VICE VERSA – REVIEW OF 2017 ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY PRODUCTION

James Karas

The Greeks had it right. After a trilogy of tragic plays in Ancient Athens, people needed a freewheeling comedy, a burlesque, something really light. The Royal Shakespeare Company has done something  similar  this year in Stratford-upon-Avon. Beside the head chopping, murders, mutilations, assassinations and stabbing in plays like Titus Andronicus, Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, they provide something strictly for laughs. And it is based on Roman comedy which, as the whole world knows, was based on Greek comedy!

 

 Centre: Felix Hayes as General Braggadocio and company. Photo: Pete Le May © RSC

The play is Vice Versa by Phil Porter and it is a wild comedy based on (make that pilfered shamelessly) from the plays of Plautus. You may not have seen too many of his plays on stage which is understandable because they are almost never produced. But you have some idea if you have seen A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.

Let’s start with the full title: Vice Versa (or The Decline and Fall of General Braggadocio at the Hands of his Canny Servant Dexter & Terence the Monkey). Is that clear?

General Braggadocio is of course the braggart soldier, a stock character in comedy, who is in love with himself and thinks the whole world shares his feelings. In Vice Versa we have Felix Hayes, oily hair slicked down and ready to brag. Along with the jokes, bad puns, singing, anachronistic references and riotous tomfoolery we need a plot.

But first the characters, and pay attention to the names: Braggadocio has three servants. Dexter (the irrepressible Sophia Momvete),  Feclus (Steven Kynman) and Omnivorous (Byron Mondahl). We also have Terence the monkey (Jon Trenchard). We need lovers and have Valentin (Geoffrey Lumb) and the delectable Voluptia (Ellie Beaven).We have a neighbour in Philoproximus (Nicholas Day) whose servant is Impetus (Laura Kirman) and frequent Climax (Kim Hartman) and guess her profession.

This is a hyperkinetic group that has a single aim and that is to make us laugh. They do.

Geoffrey Lamb, Sophia Nomvete and Nicholas Day.  Photo: Pete Le May © RSC

Oh, yes, the plot. The General has abducted Voluptia who loves Valentin, who lives next door, who sees Voluptia via the attic skylight, whom Dexter will rescue from the General so that love will triumph because that’s what happens in Roman (that is Greek) comedy, so there. That’s the plot which is to say that Trump is a nice, honest chap, who does not grope, or cheat or lie but will build a wall and make America great again. And the last line is in the play.

The play uses earthy language which is code to some deliciously raunchy profanities, enchanting references to bodily functions, delectable insults and an atmosphere of riotous irreverence, energy and song.

Janice Honeyman directs the comic extravagance and if you happened to see something like Salome or a Shakespearean heavy-duty tragedy you will understand and appreciate why the Greeks finished the day with a comedy that mocked and laughed at everything and booze, sex and phallic objects were favorite features and fixtures.

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Vice Versa  by Philip Porter continues until September 9, 2017 at the Swan Theatre, Waterside, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England.  Box Office: 0844 800 1110.  www.rsc.org.uk

THE ISLAND – REVIEW OF SOUTHWARK PLAYHOUSE PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

The number of crimes against humanity in the twentieth century alone is grotesquely long. The holocausts committed by the Turks, the Russians, the Chinese and the Nazis are only a part of the list. What the whites did to the blacks in South Africa with the policy of apartheid, I suggest ranks as a major crime against humanity.

Playwrights Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona dramatized the plight of blacks during apartheid and their 1973 play The Island is a brilliant evocation of the era. Two men are in jail and their crime is best described as being black.The island of the title is not named but there is no doubt that it is Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was held for twenty-seven years.

The production under review was played in the tiny Southwark Playhouse, in the London suburb of Southwark. The playhouse is a theatre-in-the-round and probably holds fewer than 150 people.

The performance opens with two cellmates miming the loading of wheelbarrows in a quarry. They are working as hard as humanly possible as they fill and then empty their wheelbarrows. Under the hot lights of the Playhouse, they begin to perspire and show signs of real fatigue. The mime lasts for some fifteen minutes by which time perspiration drips profusely from their faces and they appear exhausted. In the end, they are shackled to each other on their wrists and ankles and hobble to their cell in excruciating pain.

