The Hard Problem at The Dorfman

What is clear is that Tom Stoppard’s latest play, after a break of eight years, is very wordy.  What isn’t quite so clear, for me at any rate, is what all these words mean.  The characters don’t so much talk to one another as expound theories and, apart from the main character, Hilary (an excellent Olivia Vinall) are, for the most part, one dimensional and unlikeable.  

The play is called The Hard Problem because of the difficulty scientists and philosophers have in working out the nature of human consciousness.  My difficulty is understanding why the God versus Scientist question has to be so damned shallow.  The long speeches and clever debating, with no small talk and proper interaction made by head hurt with all the information overload. 

The play opens with young psychology student, Hilary, having a flirtatious debate about Darwinism and the logical impossibility of altruism with her older tutor, Spike (Damien Molony).  He is helping her prepare for an interview at the Krohl Institute for Brain Science when he’s not climbing into her bed.  Much to his disgust, Hilary likes to kneel and pray before bedtime.  No, it’s not to ask God to make sure she’s successful in the interview but something much more maternal.  For as a teenager Hilary gave her baby daughter up for adoption and is desperate that the child is well and happy.  Praying helps to alleviate the worry and sadness.

Much to her surprise, Hilary lands a job at Krohl and thus comes across the egomaniacal hedge-fund billionaire owner (Anthony Calf) and his daughter, Cathy.  Not to give the game away but what happens later is termed a coincidence but is, to my mind, a contrivance.  But, no matter, at least it does bring some warmth to the proceedings.

As ever Bob Crowley has come up with a stylish and sleek, if minimal, design, aided and abetted by Mark Henderson’s clever lighting.  By the use of lit overhead wires and rods that burst into pretty multi-coloured movement between scenes, we get the impression of a brain whirring.  And Sound Designer, Paul Arditti has added evocative piano music to each scene change.  They, along with Nick Hytner’s impeccable direction ensure that the production isn’t all negative.  It’s just a shame that the excitement surrounding a new play by Sir Tom Stoppard and Sir Nicholas Hytner’s swansong as The National’s Artistic Director isn’t as exciting as it promised to be. 

Mind you, my mind has since whirred like those multi-coloured wires as I try to understand dualism and monism, so that’s a positive outcome from a trip to the theatre.

Three Winters at The Lyttleton

I didn’t immediately book to see this new play by the Croatian playwright, Tena Stivicic, initially feeling that it wasn’t for me.  How wrong I was and how glad I am that I did eventually book tickets.  My knowledge of Croatian history could be written on one side of a postage stamp and the play emphasises the complexity of the country.  Tena Stivicic’s storytelling is also complex, moving to and fro between 1945, 1990 and 2011.  It charts the progress of one family and their changing attitudes towards Croatia’s move from Communism to Capitalism and is set in one house, almost a character in its own right.

Howard Davies directs and his and the playwright’s subtle approach give the whole thing emotional depth.  Whilst there is very much a political backdrop to the whole proceedings, the play isn’t bogged down by it.  A slow burner to begin with, the excellent performances and humorous light touches ensure the audience soon gets involved.  Although it isn’t immediately clear who is who and what is what, the various strands eventually weave together and we begin to understand what makes this family of strong females tick.

We’re first introduced to Rose, her baby Masha and mother Monika.  Rose is made of stern stuff and because of her closeness (we’re never totally sure of how close) to a general in Tito’s army is able to take advantage of Communism’s property grab.  The house, or at least a room in the house, that she has chosen, is the one in which she was born.  Monika was a servant to the family who originally owned the house and we soon realise that, Karolina, a member of this aristocratic family is still there, in hiding. 

When we jump to 1990, Rose has just died, leaving the house inhabited by her daughter, Masha, two grand-daughters Alisa and Lucia, son-in-law Vlado and Karolina.  The backdrop is the bloody break-up of Yugoslavia and how everyone will be affected.

When the family is visited in 2011, it’s the eve of Lucia’s marriage to a capitalist property man.  Alisa, now a liberal minded PhD student is visiting from England in order to attend the wedding and we’re left in no doubt that the two sisters are like chalk and cheese.  There is talk of evicting the tenants of the house and whilst Alisa abhors the idea, Lucia is all for it.

There are excellent performances throughout.  Siobhan Finneran imbues Masha with a quiet resilience.  She will endure no matter what.  James Laurenson is very effecting as Rose’s surviving old soldier husband, Alexander, whilst Jodie McNee as Alisa and Sophie Rundle as Lucia excellently portray the two modern-day sisters with such conflicting views.

