Sandy Pritchard-Gordon

Sandy Pritchard-Gordon
Theatre Blog

Friday 5 February 2016

Ma Rainey's Black Bottom at The Lyttleton




What an inspired choice on the part of Rufus Norris to stage the wonderful August Wilson play, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, written in 1984. This marvelous production has everything, laughs, tragedy, fantastic music and very, very accomplished actors, singers and musicians, all imbued with a sense that the entire cast are having a blast.

The play is based around a recording session in Chicago in 1927 with Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey and her Georgia Band comprising Cutler, Toledo, Slow Drag and Levee.  The bisexual Ma Rainey, known as the Mother Of The Blues by the rural black community, is a feisty diva and when she finally arrives with her nephew, Sylvester and female squeeze, Dussie Mae, runs rings around her Manager, Irvin and exasperates Sturdyvant, the Music Producer with her intransigence.  Her extremely late arrival means that the band have time to banter, tell stories, joke, philosophise and argue in between rehearsing.  The joshing between the four eventually highlights a tension between hot headed trumpeter, Levee, an ambitious young man who wants his own band and is confident the producers will use his version of Black Bottom, and veteran players Cutler and Toledo.  Ma’s bad time keeping throws Irvin and Sturdyvant into complete disarray, exacerbated by the fact that she wants the stuttering Sylvester to do the voice intro to the title song.  Amidst the laughs and banter there is tension in the air.

Everything about this passionate production is spot on, from Dominic Cooke’s direction to Ultz’s pitch perfect set.  The large Lyttleton stage is used to its full potential and, with the sound booth in the centre, makes the perfect recording studio.  Stairs lead up to this booth and down to the musician’s rehearsal space, which is viewed when the whole stage is raised.

The underlying message from August Wilson is how the white population exploit the blacks.  Although reigning supreme in the studio, it is made clear that Ma holds little sway in the world beyond and that the two white men only tolerate her because of her cash cow status.  The staging also highights white supremacy, for whilst the two producers inhabit their eyrie high above the stage, with a no admittance sign hanging on the stairs, the black musicians are holed up in the bowels of the building.  As Toledo states, the whites view blacks as leftovers from history.

Musically and theatrically, there are no bum notes.  The entire cast are sublime, with Sharon D. Clarke leading the way as a terrific Ma Rainey.  Imperious to everyone, apart from Sylvester (Tunji Lucas) and Dussie Mae (Tamara Lawrance), Ma shows her contempt with Irvin (Finbar Lynch) and Sturdyvant (Stuart McQuarrie) not only verbally, but with a bored roll of an eye and belligerent clenched jaw.  And when she sings, everyone sits up and takes notice.

The four black musicians are also a delight.  O-T Fagbenle swaggers to perfection but also manages to show his insecurity.  When he relates a story from his childhood, his pain is immediately obvious and we’re aware that this unsettled young man could explode at any time.  His polar opposite is pianist Toledo, beautifully played by Lucian Msamati.  This older and wiser man is self-contained, showing his passion solely with words.  Implacable and dogmatic, he always has something to say to counterpoint Levee.  Clint Dyer as Cutter, the trombonist and leader of the band, worn down by continually trying to get Levee to join in and rehearse, is equally fine as is the double-bassist, Giles Terera as Slow Drag, the laid back charmer.

So there it is, a wonderful play by an extremely talented black dramatist for a predominately black cast, that is wholly from a black perspective with no preconceived opinions from a white man.   I was so taken by this first night preview that I’ve booked tickets for the final performance, although I'm sure it won't have improved much; it doesn't need to!

Tuesday 2 February 2016

The Master Builder at The Old Vic



Ralph Fiennes has done it again!  Following his success playing the massive part of Jack Tanner in Man and Superman, at The National Theatre, he is now wowing us as Halvard Solness in David Hare’s new adaptation of Ibsen’s The Master Builder.  He really is a tour de force and stands up there amongst the great actors of recent times.

The Master Builder is a story of a self-made man who has become increasingly frightened of being displaced by the young.  Due to his successful career as an architect, Solness is now a dominant figure in the town and has no wish for his assistant, Ragnar Brovik, to take over the business, or, indeed, set up on his own.  The architect’s marriage to his wife Aline is strained due to the tragedy of them losing their twin babies in a fire in his wife’s beloved childhood home.  She is becoming increasingly convinced that her husband is suffering from mental health issues, so continually summons the family doctor, Herdal, to visit him.  When a young girl called Hilde Wangel arrives unannounced, persuading him to remember that they had met ten years earlier when she was just fourteen-years-old, Solness grows progressively infatuated.  On that occasion he had made advances towards her and promised that ten years on they would meet again and he would offer her a kingdom.  This fey, otherworldly young creature has come to claim these ‘castles in the sky’ but real life gets in the way. Refusing to believe that Solness has a morbid fear of heights, she goads him into climbing the high tower of his latest creation, to devastating effect.

That Solness is a troubled soul, with many issues, is never in any doubt.  Various happenings in his life have given him the belief that he only has to wish for something to happen in order for it to come about.  In his mind, this is a gift bestowed on him from God and that he has been ordained to spend the remainder of his career building churches.  Hilde, in believing the fairytale promise Solness made her all those years ago, becomes his enabler and continually eggs him on.  As the story progresses, we are privy to his confused inner world and symbolism begins to replace the realism of the earlier scenes.  It is very much a play of these two different styles and all credit to David Hare’s excellent adaptation and Ralph Fiennes equally excellent portrayal that the whole production gels so beautifully.  Oh and let’s not forget the third piece of the puzzle that fits it all together, the remarkable directing skills of Matthew Warchus.

The remaining cast is no slouch either and I particularly enjoyed the performances of the American Linda Emond as Aline and Australian Sarah Snook as Hilde.  Their accents are pretty much spot on and Aline is very effecting in the final two acts, when she is slightly less ‘buttoned up’.  Hilde Wangel is a difficult part to play, balancing as she has to the ethereal childlike energy of the young woman with the sexy tease.  For the most part Sarah Snook manages this extremely well.

The Master Builder, although written in 1893, doesn’t feel dated, thanks to David Hare’s interpretation.  The dialogue seems very alive and fresh and the realistic theme of an older man’s infatuation with a young girl will always be relevant.  In fact it is thought that Hilde is based on a blend of three women, Emilie Bardach an eighteen-year-old Viennese student with whom Ibsen had a brief affair, Helene Raff, an acquaintance of Bardach’s and Hildur Andersen, a ten-year-old child of friends who, at the age of twenty-seven, became his constant companion.

This is yet another one of Ibsen’s plays that has recently been produced which more than honours one of the truly great playwrights.