Going to the theatre
Re: Going to the theatre
Sun Mar 18, 2012 9:00 am
Less Than Kind by Terence Rattigan (Theatre Royal, Winchester) March 17
A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (Lyric Theatre Hammersmith, London) March 17
Claudius:
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son—
Hamlet:
A little more than kin, and less than kind.
(Hamlet Act 1, Scene 2)
In 1944, responding to a probably mischievous challenge to improve on what John Boulting apparently considered the sloppy and implausible dramaturgy of Hamlet, Rattigan drafted a play about a reactionary conservative cabinet minister and industrialist who has set up in luxurious domesticity with a still-young widow. Though not yet in a state of matrimony, this arrangement suits both parties, at least until the arrival, back from boarding school, of the woman's 17-year old son, full of the socialist (or at least anti-capitalist) fervour of a generation coming of age during Britain's Darkest Hour. Soon to reward Churchill for his war pains by booting him out of office and embracing Sir William Beveridge's radical new socialised healthcare, the son stands in for both the Dane and a new fervour abroad in the land that the backdated cost of defending the Empire would include a redrafting of the old social order, a project wholeheartedly supported by the playwright himself despite his own already precipitous decline in esteem by that same generation.
Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound, and maidens call it “Love in Idleness”
(Oberon, A Midsummer's Night's Dream, Act II, Scene 1)
Already turned down by Gertrude Lawrence, Rattigan may have been feeling even more insecure than usual as he conceded numerous rewrites to the Lunts and in particular to Alfred Lunt, who was not just playing the "Claudius" role but directing the production too, for both London and New York. Before he quite realised how it had happened, Rattigan's intriguing play would be ludicrously transformed into Love In Idleness, the title it opened with on Shaftesbury Avenue, to critical derision and public success. The Lunts were the theatrical couple of their time and the play had clearly become just a "vehicle" for them to bask in the adoration of their many fans, notwithstanding the ridiculous and vain transformation of Claudius into a benign and popular leader surrounded by dull acolytes. The play had been so fundamentally altered that it had to be resubmitted to the office of the Lord Chamberlain, Britain's official censor, before it could be cleared for performance.
O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low.
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.
What is love? 'Tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure.
In delay there lies no plenty,
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty;
Youth's a stuff will not endure.
(Twelfth Night, Act I, Scene three)
By the time the show reached Broadway in 1946, where it played a hitmaking 482 performances, the Lunts had once again changed the title, the ever-diminishing Shakespeare-penned marquee names now reduced to a bland and innocuous O Mistress Mine. I've seen or read neither O Mistress Mine or Love In Idleness and, ironically, we owe the survival of the hitherto unperformed original play Less Than Kind to the archives of very same and now defunct Lord Chamberlain's office where what is believed to be its only copy was later discovered. It's hard to know what to make of it. In production, its occasional clunkiness marks it out as an early and insubstantial draft. Had the play not been so well and truly Luntzed, there is no doubt that this draft would have been honed and polished, just like any other modern play, but it seems unfair to judge on equal terms a play that was not subject to such a process but was instead, in effect, dumped in favour of a star-driven product. It's impossible to tell if even Rattigan could ever have satisfyingly fulfilled his initial remit to rewrite Hamlet. Much of it seems to engage with the Shakespeare masterpiece on a purely superficial level of updating and never does seem likely to get to grips with the initial challenge. Conceivably, this may even be why the Lunts engineered its new direction. My guess is it would never have amounted to more than second rank Rattigan. Which is sort of beside the point: we're fortunate it survives at all, even if that's only of interest to committed Rattigan buffs.
Speaking of Love In Idleness, Filter's anarchic new take on A Midsummer Night's Dream is a lot of very silly fun and slapstick and, it must be said, hugely popular with young audiences in particular. In the end, though, it completely lacks the transformative magic of a really good production of the play wot Shakespeare wrote. But thank heavens, in both cases, we do not need to raid the Lord Chamberlain's office to access the originals. Almost as long as there has been Skakespeare, there have been "versions" of his plays, none of which has been remotely in danger of threatening the survival and integrity of the Bard versions
A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (Lyric Theatre Hammersmith, London) March 17
Claudius:
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son—
Hamlet:
A little more than kin, and less than kind.
(Hamlet Act 1, Scene 2)
In 1944, responding to a probably mischievous challenge to improve on what John Boulting apparently considered the sloppy and implausible dramaturgy of Hamlet, Rattigan drafted a play about a reactionary conservative cabinet minister and industrialist who has set up in luxurious domesticity with a still-young widow. Though not yet in a state of matrimony, this arrangement suits both parties, at least until the arrival, back from boarding school, of the woman's 17-year old son, full of the socialist (or at least anti-capitalist) fervour of a generation coming of age during Britain's Darkest Hour. Soon to reward Churchill for his war pains by booting him out of office and embracing Sir William Beveridge's radical new socialised healthcare, the son stands in for both the Dane and a new fervour abroad in the land that the backdated cost of defending the Empire would include a redrafting of the old social order, a project wholeheartedly supported by the playwright himself despite his own already precipitous decline in esteem by that same generation.
