Kiss of the Spider Woman

by Manuel Puig in a version by José Rivera and Allan Baker

seen at the Menier Chocolate Factory on 24 April 2018

Laurie Sansom directs Samuel Barnett as Molina and Declan Bennett as Valentin, with Grace Cooke-Gam as the warder and nurse, in this, a second dramatic adaptation of Manuel Puig's celebrated novel of 1976 set in an Argentinian prison (also the subject of a film in 1985). An earlier version of the play was staged in London in 1985 and revived at the Donmar Warehouse in 2007.

This new version is more streamlined, lasting a hundred minutes without a break. It thus increases the claustrophobic nature of the setting, enhanced by the configuration of the Menier stage and auditorium, with designer Jon Bausor making full use of its concrete walls and pillars, and surrounding the acting space with earth.

The Way of the World

by William Congreve

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 19 April 2018

James Macdonald directs Geoffrey Streatfeild as Mirabell, Tom Mison as Fainall, Caroline Martin as Mrs Fainall, Justine Mitchell as Millamant and Haydn Gwynne as Lady Wishfort in this celebrated comedy from 1700, presented in its historical time with flowing wigs and lacy cuffs.

The language is polished and often dazzling, the social comment astute, the plot a vehicle for observing both cynical and heartfelt attempts to navigate the difficulties of relations between men and women. While urban and sub-aristocratic could be and often was portrayed as essentially the unscrupulous use of masculine power and influence to gain wealth through marriage, in this play Congreve contrasts the moral characters of the two friends Mirabell and Fainall, each of whom stands to gain from the woman (Millamant and Mrs Fainall respectively) he is connected with. Where Mirabell and Millamant are shown to be genuine in their affections, all the warmth has drained from the Fainall marriage and the husband is plotting merely for financial advantage, and in this production is shown up as a distinctly unpleasant person.

The Inheritance

by Matthew Lopez

seen at the Young Vic on 18 April 2018

Stephen Daldry directs a cast of fourteen - twelve men, one woman and one child - in this two part play (over seven hours' playing time) exploring the connections between contemporary young gay men in New York and earlier generations by means of an extraordinary adaptation of E. M. Forster's novel Howards End.

At one level, this project looks impossible to manage. Forster's work seems inextricably bound up with its own time, even though its most famous message - 'Only connect!' - is universal. But how can the property and monetary affairs of Edwardian England, suffused with class consciousness and prejudice, be brought to bear on the contemporary New York scene? How can Forster's lifelong reticence concerning his sexuality be related to the modern freedoms and sense of entitlement that prosperous young gay males have in a cosmopolitan city?

Quiz

by James Graham

seen at the Noel Coward Theatre on 12 April 2018

Daniel Evans directs this transfer from Chichester of James Graham's new play, featuring Keir Charles as Chris Tarrant (and other quizmasters), Gavin Spokes as Charles Ingram and Stephanie Street as Diane Ingram. It briefly traces the development of British TV quiz shows before focusing on a notorious case in which Charles Ingram, a contestant on the hugely successful quiz Who Wants to be a Millionaire? was accused of colluding with his wife and an associate to gain the prize by cheating - the others were supposed to have been coughing audibly when the correct answer was read out, thus allowing Charles to select it.

The play cleverly conflates the idea of a trial with the trappings of a TV reality show, allowing for the necessary exposition to be as entertaining as possible, then presenting the circumstances of Ingram's participation in the show from the prosecution's point of view. By the time of the interval the case looks damning, and the audience is invited to vote on the verdict, which is overwhelmingly 'guilty'. In the second half, the situation is presented again from the defence's point of view, bringing in added circumstantial detail and questioning the basis of some of the prosecution's case. A second audience vote yields a different result, but not necessarily an acquittal.

Humble Boy

by Charlotte Jones

seen at the Orange Tree Theatre on 29 March 2018

Paul Miller directs this first London-based revival of Charlotte Jones's 2001 play, featuring Jonathan Broadbent as Felix Humble, Belinda Lang as his mother Flora Humble, Selina Cadell as Mercy Lott, Christopher Ravenscroft as Jim, Paul Bradley as George Pye and Rebekah Hinds as his daughter Rosie Pye. The production is designed by Simon Daw.

The play concerns Felix, a potentially brilliant astrophysicist, returning home for his father's funeral and being faced with his poisonous mother, now interested in marrying George Pye. Life is further complicated by the fact some seven years earlier, Felix had had an affair with George's daughter Rosie; only now does he discover that Rosie's seven year old daughter is named Felicity 'after his father'.

Julius Caesar (again)

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Bridge Theatre on 27 March 2018

Having so much enjoyed Nicholas Hytner's modern dress production of this play in January from a gallery seat, I decided that I just had to see it again as a promenader, milling about in the central acting area and being moved hither and yon by the stage crew (fully accoutred with headsets and security vests) as the demands of the staging required different rostra to be raised and lowered.

I'm extremely glad that I went again to see the play from this more involved perspective. Not only was it an excellent opportunity to see the actors from a closer position; it was also exciting to realise how cleverly the play had been streamlined for an uninterrupted two-hour running time, and to appreciate the logistical brilliance of the whole enterprise. 

The cast were even more impressive at close quarters - the intense intellectualism of Ben Whishaw's Brutus, the steely determination of Michelle Fairley's Cassius, the passionate energy of David Morissey's Mark Antony, were all powerfully rendered, while the crowd scenes were wonderfully managed so that we promenaders were part of the action but rarely required actually to do anything so vital that our inexperience would imperil the result. By this I mean that, for example, the crowd's cheering as Caesar progressed was almost entirely pre-recorded, so that our contributions (if made at all) supplemented the effect but did not create it. The most definite thing required of us, apart from keeping out of the way of the rostra and the stage crew's manipulation of furniture, was to crouch down in self-protection in the aftermath of the assassination, just as a crowd would be ordered to with the threat of armed assassins whose program was unknown. Where individual members of the crowd were needed to call out or to react specifically to the major characters, members of the cast were always on hand amongst us to deliver the goods.

It's a great production well worth its second view.

Lady Windermere's Fan

by Oscar Wilde

seen by live streaming from the Vaudeville Theatre on 20 March 2018

Dominic Dromgoole has created a theatre company to perform all of Oscar Wilde's social comedies and some associated works; this is the second major production (after A Woman of No Importance). Kathy Burke directs Grace Molony as Lady Windermere, Joshua James as Lord Windermere, Samantha Spiro as Mrs Erlynne and Jennifer Saunders as the Duchess of Berwick.

Wilde uses the conventions of a melodrama to skewer social pretensions and at the same time to criticise unthinking adherence to moral absolutes. Mrs Erlynne is the catalyst for a crisis in the Windermere marriage. But most of the crisis is played out according to the mores of the time - the wife virtuous and condemnatory of social and ethical impropriety, the husband floundering in his attempts to do what's best in a situation where his natural presumption of masculine authority collides with his entrapment in blackmail. Curiously, although the audience is soon aware of the secret causing all the mayhem, Lady Windermere remains oblivious and some other major deceptions are also not unmasked.