The Drover's Wife

by Leah Purcell

seen at the Belvoir Theatre (Sydney) on 5 October 2016

Taking Henry Lawson's classic short story The Drover's Wife as a starting point, Leah Purcell has fashioned a powerful and moving story set in the Australian bush - "an Australian western for the stage" as she puts it. She plays the wife herself, with Mark Coles Smith as Yadaka,Will McDonald as Danny, and Benedict Hardie and Tony Cogin taking other parts. The production is directed by Leticia Caceres.

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse on 21 September 2016

Shakespeare's Globe and Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse have collaborated on this production, which is directed by Nick Bagnall (from Liverpool E&P) and designed by Katie Sykes. The play, one of Shakespeare's earliest, has been imaginatively re-set in the 1960s, with many clever musical pastiches and a great deal of energetic climbing of ladders.

The traditional house style of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse has been subverted here, understandably so as the production is to go on tour to venues both inside and out. Though the candles remain lit, there is plenty of electric light as well, not least because there is also a stage within the stage that is crammed with the musical instruments required by a pop band; this is brightly lit and could easily belong in an edition of Top of the Pops. Characters ascend and descend on either side of this box, and the Playhouse's own balcony gives on to its top, constantly tempting the cast to leap over the railing which usually protects the musicians from falling.

The 60s setting works well with the general tone of the play, in which young people are finding their way often quite selfishly, and certainly kicking against the restraints of the older generation. The uneasy tone (uneasy at least for modern sensibilities), in which male friendship is at first betrayed and at the end appears to trump romantic longings, is somewhat mitigated by the heady sense of experiment and possibility associated with the swinging sixties. This is exemplified in the clever device whereby the band of outlaws which Valentine joins when he is exiled from Milan becomes The Outlaws, a raucous rock band.

The whole concept is ably supported by the cast, many of whom are both strong actors and proficient musicians. Though the juxtaposition of modern music and Shakespearean verse can be a woeful mistake, in this case there is no problem: the verse speaking is fine and the sentiments of the songs complement the action. The two gentlemen Valentine (Guy Hughes) and Proteus (Dharmesh Patel) are passionate young men, though the former is rather proper and the latter suddenly unscrupulous.

The only false note came from Garry Cooper playing the older parts (the two disobliging fathers). His exaggerated style of villainy, full of strange tics and jerks, seemed out of place amid the more natural exuberance of the younger players. Amber James had the rather thankless task of playing Thurio, the spurned suitor of Sylvia - a shallow character made more flat by being cross-dressed. She was far more impressive as Julia's maid Lucetta in an early scene of the play.

Leah Brotherhood (Julia) and Aruhan Galieva (Sylvia) were the objects of affection, all too often seen as little more than that. However each character has a mind of her own, leading to a touching scene in which Sylvia speaks of her pity for Julia all unaware that the young messenger she addresses is actually Julia in disguise.

Comedy is provided by the two servants Speed and Launce. The director Nick Bagnall stood in for Speed capably with script in hand where necessary. Launce was excellently played by Charlotte Mills pulling off the very difficult trick of talking to a dog much of the time, represented by the otherwise non-speaking musician in the band (Fred Thomas). This dextrous patter is of the sort that most dates Shakespeare's clowns, but here it was very well managed.

It is fascinating how many themes in this play are developed in later plays with more power and subtlety. They are, of course, the stock themes of romantic comedy - disguise, thwarted love, mistaken identity, and so forth - but even here the darker side is revealed in some of the twists. It is something of a shock when Valentine offers to give up Sylvia to cement his friendship with Proteus, even though Sylvia clearly prefers Valentine. Proteus just as abruptly dismisses the offer and turns back to Julia whom he has moments before felled with a blow (admittedly thinking 'him' to be Sebastian). In fact, in the final scene both young women are merely observers of the spectacle of the men (including Sylvia's father) arranging matters to suit themselves. In the play they have no comment to make, but in this production the pardoning of the outlaws is replaced by a song of angry pain by Julia and Sylvia who rail at their loneliness. The play hardly suffers from this reminder that all may not be well. 

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.