The Motherfucker with the Hat

by Stephen Adly Guirgis

seen at the National Theatre (Lyttleton) on 30 June 2015

The production is directed by Indhu Rubasingham and designed by Robert Jones, and features Ricardo Chavira as Jackie (a prisoner on parole), Flor De Liz Perez as his girlfriend Veronica, Alec Newman as his sponsor (apparently in AA) Ralph, Nathalie Armin as Ralph's wife Victoria, and Yul Vázquez as Jackie's cousin Julio. It consists of nine scenes set variously in the flats of Veronica, Ralph and Julio.

The title is indicative of the language used within the play - street smart New York profanity. But Guirgis is a master when it comes to idiomatic dialogue; the rhythms are perfect and the title phrase acts as a leitmotiv throughout, indicating Jackie's frustration with his world as he tries to go straight but still maintain his sense of control. He has unfortunately found a stranger's hat in Veronica's flat, and her denial that anything untoward has happened does not reassure him. A series of incidents and revelations follow, which could easily have become vicious and nasty, but somehow we are in a comedic world where the worst does not happen - though there is still plenty of hurt (physical and mental) and heartache.

The cast are excellent (three are from the US, and Yul Vázquez was in the original production), and the staging is brilliant, with the three flats on separate truckle stages appearing and disappearing in the blackness of the Lyttleton stage, and a series of red-painted New York fire escapes floating into different configurations for each venue.

An essay in the programme refers to Guirgis's interest in the problem of leaving childish things behind and learning to behave in a grown up manner. Jackie in particular has a lot to learn about this process, but Ralph is correct in pointing out that Veronica too is hiding from adulthood by her reliance on coke. Yet Ralph himself is hardly a shining example. It is Julio, the disregarded 'faggot cousin', who has the wisest outlook, and perhaps the play's most moving reminiscence.

Despite the sense that any progress in these people's lives is fragile and small, the overall impression is of enormous vitality and energy, which is curiously refreshing.

Measure for Measure

by William Shakespeare

seen at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on 28 June 2015

This production is directed by Dominic Dromgoole and features Mariah Gale as Isabella, Kurt Egyiawan as Angelo, Dominic Rowan as the Duke, Joel MacCormack as Claudio, Dean Nolan as Elbow and Brendan O'Hea as Lucio. It is presented in 16th century dress to underline the conflict between Puritans and the more bawdy elements of society.

There is plenty of raucous business to keep a good-humoured audience happy; as the musicians are warming up, two houses are wheeled into the groundling space, and bawds and their pimps start crying for trade. When a couple enters either house, it starts rocking most suggestively. Later, when Angelo decrees that suburban houses of ill-repute are to be demolished, these are collapsed and wheeled off.

Oresteia

by Aeschylus in a new version created by Robert Icke

seen at the Almeida Theatre on 27 June 2015

'Oresteia', directed by Robert Icke and designed by Hildegard Bechtler, features Lia Williams as Klytemnestra, Angus Wright as Agamemnon (and Aegisthus), Luke Thompson as Orestes and Jessica Brown Findlay as Elektra. It is the first in a series of Greek plays at the Almeida in 2015.

The 'new version' is definitely a 'version' and not merely a translation of the Greek text. The original trilogy ('Agamemnon', 'Choephori' or 'Libation Bearers', and 'Eumenides' or 'Kindly Ones') has in effect been turned into a tetralogy by dramatising an incident mentioned in 'Agamemnon' as a fully-fledged action in its own right. Looked at another way, Euripides's play 'Iphigenia at Aulis' has been adapted into an extended prologue to Aeschylus's trilogy.

King John (again)

by William Shakespeare

seen at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on 25 June 2015

I decided to see this production again in a stage space after the visually frustrating experience at the Temple Church. Ironically I chose a fabulous seat in the centre of the lower gallery - which happened to create sightline problems of its own in this case, as I was facing one of the main axes of approach where actors often stood in a direct line obscuring anyone in the centre of the stage. However, this was a minor problem compared with the massive pillars of the church.

Constellations

by Nick Payne

seen at the Richmond Theatre on 24 June 2015

The play is directed by Michael Longhurst and stars Joe Armstrong and Louie Brealey. Having been a success at the Royal Court and on Broadway (with a different cast in each place), it is now touring before a brief West End revival.

The stage is littered with dozens of balloons, with changing patterns of light on them prior to the start of the performance. Many are raised at the beginning to create the acting space, and many are revealed to be globes which can be lit from within.

