Review – Othello, Frantic Assembly, Oxford Playhouse, 21st October 2014

Posted on October 24, 2014 by therealchrisparkle

One of the great things about Shakespeare is that you can play him dead straight, at the time in which the play was written, all Elizabethan costume, jesters and madrigals, and it works just fine. Or you can jazz him up and modernise him, setting the play in any era, under any governmental regime, anywhere in the world, and as like as not it will adapt to its new surroundings – to some extent. I wasn’t overly keen on the 1970s setting of the recent Richard III – a bit cynical, I thought; but I loved the anarchic rock concert of Filter Theatre’s Twelfth Night, the East London Comedy of Errors at the National a couple of years ago, and all those anachronistic garden capers at the Oxford Shakespeare Company are a joy.

Frantic Assembly’s Othello takes place in a pub; a world where power struggles and sex take place on the pool table, where private arguments are carried out in the Ladies’ toilet, where chalking the end of your man’s cue is foreplay, where Venetian sea skirmishes happen in the car park, where broken bottles of Stella and baseball bats replace Shakespeare’s knives and “bright swords”. It’s an environment where hail fellow well met can turn in an instant to You’re going home in a St John’s Ambulance. It’s a place where courtship rituals can be at their most provocative, with the inevitable rivalries, jealousies, passions and secrets that follow; everything from love to hate and all that’s in between. In other words, a perfect place to set Othello.

Nine performers play ten roles in this neatly compressed and creatively scissored adaptation by Scott Graham and Steven Hoggett. There’s no Duke, no Gratiano, no Clown; no sundry gentlemen, messengers, sailors, senators or other attendants; cutting away some extraneous characters creates an additional sense of urgency and focus as Iago sets about manipulating all the pub regulars in rapid crescendo, like some godlike puppeteer. It’s really not for purists; speeches are swapped around and given to other characters, completely out of context – I can’t help but think that if you were seeing this production to help you with English Literature A level, it could confuse you more than assist. But that’s really not the point of it. The point is to make a dynamic, punchy, vivid drama in a recognisable setting, whilst retaining the original’s linguistic style and main themes – which, as always with Shakespeare, never go out of fashion and always remain relevant.

You enter the auditorium to the loud jangling sound of technothrob (although there’s no jukebox, there’s maybe a rave going on somewhere) which really sets the mood of sweaty youth going for it hammer and tongs; in fact, throughout the whole play the invasive music by Hybrid becomes a useful tool in speeding the story along to its inexorable conclusion. The set and design are excellent, portraying a seedy pub that hasn’t had money spent on it for years. Old, cheap furnishing, grimy wallpaper – we’ve all been in that kind of watering hole. The pool table is the centre of the action, the place where the pecking order is settled, the natural magnet for all the testosterone bubbling under the surface. The fruit machine becomes a hideaway for onlookers and eavesdroppers, its flashing lights creating a hollow sense of excitement in this drab venue. If this is where you go for a good time – then you need to up your game a little.

This modern setting is obviously going to attract more younger people to the theatre – and I’m all for that. However, I did have a slight panic when I saw quite how many under 18s there were at the performance we attended last Tuesday night. In a play that poses many questions about prejudice, I guess it highlighted one of mine – a fear that too many youngsters in a theatre leads to giggling, chatting, fidgeting, texting and over-whooping. Well, in the modern vernacular, My Bad. Yes there was a whoop when it started. After that – silence, attention, mesmerisation; that unmistakable body language of people sitting as far forward in their seats as possible in an attempt to get closer to the action; proportionate reactions of laughter and horror to what’s happening on stage. Whatever it is they’re doing in this production, they’re doing it right. The sold-out audience was totally rapt.

I was expecting a modern telling of the story; what I wasn’t expecting was such excellent physical theatre. The incorporation of balletic movement and mime into some set pieces worked astoundingly well. It begins with a lengthy but compelling scene where the characters confront their passions, hopes and fears around the pool table, jostling for prominence, ridiculing the weak, exercising laddish behaviour to the full – all done to riveting dance and movement direction by Eddie Kay. Naturally it distances the performance from reality to a certain extent – you don’t normally get pool players doing a pas de deux – but it’s no more unreal than spending the next 100 minutes talking in iambic pentameters. There’s another scene that depicts Cassio getting drunk, acted out in a similar way. It’s a few minutes of utterly stunning physical theatre, performed by the cast with strength, precision and humour. A fantastic mix of styles that really stands out.

Any decent production of Othello has got to have a strong powerful Iago. Steven Miller is perfect. He’s superbly manipulative, wheedling, conniving, and ruthless and you believe in him 100%. When he’s dropping all the hints to Othello about Desdemona’s alleged infidelity, that are purely designed for Othello to latch his suspicions on to, even I started believing him, and I’ve seen the play before. Considering that, depending on your interpretation, this play has at least some element of racism in it, Mr Miller even has the palest of complexions to make the greatest contrast with Othello. Iago has to adopt different tones with so many of the different characters, and Mr Miller gets that variation of tone brilliantly. Mark Ebulue’s Othello stands slightly apart from the rest of the group – as he should – more statesmanlike in the gang, more thoughtful in his responses, and, naturally, with more of his attention on Desdemona than on the lads. His decline into jealousy and barbaric revenge is very neatly done, reacting automatically to almost every titbit thrown out by Iago. Not sure it ever quite reaches tragic hero status, but you probably don’t often get one of those in a public bar anyway.

Kirsty Oswald plays Desdemona with a superb balance between what my mother would have called a “good-time girl” who hangs around blokes in bars but also speaks with gentle and innocent eloquence with her beloved Othello. The balance is very well depicted when she is driven to anger by Othello’s blundering stupidity – no demure sweet girl this, but one who is well able to stand up for herself against the leader of the pack – despite her distress at his falling out of love with her. It’s a very well judged performance. I also very much liked Ryan Fletcher as Cassio, quick to ire, even quicker to overdo the shots, full of bluster and easily fooled; and a chavtastic portrayal of Roderigo by Richard James-Neale, with quirky vocal mannerisms and ineffectual bombast – extremely effective.

