Rocket to the Moon

At last, a play at the National Theatre that I've actually enjoyed this year. Huzzah. Clifford Odette's play, set in New York, in the sweltering summer of 1938, in a dentist's waiting room to be precise, is a hothouse of anaesthetised emotion... trapped in a stuffy, humid, small, soulless room the atmosphere is claustrophobic, constrained, stale, uncomfortable - much like the life of dentist Ben Stark, a man pushed one way by his haranguing wife (Keeley Hawes), and pulled another by her exuberant father, with whom she is at loggerheads.It's tiring to watch, let alone experience.

Everyone is bursting with opinions and passion but Stark himself. In sweeps the beautiful Cleo Singer, a pert, zingy, smiling breath of fresh air oozing energetic, excited youthfulness. The men go crazy, the women - ach, less so. The waiting room is the perfect setting for the waiting game that subsequently unfolds - what we're waiting for is less certain... is this an office romance or something altogether bigger, grander, more interesting...? They both must escape the claustrophobia, but what's the best way? with each other? or through some kind of self revelation?

It's cleverly played out - sinewy with emotion and  beautifully acted - Jessica Raine as Cleo is all  fidgety nubile sexuality,Joseph Millson Stark all twisted, manipulated confusion, Keely Hawes as his wife, strident, pose striking, looking-down-her-nose posturing while her father is a bouncing ball of rebellion and wit. I also especially loved the rather down-on-his-luck second dentist played by Peter Sullivan (so excellent in the Donmar's the Late Middle Classes with Helen McRory last year), who brought out the tragi-comic direness of his lacklustre life with glorious brio.

A tad long, but otherwise A1.

Frankenstein

I'm not sure what happened at the National Theatre on Wednesday night. Apparently it was a stage adaptation of Frankenstein, directed by Danny Boyle, starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller. I'm not so sure, more like a viciously masticated version of the brilliantly disturbing Romantic novel by Mary Shelly, a story that weaves the horrors and fears of childbirth (her mother, Mary Wollstonecraft died during Shelly's own birth, and Mary Shelly herself was pregnant when she wrote the book - she delivered the manuscript mere weeks before she gave birth) with the vibrato contemporary social paranoia relating to the advances of science and the industrial age.  I'm not sure if this production could have been any worse if it had been turned into a musical by Andrew Lloyd Webber. The good news is, the production sold out before the run began, so unless you have tickets, you can't see it. the bad news is you almost should see it, it's THAT BAD.  what can Danny Boyle have been thinking?

Where to start? The script, probably, which was at best lamentable, at worst laughable, and not in the way intended... which leads me on to: where did the random injections of comedy come from?  i thought the story was supposed to resonate on a philosophical and tragic level. apparently not. the funny moments were utterly bizarre and not that funny. anyway, that was a minor grievance in the grand scheme of things. the script basically drew out the most basic elements of the story, and that's it. a GCSE synopsis in script form. and, actually, not even that. Absent of nuance or subtlety, it failed to tease out themes with anything more than an obvious poke. Brrr.

On stage you're thrown straight in to the meat of the plot, with the monster fighting his way free from a oval membrane and thrashing about the stage, naked, sort of moany-howling as he tries to speak and walk for the first time. i worried this period would never end. it certainly took it's time. It was gratuitous, unnecessary, overlong and overindulgent and, much as i am a super-fan of Benedict Cumberbatch, for a monster,  is a was a little, errr, un-monster like. pretty hot even, i'd say, save from a scar on his head (pretty much the only real sign he'd been assembled from the bodies of dead drunks and criminals). Which is about as far from the gigantic proportions of the monstrous beast you can get, really. scary? hell no. well scary in the sense of ordering a monster and getting a scarecrow. anyway, what really confused me is that Frankenstein (Johnny Lee Miller phoning in his performance according to Hannah and completely failing to convey any of the  character's demonic obsessiveness or conflicted agonies throughout) rather than being abjectly repulsed by his sinful, unnatural creation and rejecting him with vitriolic fury simply takes one look, says 'eeew', and scarpers. as you don't even see him create the monster, their bond is negligible. It totally undermines the entire rest of the play ie there is no real spark to ignite the monster's sense of rejection, which builds into a fury culminating in a killing spree that includes Frankenstein's brother. you have no sense of the unhappy rejection mounting to volcanically eruptive proportions at all. there is no real relationship to be rejected from. And as for the S-P-E-L-T O-U-T'  homo-eroticism... sheesh! someone stick a machete in my head, please.

