The Ninth Symphony that Wasn’t
Das Lied von der Erde
by Gustav Mahler, libretto by Hans Bethge
Wild Arts at Sinfonia Smith Square, Westminster, 31st March
Review by Patrick Shorrock
Whether Das Lied von der Erde is a symphony or a song cycle is a bit of a non-question after a splendid performance like this one. (Mahler, writing the piece at a very low ebb after completing his massive Eighth, was aware that Beethoven had managed no more than nine symphonies, and apparently feared that he wouldn’t either.) I was simply left grateful for the sheer quality of this performance and the vividness with which it expresses life’s potential for renewal, even when faced with separation and transience. The audience didn’t applaud between songs or movements, but the length of the silence between the end of the piece and the start of the applause was an indication of how reluctant everyone was to break the magic.
It is a daunting piece that makes fearsome demands on the singers, as the tenor has to sing at the top of his range against a positively torrential orchestra (even in Iain Farrington’s arrangement for seventeen players). The roll call of distinguished singers who have sung this includes Julius Patzak, Peter Schreier, Fritz Wunderlich, Kathleen Ferrier, Janet Baker, and Christa Ludwig, to name but a few, and is enough to frighten off anyone from singing these parts live. So, all the more reason to be grateful to Marta Fontanals-Simmonds and Xavier Hetherington for taking on and triumphantly surmounting this formidable challenge.
Read more…Streams of Evocation
Dreams and Dreamtime
by Anne Warrington
Poetry Performance at Garrick’s Temple to Shakespeare, Hampton, 29th March
Review by Hilary Jones
On a near-spring evening by the Thames, the classical pavilion, Garrick’s Temple to Shakespeare offers a beautiful venue, even in twilight drizzle. Here, Poetry Performance’s production of Dreams and Dreamtime showcased an array of themed poems written by the Bard and other talented writers. It was presented by fourteen poets, actors and musicians who were dressed smartly in black, giving the right touch of elegance to their splendid surroundings.
The venue took Poetry Performance away from its usual haunt upstairs at The Adelaide, “the Queen of pubs”, in Teddington where it meets on the first Sunday of every month, into the public’s view, in an exposition of pieces scripted and compiled by Anne Warrington, who directed the performance, with the support of Kenneth Mason.
Read more…TeenAngsters
John Proctor is the Villain
by Kimberly Belflower
RCT, Wagner Johnson Productions et al at The Royal Court Theatre, Chelsea until 25th March
Review by Eleanor Lewis
The well-known quote: “Men are afraid that women will laugh at them, women are afraid that men will kill them.” is usually attributed to Margaret Atwood, though Atwood claims she actually got the gist of it from a male friend. Either way, laughter plays a large part in Kimberly Belflower’s strikingly good play John Proctor is the Villain, currently running at the Royal Court having transferred from Broadway, with many, many award nominations in its wake.
It’s important to mention the laughter, because whilst the play’s title suggests a new and possibly unsettling take on Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, the work is very funny. In a small town school in Georgia, USA, six students are studying The Crucible in their English class at their equivalent of what would be A level, Year Twelve or Thirteen here. Their popular young teacher Carter Smith engages easily with the four girls and two boys, presents them with the basics of The Crucible — Salem witch trials 1692 Cf. 1950s McCarthyism in the US — and sets them a project in which they must work in pairs to create a scene involving two characters who never meet in the play and imagine how that would go.
Read more…Melancholy and Tranquillity Explode
A Mirrored Monet
by Carmel Owen
Mirrored Monet LLC at Charing Cross Theatre until 9th May
Review by Gill Martin
Beige. Beige set. Beige costume. Beige future as the world blows itself up in World War I.
The master of colour, Claude Monet, whose glorious Water Lilies are favourites in global galleries and adorn a million chocolate boxes and greeting cards, is a beige figure at the opening of the London premiere of an exciting new musical, A Mirrored Monet, which is authentically inspired by Monet’s own written records and those of his peers.
But beige is out and the production explodes into colour with energy and verve, sweeping us up in the sumptuous music and insightful script.
