s time … if the Globe insisted in putting the Romans in slashed pantaloons and codpieces, then why were the Egyptians in white robes? I mean, if they are presenting themselves as doing the “full historical,” then why Eve Best as Cleopatra? Why not a teenaged boy? I did think that she was enthusiastic (perhaps a bit one note?), and Clive Wood was very believable as an old soldier (maybe a bit too old?), but I couldn’t help but wonder just who this show was aimed at. Does the Globe really just put on a season for tourists? Do regular London theater goers attend shows here, or are they actually making the pilgrimage to Stratford on Avon?

Meh. By the time the show let out, nothing mattered anymore. Tourists of the world, if you’re going to London, I’m going to have to advise you to see Shakespeare in Love and give this war horse a pass. Frankly, it made me grateful that I’m skipping most of Shakespeare this year: maybe next year I’ll go for a permanent ban.

(This review is for a performance that took place on Friday, July 25, 2014. It plays in rep through August 24th: see the Globe’s website for details on dates.)

Mini-Review – Pacific Overtures – Union Theater

It’s hardly a secret that if you enjoy excellence, tickets to see musicals at the Union Theater are money well spent. This means that they’re often sold out nearly before they start, and thanks to a lack of attention on my part, I nearly missed seeing Pacific Overtures as it was fully booked by the time I looked for ticket (a few days after it opened). I took the calculated risk that a rare outbreak of London sun might equal people who’ve suddenly decided they can’t leave the pub for an evening indoors and, behold, a weeknight ticket to this show was mine.

The cast is huge, as crammed into this, what, sixty seat space – around 20 men singing it out and doing imaginative choreography that created ships, oceans, islands and entire worlds out of fluttering fabric and a few poles. It was just so much more than you’d really expect from a low budget, low rent production, and yet, as ever, working in the Union’s restrictions resulted in a glorious Empty Space effect, in which your imagination is fully engaged by the subtle triggers on stage.

I found myself struggling with the lyrics early on – not understanding them but rather wondering if “Japan is about rice, flowers, and origami” (a summary of the lyrics for “The Advantages of Floating in the Middle of the Sea”) was really capturing the mindset of mid-seventies Americans toward this country as it’s clearly a ridiculous way to encapsulate Japan. Someone else argued that the show depicted Americans in a similarly racist tone, but I felt that showing us as bullying, swaggering, hairy brutes with bad manners wasn’t particularly out of line, especially when dealing with sailors and America’s expansionist colonial attitudes of the 19th century. However, I decided to put my meta-critical faculties on hold and see what the music and the story would bring – and I’m pleased to say that at the end the show emphasized Japan’s amazing techological accomplishments, taking the initial bad flavor away.

The story becomes more coherent as it focuses down on the low level samurai who is sent to do the impossible task of convincing the foreigners to go away. Kayama (no cast list on the Union site so can’t credit) becomes our guide to the evolution of Japan from feudal backwater to distinctive member of the modern world of nations; he starts out supporting the shogunate but ends up loving his bowler hats.

Although the story of the birth of modern Japan is interesting (though a bit tricky to simplify), what I particularly enjoyed about this show was its attempts to embrace Japanse theatrical tropes, from the all-male cast to the implied masks in the costuming and the use of bunraku-like puppets. In some ways this was all flavor, though, because there wasn’t a bit of the music or lyrics that seemed in any way Japanese – but why, really, should Sondheim not try to sound like Sondheim? Oddly, to me the “flavor” elements also seemed just very Union, the old “doing more with less” approach they usually do with such success. It made for a very good show, whatever the impetus.

In the end, I’m not sure how great a musical Pacific Overtures is, but I found it a night of wonderful, thoughtful music presented beautifully that was well worth the risk of not seeing it in order to actually see it. Now with hindsight as my guide, it’s time to look at the NEXT musical on at the Union and just buy my tickets now.

(This reviw is for a performance that took place on July 17, 2014. It continues through August 2nd.)

