Monthly Archives: September 2015

Review – Mack and Mabel, Chichester Festival Theatre, 29th August 2015

Posted on by

Just as one swallow does not a summer make, one show is insufficient for a proper Chichester weekend. So after a perilously short afternoon nap we braved the Sussex rain and made our way back to the Festival theatre for our evening’s entertainment, Jonathan Church’s production of Jerry Herman’s 1974 musical, Mack and Mabel. I’ve always been interested in the history of musical theatre but for some reason this is a show that’s always passed me by. I remember the overture being used by Torvill and Dean to great effect, but that’s about all.

But then it didn’t set the Broadway world alight when it first hit the stage. It may have been nominated for eight Tony awards, but it didn’t win any of them; and its original run lasted a mere 66 performances. Odd, considering it had something of a dream team with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman and choreography by Gower Champion (repeating their joint success of Hello Dolly, ten years earlier). But sometimes great ingredients don’t necessarily make great shows, and even if they do, sometimes, somehow, they just don’t click.

To fill you in (and if you don’t want to know what happens, you probably should skip this paragraph): it’s the story of the partnership of Mack Sennett (he of the Keystone Kops) and Mabel Normand, one time waitress, swept into stardom by Sennett as she appeared in many of his very popular two-reelers. They have a romance, even though he’s not the romantic type; but when Sennett refuses to make the film of Molly, in which writer Frank has written her a role of (we suppose) depth and class, she gets ideas above her station and leaves Sennett’s slapstick, pie-flinging studio and takes up with William Desmond Taylor’s more serious and respectful manner of film-making (and, indeed, romancing). As Sennett’s popularity declines (there are only so many Keystone Kops and Bathing Beauties that a nation can take), he entices Mabel back to make the film of Molly but he still can’t resist jazzing it up and turning it into a comedy, so she walks out on him again. Talkies come, and Sennett finally sees the light – not with spoken drama but with music – and he makes one more play for Mabel, but she’s now a drug addict (we saw Taylor giving her cocaine) and she dies before he has the chance properly to make amends, let alone another movie with her.

So despite Jerry Herman’s outrageously tippety-tap-happy show tunes, there’s a fair bit of sadness in the story, which makes for an interesting mix. In fact the ending was re-written for the 1995 London production, with Mack and Mabel happily reunited in each other’s arms at the final curtain, and I believe that is now the “default setting” for other revivals; although this Chichester production returns to the more sombre original. Whether that gives the story a little more “bite”, or whether you feel the happy/sad combination is a little awkward, is very much a personal thing. Personally, I quite like the bite. Perhaps what is more controversial about the show is how it very much misrepresents what actually happened in reality. This is definitely a fictionalised account of Sennett and Normand; for example, it suggests to you that the Keystone Kops were brought in to boost flagging ratings (not so, they were right at the forefront of Sennett’s early output) and that the Bathing Beauties were an alternative to Mabel once she had left the studio (again not so, she performed alongside them in their earlier films). There is no mention made of Mabel’s directing and producing career, nor of her marriage to actor Lew Cody. The show would have you believe that she left Sennett’s studios to work with William Desmond Taylor, but in fact it was Sam Goldwyn that she first worked for after leaving Sennett; any dalliance with Taylor came later. The show also implies that it was Taylor who introduced Mabel to the cocaine habit, whereas in fact she was already an addict and had approached Taylor to try to wean her off it. So don’t take the story of Mack and Mabel the musical as Gospel – just think of it as a collection of characters jumbled together in some sort of serving suggestion.

The last time we saw a musical at Chichester (also with Lord Liverpool and the Countess of Cockfosters) it was the extraordinary Gypsy with the even more extraordinary Imelda Staunton, which has gone on to do great things in the West End. So it was almost inevitable that the four of us would compare Gypsy with Mack and Mabel to see who would come out on top. For me, it’s no question that it’s the former; and that’s nothing to do with the standard of this production of Mack and Mabel, which is superb. It all comes down to the characters. Rose in Gypsy is really complex, giving Ms Staunton a gift of an opportunity to flesh out the character with humour, horror, kindness, dementia and everything in between. By contrast, Jerry Herman’s Mack is one-dimensional. He makes films. He falls in love with Mabel but it’s all on his terms, she doesn’t change him. He is addicted to slapstick. There’s not much more you can say about him. Even comparing with Hello Dolly, Sennett is still a very simple creation, whereas Dolly Levi schemes, manipulates, cajoles, supports and is all things to all men. In Gypsy, both Rose and Louise go on an incredible journey. In Hello Dolly, Dolly starts with an ambition, achieves it, and (I believe) genuinely falls in love. However, in Mack and Mabel, Sennett ends where he started; a retrospective of his career and his relationship, but with no sense of progress. Mabel, for sure, does go on a journey, but ends up in a dark place; but that’s almost irrelevant as the structure of this musical (despite its title) means this is definitely The Mack Sennett Show, and that other characters are relatively incidental. In many ways it’s an unbalanced and under-written show (not in the actuarial sense) and to make a success out of it, you have to heap it with stunning performances and top quality production values.

