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

Julie Raby1 Comment

Being there when…Was I at the opening of the RST this time?

When anyone says that they were at that last night of Wigan Casino, I always wanted to know what it was like, because being there on such a momentous occasion seemed really special. For example, I was fascinated to know how did it feel when the three before eight played for the last time?  I found out that the famous Northern Soul venue ended up having three last nights, and so being at the last night didn’t seem as awe inspiring as I first thought.  It is starting to feel a bit like this with the opening of the RST, and that even though I think I was at the opening night of the RST, and I would be able to talk about this for years to come, I was probably at one of many opening nights. There was an opening last November (which I wasn’t at), and then there was the RSC coming home on 23rd February 2011, when the Company performed King Lear. Last Friday (4th March), I managed to get returns to see Katy Stephens (taking over from Kathryn Hunter) play Cleopatra in the newly opened Swan and found myself at another opening of the RST. This time the Queen was visiting and apparently she unveiled a plaque, saw Sam Troughton and Mariah Gale perform the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet, and had lunch in the Rooftop Restaurant.

I had expected to see one Queen in performance and found myself catching a glimpse of another dressed in cerise as she undertook a brief walkabout outside the new RST.  Not far behind her, I spotted Artistic Director, Michael Boyd and Associate Greg Doran dressed very smartly in suits.  I think the last time I saw the Queen was in 1977, the year of Sex Pistols ‘God Save the Queen’ and the Silver Jubilee.

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In coming home to the Swan, Antony and Cleopatra has had to be adapted for a new space and the creative team had opted for a minimalist stage set.  Gone was Cleopatra’s accent, her many costume changes and Mardian’s wig. The rustic metallic tower had also disappeared and the staging utilised the rawness of the theatre itself as the backdrop worked very well. In the Swan you can still hear actors creeping behind the audience to make their entrances and exits, one of the features that made the Courtyard a little special.

Not everyone has swapped round as they did when Katy Stephens played the role in Newcastle, but Greg Hicks is  still understuding Thidias and still giving a fantastic performance. I know that when a company has to use understudies, there is more doubling than usual, but some of the doubling in this production doesn’t work for me. Maybe it is because I  have followed this long ensemble for its two years and can now easily recognise actors, and start to question why is Mardian in Rome? Why is the Soothsayer taking notes? Why is Octavia fighting for the Romans (and at one point why is she in Egypt)? Why does Scarus change sides so often?

Katy Stephens made a really good job of playing Cleopatra and presented her own Cleopatra, which wasn’t an impression of Kathryn Hunter’s physical performance. This was a much more confident performance than the one that Katy Stephens gave in Newcastle, when she had to go on at short notice. She played up Cleopatra’s sexuality and emotional vulnerability very well. Katy Stephens is very good at producing wet eyes and she managed to present this here as well. I think that there was a chemistry between her and Darrell D’Silva’s Antony. Their eventual  deaths were very powerful and this was the first time I saw this production and felt sad at the end.

“Remember if e’er thou look’dst on Majesty”.

Julie Raby2 Comments

The RSC comes home

23rd February 2011. The RSC are coming home.

There is no fanfare or long speeches, but there is an energetic buzz moving across the audience for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s first night in the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre.  This was what they called a soft opening.

Nearly 7:15 pm Edgar (Charles Aitken) is already on stage. I can just glimpse Katy Stephens waiting to make her entrance …. the machinery creaking and clanging in the background cranks up, the three sisters start their slow entrances onto the stage and King Lear begins all over again.

Though we were seeing a preview and this was obviously an opportunity to make sure the lighting and the sound is right for the new space, the production itself was so well rehearsed that there was a sense that all should go well. This production started its journey in Stratford a year ago and has travelled back via  Newcastle and the Roundhouse in London.  The performances are all polished and sharp now. Samantha Young’s is a steady Cordelia, Katy Stephens and Kelly Hunter make the other two sisters so very different from each other. Greg Hicks plays Lear as a man who mocks old age, teasing and being teased by his daughters as the play begins, and his own playful  entrance through the audience as effective as it always was.  Geoffrey Freshwater is very solid as the trusting naive Gloucester, shocked that his own son, Cornwall and Regan turn on him. There are also some very strong performances from other members of the long ensemble. I always enjoy watching Philip Edgerley as the servant grabbing a quick smoke outside. Gloucester’s home. Darrell d’Silva is an energetic Kent, and James Tucker is great as the haughty and condescending  Oswald who ultimately makes the wrong choice about who to follow.

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Antony and Cleopatra, Part 1 (The Courtyard Theatre, Theatre Royal Newcastle May to October 2010)

When I saw Antony and Cleopatra in Stratford, I felt that Artistic Director, Michael Boyd’s vision of  the RSC ensemble and how it should be put into reality seemed to come to fruition in the production. The house lights are up for most of the production creating a real awareness of the audience watching.  The vomitaria are used a lot for entrances and exits.  Soldiers launched themselves from the circle into battle.  Actors who are experienced, and who have been cast in lead roles in other productions, were playing smaller parts.  These included Greg Hicks as the Soothsayer and Katy Stephens as a fascinating Eros who delights in the partying  and ends up firmly tied up in the tragedy.