Before milk-white, now purple with love’s wound, and maidens call it “Love in Idleness”
(Oberon, A Midsummer's Night's Dream, Act II, Scene 1)
Already turned down by Gertrude Lawrence, Rattigan may have been feeling even more insecure than usual as he conceded numerous rewrites to the Lunts and in particular to Alfred Lunt, who was not just playing the "Claudius" role but directing the production too, for both London and New York. Before he quite realised how it had happened, Rattigan's intriguing play would be ludicrously transformed into Love In Idleness, the title it opened with on Shaftesbury Avenue, to critical derision and public success. The Lunts were the theatrical couple of their time and the play had clearly become just a "vehicle" for them to bask in the adoration of their many fans, notwithstanding the ridiculous and vain transformation of Claudius into a benign and popular leader surrounded by dull acolytes. The play had been so fundamentally altered that it had to be resubmitted to the office of the Lord Chamberlain, Britain's official censor, before it could be cleared for performance.
O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low.
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know.
What is love? 'Tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure.
In delay there lies no plenty,
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty;
Youth's a stuff will not endure.
(Twelfth Night, Act I, Scene three)
By the time the show reached Broadway in 1946, where it played a hitmaking 482 performances, the Lunts had once again changed the title, the ever-diminishing Shakespeare-penned marquee names now reduced to a bland and innocuous O Mistress Mine. I've seen or read neither O Mistress Mine or Love In Idleness and, ironically, we owe the survival of the hitherto unperformed original play Less Than Kind to the archives of very same and now defunct Lord Chamberlain's office where what is believed to be its only copy was later discovered. It's hard to know what to make of it. In production, its occasional clunkiness marks it out as an early and insubstantial draft. Had the play not been so well and truly Luntzed, there is no doubt that this draft would have been honed and polished, just like any other modern play, but it seems unfair to judge on equal terms a play that was not subject to such a process but was instead, in effect, dumped in favour of a star-driven product. It's impossible to tell if even Rattigan could ever have satisfyingly fulfilled his initial remit to rewrite Hamlet. Much of it seems to engage with the Shakespeare masterpiece on a purely superficial level of updating and never does seem likely to get to grips with the initial challenge. Conceivably, this may even be why the Lunts engineered its new direction. My guess is it would never have amounted to more than second rank Rattigan. Which is sort of beside the point: we're fortunate it survives at all, even if that's only of interest to committed Rattigan buffs.
Speaking of Love In Idleness, Filter's anarchic new take on A Midsummer Night's Dream is a lot of very silly fun and slapstick and, it must be said, hugely popular with young audiences in particular. In the end, though, it completely lacks the transformative magic of a really good production of the play wot Shakespeare wrote. But thank heavens, in both cases, we do not need to raid the Lord Chamberlain's office to access the originals. Almost as long as there has been Skakespeare, there have been "versions" of his plays, none of which has been remotely in danger of threatening the survival and integrity of the Bard versions
-
philipchevron - Harlequin
- Posts: 11126
- Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 12:03 am
Re: Going to the theatre
Mon Mar 19, 2012 11:12 pm
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (Wilton's Music Hall, London) March 19
Though you're perhaps just as likely to find Eton on a young British actor's resumé these days as LAMBDA, drama school showcases ("friends, family, industry, lend me your ears", a curtain-call fundraising appeal begins) can be an interesting preview of the UK's upcoming talent and the London Academy of Musical and Dramatic Art seems especially well stocked this year, so here are the names of some future stars: Tom Hudswell, Nicholas Prasad, Ladi Emeruwa, Alexander Rain and Adam Blampied.
Julius Caesar was the first Shakespeare play I studied at school. I was not greatly enamoured of it then and time has done little to change that, though I suspect there may be a classic production out there waiting to ambush me one day. For now, bits of it drift in and out of focus in performance, like a childhood dream infrequently recurring in adulthood.
Though you're perhaps just as likely to find Eton on a young British actor's resumé these days as LAMBDA, drama school showcases ("friends, family, industry, lend me your ears", a curtain-call fundraising appeal begins) can be an interesting preview of the UK's upcoming talent and the London Academy of Musical and Dramatic Art seems especially well stocked this year, so here are the names of some future stars: Tom Hudswell, Nicholas Prasad, Ladi Emeruwa, Alexander Rain and Adam Blampied.
Julius Caesar was the first Shakespeare play I studied at school. I was not greatly enamoured of it then and time has done little to change that, though I suspect there may be a classic production out there waiting to ambush me one day. For now, bits of it drift in and out of focus in performance, like a childhood dream infrequently recurring in adulthood.
-
philipchevron - Harlequin
- Posts: 11126
- Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 12:03 am
Re: Going to the theatre
Tue Mar 20, 2012 12:55 pm
Floyd Collins by Adam Guettel (music, lyrics) and Tina Landau (book) (Southwark Playhouse, London) March 19
When Guettel's great The Light In The Piazza was previewing at Lincoln Center, I spotted the composer's mother in the back row beside the exit. On impulse, I went over to her, shook her hand and said "Mrs Guettel, isn't it wonderful? You must be very proud?" The old lady's eyes brimmed with tears and she managed to utter "I sure am".
Adam Guettel's mother is Mary Rodgers, perhaps best known for her own Broadway score, Once Upon A Mattress. And Adam Guettel's mother's father was Richard Rodgers, who wrote the music for The King And I, Oklahoma!, South Pacific, Carousel, Babes In Arms. Pal Joey and many many more. So, attention must be paid. The Light in the Piazza has a score best described as ravishing, though not once does it become cloying, over-tuneful or route one emotional. Even if you weren't Mary Rodgers, you'd be forgiven for tearing up.
I like his earlier work somewhat less, though even in 1994's Floyd Collins, there are distinct signs of the budding genius, a notable integrity of purpose and an admirable command of the lateral logic of theatre, still unfathomable to about 50% of theatre practitioners, so it was a treat to catch up with it for the first time.
