Richard II - Globe Theatre

Another throne...set of Richard II

Despite arriving earlier than usual at the Globe AND there being a tube strike, the groundling queue was sizeable when I got there, comprising a party of around twenty American students. However, on being released into the Globe, the students, sheep-like, gravitated towards the end of the stage build-out, allowing me to slide triumphantly into the exact place I would've chosen had I been first in the queue! Yesss!! It's these little Globe victories that I enjoy nearly as much as the performances themselves. Well, not really.

The stage build-out was one of the most interesting I've experienced at the Globe. There was a short runway leading from the main stage to another stage, leaving a 'corridor' on either side for groundlings to stand sandwiched between both stages, if that makes sense (see picture below). I was next to the runway, meaning that I was surrounded by three walls, allowing me to lean backwards as well as forwards. It was a roomier position than usual.

Anyway: Richard II. It began with the coronation of the child Richard II in a shower of gold confetti. He clutched a wooden toy horse that was to make a poignant reappearance later on in the play. The adult King emerged as the last flakes of confetti floated to the ground, dressed in the same cream outfit as his youthful counterpart. In a bigger size, of course.

Charles Edwards did a good job of portraying Richard's evolution from narcissistic, capricious, pampered monarch, complete with parasol and band of sycophantic followers, to a broken, imprisoned, (almost) friendless, deposed king. After Richard exiles his cousin, the hard-faced Henry Bolingbroke (David Sturzaker), for six years, and seizes his father's land, Bolingbroke takes advantage of Richard's ill-advised trip to Ireland, returning to England with an army. Things quickly go downhill for Richard from that point. His friends melt away and he ends up having to hand his crown over to Bolingbroke - literally.

I enjoyed the scenes where Richard is flanked by his tittering, fashionably-dressed, flattering courtiers. The four courtiers gave excellent performances in their transformations from complacent favourites to desperate, fearful people (dead people, in some cases).

One of my favourite scenes was the one in which Richard visits his dying uncle (Bolingbroke's father), John of Gaunt (played by William Gaunt!). Richard is unsympathetic towards his uncle and looks forward to taking his possessions after his death. Gaunt is witty on his deathbed and strikes unease into the heart of the King by describing him as a 'dying man' - Richard initially thinks Gaunt is talking about himself, but he isn't! It was good to see a vulnerable person verbally socking it to Richard.

The comic interludes featuring gardeners, real plants and the parents of former Richard II favourite Aumerle (Graham Butler) shuffling on their knees towards the new King were a welcome relief from the seriousness of the rest of the play.

My standing place looking out into audience

Music normally plays a big part at the Globe but there didn't seem to be much of it in this production. Brass instruments.

This play wasn't one I'd particularly want to see again. The production was great; it was the play itself...it didn't fully engage me. It didn't have the drama and tension of (for example) the Henry VI trilogy, the humour of Henry IV or the utterly compelling protagonist of Richard III. There wasn't even a big battle scene, like in Henry V. There were no ghosts. Or proto-feminism. Or dancing. Apart from one 5 second dance near the beginning. Someone dressed in quasi Arabian garb? Or was that the dream I had last night? I felt a bit sorry for Richard towards the end, but wasn't that bothered about what happened next. 

I also would've liked a proper jig at the end. There was music but no dancing, as far as I can remember. The final music sounded at first like the Laurel and Hardy theme music. Which is not a criticism!

Next: As You Like It

The Turn of the Screw - Upstairs at the Gatehouse

Upstairs at the Gatehouse theatre

I wasn't able to see The Hampstead Players' Richard II last week, unfortunately, due to unavoidable job-related circumstances. However, I made up for it by seeing the Tower Theatre Company's The Turn of the Screw twice! It was performed at Upstairs at the Gatehouse, which, like most places in Highgate, is apparently haunted. The intimate, hot, slightly oppressive space of Upstairs at the Gatehouse was the perfect setting for a summer ghost story and psychological drama.

Set at the turn of the century, The Turn of the Screw is the story of a young governess who obtains a post at the country estate of Bly, where she is to look after two orphaned children, Miles and Flora Havelock. Full of good intentions, she quickly grows unsettled when she learns more about the former inhabitants of the house, namely the governess, Miss Jessell, and valet, Peter Quint. Who are DEAD! But who may or may not remain as ghosts, with whom the children may or may not interact. 

