Angels in America Part One: Millennium Approaches

by Tony Kushner

seen at the National Theatre (Lyttleton) on 18 May 2017

Marianne Elliott directs this revival of Tony Kushner's sprawling two part epic subtitled 'A Gay Fantasia on National Themes'. In 1992 I saw the first production (by Declan Donnellan) of this first part in 1992 in the National's smallest auditorium, then named the Cottesloe (now the Dorfman); it was fascinating to see it reimagined for the larger and more conventional proscenium stage of the Lyttleton. The grandeur and expansiveness of the conception was easier to appreciate, but perhaps some of the raw intensity was dissipated.

The play is wide-ranging and ambitious - a fantasia indeed as it follows several major characters facing (or evading) the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and their own personal struggles with loyalty, love and honesty. The cast is uniformly excellent, fully committed to the extravagances of the text and thus able to hold the audience's attention during the long speeches while being equally compelling in the tense and often agonising personal encounters that drive the action. The design (sets by Ian MacNeil and lighting by Paule Constable) marvellously reflects the disparate spaces in which the scenes take place - offices, apartments, parks, streets and a hospital ward - all managed on three independent evolves across the width of the stage.

Andrew Garfield gives an astonishing performance as Prior Walter, the young gay man facing the onset of AIDS and the cruel failure of his lover Louis (an excellent James McArdle) to stay with him as his condition worsens. Not only is he wounded emotionally by Louis's departure, he is also terrified of the illness and fearful of his grasp on sanity as strange visions afflict him. Garfield's portrayal of this central character is utterly compelling, his physical mannerisms imbuing an initially camp hand-wringing with increasingly expressive desperation, and his vocal range encompassing mounting hysteria with absolute conviction. 

James McArdle renders Louis's selfishness and introspection in bravura passages of talk, almost completely unaware of the offence and pain he might be causing, and digging himself deeper into guilt and self-recrimination as he tries to account for himself and explain his world view. Such a person could be just obtuse but somehow one senses the pain and confusion.

The only historical character presented on stage is the odious Roy Cohn, played by Nathan Lane, a man obsessed by power and influence, shamelessly predatory and manipulative. It's a dazzling display of brazen self-confidence, mesmerising and horrific to watch as Cohn refuses to accept that he has AIDS or that he is homosexual, all the time wheeling and dealing to preserve his position as a formidable lawyer. The haplessly conflicted Joe Pitt (an anguished Russell Tovey) is fatefully within Cohn's orbit, trying to adhere to his ethical upbringing as a Mormon in this professional cesspool while at the same time realising that his marriage to Harper is doomed as an attempt to mask or overcome his own sexual orientation. The marriage is not only a sham for him, but it has also driven his wife (Denise Gough) to a distracted reliance on Valium.

These deeply personal conflicts and traumas are treated with a theatrical flair that allows characters who never meet in 'real' life - such as Harper and Prior - to encounter one another in dreams, while Roy Cohn in the extremity of his illness has a conversation with Ethel Rosenberg, who was executed over thirty years before as a result of his vindictive prosecution in a celebrated treason trial. Somehow Ethel calls the ambulance for Cohn - how could this possibly be happening? - and yet in the world of this play we accept the situation as a meaningful part of the fantasia. 

Unfortunately for me, the box office was so overwhelmed by demand for tickets that I have to wait until August to see Part Two. An Angel has crashed into Prior's life but I have weeks to wait to find out what happens next (I did not see the original production of the second part).

The Treatment

by Martin Crimp

seen at the Almeida Theatre on 10 May 2017

Lyndsey Turner directs this revival of Martin Crimp's 1993 play, with Aisling Loftus as Anne, Indira Varma as Jennifer and Julian Ovenden as Andrew, supported by Matthew Needham as Simon, Ellora Torchia as Nicky, Ian Gelder as Clifford and Gary Beadle as John and a couple of dozen mostly silent extras. The sets are designed by Giles Cad;e and lit by Neil Austin.

This is a really disturbing play, not least because it begins in what could be just a probing but essentially light-hearted satirical tone as two 'facilitators', husband and wife team Jennifer and Andrew, listen to Anne's strange tale of being tied up and having tape placed over her mouth. They immediately perceive this as the prelude for sexual assault or abuse, ignoring Anne's insistence that there was no abuse, not even any physical conflict or contact. They are already envisaging a fairly conventional sexual thriller, while Anne is soon uncomfortably aware that she is out of her depth.

An American in Paris

music by George Gershwin, lyrics by Ira Gershwin, book by Craig Lucas

seen at the Dominion Theatre on 6 May 2017

Christopher Wheeldon directs and choreographs this stage version of the 1951 film, with set and costume designs by Bob Crowley. The lead actors are Robert Fairchild as Jerry Mulligan, the American soldier cum artist who stays in Paris having missed his train home, Leanne Cope as Lise Dassin, a talented ballet dancer with whom he falls in love, David Seadon-Young as Adam Hochberg, and Amrican composer and wounded soldier also in love with Lise, and Haydn Oakley as Henri Baurel, son of the family who has sheltered Lise during the Nazi occupation of Paris. Henri's parents are played by Jane Asher and Julian Forsyth, and Zoë Rainey plays Miles Davenport, a rich American benefactor.