I’m not a fan of violence and there’s quite a lot of it in this production. Even when masked by strong dance and movement, there’s no hiding from the gruesomeness of the bloodletting and the old-fashioned kickings meted out. The car park three-way assault by and on Roderigo, Cassio and Iago looks horribly realistic and brutal. Whilst I appreciate that this is the way of life in some places, and that it wasn’t out of place in this production, I still felt that it glorified violence, and I’m uncomfortable with that. I must say though that the final scene, laden with violence as it is, created a stunning visual tableau at the end. The fact that Iago and Emilia are married was only obscurely referenced – I’d actually forgotten about that relationship and it wasn’t until the very end that it was made clear – I had thought she was rather gung-ho in her not caring much about Iago’s taking the handkerchief – that explained it. And another pet hate – no interval! With 110 minutes or so of intense drama, I was shifting buttocks about three quarters of the way in, and I really could have done with a fifteen minute break. There were plenty of points around the Act Three mark where a pause would have created a dramatic cliffhanger, ready for the action to continue once we’d had a short rest. The drive to have no interval is like a false machismo: “My production is so hard that you can’t let the intensity drop”. To all those directors and producers who think this – you’re wrong.

So with a few minor cavils I’d say this is a really exciting and punchy evening at the theatre that brings an old classic right up to date and exposes its bitter and harsh truths in an unexpectedly suitable new way. The tour continues to Leicester, Doncaster, Birmingham, Salford and the Lyric Hammersmith. If you like your Shakespeare in your face – and you’re not a purist – this is definitely for you!

P.S. If you want to know more about the production and how it grew into what it is today there is an excellent resource at Frantic Assembly’s website.

Review – She Stoops To Conquer, Northern Broadsides, Oxford Playhouse, 23rd September 2014

Posted on September 25, 2014 by therealchrisparkle

I’d heard good things about Northern Broadsides, and it’s been decades since I’ve seen a production of She Stoops to Conquer, so I thought we’d give this one a go. This perennial favourite by Oliver Goldsmith was first performed in 1773, so how do you describe it? It’s too late for Restoration Comedy, so maybe it’s more a Comedy of Manners, and has always enjoyed regular stage revivals and ben studied by diligent English and Drama students for donkeys’ years.

Given it’s been around for almost 250 years, I hope I won’t spoil it for you by outlining the plot. Mr Hardcastle wants his daughter Kate to marry wealthy young gent Charles Marlow, and she’s not at all averse to the idea, but the trouble is Marlow has a psychological hang-up and goes all nervous and timid in front of well to do young ladies (like what Kate is); although with common lasses he’s quite the opposite. At the same time Mrs Hardcastle wants her son Tony Lumpkin (from a previous marriage) to marry her niece Constance, simply so that the family jewels can be kept within… well, the family; sounds a bit incestuous to me. However, Tony and Constance hate each other. Tony would prefer snapping at the heels of an alehouse wench and Constance has her eye on Marlow’s friend Hastings. After much shenanigans involving Marlow and Hastings believing Hardcastle to be an innkeeper and a plot to steal Constance’s jewels from Mrs Hardcastle, both Kate and Constance pair off with their respective chaps leaving Tony free to continue with his dissolute lifestyle much to his mother’s annoyance.

It’s an entertaining play that makes some interesting observations on class structure and is still just as relevant today as it was back in the late 18th century; and this production is enjoyably acted and straightforwardly presented, without any gimmicks to get in the way of the text. However, there were a couple of aspects of it that didn’t quite sit properly with me.

First – the staging. It’s nearly all set inside the Hardcastles’ country seat apart from a scene at the Three Pigeons alehouse and a scene in the Hardcastles’ garden. As a result, chairs and tables from the country house compete with illustrations of trees and bushes on the back wall and the pub sign and counter throughout the whole performance, creating a very messy stage. These suggestions of different locations don’t dovetail nicely and complement each other, they get in the way of each other. Whilst there’s still plenty of acting space available, I found the set jarring and it irritated me.

Secondly – the interpretation of the character of Tony Lumpkin. Nothing against Jon Trenchard, who gives us a very lively, physical performance full of stamina and enthusiasm, but it’s just not how the character is usually played, or how I would imagine him to be. To be fair, Goldsmith doesn’t actually stipulate in the text what kind of mannerisms Lumpkin possesses, although Hardcastle describes him as “fat”; but his name suggests a cross between a useless lump and a country bumpkin, lacking in the niceties of refined behaviour that might otherwise have attracted him to Constance. However, this Tony Lumpkin is foppish. He preens and he poses, he giggles girlishly, he dances around the stage. It’s a very, very different reading of the role from the norm, where you would almost expect Lumpkin to be chewing an ear of wheat – and as everything else in this production is pretty standard and safe, it just feels misplaced.

Nevertheless there are some very entertaining performances. Howard Chadwick’s Hardcastle is full of robust bluster, nicely sarcastic with his wife, but with genuine love for his daughter and slow to ire when Marlow and Hastings treat him like dirt. Oliver Gomm, a brilliant Lysander in the Royal and Derngate’s Midsummer Night’s Dream last year, gives a very good comic performance as the either too terrified or too vagabondish young Marlow, shuddering like a genuine nervous wreck as he tries to speak to Kate. Gilly Tompkins is a delightfully strident and painted Mrs Hardcastle, and there’s a splendidly understated comic performance by Alan McMahon as, inter alia, Pimple the Maid. But for me the two stand out performances were from Hannah Edwards as Kate and Lauryn Redding as Constance. Hilarious before they even open their mouths with their ridiculous coiffures and massively tall hats, they both take their roles seriously and play them straight without ever going over-the-top, giving a slightly hard-edged reality to the story, and allowing the humour to flow naturally.

