Holy Smoke, and Mirrors
The Two Popes
by Anthony McCarten
Royal and Derngate and Anthology Theatre at The Rose Theatre, Kingston until 23rd September, then on tour until 29th October
Review by Mark Aspen
Now for something completely different … papacy complexity. Problems in the highest echelons of the Roman Catholic Church, discussions on theology and politics, the personal interests and minor tribulations of cardinals and their opinions, ecclesiastical and political, do not seem at first to provide fruitful material of a stage play. But thanks to Anthony McCarten’s witty and nimble script, and the skills of two highly respected actors in this touring production, these are the subjects of two hours of enthralling and thoughtful theatre.
Read more…Matter of Black Lives
Yellowman
by Dael Orlandersmith
Orange Tree Productions at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond until 8th October
Review by Eleanor Lewis
“If you’re born in America with a black skin, you’re born in prison”, said Malcolm X. Dael Orlandersmith’s play Yellowman further points out that black is only a starting point and there are many types of prison. This two-hander play is a clever and absorbing examination of what that means in real life.
Two characters, Alma (Nadine Higgin) and Eugene (Aaron Anthony) are growing up in the searing heat of South Carolina in the sixties. The title Yellowman refers to the derogatory term used to describe the lighter skin tone of Eugene. Alma is darker skinned. The action follows the trajectories of both their lives as they become aware of, and struggle to free themselves from the race-based system they’re caught in, before it damages them as it has their parents before them.
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Queen Elizabeth II
21st April 1926 – 8th September 2022
Rising Tide of Anxiety
The Sea Between
by Demi Leigh
Driftwood and Kibo Productions at the Barons Court Theatre until 17th September
Review by Denis Valentine
The Sea Between, written by Demi Leigh, offers a great snapshot into a modern day problematic relationship whilst intertwining with elements from Greek Mythology.
Leigh (Ginny) and Matthew Kay (Mike) play their two characters well and both bring a high sense of definition and realism to their roles. The chemistry between their two characters builds from the awkward first meeting into being more familiar, but never properly knowing each other. The audience, as the fly on their wall to their relationship, can clearly see through well-played foreboding moments where the problems lie, as the play explores those red flag incidents that can be so easily missed when you’re in the subjective rather than objective position.
Read more…Mind Games
The Bear
by William Walton, libretto by Paul Dehn and William Walton from the play by Anton Chekhov
And I Decided …
by Daniel Felsenfeld, libretto by Robert Coover, Will Eno and Jennie Ketcham
Opera at Home at the Arcola Theatre until 7th September
Review by Heather Moulson
I was looking forward to catching the seventh week of the Grimeborn Opera Festival at this cutting-edge theatre off Dalston Lane, for a double bill of somewhat singular opera. I have seen edgy theatre there before, and Grimeborn’s aim to see opera differently was alluring. I settled down in Studio One amidst the full, predominately middle-class audience … the Bohemians staying at home presumably.
Opening up to The Bear, an operatic parody on Chekov’s play of the same name, the solitary pianist, Daniel Felsenfeld played a haunting introduction, lulling us into the great man’s bleak humour and sardonic wit. A dark and sombre set with a grieving widow, Popova, sitting in black alongside her outspoken maid Lusha, the former’s grief turning to anger and disillusionment with her late husband. The smartly dressed, vibrant presence of Smirnov, a peasant landowner, turned events around as he confronted the aristocratic widow for outstanding debts. Mind games were edgy and played with real wit, to the point of turning to pistols, before he realised how much he loved her. So much so, he would waive the deceased’s debt to pursue the snobbish and alluring Popova.
Read more…Trauma and Humour
The Two Sides of Martin Figura
Poetry Performance at The Adelaide, Teddington, 4th September
Review by Greg Freeman
There is a serious side to the poet Martin Figura. Quite serious. It was revealed during the first half of his set at Poetry Performance in Teddington on Sunday night, when he read the title poem, My Name is Mercy from a pamphlet based on his observations at Salisbury District Hospital during Covid. A former soldier himself, a poem called Bear was based on talking to soldiers with physical injuries and PTSD who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan. His poem Vineyard Boys is about his time in a children’s home in Wellington, Shropshire, in the 1960s. You can find out the reasons that he ended up there in his remarkable collection Whistle.
