Despite all the unnecessary, elephantine musicals based on movies that don't need to be turned into musicals and greatest hits compilations turned into musicals, there has been a lot of healthy experimentation in musical theater in the last few years. NEXT TO NORMAL, BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON, and THE SCOTTSBORO BOYS are examples of new and veteran creators rethinking what the musical can be and how it can address the world outsde the theater. Alas, two of the three bombed on Broadway which is now dependent on tourists who want large-scale, mindless entertainment. Many of them don't speak English (given the woeful lyrics of some f these shows, that is a virtue). If original, creative musicals are going to survive, they are going to be on a smaller scale and in some sort of non-profit theater dedicated to nurturing new work. Like serious drama, the serious musical has become an endangered species that needs protection away from Broadway or the West End in London. Recent small-scale revivals of past musicals has proven that good shows can also benefit from clever, minimalist productions.
MIDSUMMER, a play with music by David Greig with songs by Gordon McIntyre, is an example of a lovely, small-scale musical. Two actors with guitars comprise the entire cast and band. The show was first performed to great acclaim at the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh. This is the second London run of a little show that has now been successfully mounted all over the world. With the right two performers it is a delightful adult musical.
Helena is a thirty-five year old lawyer with a dismal romantic track record and a tendency to drink too much. Bob is a small-time gangster facing his thirty-fifth birthday and some serious questions about how he is going to spend the rest of his life. He is one of those sad souls who sees high school as the best time of his life. This unhappy, self-loathing couple meet in an Edinburgh wine bar. The play shows us their weekend together which takes them all over the city they both love. Their forty-eight hours is a final bout of total irresponsibility funded by fifteen thousand pounds Bob was supposed to deposit into a gangster's bank account. Though they don't want to admit it, they are falling in love. On paper, these walking disaster areas don't sound like the sort of raw material for a delightful, feelgood evening of theater, but in the telling and acting, MIDSUMMER is a joy to behold.
Bob and Helena's weekend misadventures are recounted in scenes, narration, songs, even a bit of audience participation. Greig's script could be a less glamorous version of one of those Richard Curtis romantic comedies, a Scots NOTTING HILL. But it has been shaped as a lively theatrical experience that consistently breaks the fourth wall and embraces its audience. There is no scenery except a bed and some very clever signage and virtually no costume changes. The two actors also play the small supporting roles. This is theater as play in the best sense. The simple, folksy songs fit perfectly. MIDSUMMER has received critical raves here and deserves them.
The two charming, tireless performers, Cora Bissett and Matthew Pidgeon, quickly win the audience's affection. They're not great singers -- that would be out of character, but they totally inhabit their characters.
This is not a show to take the kiddies to. It is sexually candid. More important, it is about what it means to be grown up. A+
MIDSUMMER is now being performed at the Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, North London, a 200 seat theatre that offers some of the most interesting contemporary theater work. The Tricycle produced THE GREAT GAME: AFGHANISTAN, the most exciting piece of new theater I have seen in the past few years. I read in the paper that on the basis of the play cycle's successful American tour the Pentagon in presenting it to its senior personnel. Too bad it wasn't availabe to them ten years ago!
MIDSUMMER, a play with music by David Greig and Gordon McIntyre, directed by David Greig. Tricycle Theatre. January 8, 2011.
Sunday, 9 January 2011
Thursday, 6 January 2011
ON THE 20TH CENTURY - Union Theatre
Over the past two years there has been a movement in London toward pocket-size revivals of classic American musicals. For years the 240 seat Donmar Warehouse has been mounting brilliant productions of Sondheim musicals (most recently PASSION) and serious musicals like Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry's PARADE. Now even smaller fringe venues are beginning to follow suit. The seventry-five seat Union Theatre, under the railroad tracks near Waterloo Station specializes in musicals. The equally tiny Southwark Playhouse near London Bridge station is about to produce Sondheim's COMPANY. And now the claustrophobic King's Head pub theatre in Islington is producing a season of small-scale operas in modern revisions with piano accompaniment. These theatres offer excellent productions at bargain prices (£15 or less).
These very low budget revivals depend on directoral ingenuity and good performances to compensate for the lack of spectacle. These minimalist productions also put the spotlight on script and score with no smoke and mirrors to cover their inadequacies.
