TWO LADIES – REVIEW OF BRIDGE THEATRE PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Who are the two ladies in Nancy Harris’s new play titled, well, Two Ladies? Well may you ask and if you know nothing about the play, it may take you several minutes to recognize them. One of them is attractive, brilliant, sophisticated, the wife of a president who is much, much younger than her and she is? Yes, she is Helen, played brilliantly by Zoe Wanamaker.

The other lady is a beautiful, slim, statuesque woman, a former model, referred to as the First Lady. Right again. She is Sophia played by the beautiful …. Zrinka Cvitesic. If your wandering mind led you to Madam Macron and Melania Trump as possible models for Helen and Sophia, control yourself. Accuracy is not everything. 

Zoë Wanamaker in Two Ladies. Photograph: Helen Maybanks

The two ladies are attending an important summit conference in France where their husbands along with other leaders are deciding whether to retaliate against a country that has killed Americans and attacked American cities. The bellicose president wants to retaliate. Will Helen’s husband support him?

Let’s get back to the ladies in the hotel room where they are basically sequestered. Some protester has thrown red blood, a lot of red blood on Sophia’s gorgeous Chanel suit. Everyone is mortified and there is a scramble to do something about the attire of the First lady.

The two will engage is some very interesting banter that will be politically interesting, but much more fascinating in the details we find about the women and their husbands. The French president has a mistress? Big deal, you say, has there been a French president who did not have a mistress? But wait. This mistress is in the cabinet and she is pregnant and she may be at the conference in some back room with the president and Helen can’t get to him. The pregnancy is not the issue. They are French and civilized and a press release is ready admitting the whole affair.

Sex of various varieties is mentioned for our amusement but we are sure of the most important world issue at hand: Helen’s husband will not budge from his principle of no war and he will not support for the war-mongering American leader.

Georges (Yoli Fuller), the French press secretary and Sandy (Lorna Brown), the American press secretary rush in and out and they are informative and funny. 

Zrinka Cvitešić in Two Ladies. Photograph: Helen Maybanks

The play is highly entertaining. There are good plot twists, interesting revelations and varied pace. Sophia is very good to look at (we have established that) but she is also very astute and knows more than she lets on. We know that Helen is brilliant but her certainty, indeed conviction, that her husband will sail through the fact of his mistress’s pregnancy and will NOT support the American president may be on shakier grounds than she can possibly conceive.

One more fact. Sophia carries a bottle of Chanel No. 5 in her dainty purse which is in fact a powerful poison – the perfume, not her purse. One drop of it in the event of necessity and you are dead, dead, dead. The ladies feel betrayed, ignored and abused and they think that one way of wreaking vengeance on their husbands is by taking a swig of Sophia’s Chanel 5.

That is a toughie and how this enjoyable if somewhat creaky play about politics, women’s rights and current events will end cannot be disclosed.

Nicholas Hytner directs with the touch of a master and a well-appointed production designed Anna Fleischle.

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Two Ladies by Nancy Harris continues until October 26, 2019 at the Bridge Theatre, 3 Potters Fields Park, London, SE1 2SG, https://bridgetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/two-ladies/

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press

A VERY EXPENSIVE POISON – REVIEW OF OLD VIC PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

On November 1, 2006, Alexander Litvinenko, a Russian defector to the United Kingdom, became violently ill as a result of ingesting a highly toxic element known as Polonium-2010. He had met with two Russian agents, Dimitri Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi, and later investigation revealed that the poison was given to Litvinenko by these two gentlemen.

Litvinenko died on November 23, 2006 and British authorities showed little interest in investigating the murder of a British citizen which he had become.

His wife Marina pressed the issue including taking the government to court and an inquiry was eventually held and a report issued in January 2016. The conclusion was that Litvinenko was killed by Lugovoi and Kovtun and that it was highly probable that the crime was committed with the approval of Vladimir Putin. 

 Tom Brooke, centre, as Alexander Litvinenko with cast. 

Photograph: Marc Brenner

This summary does not contain too many laughs and one would seriously doubt that there is enough material there for a play that has singing, comedy, satire and attempts to be light entertainment. That is what Lucy Prebble does in her adaptation of Luke Harding’s book about the murder of Litvinenko that is now playing at London’s Old Vic Theatre.

Tom Brooke as Litvinenko looked like a rather sallow and ordinary man who loves his wife and son and is escaping from a dictatorial regime. This is the man who dared criticize Putin and made a daring escape from Russia?  MyAnna Buring is very convincing as his dedicated wife Marina who pursues the matter long after his death.