It’s a good production – and particular congratulations to the wardrobe department for the brilliant costumes – but, overall, it never really wowed me. I quite liked the fact that they hadn’t tried to tamper with it by setting it in a different era or location, but nevertheless I never really warmed to it. Perhaps I just wasn’t in the mood for an 18th century comedy of manners. One isn’t always; but plenty of other people laughed their heads off. The tour goes on until December and visits Harrogate, Cheltenham, Winchester, Scarborough, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Liverpool, York, Huddersfield and Salford.

Review – Twelfth Night, English Repertory Theatre at Oxford Castle, 30th July 2014

Posted on July 31, 2014 by therealchrisparkle

Mrs Chrisparkle and I were delighted to receive an invitation to attend the Press Night for the new production of Twelfth Night at the Oxford Castle, performed by the English Repertory Theatre company. When I were a mere lad scraping a degree at the nearby university, Oxford Castle was decrepit. A no-go zone, all locked up, probably the home to nefarious footpads and vagabonds – or so we fantasised at the time. A few years ago we dropped by and saw how it had been glammed up, all bars and restaurants and beautiful people. But somehow we never think to go there if we want a meal in Oxford. Probably because it was off my radar as a student, as a location it’s yet to re-establish itself in my heart.

But it really is a welcoming complex, full of happy people, eating and drinking in the warm summer sunshine of an early evening, with interesting attractions (Oxford Castle Unlocked looks fun) and, of course, the promise of open air Shakespeare. Evening performances of Twelfth Night take place in the Castle Yard, a courtyard with views towards the castle mound, and the action takes place on stone steps leading up, pyramid-like, to a small stage area at the top. It also includes the gated access to the mound, which has a useful path running along the side edge of the top stage area, and (presumably at the back, out of the audience’s view) a path that leads up to the top of the mound. At the foot of the pyramid is what can only be described as a long, narrow, oblong paddling pool, about a yard away from the front row seats. There’s an awful lot of water in this production – and the warning is that if you sit in the front row you possibly/probably will get wet. Not really fancying two and a half hours of shivering in slowly drying clothes, I suggested seats three or four rows back for Mrs C and me. “Nonsense”, she replied, “I don’t mind getting a little bit wet!” We’d been advised that there’s less chance of splashing the further right you sit, so we took the two front row seats that were furthest to the right of the stage. We didn’t get wet. However, we did get blinded by the lights that illuminate the paddling pool in the second act. I have to say, depending where the action was, that made it very difficult to look at the stage area at times. Can we suggest the lights are tilted down and away a little? Otherwise it provides a distancing effect of which Brecht would have been proud.

The occasional use of the castle mound as an acting area was very nicely done, with the audience having distant views of Orsino and Cesario larking around at the top, and also an exasperated Malvolio looking down (in more than one way) on the infantile proceedings below. Unfortunately there is clearly public access to the top of the mound from the other side, and a couple of times there were people at the top looking down at us with curiosity, including some (presumably inebriated) youths who bellowed out “oooh look it’s a PLAY” which rather shattered the Illyrian illusion. It’s also a shame that, in order to get into their starting positions at the beginning of the play and after the interval that you have to watch the cast filing out of their dressing rooms. Those not first appearing on the top area then have to walk across the stage, jump over a little wall (more of which later) and hide behind a garish beach windbreak thing so that they may enter Stage Left. As you’ve already seen them crossing in front of you, any amusement factor in their appearance (costume, props etc) is therefore lessened when they actually come on stage.

The play starts with quite a coup de theatre, going straight into Act One Scene Two (sharp intakes of breath from Shakespeare purists), with a very graphic depiction of Viola and Sebastian’s shipwrecking, using the paddling pool to full effect (and thus getting some members of the audience pretty wet from the word go). Sebastian and Antonio are virtually immersed in the ocean waves, and then spend the next twenty odd minutes by the side of the stage attempting to recover from their ordeal, whilst towels, apples and TLC are administered. It provides a very physical portrayal of near drowning. Meanwhile, Viola learns about Orsino from the priest(ess), who actually stands in for a number of the minor characters who have been cut from this version. It’s only then that Orsino gets to talk about music being the food of love. You could argue that switching the order of these two opening scenes gives Viola an added prominence; however I suspect the main reason is that they were extremely proud of their paddling pool idea and wanted it to have the biggest impact.

I was somewhat confused by the production’s overall vision of the play; its time setting for instance. The music playing whilst we wait for curtain up is all sea shanties from (I guess) the 19th century, although the cue for it to start is the piece of music everyone will recognise as the theme to Captain Pugwash. So you’re really in a nautical mood. But this isn’t The Tempest and actually the shipwreck is only a device to separate the twins so that Shakespeare can pen some Plautine mistaken identity material. And then, location; after that first scene, you could really be anywhere. Union Jacks abound, so I presume this Illyria is in the UK. When Feste sings, he has a penchant for Sinatra and Gershwin. When Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Feste observe Malvolio being duped by Maria’s letter, they’re dressed as Mexican gardeners – migrant workers I presume. I’m sure it’s a deliberate mish-mash of times and places, but I wonder if more of a unified theme running through it might have made the storyline a little clearer. I’m very familiar with the play but I still got lost occasionally with the plot.

A major problem with the setting is that, certainly from where we were sitting, when the actors have their backs to you, you can barely hear what they are saying at all. This was particularly noticeable with a few of the actors whose voices are perhaps not as strong as the others. Plus you get extraneous noise from outside the Castle Yard area; unsurprisingly with all the bars and restaurants a stone’s throw away. At one point it sounded like all the beer glasses had been collected from all the bars and were being trundled past on a hospital trolley. On the stone slab flooring, high heel shoes make a particularly brutal sound when nipping off to the ladies’ during the show. And when a trumpet practice started up from the windows of some neighbouring student accommodation (we presumed), we seriously wondered if this venue, atmospheric though it looks, is actually really suitable for open air performance.

