Tag Archives: Donmar Warehouse

2019

“Sweat” at the Gielgud Theatre

After rave reviews and a sell-out run at the Donmar Warehouse, the transfer of Lynn Nottage’s play is especially welcome. A political play about blue-collar America and trade unionism isn’t your average West End fare. Brilliant performances and excellent direction count for many stars awarded by the critics. But, above all, it’s the marvellous work from an exceptional writer that makes this one of the best plays I’ve seen in an age. Oh, and it won a Pulitzer Prize.

At the heart of Sweat’s success are a series of characters that we come to know so intimately. As a trio of work friends whose jobs in a steel factory and threatened and then lost, Jessie, Cynthia and Tracey make for wonderful studies that Leanne Best, Clare Perkins and Martha Plimpton all excel in. Their history established with speed, when Cynthia moves from shop floor to office door we get a moving moral dilemma brimming with conflict.

The action takes place in the women’s local bar, and the manager’s bar-room philosophy and news commentary, skilfully delivered by Stuart McQuarrie, add to the sense of a whole community, maybe the whole US. The complex picture is created with such a natural touch it seems effortless on Nottage’s part – and appreciated by director Lynette Linton – but what technique!

Let’s not be naïve. Focus on the women in the factory and ethnic minorities working in the bar could feel tokenistic. Here, it’s what it is – real life. And the characters are all the more remarkable when we come to consider how functional each role is. Each represents a response to or facet of economic meltdown. NAFTA, the rise of nationalism and anti-immigration rhetoric, even self-medication and the opioid epidemic are all issues raised. And, handled with such humanity, Nottage makes them personal.

If Sweat still sounds dry, exceptional plotting makes the delivery anything but. There’s a thrilling mystery here surrounding two of the women’s sons, Jason and Chris, and a crime that occurs. Beginning with their release from prison we’re left guessing what happened, even who the victim was. With yet more tremendous performances, from Patrick Gibson and Osy Ikhile, we see a once close friendship and the disturbed characters both men have become. During the second act, Linton ratchets up the tension: who does what to whom is unexpected, the cruelty of events ripping a community further apart.

When racism rears its head, it is especially poignant as we see a friendship destroyed. Yet understanding how violence has escalated shows the play has important insights. As well as examining the systemic in society, Nottage takes into account an element of chance. Think of the characters, to various degrees, as unlucky and it’s sure to change any moral judgements you might make. Sweat ends as a challenging piece, preventing us from condemning any of its protagonists too quickly. It creates an uneasy sense of ‘there but for the grace of God’ time after time in a way only the very best theatre can.

Until 20 July 2019

www.sweattheplay.com

2019

“Sweet Charity” at the Donmar Warehouse

While Anne-Marie Duff is no stranger to acclaim, certainly not on this blog, her casting as the heroine in Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields’ masterpiece marks her first effort in musical theatre. Of course, plenty of actors who aren’t singers do well in musicals. If you want to add Duff to that list, then this is a great start. Her Charity is a moving figure, but her singing makes you wince, which seems a shame with such wonderful songs. Nonetheless, Duff’s “laughing and giggling” dance hall hostess is often brilliant, her heartbreak and hope visceral. It’s a star turn not to be missed – unfortunately, this isn’t true of the rest of the production.

The twist from director Josie Rourke is to set the show roughly around Andy Warhol’s Factory. And this turns into a dead end. Sweet Charity is, surely, a piece from the 1960s in dialogue with the 1950s, tackling the changes in society between the decades. So adding Warhol at least needs explaining. Instead we get clever touches – Charity’s encounter with a film star (played rather flatly by Martin Marquez) includes a screen-print portrait – that tend to prove cumbersome. And no Warhol figure actually appears (I can’t be the only one with a literal mind expecting cult leader Daddy Brubeck to don a silver wig). If the idea is to comment on Charity or the way she is treated, it was lost on me.

Rourke has a conviction in her direction that she certainly passes on to the ensemble and they work hard. But they don’t excite. It’s Duff’s show – to a fault – as the rest of the cast fail to individuate their roles. The choreography provides another star turn, with Wayne McGregor stepping into the legendary Bob Fosse’s shoes. The connections he draws are respectful and there’s no shortage of invention. But there’s a suspicion that the cast aren’t quite up to his demands on them. It’s never a question of energy, although too much of that comes from a revolving stage, but when even the hit number Rhythm of Life lacks excitement, you know something has gone wrong.

