Tag Archives: Kate O’Flynn

“[Blank]” at the Donmar Warehouse

This collection of 100 scenes, with the instruction that they can be selected at will and performed in any order, is “a challenge and an invitation” to theatre companies. It’s a startling idea that makes for a big book and shows playwright Alice Birch’s prodigious ability. It is also a suitable celebration of co-producer Clean Break Theatre’s 40 years of working alongside women involved with the criminal justice system. The treatment for the many situations they must have encountered is, by turns, heart-wrenching and thought-provoking. So what has this production, directed by Maria Aberg, created in response?

First, some brilliant performances. From names this theatregoer loves – such as Jackie Clune, Jemima Rooper, Zainab Hasan and Thusitha Jayasundera – to performers I’ve not had the privilege of seeing before, the acting is stunning. Tackling characters who all have a connection to crime, from the most serious to unnamed incidents, undoubtedly makes the show grim. But what’s important is how far-reaching and detailed repercussions are shown to be. Highlighting the children and relatives affected, as well as the women convicted, makes every character encountered a figure to be accounted for. As the 16-strong team moves from role to role, in scenes that are often very short, their achievements are breath-taking.

Much of [Blank]’s power come from its variety. Thirty scenes are delivered here, so we get to see many different women and hear multiple stories, from foster care, including one from the many scenes written for children (the young performers are fantastic), to an adult reunited with a mother freed from prison (providing stand-out moments for Kate O’Flynn and Lucy Edkins).

Shona Babayemi and Jemima Rooper in BLANK
Shona Babayemi and Jemima Rooper

Remember, teasing themes or coherence out of the texts is a choice Birch offers. Part of her point is to challenge conventional narratives about women ‘like this’. Aberg’s response is a light one; a couple of scenes share characters, but this feels like a coincidence. Rosie Elnile’s design and projections of the performers bind the play visually (although I am agnostic about the need for them). And there’s a nod to our specific location in the boldest scene that roots us in Covent Garden with the Donmar’s particular clientele: in a dinner party that turns into a disaster, Birch shows ruthless skills as a satirist and Shona Babayemi gives an unforgettable performance.

Aberg is wise to have faith in Birch’s short sketches – they are packed with emotion and drama. It can be frustrating to leave the action so quickly, and dizzying to think of how many scenes could be developed into full plays. That’s not the aim, and the writing is too precise for it to be the case – each scene stands fully formed. Rather, being overwhelmed by this breadth of – frankly awful – experience is a statement. This feels like a whole other kind of theatre. The play could be mounted anywhere, with any cast, making it a real treasure – full of possibilities and lives that we don’t normally see. While these women maybe invisible to some, [Blank] goes some way to filling that void.

Until 30 November 2019

www.donmarwarehouse.com

Photos by Helen Maybanks

“The End of History” at the Royal Court

Jack Thorne’s new play is a somewhat traditional affair, and far less tricky than many seen at this venue. But the Royal Court embraces all kinds of writing and, while this family drama may seem superficially simple (low stakes, even), it’s a piece of great skill that raises interesting questions and leads to fantastic performances.

The play’s focus is Sal, a left-wing school teacher who talks too much but always means well. Thorne has created an idealised figure – for all her oversharing and eccentricity it’s surely impossible not to like her. And taking what must be a dream role, the always excellent Lesley Sharp delivers every line to perfection. With the help of John Tiffany’s direction, her scenes become very funny indeed. I don’t know who, if anyone, Sharp and Thorne had in mind when working on Sal, but the character and depiction is one of great tenderness and humanity.

Sal’s husband David is just as much the firebrand, but with a crueller edge that David Morrissey handles impeccably. He’s a mix of anger and frustration, ever keen to lecture, which creates surprising tension. All the cast impresses as the play’s three acts cover three decades, but Morrissey shows us his character ageing in a profound and moving manner. And the passage of time is a triumph for Tiffany, too, as choreographed scenes between acts highlight the mundanities of family life and emotions are glimpsed as the years pass by on a calendar.

