Photograph 51 at The Noel Coward Theatre

Photograph 51 highlights the very important role the director plays in making a production a success.  Oh, and of course, the actor playing the lead role.  Because this new play by Anna Ziegler isn’t so much a fully rounded finished article, more a sketch.  It has taken Michael Grandage and Nicole Kidman to turn it into an absorbing piece of theatre that has as much to say about sexism in the workplace as it does science. 

The set itself is a rather gloomy affair, showing, as it does, the bombed out ruins of Kings College, London.  It is here that Rosalind Franklin and her fellow, mail scientists had their laboratory, which was located beneath the quad.  However it does evoke the amount of devastation wrought on London during the blitz.

Based on fact, Photograph 51 tells the story of Rosalind Franklin a British Jewish chemist and X-ray crystallographer, who, although instrumental in helping to “crack” DNA hasn’t been widely recognized as such.  That accolade was heaped upon two of her fellow scientists, Crick and Watson, who garnered a Nobel prize for their efforts.  Sadly, by then, the heroine of the piece had paid the price of continually coming into contact with X-ray beams, by dying of cancer at the age of 37.  Anna Ziegler has utilized her artistic licence in suggesting that Franklin’s discovery was “stolen” by the two men, which is actually not the case.  For, although Franklin (or her assistant, Raymond Gosling to be precise) took photograph 51 that prompted the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA, it was Crick and Watson who ascertained its significance.  Ziegler’s view of the proceedings does make for a more interesting story, especially as Franklin is portrayed as a tricky blue stocking, who is not at all interested in making friends with her work colleagues.  Single minded to a fault, it is work that drives her, not going out and having fun and it is suggested that it is this failure to interact and take risks that help prevent her enjoying the recognition she deserves. 

It’s not only Nicole Kidman’s portrayal of this highly intelligent, but ultimately buttoned up scientist that highlights her single mindedness, it is very much apparent in her wardrobe.  Attired in a buttoned up shirt dress, sensible brogues, spectacles and with hair dragged back, this character couldn’t be more different from that taken on by Nicole Kidman during her last foray onto the British stage.  But then, she is an actress and, actually, despite the dowdiness, a sexiness does shine through - which isn’t lost on her male counterparts.

Apart from Maurice Wilkins (Stephen Campbell Moore) the remaining male roles aren’t fully fleshed out, but thanks to Michael Grandage the play works and works well.  It is a fluid production not without humour and his staging ensures that one isn’t bogged down by scientific jargon.  Unlike many primarily film actors, Nicole Kidman’s diction is crisp and we hear every word.  She is as perfect in this role as she was in The Blue Room and I am very much a paid up member of her fan club.

The Hairy Ape at The Old Vic

Poor old Eugene O’Neill’s life was no bed of roses.  He was born and died in a hotel room and his life in-between was suffused with agonising drama.  The one great result of all this suffering was that we are endowed with an endless stream of magnificent plays, which all offer a window into his world.

The Hairy Ape, now showing at The Old Vic highlights the ignominy that often blights the working class, for whom O’Neill felt a special empathy.  This particular play of his might not seem as autobiographical as his others, but in fact O’Neill spent many months at sea as a young man.  It is a strange and difficult production to stage, but Director Richard Jones and Designer Stewart Laing manage it perfectly.  With a running time of 90 minutes and no interval, it assaults every sense.  We feel the claustrophobic heat in the bowels of the ocean liner, we’re entirely aware of the humiliation and frustration of the stokers, especially of Yank, and we can almost smell the fumes from the constant burning coal.

Described by O’Neill as a mixture of expressionism and naturalism, The Hairy Ape’s main character is “top” stoker Yank.  All rippling muscle and brute strength, the macho Yank sneers at everyone and everything.  As top dog in the engine room, he knows where he belongs and is happy with his lot.  That is until the spoilt, rich daughter of a steel magnate millionaire decides to indulge herself in a little bit of social work and see what life is like for the poor unfortunates who work below deck.  She is at once repulsed and horror struck at seeing these filthy, partly clothed men and Yank, being first in line, takes the most flak.  Addressing him as, “you filthy beast”, the young girl runs away screaming.  Yank’s new title of Hairy Ape is thus born.  Enraged at her attitude and shocked into realizing that his belief in thinking himself an important cog in society’s wheel is naïve in the extreme, he sets about seeking revenge.

