2017

“Dark Vanilla Jungle” at Theatre N16

Here’s a chance to see a great play by one of the finest writers around. Philip Ridley’s nightmarish nativity tale is an 80-minute monologue of consummate storytelling that’s not for the faint hearted. Second Sons Theatre Company’s production can be viewed as a summons to explore the darkest of subject matter – you have been warned.

As with another of Ridley’s short plays, Tonight With Donny Stixx, this is an intimate encounter with a disturbed, taboo-breaking youngster. As an examination into sexism, too, given Ridley’s ripe imagination, the result is one of toxic potency. It’s a huge role for Emily Thornton as Angela. A troubled childhood as “an invisible” abandoned by parents, a horrific, sexually abusive relationship, then a fantastical – and repulsive – breakdown and a crime are all mixed together. Thornton conveys her character’s unbalanced naivety well, her make-believing even better, and has a go with the themes of “camouflage” that excite Ridley. If there’s a shortcoming, some of the wicked humour is missed, but this is a performance to be proud of.

Samson Hawkins’ direction is unflinching, the staging bravely minimal. Andrea’s confused ideas about gender roles, including a flirtation with the language of fundamentalism, voice fears that many leave unspoken. It can’t be stressed enough that this is queasy stuff. But a play this audaciously florid, with a production that does it justice, is a challenge to an audience that should be accepted.

Until 31 March 2017

www.theatren16.co.uk

Photo copyright Second Sons

2017

“The Wild Party” at The Other Palace

The renamed St James Theatre, now in Lord Lloyd Webber’s portfolio, has the new raison d’être of trying out and refining musicals. And there’s the aim of starting conversations from artistic director Paul Taylor-Mills that warms a blogger’s heart. The first show, by Michael John LaChiusa, is a strong start, but a puzzle, too. Seen on Broadway in 2000, it already seems so cogently formed that there is little new to talk about.

The piece is experimental in that it is based on a poem – by Joseph McClure March – can anyone think of another musical apart from Cats with such a source? George C Wolfe’s book is structurally audacious and, while the scenario couldn’t be slimmer – someone holds a party, that’s it – the tension ratchets up and up. Both music and lyrics have little time for novices or a discernable eye on commercial success. The milieu here isn’t that familiar to a British audience (jokes, in particular, are a touch obscure) but LaChiusa’s knowledge of American music is obviously profound.

A good portion of the show is a series of introductions. Taking the lead is Queenie, a dancer in Vaudeville, brilliantly portrayed by the legendary Frances Ruffelle, who gives this tart-with-a-heart appropriate depth. Her common law husband, played by John Owen-Jones – also tremendous – ensures the show is not one for coulrophobics. This complicated relationship is the vehicle for exploring obsession and dependence.

John Owen-Jones and Victoria Hamilton-Barritt
John Owen-Jones and Victoria Hamilton-Barritt

Presenting other partygoers gives the rest of the ensemble a chance to shine. Dex Lee is particularly strong as the arch hedonist Jackie, a sophisticate who turns bestial. And, as Queenie’s best friend Victoria Hamilton-Barritt really gets her teeth into a juicy role. It would be hard to sacrifice any of these characters… but maybe more focus might have made the show more enjoyable? Combining high and low life and a mix of ages, races and sexualities has a point but means there’s a lot to handle here. And don’t forget a moral. Like many works of art about libertines, The Wild Party is a warning. When the bootleg gin arrives, complete with bathtub on stage, it would make Hogarth proud.

The venue’s aim as an experimental home is fulfilled for Drew McOnie. While his acclaimed choreography adds enormously to what could be a static affair, his remarkably assured debut as a director is the real story. The piece calls for strong acting and McOnie secures it. There’s a cutting pathos to many of the affairs. And a crazed wish for love, sex, drugs and ambition, with a scary intensity that McOnie doesn’t spare us from.