Read more…Go to Hell
La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers
by Marc-Antoine Charpentier
The Vache Baroque Festival, Chalfont St. Giles until 4th September
Review by Mark Aspen
If you are going to hell there can be no more charming route than via Chalfont’s beautiful historic estate at The Vache, the summer home of The Vache Baroque Festival. The Vache estate’s association with regicides, explorers and soldiers imbues it with a sense of adventure … and what could be more adventurous than descending into Hades.
The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice as recounted by Ovid in the Metamorphoses has fired the imagination of artists, poets and composers. The vividly emotional story of the bard Orpheus braving the fires of hell to rescue his bride Eurydice cries out to be an opera. Countless composers has rallied to this call (Grove counts over eighty well-known composers who have written operas to the Orpheus theme). Some of the first operatic treatments of the theme included Monteverdi’s in the early 1600’s, some eighty years before Charpentier, while Birtwistle’s second crack at it, The Corridor, premièred just over decade ago. In 2019 The English National Opera gave over its autumn season to Orphic operas (by Christoph Gluck, Jacques Offenbach, Harrison Birtwistle and Philip Glass and range 1762 to 1993).
Read more…What-Ho!
Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense
by P.G. Wodehouse, adapted by David and Robert Goodale
Progress Company at Progress Theatre, Reading until 10th September
Review by Sam Martin
Having not seen any Wodehouse before (forgive me!) I was intrigued, but also a little apprehensive as I approached Progress Theatre to watch Jeeves and Wooster in Perfect Nonsense. Consulting with my admittedly more cultured friends, I knew a slither of what to expect; anticipating that a show with ‘nonsense’ in the title and a promise of layered and excessive multi-roleing would serve for a fun (but chaotic) evening of entertainment.
The production started well with Dan Clarke confidently in the role of Wooster and guiding us through the plot with skilled narration. At times his portrayal of Bertie Wooster’s amazement at the make-shift scenery was a little overcooked and gave the character perhaps too much simplicity, yet Clarke eased into the show and became a stable narrator figure playing well on the farcical moments, bringing the audience in on the façade with ease. Clarke remained the anchor of the piece, holding the plot together dexterously – even when clearly struggling to change costume quickly just off stage!
Read more…Let’s Make an Opera Sustainably
Duke Bluebeard’s Castle
music by Béla Bartók, libretto by Béla Balázs
Green Opera at the Arcola Theatre until 3rd September and then at the Asylum Chapel Theatre, Peckham until 18th September
Review by Patrick Shorrock
Béla Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, with its intense focus on a destructive male-female relationship, is ideal for a small space like the Arcola Theatre. Thomas Ang’s reduced arrangement for Green Opera’s small band retains the glitter and exposes the barbed wire in this score. John Paul Jennings, while letting the music breathe, exercises a good firm grip as musical director, even if there is potential for screwing up the tension a bit more.
This story of a man who hands over keys to seven locked rooms for the woman who loves him to unlock, until she finds his previous wives in the last room, is fraught with possibilities. Nowadays, it feels less like a sexist cautionary tale about the dangers of female curiosity than an examination of toxic masculinity. Bartók’s version does some unusual things with the story. He names his heroine Judith, which makes me think of her namesake in the Apocrypha and of her beheading the Assyrian general Holofernes This is not a passive victim of patriarchy. She asks for the keys and opens the doors in Bluebeard’s presence rather than unlocking the rooms behind his back. Her motivation is love and a desire to know her husband to the full. April Fredrick (unusually a soprano in this mezzo part) is a splendidly confident Judith.
Read more…Casanova Was a Librarian
Larkin With Women
by Ben Brown
Strut and Fret at the Old Red Lion, Islington until 17th September
Review by Louis Mazzini
The poet Philip Arthur Larkin was born in 1922 and to celebrate his centenary the Old Red Lion presents a revival of Ben Brown’s Larkin with Women, first seen in 1999 when it won the Theatrical Management Association’s Award for Best New Play.
Covering the last thirty years of his life, this sublime and very funny play begins as Larkin becomes the Librarian at Hull University. Larkin was a nexus of contradictions. In his thirties, he maintained an addiction for “top shelf” magazines and he was still swapping self-penned fiction about corporal punishment at girls’ schools with his Oxford friends. Yet, and perhaps more effectively than any of the other modern poets, Larkin wrote insightfully about the truth of love. And while he could be self-obsessed and fearful of commitment, he remained committed – in his way – for decades to those who loved him and whom in return he loved.
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Mark Aspen 