1984 – Liverpool Playhouse – 29/10/2013

“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever.”

It is some years, no - sorry - make that some decades, since I read Orwell’s 1984, but it is hard to forget the key elements of what might now be seen almost as prophetic rather than the dystopian vision it has long been sold as.

In this new stage adaptation created for Headlong and Nottingham Playhouse by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan our memories of the story, whether real or borrowed, can only serve to heighten the sense of tension and suspense that gradually builds in the theatre.

The curtain rises on Chloe Lamford’s set, which gives the feel of some shabby civic office or institutional space from somewhere in the last century - the kind of place we might find in the neglected recesses of a solid old town hall. The tiled suspended ceiling has been folded up at a steep angle to create a surface that doubles as a screen onto which live images are projected simultaneously with the action onstage, beginning with a picture of Winston Smith’s hand as he begins to write a journal.

Most of the cast are wired for sound so that their voices can at times be projected at us through speakers along with these images, underlining the idea that everything is being watched via the telescreens. Unreality looms heavy as we are pulled back and forth from scene to scene by this audio-visual device as well as a dynamic lighting and sound plot by Natasha Chivers and Tom Gibbons. There are blinding lights and washes of ominous electronic and percussive sound that sweep over us in scene transitions.

We are meant to feel unsettled, as most of the characters certainly appear to be, going about their repetitive day-to-day and occasionally repeating the same lines and actions too. A trolley of Victory Gin wheeled increasingly mechanically round the stage as others polish imagined furniture among the dusty shelves and numbered doors.

A large and meticulously rehearsed cast create far more characters than seems possible, but this too adds to the general sense of unease as the plot creeps gradually upon us through the performance’s unbroken 100 minute span.

Tim Dutton as O’Brien and Hara Yannas as Julia give strong pivotal performances here. Dutton oozes urbanity in his earlier appearances but becomes increasingly sinister as time passes, eventually becoming a figure of menace. Yannas, conversely, begins as a mysterious figure who we are reluctant to trust but gradually draws us in.

Mark Arends in the central role of Winston Smith, however, surely has the heaviest weight to carry. An interesting casting choice here. Orwell used terms like “fattish” and “devoted drudge” to describe Smith, while Arends is sharp-eyed and very slight in build. He gives a tremendous portrayal of pent-up nervous energy and certainly embodies the idea of an internal tension that becomes visible. He plays the part as an intellectual determined to fight against any kind of oppression. His persistent resolve to hold on to his knowledge and beliefs becomes unbearable.

The transformation scenes that lead to our eventual arrival in Room 101 are truly terrifying pieces of staging, made all the more visceral by the long, gradual build-up of tension and suspense and the fact that the piece is played through without an interval ensures we are never let off the hook. One great theatrical moment is the reveal in which we finally see that Winston and Julia’s secret meeting place is far from private.

Many scenes are played out almost in the manner of some of the great stage illusionists, and there are moments where we are left wondering whether we actually saw what we believe we have seen.

Robert Icke’s last appearance at the Playhouse was in the in-house production of the Alchemist, and those who saw that piece will recognise the ability to convey claustrophobic settings and desolate space, both in his direction and in the staging concept.

I still have an indelible image of Mark Arends atop a staircase as Malcolm, as the lights cut to black on the closing night of Macbeth at the old Everyman – then he played a dignified and statesmanlike role. I suspect I may struggle to erase the memory of him as Winston too, but for different reasons. Here he carries the emotional weight of a highly concentrated adaptation of this disturbing tale and does so with a fearless passion.

Brace yourself and hold on to your seats – this is powerful stuff.

1984 runs at the Liverpool Playhouse until Saturday 2nd November 2013, and there are very few seats remaining, so hurry if you want to catch it here.

The production continues its tour at the Sherman Theatre Cymru from 5th to 9th November and West Yorkshire Playhouse from 12th to 16th November. It will transfer to the Almeida Theatre Islington from 8th February to 29th March 2014

Verdi, Rachmaninov & Prokofiev – Royal Liverpool Philharmonic –24/10/2013

Two RLPO debut artists featured in this concert, performed on two consecutive nights at Philharmonic Hall and including music that is all very familiar here from past seasons.

