Rev Stan's theatre blog

Royal Court's 'Open Court' - is £20 per ticket a big ask?

Picking through the jumble sale of offerings in Vicky Featherstone's inaugral season at the Royal Court has left me thinking could it be a big gamble both on the part of Featherstone and on the part of the paying audience?

The main feature of this six week 'summer season' seems to be week-long runs of new plays performed by one ensemble of actors. The Royal Court as a producing theatre by its very nature takes continual gambles in putting on new work and here there are six new pieces in six weeks.

But is it an even bigger gamble for the audience? We don't have an inkling of the calibre of the actors who are going to be working multiple roles with only a week's rehearsal time. These aren't going to be fully produced plays and yet the non-concession ticket price is £20 or £16 if you book three or more; there is no £10 Monday performance.

The play synopses all seem very, well, Royal Court and that in itself can be a good or bad thing. For every Jerusalem and Clybourne Park there is a Haunted Child and a In The Republic of Happiness but at least you can make a judgement on buying a ticket based on playwright, director, synopsis and usually an actor or two.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Royal Court's Rough Cuts season where you get to see new plays as works in progress with a cast having done minimal rehearsal, a rehearsed reading essentially. But the tickets are much cheaper.

This is £20 a ticket compared to £28 you would pay for a fully rehearsed and produced play.

What is encouraging is that the playwrights all have good CV's even if their writing careers with the Royal Court are in the early stages. And you could end up with some interesting ensemble members but is it enough to gamble £20 of hard-earned cash on?

Tickets go on sale to members on Monday (interesting that the Royal Court is pushing membership on this one) and Tuesday to the public.

 

 

 

This theatre trailer I do like - The Victorian in the Wall, Royal Court

It gives you a sense of the story; it gives you a sense of the tone of piece. Made me smile and as a result I want to see it.

 

Review: The highs and Low Road

Bruce Norris' new play at the Royal Court is rambling, indulgent, outlandish, ridiculous and doesn't say anything new but equally under Dominic Cook's direction it is riotous, funny and an entertaining romp.

At three hours, including an interval, Norris takes a long time to tell the life story of 27-year old Jim Trumpett (Johnny Flynn). It starts shortly after his birth in 1759 New England when he is left on the doorstep of a bar and brothel. Jim quickly demonstrates an apptitude for numbers having read the letters of an English soldier billeted at the whore house develops a philosophy on life that leads him down a path of money making enterprises that mirrors those of modern bankers.

Indeed, if Jim is a metaphor for those bankers (it is never explained how he goes from being a canny brothel book keep to a bond and derivatives trader) then Norris' image is scathing one. Jim is oblivious to the impact his failing financial schemes have on those he has duped into investing and is impervious to criticism. The free market is king and anyone who doesn't help himself or can't help themselve is little more than pointless in his eyes.

Review: A Time To Reap, Upstairs at the Royal Court

I've been putting off writing about this play by young Polish playwright Anna Wakulik mainly because it's taken a while to digest it.

At its heart is the Catholic church and Poland's relationship with it, centred on the country's banning of abortion in 1993. We follow the lives of three Poles, Marysia (Sinead Matthews) who lives in a small village and, as a child, meets Piotr (Max Bennett) and his father Jan (Owen Teale) when they are visiting from Warsaw. 

Wakulik attempts to expose the hypocrisy of church and state. Marysia has a relationship with a Catholic priest and gets pregnant. Jan is a gynecologist who makes a lot of money on the side performing illegal abortions but when he strikes up a long term relationship with Marysia he won't divorce his estranged wife or even live with her.

Review: If You Don't Let Us Dream We Won't Let You Sleep at the Royal Court

When the playwright lists past works with titles such as Socialism Is Great and Capitalism: A Lecture Series you kind of get an inkling about the direction a new play about the current financial issues is going to take. 

Anders Lustgarten's If You Don't Let Us Dream...  starts out with a series of short scenes linked loosely by a narrative which takes free market principles and capitalism to its extreme. Social disorder is effectively privatised and sold off as bonds. The lower the crime rates the more money is made by investors until the bankers realise they can make more money by hedging on crime going up.

The scheme is such a success generating capital too for the government that more and more is privatised to the point that measures and targets in hospitals and prisons dehumanise those they serve.

Several characters have threads running through the scenes culminating in a final lengthier segment where they come together as a protest group, occupying a disused court house. The group is planning to put capitalism on trial as a publicity stunt.

This is a lean production; a stripped back stage with props, costumes and odd bits of furniture all on view around the edges, brought into use by the actors when needed. It also has a refreshingly lean running time of 75 minutes.

Royal Court Rough Cuts: Bytes of tasty theatrical morsals

For the uninitiated the Royal Court's Rough Cuts season is the equivalent of a theatrical taster menu. You get bite-sized chunks of works in progress or short plays from up and coming playwrights.

And this quartet was particularly tantalising with new work - under the theme of interaction with the internet - by Alia Bano (Shades), DC Moore (Straight, The Swan, Town), Nick Payne (Wanderlust, Constellations) and Penelope Skinner (Sound of Heavy Rain, The Village Bike).

