Tag Archives: Etta Murfitt

“The Buddha of Suburbia” at the Barbican Theatre

One of my favourite directors, Emma Rice, brings Hanif Kureishi’s novel to the stage with every effort to achieve her usual flair. The rambling story, about the early life of Karim – his family, fortunes, and sexual exploits – has its moments, but regrettably, big failings.

Rice co-adapts the book with its author and the result is long. There’s detail, to a fault, but also rushing; the unevenness makes the show a slog. While the characters are vivid, maybe there are just too many of them? Making each role three-dimensional is an achievement but the overall result is confusing.

It’s nice that this hard-working cast each get their moments in the spotlight. Karim’s father (Ankur Bahl) impresses with his yoga, Katy Owen has two roles (Karin’s mother, then lover) and does well contrasting them, Rina Fatania has three and is on fine form in each. Lucy Thackeray and Natasha Jayetileke are strong as women in search of fulfillment. Individual scenes are often good but as a whole the show seems to lack purpose.

All the action, and anecdote, relate to Karim of course. And herein lies a problem. Kureishi’s anti-hero isn’t a strong enough creation. His self-absorption is a turn-off, his struggle strangely unconvincing and, put simply, he isn’t very nice. It’s the role of a lifetime for Dee Ahluwalia who has to carry the whole show; his commitment and stamina is impressive but Karim is hard to care about. 

There are inventive touches throughout; Rice can delight like few other directors. It helps that Karim is an actor and scenes in rehearsal rooms are great fun (and provide a super role for Ewan Wardrop as a director). The “mess” of theatre is evoked, creating bursts of energy and fun. Choreographed scenes from Etta Murfitt help and Rachana Jadhav’s set embodies the fluidity of the action. It’s a puzzle as to why it doesn’t work.

“Class, race, fucking and farce”

Taking a look at the play-within-the-play that Karim stars in might help. The onstage director devises a show with “class, race, fucking and farce” which describes The Buddha of Suburbia itself perfectly.

Class and race are tackled, but too briefly and with little imagination. Maybe the source material, published in 1990, has dated. Or our ideas about the 1970s have solidified. But the shorthand of events and sociology is laboured and sloppy. Ahluwalia struggles to deliver summaries that provide context, he’s even given a microphone to help, and is reduced to waving his hands around. More importantly we hear nothing new. There’s no challenge, just a mush of vague ideas. Even the clips used in Simon Baker’s video design are the usual retro stuff. There is little peril or drama; a traumatic attack is shockingly dismissed. And ideas about representation, surely pertinent, are dealt with lightly. It’s fine if you want the tone of the piece to be celebratory… but too many issues are raised and then left hanging.

There’s also little drama around Karim’s sex life, which is surprising. It makes the “fucking and farce” sections light and funny. Using fruit as a stand in for genitals is a genius move (it’s sure to be how the production is remembered) giving the whole show a big banana energy. It shows Rice’s playful wit and is brilliantly theatrical. Likewise, the party poppers used when characters climax is a super touch. The sex comedy (so appropriate for the 1970s) is a relief to the pedestrian talk of politics and class. But two out of four isn’t great.

Until 16 November 2024

www.barbican.org.uk

Photo by Steve Tanner © RSC

“Bagdad Café” at the Old Vic

Nobody brings film to the stage like director Emma Rice. Following hits such as Brief Encounter and Romantics Anonymous it’s now the turn of Percy and Eleonore Adlon’s 1987 movie. The story of an unlikely friendship between two women – Brenda and Jasmin, estranged from their partners in the remote titular location – has a quirky appeal. While the adaptation fails to move beyond appealing eccentricity, a drop in standards for Rice is still a show worth seeing.

As a Rice fan, I’d argue the problem lies with the source material. I’m puzzled by the choice. There’s a fairy-tale charm in the story of a German tourist and a hassled coffee shop owner… but little else. The women’s quirks, as well as those of Brenda’s family and clientele, replace plot. Maybe this was the attraction – Bagdad Café is novel and Rice is one of the most original theatre makers around – but, frankly, too little happens.

It is a collection of characters to enjoy. Much is made of former “songbird” Brenda and her current sorry state struggling to run a business. Sandra Marvin takes the part and is believable. But it’s her husband, performed by Le Gateau Chocolat, who complains about how hard she works – it’s not clear why we should share that problem. The show’s heroine Jasmin, who walks out on her husband in a scene with no dialogue, is a touch too mysterious. Patrycja Kujawska portrays the character’s quiet power well as she changes the lives of those she ends up living with. But she encounters oddities rather than odds, as conflict and tension are absent. Even learning magic tricks comes suspiciously easily. With little backstory, secondary characters are pleasant to watch but suffer a similar complaint: there are lovely turns from Gareth Snook and Sam Archer as a couple of misfit hippies, but you can’t help wondering how they ended up in the story and what they are there for.

The music for the show, ably directed by Nadine Lee, consists of too few tunes (the show relies heavily on Bob Telson’s hit, Calling You). And the numbers are truncated. There’s a defence for this – Bagdad Café isn’t trying to be a conventional musical. But the show’s originality ends up frustrating. It’s down to the theatricality of the production to hold our interest. Rice and her cast attempt this admirably. There are lovely touches with puppetry and movement (credit here for John Leader, Sarah Wright and Etta Murfitt) that make for plenty of memorable moments – it’s almost enough.

