2011

In 2011, the sublime was a popular topic of discussion. At the National Theatre there was Frankenstein and  in the John Martin exhibition at the Tate, the sublime was on show in a spectacular way. The John Martin exhibition was my favourite exhibition of the year. The epic was presented on grand canvases, but what I loved was getting really close to the paintings to see the detail. Earthly worlds melted into fantastical worlds and where one started and the other finished it was really hard to see.  I missed out on seeing Jonny Lee Miller as the creature, but glad I got to see Benedict Cumberbatch in the role in April.

Though I was delighted by the great John Martin exhibition on a trip to Manchester, I was also impressed by the Ford Maddox Brown exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery. It was good to see other works alongside Work.

The Royal Shakespeare Company came home to perform in the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre in February.  Some of the productions that I liked  in 2011 were at the end of the long ensemble’s run, but I also looked forward to what the new company arriving.  In Stratford, there seemed to be so many ‘opening’  nights that every time I went to Stratford was some kind of event – the first night, the press night, and the queen opening the new theatre.  I was lucky to get tickets to see Katy Stephen play Cleopatra in a much more stripped down emotional version of the long ensemble’s Antony and Cleopatra  in the Swan theatre.  When the opening nights were over, the last night of the long ensemble seemed to happen so quickly.  The last day  that the long ensemble performed in Stratford was a great occasion because I saw three plays in a day and the last time I would see Rupert Goold’s Romeo and Juliet.  The long ensembles’ last work in Britain was three new plays at Hampstead Theatre.

Kathryn Hunter’s Cleopatra got mixed reviews. It was a performance I had grown to like, and I was so pleased I got to see her in Kafka’s Monkey in July. This was a polished and extraordinary piece of physical theatre.

The new company arrived at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre with a Macbeth and a thought-provoking Merchant of Venice. The critics seemed to prefer A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but out of the three main house Shakespeare productions, I thought this was the least inventive and exciting.  This was a production with Bottom wearing his packed lunch in inventive ways as he sleeps with the fairy queen and which the real world transformed into the woods in such a way, we were meant to feel that elements of the court world were seeping into the dream world.  Michael Boyd’s Macbeth played with time and the souls of the dead haunting the stage.  Rupert Goold’s Merchant of Venice gave Portia a central role in a production set in Las Vegas.   However, the joy for me was the Homecoming at the Swan.  This was a beautifully nuanced piece of work and for me beautifully captured the tone and mood of play.

Beauty was on show in the Leonardo da Vinci exhibition at the National Galley and in Eddie Redmayne’s Richard II at the Donmar Warehouse. Unlike the John Martin exhibition it was so hard to get up clue to anything in the popular National Gallery show. It was so nice to be directed through the gallery past the other Renaissance pairings to the exhibition around the Last Supper.  I really enjoyed Redmayne’s performance as Richard falling apart in from to me.

In other Shakespearean productions, Kevin Spacey’s Richard III which was fantastic and brutal and The Tempest at the Haymarket was a little plodding with a nice performance from Nicholas Lyndhust.

I found the Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World (British Museum) fascinating, and  I felt that I should have enjoyed the Grayson Perry at the British Museum more than I did.  I was drawn to the Glamour of the Gods at the National Portrait Gallery, which is always a great place to visit before a matinée.

I saw five different production of Hamlet in 2011, starting the year with the wonderful production at the National Theatre, and finishing with Michael Sheen’s performance in the Young Vic’s production  which was set in a mental hospital.   The other Hamlets were the Northern Broadsides, the RSC Young Person’s wonderful production and the Globe’s touring production.

I saw three different Comedy of Errors.  The year with the magnificent all male Propeller  Company production in Sheffield and finished the year with the National’s lively production. Lenny Henry was spot on with the verse and the set really worked on the large Olivier stage. Though both these productions were superb, I also really liked the RSC Young Person’s version which I saw for the first time when it was last performed  in April.

Not all the cultural events have been memorable. In thinking about the past year, I’d totally forgotten about seeing Twelfth Night at the National Theatre until I heard someone on the radio saying that Charles Edwards was their choice for actor of the year. They reminded me that not only had he been a superb Benedick, but he’d also been a decent Sir Andrew in a dull production at the National Theatre.

