The Double Dealer

by William Congreve

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre Richmond on 19 December 2018

Selina Cadell directs Lloyd Everitt as Mellefont, Dharmesh Patel as Careless, Jonathan Broadbent as Brisk, Zoë Waites as both Cynthia and Lady Touchwood and Jenny Rainsford as Lady Plyant, and Edward MacLiam as Maskwell (the double dealer of the title) in this Restoration Comedy from 1693, designed by Madeleine Girling.

As the programme note points out, there are problems with Restoration comedy - the tradition of over-elaborate costumes and props, and a language which to modern ears often sounds over-complex and dismayingly elaborate. The visual aspect of these traditions has been stripped back here, with no wigs for the men, and fine but not extravagant dress. The language is inescapable, and the contests of wit, especially prominent in the first half, still sounded artificial and even at times strained rather than exuberant, despite the intimate setting of the theatre and the best efforts of the cast.

True West

by Sam Shepard

seen at the Vaudeville Theatre on 17 December 2018

Matthew Dunster directs Kit Harington as Austin and Johnny Flynn as Lee with Donald Sage Mackay as Saul Kimmer (Austin's agent) and Madeleine Potter as Austin and Lee's mother in this curious comedy noir play about the conflict between two brothers, which has been read as an embodiment of the inner conflicts of Sam Shepard himself.

Austin is looking after his mother's house (she is visiting Alaska), and trying to complete a screenplay to seal a deal with his agent. But his tearaway brother Lee turns up, disturbing his equanimity. Where Austin appears focused and in control, Lee is a freer spirit, evidently feckless and untroubled by low-level criminal activity. Fraternal tension is only exacerbated by these temperamental differences.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

by Jack Thorne

seen at the Palace Theatre on 28 November 2018

JohnTiffany directs this two part play based on 'an original new story' by J. K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and himself, which deals with events immediately following the epilogue of the last Harry Potter book - that is, events in the lives of Harry's children and their peers. As the plays have been running for some time now, the original London cast is no longer in action. Harry Potter is played by Jamie Ballard, Ginny Potter by Susie Trayling, Hermione Granger by Franc Ashman, Ron Weasley by Thomas Aldridge and Draco Malfoy by James Howard. In the younger generation, Albus Potter is played by Joe Idris-Roberts, Rose Granger-Weasey by Helen Aluko, Scorpius Malfoy by Jonathan Case and Delphi Diggory by Eve Ponsonby. The production is designed by Christine Jones.

At first, given this time frame and the initial scene-setting of a new generation attending the Hogwarts school, it seems as if the play might be misleadingly named, but later Harry's own participation and predicament receives more attention. In fact, even the earlier scenes are only tangentially reviving audience memories of Hogwarts, as attention focuses on the difficulties youngsters may have being the progeny of famous (or notorious) parents. The increasing richness of the play lies in showing this dilemma from both sides: the anguish and the uncertainty of the parents - really, more specifically, of the fathers Harry and Draco, are just as sympathetically portrayed as the rebellion and frustration of the sons (it has to be said that Rose, the child of the Granger Weasley marriage, is not a particular focus of attention).

A Guide for the Homesick

by Ken Urban

seen at Trafalgar Studios Two on 22 November 2018

Jonathan O'Boyle directs Douglas Booth as Jeremy and Clifford Samuel as Teddy in this intense play about the encounter between two young men in a bland Amsterdam hotel room (or more likely, a hotel near Schiphol Airport, as there is often the sound of planes outside; set design by Jason Denvir).

Jeremy is returning to the US after a stint with Médecins sans Frontières in Uganda; as Teddy brings him to his hotel room he claims to have missed his connecting flight and to have no room booked for himself. Teddy has evidently has the room for a few days, and has been sharing it with a now vanished friend on a sort of private stag trip before the friend's wedding.

Summer and Smoke

by Tennessee Williams

seen at the Duke of York's Theatre on 21 November 2018

Rebecca Frecknall directs Patsy Ferran as Alma and Mathew Needham as John in this West End transfer of the Almeida production seen at their Islington theatre earlier in the year.

This 1948 play is given an impressionistic outing (designer Tom Scutt), which helps enormously with the fluid sequencing of the action, but also underlines the strange extremes of the situation. Rather than attempting to convey a hot Southern summer with a series of realistic sets, the stage is almost completely bare except for seven upright pianos ranged around the semi-circular back wall of the stage (here, a re-creation of the actual back brick wall of the Almeida theatre). Various characters play on the pianos - sometimes all seven are in use, and only Alma never plays one; and occasionally an actor will walk across the tops of the instruments.

Still Alice

adapted by Christine Mary Dunford from the novel by Lisa Genova

seen at the Liverpool Playhouse on 9th November 2018

David Grindley directs Sharon Small as Alice, Eva Pope as 'Herself' and Martin Marquez as her husband John with Mark Armstrong as their son Thomas, Ruth Ollman as their daughter Lydia, Anna Andresen as Dr Tamara and Micah Balfour as Dr Davis in a production from Leeds Playhouse currently touring.

Alice suffers from early-onset Alzheimer's disease, her dementia taking the classic form of struggling for words and repeating questions, then escalating to more severe forms of forgetfulness. Initially, as is so typical, the symptoms are brushed aside, but eventually they are too marked to be ignored, and a diagnosis ensues. Alice and John are both academics, she working in the field of linguistics, and he in scientific research, and so they are well-informed and perfectly capable of adopting whatever coping strategies are recommended; John is even sufficiently aware to propose certain forms of treatment not yet  widely available (though the novel was published in 2007, this stage adaptation begins in mid-2015 and finishes 'today', as the dateline preceding each major scene informs us).

The Inheritance (again)

by Matthew Lopez

seen at the Noel Coward Theatre on 31 October 2018

This great play has received a well-deserved West End transfer after its sell-out run at the Young Vic earlier in the year. With its original cast and design intact, it remains my highlight for theatre-going this year, despite some strong competition.

See my extended review for 18 April 2018 for more details:

https://nicholasatthetheatre.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-inheritance.html#more

A second viewing by no means disappointed: on the contrary, it was an opportunity to discern more clearly the skill with which Matthew Lopez has constructed his play, and to watch a great company of actors perform it. The emotional intensity of the experience was if anything even stronger.

The Height of the Storm

by Florian Zeller

seen at Wyndhams Theatre on 18 October 2018

Jonathan Kent directs Jonathan Pryce as André and Eileen Atkins as Madeleine, with Amanda Drew and Anna Madeley as their daughters Anne and Elise in Zeller's new play, in which he again addresses themes of love, loss, memory and grief. The translation is by Christopher Hampton , and the set is designed by Anthony Ward - each in their own way excellent.

In an ageing writer's country house (or at least, a house outside Paris), in which shelves overloaded with books to an impossible height dominate several visible walls, Anne is trying to gain her father's attention, but he seems lost in a reverie staring out through the kitchen windows to the garden beyond. We soon conclude that he is recently widowed and possibly succumbing to dementia - there is talk of resolving 'the situation' and realising that new arrangements must be made.

Measure for Measure

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 18 October 2018

Josie Rourke (the outgoing Artistic Director of the Donmar) directs Hayley Atwell as Isabella and Jack Lowden as Angelo in an intriguing production of Shakespeare's problematic play concerning the abuse of power in sexual politics and the conflicting claims of justice and mercy.