Bertie Carvel is astonishing as Yank.  Seeing him play Doctor Foster’s weak willed, cheating husband on television just recently, it’s hard to believe this astonishing, physical performance is by the same actor.  He is a chameleon actor par excellence.  His Godfatheresque accent is at times difficult to understand but there is no denying the indelible impression he leaves on the audience.  From him swinging, monkey-like from the roof of the yellow steel cage where the stokers reside, to enlisting our sympathies when he is imprisoned and at the way the New Yorkers reject him, we are mesmerised.

Although a lot of the dialogue tends to be smothered, the visuals in this production more than make up for it.  The wealthy stereotypical New Yorkers Yank comes across are dressed alike and masked.  They dance the Charleston in unison, completely oblivious to this angry, common outsider.  Then in the final scene, we’re treated to the spectacle of a scarily life-like caged gorilla (Luke Murphy).  And it is this last cage that finally ensnares our anti-hero.  The symbolism is clear for all to see.

Husbands & Sons at The Dorfman

The National’s Dorfman Theatre is very much a moveable feast.  Sometimes the action happens on stage, sometimes in the pit, but it is always innovative and never more so than with the latest offering, Husbands & Sons.  Director Marianne Elliott and Designer Bunny Christie have turned the acting space into three different Nottinghamshire households in order to bring to life Ben Power’s adaptation of three D.H. Lawrence plays, A Collier’s Friday Night, The Daughter-in-Law and The Widowing of Mrs Holroyd. The fact that this is a mining community is immediately apparent, as the coal pit is an ever-present force.  We hear it when the play starts and the steel bars surrounding the square pit area assault the senses as they creak upwards, brilliantly miming the noise of a mine shaft descending into the depths (a pit within the pit).  And we see it portrayed as a threatening glow beneath the actor’s feet. 

We, the audience are eavesdroppers on the grimness endured by the mining community Lawrence knew so well.  Each household has a family member who trudges to the pit each day, returning late, covered in black coal dust and fit only for a hot meal and cold beer or several.  The men may have to endure the horrors that their underground work has to offer, but their women folk have to withstand the consequences of the miner’s daily incarceration.

These three plays within a play concern three families, The Holroyds, The Gascoignes and The Lamberts.

Lizzie Holroyd (the always magnificent Anne-Marie Duff) shares her home with Charles (Martin Marquez) her drunken husband and their young son Jack.  Dreading the nightly ritual of Charles returning home, sodden with booze and occasionally accompanied by equally drunk trollops, she welcomes the odd visit from the local electrician.  He would “take her away from all this” at the drop of a hat, but Lizzie knows her duty.

Next door lives Minnie Gascoigne (Louise Brealey), Joe’s (Joe Armstrong) new wife.  A lady of means, with ideas above her station, according to her overbearing mother-in-law (the marvellous Susan Brown), Minnie’s main task is to wrestle her husband from his mother’s apron strings.

The matriarch of the third family is Lydia Lambert (Julia Ford) a woman who spends her life battling with her thuggish husband, Walter (Lloyd Hutchinson) and adoring her well educated son, Ernest (Johnny Gibbon).  Eaten up with jealousy over Ernest’s relationship with the equally clever, Maggie Pearson (Cassie Bradley), the main focus of her life is to save him from a life down the pit.

Although the grimness can be relentless and the Nottinghamshire accent initially difficult to understand, there is no disputing the fact that this ambitious production holds you in its grip.  And the styling is quite unique.  Although all the props are solid, the opening and closing of doors and windows are mimed, with the sound effects denoting their closure.  The food is invisible, but a real flame cooks it and each actor mimes the putting on and taking off of coats and jackets.  When the focus is on one household, the others remain static and the whole thing moves like a choreographed dance.  It cleverly highlights the drudgery of these strong willed pit wives.  Whilst their men go off every day to source coal, they stay at home to scrub off the residue of the wretched stuff, to no avail.  Housewives often bemoan the repetitiveness of a life spent keeping house but it’s nothing compared to that endured by these pragmatic women.

This truly is a wonderful ensemble piece with excellent performances throughout.  Not a bundle of laughs, tis true, but really worth seeing nevertheless.