The attention to detail in this production was extraordinary. If you have read any other reviews in this blog you will know what a sucker I am for lavish sets and minutiae; I was all over the sets and props here. The main set comprised a door, bookcase and large window with long curtains. A translucent white curtain was periodically drawn across the above for scenes taking place outside the house. Most of the ghosts' appearances took place behind the translucent curtain or the window. The lighting on the ghosts' faces was used to great effect, rendering Miss Jessell's face skull-like and Peter Quint's craggy and unhinged. Things that particularly impressed me included the following:

• The stagehands were all dressed in servants' garb of the period rather than the traditional stagehand clothing of anything black.
• The letter from Miles' headmaster had a school crest on it! Which I could see through the paper, as well as the word 'School' in copperplate print!
• The old-fashioned, completely authentic-looking schoolroom desks.
• When the Governess and the children came in from the rain, they were actually wet.
• The bookcase that folded down into a life-sized wooden bed.

Emily Carmichael was excellent as the nameless Governess, believably turning from a determined, idealistic, self-controlled young woman into an obsessive nervous wreck (still determined, though). It was an extremely intense part and she remained focussed and engaging right up until her final scream. Miles and Flora (Isaac and Eliza Insley) were also very well played. They looked perfect for their roles - Miles really did look angelic - and they had an endearing, realistic sibling rapport, which perhaps wasn't surprising given that they were siblings in real life. Miles was properly precocious and creepy but also sympathetic, and did the best pretend piano playing I have ever seen. Flora's character was more fleshed-out than in the 2009 BBC adaptation of The Turn of the Screw (my only previous exposure to TTotS). She had an interesting personality of her own rather than just serving as the more innocent adjunct of Miles. They both had quite a few funny lines.

My favourite scene was Miles and Flora's show, which they performed in front of the Governess and Mrs Grose (Alison Liney). It was sweet and amusing but had menacing undertones. My second favourite scene was that in which Peter Quint (Nicolas Holzapfel) unexpectedly appeared in the Governess' bed, eliciting gasps and squeals from the audience, after having behaved amorously with Miss Jessell (Nina Tolleret) outside the window.

The only slightly weak element of the play was the Governess' alleged attraction to the Master (i.e. her employer, the children's uncle), Mr Sackville (Martin South). Given how much older he was than her, it just didn't seem plausible to me that she would have fancied him - especially after only one meeting - even if she was naive and inexperienced.

The piano music between scenes suited the tense atmosphere perfectly.

Next: Richard II (Globe version)

King John - Globe Theatre

King John set

Black-hooded monks, incense, organ music, candles aplenty...what more could you want from a performance of Shakespeare's rarely performed play King John? Robin Hood, perhaps? He didn't feature but the character of The Bastard provided one with all the outspokenness, courage and rebelliousness (albeit not against King John) that one might desire.

It was good to be back at the Globe. Unlike usual, as soon as one entered the theatre - and, as a groundling who had queued for over 1.5 hours, I was one of the first to enter the theatre - there were people on stage - hooded monks - playing instruments and intoning religious chants. Combined with the incense, one immediately felt as though one was in medieval times in an ecclesiastical setting. I felt that the Globe went the extra mile for this production when it came to the music and props, perhaps in order to compensate for the fact that most people wouldn't be familiar with the play. The organ and Tibetan singing bowl in particular were used to excellent effect.

Most of the action took place in France, which I hadn't expected. King John (Jo Stone-Fewings), his mum, Eleanor of Aquitaine (Barbara Marten), and his recently-discovered illegitimate nephew, The Bastard (Alex Waldmann), set off for France with an army, because John feels threatened by his rather angelic young nephew, Arthur (Laurence Belcher), whose claim to the throne is strong. John allies himself with King Phillip of France (Simon Coates). John's niece, Blanche of Castile (Aruhan Galieva - who had a beautiful voice), marries Louis the Dauphin (Ciaran Owens) in a match that will strengthen John's claim to the throne. There follows a dramatic breaking of allegiances, an excommunication, a potential blinding with hot irons and a succession of deaths. There was a reasonable amount of sword fighting, which I enjoyed.

There weren't many female characters but the ones that there were were memorable. I often find myself pleasantly surprised by Shakespeare's parts for women. Eleanor of Aquitaine is portrayed as a formidable elderly woman, prepared to fight if need be. Blanche makes it clear that she's not happy with her marriage to Louis and that she can't automatically support his cause just because they're married. Constance (Tanya Moodie), Arthur's mother, is fiercely protective of her son and is determined to see him fulfil what she believes to be his destiny. None of them is reluctant to put forth their views in a forceful manner.

King John isn't portrayed as pure evil, as I'd expected. He certainly isn't a paragon of morality, but he is no worse than many of the shady, scheming monarch/courtier characters in Shakespeare's plays.

I loved the music, the costumes (wimples!) and the atmosphere, but wasn't overly keen on the plot. I've found other history plays, such as the Henry VI trilogy and Richard III much more exciting and tense. And...there was NO JIG. NO JIG at the end! Why not? Globe, if you can still find it in you to perform a jig after the carnage and destruction of Macbeth, why not after King John?? Songs are great, but don't make up for a jig.