The play opens in sixteenth century dress, with the political world very masculine, not to say patriarchal. But the contemporary relevance is all too obvious - the rule of law ignored through inattention, laziness or dereliction of duty, and the opportunities for a powerful man to abuse his authority just there for the taking. And this is what Angelo, deputising for an absent Duke, does in relation to Isabella - he offers the life of her brother Claudio in exchange for sexual favours. When she protests and threatens to publicise his actions, he asks her chillingly "Who will believe thee, Isabel?"

The precariousness of Isabella's situation is both helped and hindered by the Duke's actions. Having colluded in the opening situation and then walked away from it, he has returned to Vienna disguised as a friar, and he tries to 'help' by suggesting the use of the bed trick to entrap Angelo (who has, it is suddenly revealed, himself jilted Mariana, a young woman who loves him). It seems like the usual ploy of a romantic comedy, but in the context of this play, it is distasteful. The likes of Isabella, Mariana and even Claudio take the friar at face value, but in fact he has no spiritual authority at all. Furthermore, when all is revealed and marriages are forced upon Claudio (though his fiancee never appears) and on Angelo, Isabella is begged by Mariana to sue for Angelo's life, and then further the Duke suggests that she should marry him, thus riding completely roughshod over her intention of entering a convent. No words are given to Isabella to respond to what is yet another example of male dominance in disposing of a woman's life. In this production, quite credibly, she just screams.

This is the end of the play; but we have not yet reached the interval. A good deal has been cut, the subplot with the whores and whoremasters of Vienna being stripped back almost to nothing. Just before the interval starts, we are suddenly back at the first scene, but this time in modern dress, and the Duke is deputising Isabella to act in his place while he leaves the city. What was done with parchment and wax seals at the beginning is now done with phone texts and tweets.

In an even more brief recapitulation of the play, Angelo now is the young man dedicated to a spiritual life (not conventionally monastic, but more contentiously in some sort of Christian commune), and in begging Isabella for mercy on his brother's behalf, he becomes the victim of Isabella, a predatory woman. It's an intriguing reversal, and a salutary reminder that personal relationships can be unbalanced and corrupted by a woman in power as easily as by a man. In some ways, the reversal exposes the disturbing power plays even more acutely, as the disguised Duke presses his even more obviously unwanted attentions on the naive young Angelo. But the play cannot really bear this burden, and at the last moment the Renaissance Isabella presents herself before the modern Duke with an ambiguous greeting.

Hayley Atwell and Jack Lowden play both their parts extremely well. In the first half she is an intense and self confident young woman gradually weakened, and he an austere deputy Duke with a soft-spoken Scottish accent (hinting perhaps at a Calivinistic outlook?), and each is gradually weakened by the complicating factors swirling around their personal encounters. Interestingly, Angelo's soliloquy about his predicament is given due weight, though it by no means exonerates him. In their reversed roles, Atwell is far more sensuous as the powerful woman, and Lowden has less moral authority and perhaps more naivety. It is fascinating to watch in effect two interpretations of the same speeches in quick succession, and this emphasises even more the problems which this play reveals to a modern audience. 

The Importance of Being Earnest

by Oscar Wilde

seen by live streaming from the Vaudeville Theatre on 9 October 2018

Dominic Dromgoole has created a theatre company to perform all of Oscar Wilde's social comedies and some related works; this is the fourth major production. Michael Fentiman directs Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as Jack, Fehinti Balogun as Algernon, Sophie Thompson as Lady Bracknell, Pippa Nixon as Gwendolen, Fiona Button as Cecily, Stella Gonet as Miss Prism and Jeremy Swift as Canon Chasuble in this, perhaps the most brilliant play of its kind.

Almost nothing can detract from the perfect poise of Wilde's writing; the aphorisms and witty repartee, the clever inversions that reveal social snobberies and prejudices with rapier-thrust accuracy, flow from the lips of almost all the characters as the absurdities of the situation mount up and then are almost as absurdly resolved. It would seem that the only things counting against it are its reputation and the shadow of some overpowering performances from the past (for example, Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell).

In many ways this production hits the right note, with the cast on the whole managing the delivery of the lines more successfully than in the other two productions I have seen. Jacob Fortune-Lloyd, Pippa Nixon and in particular Sophie Thompson are the best at this, though Fiona Button is too modern in her deportment for a teenaged girl of that time, and unfortunately it is clear that Wilde's vocal style works best with a late nineteenth-century physical restraint.  

However, I have serious reservations about some of the directorial and design decisions. The social comedy relies on the social context which it is satirising, and it is dangerous to ignore this; false notes are an unwelcome distraction. The first false note is the presence of a peculiarly explicit painting of two naked men grappling one another, which is given prominence in Algernon's living room. It is simply inconceivable that any gentleman would have had such a thing on public display in a room which ladies would be likely to visit (especially, perhaps, relations).

More seriously, the relationship between Algernon and Lane (his butler) is conceived as far more intimate than it should be. Lane remains on stage for a considerable stretch when the stage directions explicitly indicate that he is not there, and Algernon lights him a cigarette, offers him sherry and indulges in the occasional kiss. It is just plain wrong, a complete distraction from the real business of the play, and a needless sacrifice of any genuine social comment that might be made of the badinage between them, which is if anything a precursor of the Jeeves and Wooster situation, not the cover for a surreptitious sexual fling. 

A similar social barrier is needlessly crossed in a small dumbshow scene in which Cecily shares an illicit cigarette with Moulton the gardener behind Miss Prism's back. Cecily may have a wild imagination, but the sheer impropriety of this idea threatens to ruin the whole ambience in which she moves. Equally the presentation of Merriman as an outdoors servant (open shirt and no jacket) overburdened with the supposed Ernest's luggage, when he is obviously a superior house servant who would have ordered the footmen to deal with the luggage, is a serious misreading of how a wealthy country household would have been run. 

Finally, the marvellous scene in which Cecily and Gwendolen descend from superficial effusiveness to icy politeness to silent hostility is just about ruined by the crassness of the sugar and cake business at the end. (Indeed the consumption of food in general too often degenerated into incipient custard pie moments when again absolute adherence to social norms generates the comedy.) No well brought up young lady of that period would grab a tea cake and pull it apart with her hands and then allow a servant to touch it while handing it over even to a rival. The whole point of the scene is that the ritual of afternoon tea is pursued with absolute correctness but without paying attention to what the guest has asked for.

It's curious that I accept many directorial interventions in modern Shakespeare productions, but I think that attempts to introduce subplots into Oscar Wilde's plays - which all three productions that I have seen in this season have done - are a distracting failure. There is simply no room for them; the plays are not about secret romances belowstairs, and even less about shenanigans between upstairs and downstairs, and to interpolate such things as a modish modern joke or knowing social comment is simply gratuitous. The catastrophe of what Wilde himself suffered in a homophobic society is very well known, but it does neither him nor his social comedies any favours to pretend that they are the place to show what could not in reality be shown or referred to.

It's a pity, really, that these gem-likef plays should not have been trusted to entertain today's audiences on their own merits.

The Lion King

music by Elton John, lyrics by Tim Rice

seen at the Lyceum Theatre on 16 September 2018

Now over 21 years old, this musical adaptation of the 1994 Disney film has been playing continuously at the Lyceum, but I have only just got around to seeing it (never having seen the film) thanks to a visiting Norwegian friend who suggested we go. As I have walked past the theatre many times thinking that one day I should see a performance, but always having it in mind that it would be more enjoyable not to go alone, I was more than ready to agree.

