Novelist (Brough & Miller, sci fi, historical fantasy) Theatre critic http://williamstaffordnovelist.wordpress.com/ http://www.amazon.co.uk/-/e/B008AD0YGO
and Actor - I can often be found walking the streets of Stratford upon Avon in the guise of the Bard!
Igor Stravinsky’s ballet The Rite of Spring received an uproarious reception when it opened in Paris in 1913. The score went on to become one of the most influential pieces of modernist music, and the ballet has been re-choreographed and represented many times. Now, choreographer-dancer-genius Dada Masilo takes her inspiration from the piece to create this new work, with a specially commissioned score, in which the aim is to retell the story through a fusion of contemporary and South African (specifically Tswana) dance.
A young woman, bare-chested moves across the stage, before an abstract backdrop that suggests landscape and sky. She is agitated, repeating a sort of hand-washing gesture over and over. She reaches for the sky, she bends to the ground – we don’t know it yet but this foreshadows what is to become of her. The young woman is Dada Masilo herself, a striking stage presence with her bald head and regal posture. Next, we meet her community, dancing with joy before a background of bare branches. Their movements suggest animals, particularly birds. There are moments of humour: the dancers stop to castigate the musicians. They want something slower so they can catch their breath! The mood changes – a solitary figure, a leader, implores the skies while the others are bowed in prayer. There is something about the stamping feet and the jerky movements that has echoes of the original choreography by Nijinsky 110 years ago…
The young woman is selected. She is the Chosen One. It’s an honour she accepts with mixed feelings. While the majority of the storytelling is accessible and invigorating, the latter half of the piece loses me a little until the moment of sacrifice comes. The climactic lament, sung heartbreakingly live by Ann Masina, is absolutely stunning. Indeed, the entire score is a garden of delights, performed by a downstage trio of musicians, who blow whistles, vocalise, wave things around their heads, to create the perfect soundtrack for this time-honoured tale. They are: Leroy Mapholo (the sounds he coaxes from his violin are incredible!); percussionist Mpho Mothiba; and Nathi Shongwe on keyboard. Together with Masina, these three are responsible for the excellently evocative score, which I could happily listen to on repeat. Some of the irregular rhythms and percussive beats remind me a little of the Stravinsky…
It’s an absorbing, emotional entertainment performed by a stupendous company. The show has an uproarious reception too, but of a wholly positive nature! While some of the more esoteric elements escape me (and that’s on me), the rest is truly universal and totally human.
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Dada Masilo (front and centre) and the company of The Sacrifice (Photo: Tristram Kenton)
Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, Tuesday 21st March 2023
Best known for the stellar film version starring Julia Roberts, Sally Field et al, Robert Harling’s story started out as this stage play thirty years ago. Set in a Louisiana hair salon between 1983 and 1985, it’s a golden opportunity for half a dozen actors of the female persuasion to strut their stuff, as the characters prepare for big moments in their lives. The salon acts as a meeting place, somewhere to confide, to share, to have a right old laugh, with all the important action occurring off-stage.
As hairstylist Truvy, a big-haired Lucy Speed channels Dolly Parton and gets to deliver most of the script’s best zingers. She draws us in immediately with her irresistible down-home charm. New recruit Annelle (Elizabeth Ayodele) sweetly evades questions about her home-life, engendering a little mystery (which is overshadowed by her later conversion to Christian Evangelism).
Among the customers are Diana Vickers as bride-to-be with health issues, Shelby; Laura Main as mother-of-the-bride M’Lynn; Caroline Harker as rich woman Clairee; and, in this performance, Claire Carpenter as the forthright Ouiser. It’s a fine ensemble. Harker seems to warm into her role as the evening goes on and can really deliver a punchline, but it’s Main who delivers the show’s most powerfully emotional moment in an outpouring of the frustration that comes along with grief. Across the board, the accents are pretty good, pretty authentic. Occasionally, lines are indistinct, slurred a little too quickly, but the one-liners and acerbic observations mostly come across with expert timing.