The British doctors, scientists and detectives who get involved in the case play it straight and the way one would expect them to act. Lugovoi (Michael Shaeffer) and Kovtun (Lloyd Hutchinson) are played like clowns. One of them climbs down the ladder on one side of the stage and they are generally good for a laugh.

Russian oligarch and probably archcriminal Boris Bereszovsky (Peter Polycarpou) is just a riot and he even breaks into song. There is a sort of host who can be seen in various places of the theatre. He wonders that we came back after the intermission and quips that the theatre programme at four pounds is very expensive. We are even treated to a segment of the Russian puppet satire show called Kukli. Just the sort of the thing the murder of Litvinenko needs. 

MyAnna Buring as Marina. Photo: Marc Brenner

We do get many facts about the murder and especially the subsequent investigation.  We learn that the then Home Secretary Theresa May, refused to open an investigation because it may disturb the United Kingdom’s delicate relations with Russia and cost a lot of money.

  

A Very Expensive Poison has a lot of ground to cover and the idea of constructing a play around it seems quixotic. Fifteen actors play fifty-seven characters “plus other roles” if I counted them correctly. There are numerous scene changes to accommodate the events that unrolled after Litvinenko’s poisoning and the investigation. That alone is a discouraging factor for anyone who wants to turn a lengthy and complex set of events into a couple of hours of theatre.

In any event, there it is.

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A Very Expensive Poison by Lucy Prebble based on the book by Luke Harding continues until October 5, 2019 at the Old Vic Theatre, The Cut, London, England. http://www.oldvictheatre.com/

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of the Greek Press

GLASS, KILL, BLUEBEARD’S FRIENDS AND IMP – REVIEW OF CARYL CHURCHILL PLAYLETS AT ROYAL COURT

Reviewed by James Karas

Glass, Kill, Bluebeard’s Friends and Imp are four playlets by Caryl Churchill now playing at the Royal Court Theatre in London. They are poetry in prose fashioned in dialogue suitable for the stage. They are interesting, intriguing and opaque which means they are creations in the world of Caryl Churchill.

Glass is a short playlet that has nine characters including “Schoolgirls” played by four actors. The actors are sitting or standing on a small platform that appears suspended in midair above the stage floor. All we see is one narrow side of the platform on a black background. 

The cast of Glass. Photo: Johan Persson

The central character is A Girl Made of Glass who first appears with her Brother, His Friend and Her Friend. Another character, Mother, appears as well as a Clock, a Red Plastic Dog, a Vase and Schoolgirls. Her Friend discloses a secret to the Girl Made of Glass that sounds awful, but we are not told what it is. The Girl goes to her Friend’s house and the relationship seems to be broken. Eventually, the Girl jumps out a window and is shattered to pieces.

The actors who play all the parts are Kwabena Ansah, Louisa Harland, Patrick McNamee and Rebekah Murrell.

Kill has two actors, Tom Mothersdale representing the gods and a youngster (Caelan Eddie or Leo Rait) representing the people. Mothersdale sits on a cloud and the boy is playing with puzzles on the floor. The god is one or several of the Olympians and he tells us that he does not exist but is something that people made up. He proceeds to relate a detailed account of the myths of the House of Atreus, the Royal House of Thebes and several other branches. Killing and cooking children to be eaten by their father are prominent features of the myths of the two dynasties of Greek mythology and we end up with a good account of them and a lot more.

In Bluebeard’s Friends, four people played by Deborah Findlay, Toby James, Sarah Niles and Sule Rimi talk about the murderous Bluebeard. The speakers are not identified but they tell us that Bluebeard is their friend and that they are horrified that he is dead. Or was he just stabbed numerous times and is still alive?

One of them got the dresses, the bloody dresses, that some of Bluebeard’s victims wore. We see them raised in the background. The foursome continues the conversation. Some of the women deserved what they got. Some were peasants. But he was a charming psychopath and he liked us. What he did was terrible, but he loved beautiful things.

There crosscurrents among the four speakers. The non-sequiturs and the conversation continue for a few minutes and one of them puts on a blue beard and a woman puts on one of the dresses. They are Bluebeard’s friend even if he was terrible. Who are these people? Go figure.

Imp is longer than the other three playlets put together. It has four characters and the action is divided into about a dozen scenes. Dot (Deborah Findlay) and Jimmy (Toby Jones) are a childless couple who are medically unfit. They are misfits who don’t get along or maybe they do. Dot is a nurse who was dismissed for beating up a patient and served some time in jail. 

