The Habit of Art (The National Theatre, 1st May 2010)

I liked The Habit of Art because I am normally interested in plays which explore the process of putting on a play.  When the audience enters the auditorium they are faced with a very cluttered set.  What becomes clear is that this is a set within a set.  In the middle is a desk with piles of books around it and there is a typewriter stuffed underneath. Surrounding this are kitchen facilities, mixing desks and office desks.  It becomes clear that this is the backstage area surrounding the set of another play.  There is also an elevated area with a piano which become Benjamin Britten’s rooms.  The play we are about to watch is actually a rehearsal of a play.

The experience is like, to use the cliché, peeling an onion to reveal the layers.  The play is about the relationship between Benjamin Britten (Alex Jennings/Henry) and WH Auden (Richard Griffiths/Fitz) as seen through the eyes of their biographer Humphrey Carpenter/Tim (Adrian Scarborough).  However, the characters seem to reveal a little of themselves through the characters they play.  Kay, the stage manager, (Frances De La Tour) seems to be able to keep it all together as Fitz, and Henry try to make sense of the play they are in and Tim desperately needs some direction to be able to grasp the role he plays.

The play is funny and engaging.

Reviews

Habit of Art in The Guardian
Habit of Art in The Telegraph

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Thoughts on…Blogs this week

Having just moved Miching Malicho over here to Between the Acts, I have been a little bit more interested in what other Theatre/Culture blogs look like this week.  In reading through some blogs I came across  Cultural Tales of Two Cities.  I really like the way that the blog focuses on the two cities of Manchester and London, though there is a review of the RSC Twelfth Night there so clearly towns and cities between Manchester and London count.  There was a very interesting comment on the casting of Richard Wilson as Malvolio in the RSC’s Twelfth Night  on the blog this week.  The blog notes that this production was

A play of two halves really for the RSC’s latest Stratford offering. This production of ‘Twelfth Night’ was apparently delayed until Richard Wilson was available to play Malvolio. I am just not sure that someone who is so known for one character can credibly play another. At times it felt like the audience was waiting for him to announce ‘I don’t believe it’… (Cultural Tales of Two Cities accessed 8th November 2009)

 I always think that Peter Kirwin’s Bardathon is so informative, and  this week he was writing about the RSC’s Days of Significance and commenting on its relationship to Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.   I was interested to see that Blogging By Numbers was writing about Mother Courage and Their Children last week with a big But:

But – and this is one of those huge, clunking buts – I was never less than engaged. I loved the invention. I loved the humour. I loved the money I could see had been spent. I loved, loved Fiona Shaw as a Mother Courage that you were at once compelled and repulsed by. (Blogging By Number accessed 8th November 2009)

This still makes me feel I should have gone to see the whole thing after all after having the just the first half experience.

I’m writing about blogging at the moment, as well as blogging about blogging, which feels a little indulgent.  I am interested in the idea that Web 2.0 opens up the web for the audience to produce and to inform what is being written and produced.  The myriad of opinion out there is often engaging and interesting and we have the choice to read or not. 

As blogs appear and we all get a say, one blog that seems to have gone is Patricia 1957 Arts Diary.  I really enjoyed reading the posts on Patricia 1957 Arts Diary , but it looks like this has been deleted which is a shame.   My move from Miching Malicho to Between the Acts is about changing virtual personas.  However, the disappearance of  Patricia1957ArtsDiary shows that on the blogosphere we can have a voice and silence our own voices just as quickly. 

 

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The Black Album (West Yorkshire Playhouse, 21st October 2009)

I wouldn’t say that this was gripping theatre and some of the effects were just a little bit cliched.  All those flashing lights on the white set with phrases about life in the 1980s such as ‘Greed is Good’ and ‘Material Girl’  and all that music from the 80s that was about power and material items, just became a little cloying.  I felt that the pre show didn’t really add much more to the narrative other than to say this was the eighties, because I wasn’t sure that the play was a tale of morals against the coverting of material wealth.   I suppose the play’s title, in its reference to the pop sar Prince’s album, the Black Album, was supposed to have some significance to the narrative.   Apart from the fact that the central character, Shahid Hasan, liked Prince, I struggled to see the point unless the title related to Salman Rushdie’s book and if it the association did not work for me.  However,  I did learn something from watching the play and I did get caught up with the story, so I don’t want to be negative about my experience.  The problem was the story was so predictable and I did feel that all the way through I wasn’t surprised or challenged.  I felt that everything was laid out for the audience in such a way that at each moment I just knew what was going to happen in the next moment.  Characters had long speeches about what they stood for, so it just didn’t feel like they were engaged in dialogue with each other.  I became annoyed about the characters doing the scene changes in character and as they were only moving a desk and sofa from one place to another, it didn’t feel like it served a purpose.  I got so fed up with the clothes and the main character taking is trousers on and off, because yes I know clothes are about identity, the play didn’t need to lay it on with a trowel.

