The One Day of the Year

by Alan Seymour

seen at the Finborough Theatre on 6 June 2015

This play, written in 1960, investigates generational tensions in a working-class Sydney family by focussing on conflicting attitudes to ANZAC Day (25 April), a day which began with a dawn march by veterans of both world wars, but which (at that time) often degenerated into an extended pub crawl. It was extremely controversial when first produced, but rapidly became a school syllabus classic, being one of the earliest plays realistically dealing with an identifiably Australian theme.

This production, the first in London for many years, is directed by Wayne Harrison and features Mark Little as Alf Cooke (a veteran of the Second World War), Fiona Press as Flo Cooke, James William Wright as their son Hughie, Adele Queroi as Jan, a university friend of Hughie's, and Paul Haley as the family friend Wacka (a veteran of the Gallipoli campaign of the First World War).

The action takes place in the Cooke household, a traverse acting space sparsely furnished with a simple table and chairs representing the kitchen, and a fold-down bed and small shelf representing Hughie's bedroom; members of the audience sit on either side (the theatre holds about 50 at most). 

The parents are plainly uneducated, but their son Hughie is attending university and is consequently deeply insecure about his place in the world. He is attracted to Jan, a girl from a far wealthier part of Sydney, but embarrassed for his parents when she meets them and condescends to them. But more seriously, the pair are planning an expose in the university paper decrying the ANZAC Day celebrations, which constitute the only occasions on which Alf feels validated.

Although the specific hinge of the resultant family explosion may be totally unfamiliar to a non-Australian audience (during the interval I was asked to explain the significance of 'the Day' by an American sitting beside me) the general issues of social and class cohesion, and generational conflict exacerbated by the wider horizons offered through tertiary education, are clearly and powerfully presented in the play. Without the distraction of the originally toxic criticism of ANZAC Day, it is clear that there is considerable sympathy for all sides of the problem. One can understand the younger generation's impatience with what looks like maudlin self-indulgence - but one can see also how demeaned Alf feels in his daily life, despite the high hopes he had as a youth. The real ANZAC veteran, Wacka, says little to begin with, but his eventual reminiscence to Flo when the self-absorbed Alf is absent shows why so many veterans found it impossible to speak of their experiences. For his part, Hughie wants to be a rebel, but does not want to be patronised by Jan, and finds that he still loves his parents. He is perhaps surprised at their horror at his notion of dropping out of university, which they find more of a slap in the face than his questioning of the ANZAC tradition. 

All these complex currents and misunderstandings are strongly and clearly represented by the fine cast. Though there is much bluster and bravado - inevitable when the older men drink so much - there are also moments of quiet desperation and poignant gestures of reconciliation. What Jan too easily dismisses as quaint contains a stolid self-respecting dignity - though there is barely room for a rapprochement between the two women, Flo can accept an apology when she feels it is genuine, and it is clear that she can manage her menfolk when the crunch comes even though she seems at first utterly put upon by them both.

Alan Seymour died at the end of April, just after the centenary of the Gallipoli landings. His great play may well have contributed to the process whereby the ANZAC commemorations have become ever more popular, but also ever more serious, as the decades pass; the younger generations of Australians have by no means abandoned them.

Andromache

by Jean Racine translated by Edward Kemp

seen at RADA (GBS theatre) on 5 June 2015

This production, directed by Edward Kemp and designed by Lucy Alexander, features students in their third (final) year of RADA's degree in acting. The cast:

Orestes - Freddie Meredith

Pylades - Will Apicella

Pyrrhus - Joe Idris-Roberts

Phoenix - Peter Mulligan

Andromache - Rosie Sheehy

Hermione - Stefanie Martini

Cleone - Kathryn Wilder

Cephisa - Taha Haq 

The GBS theatre is in the basement of RADA's main building, a space which an be configured in many ways. For this production, the audience were seated in long rows on either side of a narrow raked 'marble' passageway emerging from a sandy floor at one end and leading to a throne at the other raised end. (The throne was later removed; steps down from this end led to a sanctuary.) Beyond the raised end, the exposed brickk wall had reliefs of two ancient warriors, presumably of Achilles (the father of Pyrrhus) killing Hector (the husband of Andromache). High above, amidst the lighting battens, a similar strip of 'marble' was suspended as like a ceiling, or even a reflection of the floor.