The story of caver Floyd Collins, trapped in his own cave in Cave City, Kentucky in 1925, is identifiable as the first great media circus event of the 20th century. It is perhaps best known in the slightly fictionalized version in the movie Ace In The Hole. Guettel and Landau skilfully negotiate and contrast the private hell going on underground with the alcoholic beanfeast (Prohibition, remember) on solid ground. It's at its best late in the show when it dramatizes Floyd's imagined happy rescue and the ensuing celebrations, before returning to the actual denouement. Floyd Collins never came out alive.
When Guettel's great The Light In The Piazza was previewing at Lincoln Center, I spotted the composer's mother in the back row beside the exit. On impulse, I went over to her, shook her hand and said "Mrs Guettel, isn't it wonderful? You must be very proud?" The old lady's eyes brimmed with tears and she managed to utter "I sure am".
Adam Guettel's mother is Mary Rodgers, perhaps best known for her own Broadway score, Once Upon A Mattress. And Adam Guettel's mother's father was Richard Rodgers, who wrote the music for The King And I, Oklahoma!, South Pacific, Carousel, Babes In Arms. Pal Joey and many many more. So, attention must be paid. The Light in the Piazza has a score best described as ravishing, though not once does it become cloying, over-tuneful or route one emotional. Even if you weren't Mary Rodgers, you'd be forgiven for tearing up.
I like his earlier work somewhat less, though even in 1994's Floyd Collins, there are distinct signs of the budding genius, a notable integrity of purpose and an admirable command of the lateral logic of theatre, still unfathomable to about 50% of theatre practitioners, so it was a treat to catch up with it for the first time.
The story of caver Floyd Collins, trapped in his own cave in Cave City, Kentucky in 1925, is identifiable as the first great media circus event of the 20th century. It is perhaps best known in the slightly fictionalized version in the movie Ace In The Hole. Guettel and Landau skilfully negotiate and contrast the private hell going on underground with the alcoholic beanfeast (Prohibition, remember) on solid ground. It's at its best late in the show when it dramatizes Floyd's imagined happy rescue and the ensuing celebrations, before returning to the actual denouement. Floyd Collins never came out alive.
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philipchevron - Harlequin
- Posts: 11126
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Re: Going to the theatre
Wed Mar 21, 2012 12:19 am
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (Barbican Theatre, London) March 20
You're Simon McBurney and you fancy having a go at Faust with your company Complicite. Naturally, you've shunned Berlioz, but you also can't face either Goethe or Marlowe, understandably. So you turn to Bulgakov, with whom you have form anyway, having helped turn A Dog's Heart into an opera for Nederlandse Opera and ENO and inevitably, to Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, published in 1966, a quarter century after his death. Among other things, the novel inspired "Sympathy For The Devil" by the Stones but it appears to have grown out of the counterculture ghetto to the point where it is a serious contender for the 20th Century's best novel, a claim I mean to test at the earliest opportunity.
McBurney: "I first read the novel when I was an adolescent. And took to it as I took to "Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas". I thought it was an hallucenogenic anti-naturalistic ride, a piece that was made all the more mysteriously, illicitly attractive because it was created by a man who himself was addicted to morphine at one period in his life. Only when I was visiting my brother in that time of hot talk in small flats [Gerald McBurney lived in Moscow for a few years in the 1980s] did I realise what nonsense that was. In the Soviet Union this novel was not perceived as a fantasy at all. It was about their lives. For them Bulgakov the surgeon wielded a razor-sharp satirical knife that could slice through the absurd hypocrisy of their society and expose the fear that lay inside."
All the same, bringing this phantasmagorical literature to the stage was never going to make for an easy transition and the director claims he had nightmares about it, "waking up in terror nightly". He is known to have made personal onstage appearances in pre-London stagings last year in Plymouth, to apologise in advance for the mess. There's no two ways about it - it's a daunting task even for someone with the theatrical imagination of Simon McBurney but also, it should be said, I can think of no other director more willing to make an ass of himself in the attempt, a vital element of courageous folly, for sure. In the event, the result is a triumph, an enthralling and thrilling adventure which uses theatre multimedia with supreme confidence and authority, even - especially - in that most egregiously abused area of projections. You get a strong sense that McBurney has spilled his nightmares onto the stage in the service of telling this parable within a story within a novel within a play. If it's a bit slow to get going, that seems the inevitable side-effect of having to methodically set out the book's complexity for those of us (like me) who have yet to have the obvious pleasure of reading it.
Complicite attracts some of the most intriguing theatre actors in the world and it's a special privilege to see the excellent Sinéad Matthews make her first appearance (as Margarita) with the company. It's now many years since The Street of Crocodiles caused me to vow to see every single production Complicite offered thereafter, and only illness has foiled an unbroken run. Even when their power is on low, they're still the most exciting theatremakers in the world but with The Master and Margarita they now have something to match the beguiling, extraordinary Street of Crocodiles. What's great about this company is they're not interested in "plays" as such, but in theatre as a visceral, almost sacramental experience.
You're Simon McBurney and you fancy having a go at Faust with your company Complicite. Naturally, you've shunned Berlioz, but you also can't face either Goethe or Marlowe, understandably. So you turn to Bulgakov, with whom you have form anyway, having helped turn A Dog's Heart into an opera for Nederlandse Opera and ENO and inevitably, to Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita, published in 1966, a quarter century after his death. Among other things, the novel inspired "Sympathy For The Devil" by the Stones but it appears to have grown out of the counterculture ghetto to the point where it is a serious contender for the 20th Century's best novel, a claim I mean to test at the earliest opportunity.
