I realise that I am horribly cynical but I got the impression Alan Bennett had really wanted to give us the play within this play. The idea is that we are watching a fairly advanced rehearsal of a play which is by turns brilliant and and comically terrible (talking furniture, talking wrinkles etc.). We get pretty much all the rehearsed play but the players are allowed to comment of on the plot and their characters, query the writer or stage manager (the director is away) and are allowed to try out ideas.
I know that Bennett has done this sort of thing before (Forty Years On has an interrupted end of term play at a school) but I got the feeling that he had started to write a fairly straight play about an imagined final meeting between W H Auden and Benjamin Britten and given up. Possibly this is because of the disjoint, I felt, between the good stuff in the rehearsed play and its more humorous even nonsensical parts. It is as if the funny bad bits are a later thought (but not an afterthought). Of course if you just take the good bits of the rehearsed play, you get a captivating fragment but it wouldn't be enough. You need the explanations and the discussions to make it work and they could not have been fitted elegantly into a straightforward narrative.
The only problem, perhaps, with the play within a play device in this case was that some of the points he was trying to make (which were mostly part of the rehearsed play) didn't quite come across as forcefully as they were probably intended. Of course I'm cloth-brained about these things so he would have had to use a loud-hailer at close range to get his ideas across to me. If I had to say what Bennett really meant by the the phrase “Habit of Art” I'd have to hide behind meaningless waffle until you went away.
All the same it is great fun, Richard Griffiths occasionally playing W H Auden was a treat, Alex Jennings as Benjamin Britten was very slightly underused and Frances de la Tour as Kay, the Stage Manager was her usual quietly brilliant self.
Monday, November 09, 2009
The Habit of Art by Alan Bennett, 5-Nov-2009, Lyttelton Theatre – Directed by Nicholas Hytner
Monday, October 26, 2009
The Pains of Youth by Ferdinand Bruckner, translated by Martin Crimp, Cottesloe Theatre, 21-Oct-2009 – Directed by Katie Mitchell.
Katie Mitchell seems to have developed the habit of using naturalistic lighting (i.e. the scene is almost entirely lit from onstage props) and having actors talk at a normal conversational volume. In a tiny studio space it would work perfectly but in a larger space I don't think it is good, clever or artistic to do it. This “habit” ruined her production of Women of Troy for me (I was in the Lyttelton sitting 12 or so rows back) and yet the play was continually praised by at least one national critic as one of the greatest things she had seen. Katie Mitchell got away with the “habit” in this Cottesloe-based production, in fact it worked quite well, but I was sitting only four rows from the stage, feeling very glad I wasn't at the back of the upper gallery.
The play is about a group of medical students in Vienna in the early 1920s. Part of a defeated nation and dissolved empire they consider the alternatives of a stifling bourgeois life or suicide. I only found there to be one sympathetic character in the play he had served a prison term for manslaughter. The most vibrant characters were an aristocratic young woman (Desiree played by Lydia Wilson) and her pimp (and an attempted rapist) of an ex-lover (Freder played by Geoffrey Streatfeild but there was no empathy from me for either of them. I found Freder particularly disturbing not because of his appalling actions but because the author seemed to want us to be convinced that he held a magnetic attraction for all the women in the play.
I had to wonder, watching this play, just how important a piece of drama it is supposed to be. This was because I didn't think that I was getting the most out of the play. Normally I would blame my own insensitivity but since at least six people didn't return after the interval, at least two people (on separate occasions) left while the play was happening and a couple behind me only seemed to be staying so they could complain to one another about it, it might not be entirely my fault.
I couldn't fault the actors, they all seemed good, nor did I think there was anything wrong with Martin Crimp's translation, it flowed well and didn't seem awkward. Katie Mitchell's direction also seemed fine, with some nice touches like the CSI/Men in Black figures who would change scenes by covering or uncovering furniture with dust sheets and taking or putting props in or out of plastic bags (sometimes in the middle of scenes), as if collecting evidence or staging a reconstruction. All the same I didn't think that I was really being sold this play.
I found myself checking the internet after the play to see how the play is viewed in mainland Europe. It appears that this play is well regarded but from what I could glean (courtesy of Google's Translate this Page link) but the few productions I read about did appear to be somewhat more adventurous and expressionistic. I began to wonder if, notwithstanding the People in Black, this production may have been too naturalistic; quietly intense and honest rather than artificially heightened and full of significant pauses. Of course this was a very early preview so it might have changed a lot by the time it is properly reviewed.
