Badger's Drift

     

     Off to Cardiff yesterday and a matinee performance of 'Badger's Drift' at the New Theatre.  This is an adaptation of 'The Killings at Badger's Drift', the first episode of the ITV detective series 'Midsomer Murders'.  The original screen adaptation of the novel by Caroline Graham was by Anthony Horowitz.  And I think, but am not entirely sure that the stage adaptation, written and directed by Guy Unsworth, was adaptation of the original screenplay rather than the novel.  It was, as can be imagined a bit meta at times; it might help to have some idea, at least, of the tv series. Anyway, this touring production stars Daniel Casey plus a very hard-working ensemble cast.  Fans of Midsomer will know Casey played DS Troy in the first six+ tv series.  I, though, am not a fan, (neither do I hate it); the theatre, however, was full of them, and that was good to see.  Interesting use of scenery etc, reminding me of a similar technique in the National Theatre of Wales adaptation of  Thornton Wilder's 'Our Town'. 

'Our Town'

      It is rarely, if ever, that I get to go to a theatrical first night, let alone one that launches a new theatre company.  Friday evening, however, I did just that when the Grand Theatre, Swansea, presented the Welsh National Theatre's inaugural production; Thornton Wilding's 1938 play 'Our Town'.  In some ways an intriguing choice.

     This three act play, which is rather Burkean in its conservatism, is set within the American trope/ideal of the small town - incarnated here as the fictional New Hampshire community of Grover's Corners. Twelve years - 1909-1913 - are portrayed. Nothing much actually happens, and there is an emphasis on community and continuity. A telling detail, or theme, is the increasing tendency of the inhabitants to lock their doors at night.  This essential conservativism, is not quite matched in the staging - the stage is bare, props are minimal and it is all rather 'meta'.  The main character, here played by Michael Sheen - a charismatic stage presence - is the omniscient Stage Manager.  A character that stands between the actors and the audience and engages with both, and is perhaps a manifestation of the divine.

     Changes have been made to both text and staging, which I believe involved input from Russell T Davies. Grover's Corners has been re-located to Wales: Main St has become Stryd Fawr.  A small point, but oddly (or arbitrarily?) many Americanism have been allowed to remain.  Well, the line has to be drawn somewhere.  A gay love affair (partly as a way of explaining a character's alcoholism) appears silently and fleetingly towards the end of the second act. 

     Finally in the 3rd act, at the conclusion of the play the Stage Manager is seen to join the company of the dead.  It works well enough, but the original direction is that the Stage Manager draws a curtain across the stage. (I detect the hand of Russell T Davies here; he has a history of portraying the death of God.) I worry that it undermines the Stage Manager's words at the beginning of the act:

     "We all know, that something is eternal.  And it ain't houses, and it ain't names, and it ain't even the stars...and everyone knows in their bones that something is eternal and that something has to do with human beings."

     

     The notoriously acerbic critic, John Simon, of The New Yorker, in reviewing a performance of the play at the Plumstead Playhouse (The New Yorker, 15.12.1969) wrote '....'Our Town' is recommended only to people with a craving for communal hagiography flavoured with maple syrup.'  On the strength of this production, I don't feel that to be true.  In all an excellent beginning.

Happy New Year and 'Follies' at the Royal National Theatre

     A New Year and another year of blogging ahead.  So wishing you all a Happy New Year I'd also like to apologize for the trailing off of this blog at the end of last year.  There's quite a bit going on here, but more of that as the year progresses.

      Last Wednesday the bf and I went up to London for the last night of 'Follies' at the Royal National Theatre. For those who don't know 'Follies' is the work of the New York composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim. It was first staged in 1971 in New York and has had twelve revivals since.  It is a massive and complex work and for these reasons it is not perhaps performed as often as it deserves.  Briefly the musical takes places at a reunion, 'our first and last', in the Weismann Theatre, New York, a building scheduled for demolition. The host is Mr Weismann himself, legendary theatrical impresario and producer of the 'Weismann's Follies' 'between the Wars'; his guest are his former artistes, in particular the famous 'Weismann Girls', and their partners. The drama focuses on two of the former girls in particular: Sally (Imelda Staunton) and Phyllis (Janie Dee)and their respective husbands, Buddy (Peter Forbes) and Ben (Philip Quast). The show is in part an affectionate tribute to the Broadway musical written at a time when New York was beginning its slide into decline, and in part a exploration of the space between dreams and reality, between the perfection of the theatrical world of, say, Florenz Ziegfeld and the muddy imperfections of everyday life, as we watch the lives of the leading characters unravel. Bitter sweet may be an apt description of the tone.
     And here I may just begin to run out of superlatives for this production was such an overwhelming experience. It is no exaggeration to say that I've never encountered anything in my theatre going to rival this; wonderful song followed on wonderful song. (Twenty-one of them all told. Sondheim has the most breath-taking fluency.) Acting, direction, choreography, design were all superb. (It's invidious to single out a particular talent but I have to mention the designer Vicki Mortimer, being a visual sort of guy. Set and costumes were stunning.) In all then an incredible ensemble work, demonstrating British theatrical talent at its best.  To be honest it's had such an artistic and emotional effect on me I've been playing recordings of it over and over again on 'Youtube' since then.   As I'm doing now while I write this.  Thankfully a cast recording is in the offing.  I can't wait.

