Little Eagles, Silence, and American Trade (Hampstead Theatre)

I decided to go to the three new plays at the Hampstead Theatre, as part of  the RSC long ensemble project.  To do this required some complex travel arrangements and a hit on my budget. I’d been watching this long ensemble for three years, and really wanted to see their final performances together on British soil before the project finished. After that very special last matinée/evening performances of King Lear and Romeo and Juliet in April, there was just one last chance to see the long ensemble, and I wanted to make sure I was there.

I did enjoy the actors’ performances, and it was good seeing them in the different character roles, especially Debbie Korley who was really funny as Girl Wonder, and Kirsty Woodward in American Trade. I felt the new plays gave the actors the opportunity to show their range, and have a go at different things. I thought Noma Dumezweni and Darrell D’Silva gave fantastic performances in Little Eagles and I thought Katy Stephens, Christine  Entwistle, Jonjo O’Neil were also superb in Silence. However, I felt that the actors in general didn’t have enough in the plays to work with to demonstrate their outstanding skills. It is not an exaggeration to say that Jonjo O’Neill has performed the best Mercutio I’ve ever seen, and Katy Stephens’s Goneril and then her Cleopatra are highly developed nuanced performances. Noma Dumezweni’s nurse and Paulina were wonderful interpretations and Greg Hicks’ Lear took me on his emotional journey every time I saw it. This new writing just didn’t reach those depths in the same way. It’s not a draw just to see an actor in a thong, especially the actor who was so excellent as Gloucester. For me, when we get down to that it becomes slightly voyeuristic in an odd uncomfortable way and watching an actor of Freshwater’s talent playing such a stereotypical role was disappointing, even though he did a good job at it.  It was all a little bit of an anti climax.

I liked the narrative around Little Eagles, that was the thing that kept me enthralled and the actors’ performances.  However, the play itself was a little wordy and slightly clichéd at times. In comparison Silence was a devised piece exploring sound.  Three narratives were intertwined.  I liked the way that the whole stage was used and that the sense of sage and backstage were broken down. I did find that I cared about the characters and what happened to them. In American Trade, I found I didn’t really care what happened about the characters. I think the point was that they were types, and every type that there was crammed in, which at times made it just too much.  I thought the play was funny and it was fun. I did laugh a lot.

I think I enjoyed the three new plays at the Hampstead Theatre, as I might enjoy an evening out with friends.  They were entertaining and it was always a fun and interesting evening/afternoon out. The plays themselves were just not exceptional. What I didn’t feel was the same sense of excitement afterwards as I did watching the long ensemble in the six Shakespeare plays. I wasn’t left with that sense of wanting to see a production again in the way that makes trekking round the country to see the long ensemble really worth it.  However,  I didn’t go and expect Shakespeare, just some really thought-provoking and interesting new writing, that warranted the RSC to bring it alive.

I am glad that I went to see these plays. It was that one last time to see the long ensemble. I wish the long ensemble luck in New York, and thinking about it makes me want to see Romeo and Juliet again for – one more time.

Previews and Reviews

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Happy Birthday Shakespeare – On going to see Shakespeare's plays and why I do.

I am writing this blog as part of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Happy Shakespeare blog project www.happybirthdayshakespeare.com I decided to join the project, because as a blogger I am often writing about going to see Shakespeare’s plays performed, and felt it appropriate to write about why I enjoy seeing Shakespeare in performance so much.

Charles Lamb, the Romantic critic, wrote about how he felt that Shakespeare’s plays shouldn’t be staged. I once met an academic who talked with great delight about how they would walk out of a performance of a Shakespeare play at the interval and how they preferred to go to the pub instead. I had a friend who had seen Jeremy Irons as Leontes in The Winter’s Tale and she said that she could never go to see another production of The Winter’s Tale because she didn’t want to spoil that memory. These stories make me a little sad, because I think that it is a shame that people can often place their own barriers around how they experience Shakespeare in performance. I know what Lamb really meant was that it didn’t want to see a bad production of a Shakespeare play (see Professor Stanley Wells’ article referenced below), and I was rather amazed at the statement about leaving the theatre in the interval because this was someone who was famous for writing academic books about Shakespeare. My friend was a regular at the RSC season in Newcastle, so she didn’t stop going to see Shakespeare on stage, just not The Winter’s Tale again. The critic, the academic, and regular theatre goer may sometimes have different reasons for watching Shakespeare in performance, but we’re all part of the audience, and for me being in an audience watching is about experiencing Shakespeare.