Thursday, October 01, 2009
The Author by Tim Crouch, Royal Court Upstairs, 30-Sep-2009 – Directed by Tim Crouch
There is a particular pose sometimes adopted by people listening to classical music. It is a still, studious and appreciative posture that attempts to denote the the music is doing the listener's soul a lot of good. I was reminded of this as I stole glances at Mark Ravenhill and Martin Crimp as they sat either side of Tim Crouch during this play. It was as if these playwrights (and there appeared to be other writers in the room) were avoiding either over or under reaction to the play. Perhaps they were just aware of the scrutiny.
The play consists of four actors (an “audience member”, two “actors” and “writer/director Tim Crouch”) seated among the audience who were in two raked banks of seats facing each-other. The play starts when “audience member” engages the real audience in talk about the experience of being in a theatre audience, singling out individuals trying to get them to share something. There a deal of truth in what he said about being in an audience and going to the theatre regularly especially the Royal Court where he marvelled at the sex, violence and bodily functions that he has seen there. I thought one note didn't quite ring true when he tried to depict an audience as a friendly place – for the most part I tend to find (after a lot of theatre going) that you begin to dislike audiences in general and hate every member of them in particular. Probably just me being anti-social.
After a while the “audience member” the “actors” and the “director” begin to describe a their involvement in a previous, shocking production and how the preparation and playing of an imagined world affected their lives.
I got the impression that the audience were expected to react more to this play. Everyone seemed engaged and attentive but unwilling to draw too much attention to themselves (when the “audience member” asked if there were any Friend subscribers of the theatre in the audience, I know of at least one Friend of 20 years standing who remained silent and tried to be invisible). The actors described shocking things (or things intended to be shocking) but to an audience used to the depiction of a wide range of sex, violence and bodily functions at the theatre. Maybe we were too jaded to do anything other than sit studiously and attentively trying to look as if what we were seeing and hearing was doing us some good.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Mother Courage and her children by Bertolt Brecht, Translated by Tony Kushner, Olivier Theatre, 14-Sep-2009 – directed by Deborah Warner
As somebody that spends much more time at the theatre than I do reading about it, my knowledge of things Brechtian (especially Brechtian alienation) are pretty hazy. I do know that alienation is a slight misnomer, as Brecht didn't want to alienate the audience rather he wanted to engage it with his underlying message and not lose itself in spectacle and story. As such he would keep things simple and expose the mechanics of playmaking. Is that right? What I probably should have done is copied the Wikipedia entry on Brechtian Alienation instead of trying to give my own interpretation.
Anyway this production, only a few performances into previews (which have been heavily delayed, I was originally due to see this on the 9th) certainly showed its makings. There was almost always a couple of stage crew hovering at the edges of the set, which may have been because things weren't quite ready but sometimes it looked intentional. Most of he stage was bare, the wings and backstage exposed and scenes were depicted by hand-written descriptions on screens lowered from above. When there was scenery (e.g. when the scene required tents) it was very plain and simple and preponderantly white. The cart, pulled by sons, daughter, chaplain and finally Mother Courage alone, was the only major price of (mobile) scenery, reflecting Mother Courage's varying fortunes, almost always with a covering of white plastic sheeting.
I enjoyed this production although it was probably too scrappy (or not scrappy enough) for some and perhaps its touch may be thought to be too light. I did have a slight problem with Fiona Shaw's portrayal of Mother Courage, I want to be able to say that she was too perky without using as strong a word as perky. Mother Courage has to be, at times, ebullient, witty and feisty which Fiona Shaw was great at, but she also has to be brought low and fight to the last of her energy. I thought that (even as she was exhausted from pulling the heavy cart) she always had something in reserve that would enable her to spring back. Maybe this is intentional, maybe they were taking it gently because of the difficulties that the production has had, it might also be my imagination or my lack of understanding about the play. I'm pretty sure that if it is a problem it will be fixed and I feel a bit awkward about wanting more pain and anguish from Fiona Shaw.
The oddest thing in the production was the promotion of the musician and composer Duke Special. We were constantly told who he was and he was treated almost as an equal to Mother Courage (especially at the curtain call). I quite liked his music and don't have a problem with musicians being integrated into the play but it seemed a bit much. They'll be story behind this and I'll probably have to read about it.
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Prick Up Your Ears by Simon Bent, Richmond Theatre, 29-Aug-2009 – Directed by Daniel Kramer
I think I was expecting more Joe Orton in this play. As far as I could see there were plenty of quotes (I suspected that Mrs Corden, although a real person, was written as a combination of characters from Orton's fiction) but I didn't think there was as much as might be expected about Orton himself.
The play is set in the bedsit that Orton and his lover/teacher/muse Kenneth Halliwell shared from 1960 to their deaths and as Halliwell spent much of his time haunting the place, not liking to go out, it might not be surprising that the play focuses on him. From the rumours that I've heard about Orton's diary (on which the play is, in part, based), it seems to detail his sexual activities which happened outside the bedsit and means that Orton in this play sometimes appears just to flit between rehearsals and random sexual encounters leaving Halliwell isolated and popping pills.
