Review – Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Old Vic, 22nd April 2017

Posted on April 25, 2017 by therealchrisparkle

Proposition: The works of Tom Stoppard become progressively more irritating the older you become – Discuss. And a syllogism: One) recently I’ve seen Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Travesties and Arcadia and they were all heavy going. Two) those plays were written by Tom Stoppard in the 60s, 70s and 90s. Conclusion: Stoppard is all mouth and no trousers.

It’s a shame, really it is. I remember how I loved this play with a passion when I was 15. I saw it at the Criterion on a school jaunt, with Christopher Timothy and Richard O’Callaghan as the cipher courtiers. I read it avidly. I marvelled at the wordplay. I was fascinated by Stoppard’s refreshingly innovative themes. I adored (still do) the originality of its structure. What never struck me was the possibility that it was all just too clever-clever and lacked heart. Watching it today, that’s almost the only thing that does strike me. I’m a huge drama fan and I’ve fallen out of love with Tom Stoppard. Woe is me, I am undone. Ecce homo, ergo elk.

Let’s just dwell on that structure again. Somewhere in space and time, the play of Hamlet is taking place. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, friends of Hamlet, although two of the most minor characters of the play, are offstage, because they haven’t had their first cue yet. They have no other purpose in life – not to the play, not to Hamlet (despite allegedly being “friends”), not to themselves. Basically, they just have to sit around, spinning coins, and waiting for something to happen. Eventually the play of Hamlet catches up with them, as Claudius and Gertrude welcome them to the court, with the whole Hamlet scene invading Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s stage. They have their conversation about keeping an eye on how Hamlet’s behaving, and then the king and queen sweep off, signifying that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have left the action of Hamlet, and remain behind to inhabit their own lives for a little while until the next time their and Hamlet’s lives intersect.

Meanwhile the Player King, Hamlet, Polonius, Ophelia and so on drift in and out of R & G’s world as Shakespeare’s plot develops, even though R & G’s involvement doesn’t. Eventually they get given a job to do – to accompany Hamlet to England (and to his intended death). Students of the Bard have argued for centuries whether Rosencrantz and Guildenstern knew that they were escorting Hamlet off this mortal coil, or whether they were also innocents abroad. Stoppard makes it crystal clear that R & G were the fall guys, as we see Hamlet return to Denmark, but they do not (dead, see.) It’s an incredibly clever piece of writing – the linguistic representation of some mathematic genius. And you do, indeed, feel sorry for our antiheroes, caught up in a web of international intrigue, when all they’re really any good for is spinning coins.

For the illusion of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead to work, you have to believe absolutely in the concept of the two parallel plays taking place at the same time and how they interweave at those dangerous corners. Therefore, it’s vital that you believe unquestioningly in the stage dominance of Claudius and Gertrude. In Hamlet, they control proceedings alongside the eponymous hero. Sadly, in this production, I found that Wil Johnson’s Claudius, in particular, had an element of pantomime about him, and I couldn’t see him as this strong, villainous, murdering king. Diminish the power of the Hamlet element to this play and you diminish the play as a whole. Similarly, Luke Mullins’ Hamlet was for me a little too jocular, a little too stagey. I didn’t get the sense of his troubled soul; and without it, R & G are even more pointless than they are in the first place.

And then you have the Player King and his entourage: David Haig in full declamatory mode, puffing up the character’s already considerable sense of self-importance, mortally wounded to have lost their audience participation at their first encounter, idly taking mild sexual advantage of the young tragedian Alfred. It’s not an easy role to get the tone absolutely right; and I did find the character a little more monotonous than when I remembered it, or imagine it in my mind’s eye. It wasn’t helped by those travelling tragedians; although their performance was probably exactly how those roving casts used to appear, I still found the sight (and sound) of them rather wearing. I found it all rather laid on with a trowel and could have appreciated something a little subtler. As I said, I’ve fallen out of love with Stoppard.

That’s not to say there aren’t elements of the production that weren’t highly entertaining. The moment, for example, when our two courtiers attempt to force Hamlet to drag Polonius’ body into their “trap” is simple and extremely funny. Perhaps wisely, they don’t follow Stoppard’s original stage direction of having Rosencrantz’ trousers fall down whilst he’s removed his belt. The scene where it appears that Guildenstern has murdered the Player King is incredibly effective. But there aren’t many moments of physical humour to alleviate the burden of the cerebral nature of the nub of the play.