Of course, I want to see a brilliant production, one that will wow me. I felt like that when I saw the Baxter Theatre/Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) production of The Tempest in 2009. I was amazed by that brilliant opening to the latest RSC production of Romeo and Juliet and I still have the image of Mercutio’s (Jonjo O’Neil) entrance swinging in on the gate and that wonderful performance overall. I saw that production of Romeo and Juliet again several times and enjoyed it each time that I saw it. The anticipation at the start was built up when I could glance Sam Troughton and Noma Dumezweni take their places at the auditorium doors and I knew the play was about to start. However, I just love the experience of being in a theatre, whether it has a thrust stage or proscenium arch. I am just too curious to leave in the interval, even if I felt a production was not going well. I was puzzled by Tim Carroll’s recent RSC Merchant of Venice, but the second half was much more exciting than the first, and I was so glad that I stayed.  I saw this production again and felt I understood what was happening more on the second visit.

I’ve just seen the National Theatre production of Hamlet. It couldn’t have been more different from the Greg Doran’s RSC 2008-09 production of Hamlet, but I enjoyed both equally. I will see another three productions this year – The Gobe’s touring Hamlet, Northern Broadsides’ production at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and Michael Sheen at the Young Vic- and what interests me most is how will each company will approach the text(s).  I want to see their interpretations, and certainly not my idea of how the play should be performed. I just love seeing something, I wouldn’t have thought about myself.

Watching the development of the recent RSC Antony and Cleopatra was a very interesting experience.  I was unsure about the production at first, and many of the reviews were mixed, but I felt that some of the risks did pay off, and I was so pleased I managed to get returns to see the production go into the Swan theatre, stripped down and with Katy Stephens as Cleopatra.

I think, I’m haunted by the ghosts of the RSC as the RSC is itself is with its ghost wall projecting images of past productions as the audience enter the new RST at Stratford.  I remember Roger Rees as  in Hamlet, Antony Sher as Richard III, Simon Russell Beale as a brilliant Ariel in The Tempest and of course Jeremy Irons as Leontes. As I say goodbye to one RSC ensemble, I become excited by the next one coming into Stratford, and again I am curious about what they will do and how they will approach each play. I look out for productions in the regions, at local heritage sites, at the Globe and even in the West End. I am looking forward to seeing Much Ado About Nothing with David Tennant and Catherine Tate. That was my ideal casting, I told my friends and then when it became a reality I was delighted to get tickets.

I sometimes make attempts to separate my different identities as a critic (blogger), an academic or regular theatre goer, but the boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred. Fro me, watching Shakespeare is usually intellectually stimulating, sometimes frustrating, but thankfully often amazing.


Further Information

Well, Stanley ‘Shakespeare in Hazlett’s Theatre Criticism’. Shakespeare Survey, 35 (1982), 43-55.

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RSC Revealed (The Swan, 27th March 2011)

The vision behind the RSC Long Ensemble was for a group of actors to work together for a sustained period of time to produce work. It seemed fitting then, at the end of the Stratford run and two and half years together the long ensemble got together and put on a Gala in the newly opened Swan Theatre. The event was to support the needs of long ensemble member James Gale and it was a bringing tougher of the company in one place.  The event was organised by company members Kelly Hunter and Hannah Young.

This was a special event, but it was particularly relevant in that it shared a moment with a regular RSC audience in a way that is often spoken about in moving to the thrust stage, but only partially happens  in the Shakespearean productions. The production acknowledged an audience that has followed the work over the two and half years and so there were a lot of in jokes and even mentions of regular audience members.

The Gala started in the foyer with actors collecting money and characters taking on their character roles such as Brian Doherty as Autolycus selling souvenirs from the RSC shop and Sophie Russell as the tap dancing nun from The Comedy of Errors. As the audience entered the Swan, Peter Peverley played his guitar and sang some songs including The Jam’s Town Called Malice. Our compare  for the evening was Eunice the usher who opens Romeo and Juliet, but as the evening progressed, Eunice abandoned parts of her costume to reveal Noma Dumezweni the wonderful RSC actress. At times Noma had a little helper (her daughter), who was not phased at all by being on stage.