The story is a typical Disney confection of a young creature making good against the odds - alone in the world after a secure familial situation disintegrates, with a wicked relative to complicate matters, and some engaging if surprising friends along the way to help in the task of self-discovery. What is intriguing is the largely successful attempt to blend this with the realities of leonine life - hierarchies within the pride, and the fact of hunting for and eating meat - and the human tendency to rank animals - the lion as king, hyenas as mountebanks, and so on - and the traditions of African tribal music and dance (meaning, probably, sub-Saharan African, since the continent is huge and lions only inhabit a small part of it). Thus there is a lot of drumming in the music, and some of the lyrics are not in English; the dangers of cultural condescension are just about avoided.

The visual design is spectacular, the set (by Richard Hudson) a clever use of a stage revolve with an uncluttered cyclorama allowing for colourful sky effects and giving the splendid costumes and masks (by Julie Taymor, who also directs) ample space to shine. The opening scene is a breathtaking evocation of animal life responding to the sunrise over the plains, with a wonderfully inventive use of masks, puppetry, stilts and generic animal movements providing an exciting start to the proceedings. The puppetry is not as true-to-life as that developed for War Horse, but it does not need to be, as the whole ethos is less realistic. But some characteristic arm movements representing the gestures of lions giving and receiving deference within the pride give an edge to the otherwise anthropomorphic picture of a lion cub being brought to maturity by adverse circumstances.

The theatricality of the performance is what makes it memorable; any other means of representing wild animals on stage would have reduced it to mere pantomime. For a western and urban audience, the use of African musical and visual motifs emphasises the sheer otherness of the animal world, and at the same time allows the cast to mimic the innate dignity of animals somehow without looking ridiculous. Though the story may be somewhat trite, it is dressed up marvellously to be a really enjoyable entertainment.

The Merry Wives of Windsor

by William Shakespeare

seen by live streaming from Stratford-upon-Avon on 12 September 2018

Fiona Laird directs David Troughton as Sir John Falstaff, Rebecca Lacey as Mistress Page and Beth Cordingley as Mistress Ford in a new RSC production of Shakespeare's domestic comedy cleverly designed by Lez Brotherston in a nebulous time (Tudor ruffs and slinky trouser suits) and a place very clearly east of Windsor: in fact, Essex.

In the pre-performance talk the director admitted to having cut some 23% of the text - the tedious Latin jokes, and any other bits of business that she and the cast felt were not sufficiently funny, certain, apparently, that the play was constructed in an unseemly rush and that the consummate showman Shakespeare would have approved of any amount of editorialising. Some topical references were included (at least one to Brexit), and a fair amount of comic business over and above the classic scene of the laundry basket, here transposed to a wheelie bin. (But then, considering much was made of the smell of the rubbish in the bin, why did no-one behave as if Sir John himself smelled awful even though his clothes were stained?) 

One of the cast reminded us that it was fatal to 'ask' the audience for a laugh - audience laughter had to be earned by taking the characters seriously and allowing the comedy of the situation to do its own work. I am not sure that relying on the stereotypes of Essex derived from a popular TV show actually followed this advice consistently. Some of the cast were so broadly 'Essex' that it was almost impossible to see a human being behind the screeching, though maybe the hidden microphones were flattening out any aural subtlety that the live audience could appreciate.

With these reservations inevitably affecting the overall performance, it was nevertheless an amusing production at many points, largely saved by the fact that David Troughton magnificently followed the precept that his character must take himself seriously; it was only thus that his pomposity could be hilarious, his comeuppances richly deserved yet not painful to watch, and the visual gags about his girth (and his absurd codpieces) amusing rather than distasteful. In the meantime the cod Frenchman (Jonathan Cullen as Doctor Caius) was perhaps more successfully funny than the cod Welshman (David Acton as Sir Hugh Evans), and the rather callow Fenton (Luke Newberry) was gloriously maladroit until Anne Page (Karen Fishwick) thought to give him spectacles. But the young lovers were easily swamped by the mayhem created by the merry wives, while George Page (Paul Dodds) was a cipher and Frank Ford (Vince Leigh) rather overdrawn in his jealousy - again, slapstick tended to triumph over subtlety. 

I'm not sufficiently familiar with the text to know whether the substantial cuts were responsible for these imbalances; at too may times there seemed to be too much shouting, as if only comedy of the broadest brush could be relied on to see everyone through. On the other hand, the material itself is managed with a broad brush, so perhaps one there is no other way to do it in order to get the most out of it.

Aristocrats

by Brian Friel

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 30 August 2018

Lyndsey Turner directs this revival of Brian Friel's 1979 play about the decaying O'Donnell family, unusually Roman Catholic denizens of a 'Big House' in Ballybeg, County Donegal (most 'Big Houses' belonged to Anglo Protestants).

The house has seen better times - repairs are outstanding and there is virtually no money to keep it going - and the family in the 1970s is not what it was either, having descended from Chief Justice to sausage factory worker in four generations. The senescent father (James Laurenson), principally present to us through his rambling diatribes overheard through a baby monitor, still holds sway over Judith (Eileen Walsh), the daughter dutifully caring for him, and can still strike terror into is wayward son Casimir (David Dawson) when he is visiting from Hamburg, but he seems to have less effect on Alice (Elaine Cassidy) visiting with her husband Eamon (Emmet Kirwan) from London, and the youngest daughter Claire (Aisling Loftus) still living at home but about to be married.

The family has in fact gathered for Claire's wedding, but Tom Hoffnung (Paul Higgins), an American academic, is also ferreting around the house and taking notes about family anecdotes as part of a research project. The situation is thus ripe both for peculiar revelations and for some sociological theorising and analysis, and at times both seem a little forced. However, it is not so much that there are skeletons in the closet (as might be expected from the dramatic set-up), but rather that the siblings - apart perhaps from the determinedly practical Judith - are deeply strange people: Alice losing herself to drink because her marriage has soured, Claire veering between the highs and lows of manic depression, and Casimir holding himself together with inexhaustible nervous energy. When Eamon remarks to Tom that the family half believe that Casimir's German wife and three boys are a figment of his imagination we are left forever unsure of how to take anything that Casimir says, and his palpable shock when Tom presents him with incontrovertible evidence that one of his family memories is impossible only strengthens the impression that he is lost in daydreams.

Though there are weirdly comic moments, much of what we see instils an atmosphere of debility and even despair; the similarity to Chekhovian ennui is increasingly obvious, reinforced by the country house setting, the faded gentility of the family, and the eventual collapse of the means to keep the whole enterprise going. But the style of this particular production makes it hard to grasp the tone of the piece, with the result that it takes more time than it should to settle into the world we are witnessing. Rather than creating a realistic setting, Turner and designer Es Devlin have designed an almost featureless pale pastel green acting space with a model of a house standing in for the real thing, and stage directions at the beginning of each act read out to set the scene. Where such a model was a powerful symbol in The Inheritance here it looks a little contrived, and the constant presence of the cast hovering in the background when not required to be on stage, so masterfully effective in Matthew Lopez's play, here makes the action more difficult to follow.

This is a pity, because the individual performances are often very good, and David Dawson in particular is brilliant as Casimir; and the concluding mixture of melancholy and hope is quietly affecting.

The Long Forgotten Dream

by H Lawrence Sumner

seen at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House on 15 August 2018

Neil Armfield of the Sydney Theatre Company directs Wayne Blair as Jeremiah Tucker, Shakira Clanton as his daughter Simone, Ningali Lawford-Wolf as his sister Lizzie, Melissa Jaffer as Gladys Dawson and Justin Smith as Pastor Henry Gilles in a story embracing both the personal pain of family loss and the charged political and social questions arising out of the clash of indigenous and European values and practices in a small community.