Toby Jones, Louisa Harland and Tom Mothersdale in Imp. 

Photo: Johan Persson 

We glean information about them as they interact with Niamh (Louisa Harland) a distant Irish relative. They have befriended Rob (Tom Mothersdale) a homeless person who has a brilliant son but is also a liar.  Niamh has a relationship with him and ends up being pregnant. There is plenty of humour but you know you are walking on quicksand. and are never sure of your footing or of what is going on. You are left with the intriguing and opaque situation.

You should not be fooled with any apparent simplicity in any of the pieces. The real story is in the subtext. The god or gods in Kill, for example, are not retelling us Greek myths. The violence, the admitted untruthfulness of the existence of the deities and the blending of disparate mythologies is the real story.

The same applies to Glass, Imp and Bluebeard’s Friends. They are pieces that a first look at them simply begins the process of trying to understand them and Churchill’s complex world.

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Glass, Kill, Bluebeard’s Friends and Imp by Caryl Churchill continues  until October 12, 2019 at the Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, London, SW1W 8AS.  Box Office 020 7565 5000. www.royalcourttheatre.com

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press

FAITH, HOPE AND CHARITY - REVIEW OF NATIONAL THEATRE PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

Faith, Hope and Charity are cardinal virtues in Christianity, and they are also the title of Alexander Zeldin’s new play now showing at the Dorfman stage of the national Theatre in London. Religion does not enter the play at all but there is indeed faith in humanity. Hope in helping the poorest and charity with love and humility.

The play takes place in a soup kitchen where people go for a meal and company. There is also a choir where the ability to sing is optional.

The kitchen is run by Hazel (Cecilia Noble) and Mason (Nick Holder), a middle-aged man who volunteers to help and organize a choir. He is a former prisoner and knows what it means to be down and out.

Cecilia Noble in Faith, Hope and Charity. Photo: Sarah Lee

The people who frequent the kitchen have a lot in common. They are poor, of course, but they also come from broken families, have emotional problems and are basically society’s forgotten. Tharwa (Hind Swareldahab) does not speak English and comes regularly with her little girl for some food. That is all we know about her and that is all we need to know.

Susan Lynch as Beth has a troubled teenaged son Marc (Bobby Smallwood) but has an even greater problem she has a small daughter and there is a court hearing about her custody. Beth is about to lose custody of her child. The moving story goes to the end of the play as Beth desperately searches for help and looks for support from Mason and Hazel.

There is Bernard (Alan Williams) whose committed the crime of getting old, being forgetful and poor. We get a few laughs from his conduct but there is nothing funny about his fate. He comes to eat and wants to sing but can’t remember any of the lyrics. 

Alan Williams in Faith, Hope and Charity. Photo: Sarah Lee

If the people who come for a meal have problems so does the institution itself. The developers are trying to evict Hazel and Mason and shut the whole thing down. Developers versus helping the socially left out. Guess who wins?

The key characters are Hazel and Mason. They come from broken homes and they are like the people for whom they cook and jolly along every day. I will pay special tribute to their acting because they manage to capture the spirit of the play. There is no preaching, no charity just plain decency. The level of acting by the entire cast is superb.

Not one of the visitors to the kitchen is judged in this beautifully modulated and marvelously acted play. It is a paean to basic humanity and decency. The faith of the title refers or should refer to Hazel and Mason’s faith in humanity. The hope is what they naturally engender in people who seem to have no hope. Charity? No, just plain decency in a frequently if not fundamentally indecent society.

Zeldin also directs this wonderful night at the theatre.

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Faith, Hope and Charity by Alexander Zeldin continues until October 12, 2019 at the Dorfman stage of the National Theatre, South Bank, London, England. www.nationaltheatre.org.uk.

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of the Greek Press.

A DAY IN THE DEATH OF JOE EGG – REVIEW OF NICHOLS’ PLAY AT TRAFALGAR STUDIOS

James Karas

On October 24, 1993, Robert Latimer, a Saskatchewan farmer, connected the exhaust pipe of his truck by a hose to the cab of his truck and turned on the engine. His 12-year old daughter Laura was in the truck and consequently died of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Laura was severely disabled and in constant and apparently excruciating pain. Her quality of life was negligible, if any. Latimer’s action in wanting to put an end to her life was an act of love and mercy. The Canadian legal system did not see it that way and he was convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 10 years. His conviction that he took his daughter’s life to end her pain did not get him sympathy with some quarters of Canada especially the parole board and he served his entire sentence.