Much Ado About Nothing scaffolded the year for me personally . It had been a long time since I’d seen a production, nd then two excellent, but very different productions came along. I loved the Globe’s detailed production and Eve Best’s wonderful performance as Beatrice. I was so surprised when she played the ‘Kill Claudio’ line for laughs. Over the river at the Wyndham’s Theatre was the commercial 1980’s concept production which I saw many times starting with the first night. It was great fun and the performances from David Tennant and  Catherine Tate were great and totally in context in this production. There was some comment that the audience only laughed because they saw David Tennant on stage, but when Alex Beckett took over from David Tennant for two nights the laughs came in the same places and it seemed the audience enjoyed the production and still gave it a standing ovation.

…..and my highlight of 2011 was Adam James’ Don Pedro in the Wyndham’s Much Ado About Nothing. It was a wonderful performance that seemed to catch the character so well.  James made everything look so easy, but actually it was his supporting performance that made it possible for Tate and Tennant to give great comic performances.

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Best of 2011

Here is my best of.. lists. The following post discusses what I thought about the year.

Shakespeare in the Theatre

1. Romeo and Juliet (RSC at the RST)

2. Much Ado About Nothing (Globe)

3. Hamlet (The National Theatre)

4. Much Ado About Nothing (Wyndham’s)

5.The Comedy of Errors (Propeller at Sheffield)

6. Antony and Cleopatra with Katy Stephens and Darrell D’Silva (RSC at the RST)

7. Macbeth (RSC)

8. The Merchant of Venice (RSC)

9. King Lear (RSC at the RST and Roundhouse)

10. Hamlet (Young Vic)

11. Othello (The Crucible, Sheffield)

12. As You Like It (RSC at Roundhouse)

13. Macbeth (Liverpool Everyman)

14. All Well That End’s Well (The Globe)

15. The Comedy of Errors (Young Person’s at RSC)

16. Hamlet (Northern Broadsides at West Yorkshire Playhouse)

17. Hamlet (Globe touring)

18. The Comedy of Errors (National Theatre)

19. Richard III (Old Vic)

20. Richard II (Donmar)

21. Hamlet (Young Person’s at RSC)

22.  King Lear (West Yorkshire Playhouse)

23.  The Tempest (Theatre Royal, Haymarket)

24.  A Midsummer Night’s Dream (RSC, RST)

25. Twelfth Night (National Theatre)

Other Theatre

1. Jerusalem (Apollo)

2. The Homecoming (RSC at the Swan)

3. Frankenstein (The National)

4. One Man, Two Guvnors (The Lowry)

5. Anna Christie (Donmar)

6. The City Madam (RSC, The Swan)

7. Dr Faustus (The Globe)

8. Betrayal (Harold Pinter/Comedy)

9. Inadmissible Evidence (Donmar)

10. Cardenio (RSC, The Swan)

11. Rosencrantz and Guldenstern are Dead (Haymarket)

12. Grief (The National)

13. 13 (The National)

14. Silence (RSC at Hampstead)

15. Little Eagles (RSC at Hampstead)

16. Season’s Greetings (National Theatre)

17. Juno and the Paycock (National)

18. Cause Célèbre (Old Vic)

19. Deep Blue Sea (West Yorkshire Playhouse)

20. Moonlight (Donmar)

21. The Crucible (York Theatre Royal)

22. The Heretic (Royal Court)

23. Forty Years On (York Theatre Royal)

24. American Trade (RSC at Hampstead)

25. Beggar’s Opera (Belt Up at York Theatre Royal)

Note: Forty Years On is here for proud Mum reasons.

Exhibitions

1. John Martin (Tate Britain)

2. Ford Maddox Brown (Manchester City Art Gallery)

3. Degas (Royal Academy)

4. Leonardo da Vinci (National Gallery)

5. Juma Plensa (Yorkshire Sculpture Park)

6. Glamour of the Gods (National Portrait Gallery)

7. Gerhard Ritcher (Tate Modern)

8. First Actresses (National Portrait Gallery)

9. Miro (Tate Modern)

10. Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World (British Museum)

11. Gabriel Orozco (Tate Modern)

12. Watteau (Royal Academy)

13. Hokusai’s Great wave (British Museum)

14. Treasures of Heaven (British Museum)

15. Devotion by Design (National Gallery)

16. Royal Academy Summer Show 2012

17. Building the Revolution (Royal Academy )

18. Barry Flanagan (Tate Britain)

19. Grayson Perry (British Museum)

20. Tacita Dean (Tate Modern)

My great cultural moments of 2011

Meeting Sir Alan and Lady Ayckbourn

First night of Wyndham’s Much Ado About Nothing

Last night of Long Ensemble (2009-11) at Royal Shakespeare Theatre – Romeo and Juliet

First night of Long Ensemble (2009-11) at the opening of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre – King Lear

The performance of the year – Adam James as Don Pedro in Wyndham’s Much Ado About Nothing – just wonderful.

