Candida

by Bernard Shaw

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond on 28 November 2019

Paul Miller directs Martin Hutson as the Rev James Mavor Morell, Claire Lams as his wife Candida, Michael Simkins as his father-in-law Mr Burgess, Sarah Middleton as Miss Proserpine Garnett ('Prossey'), his secretary, Kwaku Mills as the Rev Alexander Mill, his curate, and Joseph Potter as Mr Eugene Marchbanks, an 18-year-old poet who is also a family friend. This is Paul Miller's fourth revival of an early Shaw play in the last five years; I've seen two others and this, like them, is excellent.

When the Crows Visit

by Anupama Chandrasekhar

seen at the Kiln Theatre on 13 November 2019

Indhu Rubasingham directs this new play, with Ayesha Dharker as Hema, Bally Gill as her son Akshar, and Soni Razdan as her mother-in-law Jaya. Clearly inspired by Ibsen's Ghosts the play provides (if that were possible) an even more bleak view of family dynamics. Where in Ibsen's play young Osvald Avling is for the most part a victim of circumstances, destroyed both mentally and physically by the ghosts surrounding him, in this play Akshay, the son of the house, perpetuates the cycle of male violence endemic in the family. 

The brutal compromises forced on women in a society in which men dominate and divorce is unthinkable even in the face of physical violence lie behind the constant bickering and unease between Hema, widowed now but still reliant on her husband's reputation to protect the family name, and Jaya, an apparently indulgent and borderline senile woman who uses her frailty to shield herself from her own painful memories. Relying on mythic archetypes to justify her past actions, and hoping that they will still guide her in dealing with her grandson, Jaya is a woman barely able to recognise that she has colluded in her own misery. Hema, realising that her son has become a monster too like his father, perhaps is on the verge of breaking the pattern - but at this point the play stops, so we cannot know if she is successful. In the meantime Akshay has degenerated from a somewhat rootless and none-too-successful young man in the big city, to a quite repellently vicious level. Just a quirky twist of the mouth can turn a naive smile to a cynical sneer with quite chilling effect.

The Watsons

by Laura Wade

seen at the Menier Chocolate Factory on 10 November 2019

Samuel West directs this adaptation of Jane Austen's unfinished novel, with Grace Molony as Emma Watson and Loiuse Ford as Laura and a large supporting cast in a production designed by Ben Stones. The play was originally performed in Chichester, and is due for a transfer to the West End (as are so many of the Menier's successful productions).

Jane Austen began this novel in 1804, but chose not to complete it. There are some scrappy hints of her intentions, but no real explanation of why it was abandoned - a field day for an enthusiastic adapter.The play sets the scene, a predictable and enjoyable story of a young girl in reduced circumstances making her way in a social setting rich with possibilities for Austen's characteristically waspish observations about custom, propriety and marriage prospects. Emma has been brought up by a wealthy relative, and then discarded to be returned to her father's house just as the father is declining towards death; she has to cope with an older sister who has devoted herself to their father, a more flighty sister, and a married brother with a snobbish wife. She attracts the interest of the inarticulate Lord Osborne, and also has an easy familiarity with the clergyman attached to the Osborn estate.

Vassa

by Maxim Gorky adapted by Mike Bartlett

seen at the Almeida Theatre on 8 November 2019

Tinuke Craig directs Siobhán Redmond as the matriarch Vassa with Amber James as her daughter Anna, Arthur Hughes and Danny Kirrane as her sons Pavel and Semyon, Michael Gould as her brother-in-law Prokhor and Cyil Nri as her manager Mikhail. Sophie Wu played Lyudmila, Pavel's wife, Kayla Meikle was Natalya, Semyon's wife, and Alexandra Dowling and Daniella Isaacs played the two servants Lipa and Dunya.

In a versatile set designed by Fly Davis, unusually making use of a curtain in this theatre, and allowing for multiple entrance points reminiscent of a farce, the fate of capitalism is played out in miniature as Vassa attepts to preserve the family fortunes from collapse in the face of her husband's imminent death, her brother-in-law's rapacity, and her sons' incompetence. Indeed the staging encourages a view that we are watching a farce, as people erupt on stage, having been eavesdropping at the doors, or else appearing totally unaware of the crisis into which they are plummeting. Vassa herself holds the stage (she is usually on stage) with imperious determination, and even in her absence most people are fearfully aware of her authority.

Hansard

by Simon Woods

seen by live streaming from the National Theatre (Lyttleton) on 7 November 2019

Simon Godwin directs Alex Jennings as Robin Hesketh (MP and junior Cabinet Minister) and Lindsay Duncan as his wife Diana in an intense drama which begins almost innocuously as social or political comedy set in May 1988, in the week that the Local Government Act including the notorious section 28 was passed into law.

Robin returns to the marital home in the Cotswolds on the Saturday morning after the crucial vote to find Diana still not dressed, and a familiar sparring begins in which it becomes clear that she has nothing but scorn for the role of politician's wife, and, even more difficult for her husband, little sympathy with Tory policy or the general outlook of her husband.  The arguments are presumably well worn in the house, but still engaged on both sides with some degree of passion mixed with the sort of resigned weariness that allows the audience to be amused.

Solaris

by David Greig from Stanislav Lem's novel

seen at the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith on 31 October 2019

Matthew Lutton directs Polly Frame as Dr Kris Kelvin, Keegan Joyce as Ray, Jade Ogugua as Dr Sartorius, Fode Simbo as Dr Snow and Hugo Weaving (on video) as Professor Gibarian in this new adaptation of the 1961 science fiction novel, which has been twice adapted for the cinema, in 1972 (Tarkovsky directing) and in 2002 (Soderberg directing, George Clooney starring). Actually, I also saw an intense and strange theatrical version presented at Nottingham University in 1980.

The premise of the story is that the members of a scientific expedition orbiting the planet Solaris have strange 'visitors', taking the form of people from their past lives, which are presumed to be the attempt of the vast planetary ocean to contact the humans. The play opens with the arrival of Dr Kelvin on the station; she has arrived after the death of her mentor Professor Gibarian, who has left her some tapes; only Drs Snow and Sartorius are left. Kris Kelvin's 'visitor' is a past lover, Ray, an attractive oceanographer whom she dated in her student days but later lost touch with. (In the book and films, Dr Kelvin is male, and his visitor female.)

Little Baby Jesus

by Arinzé Kene

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, on 24 October 2019

Tristan Fynn-Aiduenu directs Anyebe Godwin as Kehinde, Rachel Nwokoro as Joanne and Khai Shaw as Rugrat in this intense three-hander about teenagers facing the challenge of growing into adulthood. the production is designed by Tara Usher

On a raised circle imitating school playground asphalt there are two chairs and three actors. As the audience arrives and settles the three are happily chatting to their public, singling out particular people for conversation, ranging around the four sides of seats. It's a risky gambit, preserving or establishing some sense of character without knowing quite what responses they will have to react to, but it is in line with the breezy self-confidence of youth, and the young actors seemed entirely at ease with the idea. Even the presence of at least two groups of school students in the audience did not appear to put them off their stride, and the students themselves enjoyed the repartee.