The performance continues on the raised stage. The men are Winston (Edward Dede) and John (Mark Springer) who decide to stage Sophocles’ Antigone for the other prisoners. The staging of the Greek tragedy is apparently based on a real incident in which Nelson Mandela took part and ironically played the role of the dictatorial Creon.

John wants Winston to play Antigone but when he sees the straw that will be his wig and the balls on a string that will represent her breasts, he balks. They go through a few lines of Sophocles’ play and then find out that John’s sentence has been reduced from ten years to three months. This creates some tension but the two men are reconciled to their fate and are able to perform their version of Antigone.

Winston as Antigone pleads guilty to the charge of disobeying the law against giving burial rites to her brother because the same law considers him a traitor. He/she argues that there is a higher law than the man-made one and she had an obligation to honour her brother. Creon as a dictator argues that laws are made to be obeyed and must be obeyed without any reference to external considerations such as higher laws. The defendants at the Nuremberg trials had pretty much the same argument – they were just obeying the law.

Dede and Springer give outstanding performances that were emotionally and physically taxing. The lights above the stage produced so much heat, you felt you were in the quarry with the prisoners on a scorching hot day. The heat was so intense that several people left and one woman fainted and was carried out of the theatre.

Director John Terry and the two actors deserve a five-star rating and a standing ovation.

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The Island by Athol Fugard, John Kani, and Winston Ntshona  in a Production by The Theatre Chipping Norton and The Dukes Lancaster Theatre Present played until June 24, 2017 at the Southwark Playhouse, 77-85 Newington Causeway, London SE1 6BD. http://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/

COMMON – REVIEW OF NATIONAL THEATRE PRODUCTION

James Karas

Common, DC Moore’s new play, is the type of work that the Olivier stage of the National Theatre is made to handle. The play is about the enclosure of fields by aristocrats at the beginning of the nineteenth century, condemning villagers to dire poverty and worse. One expects to see a dramatization of a significant issue in English history told through the lives of “real” people.

When the lights go on we see the huge Olivier stage covered with dirt representing the English countryside. A number of villagers appear, their heads covered and carrying farm implements. These are the people who will be affected by enclosure and will fight against the barbarism of the landed nobility.

Anne-Marie Duff as Mary and Ian-Lloyd Anderson as Connor in Common. Photograph: Johan Persson

Mary (Anne-Marie Duff), a well-dressed and clearly upper class lady appears and addresses the audience. Mary is returning to the countryside in search of her lover Laura (Cush Jumbo). Laura’s brother King (John Dagleish) drove Mary away many years ago because of her relationship with his sister. Drove away is a euphemism. He beat her close to death and left her for dead after throwing her in a river. King’s relationship with his sister is incestuous.

We meet some Irish workers and the Lord of the Manor (Tim McMullan) who wants to fence off his lands. Then things start to get murky. We saw the beginning but where is the middle that will lead us to the end and the telling of an epic story of personal and historical dimensions? In other words, what the hell is going on?

Actually a number of things are going on. We have a talking crow, the slaughter of animals, someone’s guts are torn out, and another person’s heart is ripped out of his chest. Mary is very interesting as a former prostitute, soothsayer, manipulator and quite a lady. She has the staying power of a Rasputin when it comes to attempts to snuff her. Give full marks to Duff.

The plot trudges along as our interest and attention span wane. The stage has many trap doors that are put to good use but the historic vista and the compelling personal stories are lost or buried.

Anne-Marie Duff and Cush Jumbo in Common at the National Theatre. Photograph: Johan Persson

Moore’s language helps greatly in engendering incomprehension and somnolence. He is enamored of inverted phrases, bizarre sentence construction and liberal use of hyphenated words. He may be striving for poetic prose or some other effect but all I got as I strained to follow what the hell was going on was pretentious drivel.