Review – Forbidden Broadway 2014 – Menier Chocolate Factory

Ah, Forbidden Broadway. In a world full of people maddened by sport, this is my one chance to do an event with my people, appealing to our sense of humor: jokes about our passion – the theater. If you’ve seen it before, you might find the extended look at Les Miserables looking a bit shopworn; similarly, the Lion King shtick is no longer fresh (although for some reason I still think the Liza Minelli bit is funny).

But you do get some seriously barbed new material in this year’s revue. Among the shows they roasted were: Pajama Game; Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (which got its own number mocking the show’s technical failures and hum drumness as well as featuring in a “Sunday Roast” skewering the use of child actors); and Once (I still haven’t seen it but after listening to this tour of the show’s plot holes I feel like it may have been a bullet dodged). More generally, we were given a lovely song making fun of ticket touts to a tune from Guys and Dolls, and a number satirizing the involvement of corporations on Broadway. This was was too New York focused for me – with ATG and Delfont Mackintosh controlling so much of what is shown on the West End, I think a whole new piece could have been done.

But still: let’s examine the Blythe Spirit number, in which Angela Lansbury appears to answer the question of why she is appearing in an old show. Why, she replies, if I wanted something good, I’d summon up the spirits of my old and great friends and have them write something for me … because what I’m given is shlock. Now, with the brilliant state of new playwriting in London, I wouldn’t agree that you need Noel Coward back from the dead to create a show worth seeing … but when it comes to musicals, I think she has a point. Which is true of many of the songs in this show – and why I enjoyed it so much. I won’t normally splash out on full price tickets, but for once (and in part because, let’s be honest, full price at the Menier Chocolate Factory is hardly the same as full price for Skylight, is it) I did, and for me – and for you, if you’re reading this – it is an indulgence worth every penny.

(This review is for a performance that took place July 11th. The run has just been extended by two weeks, so why not do yourself a favor during the August doldrums and go for it? If you sympathize with the trials and tribulations of the hard core theater goer, this evening is made for you!)

Review – The Colby Sisters of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – Tricycle Theater

Before every show I say a little prayer, which is lifted right from The Drowsy Chaperone: “Dear God, please let it be a good show. And let it be short!” And for once, I’ve actually been given a show which admirably meets half of this prayer while utterly missing the mark on the other. I present to you: the show that’s so short you think they might have left something crucial out of the play. In this case, it’s a reason for the play to exist, a dramatic surge that forced this play into being. The Colby Sisters does not have that. There’s a bit of a build up, a teetering tension that seems ready to explode and create a completely new world … but instead of riding that wave, we get some flashbulbs and the end of the play. Huh. You think it’s going to be a modern The Age of Innocence and then you’re left with simply “there were some rich people in New York City and they were a bit sad sometimes.”

The Colby sisters are five women ranging from early forties-ish to early twenties-ish, who are drawn with fairly distinct personalities (much like the Spice Girls) and given little quirks that are easy to read so that we can tell them apart. We have the bossy Gemma (Charlotte Parry), please-every one and prettiest India (Isabella Calthorpe), “I don’t have it together” Willow (Claire Forlani), tragic Garden (Patricia Potter), and “I have just met the love of my life, no that guy was last week” Mouse (Alice Sanders, reminding me a whole lot of Edie Sedgwick). As they come together for a fashion shoot (we’re never told why anyone wants their picture or where their money came from), we are introduced to each of them in a way that allows us to see the dynamics that exist between them – settled roles of leadership and popularity, differing levels of support and hassling – but which doesn’t reveal much depth. Each of the characters seems to have been given about one note to sing and this note moves slowly from a life ring to which they cling to, gradually, a lump of cement pulling them under the waves.

Now, I know I’m murdering this metaphor, but as the play moves on we get some moments where we could either have probed the depths of who these characters are (underneath the facade, one imagines) or to show an evolution of the relationship between the characters, but it just fails mightily to happen. Bossy starts picking on Slutty, and Princess and Loser actually unite to support Slutty; but the scene fails to turn into a springboard for a deeper shift. Princess finally blows up at Bossy during a tennis game, but Bossy’s attempt to defend her behavior falls so quickly into clumsily delineated back story that I found myself becoming all to aware that I was watching people deliver lines in a play in a (thankfully air conditioned) theater.

