When I saw the Donmar's Richard II in preview last December I enjoyed it but it failed to fully hit the mark. The professional reviews were mixed but friends who've subsequently seen it have been very impressed. So I'm glad I booked to see it twice and New Year's Eve saw me at the Donmar again.
This time I was sat facing the front of the stage rather than the side which may be a factor but what was evident is how much more polished the performances have got. Eddie Redmayne as the King losing his grip on his power and crown was a lot more assured.
The key test for me on second viewing was to see if his portrayal of Richard would make me cry. The two previous productions I've seen have made me cry; the tragedy of someone who makes mistakes and loses everything he's ever known tugs at the heart strings. He can be a difficult character to feel sympathetic towards but I've always felt it an important response to the play. At the very least you need to be moved by his demise and how it affects him.
And I'm please to say that Mr Redmayne did make me cry on New Year's Eve. He showed the vulnerability of the man behind the crown. Stripped of his kingship, a right and position held since his childhood (in history Richard came to the thrown aged 10 and had been ruling for 22 years by his death) he becomes lost and conflicted by contrasting emotion.
In fact Eddie did such a wonderful and convincing job, I'm tempted to try and see it again before it finishes on February 4. First time I gave Richard II four stars but I'm going to revise that to five.
Michael Grandage's final play for the Donmar is my second favourite Shakespeare, Richard II (Hamlet is fav, if you are interested). The last time I saw it was in Stratford with Jonathan Slinger in the lead delivering his deposition soliloquy under a stream of sand.
That was more than five years ago but as I studied it for A-Level the speeches are immediately familiar and as a result accessible, comfortable even, like putting on an old pair of favourite jeans.
Grandage has gone traditional. The set - another breathtaking transformation of the Donmar's bijou space - is a weathered wooden balcony and stairs that could have almost been borrowed straight from a medieval castle or cathedral.
The costumes are just as you would imagine (you can see production shots here). Eddie Redmayne's Richard wears predominantly white or a pale, silky blue giving the King the air of delicacy and fashion consciousness.
Richard is a king who enjoys the trappings of the job but not the responsibility. He is inexperienced and ineffectual and reminds me of a modern day super star fed by the hype of his own fame and surrounded by 'yes' men.
Redmayne plays Richard with an obvious relish at being centre of attention. As a man who enjoys and puts much energy into playing with words - it must be difficult not to given the rich material with which to work. He almost gets lost in the pleasure of delivery, the tragedy being that if he put half as much energy into ruling, things might turn out differently.
Continue reading "Is Eddie Redmayne's hair what is out of place in Richard II @Donmarwarehouse?" »
In the rush to get tickets on sale before December and Christmas spending really kicks in (it's a bona fide tactic I'm told from at least one box office) three of London's main theatre's have inadvertently announced new seasons at the same time.
The Donmar Warehouse was first last week with three new productions - I'm expecting my friends membership mail out with ticket purchasing schedule to plop on the doormat any day. Then the National Theatre announced four new productions with tickets going on sale for members on Thursday.
And finally the Royal Court is doing its usual, and extremely irritating, announce at 7am, tickets on sale 9am tomorrow morning. (It's irritating because it leaves only 2 hours to co-ordinate production choices and available dates with friends before hitting the website and battling with the refresh button.)
But that is a different bug bear. Essentially the timing of the announcements means is that if you want to see everything (and I want to see nearly everything) between now and most likely the end of the month you are going to have to stump up a minimum of £188 on theatre tickets.
OK so not everyone will go for everything and is quite as mad a theatre fan as I am, but still. Even if you manage to get the cheap and naturally very much in demand tickets - £12 Travelex at the NT, £10 Mondays at the RC and £20 Monday at the Donmar it is getting on for £200. And that's before you start buying tickets for others.
So this is a plea to the National, Royal Court and Donmar: Talk, plan and stagger, just a little bit. Please. Some of us want to be able to afford to eat this month.