Our role as audience is to eavesdrop on the comings and goings, picking up exposition to fill the gaps in between the scenes, as we are drawn into these women’s world. Laura Hopkin’s set boxes the characters in the salon, framing the scene with light. This lends an air of intimacy to proceedings but unfortunately also serves as a distancing effect, keeping us out.
It’s an old-fashioned piece, showing its age, and I wonder if the universality of its message (women supporting each other in a man’s world) would translate away from the Deep South setting. Give them all Dudley accents, for example, and the drama would have the same impact. Bring it up-to-date to reinforce the need for sisterhood in today’s society, and the piece might turn its girl power into feminism.
It’s a cosy night at the theatre, a solid production that amuses and has moments of emotional truth, but it’s not really my cup of bourbon.
☆ ☆ ☆
Elizabeth Ayodele, Laura Main, Lucy Speed and Diana Vickers (Photo: Pamela Raith Photography)
The Lincoln Center Theater’s lavish production of this absolute classic is a great fit for the Hippodrome stage. A huge company of performers and a whopper of a set all have room to cohabit. There is certainly no stinting on production values here.
Phonetics professor Henry Higgins encounters Cockerney flower seller Eliza Doolittle and their lives are changed forever. He diagnoses her with Irritable Vowel Syndrome and embarks on a project to get her speaking like a lady and accepted into high society within six months. And so we get a series of comic scenes where vowels are strangled until Eliza is finally able to impersonate her oppressors in the ruling class.
Higgins is a tough man to like. His views are problematic, even misogynistic, but Michael D Xavier imbues him with a kind of charm and enthusiasm that make us warm to him despite his Chauvinistic remarks. Charlotte Kennedy positively shines as Eliza, although I prefer her gorblimey stage to her more ‘refined’ moments. What snobs like Higgins fail to realise is that the beauty of the English language lies in its rich diversity of regional accents and dialects. There is no one way to ‘talk proper’. Be that as it may, Kennedy’s songs are to be relished. She looks and sounds the part, whatever the requirements of the scene.
Emmerdale’s John Middleton makes a sprightly Colonel Pickering, while EastEnders’s Adam Woodyatt brings the house down as Eliza’s gorblimey father, Alfred. Get Me To The ChurchOn Time is a real showstopper, staged here with all-out gusto. Lesley Garrett provides a nice spot of character acting as housekeeper Mrs Pearce, and you can hear her famous soprano ringing out in the chorus numbers. Tom Liggins, playing Eliza’s suitor Freddy, gets the best song of the show, the gloriously romantic On The Street Where You Live, and he sings it superbly.
Michael Yeargan’s impressive set never overshadows the action and director Bartlett Shaw has the characters moving through and around it fluidly. The sheer scale of the production knocks your socks off. And then there’s the sumptuous score by Frederick Loewe – such melodies! – and the evocative lyrics by Alan J Lerner. And you’re reminded why this is a prime example from the golden age of Musical Theatre.
Shaw (Bartlett) acknowledges Shaw’s (George Bernard) social commentary by restoring the starker final moment of original play Pygmalion – so don’t expect a cut-and-dried musical theatre happy ending.
A splendid old-school evening at the theatre combining Shavian class critiques with soaring romance.
Luvverly!
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Michael D Xavier and Charlotte Kennedy (Photo: Marc Brenner)
Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, Tuesday 14th March 2023
Following on from last year’s hilarious outing, this sequel moves the action to a creepy convent. Drag queens and nun jokes are a marriage made in Heaven. The plot involves a priest being sent from Rome to investigate the disappearance of another priest who was last heard of at the Convent of St Babs. There is talk of the convent housing the holiest of holies, a relic of great power and value…
As the investigating priest Father Alfie Romeo, the mighty Louis Cypher more than passes in manly garb. Cypher’s Romeo is a fully rounded character, venal and prone to foibles. The priest is an excellent foil for Victoria Scone’s pitch perfect Mother Superior. Scone rules the roost and commands the stage in a flawless performance of exquisite comic timing.
