Tag Archives: Giles Thomas

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“The Glass Menagerie” at the Rose Theatre Kingston

Director Atri Banerjee’s excellent 2022 revival of the Tennessee Williams’ classic benefits from a strong focus on the text and a sensual creative vision. Both are aided by Rosanna Vize’s brilliantly sparse design: the set is a neon sign of one word – Paradise. The hopes and wishes of the characters are contrasted with the bare space before us.

There are a few small props. And the pole the sign is on rotates. But the stage is used to tremendous effect by movement director Anthony Missen. The cast hovers or runs around a circular platform – stepping on to it becomes a statement – and frequently walks backwards. Every moment is considered, every move worth watching.

Light and sound become especially important, showing brilliant work by designers Lee Curran and Giles Thomas. The latter’s music for the show is fantastic, full of romance and melancholy, while the use of microphones (when characters argue, whisper or make telephone calls) is smart. And what you hear is surprising, too (let’s just from say from now on a particular Whitney Houston song will make me think of this show). Curran’s lighting includes golden glows and candlelight, suggesting love or nostalgia, or harsh shadows and a shocking flash for stark realisations.

All this before a collection of impressive performances – a further commendation for Banerjee – is addressed. The production is spacious – literally – but also in terms of the room given to develop characters. Consequently, the dreamlike quality Williams tells us about builds.

Kasper Hilton-Hille in The Glass Menagerie
Kasper Hilton-Hille

Kasper Hilton-Hille takes the role of Tom. He’s perfect casting as an angry “selfish dreamer” with just the right balance of quirk, cruelty and regret (by the end, he has tears in his eyes). Although Tom leads the show as narrator with easy command, Banerjee makes sure this is a particularly even production, with time for every character.

There are strong, intelligent performances from Geraldine Somerville and Natalie Kimmerling as mother and daughter, Amanda and hypersensitive Laura. At first, Amanda may seem a cold scold, but she shows a genuine affection for her children that is moving and steers us away from Williams’ exaggerations. Laura might seem not “peculiar” enough… at least until she wears a neon dress for gentleman caller Jim’s arrival. And it is with this scene that Kimmerling comes into her own.

The conversation between Laura and Jim has some of their dialogue repeated and includes a dance that Laura imagines. It illustrates how special Laura is. Her vivid imagination becomes a thing to cherish, her dance a parallel with her brother Tom’s poetic ambitions. The extended scene also means a larger role for Zacchaeus Kayode, who makes Jim vulnerable as well as charming, an admirable figure. While the production is superb throughout, I suspect this scene was key for Banerjee. It really is brilliant and makes for a particularly moving menagerie.

Until 4 May 2024 then on tour

www.rosetheatre.org

Photos by Marc Brenner

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“Romeo and Juliet” at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

It’s great to be back in the theatre, especially at my favourite outdoor venue. Last year’s revival of Jesus Christ Superstar was a blessed break between lockdowns I’m still grateful for. But even loving the location, and welcoming the opening of a new season, this production isn’t going to set anybody’s summer on fire.

At just over an hour and half, director Kimberley Sykes’ version of Shakespeare’s tragic love story is speedy and serves as an effective introduction to the play. Being used to interpretations (with different times and locations), you might find this no-nonsense version, with no tricks or twists, a relief. But there’s also a sense of something remiss in such a stripped back show.

Take Naomi Dawson’s scaffolded design. This is a set that has its moment… no spoilers here. But is it worth the wait? For most of the show the cast seem lost, running around and providing the audience with little sense of a space inhabited (Juliet’s balcony is deliberately ill-defined). Giving small attention to Prince Escalus adds to a sense of characters out of any time or place.

One conceit Sykes does introduce is to have characters who die leave the stage and join the audience. But these ghostly presences in the stalls add little. And a break in the logic ends up frustrating – Juliet undergoes the same experience, raising from the dead, after taking her sleeping draft. But of course, she isn’t dead.

Regrettably, this is a production it is hard not to damn with faint praise. The performances are competent and the delivery clear. Isabel Adomakoh Young and Joel MacCormack take the title roles and acquit themselves well. There might be more romance, but leads are good in scenes with Peter Hamilton Dyer’s Friar Lawrence. There’s also an impressive Mercutio to enjoy in Cavan Clarke’s controlled performance.

There just isn’t anything remarkable here, so the overall impression is of a perfunctory production. But let’s end on a high note, with Giles Thomas’ music for the show. Combining dance with a suggestion of Vaughan Williams, the score adds romance and tension managing to be noticeable while never overpowering the action. Thomas’ work is excellent and provides the show with a much-needed highlight.

