A Crime Noir Drama – With a Twist.
Double Infemnity
by Naomi Westerman, Catherine O’Shea, and Jennifer Cerys
Little but Fierce and Paperclip Theatre co-production at The Vaults, Waterloo until 4th February
Review by Georgia Renwick
The Vault Festival, currently taking place in the underbelly of Waterloo station, is the place to be for the new and experimental, and what better setting than the dark, damp arches of the underground for a crime noir drama … with a twist.
Our trilby hat-donned, mac-wearing, whiskey-sozzled, ruthless super sleuth … … is a she. As Effie-Lou leads us on her solo search for her missing partner, Jo, she is not only fighting crime but the sexism of the 1960s. She solves crime and subverts gender stereotypes wherever she goes, and boy have co-writers Naomi Westerman, Catherine O’Shea, and Jennifer Cerys have really gone to town on the stereotype busting!
Her new partner Brad, pretty but dumb, wanders in and out of the office (by means of a projection and voice over) half naked, reminiscent of the underwritten-oversexed female co-part in countless films both in and out of the crime genre. “Oh, go put a shirt on!”, she sighs with exasperation, “don’t play the goon, that role is usually reserved for me”. Then there are the cups of coffee she must make, the meetings she is butted out of, the gropes and period jokes. This play may be set in the 1960s, but these are a list of office grievances with an unmissable contemporary relevance. It’s no secret that office sexism still abounds.
Whilst the script is sparky however, opportunities have been missed to create much of anything suspenseful or sinister. With all the one-liners when the plot does take a serious turn towards sex trafficking, it is hard to take seriously. The ‘baddies’ are satirised with manic laughs and strange projections, it’s funny but it never really feels like there is a great deal at stake.
Similarly, with the stage and technical design the sinister factor is lacking. With a strict budget I imagine moody streetlights, driving rain or swirling cigarette smoke are hard to recreate, but perhaps some atmospheric music between scenes or some more dramatic lighting (to cast those sinister long shadows) would have aided in making it visually more reminiscent of that classic LA crime noir scenography. There are so many era references and cues in the evidently well-researched script, the opportunity is there to transpose more of them from the script to the staging.
Katrina Foster does a stellar job of keeping up the momentum of the monologue with oodles of sass. However, as Effie’s fierce feminist-heroine mode never really lets up enough to show her vulnerability, there aren’t many other levels to play with.
The decision to bring other characters in as sound clips was not a help to Foster either. The clips made the characters feel far off, and the challenge of timing them with Foster and the projections sometimes stalled the action. When Foster had the opportunity to don a wig and play a ‘baddie’ (hanging nonchalantly on a wall throughout, a nice touch) this was refreshing. She breathed life into the part a great deal better than voice clips could have done.
The laughs were the loudest and the play at its best when the audience were being directly engaged by Foster, moments that allowed the audience to be more intimately included in Effie’s one-women mission. Overall, it is an hour of feminist infused fun. Now the challenge will be to take the show above ground, whilst taking the story deeper into the crime-noir world.
Georgia Renwick
February 2018
Image courtesy of Little but Fierce
A Painfully Human Story
A View from the Bridge
by Arthur Miller
Teddington Theatre Club, Hampton Hill Theatre until 3rd February
Review by Melissa Syversen
In the neighbourhood of Red Hook, situated in Brooklyn not far from the famous Brooklyn Bridge, we meet the Carbones, your seemingly average Italian-American family. Eddie Carbone works as a longshoreman and lives with his wife Beatrice and her 18-year-old niece Catherine who they took in when Beatrice’s sister died. They are happy, loving and pride themselves on hard work. When Beatrice’s cousins Marco and Rodolph, two illegal immigrants from Italy, come to stay with them tension rises as a romance develops between Catherine and Rodolpho. As one of his most famous plays, Arthur Miller’s drama A View from the Bridge is (quite deservedly in this writer’s opinion) a true modern classic. It is in equal parts a uniquely American story and a traditional Greek tragedy. We follow as a hard-working everyman, carving out his part of the American dream, only to be brought down by his own tragic human flaw and hubristic inability to acknowledge his mortal sin. A man of the surrounding community, personified by the lawyer Alfieri, looks on, unable to stop the events from unfolding before it undoubtedly reaches its tragic end.
In previous reviews of TTC production I have praised the club for their ambitious choices of material to bring to the stage, and this time is no different. A View from the Bridge is a mammoth of a play. The sheer scope of themes, motifs and emotions ripe for the picking in Miller’s script continue to attract the very biggest names working in theatre since the two-act version we know today premiered in 1956. Never to be daunted by such things, the cast and crew of TTC give it their all, and more importantly, make it their own. And happily, despite my trepidations, it goes well beyond my expectations handling the infamously difficult Brooklyn-Italian and Sicilian dialects needed. Not every pronunciation might be perfect, but they get the rhythm and cadence right, and that together with earnest commitment goes a long way. A great example of commitment: Matt Nicholas is so charming and likeable as the young dreamer Rodolpho that I am more than willing to overlook that he sounded more and more like my Croatian friend Andrija as the play went on. I mean that in a good way.
In the lead role of Eddie Carbone, Daniel Wain cuts a defined and specific character. He sometimes moves dangerously close to a Joe Pesci-ish pastiche but saves himself by fully grounding Eddie with remarkable pain behind the bravado. He also has a likeable charm which makes Eddie’s descent into more and more obsessive and toxic behaviour particularly wrenching to watch. (And bless him, Daniel also impressively soldiers on like a pro during an unfortunate costume malfunction that happened in one of the main confrontational scenes of the play.)
As Marco, Paul Furlong, in particular, stands out by giving a beautifully understated performance. Here is a man who is torn, a man who sees what is happening, sees the way his brother is being treated but say nothing in fear of losing the work he desperately needs to support his wife and children starving in Italy. The role of Marco, like Beatrice, (a rock-solid and heartfelt performance by Susan Gerlach) is probably one of the trickier and underappreciated roles in Miller’s canon. They are not the romantic leads of Catherine and Rodolpho nor the tragic figure of Eddie but are equally vital players to the story. They, like our narrator Alfieri (Jim Trimmer) see what is happening, but both are unable to escape the black hole they are slowly being sucked into.