Nevertheless, there was much to enjoy in this show, and there were several very successful scenes. Malvolio’s letter scene worked a treat, assisted by the onlooking cast giggling at the success of their duplicitous trick – actually it was funnier than the cross-garter’d scene (or maybe that was just because it was too painful to watch with those glaring lights in our eyes). I also really enjoyed the scene where Antonio is heartbroken because he thinks Sebastian has turned his back on him over the money he gave him (whereas of course, he’s talking to Viola/Cesario by mistake) – you really felt Antonio’s devastation at the perceived disloyalty. Before the play began, Jack Taylor, who plays Sir Toby, came out to explain to us that the cast have been beset with some accidents, including Alexander Jonas, due to play Sir Andrew, who was suffering from amnesia following an accident, so Mr Ben Waring had come up to Oxford that morning and had basically done his best to learn the entire part in a day. Understandably, he would have to have the book in his hand; but actually it was remarkably unobtrusive and Mr Waring did a terrific job. Mr Taylor himself had approached the stage on crutches so I don’t know what injury he had sustained. He certainly was a crowning example for the “show must go on” syndrome. It wouldn’t surprise me if that wall they have to jump over hadn’t claimed a few casualties. Maria thwacked her leg into it in her first exit of the evening, which left Mrs C and me wincing.

There were two particularly superb performances. Rachel Waring as Viola was strong and clear, and managed to get all the humour out of the girl-dressed-as-a-boy routine, both whilst fending off the amorous Olivia and beginning to fancy Orsino. She is a very watchable actress as we remembered from her performance in the OSC’s The Merry Wives of Windsor last year (in which Jack Taylor was an excellent Falstaff). Daniel Jennings as both Feste and Antonio was also brilliant, making the clown funny (not always easy in Shakespeare) and genuinely touching as Sebastian’s rescuer. He’s obviously great at voices – I loved his interpretation of Sir Topas.

I also very much enjoyed Steven Blacker’s performance as Malvolio; he’s very good at the pompous and patronising aspects of Olivia’s steward, and his smiling was distinctly eerie. I always feel sorry for Malvolio when he’s locked up as a lunatic and think that Olivia lets the rest of her household off far too easily for the wrong that’s been done to him. I found his being teased in the paddling pool really very disturbing – I guess it’s an individual reaction as to whether you find this scene funny or not. For me it was painful to watch, as I felt it depicted real cruelty. Mr Blacker did a very good job of making you feel uncomfortable and guilty at having watched it. David William Bryan was an excellent Orsino, with a natural sense of authority but also really well conveying the playfulness of his relationship with Cesario. He also did the best gesture of the night, when Cesario implies that Olivia simply won’t find him attractive – his hands said “what, with this body?”, like an upper class version of The Fonz.

Nina Bright made a rather cute priest, playing the role subtly, with amusing nuances and some inventive interaction with the other characters; and Katharine Mangold was a beguiling Maria, clearly the catalyst for much of the boys’ bad behaviour and really proud of her mischief making. Aneurin Pascoe’s Sebastian suffered a bit from being one of the less strong voices and I couldn’t hear a lot of what he said at times, although he looked the part and definitely came across as distinguished nobility having a hard time. Annemarie Highmore’s Olivia was also frequently too quiet and a little too laid-back in the role for my liking – although she did come to life when overcome with passion for Cesario. It’s hard to criticise Jack Taylor’s Sir Toby when he was clearly in pain but I confess I didn’t really get an insight into the character from his performance – he just came across as far too polite, which is not what you expect from a member of the Belch family. Ben Waring’s Sir Andrew was remarkably good given the circumstances – if he keeps with the role he will be great.

So, all in all, I’d say it was a typical Curate’s Egg of a show. It’s on at the Oxford Castle until 5th September, and I’m sure once it beds in – and the overall fitness of the cast improves – it will be a very entertaining production.

Review – Catch 22, Northern Stage, Oxford Playhouse, 10th June 2014

Posted on June 12, 2014 by therealchrisparkle

Whether you’ve read the book or not, everyone knows the concept. You’ve got a problem, but you can’t solve it because the solution is the problem: that’s Catch-22. In Joseph Heller’s fantastic book, set during the Second World War, you can be discharged from the armed forces if you’re crazy. The trouble is, you have to apply for the discharge, which in itself proves you’re not crazy. Therefore you won’t get discharged. Simples.

Yossarian is the Everyman figure coming to terms with life as a Bombardier in the American forces, desperate to be sent home because of his paranoia about everyone and everything wanting to kill him. Weaving in and out of his life are his military comrades and superiors, and it’s his relationships with these people and his confrontations with authority that provide the main narrative of the book. A lot of it is surreal and ludicrous, and a lot of it is rather repetitive, which gives the novel a great sense of irony, but sadly these aspects don’t transfer that well to the stage.

Despite the fact this is Catch-22 (the play)’s first ever UK tour, produced by Northern Stage, this isn’t the first time I’ve seen it. Heller adapted it himself in 1971 but it never had a proper commercial release. However, some time around 1980, it was performed by students from Brasenose College Oxford, and I went to see it, because my friend Andy was playing Major Major. Very funny he was too, jumping in and out of windows in his constant quest to avoid responsibility. Alas, I don’t have any other memories of it, but I remember quite enjoying it, although it was way too long.