Birmingham’s own tower of talent, Kitty Scott Claws appears as Sis Titis, the crudest in the convent, with some killer filthy lines. Cheryl Hole is great fun as Sister Mary Berry, especially when proceedings take a spooky turn, but my heart belongs solely to global mega-superstar Jujubee, playing the role of Sister Maria Julie Andrews, complete with tits on her fingers. It’s such a thrill to see Jujubee from a distance of only a few feet, with a fine English accent and all the glamour and comic genius we have come to expect from her many Drag Race triumphs.
Completing the cast is drag king Corrina Buchan as a cardinal, and a few other surprise roles. The script, by Robert Evans, overflows with innuendo and crass remarks. Director Jesse Jones doesn’t ease up on the comedy for a second, with well-choreographed and creative physical business keeping the action rattling along like a runaway train. There are cheesy special effects and plenty of silliness, and yet, somehow, the show manages to pull off moment of suspense and shock, with a few jump scares in the mix, as the plot descends deeper into horror film territory, played out in front of Peter McKintosh’s gloriously gothic set.
Nothing is sacred. The satire takes broad swipes at the Catholic church, and everyone else too, with scathing topical references bejewelling the filth. And funny! The laughs never stop coming. There is plenty here for Drag Race aficionados but you don’t have to be in on all the in-jokes to derive a lot of amusement from this knockabout show. This is an all-out assault on the funny bone, a show that delights with its outrageous humour, its cartoonish characters and revels in its campness and theatricality.
Drop dead funny.
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Giving it some stick: Jujubee, Cheryl Hole, Louis Cypher, Victoria Scone, and Kitty Scott-Claws (Photos:Matt Crockett)
Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, Wednesday 1st March 2023
There is no king on the poster, only the I, selling the show on its female lead, Call The Midwife’s Helen George. Unfortunately, for this press night performance, Ms George is indisposed (perhaps a midwife crisis) and so there are more than a few disgruntled childbirth fans in the auditorium tonight. To my mind, the show is the star. A Rodgers & Hammerstein classic? It hardly matters who is in it.
Taking the role of Anna Leonowens tonight is Maria Coyne, and she is fabulous. We are not being short-changed in any way. She may not portray a midwife but she certainly delivers.
The plot centres around the widowed Anna arriving in Bangkok with her young son. She has found employment at the palace, as a Julie Andrews figure to the King’s many, many children. There follows a clash of cultures and a growing respect and indeed friendship between the schoolmistress and the monarch. As I’ve said, Maria Coyne is splendid in the part, forthright in her opinions and wryly amused by the King’s mangling of the English language. Her voice suits this old-school kind of musical extremely well.
Old-school? I mean, classic. Director Bartlett Sher doesn’t tamper with the material, emphasising what makes the show an all-time great, while playing down stereotypical representations. There’s enough to give us a taste of Siam in the gorgeous set by Michael Yeargan and the graceful choreography by Christopher Gattelli, combining traditional Siamese and balletic movements.
Darren Lee rules as the King of Siam, bombastic at first and overbearing, but with insecurities and vulnerabilities, and especially, a playfulness in his dealings with the unruly teacher. He and Coyne are a dream pairing. The mutual affection and frustration between the characters sparkles. Lee definitely deserves to be on the poster.
At this performance, the role of Tuptim is played by Amelia Kinu Muus, who is a strong and emotive soprano. Her duets with Dean John Wilson are definite highlights, as they power through some of Richard Rodgers’s most romantic melodies and Oscar Hammerstein II’s most searing lyrics. Another belter of a moment comes from Cezarah Bonner’s Lady Thiang, whose solo gives me shivers. Truly, ‘something wonderful’.
Caleb Lagayan impresses as the young Crown Prince, with a powerful singing voice that belies the character’s self-doubts. His first entrance is a stark, dramatic contrast to the cutesy kowtowing of the King’s other children. Also strong is Charlie McGuire as Anna’s son Louis in an assured and mature performance.