Antony and Cleopatra

by William Shakespeare

filmed live performance from Shakespeare's Globe Theatre seen on 18 June 2015

This 2014 production was directed by Jonathan Munby and stars Eve Best as Cleopatra, Clive Wood as Mark Antony, Jolyon Coy as Octavius Caesar and Phil Daniels as Enobarbus.

The play criss-crosses the ancient world, from Egypt (Alexandria) to Rome, Sicily and the western shores of Greece (Actium), and dramatises the tumultuous relationship between Cleopatra, the last Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt, and Mark Antony, one of the three Roman leaders whose triumvirate was established after the wars following the death of Julius Caesar. The triumvir Lepidus is the weakest of the three, and so the military and political struggle for dominance in Rome becomes intensified in the personal animosity between Antony and the young Octavius Caesar.

Temple

by Steve Waters

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 11 June 2015

The play, directed by Howard Davies and designed by Tim Hatley, features Simon Russell Beale as the Dean, Rebecca Humphries as the PA, Paul Higgins as the Canon Chancellor, Anna Calder-Marshall as the Virger, Malcolm Sinclair as the Bishop of London, and Shereen Martin as the City lawyer. It is set in the Chapter House of St Paul's Cathedral on the morning after the Chapter decided to support the City of London's application for an injunction to evict the Occupy movement from St Paul's Churchyard in late October 2011, which led to the immediate resignation of the Canon Chancellor (and the eventual resignation of the Dean).

The room in the Chapter House looks like a comfortable board room with gracious proportions and large sash windows. Outside is the imposing cathedral, but the sounds wafting through are those of the Occupy encampment, with the remorseless tolling of the church bells lending urgency to the general sense of crisis, as the Dean prepares to re-open the church after a fortnight's controversial closure, and the Canon Chancellor's public announcement of his resignation through Twitter appears to betray the collegiate sense of responsibility on which the Dean relies.

Waiting for Godot

by Samuel Beckett

seen at the Barbican on 10 June 2015

This production from the Sydney Theatre Company forms part of the Barbican's Inernational Beckett season. It is directed by Andrew Upton and features Hugo Weaving as Vladimir, Richard Roxburgh as Estragon, Philip Quast as Pozzo and Luke Mullins as Lucky, with Keir Edkins-O'Brien as the boy (in this performance).

The set contained the requisite tree and a mound to perch on, but also a few stumps (or truncated poles). A stage proscenium appeared to be set at an angle across the acting space, though it was not entirely clear which way it was facing. There were light bulbs all around it but these could have been stage lights (to be concealed from an audience on the other side) or part of a lighting effect to be used as a framing device (and hence visible to the audience) - in the event they were not used.

Hugo Weaving and Richard Roxburgh made a brilliant duo as the tramps Vladimir and Estragon - by turns exasperated and touchingly reliant on each other, bored, frustrated, animated, confused, determined. Philip Quast and Luke Mullins provided the extraordinary and very disquieting distraction of Pozzo and Lucky - apparently a clear case of master-slave exploitation in the first act, unaccountably transmuted to a more ambivalent mutual dependency in the second.

The action is so stripped down, the situation so enigmatic, the prospect so bleak, yet the actors summoned the highest degree of attention from the audience to provide an exploration of humanity which in its final moments was deeply moving - a superb production of a difficult play.

The One Day of the Year

by Alan Seymour

seen at the Finborough Theatre on 6 June 2015

This play, written in 1960, investigates generational tensions in a working-class Sydney family by focussing on conflicting attitudes to ANZAC Day (25 April), a day which began with a dawn march by veterans of both world wars, but which (at that time) often degenerated into an extended pub crawl. It was extremely controversial when first produced, but rapidly became a school syllabus classic, being one of the earliest plays realistically dealing with an identifiably Australian theme.

This production, the first in London for many years, is directed by Wayne Harrison and features Mark Little as Alf Cooke (a veteran of the Second World War), Fiona Press as Flo Cooke, James William Wright as their son Hughie, Adele Queroi as Jan, a university friend of Hughie's, and Paul Haley as the family friend Wacka (a veteran of the Gallipoli campaign of the First World War).

The action takes place in the Cooke household, a traverse acting space sparsely furnished with a simple table and chairs representing the kitchen, and a fold-down bed and small shelf representing Hughie's bedroom; members of the audience sit on either side (the theatre holds about 50 at most). 