That said, none of this prevents me from appreciating the two excellent performances from Daniel Radcliffe and Joshua McGuire. As Rosencrantz, Mr Radcliffe absolutely nails the introvert intensity of the character; slow to respond and react, keeping his own counsel, simply saying what he sees rather than what he thinks. As the complete opposite, Mr McGuire is perfect as Guildenstern’s extrovert loose cannon; flying off the handle, panicking loudly, trying to understand the whys and wherefores of the situation in which they find themselves. As the characters almost present themselves as two halves of one whole, the intricate dovetailing of their speeches and stage business is done with immaculate accuracy and a beautiful lightness of touch. This is the third time we’ve seen both actors on stage (Mr Radcliffe always as a troubled soul – Equus, The Cripple of Inishmaan, Mr McGuire always as a brash nincompoop – Amadeus, The Ruling Class) and they never fail to impress with their superb commitment and artistry. As an acting masterclass, they give a magnificent display.

Mrs Chrisparkle fell almost instantly asleep within the first few minutes of the play as she simply couldn’t keep up with Stoppard’s smartarseness. She awoke when the Player King and his entourage took control of the stage about an hour later. That was the point that I yielded to sleep because I found the characters so irritating. We both enjoyed the final act, after the interval, much more. But I think that all probably says much more about our own inability to put up with Stoppard than the production itself. So, if I return to my original proposition: yes he does. And my syllogism: well, it’s a syllogism, innit.

Production photos by Manuel Harlan

Review – Travesties, Menier Chocolate Factory, 23rd October 2016

Posted on October 26, 2016 by therealchrisparkle

The first time I saw a Tom Stoppard play was in 1976 on a school expedition to London to see Dirty Linen at the Arts Theatre. I sat next to Andy (you’ll know him as A. N.) Wilson; now a highly regarded author, columnist and social commentator, then a mere English teacher just about to get his first book published. Mr Wilson and Mr Ritchie (our other English teacher on this jaunt) were huge fans of Stoppard and were itching to see this new play, and not unreasonably thought their A level English students would appreciate the experience too. It was a success. A few months later they took us to see the National Theatre revival of Stoppard’s Jumpers too, which I thought was absolutely ace.

Two years before all this, Stoppard wrote Travesties. I reckon that if I’d seen a production of Travesties at the same time, I wouldn’t have had a Scooby – it would have sailed way over my head, in the direction of the second star on the right, straight on till morning. I did get the playtext for Christmas that year; and I think it reads a little more easily out of the book than it actually appears on stage, because you have the time to take in Stoppard’s verbal fireworks and re-read them to understand them better. But watching Patrick Marber’s excellent revival at the Menier made me realise what a difficult play it really is.

All these early Stoppard works relied heavily on his brilliant wordplay and sense of nonsense. He loved to depict stories from a weird angle – like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on stage when they should be off (and vice versa) or The Real Inspector Hound, seen from the view of the theatre critic who accidentally gets involved in the show. Every Good Boy Deserves Favour even needs a full orchestra to perform it. R&G and Hound also have the common theme of containing a play within a play; and Travesties too has some of the same elements, wrapping Henry Carr’s recollections of his youth in with an amateur production of The Importance of Being Earnest.

It must have been something of a gift for Stoppard to discover that Lenin, Joyce and Dadaist movement founder Tristan Tzara were all living in Zürich in 1917. So was little known consular official Henry Carr, who – to pass the time of day, presumably – joined an acting troupe called The English Players, whose business manager was the (ironically not very English) James Joyce. The play is set in the present (i.e. 1974) with an elderly Carr (he actually died in 1962 but who’s counting) reminiscing about his past and the extraordinary minds with whom he shared his Zürich days. But what is the purpose of the play, I asked myself, during the interval, and afterwards? There must be something more to it than just an exercise for Stoppard to show off his considerable verbal dexterity, or an example of how you can mash up a new play and an old play and not see the join. Apart from little glimpses into individual folly – like Joyce’s inability to match a jacket and trouser, or Tzara’s foppish use of a monocle when he had perfect eyesight – I couldn’t really identify the driving force behind this play.

