Theatre
Reviews 2013
People
By Alan
Bennett
National
Theatre
The latest
Alan Bennett play received lukewarm and rather dismissive reviews and rapidly disappeared
from the theatre horizons. Figuring that even a minor Bennett play is
worthwhile we caught up with it at the National as March lurched back into
winter; clearly we were not the only people to think like this as the Lyttleton was sold out. By not following the critics’ siren
voices we were treated to an afternoon of rich humour, brilliant acting,
provocative ideas and a thoroughly interesting and satisfying entertainment.
Perhaps the critics could
not get their heads round a National Treasure (Bennett) writing a play
attacking a National Treasure (The National Trust). But this is to
misunderstand a play which is about aging and how to value things as they move
out of fashion or utility, and a continued howl against the values of Thatcher.
The crux of the play isn’t his remorseless satire at the NT’s expense, but the
exchange:
Unless you can put a price on something, it isn’t worth
anything
When did that happen?
The eighties, I think.....
For all the fun Bennett has
poking the NT for their use of any personal detail to create a ‘narrative’ for
a property, even to the extent of lying – in this case by getting actors to pee
in chamber pots pretending to be the pee of celebrities – the question is what
do you do with an old fashioned, too large Country House that has ceased to be
useful?
One of his potential answers
– hire it out for the making of porn movies – give the play an opportunity to
do a thoroughly modern farce, occupying much of the second Act. This provides
all the company with wonderful opportunities. Frances de la Tour’s Dorothy is
able to shed a couple of decades, Linda Bassett is priceless as the
not-so-reclusive ‘companion’ Iris and the film crew were all deeply familiar
characters, (it takes me back, but where to is not a topic for this review).
The third strong female lead is Selina Cadell as Dorothy’s sister, June. She plays Dorothy’s alter
ego, a younger, efficient and ambitious archdeacon. She represents the
callousness of a version of progress which Bennett rejects. Peter Egan is splendid
as Dorothy’s former lover now film producer, just the right balance of aged Lothario and cynical money man.
So it probably isn’t the
greatest Alan Bennett play ever, but there are more than enough good ideas and
hilarious moments to keep a full house thoroughly entertained, and to send many
away with a few things to think about.
Macbeth
Guildford
Shakespeare Company
What better
to do on Valentine’s night than sit in a church and watch the unravelling of
the folly of vaunted ambition? A good time to catch the
Guildford Shakespeare Company again as it transformed Holy Trinity Church (the
big church at the top of Guildford High Street) into a bloody Highland moor,
and the Castle of Dunsinane.
A large square stage has been set up in the middle of the church allowing the
play to be performed ‘in the round’ (square?), with much use made of the
entrance from the Choir, and the balcony. It is a high energy production, no
pauses for reflection, no hiatus, the action keeps coming. Typically a group of
players enters from the choir, down some steps into the Nave then up some steps
on the stage. They will be accompanied by loud and aggressive music and a sharp staccato lights. All very energetic,
highly theatrical and very entertaining.
Macbeth is inevitably
defined by the Weird Sisters – here a weird sister and two brothers. They were
magnificent, banshee howling shamans with chilling intent. Their introductions
set up the play nicely, while the Hubble Bubble Toil and Trouble speech –
surely as difficult to deliver as any in Shakespeare – was illusionary,
hypnotic psychedelic. Brilliant.
One of the best things about
seeing the group in such a small setting is that the words are very clear; this
is, of course, a testament to the actors as to the space, and again the text
was wonderfully read – I think without exception. While a couple of the actors
were clearly novices, there was no discernible weak link here, and the
principal characters were well played indeed. 
Leading the
way was Morgan Philpot’s furious Macduff. Once riled
he is a work of fury, prompting the full uprising that will remove the tyrant.
Ben Ashton is a charismatic if quirky Malcolm, as restrained as Macduff is openly furious. And Johanne
Murdock plays a sexually aware Lady Macbeth, a stroppy and difficult harridan,
a harpy of bitterness and unrepentant ambition.
At the opening, when the two
protagonists meet the Sisters on the moor, I assumed Banquo
was Macbeth – and vice versa. This troubled me throughout. Surely Macbeth
should be the leader? Tom McGovern’s performance has many fine points, in
particular (again) his reading, but I found him an unconvincing claimant, an
unconvincing king and an unconvincing tyrant.