Kate O’Flynn, Sam Swainsbury and Laurie Davidson

As for the couple’s children, each character and performance is wonderfully detailed. Kate O’Flynn, Sam Swainsbury and Laurie Davidson show the nuances of their characters at different ages and the complexities of sibling rivalry. The one person who marries into the family makes a final great role for Zoe Boyle, who segues from an embarrassed guest meeting her in-laws for the first time to becoming thoroughly sick of them all. It’s notable how vulnerable all the younger characters are, arguably, in some cases, a little catastrophising. But their problems convince as well as providing plenty of laughs along the way.

Zoe Boyle

The End of History isn’t all funny. Each act contains a dramatic bombshell delivered with a deceptively light touch. In its structure and intelligence, the piece is reminiscent of David Hare’s Amy’s View, carefully refocused and with Thorne’s distinctive sense of humour. Convictions here are often a source of fun – from awkwardness to incredulity – but they are also ideas put into practice. Socialists like these are literally a dying breed, hence the title reference to Francis Fukuyama’s book. And their extreme ideas about inherited wealth may say more about our society than their logic – it certainly shocked some of my fellow theatregoers. Presenting Sal and David as figures from the past, with a fragile legacy, leads to a melancholy finale. But getting to know both, which Thorne allows us to do with such skill, gives this understated play its power.

Until 10 August 2019

www.royalcourttheatre.com

Photos by to Johan Persson

“Pinter 1 & 2” at the Harold Pinter Theatre

Director Jamie Lloyd has an unerring ability to surround his projects with excitement. His latest scheme is to present short works by Harold Pinter in a six-month-long series of carefully curated and stylishly packaged shows (they really should sell a T-shirt). The project boasts an array of stars – young and old – which indicates that everyone wants to work with Lloyd and offers the chance to see rarely performed works.

The season – and Pinter 1 – get off to a bang courtesy of confetti cannons and Press Conference, which stars a commanding Jonjo O’Neill as a sinister politician. It sets the scene for a first half of plays that show a variety of dystopias. Sometimes the shorts come across as dated, too simplistic and full of conspiracy. Or should we see the paranoia as prescient? A Donald Trump impersonation in The Pres and an Officer, a newly discovered satirical skit, suggests Lloyd does.

Maggie Steed and Paapa Essiedu

The way Pinter encapsulates the most basic fears surrounding the breakdown of society makes them raw and moving. Mountain Language reduced me to tears, with Maggie Steed as an elderly mother confronting her tortured son and forbidden to speak to him. And the tension Pinter can create becomes almost unbearable with One for the Road, which stars Antony Sher as a truly chilling interrogator, alongside Paapa Essiedu and Kate O’Flynn as his victims. The paranoia moves into a domestic setting for the evening’s finale, Ashes to Ashes, which sees a couple recounting an affair and an atrocity, both products of a deranged mind. It’s a too puzzling piece, held together by the direction of Lia Williams and passionate performances from O’Flynn and Essiedu.

Pinter 2 is a double bill of plays that look at infidelity, both from the 1960. First up is The Lover, where a squeaky clean couple discuss their affairs over breakfast and perform a bizarre role play. Surely this once appeared more challenging than it does today, and the point seems overplayed – even at just under an hour, the play drags. The boredom isn’t Lloyd’s fault – his direction is snappy and the whole show stylish thanks to the saturated colours of Soutra Gilmour’s designs. But while the piece is a comedy, the absurd is emphasised to a fault. Hayley Squires and John Macmillan perform well, but their characters are flattened, reduced to puppets. In fact, their shadows catch the eye more than they do (Elliot Griggs’ lighting design is superb).

John Macmillan and Russell Tovey

This second evening improves a little with The Collection, where Squires and Macmillan benefit from meatier, if shorter, roles taking on another suspected affair and a confrontation between the husband and the man his wife says seduced her. Russell Tovey plays a wide boy who taunts the cuckolded Macmillan while his flatmate, David Suchet, looks on. Lloyd employs a broad brush again, and the cast clearly has fun, but a degree of tension is retained. The older man and his younger counterpart, from the slums it is said, make for a disconcerting mix of sex, class and violence that’s the real deal.