McBurney: "I first read the novel when I was an adolescent. And took to it as I took to "Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas". I thought it was an hallucenogenic anti-naturalistic ride, a piece that was made all the more mysteriously, illicitly attractive because it was created by a man who himself was addicted to morphine at one period in his life. Only when I was visiting my brother in that time of hot talk in small flats [Gerald McBurney lived in Moscow for a few years in the 1980s] did I realise what nonsense that was. In the Soviet Union this novel was not perceived as a fantasy at all. It was about their lives. For them Bulgakov the surgeon wielded a razor-sharp satirical knife that could slice through the absurd hypocrisy of their society and expose the fear that lay inside."
All the same, bringing this phantasmagorical literature to the stage was never going to make for an easy transition and the director claims he had nightmares about it, "waking up in terror nightly". He is known to have made personal onstage appearances in pre-London stagings last year in Plymouth, to apologise in advance for the mess. There's no two ways about it - it's a daunting task even for someone with the theatrical imagination of Simon McBurney but also, it should be said, I can think of no other director more willing to make an ass of himself in the attempt, a vital element of courageous folly, for sure. In the event, the result is a triumph, an enthralling and thrilling adventure which uses theatre multimedia with supreme confidence and authority, even - especially - in that most egregiously abused area of projections. You get a strong sense that McBurney has spilled his nightmares onto the stage in the service of telling this parable within a story within a novel within a play. If it's a bit slow to get going, that seems the inevitable side-effect of having to methodically set out the book's complexity for those of us (like me) who have yet to have the obvious pleasure of reading it.
Complicite attracts some of the most intriguing theatre actors in the world and it's a special privilege to see the excellent Sinéad Matthews make her first appearance (as Margarita) with the company. It's now many years since The Street of Crocodiles caused me to vow to see every single production Complicite offered thereafter, and only illness has foiled an unbroken run. Even when their power is on low, they're still the most exciting theatremakers in the world but with The Master and Margarita they now have something to match the beguiling, extraordinary Street of Crocodiles. What's great about this company is they're not interested in "plays" as such, but in theatre as a visceral, almost sacramental experience.
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philipchevron - Harlequin
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Re: Going to the theatre
Wed Mar 21, 2012 2:45 am
The Master and Margarita is a tremendous book. The made-for-TV series from Russian television is quite good too.
http://youtu.be/H61s7jRmT6M
http://youtu.be/H61s7jRmT6M
Disclaimer: These are my opinions and not fact as realised in these here United States, lest I give my friends the idea that everyone thinks like me.
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O'Blivion - Yeoman Rand
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Re: Going to the theatre
Thu Mar 22, 2012 1:21 am
Henry V by William Shakespeare (Rose Theatre, Kingston) March 21
So yes, it does open with "A Pair of Brown Eyes", in a quite effective marching pace. It's a shrewd choice and not one, I freely confess, that would have automatically occurred to me.
The best production by Edward Hall's all-male Propeller company remains their superb Rose Rage, a two-part adaptation of the three Henry VI plays, the Wars of the Roses trilogy. This prequel, as it were, returns to many of the presentational ideas associated with that show and it is very much home advantage for these guys. Henry V remains a slightly problematic play because it requires you to unpick issues of nationalism and invasion not just from its own historic era but also from the period in which it was written and again, how it was later used as wartime propaganda, not to mention as a blood-stirring weapon for England football captains. But leaving Laurence Olivier and Stuart Pearce out of the equation, Shakespeare is as even-handed as he can be in a play that was written as an unambiguous crowd-pleaser. And yet, even as he has the chorus prime the audience to switch on its imagination to imagine the battlefields of Harfleur and Agincourt, you can tell he's also playing with expectations, undermining raw patriotism. And his most effective comedy device in the play, the language barrier between Henry and his French future queen Katherine, is all the more arresting because, as Shakespeare reminds us close to the play's end, here are the parents of the future Henry VI, here is the marriage of political convenience that, far from absolving the Plantagenets of the blood crime against Richard II committed by Henry Bolingbroke, will bring the York-Lancaster split to a new, even bloodier peak. Enjoy your sweet nothings in pidgin English and cute halting French while you may, the playwright seems to be saying, it can't last.
In this form, Propeller are hard to beat.
So yes, it does open with "A Pair of Brown Eyes", in a quite effective marching pace. It's a shrewd choice and not one, I freely confess, that would have automatically occurred to me.
The best production by Edward Hall's all-male Propeller company remains their superb Rose Rage, a two-part adaptation of the three Henry VI plays, the Wars of the Roses trilogy. This prequel, as it were, returns to many of the presentational ideas associated with that show and it is very much home advantage for these guys. Henry V remains a slightly problematic play because it requires you to unpick issues of nationalism and invasion not just from its own historic era but also from the period in which it was written and again, how it was later used as wartime propaganda, not to mention as a blood-stirring weapon for England football captains. But leaving Laurence Olivier and Stuart Pearce out of the equation, Shakespeare is as even-handed as he can be in a play that was written as an unambiguous crowd-pleaser. And yet, even as he has the chorus prime the audience to switch on its imagination to imagine the battlefields of Harfleur and Agincourt, you can tell he's also playing with expectations, undermining raw patriotism. And his most effective comedy device in the play, the language barrier between Henry and his French future queen Katherine, is all the more arresting because, as Shakespeare reminds us close to the play's end, here are the parents of the future Henry VI, here is the marriage of political convenience that, far from absolving the Plantagenets of the blood crime against Richard II committed by Henry Bolingbroke, will bring the York-Lancaster split to a new, even bloodier peak. Enjoy your sweet nothings in pidgin English and cute halting French while you may, the playwright seems to be saying, it can't last.
