| LONDON Last Week (Very long and maybe a spoiler or two) | |
| Posted by: sergius 11:47 am EDT 03/18/24 | |
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| DOUBLE FEATURE (Hampstead Theatre)—Surprisingly slack. You’d think a play about Hitchcock, Tippi Hedren, and Vincent Price (!) would be interesting. Or at least strange. But John Logan (RED) gets no purchase here. Two cross generational confrontations play out at the same time but neither’s absorbing. It’s a potentially rich subject—the vulnerability of actors desperate to find success and those equally desperate not to lose it—but Logan’s a bland writer and so the actors are pressed to Act! in order to give the play urgency that’s not on the page. A real disappointment. THE LONELY LONDONERS (Jermyn Street Theatre)—And a real surprise. This theatre is tiny—less than a hundred seats—but the play, an adaptation by Roy Williams of Sam Selvon’s novel—seemed to expand the space. It’s one of three I saw that addressed the social history of minorities in the UK. Here, emigres from Trinidad and Jamaica, the so called Windrush generation, struggle to keep going amidst hostility and little opportunity. It’s the usual immigrant story, but the play and the direction fractures the narrative in interesting ways. And every actor is fully, superbly committed. This production deserves continued life and a stage that can match the size of its feeling. THE MOTIVE AND THE CUE (West End via The National)—Another play about actors—Gielgud and Burton—anxious about finding and losing success. This one, by Jack Thorne, is far more entertaining. It’s not slack but slick. Thorne sacrifices psychological depth for a more sketchy scheme; he just skims the surface of these two men’s internal demands and how they manifest in the tension between them. Nonetheless, and apart from some extraneous scenes and characters—Elizabeth Taylor seems present here just because people expect to see her—the play is enjoyable throughout and, at the end, moving. And Mark Gattis as Gielgud steals the show, toggling routinely with ease between wit and sorrow. With THE MOTIVE AND THE CUE, Sam Mendes gives the National Theatre what it apparently wants but, some have argued, shouldn’t: a commercial success. No harm no foul? THE HILLS OF CALIFORNIA (West End)—Jez Butterworth writes big. His newest is three hours long and, though not as thematically rich as JERUSALEM or THE FERRYMAN, it’s entirely absorbing. GYPSY in Blackpool is, weirdly, the impression here since the play principally concerns a seaside guesthouse proprietor/stage mother desperate for her three girls to succeed in show business and escape their social standing. Butterworth breaths life into this familiar story because he writes with a stirring depth of feeling and he takes his time. The play is beautifully directed (Mendes, again) and acted. Laura Donnelly, particularly, is riveting. THE HILLS OF CALIFORNIA is one of those plays that sings, a pleasure to watch and, though the vernacular speech is sometimes challenging, to hear. THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY (West End)—The technical achievement here is, inarguably, astounding. I have never seen anything like it. And I’ve seen lots. Fortunately this screen obsessed presentation conforms neatly and precisely with Wilde’s great treatise on the narcissistic pursuit of eternal youth and beauty. Here, Dorian Gray’s unchanging portrait is realized through a smart phone’s camera. And that’s just to start. Gray—the original TikToker?— doesn’t see himself even as he can’t stop looking. And looking. As you may have heard, Sarah Snook—amazingly, strenuously—plays all the parts which enhances the orgy of self absorption (there she is, there she is) that’s depicted here. Large screen or small, she’s almost always behind one. Point taken. At one moment, when a slight glitch occurred, Snook improvised: “Well, I’m doing this live.” Now, when an actor on stage reminds you that she’s in front of you, we are surely in some other theatrical realm. That’s a logical and clever place to be in this instance—even as it’s exhausting, too—but it’s no place to live. If Snook’s on board, this will likely be here soon. And get a lot of likes. Your mileage may vary. FOR BLACK BOYS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE WHEN THE HUE GETS TOO HEAVY (West End via the Royal Court)—An homage, of course, to Ntozake Shange’s FOR COLORED GIRLS, and a sort of counter to her depiction of black women’s experience in the US. Here, black men in the UK tell their stories and while, sadly, they’re not new stories, they are yet vital and alive with feeling. Calais Cameron’s language isn’t the equal of Shange’s so the stories here have less poetic and dramatic impact, but there’s poetry in the movement. These men, all terrific, best express themselves in motion. It’s exhilarating to watch them shout with their bodies and be tender with each other’s. I was reminded of Marlon Riggs’ great film TONGUES UNTIED: “black men loving black men is a revolutionary act.” Here, an audience of mostly black high schoolers seemed happy to be taught as much if they didn’t know it already. Happy, too, I expect, to see themselves on a West End stage. A MIRROR (West End via the Almeida)—“A play is not a mirror.” Except when it’s a hall of them as is the case here. This one is a blunt satire about