Until 20 October 2018

www.pinteratthepinter.com

Photos by Marc Brenner

“The Glass Menagerie” at the Duke of York’s Theatre

This is the best production of a Tennessee Williams play I’ve seen. Director John Tiffany brings out the text’s peculiar humour and pathos while exploring its status as the author’s first ‘memory play’. A superb cast responds with style to this trilogy of achievements.

The memory play was an idea Williams explored throughout his career. This original effort, with our hero Tom recalling his life with the mother and sister he abandoned, is raw with autobiographical guilt. It is also highly poetic. Respecting this lyricism is one of the production’s fortes, mostly secured by Michael Esper’s beautiful delivery, as well as suggestions of movement, mime and dance aided by a score from Nico Muhly.

Bob Crowley’s design also complements the elegiac air: an Escher-style fire escape and pools of water might sound artsy but are understated. The set is a dreamlike, darkened bubble without walls, yet the claustrophobia of the two-by-four flat closes in on you. But there’s something comforting in that darkness as well, with a hint of masochistic pleasure in the nostalgia can.

Michael Esper and Cherry Jones

The memories are those of Esper’s Tom. Fey, often funny, his guilt makes him a tragic figure, whose outbursts are tinged with a hysteria that Esper handles especially well, convincing us that he is living in a “nailed up coffin”. As a contrast, remembering how complex Williams’ heroines are, there is a magisterial performance from Cherry Jones as his dignified mother, Amanda, whose wit brings out the play’s lighter touches. After all, these lives have their high points – joy in reflecting on the past and fantasising about the future, with realistic fears adding a degree of tension. As “a woman of action as well as words”, this Amanda is someone to respect.

As for the production being emotionally potent, it is Briton Kate O’Flynn as fragile sister Laura and Brian J Smith with a tender portrayal of her gentleman caller who deliver the goods. Smith is heart breaking not just due to her innocence but because she has a wider awareness than her family credits her with.

Tiffany’s credentials are currently high due his work on Harry Potter. Famously in The Glass Menagerie, Tom claims he is a magician, but it is the whole cast and their director who deserve that title here. Conjuring the best out of each element of this masterpiece, they make the production enchanting.

Until 29 April 2017

www.theglassmenagerie.co.uk/

Photos by Johan Persson

“The Trial” at the Young Vic

Nick Gill’s adaptation of Kafka’s novel makes for a puzzling piece of theatre. Cold, confusing and frustrating (I’ll get back to that last point), it has the feel of an endurance race, not least because the action takes place on a conveyer belt, built into Miriam Buether’s eye-wateringly orange set. There’s a lot of distance covered by the famous Josef K: arrested and fighting a faceless system to discover the nature of his crime, he is forced into a painful self-examination that drives him mad. There are so many themes here, from bureaucracy, lots of yellow paper, to role of the artist (cue dance music), that the show becomes so relentless it becomes monotonous.

The cast under Richard Jones’ direction win your admiration. Hugh Skinner adds a modern sleekness to the role of Josef’s work colleague – you can picture him in the City, despite the costume. And Sian Thomas is superb as Josef’s fast-talking lawyer. Taking on six parts as the women in Josef’s life, from a lap dancer to his next-door neighbour, keeps Kate O’Flynn busy. But Rory Kinnear in the lead role gets the gong for sheer hard work. On stage for near two hours, in a gut-wrenching performance that connects strongly with the audience, he is remarkable.

Kinnear also has to deal with an unusually difficult script. Josef’s internal dialogue is presented in a novel, poetic form that, perhaps because of the set’s colour, is reminiscent of Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange. Take the first line – “An almost woke ee up one morn” – and you get the idea. The execution is visceral, the technique arresting. Josef’s sexual frustration and anxiety are captured (the connection between lust and legal problems is one of Gill’s more intriguing insights), and his articulacy seems to deliberately deteriorate as the play goes on. The dialogue certainly becomes more difficult to follow, which increasingly jars – so much so that the play’s end comes as a relief for regrettably prosaic reasons.