Moore and director Jeremy Herrin had all the facilities and budget of the National. There were some forty people on the stage including musicians. In addition to the usual behind-the-scenes artists, there were people responsible for movement, dance, puppetry and fights. Rather than descend to the profane language that Moore serves so liberally, I will settle for an overused aphorism based on the slaughtered pig of the opening scene: you can’t make a silk play out of a swine’s ear.

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Common by DC Moore opened on June 6, 2017 and continues in repertory at the Olivier Stage, National Theatre, South Bank, London, England. www.nationaltheatre.org.uk.

HAMLET - REVIEW OF ROBERT ICKE’S PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Robert Icke directed an idiosyncratic staging of Hamlet for the Almeida Theatre which has now transferred to the Harold Pinter Theatre in London’s West End. The production shows originality, imagination and outstanding directing by Icke and a superb cast. It is a Hamlet for the record books.

The modern dress production makes liberal use of video projections and sets the play in modern day Denmark. It opens with videos projected on a number of screens around the theatre showing a state funeral as it would be covered by the media. There is a motorcade, pictures of mourners and all the hoopla surrounding an important burial. The play proper begins in a security room where the guards are watching a number of close circuit camera screens where the Ghost of Hamlet appears.

Andrew Scott with Juliet Stevenson and Angus Wright in Robert Icke’s Hamlet. Photo: Manuel Harlan The Norman Conquests (2013)
Photos by Cylla von Tiedemann

Much of the action of the play takes place in a simple room with a couch and a chair with changes made for different places in the palace. When we first see Gertrude and Claudius they are dressed formally for a fine reception. The reception is behind a glass wall and the dialogue takes place on front of it.

We soon notice that Claudius (Angus Wright) and Gertrude (Juliet Stevenson) are very much in love. In the reception room they dance, embrace and kiss quite passionately and the relationship continues like that almost to the end when Gertrude finally realizes Claudius’s treachery.

Icke interprets almost every character in the play his own way. Hamlet is an outsider dressed in black slacks and T-shirt and is barefoot. He and the rest of the characters speak matter-of-factly in a very naturalistic way. Claudius addressing Gertrude, Hamlet, Polonius and his children and everyone else speak in the same relaxed manner. That will change of course when the emotional thermometer explodes but it will take a while to get there.

The down-to-earth Hamlet (Andrew Scott) and Ophelia (Jessica Brown Findlay) are playful lovers. He hides in her father’s house and steals kisses. In his soliloquies he shows genuine wonder about what is happening and he is addressing us as well as himself.

He rises to the emotional demands of the play but he is never histrionic. His soliloquies are indeed conversations with himself but not emotionally overcharged. In all of this I think Icke finds a fine balance and a highly commendable approach. This is an original and finely acted Hamlet that Andrew Scott delivers under the guidance of Icke.

Ophelia is a mature young woman who hears her father’s and brother’s admonitions without listening to them. She looks on Hamlet as if they were equal and her fall is the more painful and dramatic for that.

 Angus Wright, Andrew Scott and Juliet Stevenson in Robert Icke’s Hamlet. Photograph: Manuel Harlan 

(2013)
Photos by Cylla von Tiedemann

Angus Wright has one of those mellifluous, deep voices that is just a pleasure to listen to. His Claudius is a very cool usurper and seducer. He is supposed to be found praying by Hamlet and is not murdered by him for fear of sending his soul to heaven. In this production he is ruminating in a chair and Hamlet is in front of him with a gun but does not shoot. The scene is confusing because they are looking directly at each other and Hamlet is pointing a gun at him.

Peter Wright plays Polonius as an elder statesman and loving father without trying to get laughs by emphasizing some of his buffoonish traits. Juliet Stevenson is a highly attractive Gertrude who is sexually attracted to Claudius and resists him only momentarily after the closet scene with Hamlet. Her realization during the fencing is superb theatre.

In addition to all the directorial touches and brilliance that Icke displays he finds his own exit for the play which is yet another marvelous touch but I will not spoil it for you.

A Hamlet for the history books.

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Hamlet  by William Shakespeare continues until  September 2, 2017 at the Harold Pinter Theatre, Panton Street, London.