In this form, Propeller are hard to beat.
Last edited by philipchevron on Sat Mar 31, 2012 2:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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philipchevron - Harlequin
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Re: Going to the theatre
Fri Mar 23, 2012 12:09 am
Gypsy by Arthur Laurents (book), Jule Styne (music), Stephen Sondheim (lyrics) (Curve, Leicester) March 22
"You looked like a pioneer woman without a frontier."
Though Rose Hovick has gone into American history as the original stage mother from hell, thanks to this musical, her would-be fourth husband Herbie's almost throwaway first impression, early in the first act, is more acute and accurate. This is a woman who, late in life, appears to have managed to literally get away with murder and interestingly, the closest we get to an unofficial explanation for the cover up, if we check Wikipedia, is that the person she shot dead was a resident of the lesbian boarding house she ran in New York City when the lady concerned made "a pass" at Rose's elder daughter Louise, better known by then as the famous burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee and perfectly able to look out for herself. It's interesting in itself that in the shady, unverifiable corners of Rose Hovick's mythology, she still stars as the ultimate mother hen, protecting her brood.
For several reasons, only one of which was how superfluous to requirements such a sensational episode would be in a musical play depicting a woman who is already equal parts King Lear, Willy Loman and Ma Baker, Sondheim, Styne and Laurents did not explore the more mundanely criminal aspects of Hovick's life in Gypsy. But their optioning, in 1959, of Gypsy Rose Lee's memoir [hence the title] of her mother was one of the most inspired moments in American theatre history. In an era in which every dull secondrate romcom gets picked up as a potential Broadway property, it's instructive to recall that Arthur Laurents optioned Lee's book because it did not just tell a great story about two extraordinary women (and a third, the other daughter, later best known as actress June Havoc), it told a story that was almost an allegory for Depression-era America and the death throes of a form of popular working class entertainment - Vaudeville - which had been so ubiquitous that its precipitous decline in the face of Hollywood's rising star seemed only a temporary setback, rather like the depression itself. But make no mistake, Rose's American dreams are behemoths every bit as potent, visceral, alluring and ultimately destructive (and indestructible) as Willy Loman's.
Played, in separate productions on Broadway alone, by Ethel Merman, Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters and Patti LuPone and on screen by Rosalind Rusell and Bette Midler and soon, if rumours are correct, by Barbra Streisand, Rose is played here by the Australian-born Broadway diva Caroline O'Connor. She falters a little at first but by the end of Act One, driven mainly by her powerful singing voice and her own extensive stage experience, O'Connor brings a terrifying evangelical zeal to "Everything's Coming Up Roses", our first real indication that her character's megalomania has the power not just to build the temple with her bare hands but also to tear it down soon after. It primes the air for the even more intense "Rose's Turn" close to the end, the first time, outside opera, that a nervous breakdown was set to music. O'Connor wisely follows the performance choice initiated by Lansbury in 1973 when, chillingly, actress and character seem to blur. There goes the temple's Fourth Wall as O'Connor/Rose continues accepting the audience's acclaim ["Rose's Turn" is a barnburner] long after the audience has stopped applauding.
But the real power of the show comes from Louise's transformation into Gypsy and how this alters the dynamic between her and her mother. The scenes between Victoria Hamilton-Barritt (Louise) and O'Connor bring the best possible dramatic truth to one of musical theatre's rare masterpieces.
"You looked like a pioneer woman without a frontier."
Though Rose Hovick has gone into American history as the original stage mother from hell, thanks to this musical, her would-be fourth husband Herbie's almost throwaway first impression, early in the first act, is more acute and accurate. This is a woman who, late in life, appears to have managed to literally get away with murder and interestingly, the closest we get to an unofficial explanation for the cover up, if we check Wikipedia, is that the person she shot dead was a resident of the lesbian boarding house she ran in New York City when the lady concerned made "a pass" at Rose's elder daughter Louise, better known by then as the famous burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee and perfectly able to look out for herself. It's interesting in itself that in the shady, unverifiable corners of Rose Hovick's mythology, she still stars as the ultimate mother hen, protecting her brood.
For several reasons, only one of which was how superfluous to requirements such a sensational episode would be in a musical play depicting a woman who is already equal parts King Lear, Willy Loman and Ma Baker, Sondheim, Styne and Laurents did not explore the more mundanely criminal aspects of Hovick's life in Gypsy. But their optioning, in 1959, of Gypsy Rose Lee's memoir [hence the title] of her mother was one of the most inspired moments in American theatre history. In an era in which every dull secondrate romcom gets picked up as a potential Broadway property, it's instructive to recall that Arthur Laurents optioned Lee's book because it did not just tell a great story about two extraordinary women (and a third, the other daughter, later best known as actress June Havoc), it told a story that was almost an allegory for Depression-era America and the death throes of a form of popular working class entertainment - Vaudeville - which had been so ubiquitous that its precipitous decline in the face of Hollywood's rising star seemed only a temporary setback, rather like the depression itself. But make no mistake, Rose's American dreams are behemoths every bit as potent, visceral, alluring and ultimately destructive (and indestructible) as Willy Loman's.