A Midsummer Night's Dream (again)

by William Shakespeare

seen by live streaming from the Bridge Theatre on 17 October 2019

Having so much enjoyed the production in August (see my review of 17 August 2019) I felt sure a second viewing in the cinema would not go amiss - this was actually a repeat of the original live streaming, also broadcast in August, as the production run has now finished.

It was a great pleasure to see this inventive and engaging production again. In this case, there were benefits to be gained from camera close-ups and varying points of view, though occasionally the editor's choices of shots were frustrating. But the pleasure of seeing some of the details in the performances of the actors more than outweighed the disadvantages of filming a live show. In particular, the roguishness of Puck, the gleeful pleasure Titania took in her machinations, and the besottedness of Oberon gained from a closer look at their facial expressions, while Theseus's initial intransigence was chillingly conveyed just by the intensity of his narrowed gaze at Hermia.

The hilarious comedy of Bottom especially among the Rude Mechanicals, and the weirdness of Puck, whose curling toes seemed to have a life of their own, were wonderfully in evidence in one of the great productions of this play.

Amsterdam

by Maya Arad Yasur translated by Eran Edry

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre on 10 October 2019

Matthew Xia directs Daniel Abelson, Fiston Barek, Michal Horowicz and Hara Yannas in a production designed by Naomi Kuyck-Cohen of Amsterdam, a play which explores facets of Jewish consciousness and experience during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands and in the present day. The rosy picture of Dutch resistance to Nazi anti-semitism is confounded by individual acts of betrayal; the prevalence of modern anti-semitism is complicated by the possible paranoia of a visiting Israeli violinist as she negotiates living in Amsterdam and coping with an insensitive bureaucracy. The two themes are linked by the fact that Dutch Jews returning to their properties after the Second World War (those that were able to) were presented with utility bills (including gas bills) unpaid in their absence, when these properties had often been used by occupying forces. The Israeli visitor, renting a flat, is presented with a bill plus penalties and interest, amounting to 1700 euros, unpaid for decades by the titular landlady, whom she never meets.

The Real Thing

by Tom Stoppard

seen at the Drama Theatre, Sydney Opera House on 1 October 2019

Simon Philips directs Johnny Carr as Henry, Geraldine Hakewill as Annie, Charlie Garber as Max, Rachel Gordon as Charlotte, Shiv Palekar as Billy, Julia Robertson as Debbie and Dorje Swallow as Brodie in a Sydney Theatre Company (STC) production of Tom Stoppard's 1982 play about a brilliant playwright agonising about 'the real thing' - a loving relationship - and the problems of depicting it satisfactorily on stage.

Stoppard's earlier (and later) plays are noted for their verbal brilliance, technical craft, and concentration on intellectual not to say philosophical themes, at the expense of deeper emotional engagement and very thin roles for women. The Real Thing is in part a deliberate answer to the criticisms levelled at a presumed shallowness. The marriage between Henry, the playwright, and Charlotte, his actress wife, is shaky, and completely destabilised by the love affair between him and Annie, another actress; very soon they are living together and trying to negotiate the terms on which two passionate and articulate adults can co-exist.

Stoppard being Stoppard, the situation is not presented so straightforwardly, as there are several occasions on which scenes from plays are performed by (variously) Charlotte, Annie, Max (Annie's actor husband) and Billie (a young actor attracted to Annie); but it requires fierce attention on the part of the audience to disentangle some of these scenes from the 'reality' of Henry and Annie's story. (Of course the excerpt from 'Tis Pity She's a Whore is not so hard to spot, due to the Jacobean language.) But these interpolations are not merely meta-theatrical high-jinks: they also offer astute comments on the dramaturgical problems of representing human passions both honestly and interestingly, without compromising them. 

Henry himself is given to obsessive ruminations about the use of language and the respect owed to words in order to preserve the integrity of their meanings and hence ultimately of their speakers. It's easy to take this as Stoppard's own view, but he takes care to allow both Debbie, Henry and Charlotte's teenage daughter, and Annie herself to convey withering attacks on Henry's position, a potent reminder that surface brilliance is often superficial.

The cast handle the shifts of tone and the rigour of the language well, although I felt that the adoption of 'received English' pronunciation was at times laboured to the point of being overdone, especially in the early scenes. This affected the rhythm of the play, which really hit its stride only in the second half; but this might also mean that the audience itself had become more used to the style of the play by then. The set design by Charles Davis was masterly, allowing the smooth transition of scenes while not pre-judging what the actual setting was - the revolve revealed a series of rooms in which the cast played out both the 'real' lives of the characters, and the stage scenes many of them were performing.

Though the opening riff on the impermanence of digital watches now seems somewhat hard to fathom, many of the concerns voiced in a play of 1982 still resonate today; the revival was well worth producing, and the performances a pleasure to watch. As it happens, I last saw the play myself in 1985, in the same venue. 

A Midsummer Night's Dream

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Bridge Theatre on 17 August 2019

Nicholas Hytner directs Oliver Chris as Oberon and Theseus and Gwendoline Christie as Titania and Hippolyta in an inventive restaging of this perennially favourite play, with David Moorst as Puck and Hammed Animashaun as Bottom. The production is designed by Bunny Christie.

As with last year's production of Julius Caesar (reviewed on both 27 January and 27 March 2018) the Bridge has been transformed into a theatre in the round with a central pit area where audience members can stand and be moved around by stewards as various parts of the floor rise to become acting spaces. There is no need for a crowd as such in this play, so there is less immediate involvement than in the other play, but the mere presence of so many people 'in the way' underscores the confusions the mere mortals undergo as they enter the forest outside Athens.

Peter Gynt

by David Hare after Henrik Ibsen

seen at National Theatre (Olivier) on 16 August 2019

Jonathan Kent directs James McArdle in the title role of David Hare's adaptation of Ibsen's dramatic poem Peer Gynt, the story of a man consumed by the need to be and feel authentic, heedless of the effect this has on those around him. Pruned of the elevated poetry, and relocated from Norway to Scotland, the play proves to be compelling, touching and often very comic, though it certainly takes a darker turn as the evening progresses, as the irrepressible young Peter grows older and more disillusioned with life.

On the exposed Olivier stage almost every scene is set outdoors (designed by Richard Hudson), whether just outside his mother's hut, down at the village where a wedding is supposed to be taking place, even in the kingdom of the mountain trolls, and then on a golf course in Florida, or in the African desert after a plane crash, or at sea in a fateful storm. The restlessness of Peter's life is thus emphasised by the lack of domesticity: when he first visits his mother all the talk is outside the dwelling and he finishes up leaving her on the roof of her hut so that she cannot interfere with his plans, and even at her death she seems to be as much in the fields as on her deathbed.

2019 Directors' Festival 3 and 4

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre on 8 August 2019

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

3. The Mikvah Project by Josh Azouz directed by Georgia Green

Avi (Robert Neumark Jones), a 35-year-old married man, and Eitan (Dylan Mason), a 17-year-old schoolboy, use the same mikvah (a Jewish ritual bath). Avi, devout, and hoping for a child, performs the ritual ablutions in aid of spiritual purity, while Eitan, whatever his initial motivation, soon develops a crush on the older man.  In their early conversations Avi is both amused and bemused by the boy's conversational style. Then when Eitan's attentions are unmistakeable he is at first appalled then gradually attracted himself. Somehow he finds himself deceiving his wife in order to spend a holiday weekend with Eitan (funded by money-gifts saved from the latter's bar mitzvah); but the birth of a son causes him to retreat, leaving the dejeced Eitan to grow out of this particular passion.