The production starts with the dimming of the house lights and Antony and Cleopatra chasing each other onto the stage. Shifting the focus moves straight onto Antony and Cleopatra from the very beginning.  The loss of the Roman frame right at the start of the production changes the perspective of the scene.  Though the Romans do appear straight after to comment on the two lovers, this slight amendement, presents Antony and Cleopatra directly to the audience, rather than through the Roman eyes.  This is important because many of the negative comments about Cleopatra are from the mouths of the Romans, and by placing Antony and Cleopatra directly in the spotlight the audience are asked to judge them for themselves. The staging of the opening scene reminds me that in their most private moments, Antony and Cleopatra are never alone. We are watching as the Romans and the Egyptian court observe the fickleness and attraction of this relationship and by lighting the audience the public nature of the events is emphasised by widening the on stage audience to us.

I felt that the chemistry between Kathryn Hunter’s Cleopatra and Darrell D’Silva’s  Antony has become more evident as the production has developed over the past few months.  Together they highlight that this is the story of two older people who find each other very sexy, and can’t concentrate on anything but each other.  Just watch Enrobarbus’s (Brian Doherty)  reaction to Agrippa’s  (Geoffrey Freshwater) declaration that Antony should marry Octavia and hear his emphatic ‘never’ at the suggestion that Antony will now leave Cleopatra, to know how much Antony is really tied to his Egyptian queen.

The cigar smoking Antony is not at home in either Rome of Egypt.  He clearly loves the party and in this production Bacchus is his god.  Like the other Romans, he wears a suit in Rome but he looks very uncomfortable in it, so when he’s drinking on Pompey’s ship, he commands the scene wearing his little sailor hat to undermine the formality.  When he is in Egypt wearing his army uniform, he is the great soldier who can no longer win the battles.  His death is both tragic and comic at the same time.  I could weep when Eros kills himself instead of stab the dishonoured Antony, but feel frustrated that Antony cannot even kill himself.  In winching his dying bulk up to Cleopatra’s monument, the scene becomes comic.

Kathryn Hunter is not a stereotypical Cleopatra. She’s doesn’t try to mimic the  Elizabeth Taylor and Vivien Leigh view of Cleopatra.  As a small actress she uses her physical appearance to great effect.  Her moods are as changeable as her clothes, but her intelligence and quick wit come over well.  I like the accent and  her lines are spoken with passion and energy. Not one line is underplayed.  .

It’s not just Kathryn Hunter and Darrell D’Silva that give strong performances in this production.  Their love affair is played out against a background of war and politics which span the ancient world and it is the very solid performances from the rest of the cast, and the excellent blocking of scenes, that make this production work so well.

The scene changes are cleverly thought through as they alternates between Egypt and Rome.  The moment when it looked like Pompey was pointing his gun at Caesar as the scene shifted from one place to another was brilliant.  The drinking scene taking place on Pompey’s ship is wonderfully staged, including dimming the lights and focusing on Menas as he reveals his murderous plot to Pompey.  Clarence Smith brings Pompey alive and we really feel he is so volatile and he could easily explode and break his pact with the three Romans  at any time.  The production also finds a solution to how do you stage a battle on stage?  The dance with the paper ships is very effective way of doing this.

Sandy Neilson’s Lepidus is unable to hold his drink and staggers and slurs in the drinking scene.  He delights at the crocodile story.  How strange the crocodile would have sounded to the Elizabethans?  The night on Pompey’s ship is the start of  his embarrassing downfall, which was exemplified as he was  placed in the spotlight above the stage the doors slowly closing on his to signal his execution.

John Mackay used his height to great effect when playing Octavius Caesar, making him seem uncomfortable in company and often having to lower his head as he entered centre stage.   He is emotional at the loss of his sister and unable to take his drink.  At the end of the play he is the sole ruler of the world.   Changing from the black polar neck to shirt and tie showed that even in his supposedly private moments he was still very self-aware of his image.  As an audience we are supposed to think that his feelings for Octavia is more than brotherly.  he displays fury at Antony’s betrayal and he recounts the messengers stories of Antony’s behaviours  in Egypt with great clarity and anger. 

Paul Hamilton’s messenger contributes to one of the highlights of the production.  Terrified of the knife wielding, gun firing Cleopatra, he sticks to his text the best way he can.  His determination to give his message shows that there is an etiquette around messengers and that’s why the beating of  Thidias later in the play is brutal and humiliating .

I’m always amazed by Phillip Edgerley’s character acting and that he can look so different.  His  Menas and his  Proculeius were like chalk cheese – the ruffian pirate and the smart  Roman diplomat.

One thing I find a little confusing was Sophie Russell  doubling up as Octavia and a Roman soldier.  Clearly this wasn’t intended to mean Octavia was alos a Roman soldier, but could be taken that way.

I saw this production in Stratford and Newcastle and like the other long ensemble productions it has benefited from its development through time.  I really sat on the fence when it came to saying whether I liked or not.  I was unsure whether I found it engaging or not, because I had such mixed feelings about it.  However, every time I saw it, I went away thinking a lot about it.  I think now I’m hooked.  What felt, at first, like a slow bland first half has speeded up and the episodic nature of the play in its shifts between Rome and Egypt are highlighted to great effect.

My next blog discusses the matinée performance on Saturday 15th October when Katy Stephens played Cleopatra.

Reviews and Previews

RSC Antony and Cleopatra in The Times
RSC Antony and Cleopatra in Evening Standard
The Stage review of RSC Antony and Cleopatra
RSC Antony and Cleopatra in The Guardian
Antony and Cleopatra in the Observer (int with Kathryn Hunter)
Antony and Cleopatra in the FT
RSC Antony and Cleopatra Press Night delayed (The Stage)
RSC’s Antony and Cleopatra in The Telegraph
http://www.whatsonstage.com/reviews/theatre/london/E8831273655592/Antony+%26+Cleopatra+%28RSC%29.htm

Julie Raby3 Comments