Edinburgh Festival

The RSC Ensemble Revealed at the Swan Theatre.

Best actor and actress

Best Actor – Adam James in Much Ado About Nothing (Wyndham’s)

Best Actress – Eve Best in Much Ado About Nothing (The Globe)

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Twelfth Night (National Theatre, 12th February 2011)

The National Theatre’s production felt like it was a GOOD polished clean production, without some of the roughness that makes a production not just a good, but an exciting and thought-provoking one.  It was the kind of production that didn’t leave me disappointed, on the other hand it didn’t leave me thinking about the text in ways that I hadn’t thought about before. Watching it, I thought that there was and overall aesthetic and the colours were clear and the lines were sharp throughout as if nothing was going to merge into anything else to create images that can be messy and surprising at the same time. Here was another woman playing a woman playing a man who wears her  hair long, and made me think of  Katy Stephens in the RSC’s As You Like It, where as an audience we see the character is a woman. I found the historical context and the costume very coherent as an overall theme, and it is a very different approach from the RSC mixing different period costume in productions. This was another production of Twelfth Night which focused on browns, reds and rusts, which seems to be a popular colour scheme for recent Twelfth Nights, with 2009 RSC and York Theatre Royal productions using similar shades.  The minimal design was very effective and didn’t detract from the focus which was the speaking..

The verse speaking was clear and well spoken. Maybe because I was listening for them, I really noticed the pauses at the end of each line when characters speak verse. I know that this is Peter Hall’s thing, and at times it did stress words and make sense, but at other times, it felt a little odd.  I know I could hear every word, but much of the play felt as if it was all pitched at the same level, but did highlight some of the intentional contrived speeches such as Orsino’s opening speech.

There were some nice moments.  I felt that the birdcage image in relation to Malvolio’s imprisonment was shocking and worked well, but I felt that there was nothing else in the production that related to this.  York Theatre Royal production had used this image for Olivia in their production and it was an ongoing theme which they worked with throughout.  I thought that Simon Callow and Charles Edwards did good jobs and Flinty Williams was a great Maria. You can’t help finding the drinking scenes funny and the tricking of Malvolio humorous, but the production didn’t seem to bring out the comedy in other places.

Now and again, seeing a production like this one, is Ok, but I wouldn’t want this to be my experience every week. I think the variety and diversity in which Shakespeare is performed at the moment adds to the joy of going to the theatre. I suppose I would say this is what I might expect, but some of the other productions I’ve seen recently – such as the National Theatre Hamlet, and Propeller’s Comedy of Errors – surprise me with something that I’m not expecting.

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Twelfth Night (The Courtyard Theatre, w/c 9th November 2009)

 
Twelfth Night at the Courtyard
The Courtyard before a performance of Twelfth Night. 'For the rain it raineth everyday'.

 

Outside in the town of Stratford it was raining every day.  Inside, the Courtyard Theatre, there is a promise of sunshine as the sun streams through the doors and windows across a dimmed stage and auditorium.  The play will commence in the dusky light of the moment when the day begins to turn to night and will oscillate through dark and light.   The  audience will be taken through moods of light and shade. 

When we enter the auditorium we are faced with  golden colours – reds, oranges and browns which are contrasted with the beautiful pastel yellow, peach and pink roses in  colours.  High above the worn wall, the blue sky has a splattering of clouds.  Two columns rise at the side of the stage, one broken and another an ionic column.  Slightly menacingly, there is a window high up is grilled as if we might be looking up at a prison window.  This is somewhere exotic, somewhere that is strating to crumble.  Possibly Turkey say some of the reviews.

Musicians come onto the stage for the pre-show and play enchanting music, and strangely, a wave breaks at the back of the stage and we know we are in Illyria.  Between the moments when we visit Orsino’s court for the first time and meet the shipwrecked Viola,  a dumb show is performed as Olivia, Maria, Malvolio and the priest, dressed in black, walk silently across the stage making us realise that death is a visitor in this play as well as the humour and the courtship games.

Greg Doran’s latest RSC production is a strong vibrant interpretation of the text.  Miltos Yerolemou is a marvellous Feste able to move between the two houses and making his living as a ‘corrupter of words’, and this is why he is so hurt, and so desperately pained by Malvolio’s ‘barren rascal’ comment and so shocked clearly put down.  Yerolemou is able to perform one of the most engaging pre shows I’ve seen as the audience return from the interval.  In getting the whole house clapping he lifts the mood and we  move straight into the sparring between the Fool and Viola.   There is another wonderful moment when Feste is able to dim the house lights with a click of his fingers.  In this scene outside the church, we are reminded that both Feste and Viola are both not what they seem and are able to interact with the audience in this way, as if we are now implicated in their different disguises.