This is obviously a complex subject to deal with in only 75 minutes, and with only two actors to carry the story. In particular the absence of Avi's wife Leah from the stage - the interaction of husband and wife is only described by Avi - deprives us of another, and critical, view of the events; and in realistic terms we might wonder how easy it would be for a teenager in a presumably close community (even with personal funds at his disposal) to arrange a weekend away in Alicante. Despite these caveats, the play addresses many pertinent issues about unexpected passion and its disturbance of family and social loyalty.

Much of the action takes place at the mikvah, a submerged pool in the centre of the stage, perforce present even if we are temporarily at Avi's house, and doubling as the beach of the clandestine holiday. The mixture of community solidarity and personal detachment is very well conveyed in scenes where Avi talks from the position of the adult mentor of a puzzling teenager, irritated by his jargon, conventionally certain that a 'phase' must be endured and tamed. The intrusion of physical desire and attraction in a sacred space upsets and confuses the older man, and neatly represents the wider threat to his self-image. In the meantime Eitan appears to be only going through the motions of piety, in the meantime being just as interested in exploring nightclubs and the secular world.

Robert Neumark Jones gave a fine portrayal of an articulate, good-humoured and sensitive man, coming to terms with the daily routines of married life somewhat fraught by the difficulties Avi and Leah have in conceiving a child, and temporarily knocked off balance by the attentions of a male lover. Dylan Mason's Eitan showed the determination which sexual attraction can impose, especially perhaps on a youngster, though he did not quite catch the ardent passion of adolescence nor radiate its fateful charm. Full marks to the director and her team for devising the play in the already confined space of the Orange Tree's acting area with the added limitation of having a pool in the middle of it.

4. Eight Gigabytes of Hardcore Pornography by Declan Greene directed by Gianluca Lello

 Amid a collection of voices bemoaning unattractiveness or protesting unfamiliarity with the on-line dating scene, a Man (Matthew Douglas) and a Woman (Cate Hamer) emerge to reveal one particular story. They are not beautiful young people, so naturally when they finally meet each is disappointed in the physical attractiveness of the other. Prior to their meeting we are shown something of the background of each. The Man relies on pornography for his sexual enjoyment, and is sacked and disgraced after having loaded the eponymous tranche of pornography onto his work laptop. The Woman lives in an almost paranoid welter of debt, relying on buying sprees and the studious refusal to pay attention to calls from debt servicing companies. She has two children, and a husband who is in an asylum. The Man comes to live in the Woman's flat, but there is little conversation, let alone comprehension, between them, and ultimately, after a burglary engineered by the released husband, he flees. The occasional moments of tenderness release fantasies of a fulfilled and happy life, but they never translate into reality.

It's a grimly comic look at frustrated lives, made tolerable to watch by the sympathetic portrayals by the two actors. Though the Man's misogyny and the Woman's financial recklessness are hardly in doubt, their images of themselves at the centre of their own stories include redeeming characteristics - true no doubt of all our self-presentations - and it is not adequate simply to dismiss them out of hand. Their grappling with the outside world may be hampered by all sorts of weakness and delusion, but if the Man, in his final desertion, is implicitly condemned, the Woman is left with a fragile dignity: 'Don't!' she demands of us in the closing lines, 'Don't laugh at me!'.

It's tricky to bring off the presentation of basically unsympathetic characters, especially when an audience may be all too ready to pre-judge the entanglement with social media and the level of self-delusion involved. But the two actors manage this skilfully; we may be appalled at sentiments expressed and deeds recounted, but the gaucheness of their initial encounter is excruciatingly entertaining, and the brief moments of outreach, even if insubstantial, reveal a blighted potential which seem to transform even the faces of the usually self-obsessed Man and Woman.

The staging, extremely straightforward and dependent mainly on switches of lighting to signify location and mood, makes it easy to pay attention to either character as required, while at the same time gesturing to the frenetic cycle of bars and dating sites lying behind this particular story.

To summarise, this year's Directors' Festival has revealed more excellent new talent and is a worthy successor to its predecessors.

The Bridges of Madison County

by Marsha Norman (book) and Jason Robert Brown (music and lyrics)

seen at the Menier Chocolate Factory on 6 August 2019

Trevor Nunn directs this musical based on Robert James Waller's popular novel about an intense brief affair between Francesca (Jenna Russell) an Iowa farm housewife, originally from Naples, and Robert Kincaid (Edward Baker-Duly), a roving free-spirited photographer hired by National Geographic to photograph the celebrated covered wooden bridges of Madison County.

Robert calls at Francesca's home to ask the way to the elusive seventh bridge, on just the day when her husband and two fractious teenage children have departed for the Illinois State Fair. There is an immediate attraction; one thing leads quickly to another; but, at the last, Francesca's family loyalty prevents her from leaving with Robert. By the time, years later, that she might consider herself free - widowed and her children fully grown and establishes - it is too late; the older Robert has died.

2019 Directors' Festival 1 and 2

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre on 5 August 2019

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

1. Sadness and Joy in the Life of Giraffes by Tiago Rodrigues, translated by Mark O'Thomas and directed by Wiebke Green

This play, set in Lisbon, is one of many resenting an articulate child coming to terms with deep distress, in this case the death of her mother. The girl, played with enormous verve and charm by Eve Ponsonby, is explaining to us the meaning of words while preparing a school project about giraffes - Giraffe also appears to be her nickname, though her father (Gyuri Sarossy) is just as likely to call her Princess. Life is becoming difficult with father and daughter alone after the mother's death - she was evidently the provider in the family, ad now the bills are mounting up and the Discovery Channel has been disconnected. Giraffe embarks on a quest to find sufficient funds for a lifelong subscription to the Discovery Channel, aided by her trusty teddy bear Judy Garland, played with foul-mouthed insouciance by Nathan Walsh (he doesn't really like the name Judy Garland).

This sort of thing could too easily descend into sentimental whimsy; here under the capable hands of Wiebke Green and her versatile cast (Gyuri Sarossy also plays all the men Giraffe meets on her quest) the pitfalls are avoided and the story maintains the necessary balance between high-spirited comedy and uneasy poignancy. The conceit of a child articulating her occasionally wayward understanding of the world by imitating dictionary definitions is beautifully handled as a means of providing the narrative background, while still giving the audience some work to do to understand the situation.

All in all, an intriguing piece of work skilfully fitted to the Orange Tree Theatre stage.

2. Pilgrims by Elinor Cook directed by Ellie Goodall

Will (Nicholas Armfield) and Dan (Luke MacGregor) are friends who go mountaineering; Rachel (Adeyinka Akinrinade) has spent time with each of them, Dan latterly, before they set off on a challenge in Peru which is beyond their strength and skill. In a series of scenes announced by Rachel, who seems to be pushing against the stereotype of male adventuring and female patience (exemplified by the Odysseus and Penelope myth which she explicitly invokes at one stage) we gain an insight into the tangled relationships of the three characters; the exhilaration of the boys at their first experience of climbing as teenagers is all too easily transformed over the years into a defence against confronting deeper insecurities and challenges to mature.

