Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

by Christopher Durang

seen at the Gladstone Theatre, Ottawa, on 22 May 2016

The play takes themes from several plays by Anton Chekhov and blends them into a pastiche set in New England. This production by Plosive Productions was directed and designed by David Whiteley and featured Chris Ralph as Vanya, Mary Ellis as Sonia, Beverley Wolfe as Cassandra, Teri Loretto-Valentik as Masha, Drew Moore as Spike and Sarah Finn as Nina.

Here Sonia is the adoptive sister of Vanya and Masha; she and Vanya run the estate on behalf of their absent sister Masha, who claims to be earning all the necessary finds by being a Hollywood celebrity. Nina is a stage-struck neighbour, Cassandra the doom-laden house-help, and Spike is Masha's toy-boy.

Elegy

by Nick Payne

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 30 April 2016

Nick Payne seems to delight in concentrated short plays - like his earlier Constellations (reviewed in June 2015) his new Elegy is only 70 minutes long. Directed by Josie Rourke and designed by Tom Scutt, it features Zoe Wanamaker as  Lorna, Barbara Flynn as Carrie and Nina Sosanya as Miriam.

In Elegy Lorna has had surgery for an undefined mental illness, which circumstances suggest is a form of dementia. The surgery involves replacing damaged neurons with synthetic ones, but the consequence is total loss of the memories which the original neurons carried. In Lorna's case this stretches back over twenty years of her life, which in turn means eliminating all her memories of having been married to Carrie.

Kings of War

adapted from William Shakespeare

seen at the Barbican on 29 April 2016

Bart Van Den Eynde and Peter van Kraaij have fashioned a long (4.5 hour) play from Henry V, the three parts of Henry VI (mainly parts 2 and 3), and Richard III. Ivan van Hove directs members of the Toneelgroep Amsterdam; the production is in Dutch with English surtitles.

The undertaking is ambitious and really striking; it is especially fascinating to have familiar speeches adapted and spoken in a foreign language. The setting was modern - for the scenes relating to Henry V, there were computer screens with military displays, and large maps to chart the progress of the French campaign; in effect we were in a modern military headquarters. Later we were in a sort of public reception room (for the reign of Edward IV) and finally in an empty but somehow rather claustrophobic space (yet still the whole expanse of the Barbican stage) for Richard III. Video cameras, both positioned around the stage, and a hand-held camera wielded by a technician, were liberally used with the image projected on a large screen suspended above the back wall of the set. This allowed the se of a number of corridors backstage, where various confrontations and deahs occurred.

The Herbal Bed

by Peter Whelan

seen at the RoseTheatre, Kingston upon Thames, on 28 April 2016

This play, subtitled The secret life of Shakespeare's daughter, was written in 1996 and originally produced by the RSC. It sees its first major revival here, directed by James Dacre and featuring Emma Lowndes as Susannah Hall, Jonathan Guy Lewis as John Hall, Philip Correia as Rafe Smith, and Matt Whitchurch as Jack Lane, with Patrick Driver as the Bishop of Worcester, Charlotte Wakefield as Hester Fletcher and Michael Mears as Barnaby Goche the Vicar-General of the diocese of Worcester.

The play derives from the records in the Worcestoer consistory court of a defamation case brought by Susannah Hall (Shakespeare's daughter) against Jack Lane, who had publicly alleged that she had illicit dealings with Rafe Smith. Here, Susannah and Rafe are indeed passionately attracted to one another, but no adultery takes place. Jack's allegations are founded on supposition, jealousy and drunkenness. Although he has not actually seen the pair together, it is known by the Hall's servant Hester that Rafe left the garden precipitously one night as she was coming to warn Susannah of Lane's approach.

Doctor Faustus

by Christopher Marlowe

seen at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, on 6 April 2016

Maria Aberg directs Sandy Grierson and Oliver Ryan, who choose the parts of Mephistopheles and Doctor Faustus by lot at the beginning of each performance, and a company of actors in the minor parts (many of them also taking part in the concurrent production of Don Quixote). The choice depends on which match struck at the same time by the two actors is extinguished first: that actor plays Mephistopheles. (I understand that this choice is overridden on days when there is both a matinee and an evening performance, to ensure that each actor plays each part on that day.)

The costumes are modern - the two leads in white suits to begin with, though when the play itself starts, Mephistopheles provocatively wears no shirt - and the acting space of the Swan is a black floor on which Faust soon paints a pentagram in white, and a wall of plastic bubble wrap which is ripped to shreds as the magical incantations of the first scene begin to take effect. The Seven Deadly Sins are presented by Lucifer as a grotesque fashion parade; the characters at the papal court wear elaborate and exaggerated clerical garb as if they too are fantastical elements of Faustus's imagination.

Hamlet

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, on 5 April 2016

Simon Godwin directs the RSC's first 'black' Hamlet with Paapa Essiedu as Hamlet, Tanya Moodie as Gertrude, Clarence Smith as Claudius, Cyril Nri as Polonius, Natalie Simpson as Ophelia and Hiran Abeysekera as Horatio. Only Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, even more out of their element than usual, were played by white actors as callow and tactless European visitors to Denmark re-imagined as an unspecific African state.

Don Quixote

by James Fenton based on the novel by Miguel Cervantes

seen at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, on 4 April 2016

This new adaptation of the famous Spanish novel commemorates the quartercentenary of Cervantes's death (in the same month as Shakespeare's death). Director Angus Jackson has assembled an excellent ensemble cast led by David Threlfall as Don Quixote and Rufus Hound as his squire Sancho Panza. James Fenton's text, and his lyrics to the songs composed by Grant Olding, capture both the whimsical absurdity of the Don's obsession with chivalry, and the pathos of his response to the 'real' world as he constantly re-interprets it under the delusion that he is a knight-errant facing sorcery and evil.