The play opens with Simone's return to her cantankerous father's house after an absence of which he apparently does not approve. The tension is obvious; the details of her journey and his reservations about it slowly emerge; she has discovered the remains of her great-grandfather, who should have been a tribal leader, in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and has arranged for their repatriation. She wants her father, as the closest surviving male relative, to welcome King Tulla home, but Jeremiah, steeped in misery over more recent traumas and scornful of the likely media circus surrounding such events, is unwilling to cooperate.

Influence

by David Williamson

seen at Chester Street Theatre on 4 August 2018

Theatre on Chester, an amateur group in the Sydney suburb of Epping, has revived Williamson's 2005 play under the capable direction of Sher Kearney. Influence concerns a 'shock jock' who peddles bigotry and prejudice on the radio, but whose personal life threatens to disrupt his bullying public persona. Ziggi Blasko lives in luxury in a waterfront apartment with his second wife Carmela and their new-born daughter, but his fractious marriage is put under further strain when both his father Marko and his teenage daughter Vivienne come to stay. His sister Connie, a psychotherapist, has no time for his toxic views, while his factotum Tony puts up with the domestic tyrannies, and a new housekeeper Zehra is underpaid, overworked, and generally treated like dirt.

Tartuffe

by Moliere

seen at the Rhodes Scholars Theatre (Barker College) on 19 July 2018

The Old Barker Association Theatre (OBAT) club produced a modern-dress version of Tartuffe at the drama theatre on the school campus. Unfortunately no program or cast list was available; but the production was enjoyable, acted with considerable energy and some clever inventions to offset the potentially stultifying effect of the long rhetorical speeches given in rhyming couplets. Top marks to the cast for even attempting the difficult task of declaiming in translated couplets, even if at times the delivery was taken too quickly for coherence. The occasional undercutting of the high-flown language with considerably more earthy asides or exclamations produced the desired comic effect, and also reminded us that the whole situation, though being exaggerated, really was holding up a sceptical mirror to the whole idea of parental control, religious hypocrisy, and the gullibility and even powerlessness of 'civilised' people in the face of out and out self-interest and shameless amorality. 

An enjoyable effort at performing a classic from a stage tradition very different from modern English-speaking taste.

2018 Directors' Festival 3

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond on 13 July 2018

The Orange Tree Theatre, in partnership with St Mary's University Twickenham, is presenting three short plays directed by graduates of the MA program developed by the two institutions, in the second year of their partnership.

3. In the Night Time (Before the Sun Rises), by Nina Segal, directed by Evangeline Cullingworth

A man (Ziggy Heath) and a Woman (Anna Leong Brophy) recount their stories - at times their own personal stories, and at times tale of a wider world, at night, ostensibly to try to pacify their ever-crying baby. What starts in a more or less realistic setting - a white carpeted room with a cot in the centre, and the aggravating sound of a baby crying in rage and distress - swerves from stories about how the couple met, how they set up home, and had a child, to more general  intimations that all is not well with the world, via some children's stories that the couple remember from their own childhoods, which turn out to carry uncomfortable resonances for the relationship between well-meaning parents run ragged by exhaustion.

It's a dizzying ride, and a fairly difficult one to negotiate dramatically with only a few props and sound effects. Luckily we were not subjected to 50 minutes of the baby's cries - one or two before the lights went up were excruciating enough, and the point was to hear the Man and the Woman rather than what (or who) they were trying to pacify. The two young actors managed the shifts of tone extremely well; one believed in their basic affection for and commitment to each other while appreciating the wry comments about one another's failings. The wider sphere proved threatening, though the threat was sensibly left in rather general terms - political upheaval and climate degradation were the obvious culprits but they remained largely impersonal.

Though the play was short, it covered a great deal of ground and made excellent use of the Orange Tree space - the front row more than usually likely to have exploding rubbish showered onto them (fortunately it was dry and clean) as more and more surprising things emerged or were pulled from from the central cot - even a pair of hands returning the deserved applause from the audience at the end.

Though only three plays were offered this year (in comparison to five last year), the Festival was well worth attending for a view of some exciting new talent.

2018 Directors' Festival 1 and 2

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond on 13 July 2018

The Orange Tree Theatre, in partnership with St Mary's University Twickenham, is presenting three short plays directed by graduates of the MA program developed by the two institutions, in the second year of their partnership.

1. Katie Johnstone, by Luke Barnes, directed by Samson Hawkins

Katie Johnstone (an impressive Georgia May Hughes) is a teenager with dreams - dreams of doing good in the city which she loves. She will become a millionaire and then a benefactor, just as soon as she finishes night school (to retake her school exams) and sets up her first business (she spends her grandmother's inheritance on purchasing Sky remotes on E-bay to sell on at a profit - a disastrous idea). In the meantime her friend Jackie pursues a less ambitious course, and her mother wants her to get a paying job to help make ends meet (both parts, and other female characters, played by Kristin Atherton) while Jackie's father (Reuben Johnson, also playing other men and a fox) agrees to let her help him in his council gardening job.

Katie has blistering self-confidence, and a desperate determination not to take on dead-end jobs or to be ground down like her mother. This is reflected in her complete control of the stage, from before the start of the play when she hands out torches to various members of the audience (pertly refusing to give one to someone who asked for one) and then issues firm instructions on how to use them, to almost the end, when her dreams have been reduced to supporting her boyfriend in what he wants to do. The idealism of youth, fuelled by sheer willpower and a sense of entitlement encouraged (if she could but recognise it) by the very society she would like to improve, carries almost everything before it, and incipient defeats merely provoke more energy and anger, until they prove too much.

The sheer energy of the performance is infectious, the audience willingly providing the torchlight for the poetry recitations, agog at Katie's self-belief and carried along by her confidence. The tentative rapprochement with her mother (once herself having perhaps comparable aspirations) is all the more touching, and even as her life takes on some of the conventional contours that she so despised, Katie's optimism shines through. The production catches these mood swings very well, and the ise of the small square stage is inventive and skilful.

2. Precious Little Talent, by Ella Hickson, directed by Dominiqe Chapman 

The play opens with a reminiscence by young New Yorker Sam (Matt Jessup) of the occasion when he unexpectedly met Joey (Rebecca Collingwood), an English girl, on a rooftop, felt an attraction, whisked her on and off a subway ride, and kissed her in Grand Central Station. Then, the scene shifts suddenly to the flat where George (Simon Shepherd) lives, and where Sam is evidently some sort of carer. The rooftop encounter is replayed from Joey's perspective, which is amusingly and cleverly different from Sam's, but just as plausible; and then to their mutual surprise they meet in George's flat: Joey turns out to be George's daughter Joanna, and George is desperate that she she should not discover the reason Sam is so much part of his reclusive life.

The play is full of misunderstanding and well-intentioned concealments, but it also has an engaging commentary on the differences between English and American approaches to social conventions. Sam often expresses himself with an American openness which Joey regards as staggeringly naive; he finds her reserve frustrating and merely evasive: this leads to moments of delicious comedy, offsetting the more serious puzzle of George's decline and his vain attempt to conceal it from his daughter, in New York on an unannounced visit as she finds her mother's remarriage and new family hard to cope with.

With excellent performances from the three actors, the production avoids the pitfalls of potential stereotyping - either of national character, or of the awfulness of a decline into dementia. Each person is trying to control the chaos - George has a brilliantly coherent speech, as if there were at last an insight to the clarity of mind that is progressively deserting him, in which he elucidates his attitude towards Joey, while the two young people in turn take up the interpretation of what they are experiencing by providing narrative commentary Joey rueful, Sam enthusiastic. Curiously, Joey's bleak realism, in choosing to refuse Sam's offer of elopement, resonates with Katie Johnstone's final recognition that her horizons are limited. It's a cautionary conclusion to a beautifully acted piece. 

