Rev Stan's theatre blog

When theatre trailers go too far?

Am off to see The Seagull at the Arcola tonight. Never seen the play before and very much looking forward to it. Decided to watch the trailer and kind of feel they've given the ending away - which is a real shame. Nothing beats a shock or surprise at the end of a play when you see it for the first time.

I'm not against theatre trailers, it's nice to get a flavour of a production to whet the appetite but I do hope they don't start falling into the same trap as some film makers and give away virtually the entire plot in 1 minute 20 seconds.

 

Will Luise Miller redeem the Donmar?

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.

May theatre round up - kicking bad theatre in the balls

May certainly kicked in the theatre stakes and with size tens - the second best month this year so far.

It was Much Ado month, the hot ticket with accompanying brouhaha. Mr Tennant and Ms Tate et al were very good, shame the audience wasn't quite so and it lost a star because of it. Harsh perhaps but I'm seeing it again so there is ample opportunity for the audience to redeem itself and allow the play to fully shine.

It took equal top spot with One Man Two Guvnors (pictured above) a similar play in tone - lots of physical comedy and farcical elements neither of which are usually my thing but which just seemed to have tickled the right rib.

Ingeniously positioned loos and Little Eyolf at Jermyn Street Theatre

Prior to my first visit to the Jermyn Street Theatre @3rdspearcarrier tweeted me that it had the most "ingeniously positioned" toilets which immediately made me wonder if I should pay a visit before I left home.

This studio theatre is accessed via steps straight down from the street, passing a cubby-hole serving as box office where I enquired as to the whereabouts of the loos. "Across the stage," was the reply quickly followed by "you can't use them during the performance."

I can just see myself elbowing Imogen Stubbs out of the way to get in before the interval queue forms, well actually I can't, I'm mortified if I so much as clear my throat during a performance. But yes, you do have to cross the small but perfectly formed stage to reach the loos, so I can add Jermyn Street to my list of 'boards I've trod on'. (I nearly wrote 'been on' then but in this context thought better of it.)

Anyway loos schmoose, what was the play like? Well it's set around the Allmers family who have a crippled son Eyolf. Mother Rita (Stubbs) is a hand-wringing, needy woman of heightened passion, seemingly on the verge of hysteria.

The budding playwright's play

A colleague, Lucy Barnard, is doing an MA in creative writing at Birkbeck and last term the focus was plays. We've chatted plenty about what we've seen recently and swapped play texts. Of course it's not about existing work but creating an original piece.

Lucy asked me to 'review' the short play she's written, a play that has never been performed other than a class read through and that I've only ever read. I agreed on the proviso that when she is a famous playwright she'll invite me to the premieres of all her plays.

Seems a fair deal to me but the problem is, of course, that no one reading this will have read* her play. However, a promise is a promise.

So what's it about? Well it's called Ghost Estate, the name referring to the housing boom and bust in Ireland:

"We've got no choice. We spent all our money buying this place - and now it's worthless and we're stuck. We're up the proverbial creek without so much as a stick."

David who is English has moved to Ireland with his Irish wife Siobhan and they are preparing for their young son's birthday party. It becomes quickly evident that the marriage has been through a rocky patch and this is a fresh start, or rather an attempt at it because resentment and suspicion still run deep:

"OK. I'm not having an affair. I'm so un-sexually active I even found myself wanking to one of Toby's Manga comics last week - which I assure you alarms me much more than it could possibly alarm anyone else."

But the outside influences don't just emanate from past infidelity, perceived or otherwise, as becomes clear when the couple have an unexpected visitor.

So what is it like? Well it is safe to say that I wouldn't be writing about it if I didn't think it was any good. In fact I enjoyed reading it very much. It is probably best described as a darkly comic psychological thriller.  I laughed out loud more than once and it has some nice twists and turns along the way. I'd be curious to see how it translates onto the stage.

It is certainly the equal to what I've seen recently at the First Draft festival, so now it's over to you Lucy, go forth and become a famous playwright....

* Naturally Lucy is happy for as many people as possible to read her play so if you'd like a copy email me and I'll pass on your details.

 

 

 

The potted Pinter review

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.

Fabulous Flare Path

I'm going to come right out and say it. I loved Flare Path. If ever there was evidence that an engaging enough play can keep the tiredest person awake and alert then this is it.

It is set in a hotel near an RAF base during World War II where the guests are predominantly RAF staff and their wives and starts with the arrival of a rather suave and sophisticated looking man asking for a room for the night.

Doris (Sheridan Smith) who's Polish husband is fighting alongside the allies soon recognises him as English actor turned Hollywood screen star Peter Kyle (James Purefoy).