The first thing one remembers about the original Harold Prince production of ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY in 1978 was the gorgeous scenery, all silver and art deco. It was one of the most visually beautiful productions I have ever seen. It was also a brilliant, funny show with a fast-paced book and an extremely witty score and lyrics (Cy Coleman, Betty Comden and Adolph Green) that was closer to something like Bernstein's CANDIDE than the typical Broadway score. Coleman's score was very different from his catchy, tune-filled scores for SWEET CHARITY or BARNUM. There were no excerptable potential hit songs here. Everything fit character and situation and the style of the piece, more Rossini in places than Broadway. The music was as clever as the lyrics. The cast was brilliant -- John Cullum, Judy Kaye (replacing Madeleine Kahn), veteran comic Imogene Coca and the brilliant debut of Kevin Kline. Of course, something this sophisticated was lost in the giant St. James Theatre and, frankly, too intelligent for Broadway even in 1978 and ran for only a year. In 2011, it wouldn't stand a chance on Broadway.
The Union Theatre production, cleverly directed by Ryan McBryde (choreographer Drew McOnie) had a hard-working cast of eleven playing all the roles as well as serving as chorus. The only sceneery were pieces of luggage and two door units on wheels. The costumes were pure thrift shop. The band consisted of four saxophones and a piano. As usual with these fringe productions, there were no microphones (horray!). What can I say? It all worked and made one appreciate what a good show this is. The book was wisely trimmed to the essentials so the focus was on the wonderful score. The cast was fine. Where do they get all these talented people who must be paid next to nothing? Howard Samuels, who played the crafty impressario Oscar Jaffe, doesn't have much of a singing voice but is a great stage comic, sort of Nathan Lane with a larger bag of tricks. The role of film star Lily Garland is a difficult one, requiring a singer who can both sing coloratura and belt, sometimes in the same phrase. The original Lily, Madeleine Kahn, left the show after a couple of months, claiming that the demands of the score ruined her voice. Rebecca Vere sang it all and played the comedy well. Everyone else was fine, particularly Valda Aviks as the mad evangelist, Letitia Primrose. Her part was tailor-made for Imogene Coca, but Aviks made it seem like it was written for her. The cast threw themselves into the madcap spirit of the show.
Like the Union Theatre's IOLANTHE, the production of ON THE 20TH CENTURY managed to transcend the dumpy theater (though nothing could transcend the men's room!). Four stars!
ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. Music by Cy Coleman. Book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Union Theatre. January 5, 2011.
These very low budget revivals depend on directoral ingenuity and good performances to compensate for the lack of spectacle. These minimalist productions also put the spotlight on script and score with no smoke and mirrors to cover their inadequacies.
The first thing one remembers about the original Harold Prince production of ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY in 1978 was the gorgeous scenery, all silver and art deco. It was one of the most visually beautiful productions I have ever seen. It was also a brilliant, funny show with a fast-paced book and an extremely witty score and lyrics (Cy Coleman, Betty Comden and Adolph Green) that was closer to something like Bernstein's CANDIDE than the typical Broadway score. Coleman's score was very different from his catchy, tune-filled scores for SWEET CHARITY or BARNUM. There were no excerptable potential hit songs here. Everything fit character and situation and the style of the piece, more Rossini in places than Broadway. The music was as clever as the lyrics. The cast was brilliant -- John Cullum, Judy Kaye (replacing Madeleine Kahn), veteran comic Imogene Coca and the brilliant debut of Kevin Kline. Of course, something this sophisticated was lost in the giant St. James Theatre and, frankly, too intelligent for Broadway even in 1978 and ran for only a year. In 2011, it wouldn't stand a chance on Broadway.
The Union Theatre production, cleverly directed by Ryan McBryde (choreographer Drew McOnie) had a hard-working cast of eleven playing all the roles as well as serving as chorus. The only sceneery were pieces of luggage and two door units on wheels. The costumes were pure thrift shop. The band consisted of four saxophones and a piano. As usual with these fringe productions, there were no microphones (horray!). What can I say? It all worked and made one appreciate what a good show this is. The book was wisely trimmed to the essentials so the focus was on the wonderful score. The cast was fine. Where do they get all these talented people who must be paid next to nothing? Howard Samuels, who played the crafty impressario Oscar Jaffe, doesn't have much of a singing voice but is a great stage comic, sort of Nathan Lane with a larger bag of tricks. The role of film star Lily Garland is a difficult one, requiring a singer who can both sing coloratura and belt, sometimes in the same phrase. The original Lily, Madeleine Kahn, left the show after a couple of months, claiming that the demands of the score ruined her voice. Rebecca Vere sang it all and played the comedy well. Everyone else was fine, particularly Valda Aviks as the mad evangelist, Letitia Primrose. Her part was tailor-made for Imogene Coca, but Aviks made it seem like it was written for her. The cast threw themselves into the madcap spirit of the show.