Katy Stephens ran the auction of promises and handing out punishments to her son if the auction did not raise enough each time. There were some references to Gloucester’s blinding, but it backfired on Katy in the end as she ended up with a foam pie in her face (and we didn’t see that coming). Promises ranged from dinner for two at the Dirty Duck, and a family pass to Warwick Castle to helping the stage management team put on a production of King Lear and a chance to row Juliet (Mariah Gale) down the river.

The evening was a mixture of comedy and song. There was Christine Entwhistle’s very funny and very rude hunting routine and Richard Katz’s failing magician routine.  We saw characters as we’d never seen them before such as the knights from Morte D’Arthur in a very funny rendition of Lily White and Adam Burton’s hilarious Klauzz with Cleopatra’s attendants Iras (Samantha Young) and Charmian (Hannah Young) performing a German electro pop routine. Jonjo O’Neill performed Mr Bo Jangles and Simone Saunders sang Destiny. There were other appearances from ensemble members including Greg Hicks, Geoffrey Freshwater, Sandy Neilson, Patrick Romer, Sophie Russell and many more.

Gruffudd Glyn’s one man band was a lovely overview of life in the ensemble with some jokes that made sense to anyone following the long ensemble. The evening finished with the long ensemble on stage together.

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Further Information

http://www.rsc.org.uk/revealed/

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/1623123/3d956800543b3f2a9fb4bf27e5daf8a8

 

Julie Raby2 Comments

Best of 2010

Theatre: Shakespeare

1. Romeo and Juliet (RSC).

2. King Lear (RSC).

3. As You Like It (West Yorkshire Playhouse).

4. Measure for Measure (Almeida).

5. The Winter’s Tale (RSC/Roundhouse).

6. Henry IV part 2 (Globe).

7. Macbeth (Globe).

8. Antony and Cleopatra (RSC).

9. Antony and Cleopatra (Liverpool Playhouse).

10. Hamlet (The Crucible, Sheffield).

11. King Lear (Donmar).

12. Henry VIII (The Globe).

13. The Tempest (Old Vic).

14. As You Like It (Old Vic)

15. Macbeth (Belt Up/York Theatre Royal).

Theatre: Not Shakespeare

1. Jerusalem (Apollo).

2. After the Dance (National).

3. An Enemy of the People (Sheffield Crucible).

4. Women Beware Women (National).

5. London Assurance (National).

6. Enron (Theatre Royal, Newcastle)

7. The Habit of Art (National Theatre).

8. Corrie! (Lowry, Salford)

9. The Real Thing (Old Vic).

10. Canterbury Tales (West Yorkshire Playhouse/Northern Broadsides).

11. La Bete (Comedy Theatre).

12. Death of a Salesman (West Yorkshire Playhouse).

13. Three Sisters (Lyric, Hammersmith).

14. The Misanthrope (Comedy Theatre)

15. Beating Berlusconi. (York Theatre Royal).

  

Exhibitions

1. Gauguin (Tate Modern).

2. Van Gogh (Royal Academy).

3. Renaissance drawings (The British Museum).

4. The Book of the Dead (British Museum).

5. Venice. Canaletto and his rivals. (The National Gallery).

6. Sargent and the Sea (Royal Academy).

7. Rude Britannia (Tate Britain).

8. Summer Show (Royal Academy).

9. Beatles to Bowie (National Portrait Gallery).

10. Chris Ofili (Tate Britain).

  

Books

1. Andrea Levy The Long Song.

2. Hilary Mantel – Wolf Hall.

3. AS Byatt – The Children’s Book.

4. Rose Tremain – Trespass.

5. Colm Toibin Brooklyn.

6. Ian McEwan  Solar.

7. Paul Magrs Diary of a Doctor Who Addict.

8. Tony Blair The Journey.

9. Kate Atkinson Started Early, Took My Dog.

10. Alexander McCall Smith The Double Comfort Safari Club.

TV

1. Coronation Street –  especially for Jack’s Death and the Live episode (ITV).

3. Ashes to Ashes (BBC1).

4. Doctor Who – The End of Time part 2 (BBC1).

5. Doctor Who – especially for the eleventh hour (BBC1).

6. Downton Abbey (ITV1)

7. I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here (ITV1).

8. Macbeth (BBC 4).

9. Luther (BBC1).

10. Silent Witness (BBC 1).

and my guilty pleasure of the year

Peter Kay at the Studio, Lowry (and again at the Manchester Evening News Arena).