The play is not always successful in keeping track of its many strands, so that the final image of Rachel donning a backpack as her 'man' waves goodbye, a reversal of the more typical gender roles, is both rather too neat and yet not well integrated into the young men's story. However, the cast perform well, negotiating the scrambled chronology of the narrative structure with ease and skill. Ellie Goodall and the Festival's stage management team evoked exposed mountaintops, natural beauty spots, nightclubs and domestic scenes with just a few boxes and pieces of wood, which were extremely effective in the intimate space of the theatre.

The play, perhaps, had bitten off more than it can chew, but the cast and director had not: their work was excellent.

A Midsummer Night's Dream

by William Shakespeare

seen at Shakespeare's Globe on 1 August 2019

Sean Holmes directs Peter Bourke as Thesues and Oberon, Victoria Elliott as Hippolita and Titania, and Jocelyn Jee Esien as Bottom, with Ciarán O'Brien as Demetrius, Amanda Wilkin as Helena, Faith Omole as Hermia, Ekow Quartey as Lysander, Billy Seymour as Flute and Mustardseed, Jacoba Williams as Snout and Moth, Rachel Hannah Clark as Snug and Peaseblossom, and Nadine Higgins as Quince, Egeus and Cobweb, in an exuberant production designed by Jean Chan including explosions of riotous colour in the fairy sequences.

Present Laughter

by Noel Coward

seen at the Old Vic on 31 July 2019

Matthew Warchus directs Andrew Scott as Garry Essendine with Indira Varma as his estranged wife Liz and Sophie Thompson as his personal assistant Monica, with others supporting, in this revival (designed by Rob Howell) of Noel Coward's skewering comedy about theatrical celebrity first seen in the 1940s.

The set, in bright pastels, looks like a demented cross between a swank flat (where it is supposed to be) and an art deco cinema or theatre foyer, emphasising the fact that Garry Essendine lives on his celebrity status. Five entrances allow for a truly farcical set-up as people emerge from or are hidden in various rooms of the flat, or arrive at its front door, as the plot requires; but, typical of Coward, it is all very knowing, and one character complains (over the telephone) of being in a French farce. This calling the audience's attention to the mechanics of what they are witnessing is  high-risk strategy, but Noel Coward, at the peak of his powers, can pull it off, providing the cast rises to the occasion. This cast does, in splendid form.

The Lehman Trilogy

by Stefano Massini adapted by Ben Power

seen at the Piccadilly Theatre on 27 July 2019

Sam Mendes directs Simon Russel Beale as Henry Lehman (originally Hayum Lehmann), Ben Miles as Emanuel (originally Mendel) Lehman and Adam Godley as Mayer Lehman, with piano accompaniment by Candida Caldicot, in this production designed by Es Devlin, which was originally presented at the National Theatre and is now enjoying a West End run.

The collapse of the Lehman Brothers Bank precipitated the financial crisis of 2008; this play examines the history of the firm by returning to the arrival of Henry Lehman in the United States from Bavaria in 1844, followed by his brothers in Emanuel in 1847 and Mayer in 1850. The first part shows them developing a business based in Montgomery, Alabama, originally selling cotton goods, then expanding to sell farm supplies, and eventually raw cotton to northern cotton mills. In the late 1850s, after Henry's death in 1855,  Emanuel set up a New York office and gradually, partly in response to the Civil War, the firm moved into banking and eventually finance. Descendants of the brothers maintained a relationship with the firm until the 1960s.

Jesus Christ Superstar

Lyrics by Tim Rice, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber

seen at the Barbican Theatre on 15 July 2019

The double album of Jesus Christ Superstar was issued in 1971; the first Australian production (by Jim Sharman) premiered in Sydney in 1972, so it's the best part of fifty years since I first heard and saw it. Now the Barbican has revived the recent Regent's Park Open Air Theatre production designed by Tim Scutt and directed by Timothy Sheader with Robert Tripolino as Jesus, Ricardo Afonso as Judas, Sallay Garnett as Mary (Magdalene), Matt Cardle as Pilate, Samuel Buttery as Herod and Cavin Cornwall as Caiaphas.

The music holds its own, bending many styles of rock with pastiche nods to operatic convention - emotioanl numbers, a mix of solo introspection and energetic choruses. The story, basically the passion story preceded by Palm Sunday and the cleansing of the Temple, focuses on Judas's predicament as much as Jesus's, preferring to 'humanise' the Gospel traitor by giving him ostensibly higher motives for betrayal than mere greed - a disillusionment with a friend whose message is being eclipsed by his growing personality cult; and a tortured sense that he has been manipulated into a false position by exterior forces - Jesus himself? God?. Though we are probably meant to sympathise, there's an awful amount of special pleading and self-pity as Judas unravels towards his suicide.

Jesus himself remains something of an enigma, plainly not the figure Judas sees (though it is easy enough to understand Judas's point of view), but also not really seduced by crowd popularity nor prepared to indulge his followers in their easy optimism. His exasperation is by turns angry and disappointed, and the agony in the Garden is poignant, his aceptance of the inevitable alwayson a knife-edge.

Visually the production has powerful moments. Dressed in casual, not to say scruffy, clothes, the apostles form an engaging chorus moving with infectious choreography to the driving rhythms of the score. Jesus wears a loose white caftan-like shirt until his arrest. The Romans are dressed in black with white masks, thus effectively a faceless authority, while Caiaphas and the priests look as if they have blown in from a Star Wars desert tribe - probably a wise move to distract from the incipient anti-semitism of the text. The flogging scene was chillingly re-imagined with an already bloodied Jesus (obviously the victim of off-stage brutality as he is moved from Caiaphas to Pilate to Herod to Pilate) being attacked and manhandled by many different floggers who were gradually covering him with gold glitter.

The musicians were good; the singers were of course miked in the modern way (discreet appliances near the cheek), but it was a nice touch that all the major characters used hand-held mikes, often deftly passed from one to another, in a reminder that this was how things were done in the 1970s. But there were no string instruments other than guitars, which meant that the final meditative orchestral cod accompanying the deposition scene relied on plaintive wind instruments and lacked something of the melacholy sweetness of the original recording.

Worth seeing for more than old time's sake, even though there is much to criticise on philosophical and theological grounds about the interpretation of the story

Europe

by David Greig

seen at the Donmar warehouse on 4 July 2019

Michael Longhurst, taking over as Artistic Director of the Donmar, has chosen to revive David Greig's 1994 play set in an abandoned railway station in an unspecified (but probably Eastern) European country near 'the border'. Ron Cook plays Fret, the station master, with Faye Marsay as Adele, his assistant, Billy Howle as Adele's husband Berlin, Theo Barklem-Biggs as Horse and Stephen Wight as Billy, Berlin's friends, Shane Zaza as Morocco, a local boy made good, Kevork Malikyan as Sava, a refugee, and Natalia Tena as his daughter Katya.