Like the Union Theatre's IOLANTHE, the production of ON THE 20TH CENTURY managed to transcend the dumpy theater (though nothing could transcend the men's room!). Four stars!
ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. Music by Cy Coleman. Book and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green. Union Theatre. January 5, 2011.
Saturday, 1 January 2011
AN IDEAL HUSBAND
I happen to be particularly fond of Wilde's AN IDEAL HUSBAND and A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE, both of which hold more interest for me than his more often revived THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST. Fortunately Wilde is often revived in London though, oddly, seldom at the National Theatre which doesn't seem very interested in one of England's greates playwrights.
Here's a revival that did what a revival should do -- give enormous pleasure to those seeing the fine play for the first time and shedding new light on the work for those familiar with the play. Lindsay Posner's production managed to make the social comedy and well made play melodrama all of a piece. There's a tendency in Wilde revivals for characters to pose and to preen at their witticisms. All the actors in this production managed to act and react like human beings. The center of the production was Elliot Cowan's Lord Goring, the brilliantly witty man about town. Cowan's Goring showed both the pose and the man under the pose who was painfully aware of his own inadequacies. He was throughout a great listener as well as a witty performer. Rachel Stirling's Lady Chiltern was not just a priggish young woman, but an intelligent, passionate one. Samantha Bond's villainous Mrs. Cheveley was a woman who wanted power in a man's world and kenw the price she paid for not playing by the rules. The always reliable Alexander Hanson captured Chiltern's ambition and his devotion to his wife.
Yes, the sets and costumes were gorgeous as they should be in a Wilde revival, but the production also reminded all of us in the audience that Wilde's comments on politics and human frailties are still pertinent even if his views on gender were shall we say unenlightened. I also felt in this production the presence of Wilde speaking through his characters his own awareness of the dangerous position in which he placed himself.
A great way to begin a new year of theatergoing.
AN IDEAL HUSBAND. Vaudeville Theatre. January 1, 2011
Here's a revival that did what a revival should do -- give enormous pleasure to those seeing the fine play for the first time and shedding new light on the work for those familiar with the play. Lindsay Posner's production managed to make the social comedy and well made play melodrama all of a piece. There's a tendency in Wilde revivals for characters to pose and to preen at their witticisms. All the actors in this production managed to act and react like human beings. The center of the production was Elliot Cowan's Lord Goring, the brilliantly witty man about town. Cowan's Goring showed both the pose and the man under the pose who was painfully aware of his own inadequacies. He was throughout a great listener as well as a witty performer. Rachel Stirling's Lady Chiltern was not just a priggish young woman, but an intelligent, passionate one. Samantha Bond's villainous Mrs. Cheveley was a woman who wanted power in a man's world and kenw the price she paid for not playing by the rules. The always reliable Alexander Hanson captured Chiltern's ambition and his devotion to his wife.
Yes, the sets and costumes were gorgeous as they should be in a Wilde revival, but the production also reminded all of us in the audience that Wilde's comments on politics and human frailties are still pertinent even if his views on gender were shall we say unenlightened. I also felt in this production the presence of Wilde speaking through his characters his own awareness of the dangerous position in which he placed himself.
A great way to begin a new year of theatergoing.
AN IDEAL HUSBAND. Vaudeville Theatre. January 1, 2011
BEST AND WORST OF 2010
BEST
1. AFTER THE DANCE. A perfect production of a gem of a play by Terence Rattigan, a playwright who is deservedly coming back into style. Oddly, this play has not received a major production since 1938. Magnificent cast with Nancy Carroll and Adrian Scarborough giving exemplary performances.
2. CLYBOURNE PARK. Bruce Norris's brilliant riff on Lorraine Hansberry's A RAISIN IN THE SUN. Funny, angry, sad all at once. A perfect cast and production.