Played, in separate productions on Broadway alone, by Ethel Merman, Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters and Patti LuPone and on screen by Rosalind Rusell and Bette Midler and soon, if rumours are correct, by Barbra Streisand, Rose is played here by the Australian-born Broadway diva Caroline O'Connor. She falters a little at first but by the end of Act One, driven mainly by her powerful singing voice and her own extensive stage experience, O'Connor brings a terrifying evangelical zeal to "Everything's Coming Up Roses", our first real indication that her character's megalomania has the power not just to build the temple with her bare hands but also to tear it down soon after. It primes the air for the even more intense "Rose's Turn" close to the end, the first time, outside opera, that a nervous breakdown was set to music. O'Connor wisely follows the performance choice initiated by Lansbury in 1973 when, chillingly, actress and character seem to blur. There goes the temple's Fourth Wall as O'Connor/Rose continues accepting the audience's acclaim ["Rose's Turn" is a barnburner] long after the audience has stopped applauding.
But the real power of the show comes from Louise's transformation into Gypsy and how this alters the dynamic between her and her mother. The scenes between Victoria Hamilton-Barritt (Louise) and O'Connor bring the best possible dramatic truth to one of musical theatre's rare masterpieces.
Last edited by philipchevron on Fri Mar 23, 2012 10:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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philipchevron - Harlequin
- Posts: 11126
- Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 12:03 am
Re: Going to the theatre
Fri Mar 23, 2012 10:47 pm
Hay Fever by Noel Coward (Noel Coward Theatre, London) March 23
After the below-par Gate Theatre, Dublin production, my faith in Hay Fever is restored with this smart Howard Davies-directed outing. It's really not a terribly good play but, in the right hands, it's funny as hell. The right hands in this case belong to Lindsey Duncan, Olivia Colman, Freddie Fox, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and the sublimely funny Jeremy Northam. For all its silly plotting, nobody who's ever belonged to, or spent time in, a bohemian household, especially one with a theatrical grande-dame on site, will doubt the accuracy of Coward's depiction of a milieu in which it can seldom be reliably determined when the play-acting stops and reality has been restored.
After the below-par Gate Theatre, Dublin production, my faith in Hay Fever is restored with this smart Howard Davies-directed outing. It's really not a terribly good play but, in the right hands, it's funny as hell. The right hands in this case belong to Lindsey Duncan, Olivia Colman, Freddie Fox, Phoebe Waller-Bridge and the sublimely funny Jeremy Northam. For all its silly plotting, nobody who's ever belonged to, or spent time in, a bohemian household, especially one with a theatrical grande-dame on site, will doubt the accuracy of Coward's depiction of a milieu in which it can seldom be reliably determined when the play-acting stops and reality has been restored.
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philipchevron - Harlequin
- Posts: 11126
- Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 12:03 am
Re: Going to the theatre
Sat Mar 24, 2012 8:52 pm
I was at the Liverpool Playhouse today, but not to see a show. The Everymanplayhouse were holding a day of photo shoots where ordinary members of the public could come in and register to have their photo taken by a professional photographer - Liverpool based Dan Kenyon.
The reason for this is that they are going to pick 105 different individuals and use their images to decorate the 105 shutters at the new Everyman Theatre when it opens to the public next year.
Going down was no guarantee that I would get my photo on one of the shutters, but, I finally got to meet my Twitter friend, Artistic Director of the Everymanplayhouse, Gemma Bodinetz, have a good chat with her and other influential members of staff and I also discovered how popular I am at the Everymanplayhouse.
They are going to hold another session of photo shoots at some stage in the future and all are welcome to attend. I'm not sure when it is but if you are interested, keep checking their website for more details.
http://www.everymanplayhouse.com/
The reason for this is that they are going to pick 105 different individuals and use their images to decorate the 105 shutters at the new Everyman Theatre when it opens to the public next year.
Going down was no guarantee that I would get my photo on one of the shutters, but, I finally got to meet my Twitter friend, Artistic Director of the Everymanplayhouse, Gemma Bodinetz, have a good chat with her and other influential members of staff and I also discovered how popular I am at the Everymanplayhouse.
They are going to hold another session of photo shoots at some stage in the future and all are welcome to attend. I'm not sure when it is but if you are interested, keep checking their website for more details.
http://www.everymanplayhouse.com/
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Heather - Mr. Chekov
- Posts: 5073
- Joined: Wed Sep 07, 2005 3:09 pm
- Location: Liverpool.
Re: Going to the theatre
Sun Mar 25, 2012 12:10 am
In Basildon by David Eldridge (Royal Court Theatre, London) March 24
It's always more exciting to see an ambitious play fail than a mediocre one succeed and on that score, David Eldridge puts himself firmly in the One To Watch category with this, because it is no less than a shot at a State of the Nation play, courageous anywhere, almost foolhardy at the Court. Though he also fits into a category broadly populated by Joe Orton and Mike Leigh, on the one hand, and Edward Bond and Arnold Wesker on the other, you can tell he has his own voice too and I will certainly be checking out his future work.
In Basildon depicts an old East End family who migrated to Essex in the 80s. They voted for Thatcher and one or two of them have worrying racist tendencies, but they are defiantly working class too: the conundrum that kept Labour out of power for 18 years before 1997. Tom, the middle class playwright/teacher/whatever with what his own girlfriend calls "liberal guilt" wants to write good nourishing plays for these exotic creatures to educate and enlighten them but, as next door neighbour Pam explains to him, in her defence of the trashy TV shows she watches, "I work with old people and when you've done a day's work literally wiping the arses of the infirm and senile, I want to put me feet up and chill out. I don't want people trying to explode me brain with all the shit in the world and telling me what's good for me."