Back to 2014. Entering the Oxford Playhouse, on first glance it’s a very impressive set, largely featuring the shell of a bomber aircraft which they act in and around. However, the aircraft takes up so much space that it limits the opportunities for the cast to move around the stage freely, and where they do use parts of the aircraft as the scenery, although it’s rather clever, it doesn’t seem very natural to me. There’s a central acting space – the internal floor of the aircraft – that is on an adverse camber, and not particularly useful either in dimensions or in its angle. I think they’ve fitted the action to go with the set rather than design a set that suits the action – a “tail wagging the dog” scenario. It also means that there’s quite a lot of action that takes place at the extreme edges of the stage, which unless you’re seated centrally in the audience, you might not get to see.

You really can’t escape the length of the show. Three and a quarter hours. On a warm Spring night in the Oxford Playhouse with the air-con only working intermittently, that’s a form of torture. You can just about get away with three hours if it’s a musical, when you’ve got the variation of content and a sense of stop-start with each song that allows you to break away from your concentration every so often. But with a play? No. Not unless you’re making a deliberate point, like the National Theatre’s uncut Hamlet in 1976 with Albert Finney. No one ever does Shakespeare nowadays without a little shaving off the edges – it’s just too long otherwise. I went to see that Hamlet as part of a school party – it started at 7pm and finished at 11. At the time it was the “show to see” for the very reason that there were no cuts; its glory was in its completeness. But with Catch-22, I guess Heller just loved his book too much to abridge it further. Like a lovely rose, it needs a damn good pruning. Whilst the repetition in the speeches and plot may well accurately reflect the repetition in the book, I found the constant circular conversations, where characters repeat back the words they hear to the person who said them, frankly boring on stage.

Many of the scenes are quite short and fast, presumably because there’s a lot of book to get through, which I also felt made it feel a bit rushed, and lacking in depth. Apart from Philip Arditti’s Yossarian, who is an almost constant presence on the stage, I didn’t really engage emotionally with many of the characters. That’s not to say you don’t get to know them – you do. Colonel Cathcart’s belligerence and double standards are very nicely portrayed by Michael Hodgson, Geoff Arnold captures the gentle Chaplain’s insecurities extremely well, and Daniel Ainsworth makes Nately’s idealism and decency very clear and strangely moving. But the whole show does suffer from the fact that there are so many characters portrayed by a handful of actors that inevitably a lot of it becomes a blur.

A few scenes really stood out for their dramatic or comic impact – I loved the scene where Yossarian was interviewed by the psychiatrist (Michael Hodgson again on cracking form) who clearly has more mental issues than his patient; and was amused (as I always am) by Major Major’s insistence on having no one enter his office whilst he’s at work, a nice mixture of the sane and insane subtly conveyed by David Webber’s thoughtfully understated performance. But there were other times where I felt the necessary impact was lacking – the constant knife attacks on Yossarian by Nately’s Whore, for example, seemed unthreatening, and, in the final scene, extremely underwhelming. There’s also a scene where Yossarian, just in his boxers, is sitting on top of the plane with Milo, discussing the potential market for chocolate covered cotton as a snack. Whilst some members of the audience were howling with laughter at this, I’m afraid it completely passed me by. Anyway, I have further suspicions about this scene, see ahead for details.

My overall reaction to the production is that Catch-22 is probably best left as a novel. It’s a very worthy project and a lot of effort has clearly gone into recreating the spirit of the original on stage, but I’m not sure it’s really worth it. Probably Joseph Heller is the chief problem here – the play is just too long, and the book has too many minor characters that appear in the stage adaptation resulting in a feeling more of confusion than elucidation. I’m afraid a few people sat near me didn’t return after the interval and one lady actually left halfway through the second act, which is a slightly odd time to walk out, although I can imagine a number of reasons why she might have done so. After it finishes its run at Oxford, it still has Derby and Richmond to visit. If you’re going, I hope you enjoy it and I wish you luck.

P. S. I’m going to put two and two (plus another two) together, and may or may not come up with six or something completely different; let’s see how it adds up. The first “two”: I was really surprised to find such a large number of schoolchildren in the audience. It looked as though several classes had come together for an evening at the theatre. Maybe it’s a set text and therefore will attract school trips. They were reasonably well behaved, so that wasn’t an issue. But they formed a significant percentage of the audience, and many of them looked pretty young to me. The second “two”: there’s an information note on the Oxford Playhouse website regarding this production that simply reads: “Age guidance 14+ contains some nudity” – well, there was no nudity in the performance I saw. And the third “two”? That scene on top of the plane that I felt lacked an impact. It started off with Yossarian at the edge of the stage, visibly getting an idea in his head, and then determinedly and purposefully undressing, chucking his clothes on the floor in a rampage – but then he went no further than his boxers, and climbed up on top of the plane; I believe, in the book, he sits naked in a tree. He had his conversation with Milo about chocolate cotton, and then that scene merged into the next one, with Doc Daneeka and his staff, where Yossarian donned a hospital gown over his boxers; and then that scene merged into yet another, now without the gown again, where he’s conversing with his girlfriend whilst she intimately caresses his upper torso. If my memory serves me right, then we snapped into the interval.

My suspicion is that this performance was effectively censored, possibly because of the large number of under 14s in the audience, and that this was the “nudity” scene. Now, I’m not overly worried about not getting to see Mr Arditti in the buff, but what I am worried about is that this becomes a bowdlerized version of the artistic vision of the production, and if so it totally compromises the integrity of the entire production in my eyes. If they can do that, who knows to what length they will sacrifice their vision to attract the ticket costs of a younger audience. For one thing, at what point would he normally have put clothes on again? For the hospital scene? For the girlfriend scene? If that girlfriend scene normally takes place with his wearing nothing it puts a very different complexion on the audience’s perception of their relationship. And if the nudity was censored, was anything else? Did they remove swear words for example? Were any gestures changed? It’s like going back to the days of the Lord Chamberlain except that it’s the production company wielding the red pen. Once you start playing with a show to adapt it for different audiences, and not being open and honest about it, then you’re sinking in very muddy waters. As you can guess, censorship is one of my pet hates – in fact stage censorship was the subject of my postgrad research. I tweeted Northern Stage to ask these questions, but sadly haven’t had a reply. If two and two and two make six, I am left to conclude that there was something definitely afoot with Tuesday night’s show. However, if two and two and two make five, maybe the creative team have changed it permanently, deciding it works better this way. If you know, please tell me!