Written during the period in which the former Yugoslavia was being torn apart by war and 'ethnic cleansing', Europe nonetheless still packs a powerful punch. The small town is dying now that its importance as a border crossing has vanished, and automation is making its industrial workforce redundant - Berlin, Horse and Billy are now at a loose end. Stationmaster Fret appears at first to be an old-fashioned martinet swamped by the illogicality of train timetables which no longer include stops at his station, and he has no sympathy for a man and woman he finds waiting on the station, apparently impervious to his announcements that there will be no trains. Adele, stifled in her marriage to the unimaginative and truculent Berlin, dreams of glamorous foreign capitals.

Wife

by Samuel Adamson

seen at the Kiln Theatre on 26 June 2019

Indhu Rubasingham directs Richard Cant, Karen Fishwick, Pamela Hardman, Joshua James, Calam Lynch and Sirine Saba in this inventive and intriguing family saga starting in 1959 and looking forward to 2039.

But 'family saga' is only part of it. The play opens with perhaps the most notorious slammed door in theatre history, marking the departure of Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's House, being performed in 1959. We see glimpses of other performances of this play at crucial moments in the story in 1988, 2019, and another generation later; the challenge Nora poses as she insists on personal autonomy at the expense of conventional marriage, and even of motherhood, is the central concern of Wife, and it's fairly clear that there is still no satisfactory accommodation between the demands of self-fulfillment and the compromises needed to survive a relationship.

The Damned (Les Damnés)

by Bart Van den Eynde based on Visconti's film

seen at the Barbican Theatre on 24 June 2019

Ivo van Hove directs members of the Comédie-Française in this sobering tale of a German industrialist family's descent into collaboration with the Nazi party and their consequent degeneration and destruction. It is the first visit of the Comédie-Française to London in about twenty years; once more Ivo van Hove has chosen to re-imagine a celebrated film.

While the Sun Shines

by Terrence Rattigan

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre on 18 June 2019

Paul Miller directs this sparkling revival of one of Rattigan's most successful and popular plays, written in 1943 and set in London - indeed in the celebrated chambers of the Albany off Piccadilly - during the Second World War. In a great ensemble cast Philip Labey plays the Earl of Harpenden, John Hudson his manservant Horton, Julian Moore-Cook the American Lieutenant Mulvaney, Sabrina Bartlett the Earl's fiancée Landy Elisabeth Randall, Michael Lumsden her father the Duke of Ayr & Stirling, Jordan Mifsúd as the French Lieutenant Colbert and Dorothea Myer-Bennett as Mabel Crum.

Bitter Wheat

by David Mamet

seen at the Garrick Theatre on 17 June 2019

David Mamet directs his own new play with John Malkovich as Barney Fein, a powerful and lecherous Hollywood producer, Doon Mackichan as his PA Sondra, Ioanna Kimbook as a young actress Yung Kim Li, Alexander Arnold as Roberto the intern, Teddy Kempner as Dr Wald, Matthew Pidgeon as a writer and Zephryn Taitte as Charles Arthur Brown.

Rosmersholm

by Henrik Ibsen

seen at the Duke of York's Theatre on 29 May 2019

Ian Rickson directs Hayley Atwell as Rebecca West and Tom Burke as John Rosmer in Duncan Macmillan's new adaptation of Ibsen's play, with Lucy Briers as Mrs Helseth (the housekeeper), Giles Terera as Andreas Kroll (Rosmer's brother-in-law), Peter Wight as Ulrik Brendel (Rosmer's former tutor) and Jake Fairbrother as Peter Mortensgaard (a newspaper editor).

In classic Ibsen style the oppressive traditions of a family dynasty, the Rosmers of Rosmersholm, weigh heavily on Pastor John Rosmer, now living in the vast family mansion in mourning for his sick wife who leapt into the nearby millrace in despair (apparently) at not being able to bear children to carry on the family name. Rebecca West, sent by Kroll to be a companion to his sister in her illness, is still living in Rosmersholm, a soulmate and intellectual sparring partner of John Rosmer, a woman with an uncertain past who threatens Kroll's comfortable sense of masculine superiority. 

But there is more than simmering family dynamics here - there is a political situation as well. Kroll has not visited the house since his sister's death, but now he needs Rosmer's endorsement in the imminent elections for the governorship, in order to counter the scurrilous populists encouraged by Mortensgaard's gutterpress Lighthouse newspaper. Kroll proposes that Rosmer should become the nominal editor of the Tribune which he and his supporters have just purchased. He is astounded to discover that Rosmer wishes to remain neutral, and appalled even more when the Pastor confesses that he has lost his faith. Naturally he concludes that this is Rebecca's fault.

The free-spirited Rebecca, passionate about her right to think for herself and to control her destiny, is an obvious foil to Kroll, a man so convinced of the rightness of his views that he discounts the fact that his wife and children profoundly disagree with him. But as usual, Ibsen shows the damage idealism can cause as well as its allure - Brendel, an old tutor who doubtless first sowed the seeds of intellectual enquiry in the young Rosmer, is now a disreputable sponger, while Rebecca herself has to face unsuspected facts about her past which are truly awful: her intellectual mentor was more than he had seemed.

Rosmer, encouraged at first to break free from the legacy of his family, finds little solace in adventurous idealism as he loses Kroll's esteem and finds even Mortensgaard precipitately keen to drop him when he realises that an apostate pastor is of no use to his cause. And of course, to add to the ironies, it was Rosmer in his earlier days who had ruined Mortensgaard's life by publicly denouncing his adultery. He also finds Rebecca an enigma to the last, and the conventional solution of marrying her is not one that she can countenance.

All this and more is superbly supported in Rae Smith's design for this production. The horror of the house is emphasised by its grey walls studded with family portraits (at first gloomily covered by grey cloths). The light pouring in from the windows reveals a chilly atmosphere. Rosmer's abandoned faith is cleverly signified when his study is revealed: the wallpaper (silvery grey of course) is faded except for where a cross must once have stood against it: now just the outline remains, and above it another painting (of his wife? of a religious subject?) has also been removed, leaving a darker patch.

Hayley Atwell imbues Rebecca with fierce passion and a self-confidence which scandalises the more conventional Kroll - and perhaps the loyal housekeeper Mrs Helseth too - but the character's nervous tension is finely drawn, making her sudden collapse at Kroll's revelations all the more convincing. Tom Burke's Rosmer is also excellently done, a man of ideals finally trapped by the vast gulf between idealism and the day-to-day grind of life. These two carry the passionate weight of the play with complete ease.

Cogent political points are easy to score in today's climate where questions of personal responsibility for political views are all too relevant: the jibes at the ignorance of the voting population and the manipulations of a cynical press were all too resonant. But at the same time the dangers of self-indulgence on the part of the idealistic John Rosmer and Rebecca West were wonderfully intimated by the constant presence of silent servants performing their duties - moving furniture, bringing in flowers or candles, providing Rosmer with his house clothes or his outdoor gear - but also listening stupefied or nervously intrigued as their 'betters' sound off about personal freedom and economic improvement.

The power of Ibsen' vision, unflinchingly revealing that nothing can be just black or just white in this complex world of women and men, was fully evident in this fine production.