The Warhol concept interrupts the flow of the show. We’re presented with set piece numbers, prepared by The Factory crew, too frequently containing some gimmick. It’s hard to imagine why, but we’re not allowed to get caught up in Charity’s world. The momentum of the show and its structure suffer as a result. It’s all fits and starts. Ultimately, the story’s bold end, when Charity’s romantic hopes come crashing down, is simply sour. Only Duff manages to inject any ambiguity, and the suggestion that Charity might pick herself up and be OK is too slim. With a piece notable for its cynicism, more bleak isn’t needed. It would be nice to be more charitable but this production isn’t sweet.

Until 8 June 2019

www.donmarwarehouse.com

Photo by Johan Persson

2019

“Berberian Sound Studio” at the Donmar Warehouse

This must be the show of a lifetime for composers and sound designers Ben and Max Ringham. It follows a fictional sound engineer – the oddly named Gilderoy – who is working on an Italian horror film, and a claim might be made that sound is the subject matter for this whole show. Let’s be ringing, crystal clear that the Ringhams do a great job throughout. It is their night… but perhaps theirs alone.

A too thin plot fails to hold attention even at just over 90 minutes. As Gilderoy works behind the scenes to find a particularly horrible noise, and as his backstory is clumsily developed, there’s little tension and no surprises. Tom Brooke makes for a charismatic lead, doing well to restrain the hammy humour in the piece, but the character’s timid English manners are too caricatured, and contrasting his inhibitions with his continental colleagues becomes painful. As for the continually promised horror that’s played with, you’d have to be very timid to jump even once. While Gilderoy is searching for what frightens us most, his biggest fear is literally written above him in lights – no wonder the quest ends up dragging.

Weightier themes painfully forced into the play are the real terror here: Art and Ethics, screamed out loud. We get two sides of the debate, first from a voiceover actress offended by torture scenes. Eugenia Caruso does well and manages to craft a credible character here, but her points are pretty obvious. Then the auteur director himself comes in with a seductive defence. Credit to Luke Pasqualino, who has a good stab at making the part memorable, but the appearance is too brief and, by the time he arrives, it’s already obvious that the film being worked on is too awful to bother about.

Director Tom Scutt tries hard to raise the stakes. This show is clearly a pet project for him and writer Joel Horwood, who have brought Peter Strickland’s screenplay to the stage. As well as bells and whistles, Lee Curran’s lighting design includes complete blackouts (rarer than you’d think in the theatre). And there’s an effort at comedy with two assistants, both called Massimo (chortle), played by Tom Espiner and Hemi Yeroham, whose creation of the sound effects before our eyes proves a diversion. But restricting action to the booths that make up Scutt’s and Anna Yates’ design makes the show static, as surprisingly little of the stage is used. And placing the actresses’ booth in one corner of the stage is a big mistake – if you do bother to see the show, don’t sit stage right. Time and again it’s too clear that a film would be (and was) more effective. There’s a growing frustration that anyone bothered to stage the piece at all. Let’s hope that the Ringhams, at least, had fun.

Until 30 March 2019

www.donmarwarehouse.com

Photo by Marc Brenner

2018

“The York Realist” at the Donmar Warehouse

The clue is in the title. Peter Gill’s romantic drama shows us a Yorkshire farming family, in the early 1960s, with daring verisimilitude. The love affair between a visiting theatre director, working on a production of the Mystery Plays, and a local amateur actor in his cast, opens up a time and place with startling particularity. Every lyrical line rings true – many will raise a smile, other are heart breaking – with a tone that is bravely quiet. It is in understanding this understatement that director Robert Hastie shows his appreciation and secures a superb revival for the piece.

The two well-written lead roles result in wonderful performances. Jonathan Bailey is the arty thespian, out of place in the countryside, carefully controlling the character’s urbane sophistication to make sure he is vulnerable and hugely likeable. Ben Batt is local farmer, George. It’s hard not to see him as heroic, a fantasy figure, so Batt does well to reveal depth: an amount of arrogance, some selfishness, a little fear behind the confidence all make him as intriguing as he is believable. The erotic tension between the men is palpable – this is a sexy play, and it’s remarkable to note we only see the two men touch once.

Being so low-key places particular demands on a cast. It’s an achievement from the whole ensembles to embrace the nuances in Gill’s writing, and conveying that restraint isn’t the same thing as repression. Lesley Nicol gives a stand-out performance as George’s mother, only hinting at her ill health in a fashion that strikes a chord with anyone who has had older relatives who are sick. The relationship with her son is a second love story in the play, equally rich in detail and resonance. And Lucy Black and Katie West give strong performances as two other women in George’s life, his sister and potential fiancée, both fully realised and offering yet more insight into the time and community.