Director Dane Hardie wisely makes the cast and text its focus and that is this production’s strength. Never does he lose sight of the humans at the centre of it all, keeping his direction, set and technical elements simple and straightforward (though I did enjoy the recurring red hook). A View from the Bridge is a shorter play so even with a twenty-minute interval, it clocked in at exactly two hours. The slow burning of the 1st Act is somewhat undercut by a rushed 2nd Act, culminating in a blink and you’ll miss it ending. For all the strength of this show, I wish the 2nd Act was allowed to breathe a bit more. We never really get a moment when Eddie realises the true reasons for his actions and where they are leading him. We never see the moment when he could have made the choice to stop but decides not to. Because of this some of the nuances are lost and the emotional weight the final moments falls a bit flat
I once had a conversation with a friend who was trying to decide whether Marco or Eddie was the bad guys of the story and what the overall moral was. To me, though I did not point it out to my friend at the time, these questions are somewhat beside the point. Eddie was, despite his end, a good man for most of his life. A loving husband who worked hard and helped others in need be it his niece or his wife’s cousins. However, the love he had for his niece grew into something darker, something he might not even fully understand, nor the ramifications it would have, before it was too late. By the time Beatrice finally says it out loud, he is in too deep in the narrative, and in the excuses he has constructed to justify his actions and feelings of jealousy, and suffers the fatal consequences. Good guy or bad guy, it is a painfully human story. One that reminds us that we are all vulnerable creatures capable of fatal flaws.
Melissa Syversen
January 2018
Photography by Sarah Carter
A Tide Taken at the Flood
Sleepers in the Field
by Peter Whelan
World Premiere
Questors Theatre, The Judi Dench Playhouse, Ealing, until 3rd February
Review by Mark Aspen
“Do you fight against those you hate, or for those you love?” is one of many questions thrown up by those caught in an all-pervading war, the characters in Peter Whelan’s play, Sleepers in the Field, which is being given a posthumous premiere by the Questors, a company of which the renowned playwright was a member.
Set in the north midlands during the Second World War, the characters are well-drawn recognisable people, who would have been even more recognisable to the grandparents of most of the audience. Each of the characters has a definite and robustly expressed attitude to the war, and their differing opinions form the dramatic tension in the play. This is both the strength and the weakness in the writing. Whelan has clear portraits of his protagonists but their opinions come across as black and white clichés of certain views. Whelan was clearly trying to use them as allegories for the political problems of the present time. Hence Sleepers in the Field doesn’t quite have the coherence of Whelan’s earlier plays on an historic theme, such as The Accrington Pals or The Herbal Bed and the didacticism tends to get in the way of the emotional development of the plot.
Nevertheless, Questors has made this play its own and one senses the dedication of director John Davey and his cast and crew, in a production that engaged the first night audience.
The plot centres around the lives of the Walsh family over eighteen months from the summer of 1940, when we find them building an Anderson shelter in their garden. Left-leaning Ted is a skilled engraver, largely self-educated, especially in philosophy and socialism. He thinks the war is Churchill’s project. His wife Binnie, an anxious worrier, wishes it would end. His daughter, Marion, is a passionate patriot, fervently wishing Hitler’s demise. His son, fifteen-year-old Joe, and his pal Roy Minshall, are vicariously enjoying the adventure of war. Joe and Roy’s maths teacher, Leslie Nicholson, is a would-be pacifist. Next door neighbour, Dinty Moss, is a pragmatist, making what he can of (and from) the war, from “the tide of life”. 
This is the neighbourhood into which wanders the enigmatic Mr Sand, rendered dumb by the war, lost. Meanwhile, into Marion’s life marches the sceptical Sergeant Jill Williamson, and, with the emotional devastation of an artillery shell, Captain East, ex-public school, doing his duty by the book, dashing.
It is through these ten pairs of eyes that we see the effects of war.
David and Despina Sellar, as Ted and Binnie Walsh, set a solid foundation for the action with good characterisation of their roles. Ted is at heart a family man, a little world weary, still smarting, physically and psychologically from the First World War. David Sellar’s depiction of Ted the man, knowledgeable by his own efforts to the point of erudition is admirable. But Ted may be side-tracked by his political prejudices. When he quotes Socrates “How shall we live?”, Binnie Walsh’s answer would have been more down to earth than Ted’s polemics. Despina Sellar’s portrayal is of a woman living on her nerves, taunted by her very own prejudices, one nurturing her family to the exclusion of others.
Henry Knox and Dylan Lewis played the two boys on the opening night. Their performances are a joy to watch, an uninhibited picture of the rough joys of boyhood at a time when boys could be boys. Their vividly gory imaginations and savage humour brings a light hearted touch to the story.
Mark Redup’s Dinty Moss is a bumptious self-assured character, but likeable in his optimism. It is a full-on part, in contrast to the subtlety mysterious Mr Sand. A mute part is not easy to play, and requires a lot of concentrated acting. Robin Ingram (who had acted with Peter Whelan nearly three decades ago) is well up to the part. Sand is a man damaged by war, but is his shuffling gait and loss of voice due to physical injury, shell-shock or dementia? Whelan does not tell us, but we later learn that Sand is from Slovakia, a country devastated by the War. There is a half-explained symbolism in the roles of both Sand and Moss. (Note the names: desiccation vs verdancy?) Maybe Sand represents the silenced voice of his homeland. Moss boards other people’s dogs, whose barking aggravates Binnie Walsh. As Ted informs us, dogs have only evolved to bark in imitation of their raucous human masters.
Victor Mellors accurately puts over the nature of the schoolmaster Nicholson, whose lack of boldness in being able to state his burgeoning pacifist principles, is reflected in his lack of boldness in pursuing his attraction to Marion. We see a lonely young man, loss in indecision. Oddly, Nicholson seems to have never been conscripted.
The determined and positive Marion does not wait to be called-up. She volunteers and, after training at Catterick, is sent to an anti-aircraft unit nearby. Here she is in her element, doing “her bit”. Claudia Carroll gives a strong and feisty performance as Marion, sympathetically and believably played. The father-daughter relationship with Ted is particularly touchingly displayed.
Lisa Varty as the Scots ATS Sergeant Williamson gives an empathetic and very positive portrayal as the NCO in charge of the “ackers”, the anti-aircraft crew. We don’t learn much of Nicolson’s background (and Whelan uses her to express anachronistic 21st Century feminist views rather than plainly justifiable WWII feminism) but she acts as the doubtful piggy-in-the-middle when Marion becomes the love-interest of Royal Artillery Captain Gryff East.