 

Claire Skinner, Toby Stephens and Storme Toolis. Photo:Marc Brenner

The horrifying fate of Laura and Robert Latimer came to mind while watching A Day in the Death of Joe Egg by Peter Nichols. The play premiered in 1967 and was partly autobiographical because Nichols had a severely disable daughter who had died at age 11.

Brian and Sheila have a severely disabled daughter. Josephine or Joe Egg as they call her cannot speak or walk and recognizes almost nothing of her surroundings. She is incontinent, requires almost constant care and has convulsions. Looking after Joe is excruciatingly difficult. Sheila sees or imagines she is seeing signs of reaction or recognition from Joe. Brian sees no hope and while hiding his emotions behind bad jokes about Joe’s condition contemplates bringing her life to an end.

The play is billed as a comedy and there are some funny lines but the humour is black and the situation utterly depressing.

Nichols has his characters address the audience directly beginning with Brian who teaches high school in Bristol and has a class of nightmarish students. The first scene is a perfect example of bad class control where he yells at his students for misbehaving, tells all of them to put their hands on their heads and leaves them there while he goes home.

Brian and Sheila step off the stage to re-enact visits to a family physician and a pediatrician who are hilariously and frightfully inept, unsympathetic and pathetic. 

Toby Stephens, Lucy Eaton, Clarence Smith and Claire Skinner. 
Photo: Marc Brenner 

The rest of the plot is taken by the visit of a friendly couple, Freddie (Clarence Smith) and Pam (Lucy Eaton) who want to be helpful but are not. The other visitor is Brian’s mother Grace (Patricia Hodge) who is obtuse and funny.

Toby Stephens as Brian (he is usually Bri) and Claire Skinner as Sheila play the wretched and unfortunate parents who try to deal with a hopeless and horrid situation and try to find ways of dealing with it. Excellent work by both of them.

The production is done on a single set by Peter McIntosh representing the living room of Joe’s parents. We see Joe (Storme Toolis) in her wheelchair sitting there quietly or convulsing. The actors step down from the stage when addressing the audience or taking the role of the doctors.

Director Simon Evans does fine work dealing with a horrible situation and bringing out the humour of the play. It is a horrifying situation and a dreadful fate for the people involved. And this is just on stage. Can you imagine it in real life?

I wonder if Latimer is aware of the play.

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A Day in the Death of Joe Egg  by Peter Nichols  continues until November 30, 2019 at Trafalgar Studios, 14 Whitehall, London, SW1A 2DY. www.trafalgarentertainment.com/

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press. www.greekpress.ca

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM – REVIEW OF 2019 SHAKESPEARE’S GLOBE PRODUCTION

Reviewed by James Karas

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Sean Holmes for Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre can be described as exuberant, wild, irreverent, unfaithful, colourful, energetic, flamboyant, crowd-pleasing and crowd-grabbing. Many of these are positive attributes that may apply to the show seen on the stage. But there was one defect: it was not Shakespeare. You will hear most of the text, but the major thrust will be to get laughs and do as much as possible without attention to what Shakespeare wrote.

Let’s start with the two pairs of lovers who along with the Mechanicals will carry the bulk of the play with due help from the mischievous prankster Puck. Demetrius (Ciaran O’Brien), Hermia (Faith Omole), Lysander (Ekow Quartey) and Helena (Amanda Wilkin) are spirited and agile actors who can deliver their marvelous lines and entertain us. But they need to be directed to do so and not laden with gimmicks to draw in the audience.  Why are they not allowed to play their parts instead of jumping out of character to get laughs? 

Jocelyn Jee Esien as Bottom and Victoria Elliott as Titania.  Photo: Tristram Kenton

The same applies to the Mechanicals. Jocelyn Jee Esien is a spitfire as Bottom as are Rachel Hannah Clarke as Snug, Nadine Higgin as Quince, Billy Seymour as Flute, Jacoba Williams as Snout and “one of you” as Starveling. The last is an audience member who is supposed to provide more fun. That is hokey and unnecessary. The Mechanicals are hilarious as they are without pandering to the audience. The day I saw the play, one Kevin was invited from the audience and got some laughs but we would have done even better by sticking to Shakespeare and a professional actor.

Puck, who is a great driving force for humour in the play, is played according to the program by “some of us” meaning the cast. Do we really need four (or was it more?) actors with T-shirts marked Puck? And do we need a brass band that is ready to play and does play with annoying frequency? Actors grab a microphone and start singing and invite the audience to join in. I guess you just can’t trust Shakespeare so just add whatever nonsense comes to your head and hope the audience laps it up.