3. PUNK ROCK. Another great Simon Stephens play, this one about disaffected youth, but not a cliche in sight. As usual in Stephens's work, someone goes violently, momentraily berserk, but the meltdown says much about where we are right now.
4. RUINED. I loved the script, didn't like the New York production, but the perfect production at the Almeida proved me right about Lynn Nottage's powerful play about women surviving in war torn Africa.
5.DESIGN FOR LIVING. A superb production that proved that this long, sometimes preachy Noel Coward comedy can work. Brilliant performances from Andrew Scott, Lisa Dillon and Tom Burke.
6. ALIENS. Annie Baker's touching little play about two thirty-something losers and a teenage boy who just might make it. Lovely!
7. HAMLET. Rory Kinnear is simply the best Hamlet I have seen. The rest B+ but he's definitely A+.
8. PASSION. A revelatory production of Sondheim's problematic pice at the Donmar, proving it works best small scale.
9. WHITE GUARD. Howard Davies superb, well cast production of Bulkagov's play about a family trying to survive the various 1918 Russian revolutions.
10. SPRING STORM. A moving production of a piece of Tennessee Williams juvenalia. Flawed but showing the marks of a great playwright.
AND THE CRINGE MAKING MOMENTS . . .
LA BETE. A perhaps clever skit in rhymed couplets bloated into a tedious ninety minute play to showcase once again the irritating Mark Rylance. I know some people think he's a great actor. I think he's Britain's answer to Nathan Lane and from me that's not a compliment!
LOVE NEVER DIES. Incoherent mush. A sequel to PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. One of those productions when one asks "Why did they bother?" throughout. Great sets. I understand they have revised the script somewhat but the raw materials for a good musical simply aren't there. Like a score worth hearing, intelligent lyrics, an interesting story, characters.
PYGMALION. Rupert Everett giving the worst performance of the year. His co-star, Honeysuckly Weeks (I'm not kidding) looked like Eliza Doolittle's mother and almost matched Everett in awfulness.
Some comedies that shouldn't be revived -- SEASONS GREETINGS, WHEN WE ARE MARRIED
WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN (Broadway). One of many totally unnecessary musicals made from movies that are perfect in their own right. This one a particularly incoherent mess despite a starry cast. Awful score. Not all movies make good musicals!!!!!!!!!!
DON GIOVANNI at the English National Opera. I'm not a purist about opera productions but this one by Rufus Norris made the supposedly aristocratic, sexy Don into an ugly slob few women would be interested in. Poorly conducted. Mediocre cast. At the English National Opera prices, this is not good enough
THE NUTCRACKER at the English National Ballet. I am a sucker for The Nutcracker. I love the music, grew up with the Balanchine production, have fond memories of the American Ballet Theatre's quasi-Freudian production in the 1970s and think the Royal Ballet production is close to perfect. This one was a mess, rendering the story incoherent. Choreographer Wayne Eagling, a former star dancer, knows how to choreograph for men, but not for women. The dancers ranged from mediocre to poor. They wouldn't have made the corps of the Royal Ballet.
1. AFTER THE DANCE. A perfect production of a gem of a play by Terence Rattigan, a playwright who is deservedly coming back into style. Oddly, this play has not received a major production since 1938. Magnificent cast with Nancy Carroll and Adrian Scarborough giving exemplary performances.
2. CLYBOURNE PARK. Bruce Norris's brilliant riff on Lorraine Hansberry's A RAISIN IN THE SUN. Funny, angry, sad all at once. A perfect cast and production.
3. PUNK ROCK. Another great Simon Stephens play, this one about disaffected youth, but not a cliche in sight. As usual in Stephens's work, someone goes violently, momentraily berserk, but the meltdown says much about where we are right now.
4. RUINED. I loved the script, didn't like the New York production, but the perfect production at the Almeida proved me right about Lynn Nottage's powerful play about women surviving in war torn Africa.
5.DESIGN FOR LIVING. A superb production that proved that this long, sometimes preachy Noel Coward comedy can work. Brilliant performances from Andrew Scott, Lisa Dillon and Tom Burke.
6. ALIENS. Annie Baker's touching little play about two thirty-something losers and a teenage boy who just might make it. Lovely!
