Jess and Joe Forever

by Zoe Cooper

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond on 19 September 2016

Short new plays are evidently in vogue, and this lasts only about 75 minutes. However, the sense of unfolding lives, and of a privileged immersion in the characters' experiences, shines through this work, thanks to its intriguing structure and to the skill of the two young actors playing Jess (Nicola Coughlan) and Joe (Rhys Isaac-Jones). Directed by Derek Bond in a set designed by James Perkins, they guide us through the developing friendship of the two youngsters who first meet when they are nine, and continue meeting each summer when Jess comes to Norfolk on holiday; Joe meanwhile works on his father's farm.

Zoe Cooper has taken what could have been another cliched coming of age story and imbued it with unexpected and delightful perkiness, while cleverly wrong-footing the audience at a number of points. We are not only seeing the story of these meetings, but also, it turns out, seeing Joe and Jess in the process of telling their story, and at times disagreeing on how it should be told. There are mysteries involved, and occasionally scenes with other characters impersonated by one or other of the friends as needed. Details claimed to be extraneous to what Jess and Joe want to tell us do 'seep in' as Jess remarks; some of these details are very funny (especially Jess's smart explanations of why she has to have a holiday in Norfolk before getting to the real holiday in Italy where she can have quality time with her parents). Other developments are more troubling; there is a deep reserve about Joe which is far more poignant than just the easy stereotype of a slow talking farmer's boy.

Where Jess talks brightly (sometimes too brightly and too quickly), with all the self assurance of the articulate, well-off, but essentially rather lonely child, Joe evokes quiet humour from his sharp observations even as he is aware that he is more plain-spoken. But Rhys Isaac-Jones also shows us the moodiness of a boy at the bottom of his local pecking order, and the ease with which he can be hurt by a stray comment. It is a marvellous performance acting as a measured counterpoint to the usually more ebullient Nicola Coughlan. She is rarely at a loss for words. so that when they do fail her, it is all the more significant.

This is a promising start to the careers of the playwright and the cast who have embodied her work so successfully.

The Plough and the Stars

by Sean O'Casey

seen at the National Theatre (Lyttleton) on 25 August 2016

Jeremy Herrin and Howard Davies have co-directed this revival of Sean O'Casey's play set in 1915 and 1916, marking the centenary of the Easter Rising in Dublin. The set, designed by Vicki Mortimer, shows us a crumbling tenement in Dublin - first the Clitheroe's flat, then a nearby pub, then the outside of the tenement, and finally the attic flat. A clever use of the revolve reveals the general seediness of the area, and, later, the dangers arising from the street fighting of the uprising.

The Deep Blue Sea

by Terence Rattigan

seen at the National Theatre (Lyttleton) on 15 August 2016

Carrie Cracknell directs Helen McCrory as Hester Collyer, Tom Burke as Freddie Page and Peter Sullivan as William Collyer in this fine revival of Rattigan's 1952 play. 

Tom Scutt's stage design reveals both the living room and the kitchen of the flat where 'Mr and Mrs Page' live, with the bedroom hinted at when necessary through a gauze screen. Behind the door to the flat we can glimpse the common stairway to other flats, and indeed the main walls of the storey above are also revealed instead of implying an implausibly high ceiling. This clever use of the space allows other residents to come and go (mainly one presumes leaving for work in the morning and returning in the evening), reminding us that we are being shown just one crisis in one flat amongst thousands.

Young Chekhov

Platonov, Ivanov and The Seagull reversioned by David Hare

seen at the National Theatre (Olivier) on 13 August 2016

Anton Chekhov's three early plays - the first of which was not performed in his lifetime - were presented last year at the Chichester Festival as a unified insight into the dramatist's development. Most of the original cast have been reassembled to present the plays in London this summer. The three plays were directed by Jonathan Kent and the sets - variations on Russian country estates - were designed by Tom Pye.

In many ways the best way to appreciate this ambitious undertaking is to see all three plays on the same day. Patterns and themes emerge - there are references to Hamlet in each play; there is a significant part for a doctor in each play, though the three doctors are utterly different in style and personality; there is an idealistic but frustrated young man in each, colliding with an idealistic and frustrated young woman with painful consequences; surrounding the main characters are an assortment of hangers-on, older but not necessarily wiser relatives who are part of a wider and often stifling society. But the fascination of all this is that though the situations may appear similar in bald summary, the tone of each play, and the way the characters interact (or fail to interact) in each, makes for a wide and rich spectrum of human behaviour. Chekhov is revealed to be the master of social comedy and romantic melodrama just as much as his more well-known bittersweet examination of thwarted idealism and crippling ennui. 

Faith Healer

by Brian Friel

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 1 August 2016

Directed by Lyndsey Turner and designed by Es Devlin, this production features Stephen Dillane as Frank, the faith healer, Gina McKee as his partner Grace and Ron Cook as Teddy his manager.

The play consists of four monologues given by Frank, Grace, Freddy then Frank again, each actor alone on the stage in a different setting, each recounting directly to the audience some episodes from Frank's itinerant journeys around Wales, Scotland and Ireland as a faith healer who occasionally (but not often) effects cures.

It is an extraordinary theatrical device, removing the usual situation in which characters on stage can interact with one another, and instead relying on extended reminiscence to reveal both character and narrative. Matters are further complicated by the fact that the accounts of the three speakers differ so markedly in some details that it is impossible to know exactly what happened; or rather, it becomes necessary for the audience to include these contradictions in its assessment of the characters and their experiences. Although the general shape of the 'story' seems relatively clear, the different accounts of it are impossible to reconcile with absolute finality.

Richard III

by William Shakespeare

seen by live streaming from the Almeida Theatre on 21 July 2016

Rupert Goold directs Ralph Fiennes as the eponymous king, with Vanessa Redgrave as Queen Margaret, Finbar Lynch as Buckingham and Aislín McGuckin as Queen Elizabeth. The set is designed by Hildegard Bechtler.

The play opens with a forensic excavation of a pit or grave, taking place while the audience enters. This is, it transpires, the famous exhumation of King Richard's remains from under a car park in Leicester in 2012. As the news broadcast of the DNA confirmation of the skeleton's identity fades, the play begins. The grave remains constantly visible, usually through a perspex floor; but it is occasionally used as the receptacle for executed or murdered victims of the king, before he himself is finally killed in it during the battle at Bosworth Field.

The Threepenny Opera

by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill

seen at the National Theatre (Olivier) on 24 June 2016

The production is a new adaptation by Simon Stephens directed by Rufus Norris and designed by Vicki Mortimer. It features Rory Kinnear as Macheath, Nick Holder as Peachum, Haydn Gwynne as Mrs Peachum, Rosalie Craig as Polly Peachum and Sharon Small as Jenny Driver.

Brecht's technique of alienating the audience from their conventional expectations of 'an evening at the theatre' is marvellously emphasised in this production, with the vast Olivier stage exposed in all its glory, flats and flights of stairs wheeled about by the cast, the flats often faced away from the front of the stage (showing all their struts) and just as frequently revealed to be utterly flimsy as various characters burst through them to enter a scene. Occasionally the revolve is cranked onto service by means of a giant lever wheeled to the front of the stage and laboriously 'worked' by an actor; on only one occasion is the drum used to bring a pre-constructed set up to stage level.