The Spoils at Trafalgar Studios

I hadn’t fully appreciated the wealth of talent that makes up the lanky frame of Jesse Eisenberg until watching him perform in his third play, The Spoils, at Trafalgar Studios.  Of course I’ve seen his acting abilities displayed in various movies, most famously, The Social Network, but he is even more accomplished on stage.  His latest manifestation is a dope-induced bundle of twitching energy, with a distinct lack of focus and an acerbic tongue.  Written partly as an indictment of the lazy non-directional offspring of wealthy parents, who have no need or desire to do a proper day’s work, Jesse Eisenberg’s Ben could be one-dimensional.  But so accomplished is this playwright’s dialogue and acting skills, that his character is so much more.  He may be loathsome on the page, but, in performance Ben illicits sympathy as much as dislike.

Actually each of the five characters is tightly drawn (no caricatures here) and brought realistically to life by Kunal Nayyar, Alfied Allen, Katie Brayben and Annapurna Sriram.  The quick, snappy dialogue Is realistic and, although the action only covers a few days of these young peoples’ lives, much is learned about them and what makes them tick.

Thanks to his wealthy father, Ben owns his own Manhattan apartment and shares it with Kalyan (Kunal Nayyar) a Nepalese business student who he subjects to much verbal aggression.   Kalyan, living rent-free with this would be documentary film maker, who in truth has been kicked out of film school and spends his days doing absolutely nothing apart from rolling joints, is the antithesis of Ben.  Sweet natured and hard working he has become Ben’s spiritual carer, constantly having to listen to his whiney meanderings.  But, unlike Ben, the “immigrant” is in a relationship.  The girl in question is a pushy medical student called Reshma (Annapurna Spiram) who doesn’t hide her dislike of her boyfriend’s landlord.  The status quo is compromised when Ben bumps into Ted (Alfie Allen), an elementary school acquaintance of his.  Now a Wall Street trader, Ted has become engaged to Sarah (Katie Brayben) on whom Ben had a crush when they were eight years old. 

Following an excruciatingly awkward dinner party, with Kalyan, Reshma and the two new found friends, we discover the extent of Ben’s arrested development and problems.  Engineering a meeting alone with Sarah, Ben cringingly re-lives in graphic detail a childhood sexual dream he had about her.  Cringeworthy in the extreme, this recollection makes the audience wince and laugh in equal measure.  Not the way to win the girl!  

Increasingly coming apart at the seams, Ben’s isolation intensifies and Eisenberg allows you to see the loneliness that underpins the constant jibing and jokes at everyone’s expense.  He is the ultimate social misfit for which one can almost feel sorry.

All five characters are well drawn and believable and, the contrast between each one, helps to highlight the ineptitude of the compelling Eisenberg.  All in all this character driven play with an ending that just manages to be unsentimental, is one I highly recommend.

Sunset at the Villa Thalia at The Dorfman

Sunset at the Villa Thalia is one of those plays that promises more than it delivers.  The playwright, Alexi Kaye Campbell, was brought up in Athens, the son of a Greek father and British mother, so has every justification to be concerned about Greece’s economic woes.  His new play, however, doesn’t examine this country’s present problems, but is set in 1967, opening on the day the right-wing military junta seized control and closing a couple of years after the transition to democracy.

The Villa of the title is a small white house in Skiathos currently being rented out by a young, rather ineffectual English writer, Theo (Sam Crane) and his self righteous wife Charlotte (Pippa Nixon). They become friendly with an American couple, Harvey (Ben Miles) and June (Elizabeth McGovern) who are visiting the island.  It turns out that Harvey is an extremely pushy CIA operative whilst June, a bit of an air head, is not as happy as she appears and is a little too fond of a drink. 

The English couple are persuaded by Harvey to purchase Villa Thalia from Stamatis (Christos Callow) and his daughter Maria (Glykeria Dimou).  Desperate for cash, the reluctant Maria is persuaded by her father and Harvey that selling the house is the correct decision and the sale goes ahead at way below the market price.  This decision is obviously the catalyst for the devastating consequences that the play’s synopsis talks about.  But it is devastation for the Greek couple rather than the main characters in the play.

Simon Godwin’s production is beautifully staged and well acted.  Ben Miles’s Harvey is suitably obnoxious as one of those cringey Americans who loves the sound of his own voice, whilst Elizabeth McGovern’s role as June is a huge improvement from her turn as Lady Cora.  Clad in a distinct blonde wig, she is the epitome of a dumb blonde, turning in a very amusing performance.

