Rosmersholm at The Duke of York's Theatre

Ibsen’s least performed play is currently running at the Duke Of York’s Theatre and is an example of how a depressing plot doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom.  Thanks to Ibsen’s superlative writing, Duncan Macmillan’s lucid adaptation and the fact that the excellent director, Ian Rickson has such an accomplished cast, what could be dour is in fact massively entertaining.  There is humour amongst the angst and I for one was totally enthralled by everything happening on stage.

The plot centres around pastor John Rosmer (Tom Burke) who lives in the Rosmer family’s stately home, Rosmersholm (the title of the play).  Alongside him, his housekeeper, Mrs. Helseth (Lucy Briers) and several staff, lives Rebecca West (Hayley Atwell).  Rebecca is the companion of Rosmer’s late wife, Beata, who committed suicide by drowning a year before the play opens.  It is obvious to all that Rosmer and Rebecca love each other, but both of them deny any romantic affiliation.  The person most concerned about the nature of their relationship is Rosmer’s brother-in-law, Kroll (Giles Terera).  A rigid and extremely judgemental conservative, he believes that his late sister’s husband’s loss of faith and political allegiance with the newly elected liberal  government can be laid at the feet of this radical and “liberated woman”.  He is enraged at Rosmer’s choice to betray the family’s ruling-class roots.

Hayley Atwell has never been better as the free-spirited Rebecca, intent on liberating the ghostly and oppressive Rosmersholm.  In fact the play starts with her opening up the large down stage window in order to let the light into the drawing room enveloped in gloom.  Her Rebecca is passionate about her beliefs but doesn’t come across as manipulative.  She is fragile but sensuous, impulsive and frustrated and when needed can hold back with her views.  This is brought to comic effect during dinner when her extremely malleable face makes clear that she’s itching to make her comments known.  What’s clever about her performance is that we sense the danger should she fail to keep her own counsel.

Tom Burke makes for an excellent guilt-ridden Rosmer.  At times it may seem as if he’s being overshadowed by Atwell, but I feel this is intentional.  His crisis of faith is palpable; a lost soul who is burdened with guilt at the circumstances of his wife’s death and the fact that he is besotted with her best friend.

Giles Terera is a really engaging Kroll.  He is compelling as the authoritative and somewhat aggressive local governor.  Such an accomplished actor, who is as much at home with Ibsen as he is “doing his thing” in Hamilton and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom.  Peter Wight, too (does he ever give a mediocre performance?) as Brendel, Rosmer’s old tutor, helps to enliven the proceedings

Rae Smith’s design and Neil Austin’s lighting are magnificent.  The flaking paintwork and the shrouded ancestral portraits on the walls, all bathed in gloom at the beginning, capture the faded grandeur of a once grand house.  Then, once the paintings are uncovered and the dustsheets removed, the lighting changes to convey a room bathed in sunlight. Rosmersholm has once more come alive.

This play may have been written in 1886 but its theme of how people can be destroyed by political or social systems is still relevant, especially today.  And what delicious parts Ibsen writes for women; a truly feminist playwright?

Rutherford & Son at The Lyttleton

I’m all for using regional accents in productions; that is as long as you can understand what the actors are saying.  Unfortunately, Rutherford & Son, the 1912 play by Githa Sowerby now on at The Lyttleton, doesn’t always tick that box.  As is to be expected, every word uttered by Roger Allam (he with the exquisite voice) as John Rutherford and Sam Troughton as his eldest son John Jnr is as clear as a bell.  Those spoken by a few of the other cast members …. not so much.  And my oh my, what a depressing play this is.

On entering the auditorium it’s clear that what will follow won’t be a bundle of laughs.  There is rain pouring down on the very dimly lit stage and offstage singers treat us to discordant songs bemoaning the north country.

Githa Sowerby obviously knew a thing or two about Northumberland at the beginning of the twentieth century.  Her family owned a glass making company on Tyneside which, thanks to a lack of business acumen on behalf of her father, floundered when Gina was in her late twenties.  It is therefore no surprise that Rutherford & Son, her first play, is based around John Rutherford, the owner of a glass making business.  A patriarchal figure, under no illusion that whatever he says is right, John Rutherford rules his three children with a rod of iron.  Although not prone to shouting, he makes it perfectly clear that what he says goes and anyone who disagrees with him or is apt to sully the Rutherford name, will be out on their ear.  Indeed, by the end of the play, the three children have all gone, leaving behind his sister Ann (the, I’m sorry to say, incomprehensible Barbara Marten), daughter-in-law Mary (Anjana Vasan) and baby grandson Tony.  Virtually ignored by her father-in-law throughout the play, her decision to stay behind with her son is pivotal to the plot.

