Tag Archives: Hampstead Theatre

“Rapture, Blister, Burn” at Hampstead Theatre

Exciting American talent comes to the Hampstead Theatre with Gina Gionfriddo’s play Rapture, Blister, Burn, a clever take on the state of feminism that’s filled with insight and fun.

It’s based around middle-aged, successful “sexy scholar” Catherine, a demanding role for the spirited Emilia Fox, who returns to her home town to look after her mother. Catherine reconnects with old friends from Grad School, Gwen and Don, who married and settled down when she left town, and their narrow academic social world serves well to raise bigger questions. Adding Catherine’s mother (Polly Adam) and a young student, Avery, provides plenty of satisfying intergenerational content.

To be sure, it’s all highly contrived. Gionfriddo is unabashed by this. Catherine teaches a class to just Avery and Gwen, which becomes more like a confessional. As lectures about feminism go, I can’t imagine them getting much sprightlier, with plenty of humour provided by the arrogance of youth, the dissatisfaction of middle age and excellent one-liners. Emma Fielding handles the role of Gwen well, but Shannon Tarbet as Avery has the funnier lines.

Gionfriddo’s frequent collaborator Peter Dubois directs, and picks up the pace in the second half for the better. The characters don’t always convince, although Don, the flawed male of the piece (performed with style by Adam James), is carefully drawn and perhaps the most thought provoking.

It’s predictable that Catherine starts an affair, but this is the point at which Gionfriddo really gets to work. The twists and turns of a marital breakdown, observed again by both the elderly and the young, is dealt with bluntly and irreverently. The sense of humour is wicked and overpowers much studied thinking, but this stylish piece is sure to provoke debate.

Until 22 February 2014

www.hampsteadtheatre.com

Written 23 January 2014 for The London Magazine

“Raving” at Hampstead Theatre

Three couples on a disastrous weekend away in Wales. This is the premise for Simon Paisley Day’s new play, Raving, which opened last night at the Hampstead Theatre. It’s a satisfyingly traditional set-up for a comedy of manners. Boasting superb performances as well as plenty of gags, it should prove another hit for a theatre that director Edward Hall is taking from strength to strength.

An actor himself, Day knows how to craft lines that will get a laugh, and the cast, all experienced comic actors, really capitalise on the script. Hall directs with just the bubbling suggestion of a farce, while keeping the pace appropriate to observational comedy. The couples are instantly recognisable ‘middle-aged parents with stressful lives’. You have a vivid impression of the homes and children they are taking a break from, and can easily imagine which part of London each lives in.

raving-18
Barnaby Kay and Tamzin Outwaite

The first arrivals are the neurotic Briony and her sex starved husband Keith. Barnaby Kay makes his character instantly appealing and Tamzin Outwaite is tremendous, turning on the tears and irrational fears at a speed that’s hilarious. As teachers, Briony and Keith see themselves as lower middle class (I am sure that wasn’t always the case) and don’t gel with the better-off Serena and Charles.

The toffs of the play are the tops. Nicholas Rowe’s ex SAS Charles is a scream, bettered only by Issy Van Randwyk whose filthy laugh as Serena I wanted to bottle and keep. They have “four or five” children and just “leave them to it”. No parenting books in their library and they spend too much time in the bedroom, with Charles all over Serena “like German measles”, to read a lot anyway.

In the middle of the pecking order come Ross and Rosy. The seemingly perfect couple who “don’t do late” but do yoga instead. They have problems with au pairs. Robert Webb and Sarah Hardland deal cleverly with their unappealing characters. When the predictable breakdown happens and the raving really starts, it still feels edgy.

The piece has its problems. The introduction of a younger woman, a Sloane with a drug and sex addiction, doesn’t convince, even though the talented Bel Powell does her best. Similarly, the character of the farmer the couples rent a cottage from, while ably performed by Ifan Huw Dafydd, introduces less tension than desired. There are longueurs during the finale, as the couples sexual kinks and dependencies are revealed with a too-obviously confessional tone, but the performances are strong enough to keep the laughs coming.

Until 23 November 2013

www.hampsteadtheatre.com

Photos by Manuel Harlan

Written 25 October 2013 for The London Magazine

“Hysteria” at Hampstead Theatre

Hampstead Theatre’s new production of Terry Johnson’s Hysteria is a significant revival, not least because the writer himself directs it. One of the most successful plays to mine the rich seam of psychoanalysis, it imagines Freud on the couch. Like the man himself, it explores trauma and humour in inspired fashion. This is a work of big ideas that boggles the mind and attempts to explain deep truths.