A Monster Calls

based on the novel by Patrick Ness

seen at the Old Vic on 11 July 2018

Sally Cookson directs Matthe Tennyson as Conor O'Malley, with Marianne Oldham as his mother, Selina Cadell as his grandmother, Stuart Goodwin as the Monster, and a supporting cast playing the other characters, in this company-devised adaptation of the celebrated novel by Patrick Ness about a 13-year-old boy whose mother is desperately ill, and who is confused, angry and terrified by the situation and his conflicting reactions to it. The novel itself is based on the ideas of the late Siobhan Dowd, who died before she could complete her version of the story.

The stage is a bare white box with functional wooden chairs placed along the sides, and a number of large ropes suspended from above and tied back to the wings. One panel on high on the back wall cn be opened to reveal the instrumentalists who provide most of the musical accompaniment and some of the sound effects (other music and effects are pre-recorded). The white space reflects Conor's numb mind, pays tribute to Peter brook's famous description of the acting arena, and allows for some colourful projections, particularly of Conor's persistent nightmare.

Everybody's Talking About Jamie

by Dan Gillespie Sells (music) and Tom MacRae (lyrics)

seen by live streaming from the Apollo Theatre on 5 July 2018

A snazzy musical directed by Jonathan Butterell sees 16-year-old Sheffield schoolboy Jamie New (a wonderfully versatile John McCrea) having dreams of attending his Year 11 school prom in a dress. (The play is inspired by a TV documentary on the same subject). His mother Margaret (Josie Walker) supports him, but is also in peril of living out her own dreams through her son and compensating for her own disappointments - including a disastrous  and short-lived marriage to Janie's father. His closest schoolfriend Pritti Pasha (Lucie Shorthouse) is also supportive, if at times baffled, and really all that clouds his prospects are his own insecurities, his father's disgust, one school bully (Luke Baker) and the ambivalent school teacher Miss Hedge (Tamsin Carroll).

Imperium

Adapted by Mike Poulton from the Cicero novels of Robert Harris

seen at the Gielgud Theatre on 4 July 2018

Gregory Doran directs Richard McCabe as Cicero and Joseph Kloska as his secretary Tiro, with a supporting cast of twenty-three, in a two part adaptation of Robert Hrris's three Cicero novels (Imperium, Lustrum and Dictator) though most of the material from the first novel has not been used. The two stage parts are called Conspirator and Dictator, and each contains three plays: Cicero, Catiline and Clodius in the first, and Caesar, Mark Antony and Octavian in the second. From this it can be seen that the first play deals with Cicero's consulship (63 BCE) and the subsequent and controversial suppression of Catiline's conspiracy to overthrow the legitimate government of Rome (if that is what it was), while the second deals with Caesar's assassination in 44 BCE and its aftermath up to the death of Cicero in the following year.

Utility

by Emily Schwend

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, on 28 June 2018

Caitlin McLeod directs Robyn Addison as Amber, Robert Lonsdale as her husband Chris, Matt Sutton as her brother-in-law Jim and Jackie Clune as her mother Laura, with the set, a detailed recreation of an unpretentious kitchen in an East Texas house, designed by Max Johns.

The play shows us mother-of-three Amber agreeing warily to the return of Chris to her life, and the stress she is under managing two jobs and three children with a man who means well but who lives somewhat chaotically. The bulk of the action covers a couple of days in which she is preparing for a party to celebrate her daughter's eighth birthday (the girl is evidently not Chris's, but he is devoted to her) and managing the party itself in a heatwave during which their electricity is cut off due to the non-payment of the bill. Chris had forgotten to pay the previous month's minimum tariff (he had spent the money on an indulgent present for his stepdaughter), and they now face having to pay the entire bill before they can revert to paying the minimum.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie

adapted by David Harrower

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 14 June 2018

Polly Findlay directs Lia Williams as Jean Brodie with Angus Wright as Gordon Lowther (the Music Master), Sylvestra le Touzel as Miss Mackay (the Headmistress), Edward MacLiam as Teddy Lloyd (the Art Master), Kit Young as the journalist and Rona Morison, Grace Saif, Emma Hindle, Nicola Coughlan and Helena Wilson as the girls Sandy, Monica, Mary, Joyce Emily and Jenny respectively in this new adaptation of Muriel Spark's novel about the charismatic but unorthodox teacher at a prestigious girls' junior school in Edinburgh in the 1930s.

A hint from the novel, which itself recounts events in the school lives of the girls while also looking forward to their adult careers, provides a framing device for this adaptation, whereby Sandy, the observant prospective writer, is being interviewed by a journalist on the day before she takes final vows in a convent. The ostensible reason for the interview is the publication of Sandy's book on psychology, but the journalist is keen to explore Sandy's memories of her schooldays, and it is his probing which generates the flashbacks telling the story of Miss Brodie's extraordinary influence on 'her' girls, an influence which begins with her dazzling teaching methods when they are eleven, but which continues to affect the favoured set (the only pupils that we actually see in the play) throughout their later years. 

An Ideal Husband

by Oscar Wilde

seen by live streaming from the Vaudeville THeatre on 5 June 2018

Dominic Dromgoole has created a theatre company to perform all of Oscar Wilde's social comedies and some associated works; this is the third major production. Jonathan Church directs Sally Britton as Lady Chiltern, Nathaniel Parker as Sir Robert Chiltern, Faith Omole as Miss Mabel Chiltern, Frances Barber as Mrs Cheveley, Susan Hampshire as Lady Markby, Edward Fox as the Earl of Caversham and Freddie Fox as his son Viscount Goring.

This play has more substance than Lady Windermere's Fan (reviewed in March this year); though perhaps this is a modern conclusion, since the potential scandal driving the plot is one of political corruption rather than the revelation of illegitimate birth. Mrs Cheveley wishes to blackmail Lord Chiltern (a member of the government) into supporting a shady foreign deal because she has irrefutable evidence of the fact that he based his fortune on selling a Cabinet secret many years before. Although she is eventually foiled, and we are on the whole glad that this is the case (since she is herself hardly a moral paragon), the situation nevertheless raises many pertinent questions about loyalty, honesty, public power and private integrity, and there is no doubt that she scores many points.

Journey's End

by R. C. Sherriff

seen at RADA's GBS Theatre on 2 June 2018

Prasanna Puwanarajah directs Doug Colling as Stanhope, Sabi Perez as Osborne, Kwaku Mills as Raleigh, Joe Mottas Trotter, Saffron Coomber as Mason, Josh Zaré as Hibbert, Ryan Hunter as Hardy and the RSM, Kate Griffin as the Colonel and Saul Barrett as the German soldier in this 1928 play, famously one of the first attempts to dramatise the reality of World War One trench warfare on the stage.

One would have thought that the only way to produce this play was in traditional terms, evoking the period in which it is set - it is after all a classic examination, not to say indictment, of the horror of life and death in the trenches rendered all the more intense by the close scrutiny it brings to bear on a small group of officers (the men are only referred to). However, the director wished to point up the universality of the battle experience, and to disabuse the audience of the now too comfortable option of regarding the play with a sort of distancing nostalgia; interestingly the program notes refer to the co-operation of the Sherriff estate in the enterprise. This was presumably needed because of some significant textual changes (references to PTSD rather than shell-shock, and some much more coarse language than the original could have been permitted), to say nothing of recasting some of the soldiers as women.