The parents are plainly uneducated, but their son Hughie is attending university and is consequently deeply insecure about his place in the world. He is attracted to Jan, a girl from a far wealthier part of Sydney, but embarrassed for his parents when she meets them and condescends to them. But more seriously, the pair are planning an expose in the university paper decrying the ANZAC Day celebrations, which constitute the only occasions on which Alf feels validated.

Although the specific hinge of the resultant family explosion may be totally unfamiliar to a non-Australian audience (during the interval I was asked to explain the significance of 'the Day' by an American sitting beside me) the general issues of social and class cohesion, and generational conflict exacerbated by the wider horizons offered through tertiary education, are clearly and powerfully presented in the play. Without the distraction of the originally toxic criticism of ANZAC Day, it is clear that there is considerable sympathy for all sides of the problem. One can understand the younger generation's impatience with what looks like maudlin self-indulgence - but one can see also how demeaned Alf feels in his daily life, despite the high hopes he had as a youth. The real ANZAC veteran, Wacka, says little to begin with, but his eventual reminiscence to Flo when the self-absorbed Alf is absent shows why so many veterans found it impossible to speak of their experiences. For his part, Hughie wants to be a rebel, but does not want to be patronised by Jan, and finds that he still loves his parents. He is perhaps surprised at their horror at his notion of dropping out of university, which they find more of a slap in the face than his questioning of the ANZAC tradition. 

All these complex currents and misunderstandings are strongly and clearly represented by the fine cast. Though there is much bluster and bravado - inevitable when the older men drink so much - there are also moments of quiet desperation and poignant gestures of reconciliation. What Jan too easily dismisses as quaint contains a stolid self-respecting dignity - though there is barely room for a rapprochement between the two women, Flo can accept an apology when she feels it is genuine, and it is clear that she can manage her menfolk when the crunch comes even though she seems at first utterly put upon by them both.

Alan Seymour died at the end of April, just after the centenary of the Gallipoli landings. His great play may well have contributed to the process whereby the ANZAC commemorations have become ever more popular, but also ever more serious, as the decades pass; the younger generations of Australians have by no means abandoned them.

Andromache

by Jean Racine translated by Edward Kemp

seen at RADA (GBS theatre) on 5 June 2015

This production, directed by Edward Kemp and designed by Lucy Alexander, features students in their third (final) year of RADA's degree in acting. The cast:

Orestes - Freddie Meredith

Pylades - Will Apicella

Pyrrhus - Joe Idris-Roberts

Phoenix - Peter Mulligan

Andromache - Rosie Sheehy

Hermione - Stefanie Martini

Cleone - Kathryn Wilder

Cephisa - Taha Haq 

The GBS theatre is in the basement of RADA's main building, a space which an be configured in many ways. For this production, the audience were seated in long rows on either side of a narrow raked 'marble' passageway emerging from a sandy floor at one end and leading to a throne at the other raised end. (The throne was later removed; steps down from this end led to a sanctuary.) Beyond the raised end, the exposed brickk wall had reliefs of two ancient warriors, presumably of Achilles (the father of Pyrrhus) killing Hector (the husband of Andromache). High above, amidst the lighting battens, a similar strip of 'marble' was suspended as like a ceiling, or even a reflection of the floor.

The Beaux' Stratagem

by George Farquhar

seen at the National Theatre (Olivier) on 3 June 2015

The play, directed by Simon Godwin, features Samuel Barnett as Aimwell, Geoffrey Streatfeild as Archer, Pippa Bennett-Warner as Dorinda, Susannah Fielding as Mrs Sullen, and Pearce Quigley as Scrub, with music by Michael Bruce and the set designed by Lizzie Clachan.

Two out-of-pocket London swells propose to gull wealthy Lichfield heiresses through marriage (or else, if that fails, they will try Chester, Nottingham and even Norwich; otherwise they will enlist and die). But what could have been a cynical or heartless confrontation between town and country values becomes something more complex and even radical in Farquhar's hands. Aimwell falls genuinely in love with Dorinda, thus turning callow opportunism into romantic comedy, while Archer finds himself matched (if not over-matched) by Mrs Sullen - young and attractive indeed, but already disastrously married. Their comic resolution is only made possible by a fantastical agreement to a divorce between Mr and Mrs Sullen, a project that would have been all but impossible in 1707 when the play was written. Mrs Sullen, who could have been merely a disillusioned and scheming flirt, proves to be a woman of spirit not totally daunted by her domestic misery.