Next: Richard II

Travesties - Bridewell Theatre

Me watching Travesties

'Travesties! When the feeling's gone and you can't go on, it's Travesties! When the morning cries and you don't know why...' The last Tom Stoppard play I saw was Arcadia, about fifteen years ago, which I didn't enjoy on the grounds of it being pretentious and difficult to follow. I was concerned I would have a similar reaction to Travesties when I read the blurb on its advertising leaflet: 'With all the pithy wit of Joyce and the literary virtuosity of Wilde, the political rigour of Dada and the absurdity of Lenin - Travesties is a whirlwind tour through politics, art and really great trousers. While the Great War rages across Europe, Zurich in 1917 is a battlefield of ideas and ideals. [...]' 

Anything that has the words 'Joyce', 'literary virtuosity', 'Dada' and 'battlefield of ideas and ideals' in its description has GOT to be pretentious, right?

Well, not necessarily, but this play certainly was.

I liked its basic concept: elderly man called Henry Carr (performed here by a Bruce Forsyth lookalike) reminisces about his younger days when he lived in Zurich, and the influential people he met. As he reminisces we see his reminiscences played out. However, his memories are faulty and sometimes confused, and there are times when the same basic memory is played out more than once but in slightly different ways. An interesting concept. The people with whom Carr interacts are James Joyce, Tristan Tzara (a founder of Dadaism) and Lenin. Carr played the part of Algernon in The Importance of Being Earnest while in Zurich and his memories are closely intertwined with this play.

The thing that annoyed me about Travesties - and Arcadia, too, as far as I remember - is that one's enjoyment of it depended almost entirely on whether one understood its myriad of social, political and literary references. In this case you had to have a reasonably intimate knowledge of The Importance of Being Earnest in order to understand half the script. Fortunately I happened to have seen TIoBE and listened to a radio adaptation of it recently [smug look] so I think I scraped a pass on that score. However, in order to wring the most enjoyment out of this play you would also have to have a good knowledge of Joyce, Ulysses, Dadaism, contemporary Russian politics...and probably a load of other things that I'm too goshdarned pig ignorant to even be aware of. Confession: I'd never heard of Tzara before seeing this play and it wasn't until the second half that I realised he was based on a real person, like Joyce and Lenin (yes, I had heard of them [wipes brow]).

There were some parts that I found amusing, such as Carr's love of clothes even while fighting in WW1, but didn't find anything laugh-out-loud funny.

My dislike of the play aside, Travesties was performed admirably by the Tower Theatre Company, a well-known amateur group. It wasn't an easy play to perform, requiring a good sense of rhythm, especially in the poetry scenes. Now I have a better knowledge of some of the characters I'm impressed by how well the actors copied their appearances. The costumes were great, hairstyles impressive. The set was excellent. It was good to see consecutive sets containing divans!

Next: I don't know. Nothing by Tom Stoppard, though. For another fifteen years.

Candida - Upstairs at the Gatehouse

Candida book cover

I'm afraid I didn't see Eigengrau because I felt miserable that day and didn't feel like it. However, I've been reliably assured that it was amazing and I missed out.

This was my first visit to Upstairs at the Gatehouse. It's a theatre located on the upper floors of the Gatehouse pub; hence its moniker. It turned out to be a bigger space than I'd anticipated. With free seating (as opposed to designated seating) I was able to bag a seat in the front row.

The set was wonderful. I think it's vital for plays by the likes of George Bernard Shaw and Noel Coward to have properly detailed sets in order to convey the period atmosphere and give one something to look at during the long dialogues when one's mind inevitably wanders. This set was one of the most detailed I've ever seen. The play is set in the 1890s in the drawing room of a middle class home. Fireplace? Check. With GLOWING LOGS, even though they wouldn't have been visible to most audience members. Black and white photograph of a relative on the wall? Check. Divan? Check. Bookcase? Check. Low chair near fireplace? Check. Replica newspaper? Check. Oil lamp type thing? Check. Houseplant that I don't know the name of, but which looked authentic? (Bamboo?) Check.

The Reverend James Morell (Harry Meacher) has candida is married to Candida. A charismatic Christian Socialist preacher, he believes that their relationship is solid and happy and that she depends upon him for love and protection. Candida (Judi Bowker) returns from a lengthy sojourn away from home with a young aristocratic poet, Eugene Marchbanks (Sebastian Cornelius), who, it transpires, has fallen in love with her and wants to get together with her. When he learns of Marchbanks' feelings Morell is initially dismissive but when he speaks to Candida about them he is shaken to discover that she does not feel as he thought she would about not only Marchbanks, but his preaching career and him in general. The play culminates in a 'who will she choose?' scene, with surprising consequences.