   We had lunch at a favourite of mine 'Dishoom' (Shoreditch), and dinner at 'Canteen' at the rear of the Royal Festival Hall.  Both very good.

London: Two exhibitions and one play

   To a warm and sunny London Thursday to see a play and catch a couple of exhibitions.  And a lovely day I had of it.

   First to the Royal Academy and 'The Age of Giorgione' exhibition of Venetian High Renaissance art. The names are familiar: Bellini, Titian, del Piombo, Lotto. I think I may have said before that this sort of art doesn't usually do much for me - just another point on the slide down to the Baroque and 18th century Academic - all that chiaroscuro and rivers of brown varnish.  However this exhibition, in the intimate Seckler Gallery of the RA was something of a revelation, having only really seen the majority of pictures on display in reproduction.  The colours were vibrant and rich - in particular the blues and pinks.  Often rather painterly too, that in a couple of works pointed towards the work of El Greco.  There is in all a distinct sensuality to this Venetian art - which in this exhibition has been divided into four categories (one to a room): portraiture, landscape, devotional works and finally allegorical portraits.  Each section is an exploration of that distinctiveness of Venetian art and how the artists of the city evolved a new language of depiction within the tradition - the difference between between Bellini's 'Portrait of a man' of 1505 and Giorgione's 'Terris portrait' of 1506.  A distinctiveness of composition too, that in some of the work on display can seem awkward, even forced.  All a long way from the art of Florence and Rome, which is perhaps more cerebral. I'm never quite sure as to how centrally the art of Venice is placed by critics. I think on the whole it is seen as provincial except for the artist included here. There are a couple of Durer's on view too to help give context; indeed there is a distinct 'Northerness' to a lot of the art on display.  The long preceding tradition of 'Byzantine' culture in Venice was much less easy to detect. Any influence from further east, which is often now 'bigged up' (overly so in my opinion) in the context of Venice, negligible. The highlights; the tiny pen and watercolour drawing of a watermill by Durer - just exquisite; the two mythological paintings of the myth of Adonis (Though Adonis depicted is no Adonis!) Quite visionary almost like a Blake or Palmer. Also Giorgione's 'La Vecchia' - a piece of sublime portraiture and the 'Terris Portrait' of 1506. A treat too to see Titian's 'Jacopo Peasaro Being Presented by Pope Alexander VI to St Peter' 1508-11.

   Then to the National Gallery and George Shaw's exhibition 'My Back to Nature' where there was plenty of 'north' and landscape on display. The forest to be precise.  Shaw, born 1966, is the current associate artist at the National Gallery and this exhibition represents his response to the collection - the culmination of a two year residency.  As a teenager he became interested in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, at art college he became a conceptual artist before eventually returning to that deep, detailed painting style that characterized the early work of the Brotherhood in which he utilizes Humbrol enamel paint as his medium.  He uses that technique to explore suburban Britain and here, the fragmented, liminal fringes of the City where countryside and suburban blend uneasily.  Unease often characterizes his work, the best work has a sort of transient radiance. Shaw's forest floor bears the dint of man, scattered with the detritus of the illicit, and Shaw, in the excellent short film that accompanies the exhibition, links that to the debris scattered about the ground in some of the pictures in the permanent collection. I really wasn't sure what to make of this.  I'm not entirely convinced that an analogy can be made between the two like that. Neither am I quite sure of the point he makes about the dichotomy, as I understand it, between nature and the gallery/created object. Having said that some of the work is very  - well, perhaps not beautiful - but haunting, atmospheric and evocative.  And perhaps a little more painterly? However I cannot help but feel that the exhibition space didn't help Shaw's argument.  It's a rather awkward, unlovely space that's also in part a communicating space between grander galleries.  Neither, I think, did the hanging.  The sketches in the first room could have been better presented - framed?  It all seemed a little makeshift.