What I am unsure about is why Harvey is so desperate for Theo and Charlotte to buy the villa.  Is it because he has dastardly plans of which no good will come?   Apparently not, for we are persuaded to believe that he has a crush on them both, platonically speaking, of course!  Or maybe it is just a plot device to make the American the fall guy for all that’s gone wrong in Greece (and everywhere else come to that)?

Rather than being a politically daring production about how the Greeks have been and are being displaced in their own country, Sunset At The Villa Thalia appears to be more of a contrived morality tale about how the majority of us skew the truth to salve our conscience at the way we’ve managed to achieve what we want.

Thanks to Hildegard Bechtler, Sunset at The Villa Thalia is beautiful and evocative to look at with the smell of pine and taste of ouzo palpable, but this isn’t enough to elevate the play from anything more than lightweight.

The Threepenny Opera at The Olivier

Musicals aren’t really my thing but one with Rory Kinnear in the cast changes all that.  Simon Stephen’s new version of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill ‘s The Threepenny Opera, based on John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera sees the great actor playing the leading role of Captain Mackheath, aka Mack the Knife or Mackie.

Full of bawdy humour and risqué language, Rufus Norris directs the large cast with aplomb and it is, for the most part, brilliantly entertaining.  Written as a political indictment on capitalism, this version of The Threepenny Opera doesn’t ram the politics down the throat, just highlights the lives lived by the irrepressible hoodlums who inhabit the less than salubrious areas of nineteen twenties London.

Mackheath, the anti-hero, is something of a ladies man as well as being a master criminal and violent leader of a gang of thieves.  Rory Kinnear isn’t the obvious choice for playing a villain who can get any woman he wants into bed, but he does fulfill the criteria laid down by Brecht who suggests that Mackheath should be a “short, stocky man of about 40”.  What Kinnear may lack in sexual magnetism, he more than makes up for in his acting and vocal ability and is the perfect unemotional psychopath.

There are plenty more noteworthy cast members, not least Nick Holder’s corrupt Peachum, another member of London’s criminal fraternity who runs the city’s beggars.  Horrified on discovering that the sinister Macheath has married his daughter, Polly, he is determined to wreak revenge.  The rotund and dandyish Holder is dressed as a grotesque, complete with heels and black wig, whilst his wife, Celia, a deliciously over the top Haydn Gwynne, is clad head to toe in a clingy red dress, the perfect vamp.  The vocals from Rosalie Craig as the sharp-witted and canny Polly, Debbie Kurup’s Lucy Brown, Polly’s main rival for Mackie’s affections and Sharon Small’s drug addicted prostitute, Jenny Diver are all spot on. 

Vicky Mortimer has designed a set within a set, comprising flimsy movable screens and scaffolding, easily demolished and depicting the insecure lives these poor unfortunates are forced to endure.  Their existence is neither cheery nor sunny.

That’s not to say that The Threepenny Opera is all doom and gloom.  There are many laughs in this vulgar satire that cocks a snook at various modern social ills, and the casting of the disabled and speech-impaired actor Jamie Beddard as Matthias, aka The Shadow is inspired. 

Whilst there were a couple of moments during Act I when I doubted my attention could be held for the entire play, Act II more than lived up to expectations.  Rufus Norris is onto a winner with this unusual and exuberant musical that mixes cabaret with jazz and delights and shocks in equal measure.  And let’s not forget Musical Director David Shrubsole, whose use of an eight-piece band, in action on stage rather than an orchestra pit ensures that the songs propel the action perfectly.

The Suicide at The Lyttleton

As far as I am concerned, the best thing about The Suicide is the brilliant sporadic drumming by Sam Jones.  This is a pity, because, on paper this update of Nikolai Erdman’s subversive satire promises much.  Originally written in 1928, The Suicide was banned the Soviet authorities in 1932.  Whilst Suhayla El-Bushra’s version loosely follows the plot of the original, it can hardly be termed subversive or particularly funny.