Kyle is out of place at the hotel where the everyday reality of wartime is evident. The wives of the pilots and gunners can recognise an enemy aircraft just from the sound of the engine, their husbands make light of their work but the danger of their nightly missions lurks in the background every look, joke and jape.

It soon becomes apparent that Kyle simple hasn't blown in with the wind but has followed Flight Lte 'Teddy' Graham's actress wife Patricia to the hotel where she is visiting her husband (Harry Hadon-Paton and Sienna Miller).

Flare Path is just as much about will or won't Patricia leave her husband for former lover Kyle as it is about will or won't the husbands return from a night bombing run and both story lines have fear, loss and loneliness at their core.

It is a genuinely warm, funny and deeply moving play with an all round superb cast. Smith is just wonderful as the bubbly, trying to hold it together Doris. And Miller gives genuine emotional depth to a character that could easily be played with a dislikeable superficiality.

Needing a Rocket to the Moon

When dentist Ben Stark (Joseph Millson) gets asked by his father in law "why don't you take a rocket to the moon?" I was right behind him.

Set in 1938 during a hot New York summer, Clifford Odets play is about a hen-pecked married man coasting through life who has his head turned by his beautiful, young and slightly ditzy new secretary, Cleo Singer. But Ben isn't the only person who falls for Cleo and when it comes to deciding between her and his wife, he isn't the only one making a decision.

This being the National Theatre, Rocket to the Moon is of course beautifully produced with an impressive period set and rain storm when the weather finally breaks. Neither can you fault the acting. Jessica Raine is superb as the simple, love-struck Cleo, as is Keeley Hawes as the manipulative and domineering Belle Stark, although it's a relatively small part. But the character I enjoyed most is Belle's estranged father Mr Prince played by Nicholson Woodeson.

Mr Prince is a widow and a rich man despite the depression but he has fallen out with his daughter and is frustrated with Ben's lack of ambition and general lack of joie de vivre. But he too falls under Cleo's spell.

The problem I had with Rocket to the Moon is despite the effervescent Cleo and lively Mr Prince the first half is very slow. It concentrates on the changing relationships between Cleo, Ben, Mr Prince and Frenchy the chiropodist who has an office down the corridor but I'm wracking my brains to try and remember anything particularly stand out in terms of plot or scene.

A Taste of Honey at @GreenwichTheatr

The theatre press gets very excited by the likes of Laura Wade and Anya Reiss who have both had plays performed in recent years while still being teenagers. But such talent isn't anything new.

Shelagh Delaney was 18-years old when she wrote A Taste of Honey. It premiered at Stratford East in 1959 transferring to the Wyndhams in the West End in the same year. It opened on Broadway in 1960 and within two years it had been made into an award winning film. 

It is certainly an extremely accomplished piece of writing. Set in Salford in a grotty bedsit it is the story of teenage Jo who lives with her flighty, alcoholic mother. Jo meet a black boy who is about to return to the navy for a six months stint of national service. He leaves Jo with an engagement ring and a much longed for escape route but then she discovers she is pregnant.

Her mother runs off and gets married, again, leaving her to prepare for motherhood with only her gay art student friend Geoffrey to help her.

Tiger Country should carry a health warning

Nina Raine's last play, Tribes, bowled me over and it was that which was the draw to the lovely Hampstead Theatre last Monday. That and the fact the Ought To Be Clowns had it on his 'looking forward to seeing' list.

Coming off the back of a lacklustre Twelfth Night at the Cottesloe last week I was ready for some energy and that I certainly got.

The play is set in a hospital and the opening scene was almost like watching an episode of Casualty (I imagine, I haven't watched it for a long while) with an operation being performed and patients having tubes stuck in them.

I'm a little squeamish so I was relieved when that bit was over and no that isn't why this play should have a health warning although those theatre-goers with a more delicate constitutions might want to take note. But more of that later.

Tiger Country has what in these times of budget cuts seems like an extravagant cast of 11. The principal characters are doctors of varying degrees of seniority each with their own story thread. There is Emily (Ruth Everett) who is a new SHO (I had to look it up, it means Senior House Officer but essentially is a trainee doctor) with good instincts but gets too emotionally involved.

John (Adam James) is a consultant who has health problems of his own which he is trying to ignore and Mark (Pip Carter) is an ambitious trainee surgeon who feels his supervisor Vashti (Thusitha Jayasundera) is holding him back. Vashti herself gets a dose of being on the other side of the fence when a relative comes to the hospital for a routine operation.