Until 1 April 2017

www.theotherpalace.co.uk

Photos by Scott Rylander

2017

“After Party” at the Pleasance Theatre

Like Edward Albee’s Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, James Meteyard’s play explores a (metaphorical) hangover from years of trauma and delusion. Opening with a debauched celebration, nicely summarised, we join a group of mid-twentysomethings slowly discovering their grief over a tragedy that happened at college. In this drama about adult friends living together, the ambition is impressive, but the results are uneven.

The humour is on one note but delivered well; especially by Atilla Akinci, whose character is the only one removed from past events (using him more could have aided exposition). A bigger problem is the dialogue around those big sex and death themes – horribly stilted and painfully long winded. Will is the troubled lead with a secret – credit to Jamie Chandler for dealing with some clunky lines. One analogy – something to do with a scab – is so laboured that I glazed over. Chief culprit in the bar-room philosophy stakes is Will’s “bro” Harlan, who has an attraction for abstractions that Alex Forward braves valiantly. Injecting some much-needed realism into the group is Megan Pemberton’s Phoebe – the only character even trying to act her age. Cat Robey’s direction needs to speed this indulgence up considerably.

James Meteyard and Callum Cameron
James Meteyard and Callum Cameron

Tiresome heart to hearts, accompanied by far too much forehead slapping and exasperated sighs, are in stark contrast to scenes of tension. The group’s old friend Max’s release from prison and arrival ‘home’ are superb: the mood changing instantly and the suspense terrific. It’s a small role for Callum Cameron, but he steals the show and brings out the best in his colleagues, particularly former partner and unforgiving ex-pal played by Eleanor Crosswell and Olivia Sweeney respectively. Meteyard also performs here – well, it should be added – arguing the case for Max while his own character’s agenda creates a tense undertow.

There’s a suspicion this confrontational scene was the kernel for the play – it’s strong enough – but it takes forever to arrive. Too much effort is expended on giving time to each member of the ensemble. There’s a bold end, but it’s a shame this scene is the only one that feels hurried. Overall, a work with potential that needs polish.

Until 26 March 2017

www.pleasance.co.uk

Photos by Isaac Whittingham

2017

“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” at the Harold Pinter Theatre

Casting doesn’t get more exciting than this. For the first revival of Edward Albee’s masterpiece since his death last year, Imelda Staunton and Conleth Hill take on the iconic roles of George and Martha, the feuding couple whose frustrated lives on a New England college campus are full of twisted alcohol-fuelled fantasies. Imogen Poots and Luke Treadaway, as the younger Honey and Nick, join them for a party – unfortunates drawn into troubled lives for a fight night they will never forget. The stage brims over with talent for this astounding play.

George and Martha’s “exercise” of combat is frightening. Their aim at one another is practised and potent, themed on his stagnant career and her drinking and adultery. Their “games” escalate ferociously – and they start out pretty vicious. Staunton and Hill convey the complicity between the couple perfectly, who display a mix of resignation and excitement over their perverse sport. The final scene, revealing who is really the most damaged, shows how carefully constructed both performances have been. Yet it is the younger cast who offer the most insight into the play. The 1966 film shows how easily these roles can be eclipsed, but Honey and Nick are more than sacrificial pawns. Potts and Treadaway work to create a convincing relationship, a foil to their elders. Potts does a great drunk (never to be underestimated) and Treadaway adds an edge to his “smug” character with cold ambition and repressed physicality.

Luke Treadaway and Imogen Poots
Luke Treadaway and Imogen Poots

Yet the production is not an unqualified success. It’s too funny. Yes, Albee’s text is full of wit but here the humour is blunted and misogyny unquestioned. Director James Macdonald hasn’t mistakenly stumbled into his approach and clearly gets what he wants – big belly laughs. But it is a disappointment. Take a moment of physical violence (noting how rare and strange it is) and Honey’s reaction to it: Potts gets a roar of laughter but this should be a moment of raw bestiality. Macdonald has stripped the play of surreal touches, such as George’s ironic obsession with order. Deliberate mistakes, over job titles, locations and dates, are treated glibly when they should be unsettling. Too much of the comedy is treated as sparkling and fresh – it should be fetid and uncomfortable. George and Martha’s “flagellation” is sordid stuff, but here it feels like a drawing room comedy.