7. HAMLET. Rory Kinnear is simply the best Hamlet I have seen. The rest B+ but he's definitely A+.
8. PASSION. A revelatory production of Sondheim's problematic pice at the Donmar, proving it works best small scale.
9. WHITE GUARD. Howard Davies superb, well cast production of Bulkagov's play about a family trying to survive the various 1918 Russian revolutions.
10. SPRING STORM. A moving production of a piece of Tennessee Williams juvenalia. Flawed but showing the marks of a great playwright.
AND THE CRINGE MAKING MOMENTS . . .
LA BETE. A perhaps clever skit in rhymed couplets bloated into a tedious ninety minute play to showcase once again the irritating Mark Rylance. I know some people think he's a great actor. I think he's Britain's answer to Nathan Lane and from me that's not a compliment!
LOVE NEVER DIES. Incoherent mush. A sequel to PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. One of those productions when one asks "Why did they bother?" throughout. Great sets. I understand they have revised the script somewhat but the raw materials for a good musical simply aren't there. Like a score worth hearing, intelligent lyrics, an interesting story, characters.
PYGMALION. Rupert Everett giving the worst performance of the year. His co-star, Honeysuckly Weeks (I'm not kidding) looked like Eliza Doolittle's mother and almost matched Everett in awfulness.
Some comedies that shouldn't be revived -- SEASONS GREETINGS, WHEN WE ARE MARRIED
WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN (Broadway). One of many totally unnecessary musicals made from movies that are perfect in their own right. This one a particularly incoherent mess despite a starry cast. Awful score. Not all movies make good musicals!!!!!!!!!!
DON GIOVANNI at the English National Opera. I'm not a purist about opera productions but this one by Rufus Norris made the supposedly aristocratic, sexy Don into an ugly slob few women would be interested in. Poorly conducted. Mediocre cast. At the English National Opera prices, this is not good enough
THE NUTCRACKER at the English National Ballet. I am a sucker for The Nutcracker. I love the music, grew up with the Balanchine production, have fond memories of the American Ballet Theatre's quasi-Freudian production in the 1970s and think the Royal Ballet production is close to perfect. This one was a mess, rendering the story incoherent. Choreographer Wayne Eagling, a former star dancer, knows how to choreograph for men, but not for women. The dancers ranged from mediocre to poor. They wouldn't have made the corps of the Royal Ballet.
SEASON'S GREETINGS (the play)
Sometimes a theater has to revive a play to see whether it is worth reviving. The proof is in the production. The National put one of its best directors, Marianne Elliott, and a cast of star comics, all known from television as well as the stage (Catherine Tate, Mark Gatiss, Katherine Parkinson, Nicola Walker) to the task of reviving Alan Ayckbourn's 1980 comedy, SEASONS GREETINGS. Alas, all that talent could not bring the corpse to life.
Ayckbourn was sort of the Neil Simon of Britain. He had a highly successful career in the commerical theater in the 1960 and 1970s writing comedies about British middle class folk, prosperous, but not contented. The plays were basically situation comedies with a touch of seriousness. Some of them (THE NORMAN CONQUEST, ABSURD PERSON SINGULAR) were hits on both sides of the Atlantic and very funny in their time. But, as Neil Simon's comedies are hard to revive now (even his best work, the fine BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS, flopped in a Broadway revival last year). Tastes in comedy change -- the history of theater proves that few comedies from the past stand the test of time.
There are half a dozen funny moments in SEASONS GREETINGS separated by setups that last far too long. You see the payoff coming long before it does. You can build a mystery on such prolonged foreplay, but not a comedy. Director Marianne Elliott made the mistake of taking the play more seriously than it deserves. I think she saw in it a play about frustrated women and inadequate men and tried to get her talented cast to play it realistically. Unfortunately the characters are thinner than cardboard and the attempts to lend them more depth only showed how thin they were. The cast deserves A for effort, but I wanted to scream "Faster, louder." It was all too tasteful. Ayckbourn wrote his plays for an intimate theater-in-the-round in Scarborough. The enormous three level set on the giant stage of the Lyttleton seemed to swallow the slight play up.
The really good performers were interesting to watch. The weaker ones were not, particularly Katherine Parkinson (from the hit tv series DOC MARTIN), a one note actress who always gets tiresome on stage. She was the very weak link in Mike Bartlett's COCK last winter and in this one as well.