The appetite for getting the audience join in the performance seems almost insatiable. The spectators are happy to join in. Ask them to applaud, they will applaud. Ask them to sing, they will sing. Go out of character, do almost anything for a laugh, and they will laugh.

Holmes and designer Jean Chan want to establish a production that is noted for wild colours and costumes. Titania and Oberon, Theseus and Hippolyta, the fairies, the Mechanicals all wear costumes that are outlandish in design and wild in colour. 

Ciaran O'Brién, Amanda Wilkin, Faith Omole, Ekow Quartey. 

Photo: Tristram Kenton

In the opening scene we see a large, sealed box on the stage marked “fragile.” It is broken open and a woman with her lips taped appears. The garishly attired and oblivious Theseus announces that his marriage to Hippolyta is only four days away and he just can’t wait for the happy event. The woman in the box is Hippolyta and you can just imagine how happy she is. Peter Bourke plays Theseus and Oberon while Victoria Elliott plays Hippolyta and Titania and they do their jobs well. 

The current approach to productions of Shakespeare’s play seems to be to bring them to the lowest common denominator. Involve the audience, get a laugh, ignore the text, jump out of character, get someone from the audience on the stage and do any gimmick that your imagination can devise, and unacceptable production perpetrate.

Some day they may find Shakespeare again.

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare continues until October 13, 2019 at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, 21 New Globe Walk, London. England www.shakespearesglobe.com  

James Karas is the Senior Editor - Culture of The Greek Press.

THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA – REVIEW OF PRODUCTION IN LONDON

James Karas

The Night of the Iguana, like many of Tennessee Williams plays, deals with people at the end of their rope. He wrote the play in 1961 but it takes place in 1940 in a run-down beach hotel in Mexico. It was inspired by some awful experiences Williams had in 1940.

The play has some fourteen characters but only four of them are of real consequence. Director James Macdonald delivers a well done production that brings out the strength and humanity of people who can barely cope with reality. 

 Clive Owen and Anna Gunn. Photo: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg

Reverend T. Lawrence Shannon (Clive Owen) is a defrocked minister who has been reduced to working as a tour guide on third-rate bus trips. He preached atheism, seduced young girls and has ended up as an alcoholic on the verge of a mental breakdown. On his last trip, he diverts the bus full of women to Maxine Faulk’s (Anna Gunn) hotel and takes the ignition key so that they will not be able to leave.

Owen gives a superb performance as the desperate, pathetic, humiliated former cleric who deteriorates so much that he must be tied to a hammock for his safety. A human being with almost nothing left who finds solace in drinking and tries to pretend that he can make a comeback as a minister when he is in fact in danger of being arrested for having sex with a minor. A bravura performance.

Maxine is another person on the edge. Her husband with whom she has had no relations except grunting for ten years has recently died. She flaunts her sexuality and finds solace in having a couple of Mexican studs service her. She has deep humanity but not much to support it with. Gunn has a full-throated laugh as if to hide reality and puts up a front of strength behind a vacuous existence. Marvelous performance.

Hannah Jelkes (Lia Williams) is a dried-up New England spinster who has difficulty finding means of survival. She paints. She has found some inner strength to help her survive but that does not conceal her actual desperation. Williams is prim, proper, and fights for tomorrow. Hannah understands Shannon better than he understands himself because she has been close to the edge herself. A highly sympathetic portrayal.

Hannah travels with her grandfather Nonno (Julian Glover), an old invalid who is trying to write his last poem. Another desperate man who is not just at the end of his “career” but at the end of his life and tries to achieve his crowning glory. 

                                              Scene fro The Night of the Iguana.  Photo: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg

The play has a number of other characters who are merely sketched in or not developed at all. There are four Nazis who march on and off the stage to some comic effect, the Mexican toy boys who entertain Maxine, and several others. They serve to move the plot  and give context to the lives of the other characters.

The set by Rae Smith is extraordinarily effective. The dilapidated hotel is situated in front of a huge cliff with the beach being reached by steps in front of the hotel. The lighting by Neil Austin is dark and dramatic and the storm scene highly realistic. Excellent production values overall.

Macdonald does terrific work in bringing one of Williams’ better plays to the stage one more time.     

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The Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams continues until September 28, 2019 at the Noël Coward Theatre, 85-88 St Martin's Ln, Covent Garden, London WC2N 4AP.

James Karas is the Senior Editor – Culture of The Greek Press. www.greekpress.ca