And then the ending, in which three of the sisters unite against their one foe: the tabloid press. Their conversation again avoids anything that might actually be revealing, leaving me to believe the final line about “they’ll never understand us” is actually just the author engaging in wishful thinking, rather than how the reality of the Colby sisters: they are finger paintings made of personality quirks and hairstyles, somehow thrown together to make a play.

I’ve said many times that the mark of a great play is one where I go home trying to figure out the childhood of a character that was actually generated out of pen and ink and an actor’s breath: in this play, this never happened. The characters weren’t believable and the actresses struggled to make something of them and failed. Even the one outsider, personal assistant Heather (Ronke Adekoluejo), is utterly wasted as a character, although as an actress she convinced me that there was a life and a personality behind her rich silences. Heather and her sisters: for that play, I would have been happy to come back for after the other women walked off into the flashcubes. As it was, I was just glad I got to go home.

(This review is for a performance that took place on July 21st, 2014. The play closes Saturday, July 26th.)

Review – Shakespeare in Love – Noel Coward Theater

It’s hard to figure out how to properly review a play that’s about a movie that’s about a play. On one hand, well, Romeo and Juliet, you’re probably familiar with that; God knows several movies have been done on the theme (if not so much on the play) and God knows there have been spin-offs in other areas as well. But what is Shakespeare in Love (“the play”), really? Should the acting be judged by the standards I’d hold for Shakespeare? Or should I really be looking at it as an (urgh) adaptation of a movie and thus hold it to the much lower standards of a thrice removed adaptation based upon a blandly populist form of entertainment that, to be honest, is what this play, at its heart, is: simply an attempt to shake some shekels out of the indiscriminate theater goer?
But, to my great surprise, the commercial enterprise that is Shakespeare In Love (“the play”) has actually succeeded in creating a very enjoyable play. I’m not talking great art here: the loose treatment of history and historical ways of speaking is all too painfully on display. But honestly, if you are choosing to see this play, you still have the option of seeing Shakespeare fifteen more times in any given month (not just at the Globe but at the other 5 theaters currently doing Richard II, Richard III, Midsummer, etc.), and of seeing shows that put their high historical research front and center (RSC’s Hilary Mantel double header, yo) and, you know what? I’ve had enough Shakespeare for this entire year, and even Wolf Hall had dialogue that I’m sure was a far cry from Tudor England reality.
The plot varies not at all from the movie, as I recall (I saw it when it was new), and it is as follows: Shakespeare has writer’s block (possibly because of his loveless marriage); a young noblewoman who loves his works (she’s seen them performed for the Queen) decides to sneak into an audition as a man; as she’s a total Shakespeare fan she of course gets ;the job; Shakespeare falls in love with her (as a woman); suddenly he can write again (“the quill is full of ink” har har); the various tribulations they experience become, bit by bit, the major scenes of Romeo and Juliet – the balcony, the morning after, the utter heartbreak at separation.
In some ways, when it comes down to it, Shakespeare in Love is a play meant for Shakespeare fandom – people who know his works well enough to get all of the little throwaway lines from the non-R&J plays that are in this one and who find a storyline that is an imagining of how R&J came to be something worth two hundred minutes and fifty quid. Once I let go of “what things were REALLY like in those days” (no noblewoman woman would really think of sneaking off to be an actress) I realized I had a play that played with Shakespeare and his tropes – switched genders, hidden identities, thwarted love – in all sorts of fun ways. And it didn’t feel like a watered down movie – it was strongly theatrical, with a very basic set that could be a playhouse, the interior of a noble house, a bar, a bedchamber, et cetera but which also allowed us to believe we were at a fireworks viewing or floating down the Thames without the necessity of flying in a helicopter to help us suspend our disbelief.
This is all helped, of course, by the genuinely enthusiastic (and in no way amateurish) performances of our leads – both as themselves and when they perform Romeo and Juliet – and the strong supporting cast, who might be hamming it up but, well, I give them some leeway as with twenty actors you’ve got to put a lot of energy out there to shine. In fact, the general levels of “on” ness of the cast makes me think that what I was seeing was the kinds of performances that actors give when they feel really confident in their material and in the success of the show. They needed to play to the balconies because, well, the whole damned house was full, and is likely to be full for the extent of the run. And, as an early music buff, I’d like to applaud the music director for giving us both correct period instruments and some lovely countertenor singing, which I found nicely enhanced the mood (and which I realize could have been skipped with most people never knowing the difference – but it was well done and seemed like a little gift amongst all of the period incorrect dialogue).