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Romeo and Juliet (Theatre Royal, Newcastle and York)

Two productions of the same play in Theatre Royals in the North of England, yet very different experiences.

In the past month, I have had chance to revisit the RSC’s production of Romeo and Juliet in Newcastle and have seen the Pilot Theatre’s production of the same play in York. Having seen both productions so close together, I wanted to think about them at the same time.

The biggest difference between the two productions is clearly that the creative team working on the RSC production have had the opportunity really fine tune it, as the production has already been running for six months. The work that has gone into the production shows in its transfer to Newcastle. In addition, the RSC production has benefited from the actors working together for some time as part of the RSC’s long ensemble, which has an impact on how they relate and respond to each other.  In contrast the York production is an example of a fresh approach to the text, with some raw edges, from a company who have met recently just for this production.

The RSC production started its life on the Courtyard Theatre thrust stage. When I saw it for the first time, I felt it was the best thing coming out of the RSC long ensemble (first seen 17th May). In moving to Newcastle, the production has had to transfer from the thrust stage to a proscenium arch stage, and there were many things that had changed in Newcastle in order to take the space into account.  In many ways it is the creation of the distance from the audience  which has also strengthened this particular production. Indeed, the new space highlights the aesthetic  more than the space in Stratford did.  For example, one of things that makes this production so engaging is the way it references film and other media, such as the fight in the opening scene and the masked ball. Both scenes use slow motion to great effect, and are more effective being played in the stage frame. Other features which work well on the Newcastle stage is the reflection of the rose window on the stage when the audience enters the auditorium and it is very clear in the dark cube of the stage area.  Seen from the front across a smaller stage, the chapel within the inner stage is stunning .  There are some additions in Newcastle, one of the nicest is Jonjo O’Neill taking advantage of  the proscenium arch stage to play to the whole audience and  serenade them with a few snatches of Chris de Burgh.  His Mercutio is just as impressive in Newcastle, as it was in Stratford, and I think it is the best performance in the role that I have ever seen.  In moving the fights up stage, and from the raised platform centre stage,  there is a greater emphasis on Mercutio’s surprising and shocking death.  Sam Troughton’s Romeo is laddish and a very exciting  portrayal.  In the balcony scene, he hides amongst the audience as he observes Juliet enter her balcony.  In this case the whole audience become  trees which is a little amusing.  However, this is one thing that was lost for me in the transfer and it was some of the intimacy with the actors that the thrust stage brought. For example, in the Courtyard Theatre, Sam Troughton speaks his lines in the balcony scene from the front of stalls and when I saw it, he actually sat next to me at this point in the play.   Having to climb up steps and go onto the stage takes away that moment he has to be close to the audience.

In contrast, the Pilot version made use of flowers on the stage which were shaped into heart at the start of the play. It was in modern dress production, which made it feel very current for the young audience that was in the night I saw it, who cheered and applauded with delight at the end.  I liked the use of the neon window and the way it became the cross and chapel towards the end of the play.  However, the combination of dress from different historical periods used in the RSC production is very powerful and illustrates the gulf between the generations, but also that sense of the play itself travelling through time and constantly being replayed worked very well for me, especially seeing it again in a different theatre (I discuss this more in my original blog).

The strap line for the Pilot Theatre promotion is ‘Kiss by the book’. I think that the way this line is delivered was one of the things that really illustrated how far the RSC version has benefited from the long ensemble approach. Mariah Gale makes so much more of the line, giving it a real poignancy and establishing the personalities of her Juliet and Sam Troughton’s Romeo that play through the rest of the action.  Indeed, Mariah Gale’s performance is a fantastic performance which is getting even better with time.

Further Information

Pilot Theatre

RSC Romeo and Juliet

Reviews of RSC version

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