THE GOAT OR WHO IS SYLVIA? – REVIEW OF ALBEE’S PLAY AT THEATRE ROYAL HAYMARKET

James Karas

The Goat or Who is Sylvia?, Edward Albee’s play, refers to the animal that plays a crucial part in the play but also looks back to the roots of tragedy. The word tragedy means goat song and no one really knows what the Greeks were referring to when they assigned that word to the creation of that great dramatic genre.

The Goat is a tragedy about a man who falls in love with, yes, a goat. There is nothing comic about the intense relationship between Martin (Damien Lewis), a successful architect and a good father and husband, and the goat that he names Sylvia. He is deeply and genuinely in love with her.

Sophie Okonedo and Damian Lewis star in The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia? Johan Persson

Martin’s wife Stevie (Sophie Okonedo) finds out about the relationship and, not surprisingly, freaks out. The couple has a son, Billy (Archie Madekwe) who is a student at an upscale private school and he is gay. This is a highly intelligent, articulate and loving family and Martin’s affair with a goat falls like a bomb on a peaceful meadow. A family friend named Ross (Jason Hughes) finds out about the affair and his reaction may be taken to represent society’s attitude in general.

The production is outstanding in every respect but the performance of the cast as directed by Ian Rickson is an exceptional achievement. Lewis as Martin has to maneuver between explaining his unorthodox behaviour to defending his passion for a goat. Lewis pleads, reasons, yells, becomes angry and impassioned in a superb performance.

Archie Madekwe. Photo: Johan Persson

Okonedo as the gifted wife has great cause for rage and incomprehension. When her anger boils over she starts breaking furniture, furnishings and everything she can get her hands on. We see physical and emotional destruction in a powerful performance that leaves nothing standing.

Madekwe makes his professional debut as the son, a bright boy who loves his parents and is caught in the crossfire in a situation that is beyond comprehension. In the middle of the excruciating emotional turmoil he displays a brief sexual attraction to his father and kisses him on the lips. It is another layer in the complex psychology of the play that is indeed difficult to comprehend. Madekwe’s performance is brilliant.

Hughes does a good job as the family friend and foil for Martin.  

The set by Rae Smith consists of a nice apartment with bare brick walls, modern furniture and plenty of bric-a-bracs for Stevie to break when she wreaks physical and emotional havoc.

A stunning production of a stunning play and a great night at the theatre.  

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The Goat or Who is Sylvia? by Edward Albee ran until June 24, 2017 at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, 18 Suffolk Street London SW1Y 4HT London, England. www.trh.co.uk

LA STRADA – REVIEW OF OTHER PALACE THEATRE PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

How about a play based on a movie, to wit, Federico Fellini’s La Strada?

Thanks, but….

Director Sally Cookson has done just that and a play based on the 1954 film is now playing at The Other Palace, a small theatre around the corner from the more famous Victoria Palace which is being refurbished.

La Strada is based on a moving story that is part myth and part ugly reality. The myth is about Gelsomina, a waif, who is sold by her mother to a brute. She goes through endurance, transformation, death and transfiguration. The reality is about post World War II Italy, devastated by the Fascists, the Nazis and the allies, with its people left with poverty and starvation.

 Audrey Brisson and the cast of La Strada. Photo: Robert Day

A mother with five children sells her oldest child to Zampano, the strongest man in the world who can break a steel chain by expanding his chest. He is a brute who flogs and criminally mistreats the young girl who is prepared to do anything to please him because she wants to send money to her mother.    

Cookson, her “writer in the room” Mike Akers and Set and Costume Designer Katie Sykes are exceptionally successful in creating the world of circuses, magic and popular entertainment that Gelsomina and Zampano travel through. They travel on a motorcycle and a few rearranged boxes on the stage create the illusion of a motorcycle in a matter of seconds. The circus, a chapel, a wedding and the empty countryside are created just as quickly. The real and the magical travel together.

Gelsomina meets a clown who gives her confidence and a trumpet to play. She learns, she is transformed and stands up to her owner.

Audrey Brisson gives a moving and splendid performance as an abused child who tries and endures everything because she has no choice and wants to help her family. We follow her every step with our hearts going out to her and ready to pounce on the creepy Zampano.