The York Realist is a nostalgic piece, and whether this is good or bad is a matter of taste. Inspired by Gill’s own time working in York, a look back at his youth and a bygone age is bound to have a rosy tint. And there’s the period detail in Peter McKintosh’s meticulous set. Seeing the production at the Donmar (it transfers to Sheffield) the north-south divide often alluded too gets a few too many middle-class laughs. But the play itself is refreshingly free of condescension towards working-class life. There is a sense of calm that shows the steely determination in the writing: only one reference to the police indicates the illegality of the men’s acts, and George is comfortable with his sexuality so any angst is minimalised. What happens to the romance is sad, no doubt, as it’s the distance in class that separates them. But there’s little trace of the victim about either man, making the play an empowering, memorable pleasure.

Until 24 March 2018

www.donmarwarehouse.com

The production then transfers to Sheffield Theatres until the 7 April

Photo by Craig Fleming

2017

“Knives in Hens” at the Donmar Warehouse

This revival of David Harrower’s 1996 play is a trip to the Middle Ages that’s full of sex and ideas. There are just three characters – a ploughman, his wife and a miller – yet it goes beyond a dangerous love triangle to evoke an entire society beset by ignorance and misogyny. More impressive, still, is the precision and insight applied to the struggle to break away from the primitive and embrace investigation and individuality.

Christian Cooke in Knives in Hens at the Donmar Warehouse Photo by Marc Brenner
Christian Cooke

This is an impressive piece of writing, with the distinctive dialogue rooted in imagined lives very different from our own. Christian Cooke plays the labouring farmer with breath-taking virility – all that time in a field has clearly done him good – but he also succeeds in expressing an anxiety about his hold on power and his control over the woman selected as a wife. In this role, Judith Roddy gives a strong performance as a person full of contradictions, while appreciating Harrower’s articulation of an ‘internal’ life distinct from modern conceptions. Naming objects is an issue in this society, religion plays a distinct role, and all the while a new scientific view is blossoming. Embodying these conflicts is Matt Ryan’s miller, a character set aside from the village by his semi-technical work. His sense of isolation creates the emotional heart of the play.

Matt Ryan in Knives in Hens at the Donmar Warehouse Photo by Marc Brenner
Matt Ryan

Director Yaël Ferber presents the strange eroticism of the work well, showing a clear appreciation of the mediaeval milieu and adding some vivid imagery to match the poetry of the piece. There are some fussy touches (a little too much rolling around and playing with flour), but her skills are a good match for the text. Take the tension injected into a scene where our heroine shows a fear of the written word. Breaking with superstition is part of her attraction to the miller. There is a yearning for a new way of understanding the self and the substance of the world. Suggesting all this with an undertow of violence is a fine achievement on Roddy’s part, making this a miller’s mistress’s tale to be proud of.

Until 7 October 2017

www.donmarwarehouse.com

Photo by Marc Brenner

2016

“One Night In Miami…” at the Donmar Warehouse

Kemp Powers’ play touches on the depressingly topical struggle against racism with calm sophistication. Placing four iconic African-Americans of the 1960s in one hotel room – each of them at a pivotal moment in their lives and with the US on the brink of change – it’s a brilliantly simple and effective device to examine individual legacies and question how much progress has been made regarding civil rights.

Francois Battiste as Malcolm X.
Francois Battiste as Malcolm X.

Fresh from winning his fight against Sonny Liston, Cassius Clay is about to become Muhammad Ali. Sope Dirisu gives a show-stealing peformance conveying the young man’s charm and naiveté. Clay is meeting with his mentor Malcolm X, performed by Francois Battiste with control and precision. The activist is keen on claiming prize conversions to Islam but political troubles are the tense undertone, as the bodyguards outside the door remind us.

The two are joined by football star Jim Brown and legendary musician Sam Cooke. Both are secular, independent thinkers, about to branch out into acting and political song writing, respectively. David Ajala plays Brown, easily carrying complex arguments with a deft touch of down-to-earth humour. Arinzé Kene takes the part of Cooke, conveying a fierce articulacy and with a few snatches of singing that display an exceptional voice.

Director Kwame Kwei-Armah knows what a treasure this script is and paces it judiciously, treating it with respect. The relationships are woven like an intricate dance. Tempers flare but the friendship here is firm, providing a realistically casual tone with plenty of banter. Ideas come to the fore, with a streak of melancholy around “self destructive dreams” that endanger all four. With race, politics and religion all linked with questions of celebrity and influence, this is an articulate, intelligent and educative night to remember.