The action is set down the road from the theatre in Maresfield Gardens, during Freud’s exile in London just before the Second World War. The father of the unconscious approaches his death with plenty of humour. Antony Sher is magnificent in the lead; Freud joins Stanley Spencer and Primo Levi as famous figures Sher has embodied so well. Elements of farce abound as he hides a naked woman in his closet from his Doctor (David Horovitch – excellent) and a visitor paying homage, none other than Salvador Dali.

The scenes of farce are a delight. Adrian Schiller’s “doolally” Dali is superb and his accent a triumph. But the play soon develops into a tense exploration of Freud’s methods and the foundation of his movement. In an emotional performance as the unwanted guest in his bathroom, Lydia Wilson highlights one of Freud’s failures, a case study he presumptuously reported as a success, and a change in his theories that she questions. Her interrogation of him reveals his doubts and the trauma in his own life.

Johnson’s play is full of clever touches and is a close study of his subject. It can’t have hurt the farce that Freud’s study was full of erotic sculptures but picking out the Surrealist painter’s visit is inspired. The final tableau, depicting Freud’s dream, realised by Lez Brotherson’s superbly ambitious set, rises to the challenge of a problem Johnson highlights – that depicting the unconscious diminishes it – but can still create fine theatre.

Until 12 October 2013

www.hampsteadtheatre.com

Photo by Alaistair Muir

Written 13 September 2013 for The London Magazine

“Race” at Hampstead Theatre

In Race, which opened last night at the Hampstead Theatre, playwright David Mamet uses the legal system as a prism through which to examine racism in America. Race centres on the case of a white man accused of raping a black woman. It’s a hard-hitting, foul-mouthed, hilarious affair with the most serious of themes.

This is a huge coup for Hampstead; artistic director Edward Hall is justifiably pleased to give the show its UK premiere. Any work by Mamet is an important event for contemporary theatre writing, and in the must-see category by virtue of his name alone.

And it’s also characteristic Mamet: brilliantly contentious, perversely confrontational, and deliberately provocative. The play is about the lies we tell each other and ourselves about race, set in a legal world whose dialectic consists solely of falsehoods.

The law often makes great theatre; here the legal team of Lawton and Brown, played expertly by Jasper Britton and Clarke Peters, are more than open to a connection with “pageantry”. Overblown certainly, you might pray they are a parody, but their bluntness – constantly mercenary and misanthropic – is a technique to tackle taboos and get howls of laughter.

The key to the play is a new addition to the law firm, Susan, an honours student whose agenda gives rise to the most testing moral questions. Nina Toussaint-White is superb in the role, revealing that in razor-sharp competitions with her elder colleagues her character isn’t at the same professional level. And Toussaint-White conveys a deep pain behind her character’s sleek façade, injecting much-needed humanity into the play.

Mamet’s cynicism is such it occasionally beggars belief. Plot points designed to make us question Susan’s character are clumsy. There’s also the issue for London audiences that, understandably, the focus is very specifically on American society. But these are caveats. Race is never less than thrilling and this production makes a trip to Hampstead essential.

Until 29 June 2013

www.hampsteadtheatre.com

Photo by Alaistair Muir

Written 30 May 2013 for The London Magazine

“Di and Viv and Rose” at the Hampstead Theatre

Hampstead has a hit on its hands with Amelia Bullmore’s play, Di and Viv and Rose, which has graduated from the theatre’s downstairs studio space into the main auditorium. It’s a very funny and deeply moving story of friendship, which traces the relationship between three women from university days into adulthood.

Rose is annoyingly sweet, kooky and furiously promiscuous, Viv a militant, ambitious sociologist, and Di a straight-talking lesbian. The three seem to have little in common, but their experiences draw them together to create an intense, believable union that encompasses infectiously high times, as well as lows, and will have you hooked.

Thankfully, although the students’ lives are laugh-out-loud funny, there’s more than 1980s nostalgia on offer. The girls grow up and the dynamics alter. As with the last show at Hampstead, Old Money, these are fantastic roles for women and the talented trio here excels: Anna Maxwell Martin is brilliantly funny as Rose and Gina McKee deliciously deadpan as Viv, while Tamzin Outhwaite steals the show as the dependable, no-nonsense Di, delivering a career-defining performance in a remarkably written part.

With the general notion that friendship replaces family in our modern age, Bullmore has one foot in sitcom territory – but her jokes are a lot ruder and much funnier. Producing tears as well as laughter, Di and Viv and Rose is a mainstream treat, yet the strength of the writing provides deeper insights that are sure to stay with you. It richly deserves its re-run.

Until 23 February 2013

www.hampsteadtheatre.com

Photo by Johan Persson

Written 24 January 2013 for The London Magazine

“Old Money” at the Hampstead Theatre

Old Money, a new play by Sarah Wooley, marks the end of a fantastic year for Hampstead Theatre. Taking on this young writer is to Artistic Director Edward Hall’s credit; he’s spotted a quirky talent and a play full of fun, with serious points, that maybe a little rough around the edges, but is well worth watching. And that’s not to mention its star attraction – Maureen Lipman in fine form and not to be missed.