The Two Noble Kinsmen

by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher

seen at Shakespeare's Globe on 31 May 2018

This collaborative play, not included n the First Folio of Shakespeare's collected works, has gained inclusion in modern 'complete' editions, but it is still rarely performed. Barrie Rutter directs Bryan Dick as Arcite, Paul Stocker as Palamon, Ellora Torchia as Emilia, Francesca Mills as the Jailer's daughter, Moyo Akandé as Hippolyta and Jude Akewudike as Theseus in a production that makes a strong case for the play's revival.

The story, used also by Chaucer in his Knight's Tale, concerns the cousins Arcite and Palamon, both tken prisoner by Theseus when he defeats their uncle, and both recognised as valorous men even in captivity. Their intense friendship is broken when both fall in love with Emilia (Hippolyta's sister, Theseus's sister-in-law). In a trice their earnest protestations of eternal loyalty and blissful satisfaction in the joys of amity are forgotten and they are (or want to be) at each other's throats. Theseus releases Arcite to banishment, but he determines to remain close to Emilia despite his peril. The jailer's daughter, in love with Palamon, arranges for his escape but falls into a madness when he ignores her. The two cousins meet again in the forest and decide to fight for Emilia's love; they are interrupted by Theseus and his followers who are out hunting, and the king decrees a formal combat and compels Emilia to accept that the winner will be her husband and the loser will lose his life.

As You Like It

by William Shakespeare

seen at Shakespeare's Globe on 30 May 2018

Federay Holmes and Elle While direct Jack Laskey as Rosalind, Bettrys Jones as Orlando, Nadia Nadarajah as Celia, Pearce Quigley as Jacques and Helen Schlesinger as both Duke Senior and Duke Frederick, with support from others in the company, in this new production paired with Hamlet (reviewed earlier this month). As in Hamlet the casting is 'gender-blind' with some very interesting and amusing results. In particular, though a number of male Rosalinds have been seen since Adrian Lester's beguiling performance in the 1990s, it is unusual to have a female Orlando. In fact, Jack Laskey himself took the part in the Globe's 2009 production opposite Naomi Frederick's Rosalind.

The Grönholm Effect

by Jordi Galceran

seen at the Menier Chocolate Factory on 26 May 2018

B T McNicholl directs Jonathan Cke, Greg McHugh, Laura Pitt-Fulford and John Gordon Sinclair in this Spanish play (translated by Anne Garcia-Romero and Mark St. Germain) which recounts an interview process for an executive job in a high-flying but unspecified business. In this version the interview is taking place in New York, but the American setting is not crucial.

The four characters discover that this, their fourth round interview, is to be conducted jointly, which strikes them as odd. It soon becomes clear that the interview process itself is unconventional, as instead of meeting a panel, or even a single person, the four are presented with a series of tasks and challenges, the instructions arriving impersonally in envelopes addressed to one or more of them which appear in a mysteriously opening drawer at appropriate times.

Mayfly

by Joe White

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre on 17 May 2018

Guy Jones directs Simon Scardifield as Ben, Irfan Shamji as Harry, Evelyn Hoskins as Loops and Niky Wardley as Cat in this first play by Joe White.

Once again the Orange Tree Theatre has produced the goods. Interestingly, this is another play in a rural setting dealing with devastating loss, but it is quite different from Nightfall which I saw recently at the Bridge Theatre, and, in my opinion, more satisfying. The explanation for the strange behaviour of Ben, his wife Cat and daughter Loops is not clear until late in the play, but in this case the withholding of information is not nearly as contrived (in terms of the world of the play) - not least because the fourth character is initially a stranger to them all - even Loops's claim of prior acquaintance turns out to be fleeting. While all three of members of this family behave oddly, not to say at the extreme end of credibility, the atmosphere of the play allows us to take everything on trust while awaiting further revelation. When it comes, the result is almost unbearably poignant.

Hamlet

by William Shakespeare

seen at Shakespeare's Globe on 15 May 2018

Another Hamlet - could this be possible after two visits to the excellent Almeida production last year? Fortunately the play is almost inexhaustible, and even though this is the third production I have seen performed at Shakespeare's Globe, I agreed to the suggestion of some friends visiting from Australia who wanted to see it and to experience this special theatre.

Federay Holmes and Elle While are directing a company performing both Hamlet and As You Like It concurrently, aware that they are two plays newly written for the original Globe within a year of each other. There is considerable 'gender-blind' casting, in this case with Hamlet, Horatio and Laertes played by women - Michelle Terry, Catrin Aaron and Bettrys Jones respectively - and (perhaps more unusually) Ophelia played by a man - Shubham Saraf, who also takes the small part of Osric. Claudius (James Garnon), Gertrude (Helen Schlesinger), Polonius (Richard Katz) and other parts are more predictably cast, though interestingly Guildenstern (Nadia Nadarajah) signs in BSL while Rosencrantz (Pearce Quigley) takes on all the speaking lines of the pair, signing to his friend to clear up the no doubt fumbling attempts of the Danish courtiers to sign for themselves.

Nightfall

by Barney Norris

seen at the Bridge Theatre on 10th May 2018

Laurie Sansom directs Ophelia Lovibond a Lou, Sion Daniel Young as Ryan, Ukweli Roach as Pete and Claire Skinner as Jenny in this new play about a Hampshire farming family (Jenny and her children Lou and Ryan) still numbed by the loss of the husband and father; Pete is a friend of Ryan's from their early schooldays, subsequently romantically involved with Lou.

The scene (designed by Rae Smith) is the yard space outside the farmhouse - neither the ground nor the house is particularly attractive, subverting the cosy urban view of idyllic pastoral life. In fact, a gigantic oil pipe snakes across the stage, providing both an image of rural despoliation and the trigger for the expression of dangerous tensions between all he characters - the play opens with Pete and Ryan installing a hosepipe to divert some of the oil into the farm's fuel tank without Jenny's approval.

The Writer

by Ella Hickson

seen at the Almeida Theatre on 9th May 2018

Blanche McIntye directs Romola Garai, Michael Gould, Lara Rossi and Samuel West in an often dazzling play examining the fraught business of writing for the theatre complicated by the difficulty (or even the impossibility) of a woman exerting artistic freedom in a male-dominated world.

The play begins with a young woman, a member of the audience of a play evidently just finished, engaging in a conversation with an older man who has some position in the theatre. It seems an accidental encounter, and the woman is at first unwilling to stay back and talk, but she soon delivers an impassioned speech about the corruption of theatre by monied interests, and she also objects to the too-easily patronising attitude of the man. 

The Moderate Soprano

by David Hare

seen at the Duke of York's Theatre on 26 April 2018

Jeremy Herrin directs Roger Allam as Captain John Christie and Nancy Carroll as his wife Audrey Mildmay in this play about the foundation of the Glyndebourne opera festival, with Paul Jesson as Dr Fritz Busch, Anthony Calf as professor Carl Ebert, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd as Rudolf Bing and Jade Williams as Jane Smith. The production is designed by Bob Crowley; it is a West End transfer of a play originally seen in Hampstead in 2015.

Although most of the characters speak straight to the audience at times (during scene changes) recollecting events of significance, the bulk of the play concentrates on Captain John Christie's determination in 1934 to build an opera house on his Sussex estate and to create an annual festival there in which his wife, a 'moderate' soprano, can shine. He employs three notable German refugees who are both baffled by Christie's ambition and eventually determined to make the festival work - even at the cost of weaning him from his desire to stage Parsifal in order to perform the more suitable repertoire of Mozart. This fascinating story is punctuated with several short scenes showing Audrey's fatal illness after the Second World War, with postscript of Christie's declining years as a widower.