John Jnr, having been thwarted by his father into trying to save the business through a new invention, decides to chance his arm in Canada.  His younger brother, Richard (Harry Hepple) despised by Rutherford due to his decision to shun glassmaking and take up the church, leaves to preach elsewhere. The interaction between him and his father highlights the fact that Rutherford Senior is sadly lacking in the moral compass department.  Meanwhile Janet (Justine Mitchell), the strong-willed daughter, is banished, having done the unspeakable and fallen for employee Martin (Joe Armstrong).

As I’ve mentioned, thank goodness for the bearded Roger Allum who perfectly encapsulates Rutherford’s absolute horror of social failure and inability to show any hint of warmth.  Sam Troughton highlights his character’s nervous hysteria, whilst Justine Mitchell as the sullen daughter who eventually rebels and Harry Hepple as her brother Richard, equip themselves well.

There is no doubting the importance of Rutherford & Son, written as it was by a woman before the ‘fairer sex’ even had the right to vote and one who was brave enough to incorporate feminism and socialism within the script.  But, Lizzie Clachan’s, undoubtedly atmospheric, but melancholic set and Director Polly Findlay’s determination to give the production total realism in the dialect department, means that it’s a dour three hours.

Anna at The Dorfman

On the back of every seat for each performance of Anna, The Dorfman’s latest offering, are a pair of earphones; not an everyday theatre occurrence.  The play, created by playwright Ella Hickson and sound designers Ben and Max Ringham, is a thriller set in communist East Berlin in 1968.  With the everyday surveillance that went on at that time, East Berliners were naturally rather jumpy and, thanks to the earphones, through which is pumped ‘binaural sound’ (for this read audio 3D), the audience also experience that sense of unease.

Natalie Abrahami directs Phoebe Fox as Anna Weber and Paul Bazely as her husband, Hans.  On a set that divides the cast from the audience with a glass screen imitating the windows of the Weber’s apartment, we see Anna (clad in a bright red dress in sharp contrast to the dull coloured apartment) and Hans getting ready to host a party.  The shindig is to celebrate his recent promotion. Han’s fellow workers, plus Elena (Diana Quick), a neighbour from downstairs whose husband has been snatched away by the Stasi secret police, slowly arrive.  Elena’s husband was Han’s former boss and this is the main reason for her being shunned by all the party goers apart from Anna. The arrival of Christian Neumann (Max Bennett), the new “too smooth to move” head honcho causes much consternation to the hostess. Is he someone she knows from her past?  Anna’s nervousness, manifested by mutterings and the odd retching in rooms off stage, is all picked up to great effect through the aforementioned “cans”.  We’re able to listen in to every conversation, which makes even the apparently banal chit chat appear sinister.  And a little later on in the play when the lights all go out (praise for Jon Clark’s lighting design) and we hear every little sound, we get to really experience Anna’s vulnerability and panic.

It’s a short, one-hour long production, but the eventual plot (no spoiler alert here) is quite convoluted.  It is also strangely uninvolving, due to the fact that once it’s revealed we’re just privy to normal dialogue; our spying days are over!  I have to say that the plot is also full of rather improbable coincidences, but all that’s not to say that this claustrophobic tale isn’t engaging. It’s easy to pick holes in a play that is trying new ways to involve an audience and, by and large, Anna perfectly captures how it must feel to spend your whole life being suspicious about everyone and everything.

The cast is a strong one.  Phoebe Fox portrays the brittle Anna’s hysteria well, despite its arrival being rather hurried and Paul Bazeley is perfect as her completely baffled husband.       

The gold star of the production should definitely be awarded to the technical brilliance of the Ringham’s composition and sound design.  Ella Hickson is to be applauded for her ingenuity, but it’s a pity that Vicki Mortimer’s on point 60’s Set and Costume Design is a little let down by the too modern script.