The story of three generations of women, Pearl, Joyce and Fiona, is rife with humorous conflict and includes a slight touch of fantasy. An unhealthy family triangle is complicated when Joyce becomes a widow and embraces her new freedom by making friends with a stripper. There have been plenty of dramas about baby boomers lately, but Wooley seems more interested in simply telling a good story – this is a tale of the unexpected and hugely entertaining.

It is not without problems. Everyone touched by the old money Joyce married into seems pretty objectionable – their selfishness seems hard to believe. And surely even the suburbs of Surrey aren’t quite as sheltered as Wooley makes out? The matriarch Faith’s hold over her daughter is dubious, while Joyce’s own spendthrift child Fiona seems bitter because she lives in a maisonette in Colliers Wood – bad, but not unbearable. As for the men in the piece, you start to suspect Wooley has some axe to grind in making them all so useless and unpleasant. But the problems aren’t all from Wooley’s script; surprisingly, the experienced director Terry Johnson seems flat-footed and fails to keep up the pace the play deserves.

However, Wooley’s humour is spot on, with plenty of laughs and observations that ring true. Best of all, the performances in Old Money are superb. Helen Ryan is a crowd-pleasing termagant and Tracy-Ann Oberman is superb as a grasping 40-something. Of course, it’s Lipman’s show and her character’s journey to fulfil long-delayed dreams, battling against various roles she is forced into, is performed wonderfully. The perfect comic timing we expect is there accompanied by breathless pauses and hesitations that show Lipman is in total control. Joyce isn’t an inspiring figure, the play is too complex for that, but Lipman makes her, and the play, very much alive.

Until 12 January 2013

www.hampsteadtheatre.com

Photo by Manuel Harlan

Written 6 December 2012 for The London Magazine

“The Judas Kiss” at Hampstead Theatre

David Hare’s 1998 play, The Judas Kiss, takes two pivotal moments in Oscar Wilde’s relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas: his refusal to flee to the continent before his arrest for ‘gross indecency’ and the couple’s final split in Naples. The story makes terrific drama. Under the expert hands of renowned Australian director Neil Armfield, this well-known tale is used to explore the emotions and motivations behind a great love story.

It’s not often that a casting director gets a mention in a review but Cara Beckinsale deserves it. Rupert Everett as Wilde seems so obviously right that it’s strange he hasn’t taken on the part before. His physical transformation is remarkable – the resemblance uncanny – and his intelligent and magnetic performance swings from brilliant dazzler to private thinker, aware that he has been “cast in a role”.

Freddie Fox brings his cheekbones and youth to the role of Lord Alfred Douglas, but he doesn’t just look the part. This ‘Bosie’ goes beyond the spoilt child – Fox gives his selfishness a pathological edge. The Judas Kiss is really a three-hander, with the part played by Robbie Ross in Wilde’s life given the place it deserves. Dismissed by Douglas as “third party”, this integral figure is poignantly portrayed by Cal MacAninch.

Ross’s presence is just another example of what a well-crafted play The Judas Kiss is. Taking on big themes, as Wilde believed an artist should, and arguably sneaking in a few more – issue of rights, freedom and a “crisis of silence” – that make Wilde’s plight feel contemporary, Wilde becomes more than a gay martyr or quotable figure. In Hare’s hands he is made human. This give The Judas Kiss the passion needed for great theatre.

Until 13 October 2012

www.hampsteadtheatre.com

Photo by Manuel Harlan

Written 13 September 2012 for The London Magazine

“Chariots of Fire” at Hampstead Theatre

The Hampstead Theatre’s production of Chariots of Fire couldn’t be more timely. As Olympic fever approaches London, this crowd-pleasing show capitalises on the long treasured memory of the film and the Vangelis soundtrack, highlighting those abstract ideals sport inspires. More remarkably, even if you don’t like sport, and concur with one character that “running is for hamsters and children”, the play is broad enough to win you over as well.

Mike Bartlett’s respectful adaptation makes the translation from film to stage a comfortable one and faultlessly attends to the personal drama of the two main characters, Olympic runners and rivals Harold Abrahams and Eric Liddell. And Bartlett is also good on the bigger themes: the religious beliefs of Liddell, who famously refused to run on the Sabbath, and the anti-Semitism experienced by Abrahams. But when it comes to examining nationhood and what it means for these men to represent their country, the play becomes a little trapped in its period: it’s all too jolly, and Abrahams’ drive to be a new kind of professional athlete leaves less of an impression than the smoking amateurs that provide the laughs – the use of Gilbert and Sullivan is inspired, but singing Jerusalem goes a bit too far.