So, burn out as I am, I found myself quite surprised at how much I enjoyed Shakespeare in Love, both as someone whose too, too solid heart needed melting and as a person who does, honestly, enjoy a good night’s entertainment – this was a fine show and many thanks to Official London Theatre for sponsoring this blogger’s attendance.

(This review is for a performance that took place on Wednesday, July 16, 2014. It is booking through October 25th.)

Review – Daytona – Theater Royal Haymarket

New plays set in America aren’t as common in London as I’d hope (Mr. Burns aside), so I was quite intrigued when the opportunity came up to see Daytona, which debuted last summer at the Park Theater. I’d guess that it’s season at the Theater Royal Haymarket is more about replacing a failing show than about moving something with a huge groundswell of support into an appropriate sized venue: as a three-hander, it’s a bit intimate in this barn; its replacement, Great Britain, will be much more appropriate in the space.

But Daytona is still a compelling, enjoyable piece of theater that well deserves a chance for a wider audience. It features three characters late in their lives – husband and wife, Elli (Maureen Lipman) and Joe (Harry Shearer), and Joe’s brother, Billy (Oliver Cotton) – all with vibrant life stories and in no way suddenly made irrelevant since they’re past retirement. The play start with Joe and Elli at their apartment in New York, and they seem almost dismissable in their cute bickery old couple-ness. But Billy’s arrival sets off chain reactions that show that, even in their sunset years, all of these people have decisions to make about what it means to live right and well and we, as audience members, have no idea what any of the three of them are going to decide.

Unfortunately, rather a lot of the play is devoted to Billy’s long ramble about his recent trip to Daytona, which spends a lot of time not getting to the point and simultaneously manages to avoid Joe’s big question: why did Billy walk out of his brother (and sister in law’s) life thirty years ago and just completely disappear? We are, fortunately, given the opportunity to explore this ellipsis in more detail in the second act: but, although Cotton (as writer) comes up with an answer, I found it not entirely satisfying as why a person would not just walk away from his only family but completely reject his culture. Furthermore, I really just couldn’t believe that a traumatized Eastern European could have assimilated so seamlessly into American culture as Billy is supposed to have done. Sure, his accent is perfect Midwestern – but, despite his slip-up in Daytona, he doesn’t feel in any way like a man with a complicated psychology and cultural depth.

Elli and Joe, well, I can by them as old people who love ballroom dancing and who have been together for decades, but the feeling of having struggled as hard as they must have during the war – from what I’ve heard, there are scars, some of which manifest themselves in some pretty strange ways (i.e. avoidance tactics in conversation, a certain hard-headedness) and Elli and Joe really seem just a bit too soft to sell me on their histories. Even Elli’s little “slip” into slight European-ness in her second act accent wasn’t enough – frankly, I think she would have just started talking in her native language instead of slipping Yiddish phrases in – and neither of the other guys, well, they weren’t believable as people who hadn’t been in America their whole lives. They didn’t feel like immigrants.

