Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

by Jack Thorne

seen at the Palace Theatre on 28 November 2018

JohnTiffany directs this two part play based on 'an original new story' by J. K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and himself, which deals with events immediately following the epilogue of the last Harry Potter book - that is, events in the lives of Harry's children and their peers. As the plays have been running for some time now, the original London cast is no longer in action. Harry Potter is played by Jamie Ballard, Ginny Potter by Susie Trayling, Hermione Granger by Franc Ashman, Ron Weasley by Thomas Aldridge and Draco Malfoy by James Howard. In the younger generation, Albus Potter is played by Joe Idris-Roberts, Rose Granger-Weasey by Helen Aluko, Scorpius Malfoy by Jonathan Case and Delphi Diggory by Eve Ponsonby. The production is designed by Christine Jones.

At first, given this time frame and the initial scene-setting of a new generation attending the Hogwarts school, it seems as if the play might be misleadingly named, but later Harry's own participation and predicament receives more attention. In fact, even the earlier scenes are only tangentially reviving audience memories of Hogwarts, as attention focuses on the difficulties youngsters may have being the progeny of famous (or notorious) parents. The increasing richness of the play lies in showing this dilemma from both sides: the anguish and the uncertainty of the parents - really, more specifically, of the fathers Harry and Draco, are just as sympathetically portrayed as the rebellion and frustration of the sons (it has to be said that Rose, the child of the Granger Weasley marriage, is not a particular focus of attention).

A Guide for the Homesick

by Ken Urban

seen at Trafalgar Studios Two on 22 November 2018

Jonathan O'Boyle directs Douglas Booth as Jeremy and Clifford Samuel as Teddy in this intense play about the encounter between two young men in a bland Amsterdam hotel room (or more likely, a hotel near Schiphol Airport, as there is often the sound of planes outside; set design by Jason Denvir).

Jeremy is returning to the US after a stint with Médecins sans Frontières in Uganda; as Teddy brings him to his hotel room he claims to have missed his connecting flight and to have no room booked for himself. Teddy has evidently has the room for a few days, and has been sharing it with a now vanished friend on a sort of private stag trip before the friend's wedding.

Summer and Smoke

by Tennessee Williams

seen at the Duke of York's Theatre on 21 November 2018

Rebecca Frecknall directs Patsy Ferran as Alma and Mathew Needham as John in this West End transfer of the Almeida production seen at their Islington theatre earlier in the year.

This 1948 play is given an impressionistic outing (designer Tom Scutt), which helps enormously with the fluid sequencing of the action, but also underlines the strange extremes of the situation. Rather than attempting to convey a hot Southern summer with a series of realistic sets, the stage is almost completely bare except for seven upright pianos ranged around the semi-circular back wall of the stage (here, a re-creation of the actual back brick wall of the Almeida theatre). Various characters play on the pianos - sometimes all seven are in use, and only Alma never plays one; and occasionally an actor will walk across the tops of the instruments.

Still Alice

adapted by Christine Mary Dunford from the novel by Lisa Genova

seen at the Liverpool Playhouse on 9th November 2018

David Grindley directs Sharon Small as Alice, Eva Pope as 'Herself' and Martin Marquez as her husband John with Mark Armstrong as their son Thomas, Ruth Ollman as their daughter Lydia, Anna Andresen as Dr Tamara and Micah Balfour as Dr Davis in a production from Leeds Playhouse currently touring.

Alice suffers from early-onset Alzheimer's disease, her dementia taking the classic form of struggling for words and repeating questions, then escalating to more severe forms of forgetfulness. Initially, as is so typical, the symptoms are brushed aside, but eventually they are too marked to be ignored, and a diagnosis ensues. Alice and John are both academics, she working in the field of linguistics, and he in scientific research, and so they are well-informed and perfectly capable of adopting whatever coping strategies are recommended; John is even sufficiently aware to propose certain forms of treatment not yet  widely available (though the novel was published in 2007, this stage adaptation begins in mid-2015 and finishes 'today', as the dateline preceding each major scene informs us).

The Inheritance (again)

by Matthew Lopez

seen at the Noel Coward Theatre on 31 October 2018

This great play has received a well-deserved West End transfer after its sell-out run at the Young Vic earlier in the year. With its original cast and design intact, it remains my highlight for theatre-going this year, despite some strong competition.