As the forbidden relationship between officer and other ranks develops, it also opens up differences in expectations and in the social structures that each belongs to. This has catastrophic consequences for East, when he unexplainably disappears, and for Marion when their love-nest, an unused army hut from the First World War near their gun emplacement, is hit in a bombing raid.
Felix Granger as East paints a finely characterised picture of a man of principle torn by internal conflicts. He has a unwarranted guilt about those civilians whom he has failed to protect in air raids. Marion unwittingly brings out deeply suppressed feelings from under East’s soldierly carapace. East is a difficult role, in that he has a long emotional journey in a short time (even their romance seems to advance very quickly … but it is wartime), but Granger’s performance is genuinely convincing.
Carroll and Grainger have just the right balance of passion and restraint that work within the period of the play, as moral codes crack under the vicissitudes of war.
Under the pressures of the first night of a world premiere there were some signs of nervousness amongst the cast, which manifested itself in a reduced pace and a difficulty in immediately inhabiting the characters, but even within the first half this seemed to settle, and certainly this should not be an issue with the first night out of the way, especially noting that the cast have noticeably taken warm possession of the play.
They certainly have an inspiring set to act on, and Ray Dunning’s set design incorporates some inspired transforms to switch between family bungalow and the army hut love-nest, with the anti-aircraft battery in between. The air-raid effects are quite awe-inducing, with Robert Walker’s lighting design and Alan N Smith and Paul Wilson’s sound design enhancing the confused fear enacted by the cast. Continuity between scenes is provided by a soundtrack giving a voice-over of Churchill’s speeches. (The voice-over actor is not credited in the programme but it sounds too pristine to be authentic.)
Period uniforms are always a figurative military minefield for the costume designer, but Sarah Andrews has a studied accuracy for the period, as with the civilian clothing, right down to Marion’s cami-knick’s.
(However, sorry to be really nerdy about other details. Gerberas, a South African exotic, would have been impossible as cut flowers in wartime England. And weren’t the ATS girls looking down the objective lenses of the rangefinder, rather than the eyepiece? Picky I know!)
Peter Whelan’s widow, Ffrangçon has said that Sleepers in the Field is “the play he wanted to write”, and surely Whelan would have been proud of Questor’s stage fulfilment of one of his last ambitions.
And the “sleepers in the field”? It would be a spoiler to let on, but suffice it to say that they protect. They protect, just as Captain East wanted to protect the civilians with his ack-ack guns and Marion wanted to protect what she held dearest. But then again, do you fight against those you hate, or for those you love?
Mark Aspen
January 2018
Photography by Peter Collins
Coming Unstuck
Strawberry Starburst
by Bram Davidovich
Kryptonite Theatre Company, The Vaults, Waterloo until 28th January
Review by Georgia Renwick
Do you travel through Waterloo station every day? You may not be aware but some of the best new theatre is being made under your feet, right now! Vault Festival is back for another year, and it’s bigger than ever. Over 300 productions will take place in and around The Vaults, in the arches under Waterloo station, between now and the middle of March. Over the past six years Vault Festival has garnered a reputation for programming work that questions, that challenges, that tells us something new, that explores alternative perspectives. Strawberry Starburst fits the bill.
Shez is sixteen. From a happy childhood, she hit her teens and found her life started to unravel. As she grapples with her relationship with her Mum, her Dad, and her prickly-faced boyfriend, how can she forge an identity of her own? The answer she comes to means she can no longer enjoy her favourite strawberry Starburst in the same way.
Strawberry Starburst tells a story you may think you already know. A teenage girl growing up; girl encounters family problems, girl encounters relationship problems, girl battles demons… But every generation faces the challenges of adolescence in new guises which is why well observed ‘coming of age’ stories are always fresh and always relevant, even if we feel like we’ve seen the characters or encountered the obstacles before. For today’s teenagers, the Instagram generation, the line between health and the dangers of eating disorders has never looked so thin. And this is where Shez comes unstuck.
Now, I’m not sixteen anymore, but dancing around the kitchen to Taylor Swift would probably be what I was up to if I were. As she sits, legs swinging, on the kitchen table and begins her story, the disparity between her candid words and awkward gait, her mood swings between ecstatic and despairing and the intensity in actress Imogen Comrie’s eyes that pleads to be understood rings painfully true.
Yes, this is a play about eating disorders and the ease with which they can creep in and turn a life and a family upside down, but through Bram Davidovich’s sensitive and observant writing the emphasis is very firmly on Shez and her journey. We get to know the girl before the disorder, we see more of the human side and less of the clinical. She’s cheeky, she’s feisty and she won’t be pitied. She’s a far-cry from the frail, weak victim an eating disorder sufferer can sometimes be portrayed as on the stage or in the media, highlighting the ease with which healthy girls (and boys) can slip.
The monologue format Davidovich has chosen is instrumental in her character-building, whilst Comrie’s arresting vulnerability in her performance of Shez ensures we are transported by her story. The variety of ways with which she can take a sip, a mouthful or a gulp of a glass of milk, half a dozen or so of which are dotted around the stage in almost ritualistic placement, is testament to the observational quality of her acting. Her ability to communicate her character’s emotional and visceral reaction to food through this simple action was so emotionally taut, it could at times be hard to watch.
Effort has also evidently been made to portray accuracy in the representation of the treatment she receives once her condition is identified. The therapist’s portrayal is especially enlightening. I sincerely hope she is based on a real therapist out there, helping the real sufferers who struggle every day.
But what has brought her here? Her mother’s insensitive comments? Her boyfriend’s indiscretions? Or her own self-confessed “perfectionist” nature? Ultimately, the play doesn’t place sole blame. This is one of its strengths. It ensures that it doesn’t attempt to typify a disorder that manifests itself in many forms, or to suggest that there are easy answers or cure-alls.
One qualm is that the pace does escalates a bit fast, from her initial signs of illness. Perhaps a sign of it having been shortened to fit the Vaults’ tight seventy minute time slot. Ultimately however, the play feels like a snapshot of a girl on her way to the rest of her life. Can she learn to adapt, grow and accept herself? I am left sincerely hoping so.