Bagdad Cafe at the Old Vic
Sandra Marvin and Patrycja Kujawska

A world is vividly created. And even if it puzzles too much to entirely suspend disbelief, it is enchanting. There’s not much to Bagdad Café apart from atmosphere. But what an atmosphere! A finale where Brenda and Jasmine put on a show gave me goosebumps. The show’s feelgood simplicity coalesces to make sure we leave the theatre happy. And an encore, showing an accompanying digital project for the production, further confirms a striving for originality that wins admiration. The conjuring here is more than tricks that Jasmine enjoys on stage, it’s theatrical magic of the kind Rice excels at.

Until 21 August 2021

www.oldvictheatre.com

Photo by Steve Tanner

“Wise Children” at the Old Vic

Emma Rice and the late Angela Carter make a fine match – their works are full of invention, wit and fantasy. This new adaptation of Carter’s 1991 novel is a great yarn that distils, through its fairy-tale exaggerations, themes of family that are universal while being original and surprising. The story of twins Nora and Dora Chance is full of pain, but also joy – combined with blissful theatricality.

As both director and adapter, Rice has a defined style, well-honed, with plenty of trademarks and I, for one, can’t get enough of them. Instilling a complicity with the audience from the start, the show is a mix of music, dance, even mime. The aesthetic is ramshackle and peripatetic, with a caravan that’s moved around. Costumes become the key to character (with great work from Vicki Mortimer). Rice’s talented cast takes on a head-spinning number of parts with such skill that it’s difficult to work out how many people are performing.

The multiple roles are especially important for Wise Children as six people play our heroines throughout their lives. The performers interact and look over one another’s actions to magical effect. All are wonderful but, taking the lead as the oldest incarnations, are Etta Murfitt and Gareth Snook, whose interaction with the crowd is truly expert. The twins’ past takes in abuse, abandonment, death and war. But throughout there is a sense of humour and mischief. Leading the laughs, complete with a fat suit and big attitude to match, are Katy Owen as Grandma Chance, who takes in the girls when they are babies. And Paul Hunter’s turn as end-of-the-pier comedian Gorgeous George is a real gem.

Paul Hunter as Gorgeous George

The twins have a life in theatre and their stage career provides a lot of value, including a Shakespeare revue (with surely an eye down the road to Rice’s ex-residence, the Globe) that’s a real hoot. Their birth father (another great role for Hunter) is an old-fashioned mummer, while his acknowledged children, who manage to get to RADA, provide further roles for Mirabelle Gremaud and Bettrys Jones to excel in.

Alongside all the fun and fantasy, Carter retains an edge that injects realism into her story. Rice respects this balance and her multi-disciplinary approach is perfect for bringing out the text’s complexity, including its dark moments. Attacking events with fantastic energy, there’s all the lust you can handle in this genre-defying, gender-bending production, which culminates in a paean to the idea of the logical family. “Oh, what joy to sing and dance” is the twins’ refrain. And what a joy to watch, too.

Until 10 November 2018

www.oldvictheatre.com

Photos by Steve Tanner

“The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk” at Wilton’s Music Hall

It’s a delight that this early work from director Emma Rice and writer Daniel Jamieson has been revived and returns to London as part of a tour. Telling the tale of Bella and Marc Chagall, it’s a romance made blissful to watch by its combination of music, movement and imagery. Inspired by Marc’s paintings, flight is used a metaphor for love and applying this to the stage makes the show sky high with beauty, passion and emotion.

The performers are Marc Antolin and Daisy Maywood, who play the couple throughout their lives, as well as incidental characters along the way. Joined by multi-talented musicians James Gow and the show’s composer Ian Ross – whose music is integral to the piece – the singing is divine. The movement the piece demands, with choreography from Rice and Etta Murfitt, emphasises the trust actors and lovers have to have in one another and is a marvel: every limb performs, every action is considered.

From the start, Marc and Bella’s love at first sight is captivating. But their marriage is never free of tension. Chagall fell for his role as a genius early, it seems, and Bella suffered. It’s one of many triumphs that this formidable woman gets her side of the story told: it’s 50/50 all the way, with no trace of Bella a victim. Marc published his wife’s writing after her death, and admits that she could have been “hidden” by history. But not under Rice’s watch!

The past and memory are continually evoked as the Chagall story mirrors the momentous events of the Russian Revolution and World War II. The result is a portrayal of Jewish life as sensitive as Chagall’s own work, full of warmth, humour and, of course, the tragedy of anti-Semitism never far away. A scene where our wandering couple unpack their bags as they discuss the Holocaust uses the powerful symbolism of books and shoes in a breathtakingly simple manner.

What really elevates The Flying Lovers of Vitebsk is that Rice and Jamieson have created a uniquely theatrical experience that celebrates the power of make-believe. Highlighted by Bella’s own interest in the stage (which includes Marc’s assumption that she can’t work as she is a mother), imagination is the key to their love and the show. The invention that Rice employs is full of touches that have become her trademarks: the use of costume, and simple props that add humour, with cheeky nods to the mechanics of production. All engender a complicity with the audience that makes a crowd soar all the way through this show.

Until 10 February 2018, then on tour

www.kneehigh.co.uk

Photo by Steve Tanner