Skip to the action as it unfurls in bosom of the Frankenstein clan and you have love interest Naomi Harris tearing to shreds what pathetically poor dialogue she is handed, a father who delivers lines in such a way that to compare him to wood would be to flatter him, and extras who conform to type in the most grating manner - plump maid with a west country accent, anyone?

This is the kind of theatre that makes me hate the theatre - it's over the top, 'actorly', heavy handed. sadly it's the sort of thing that people who don't go to the theatre might be tempted to book for but, having watched, will leave not just sorely disappointed, but put off booking for other things.  i wanted to shout: THIS IS NOT WHAT ALL THEATRE IS LIKE, I PROMISE.

What was, however, undeniably brilliant was the set - it was knock your socks off... steam trains power into the audience like the oppressive insistence of the industrial revolution, and scientific progress itself. The monster's shameful retreat to the countryside, where he takes refuge with a blind old man sees the appearance of a cocoon like sanctuary, a pale white Wendy house with translucent walls, it's both a metaphor for the sight of the old man and a protection from prying and hateful eyes, as it blurs and softens reality. Incidental usage of rolls of grass, showers from above and flames are all imaginatively introduced, conveying distance, variety, and changing scenery of the monster's journey with ease and speed. Very clever is the civilised beauty of the Frankenstein home which on its underside is symbolically all jutting beams, slimy walls and murky shadows, a lair where Frankenstein retreats to create a she-devil mate for the monster. The white shards of arctic ice that set the scene for the final chase between monster and creator envelop the audience - we are the landscape of the chase between monster and creator, science and civilisation... and finally the lights... above the stage are a sea of lights hanging down - domestic seeming lights clustered together through which light swims like on rippling waves. They are beautiful, magical, emotional and incredibly powerful, sweeping you along involuntarily - but which ultimately only serve to exaggerate all that's missing on stage below them.

Twelfth Night

Hmmm. wasn't sure about this at all. Directed by the amazing Sir Peter Hall  and starring his daughter, the beautiful Rebecca Hall, it had so much promise, but was, sadly, only a so-so production, though one elevated from complete forgetability by a stalwart handful of stand-out performances.

What were brilliant were the comic roles - Simon Callow, Charles Edwards and Finty Williams as Toby Belch, Sir Andrew and Maria, the riotously mischievous underlings of Olivia's household who set Malvolio up for his humiliating fall. they were hilarious, especially Sir Andrew, a character who usually irritates the hell out of me, but who was lambasted to the hilt with comic perfection through every gesture. the three characters were such a pleasure to watch - so uniquely silly and so energetic in their rambunctious plotting.

Still, for me, warning signs that i might not leave the theatre glowing with happiness and laughter started the moment Duke Orsino appeared. IE line one. not ideal. He seemed to be an escaped front man from a New Romantics pop band - all flowing locks, open shirt, hairy chest, voluminous velour coat, sweeping strides and languorous, louche lounging. he was utterly nauseating and a completely dickhead... put simply, UNBEARABLE to watch. i contemplated gouging my eyes out with the heel of my shoe. i restrained myself. just. i know Orsino's a bit of a tit - a man in love with the idea of love as Olivia is in love with her state of mourning, but this was insanity. INSANITY. Realist Viola would never have fallen for him.

i also had no truck with things like the scenery... it was downright weird with a sort of sail/canopy construction that was rather pointlessly raised and lowered to create, one supposes, some kind of different atmosphere (?) for the various scenes. A handful of leaves lay strewn by the stage sides while mini houses rested on a shelf at the back of the stage signifying the town in the distance. Result, in my opinion: A Level set decoration. Ditto costumes, which were Elizabethan + strange forays into lurid tones. Olivia's orange dress was enough to burn holes in the retina.

i could go on. i won't, but needless to say i was pretty disappointed, which was sad.

Twelfth Night is on at the National Theatre and runs until March 2.

King Lear (mark 2)

A standing ovation for the Donmar's current production of King Lear. Where to start? With Derek Jacobi in the title role i suppose; Lear’s fall from sanity, power and confident majesty to babbling, confused, wandering simpleton has never moved me quite the way this performance did. It’s not just that it’s believable, it’s the texture and dimension of the emotional mastication he suffers – it’s viscerally tangible.

Gina Mckee, who I love, is a fabulously steely Goneril – poised, elegant; her face set in a permanent sneer. Her first illicit encounter (that we see) with Edmund was one of my highlights; as he repeatedly grabs her breast she jolts and shudders in ecstasy as if hit by an electric shock. Almost immediately she segues into a scene with her husband where she becomes the physical aggressor, however this time the brutality of the force is malign – she grasps his balls with disgust and shame for his nature and actions. The twisted reflection of the two scenes is perfectly set up.