See my extended review for 18 April 2018 for more details:

https://nicholasatthetheatre.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-inheritance.html#more

A second viewing by no means disappointed: on the contrary, it was an opportunity to discern more clearly the skill with which Matthew Lopez has constructed his play, and to watch a great company of actors perform it. The emotional intensity of the experience was if anything even stronger.

The Height of the Storm

by Florian Zeller

seen at Wyndhams Theatre on 18 October 2018

Jonathan Kent directs Jonathan Pryce as André and Eileen Atkins as Madeleine, with Amanda Drew and Anna Madeley as their daughters Anne and Elise in Zeller's new play, in which he again addresses themes of love, loss, memory and grief. The translation is by Christopher Hampton , and the set is designed by Anthony Ward - each in their own way excellent.

In an ageing writer's country house (or at least, a house outside Paris), in which shelves overloaded with books to an impossible height dominate several visible walls, Anne is trying to gain her father's attention, but he seems lost in a reverie staring out through the kitchen windows to the garden beyond. We soon conclude that he is recently widowed and possibly succumbing to dementia - there is talk of resolving 'the situation' and realising that new arrangements must be made.

Measure for Measure

by William Shakespeare

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 18 October 2018

Josie Rourke (the outgoing Artistic Director of the Donmar) directs Hayley Atwell as Isabella and Jack Lowden as Angelo in an intriguing production of Shakespeare's problematic play concerning the abuse of power in sexual politics and the conflicting claims of justice and mercy.

The play opens in sixteenth century dress, with the political world very masculine, not to say patriarchal. But the contemporary relevance is all too obvious - the rule of law ignored through inattention, laziness or dereliction of duty, and the opportunities for a powerful man to abuse his authority just there for the taking. And this is what Angelo, deputising for an absent Duke, does in relation to Isabella - he offers the life of her brother Claudio in exchange for sexual favours. When she protests and threatens to publicise his actions, he asks her chillingly "Who will believe thee, Isabel?"

The precariousness of Isabella's situation is both helped and hindered by the Duke's actions. Having colluded in the opening situation and then walked away from it, he has returned to Vienna disguised as a friar, and he tries to 'help' by suggesting the use of the bed trick to entrap Angelo (who has, it is suddenly revealed, himself jilted Mariana, a young woman who loves him). It seems like the usual ploy of a romantic comedy, but in the context of this play, it is distasteful. The likes of Isabella, Mariana and even Claudio take the friar at face value, but in fact he has no spiritual authority at all. Furthermore, when all is revealed and marriages are forced upon Claudio (though his fiancee never appears) and on Angelo, Isabella is begged by Mariana to sue for Angelo's life, and then further the Duke suggests that she should marry him, thus riding completely roughshod over her intention of entering a convent. No words are given to Isabella to respond to what is yet another example of male dominance in disposing of a woman's life. In this production, quite credibly, she just screams.

This is the end of the play; but we have not yet reached the interval. A good deal has been cut, the subplot with the whores and whoremasters of Vienna being stripped back almost to nothing. Just before the interval starts, we are suddenly back at the first scene, but this time in modern dress, and the Duke is deputising Isabella to act in his place while he leaves the city. What was done with parchment and wax seals at the beginning is now done with phone texts and tweets.

In an even more brief recapitulation of the play, Angelo now is the young man dedicated to a spiritual life (not conventionally monastic, but more contentiously in some sort of Christian commune), and in begging Isabella for mercy on his brother's behalf, he becomes the victim of Isabella, a predatory woman. It's an intriguing reversal, and a salutary reminder that personal relationships can be unbalanced and corrupted by a woman in power as easily as by a man. In some ways, the reversal exposes the disturbing power plays even more acutely, as the disguised Duke presses his even more obviously unwanted attentions on the naive young Angelo. But the play cannot really bear this burden, and at the last moment the Renaissance Isabella presents herself before the modern Duke with an ambiguous greeting.

Hayley Atwell and Jack Lowden play both their parts extremely well. In the first half she is an intense and self confident young woman gradually weakened, and he an austere deputy Duke with a soft-spoken Scottish accent (hinting perhaps at a Calivinistic outlook?), and each is gradually weakened by the complicating factors swirling around their personal encounters. Interestingly, Angelo's soliloquy about his predicament is given due weight, though it by no means exonerates him. In their reversed roles, Atwell is far more sensuous as the powerful woman, and Lowden has less moral authority and perhaps more naivety. It is fascinating to watch in effect two interpretations of the same speeches in quick succession, and this emphasises even more the problems which this play reveals to a modern audience.