The performance received polite applause from a New Years Eve audience. Not only of the National's finest hours. In this age of budget cuts, it's a shame to see so much money wasted on minor fluff.
SEASONS GREETINGS by Alan Ayckbourn. Royal National Theatre. December 31, 2010
Ayckbourn was sort of the Neil Simon of Britain. He had a highly successful career in the commerical theater in the 1960 and 1970s writing comedies about British middle class folk, prosperous, but not contented. The plays were basically situation comedies with a touch of seriousness. Some of them (THE NORMAN CONQUEST, ABSURD PERSON SINGULAR) were hits on both sides of the Atlantic and very funny in their time. But, as Neil Simon's comedies are hard to revive now (even his best work, the fine BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS, flopped in a Broadway revival last year). Tastes in comedy change -- the history of theater proves that few comedies from the past stand the test of time.
There are half a dozen funny moments in SEASONS GREETINGS separated by setups that last far too long. You see the payoff coming long before it does. You can build a mystery on such prolonged foreplay, but not a comedy. Director Marianne Elliott made the mistake of taking the play more seriously than it deserves. I think she saw in it a play about frustrated women and inadequate men and tried to get her talented cast to play it realistically. Unfortunately the characters are thinner than cardboard and the attempts to lend them more depth only showed how thin they were. The cast deserves A for effort, but I wanted to scream "Faster, louder." It was all too tasteful. Ayckbourn wrote his plays for an intimate theater-in-the-round in Scarborough. The enormous three level set on the giant stage of the Lyttleton seemed to swallow the slight play up.
The really good performers were interesting to watch. The weaker ones were not, particularly Katherine Parkinson (from the hit tv series DOC MARTIN), a one note actress who always gets tiresome on stage. She was the very weak link in Mike Bartlett's COCK last winter and in this one as well.
The performance received polite applause from a New Years Eve audience. Not only of the National's finest hours. In this age of budget cuts, it's a shame to see so much money wasted on minor fluff.
SEASONS GREETINGS by Alan Ayckbourn. Royal National Theatre. December 31, 2010
Tuesday, 14 December 2010
MEN SHOULD WEEP
Ena Lamont Stewart was the daughter of a Scottish minister whose church was in the Glasgow slums. Her upbringing caused her to develop a profound interest in and compassion for the poor, particularly the light of poor women. Married to an actor, she also became interested in theater. Because she was a woman, she was never fully accepted into the circle of male playwrights, directors and producers. Nonetheless, MEN SHOULD WEEP, written in 1937, was recently voted one of the hundred best British plays. It has an enormous cast which makes it very difficult to produce. Unlike all but a few plays, the cast is female heavy. The National has mounted an extremely effective revival of MEN SHOULD WEEP under the sensitive direction of Josie Rourke, artistic director of the Bush Theatre, one of London's most important centers of new writing for the stage.
I was particularly interested in seeing this play. My grandmother grew up one of thirteen children in the Glasgow slums. She was a fierce woman, to put it mildly. She got out at the turn of the twentieth century and, with my grandfather, lived a version of the American dream though their social world was the small Scots enclave in Northern New Jersey. All the Scots' colorful language and tendency toward emotional overstatement was passed on to their children.
MEN SHOULD WEEP takes place forty years after my grandparents left for America. It is the depression and the Morrison family live in an overcrowded Glasgow tenement. In their small apartment are John and Maggie, John's mother and their five children ranging from six to early twenties. John seldom has work, though he doesn't try very hard to get it. Their family support is depedent on what the grown children bring in plus John's mother's small pension and the genersosity of Maggie's sister. As in Lorraine Hansberry's later A RAISIN IN THE SUN, the tenement environment is a major destructive force on the family and the giant, multi-level set gives on a sense of the depressing dramas being played out all over this building. Another tenement nearby physically collapses. What we witness in the Morrison apartment is a collapse of morale.
I thought of Sean O'Casey's plays about the Dublin slums as I watched MEN SHOULD WEEP. As in O'Casey's work, the men are weak and the women are survivors. The men try to enforce a rigid moral code on the women, but the women know that conventional morality is irrelevant in their world. One daughter has managed to escape by moving in with her boss. She has a good home and nice clothes and wants to help her parents financially, but the father won't take "a whore's earnings." The mother will if it means a better home. There is a gossipy but supportive community of women who see men as the common enemy. Maggie and John love each other, but it takes a crisis in the marriage to get John into a steady job. He is a master at articulating his failure but then passing the blame on to something or someone else.