Salomé

by Yaël Farber

seen at the National Theatre (Olivier) on 5 May 2017

This play, originally inspired by Oscar Wilde's play of the same name, but much amended by the director Yaël Farber and her dramaturg Drew Lichtenberg, recasts the story of Salomé to take into account the fact that women's actions as recorded by male and prejudicial sources in the ancient world may have been very different from what is conventionally assumed.

Here, Pontius Pilate (Lloyd Hutchinson, representing Rome) and Caiaphas (Philip Arditti, representing the priestly establishment) and Herod (Paul Chahidi, a mere client king of the Romans) are all keen that Iokanaan (John the Baptist) should be kept alive, even though he has been arrested, in order to avoid any chance of a popular uprising should he be killed in custody. But the fatal promise by Herod in a moment of rashness brought on by his infatuation with his young niece is still made, the price - Iokanaan's head on a platter - is still exacted, and the rebellion occurs and is crushed (so Pilate thinks).

There are echoes of the Wilde play throughout, not least in the concentration on the fateful night of the execution, and the account of the oath and its consequences. However, the political situation is given far more explanation through the presence of Pilate, and Salomé's own motivation, and the interpretation of her significance, is completely altered, not least by the fact that her older spirit narrates the story (a white-haired Olwen Fouéré, billed as 'Nameless' in the cast list). I say spirit, because though in this version Herod does not order her death as at the end of the Wilde play, Pilate most certainly does in exasperation at her refusal to explain herself to him.

Instead of a decadent young woman obsessed with kissing the mouth of Iokanaan, Salomé is presented more as the victim of male desire and politics, and indeed in her younger version (Isabella Nefar) she does not speak at all until after her encounter with Iokanaan (Ramzi Choukair) in the cistern prison where he is being kept alive by force-feeding. The notorious dance of the seven veils is transformed from a titillating strip-tease before Herod and his dinner guests into an ecstatic preparation for a cleansing ritual after which Iokanaan baptises her in the dregs of the cistern water. Consequently, she wills the apocalyptic rebellion in order to attempt to free the people from foreign domination, and it seems that Iokanaan is more than half in love with the idea of martyrdom as well.

The production is powerful, but strange and demanding. The Olivier stage is almost bare apart from a few trestle tables and chairs; one long trestle support becomes a very effective ladder down which Salomé 'climbs' to reach Iokanaan (the production is designed by Susan Hilferty). Sand cascades from above at certain moments, reminding us of the desert setting of some scenes, and contrasting with the shallow troughs of water representing the Jordan and later the cistern. The deliberately formal and distancing language of the Wilde play (where it is used) is matched by an extremely ritualised presentation, including wordless singing by two women, and careful positioning of all the cast often on a slowly revolving stage. To add to the sense of strangeness and distance, Iokanaan does not once speak in English, but rather in Arabic (I assume) directly quoting many Old Testament passages from the Prophets and from the Song of Songs. Some of his words are translated on a screen projection, and this is generally enough to convey the import of the incantatory style of his delivery (though maybe many in a modern audience will really have no idea of the references). There is also a minor figure identified as 'Yeshua the madman' looking like a wild beggar from the desert and occasionally saying things recognisable as Gospel phrases, but his presence seems to indicate only that Iokanaan is the more significant figure in everyone's eyes. 

It's engrossing and thought provoking; the auditorium was almost full for a preview performance, and I noticed only two people leave before the end. The play runs for nearly two hours without a break and the audience was, so far as I could judge, genuinely attentive. I was certainly fascinated. At times the narrative of the 'nameless' older woman veered between being too didactic and too knowingly gnomic, with grandiose statements about 'the first and the last' and so forth. This could fall into pretentiousness, but the strength and conviction of the cast prevented this from happening. 

Nell Gwynn

by Jennifer Swale

seen at Shakespeare's Globe on 3 May 2017

Christopher Luscombe directs this revival of Jennifer Swale's 2015 play about the career of Nell Gwynn who began life in the seedy streets of Covent Garden and became the mistress of King Charles II. Laura Pitt-Pulford plays Nell and Ben Righton the king, with able support from the company playing courtiers and actors.

The play is not an historical documentary, but is broadly accurate in depicting Nell's career and her undoubted charm, skill as an actress, and personal attachment to the king, far less mercenary or politically ambitious than his more aristocratic mistresses (embodied in Lady Castlemaine). It cleverly makes use of dramatic conventions and the introduction of women on the stage to involve the audience in the spirit of the times; the Globe's groundlings in the pit make the opening scene a dazzling example of the excitement a good performance in this theatre can evoke, even though it was decidedly cold on this afternoon and the number of groundlings was perhaps the smallest I have seen.