Kiss of the Spider Woman

by Manuel Puig in a version by José Rivera and Allan Baker

seen at the Menier Chocolate Factory on 24 April 2018

Laurie Sansom directs Samuel Barnett as Molina and Declan Bennett as Valentin, with Grace Cooke-Gam as the warder and nurse, in this, a second dramatic adaptation of Manuel Puig's celebrated novel of 1976 set in an Argentinian prison (also the subject of a film in 1985). An earlier version of the play was staged in London in 1985 and revived at the Donmar Warehouse in 2007.

This new version is more streamlined, lasting a hundred minutes without a break. It thus increases the claustrophobic nature of the setting, enhanced by the configuration of the Menier stage and auditorium, with designer Jon Bausor making full use of its concrete walls and pillars, and surrounding the acting space with earth.

The Way of the World

by William Congreve

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 19 April 2018

James Macdonald directs Geoffrey Streatfeild as Mirabell, Tom Mison as Fainall, Caroline Martin as Mrs Fainall, Justine Mitchell as Millamant and Haydn Gwynne as Lady Wishfort in this celebrated comedy from 1700, presented in its historical time with flowing wigs and lacy cuffs.

The language is polished and often dazzling, the social comment astute, the plot a vehicle for observing both cynical and heartfelt attempts to navigate the difficulties of relations between men and women. While urban and sub-aristocratic could be and often was portrayed as essentially the unscrupulous use of masculine power and influence to gain wealth through marriage, in this play Congreve contrasts the moral characters of the two friends Mirabell and Fainall, each of whom stands to gain from the woman (Millamant and Mrs Fainall respectively) he is connected with. Where Mirabell and Millamant are shown to be genuine in their affections, all the warmth has drained from the Fainall marriage and the husband is plotting merely for financial advantage, and in this production is shown up as a distinctly unpleasant person.

The Inheritance

by Matthew Lopez

seen at the Young Vic on 18 April 2018

Stephen Daldry directs a cast of fourteen - twelve men, one woman and one child - in this two part play (over seven hours' playing time) exploring the connections between contemporary young gay men in New York and earlier generations by means of an extraordinary adaptation of E. M. Forster's novel Howards End.

At one level, this project looks impossible to manage. Forster's work seems inextricably bound up with its own time, even though its most famous message - 'Only connect!' - is universal. But how can the property and monetary affairs of Edwardian England, suffused with class consciousness and prejudice, be brought to bear on the contemporary New York scene? How can Forster's lifelong reticence concerning his sexuality be related to the modern freedoms and sense of entitlement that prosperous young gay males have in a cosmopolitan city?

Quiz

by James Graham

seen at the Noel Coward Theatre on 12 April 2018

Daniel Evans directs this transfer from Chichester of James Graham's new play, featuring Keir Charles as Chris Tarrant (and other quizmasters), Gavin Spokes as Charles Ingram and Stephanie Street as Diane Ingram. It briefly traces the development of British TV quiz shows before focusing on a notorious case in which Charles Ingram, a contestant on the hugely successful quiz Who Wants to be a Millionaire? was accused of colluding with his wife and an associate to gain the prize by cheating - the others were supposed to have been coughing audibly when the correct answer was read out, thus allowing Charles to select it.

The play cleverly conflates the idea of a trial with the trappings of a TV reality show, allowing for the necessary exposition to be as entertaining as possible, then presenting the circumstances of Ingram's participation in the show from the prosecution's point of view. By the time of the interval the case looks damning, and the audience is invited to vote on the verdict, which is overwhelmingly 'guilty'. In the second half, the situation is presented again from the defence's point of view, bringing in added circumstantial detail and questioning the basis of some of the prosecution's case. A second audience vote yields a different result, but not necessarily an acquittal.

Humble Boy

by Charlotte Jones

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre on 29 March 2018

Paul Miller directs this first London-based revival of Charlotte Jones's 2001 play, featuring Jonathan Broadbent as Felix Humble, Belinda Lang as his mother Flora Humble, Selina Cadell as Mercy Lott, Christopher Ravenscroft as Jim, Paul Bradley as George Pye and Rebekah Hinds as his daughter Rosie Pye. The production is designed by Simon Daw.

The play concerns Felix, a potentially brilliant astrophysicist, returning home for his father's funeral and being faced with his poisonous mother, now interested in marrying George Pye. Life is further complicated by the fact some seven years earlier, Felix had had an affair with George's daughter Rosie; only now does he discover that Rosie's seven year old daughter is named Felicity 'after his father'.

Julius Caesar (again)

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Bridge Theatre on 27 March 2018

Having so much enjoyed Nicholas Hytner's modern dress production of this play in January from a gallery seat, I decided that I just had to see it again as a promenader, milling about in the central acting area and being moved hither and yon by the stage crew (fully accoutred with headsets and security vests) as the demands of the staging required different rostra to be raised and lowered.

I'm extremely glad that I went again to see the play from this more involved perspective. Not only was it an excellent opportunity to see the actors from a closer position; it was also exciting to realise how cleverly the play had been streamlined for an uninterrupted two-hour running time, and to appreciate the logistical brilliance of the whole enterprise. 

The cast were even more impressive at close quarters - the intense intellectualism of Ben Whishaw's Brutus, the steely determination of Michelle Fairley's Cassius, the passionate energy of David Morissey's Mark Antony, were all powerfully rendered, while the crowd scenes were wonderfully managed so that we promenaders were part of the action but rarely required actually to do anything so vital that our inexperience would imperil the result. By this I mean that, for example, the crowd's cheering as Caesar progressed was almost entirely pre-recorded, so that our contributions (if made at all) supplemented the effect but did not create it. The most definite thing required of us, apart from keeping out of the way of the rostra and the stage crew's manipulation of furniture, was to crouch down in self-protection in the aftermath of the assassination, just as a crowd would be ordered to with the threat of armed assassins whose program was unknown. Where individual members of the crowd were needed to call out or to react specifically to the major characters, members of the cast were always on hand amongst us to deliver the goods.

It's a great production well worth its second view.

Lady Windermere's Fan

by Oscar Wilde

seen by live streaming from the Vaudeville Theatre on 20 March 2018

Dominic Dromgoole has created a theatre company to perform all of Oscar Wilde's social comedies and some associated works; this is the second major production (after A Woman of No Importance). Kathy Burke directs Grace Molony as Lady Windermere, Joshua James as Lord Windermere, Samantha Spiro as Mrs Erlynne and Jennifer Saunders as the Duchess of Berwick.

Wilde uses the conventions of a melodrama to skewer social pretensions and at the same time to criticise unthinking adherence to moral absolutes. Mrs Erlynne is the catalyst for a crisis in the Windermere marriage. But most of the crisis is played out according to the mores of the time - the wife virtuous and condemnatory of social and ethical impropriety, the husband floundering in his attempts to do what's best in a situation where his natural presumption of masculine authority collides with his entrapment in blackmail. Curiously, although the audience is soon aware of the secret causing all the mayhem, Lady Windermere remains oblivious and some other major deceptions are also not unmasked.

The York Realist

by Peter Gill

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 22 February 2018

Robert Hastie directs Ben Batt as George, Jonathan Bailey as John, and Lesley Nicol as George's mother in this revival of Peter Gill's 2001 play set in the 1960s when a production of the York Mystery plays is being prepared in York using local amateurs for most of the parts.