Empty pocket pic: Dan Moyle on Flickr
Inadmissible Evidence, the Donmar's latest production, is one of those plays that just flies from the outset. Blink and you miss it, so fast is the pace and the delivery that you've barely got time to enjoy all the delicious lines John Osbourne serves up through his protagonist, solicitor Bill Maitland (Douglas Hodge).
It starts with a mock court scene in which Maitland is on trial for what turns out to be crimes against his life. He condemns his own life as one of utter mediocrity. The play then follows him through the course of a day or two at his legal practice, the evidence I suppose for his condemnation during which he alienates himself from colleagues, family and lovers.
Maitland is full of self-loathing about what he sees as his failure in life, a trait that doesn't so much make him irascible as put him in a permanent state of anxious anger which manifests itself in almost constant movement and a witty stream of bile and self-deprecation. He is bored dealing with seedy divorces, dislikes his colleagues and his family and even questions the point of his philandering.
Continue reading "Inadmissible Evidence: Douglas Hodge and that Dr Who actress" »
The new season at the Donmar has got off to a cracking start with Eugene O'Neill's tale about trying to escape the past - and not just because Jude Law has been working out, a lot.
Seaman Chris Christopherson (David Hayman) is reunited with his daughter Anna (Ruth Wilson), whom he hasn't seen since she was a young child in Sweden.
When Anna falls in love with Irish sailor Mat Burke (Law), who is rescued from a shipwreck by Chris, personalities and expectation clash and the past Anna thought she'd escaped from threatens to tear them all apart.
Ruth Wilson is the star in every respect. From the moment she steps on stage you get the impression this is a young woman who has already experienced too much in life. There is just enough feisty-ness and just enough vulnerability. By the interval I was already on the verge of tears.
Continue reading "Appreciating the fruits of Jude Law's labour: Anna Christie" »
After the disappointing Moonlight, I've been waiting for something a bit more in the league of Red from the Donmar and Luise Miller might come close.
It's a new version of Friedrich Schiller's late 18th century play and one of what became known as the 'domestic tragedies'.
Luise (pronounced Louisa not Louise as I quickly discovered and played by Felicity Jones) is a musician's daughter who falls in love with one of her father's students, Ferdinand (Max Bennett), the son of the powerful and important Chancellor.
It would be problem enough except that Ferdinand reciprocates Luise's love and his father (Ben Daniels) has a strategic and politically important marriage arranged for him to the Prince's mistress Lady Milford (Alex Kingston).
Of course the passionate young love threatens to derail The Chancellor's plans and those of his servant Wurm (John Light), who has an eye for Luise himself, and so something must be done to break the bond between the two.
As the applause died down and we started to rise from our seats @polyg turned to me and said: "Not all Pinter is like that."
The Pinter in question was Moonlight at the Donmar and my first of his plays. And while the richness and almost poetic language was at times breathtaking the play itself was so utterly disengaging it is a good job I don't wear a watch.
It all sounds so promising in the synopsis. A father lies dying and recalls his past while his wife tries to persuade his sons to come and visit. Indeed it is described:
A tragic comedy of family dysfunction, Moonlight is one of Harold Pinter's most human and poignant plays suffused with universal emotions: the cold dread of death; the pain of separation from loved ones; the longing for reunion; and the continuity of the family.
The problem is that the family is dysfunctional to the point of being almost wholly unlikeable. Father Andy (David Bradley) is so bitter he taunts his wife with his feelings for others. His sons lay around in a squalid flat realing off lists of people they know and pretending to be a dry cleaners when their mother calls. And Andy's friends just brag about their children.
It is presented as a series of vignettes, some have moments 'comedy' or 'poignancy' but most don't. The scenes where Andy's daughter's ghost appears are at times painfully beautiful and the best bits.
There is nothing to fault with the acting or the production, it is simply the play. If I felt half the things the characters purport to feel I think I'd shoot myself. In fact if it had gone on much longer than it's 70-80 minutes running time I might have had to do something to myself in order to find an excuse to escape.
I'm giving it 2 out of 5. It runs until 28 May.
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