The play centres around Sam Desai (Javone Prince) an unemployed young man who has lost his benefits and become totally disillusioned by his lot.  Dependent on the earnings of his wife and over-sexed mother-in-law with whom he lives, Sam finally decides that life is all too much and perhaps he should end it all.  Unfortunately for him, his initial tentative foray into committing suicide is filmed on a young man’s i-phone and immediately turns viral.  Oh the way our flawed modern lives are ruled by social media and that there always seems to be someone out to exploit you at every turn!  At least this is what Sam discovers when, amongst others, a creepy local politician, so called friend and trendy café owner, are desperate for him to carry out his suicide plan in order to further their own ends.

Highlighting the falseness of much of our society, Nadia Fall’s production tries way too hard to be funny, clever and shocking.  As a result it is only amusing in places and in others resembles a runaway horse.  Act Two in particular is a rather shambolic, hammy affair.

Only two actors really deliver a truthful interpretation of their characters; Paul Kaye as the hip film maker and Ashley McGuire’s droll mother-in-law.  At one point she is brave enough to be viewed in all her naked glory ….. the point being?  To be honest I really don’t know apart from using it as a cheap joke.

Actually I don’t know the point of any of it.  Hopefully someone else will come along, use the concept of the original Suicide, ditch the “bells and whistles” and end up with a proper satirical indictment of what is wrong with our modern society.  Until then the cast of this version are suffering an uphill struggle.

Elegy at The Donmar

Here’s a question.  If the person you have loved and lived with for twenty years has developed dementia and there is an operation that can cure the disease but will mean that those married years will be erased from the patient’s memory, is the procedure worth doing?

This is the major problem facing the two older women in Nick Payne’s new play, Elegy, set in the near future and currently running at The Donmar Warehouse.  After much soul searching, teachers, Carrie (Barbara Flynn) and Lorna (Zoe Wannamaker) decide that Lorna should go ahead with the operation and the play opens just after she has been discharged from hospital.  The problem is that the reality of Lorna now not having any recollection of her life with Carrie is more than her partner can bear. 

We learn about the operation and the decision behind it thanks to Nick Payne’s clever use of reverse chronology.  Luckily we’re not bombarded with too much scientific jargon, just enough information about the removal of the diseased parts of Lorna’s brain and their replacement with microchip implants from the doctor (Nina Sosanya). Instead the play leans more towards the ethical dilemma that faces the two women and draws us into their love affair, ensuring that we care deeply about their fate.

Of course this wouldn’t be possible without excellent performances from the three actors.  When we first meet Zoe Wannamaker’s Lorna she adeptly convinces that she really has no idea who this Carrie person is.  She is cold and distant, “I don’t see anything when I look at you”, and it’s only when we travel back in time that we realise her love for Carrie totally mirrored that of her partner.  Her frustration and anger that she has been dealt this dud hand is painful to watch and the irony isn’t lost on us that she was the one initially less inclined to go through with the procedure.

Barbara Flynn’s devastation at losing the love of the love of her life is understated and all the more effecting for that.  The utter fruitlessness of trying to get through to the woman she has lost is never overblown, just as the love she has for this woman is never underestimated.  Nina Sosanya’s matter of fact Miriam brings a less emotional character into the mix, although we are under no doubt that this doctor’s compassionate nature isn’t far below the surface.

Tom Scutt’s design places a symbolic dead tree with splayed branches centre stage and Josie Rourke sparse direction ensures Elegy never succumbs to melodrama. 

This is a very short play, at just over one hour’s duration, but it certainly packs a punch!

Bug at Found 111

Those of us who have found Found 111 aren’t just smug but thrilled, for this (one can only call it space) is, at the moment, home to some of the most exciting and intimate theatre London has to offer.  Reached by climbing three flights of very unprepossessing stairs, Found III comprises a bar, sitting area and rather claustrophobic scruffy room where the audience are within touching distance of the actors.  And it is only those actors at the height of their game who can survive such close scrutiny.  Luckily the four cast members of Tracy Lett’s gory thriller, come black comedy, come psychological drama are just that and some!

The bugs of the title aren’t the surveillance camera type that I initially thought, but nasty creepy crawlies that Peter, and eventually Agnes, believe are invading his body.  Peter, an impressively paranoid James Norton has been brought to Agnes’s home (well motel room) by her “out there” friend Ronnie.  Initially quietly polite, Peter tentatively falls for the drug induced twitchy Agnes, who is petrified of being visited by her ex con, ex husband, Jerry, a nasty piece of work and no mistake.  Like Peter, Agnes is a troubled soul and the two of them succumb to love and the belief that the doctors who treated him following his time serving as a soldier in the Gulf War have somehow turned him into a human guinea pig.  Convinced that his body has been taken over by aphids, Peter goes to great lengths to try and remove them.  This removal, especially when centering on him using a pair of pliers on a tooth, is grueling in the extreme, whilst the sores, which eventually cover his body ensure the audience’s flesh crawls as much as the imaginary bugs.