Praise must also be heaped upon the Designer Tim Hatley who, with the clever use of newsreel footage displayed on shifting screens, skilfully and effortlessly changes the scenes backwards and forwards.

The two hours, forty minutes don’t drag for one minute and what a treat to watch an excellent domestic drama with a beginning, middle and end, beautifully acted and staged.

The Cherry Orchard at The Young Vic

I expected great things from Simon Stephen’s new version of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard at The Young Vic and I’m sorry to say that I was bitterly disappointed.

Set in modern times, this paired down version (it last two hours with no interval) directed by Katie Mitchell, left me in no doubt that here less is definitely not more.  I felt no connection with what was happening on stage and thereby totally uninvolved.  I’ve seen the play several times, so know the plot and that Chekhov was railing against mass deforestation.  Also in previous productions, the irony and humour has come through.  But not here and my companion, who was new to play, needed to go home and actually read a full length version to gain any sense of the why’s and wherefores. 

Chekhov’s main character, Madam Ranevskaya returns to her childhood home after five year’s absence and discovers that all is definitely not well.  Her affairs have been so badly managed that, not only does her beloved cherry orchard have to go, but also the house that goes with it.  Her only choice is to return to exile in France, but, being in denial, it takes her most of the play to come to terms with this turn of events.

One usually feels for the poor woman but here I just wanted her and her retinue to up sticks and leave as soon as possible.  The largely miscast, Kate Duchene is partly to blame, spending far too much time clattering around on the bare wooden floorboard when she isn’t weeping and wailing about her drowned son.  Nothing about her performance is subtle and, like the majority of the cast, so much of her speeches are lost because Katie Mitchell has a thing about making her actors talk upstage with their backs to the audience.  Realism?  Possibly but what’s the point if the audience can’t hear what they’re saying.  Certain actors can accomplish this, but unfortunately not many of these are appearing on the Young Vic’s stage this time around.  Another strange stage direction is to make the majority of the cast enter and exit down stage at what is almost a run.  The floor of the set is bare floorboards, so this results in much clomping and not much subtlety.  Talking of lack of subtlety the governess played by Sarah Malin has it in spades.

There are one or two good performances.  Dominic Rowan makes a believable, Lopakhin, the son of a serf who is the eventual purchaser of the estate, whilst Gawn Grainger is a touching and understated Firs.  In fact he really is the only likeable character and the only one to elicit any sympathy. Paul Hilton as Peter Trofimov is an excellent actor and delivers an amusing performance, as the clumsy perpetual student but, unfortunately, the majority of his funny lines are muffled and inaudible.

The lighting is irritatingly dim, the atmosphere is always depressing and the sounds suggest something spooky in the wood shed.  Chekhov’s lightness of touch is gone, along with the felled trees.

The Play That Goes Wrong at The Duchess Theatre

The clue as to the content of the latest production at The Duchess Theatre is in the title.  In fact it does exactly as it says on the tin and does so even before curtain up.  Whilst the audience are settling into their seats, the stage management team are still putting the finishes touches to the set and enlisting the help of a person in the front row to hold up a mantelpiece that won’t stay up on its own.  This is arguably the funniest part of the whole play with the running gag being that a door won’t keep shut and the aforementioned shelf over the fireplace keeps falling down.

This play highlighting the worst that can happen with am-dram was a great success at Edinburgh and the cast, three of whom wrote it, must be rightly thrilled with it’s transfer to the West End, following stints at The Old Red Lion and Trafalgar Studios.  Although one could say it’s a poor man’s Noises Off and not as clever, it is hilarious in places.  I imagine it has been extended for the London run and this is where it falls down.  The running gags run out of steam, with much of the visual comedy carrying on far too long.  Half way through, the mishaps that happen to the actors and set are all too predictable and although it did manage to make me laugh, I have to say that those people around me seemed to laugh that much more.  But then maybe I’m a jaded old grouch.

The cast play members of the Cornley Polytechnic Drama Society who are trying (and spectacularly failing) to stage a dreadful murder mystery entitled Murder at Haversham Manor.  The set has a mind of it’s own and, as one would expect, there is more ham on stage than in a pork butcher’s shop.

Some of the cast ham it up better than others.  I particularly enjoyed Dave Hearn as Max Bennett, a gangly twerp of the highest order, who is spectacularly good at milking laughs whilst simultaneously upstaging everyone else.  The soundman, played by Leonard Cook, proves what can be done with a lesser role whilst Charlie Russell in trying to portray a vamp (Sandra Wilkinson) postures and preens.  A less sexy female is hard to imagine.  Because the characters being played are useless and thereby irritating, it’s easy for this irritation to cloud everything else.  And, unfortunately, a couple of the cast irritated me so much, I was willing them to be hit by flying scenery and not be seen until curtain call.  For this, read Jonathan Sayer’s butler character, Dennis Tyde.  He, along with, Henry Lewis and Jonathan Sayer wrote the play, which is where his strengths must lay.