Sport and drama mix well. The sheer Olympian effort of the cast, who seem to run a marathon during the show, is awe-inspiring. The performances from the leads, Jack Lowden and James McArdle, are meticulous. Their teammate Tam Williams, who plays the swaggering Lord Lindsey, almost manages to steal the show by getting some hurdling in. Hampstead is an intimate venue that makes designer Miriam Buether’s set all the more spectacular – transforming the whole theatre into a stadium in convincing, rousing fashion – she clearly deserves a medal.

But it is director Edward Hall who gets the gold. You might think you can only run around a theatre so many times – but Hall’s theatrical invention makes each occasion interesting and he maximises the drama of every race. It’s his skill that makes Chariots of Fire run so well. Regardless of the performance of British athletes at the upcoming games, in 2012 British theatre certainly leads the field.

Until 16 June 2012

www.hampsteadtheatre.com

Written 23 May 2012 for The London Magazine

“Farewell to the Theatre” at Hampstead Theatre

Farewell to the Theatre, a new play at Hampstead, takes as its subject the life and work of Harley Granville-Barker. A pivotal figure in British theatre, the multi-talented Granville-Barker is today known primarily as a playwright. Boldly taking on another writer as his subject, the play’s author, Richard Nelson, shows off his own experience with an impeccably crafted, intelligently layered script.

Granville-Barker was also an actor and it is easy to imagine he would have been proud of these performances at Hampstead. Ben Chaplin takes on the lead with a commanding intelligence and complexity: Granville-Barker was a severe critic with a cruel tongue but also a wish to be kind. Jemma Redgrave is superb as the Chekhovian sister to a persecuted lecturer Granville-Barker is staying with. Tara Fitzgerald is wonderful as a retired actress mooning over a young boy performing in the college play, a role that allows William French to make an impressive debut.

Granville-Barker moved from acting to direction. His lessons about ensemble work haven’t been lost on director Roger Michell, whose control and sensitivity bring out the best in Farewell to the Theatre’s cast as well as its script. Michell’s pacing is superb. Avoiding all traces of indulgence, he takes the production at “a good clip”, just as Granville-Barker advised we should deal with Shakespeare: at 100 minutes straight through we are left satisfied but wanting more – not an easy trick to pull off.

Ultimately, the influence Granville-Barker has on the stage stems from his work as a theoretician: born of a passion for the theatre that, during the course of the play, we see under threat. Farewell to the Theatre is a play Granville-Barker is writing – about a thespian tired of the business that surrounds putting on a play. It is an exhaustion I guarantee you will not feel if you see this one. Concluding with an impromptu performance of a mummers’ play, here we have the magical power of theatre confirmed, in a simple, effective, efficient fashion.

Until 7 April 2012

www.hampsteadtheatre.com

Photo by Stephen Cummiskey

Written 9 March 2012 for The London Magazine

“Penelope” at the Hampstead Theatre

Ever wondered what Penelope’s suitors got up to during Odysseus’ absence? We know they were swiftly dispatched on the traveller’s return, punished for making a mess of the house and forcing his wife into all those pointless hours over the loom. But Enda Walsh’s Penelope takes a deeper look at these men in a startlingly novel play that reimagines Homer’s world.

To add tension, those hoping to step into Odysseus’ conjugal sandals know he is about to return and how he will punish them – the Gods have delivered a barbecue they will be roasted on. Penelope’s beaus have decamped to a drained swimming pool from where they serenade her via CCTV.

In a series of brave performances the cast declare their love and Walsh investigates the limits of their language. Ageing lothario Dunne fancies himself as a poet, but Denis Conway’s spirited performance has his speech degenerate into anger. The elderly Fitz (Niall Buggy) flirts with philosophy. His speech is moving, but only shows how empty words can be.

A third attempt is the unluckiest of all. Karl Shiels’s Quinn performs a manic mime act with impressive comedic prowess but it’s the last straw for his rival Burns (Aaron Monaghan) – he may look like “an emaciated kidney after a long day’s filtering”, but grasping that love can exist even in this strange place makes the lies they are all telling intolerable.

It’s part of Walsh’s point that none of these men are likeable. Faced with these serenades anyone would take up the shuttle. The open question – are they irredeemable? Unfortunately, with little empathy towards them, no matter how unusual Penelope is, the play struggles to engage you.

It’s easy to see why so many admire Walsh. He is a writer never short of ideas with an exciting grasp of rhythm. His bold voice is sometimes obscene and scatological, mostly for comedic effect, but there’s intelligence here so fierce it can be overwhelming. Having been so successful on tour, this London run of Penelope at Hampstead allows the capital’s audiences a valuable chance to see an award-winning play.

Until 15 March 2011

www.hampsteadtheatre.com

Photo by Robert Day

Written 17 February 2011