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.

Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey

i was supposed to be going to a talk (an 'in conversation' type affair) on friday at the Siobhan Davies Dance studio about choreography, between Lavinia Greenlaw and the amazing Cornelia Parker. Sadly no one told me from the studio that neither speaker could in fact come, so i trekked to Elephant and Castle after work only to be stuck in a dance studio for 1hr 50 mins with two women who were never properly introduced, and so who i never knew the names of until i got home and googled them. quite frankly 1hr50 mins is a tough gig even if you know and love the speakers. by the time i left on friday i was about to gauge out my eyes. Still, the good thing that came out of it was that one of the speakers was Heather Ackroyd (the other was physicist-cum-murder novelist Leslie Forbes), who together with her partner (in every sense) Dan Harvey, makes art from growing things; pieces which explore time, progress and change... The beautiful image (above - it's huge by the way) is made from grass covered canvas, the artists having played with photosynthesis to get the shading. i love it. The duo have a piece in the upcoming RA show eARTh (opening at the beginning of December) which fascinated me months ago when i went to the press conference for the exhibition... it's a polar bear bone that has been carbonised and transformed into a diamond. the exhibition is about art in a changing climate and invites artists (including Sophie Calle and Cornelia Parker) to explore topics like climate change within their their work. definitely looking forward to it more than i was...

Take Care of Yourself

I don't think i have LOVED and been so moved by an exhibition (not recently anyway) as by Take Care of Yourself, which Sophie Calle first showed at the Venice Biennale in 2007 and which is now on display at The Whitechapel. 

Unceremoniously dumped by a pompous and egomaniacal wanker in a letter which revels in reverse psychology and stealth blame shifting, Sophie Calle gave said letter to over 100 women who each interpreted it in their own way... undermining its literary pretentiousness by translating it into text speak; interpreting it as if it were a legal document; deciphering the psychobabble; turning it into a monologue or short story... the responses are heartfelt, withering, nonchalant, analytical, helpful, discerning and even disgusted (with both Calle and her ex-lover). As someone who has probably wasted most of my life reading between the lines of emails, texts, voicemails and, yes, even letters from completely unfathomable males i found this exhibition at once wonderfully funny, reassuring, upsetting, complex and thought provoking. As a revenge piece it was one thing, as a exploration of the female psyche another - of the male another still. 

it left me thoroughly emotionally spent, so i'm not sure that i got the most out of the rest of the exhibition (three more rooms are upstairs), but i cannot recommend this part of the exhibition more highly and am currently saving (it's like 60 quid or something heinous) for the exhibition's accompanying book. It's pink and shiny and has a great pair of boobs decorating the jacket... excellent. 

Sophie Calle, Talking to Strangers, at The WhiteChapel until January 3, 2010. 

The Fahrenheit Twins

Two adults romping around a bleached, hirsute stage in similarly white and furry snow suits; playing not just the drama's eponymous Fahrenheit Twins, but also their parents, dogs, snow foxes and peripheral characters: FUCKING NIGHTMARE? no, actually, a rather brilliant (not to mention quite frighteningly energetic) adaptation by Told by an Idiot of Michel Faber's short story, The Fahrenheit Twins (which i seem incapable of spelling - can't get a handle on that extra 'h').  completely bonkers, needless to say, but lots of fun. 

The Fahrenheit Twins, on at The Pit, The Barbican until December 5th 

Time and The Conways

For J.B.Priestley's play i'm tempted simply to refer you to my below post about Chekhov, as in many ways Time and the Conways is so Chekhovian it's insane. INSANE. maybe that's because i saw The Cherry Orchard so recently and it's left a searing impression, or maybe it's because i desperately wanted to ignore the temporal philosophy JBP tries to overlay onto the story of an aristocratic family's terminal social and financial decline, which takes place during Britain's interwar years. or maybe it's becasue that real point of the play, the Time of the title, was basically not explored enough for me to engage with it. but more o that later.

anyway, the first act sees the 21st Birthday party of Kay Conway, which takes place in 1919 in a grand house in the English countryside, where she's celebrating with her three sisters, brother and mother. Charades are played, spirits are high, strains of socialism, hope, burgeoning love and creative energy fizz in the air, with a fair dose of social snobbery and fatal dramatic irony casually thrown into the mix. the second act sees the same family collected for a more sombre family meeting 19 years later, in 1938, once again on Kay's birthday - her 40th. But this time it's crisis time, the gregarious matriarch (Francesca Annis), so ebullient in the first act, now reduced to grovelling for money. As you come to realise how the family have evolved, what misfortune has befallen them due to their stupidity, mostly, the narrative speaks volumes about a dying breed of English family who cannot connect with the social flux of their times, and how that's affected the writer, the actress, the socialist, the beauty, the recluse and the cad of the family. To be honest, they all come across as being pretty odious, but there's such a compelling downshift in their spirits, reflecting how they are a product of their times and how those times have shaped their characters, that the odiousness is bearable (up to a point).