Directed by Caroline Devlin,
the production was largely naturalistic; the actors play un-theatrically in the
main, wear costume, tell the story. The sound and lights add the excitement and
apart from a suggestion that the Macbeths are acting out some sort of sexual fantasy
in this orgy of blood-letting I would describe this as a fairly standard
reading, leaning on the strengths of the actors to interpret the text and get
the story across.
Guildford Shakespeare
Company are a young, dynamic and exciting group. They
are a highly professional collection of actors doing a fine job of portraying
Shakespeare for the cultural audiences of Guildford using site-specific
productions. I have no idea how their funding works, but I hope very much that
their local sponsorships and school work can overcome their lack of state
funding. They certainly deserve to succeed.
Julius
Caesar
At The Donmar Warehouse
I was
delighted to get tickets for the Donmar’s all-female
production of Julius Caesar for a miserable,
cold and snowy January Saturday. It has been a while since I last made it to
the Covent Garden Warehouse, and this production has certainly been making
waves. Reviewers seemed split between those who loved and those who hated it,
so an interesting afternoon was clearly in store.
As you probably know, the
production is set in a women’s prison. Julius Caesar is, presumably, a play
within a play. It starts with the girls being lined up by the prison officers
before raucous declaration of lesbian love turns out to be Julius Caesar and
Mark Anthony at the Triumph in Rome. Thereafter the play settles down into a
more predictable version of the Shakespeare’s play.
The principle characters
were all strong. For me Jenny Jules as Cassius was the best reader. Her speech
was clear, understandable and made the text easy on the ear. I like everything
about her performance as she dominated the early scenes. She contrasted nicely
with Harriet Walter’s subdued Brutus. Her voice pitched lower and a centre of
stillness in a rather hectic production, she implied the nobility of Brutus to
great effect. Frances Barber’s Caesar was boisterous rather than menacing, a
big hearted and exuberant Caesar, while Cush Jumbo’s Anthony was quite
astonishing. One of the strengths of the play-within-a –play format was that it
was unclear where the love affair between Caesar and Anthony began and ended,
on or off the stage. Perhaps my favourite, however was Clare Dunne who was
excellent as Portia but a truly disturbing Octavia. I think perhaps it was the
Northern Irish accent, but seeing her casually shooting kneeling, hooded
captives while pushing (literally) Anthony aside was a menacingly effective
portrayal. It made me wonder how a Northern Irish production might sound...
I didn’t feel the
‘play-within-a –play’ conceit was particularly well thought through. After the
slightly disorienting start the fact that they are in a prison is ignored
for an hour when suddenly a warder interrupts to take a girl out for her ‘meds’
and substitute is thrown in to read from a book. This is the point where Cinna the Poet is murdered on the grounds that he shares a
name with one of the conspirators. So perhaps there is a point made about
arbitrariness of names and identity? If so, it was a bit subtle. Prison
officers worked the lights – why? And while the girls wore prison tracksuits
(in fact women prisoners are allowed to wear their own clothes...) they wear
plastic guns (not allowed – why not some of the plethora of self made weapons
that abound in prison) and at one point come in with a very professional
looking flag – why not a hand daubed sheet? Were we in prison or was the prison
setting entirely representative of the oppressive state of Caesar? I was
confused over whether this was meant to be a real situation or entirely
metaphorical.
The other problem was the
lack of menace. From her experience of the past few years inside a women’s
prison, Amanda was quite clear that there are many very dark and scary girls
inside, and that they know how to do menace and terror as well as any male
gangster. But Barber’s Caesar is far too benign. She is clearly meant to be the
off-stage godfather, but the menace just isn’t there. We also felt that there
was a missed opportunity to examine women-specific power body language. The
main characters were women playing men – Caesar even wore the stereotypical
ankle length leather greatcoat. Why not explore how power relationships look
and feel between women? Where was the bitchiness that characterises female
prisons?
But any play that creates
this much thought and discussion is a success for me. Flawed and only good in
parts, this production certainly raises a plethora of interesting questions.
Let us hope the real triumph of Phyllida Lloyd’s
Julius Caesar will be in the plays that follow it.