There is drama, there is humour, there is something about gender roles and challenging the entrenched attitudes of the patriarch. There is something about European interference. There is the marvellous play-within-a-play: a staging of Uncle Tom’s Cabin through the prism of Siamese dance and theatrical conventions – an absolutely delightful piece of storytelling. Catherine Zuber’s beautiful costume designs allow for plenty of melodramatic swishing of fabric and add to the sense of another place in another time.
This no-nonsense production reminds us why the show is one of the greatest musicals and why Rodgers & Hammerstein are geniuses. Captivating, involving and powerful, this show will entertain and move you, and get you humming all those great tunes all the way home.
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
We are Siamese if you please: The Small House of Uncle Thomas (Photo: Johan Persson)
Crescent Theatre, Birmingham, Saturday 25th February 2023
Paula Hawkins’s best-selling novel is so effective because of its first person narrative, from the girl on the train herself. She’s an unreliable narrator, so we’re never sure if what she says happened happened or whether it’s her booze-tinted imagination. The stage adaptation by Duncan Abel & Rachel Wagstaff has to take a different approach as the Girl is revealed to be a fantasist, her story contradicting itself… A tough call for any actor taking on the role and here, Grace Cheadle rises to the challenge and nails it. Her Rachel Watson is off-kilter, brittle and bitter, but also vulnerable and appealing. We are with her all the way, happy to go along for the ride.
Briefly, the plot has Rachel commuting to work by train. Her emotional life is a bit of a train wreck and so she self-medicates with day-drinking. Through the windows she sees people’s houses and fantasises about who they are and what they’re called. One day, one of her regular characters is not there… A woman has gone missing and the police are involved. Can Rachel’s unreliable evidence be of use or will she implicate herself? To add to the mix, a couple of doors down from the missing woman’s home live Rachel’s ex-husband and his new wife and baby…and so a series of explosive scenes are set in train.
The multi-purpose set allows the action to zip along like an express train – we never have to wait for furniture to be shifted – and scenes are linked with video clips, extending the action beyond the set pieces: we see characters being taken in for questioning, for example, and there are clips of Rachel boozing on the train, to the distaste of other passengers.
The excellent central performance from Cheadle is supported by a strong ensemble. Particularly effective is David Baldwin’s Detective Inspector Gaskill; Baldwin has a casual, natural style but still means business. It’s a superb contrast with Cheadle’s more manic moments and self-doubt. Tom Lowde, as Rachel’s ex, and Victoria Youster as new wife Anna are perfectly smug and annoying (from Rachel’s pov) while Oliver Jones captures the volatility of Scott, the missing woman’s husband. Papa Yentumi’s therapist balances professional intonations with personal impulses, and Charlotte Thompson crops up repeatedly in flashbacks as the missing Megan, imbued with an almost saintly air (from Rachel’s pov) despite her bad behaviour. Completing the cast is Susan Keats’s police officer, a small but crucial part well conveyed.
Director Rod Natkiel keeps the action fluid and clear. The fast pace winds up the tension and the use of video flashbacks to display Rachel’s fractured memories works well. It’s just when we reach the climactic, violent denouement that things go off the rails and get a bit muddy and unfocussed. Perhaps the video screens could be used to augment the moment, seeing how they’ve been so integral to the rest of the production…
All in all, the production delivers the mystery, the tension, and the surprises of the story, and there’s plenty of humour to leaven the unpleasantness. An involving thriller that doesn’t outstay its welcome. All aboard!
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Grace Cheadle and David Baldwin (Photo: Graeme Braidwood)
It’s 2015. When a Grindr hook-up between two middle-aged men turns out to be a surprise reunion between former schoolfriends, a chain of events is triggered that leads to the formation of a gender-swapped ABBA tribute act. Like it does. Ian Hallard’s wonderful script, full of barbed wit and brittle emotions beneath the surface, is an absolute belter.