Until 3 December 2016

www.donmawarehouse.com

Photos by Johan Persson

2016

“Faith Healer” at the Donmar Warehouse

Rain is falling as we are introduced to the ‘Fantastic’ Frank Hardy, an itinerant performer, whose life and miraculous show lie between the “absurd and the momentous”. Es Devlin’s stunning set creates a box of brilliantly lit water that returns between each of the four monologues that make up this intense and intriguing revival of Brian Friel’s 1979 play.

Stephen Dillane joins a line of famous names to tackle the title role. It’s a restrained performance, uncompromisingly demanding, carefully playing with the “sedation of incantation” that runs through the script: place names visited, adventures and traumas, are repeated in the softest tones. Hardy knows whether or not miracles will happen – that his success depends on chance – so his gift is also a curse.

We meet Hardy’s mistress and manager. As the former, Gina McKee’s accent is offputting at first – we’ve been told she’s from Yorkshire, and that’s not the only lie we discover from hearing her side of the story. The detail McKee invests in her scene makes it moving and engrossing. After these hear-a-pin-drop performances there’s some respite, thanks to Ron Cook’s appealing Cockney artistes agent. Though stories about a bagpipe-playing dog are funny, this isn’t comic relief. Cook presents a tired and disappointed man with subtlety.
The performances are awe-inspiring but the material is consuming to the point of claustrophobic and difficult because of its complexity. The drama comes from having three unreliable narrators, who lived together for many years but don’t meet during the play and are talking about events in the past. We see Hardy’s wife after his (possible) murder, and his manager after she has committed suicide, but the chronology is not explicit and how much time passes between scenes is opaque. Friel’s script shifts and changes and needs the lightness of touch that director Lyndsey Turner provides. A heavy hand could damage such first-class storytelling. Rendered so impeccably, the play is absorbing.

Until 20 August 2016\

www.donmarwarehouse.com

Photos by Johan Persson

2016

“Elegy” at the Donmar Warehouse

While (seldom) questioning the subject matter a playwright chooses, some should come with a warning. With its main character suffering a degenerative brain condition, Nick Payne’s new play – brilliantly written as it is – makes for a harrowing experience. Elegy calls forth questions as topical as they are uncomfortable and nothing about this play is easy.

New techniques in nanotechnology and neuroscience are knocking at the door, and Payne explores their potential effect on a mind slipping into dementia. They may prove a miracle that extends life, but let’s not use the word cure. Memory is lost and anyone who’s read David Hume will know the consequences of this. Lorna and Carrie, who married each other late in life, find their romance has been surgically removed in the process of ‘saving’ the former. That the person she was is gone, akin to the effects of dementia anyway, is one cruel irony. Another – her inability to recognise her lover means the treatment has worked – makes matters peculiarly grim.

The play is performed backwards. We meet the women after Lorna’s treatment and retrace the steps leading to her surgery. Becoming increasingly involved with this couple, there’s a cruel twist that brought me to tears. The reverse technique, well served by Josie Rourke’s direction, builds tensions and allows three excellent actors to give mind-boggling performances. Zoë Wanamaker’s struggle with the illness is as frank as it is moving. Barbara Flynn is a revelation as her wife: engaging, appealing and torn apart. They are joined by the superb Nina Sosanya as a doctor who slowly reveals her personal motivations behind her professional mask.

It’s Payne’s superior skill with dialogue that’s the jewel here. Painful conversations feel fresh, characters’ attempts at humour and their struggle to comprehend, believable. Particularly in rendering the incoherence of stumbling, confused and truncated speech, the economy and precision of language is brave and haunting.

Science has long been a theme of Payne’s – putting people into the equation is his skill. Elegy ups the stakes and demands a great deal. At its heart is the complex question of what makes us human, encompassing faith, love, history and our responsibilities to each other. The fear that we’re on the brink of unknown territory is palpable. Away from dystopian fantasy, this play feels real enough to give you nightmares, propelling us into the messy heart of a dilemma with piercing skill.

Until 18 June 2016

www.donmarwarehouse.com

Photo by Johan Persson

2015

“Les Liaisons Dangereuses” at the Donmar Warehouse

It’s odd that Christopher Hampton’s hugely successful adaptation of Choderlos de Laclos’s epistolary novel is receiving its first West End revival since it opened back in 1986. Josie Rourke’s production provides an opportunity to see a brilliant transformation to the stage that shouldn’t be missed. Hampton’s delight in the plots of seduction, betrayal and sexual politics, along with the exquisite characters and dialogue, are blissful.