Orpheus Descending

by Tennessee Williams

seen at the Menier Chocolate Factory on 25 May 2019

Tamara Harvey directs Hattie Morahan as Lady Torrance, the owner of a convenience store in a small Southern town and Seth Numrich as Val Xavier, an attractive drifter who turns up in town and gets a job as the store clerk. Naturally, despite initial wariness on both sides, the two become lovers, a development fraught with danger in the claustrophobic atmosphere surrounding them.

One can expect sensational but initially unrevealed secrets to dominate a Tennessee Williams play, and this one does not disappoint. Town gossips in the form of two inquisitive housewives inform us that Lady is the daughter of an Italian migrant who set up a drinking 'emporium' by the lake during Prohibition years; when he served drink to negroes the local vigilantes burnt the place down and he died trying to save it. Unbeknownst to Lady, Jabe Torrance, the man she married, led the vigilantes. He is now suffering from cancer, returning from a Memphis hospital soon after Val has turned up in the town.

Betrayal

by Harold Pinter

seen at the Harold Pinter Theatre on 17 May 2019

Jamie Lloyd directs Tom Hiddleston as Robert, Zawe Ashton as Emma (his wife) and Charlie Cox as Jerry (his best friend) in a superb revival of Pinter's play about a the inricacies ad emotional costs of betrayal.

The design by Soutra Gilmour is mesmerisingly austere - a pastel shaded backdrop which occasionally slides forward; a grey floor containing a two-part revolve; a couple of chairs; at one stage a flimsy fold-out table; a few bottles of drinks (water or wine). This forces all the attention on the actors and on the psychological processes of the characters, and allows for maximum fluidity in a play that famously presents its story in reverse, starting with a meeting between Emma and Jerry two years after their seven-year affair has ended, and working gradually backwards until the first occasion on which Jerry confessed his love for Emma.

Three Sisters

by Anton Chekhov

seen at the Almeida Theatre on 16 May 2019

Rebecca Frecknall directs atsy Ferran as Olga, Pearl Chanda as Masha and Ria Zmitrowicz as Irina (the three sisters) with Freddie Meredith as their brother Andrey, Lois Chimimba as his wife Natasha, Peter McDonald as Vershinin and Elliott Levy as Masha's husband Kulygin in Cordelia Lynn's adaptation of Chekhov's play.

The provincial setting in which the children of an army officer, adrift without occupation or responsibility, fixated on returning to Moscow as the solution to their anxious unease, attempt to give meaning to their lives, is often presented in a nostalgic haze of imagined Russian-ness. Here, the setting is more abstract, the stage a raised square set at an angle in the Almeida's curved acting space, with virtually no props apart from chairs, with a stairway against the bare brick wall leading up to a notiona study where Andrey often sits brooding, perhaps aware of what is happening below him, perhaps just sulking or bemoaning the trajectory of his life. The sisters meanwhile attempt to cope - Olga, older and unmarried, gradually engulfed in teaching, Masha, married to the pedantic schoolmaster but disillusioned after her initial infatuation with him and desperate to revive excitement with a lover, and Irina, optimistic about work as an ennobling act but appalled by the banal realities of the jobs she tries.

All My Sons

by Arthur Miller

seen by live streaming from the Old Vic on 14 May 2019

Jeremy Herrin directs Bill Pullman as Joe Keller, Sally Field as his wife Kate, Colin Morgan as his son Chris and Jenna Coleman as Ann Deever, the daughter of Joe's disgraced foreman Steve and prospective wife of Chris in a Headlong co-production with the Old Vic of Arthur Miller's 1947 play about the corrosive effect of capitalism on small-town lives.

Joe, Kate and Chris live still in the suburban house where Chris and his brother Larry (now missing in action from the war, presumed dead by all except Kate) grew up. Ann and her mother and brother George (Oliver Johnstone) left the neighbouring house after Steve was convicted for sending faulty cylinders to the Air Force during the war, which caused the deaths of at least 21 pilots. Joe himself spent some time on jail, but was exonerated and released when the court accepted testimony that he was not involved in the deception.

Hotspur, Falstaff and Harry England

by William Shakespeare

seen at Shakespeare's Globe on 10 May 2019

The more conventionally named Henry IV Part One, Henry IV Part Two and Henry V have been given alternative titles as a series of 'state-of-the-nation' plays which can be seen independently or, given sufficient stamina, together as today on a 'trilogy day'. The two parts of Henry IV take their alternative titles from characters considered important enough to be named in the expended titles of the original Quarto editions, while the third title reminds us of the intimate connections of Henry V with mythologised ideas about kingship and English greatness as exemplified by this particular warrior king, prompted by his father's advice to distract unhappy citizens from civil unrest by embarking on foreign wars.

The plays, directed by Sarah Bedi and Federay Holmes, are presented by a company of ten actors - five women and five men - joined by Michelle Terry as Hotspur in the first play of the sequence. Sarah Amankwah plays Prince Hal, later King Henry V, in all plays, and takes only one very small doubling part in Falstaff; the others take on all the other roles. In the full texts there are over one hundred parts across all three plays, though there are some cuts in the performance, and given the fluid performance style at the Globe, the changes of role are often signalled by the mere donning of a new cloak and a different posture, sometimes in full view of the audience. During the whole day this rarely led to any confusion from my point of view as a spectator, and only once did an actor definitely address a nobleman by the wrong name in a series of greetings. 

Equus

by Peter Shaffer

seen at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre Guildford on 9 May 2019

Ned Bennett directs Ethan Kai as teenager Alan Strang and Zubin Varla as psychologist Martin Dysart in this English Touring Theatre revival of the celebrated play from 1973 examining the motivations prompting a teenager to blind six horse in a stable where he worked at weekends (based on a real case, but not a documentary reconstruction of it).

Shaffer uses the brutal details of the story to explore notions of normality, religious fervour, sexual repression and the role of psychiatry in the modern world. While the revelations of Alan's state of mind provide spectacular drama, the long introspective speeches of the psychologist who is asked by the magistrate Hesther Salomon (Ruth Lass) to interview the boy form the crux of Shaffer's critique - Dysart is disillusioned with his personal life and uneasily aware of the deadening effect of psychological intervention on vulnerable people. He proceeds to encourage Alan to act out the events of his attack on the horses and o reveal 'all of the truth' of his thoughts, even as he is aware that it will puncture his religious obsessions and replace them with - nothing.

The Half God of Rainfall

by Inua Ellams

seen at the Kiln Theatre on 4 May 2019

Nancy Medina directs Rakie Ayola as Modupe and Kwami Odoom as Demi in a play which mixes elements of Yoruba and Greek mythology in a contemporary setting - Demi is the child of Zeus and a human mother Modupe, and is a star basketball player, even though there is (apparently) a convention that demigods should not take part in sports events.

Very soon, it becomes apparent that basketball is not really the point, although Kwami Okoom's adolescent athleticism brings an infectious energy to the stage. Once the boy has progressed from local success to being part of the Nigerian Olympic team in 2012, and hence a challenge to the Olympian Zeus which is impossible for the jealous god to ignore, the play turns to examine the abusiveness and misogyny lurking beneath the many stories of Zeus's amours with human women. Modupe in her grief raises an impassioned revolt against the predator god in a climax of astonishing rage and power.