The set itself was another highlight for me – the mottled white wooden boards are both blinding and bleak– the perfect backdrop to a story which turns on a knife edge. The way they encircle the auditorium also mean they envelop the audience too, drawing you in and almost including you in the action.

Ron Cook as the fool was exceptional. Normally I hate a Shakespearian fool, but this fool was so infused with melancholy, so clearly offering poignant insights without over playing it or scene stealing, I grew to see the character in a new light.

I think that that last point was ‘it’ really for me. I felt that I heard and felt the text in a new way. there were so many moments i could isolate... take one:  when Lear is cradling Tom the madman, touching/stroking him like an animal; it's a physical comparison of man and beast that is echoed in the text a little later – there were so many moments like this where what I saw echoed what I heard and visa versa but in a wholly new and original way.

I don’t often give standing ovations, but I leapt to my feet at the end of this – it was totally, utterly, knock-your-socks off brilliant.
King Lear runs until Febuary 5th at the Donmar Warehouse.

Earthquakes

Watching Headlong's production of Earthquakes at the National Theatre is like standing in the middle of an insanely vibrant and wild firework display. Hot, bright, nervy, exciting, eye catching. Bursts of activity happen with explosive force, lighting up the theatre. Scenes pulsate with energy, rhythm, emotion and passion. Unbridled hedonism mixes with controversial political activism, attention seeking rebellion, listless and wandering confusion, heated confrontation, vociferous opinion, oleaginous persuasion. It's all extreme. and extremely entrancing... as the drama swings from side to side of the theatre audience faces switch direction in tune, as if at a tennis match. The stage is arranged like a raised catwalk which snakes though the audience members who have bar stool seats in the pit of the theatre, at the centre of the action (the only seat to have if you ask me, and only £20). It's completely immersive, like being drunk. in a thrilling way.

But it's not all crown and no country - the high octane production completely compliments a story which weaves personal narratives (that of three sisters struggling for recognition, affection, affirmation, love, support and success in a fast paced, competitive, dog-eat-dog, ever-expanding world) with broader issues concerning humanity's suicidal quest to destroy the world. Abandonment, attention, love, support, selfishness - the themes and plot points are knitted together in such a clever way - you don't notice until you are presented with a cleverly designed blanket at the end. Just as you're thinking 'that's odd' or 'how does he even...?' there's a reveal that knocks you for six and makes everything come together. True, there are moments when it's a sort of crazed sci-fi, eco polemic, and ordinarily i wouldn't go near a play about climate change, but this only turns preachy (not to mention downright freaky, a touch Margaret Atwood on acid) in the last half an hour or so, so it's completely digestible, carried as it is by the more sane preceding 5/6ths of the play.

.

From the same stable as Enron, this is much, much better if you ask me - with all round outstanding performances and a specially good singing number by the pram pushing parliament hill mothers. genius. if it doesn't get a West End transfer it'll be a travesty. but see it now while you can.

Women Beware Women

I love love love The Revenger's Tragedy, a Jacobean melodrama cum twisted morality play by Thomas Middleton. at one point there are 8 deaths in 7 lines and in a climactic scene the lascivious duke is made to kiss a rotten corpse, via which act he is fatally poisoned. fun. what more can you ask for on the histrionic drama front? nothing, it literally defines over the top. and the pseudo moralising element is hilarious as everyone is basically heinous and utterly despicable. even the people who think they are the good guys are proven to have the morals of a gnat and a warped, misdirected sense of integrity. The National Theatre staged The Revenger's Tragedy two years ago, with Rory Kinnear as the fabulously flawed 'hero' Vindice. It did so well, with rave reviews and a sold out run, that this year they are staging Women Beware Women, also by Middleton. In spirit, Women beware Women is deliciously similar - with a voracious appetite for treachery, lust, avarice and vice, and boy it doesn't really stray from the title message; women are rather rambunctiously shown to be adulterous, two-faced, manipulative, treacherous, slutty, mercurial, meddling whores. Still, the men don't come off much better - rapacious, proud, greedy, smug, ignorant, pompous, manipulative, hoarding, self-obsessed are some descriptions that would happily stick. It's great fun. not as fun at The Revenger's Tragedy, but certainly up there in terms of luxuriously revelling in the direst, blackest depths of human behaviour.

