Mary Stuart

by Friedrich Schiller adapted by Robert Icke

seen at the Almeida Theatre on 14 December 2016

This production is directed by Robert Ice with set and costume designs by Hildegard Bechtler. Juliet Stevenson and Lia Williams take the parts of Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I of England, selecting which part to play in each performance on the toss of a coin. (On days with matinee performances, the matinee allocation is reversed for the evening performance). Vincent Franklin is Burleigh (Elizabeth's wily political adviser), John Light is Leicester (his emotional allegiance apparently torn between the two queens), and Rudi Dharmalingam is Mortimer (a convert to Catholicism and Mary's cause).

The play is not historically accurate - it famously includes a personal confrontation between Mary and Elizabeth which never took place - but it embodies serious political and philosophical themes in intensely powerful and bitterly opposed personalities. Can the agents of one state imprison the head of another state? Can the prisoner, a queen, be justly tried by a court which by definition cannot be 'of her peers'? How much is the sovereignty of a governing queen constrained by the wishes of her people and her councillors? How do the courtiers survive the minefield of their queen's imperious will? All this and more is on display here.

One Night in Miami ...

by Kemp Powers

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 17 November 2016

The play, directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah and designed by Robert Jones, features Sopé Dìrisù as Cassius Clay, David Ajala as Jim Brown, Arinzé Kene as Sam Cooke, Francois Battiste as Malcom X, Dwane Walcott as Kareem and Josh Williams as Jamaal. It takes place in a hotel in Miami on the evening after Cassius Clay won the world heavyweight title from Sonny Liston and on the eve of his announcement that he would henceforth be known as Muhammed Ali.

The hotel room is bland and anonymous, and rendered more austere though needing to accommodate the teetotal and rather prim Malcolm X; it is clearly far from the celebrations associated with the fight and Clay's victory - but as Malcolm points out Clay would not be welcome as a guest in the more upmarket Miami hotels no matter what he had just achieved. 

No Man's Land

by Harold Pinter

seen at Wyndhams Theatre on 16 November 2016

Sean Matthias directs this revival of Pinter's 1975 play with Ian McKellan as Spooner, Patrick Stewart as Hirst, Owen Teale as Briggs and Damien Molony as Foster; the set is designed by Stephen Brimson Lewis.

Hirst has invited Spooner - a shambling down-at-heels writer - back to his house in Hampstead, an eerily grand affair featuring a room with a curved wall of rather cold blue panels, with a well-stocked bar. Hirst, also apparently a writer, seems bemused by Spooner's meandering speeches, though some of his responses are extremely sharp, even if only by way of a look of mock alarm or distaste. Each drinks heavily as Spooner attempts to discover the nature of the household and Hirst gives little away; suddenly two retainers appear, the brutish Briggs and the cocky and almost camp Foster. They might be dangerous for Spooner - they might even have some hold over Hirst: they are blankly watchful when Hirst collapses and crawls out of the room.

Blue Heart

by Caryl Churchill

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond on 14 November 2016

Blue Heart, directed by David Mercatali, consists of two short plays, Heart's Desire and Blue Kettle. Each is daringly experimental, yet each reveals the tensions and deceptions lurking behind ordinary and plausible situations.

In Heart's Desire Brian (Andy de la Tour), his wife Alice (Amelda Brown), his (or her) sister Maisie (Amanda Boxer) and his son Lewis (Alex Beckett) are awaiting the return of his daughter Susy (Mona Goodwin) from Australia. The scene plays out the final few minutes before the door rings to herald Susy's arrival, but disconcertingly the dialogue begins again and again with variations that reveal often wildly divergent outcomes. Sometimes there are outbursts of anger and rage, sometimes not, but the calmer versions are only gradually developed after the outbursts cause a blackout and a return to the beginning, or perhaps to the last point at which civility was apparent. It is a terrific ensemble piece as the three older adults in particular have to repeat themselves meticulously over twenty times. Occasionally, to add further technical difficulty, the familiar parts of the scene are speeded up as if fast-forwarding a tape (the play dates from 1997) - movements are jerky and the dialogue is reduced to odd words.

Travesties

by Tom Stoppard

seen at the Menier Chocolate Factory on 12 November 2016

This revival of Stoppard's coruscating 1974 play inspired by the coincidental presence of James Joyce, Tristan Tzara and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin in Zurich in 1917 is directed by Patrick Marber and features Tom Hollander as Henry Carr, Amy Morgan as his sister Gwendolen, Tim Wallers as his servant Bennett, Peter McDonald as Joyce, Clare Foster as his amanuensis Cecily, Forbes Masson as Lenin, Sarah Quist as his wife Nadya, and Freddie Fox as Tzara.

Joyce really was the business manager of an amateur theatrical group which presented The Importance of Being Earnest; Carr (a member of the British diplomatic staff in Zurich) really did take part in the play and there was a squabble between them about finances. From this situation, together with the fact that Lenin departed from Zurich in late 1917 with the connivance of Germany to make his way to the Russia to instigate the Bolshevik revolution, and the fact that Tristan Tzara, the notorious Dadaist, was also in the city, Stoppard constructed a play in which Carr reminisces about his interactions with all three men - though it is clear that his memories are highly questionable.

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.