Richard McCabe was a totally inebriated Sir Toby Belch, and his only real sober moment is the realisation that the trick on Malvolio has gone too far.  I felt that I became more unsympathetic to him as the play developed, especially as the maliciousness of the character, as well as the comedy, came over in McCabe’s performance.  Sir Toby was very clear to show his dislike of Sir Andrew and this was evident from their entrance, as he pulled faces and gestured behind Sir Andrew’s back.  Even, Maria can’t be in his company at the end of the play.   James Fleet was very funny as Sir Andrew. He was both pompous and sad at the same time, and unaware of his own self mockery.  He is pompous because he happily joined in with the disruption and sad because he was being gulled by Sir Toby and we knew he would never marry Olivia.  The drinking scene is set in a laundry so the three men (Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Feste) manage to find many things to make a noise with.  The overhearing scene is also painfully funny and the box tree, like a balloon basket, is just wonderful.

The two leading women were just superb.  Nancy Carroll was an articulate intelligent Cesario.  She doesn’t overdo the masculinity, but the men who wait on Orsino are clearly jealous of her Cesario.  Alexandra Gilbreath played the comedy in Olivia’s role beautifully.  At one point Olivia was able to shriek at Sir Toby while at the same time turning back to woo Cesario, and we are now watching a woman no longer grieving for her brother, but now sexually aware and in love.  Pamela Nomvete as Maria was also really good managing to get such a lovely balance between the light and dark moments she is involved in.

Richard Wilson was just how I thought he would be as Malvolio. He was really dry and he was funny.  I felt that this was a Malvolio who made me feel ill at ease.  When he wore his  yellow stockings, I felt embarrassed and uncomfortable.   Not because Richard Wilson didn’t portray this well, but I felt that this was one of his strength of his performance that the moments of silence and his physical presence were directed in such a way that they had an impact.  In the Sir Topaz scene he comes up through the trap, beautifully and ironically mirroring the moment that he enters Olivia’s laundry to put an end to the drinking scene.  As he was humiliated  by Sir Toby and co,  I felt the taunting of Malvolio made me uncomfortable as it is supposed to do, but I think this was particularly relevent due to Wilson’s performance. 

As soon as Orsino and Olivia meet they are battling with one and another and at one point, Orsino grabs a knife and threatens to kill Olivia.  This is not a funny moment, but one that is intended to make us realise that these two have never met and that all Orsino’s love was really being in the love with the idea of being in love.  His anger in his meeting with Olivia is actually shocking and unnerving

As it started, the play closes asking us consider the light and dark moments at the end of the play.  Why can Orsino can fall in love so easily with Cesario and mistakes Sebastian for her at the end of the play? The fool is locked out of the house, mirroring the moment Autolycus is locked out of this year’s RSC The Winter’s Tale.  He sings about the rain and I am thinking whether it is still raining outside.  The ones who lose in this play walk across the play.  Air Andrew has packed his bags.  Sir Toby and Maria have fallen out and we feel their’s will be a loveless marriage. Malvolio, mirroring the dumb show at the start, walks slowly across the stage, but this time he is alone, and as he leaves he turns to look at Feste.  It’s a poignant moment and ends the play really well.

The lights dim and yes it is pouring with rain outside the theatre.

Reviews and Previews

RSC Twelfth Night – Michael Billington review
Coventry Telegraph Preview of RSC Twelfth Night
The Stage / News / Wilson to star in RSC’s Twel…
Best of Theatre Autumn 2009 in The Times
RSC Twelfth Night in The Evening Standard
RSC Twelfth Night in The Independent
WOS Review of RSC Twelfth Night
Playbill News: Richard Wilson to Play Malvolio …
Telegraph on RSC Twelfth Night
The Stage / News / Wilson to star in RSC’s Twel…
The Stage review of Twelfth Night at Stratford
The Times review of Twelfth Night
Independent on Sunday RSC Twelfth Night
BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Wilson poised to mak…
Financial Times on the RSC Twelfth Night
Wilson Leads RSC Twelfth, Cooke Revives Arabian…

Peter Kirwin’s blog on RSC’s Twelfth Night

Julie Raby3 Comments

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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