At the centre of the drama is Livia, stupendously brought to live by Harriet Walter. During the course of the play she pimps out her niece, Isabella, to her brother (her niece's uncle, rather than father, and who is in love with her) by telling Isabella she is not related to her uncle as her mother was basically a total slut. Isabella then embarks on an incestuous affair with her uncle, although simultaneously agreeing to get engaged to a complete simpleton with bags of money and a peculiar affection for Harlequin print socks. Odd. Livia then diverts the attentions of her neighbour in a game of chess, so the Duke can rape her neighbour's pretty new daughter-in-law, Bianca. but the new bride then abandons her husband (Leantio, a superficial loser anyway) for the duke because, basically, he's rich. Old sleaze-bag Livia then spots whining Leantio and hotly pursues him like a cougar on heat and then keeps him as her toyboy, which he moans about as he doesn't know a good thing when it slaps him in the face. The shit hits the fat at the wedding of the rapist Duke and two-timing Bianca and it's death all round in a sex/lust/bloodthirsty feeding frenzy - here emphasised by the presence of darkly ominous, spikily present vulture-like men sporting black wings. It's wild.

The first half drags a little, even though the action is incredibly pacey - arguably the men have too much talking and simply aren't as devilishly interesting as the women but the second half hots up to inferno temperatures, romps along and is hilarious. this production sees some serious over-acting, which is fine, more than fine - wonderful, actually but occasionally it's a little uncomfortable as it's not hammy enough. Bianca's trauma after being raped is a tricky one to play, i see - can there be a place for genuine emotion in such a brilliantly OTT play? but her hysteria rang neither true nor wittily over played. There's also some funny live jazz going on throughout the play. i WISHED IT WOULD STOP. the revolving stage's mash-up of macabre opulence and industrial decay worked well for me, it hammered home the two faced, doubled-edged nature of shenanigans, and some people knowing what was going on and others remaining completely in the dark.

all in all a deliciously dark romp i'd highly recommend if you have a penchant for melodrama. Beckett fans stay away. It's also part of the Travelex £10 season, which is handy.

Measure for Measure

O God. 'Disappointed from Islington' can't quite contain herself here. breathe. Here goes: Measure for Measure is a Shakespeare play so full of darkly pulsating, morally congealed dramatic potential that Michael Attenborough's production at the Almeida should be ashamed of itself for creating what i can only describe as an incomprehensible (even for someone who knows the story), dated, grossly over-acted and utterly uninspiring piece of theatre. Warped judiciary, sexual deviancy, fanatical dogma, religious extremism, devilish crimes, tainted mercy, double standards, divided loyalty, love destructively refracted - the play is deliciously ripe for juicily compelling drama. For anyone who saw Complicite's production in conjunction with the National Theatre it can be a contemporary, bitingly relevant and magnetic play to watch. This, however, was a muddlingly confused missed opportunity, despite a stellar cast including the brilliant Rory Kinnear (so so so wonderful in The Revenger's Tragedy and the Man of Mode at the National i immediately became a crazed fan - hence, really, why i booked to see this) and Anna Maxwell Martin (who stole my heart in the BBC's Bleak House).

I often find myself having to defend the theatre to people who are put off by what can only be described as the 'actORly-ness' of stage performances. well, this was one strike for them in the perennial battle. Forced, shouty, pompous performances reigned supreme. the agony. i don;t know if some of the characters actually understood at all what they were saying. at times they certainly didn't sound as if they did. Supporting characters Pompey, Escalus and Lucio were fun though, i liked them. I did also think Anna Maxwell Martin's Isabella was rather fabulously priggish; so obsessed by her own purity as to convincingly be prepared to sacrifice her brother's life (often hard to pull off). and i liked flashes of the oleagenous politician in Rory Kinnear's Angelo (save incurably naff touches like putting in contact lenses to replace his glasses in order to impress Isabella).

While the set (for me) gave a fabulously grand nod to the recent Hoerengracht exhibition at The National Gallery, the costumes - what the HELL was going on there? Angelo was a cheap-suited contemporary politician, the Duke dressed in a Da Vinci Code-ish monk's habit before switching to some Gothic velveteen robe, Isabella was dressed for a Jacobean drama while the prostitutes came from down the road King's Cross via Ann Summers. WHAAAAAT? all over the shop.

Still, strangely the play did end on a high for me - and this was because it ended on a low; completely altering (through facial expression rather than script meddling) the usual outcome, which was much more satisfying as normally the ending is unfathomably cheery (although the falsity of this cheery ending does somewhat underline the moral ambiguity of the play, as it's so uncomfortable). still, bold i thought.