Review – Fabulous Beast’s The Rite of Spring and Petrushka, Oxford Playhouse, 15th April 2014

Posted on April 16, 2014 by therealchrisparkle

For starters, here we have two of the most impactful and memorable pieces of ballet music ever written, IMHO; Stravinsky at his best. Petrushka’s bright and breezy tunes constantly interrupted by chords of danger and threat; Rite of Spring’s mixture of mournful introversion and brash domination jockeying for position. Two pieces that gain massive energy from the alternate light and shade within their composition.

The first night of the Rite of Spring of course famously sparked a riot in the audience, between opposing factions of balletomanes who wanted either super-traditional or super-trendy. The super-traditionals lost out. I wonder how that 1913 audience would have coped with Fabulous Beast’s version? I’m sure the super-trendies would have been gobsmacked. The super-traditionals would have had to be sedated.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I’d prefer to see a brave failure on stage rather than a lazy success. This production of the Rite of Spring is certainly experimental, brave, and challenging and doesn’t take unnecessary liberties with Nijinsky and Diaghilev’s original vision for its choreographic structure and content. In many ways it’s a very credible and modern twist on an old tale. I guess I should state at this point that there was a post-show talk at the Oxford Playhouse on Tuesday night but that Mrs Chrisparkle and I had no time to stay for it. So it is entirely possible that interpretations, motivations, inspirations and much more regarding what we saw on that stage were explained and discussed with everyone that remained; and that any comments I make about the show are way off the mark because I missed out on vital bits of information. However, I do also think that if you need a post-show talk to explain to you what the show was about, the show hasn’t done its job properly in the first place. Whatever, both Nijinksy’s and Michael Keegan-Dolan’s version begin with a musical introduction, have an old woman at the heart of the ritual, have young dancing girls, groups of apparently rival tribes, and a Sage character; and both culminate in the sacrifice of one of the young girls as part of a pagan fertility rite.

However, I think that’s about as far as you can draw similarities. Fabulous Beast’s version is littered with disturbingly violent scenes – one when the group of men turn on the one woman in their midst; another when they attack the old man; and another again when they strip the girl who will be the sacrificed down to her underwear. It’s always savage, feverish, and determined; like a pack of wild animals showing its prey no mercy. Knives are plunged into the front of the stage and remain there as icons of violence. Keegan-Dolan gives us some representation of the traditional hunt: the girls put on hare masks, the men wear dog masks – and very effective they are too at depicting these animals, with their long dog tongues lolloping hungrily in search of their targets. There’s a scene when the men are wearing their dog masks, but with their trousers undone and dropped down to the floor – and they’re just waiting around, vulgarly, for the next stage of their mating ritual. It’s a very disconcerting but memorable tableau – it reminded me of a louche distortion of those pictures of snooker-playing dogs you sometimes see in pretentious pubs. When they’re masked, the dancers instantly lose their identities – no matter that we’ve already seen their faces in earlier scenes and in the programme – they just become part of a pack, acting out their innate need to procreate.

Even without the masks, this lack of individual identity is emphasised by their unthinking obedience to the Mother Earth character – they follow her every silent instruction. When she dumps a cardboard box on each of their post-coital bodies, they instinctively know their task is to assume the animal mask inside. Similarly when she and the girls present them with a twisted washing line of light summer dresses, they know their task is instantly to discard all their current clothes and put on the dresses. I don’t know if this was meant to create either a sense of bizarre humour, or a heightened sexual tension, but it did neither; even once they were in their floral dresses and therefore, ostensibly, looking totally ludicrous, that still didn’t disrupt the sense of robotic blind obedience. It’s very hard to describe. On one hand, it’s a fascinating spectacle of the absurd; and on the other, it’s strangely normal. When nature calls, you just can’t do anything about it, you just have to carry out Mother Earth’s requirements. Actually, on the subject of humour, it’s an aspect of dance that was strangely absent throughout the whole evening.

But what of the dance, I hear you ask? Well that was a question I was asking myself too. To be honest, there’s not a huge amount of activity in The Rite of Spring that you could definitely classify under the heading of “dance”. There was a lot of enjoyable stamping about in the opening scenes, which I believed symbolised the start of Spring; but after that most dance action seemed to be confined to the girls’ very loose and relaxed dance style – fairly regular small movements of the arms and legs – and the guys’ jumping and whirling around in the dresses. Note: Mother Earth didn’t issue the guys with underpants as well as dresses, so when they whirl around you slightly get more exposure than you might have bargained for. To be fair it wasn’t the most compelling choreography I’ve ever seen. The strength of this production is much more in the spectacle and overall vision than in the dance itself.

All that and we’re only at the interval! The second half is the shorter Petrushka, which again bears similarities to its 1911 incarnation. I can see that, structurally, the character played by Ino Riga (I think) is Petrushka-esque. But the story-telling element of the original is really not followed through in this production. It’s clear that we are observing a kind of audition or judgement situation, with Bernadette Iglich sitting atop her lighting rig tower, her huge handbag concealing contestant numbers for the dancers to wear, and a picnic for when she needs sustenance. She is a kind of Black Widow Simon Cowell, rejecting all the contestants at first until they improve their performance. Her face has white make-up; and steadily, as the dance progresses, the dancers too gradually assume this white painted face appearance. This all feels heavily symbolic – I can only assume that as they pass their auditions, they adopt the white appearance – they’re in the White Club. A couple of the dancers hardly do anything at all – they just sit by the back corners of the stage and watch. That seemed weird.