It’s a testament to the strength of this text that Rourke’s direction disappoints by not getting the maximum from it. Arch plotters Valmont and Merteuil, planning love affairs for fun and revenge, are played by Dominic West and Janet McTeer. And, it should be stressed, they are played very well indeed. West brings a forceful sexuality to the role that makes it easy to believe in his character’s success as a lothario. McTeer’s is a more layered performance, having a great deal of fun as she uses Valmont’s sex, as a weapon, against himself. McTeer is playful, a cunning coquette, but when she needs to, reveals the uncomfortable truths Laclos highlighted about the position of women in society. So where’s the problem? Very much star vehicles, West and McTeer dominate the production too much.

True, the other characters are creatures in their games, but smaller parts, especially their main victims Cécile and Madame de Tourvel, should stand out more. Morfydd Clark and Elaine Cassidy struggle to leave a mark, creating surprisingly little sympathy as their characters’ respective innocence and piety are broken. The production makes it hard to believe that Valmont finally falls in love and is uncomfortably blasé about the creepy seduction of a 15 year old.

LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES BY HAMPTON, , WRITER - CHRISTOPHER HAMPTON, Director - Josie Rourke, Designer - Tom Scutt, Lighting - Mark Henderson, The Donmar Warehouse, 2015, Credit: Johan Persson
Dominic West

Which indicates another problem, albeit an unusual one – the production is too funny. The deliciously wicked Valmont and Merteuil gain plenty of laughs. It’s superbly done – Valmont’s brazen hypocrisy is a delight and McTeer makes nearly every line a quotable gem of bitchy cynicism. But there’s a penalty for this, with little tension between the two of them and too little time for the play’s darker overtones. Nearly all end badly but, rather than tense, the evening is simply deflating. Though much of the production is brilliantly done, these liaisons aren’t really dangerous enough.

Until 13 February 2016

www.donmarwarehouse.com

Photos by Johan Persson

2015

“Teddy Ferrara” at the Donmar Warehouse

Contemporary American campus politics drive Christopher Shinn’s play, which sees the suicide of a gay student appropriated by college interest groups for their own ends. This university life is disorientating in its modernity and, for a serious, emotive topic, engenders a curiously cold work.

A crew of bland and earnest characters talk at, rather than to, one another. Debate infiltrates their personal lives, fuelled by self-obsession. Although the performances, strictly controlled by director Dominic Cooke, are fine, the cast struggles to leave impressions: the jock and his girlfriend, the guy in the wheelchair, the radical black professor – we get the point that diversity brings challenges. Shinn pokes fun rather than saying anything new.

Ryan McParland (Teddy) in Teddy Ferrara at the Donmar Warehouse - photo by Manuel Harlan
Ryan McParland

Luke Newbury, in the lead role of Gabe, who occasionally expresses contrary opinions, provides the most appealing character. And Ryan McParland is impressive as the awkward titular character, bullied and living out his fantasies online. But the only roles that really stimulate are the college president with bigger ambitions – a nice comic job for Matthew Marsh ­– and a “controlling” student journalist, played by Oliver Johnstone, who provides the majority of tension in the play.

While the plot of Teddy Ferrara is a touch predictable and the sexual politics presented too bluntly, the way people currently communicate is cleverly revealed: there’s a lot of broadcasting and not enough conversation. As Gabe says, “the texting never stops” and nor do political slogans or buzzwords – “micro-aggression” was a new one for me.

Oliver Johnstone (Drew) and Luke Newberry (Gabe) in Teddy Ferrara at the Donmar Warehouse - photo by Manuel Harlan
Oliver Johnstone and Luke Newberry

The dialogue consists of an uncomfortable, often amusing, mix of cliché and jargon, teen vlog and academic journal. This is particularly noticeable in scenes of romance – for a play so much about sexuality, Teddy Ferrara takes pains to be unerotic. Everything the characters say sounds familiar, whether through social media or web cams, the committee room or a speech, self-help books or pornography.
Christopher Imbrosciano (Jay), Griffyn Gilligan (Jaq), Oliver Johnstone (Drew) and Matthew Marsh (President) in Teddy Ferrara at the Donmar Warehouse - photo by Manuel Harlan
A memorial for Teddy, who none of the characters knew, leads to a clever conclusion. The remembrance silence, when everyone at last shuts up, makes for the most eloquent moment of the evening.

Until 5 December 2015

www.donmarwarehouse.com

Photos by Manuel Harlan