Bano's play was set in a secondary school and was both funny and terrifying as a class full of teenagers terrorised a new teacher, trying to find out as much as they could about him from the internet. When a picture of him naked emerges there could be trouble and trouble there was because that was where it finished. So many questions left unanswered, definitely one I'd watch more of.

Now DC Moore's was the most intriguing particularly following on from a rather unsatisfactory trip to see a staging of Solaris last year that left me questioning whether sci fi could work on stage. If this 15 minute 'bite' is anything to go by then it definitely can.

Review: No Quarter at the Royal Court

There was a frisson of excitement, last night, as the lights dimmed for the third preview performance of Polly Stenham's new play: No Quarter.

It may have been the prospect of a new play by the rising star, it may have been the ramshackled drawing-room set that seemed to envelop the audience or the abundance of actors also watching - John Heffernan and Michael 'the cute one from Jumpy' Marcus just two of the faces I recognised.

The Jerwood Upstairs space certainly feels cosy. Strewn with moth-eaten rugs, assorted mis-matched furniture, shelves bursting with books and a grand piano just begging for someone to run their hand over the keyboard, it whiffs of eccentric money fallen on hard times.

Robin (Tom Sturridge), the drawing room's inhabitant also whiff's of eccentricity. He wears no shoes and his dress is a mix of day and night wear. He pretends to be drunk when his older brother Oliver (Patrick Kennedy) turns up looking for their mother who has absconded from her nursing home. In that first exchange Robin comes across as spoilt, clever, naive and younger than his 24-years.

Rev Stan's theatre best and worst of 2012

It was a Jubilee Year, an Olympic year but while all eyes were on the Queen and the lycra wearing athletes I was quietly breaking my annual record with 109 theatre trips. So which were the gold medal winners which took home the booby prizes?

Well it's been a good year for the National Theatre and in particular the Lyttleton which, perversely, is one of my least favourite theatres. And I have to say it's been quite difficult narrowing it down as you can tell from the rather long highly commended list. The flip side is it feels like there has been more obvious stinkers this year although I've only listed the three worst to spare blushes.

The Usain Bolt of my theatre going year was easy: Curious Incident at the Cottesloe. It was a superb and imaginative adaptation of a much loved booked so convincingly performed I saw it twice and might be tempted to give it a third look when it transfers to the West End in the Spring. Here is the full list:

A year in London theatreland: arrivals, departures and angering members

It's certainly been an Olympic year in London theatreland, 2012 has seen a slew of hellos and goodbyes, theatres riling those paying for membership schemes and, despite the recession, new theatres.

Departures include the announcement that Michael Boyd will step down as artistic director at the RSC with Greg Doran taking over next year. With the new theatres open and established in Stratford Upon Avon, perhaps Doran will be able to devote some attention to a permanent London home for the company. 

Dominic Cooke also announced he was leaving the Royal Court with National Theatre of Scotland's Vicky Featherstone taking the helm in April next year.

Meanwhile it was hello to Josie Rourke who began her tenure as artistic director at the Donmar Warehouse (more on her first year in a future post) while Mandani Younis stepped into her vacated shoes at the Bush Theatre.

And a sort of hello as Michael Grandage launched his first season of plays in the West End following his departure from the Donmar Warehouse. He attracted some impressive acting names to the Donmar and his new West End season isn't any different but more on what I'm looking forward to in another post (yes I have time on my hands) and no prizes for guessing which production is top of my 'can't wait for' list.

It was marmite to theatre bloggers but were critics similarly divided by In the republic of happiness?

It's not unusual for plays to divide but the extent of contrasting opinions about the Royal Court's In The Republic of Happiness has been stark - from the blogging community at least. For my part I hated it and tried to fall asleep, I've seen another blogger begin their reviews saying: "Don't go and see this play" and the reader rating on the Evening Standard website is two stars.

The flip side is having it described as "epic" afterwards. It was press night on Weds and the reviews have trickled in so has it been as divisive among the critics?

Loved

Paul Taylor in The Independent describes it as "a razor-sharp production of a work that could be described as the ultimate antidote to mindless festive cheer."

Libby Purves in The Times (£): "It’s a bracingly sour seasonal treat: Crimpmas, if you like."

Fence sitter

Michael Billington in The Guardian: "I admire Crimp's ambition, but his play left me puzzled."

David Benedict, Variety: Although Crimp's typical fascination with breaking down traditional form is admirable, his experimentation sails close to the level of arrogance given its lack of interest in the limits of the audience's attention span.

Henry Hitchins, Evening Standard: "Although it ends weakly and brims with phrases that many theatergoers will find offensive or baffling, this is a spiky provocation that is also deviously poetic."

Hated

Charles Spencer, The Telegraph said: "The Royal Court’s decision to offer Crimp for Christmas is clearly a sly little joke on the part of its outgoing artistic director Dominic Cooke, though one that’s about as funny as presenting your alcoholic uncle with a festively wrapped bottle of malt whisky when he has been precariously on the wagon for six months."