Tag Archives: Nicholas Wright

“Travelling Light” at the National Theatre

Cinema and theatre have always had a close symbiosis. The relationship is often fruitful but, for those who love live arts more, Nicholas Wright’s new play, Travelling Light, about the fascinating early days of the motion picture, is an opportunity to convey emotions and ideas with an intimacy that stage, rather than screen, promotes.

There are moments when Travelling Light uses the power theatre has to grab your attention like nothing else. It’s the tale of Motl Mendl, a Russian Jew, falling in love with the new medium of film and a girl who acts in his first picture. Punctuated with witty observations on the nature of art (a scene of the first focus group for a movie is delightful) and nostalgically interspaced with reflections from Mendl in later life, it’s an interesting story, well told – unfortunately there never seems very much at stake.

Damien Molony and Paul Jesson are both commendable as the flawed hero Mendl and there is a strong performance from Lauren O’Neil as his love interest. But the core of the play is Mendl’s relationship with his first ‘producer’, the rough and ready mill-owner of his hometown performed by Antony Sher. Clearly loving being back on stage at the National, Sher gives a robust, heart-warming performance in a difficult role that could easily turn into parody.

Unfortunately, Sher’s performance is the only thing that makes Travelling Light really compelling. Nicholas Hytner’s direction is clear and concise but the projection of film on to Bob Crowley’s design seems to have missed a trick or two.

Wright’s text seldom rises above the level of entertainment, and that isn’t much of a fault, but we often expect more from theatre, don’t we? It’s a double standard, of course, but Travelling Light is a little too light and this story of moving pictures not moving enough.

Until 6 March 2012

www.nationaltheatre.org.uk

Photo by Johan Persson

Written 19 January 2012 for The London Magazine

“Mrs Klein” at the Almeida Theatre

Nicholas Wright’s play deals knowledgeably with the life of formidable psychoanalyst Melanie Klein and her prestigious contribution to her science.

The period atmosphere of 1930s intellectual émigrés is carefully evoked with touches of tender irony, alongside a playful knowledge of the layman’s prejudices used to great comic effect. There are many moments of laughter in a work that is often disturbingly dark – Klein’s personal tragedy is a heart-rending one.

The story opens with the death of her son, following which Klein presents herself as a capable woman still in control. Through the course of the play, through interaction with the only two other characters we meet, we see this denial deepen and have to encounter the horrid possibility that her son’s death was actually suicide.

These two other players are Klein’s daughter Melitta and impoverished emigrée Paula, both also psychoanalysts. They have a frank and yet fraught relationship with one another but that seems simple in contrast to their relations with Klein.

Zoe Waites plays Melitta. Having been psychoanalysed by her mother (a shocking practice common in the early days of the discipline) a superficial competence only briefly hides her damaged self. Waites shows the character’s frustration with a mother she simply cannot compete against. The cruelty she plots fails to satisfy her, her attempts at sophistication seem pathetic, and she often gesticulates like a child.

Nicola Walker’s Paula is a more complex character whose story unfolds as the play progresses.  Initially a diffident presence, we discover her ambition is to become a patient of the great Mrs Klein. As intimacy deepens, it seems the plan is to take the place of daughter. The final scene shows their first consultation – planned to prevent reconciliation between mother and birth daughter. Keen to show her academic credentials, Paula has some of the clunkiest lines but delivers them with great expression.

Both actresses are shadowed by a wonderful performance from Claire Higgins as Mrs Klein. Her presence on stage is truly commanding, as she moves us from laughter to deep sympathy – an achievement all the greater since her character itself is portrayed as being far from endearing. At turns brittle and domineering, she can also be vulnerable and fragile. Her one violent outburst is electrifying, and her final breakdown likely to bring you to tears.

Higgins should surely be nominated for her fourth Olivier award for making a truly wonderful night at the theatre.

Until 5 December 2009

www.almeida.co.uk

Photo by John Haynes

Written 3 November 2009 for The London Magazine