Hallard appears as Peter, greying and good-natured, and an abbasolute ABBA afficionado. When the time comes, he makes an alluringly winsome Agnetha. James Bradshaw’s Edward is a neat contrast, waspish and snarky, and unhappy with his long-term partner. He is an excellent fit for Frida, the flame-haired siren of the Swedish supergroup. They audition for female artistes to portray the male members of the group. Nervous Josie (Rose Shalloo) gains confidence before our very eyes as Bjorn Ulvaeus, but the biggest surprise comes from the casting of Mrs Campbell, a woman in her sixties, as Benny Andersson. The part is written as a Scot but in this matinee performance, the role is taken by Tariye Peterside, who gives the character a hilarious Caribbean lilt, rather than the intended Caledonian. Peterside underplays her funniest lines to killer effect; you can’t help but love her. In fact, we root for the quartet from the get-go as they prepare for the first and only gig.
Enter the gorgeous Christian (played by the gorgeous Andrew Horton) a young Aussie who wants the group to perform at his 25th birthday do. He also offers to take publicity shots. Edward finds him irresistible (and who can blame him?) but does Christian’s professed penchant for older men mask an ulterior motive? The action is kept strictly backstage and there is a whiff of All About Eve to what transpires before the end. Completing this superb ensemble is the marvellous Donna Berlin as Sally, stage manager and best mate to Peter. Berlin imbues her role with heart and an arsenal of facial expressions that add to the comedy and reveal her genuine concerns for her friend. In addition to the onstage performers we get a pre-recorded Paul O’Grady as a radio host and, more wonderfully, a Brummie Miriam Margolyes as Peter’s unseen gran.
Janet Bird’s set makes use of the most famous palindrome in popular music with entrances in the As and scenic features in the doubled-back Bs. A revolve enables the action to move from place to place, and Bird’s costume designs trigger nostalgia for those 70s outfits. Mark Gatiss’s direction keeps things flowing, timing the punchlines to perfection and giving the characters room to breathe.
ABBA songs punctuate the scene transitions and lyrics pepper the dialogue, some of which will only be spotted by the die-hard fanatics. It culminates in a massively touching moment when, years later, the tribute act reunite for the first radio broadcast of ABBA’s first new song in decades.
It’s a play about friendships, the experience of older gay men, and being a fan. I’m not saying that ‘rainbow spectrum’ people have a monopoly on fandom, but we are rather good at it. Perhaps we’re filling a gap in our lives that no amount of dredging through Grindr can fulfil.
A hilarious, heart-warmer of a show with some saucy rejoinders and a whole lot of humanity. Just as society has learned that there is no shame in being gay, there is also no shame in being a fan.
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
Ian Hallard (Peter) and James Bradshaw (Edward) Photo: Darren Bell
Grand Theatre, Wolverhampton, Wednesday 22nd February 2023
National treasure, acting phenomenon and well-established octogenarian, Sir Ian McKellen treats us to his pantomime dame skills in this touring production. Never mind that Christmas is almost a year away, this is the panto to see.
The script is by Jonathan Harvey (Gimme Gimme Gimme, Beautiful Thing) and is full to bursting with gags. The plot, unlike most pantos, is not overly familiar: Mother Goose harbours animals in a sanctuary (here, a squat in a disused Debenhams). This haven of animal welfare is under threat because of a money-grasping energy company (if you can imagine such a thing) but then, thanks to a wager between a good and a bad fairy, a goose that lays golden eggs arrives and Mother’s money worries are over. The bad fairy tempts Mother to give up the goose in exchange for her heart’s desire: fame and fortune. But can money and celebrity bring happiness?
Well, yes. From the audience’s point of view, that is. The show is a non-stop joy fest, with rapid fire jokes, some of them old, some of them new, most of them bawdy, and, crucially, the elements one expects from the art form. Panto is more than a variety show or the opportunity for soap opera starlets to show whether or not they can sing or take a joke. Harvey is clearly a writer who knows and loves the art form and while some of the topical and satirical references are beginning to turn, like old milk, the show very much speaks about the state of the nation and its leaders, which is something panto has always done. There’s also a nice touch of LGBTQ+ representation, which is a welcome innovation. We get a genuinely hilarious slapstick scene in a kitchen. There’s the It’s Behind You sequence, a love plot… All of it is familiar but none of it is old hat. Because this plot isn’t churned out as often as others, and because the approach to the production breathes new life into the format. Take the chorus, for example, playing Mother Goose’s rescued animals. They are integrated into the action as individual characters, altogether as a unit, and severally as scene-shifters. They’re not just wheeled on to prance about in the background, they are truly supporting artistes.