Sweet Charity

by Neil Simon (book) Cy Coleman (music) and Dorthy Fields (music)

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 1 May 2019

This 1960s musical is revived by Josie Rourke as her last production as Artistic Director of the Donmar, with Anne-Marie Duff as Charity Hope Valentine and Arthur Darvill as Oscar, a doazen supporting actors in multiple parts, and a special appearance (in this performance) by Le Gateau Chocolat as Daddy Brubeck - different guest artists take this part during the run. Robert Jones designed the set, and Wayne McGregor the choreography.

Sweet Charity is based on a Fellini film in which the protagonist is constantly let down by the men in her life, dashing her hopes to gain some stability and domestic respectability. In this americanised version, Charity is a 'taxi dancer' in a nightclub where men can pay for a dance partner (with doubtless less respectable possibilities in mind); the girls put up with the job but it's not a good place to be. We first see Charity, a boundless optimist, being robbed by a cad of a boyfriend and dumped in a lake in Central Park - a clever piece of stagecraft involving a huge drum full of plastic balls - and returning to the nightclub almost unabashed by the downturn in her fortunes. An evening with a film star goes nowhere, then she meets Oscar, a shy young man who could be the answer to her dreams. If only.

The Bay at Nice

by David Hare

seen at the Menier Chocolate Factory on 13 April 2019

Richard Eyre directs Penelope Wilton as Valentina Nrovka, Ophelia Lovibond as her daughter Sophia, David Rintoul as Sophia's lover Peter and Martin Hutson as an assistant curator at the Hermitage in this play about authenticating a possible Matisse painting left to the museum by an emigre aristocrat, entwined with the difficult relationship between mother and daughter.

The situation is rather artificial, Sophia having thought that the occasion of her mother's invitation to the museum to see the painting might be the occasion for announcing her intention to leave her husband and children and live with the much older and widowed Peter, for which she needs funds for the divorce proceedings. This allows us to see Valentina from a number of different angles - impatient with museums, dismissive of much modern art, contemptuous of modern ideas of freedom and self-fulfilment, and therefore extremely abrasive with her daughter. Behind this steely exterior, expressed in well-turned speeches of frightening social and moral put-downs (rather like Lady Bracknell in deadly earnest) is a history of repressed anguish and unacknowledged disappointment - Valentina was a gay young thing in Paris, a model and possibly lover of Matisse, shut out by the Master's admission that he had no time for love, and determined, with a baby to look after, to return to Russia to give order and structure to her life no matter the cost.

A German Life

by Christopher Hampton

seen at the Bridge Theatre on 8 April 2019

Maggie Smith plays Brunhilde Pomsel in this dramatic monologue directed by Jonathan Kent and designed by Anna Fleischle. It is 'drawn from the life and testimony' of Brunhilde Pomsel and based on a film of the same name, constructed from 30 hours of interviews with her and released in 2016.

An elderly lady in a bland flat reminisces about her life - Pomsel had just turned 106 when she died in 2017. At first there are some ripples of knowing laughter in the audience, expecting perhaps another Maggie Smith performance of an eccentric woman with a wandering mind. But this is no elderly lady in a van causing havoc in the life of Alan Bennett. On the contrary, this is someone determined to remember what she can, and to speak frankly with courteous apologies when she gets sidetracked or absently loses her thread. Her story soon commands rapt attention, and the laughter when it comes is in response to barbed wit, or to uncomfortable observations which may sometimes be too near the bone.

Richard II

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse on 5 April 2019

Adjoa Andoh and Lynette Linton co-direct an exciting production of Richard II performed by a cast of women of colour supported by an entirely female stage crew. Adjoa Andoh herself plays King Richard, with Sarah Niles as Bolingbroke, Dona Croll as John of Gaunt, Shobna Gulati as the Duke of York, Ayesha Dharker as Aumerle, Leila Farzad as the Queen, Indra Ové as both Mowbray and Northumberland, and Nicholle Cherrie, Lourdes Faberes and Sarah Lam playing the other parts.

There is of course an element of statement-making about all this: why should actors of any gender or race be denied the chance to play Shakespeare, especially considering that originally (in Shakespeare's day) all the female parts were taken by men or boys? But, dramatically as an experience on stage, the issue is virtually irrelevant: the production is magnificent at exploring new facets of a familiar - even over-familiar - story, simply by capitalising on the extraordinary energy and freshness of the performances and the exotic setting.

All About Eve

based on the film by Joseph L Mankiewicz

seen at the Noel Coward Theatre on 18 March 2019

Ivo van Hove continues his project of adapting classic films for the stage, with Gillian Anderson as Margo Channing and Lily James as Eve Harrington taking the roles originally played by Bette Davis and Anne Baxter. His partner and collaborator Jan Versverveld is the set and lighting designer, providing the by-now familiar versatile and at the same time slightly alienating space on stage to replace the fluidity of film sets.

Eve Harrington, an apparently naive young woman, is besotted with the stage star Margo Channing, and graduates from hanging about the stage door to being Margo's indispensable personal assistant, masking a steely ambition to replace her idol. The frisson of the piece is to watch a mature star exert her social dominance in the theatre world while belatedly becoming aware of the threat; and to realise for ourselves what lies behind Eve's surface modesty and endless willingness to please. In this production Gillian Anderson portrays both Margo's brazenness and her vulnerability with consummate skill, though Bette Davis is of course a difficult act to follow even in a different medium. Meanwhile Lily James maintains an almost perfect mask of innocence until a crucial late scene in which her daggers are drawn in a nasty piece of blackmail.

The Son

by Florian Zeller

seen at the Kiln Theatre on 13 March 2019

Michael Longhurst directs Laurie Kynaston as the teenage Nicolas, Amanda Abbingdon as his mother Anne, John Light as his father Pierre, Amaka Okafor as his stepmother Sofia, Martin Turner as a doctor and Oseloka Obi as a nurse in Christpoher Hampton's transaltion of Florian Zeller's nw play, seen as part of a triptych with The Father (reviewed in October 2015) and The Mother (not seen).

The Kiln has a totally exposed stage the width of its auditorium, so upon entering the audience sees immediately a plain space with panelled white walls (somehow looking French; designed by Lizzie Clachan), a black upholstered sofa in the middle, a small writing desk and chair to one side, and a large suspended grey bag on the other side. Eventually Nicolas appears and begins to write obsessively one the wall panel immediately above the writing desk; or else he paces round the room.

Edward II

by Christopher Marlowe

seen at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse on 12 March 2019

Nick Bagnall directs Tom Stuart as King Edward II, Katie West as Queen Isabella, Jonathan Livingstone as Young Mortimer, and Beru Tessema as Piers Gaveston, with a supporting company of seven taking the other parts, in Christopher Marlowe's play about the disastrous career of the king who fatefully places a selfish desire for personal pleasure above the recognised responsibilities of a medieval ruler.

Marlowe, often seen as a histrionic, not to say bombastic, playwright in contrast to the more nuanced Shakespeare, is well served in the candlelit intimacy of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, where the lyrical aspects of his language can be appreciated as much as the dramatic turns of the plot. In particular, the intense, and intensely physical, relationship between Edward and Gaveston is expressed by high-flown but not insincere poetry, which has a more personal resonance in the smaller acting space of this theatre.