Until 22 August 2015

www.youngvic.org

Photo by Keith Pattison

“A Taste of Honey” at the National Theatre

Having started the year with a fantastic production of King Lear, the National Theatre has a second must-see show in as many months. The revival of Shelagh Delaney’s A Taste of Honey is the finest work from director Bijan Sheibani that I’ve seen. This important and influential play, as much about dreams and aspirations as any grim-up-north reality, is given its due in a deft production that subtly injects moments of fancy, revealing the rich inner lives of its poverty-stricken characters. Sheibani indicates, rather than shouts, how shocking Delaney’s 1958 play must have been when first shown.

The performances are superb. Kate O’Flynn takes the role of Jo, surely one of the most fascinating parts for a young actress (and famously written when Delaney herself was only 19). She brings out the ‘ill-starred’ schoolgirl’s mercurial quality; spotlighting her innocence, and the worldly wisdom that comes with her upbringing. While dealing with her mother’s fancy man, her own brief affair with a black sailor and then homemaking, while pregnant, with gay friend Geoffrey, O’Flynn is captivating. Meanwhile, the male supporting cast – Dean Lennox Kelly, Eric Kofi Abrefa and Harry Hepple – convince while avoiding sensationalism.

But it’s Lesley Sharp’s performance as Jo’s mother Helen that steals the show. The role is presented as hugely overblown – exaggerated; outrageous; camp in its truest meaning – and the result is remarkably rich. With eyes and hips rolling like Mae West, Sharp makes Helen sexy (something Dora Bryan, for all her skill, didn’t attempt in the 1961 film). Seen as a virile middle-aged woman, her selfishness makes more sense. And she’s funny – ferociously so. The original Broadway cast of the show had Angela Lansbury in the role, and it would be lovely if she could catch Sharp’s performance while in rehearsals for Blythe Spirit (and even better to know what she thinks of it).

Delaney’s text still startles. Poetic and provocative after all these years, it now appears more direct, and more focused, than those by her equally angry contemporaries. Delaney wrote her ground breaking ‘minority’ characters with striking maturity, and her political aims remain inspiring. While you might admire works by Arnold Wesker and John Osborne from a similar era, you fall in love with A Taste of Honey and Delaney. She should take the final bow.

Until 11 May 2014

www.nationaltheatre.org.uk

Photo by Marc Brenner

Written 20 February 2014 for The London Magazine

“Port” at the National Theatre

Following the success of their production of The Curious Incident (which transfers to the Apollo Theatre in March) it feels as if the National Theatre is rewarding writer Simon Stephens and director Marianne Elliott with a revival of the 1992 play, Port, which they first worked on in Manchester. Set in Stockport, where they both grew up, it’s a piece close to their hearts – indeed the whole play is sincere to a fault.

Fulfilling plenty of prejudices Londoners might have about the north, Port is a grim affair that traces the life of Racheal from 11 to 23. The poor girl’s trauma starts early when her mother abandons her. And things don’t get much better as she moves into dismal jobs and abusive relationships. Everyday Stockport is dysfunctional and depressing, its inhabitants desperate and cruel as they stumble through life.

You can see why the play has its advocates. Stephens’ expletive-filled language has its own kind of beauty – full of skilled observations and rich imagery. And he has written wonderful roles: from Rachael’s mum, who only appears in the first scene and is performed skilfully by Liz White, to the lead, played from child to woman by Kate O’Flynn in a remarkable performance that can’t be praised enough. But the play is so bleak that it becomes monochrome and, under Elliott’s static direction, monotonous.

Giving away whether or not Rachael sets sail for brighter shores would be to ruin what little tension Port has and unfortunately the ending feels tacked on and unconvincing. Sadly, despite the commitment of the cast, it is unlikely that Port will win many hearts.

Until 24 March 2013

www.nationaltheatre.org.uk

Photo by Kevin Cummings

Written 1 February 2013 for The London Magazine