Theatre Reviews 2009
I was going to finish these reviews from 2009 by saying that it has not been a vintage year for our theatre going, but then noticed the tremendous productions we have managed - Ken Stott's View from the Bridge, Judi Dench in Madame de Sade, Lenny Henry's Othello, the star studded revivals of Arcadia and Waiting for Godot and Kevin Spacey in Inherit the Wind. Of these probably Waiting for Godot was the only absolute gem - a stunning performance which made me entirely re-think my view of the play. Arcadia was good but in a slightly 'so-what' kind of way. Over the year we have made four further visits to Kingston Rose all of which have been excellent, and the joy of seeing a sold out performance of Othello can only be imagined. However, perhaps equally enjoyable, and certainly as moving have been the visits to the Tricycle to see their 'factual' productions about the killing of Jean Charles De Menezes at Stockwell and an account of the killings at Deepcut Barracks. These documentary productions may sound dull but have each been informative, and often shocking and deeply moving. It is real political theatre away from the glare of the National or West End and all power to Tricycle for continuing to pioneer this new genre of production.
Plays of 2009:
It is
rather splendid to be able to say that the first two theatrical visits in this
cold and miserable winter have been to Kingston Rose, the theatre that for so
long we never believed would open. Both quite light indifferent ways, the
follow up to Round the Horne.... revisited, Stop messing About, and Peter
Hall's new production for English Touring Theatre, Where
There's a Will. A few days later it was The Gate for Unbroken,
an updated version of Schnitzler's La Ronde. As in the original six characters
meet in six sexual encounters. In a daisy chain sequence, each partner appears
twice leading us through an unbroken circle back on themselves. Unlike
Schnitler's play, the sex scenes are all dance/music sequences. An ambitious
play (enough for one audience member to declare to the actor's faces that this
was 'puerile CRAP') with just two actors who have to play six parts and be
excellent dancers in the tiny space that is the Gate. It fails, but honourably,
being highly arresting but just not quite good enough. Only one of the dance
sequences was really transporting, while the actors struggled to differentiate
their characters sufficiently. A highly theatrical piece it needed top notch
acting, directing and choreography.
I am not sure if a trip to Battersea Arts Centre (BAC) to see Mark Thomas counts as 'theatre' or not. The man is a genius, however, operating as single-handed permanent demo to test the idiotic New Labour laws to destruction. He uses that most ancient method - ridicule - to show how pointless, inconsistent and illogical the current crop of laws aimed at freedom of speech really are. Perhaps my favourite is his testing of the new rules forbidding the taking of photos of the police. He is leading a group taking pictures every day outside New Scotland Yard. He has started from the feet and so far reached the knees and is testing the legislation to find out when he breaks the law....
The
Tricycle is a wonderful theatre in Kilburn which has built a reputation in
recent years for producing 'documentary style' plays. We managed to catch the
latest, their dramatisation of tragedies which occurred at Deepcut barracks in Surrey. Having set a sombre tone
we were lucky a few days later to get 'cheap' tickets for Ken Stott in View from the Bridge and then The Pitmen Painters
at the National. Personally I loved this tale of northerners miners at
the WEA being confronted by the art historian. This meeting of different worlds
is rapidly transformed as teacher Robert Lyon decides his class should do some
painting before they examine the masters. This genius decision produces some
wonderful naive art and opens up a new world to a very traditional working
class community. It is a social history lesson and asks many questions about
today's educational values. Amanda disliked the episodic nature and its refusal
to get under the skin of the characters, but I feel that sometimes you need a
bit of a feel-good evening, and this certainly delivers.
And so, back to Kingston to see Lenny Henry filling the theatre with his Othello. Also filling theatres, albeit with non-very-rave notices has been Judy Dench and the Donmar's production of Madame de Sade. We saw this on a sunday afternoon, and that evening saw the best piece of TV I've seen in years, Unloved, Samantha Morton's film about a child in care. It had everything TV doesn't do anymore - time, space and silence. Poignant, moving and extraordinarily good!
We are not great fans of the star-studded West End production, but sometimes we do make an exception. Once again we forked out £50 for a ticket to see Waiting for Godot at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. After that experience we decided on a box for two for Arcadia, Stoppard's dazzling tour de force on chaos theory, romantic poetry and landscape gardening. No time to write a longer review, but so good to see Neil Pearson actually exerting himself and showing what he can do opposite the spikey Samantha Bond. A good work out for the brain, a lovely production, great acting and the box was good....room to fidget! A week later and an even more stellar cast for The Winter's Tale at the Old Vic. More great Shakespeare and no time to write about it at Stratford. The Other Place continues to serve up blood red drama, this time Julius Caesar spurting blood over the front few rows. Some excellent performances, particularly Darrell d'Silva's Mark Anthony, a real soldier not a public politician and Sam Troughton's Brutus, and the high pace we are expecting from the RSC at the moment. Great stuff!
The nearest theatre to Amanda's house is Kilburn's Tricycle, and the documentary style plays we have seen there have been gripping, in particular Deepcut, reviewed above. We actually missed almost everything about Stockwell, their re-enactment of the inquest into the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, but we just caught it before it finished. Strangely we have not been to the National a great deal this year, but felt we had to give their controversial (I have seen great and damning reviews) production of Brecht's Mother Courage and her Children. The following week we were back at the Rose for Peter Hall's revival of Alan Ayckbourne's Bedroom Farce. Great fun, very entertaining and a wonderful cast of Jane Asher supported by famous children, Flinty Williams (Judi Dench's daughter), Lucy Briers and Rachel Pickup. All were excellent in this competent production. Amazingly it is thirty years old but still superbly relevant. It would have been interesting to see it slightly more updated however, and less obvious characters? Or perhaps such revamps will have to await Ayckbourne's departure.
Not really possible to write a review of Kevin Spacey in Inherit the Wind as I only managed to arrive at the interval. However, as it is a court room drama, it was very easy to pick up the action and I didn't feel at all lacking! Spacey was, as you might expect, excellent as liberal defence attorney Henry Drummond, jousting with David Troughton's fundamentalist Matthew Harrison Brady. The play is based on the real trial of John Scopes who in 1925 was prosecuted for teaching Darwin's theory of Evolution in a school in Tennessee.