I'd like to end by divulging the fact that my beautiful, erudite and highly intelligent theatre companion (who shall remain nameless) fell asleep. ok, jet lag may have played a part, but honestly i would never have believed it from such a switched on character as her. but, i have to confess, a part of me was a bit jealous - she was probably enjoying something a lot more fun in dreamworld.

The Habit of Art

I don't really know why, but i sort of had this feeling i wouldn't like The Habit of Art, Alan Bennett's play about a fictional meeting between the composer Benjamen Britten, nervous about his new opera Death in Venice, and lascivious poet W.H (Wystan) Auden - living in indulgent squalor in Oxford in the early 1970s, which is currently running at the National. well, as it turned out, i was wrong, totally wrong - i really enjoyed it, so much so that i even tried not to flinch/freak out/violently bash her when next to me my mother's gaffawingly appreciative laughter rang out seemingly 75 million decibels louder than anyone else's in the auditorium - i could actually see that she had a point. and she's seen it 5 times. seriously. it's still funny apparently.

The structure is a play within a play - usually a construct that has the propensity to grate, but here it works well because there's space to mull on concepts beyond the subject of a single play about the meeting of the two men. To explain a bit better, the 'actors' are on set, together with the stage manager, playwright et al rehearsing a play about the aforementioned fictional meeting between Britten and Auden - a meeting supposedly interrupted by the entrance of Humphrey Carpenter, interviewing Auden for the BBC, and a local rent boy hired by Auden. The reunion between Auden and Britten is twenty or so years after they collaborated on several operas and films etc, the last of which was Paul Bunyan (1949). Britten has come to seek advice, solace and reassurance from Auden. During this meeting you learn as much about their personalities as the relationship between poetry and music, ageing and creative virility, differing expressions of homosexuality, maturing relationships with art, and how hard habits are to change - both in art and life. The introduction of a narrator to the play being staged, in the form of Humphrey Carpenter (who went on to write the biographies of the two men), brings the concept of biography (as art, as fiction, as fact, as history) into effect - one of the pivotal points upon which the play turns. but this concept is only something that is fully explored through the post-modernist construct - ie when the play within the play breaks off.

The presence of the stage manager (Frances de la Tour) and the play's author (Elliott Levey) plus various other stage hands on stage mean that the actors playing Auden, Britten, Carpenter and the rent boy (Richard Griffiths, Alex Jennings, Adrian Scarborough and Stephen Wright) can break away from their conversations and discuss their relationships with each other. It's in this rehearsal time that exploration of the concepts of biography, creativity, homosexuality, love, theatre and performance really develop as the actors ask questions about their characters, or the cultural, historical and political context, and each person tries to accurately inhabit and present their character. The audience are thus complicit in the theatrical exploration of the nuances, implication and significance of the dialogue between the two men, but also understand more about what it is to perform, to act, to inhabit someone who lived, to create a world that explores people, concepts etc - parallel almost to the work of a biographer, or playwright.

I'm not sure if i'm making it seem complicated, but multitasking isn't my forte and i have my father watching TV on one side of me, my mother listening to the radio on the other and i've also been trying to chat to my sister in Argentina on skype, and i've also quaffed half a bottle or so of wine over lunch, so over-complication seems likely... still, in the main, it's very easy to watch, and very funny and sharp, and so interesting on so many levels - the import and intrigue of which which slowly sink in as you watch, but continue to play on your mind long after the curtain's dropped.

I completely recommend booking tickets to watch a live broadcast at cinemas across the country on April 22 as the (extended) run has completely sold out.

Pains of Youth

All i really have to say about this play by Ferdinand Bruckner is that i had absolutely no idea what was going on. AT ALL. and to add insult to injury, when i (desperately trying to get some clarity) bought a programme during the interval it was so unhelpful that i almost thought i had been sold a programme for the wrong play. what i wanted was some kind of guidance for what the hell was happening, what i got was theoretical waffling. strangely though, and i have NO IDEA why, i rather enjoyed myself. theatrical sado-masochism? possibly.

It's about about six medical students in 1920s Vienna, all living under one roof and playing a never ending game of musical beds and "lets emotionally manipulate/abuse each other" while speaking in unrelentingly desperate, brittle tones about the pure agony of youth. there is no emotional respite whatsoever. change of pace? certainly NOT. then throw in a bit of Freud, Mata Hari, cacophonous music, fancy corsetry and hosiery and scene changes that are straight out of a CSI crime scene. its almost impossible to make sense of anything. I love Katie Mitchell, who directed it, and ...Some Trace of Her which she also put on at the National was one of my favourite productions of last year, but i was completely baffled by this play. o joy.

Pains of Youth? Pain in the neck more like.