Lise de la Salle joined the Liverpool orchestra for her first time to perform Rachmaninov’s first piano concerto. This is a youthful and passionate work but not played as often as its siblings, although it has all the charm and romantic sweep of the later concertos if not quite the same epic scale. Cherbourg born De la Salle brought a typically French flair to her reading, which made the most of its drama and excitement in the two outer movements and had plenty of warm-hearted elegance in the andante. She has remarkable power in her delicate frame and never allowed the orchestral forces to overwhelm the piano.

Accompanying her, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic were conducted by Joshua Weilerstein, also making his Liverpool debut in these two concerts. Although still only 26 he has held a post as an assistant conductor with the New York Philharmonic since May 2011 and has worked with an impressive list of orchestras. In the Rachmaninov he brought plenty of fire from the players whilst, as mentioned above, never swamping his soloist.

Weilerstein’s concert opener was a grand statement of intent for the evening to come. The overture to Verdi’s Nabucco was delivered in a turbo-charged account with blazing brass. Normally rather more understated, the overture would have set a waiting cast of singers into a panic in the opera house at this breakneck pace, but as a concert overture it was just what was needed to convince us of the rapport he had built with the orchestra.

The conductor had chosen to assemble his own suite of 11 extracts from Prokofiev’s ballet score for Romeo and Juliet in such a way as to form a pleasing span that filled the second half of the programme. It was good to hear a balanced mix of popular numbers interspersed with some more often only heard from the theatre pit.

This performance brought an almost cinematic feel to Prokofiev’s music. There were clear and well-articulated rhythms and the orchestral balance was well judged so that we could hear the detail even in some of the most heavily scored passages. It was also noticeable that Weilerstein was making the most of the hall’s acoustic, allowing space and resonance. It would be unfair to single out individual instrumental performances with such fine playing from all departments, and the conductor took care to acknowledge each section during the enthusiastic applause.

Joshua Weilerstein and the members of the Orchestra appeared to have enjoyed working together and it would be good to see the pairing again in future seasons.

The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic recorded a disc of over 20 extracts from Romeo and Juliet with Libor Pešek some 20 years ago and this remains available to buy online in both CD format and as a digital download.

On the One Hand – Liverpool Playhouse Studio – 16/10/2013

“Inside I am who I’ve always been, but then I look in the mirror and...”

Celebrating ten years as a company, The Paper Birds’ current production evolved out of two projects, one working with a group of over 55 year olds in Leeds and the other a commission from Northern Stage.

This compact but concentrated 75 minute play focuses around two main threads, the process of ageing and the ways in which people are compartmentalised, stereotyped and squeezed into boxes – often the wrong shape for them – as a result of the expectations of others.

This latter concept becomes clear from the outset. The set looks more than usually like a designer’s model-box, with various rooms and environments awkwardly squashed and suspended within a rectangular box. We are admitted only 5 minutes before the start, and it soon becomes clear why, as the actors too are squashed awkwardly into the set, emerging as if from the womb as the play begins.

On stage we see only 4 of the cast of 5 actors with the fifth, Sarah Berger, playing her part entirely as a voice-over. She plays an actress of 50 who has reached an age where she is considered to have the perfect face for radio, and now plays the nurse rather than Juliet.

The remaining cast begin with Hannah Lambsdown, a teen preparing for university, by turns sassy and insecure. Kylie Walsh also gives us a balanced view of confidence and doubt as Thirty, leaving her job to travel the world as a response to losing a close friend.

Tracy-Anne Liles is Forty. Of all the cast she is manipulated the most by the world around her. The way in which she is cajoled into playing other parts that nobody else is prepared to accept mirrors her character’s difficulties. There is humour here in the absurdity of her own somewhat banal product that she finds herself promoting on QVC to her acute embarrassment. In the end, though, it is her repeated submission to being whatever those around dictate to her that is most telling.

Whilst the very juxtaposition of all the characters is redolent of the process of ageing, it is Illona Linthwaite in the dual roles of Sixty and Elderly who portrays this aspect of the play most directly. Sixty is struggling to keep all the plates spinning with the opposing demands of work, money, arthritic hands and an elderly mother developing dementia and preparing to move to a care home.