The Beaux' Stratagem

by George Farquhar

seen at the National Theatre (Olivier) on 3 June 2015

The play, directed by Simon Godwin, features Samuel Barnett as Aimwell, Geoffrey Streatfeild as Archer, Pippa Bennett-Warner as Dorinda, Susannah Fielding as Mrs Sullen, and Pearce Quigley as Scrub, with music by Michael Bruce and the set designed by Lizzie Clachan.

Two out-of-pocket London swells propose to gull wealthy Lichfield heiresses through marriage (or else, if that fails, they will try Chester, Nottingham and even Norwich; otherwise they will enlist and die). But what could have been a cynical or heartless confrontation between town and country values becomes something more complex and even radical in Farquhar's hands. Aimwell falls genuinely in love with Dorinda, thus turning callow opportunism into romantic comedy, while Archer finds himself matched (if not over-matched) by Mrs Sullen - young and attractive indeed, but already disastrously married. Their comic resolution is only made possible by a fantastical agreement to a divorce between Mr and Mrs Sullen, a project that would have been all but impossible in 1707 when the play was written. Mrs Sullen, who could have been merely a disillusioned and scheming flirt, proves to be a woman of spirit not totally daunted by her domestic misery.

Beowulf

performed by Julian Glover and Jamie Glover

seen at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse on 24 May 2015

Julian Glover has been reciting a performing version of 'Beowulf' for some years. It is abridged from Michael Alexander's 1973 translation for Penguin Classics, with some material from Edwin Morgan's 1952 translation and occasional lines from the original Old English text. On this occasion (the evening recitation) he was performing it for the last time and 'handing on' the oral tradition to his son Jamie.

The candlelit playhouse was an appropriate venue even though its decorative style is far removed from ancient or even mediaeval English architecture; and there was in fact some discreet spotlighting of the stage too. Julian Glover began by chatting to members of the audience in the pit, in order (he said) to get the recognition chatter over and done with before the recitation started. He was casually dressed, but wearing an Anglo-Saxon style cross pendant.

Once started he moved from easy geniality to firm assurance and commanding speech according to the demands of the poem. With only a table, two chairs, a drinking tankard and a sword for props, he evoked the story with consummate ease, and demonstrated the enormous power of the poem in recitation (as opposed to book reading), despite the use of the translation. The Old English text, when spoken, added an emphatic air of mystery and age; often a translation followed (or had immediately preceded) these lines, demonstrating how extremely distant the original is from common understanding, but at the same time contributing strongly to the atmosphere of the evening.

The poem has three major movements - the scene setting and Beowulf's struggle with Grendel, which occupied the first part, the struggle with Grendel's mother which began the second part, and Beowulf's struggle with the dragon fifty years later which concludes the work. The fights of Beowulf's youth are full of proud endevour and triumphant celebration, while the final struggle leads to his death, and to the passing of the flame, so to speak, to his young kinsman Wiglaf. Thus it was entirely appropriate that on this occasion Julian should stop speaking at the moment of Beowulf's death, and that Jamie should come onto the stage from the pit to conclude the account of his funeral. The shape of the performance thus matched the narrative of the poem and lent an extra authenticity to the whole experience of the oral tradition.

Ah, Wilderness!

by Eugene O'Neill

seen at the Young Vic on 223 May 2015

O'Neill's only comedy, written in 1933, is directed by Natalie Abrahami and stars George Mackay as Richard Miller, Janie Dee as his mother Essie, Martin Marquez as his father Nat, Susannah Wise as his aunt Lily, Dominic Rowan as Sid Davis and David Annen as an unscripted O'Neill figure presiding over the action who also takes a couple of minor parts. The set design is by Dick Bird.