It's a very mannered production, directed by Rupert Goold. in fact, it's almost a bit like a morality play, with all the characters basically being a type, who fall to their doom because of their particular brand of hubris. at least that's how this production plays out. The Time theme seems a bit of a tag on. I guess, loosely, it explores the notion that in fact, far from separating us into different versions of ourselves, time happens to us all at once. in a single temporal continuum. Kay is the main conduit for explaining this, and it's played out very visually in this production. the first act ends with her wanting to record her present emotions for future use in a novel, but that action inadvertently transports her to the future. and then the second act closes with 10 or so versions of herself all staring at their reflections in the mirror - the same version of herself all lined up taking stock of the different scenes in her life (possibly). In the third act (which leaps back to the party of 1919), Kay then appears to have seizure like telescopic moments, where her awareness of the future is seemingly invading the present - thus rendering the whole temporal continuum immediate, by which i mean that the present and the future are effectively happening in the same time. basically showing that everything happens in the now, the past future and present are always now. one moment. this idea is then played out with Kay aged 40 dancing with a hologram type version of her 21 year old self, as if the two are one-and-the-same in the same time.

anyway, i really enjoyed it, but up to a point, that point being when the mannered performances BECAME TOO MUCH. which tended to be about 10 mins before the end of every act, when i tended to clutch my sisters beside me and hiss something like 'this CANNOT go on. it's SIMPLY TOO MUCH'. i blame Rupert Goold, even though i do love him (mostly). it is a great production in the main, but it felt a bit like trying to squeeze something into the a box that's just (and only just) the wrong size. but the wrong size nevertheless. basically it works, but there's a tiny bit that won't quite fit. and by playing it so mannered it eventually strays into being irritatingly hammy, which reaches a crescendo of annoyance which eventually becomes UNBEARABLE. It's very much in the vein of the Miss Marples he's directed for TV (or actually 'Marple' as they are now called, dropping the Miss, which completely infuriates me as the POINT is that she's an elderly spinster - she is part of an UNSEEN and IGNORED group in society and thus can pick up info to do with the mystery because people don't notice her). anyway, if you've watched those on TV you'll know what i mean. the costumes, the way of speaking, the playing it up takes over any real characterisation, or actual interest in the mystery itself - it's all about the gloss. with Time and the Conways, i think Rupert Goold has sacrificed JBP's main point - his temporal theme, for the sake of a more Chekhovian presentation of the fall from grace/grandeur of an aristocratic family, which grows out of the mannered performances.

Gosh it's taken me a long time to say this.

Chanel doll clutch bag

words ESCAPE ME. ok, so this outfit was worn by Miss Allen in January which would indicate that i'm not very quick on the uptake, but hey. i LOVE it. Chanel BTW.

Jeff Koons

Almost called this post 'Jess Koons', which would have been appropriate as i went to the private view (which opened the show last night) with Jess. and THANK GOD i did, rather than going under my own steam with my paltry press invite, as the 'plebs' queue to get in was about 50 people long, and by the time i came out the queue to get into the park (BEFORE having to queue to get into the exhibition) would have been round the block - if The Serpentine was indeed on a block. anyway, with Jess, who has recently become a Future Contemporary of The Serpentine, and who is getting married in the summer pavilion there in August, we avoided the hoi polloi waiting thing entirely and went in the back door, which made for a very 007 stealth entrance. LOVED that. and i rather loved Koons' ironic celebration of tack, too. whoop whoop to the insubstantial, pop culture, the banal, the shallow, the naff. except it isn't entirely that, obv, as his sculptures aren't the actual things he's 'celebrating' at all, which obviously makes it all very... well, very. this time, his 'inflatables' (not inflatable at all, rather made from aluminium to look like plastic inflatables) are poolside blow ups - dog rubber rings and lobster lilos (above) doing rather jaunty things like being suspended from the ceiling and holding chairs, or supporting a whole forest of chopped wood. That so much work has gone into re-creating a plastic toy that costs about £4.50 down Asda, making it from something of substance, and thus into art, art that attempts to comment on our value judgements, aesthetic sensibilities, and materialism seems particularly interesting, somehow, given the amount of 'real' plastic faces wandering around the exhibition amongst these pieces. literally hundreds of plastic surgery freaks whose smooth faces were completely betrayed by their wrinkly legs. People = the art, i thought - shiny, plastic people who were made to look young and carefree - wrinkleless, like time has stood still and experience hasn't taken its toll. sort of walking, superficial works of art. probably worth less than a Koons, though. Koons, BTW, brought his kids along to the show. They were dressed like Malcolm McDowell in A Clockwork Orange in monochrome suits and bowler hats. Odd. Very odd.

PS. spotted: Stella McCartney sporting a v cool gold jacket with her husband Alasdhair Willis (such a dish).

Jeff Koons is on until 13 September at The Serpentine Gallery, London.