That said, all three of them were convincing as people with a fifty year history, and this is what I loved about the play, as well as the pleasure of watching the story unfold because I truly never knew what was going to happen next. Sure, there were gaps, but with pros like these on stage I was willing to go for the ride. The interval came and I was eager to get back in my seat and see what happened next – an experience I get about four times a year. So even though Daytona may be too intimate for the Haymarket, it’s still an enjoyable evening of theater that well repays its investment in time. I see it’s touring, and that makes me glad: more people deserve a chance to let this well-polished cast take them on a trip of imagination.

(This review is for the opening night performance that took place on July 7th, 2014. It continues through August 23rd.)

Review – Great Britain – National Theater

Given the National’s track record of reviving the dullest chestnuts on God’s green earth, you can’t imagine my surprise when I heard they were mounting an original comedy – Great Britain. And the way things have been going with me, hey, a comedy is what is called for, and with just a few rumors of it being an actually funny show, I ponied up £28 each for seats (these were the cheapest I could find) and hurried off to the quickest show I could fit in my calendar.

A quick plot summary: Paige Britain (Billie Piper) is a news editor at a tabloid that bears a shocking resemblance to News of the World, so much so that it’s eventually closed down due to a history of its management paying people to hack into the voicemail of various people living and dead. To make this more clearly a work of fiction, we have, well, the Billie Piper character, and also changes in the critical story (murdered twin girls) that tips public opinion against the paper’s activities.

Otherwise, though, it’s really a comic look at the whole trashy episode of extremely recent British history, with plenty of characters you can recognize (oh look, it’s Rebekah Brooks! It’s Rupert Murdoch being questioned by Parliament – only no cream pies) but all sorts of purely imaginary detail (such as the sexy cop who’s literally in bed with the papers) and flights of fancy (the fake YouTube spoofs of the gay Chief of London police are a riot, as is his entire plot line and his “straight out of George W Bush’s mouth” dialogue).

But Great Britain rides an edge that I found uncomfortable. A lot of people in this play kill themselves because of the pressure that’s put on them by the tabloids, and this element is one that I have found horrifying as it has played out in the real world. Listening to Paige say that as far as she’s concerned, she did nothing wrong (in regards to these deaths), well … I was hearing a bit of John Gabriel Borkman, but I was wondering if what I was hearing was also Richard Bean’s take on how either the newspapers or the British public sees these events. To me they are truly horrifying, but I don’t see this play tackling that problem head on. It also brought up the issues of tabloids collaborating with cops and politicians, but it didn’t seem to really address just how cozy they are as, well, something that is wrong. But then, these relationships are purely exaggerations made by Bean to make a better play – or are they? In the world depicted in this play, the police work with the tabloids to try to make themselves look better, and the papers tell politicians that they’ll make sure they’re elected if they can get some favors done for them, which seems pretty damned close to reality based on what I’ve read. Is this really how things are done? Or am I just so American that I can’t tell that everybody already knows this and nobody cares?

At any rate, while I did find this a very fast moving show (and there were some laughs), overall it had enough about it that depressed me about the world and the country I live in that I didn’t exactly walk out with a spring in my step. Excellent performances all around, though, and plenty of surprises, so I think this is going to be a popular show and good on the National for laying off the dusty old crap for something that actually addresses the society we live in in a way that theater can do more quickly and more daringly than either TV or the movies.

(This review is for a performance that took place on Wednesday, July 9th, 2014. It continues at the National Theater until August 23rd, after which time it will be transferring to the Theater Royal Haymarket. The consumption of cornettos during performances of this play is not advised by this author.)

Review – Richard II – Malachite Theater at St Leonard’s Church (Shoreditch)

This year is one in which I’m pretty much seeing no Shakespeare at all. I blame burnout – last year I saw, what, seven versions of three plays? – but also a rebellion on my side: I’m tired of theaters making lazy programming decisions because they want secure audiences (as I’m convinced it’s not the lack of copyright that’s the motivating factor). Seriously, the Michael Grandage season featured two Shakespeares out of the five plays they did, wasting what could have been an incredible opportunity to expose people to new work. So this year my new year’s resolution was to see no plays I’ve seen before, a vow I took mostly because I was burnt out on Shakespeare hashed and rehashed and hashed again. It’s saved me from Malfi but perhaps led to a mistake in View from the Bridge … and yet, there I was Friday night in Shoreditch getting ready for Richard II. What gives?