And that’s precisely what they do. From the moment the 15-man orchestra (not being sexist, they are all men) strikes up that glorious overture, your “good-time” endorphins kick in and you just know you’re in for a musical treat. I wasn’t familiar with the songs before the show, but some of them are pure Herman showstopping heaven. Look What Happened to Mabel, When Mabel Comes in the Room, Big Time, and many others all have you itching to get up on stage and hoof along with the rest of them to Stephen Mear’s stunningly entertaining choreography. Robert Jones’ design is a source of constant surprise and delight, as the film studio becomes the observation deck of a train, a pier with a ship in dock, and various abstract celluloid fantasy set-ups. The large acting space that the Festival Theatre provides is perfect for huge set piece moments, with two outstanding scenes; one, where the Keystone Kops run riot – Toby Park and Aitor Basauri from Spymonkey are credited with “physical comedy” and they have their autograph all over this scene; and another, where the company perform the taptastic Tap Your Troubles Away with superb skill and showmanship. I must confess, I’m not a huge tap fan – 42nd Street put me off it for life really – but that scene really was the bees’ knees.

And it’s all brought to life by a tremendous cast. At the heart of it is Michael Ball as Mack, who I don’t think could be anything other than magnificent if he tried. Such a huge stage presence, you can almost feel his delight as the show progresses, as if the cast are his one big family that he is proudly showing off to us. Excellent comic timing, and still with a voice that is just made for this kind of show – simply superb. His Mabel is relatively unknown to us in the UK – Rebecca LaChance, and she’s amazing. She has a wonderful expressive voice, loads of pizazz and is pretty cute too. I really liked how she adapted to Mabel’s various stages of life, like the wide-eyed innocent, the sophisticated actress, the drugged-up victim, with (seemingly) effortless ease. I predict great things!

A bonus to any cast is the effervescent presence of Anna-Jane Casey, brilliant in both Forbidden Broadway and Sheffield’s Company a few years ago. She plays Lottie, a silent character actress in the Sennett squad who comes into her own when the talkies start – her performance fronting Tap Your Troubles Away is sensational, but she always brightens up the stage whenever she’s on. There’s a very nicely controlled comic performance by Jack Edwards as Fatty Arbuckle, another of the Sennett studio actors for whom life would turn sour; and also great contributions by Ashley Andrews (memorable in Drunk), and Rebecca Louis, as the production’s Dance Captains – the ensemble’s overall superb standard of dance is a testament to their ability to keep them on their toes. But the whole cast do a terrific job.

So all in all it’s a really enjoyable production, with some stand-out performances and stunning routines. Once it’s finished in Chichester it’s embarking on a national tour until December and I strongly recommend you catch it at either Plymouth, Manchester, Dublin, Edinburgh, Nottingham or Cardiff!

Review – For Services Rendered, Minerva Theatre, Chichester, 29th August 2015

Posted on by

First Chichester weekend of the year, and a joint visit with our friends Lord Liverpool and the Countess of Cockfosters. The last time we saw them was for a show in Edinburgh, and it poured with rain. This time, in Chichester, it poured with rain again. We’re seeing them next weekend in Stratford. I don’t have much in the way of climactic expectations!

After a really superb lunch in the Minerva Brasserie (why would you go anywhere else pre-theatre in Chichester?) we took our seats in the Minerva Theatre for For Services Rendered. Described as a rarely performed play nowadays, I did get to see it at the National in 1979 – on September 14th, in fact, in seat G14 in the Stalls, priced £5.95. I remember it being a stunning production, featuring such stalwarts of the stage as Jean Anderson, Alison Fiske, Peter Jeffrey, Harold Innocent, Barbara Ferris and Phyllida Law. Of course the original production starred Flora Robson and Ralph Richardson – I bet that had the wow factor. But there’s no doubt that this new production at Chichester is, I’m sure, as fine as any in the past. Superb attention to period detail, a deep, beautiful, atmospheric set, and cut-glass acting as good as you’ll get anywhere.

Written in 1932, this was Somerset Maugham’s last-but-one play, an examination of the fallout of World War One within a well-to-do English family. Fourteen years on, the Ardsleys are still just about surviving, with the oldest son and heir blinded in the war, and therefore unable to carry on the family business; one daughter having lost the man she’d hoped to marry; another having married outside her class (disgraceful) to a tenant farmer; and the third unmarried at 27 with no hope of finding a suitable gentleman in the backwater in which they live.In addition, there is the hard-up ex-officer Collie Stratton, who opened a motor repair business that has fallen on its face, and a married couple with no apparent love for each other, but with the husband eager to seduce the Ardsleys’ youngest daughter. All that, and the doctor brother of the lady of the house has concerns about her health… Maugham weaves these threads together culminating in various degrees of tragedy, although there is one glimmer of happiness for a couple of the characters somewhere there – but on reflection, it’s unlikely to end well.