Georgia Renwick
January 2018
Image courtesy of Kryptonite Theatre
Whistle-stop Excellence
Fleur Barron and Julius Drake
Part one: Songs by Brahms and Schumann
Richmond Concert Society at St Margaret’s, Twickenham, 16th January
Review by Mark Aspen
Bitches, witches and breeches! These, it is said, form the repertoire of the mezzo-soprano. Shame, says I, for I’ve always thought when listening to lady singers that that the mezzo register is my favourite. Now I know it is. And how much wider is the repertoire.
Fleur Barron’s recent concert at St Margaret’s was a whistle-stop affair. She flew in from Zurich, not I hasten to add on a broomstick, at a few hours’ notice to replace the advertised singer, who sadly had to withdraw that very morning with the singer’s nightmare of a zero voice. She came with, and at the recommendation of, renowned pianist Julius Drake. Drake’s skills are in high demand worldwide and he has collaborated with a wide range of well-known opera singers. As soon as Drake’s fingers met the Steinway and Barron began to sing, it was obvious that we were to be in for something really special.
Fleur Barron was given the accolade of a Britten Pears Young Artist last year, and in 2016 was awarded the unique Jackson Prize for Excellence from the prestigious Tanglewood Music Festival. Barron and Drake have often collaborated, but it was remarkable that within an afternoon they were able to present a programme of the highest quality from their mutual repertoire.
Most striking though was Barron’s versatility. Yes, the bitches, witches and breeches were hinted at, but we had a wonderfully characterised range of characters, old and young, male and female, some of the good, the bad, and the ugly, and many many of the beautiful. For her acting skills are quite apparent and it clear that she is a skilful opera performer. Recent major roles have included the title role in Carmen at the Aspen Music Festival [editor’s note: we must disclaim at this point that the Mark Aspen website sponsors the Festival], a role to which she would obviously give pizzazz.
The programme opened with four pairs of songs by Brahms. A spooky start with the first pair Auf dem Kirchhofe (in the churchyard) and Der Tod, das ist die kühle Nacht (death, that is the cool night) set the spine a-tingling. The first, which describes a derelict graveyard in a storm, was sung with a strong definite attack, melting to resignation at the thought of the slumbering coffins. The second song however contrasts death with a song of a young nightingale, which sings of nothing but love, and the piece gave a good opportunity to exhibit the richness of Barron’s mezzo.
The second couple of Brahms’ songs were in a much lighter vein, the playful Spanisches Lied , in which a young girl wonders if she should wake up her sleeping lover, and the complementary Vergebliches Ständchen (futile serenade) a humorous dialogue between a young man who is knocking at the girl’s bedroom door. “Macht auf die Tur” (open up the door) he pleads. She will have none of his presumption, “Gute Nacht, mein Knab,” (good night, my boy). Changes in tempo and switches to a minor key animated the piece and there were light-hearted exchanges between singer and accompanist.
The next pair of songs are more reflective and from an older person’s viewpoint.
Therese, in which the “milchjunger Knabe” (boy fresh from his mother’s milk) questions the older Therese with his eyes. He may have a lot to learn, for the poet in Alte Liebe speaks of finding “den altern Liebesharm” (the grief of old love). This sense of longing, sang so tenderly by Barron, intensifies in the final pair of Brahms’ songs, Unbewegte laue Luft (motionless, tepid air) and Botschaft (message). The wind gets up in the second song “lind und lieblich um die Wange meiner Geliebten” (balmy and delightful around the cheek of my beloved). But to no avail, the love is no longer requited. The intensity of longing brings to mind that lovely untranslatable German word, Sehnsucht, literally a seeking to see (one’s beloved).
Brahms owed much of his early recognition to Robert Schumann and indeed Schumann’s wife Clara rather regarded Brahms as their prodigy. The Schumann legacy was apparent in the set of seven songs by Robert Schumann. Barron’s ability to put across the feeling of the song was obvious in Die Kartenlegerin, a fortune teller reading the cards, in this case a young woman trying to foretell her own prospects of life and love. She is torn between excitement and anxiety as revelations come. She has put aside her sewing when her mother fell asleep over her book, and now plays the cherry-stone game of rich man, poor man … but what’s this, an old crone come to banish happiness. Whoops, it’s real life and Mum’s woken up! “Die Karten lügen nie” (the cards never lie)!
But in Der Schwere Abend (the sultry evening) the young woman walks in the overcast garden with a man. Like the day, their love has lost its shine, and she wishes they were both dead. Barron’s punch on the word Tod (death) shouted anguish. However, when the lovers in Lehn deine Wang’ an meine (rest your cheek on mine) are together the young woman thinks she will Sterb’ ich vor Liebessehnen (die of love’s desire)! A lovely short declaration. In Stille Liebe (silent love) she says she is lost for words, but still manages to sing her “kleine Lied”, a pretty piece in which the delicacy of Barron’s singing was echoed by Drake’s beautifully delicate high piano.
The Schumann songs then took a different direction form the gently lyrical, a sharp about-march to the military, and the heart-breaking dilemma of Der Soldat, the soldier who is in the firing squad detailed to execute his own dear friend. Ironically, of the nine bullets, only his hits the target, the convicted friend’s heart. Gulp! Voice and piano combined, opening in slow march time and reaching the powerful forte crescendo on “das Hertz” (the heart).
And in Tragödie (tragedy) one could almost hear the pathos dripping. In Tragödie I, two young lovers elope and run away to a distant land, but in Tragödie II, tired and lost in a wood, they fall asleep amongst the spring bluebells, but in the night there is a hard frost.
And they perish! … Barron and Drake leave the pathos hanging. (There is a Tragödie III, in which many years later a miller and his girlfriend sit at the same spot where a linden has now grown. It is a warm and happy summer’s evening, yet they start to weep without knowing why.)
Finally with Schumann we were taken on a dreamy trip into the dappled sunshine of the greenwood as Mein Wagen rollet langsam, my carriage slowly rolls on. The occupant half asleep suddenly sees “drei Schattengestalten”, three shadowy forms, who whirls past in a mist, pulling faces at him and chuckling. Maybe there were too many magic mushrooms in that wood!
Mark Aspen
January 2018
Photographs courtesy of Fleur Barron and Julius Drake
Mark Aspen’s review will continue with Songs by Ives, Debussy and De Falla.