Until 24 July 2021

www.openairtheatre.com

Photo by Jane Hobson

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“Equus” at the Theatre Royal Stratford East

The last London outing of Peter Shaffer’s 1973 play boasted exciting star casting. But even the presence of Daniel Radcliffe, who did a great job playing the stable hand Alan who blinds the horses in his care, didn’t quite distract from the dated manner of this psychodrama. Equus can be a laboured whydunit, as the aloof Dr Dysart lags behind the audience in reconstructing events and struggles to provide an explanation for an all-too-symbolic outrage.

In this new production, director Ned Bennett gallops over many flaws, adding a physicality that balances the theorising monologues. Meanwhile, the lighting and sound design, from Jessica Hung Han Yun and Giles Thomas respectively, add psychedelic flashes of light and bursts of sound to great effect. With a strong cast, dashing on and off stage with unnerving speed, the piece is served superbly – this is one of the best revivals you’ll see in a long time.

The play’s problems are still there, of course. A contemporary audience is probably too used to tracing trauma – and too familiar with psychobabble – to find such a quest revelatory. But Bennett manages to make it exciting. The clever move is to focus on the doctor, played superbly by Zubin Varla, as much as the patient, and to make the philhellenic clinician’s dissatisfaction with his own life a source of questions. With increasing distress, Dysart sees his treatment will deprive Alan of a life-enhancing passion – the key word is worship – which is a challenging proposition, given Alan’s actions. Varla provides convincing fervour, and plumbing Shaffer’s text to bring out the theme works well.

The production flirts with a period setting, sometimes to its detriment. Georgia Lowe’s minimal design of clinical curtains is used to great effect, but the costumes, as a nod to the 1970s, are confusing. And too little is done about the female roles. Norah Lopez Holden, who plays Alan’s love interest, feels so contemporary she could come from another play. While Alan’s mother is in 1950s mode with Syreeta Kumar’s oddly wooden depiction.

Ira Mandela Siobhan and Ehtan Kai

The cast is superb though when it comes to doubling up as the horses, led in this endeavour by Ira Mandela Siobhan. Avoiding fancy puppetry emphasises the sensual to an almost risqué level – the show is confrontationally sexy. For a final exciting element, there’s the performance of Ethan Kai as Alan. Theatregoers love a career-defining role and this surely counts as one. As well as creating sympathy for the character – no easy leap – he also makes Alan scary. Presenting a young man so dangerously unaware of his own strength, Kai allows Alan to stand as an individual rather than an object in Shaffer’s intellectual game – and all benefit as a result.  

Until 23 March 2019

www.stratfordeast.com

Photo by The Other Richard

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“Wish List” at the Royal Court

Katherine Soper’s play tackles modish concerns about mental health and the world of work, as two siblings struggle against the benefits system and a menial job on a zero-hours contract. A joint production with Manchester’s Royal Exchange, the play is at home at the Royal Court; there isn’t just a kitchen sink, there’s a bathroom one as well. But suspicions should be suspended: Soper has written a play with real heart, a well deserving winner of the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting.

For all the monotony in the characters’ lives, Roper covers a gamut of emotions, while Matthew Xia’s direction, with strong sound design from Giles Thomas, nurtures her considerable skills.

The stress in Tamsin’s life, brilliantly portrayed by Erin Doherty, is well depicted and instantly recognisable. Reduced to tears more than once, Tamsin’s own wishes are balanced with responsibilities to her sick brother, combining care and understandable frustration.

With the siblings’ crippling obsessive behaviour, Soper brings insight into a condition increasingly depicted on stage and adds tension. Rendered with almost unbearable intensity by Joseph Quinn, this young man becomes a danger to himself and a fascinating figure with Christ-like connotations from his self-inflicted injuries.

Soper appreciates we can only stand so much doom and gloom and deftly introduces some sweet comedy. Doherty takes us touchingly close to her character’s hopes and gives us the giggles with a rendition of a Meat Loaf song, part of a budding romance with a younger colleague made all the more appealing by a performance from Shaquille Ali-Yebuah: any actor who can make a role this charming is sure to have a bright future.

There are lighter moments also from the mild satire against big business. In the packing factory, neither Tamsin nor her potential boyfriend falls for the inspirational slogans, despite their desperation for a job. But cleverly, the awful working conditions are depicted dispassionately, with an intelligent role for Aleksandar Mikic as their manager.

Digs against faceless organisations come alongside camaraderie. Small acts of kindness in the face of big problems are part of Wish List’s most effective passages – which focus on hope. A lit candle, shared cigarette or high five, take on the significance of communion that is simply beautiful. Soper wants this look at vulnerable lives to be dignified. Her play wins respect as a result.

Until 11 February 2017

www.royalcourttheatre.com

Photo by Jonathan Keenan