Tag Archives: Charlotte Emmerson

“Footfalls & Rockaby” at the Jermyn Street Theatre

Not everyone makes a beeline for Samuel Beckett plays. It sometimes feels as if the legendary modernist is more beloved of theatre-makers than theatregoers. Fans will, of course, jump at the chance to see these seldom performed shorts, but director Richard Beecham’s stylish work and two brilliant performances should also secure appeal for a wide audience.

Footfalls

Charlotte-Emmerson-in-Footfalls-at-Jermyn-Street-Theatre-photo-by-Steve-Gregson
Charlotte Emmerson

A woman having bizarre conversation with an offstage voice might sound almost a cliché of experimental theatre. The woman, May, or maybe Amy, may or may not be talking to her dead mother. The voices address one another and then the audience.

The spectre of poor mental health haunts the piece and the appropriately ghostly character, depicted by Charlotte Emmerson, is mesmerising. Emmerson’s timing – so crucial for this piece – is spot on.

Beckett was specific about staging and instructions for lighting and sound – cleverly elaborated by Beecham and his designers Ben Ormerod and Adrienne Quartly. Within these constrictions, a performance of incredible control notches up the tension marvellously.

Rockaby

Siân-Phillips-in-Rockaby-at-Jermyn-Street-Theatre-by-Steve-Gregson
Siân Phillips

The sense of isolation for the lonely old woman in Rockaby is overwhelming. There’s a lot of philosophy again – what kind of existence does this unperceived character have? But sitting in her chair, looking for any sign of life with “famished eyes”, the piece becomes painful and deeply moving.

A brilliant performance from Siân Phillips brings home the emotion within the play. Phillips never finds it hard to be magisterial. And there is a dignity to the character that makes us take her wish for more life seriously. But there’s a frailty, too, which compounds a sense of sadness.

The rocking chair, with credit to set designer Simon Kenny, also becomes a character. And a very spooky one. Is it fanciful to say it has a life of its own? As with the sound design within Footfalls, there’s a quality far from lulling in the ceaseless, yet cleverly varied, presence of its back and forth.

Footfalls and Rockaby are late works, from 1975 and 1980, respectively. Minimal and experimental, they set the mind spinning. Concerning mortality and memory, we are presented with vivid, mysterious characters. That intrigue drives both shows for me. It may be simplistic, and far from grand intentions, but both pieces work as bizarre ghost stories that are strangely exciting as well as profound.

Until 20 November 2021

www.jermynstreetheatre.co.uk

Photos by Steve Gregson

“Uncle Vanya” at The Print Room

It’s the fourth time that writer Mike Poulton has adapted Uncle Vanya and it seems that practice makes perfect. Chekhov’s masterful exploration of the human condition is presented boldly, directly and, most notably, with a great deal of humour. Artistic director of The Print Room Lucy Bailey takes charge with a deft touch that highlights the play’s rich complexity. And this tiny theatre has the coup of a stellar cast, led by the magnificent Iain Glenn in the title role. Glenn gives a riveting performance of immense variety and subtlety.

It’s the story of a disastrous summer sojourn. After Vanya’s beloved sister dies, he devotes himself to the professor she married. But Vanya realises the man, played in fine comic style by David Yelland, is a pompous fool while falling in love with his brother-in-law’s new wife. At the same time she starts an affair with his best friend, the excellent William Houston, who in turn is loved by Vanya’s niece Sonya. It’s no big surprise that none of them is happy.

The way Poulton plays with this Chekhovian cliché of misery is delightful. Everyone is bored and everyone is exhausted all the time. Even the roses are “mournful”.  All of the players are driven to drink and bemoan the “inexplicable” fact they are old (regardless of their carefully spaced ages). It’s enough to make anyone flee the countryside. But Chekhov and Poulton can see the funny side of boredom as it mixes with the most potent emotions of love and jealousy. Add a touch of madness and you have a strange combination of farce and tragedy that comes close to describing life itself.

The desperation within Uncle Vanya, stemming from a sense of wasted life, is conveyed movingly by Glenn, while Sonya’s self-sacrificing strategy comes across an illuminating performance from Charlotte Emmerson. Alongside the family servants’ acceptance of their lot, embodied in delicious cameos from David Shaw-Parker and Marlene Sidaway, Uncle Vanya becomes a painfully funny play full of faith and grief. In this production, Uncle Vanya is as big and as clever as ever and is not to be missed.

Until 28 April 2012

www.the-print-room.org

Photo by Sheila Burnett

Written 30 March 2012 for The London Magazine

“Serenading Louie” at the Donmar Warehouse

Landford Wilson isn’t a well-known playwright in the UK but he is an extremely successful and noted figure in his native US.  He has received many awards including the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and his critical reputation lies in being one of the founding members of the Circle Repertory Company in New York.  The Donmar’s revival of Serenading Louie gives London audiences a chance of exposure to his work.

The play is the simple story of two, thirty something, couples and the problems in their marriages. Successful lawyer Alex is about to move into politics but is bored with his neurotic wife Gabrielle.  His old college friend and football superstar Carl has become a millionaire property developer who still adores his wife Mary yet becomes aware that she is having an affair.

If this sounds like a mildly interesting soap opera, be warned  – it isn’t.  It isn’t soap opera because its intentions are far too serious and its characters far too well developed. Unfortunately, it also isn’t very interesting.

In a quiet, subtle way this is very much a state of the nation address. Wilson wants us to examine the state of his country – the ambitions and aspirations of its citizens and the nature of their isolated claustrophobic lives.  Written in 1970, its characters have missed most of the sixties counter culture and feel baffled by those not much younger than themselves.  Their wealthy suburban lives are relatively untouched by the changes in America and Wilson successfully conveys a general anxiety about the unknown.  Having worked hard, this generation can’t even find solace in reminiscing about their youth – it is not just the present that disappoints them. Many of these observations are still valid and the play is interesting in terms of its historical content but it is difficult to get too passionate about events in Middle America forty years ago.

The strength of Wilson’s writing comes when he deals with character.  We get to know his quartet inside out in a rigorous psychological examination that is intense, beautifully written but also vaguely unpleasant. Charlotte Emmerson as Gabrielle is genuinely annoying in her opening scene and this is meant as a great compliment – her voice really is like finger nails on a blackboard.  Her husband’s complaints seem understandable until we get to know him better.  Alex, played by Jason Butler Harner, masks his lack of direction with a vague social conscience but he is lost man and breaks down as the play progresses.  Jason O’Mara plays his friend Carl.  Also on the edge, his character’s explosive emotions are the plays highlight and lead to its startling traumatic conclusion.  Geraldine Somerville is wonderful as his wife; sleek, sexy and icy cold, she has her husband and life in the palm of her hand but just doesn’t know what to do next.  These are the kind of roles that actors love but it seems that those playing them like them a great deal more than the audience.  All four are so self-obsessed and unlikeable that it is hard to be interested in what happens to them.

There is much about this play to commend it and plenty about this production that excels.  Peter McKintosh’s period set is great – the detail wonderful and the temptation to lapse into kitsch restrained.  Simon Curtis directs the piece with a similarly talented eye to period and manoeuvres his cast skilfully as the one set serves for both couples’ homes.  They come and go, leave their own homes and visit each other quite seamlessly until Wilson wants to shake us up and has characters talking to one another when they shouldn’t.  Similarly there are occasions when the cast address the audience.  Its clever stuff no doubt, but it isn’t entertaining.

Until 27 March 2010

www.donmarwarehouse.com

Photo by Hugo Glendinning

Written 17 February 2010 for The London Magazine