The Fragility of Love
La Sylphide
in double bill with Song of the Earth (McMillan, Mahler) or Le Jeune Homme et la Mort (Petit, JS Bach)
English National Ballet, The London Coliseum, until 20th January
La Sylphide
by August Bournonville, music by Severin Løvenskiold
Review by Suzanne Frost
In this hugely contrasting and somewhat obscure double bill, the neoclassical minimalist Das Lied von der Erde is programmed to be followed by La Sylphide, a full on romantic ballet. While the programming is definitely debatable, La Sylphide will always have special place in my heart. It is undoubtedly one of the prettiest ballets I ever had the chance to perform in. As there are only six children needed for this show, we were allowed to be backstage already at half hour call. Our ballet mistress played Madge the witch and she would appear in the dark wings in full make up to wish us good luck while magical fairies were warming up on stage. I believe I can pinpoint this as the exact moment I caught the theatre bug. La Sylphide is somewhat singular in the romantic ballet canon as a supernatural gothic fairy tale with an unhappy ending, giving a poignant melancholic element to an otherwise hugely joyful show.
Set in Scotland, the handsome Highlander James is about to marry the wholesome Effie, when a Sylph, a wood fairy, takes a fancy to him, haunts his dreams and lures him to follow her into the forest literally seconds before his wedding. My first thought at curtains up was that way more ballets should play in Scotland! The swinging kilts bring so much colour, movement and atmosphere to the stage. And the Bournonville style fits so well with traditional Scottish dance. Actually it’s the Danish school of ballet and though ancient, it has aged wonderfully. La Sylphide was famously the first ballet ever to be performed in point shoes by Marie Taglioni in 1832. Just imagine how surreal and otherworldly the effect must have been to that first audience.
The Bournonville style suits small dancers with fast muscle reflexes and usually ballet companies have many members that fit the type. There is a graceful humility about Bournonville, completely contrary to grand Russian ballet gestures. Instead of following any virtuosic technicality with five elaborate bows to disrupt the storyline, the Bournonville solos end the most fantastically fast footed batterie and entrechat six (I dare anyone to cross their legs six times in one jump) with a simple hand gesture, the balletic version of a shrug. A little wink as if saying: yes, you saw right, I just did that! Utterly charming! English National Ballet’s young soloist Isaac Hernández is a beautiful long limbed elegant dancer who celebrates his solos as bursts of energy. I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t finish his assemblées in the second act variation in a grand plié, as is custom in the Peter Schaufuss version. It adds such a nice folkloristic element and I bet it would have looked spectacular on Isaac.
Casting the Sylph is notoriously difficult. It takes such a special kind of dancer: she should be small and cute, overwhelmingly charming but childishly mischievous and most of all, the right ballerina will give the impression to be almost constantly airborne. Jurgita Dronina is a perfect Syph. Not a sound from her point shoes. Light footed and happy, she has the fluffiest softest jumps whenever she is not suspended in endless balances as if time stood still. These contrasts show real quality and control in a dancer. When the Syph dies, killed by James’ attempt to capture and hold her, you get a real sense that something beautiful has been taken from nature, a fluttering, delicate creature killed by human possessiveness. I might have seen a more evil witch in other productions and the ascent of the dead Sylph to heaven could be done as a slightly less religious image but the glorious tartans, the wonderful music by Løvenskiold, the quality of the entire ensemble (I was mesmerized by the flawless footwork in the entrance of Effie’s girlfriends. What arches!) – Pure joy.
Suzanne Frost
January 2018
The Song of the Earth
by Kenneth MacMillan, music by Gustav Mahler
Review by Mark Aspen
As the double bill prelude to the shortcake-tin classical La Syphide, the dynamically angular contemporary ballet, The Song of the Earth is not an obvious choice.
Kenneth MacMillan claimed that the ballet that he would most like to be remembered for creating was The Song of the Earth. It is therefore a fitting choice for the English National Ballet to revive in tribute to MacMillan on the 25th anniversary of his death in October 1992. It faithfully follows both the score and the sentiment of Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, which in itself was inspired by poems written by Chinese Tang dynasty poets.
So how are the two ballets mutually relevant? Both involve rivalry, both involve inevitability of emotions, both involve loss of that is impossible to keep. But the main themes revolve around the contrasts between fragility of love, the transience of earthly things and the eternity of true beauty.
Mahler’s song symphony (he was wary of numbering the symphony to avoid the curse of the Ninth) is a suite of six songs, each ethereally haunting in style, for alternating voices. Antipodean artists, contralto Rhonda Browne and tenor Samuel Sakker richly bring out the ephemeral mystery and brooding power of the song cycle. The ENB Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Gavin Sutherland with great insight into the atmosphere of the music, are on top form. Although Mahler foregrounds the woodwind, there are many opportunities for each member of the orchestra to shine in commenting on the themes.
The three central characters are The Man, The Woman and The Messenger of Death. The Man is described by the faux-Asian pentatonic song Three, Von der Jugend (On Youth), and The Woman in the gentle legato song Four, Von der Schönheit (On Beauty), amongst the young girls plucking lotus flowers by the riverbank. (“junge Mädchen pflücken Lotosblumen an dem Uferrande”). Then the tragedy of The Man’s passing, as he is taken by Der Ewige (the eternal one), The Messenger of Death … but they return for her, bringing the promise of renewal. “Die liebe Erde allüberall blüht auf im Lenz und grunt aufs neu … ewig… ewig…” (Everywhere the dear earth blossoms in spring and grows green anew … for ever and ever …).
MacMillan’s blend of classical ballet and contemporary dance gives The Song of the Earth its expressive style. In 1965, when MacMillan premiered the work with the Stuttgart Ballet this was an innovative approach. Indeed the Royal Ballet had rejected the whole concept. If the amalgam of dance styles is potentially uncomfortable for classical dancers, there was little evidence that it overextended the mixed corps de ballet, who are largely secure and confident in delivering the athleticism and articulation that McMillan’s abstract approach demands. Certainly many of the postures may seem inimical to classical ballet (eg leading heels) and some give a nod towards yoga, reflecting the oriental leaning of Mahler’s sources.
Isaac Hernández (whose dancing was recognised by an award from the President in his native Mexico) danced the The Man with a strength and assurance, portraying one who remains unaware of his own mortality, and which makes his loss so poignant for The Woman. Erina Takahashi (who incidentally is married to James Streeter, La Syphide’s Bimse) brings a delicate lightness to the role of The Woman, touching in her loneliness at his loss. The masked figure of The Messenger of Death is given a demanding choreography, which was impressively delivered in this performance by Soloist, Ken Sarahashi.
