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.