Going to the theatre

[philipchevron]

The Drowsy Chaperone by Bob Martin, Don McKellar, Lisa Lambert, Greg Morrison (Novello Theatre, London)

It's a total valentine to musical theatre, and specifically musical theatre from a more optimistic age. It both satirises and celebrates, as we have come to expect from Broadway imports since The Producers and Spamalot. But more, much more than this, it does something nothing else from post-modern Broadway has ever managed - it dramatises the very heart of why musicals matter so much. There is an underlying tow of great sadness from Man In Chair (Bob Martin himself, direct from the Broadway company) as he plays us his favourite cast album which comes to miraculous life before our eyes. The show never explains this melancholy undercurrent or attempts any real exposition of it, for to do so would be to succumb to self-pity and that's something that will never happen in a true-blue Broadway show. It's just there, as it always is in a great musical, the Yin against which musical theatre's Yan - its optimism and transformational powers - are pitched. Wonderful.

[philipchevron]

Death In Venice by Benjamin Britten, with Myfanwy Piper, based on the short story by Thomas Mann (English National Opera at London Coliseum)

Ian Bostridge, with director Deborah Warner and designers Jean Kalman and Tom Pye, turned in a luminous and scarily ambiguous version of Britten's The Turn Of The Screw at Covent Garden a few years back, so the team reuniting for ENO's first stab at Britten's final opera Death In Venice (1973) was always going to be a hot ticket. In the event, it turns out to be the opera production of the season (so far) with a performance so tremendous from Bostridge that it elevates him decisively into the still quite small pantheon of all-time British opera greats. Moreover, there may now also be a case for Death In Venice as Britten's masterpiece. Intimations of mortality, in both his subject matter and in his parallel real life, drove him to write a piece in which every second of stage time is measured, weighed and utilised to its best possible advantage. He was such a great musician that it's easy to overlook what a great theatre guy he also was.

Tadzio, the Polish boy Mann's German novelist falls in love with, is silently and beautifully expressed by young dancer Benjamin Paul Griffiths.

[philipchevron]

Kean by Jean Paul Sartre from Dumas (Pere) (Apollo. London)

Anthony Sher is just about worth seeing in everything he's in, including this. He is terrific at conveying a time when audiences received Shakespeare as if the actors were jazz soloists extemporising on the main riff - all sound and fury and distracting applause in mid-flow. Ours are not better Shakespearean actors, just actors more suited to our times. Sher knows this and never patronises Edmund Kean, but convincingly locates the character's charisma. Actors appear to have always been fascinated by this tempestuous man, for whatever reason, and both Dumas and Sartre wrote their versions as commisions from actors. It would take a better playwright than Jean Paul Sartre and a better director than Adrian Noble to turn Kean into anything more than a fascinating character study, but if actors need to do this stuff from time to time to help them figure out what it is they do, I'm happy to go along with the exercise. This man was the greatest Leontes of the 90s.

[philipchevron]

Senator Orrin Hatch fluffs his lines while defending the indefensable. The Devil too may misquote Shakespeare:

To paraphrase Shakespeare, whether or not this joint resolution sounds to sound and fury or amounts to sound and fury, it signifies nothing. It is nothing more than a bit of political theater which should be rejected out of hand.

Hatch comes to the rescue of Alberto Gonzales, a man who would not have made it to Third Spear Carrier in a Shakespeare dramatis personae.

[DzM]

Hatch comes to the rescue of Alberto Gonzales, a man who would not have made it to Third Spear Carrier in a Shakespeare dramatis personae.

And yet Patrick Stewart was, in fact, Third Spear Carrier Guy in many productions of Mr. Shakespeare's works, and had a much more lasting impact on the future of the planet that Mr. Gonzales. If nothing else, he proved that Kirk was a crap captain.

[philipchevron]

Hatch comes to the rescue of Alberto Gonzales, a man who would not have made it to Third Spear Carrier in a Shakespeare dramatis personae.

And yet Patrick Stewart was, in fact, Third Spear Carrier Guy in many productions of Mr. Shakespeare's works, and had a much more lasting impact on the future of the planet than Mr. Gonzales. If nothing else, he proved that Kirk was a crap captain.

True enough. But the same can scarcely now be said of Senator Hatch after that delivery of the verse. Even if he is (if we are to believe his website) an "exceptional" musician, he will not be invited to perform in Shakespeare in the Park anytime soon. This is not a man who feels at home within the iambic pentameter.

Honestly, it's happened. The lunatics are taking over the asylum.

[philipchevron]

I have the following single tickets available for performances at the Royal Opera House which I find I can no longer attend. As ever, they are great seats and they require a good home, not money. PM me if you can use one or both.


Thursday 28/06/07 7.30 Katya Kabanova ROH Front Orchestra Stalls
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Wednesday 11 July 7.30 Rigoletto ROH Stalls Circle
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I also have single tickets for the following London shows, same deal.

Friday 29/06/07 7.30 Fiddler On The Roof Savoy Stalls (Front row)
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Saturday 30/06/07 1:30 Angels in America Part 1
Lyric Hammersmith Front Stalls
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Saturday 30/06/07 7:00 Angels in America Part 2
Lyric Hammersmith Front Stalls

[philipchevron]

I have the following single tickets available for performances at the Royal Opera House which I find I can no longer attend. As ever, they are great seats and they require a good home, not money. PM me if you can use one or both.


Thursday 28/06/07 7.30 Katya Kabanova ROH Front Orchestra Stalls
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday 11 July 7.30 Rigoletto ROH Stalls Circle
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



I also have single tickets for the following London shows, same deal.

Friday 29/06/07 7.30 Fiddler On The Roof Savoy Stalls (Front row)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday 30/06/07 1:30 Angels in America Part 1
Lyric Hammersmith Front Stalls
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday 30/06/07 7:00 Angels in America Part 2
Lyric Hammersmith Front Stalls

RIGOLETTO has now been claimed. The others are still up for grabs.