'The York Realist' is the name given to the unknown author considered to be responsible for about eight of the four dozen pageant plays which make up the entire cycle. These are the pageants dealing with the passion and death of Christ, which render the episodes in 'realistic' Yorkshire vernacular. But the title could equally well be applied to the young farmer George, who has been encouraged to take part in the modern revival by Doreen, his would-be sweetheart, but who has ceased to attend rehearsals ostensibly because his onerous farmwork and his mother's illness require his complete intention.

Picnic at Hanging Rock

adapted by Tom Wright

seen at the Barbican Theatre on 21 February 2018

Matthew Lutton directs five actors - Harriet Gordon-Anderson, Arielle Gray, Amber McMahon, Elizabeth Nabben and Nikki Shiels - in a new stage adaptation of Joan Lindsay's 1967 novel, with set and costume designs by Zoë Atkinson, lighting by Paul Jackson and sound composed by Ash Gibson Greig and designed by J. David Franzke. The production comes from Victoria's Malthouse Theatre and Western Australia's Black Swan Theatre Company.

The 1975 film directed by Peter Weir sets a standard of dreamy sensuality and atmospheric mystery which would be hard to emulate on stage. Tom Wright's adaptation approaches the subject in a completely different manner which brings its own fascinating rewards.

Long Day's Journey into Night

by Eugene O'Neill

seen at Wynndhams Theatre on 18 February 2018

Richard Eyre directs Jeremy Irons as James Tyrone, Lesley Manville as his wife Mary, Rory Keenan as Jamie and Matthew Beard as Edmund, the two Tyrone sons, and Jessica Regan as Cathleen the maid, in a production designed by Rob Howell.

The play, loosely autobiographical, takes place in the Tyrone's summer house on the day in which Edmund is told by the family doctor that he has consumption. But both his brother and his father have half suspected this (indeed, he may himself have been aware of the likelihood); the menfolk are furthermore confronting the fact that Mary is incurably addicted to morphine, having been prescribe it many years before after Edmund's difficult birth.

Such a bald summary hardly begins to account for the play's power, nor for the unremitting portrayal of self-deception and mutual recrimination that unfolds before us as the various members of the family try to maintain a veneer of normality in the face of long years of denial, repressed anger, and tortured love.

The Divide

by Alan Ayckbourn

seen at the Old Vic on 7 February 2018

The play, directed by Annabel Bolton, features Erin Doherty as Soween and Jake Davies as her brother Elihu, with a supporting cast of eleven, and a choir with a small orchestra (music by Christopher Nightingale). It is designed by Laura Hopkins and lit by David Plater.

When I bought the tickets, it was for a two-part production to be seen in the afternoon and evening (this was how it had been presented at last year's Edinburgh Festival). Later I had an email informing me that there would be only one part. Shortly before my attendance the now-customary email giving performance details mentioned a running time of four hours and 5 minutes. By the time I reached the theatre the running time was three hours and 45 minutes. Was I to see only unsatisfactory chunks of the original work? Or was it so much a work-in-progress that it would prove still to have too much padding? Ayckbourn has in the past been a master at complex narratives spanning more than the usual performance time - for example The Norman Conquests, three plays covering the same weekend in the dining room, the living room and the garden of a house; or, even more ambitiously, House and Garden, two plays to be performed by the same cast simultaneously on adjoining stages, requiring the audience to attend twice to perceive the technical brilliance of the stage-craft. Had something gone wrong with The Divide?

Julius Caesar

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Bridge Theatre on 27 January 2018

Nicholas Hytner directs Ben Whishaw as Brutus, Michelle Fairley as Cassius, David Morissey as Mark Antony and David Calder as Julius Caesar in a modern dress production designed by Bunny Christie.

It was a risk to attend two productions of the same play within three weeks, especially a play which runs the risk of being comparatively flat in its second half - all too often the machinations of the civil war unleashed by Caesar's death fail to match the power of the assassination plot and Mark Antony's great funeral oration. However, the risk was more than justified - this production is so different from the RSC's, and so exciting in its own terms, that there was no fatigue in watching it.

Belleville

by Amy Herzog

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 25 January 2018

Michael Longhurst directs Imogen Poots as Abby, James Norton as Zack, Malachi Kirby as Alioune and Faith Alabi as Amina in this one-act ply from 2011, receiving its first London production.

Zack and Abby are a young American couple renting a flat in Belleville, a suburb of Paris. Alioune, the landlord, and his wife Amina live downstairs with their two young children. The flat is not exactly seedy, but it is rather down at heel, and untidy. 

The Twilight Zone

devised by Anne Washburn from the TV series

seen at the Almeida Theatre on 20 Jauary 2018

Richard Jones directs a cast of ten in a clever adaptation of eight stories from the cult TV series The Twilight Zone (1959-64), with the set designed by Paul Steinberg and the costumes by Nicky Gillibrand. The actors play multiple parts in the stories, which are interwoven rather than being depicted consecutively, giving an added distancing effect to the already uncanny and often disturbing individual stories.

The original series consisted of independent dramas aimed at destabilising comfortable assumptions about the ways of the world, either through the irruption of the paranormal, or through alien invasions or other science-fiction motifs. This play opens with a classic gambit, travellers stranded in a bar due to a snow storm, with rumours of something uncanny, other than the storm, having occurred nearby. The twist is that the bus driver distinctly remembers that he six passengers originally boarded the bus, but there are seven stranded people in the bar - so one of them must be an alien. There follows a predictable series of arguments and defensive ploys as everyone bickers about what could be going on. The denouement is withheld until after several other stories have got underway, but it has a neat twist of its own.

Antony and Cleopatra

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Barbican Theatre on 6 January 2018

Part of the RSC's Rome MMXVII season, this play is directed by Iqbal Khan and features Josette Simon as Cleopatra, Antony Byrne as Mark Antony, Ben Allen as Octavius Caesar and Andre Woodall as Enobarbus. It is interesting, but in the event justified, that the characters common to both Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra - namely, Antony himself and the other triumvirs Octavius and Lepidus - are played by different actors in the two productions, though many of the supporting cast appear in both.

Robert Innes Hopkins designed both productions, giving a sense of visual unity while expanding the palette, as it were, to include the Egyptian scenes, their general sensuousness signified by a large draped curtain to offset the sterner vertical and horizontal lines of Rome, and the occasional appearance of large cat statues. But, with a different director, even if the visual presentation was broadly related, the overall approach was inevitably different, most notably in the sound world in which the brass and percussion of the earlier play are here supplemented by (electric) guitar and saxaphone. 

Julius Caesar

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Barbican Theatre on 6 January 2018

Part of the RSC's Rome MMXVII season, this play is directed by Angus Jackson and features Alex Waldmann as Brutus, Martin Hutson as Cassius, Andrew Woodall as Julius Caesar, James Corrigan as Mark Antony and Jon Tarcy as Octavius Caesar.

The setting is notionally Classical (columns, and a foreboding statue of a lion mauling a horse, feature at the back of the stage in the first half, rather than any realistic evocation of sites such as the theatre of Pompey where Caesar's assassination actually took place; rough indications of open landscape for the second half - designer Robert Innes Hopkins); the costumes also feature togas and tunics, but also very un-Roman red calf-length trousers.

This helps establish the historical background, and allows for very fine visual effects when, for example, the conspirators move from being a group of symmetrically placed almost-statues to a mob of baying assassins. It also gives added effect to Julius Caesar's stately arrogance, while allowing us to see the human frailty it is meant to conceal (a certain elderly deafness as well as hints of the epilepsy referred to by Cassius). Andrew Woodall shows us the arrogance of the man who evidently will not need much more persuading to become a king.