Then there are the songs. A mix of pop, disco, and show tunes, performed by superb vocalists. Panto producers take note: if you fork out for the rights to well-known hits, it pays dividends. Good fairy Encanta (Sharon Ballard) and bad fairy Malignia (Karen Mavunukure) delight with their verbal sparring and an electrifying duet of No More Tears/Enough is Enough. Anna-Jane Casey brings the house down as Cilla the Goose, serving full-on Funny Girl fantasy with Don’t Rain On My Parade. Adam Brown’s King of Gooseland is wonderfully camp and silly, while Oscar Conlon-Morrey is tons of fun as everybody’s friend, Jack.
McKellen is divine, of course, delivering droll Northern deadpan with generous helpings of camp. He also brings depth to the role, in the way he leans into certain phrases, so we believe the character’s remorse is genuine. John Bishop is the perfect foil as McKellen’s husband, Vic. Bishop is a natural performer, instantly appealing and effortlessly funny. You can’t help liking him. Of course, there are plenty of Lord of the Rings references, and Shakespeare crops up once or twice, leading to the show’s most touching moment. There are also odd glimpses of darkness: the way animals are treated, which is something society needs to address. Panto can still deliver a moral message, you see.
It goes to show you don’t need a cast list of wannabes and has-beens, all with not enough to do, to draw in the crowds. You just need one global mega superstar, a well-known comedian, and an ensemble of hugely talented performers working with a top-notch script to keep a much-loved art form alive and effective. Can we have Babes in the Wood next year?
The funniest pantomime I can remember in all my years of panto worship, this is the one to rule them all and in the darkness bind us.
Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, Tuesday 7thFebruary 2023
Imagine Bob Dylan wrote Les Misérables but set it in 1930s dustbowl America à la Steinbeck. If you can do that, you’re some way to understanding what this show is like. Technically, a jukebox musical, raiding Dylan’s back catalogue and stringing songs together to tell a story, except it’s not, not really. The story, with script by the excellent Conor McPherson (of The Weir fame) could work as a straight play (Well, I’ll come to that later). The songs could stand alone without the story. And so instead of a conventional piece of musical theatre where the songs reveal character or develop the plot, what we have here is a straight play interrupted by concert-like performances of the musical numbers.
The setting is a guesthouse under threat of foreclosure by the bank. The proprietor Nick (Colin Connor) struggles with his estranged wife, Elizabeth, who has developed some kind of dementia, while cajoling his wannabe-writer and alcoholic son to get a job. Nick is waiting for his mistress’s ship to come in; she’s a widow waiting for probate and they have plans to set up a new guesthouse elsewhere… That American dream, you see. Meanwhile, Nick’s adopted black daughter is mysteriously pregnant, so he’s trying to marry her off to an elderly shoe repairer, for her own good. To top it off, there’s a storm brewing and two strangers arrive in the middle of the night, a former boxer and a bible salesman…
There’s more humour than you might expect in this tale of economic hardship, unemployment, racial prejudice, alcoholism, failed marriage, senility, learning difficulties, and just about every other miserable thing you can think of. In the first half, at least. But there are so many characters, there’s not really enough time for things to develop. It takes a narrator, Dr Walker (Chris McHallem) to provide exposition and to wrap things up at the end. There are some fine dramatic moments, well played, but apart from the general misery of it all, I’m not particularly moved. McPherson writes great scenes but, judging by this show, is not so hot when it comes to dramatic structure beyond these vignettes of misery.