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy it. In fact, as productions go, I can’t imagine how you would play this better than the way it’s currently packing them in at the Menier. Tim Hatley’s design involves the remnants and loose pages of seemingly thousands of books, scattered to invoke both a busy library and a Dadaist approach to literature. Hidden false panels create opportunities for those outside to look in, library steps enable the action to take place on several levels in an otherwise confined space. There are also a few outrageously incongruent and surreal sequences when the whole thing turns song-and-dance like in The Ruling Class or something by Joan Littlewood. Personally, I find that kind of surreal breakout a tad tedious; what worked in the 60s and 70s doesn’t necessarily always work today.

But if ever there were perfect casting it must come in the form of Tom Hollander as Henry Carr. On his first entrance, you can’t help but be impressed at how Mr Hollander can bend himself down double to create the most elderly looking wretch imaginable as Carr Snr. With Dickensian dressing gown and warbly voice in place, he takes us through one of Stoppard’s longest and frankly self-indulgent prologue speeches as he introduces us to the glitterati of 1917 Zürich. And then, when he flips into Carr Jnr, he becomes a slightly pompous Everyman character; keen to take a good place in society, revelling in the fame and notoriety of his contemporaries, pretending to be more involved in their political and artistic movements than he really is, and willing to play Algernon if the trousers are right. He’s hardly ever off the stage and it’s a thoroughly demanding and terrific performance.

The rest of the cast give Mr Hollander excellent support – for me the best was Clare Foster as Cecily. We’ve seen her a couple of times, most recently as a stunning Sarah Brown in Chichester’s Guys and Dolls, and here once again she is outstanding. With her clear-cut voice and amazingly expressive face she can cheerfully deride and humiliate anyone who’s noisy in the library; and her hilarious set pieces with Amy Morgan’s Gwendolen are just remarkable. Freddie Fox was also very good as the faux-refined and show-offy Tzara, with a nice sense of comic timing and a good stage presence; and Peter McDonald made the best of the laconic opportunities Stoppard provides to make fun of Joyce’s irascible eccentricities.

It’s like a most intricate serving of super deluxe candy floss. Utterly delicious to look at, and incredibly sweet to consume, but once it’s gone, it’s gone. Does it inform the human condition? No. Is it an opportunity for Stoppard to look erudite and swish? Yes. Is it entertaining? Yes, providing you can survive its occasional longueurs.

Production photos by Johan Persson

Review – Arcadia, Oxford Playhouse, 14th April 2015

Posted on April 15, 2015 by therealchrisparkle

Tom Stoppard. A dramatist for whom I have immense respect. As a teenager who used to devour play texts like nobody’s business I did my best to keep up to date with all his works. I read Albert’s Bridge, and If You’re Glad I’ll Be Frank; After Magritte and Artist Descending a Staircase. I hooted with laughter at the production in my brain of The Real Inspector Hound. At school, we read (for fun, because our teacher loved him) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead with its amazing off-stage existence – we were also taken to see the National’s production at the Duke of York’s. We also went on school trips to see Jumpers at the National (a philosophical fantasy) and Dirty Linen at the Arts (where I sat next to our other English teacher whom we all called Andy, later to become more famous as the writer and broadcaster A. N. Wilson). I read Travesties, even though I hadn’t a clue who Tristan Tzara was. I took a prospective girlfriend to see Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (no chance). I saw the original productions of Night and Day, The Real Thing and On The Razzle and found them riveting. I took the newlywed Mrs Chrisparkle to see Hapgood and we loved it. Then, for some reason, I don’t think we saw any new Stoppards again – only revivals.

It didn’t take long for Stoppard’s reputation as a master dramatist to take hold. Certainly when I was reading English at Oxford (not known for its fondness for the avantgarde) Stoppard was a featured author if you took drama as a specialised subject – and that was way back in 1980. Today there are student crib notes and study guides for many of his works. It seems to me that he is as studied as he is performed or watched on stage.

