Tag Archives: Douglas Carter Beane

“Xanadu” at the Southwark Playhouse

If you think Arts Council funding is complex, imagine trying to create your Gesamtkunstwerk,including a roller disco, in the cultural desert that was 1980s LA. Such is Sonny’s dilemma in Jeff Lynne and John Farrar’s musical adaptation of the cult(ish) movie that famously starred Olivia Newton-John. Fortunately, the Greek muses are on hand to help, making this show so mad, so unbelievebly camp and crazy, that it casts an irrestible spell. Thank the gods that Xanadu is a place director Paul Warwick Griffin has dared to go. Get your skates on and join in.

Bringing the story to the stage is brilliantly done thanks to a superb book by Douglas Carter Beane – surely key to the show’s success in New York, where it started at the Helen Hayes Theatre in 2007. There’s a lot of fun with language, from faux archaic to Aussie accents via Valley girls. Likewise the music, based on blasts from the past, mashes together anything to get a laugh. The songs are surprisingly strong, but then it was the soundtrack rather than the film that was a hit. Cleverly adding comedy and nostaglia, emodied by Nathan M Wright’s witty choreography, this is theatrical heaven on earth.

xanadu-carly-anderson-as-kira-and-samuel-edwards-as-sonny-photo-credit-paul-coltas-lower-res

Donning their roller skates as Sonny and Kira (or rather the muse Clio)are Samuel Edwards and Carly Anderson. Chiffon has seldom been used to such effect (bravo to designer Morgan Large) and while cut-off denim shorts aren’t for all, I doubt anyone will complain about Edwards wearing them. More importantly, both Anderson and Edwards are fine leads with firm comic skills who enter into the spirit of the piece perfectly. Convincingly wide-eyed, with hearts on sequinned sleeves, they get you laughing along easily.

Joined by a superb ensemble, who look as if they’re living the roles of divinities on Earth, the clash with Mount Olympus when our heroes fall in love is titanically funny: a lament that Achilles should have had leg warmers pretty much sums it up. The show’s casting coup is Alison Jiear, as the jealous Melpomene. The muse of tragedy could be out of place in this feel-good phenomenon, but Jiear is superb and matched for laughs by Emily McGougan. As sinister sisters with great gags these partners in crime, giggle and cackling away. When they observe the show is “like children’s theatre for 40-year-old gay guys” you know that they’ve nailed it.

Until 21 November 2016

www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk

Photos by Paul Coltas

“The Little Dog Laughed” at The Garrick Theatre

It is always satisfying to have a play’s title explained to you.  The Little Dog Laughed is set within the world of Hollywood so quoting a nursery rhyme to point out the nonsense that goes on in tinsel town makes a lot of sense.

The plot is simple.  A successful actor’s agent has to deal with her client’s ‘recurring case of homosexuality’ which threatens to come to light when he becomes involved with a prostitute, who in turn discovers he is about to be a father.

To complicate matters, the actor is about to start a new project in which he plays a gay character.  His agent insists this will only work, and acclaim only be awarded, if he is known to the world as heterosexual.

The potential for farce is plentiful and the play has lots of laughs.  Rupert Friend plays Mitchell the actor, Harry Lloyd the rent boy Alex, and Gemma Atherton his girlfriend Ellen.  All three manage to convey endearing characters we can warm to despite their faults.

It is a shame that with an English cast, the east coast/west coast division that the play contains isn’t fully conveyed.  Yet this hardly matters when the laughs are arriving so regularly.  Friend’s charming naivety compares wonderfully with Lloyds well-pitched sarcasm.  Atherton’s character has satisfying layers.

It is Michell’s agent Diane who really allows the piece to take off though.  Tamsin Greig plays the role of Diane masterfully – this is a great character and Greig knows it. Rapacious, ambitious or just a realist?  Diane has jokes about being all three, but it is not just a case of the devil getting all the good lines.  The scripts clever observations about theatre and how it differs from film are embodied in some delightful improvisation from Greig.  Her raised eyebrows deserve an award.

Just in case all this doesn’t sound fun enough and perhaps celebrity doesn’t attract you, Douglas Carter Beane’s award winning play concerns itself with much more – primarily that characteristic American theme – the pursuit of happiness.

For some characters this lies in a search for innocence.  In a touching speech about childhood recollections, Ellen’s captivation with the image of the good life will come to explain her strange decision-making.  Alex values freedom more and, while pragmatic, ends up as the one who makes the fewest compromises.

It is the omniscient Diane who presents to us what the pursuit of happiness is often substituted with – stories and the telling of them.  As author to several other people’s fate she is a delightfully sinister figure, all the more so since she insists on making sure everyone is happy. And the audience surely is.  The fast paced direction from Jamie Lloyd perfectly compliments the writing.  A minimalist design from Soutra Gilmour is both stylish and appropriate to the theatricality of the piece.  After all, you don’t need many props for a fantasy.  Carter Beane’s play has a British debut it deserves.  The quality of the writing makes it a play not to be missed.

Until 10 April 2010

www.nimaxtheatres.com 

Photo by Alastair Muir

Written 21 January 2010 for The London Magazine