At first the play seemed like unrelieved gloom. The youngest son has tuberculosis, the older daughter hates her parents and her home and the older son is a gambler married to a "fancy woman" who despises his weakness. But the play is leavened with humor and it is worth sticking through the relatively glum first half to get to the vibrant second half. At the interval, I wondered what the playwright's politics were -- why had she written this grim picture of slum life? A few minutes into Part Two and one could see that her primary interest was gender politics -- how strong women can survive despite weak men. For some, the Scottish accents will be a problem -- I was raised on them and loved hearing all the old Scots aphorisms and insults that I have known since childhood. I could hear my grandparents and my mother in the women's banter.
The production is nearly flawless. It has been running for a while and there were a few moments when an actress would overplay her role and mug a bit. However, like O'Casey's work, MEN SHOULD WEEP veers from comedy to melodrama and Rourke and her cast tried to keep the acting totally honest. The cast drew cheers from the audience at the end which they richly deserved.
Other people wrote better, more nuanced, versions of this sort of play -- Sean O'Casey, Lorraine Hansberry and the master, Clifford Odets. But MEN SHOULD WEEP deserves this fine production and only a well heeled, subsidized theatre like the National could afford to revive it.
I was particularly interested in seeing this play. My grandmother grew up one of thirteen children in the Glasgow slums. She was a fierce woman, to put it mildly. She got out at the turn of the twentieth century and, with my grandfather, lived a version of the American dream though their social world was the small Scots enclave in Northern New Jersey. All the Scots' colorful language and tendency toward emotional overstatement was passed on to their children.
MEN SHOULD WEEP takes place forty years after my grandparents left for America. It is the depression and the Morrison family live in an overcrowded Glasgow tenement. In their small apartment are John and Maggie, John's mother and their five children ranging from six to early twenties. John seldom has work, though he doesn't try very hard to get it. Their family support is depedent on what the grown children bring in plus John's mother's small pension and the genersosity of Maggie's sister. As in Lorraine Hansberry's later A RAISIN IN THE SUN, the tenement environment is a major destructive force on the family and the giant, multi-level set gives on a sense of the depressing dramas being played out all over this building. Another tenement nearby physically collapses. What we witness in the Morrison apartment is a collapse of morale.
I thought of Sean O'Casey's plays about the Dublin slums as I watched MEN SHOULD WEEP. As in O'Casey's work, the men are weak and the women are survivors. The men try to enforce a rigid moral code on the women, but the women know that conventional morality is irrelevant in their world. One daughter has managed to escape by moving in with her boss. She has a good home and nice clothes and wants to help her parents financially, but the father won't take "a whore's earnings." The mother will if it means a better home. There is a gossipy but supportive community of women who see men as the common enemy. Maggie and John love each other, but it takes a crisis in the marriage to get John into a steady job. He is a master at articulating his failure but then passing the blame on to something or someone else.
At first the play seemed like unrelieved gloom. The youngest son has tuberculosis, the older daughter hates her parents and her home and the older son is a gambler married to a "fancy woman" who despises his weakness. But the play is leavened with humor and it is worth sticking through the relatively glum first half to get to the vibrant second half. At the interval, I wondered what the playwright's politics were -- why had she written this grim picture of slum life? A few minutes into Part Two and one could see that her primary interest was gender politics -- how strong women can survive despite weak men. For some, the Scottish accents will be a problem -- I was raised on them and loved hearing all the old Scots aphorisms and insults that I have known since childhood. I could hear my grandparents and my mother in the women's banter.
The production is nearly flawless. It has been running for a while and there were a few moments when an actress would overplay her role and mug a bit. However, like O'Casey's work, MEN SHOULD WEEP veers from comedy to melodrama and Rourke and her cast tried to keep the acting totally honest. The cast drew cheers from the audience at the end which they richly deserved.
Other people wrote better, more nuanced, versions of this sort of play -- Sean O'Casey, Lorraine Hansberry and the master, Clifford Odets. But MEN SHOULD WEEP deserves this fine production and only a well heeled, subsidized theatre like the National could afford to revive it.