The director, Mark Bell, does a handsome job with pace and alacrity, Nigel Hook’s set design works a treat, whilst the costumes designed by Roberto Surace are spot on.

All in all credit must go to the group of graduates from LAMDA who, instead of bemoaning their lot at not getting acting work, founded Mischief Theatre.  Thanks to determination and hard work, they have a ‘Company That Goes Right’.

Neville's Island at The Duke of York's Theatre

The main adjective to describe Neville’s Island now playing at The Duke of Yorks Theatre, having transferred from Chichester but with a different cast, is damp.  Not a damp squib exactly, at least not for the majority of the playing time, but a dampness pervading the stage.  This is because the four employees of a Salford water company (I rest my case) who are on a team building exercise and get lost in the rain, end up on a small island in the Lake District, which the designer, Robert Innes Hopkins, has brilliantly created.   The trees on stage drip, as do the actors, who arrive on stage via a downstage river (well stream) but with enough water in it to send splashes over the audience in the front row. Hence the reason why they’ve been supplied with plastic macs.

Whilst the play is often very funny, it also seems rather forced and not sure whether to be comedy, drama, psychological thriller or satire.  The four comic actors, Adrian Edmondson (Gordon), Miles Jupp (Angus), Neil Morrissey (Neville) and Robert Webb (Roy) are all excellent, although their characters not so.  Gordon is a relentless nasty cynic who you long to show one redeeming feature but doesn’t.  Angus is the insecure ‘anorak’ who keeps everything but the kitchen sink in his rucksack.  Neville is the ‘keep everyone happy at all times’ team leader who is keen to appear cleverer than he actually is, whilst Roy is recovering from some kind of nervous breakdown and grieving over the death of his wife.  He is a religious ‘anorak’ who spends much of the play perched up a tree, talking to the birds (in particular a rare breed of falcon). 

It’s a great pity that these four work colleagues are the ones to get marooned together, as there is a general feel that they disliked one another even before they set out.  It is an ensemble piece with each character doing their own thing.  None of them are in tune with each other, thanks in no small measure to Gordon.  He constantly gripes at Neville for thinking each instruction they were given was some kind of cryptic crossword clue, which is the reason they are 180 degrees off course.   He continuously ridicules the poor, hapless Roy, having no sympathy whatsoever for a man teetering on the edge.  And as for his dealings with Angus, he drips feeds several seeds of doubt into Angus’s mind that his beloved wife is playing away whilst he’s away.

Nothing is really resolved during the course of the play and none of the four men appear to learn anything from their experiences.  The only thing it might do is persuade anyone coming to see it that a team building, outward bound exercise is a pointless one.

Here Lies Love at The Dorfman

What a transformation!  Not only in the newly refurbished foyer of the old Cottesloe Theatre (now named The Dorfman) but in the theatre itself.  It has been transformed into a nightclub, complete with very trendy DJ, for the production of Here Lies Love.  Yes, The Dorfman is now open and ready for action and action is definitely what’s in store with this new musical, which was originally produced in New York by the Public Theater.

Telling the story of the rise of that famous collector of shoes, Imelda Marcos, Here Lies Love is a disco musical, so named because the ex First Lady of the Philippines (who, by the way, is still alive at 85) once said she wanted this epitaph written on her tombstone.  My abiding memory of Mrs. Marcos is of her passion for shoes but this is not mentioned in this musical about her life, co-devised by the American singer-songwriter of Talking Heads fame, David Byrne and our own Grammy Award winning DJ Fatboy Slim.  Instead, we are drawn into the world of peasant girl made rich, with the help of a pulsating beat, laser lights, psychedelic projections, moveable platforms and a large cast.  The only problem is that, whilst this journey constantly assaults the visual and auditory senses and is definitely entertaining, it left me strangely unmoved and at times bewildered at what was actually happening at certain stages of her life. 