In this case, it’s partly living up to my “duties” as a reviewer, but it’s also a desire to see a project through. See, the Malachites are doing all 19 of Shakespeare’s Bishopsgate plays to Shoreditch, and I want to see the project through. But also, I was so impressed by their Titus that I’ve wanted to continue supporting the company by reviewing their shows (as long as you understand this is a bit of a risk for both of us, because I’m not going to hide the bad news if that’s what I have to give – my contract with you, my imaginary reader, holds true, that I will give you an honest take on whatever I see).

So: I last saw Richard II at the Donmar, where I came up with some distinct impressions of the script: Richard, a king who is obsessed with his God-given right to kingship; the extraordinarily melancholy garden scene with Queen Isabella listening to a painful metaphor delivered by a wise servant; and the extraordinary speech Richard gives while he hands his crown (and his ability to direct his life) to Henry IV.

For this Richard, the Malachites presented us with Nick Finegan, who, with his strawberry blond hair, pale skin, and sense of utter composure seemed every bit the man who believed in his own divine right to rule. There was no sense of his needing to get assent from the commons or even the nobles; he was above and beyond all of this earthly nonsense. Interestingly enough, Finegan’s interpretation was less otherworldly than Eddie Redmayne; he also seemed more, er, heterosexual (although it is a bit difficult to imagine Richard bothering with this kind of proletariat stuff I thought it was very odd how effeminately he was played at the Donmar).

In vivid contrast to him is Martin Prest as Henry Bolingbroke, who is incredibly dynamic and charismatic as the wronged king-to-be. I couldn’t help but contrast his performance with that of the watery Jude Law as Henry V (one of the shows that burnt me out on Shakespeare for the year). Instead of watching a name actor swagger lazily through one of the best written roles in English-language theater, we got a man fighting to be vibrant, likeable and believable … and succeeding. Bolingbroke is a man who still respects the monarchy yet also wants to fight for justice (admittedly in this case for himself). I couldn’t help but get swept up in Bolingbroke’s cause: he seemed like a natural leader and the description of the commons fawning before him as he paraded through the streets of London seemed all too believable. Prest has the crown coming to him from the moment he challenges Thomas Mowbray to a duel; Richard’s voyage to Ireland to lead the army seems, by contrast, a little boy going on a school holiday. Both of them are noble, yet both of them portray opposites of the spectrum of what it means to be a king. Watching their war of words (and silence) as Richard struggles to hand over the crown to his successor is simply electrifying. (And let’s not forget watching Richard “negotiate” while hiding in the organ loft: wearing a not very scary helmet, he looked like a child playing at soldiers, yet also an adult realizing that he has, in every way, lost.)

Even if he seems out of touch, Richard’s end is heartbreaking. Trapped in the Tower, in the dark (the church was lit only with candles for an amazing effect in this scene), naked but for a cloth around his hips, Richard can only be pitied. He understands all he has lost, and it seems that even his hold on his mind has been loosened; he fears death at every step. Finegan seemed just insane enough to kill by accident, while sane enough to fully understand how tragic his fall is; this effect is emphasized by the thick shadows, which has him looking like a Caravaggio Christ. At the end, when his broken body is brought to the king, it’s hard not to feel crushed by sadness; who would think that Richard II could be so fragile?

While I once again had troubles with the acoustics in this building, the strong performances, charismatic leads, and inventive staging made it a Richard to remember. It’s certainly more than worth the £12 ticket cost – and just 50 pence more buys a cup of tea at the interval! Life in the Cheap Seats very much approves.

(This review is for a performance that took place on Friday, July 4th, 2014. I saw origins of American attitudes towards rule of law – the attitudes that led us to our revolution – in this play. Most fitting! It continues thorugh July 26th.)