Tag Archives: Leo Bill

“The Silence of the Sea” at the Trafalgar Studios

A very different kind of wartime drama, based on a novella written at the start of World War II by French intellectual Jean Bruller, aka Vercors, The Silence of the Sea is about an unusually quiet form of resistance. A German soldier is billeted with a French couple whose delivery of the silent treatment tests his sanity. It’s a form of rebellion that demands determination and restraint – both from its protagonists and the creative team of the play – and the results are startling, compelling and easy to recommend.

The Silence of the Sea is sophisticated stuff, not least in its nuanced approach to the occupying Nazi: a philosophising Francophile of remarkable amiability, he’s a musician at home so that the silence of his unwilling housemates becomes a torture to him and leads him to confide more and more.

The three complex roles produce some fine acting. Leo Bill brings just the right edge to his unusually sensitive warrior, showing great skill in just holding back from winning us over, and Simona Bitmaté gives an intense performance as the young woman forced to live with him. But it’s the excellent Finbar Lynch who has our attention, with asides to the audience that show his remarkable ability as a storyteller.

The production marks the end of the Donmar’s initiative for young directors at the Trafalgar Studios, supported by United House, and that’s a pity. The director here, Simon Evans, has excelled. Generating fantastic performances that feel in-depth but not indulgent, with the help of some great sound design from Gregory Clarke, he makes this tiny venue drip with atmosphere, and cleverly glides over the play’s more pretentious moments to focus on its powerful drama.

Until 2 February 2012

www.donmarwarehouse.com

Photo by Simon Kane

Written 15 January 2013 for The London Magazine

“The Glass Menagerie” at the Young Vic

Joe Hill-Gibbins’ production of Tennessee Williams’ ‘memory’ play, The Glass Menagerie, is one you won’t forget. Introduced as a play that gives “truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion”, Hill-Gibbins and designer Jeremy Herbert develop Williams’ emphasis on the theatrical with crystal clarity.

With a curtain that goes down as well as up and musicians integrated into the action, the workings of the story are exposed to all, entrancing us with its telling.

Not that this illusion is really all that pleasant. Our narrator Tom relates the tale of his escape from home but never disguises the fact that he is abandoning his mother and sister. Leo Bill plays this unsympathetic character, who haunted from the start. It is a surprisingly physical portrayal with a palpable sense of anger and despair.

The urgency of Tom’s leaving is well established by Deborah Findlay and Sinead Matthews in the roles of his mother Amanda and sister Laura. The danger of their self-illusion is subtly conveyed and is all the more powerful for the way it creeps up on you.

Even in Williams’ day, the chivalry of the South was a thing of the past. Nowadays, Amanda’s delusions and Laura’s timidity can seem not just deluded but silly. Findlay does well to establish her character’s ideas without alienating the audience. This is a lesson Matthews has chosen to ignore. Some actresses play Laura with a stubbornness about her fantasy life that is missing here. But, in neglecting this, Matthews is all the more moving and as fragile as the glass animals she collects.

The play’s fourth character, Jim the gentleman caller, is “an emissary from the world of reality” and arrives through a door marked with a star. Kyle Soller gives an excellent performance, fitting Tom’s description of him perfectly and adding a sincerity that cannot fail to move. He becomes central to Hill-Gibbins’ sensitive direction of this masterpiece and in bringing emotion to the fore leaves us as haunted as the characters left abandoned in their fantasy world.

www.youngvic.org

Until 15 January 2011

Photo by Simon Annand

Written 22 November 2010 for The London Magazine

“Posh” at the Royal Court

There’s seldom a shortage of political plays in London and, in an election year, writers are keener than ever to deal with meaty issues. Laura Wade’s Posh promises a novel take on current affairs by allowing us an insight into one of those Oxford dining clubs beloved of Messrs Cameron and Johnson. It’s a good starting position, but what makes the play really clever is that it deals with so much more.

Fascination with power is always a great ingredient for good drama – what forms and drives those in charge? Wade sets out to inform us. In this case, the elite Riot Club diners are born to rule and very much aware of this fact.

Great humour comes from the plentiful clichés about such characters as their revolting snobbery is combined with the arrogance and ignorance of youth. It’s entertaining stuff, but these guys are easy targets. Again Wade provides more. Like all children of the baby boomers these toffs could be the first generation in history to be worse off than their parents. Angrily interpreting the current state of the nation, they see that if they don’t change things, they might have to stop being posh.

The large cast does a great job of making each character distinct despite belonging to a limited social world. In a variety of ways, each exposes their weaknesses and is played with by the others. They are vicious to each other as only schoolboys can be while their amateur manoeuvrings have a pathetic touch. Joshua McGuire, who is still in his final year at RADA, stands out as Guy. More than most he is utterly clueless and desperate to gain approval. Leo Bill plays Alistair, notable for the frightening anger he conveys and his palpable confusion in the face of what he regards as the injustices of the world.

The play is bookended by meetings with Guy’s godfather Jeremy. Performed with sinister aplomb by Simon Shepherd, he is an MP on the look out for future talent. Shepherd is perfectly cast as the man these boys will grow up to be. If this sounds a little too conspiratorial, bear in mind that the idea of such dining clubs containing undergraduates plotting to control the country is well avoided here. Wade sets out empty, rambling arguments full of powerful emotion but safely removed from political reality.

It might seem odd but, for my money, the star roles are the smallest ones. Fiona Button plays the toffs’ waitress and Charlotte Lucas a prostitute hired by the club. The women carry themselves with a sense of dignity and purpose that the club-members lack. Their articulacy renders the men speechless – until they leave the room.

Added to all these great performances come some surprises. Surreal touches are added that make director Lyndsey Turner’s production speed along. A capella interludes where the club sing inappropriate versions of R’n’B numbers require that musical director James Fortune earns a special mention. The songs are great fun and serve as a wonderful reminder of how anachronistic the club is. A guest appearance by the club’s founder, Earl Riot, who possesses Toby (Jolyon Coy) in his drunken stupor, also changes the tempo of the piece.

All this combines to create a great evening at the theatre. Undoubtedly some will claim that the observations about class and politics are too broad but the insight into youth and group dynamics are spot on. Behind this, a great ear for dialogue and skill at creating dramatic situations should compel our politicians to watch this for tips on how to engage an audience, if nothing else.

Until 22 May 2010

www.royalcourttheatre.com

Photo by Johan Persson

Written 19 April 2010 for The London Magazine