Whilst this may be a play from several eras ago, and you may feel that the drawing-room, middle class setting is anachronistic in the post- Look Back in Anger age, there is much to admire and appreciate about this play. Staging it today shows how the general emancipation of women has come a long way; back in 1932 it just wasn’t done for women to make their own decisions about – well, anything really. Marrying outside of one’s class is shown to be a foolish venture, inevitably ending in disappointment; that is perhaps the one element in which this play has a dated feel. Apart from that, much that was relevant then is relevant today.Coping with social shame and scandal can still result in suicide. Lives and relationships can still be ruined in the aftermath of war. As a nation, we still don’t look after our war veterans as we should; many of them still rely on drink or drugs as a prop on which some of them just about get by. Recessions and depressions affect our livelihoods and incomes; but there will always be those who have inordinately inappropriate sums of money at their fingertips, to keep for their own pleasure and fun without a thought for the wider community. If For Services Rendered had been written by Noel Coward, we might have expected a wittier touch or maybe a happier ending; but Maugham liked his gloom, and, despite a few ironically humorous scenes, the tone and vision remain bleak throughout – but appropriately so.

Howard Davies’ classy production thrills you from the moment you enter the auditorium and are greeted by William Dudley’s elegant, tasteful set; in fact it was all I could do to deter Lord Liverpool from jumping on stage, lolling on one of the dining chairs, feet up on the table, feigning 1930s ennui with a tennis racquet in one hand and The Times in the other. The whole production oozes dignified restraint, from the rarely played wireless in the corner to the well-worn but once hideously expensive eastern carpets. Only the pantomime-like clap of thunder that heralds in the second act strikes an over the top note; I half-expected Mr Ardsley to burst out of a stylised bottle, bestowing three surprise wishes upon the impoverished Collie.

Stella Gonet’s Mrs Ardsley is a strong matriarch, who knows precisely how to behave decently and will never stoop to depths unbecoming of a lady. Her altercation (such as it is) with youngest daughter Lois is a fine exercise in strict discretion, packing her off to spend months with a miserable aunt before she even has a chance to fiddle with her pearls. It’s a beautiful performance, blending practicality with decorum, and when her character has her own tragedy to contend with, she gives us a classic stiff-upper-lip experience that you can only admireand hope you’d be like that in the same circumstances. As her husband, Simon Chandler is a little nugget of Victorian conservatism, decent but unbending, intelligent but without empathy; a walking, talking, emotional void who follows rules to the nth degree. Much of the ironic humour comes from his total inability to see the wood for the trees.

Anthony Calf is excellent as always as the abysmal Wilfred Cedar, exuding friendship and bonhomie when it suits him, retreating into hostile selfishness when challenged. He very credibly gives the impression of someone falling in love with love, and there’s a huge element of the pathetic about his approaches to young Lois. Matilda Ziegler’s Gwen is a brilliant creation of a woman under pressure to keep her man, mixing sarcasm and ridicule with sheer venom. I also loved her opening scene where every comment she made could be taken as an insult – it was immaculately performed. There’s also a brilliant performance by Justine Mitchell as Eva, who’s sacrificed her own emotions to do the decent thing by blinded brother Sydney, but who just can’t take any more of that wretched chess.Her scene with Joseph Kloska, as the persistently irritated and irritating Sydney, where he’s criticising her on her chess moves, is electric. But it is Ms Mitchell’s semi-coquettish approaches to Nick Fletcher’s Collie, sending as strong a signal as is decently possible to suggest that, like Barkis, she is willing, that constitutes the stand-out performance of this play. She positively hurts with pointless optimism, as she tries to lend him money or suggest they would make a good couple together; but Eva is the character to whom Somerset Maugham most wants to deny happiness, and her increasing mental instability is movingly and convincingly played.

Jo Herbert is excellent as the put-upon but stoic Ethel, Sam Callis also very good as the rough and ready farmer Howard with potentially straying hands. Yolanda Kettle is very convincing as the frustrated, teasing and not entirely demure Lois, and David Annen turns in a very nice performance as the doctor/brother, incapable of persuading his patient to do the right thing, and, when it comes to the crunch, resigned to (as he sees it) failure.

A rewarding, thoughtful, and thoroughly traditional revival which kept everyone on the edge of their seats and really satisfied its audience. We all came out heaping praise on the performers and the production. If you’re not au fait with between-the-wars British drama this is a perfect opportunity to see how stiff those upper lips could be. Highly recommended.