The Wars of the Roses

by William Shakespeare adapted by John Barton and Peter Hall

seen at the Rose Theatre, Kingston-upon-Thames on 29 October 2015

In 1962 John Barton and Peter Hall devised three plays they called 'Henry VI', 'Edward IV' and 'Richard III' from Shakespeare's original 'Henry VI' Parts 1, 2 and 3, and 'Richard III'. Presented under the overall title 'The Wars of the Roses', this was a major success for the then-new Royal Shakespeare Company, but the adaptations have rarely been performed since. Trevor Nunn saw the original productions as an undergraduate, and they inspired his vocation as a theatre director - he later followed Peter Hall as artistic director of both the RSC and the National Theatre. Peter Hall was also the founding patron of the Rose Theatre, and so Trevor Nunn has revived the trilogy here as a tribute to his mentor.

This production features Alex Waldmann as Henry VI, Joely Richardson as his queen Margaret of Anjou, Kåre Conradi as Edward IV, Alexandra Gilbreath as his queen Elizabeth, Robert Sheehan as Richard of Gloucester (later Richard III) and Alexander Hanson as Richard Plantagenet the Duke of York. The many other speaking parts are shared between these and sixteen other actors, some young boys and a 'company community chorus' of sixteen more assorted soldiers and peasants. The set was designed by John Napier and Mark Friend.

Photograph 51

by Anna Ziegler

seen at the Noel Coward Theatre on 26 October 2015

Directed by Michael Grandage and designed by Christopher Oram, the play features Nicole Kidman as Rosalind Franklin, Stephen Campbell Moore as Maurice Wilkins, Edward Bennett as Francis Crick, Will Attenborough as James Watson, Joshua Silver as Ray Gosling and Patrick Kennedy as Don Caspar.

Set in the underground laboratories of Kings College London (on the Strand) in 1951-2, the play concerns the research of Dr Rosalind Franklin who was attempting to photograph DNA in order to determine its structure. Her approach was not to speculate, but to deduce from reliable observation. At the same time, in Cambridge, Crick and the American Watson were approaching the same problem by building models based on what they knew, hoping that intuition would help.

Jane Eyre

based on the novel by Charlotte Brontë

seen at the National Theatre (Lyttleton) on 25 October 2015

The company under director Sally Cookson devised this theatrical adaptation originally in two parts for the Bristol Old Vic, but further work has reduced it to one part for the version at the National. it features Madeleine Worrall as Jane Eyre, with Felix Hayes as Rochester and Melanie Marshall as Bertha Mason. Craig Edwards, Laura Elphinstone, Simone Saunders and Maggie Tagney take all the other parts, supported by three musicians. The set is designed by Michael Vale.

Hamlet

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Barbican on 23 October 2015

This production is directed by Lyndsey Turner and designed by Es Devlin, with Benedict Cumberbatch as Hamlet, Anastasia Hille as Gertrude, Ciarán Hinds as Claudius and Jim Norton as Polonius.

Anticipation was almost ridiculously high because of Benedict Cumberbatch's huge popularity - tickets sold out within hours over a year before the first performances. Early previews received very mixed responses, not least because of some baffling rearrangements and cuts to the text (though the full text is very rarely performed by anyone). Notoriously, the play began with the 'to be or not to be' speech, though by the time of the official first night this famous soliloquy was placed later (but still, earlier than usual). Reviews of the finished product praised Cumberbatch but found fault with various aspects of the production. 

Three Days in the Country

by Patrick Marber based on A Month in the Country by Ivan Turgenev

seen at the National Theatre (Lyttleton) on 21 October 2015

Directed by Patrick Marber and designed by Mark Thompson, this version of Turgenev's play stars Amanda Drew as Natalya, John Light as Arkady, John Simm as Rakitin, Lily Sacofsky as Vera and Mark Gatiss as Shpigelsky.

The arrival of a young tutor at a Russian provincial country house triggers various crises amongst people who have been living together without formally acknowledging their feelings for a very long time. Arkady married Natalya on impulse - his friend Rakitin was with him when he first saw her, and wishes that he had acted first. Now he is a visitor to the estate, hardly able to bear being there but unable to keep away. Both Natalya and her ward Vera fall for the new tutor, and meanwhile there are subplots in which an unprepossessing neighbour wishes to marry Vera, while the doctor Shpigelsky makes an extraordinary proposal to a spinster in the household.