Until 27 May 2017

www.whosafraidofvirginiawoolf.co.uk

Photos by Johan Persson

2017

“Frankenstein” at Wilton’s Music Hall

This potted production of Mary Shelley’s tale makes for an entertaining evening. In this somewhat ruthlessly adapted version by Tristan Bernays, the skeleton of the story remains, while casting one performer as both the eponymous doctor and his monster puts flesh on the bones of ideas about their relationship. Adding only simple props – lamps, buckets and a flight case – establishes a strong story-telling feel of considerable charm.

The show is a star vehicle for recent graduate George Fletcher, who plays both creator and creature. We see mostly monster – racing through ‘infancy’ efficaciously with admirable physicality, while creating possibly too much sympathy. He is joined as The Chorus by Rowena Lennon, who takes on some extra speaking roles admirably and even more impressively creates visual and aural echoes of Fletcher’s actions and emotions.

The show comes fromThe Watermill Theatre. Might it have been scarier if its genesis was the atmospheric mid-19th century Wilton’s? The Victorian loved to be spooked, after all. Director Eleanor Rhode brings clarity to weighty questions, but there could be more tension here. Nonetheless, the performances are strong, while excellent effects (light and sound by Lawrence T Doyle and David Gregory) ensure the show impresses, even if it is cerebral rather than creepy.

Until 18 March 2017

www.wiltons.org.uk

Photo by Philip Tull

2017

“a profoundly affectionate, passionate devotion to someone (-noun)”

AT THE ROYAL COURT


The subject matter for debbie tucker green’s new play may be romantic love, but there’s very little in it. Five brilliant actors play three couples, and the audience becomes privy to (mostly) their arguments. It could be dull, but is transformed by an ability with language that’s phenomenal. More like a poem than a play, its remarkably recognisable everyday voices are combined with startling musicality.


Language isn’t the first thing that strikes us, though. Working with designer Merle Hensel, the seating consists of swivel stools in the centre of the space, with a raised stage on three sides. Performers draw on green floor-to-ceiling chalkboards. Any connection between their scrawls and communication isn’t elaborated. A more immediate connotation is a tennis match, as words start to fly and feelings that should be left unsaid are spoken out loud.


The majority of the play is spent with a young couple, called A and B, with back and forth scenes of tension in their disintegrating relationship, blissfully interspaced with glimpses of joy and sensuality. With such variety in emotions, actors Gershwyn Eustache Jnr and Lashana Lynch deserve the highest acclaim. Fights, trivial and important, as the post-mortem of their marriage is picked over, have a disturbing rawness. The inventive structure moves perspectives, continually searching the past and examining lost potential.


There are two further scenes, showing an older couple, Woman and Man, played by Meera Syal and Gary Beadle, then Man’s new relationship with Younger Woman, played by Shvorne Marks. The acting is again superb, but these stories feel truncated, the characters less fleshed out and parallels forced. Giving them so little time is one of the smaller puzzles here – so many questions are raised that the play will not satisfy all audience tastes.


The annoying lower-case title alludes to defining something. One way of doing that is to remove specifics, making the dialogues a questioning of Form (no escaping a capital letter here). tucker green certainly provides few particulars. But a warning – trying to work out ‘what’s going on’ is ingrained, and having so little to work with can be frustrating in a play. The trick instead might be to focus on the theme of communication. The characters are said to either talk too much or too little. And their ‘look’ – a fruitfully theatrical element brought to the fore with the author working as director, aided by such a strong cast – shows there is more to a conversation than words. Aiming for a definition on love inevitably falls short. But the attempt at elucidation here still has many pleasures.


Until 1 April 2017


www.royalcourttheatre.com


Photo by Stephen Cummiskey

2017

“Othello” at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

This is an uncharacteristically poor production from one of London’s most gorgeous and surefooted theatres. Shakespeare’s tragedy of the Moor of Venice should be pretty foolproof – hard to mess up even if you muck about with it. But director Ellen McDougall overburdens the text with trendy touches while wilfully ignoring the poetry of the play.