Bart Soroczynski and the cast of La Strada Photo:Robert Day

Stuart Goodwin is outstanding as Zampano – we would not hate him if he were anything less. He imposes his physical strength and is ready to annihilate anyone who stands in his way.

Canadian Bart Soroczynski plays the clown who is the opposite of Zampano. He is funny, agile and a fine circus performer on the monocycle. He befriends Gelsomina and helps bring about her transformation.

There is an ensemble of actors who play various roles as Gelsomina and Zampano move from place to place, from the countryside, to bars, to places where they perform, to the seashore, to a chapel in a monastery.

Benji Bower has composed original music for the play consisting of Italianate folk melodies that are pleasant and fitting. A band of musicians is on stage to play but they are also part of the highly mobile ensemble.

Do you want to see a play based on a movie?

Yes. Thank you.

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La Strada created by Sally Cookson with music by Benji Bower, written by Mike Akers, based on the screenplay by Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano and Tullio Pinelli continues until July 8, 2017 at The Other Palace, 12 Palace Street, London, England. www.TheOtherPalace.co.uk

ROMEO AND JULIET – REVIEW OF SHAKESPEARE’S GLOBE PRODUCTION

James Karas

This is a production of Romeo and Juliet the likes of which you probably never saw before and with any luck you will never see again. Director Daniel Kramer tries to combine commedia dell’arte with modernism and the result is a burlesque of Shakespeare’s play that is painful to watch. A few points and examples will have to suffice.

In the opening scene two stretchers are pushed onto the stage with two people covered in black who turn out to be clutching miniature coffins. The prologue and the words of the Prince are heard over loud speakers. The stretchers will come in handy during the play and in the Capulet crypt.

 Golda Rosheuvel,,Kirsty Bushell, Harish Patel, Edward Hogg and Ricky Champ

Most of the characters have white masks painted on their faces and some have red noses as if they are clowns. These are commedia dell’arte types of characters with their stock characteristics, pantomime and acting style.

The function at the Capulet mansion where Romeo (Edward Hogg with his face painted white) meets Juliet (Kirsty Bushell) is a masked ball which would be appropriate. But the attendees make a pretty strange crowd. We have medieval armour, an assortment of Disney characters and brisk movement. At times the production looks like Romeo and Juliet on steroids. Is it intended to please teenagers?

Kirsty Bushell and Edward Hogg in Romeo and Juliet. Photo: Alistair Muir 

The scene where Mercutio (Golda Rosheuvel) and Tybalt (Ricky Champ) are killed is presented as a party/dance scene rumble with very loud music. A mattress is brought on the stage and Juliet dances on it in anticipation of Romeo’s arrival. Romeo kills Tybalt on the mattress with Juliet jumping up and down obviously unaware of what is happening.

Kramer makes Friar Lawrence (Harish Patel) into a Muslim who speaks with a Pakistani accent. I am sure there was a reason for this that simply escapes me. Mercutio is played by a woman, Golda Rosheuvel. Reason? The bearer of the poison is a FedEx courier.

Lady Capulet (Martina Laird) looks like Mickey Mouse who has a lot of trouble keeping the hair pieces that make up her ears in place. The Nurse (Blythe Duff), with her thick Scottish accent shows spunk but has a hairdo that makes her look like a recent escapee from a lunatic asylum. Lord Capulet (Gareth Snook), with a black clown’s hat and red nose, sings “YMCA.”

When Juliet is in bed (on the mattress) talking with the Nurse, Romeo is there too. Then Friar Lawrence walks in on the same scene.

Kramer gerrymanders and combines scenes so that it seems that you are watching the play on a split screen on your computer with people being able to jump from one screen to another. It looks as if no cockamamie idea came to Kramer that he considered too inane to incorporate into the production. Shakespeare’s play is used as a clothes line for Kramer’s ideas to be hung to dry.

The result is a travesty.

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Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare continues in repertory until July 9, 2017 at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, 21 New Globe Walk, London. www.shakespearesglobe.comThe Norman Conquests (2013)
Photos by Cylla von Tiedemann