[firehazard]

Saturday 30/06/07 1:30 Angels in America Part 1
Lyric Hammersmith Front Stalls
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Saturday 30/06/07 7:00 Angels in America Part 2
Lyric Hammersmith Front Stalls

Sorry to hear you can't get to these, Mr C. I also failed to get to see the same production when it toured here recently. But I'm told by a friend who went (and who told me off thoroughly for not having made it) that it's a very powerful production, and well worth seeing. Highly recommended for anyone who can get there.

[Christine]

Schiller, Wallenstein:

I was lucky to see this last week in Berlin, directed by Peter Stein. A mammoth project, three parts in ten hours, and not a minute of it boring. I had expected Stein to focus on the contemporary parallels of religion and war, but instead he interpreted it very traditionally, centered on ambition, intrigues, friendship, loyalty and betrayal. Klaus Maria Brandauer as Wallenstein was overwhelming, theatrical, suffering, powerful and power-hungry, and doomed. Special mention to Alexander Fehling who played Max Piccolomini, the indecisive innocent young lover unable to choose between loyalties, entirely on crutches due to an accident. Jürgen Holtz played cold scheming Buttler in the best Brechtian tradition – you'd want a Mother Courage to follow up.

It's great drama and if anything reminded me of Macbeth – central character between power politics and belief in fate etc., and I don't think it gets the English-language productions it deserves. Schiller's Don Carlos and Mary Stuart were in London recently, both brilliant, and Peter Stein directed Harrower's chilling Blackbird here, but Wallenstein should definitely be put on stage again.

It also brought home the overriding impact of the Thirty-Years' War on German history, with its devastation and cruelties that make Cromwell's Drogheda seem almost minor.

[Christine]

And how on earth is is possible that Coram Boy flopped on Broadway?

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/theatre/news ... 49,00.html

[CM]

I get round to everything eventuly

Macbeth ... I've since seen reviews that rubbished what they did but I thought: Why didn't Shakespeare think of that? i thought it was genius.

The last slashes and crashes of the battle he wins prior to the beginning (and only reported in Shakespeare's play) were dramatized and still lost in the red mist Macb casually, brutally slaughters 3 women , war widows, and for good measure their children... M leaves the battlefield and all at once the 3 women jerk back into life ... to become the three witches

2 effects on the story proper. 1. it foreshadowed the mad and brutal Macbeth of the second half: I found it far easier to believe he could become the deranged psychopath.

2. it recast the story as a revenge drama. Instead of coming from nowhere to ruin a good mans life, the witches now had motive! And they shadowed him all the way to his death, all the small parts, porter, gentleman, spear carriers, maids etc were played by the witches keeping watch on their victim ensuring his demise.

Lear - a double helping. A broadsheet reviewer said he had never understood Lears journey so well. That, for me, was it exactly what McKellen did. He explained things to me I'd never understood before or had trouble buying

Seagull - after 10 mins of this I was almost bored but after 20 I was rivetted. All (male) life is in here, the young man trying to make it, the discontented success, the man who's life has slipped by without event, the aging lothario. I sense this is a play that will stay with you for life, resonating in different ways as we crawl burdoned / unburdoned toward death. An education. Unfortuately for me, for the character I identified with most it ended badly, very badly. Was interested to read that, like godot, it was ignored and ridiculed when premiered. In 50 years time will Menopause The Musical be ranked with Lear and the Seagull??

I'll be back for more Macbeth and Richard II soon, cannot wait

THANK YOU PHILIP

[Christine]

Philip, thank you so much, yet again, for a wonderful night of Rigoletto at Covent Garden yesterday.

Thanks to your generosity I had a superb seat, right next to the big drums – this is Verdi after all! Particularly lovely was Patrizia Ciofi as Gilda, petite enough to be plausible as a besotted young girl, her Caro Nome brought the house down, predictably and deservedly. Wookyung Kim as the Duke was a real revelation to me, he's go huge stage presence and a beautiful voice. (I youtubed him but could only find two other arias.) Also, everyone's favourite assassin Sparafucile was brilliant, booming all over the house, you'd want him to have a bigger role really.

I very much hope it won't be long until you can make up for all those missed performances – this one certainly lifts anyone's spirit. Made my hair stand on end.

Huge thanks and GET WELL SOON!

[philipchevron]

Philip, thank you so much, yet again, for a wonderful night of Rigoletto at Covent Garden yesterday.

Thanks to your generosity I had a superb seat, right next to the big drums – this is Verdi after all! Particularly lovely was Patrizia Ciofi as Gilda, petite enough to be plausible as a besotted young girl, her Caro Nome brought the house down, predictably and deservedly. Wookyung Kim as the Duke was a real revelation to me, he's go huge stage presence and a beautiful voice. (I youtubed him but could only find two other arias.) Also, everyone's favourite assassin Sparafucile was brilliant, booming all over the house, you'd want him to have a bigger role really.

I very much hope it won't be long until you can make up for all those missed performances – this one certainly lifts anyone's spirit. Made my hair stand on end.

Huge thanks and GET WELL SOON!

Glad you liked it, Christine. I can never see "Rigoletto" without thinking of my dear father who, for my 10th Birthday, took me to see it at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin in 1967.

[Christine]

I can never see "Rigoletto" without thinking of my dear father who, for my 10th Birthday, took me to see it at the Gaiety Theatre, Dublin in 1967.

And what did your ten-year-old self make of it? My own kids revolt at the very idea but I think I shall have to bribe / beat them to go to at least something child-friendly like Aida or Carmen. They were, after all, forced to go see The Pogues but all ended up enjoying that experience.