From the moment the cast walk onstage to don their minimalist costumes (good work by designer Fly Davis) it’s clear McDougall wants to do something new. We have pop songs a cappella, ‘selfies’ and re-writing Cassio as a woman. All this could be exciting, and there’s clearly no shortage of ideas, but the ramifications of each addition are underdeveloped. McDougall surely has her reasons, but it is too hard to see what they are.

Which brings us to rhyme. Working with dramaturg Joel Horwood, there are stumbles due to the change of Cassio’s gender. Adding the odd joke or altering Shakespeare’s insults can be justified but add little here. Maybe tackling the text should have been bolder – presenting something new, in the spirit of last year’s Cymbeline, transformed into Imogen, outdoors at the Globe? McDougall’s cast adopt a bland approach to the verse. Presumably an attempt to make it sound natural – it actually makes it dull.

Natalie Klamar’s Desdemona suffers most from this prosaic delivery – she whines. Joanna Horton’s Cassio, a transformation that should offer such exciting potential, is humdrum. Peter Hobday’s Roderigo fails to deliver comic appeal, and he is even worse when performing as Duke Lodovico, entirely lacking charisma. Sam Spruell’s Iago comes close to making his role work – a gruff delivery denies Iago the intelligence to make him truly frightening but at least he holds the stage. The notable exceptions are Thalissa Teixeira, who develops her Emilia nicely, and the lead – Kurt Egyiawan – who thankfully, sounds wonderful. At a best guest, it’s a clumsy attempt to set up a contrast between Othello and everyone else. But it leaves far too much for Egyiawan to do and the majority of the production is just tedious.

Until 22 April 2017

www.shakespearesglobe.com

Photo by Marc Brenner

2017

“I’m Gonna Pray For You So Hard” at the Finborough Theatre

The performing arts can make a good subject for a play. With nods to The Seagull and theatrical dynasties, this piece has a firm base. As we’re helpfully informed, it’s a family drama (this kitchen sink is in Manhattan) featuring a successful writer and his aspiring actress daughter. Twists in the mood, humour to make you blush and uncomfortable moments show playwright Halley Feiffer to be an entertaining, intriguing voice.

Adrian Lukis takes the part of Oscar-nominated David. Foul mouthed and too aware of his own biography, he’s a good companion for theatre trips, but not so good to be related to. Lukis creates tension superbly out of  instability and a dangerous temper. His doting child is Ella, portrayed with emotion by Jill Winternitz. Her gushing dependency isn’t endearing – all the more credit that the performer, and careful moves from director Jake Smith, keep her interesting.

Ninety minutes with these two characters is trying, though – perhaps Smith could have placed more emphasis on the play’s humour. Questions arise about the father and daughter’s queasy closeness, with shared drug use and mutual blackhead popping (take your pick which is weirder). Add histrionics and it’s guaranteed there will be times when credulity is stretched. Deliberately so, but it’s questionable how much we can be bothered about these snowflake-sensitive egos.

As predicted, Ella goes on to create and star in her own play. And, of course, it’s autobiographical. The shock that her father didn’t beat her to writing it is explained movingly, leading to a powerful moment of drama. Both performers deal with jump in time deftly. But pinning the play’s two acts on waiting for a first-night review deflates the whole endeavour, creating a barrier against bigger questions. It’s incredible to think artists take critics quite so seriously. Even New Yorkers! So praise for all, but no rave review here. And I hope that isn’t taken too much to heart.

Until 25 March 2017

www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk

Photo by Scott Rylander

2017

“Hamlet” at the Almeida Theatre

With Andrew Scott in the title role, this Hamlet already qualifies as one of the most exciting Shakespeare productions of the year. A consummate and intelligent performer whose lilting accent is a joy to hear, Scott uses the intimacy of the venue superbly. Combining sensitivity and ferocity he makes a strong philosopher prince. He also makes a great team with star director Robert Icke.