Candida is refreshingly feminist in the way it acknowledges that, in many cases, the success of men should at least partly be attributed to the unseen work of the women in their lives (e.g. emotional bolstering work, undertaking a greater share of the housework and childcare etc.). Maybe this was undermined slightly by the incredibly unsubtle patronising nature of Candida - she speaks to her husband and Marchbanks as though they were about two, referring to them as 'big babies' and 'boys', and doles out some pretty harsh passive aggressive criticism - which makes one wonder why either of them is so desperate for her love and approval. But that was also refreshing in its way. It's like the opposite of the end of A Doll's House; in this case the woman chooses to remain with her husband and he accepts that he's a much weaker person than he had always thought and recognises and acknowledges how much he has always relied on her.

The actors playing Morell and Candida were older than I imagine GBS had envisaged (Candida looked about the same age as the man playing her father), but I didn't think it mattered, as everyone played their parts plausibly and well.

I liked the character of Eugene a lot. He was the kind of person I imagined my adult self falling in love with when I was about 13: poetic, profound, passionate, attractive, romantic and melancholic, with an 1890s bohemian dress sense. Nowadays I think I'd find him a little irritating.

Next: Travesties

Sunny Afternoon - Harold Pinter Theatre

'Sunny Afternoon'

Sunny Afternoon is a 'jukebox musical' depicting the formation and fortunes of 60s/70s British band The Kinks. I've been a fan of The Kinks ever since hearing 'You Really Got Me' and the one that sounds almost identical to 'You Really Got Me', 'All Day and All of the Night', on a Sixties tape in the car as a child. 'Death of a Clown' and the titular 'Sunny Afternoon' were, I believe on different tapes; the latter was also one of my favourite songs. This being the case, I had high expectations for the musical.

It was strange seeing John Dagleish as frontman of the band Ray Davies, having only seen him before as the winsome, accordion-playing Alf Arless in Larkrise to Candleford. But he was really good, both in musical terms and in conveying the complexity of the character (i.e. haunted by his older sister's death, a musical genius, a perfectionist struggling with depression etc.). I couldn't help feeling endeared to all the 'boys', despite some of their more obnoxious antics.

One of my favourite scenes was that showing the 1965 gig in Cardiff that ended in a fight between Dave and Mick. Pete, the bass guitar player, tries to carry on performing after the other two have been taken off/run away respectively, playing the guitar and the drums at the same time. The script was genuinely funny; there were some laugh out loud moments. I particularly enjoyed the communist/socialist scene set in America.

The relative intimacy of the theatre meant that it was easy to get absorbed in the show. The runway running from the centre of the stage through the audience was mainly occupied by enthusiastic female dancers in classic 60s outfits. All the major Kinks songs were played. 'Tired of Waiting' wasn't played in its entirety, which I felt slightly disappointed about because it's one of my favourites, but it was alluded to in another song. The music fitted in well with the action; it didn't feel as though it had been crowbarred in. Lillie Flynn, who played Rasa, Ray's wife, had a really beautiful voice.

Given Ray Davies' involvement in Sunny Afternoon (he's credited under 'Original Story'), I wonder whether it portrays him in an unrealistically positive light. From what I've read, Ray's relationship with Dave was always volatile, while in the musical the animosity between Dave and Mick is highlighted and Ray is presented mostly as a concerned older brother in relation to Dave. Ray's relationship with Rasa is also probably idealized, to some extent, given that they ended up divorcing. However, I don't think it matters how much is true and how much is seen through rose-tinted spectacles if the story's good and the characters are interesting - provided there are no serious objections from the people it's portraying.

In conclusion it was funny, feel-good and absorbing, and I would recommend it. It had more 'soul', somehow, than Jersey Boys. Be prepared to be encouraged to dance at the end.

Next: Eigengrau

London Theatre Bloggers event

Last Friday I attended an event for London theatre bloggers (#LDNTheatreBloggers) organised by the vivacious Rebecca Felgate of Official Theatre, after having been kindly invited by Michaela of my stage is the world.

The event took place upstairs at Planet Hollywood and was co-hosted by Seat Plan, the 'definitive seating guide to London theatres'. 

Being my introverted, teetotal, slightly-deaf-in-a-noisy-room self, I was somewhat nervous about the prospect of spending several hours in a noisy room with a group of (probably mostly extroverted) strangers. However, I enjoyed myself. It was really good to be able to talk about theatre shows with people who had seen the same show (even on the same day, in some cases!). The food - sausages on sticks, mini hamburgers, potato wedges, pizza - was lovely. I particularly enjoyed talking to Laura of Loitering in the Theatre, whom, it turned out, shares my alma mater.