Both Mahler and McMillan were going through difficult periods in their lives when they gave themselves to the creative processes that evolved as The Song of the Earth. McMillan saw the message of the work as “a sort of revelation achieved through death”. But in spite of the weighty premise of the work, the concluding feel, as music and choreography hang in the concluding cadenza, “… ewig… ewig…”, is one of elation, that death is not an end but a beginning.
Mark Aspen
January 2018
Photography by Tristram Kenton, Laurent Liotardo, Max Mukhamedov and Jason Bell
No Sleep till Curtain
Sleeping Beauty
by Ben Crocker
Edmundians, Cheray Hall, Whitton, until 27th January
Review by Matthew Grierson
The one thing about this Sleeping Beauty that isn’t charming is the prince – and that’s only because he’s called Orlando rather than having the more common panto soubriquet. The Edmundian Players’ production of the fairy tale, on this weekend and next in Whitton, is a sterling, stirring orchestration of cast and crew to warm the heart in these cold days.
From the off, its ambition is apparent. The lively Billy (Ellen Walker), this play’s answer to Buttons, leads the palace cleaners in a well-drilled chorus across a bold, impressive and, as it turns out, versatile set. He then fills us in on the plot – don’t worry, there isn’t much – before the mode deftly switches to physical comedy and wordplay for his exchange with King Norbert (Becky Halden). Nobby demands Billy bring his footstool, but no sooner does the royal personage mount the step than he leaps off it and strides across from stage right to stage left then back again, and so on, reciting the 26 names he is about to christen his daughter (Aurora through to Zanita), while all the time Billy struggles to keep pace with him.
Up next in the overture of characters is our dame, Dave Young as Queen Dorothy, who resembles nothing so much as Steve Pemberton of the League of Gentlemen essaying a loose impersonation of our own HM.
Queen Dotty then coaxes Kitty on stage – and a big hand, or paw, for Isabel Espi, who is playing the palace pet complete with sling, having sustained what looks like a sprained wrist. Both in their own way are central to the play: Queenie with her undoubtable presence and humour keeping the energy up, and Kitty as an adorable constant, offering the occasional “meow” as a wry comment on proceedings. The cheer she gets when she is blessed with the courage of a lion and mimes along to an MGM-style roar is well earned indeed. Rounding out the cast of goodies are Beautiful, Thoughtful and Peaceful, the three Fairy Godmothers who arrive in time to bless the infant princess in the form of rhyme …
But are rudely upstaged by the wicked Carabosse and her talking cat Spindleshanks (top marks to scriptwriter Ben Crocker for the name, indicative of his verbal dexterity). As Billy has not invited them to proceedings, the baddies are (super)naturally there to curse Aurora to death-by-spinning-wheel when she reaches maturity. This fabulous pair, played by Amelia Kirk and Clare Blake respectively, offer such good-value villainy that the audience is often caught between laughter and booing when they appear, and they squabble for instance over which of them will get to pretend to be a little old lady or simple serving wench to deceive Aurora and Orlando. And how Kirk manages to keep her elaborate headgear on throughout the play, while still striding commandingly about the place, is a marvel. She and Spindleshanks are also heralded by increasingly arch musical cues, so likewise to be lauded for their work are MD Roger Swift and effects technician Paul Wiz Baker.
Not that the rest of the production team doesn’t merit praise: costumes and music sparkle throughout, often literally, in testament to the technical ambition that the play fulfils … while helping itself to a few stylings from the animated version in the process. Most of the eighteen-strong cast effect several costume changes during the course of the show, and the flats are switched with similar frequency to become variously the palace throne room, the kitchens, Carabosse’s lair, Dreamland and the town centre. There are a couple of what one might call technical hitches when drapes drop unexpectedly, and another when the singalong lyrics to “Proper Cup of Coffee” should pop down on a different drape and miss their cue, but the cast, whether young or less young, remain unruffled and keep the show moving admirably.
The curtain is on the whole effectively used to screen these complicated changes, and it serves as the palace garden backdrop against which grown-up Aurora and Orlando meet for the first time. Well, I say “grown-up”, but Kathryn Bedell and Mary McGrath are taking on big parts for their age, and acquit themselves well, shining especially when it comes to the singing and dancing, with Aurora’s dream song solo a singular achievement. The larger musical numbers are equally accomplished, and this is nowhere clearer than at the start of the second act when a cast of somnambulant courtiers and zombies are led through “Thriller” in Carabosse’s lair by the bad fairy herself, only to switch into choreography of a different sort when there is a Keystone Cops-style run-around, culminating in a “They’re behind you!” set piece.
I realise that I’ve more than usually resorted to a summary of the show here rather than review it as such, but the Edmundians’ production is one that’s hard to fault – not only attempting what you’d expect of larger, more professional productions but doing so with aplomb. If there were one note I would offer, it would be that the production is so good that the cast can afford to be more confident, upping the tempo and giving the songs just that little bit more oomph. But this is a first night, and I’m sure this will come naturally as the show goes on. All I can say is that, when the production wraps up with Pharrell Williams’ “Happy”, it certainly captures the audience’s, and this reviewer’s, mood.
Matthew Grierson
January 2018
Photography by Edmundo Sostenitore
Joyful Dreaming
The Nutcracker
Victor Smirnov-Golovanov, music by Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Moscow City Ballet, Richmond Theatre
with Swan Lake until 21st January
Review by Suzanne Frost
Moscow City Ballet is one of those companies that ride on the wave of Russian ballet’s reputation for excellence – but they are not the Bolshoi. Just to make that clear. However, with their extensive touring schedule, they do bring classical ballet productions to all corners of the world and probably function as a first introduction to the art form for many people far and wide … and as a first introduction this works just fine.
The philosophy behind Victor Smirnov-Golovanov’s staging seems to be more is more. This Nutcracker is prop-tastic, the limited stage of the Richmond Theatre is full of people holding lots of stuff. Well it is Christmas after all: there’s teddy bears and dolls, champagne glasses and flower bouquets and animal masks etc. etc.