And then there are the songs. Not Dylan’s greatest hits shoehorned in, but a careful curation of some of the more obscure tracks, rearranged to fit the period. The actors play instruments to augment the onstage band creating a rich sound, but it’s the singing that stands out. For example, songs like ‘Has Anyone Seen My Love?’, ‘Slow Train’ (wonderfully sung by Joshua C Jackson) and ‘I Want You’ (Gregor Milne) all knock your socks off. But it’s the ladies who really deliver the goods. Maria Omakinwa as the elegant widow Mrs Neilson is just about perfect, and so is Justina Kehinde’s pregnant Marianne. Surprisingly, perhaps, demented Elizabeth (Frances McNamee) almost steals the show with her vigorous dancing and superb vocals. I invariably prefer Dylan’s songs when performed by anyone other than the songwriter, so this score serves to remind me of Old Bob’s songsmithery.
It’s a show of two halves, then, beautifully presented, albeit on a dingy stage, and while I enjoy the drama and love the songs, the two halves don’t quite fit together. An excellent production, to be sure, but it’s a bit of a downer. You won’t be dancing in the aisles, but you might be uplifted a little by the gospel-style finale before the crushing bleakness of existence closes in.
Oh well. I’m off to write a show about the Cod War, using the music of The Smiths. Why not?
Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon, Monday 6thFebruary 2023
There is a welcome drive in contemporary theatre for sustainability and being green. The RSC is at the forefront: they’ve been recycling the same 37 plays for decades! Seriously, anything that reduces or offsets an organisation’s carbon footprint can only be for the good, can’t it? Can this example of sustainable theatre sustain my interest?
People who are shipwrecked on desert islands know all about repurposing and upcycling in order to provide shelter for themselves, and so it is no surprise to see that Tom Piper’s set follows suit. What does surprise me is that after many years of being marooned, Prospero’s place isn’t a little bit tidier? Perhaps she just likes a junkyard aesthetic. I say ‘she’ because this production boasts a female Prospero, in the form of Alex Kingston; the parental qualities of the character as good a fit for a mother as the more-traditional father. What jars at first is the use of ‘male’ forms of address. This Prospero is still a Prince and a Duke and a master – which shows how firmly rooted gender is in our use of language.
In the central role, Kingston storms it, as her plots involve everyone else on her island. There is power and tenderness in her portrayal, her powers of sorcery (which would have got any woman burned at the stake back in the day) as convincing as her maternal affections. She is supported by Jessica Rhodes’s lively Miranda and Heledd Gwynn’s enthusiastic Ariel.
Director Elizabeth Freestone highlights the comedic elements of the script and utilises the physicality of the cast to create the effects of the magic. This also adds comedy (Joseph Payne’s Ferdinand, rolling around, for example) and also an atmosphere where potentially anything could happen. A particularly effective moment is the arrival of Ariel and the Harpies in front of a giant gilt-framed mirror. At other points, the impact is not as well focussed, making for a patchy overall impression.
Ishia Bennison brings warmth and humour as the garrulous, cross-gendered Gonzalo, while Peter De Jersey adds heartfelt grief as the King of Naples sorrows for his lost son. Both, separately and as part of the ensemble, are adept at the physical aspects of the performance: the opening shipwreck is stylishly and effectively depicted.
Tommy Sim’aan’s Caliban is all human and no creature, which, I suppose, highlights the racism and colonialism that have reduced him to a slave on his native island. I just prefer more of a touch of the ‘other’ to the character. Simon Startin’s Stephano and Cath Whitefield’s Trinculo make an enjoyably drunken double act, but it is Kingston’s Prospero that dominates the action and our engagement. Her delivery of ‘Our revels now are ended…’ is powerfully emotive and her heartbreak at releasing Ariel is quietly devastating. There is never any sense that Prospero and Miranda might be in jeopardy; Kingston is in control of everything.
Much value is added to the production by the original music and sound design, courtesy of Adrienne Quartly, and there is a lot to enjoy in this busy production. On reflection though, I would ditch the mirror, and keep the stage almost if not entirely bare. The physicality of the cast is more than enough to convey what needs to be conveyed. Recycled sets don’t have to be rubbish.
☆ ☆ ☆ and a half!
Staff meeting: Alex Kingston as Prospero (Photo: Ikin Yum)
Bum on a Seat 