Matt Lucas is probably most impressive when he is allowed to show the tragic side of Kenneth Halliwell's nature. It feels too easy and familiar when his character is being funny perhaps because we all expect comedy from him. As this play began, a man decided that that would be the perfect time to nosily find his seat at the end of a row. This was treated with great humour by the audience (and some mild corpsing from Lucas) and it may well have made us more willing, initially, to see the comedy in Lucas's performance and
less to feel the tragedy.
The tragic thing for Halliwell was, perhaps, that he had many gifts but they only went so far and he could never focus them into crafting something great. Maybe the effects were worsened as he saw Orton coming out of his shadow and quickly outshining him. The play indicates that Halliwell was an essential inspiration to Orton's work (although it sometimes seems like Halliwell just provided titles and quotes) but that Orton was able to go further and make something of his own.
Saturday, July 04, 2009
The Rover by Aphra Behn, Sothwark Playhouse, 2-Jul-2009 – directed by Naomi Jones
I can't claim that Aphra Behn was a great playwright (I would go so far as good) although she appears to have been the equal, in writing, of many of her contemporaries. It is problematic that these contemporaries were are Restoration playwrights whose work (with a few exceptions) is under-performed and often seen as second rate. Behn has another handicap because as practically the first woman to earn her living by the pen, it often seems that her work is supposed to support some vast Feminist edifice and every word of hers is to be solemnly uttered as if it were a votive flower let fall on to the author's grave.
Flowery writing aside, basically she's good but I think her Restoration and Feminist burdens cause people to shy away and unjustly neglect her.
Fortunately it isn't the case in this production: It appears that the cast wanted to treat it with much of the fun and spirit with which it was written. I was reminded of why I have always thought of this as one of my favourite plays (ever since I first saw it 30 years ago).
This not a perfect play of course the plot can feel like trying to concentrate on a single ball in the hands of a juggler using 6 identical balls, some characters feel under-used or underdeveloped (particularly the Viceroy's son Don Antonio and Valeria the cousin of the sisters Florinda and Helena) and there are a couple of near rapes that are too easily forgiven (perhaps just for modern tastes).
Both halves of the play started in the theatre's bar area before we were sent into a nearby street (the main theatre where we could all sit). This worked quite well although, as with any promenade production it was sometimes difficult to see the actors through the other audience members, Also there was a little awkwardness when the actors had to manhandle the audience to clear space for an apparently rushed and impetuous duel. Also getting the audience into their seats did seem to delay the action a bit, although they did occur during at fairly logical places in the piece.
The light touch and sense of enjoyment in this production made me hope that others will be prepared investigate Ms Behn, it does seem to be rewarding.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Hamlet by William Shakespeare, Wyndhams Theatre, 1-Jun-2009 – Directed by Michael Grandage
This is, at least, my 17th Hamlet and I think it has clouded my opinion of this production.
Firstly, relax, I thought that Jude Law was pretty damn good in this. He has a relaxed and confident style that stopped me from thinking “Oh that's Jude Law up there” and he really seemed to be addressing most of his soliloquies to the audience rather than the to the darkness of the hall or the lighting rig in front of the Circle. I sometimes wonder whether you could use Hamlet's talking to the audience and braking the fourth wall as some kind of indication of his madness (of course that means he'd has to be mad from the start and a director might not want that).
This production went by at quite a lick, I didn't feel the three hours and some of the set-piece scenes (e.g. the Gravedigger scene – second time I've seen David Burke as the gravedigger, first was with Daniel Day-Lewis 20 years back), while not rushed, were over before before I was able to savour them. I found this a spare production, no fat or business beyond what is on the page and I felt the actors were living in the moments dictated by their lines, rather than having a living characterisation moving from scene to scene. I might be the only person who noticed this and that might well be because I've imagined it.
It did mean that I had a problem with this production, possibly caused by 16 other Hamlets. I have long thought that Hamlet is badly structured, though brilliantly written. There are gaps in the plot (like seeing the progression of Hamlet's madness between Acts One and Two – you are just presented with the fact that he has gone mad) and scenes that seem to contradict earlier ones (fierce graveside fight between Hamlet and Laertes followed by a civilised apparently formal fencing match). I wonder if the spareness of this production and apparent lack of continuous inner life of the characters was the thing that made the flaws and the cracks in the play really stand out for me.
I won't fault the acting although I'm not certain that Penelope Wilton's Gertrude or Gugu Mbatha-Raw's Ophelia were really given the opportunity to sink their teeth into their roles and have a good chew. I might have imagined it but I thought that Kevin McNally's Claudius was a little more sympathetically played than usual.
Product Cloud
Stumble It!