Image: Jeff Koons Acrobat 2003–09

Polychromed aluminium, galvanised steel, wood and straw

228.9 x 148 x 64.8 cm

Bill Bell Collection

© 2009 Jeff Koons

The Bridge Project

So, now that I've seen both The Cherry Orchard and The Winter's Tale at The Old Vic, i reckon I can comfortably say that i think that The Bridge Project (fashionably named due to its allegiance to both sides of the Atlantic (cast, performances etc)) is fab. Directed by Sam Mendes, with a starry cast including Rebecca Hall, Simon Russell Beale and Ethan Hawke, and with The Cherry Orchard translated by Tom Stoppard, both plays are wonderfully vibrant and pulsate with genuine enthusiasm and vitality. Sinead Cusack, totally scene-stealing in Stoppard's Rock'n'Roll not so long ago, clearly relishes rolling the playwright's words around her tongue, and as the theatrical Ranevskaya 100% commands the stage, strutting about in swathes of silk -you can't take your eyes off her. I can never really seem to go a year without seeing at least one Chekhov play, and thank GOD, because i always love them, despite the fact that i think that, basically, the plots are always the same - an artisocratic Russian family stuck in space and time, bemoaning the emptiness of their lives and their general desire to be somewhere else (Moscow, mostly), while the action (usually involving their fate becasue of social and economic factors) happens off stage, thus circumnavigating any actually real drama during the course of the play, which somehow exacerbates the claustrophobic atmosphere and stagnant attitudes of the characters, who refuse to accept their impending doom - usually the dissolution of their estate, which has come about because of their refusal to adapt or change with the times. Phew. Here, of course, the whole issue revolves around the beautiful cherry orchard, which some self-improving upstart (SR-B) thinks they should chop down, divide up and rent out, thus keeping enough money to maintain the house. But of course they find this an abhorrent idea, ignore him, and thus sign their own (social/economic) death warrants. I went out with someone once who i think is basically a character from a Chekhov play, so i have a particular fondness for it. but anyway, i think this production is particularly good - and last time i saw The Cherry Orchard it was with Vanessa Redgrave and Corin Redgrave at the National Theatre, so the bar was set high. The Winter's Tale, on the otherhand, was fun, but didn't set my world on fire... because, quite frankly, having never seen/read it before, i thought it was, errr RIDICULOUS. the story is so annoying. firstly i think Leontes is quite justified in being in a grump with Hermione at the start. at least in this production, where Polixines and Hermione are literally all over each other like a RASH. secondly, what was she doing for 16 years hiding away? having a Josef Fritzl time of it (as Sophie G, who i went with, asked)? insane. and the statue coming to life. no. I think basically i'm feeling very anti WS's comedies... even Twelfth Night, which i saw last autumn at the Donmar in the West End with Derek Jacobi as Malvolio and grated somewhat. maybe i'm losing my sense-of-humour. Still, in The Winter's Tale, our Ethan is rather spectacular as the con artist Autolycus, leaping about in a devilish frenzy, which saved it for me. O and the dances with balloon/dildos were quite fun. But really, one can understand, if you ask me, why this isn't one of Shakespeare's plays that is put on that often.

Victorian Gymkhana

No this isn't some gloriously aged picture from a century ago, taken by a man crouching over a tiny box with his head under a black cloth. It was taken by Hermione on Sunday, at Kenwood House, Hampstead, where we were basking in the sun watching a Victorian gymkhana - the social event of the w/e. In case you are wondering, a Victorian Gymkhana involves events like women riding side saddle whilst holding parasols or cups of tea, and trying to remain composed as their steeds race and leap over jumps. Extraordinary, but rather fun, and Queen Vic, her lady-in-waiting and a companion Rajah certainly seemed to love it.

Photo © Hermione Eyre

War Horse

Believe me, I am not a Black Beauty fan. in fact, i am about as un animally as it's possible to be, mainly a repercussion of having killed my school hamster aged 4, and which i still have nightmares about. So i wasn't expecting to be terribly impressed with this play. it's about horses for fuck's sake. which are puppets. eh? But when the giddy, nervous, jittery foal first skitted on to the stage in The National Theatre's production of War Horse, honestly, tears came to my eyes it was so dreamlike, so realistic and so incredibly beautiful. i'm rarely moved to tears by beauty, so it was a bit of a shock (nay embarrassment), but honestly, this really is something else - totally worthy of sobbing over. Apparently the national theatre's director Nicholas Hytner had seen the puppets elsewhere and was mulling over how he could possibly use them in a production at the National, when his mother suggested Michael Morpurgo's novel War Horse. rather than using marionettes on strings, the puppeteers stand inside the horses - one person controlling the hind legs, one for the front and one person manipulating the head. the structure is an elegant sinewy frame with mesh, so you can fully see the people manipulating the body, but you literally don't see them at all  - in so much as they become invisible because you are so caught up in the magic of the movements - the slow breathing bobbing, the flicks of the ears, the toss of the head, the jumps and jitters of the feet. the horses have the power and presence of The Sultan's Elephant, which trundled through London with grandly statuesque leisure a few years ago, and also have a touch of the puppet Polar bears used in the National's production of His Dark Materials, also staged several years back. but BETTER. The story sounds sentimental and schmaltzy on paper, so i won't regurgitate it, but on stage, it's powerful and moving and at the climax i was LITERALLY SOBBING MY EYES OUT. sobbing. red, raw eyes all round afterwards, though, thank god, so i wasn't alone. book now.