censorship in the theatre. The playwright, Sam Holcroft, is British, but she’s writing about Lebanon where the theatre is regulated and surveilled by a state censorship “Bureau.” Jonny Lee Miller is a writer going to great lengths to dodge such censors. His subversive purpose, writing the play we’re seeing, is obscured by calling it a wedding. And so a grave and horrible subject becomes a boisterous, Kafkaesque play. Think Springtime for Hitler or something like and you get the gist. It mostly works very well—the cast has great comic timing—until the last third when Holcroft starts stating and repeating the obvious as if we hadn’t been paying attention all along. THE DUCHESS OF MALFI (The Globe, Sam Wanamaker Theatre)—This Jacobean drama, which I’ve never seen, was written to be played indoors. The Blackfriars Theatre was lit by candles and so, too, is the Sam Wanamaker Theatre at the Globe. If you go to London, it’s worth seeing something in this gorgeous and unique space. As for THE DUCHESS, well, it’s a lot. A lot of bloodletting to be precise. You wouldn’t want the theatre to be brighter. Webster wasn’t the poet Shakespeare was. He got to the point plainly and fast. Here that point, or one of them, is to valorize a woman’s struggle for personal and sexual autonomy but also punish her for it (plus ca change…) The actors are in this very bad business full tilt and they’re often gripping. One of them is haunted by his shadow and he makes you believe it. You realize we’re all and always following ourselves. OPENING NIGHT (West End)—Based on John Cassavette’s 1977 film, it’s written and directed by Ivo van Hove with a score by Rufus Wainwright. Sheridan Smith, a UK star, takes the Gena Rowlands part. So it’s pretty high profile. And, regrettably, a debacle. The book is scant and unconvincing. And while the score has a few nice sounding songs, it’s not nearly cohesive to put it kindly. The lyrics, those that I heard, veered from unconvincing to plainly bad. van Hove, whose work I have sometimes liked a great deal, needs to put the camera down. Unlike with THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY (see above), there’s no plausible reason for the entire show to be filmed as it’s unfolding. We’re told at first that a documentary crew is recording the play’s development, a lame feint at an explanation for van Hove’s now trademark indulgence. Why is this documentary crew in living rooms and kitchens, too? Sheridan Smith is immediately appealing and sympathetic but what a weight’s on her shoulders! She plays an actress breaking down while she’s rehearsing a play she can’t make sense of. Given the circumstances, it’s very meta. As with SUNSET BOULEVARD, there are moments throughout that are bonkers. But here they’re only ludicrous and decidedly not thrilling. Still, it’s not every day you see a musical as grippingly awful as this. Opens in a week. Not since CARRIE? NACHTLAND (Young Vic)—We see too little contemporary European theatre that’s not British. This is a German play by Marius von Mayenburg that, apparently, has been very successful there. Here it’s keenly directed by Patrick Marber and it’s as provocative as it aims to be. It’s basically a jagged satire in the guise of a family drama. And it’s a good one. A brother and sister discover a painting by Hitler tucked away in their recently deceased father’s attic. What to do? The resemblance to APPROPRIATE is notable, of course. While both plays are similarly disturbing, NACHTLAND—a neologism and a great title—is punctuated by out of the blue, outrageous surreal elements that are as ferocious as they are funny, a good combination when the material’s as combustible as this. Again, and as is so often the case, the ensemble acting here is terrific. This play has been somewhat controversial. Though it references the ongoing Israel/Palestine tragedy—the part that’s been most tenditious—it was written before the current events. Sadly, NACHTLAND is as timeless as it is timely. It’s bracing theatre. TILL THE STARS COME DOWN (National)—A somewhat routine family melodrama is elevated, really elevated, by sublime performances. Beth Steel writes squarely and expertly about the working class in Mansfield, England. It’s clear she knows these people well. (She’s less successful in her depiction of a Polish immigrant marrying into the family. He’s more a plot contrivance intended to expose the family’s bigotry than he is, regrettably, a convincing character). The play takes place at a wedding during which things expectably fall apart. So structurally and thematically TILL THE STARS COME DOWN is pretty familiar. But the director (Bijan Sheibani, new to me) and this ensemble jolt the play to pulsating life. Though the characterizations are unsurprising, they’re so fantastically animated by this cast that you’re swept along by the play which thereby succeeds at being both riotous and deeply sad. I saw the last performance and the audience was crazy for it, I think because the playing was so expert. TILL THE STARS COME DOWN makes a claim for both the specificity and the universality of working class experience. Everyone here, like everyone everywhere, dreams forward even as circumstances so often keep them precisely where they are. It finds depth in the quotidian. It’s splendid because it’s alive. |
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