Medea

by Euripides in a new version by Rachel Cusk

seen at the Almeida Theatre on 19 October 2015

This is the third and final production in the Almeida GreeK season (following 'Oresteia' reviewed in June 2015 and 'Bakkhai' reviewed in August 2015). It is directed by Rupert Goold and designed by Ian MacNeil, and features Kate Fleetwood as Medea, Justin Salinger as Jason, Amanda Boxer as the Nurse, Michele Austin as the Cleaner, Andy de la Tour as Creon and a Tutor, and Richard Cant as Aegeus, with a chorus of five women, and two young boys, the sons of Medea and Jason.

The play is set in an opulent house - we see two levels but there are also stairs going down out of sight - in which Medea, a freelance writer, is living with her sons not long after (it seems) Jason has left her for a younger woman. The house and its contents, of course, become part of the battleground of the now alienated couple; 'equal shares' are a pious fraud in such a situation. 

Teddy Ferrara

by Christopher Shinn

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 15 October 2015

The play, directed by Dominic Cooke and designed by Hildegard Bechtler, features Luke Newberry as Gabe, Oliver Johnstone as Drew, Matthew Marsh as the college president and Ryan McParland as Teddy.

This play depicts the contradictory and confusing attitudes surrounding campus politics as the administration attempts to deal with calls for less discrimination in the wake of a student suicide. Drew, the editor of the student newspaper, publishes an article claiming that the suicide was gay, though the issue had never before been raised. When Teddy Ferrara, a new gay student, also takes his own life, the situation becomes even more explosive.

Our Country's Good

by Timberlake Wertenbaker

seen at the National Theatre (Olivier) on 13 October 2015

This play, based on Thomas Keneally's novel 'The Playmaker', imagines the background to the first known theatrical performance in the colony of New South Wales, which took place to mark the King;s birthday in 1789. The play was George Farquhar's 'The Recruiting Officer'. 'Our Country's Good' was first produced in 1988 at the Royal Court.

The Father

by Florian Zeller translated by Christopher Hampton

seen at Wyndhams Theatre on 7 October 2015

The play is directed by James Macdonald and is designed by Miriam Buether. It stars Kenneth Cranham as Andre, an 80-year-old retired engineer, and Claire Skinner as Anne, his daughter. Kirsty Oswald plays Laura, a care worker, and Nicholas Gleaves plays Pierre, Anne's partner.

The subject is the onset of dementia, and Zeller has achieved the remarkable feat of presenting the situation through the confusion of Andre's mind. It appears that he is in his own flat being visited by his daughter after an altercation with a carer. However, our understanding is soon destabilised by the appearance of two other characters who contradict Anne's statements, and then by Anne's own assertion that Andre has in fact moved to her flat. The techniques of theatrical trickery have been used to disconcerting effect in illuminating the crippling uncertainties of dementia as it may be experienced by a sufferer.

The Oresteia

by Aeschylus adapted by Rory Mullarkey

seen at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on 1 October 2015

The second major production of the Oresteia in London this year is directed by Adele Thomas and designed by Hannah Clark, with George Irving as Agamemnon, Katy Stephens as Clytemnestra, Joel MacCormack as Orestes and Rosie Hilal as Electra, and also Naana Agyei-Ampadu as Cassandra, Dennis Herdman as the Herald, Branka Katic as Athena, Trevor Fox as Aegisthus and Petra Massey as Cilissa (Orestes' nurse).

Merely providing a more extensive cast list shows that the style of this version is quite different from that produced at the Almeida Theatre. It is more clearly 'faithful' to the original trilogy by Aeschylus, in that the three parts presented to us are clearly 'Agamemnon',  'Choephori' and 'Eumenides', and the secondary group of characters therefore has more immediate impact. The story of Iphigenia is related by the chorus near the beginning of 'Agamemnon' but not explicitly dramatised, and this certainly redresses the balance of the opening play.