The dance starts with all the dancers tossing clothes up into the air, which made me think two things: 1) are they going to get their kit off again? (answer no) and 2) this is reminiscent of something Didy Veldman might have done with Rambert 20 odd years ago, will it be as good? (answer again no). The clothes all get bundled up into a massive bed sheet and just left on the stage; but I saw it move occasionally so guessed that there would be a performer hidden in there – and indeed, it was Mikel Murfi, who emerged in his y-fronts a few minutes before the end, and whose job seemed to me to be just to hold still the rope ladder that our Petrushka climbs up at the end, a modern equivalent of the original’s ghost haunting the roof of the theatre. Whilst this piece started promisingly, it never really developed past the whitening of the faces and a few solo dances. There was definitely more “proper” dancing, although the choreographic style was still very similar to The Rite of Spring – in other words, very loose, very relaxed, giving an impression of top quality dance but without actually wowing us with technique. Mrs Chrisparkle and I agreed on the way home that it all got rather “samey” and ended up a bit, well, dull really. Sorry, as I’m sure a huge amount of effort went into it.

So yes, I think this probably comes under the category of brave failure – but I for one would never condemn a production for that. You sense the cast are really committed to their performances and you come away with some memorable visual images and a feeling of unease and being challenged. But as to the evening’s overall impact? Somehow I expected the boundaries of discomfort to be pushed even more. Nevertheless, Michael Keegan-Dolan’s cast present us with a fascinating vision for these two ballets, and if you like your dance a bit on the experimental side, it’s certainly worth giving this double bill a try.

Review – Comedy of Errors, Oxford Shakespeare Company, Wadham College Oxford, 13th August 2011

Posted on August 15, 2011 by therealchrisparkle

There are few greater privileges in life than to be able to relax in the beautiful gardens of Wadham College Oxford, take in a picnic, enjoy a bottle of something velvety, and watch a performance by the Oxford Shakespeare Company. We’ve been coming here for many years now, and it’s always a joy. Some years are more joyous than others, depending on the plays. This summer they are bringing back two of their greatest hits. One is The Importance of Being Earnest, which we saw first time around, and is a super show. We may, if we get time and the weather is kind, try and see it again. The other is The Comedy of Errors, first performed by the OSC in 2004, one year before we discovered them. So it was with relish that we bagged our front row seats for last Saturday’s matinee.

Even if you’re a Shakespeare purist, “Comedy of Errors” is one of those plays that really lends itself to modernising and being messed around. On paper, the opening scene is exceptionally wordy and really rather tedious; but there’s no escaping it, otherwise the rest of the play doesn’t make sense. Chris Pickles’ delightful production does a huge amount of messing around with the play, re-inventing that opening scene in Ephesus TV’s studio as a game show, with host and hostess in sparkly garments, challenging Egeon to raise the money for his liberty else he dies, and all just for a bit of fun.

Another piece of inventiveness in this production is the use of Hollywood style songs, which certainly raise a smile and have been chosen cleverly to reflect the story. Some of the cast prove themselves to be very good at the song-and-dance routines! As a device, this didn’t quite work for me, but mainly because of the way I first encountered this play. When I was 17 I was lucky enough to be in the front row at the Aldwych for the RSC’s production by Trevor Nunn, with songs by Guy Woolfenden and starring Judi Dench, Michael Williams, Roger Rees, Francesca Annis, Mike Gwilym and many other brilliant performers. Guy Woolfenden took Shakespeare’s lines and wove them into brilliant, story-progressing songs. The Hollywood songs in this production are apt, but they don’t move the story forward – my bugbear in musical theatre.

Another joke that wore thin for me was the use of sound effects. Maybe I’m still suffering from Government Inspector overkill. Part of the circus/madcap/Keystone Kops element in this production includes cheeky sound effects to accompany many of the bits of comedy business. A horn honk for a slap on the tummy, a kazoo rasp for a kick up the bum, a fart sound for… well a fart actually; you get the picture. Funny and clever – at first… but then I have to confess it did slightly get on my nerves by the time we approached the interval. There was one extremely good sound effect – the sassy symbols that heralded each arrival of the Courtesan, more of whom later.

Now those topics are out of the way, I can tell you about the wonderful cast. One actor plays both Antipholuses and one both Dromios. That calls for a lot of hard work! Stand out brilliant was Howard Gossington as Antipholus of Syracuse and Ephesus. I had wondered how they would differentiate between the two characters – costume changes I supposed. And yes they do – Antipholus of Ephesus wears a gracious tie and sports a well to do hat, whilst his Syracusian brother has a tie-dye type thing and a fedora. But it’s almost unnecessary, as Mr Gossington invests both brothers with completely different vocal patterns and mannerisms; Ephesus is a rather posh travelling type who obviously went to a good school, and Syracuse is a bit of a Millwall supporting troublemaker. Both characterisations really worked well and it’s a great performance.

Nick Chambers as the two Dromios also puts in a good comic performance but the differences between the two servants are not so easy to define and so we rely a little more on his changing hat – white for Ephesus, black for Syracuse. I particularly enjoyed the relish with which he described the ghastly Nell, who had fallen for him.

For the Antipholine love interest, Alicia Davies is a stunning Adriana, in a sexy red dress and with cleavage bursting for freedom. She captures all the comedy of Adriana’s shrewish tendencies superbly, although she may slightly underdo her tenderer moments. Alyssa Noble makes an excellently bookish Luciana, and preens with hilarious pleasure when Antipholus makes amorous advances towards her.