As in all good rags to riches stories, Imelda Marcos grows up in poverty and marries well thanks to good looks.  Her wedding to Ferdinand Marcos takes place in 1954 following an 11-day courtship and in 1965 he is elected president, thanks in no small measure to his wife’s ceaseless campaigning on his behalf.   Corruption, profligate spending and sexual shenanigans on their part blights the couple’s reign as President and First Lady and when the people have had enough and take control of the TV and radio stations, the pair are airlifted to America by US marines.  During their command of the Phillipines, an old flame of Imelda’s, Benigno Aquino, an ambitious reporter who always had political aspirations, is elected opposition leader in 1969.  Despite intervention from Imelda that enables Aquino to travel to the US for a heart bypass operation, he is assassinated as soon as he returns to Manila in 1983.  It is not really clear whether or not the first lady is upset by this turn of events. In fact such is the pace and verve of this disco musical that the quiet and contemplative moments are sparse.  This production resembles a pop video on 'speed' and there is very little dialogue.  The only moving part of the whole evening is at the end when the final song is sung to the accompaniment of a single guitar.

I sat in the balcony, so am sure my view of the whole thing was very different to those whose tickets enabled them to be part of the action ‘on the floor’.  Here they are herded by stewards in pink jumpsuits, making sure no-one gets squashed by the moving podiums and revolving catwalk.  This all looks rather messy from up above but I’m sure makes the evening much more involving for those being herded.  In fact this part of the audience is crucial to the action (being as they are) stand-ins for the Filipino crowds at various rallies etc.

The performances from the cast are excellent, especially Natalie Mendoza who makes a perfect Imelda, nicely highlighting the change from poverty stricken young ambitious girl to rich, dead behind the eyes, middle aged woman.  Gia Macuja Atchison playing Estrella Cumpas, Imelda’s childhood friend and later maid is also excellent.  Her character, the real voice of the people, deserves more time in the spotlight.  All credit, too, to Martin Sarreal who makes a wholly believable DJ.

The Dorfman, with it’s brand spanking new refit (which includes state of the art loos) has opened with a stylish production which, if not worth a handful of stars, is nevertheless a whole load of fun.

Electra at The Old Vic

I always knew Kristin Scott Thomas was a good actress, I just wasn’t aware how good.  That became apparent on seeing her electrifying Electra in Ian Rickson’s production at The Old Vic. The third in this season of plays in the round at this wonderfully adaptable theatre, is the icing on an exceptional cake.

The expectation that a great evening awaits, is there as soon one enters the auditorium and sees Mark Thompson’s stark set with a free standing tap the only hint of any human activity.  The tree planted on the barren dusty floor is dead and the huge double wooden doors leading to the palace of Argos are shut and unwelcoming.  A sense of foreboding hangs in the air.

Our first glimpse of Electra confirms that Scott Thomas isn’t one of those actresses who is concerned about her looks, although even her transformation into an exhausted, dishevelled, ghost of a woman, ravaged by sleepless nights, can’t totally disguise her renowned attractiveness.  Dressed in a grubby shift dress, she prowls, bare footed around the stage, leaving us in no doubt that her grief at the murder of her beloved father, Agamemnon at the hands of her mother, Queen Clytemnestra and stepfather, King Aegisthus, is all consuming.  We realise that this grief and thirst for revenge have arrested her development.  She is forever a raging adolescent, unable to function and prone to bouts of throwing herself on the ground in frustration and utter despair.  In the wrong hands all this weeping and wailing could become tiresome in the extreme, but Scott Thomas bring so much light and shade to her Electra, with her every emotion etched onto her beautiful face, that one only feels compassion and sorrow.  Her anger, never far from the surface, is at times composed, before erupting into loud, undisguised fury.  She is sarcastic, too, particularly with her mother and, like a child, continually brushes the uncontrollable tears away with the back of her hand.

It is only when she is re-united with her adored brother, Orestes that she comes to life.  Her joy at finally recognising him and thus realising that the stories of his death are untrue, is so uninhibited and real that we all smile with her.  When this joy turns into squeals of delight, we are reminded once more  of her child like quality.  Scott Thomas makes Electra real.

The rest of the cast are good too.  Diana Quick plays Clytemnestra, Electra’s self-righteous mother.  Her regal bearing is in sharp contrast with Electra and her exasperation with this troublesome elder daughter is nicely shown.  Jack Lowden, once again proves what a promising young actor he is (his role as Oswald in the recent Almeida production of Ghosts won him both an Olivier and Ian Charleson Award) by lending Orestes a quiet intensity and, what’s more he his voice has great vocal quality. Peter Wight is always worth watching, no more so than here with his subtle performance as the Servant.

This production of Electra is clear and concise, thanks in equal measure to Frank McGuiness’s adaptation, Ian Rickson’s precise direction and the entire cast.  No-one should let the thought of a Greek Tragedy put them off coming to see this.  Why, there are even one or two laughs in it!!