The play's weaknesses are highlighted in such exchanges. Eldridge works with stereotypes rather than individuals, managing to patronise everybody in the process, and his arguments never quite hit home as long as such characters stick to their assigned roles. In this, he lacks the compassion and density of a Leigh or even a Ken Loach. There's a degree of predictability about some of the plot points. I was able to guess, a mile off, even before I knew he was a West Ham fan that "that song" (unnamed) the dying Len wanted sung at his bedside as he expired, would be "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles". In the hands of Joe Orton, this could have been a memorable scene but, characteristically, Eldridge doesn't, or can't, go the extra yard to darken the comedy. He fares better with the occasional snatch of "New York, New York", heard both in cheery whistling and mournful cello, somehow managing to place Len both in the New York he never got to go to and the smoky Karaoke bar wherein he might well have sung it of a Saturday night.
I'm pretty sure David Eldridge will fail better next time.
It's always more exciting to see an ambitious play fail than a mediocre one succeed and on that score, David Eldridge puts himself firmly in the One To Watch category with this, because it is no less than a shot at a State of the Nation play, courageous anywhere, almost foolhardy at the Court. Though he also fits into a category broadly populated by Joe Orton and Mike Leigh, on the one hand, and Edward Bond and Arnold Wesker on the other, you can tell he has his own voice too and I will certainly be checking out his future work.
In Basildon depicts an old East End family who migrated to Essex in the 80s. They voted for Thatcher and one or two of them have worrying racist tendencies, but they are defiantly working class too: the conundrum that kept Labour out of power for 18 years before 1997. Tom, the middle class playwright/teacher/whatever with what his own girlfriend calls "liberal guilt" wants to write good nourishing plays for these exotic creatures to educate and enlighten them but, as next door neighbour Pam explains to him, in her defence of the trashy TV shows she watches, "I work with old people and when you've done a day's work literally wiping the arses of the infirm and senile, I want to put me feet up and chill out. I don't want people trying to explode me brain with all the shit in the world and telling me what's good for me."
The play's weaknesses are highlighted in such exchanges. Eldridge works with stereotypes rather than individuals, managing to patronise everybody in the process, and his arguments never quite hit home as long as such characters stick to their assigned roles. In this, he lacks the compassion and density of a Leigh or even a Ken Loach. There's a degree of predictability about some of the plot points. I was able to guess, a mile off, even before I knew he was a West Ham fan that "that song" (unnamed) the dying Len wanted sung at his bedside as he expired, would be "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles". In the hands of Joe Orton, this could have been a memorable scene but, characteristically, Eldridge doesn't, or can't, go the extra yard to darken the comedy. He fares better with the occasional snatch of "New York, New York", heard both in cheery whistling and mournful cello, somehow managing to place Len both in the New York he never got to go to and the smoky Karaoke bar wherein he might well have sung it of a Saturday night.
I'm pretty sure David Eldridge will fail better next time.
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philipchevron - Harlequin
- Posts: 11126
- Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 12:03 am
Re: Going to the theatre
Sun Mar 25, 2012 1:15 am
Filumena by Eduardo De Filippo, translation by Tanya Ronder (Almeida Theatre, London) March 24
All my life, my Uncle Mario has called me Filippo. It was how the people of Italy knew and referred to their best-loved 20th Century playwright. Mario was (is) a 1950s Italian economic migrant to Ireland. The Italians gave us the best chippers and we gave them a place to live and prosper though we were ourselves almost as poor. But the reason I mention it is that Filippo was the nickname Italians gave their best loved living playwright Eduardo Filipp0 (1900-1984). My uncle was, basically, a peasant, but the nickname illuminates the wide popularity of and affection for the playwright in his own country.
In truth, those few of his plays that are still performed in the English-speaking world stand revealed as minor pieces, though they can be elevated with great perfomances, like Ian McKellen's in The Syndicate at Chichester last year. And Filumena appears to attract the most unlikely West End actresses to the title role of the upwardly mobile prostitute from the 1940s slums of Naples, including Joan Plowright (late 70s) and Judi Dench (early 90s), performances I happen to have seen myself. But if Samantha Spiro somehow seems more suited to the role (which I decidedly do not mean as a slur of any kind) than either Lady Olivier or Dame Judi, pardoxically Spiro's take on the role is also probably the smartest, wisest of all three. She has that quality in her work as an actor that allows you to see "the mind's construction in the face" something which, forgive me my dissent, Mr Shakespeare, is an art in itself.
The story, of Filumena's attempt to fake her own imminent death in order to persuade her lover of 27 years to agree to a deathbed wedding, thus ensuring her three adult sons are provided for (well, this is Italy), has been used several times, with variations, including the movies Marriage Italian Style and Buena Sera, Mrs Campbell and the musicals Carmelina and Mamma Mia!, so it 'almost qualifies as mythology by now. There are endless implausabilities in Filippo's dramaturgy and construction but, as here, a strong central performance usually wins the day.
All my life, my Uncle Mario has called me Filippo. It was how the people of Italy knew and referred to their best-loved 20th Century playwright. Mario was (is) a 1950s Italian economic migrant to Ireland. The Italians gave us the best chippers and we gave them a place to live and prosper though we were ourselves almost as poor. But the reason I mention it is that Filippo was the nickname Italians gave their best loved living playwright Eduardo Filipp0 (1900-1984). My uncle was, basically, a peasant, but the nickname illuminates the wide popularity of and affection for the playwright in his own country.