The first act at family Silbergaus’ Christmas Eve party can be mime heavy and Golovanov makes a welcome effort to do much of the storytelling through dancing. The three automatic dolls that Uncle Drosselmeyer brings to the party are used as a clever storytelling device, acting out the legend of the battle of the Nutcracker against the Mouse King so that ties in nicely. Clara recognizes herself in the ballerina doll drawn into the fight and learns what to do for later when the action gets real. A special mention should go to Kseniya Eriusheva who plays Clara’s brother Fritz (all the boy children are played by female ensemble members): full of energy and enthusiastic acting, she also has by far the best technique and professionally trained feet and legs. The technical standard within the company varies immensely and there are some girls in the chorus line who can count themselves very lucky to be called professional dancers. Golovanov’s ideas and choreography are mostly very nice, fast paced and pretty. The Christmas party is sufficiently festive; the magical elements give mystery. I liked the Snowflakes in their fluffy longer tutus. But occasionally I didn’t get the choices: why, on the most sensual and swinging B motive of the Spanish dance would you let the ballerina do fouettées, a snappy sharp turn that needs an even rhythm? But all the divertissement get to show off their pirouettes, fouettées from everyone seems to be a thing. The Russians love virtuosity. But, as I mentioned, not everyone at Moscow City Ballet is on the same level.
One of the challenges of staging The Nutcracker is to tie the two acts together: the first full of storytelling, the second a random suite of divertissement and waltzes. Golovanov’s explanation is that everything from the fighting mice to the waltzing flowers is a dream Drosselmeyer brewed up for his godchild Clara, acting a bit as the BFG of ballet. Works for me. Nobody need a logical explanation for a Sugar Plum Fairy reigning over the Kingdom of Sweets anyway. But then once he conjures up a dream prince for Clara, Drosselmeyer suddenly seems jealous and fights for her affection, a dramaturgical decision I didn’t understand at all. The dream pas de deux for Clara and her prince is arguably some of the most beautiful music of the entire score and I liked a lot of the choreography here – until Drosselmeyer kept pulling Clara back and forth across the stage away from her prince. Daniil Orlov is quite a handsome fellow and his Drosselmayer was a charming, slightly geeky presence on stage but this twist in the story gave me a taste of creepy uncle.
Liliya Orekhova is announced in the programme as the face of the company and Golovanov’s favourite dancer so I had high expectation. She does indeed look like a picture perfect ballerina with a ruling stage presence and I assume she will be lovely in the forthcoming Swan Lake but here, she doesn’t actually get to do very much. The grand pas de deux is done by Clara, now in a tutu. The adage is fairly acrobatic and looks like hard work. Talgat Kozhabaev is a solid partner and a charming prince. The choreography for the Sugar Plum Fairy variation is quite hard and accentuated, which suits an energetic dancer like Ksenia Stankevich – but not necessarily Tchaikovsky’s delicate glockenspiel music. The Hungarian Sinfonietta Orchestra under Igor Shavruk seems on good form (in their little makeshift pit) adding to a rich ballet experience that occasionally seems fit to burst the limits of Richmond Theatre.
Moscow City Ballet are keen to keep alive the tradition of classical Russian ballet. I’m always a bit weary of anyone trying to preserve anything in art, as it always seems so dead set on conservatism and the good old days. As a touring company, they have a valid existence, as Moscow ballet is often bringing ballet to the provinces, giving especially children a chance to experience their first big classical ballet production. But in London, the Royal Ballet offers a bog-standard traditional version of The Nutcracker with the added bonus of perfectly stretched knees and pointed toes. Just saying. For the ballet connoisseur, Moscow ballet is a tad rough around the edges. For the novice, the once a year theatregoer and the many, many children in the sold-out Richmond theatre, I think this was a joyful production with coherent storytelling and the right amount of kitsch. Good enough.
Suzanne Frost
January 2018
Images courtesy of PMB Presentations
Gentle Humanity
Seven Letters
by Rian Flatley
Noel Coward Studio, Hampton Hill Theatre, until 20th January
Review by Genni Trickett
If you could see into your future, even for fifteen seconds, would you do it? What do you think you would see? Would fifteen seconds be enough?
Such are the musings of Faye, a feisty, Irish octogenarian currently residing in The Pines nursing home. It seems a strange train of thought for a lady of advanced years; after all, how far ahead would she be able to see? But Faye and her friends Lena and Tempie prefer to live on Memory Lane rather than in The Pines, and who can blame them?
As they settle down with an endless supply of tea, their routine demolition of the crossword is interwoven with reminiscences, flights of fancy and confidences. These ladies have been through a lot over the years. There have been happy times, hard times and devastating times, and they have faced them all with fortitude. They are survivors. Through monologues, flashbacks and song, we are privileged to push aside the curtain of time and peep into their lives.
Top-billing clearly goes to Faye, played with mercurial brio by Teresa Jennings. She talks the most, says deliberately provocative and outrageous things and is clearly used to being the centre of attention. In other hands the more muted Tempie and Lena might have faded entirely into the background; however, Clare Gollop and Kate Winder are not about to let that happen. Gollop’s Tempie hides a kind heart beneath a gruff exterior, and Winder, as Lena, has the smile of an angel – appropriately, as it happens. Writer Rian Flatley’s sparkling, witty dialogue is entertaining, but the gentle humanity of the script is what allows all three actresses to make their characters real, three-dimensional people. Their monologues are funny and touching, and give a fascinating glimpse into a time long past.
Less successful are the flashbacks involving Faye’s younger self, played by Stacey Leigh. While Leigh makes a sympathetic job of the role, she is too different from the older Faye for us to feel any emotional connection between the two of them. This feeling of distance is exacerbated when she sings, as her accent switches abruptly to American, emphasising the disparities rather than the similarities between them. Since there is no “middle-aged” Faye, and we hear nothing about her life between vampy young club singer and elderly care home resident, it is difficult to empathise with her progression. Similarly with Tempie; we hear about the devastation of her early years but nothing of note between then and now, and it is hard to believe that such a resolute woman would not have pulled herself up by her bootstraps and made something of her life. What happened to her in between? We will never know.
The relationship between the three ladies and their young care worker is beautifully handled in the script, and their description of her as a “window” painfully, heartbreakingly real. Unfortunately, Alice Taylor’s depiction of perky, kindly, chavvy Summer is laboured and many of her best lines marred by over-emphasis. In another production this might not have mattered, but when set against the masterly acting of Jennings, Gollop and Winder it jars. She is at her best when she sings; set to music her delivery is pure and poignant.