The other members of the cast all bring great verve and vivacity to their characters; amongst the many parts they play, Benjamin Wells’ Angelo is Alan Sugar with added elegance; Kai Simmons is a superb Marlon Brando Godfather Balthazar, with a brilliant Mafia voice and mannerisms; Andrew Piper’s Officer is a hilarious sixth member of the Village People; and stealing every scene, James Lavender, appearing as every other female character, creates a Germanic Jessica Rabbit Courtesan with a high level of naughtiness about her – which included in the show we saw, her singling me out for some amorous attention and the promise of free Bratwurst after the performance. That was just one of many really funny interactions between cast and audience throughout the whole show that were carried off with great aplomb.

There’s a marvellously surreal sequence where Dromio appears to apologise for a bad bit of acting because he can’t quite understand Shakespeare’s drift, whereupon the whole cast turn into a bunch of text-dissecting pretentious luvvies trying to get to the heart of the meaning. I was completely fooled by the scene and genuinely thought Dromio was annoyed with his performance, until the rest chipped in. It’s a magnificent piece of invention. There’s also a bang up-to-date scene with Antipholus’ shopping bags with light references to looting and cross-dressing. Extremely funny stuff.

I’d highly recommend it. Even the aspects I didn’t really care for didn’t in any way spoil my enjoyment of this gusto-filled performance by a captivating cast in fabulous surroundings.

Review – The Lady in the Van, Oxford Playhouse, 1st July 2011

Posted on July 4, 2011 by therealchrisparkle

Father, would you hear my Confession please. It’s been 15 months since my last visit to the Oxford Playhouse. Last time we went, the staff were very offhand, signage was poor and it all felt a bit substandard. Great news is that it’s back to its former welcoming self, with polite and friendly front of house staff, and a clean and bright foyer that actually makes it feel bigger than it really is. They still don’t have a sign up saying which side of the auditorium you should enter to get closer to your seats, and you have to rely on the ushers to point you in the right direction, but at least it didn’t cause the same confusion as last time. And Father, you might enjoy the play, it’s got quite a lot of Catholic references.

For several years Alan Bennett’s garden became the home to the Lady in the Van – Miss Shepherd, who apparently lived in the van, and several other vehicles besides, for many years. A combination of her self-confidence, his soft-heartedness and a rather Zen acceptance that This Was How It Was Going To Be created this surreal neighbourly situation. And the presentation of the story in this play is pretty surreal too.

Alan Bennett is played by two actors, who simultaneously provide two changing aspects of his personality. This could be Bennett the talker and Bennett the thinker; Bennett’s actions and Bennett’s conscience; later on in the play it becomes Bennett the neighbour and Bennett the writer. This sounds a bit confusing but actually it works effortlessly well. Miss Shepherd’s conversation drifts from flights of fancy to the banal, and her larger-than-life character fits well into this surreal environment. Towards the end of the play she gets even more surreal, but I won’t spoil it for you. There is also a shadowy figure, who comes knocking at her door at odd intervals, using threatening obscenities – which seem a little out of place – and which doesn’t get explained until right at the end (and only then just).

The best aspect of this production is that there are some excellent performances. Nichola McAuliffe is Miss Shepherd and she is every inch the feisty, cheeky, emotional character you would expect her to be. Nichola McAuliffe always brings huge gusto and verve to every part she plays and in this role she can be as brash, bold, wily and beguiling as she likes. You can always be assured of vocal clarity with Miss McAuliffe. Nobody sleeps while she’s on. It was because she was in the cast that we decided to see this play. She’s great. She’s one of Mrs Chrisparkle’s favourites.

The two Alans were Paul Kemp and James Holmes and they gave very credible presentations of someone who the general public probably feels they know inside out – that must be a hard task in itself. I thought James Holmes in particular caught Bennett’s genteel ironies especially well. The story takes place at a time in Bennett’s life when he was also dealing with the dwindling health of his mother, and that was very sympathetically put forward. They got a huge reception from the audience at curtain call.

Two other performances I would single out are Tina Gambe, in the role of the social worker, who has some fantastically funny lines as she subtly imbues Bennett with the role of carer; and Martin Wimbush as the scary threatening figure, if for no other reason than he is the original Mr Crisparkle (without the H) from Edwin Drood – and therefore one of my favourites.

Bennett seems to like to put a “big event” in his plays. When we saw “Enjoy” a few years ago (a dreadfully overrated play I thought), the big visual impact moment came when the walls of the house were flattened out and the acting area became the whole stage – surrealism again. In “Lady in the Van” a similar moment comes when Miss Shepherd’s campervan is chained up and slowly raised into the sky. It sparked a round of applause from the audience. I always find it slightly depressing when something like that receives that level of appreciation – it’s just a device; something incidental to the story, the writing, the characterisation, the drama.

And that it the main problem with this play – I didn’t feel as though it had a lot going on in the Drama Department. It’s as though – much as Miss Shepherd herself points out – Alan Bennett could not decide whether the play was about Miss Shepherd or Alan Bennett. Apart from the fact that she lived in his garden, in reality their paths didn’t seem to cross much. He obviously decided it would be about both, but I’m not sure it worked.

I’ve done a Venn Diagram to show the problem. Bear with me, I’m no graphic designer. The black bit in the middle shows where the lives of the two characters cross, and that’s basically the drama of the play. And as you can see, it’s only a small percentage of their existences. The white unshaded bits might have made for a more focussed play. In addition to this, I have to say there were a few dreary speeches as well. Miss McAuliffe did her best to maintain the energy of the play at those times but it was an uphill struggle. So whilst it’s a good production, and with some excellent performances, as a whole I found it curiously unsatisfying.

Also, please spare some sympathy for people sitting in the first few rows. They could hardly have seen a thing. The stage is very high – I presume because there has to be a revolving circle to the stage floor so that Miss Shepherd’s vehicle can swing around. I’m guessing the Oxford Playhouse doesn’t have a revolving stage, so they had to build it in on top. Bear this in mind if you’re going to see it in Harrogate or Bradford in the final weeks of the tour.