Normally, at about this point in a review, I would give you a quick run-down of the plot. However, this time I don’t think I can give the plot justice. There’s so much in there, so much to understand, so much that you need to be able to recognise from your own knowledge; and I confess, especially as a non-scientist, there were considerable areas of it that I just didn’t understand at all. Stoppard assumes a level of intelligence and education in his audience, and, frankly, although I am no dimwit (honestly), I don’t think I came up to the mark. What I can tell you is that events in the early 1800s and events today are mirrored and juxtaposed in a clever and telling way. I can tell you that the 19th century plot contains a tutor who enjoys sexual congress with married women, a wronged husband/poet, a precocious student, and an ambitious plan to create a landscaped garden. The 20th century plot contains rival academics with their own theories to prove about the same wronged poet and same garden. And those academics get it wrong.

There are some particularly enjoyable aspects. We both really appreciated the central notion that modern day academics will misinterpret events in the past to suit their own ideas. Much sweat is shed over the identity of the secret hermit (an invention in a schoolgirl prank) or whether Byron shot the missing poet (no he didn’t). The facts as they are actually known get reassembled, and the gaps filled with hope and guesswork, by the academics to create a lie. As you can imagine that idea went down very well with an Oxford audience. As Christopher Hampton wrote in his excellent 1970 play “The Philanthropist”: it’s much more important for a theory to be shapely than for it to be true.

Arcadia comes top of many people’s lists as one of the best plays of the 20th century and as Stoppard’s finest hour. I can see why. As I’ve indicated earlier, it encompasses a vast array of thought. It’s extraordinarily inventive, has plenty of witty Stoppardisms, and even features a tortoise (just like Jumpers). It pits chaos theory against determinism, 19th century against 20th century, academic motivation against sexual motivation. It ties up all its loose ends into a very satisfactory whole. I bet it’s magnificent to read.

And that’s really at the heart of the problem, as I see it. I think this could have been the most gripping and rewarding comic novel, giving you the time to come to understand concepts you don’t come across on a day by day basis, and to get to grips with characters and their peccadilloes. However, as a reasonably fast-paced play, it lost me. It sacrificed emotion and action on the altar of theory and cleverness. We both found it very heavy going, very wordy, very static, lacking any real sense of drama and really quite dull to watch. I liked the general setup that we were watching the same room two hundred years apart, and that it constantly went backward and forward telling separate stories – but when the two eras merged in the final scene I found the clever-cleverness of Stoppard’s device rather smug. It doesn’t help that it’s almost entirely populated with difficult, spiky or rude characters. I found that I didn’t have any personal empathy with any of them – except perhaps for Septimus, the 19th century tutor, because he’s a roué, a cad and a bounder which sets him apart from the rest of the characters, having something of a personality.

It was a weirdly strength-sapping experience. As people around us regained their seats for the second act, we heard comments such as “he’s not coming back” and “they hated it”. One man said “why is it always dark outside when the action is taking place during the day?” (good question) ; another said “the table on the stage is just too big. It takes up all the space and you can’t see what’s happening behind it”. I agree. The table is a constant presence in both the 19th century and 20th century elements of the play and gives it continuity. But percentage-wise it really does take up a lot of the acting space, and when characters sit in front of it, they block the characters or events that take place behind it. Another comment I heard was that people just couldn’t hear what was being said. To be honest, I don’t think there was much wrong with the actors’ enunciations or projections; I just think that some of the words and concepts are so alien to get your head around quickly that your concentration lapses in occasional troughs of despair and as a result you find yourself not paying attention to what’s being said.

As I didn’t warm to the characters, I can’t say that I particularly warmed to any of the performances. That’s not to say they weren’t good. Flora Montgomery as Hannah was very good as the modern, hard-nosed, essentially selfish and rude academic who always has to have her own way. I liked Wilf Scolding as the untrustworthy Septimus, considering his next move as though he were deep in chess. Dakota Blue Richards kept her Thomasina, the 19th century student, on the right side of being an irritating know-all. But really, on the whole, I didn’t care.

To get the best out of this play you really have to be match-fit. Don’t go after a hard day at work, or after a meal or a drink; take vitamin supplements and whatever substances you require to make you as alert as possible. Wear light clothing because your brain will overheat. Alternatively, make sure you read it in advance, then you’ll have a heads-up on what the actors are going to say and you can look a lot of the terms up in a dictionary first. And if that makes it more of a scholastic exercise than a play, ay there’s the rub. This is the final week of the English Touring Theatre/ Theatre Royal Brighton co-production. I’d love to see them perform something a little more accessible.