Despite the many trials suffered by the long-suffering trio, the tone of the play is fairly upbeat – right until the end. Flatley, who also directed the play, leaves our ladies in a state of uncertainty, helplessness and apprehension. While this may be upsetting, it is clearly a deliberate and considered decision. Flatley is making an important point; she wants us to know that, while death may be scary, life is infinitely more so. Particularly when one is old.
Nevertheless, to spend an evening in the company of Faye, Tempie and Lena is a pleasure. Their humour is infectious, and their courage and resolute determination give us hope. We feel that, despite everything, they can achieve anything they want to achieve. Maybe one of them will even finish that crossword.
Genni Trickett
January 2018
Photograph courtesy of Rian Flatley
Breaking the Fourth Wall
Suff’ring
OSO Arts Centre, Barnes, until 20th January
Review by Matthew Grierson
I would have liked to have told you more about StraightUp Productions, who are putting on Suff’ring at the Old Sorting Office arts Centre in Barnes until Saturday, as both myself and (because she gets a say) Mrs Grierson enjoyed the evening. But perhaps it’s appropriate that the company doesn’t supply a programme, so cast and crew have to remain anonymous.
It’s appropriate because, first, it suggests a lack of preparation entirely in keeping with the disorganised, nameless and fictitious company that is staging the play about suffragettes around which this play takes place. Second, there is every chance that the actual cast feel such sympathy with the pitiful performers they portray that they are embarrassed to declare themselves. Oh, and – third – it makes my job easier, as I only have one set of actors to refer to.
If this sounds an unduly complicated way to begin a review, it also reflects the tricky opening of the production itself. The first scene of this play about suffragettes is actually the final scene of a show about the Vietnam War, and it quickly becomes apparent that real action is taking place in a fringe theatre rather than a parlour around the time of the First World War, as you might have expected. Once the marines are offstage, there is a riot of cast and crew, busying themselves in preparation for (fictional) director Helena Pickford’s magnum opus about the women’s suffrage movement. At this point, anyone who has ever participated in theatre at any level will laugh knowingly at the chaos of lost props and missing actors. Or wince.
Uptight technician Nicky, obsessed with health and safety, is a particular highlight of this sequence, and it’s a shame that she remains true to professional form and never steps onstage during the “action”. However, as with so many productions, this one is held together by the stage manager – in this case, nervy Kim, who conveys with beautiful precision her increasing desperation as the cast absences mount up. Thrusting herself into the role of Walter Greenslade, vacated first by a missing miss and then the star’s Spanish husband, Esteban, Kim quickly builds up to gestures ever more dramatic in order to fill the gaps left by her talent. When she is told by Isabel – or is it Connie? – that women have the vote in Australia and New Zealand, the suffragette points into opposite wings, and, in character, Kim repeats the gesture in exaggerated form as though a snooker player leaning in for a difficult shot. She’s only outdone late in the second act, when a false arm is deployed by another actor who has pulled herself out of a body bag that has been hidden in the wardrobe. You’re not following this? You have to be there. No, really. You have to be there.
To single out Nicky and Kim is not to deny the quality of a largely strong ensemble cast (would that I could name them). Sisters Violet and Connie – or is it Isabel? – and the director’s Moldovan partner gamely tackle anything that comes their way, as do the two Marines who have inveigled themselves into proceedings so they can catch the eye of Hollywood bigshot Tony Branch, who is, improbably, in the audience. The show is thus an object lesson in what happens when every performer is in it for themselves, and their exaggerated, badly judged performances work when they are part of the performance. However, Branch himself is just a poor performance in the supposed reality of the play, lacking rhythm and spouting his dialogue in a cod-American accent that doesn’t help matters. Similarly, the elderly Ethel, as portrayed by Joyce, could be a real hoot with her impromptu obscenities and politically incorrect outbursts, but her comic timing is hit and miss.
It’s not always easy, therefore, to appreciate the catastrophic play being staged, as the play framing it exhibits the same sloppy tendencies from time to time. The behind-the-scenes shambles, while never close to being an actual shambles, is not as orchestrated as a farce needs to be to keep its humour sharp, and particularly in the opening hustle and bustle it’s not always clear what’s going on as storylines are set up. The play will surely be seen in the line of Noises Off and, inevitably, The Play that Goes Wrong and its ilk, so it’s important that it have a clarity of direction, especially if it wants to make the West End transfer to which the (fictional) director aspires.
When the (actual) direction is clearer, there are several clever juxtapositions, showing what can be achieved if things go exactly wrong. For instance, the sound cues have become mixed up, so when Mr Greenslade makes a dramatic entrance, he is heralded not by a creaking door but by a gunshot from the previous play. Similarly, a crate that is supposed to contain a stolen bombshell drops its metaphorical payload in the form of the original Mrs Greenslade and her (fictional) real-life ex-husband, in front of her (fictional) real-life current spouse, Tony.
In case there’s any doubt about the kinds of film that this auteur makes, by the way, he tells the hapless (fictional) director Helena during the interval – sorry “interval” – that he wants to see the play get grittier. When she relays this note to her cast, they duly oblige, throwing swears and drugs into the mix with free abandon. At both levels, the play does run a constant risk of doing too much, but manages to draw it into a creditable crescendo in which both Vietnam and suffrage shows are playing simultaneously ¬– and makes so spectacular a use of a helicopter onstage that I suspect the producers are begging the comparison to Miss Saigon.
At this point, there’s no need for the show to go any further … though it does. Rather than let us enjoy the ham-fisted and earnest attempts of the “cast” to sell the importance of gender parity – not to mention the futility of war – there is a protracted ending in which these messages are hammered home in the fates that befall the different characters, with the men dispatched in ignominy and the women’s doughty character vindicated. Again, the frame play veers too close to the play within it, which the “cast” themselves have already critiqued for being “too factual” and having atrocious dialogue.
Despite a few mentions of Barnes, it’s clear that the show originated in Edinburgh, where it will have done best. Not only does that set-up make sense of the supposed need for a quick turnaround between shows, it would also have kept the piece tighter, without the bagginess that detracts from an otherwise fine, funny and cleverly conceived production.
Matthew Grierson
January 2018
Image courtesy of StraightUp Productions
Mark Aspen 