Read more…A Paws-itively Curious Night
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
by Simon Stephens, based on the novel by Mark Haddon
Questors Productions at the Juli Dench Playhouse, Ealing, until 28th March
Review by Andrew Lawston
There is a dead dog centre stage at The Questors Theatre. A garden fork is poking out from it. The grisly tableau ought to be shocking, but it’s so instantly recognisable from the cover of Mark Haddon’s iconic novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time that it’s a strangely reassuring sight. It’s an early sign that we are in assured hands for this production of the Simon Stephens adaptation of the bestseller.
For those unfamiliar with the book or the National Theatre and later West End hit play, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time opens with fifteen year old Christopher Boone in his neighbour’s garden in Swindon, making the unpleasant discovery that someone has killed Wellington the dog. As a keen Sherlock Holmes fan, Christopher decides to investigate the canine murder, and begins “detecting” by questioning his relatives and neighbours.
Read more…Drawn Forth
Vincent in Brixton
by Nicholas Wright
OT Productions at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond until 18th April
Review by Patrick Shorrock
It seems highly implausible that Vincent Van Gough spent time as a very young man in Brixton as an art dealer and was possibly entangled romantically with his landlady and-or her daughter, until things came to an abrupt end following a visit from his sister. But, as often, with implausible reality, this is all historical fact. Writer Nicholas Wright produces a well flavoured drama from these unlikely ingredients, even if, inevitably, he has to resort to speculation. It is a measure of his success that this would still be a fascinating play, even if it wasn’t about someone who became one of the world’s most famous painters.
Read more…Parliament of Fools?
Waiting for Hamlet
by David Visick
Take Note Theatre and Smokescreen Productions at Theatre at the Tabard, Chiswick until 4th April
Review by Gill Martin
We, the audience at the Tabard Theatre, are directly in the line of the fire. In the firing squad are two actors with laser focus, bullseye accuracy and the delivery of a manic machine gun. Their ammo is words, just words, but what wordplay, thanks to a brilliant script by David Visick. If this ammunition was in the armoury of any warring power no drone would stand a chance of hitting its target.
And apart from their unwavering aim the two actors, Tim Marriott as the Old King Hamlet, and Nicholas Collett as the Fool, have only as back up a pair of hats. Yes, hats! One a bejewelled golden crown for King Hamlet, or rather his ghost as (plot spoiler) he’s but a ghost since his murder most foul by his brother who, incidently, is bedding the Queen. And a colourful cap’n’bells for the Fool, who is much wiser than the foolish King.
Read more…Past Mistress
The Dawn of Reckoning
by Mark Bastin
MBA Productions at The White Bear Theatre, Kennington until 28th March
Review by Harry Zimmerman
A play for two actors is a popular construct these days, especially for the burgeoning fringe theatre scene. In his introduction to Mark Bastin’s The Dawn of Reckoning, director Matthew Parker, in a piece entitled The Lure of the Two-Hander, says that this format enabled him to work with his actors to “…create something quite powerful and intense”.
He has certainly succeeded in this production.
Read more…Dying to Help
You Stupid Darkness!
by Sam Steiner
Putney Theatre Company at the Putney Arts Theatre Studio until 21st March
Review by Heather Moulson
On night shift in an office setting, we see four volunteers working as the world around them falls apart. This may presumably be the aftermath of nuclear fallout, but alongside it sits a personal fallout, and the crumbling of four lives, as the volunteers grapple and struggle to stay strong for desperate telephone callers.
A triumph for the Putney Theatre Company, You Stupid Darkness is well crafted, yet deeply disturbing. The two and a quarter hour production is deftly intensive as we are drawn into an on-going battle with self-control.
Read more…Emotional Depths
The Deep Blue Sea
by Terence Rattigan
Teddington Theatre Club at the Coward Studio, Hampton Hill Theatre until 21st March
Review by Gill Martin
If you are seeking vintage Terence Rattigan look no further than The Deep Blue Sea, Teddington Theatre Club’s latest offering at Hampton Hill’s Coward Studio.
It’s an intimate setting, with just fifty seats for its first night sell-out, with a faithful reproduction of the 1950s with floral curtains, cafe chairs and fringed standard lamps, popular in post-war Britain.
The atmosphere is claustrophobic and unsettling with both acts set over a single day in a north-west London boarding house complete with landlady (Melanie Richardson) in obligatory headscarf and housecoat.
Read more…
Mark Aspen 