The costumes forego the ostensible setting of the play in 1906, preferring simpler and indeterminate lines from the mid 20th-century, and the set design ignores the painstaking descriptions provided by O'Neill of various locations in and around the Miller's house. Some of these are read out by David Annen, but often against considerable hubbub from the characters, so that they become a background noise - a neat transference from the visual background a set would normally provide. Instead, there is a raised area at the back with openings onto a sky, and on one side an exit to stairs leading up (presumably to bedrooms and a bathroom); and on the other side stairs leading down (presumably out of the house). The various levels visible to the audience are covered in great drifts of sand, with steps only partially visible. Characters usually negotiate the steps quite successfully, unless in a passion of emotion or a fug of inebriation when they tend to trip or slide in the sand alarmingly. It's a brilliant device for puncturing the histrionics of teenage self-absorption (in Richard's case) or the potentially sorry spectacle of Sid's (and to a lesser extent Nat's) drunkenness in the Fourth of July celebrations.

But there are levels of seriousness beneath the pratfalls, beautifully exposed by Essie's inability to name things that disturb her - whether it be Richard's reading (Wilde, Beaudelaire, the Rubaiyat) or the continuing problem of alcohol amongst the menfolk. And though Richard's outbursts are essentially adolescent tantrums born out of frustrated disgust with social mores and intoxication with racy ideas from literature, there is no escaping the knowledge that these can easily grow into monstrous adult egotism. The ever-present O'Neill figure, often wearily mimicking Richard's nervy and immature gestures and even mouthing his lines, shows us the connection. The 'comedy' lies in the fact that the family is basically harmonious instead of dysfunctional, and the teenager's idealism is looked at fondly rather than cynically.

The cast is excellent. George Mackay brilliantly conveys the restlessness and emotional volatility of a youngster at odds with his world, his great spouts of verbal pyrotechnics matched by physical awkwardness - the twitchings of what now would be classified as ADHD. Janie Dee shows us a mother bemused by this gifted but problematic child, someone with a firm hand and a solid idea of how a household should function (despite a weakness in controlling a wayward Irish maidservant) - the sort of dependable mother figure completely missing from O'Neill's own childhood. Her prudishness is not risible - it is touching. Martin Marquez shows Nat to be a decent man by his own lights, and someone Richard ultimately respects and loves underneath the fireworks; there is a tender rapport between them at the end of the play which is brief but deeply moving. The supporting cast - Richard's siblings, some neighbours and a seedy bartender and callgirl - are well played (the latter pair could so easily have been mere caricatures), while the quiet desperation of the subplot in which Lily Miller consistently refuses to marry Sid Davis provides a poignant counterpoint to the main story.

Hay Fever

by Noel Coward

seen at the Duke of York's Theatre on 13 May 2015

This revival of a famous farce from 1925 is not entirely successful; its main claim to attention is Felicity Kendal, who plays the matriarch Judith Bliss. Judith's super-dramatic style as a recently not-so-retired theatre doyenne controls the behaviour of her husband and two children and leads to the general mayhem that farce feeds on. Kendal's performance is flawlessly timed and full of the necessary mannerisms and abrupt changes of register, but the remaining cast are not so adept at the form, and there is too much shouting and too little subtlety.

The play itself shows its age, and some of its comic references are now irretrievably dated and consequently no longer funny. The first act in particular lacked energy, though the ludicrous goings-on in the second act raised the level considerably.

I wonder if perhaps the streak of narcissistic cruelty that features in several of Coward's plays as leavening for the comedy (for example 'Design for Living' and 'Private Lives') is weaker here, or if it was just not allowed sufficient head in this production.

Each His Own Wilderness

by Doris Lessing

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond on 4 May 2015

The play, directed by Paul Miller (the Artistic Director of the theatre), features Clare Holman as Myra, Joel MacCormack as Tony and Susannah Harker as Milly. It was written in 1958, just before Lessing embarked on her novel 'The Golden Notebook' (1962).

Myra, heavily involved in the campaign against the H-bomb, and with a lifetime of political activism behind her, is completely non-plussed by the apolitical attitude of her son Tony, just returned from National Service. He affects complete scorn for her chaotic and bohemian lifestyle, and is woundingly critical of all her attempts at a rapprochement. Her assumptions that he as a young man must want freedom and autonomy he sees as just one more example of her inescapable manipulative influence over him. His apparent desire to be an electrician (instead of an architect) living in a 'normal' tidy household with an attractively made-up and dignified mother she sees as irrelevant and insulting immaturity.