Andrew Scott with Amaka Okafor and Calum Finlay
Andrew Scott with Amaka Okafor and Calum Finlay

Scott’s Hamlet is tactile, all hand holding, wriggling fingers and pressing palms to his face – he even hugs his ghostly father (a brilliant performance from David Rintoul). This is a sensual Dane, aided by the casting of Amaka Okafor as Guildenstern (which adds tension for Calum Finlay’s Rosencratz, who sees Hamlet as a sexual rival). It all focuses us on Hamlet’s morbidity – his knowledge of man as “this quintessence of dust” – a cerebral point given theatrical physicality.

Icke is never short of ideas. He has so many thoughts on Hamlet it’s awe-inspiring. The overall tone is far less histrionic than many a past trip to Elsinor – even the furniture has a tasteful Scandi feel. Such restraint has a peculiar power, most notable in Claudius – a chillingly cold figure played by Angus Wright, whose controlled delivery would try the patience of many performers. It’s the first time I haven’t seen the King storm off the stage during the play-within-a-play and it’s brilliantly unsettling.

Juliet Stevenson and Angus Wright watch with Andrew Scott
Juliet Stevenson and Angus Wright watch with Andrew Scott

Other novel points include the decision to be open about Hamlet’s relationship with Ophelia. It makes more sense of her madness, giving us a modern woman to relate to that Jessica Brown Findlay exploits well. For Peter Wright’s Polonius there’s the suggestion that the respected government minister isn’t just a bore, but is suffering from dementia. And there are the videos and live recordings that are a bit of a trademark for Icke. Denmark as a surveillance state is fair enough, and rolling news broadcasts save some time, but wouldn’t it have been better for Horatio to take charge of the camera after Hamlet asks him to watch the King?

Not all of Icke’s introductions are as successful. Hamlet’s gun toting seems jarring – is it bravado on his part? While it adds shock to his confrontation with his mother (the magnificent Juliet Stevenson), pointing a gun at Claudius become confusing. The production uses a knowledge of the play heavily – a fair assumption – but loses power. An air of predestination predominates later scenes – like the audience, the characters seem to know the end. For much of the final duel, music predominates (it’s a puzzling selection throughout) while Hamlet’s “I am dead Horatio” is taken literally. Our finale – of ghosts at a party rather than corpses littering the stage – has odd tones of reconciliation. It’s all interesting, unmissable for bardophiles, and frequently brilliant, if a little cold.

Until 15 April 2017

www.almeida.co.uk

Photos by Manuel Harlan

2017

“Ugly Lies The Bone” at the National Theatre

Lindsey Ferrentino’s plays have received plenty of awards and, having worked for the Roundabout Theatre Company and The Public Theatre in New York, she is no stranger to prestigious venues. Still, it must still be an exciting coup to have your UK premiere on the South Bank, and surely her work has much to commend it, but it’s a shame this lacklustre piece doesn’t live up to the honour.

The scenario is powerful, a wounded war veteran returning home. The treatment includes artificial reality – the idea is to shock the system into forgetting horrific burns – so reaching for designer Es Devlin’s number, given her work on The Nether, was a sensible move. Devlin has delivered the goods, with projections on to an impressive set that’s part infinity cove and part model town.

Kate Fleetwood

Ferrentino’s characterisation isn’t bad, either. There’s the strong lead role of Jess for Kate Fleetwood – a flawless performance – whose indomitable spirit is saved from cliché by an edge to her humour that could have been pushed further. The men in her life seem pretty scrappy by comparison, but the roles allow Ralf Little and Kris Marshall to show some good comedy skills. Yet so overpowering is Jess’s part that, along with the character of her sister (another superb performance, from Olivia Darnley), the play feels as if it should focus on them, yet doesn’t quite manage to do so.

There are too many false starts around. The medical advances used to treat Jess are interesting, but explored superficially. Hearing but not seeing the scientist pioneering the treatment (Buffy Davis) is novel but alienating and starts to become dull. The time and location of the play – the end of the space shuttle programme in the midst of war in Afghanistan – could give us more pauses for thought but any claims or insight about either are lost. We fall back on a solid human-interest story that ticks along too slowly. Director Indhu Rubasingham does little to add pace, resulting in a disappointingly pedestrian evening.

Until 6 June 2017

www.nationaltheatre.org.uk

Photo by Mark Douet