Yes the issues were complex and we were being asked to explore different points of view.  However, the play presented it all in a too simplistic way and the characters were often one-dimensional and feeling clearly that they were intended to represent types, rather than be rounded interesting complex characters.

Reviews and Previews (National Theatre)

Official London Theatre review of Black Album
Black Album reviewed in The Telegraph
Black Album Reviewed in The Stage
The Black Album what Michael Billington the Guardian…
Black Album in the Independent (National Production)
WOS Review of the Black Album
The Guardian roundup of the reviews of Black Album
The Black Album in the Financial Times
Independent review of Black Album
Evening Standard on Black Album
Independent on Sunday on Troilus and Cressida and Black Album

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All's Well That Ends Well (NT Live – City Screen, York, 1st October 2009)

I saw the National production of All’s Well That Ends Well in July and thought it was a fantastic production with its focus on the fairytale elements of the play.  I felt at that time it will be interesting to see how the cinema experience captures the wonderful set.  For the most the screening, as part of the ntlive season, worked really well.  I just  felt at some times the overall feel of the set didn’t always come across.  This is because the cameras have to work with a combination of close-ups and long shots which means that our gaze is more directed than it would be in the theatre.  It is not always possible to see other characters’ reactions to speeches when the camera is focused on the face of one actor, or to move our eyes to the surroundings and back to the actor and observe all the effects in the background.  The Olivier is a much bigger stage than the Lyttleton and I would have thought that it is much harder to cover as much as might be needed to give a sense of a busy atmosphere full of effects, such as the puppets and a wonderful contrasts between the light and dark moving through it. It is interesting to note that there is a technical rehearsal so what we see isn’t raw and unplanned.  I felt that it had been useful to have seen the live production first because I was able to bring that experience to my viewing in the cinema and it gave me a feel for the atmosphere and the feel of the set.     However, I do enjoy the cinema experience.  I suppose the next thing to do would be to attend the theatre on the evening of filming  to experience what the filming of the live production might feel like as a member of the audience.

Unlike the screening of Phedre, this time there was an interval, and I had been wondering how this might work in the cinema.  We were presented with a countdown on screen to make sure we were in our seats before the performance started and to ensure we weren’t getting up and down  as the performance began we were shown a live interview between  Alex Jennings and the designer, Rae Smith.  This was interesting, but Smith was trying really hard to talk about her set without giving away what would happen in the second half of the play. 

Again the experiment worked really well.  I noticed that the National Theatre’s Artistic Director, Nicholas Hytner, still refered to this being a pilot in his discussion at the start of the screening.  It is a strange experience watching theatre in a cinema.  It’s not always clear if laughter is from the audience at the theatre or in the cinema for example.  I’m still not sure if I should applaud or not.  I feel that I want to and some people did at the City screen in York where I watched the performance.  The producers are grappling with what to do before curtain up and decided to braodcast pre screening interviews including Elliot Levey (playing 1st Lord Dumaine) interviewing the director, Marianne Elliott.  This gave us a sense of  being able to peek backstage and presenting us with a view of the prompter’s corner, which I don’t think we got when watching Phedre.  Nevertheless, though still a pilot the screening of a theatre production is now here to stay and people like me will stop blogging about them as if watching live theatre at the cinema is a strange novelty. 

For me this experiment works because I have seen both the live and cinema versions.  I wouldn’t want to replace my theatre experiences with one of watching productions through a camera lens, but I do see it as an enhancement to theatre going.  I see this as another chance to see a production already experienced in the theatre.  However, the ntlive project is making the National Theatre more accessible to a larger audience and that can only be a good thing.  I don’t think it will happen, but it might have been one way I could have seen the whole of  Mother Courage, because living so far from London, it is not possible for me to book to see the whole production again at the theatre.

Further information

National Theatre Website

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The Pitman Painters (National Theatre, 11th September 2009)

I was thankful that on this visit to the National Theatre, I saw the whole play.  As it was the night after seeing half of Mother Courage and Her Children, that experience was still fresh in my mind.  It was certainly worth the visit as well.  The play was humorous and extremely well acted.  I didn’t feel the politics were rammed down my throat.  I have taught for the WEA (Workers Educational Association) and have really fond memories of working for the organisation.  I found watching a play about the organisation’s impact was extremely gratifying.  I am aware personally how life changing the WEA can be. 

The set worked really well for me.  I liked the way that when the actors discussed the paintings and faced the audience with the paintings behind them so that I could see their reactions.  The characterisation worked well as well, giving a feel for the different personalities which would have been in the original WEA class.  I felt that I had been entertained at the theatre, but that I had also learnt a lot about the subject of the Ashington Group and the work that they produced.   The production is about to go on tour, and is very well worth a visit.

Production Information

Details on the National Theatre Site

Further Discussion

The Pitman Painters article in The Guardian
In praise of Pitman Painters in The Guardian

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