The Tartuffe (York Theatre Royal, 2nd October 2009)

I have seen Belt Up before, but only in the Studio space at York Theatre Royal.  In their energetic production of  The Tartuffe, the company of young actors, use the whole of the auditorium and stage of the main house to great effect.  The audience loved this production, which explored the idea of playing and theatre, and immediately broke down the fourth wall and invited the audience to get on stage and join in the can can.  We were never sure if the character on stage was a character from the play, or an actor playing the actor of the character.   Indeed, at times it wasn’t clear who were actors and who were audience members of if actors had become members of the audience.

Belt Up are doing some exciting work.  They think carefully about the use of space and audience interaction.  That’s why I’m really looking forward to The Trail this week.  Not sure where though!

Reviews and Previews

The Trial (Belt Up) Guardian review
York Press on Trial and The Tartuffe

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The Winter's Tale (York Theatre Royal, 29th September 2009)

This was a lovely clear and very straight forward production with a focus on the text that brought Shakespeare’s words alive. It was without the set design frills (thrills) that the RSC production have adopted, and so stripped away some of the sense of a busy court. You have to do this with a small cast. However, this was used to great effect. Even though The Winter’s Tale deals with Kings and Queens, Headlong’s production is very domestic drawing attention to the intimacy of the situation and that this is a tragedy for both family and state. I think that Greg Hicks, playing Leontes in the current RSC production, is at the top of his game, but Vince Leigh in Headlong’s production did a great job with Leontes’ long complicated speeches. Unlike Simon Russell Beale’s portrayal of Leontes, there was no sense of where Leontes’ jealousy had come from.

At times I wasn’t clear where Sicilia and Bohemia where in this production, because there felt like there were lots of references to Greece in both countries. This isn’t really a problem, because I think Shakespeare intended his audience to see both as magical and distant worlds. The first half, set in Sicilia, gets darker and darker as the Queen is brought to trial before her husband. Her clothes are filthy becuase she has been in the prison and she is clearly exhausted after giving birth. As the tragedy has struck and when Leontes thinks both his wife and son is dead, the set goes black. And then suddenly there is a blue background and things lighten up for the sheep shearing scene. This production highlighted some of the parallels between both countries and parts of the play. The doubling up of Mamillius and Perdita worked really well. Both parts were played by Bryony Hannah and I really believed her portrayal of Mamillius was a young boy and that she is a beautiful sixteen year old ‘princess’ in the second half. I felt that here was a clear relationship between the trial scene and the statue scene. Hermione stands on the same overturned box and in both scenes is the becomes the focal point for the court. In the first the life is taken from her and in the second life is put back into her. John Hodgkinson was equally effective as both Antigonous and Autolycus and Golda Roshheuval played the stern Paulina wonderfully, but was also able to become the comic Shepherdess

I was delighted to see a large audience for this production. This production was part of the wonderful and energetic Takeover festival at York Theatre Royal. There’s so much good stuff to see each week.

Reviews and Previews

The Winter’s Tale in York Press
The Winter’s Tale at York Theatre Royal in York Press

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The Factory's Hamlet and Seagull Project (York Theatre Royal, 23rd, 24th Sept)

The Takeover Festival at York Theatre Royal is a breath a of fresh air.  The programme is really interesting and inviting.  However, I was wondering after seeing The Factory’s experimental Hamlet and Seagull Project that the regular audience at York Theatre Royal had the impression that the festival is not only run by young people but the programme was just for young people as well.  Yes there were some over 25s in the audience, but the majority of the audience when I attended on Wed and Thurs was a young audience.  This is great, because it is brilliant to see young people at the theatre, but I would have thought that The Factory’s work would appeal to a much wider audience.

The Hamlet works very closely with Shakespeare’s text to produce an interactive comedy.  I felt it wasn’t really about bringing new meaning to the play, but was more about interpretation and ways of playing.  This works really well in line with the theme of acting and playing that runs through the play. On the other hand, The Seagull Project’s focus is not on Checkov’s actual text, but on translation and improvisation. 

The audience for Hamlet are asked to bring props which the actors use in the production in inventive ways.  The night I went some people had brought toy ghosts but these were not used as the ghost of old Hamlet, instead a large doll which was very amusing.  The actors have to think very quickly about how they are going to use what they see in the audience.  The use of the props really shift the meaning of Shakespeare’s text.  For example, Ophelia’s remembrances from Hamlet was a darlek, which meant Ophelia could use a darlek sounding voice to answer Hamlet in the Nunnery scene.  There were two Hamlets at one point, but I wouldn’t read anything into this in terms of the text.    I liked the way the actors represented the fact that they were dead on stage giving a feeling of the dead walking amongst the living.

Hamlet was in the Studio space on the Friday night and though I didn’t see the production, I thought that this space would probably work better than the main stage.  The Company did inhabit the main theatre really well and didn’t forget to involve those in the Dress Circle.   The studio space is more intimate and the actors are closer to all the audience.  Hamlet and The Seagull Project are performances that you could go to over and over again and be sure to see something new and different on each occasion.

It’s brilliant to see such a large young cast working so well together.

Further Information

http://www.yorktheatreroyal.co.uk/cgi/events/events.cgi?t=template&a=501

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The Homecoming (York Theatre Royal, 17th June 2009)

I really find this play a difficult play to get to grips with. I am glad that I found it funny and strange and that I am still puzzled by the ending. Loved seeing the Theatre Royal production. Thought they did a great job. My memory was of the Peter Hall directed film before this. Now I think I will keep this in mind for some time. Thought the set worked well and the acting was wonderful. Mm pause for thought….

Previews and Reviews

The Homecoming, Press Report
The Homecoming – The Guardian Review
Preview: The Homecoming, York Theatre Royal, Ma…
The Homecoming – Nouse Report
The Stage review of The Homecoming
The Homecoming, Harold Pinter’s bleakly comic d…
The Homecoming in The Northern Echo
Interview: Pinter play that gives pause for tho…

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