The Price

by Arthur Miller

seen at Wyndhams Theatre on 6 March 2019

Jonathan Church directs Brendan Coyle and Adrian Lukis as two brothers, Vincent and Walter, with Sarah Stewart as Vincent's wife Esther and David Suchet as Gregory Solomon, an elderly second-hand furniture dealer, in a fiftieth anniversary production of Arthur Miller's play about the costs and misunderstandings of filial loyalty played out as the brothers meet after sixteen years to dispose of their father's property.

In an astonishing set designed by Simon Higlett to represent a lifetime's clutter, with chairs, desks and other bric-a-brac climbing surrealistically angled walls almost to hang from the ceiling, Vincent, a policeman nearing his retirement,  has returned to his father's apartment many years after the latter's death to dispose of all the moveables since the building is about to be demolished. This being an Arthur Miller play, the event is fraught with complex memories and resentments, revealed partly through the tense discussion with his wife when she arrives, when it becomes clear that Walter, the successful doctor brother, has been estranged from Vincent for many years and has not answered calls to help deal with this current crisis.

Cougar

by Rosie Lewenstein

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre Richmond on 2 March 2019

Chelsea Walker directs Charlotte Randle as Leila and Mike Noble as John in a new play in which Leila, an ambitious and successful woman lobbying big business to recognise and take action to mitigate climate change takes up with John, a young bartender whom she meets at a conference and takes around the world with her on the proviso that he does not demand too much of her or fall in love with her.

The escalating global crisis is a constant background to the difficult relationship between Leila and John: she is used to controlling all aspects of her life in the service of her job (which she sees as extremely valuable, and hence worthy of personal sacrifice) and perhaps is therefore fearful of too intimate a relationship at an emotional level (she is more than happy with physical intimacy); he is grateful for her attention and happy to experience the whirlwind of travel on offer, but also feels shut out and to some extent used. The imbalances of the personal encounter are perhaps not so very different from the more commonly examined situation of a powerful businessman whose wife or partner is meant only to function in the 'private' or 'domestic' sphere of his life; it's unusual and refreshing to watch a play where these stereotypical gender roles are, in effect, reversed. The problems arise, as they always do, from a perhaps chronic mismatch of priorities, and are dismayingly familiar.

The Madness of George III

by Alan Bennett

seen by live streaming from Nottingham Playhouse on 5 February 2019

Alan Bennett's 1991 play was revived last year at the Nottingham Playhouse (this screening last night was not, technically, live as it was a repeat, but it was first streamed live late last year). Adam Penford directed Mark Gatiss as George III, Debra Gillett as Queen Charlotte, Adrian Scarborough as Dr Willis, Nicholas Bishop as William Pitt and Wilf Scolding as the Prince of Wales, with a dozen supporting cast. The production was designed by Robert Jones.

The play deals with the personal and political crisis of the king's first bout of madness in 1788/9 (there is a casual reference to the fall of the Bastille towards the end of the play). The imagined personal life of the King and Queen is the main focus, but of course in the eighteenth century the mental incapacity of the monarch had grave political repercussions, especially considering the discord between the King and the Prince of Wales (dismayingly referred to by the Queen only as 'the Son'). Generally the opposition party tended to support the current Prince of Wales throughout the eighteenth century as some sort of Royal patronage was essential to political success; the modern idea of the 'loyal opposition' was in its infancy.

My Name is Lucy Barton

by Elizabeth Strout adapted by Rona Munro

seen at the Bridge Theatre on 4 February 2019

Laura Linney stars in Richard Eyre's production of this play adapted from Elizabeth Strout's novel of the same name. She had a very successful run at the Bridge last year, which was sold out before I felt motivated to see it, and so has agreed to a short revival this year.

It's a demanding 90-minute monologue in which Lucy's story, and her reflections on the nature of story telling and the need to recognise what one's own story is, is revealed as she recalls the nine weeks she had to spend in hospital after an appendectomy, and the difficult reunion between herself and her mother who decided to visit her in the hospital (a first visit from rural Illinois to New York).

The Wizard of Oz

a pantomime loosely based on L. Frank Baum's book

seen at the High Cross Church, Camberley, on 2 February 2019

HATS (High Cross Church Amateur Theatrical Society) chose The Wizard of Oz as the basis for this year's pantomime. With typical pantomime exuberance Kansas was replaced by Camberley as Dorothy's home - though the set looked untypically rural - and only two of the songs from the famous film were used. Other musical numbers proliferated, drawn from all sorts of sources of which I remain blithely ignorant.

Coming Clean

by Kevin Elyot

seen at Trafalgar Studios Two on 24 January 2019

Kevin Elyot, perhaps most well-known for his landmark play My Night with Reg (1994), wrote Coming Clean in 1982 but this, a transfer from the King's Head Theatre, is the first time the play has been seen in the West End. Adam Spreadbury-Maher directs Lee Knight as Tony, Stanton Plummer-Cambridge as Greg, Tom Lambert as Robert and Elliot Hadley as William and Jurgen, and the production is designed by Amanda Mascarenhas.

Tony, an aspiring writer, and Greg, a published author and academic, live in a somewhat scruffy flat in Tufnell Park (north London), and William, a very camp friend, lives nearby. He is far more friendly with Tony than with Greg, who, when he appears, is clearly ill-at-ease with all the badinage William revels in. But the immediate source of interest is Tony's decision to hire an out-of-work actor named Robert to clean the flat, as he is sick of being the default housekeeper.

The Tragedy of King Richard the Second

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Almeida Theatre on 23 January 2019

Joe Hill-Gibbins directs Simon Russell Beale as King Richard with Leo Bill as Bolingbroke, Natalie Klamar as Carlisle, John Mackay as York, Robin Weaver as Northumberland, and Martins Imhangbe, Joseph Mydell and Saskia Reeves taking all the other parts.

The production uses a stripped down text, at less than two hours without an interval, in an oppressive box of felt walls and a perspex ceiling allowing for varying lighting effects, the design by ULTZ. All the actors are on the stage throughout, there being no obvious exit, and the only props are a golden crown modelled on the sort of crown found in a Christmas cracker; and two buckets each of helpfully labelled 'water', 'blood', and 'soil'. The costumes are anonymously modern tee-shirts and trousers.

Antony and Cleopatra

by William Shakespeare

seen at the National Theatre (Olivier) on 2nd January 2019

Simon Godwin directs Ralph Fiennes as Antony, Sophie Okonedo as Cleopatra, Tunji Kasim as Octavius Caesar and Tim McMullan as Enobarbus in a production sumptuously designed by Hildegard Bechtler making inspired use of the famed Olivier drum revolve to resolve the difficult task of transferring quickly the scene of action across various sites in the Mediterranean world (though the programme informs us that the play is set in 'an imagined present').

Boldly, the play here opens with the final tableau of the text, Caesar pronouncing (most of) the final eulogy, and then Agrippa taking parts of Philo's opening speech as if commenting on the denouement rather than setting the scene. At this point the revolve reveals the Egyptian scene and the body of Cleopatra becomes the Queen lazily awaiting the arrival of her lover.