In truth, those few of his plays that are still performed in the English-speaking world stand revealed as minor pieces, though they can be elevated with great perfomances, like Ian McKellen's in The Syndicate at Chichester last year. And Filumena appears to attract the most unlikely West End actresses to the title role of the upwardly mobile prostitute from the 1940s slums of Naples, including Joan Plowright (late 70s) and Judi Dench (early 90s), performances I happen to have seen myself. But if Samantha Spiro somehow seems more suited to the role (which I decidedly do not mean as a slur of any kind) than either Lady Olivier or Dame Judi, pardoxically Spiro's take on the role is also probably the smartest, wisest of all three. She has that quality in her work as an actor that allows you to see "the mind's construction in the face" something which, forgive me my dissent, Mr Shakespeare, is an art in itself.
The story, of Filumena's attempt to fake her own imminent death in order to persuade her lover of 27 years to agree to a deathbed wedding, thus ensuring her three adult sons are provided for (well, this is Italy), has been used several times, with variations, including the movies Marriage Italian Style and Buena Sera, Mrs Campbell and the musicals Carmelina and Mamma Mia!, so it 'almost qualifies as mythology by now. There are endless implausabilities in Filippo's dramaturgy and construction but, as here, a strong central performance usually wins the day.
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philipchevron - Harlequin
- Posts: 11126
- Joined: Thu Oct 14, 2004 12:03 am
Re: Going to the theatre
Sun Mar 25, 2012 3:46 am
Heather wrote:I was at the Liverpool Playhouse today, but not to see a show. The Everymanplayhouse were holding a day of photo shoots where ordinary members of the public could come in and register to have their photo taken by a professional photographer - Liverpool based Dan Kenyon.
The reason for this is that they are going to pick 105 different individuals and use their images to decorate the 105 shutters at the new Everyman Theatre when it opens to the public next year.
Going down was no guarantee that I would get my photo on one of the shutters, but, I finally got to meet my Twitter friend, Artistic Director of the Everymanplayhouse, Gemma Bodinetz, have a good chat with her and other influential members of staff and I also discovered how popular I am at the Everymanplayhouse.
They are going to hold another session of photo shoots at some stage in the future and all are welcome to attend. I'm not sure when it is but if you are interested, keep checking their website for more details.
http://www.everymanplayhouse.com/
Were you wearing a pork pie for the photo-shoot? I would think it would give one a distinct advantage in the selection process. I love this concept, hats off to the Everyman Theatre.
And I don't want no grave
Just throw my ashes in the field
And hope there's some soul left to save
W. E. Whitmore
Just throw my ashes in the field
And hope there's some soul left to save
W. E. Whitmore
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Clash Cadillac - Yeoman Rand
- Posts: 3029
- Joined: Tue Mar 06, 2007 4:37 pm
- Location: Dakota
Re: Going to the theatre
Sun Mar 25, 2012 10:16 am
Clash Cadillac wrote:Heather wrote:I was at the Liverpool Playhouse today, but not to see a show. The Everymanplayhouse were holding a day of photo shoots where ordinary members of the public could come in and register to have their photo taken by a professional photographer - Liverpool based Dan Kenyon.
The reason for this is that they are going to pick 105 different individuals and use their images to decorate the 105 shutters at the new Everyman Theatre when it opens to the public next year.
Going down was no guarantee that I would get my photo on one of the shutters, but, I finally got to meet my Twitter friend, Artistic Director of the Everymanplayhouse, Gemma Bodinetz, have a good chat with her and other influential members of staff and I also discovered how popular I am at the Everymanplayhouse.
They are going to hold another session of photo shoots at some stage in the future and all are welcome to attend. I'm not sure when it is but if you are interested, keep checking their website for more details.
http://www.everymanplayhouse.com/
Were you wearing a pork pie for the photo-shoot? I would think it would give one a distinct advantage in the selection process. I love this concept, hats off to the Everyman Theatre.
No, I just went as myself and as it's quite summery this weekend, I was able to wear a nice summer top which felt good.
A few people did come dressed up, an older gentleman, two in front of me was wearing a cricket outfit and a younger guy a few places behind me was wearing top hat and tails.
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Heather - Mr. Chekov
- Posts: 5073
- Joined: Wed Sep 07, 2005 3:09 pm
- Location: Liverpool.
Re: Going to the theatre
Fri Mar 30, 2012 11:45 am
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There are also 10 runner-up prizes of a bottle of Jack Daniel's Single Barrel to be won........." more @ http://www.jackdaniels.com/age.aspx?Ret ... fault.aspx
Just fill in your details online for your chance to win a weekend break and two tickets to The Old Vic Theatre.
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http://www.jackdaniels.co.uk
Make your singular experience a memorable one.
Copyright © 2012 Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel. All rights reserved.
"To celebrate our [jackdaniels] partnership with The Old Vic Theatre in London, we're [ jackdaniels] offering you the chance to win a pair of tickets to see The Duchess Of Malfi, including a weekend at the 5 star Hyatt Regency London - The Churchill, and a bottle of Jack Daniel's Single Barrel.
There are also 10 runner-up prizes of a bottle of Jack Daniel's Single Barrel to be won........." more @ http://www.jackdaniels.com/age.aspx?Ret ... fault.aspx
Just fill in your details online for your chance to win a weekend break and two tickets to The Old Vic Theatre.
http://clicks.jackdaniels.com/r/YIB586/ ... 32PVL/85/h
http://www.jackdaniels.co.uk
Make your singular experience a memorable one.
Copyright © 2012 Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel. All rights reserved.
KMRIA
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Tal - Arlecchino
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