Faith Healer

by Brian Friel

seen by live streaming from the Old Vic on 18 September 2020

Matthew Warchus directed Michael Sheen as Frank Hardy the eponymous faith healer, Indira Varma as his wife Grace and David Threlfall as his manager Teddy in Brian Friel's powerful play, presented in the Old Vic's 'In Camera' series of filmed live performances for which one can buy a ticket for viewing from one's own home. The theatre itself is devoid of an audience, and only the actors and a skeleton technical staff are in the building during a performance.

The play is ideally suited to the constraints imposed by the government's regulations in response to the current pandemic. It consists of four monologues, by Frank, Grace, Teddy and then Frank again, in which only one actor at a time need be onstage. The three characters speak of fateful trips to a village in Sunderland and to another in County Donegal, presenting the audience with a series of conundrums as it becomes clear that each of them remembers events that cannot all be true, since they are contradictory. That all three are speaking of the same events is clear from the repetition of whole phrases of description, mainly to do with geographic positioning, but their recollections of event and motivation complicate the picture in a way which a more conventional dramatic presentation would be hard pressed to emulate. Is this just the inevitable unreliability of memories of trauma, or is there deliberate or prudential falsification? The playwright gives no real clue, leaving us to draw our own conclusions and to construct our own sense of what may have happened. 

I last saw and reviewed the play at the Donmar in August 2016; it was fascinating to see it again with a different cast and essentially through a different medium. Michael Sheen's Frank was an impassioned man possibly using his old habit of chanting Welsh and Scottish village names to calm his nerves before an engagement to mask a more profound anguish than he can face up to even while trying to confide in us. Neither Indira Varma's fragile Grace nor David Threlfall's drink-sodden Teddy can be free of their own pain, so their recollections too conceal matters on which we are invited to speculate. With all the circumstantial detail of the monologues, there remains an enigma at the heart of the play.

Perhaps the raw power of the play was slightly dulled by the means of transmission: I cannot help feeling that it would have been more overwhelming if one was actually in the auditorium sharing the communal theatrical experience. Nonetheless, in the skilled hands of this formidable cast, it was a great addition to the 'In Camera' season.

Lungs

by Duncan Macmillan

seen by live streaming from the Old Vic on 3 July 2020

(apologies for not posting this sooner)

This two-handed play starring Matt Smith and Claire Foy was performed at the Old Vic last year. In the current lockdown the two actors, directed by Matthew Warchus, agreed to give six new performances in a revised format to be made available by subscription - that is, by buying a 'ticket' to gain access to the live transmission of a selected performance.

In line with government requirements in response to the coronavirus most theatres in London are still closed. The Old Vic has devised a means of bringing performances to a wider public by choosing short plays with minimal casts and selling 'tickets' for the right to watch a performance at home. The performance is filmed on the Old Vic's stage, with no audience in the auditorium and a skeleton film crew which maintains social distancing.

The stage was virtually bare, with just two small platforms, one for each actor to sit or lie on at certain points; they scrupulously kept their distance from one another, but for much of the time there was a separate camera trained on each of them, mostly in close-up and so resembling a Zoom video. It was very clever technically speaking.  

As for the play itself, it is an intense look at a young couple, well-meaning, aware of the greater problems in the world (climate change and economic damage), wondering if they should have a child together. The prospect brings up all sorts of doubts and tensions, and things go horribly awry, though there is a strong hint that they have an abiding future together. The performances revealed the style of both actors, I think, Foy seeming quite self-possessed but banking down great gusts of emotion, Smith good at a certain type of masculine awkwardness and insecurity. I found parts of it far too wordy, especially when the woman was establishing her eco credentials, and I am quite relieved that I did not pay for an expensive ticket to see it last year, while at the same time being glad to see it here at home.

Three Kings

by Stephen Beresford

seen by live streaming from the Old Vic on 5 September 2020

Matthew Warchus directed Andrew Scott in this new play by Stephen Beresford, an hour long monologue filmed live in four separate performances available by subscription - that is, by buying a 'ticket' to gain access to the live transmission of a selected performance.

In line with government requirements in response to the coronavirus most theatres in London are still closed. The Old Vic has devised a means of bringing performances to a wider public by choosing short plays with minimal casts and selling 'tickets' for the right to watch a performance at home. The performance is filmed on the Old Vic's stage, with no audience in the auditorium and a skeleton film crew which maintains social distancing.

This is the second such production that I have seen. (I regret to admit that I failed to post a notice of the first, but I shall rectify the omission).

In Three Kings Andrew Scott as Patrick tells of his encounters with his estranged father when he was eight, sixteen, and as a grown man as his father is dying, and with some other people after his father's death. His portrayal of Patrick was intensely interesting, by turns rueful, sardonic, angry and hurt, while his evocation of others (not least the father) was skilfully managed given the constraints of the medium. He conveyed a wide range of emotion with subtle adjustments to the tone of his voice, and his visual cues were expertly calibrated for close camera work, all of which made this a performance well worth seeing. (Of course Scott has wide experience in film and television work as well as on the stage, and this stood him in good stead here.)

Even in such a short piece, delivered by just one actor, the outlines of three flawed lives, and hints of the effects these have had on other people, are brought to life by a brilliant actor.