In the wrong hands the couple’s descent into increasing bouts of paranoia could be farcical, but Norton and Kate Fleetwood as Agnes convey their desperation with a searing honesty.  They are both totally plausible.  Norton is a master at portraying hidden depths in his characters and his creepy earnestness as Peter is mirrored by Fleetwood’s intensity as Agnes slowly unravels.  The whole premise of the plot might be unbelievable but the audience is totally gripped. 

Daisy Lewis is a more than plausible Ronnie, whilst Jerry Goss, who plays Agnes’s brutal husband, never fails to exert a definite unease whenever he arrives on the scene.  Add Simon Evans’s direction to the mix and the room at the top of the stairs ensures an unnerving and thrilling evening.  It’s not a matter of watching and listening to Peter and Agnes unravel on stage from the comfort of our seats in the auditorium, we’re doing so in the motel room with them.

The Caretaker at The Old Vic

Hearing that Timothy Spall was appearing on stage after a lapse of 19 years was all I needed to book tickets to see Matthew Warchus’s production of Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker.  And then it was announced that Daniel Mays was also in the cast ….. a double bonus.

The Caretaker was Harold Pinter’s first play to garner substantial commercial success.  Written in 1960, it centres on an extremely shabby room crammed to the gunnels with miscellaneous objects; in fact everything including a kitchen sink!  It is into this scruffy, less than clean space that an equally scruffy, nay dirty tramp is taken by Aston, a troubled and damaged young man.  Aston has offered the tramp, Davies, alias Jenkins (a little confusing!) a place to stay until he straightens himself out.  This straightening out requires, amongst other things, a decent pair of shoes and a trip to Sidcup to collect his identity records, Davies insisting that the latter cannot possibly occur without the former.  On his uppers Davies might be but he insistently knows what he wants and from the point of view of a lodger, especially a non-paying one, comes up very wanting, especially as his sleeping habits entail much loud groaning.  Unbeknownst to Davies, the room and the remaining unseen boarded up rooms, belong to Mick, a coiled up spring of a man, with the verbal dexterity of a semi-automatic rifle, totally at odds with his slow, gentle younger brother, Aston. 

So there we have it, three very different men, a room and a sense that anything could happen, probably bad, but in fact nothing does.  But this is Pinter, so the long running time is hardly noticeable, transfixed as we are by the writing as well as the strong performances.

There has been much written by critics about Timothy Spall’s take on Davies, a too high percentage of it less than complimentary.  As we know, plays are open for interpretation, which is what makes the theatre such a wonderful form of entertainment.  No two directors approach a play in the same way, making comparisons with other productions, whilst interesting, not terribly important.  Many of the criticisms with this version are focused on just that; comparisons with Spall’s interpretation and others who have been more sinister. Thankfully I’m unable to do that because this is the first version of Pinter’s wonderful play that I have witnessed.  All I can say is that Mr. Spall, as with all his performances, makes Davies his own.  If he isn’t as menacing as previous portrayals, so be it, for he is immensely entertaining and believable in his own, larger than life way.  And the unhinging uncertainty about what might happen to anyone of the three characters is here; it’s in the writing. 

Timothy Spall’s Davies resembles a gargoyle, all sticky out hair, sticky out teeth, a rat of a man, with his eye on the main chance.  He wheedles, repeats himself continually, lies, irritates and enthralls and, yes, is often very funny.

George MacKay as Mick in his tightest of tight leather jacket, initially menaces Davies, delivering his long speeches with lightning speed, rendering the tramp in a state of utter bewilderment.  But there is one thing of which Davies is aware.  This brother is completely unpredictable.

By contrast, the always brilliant Daniel Mays, plays Aston with a quiet intensity, his malleable face registering everything his character is unable to voice.  The silence that accompanies his monologue about what happened to him when committed to a mental hospital and forcibly subjected to ECT is as if everyone is holding their breath.  It is a show stopping moment.