Lungs at The Old Vic

Duncan Macmillan’s People, Places and Things, starring Denise Gough, was one of my favourite productions of 2015 and he doesn’t disappoint with his play Lungs, currently playing at The Old Vic. 

With Rob Howell’s minimalistic in-the-round set comprising two solar panels and not much else, the spotlight is well and truly on the acting.  Luckily the young couple here, fretting about whether or not they should start a family, are played by the excellent Claire Foy and Matt Smith.  Not only are they brilliant at their craft, but their chemistry (honed from their previous roles in The Crown) sizzles.  In addition, such is their skill, it only takes a minute to forget their roles as The Queen and Prince Philip.

One of Macmillan’s strengths is the natural way his characters speak.  Foy and Smith, the unnamed couple here, spar and vocally jab at each other, moving at speed from the insignificant to the profound.  The baby question, originally posed by Smith, arises in the queue at Ikea and quickly develops into a conversation/argument, that continues when they get home and over the following weeks.  Not that we’re shown their home or anything appertaining to it, as there is nothing naturalistic about this play apart from the emotion. The scenes, such as they are, run into one another, with no change in the lighting, or pauses.  We suddenly realise they must be in the nightclub they talked about (their dance moves providing a visual clue), trying to make their voices heard above the noise and then, without warning it’s obvious they’re back home and probably in bed.

The ease these two actors have in each other’s company is so tangible that there’s no doubt we’re watching a couple deeply in love with each other.  Foy, cutely dressed in grey dungarees, is all relaxed limbs and mind in fast forward with her thoughts darting from one to another in a heartbeat.  Her speech is peppered with swear words, she contradicts herself regularly and every now and again our irritation creeps in.  But not for long, for Foy also imbues her compelling character with a vulnerability and when that appears, we start loving her again.

The equally casually dressed Smith in trainers, t-shirt and jeans, is more measured and is obviously baffled and at times irritated by Foy’s sudden pre-menstrual mood swings.  Is this unsuccessful musician absolutely sure he actually wants to be tied down with a baby?

Under Matthew Warchus’s pitch perfect direction, Lungs is as funny as it is thought provoking and, ultimately, melancholy.  It was written in 2011 and if it was pertinent then, it’s even more so now, thanks, in part, to the high-profile Extinction Rebellion.  However, Duncan Macmillan didn’t originally intend for it to be about climate change.  It was more a personal play that sprang from a specific time in his life and the anxieties he felt then.  These anxieties included whether liberal educated people in the West, like himself, can be truly good people or whether their privilege is dependent on the suffering of others.  As we see here, these concerns are those that resonate with this couple and, I suspect with many others too.

Master Harold and The Boys at The Lyttleton

Master Harold and the Boys, currently playing at The Lyttleton, is set in a Port Elizabeth tea-room in 1950, when apartheid was at its zenith.  The tea-room is owned by the teenage Hally’s mother, while Sam and Willie are the two “boys” who work there.  It’s a rainy afternoon and the two black men practice their steps for the finals of a ballroom dancing championship.  We’re introduced to Hally when he arrives at the tea-room from school.  The three of them initially chat and joke, but we soon realise this is an uneasy friendship with Hally frequently adopting a condescending attitude to the two employees.  Then slowly but surely the schoolboy’s patronising builds to a pitch, whereupon Hally turns into Master Harold.

It’s no easy task for a young actor to change from intermittent condescension to downright obnoxiousness and Anson Boon as Hally equips himself well. The boy’s youthfulness is highlighted by Boon’s squeaky, rather irritating voice and petulant manner.  This ensures that the moment when he metamorphosises into Master Harold and we’re privy to the final insult of which Fugard is particularly ashamed, is especially shocking. 

One of the most striking aspects of the play is the patience shown to Hally by both Sam (Lucien Msamati) and Willie (Hammed Animashaun).  Msamati makes for a perfect Sam.  Restrained and dignified in both manner and movement - he initially glides around the stage to the ballroom manner born – his eventual anger at Hally is devastating.

As Willie, Hammed Animashaun is also perfect.  A huge presence when needed, his silences also pack a big punch and he some-how manages to blend into the background when the older man is chatting with his young friend.  A big friendly giant one assumes, except that he admits to beating his woman when she messes up the dancing.  It seems that in South Africa some things never change!

The one thing the two boys have in common is their love for ballroom dancing, or more specifically the upcoming championship.  Sam uses it as a metaphor for world harmony and says at one point that ‘ballroom dancers don’t bump into one another because everyone’s doing the right steps.  If everyone thought about love and acceptance, there wouldn’t be any bumping’.

Rajha Shakiry has designed the perfect tea-room set with atmospheric rain pouring down onto the glass roof and Director Roy Alexander Weise and Choreographer Shelley Maxwell have brought out the best from this excellent trio.  The whole auditorium stood at the end and quite rightly too.

Faith, Hope & Charity at The Dorfman

In Christian tradition, faith, hope & charity are the three theological virtues. In Alexander Zeldin’s new play currently playing at The Dorfman, Faith and Charity are two girls who are talked about but never seen and Hope is in rather short supply.

Natasha Jenkins has cleverly transformed the staging area of the Dorfman Theatre into a run-down community centre.  With no raised staging and the realism of the set, it really does feel as if we’re all visitors to a bona fide soup kitchen.  There’s even a bucket for collecting water from the leaking ceiling, which, on the night I went, was positioned near my left leg and I had to move my bag to prevent it from getting wet!  And so we watch as the multi-cultural waifs and strays come and go, grateful there’s some safe place where they can get a hot meal.

Chief cook, bottle washer and ready listener is Hazel, beautifully portrayed by the excellent Cecilia Noble.  Her unwitting sidekick is Mason (Nick Holder), who turns up to replace the previous volunteer who ran the choir and ends up doing pretty much anything.   Ostensibly an up-beat character, who brings humour to proceedings, Holder also expertly elicits our sympathies on hearing his life, too, hasn’t been easy.

But then this play shines a light on those members of society who don’t find anything easy.  They’re the ones suffering the grim realities of the new age austerity, as did the characters in Zeldin’s previous two plays in his trilogy, namely Beyond Caring (about a group of cleaners working on zero-hours contracts) and Love (a 90 minute piece about homeless people).  Luckily his message about the failings of a seemingly uncaring government doesn’t preach or bully and hits home all the more because of it. 

The various cast members who portray the visitors to the centre don’t act but inhabit their roles.  So much so that when it came to the “curtain call” I found myself wondering where they would go after they left the building!  Even Susan Lynch, who plays Beth, a troubled mother who oscillates between maternal love and a barely contained rage, is totally unrecognisable.  Not for any other reason than that she somehow manages to disappear inside her character. 

There isn’t an actor involved who doesn’t deserve a mention.  Beth’s son Marc is played by an understated but devastating newcomer Bobby Stallwood, whose tiny biography is sure to grow and grow.  He tries to handle his mother as they go to and from the court trying to keep Faith, his sibling, out of care.  He is also given one of the most gut-wrenching lines in the whole play as he explains a strategy to ward off the pain of being too poor to buy food; “when we’re hungry, we go to sleep”.  The oldest visitor is Bernard, played by the eminently watchable Alan Williams who is a mixture of bewilderment, anger, gratitude and apology.  The opponent to Bernard’s generational outlook is Anthony (Corey Peterson) and their ongoing verbal battle is so lifelike one is never sure if they will actually come to blows.

Alexander Zeldin directs his own play and it wouldn’t be a bad idea if it were required viewing for those members of our society who have a hand in deciding how public money is spent.