Sunday, 5 December 2010
IOLANTHE
I'm not a great G&S fan. To my ears, Sullivan's music is not anywhere near as good as that of the great composers of 19th century comic opera, Rossini, Donizetti, Strauss or Offenbach. The ballads sound like Victorian parlor music. And the lyrics, while witty, aren't as clever as the great Amercan lyricists, Cole Porter, Lorenz Hart or Stephen Sondheim. On the other hand, I'm always surprised when I go to a G&S performance to find that I enjoy it if it is well sung and directed. I think I have been put off by the folks who are religious about G&S and by amateur performances. G&S musicals They are musical comedy, after all) deserve good singing and comic acting. I once starred in an amateur G&S production. I know I was awful, but my colleagues weren't much better. At one performance, a fellow actor forgot an entrance leaving me alone on stage for six long minutes trying to improvise in G&S style. All I can say is that it must have been worse for the audience than it was for me.
The tiny Union Theatre in London which specializes in pocket size revivals of classic musicals, now do an annual all male production of a G&S work. This year it is IOLANTHE and it is delightful. The conceit is that some boys rummage through an attic and decide to put on IOLANTHE with whatever they find. The sixteen talented (with one exception) young men then play both the fairies and the elderly Lords. The fairies are dressed in an odd combination of women's undergarments with shuttlecocks as wings. The Lords are dressed in extremely dusty old drapery. It's all great fun.
First, the music. The men must be able to perform effectively in falsetto as the fairies, then with strong tenor and bass voices for the Lords. They're all extremely good singers. The choral work is superb, the solo work never less than good. There is only piano accompaniment, but in such a small space, one doesn't miss a orchestra.
The performances are all totally committed. There is never a sense that the performers are merely camping it up but that they are really playing faries and silly old men. Yes, this is all camp, but not the least bit cynical or ironic. There's one oddly weak performance, Gianni Onori as the romantic lead, Strephon. He's handsome, but simply can't act. I never for a moment thought he even understood what he was saying. Surely the director, Sasha Regan, noticed this. Onori's ineptitude seems to be part of the concept, but I'm not sure it works. He's not funny awful, just oddly detached from the proceedings.
This IOLANTHE is the best staged G&S production I have seen. All the musical numbers are superbly choreographed (Mark Smith). The show dances from beginning to end which one does not expect of a G&S production. Sometimes it's disconcertingly "in your face" in this small space. We were in the front row and nearly got trampled a couple of times. The cast all (Mr. Onori excepted) dance as well as they sing.
I'm already looking forward the the Union's next G&S.
IOLANTHE at the Union Theatre. December 3, 2010
The tiny Union Theatre in London which specializes in pocket size revivals of classic musicals, now do an annual all male production of a G&S work. This year it is IOLANTHE and it is delightful. The conceit is that some boys rummage through an attic and decide to put on IOLANTHE with whatever they find. The sixteen talented (with one exception) young men then play both the fairies and the elderly Lords. The fairies are dressed in an odd combination of women's undergarments with shuttlecocks as wings. The Lords are dressed in extremely dusty old drapery. It's all great fun.
First, the music. The men must be able to perform effectively in falsetto as the fairies, then with strong tenor and bass voices for the Lords. They're all extremely good singers. The choral work is superb, the solo work never less than good. There is only piano accompaniment, but in such a small space, one doesn't miss a orchestra.
The performances are all totally committed. There is never a sense that the performers are merely camping it up but that they are really playing faries and silly old men. Yes, this is all camp, but not the least bit cynical or ironic. There's one oddly weak performance, Gianni Onori as the romantic lead, Strephon. He's handsome, but simply can't act. I never for a moment thought he even understood what he was saying. Surely the director, Sasha Regan, noticed this. Onori's ineptitude seems to be part of the concept, but I'm not sure it works. He's not funny awful, just oddly detached from the proceedings.
This IOLANTHE is the best staged G&S production I have seen. All the musical numbers are superbly choreographed (Mark Smith). The show dances from beginning to end which one does not expect of a G&S production. Sometimes it's disconcertingly "in your face" in this small space. We were in the front row and nearly got trampled a couple of times. The cast all (Mr. Onori excepted) dance as well as they sing.
I'm already looking forward the the Union's next G&S.
IOLANTHE at the Union Theatre. December 3, 2010
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