The Trial

by Franz Kafka adapted by Nick Gill

seen at the Young Vic on 12 August 2015

The play is not, of course, by Franz Kafka - it is a rather free adaptation from the famous novel. It is directed by Richard Jones and features Rory Kinnear as Joseph K, with eleven other actors taking all the subsidiary roles, in particular Kate O'Flynn playing some six significant females in Joseph's life, as imagined by Nick Gill.

The first four rows of the audience on either side of a long transverse stage are reached through corridors of flimsy plywood, and each row has an equally makeshift shelf in front of it, rendering everyone sitting there as putative jurors in the eponymous trial. The acting space itself, designed by Miriam Buether, has two parallel belts which are frequently in motion to allow various props and settings to appear and disappear as required. Scenes are often framed by doors at either end, which are free-standing and are often slammed loudly. The effect is nightmarish, especially as it gives rise to the thought that all significant spaces for Joseph K are essentially alike in their configuration. The phrase 'everything belongs to the Court' begins to have a physical as well as a metaphorical resonance.

Bakkhai

by Euripides in a new version by Anne Carson

seen at the Almeida Theatre on 10 August 2015

This is the second production in the Almeida Greeks season (following 'Oresteia', reviewed in June 2015). It is directed by James Macdonald and designed by Antony McDonald, and features Ben Whishaw, Bertie Carvel and Kevin Harvey with a chorus of ten women (the Bakkhai of the title). Music for the chorus is composed by Orlando Gough.

Unlike 'Oresteia', which was more of an interpretation than a translation, Anne Carson's version of this play follows the original more closely (apart from a few sly anachronisms to emphasise the disorienting effect of Euripides' black humour). The production too reflects a good deal of what is known about the original style of performance. The three actors play all the speaking roles, while the choric odes are sung, and even when the chorus speaks it is usually in unison and the voices often become songlike. The obvious points of departure from 'original practice' (so far as it is known) are that the chorus is performed by women rather than adolescent boys, and that there are no masks. The visual presentation of the speaking characters is, however, prominently stylised.

Splendour

by Abi Morgan

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 6 August 2015

The play, directed by Robert Hastie and designed by Peter McKintosh, features Sinéad Cusack as Micheleine, the wife of a dictator, Michelle Fairley as her friend Genevieve, Zawe Ashton as Gilma, an interpreter, and Genevieve O'Reilly as Kathryn, a visiting photojournalist. It is set on the evening of a coup in an unnamed (generic) dictatorship.

In a series of scenes which often replay fragmented pieces of dialogue between the four women, we gradually gain an impression of the catastrophic political events taking place outside the presidential palace as Micheleine tries to entertain Kathryn until her husband the president appears for a photo session. It becomes clear that the man will not turn up, that in fact he has fled for his life abandoning his wife to her fate. The friend Geraldine has been co-opted to help on the occasion, but she brings bitter memories and recriminations reflecting badly on the president and Micheleine. Gilma, acting as interpreter between Kathryn and the other two, subversively mis-translates when it suits her, and purloins objects into her bag or pockets, thinking that the others do not notice - or not really caring whether they do or not.

The Red Lion

by Patrick Marber

seen the the National Theatre (Dorfman) on 4 August 2015

The play is directed by Ian Rickson and features Daniel Mays as Kidd, Peter Wight as Yates and Calvin Kemba as Jordan. It is set in the dressing room of a football club. Kidd is the ambitious and slightly dodgy club manager, Yates a one-time player now reduced to managing the club's kit (washing and ironing), and Jordan a promising young player offered a contract with the club.

The three men are all passionate about football, but being totally different personalities, each brings different loyalties to the situation. Kidd regards Yates as a loser and an encumbrance, while Yates sees Kidd as the unacceptable modern face of football as a business instead of a vocation. Jordan wishes to behave in an ethical manner and bridles at Kidd's tactical instructions - yet he fails to disclose a crucial piece of information, naively expecting that playing well in an amateur club with no further ambition bypasses the issue. Since the other two (especially Kidd) see him as a candidate for a potentially lucrative transfer, a crisis rapidly engulfs all three.

In a bare and rather run-down set, with only three actors, a wealth of tension, aspiration, frustration and anger is revealed as the two older men battle for their vision of the game and hope to recruit the youngster to their own cause, without really telling him straightforwardly what is at stake. Marber is excellent at providing dialogue which uses the situation at hand to reveal many issues of personality, status and ambition, and the three actors rise to the challenge. The explosions of energy and anger are offset by scenes of mundane activity or quiet reminiscence, through which we come to realise how heavily invested the three men are in the club. Though sport as a metaphor for life is a well-worn idea, the play uses it with great skill to reveal their characters, their weaknesses and strengths alike.

Daniel Mays brings a cocky urgency to Kidd, his pent-up energy masking an emptiness that only the wiser Yates can perceive - but Yates has neither the strength nor the authority to help resolve the problem. Peter Wight's body language, a pitiable slumped stature from which he rarely asserts himself, conveys the shattered shell of an out-of-touch romantic. Calvin Kemba convincingly sows us a young man looking to his future from a bleak past.  But, for all their shared enthusiasm, the three men are ultimately alone with their demons, which have fairly wrecked the Red Lion club. 

The Heresy of Love

by Helen Enmundson

seen at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on 3 August 2015

This production of the play (originally commissioned by the RSC in 2012) is directed by John Dove and features Naomi Frederick as Sister Juana, Sophia Nomvete as Juanita, Gwyneth Keyworth as Angelica, Gabrielle Lloyd as Mother Marguerita, Anthony Howell as Bishop Santa Cruz, Patrick Driver as Father Antonio and Phil Whitchirch as Archbishop Aguiar y Sejas.

The play concerns Mexico's first (17th century) playwright and poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a Hieronymite nun. The convents of Mexico were the refuge of many unmarried women, and some were renowned for the sophistication of some of their nuns. Sor Juana was highly intelligent, amassing a considerable library of theological and philosophical books; she also wrote plays and poems and had the favour of the vice-regal court.

However, the arrival of a new archbishop sent from Madrid threatens the whole system of court patronage and the appreciation and commissioning of secular works from religious houses. The archbishop wishes to root out such dangerous accommodations and compromises with the world, and is especially critical of any woman who presumes to meddle in masculine affairs such as intellectual thought. With a local bishop frustrated in his hopes of preferment, who determines to use any prop that comes to hand to discomfit the archbishop, the scene is set for a critical confrontation of ideas, politics and personal hopes.