   And then, finally to 'How the Other Half Love, at His Majesty's Theatre in The Haymarket - the real reason I had come up to town for the day. Incidentally the outside was designed by Nash as part of the Strand- Regent Street improvements post-Waterloo.  The contrasting French Baroque/Rococco interior, I suspect, was the work of that doyen of Edwardian theatre designers Frank Matcham.  Lots of plasterwork, gilding and scagliola.  The play, written by Alan Ayckbourn was published in 1971.  It is a play about adultery and the effects of badly planned deception - a nudge and a wink at the Permissive Society.  The play is a six-hander: Nicholas Le Prevost, Jenny Seagrove; Jason Merrell, Tamsin Outhwaite; Matthew Cottle and Gillian Wright. Familiar names, then.  I hope the latter two won't be insulted if I say that when they made their first entrance I was reminded of' 'Inspector Blakey' and 'Olive Rudge' from the 1960s/70s British sitcom 'On the buses'.  There really was something down-at-heel, if not downright seedy, about the Matthew Cottle character in particular what with all his fears and pomposity, and who seemed to have been trapped in the Late 1940s - a world that was both High Minded and mean.  But I wonder were all the characters in some way the same - all in various degrees suffering from some sort of delusion?   Nicholas Le Prevost, for instance, going around in some sort of daze all the time and quite unable to figure out that it was his wife that was digressive.  Perhaps the most clear-sighted was Teresa (Tamsin Outhwaite).  A knockabout farce in many ways and very funny.  It was very well acted indeed - the second act when there are two dinner parties going on simultaneously was an absolute tour du force of both writing and acting.

'My Night with Reg'

   I went up to London yesterday for a matinee production of Kevin Elyot's award-winning play 'My Night with Reg'.  This current production which marks the anniversary of the first staging at The Royal Court Theatre in 19194, originated at The Donmar, before being transferred to the West End, at the Apollo, Shaftesbury Avenue.
   I have to confess that this was my first visit to a West End Theatre.  The Apollo is a small theatre, the auditorium a wonderful confection of the Edwardian rocaille - 1900 by Lewen Sharp, who is an architect I've never heard of before.  Anyway it is delightful theatre and just the right size for productions of this scale.
   And the scale of this play is small: a six hander.  There is only one set, the drawing room of a ground-floor flat in London, with a conservatory, that belongs to Guy (Jonathon Broadbent).  I haven't been much of a theatre goer, so my experience is limited, but I suspect that the set was designed 'narrow' rather than deep to push the action forward.  The set is also isolated by a wide neon strip that occasionally springs to life with pulsating colour.
   For those who don't know 'My Night with Reg' is a comedy set in London in the early eighties and concerning the lives of six gay men.  It opens just as a flat-warming party is about to begin.  In the conservatory painter Eric (Lewis Reeves) is finishing the decorating.  The first guest arrives, John (Julian Ovenden).  He and Guy are old friends from university days and the conversation quickly turns to a undergraduate play which was directed by Guy.  Appropriately enough (on many levels) the play in question is Eurypides's 'The Bacchae'.  The priapic John starred as the god Dionysus.   Dionysus, the god of tragedy (the presiding deity of the Athenian Dionysia where tragedies were performed in competition) and this play is also a tragedy in that it deals with the after-effects of the Aids epidemic as it was then in the early 1980s. Eventually the other guests arrive: the wonderfully theatrical Daniel (a bit of a tour du force by Geoffrey Streatfield), who is also Reg's partner, on a flying visit, and, eventually Bernie (Richard Cant) and his partner Benny (played with a real cocky sexuality and vigour by Matt Bardock).  Reg, we never meet, but is a constant presence throughout the play as it darkens from a comedy of manners into something - as the facades shatter - deeply moving and poignant told through three scenes, played here almost continuously, the light only dimming between times.  (The first one caused me just a little confusion as the characters who speak last in the first scene are the first to speak in the second.)

   It is perhaps Reg, then, who is the presiding deity of this play (not John), the unseen deus ex machina who messes up people's lives, and yet inspires such love in all he touches.  Elyot aptly follows the classical rules of tragedy by having the deaths take place off-stage, but only follows two of the Three Unities laid down by Aristotle in the Poetics (of Action and Place) ignoring the third by spreading out the scenes over four years.  I remember being struck at the curtain call by the look of physical and emotional exhaustion on the faces of Julian Ovenden and Geoffrey Streatfield, and rightly so for this play is, in its own way, as ruthless and pitiless as any other tragedy, as un-merciful as 'The Bacchae' itself.
   On reflection, it seems that is possible to always, at the beginning of the play at least, divide the cast in halves: half working-class, half middle; half university educated, half not; half in relationships, half not, and so on.  And perhaps importantly half promiscuous and half not.  Perhaps it is those with the education that remain the most underdeveloped emotionally, the ones desperate for love, but place themselves in positions where that love will remain always unfulfilled and/or crushed.  They are perhaps also the ones who are unable to change - they are shown continually reliving the past.  The ones who, at the end of the play, are unable to reach out to one another and offer comfort, for they are the ones like the Bacchae who have been driven mad and are unable to see the pain they inflict for what it is.