There is a sort of inevitability that she will also play Elderly, the mother, but despite this the transformation is spectacular. On one occasion Sixty stands speaking to an empty chair – her mother – and then sits down. In this very movement, within inches of the audience, she ages 20 years and becomes the mother. Elderly, despite her mental and physical challenges, becomes the most free of all the women as she recalls the past and rejoices in the memories she has left, ultimately showing us a moment of simple delight.

It is a piece with women depicting women and this is reflected in the audience demographic, but this is a play about people and perceptions and has something to say to all of us, whatever our gender or age.

Watching On the One Hand I caught glimpses of my mother and grandmother, my brother, my father and, most of all, myself – over and over again. It is poignant, funny, heartbreaking and surreal and demanding of houses filled with a capacity audience - of all ages and both sexes.

Following hard on the heels of Monkey Bars that played this space a couple of weeks ago, this is the second piece to use verbatim material in its text. The former was entirely made from the words of children, the current simply includes passages or fragments observed, overheard or transcribed, but in both cases it brings a realism and immediacy to the finished result. As a pair they could hardly have been better chosen to follow one another, as they both have a clever way of reflecting back at us some of our deepest loves, fears, motivators and prejudices.

On the One Hand ends its run at Liverpool Playhouse Studio with two more performances today and then, after a break, will appear at WestYorkshire Playhouse from 21st to 23rd November 2013 and at Live TheatreNewcastle from 4th to 6th December.

 

Monkey Bars – Liverpool Playhouse Studio – 02/10/2013

One of the things I think about is, like, what is up with our generation?

Record the conversations of children then put their words into the mouths of adult actors and what do you get? Monkey Bars.

Karl James, director of The Dialogue Project, recorded and transcribed candid conversations between groups of children aged seven to ten years. Chris Goode then assembled a team of six actors and worked with these transcripts to turn them into a 75 minute piece of theatre.

The conversations and occasional short monologues use the children’s words verbatim, but the situations they represent have been mapped onto parallel adult encounters to produce something that it by turns funny, moving and sometimes just a little disturbing.

Philip Bosworth, Angela Clerkin, Christian Roe, Gwyneth Strong, Cathy Tyson and Gordon Warnecke make a great team and have carefully studied the manner of performing the text in all its word-for-word glory in a very adult way, whilst allowing us to see the children that live inside them to shine out through their eyes.

Two colleagues relaxing over a drink after work but unable to stop the one-upmanship, a woman in a high pressure job interview, two chaps mulling over the ills of today’s society – these are just a few of the situations played out but scripted with children’s dialogue. We begin (after a warm-up of a boy singing to a plate of jelly) with some musings about how lovely it is to live near a nice quiet park and end wondering what it feels like to be an adult, while in between we marvel at the things that go through the minds of early 21st century children.

I grew up in a world where childhood meant innocence, with three channels of television (that closed down at night) and a transistor radio. In the new millennium children are bombarded from all sides in a world that is a multimedia experience – nothing is hidden from them and they seem to have knowledge of subjects that me and my contemporaries would never have dreamed nor had nightmares about. There’s something rather unsettling about the words of a young boy who makes a point of watching all the news reports about war because he feels he has a duty to know about it.

There’s a point where Christian Roe stands on a box and describes some of the things that make him scared. As he squeezes his eyelids shut and searches for a happy thought to hold back the tears, I defy anyone not to be touched by it.

The stage set by Naomi Dawson is elegant simplicity – just some illuminated cubes that can be reconfigured about the performance space to create the various situations. Chris Goode’s neatly assembled soundtrack along with deft lighting by Colin Grenfell provides some additional signposting to help set each scene.

It fitted beautifully into the Liverpool Playhouse Studio (the longest stop on the tour, with a week of performances) and proximity to the stage makes the most of seeing the actors’ facial expressions in detail. Don’t be shy – there’s no audience participation!

This is an hour and a quarter that will fly past joyously, send you home with a smile on your face and keep you thinking afterwards. Beg, borrow or do something desperate to get a ticket.

Monkey Bars is currently midway through a national tour and future dates are at Sheffield Theatres Studio – 14th & 15th October 2013, The Theatre, Chipping Norton – 17th October, mac, Birmingham – 23rd October, Sherman Theatre, Cardiff – 24th & 25th October, Theatre Royal Margate – 29th October, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh – 31st October to 2nd November, The Arches, Glasgow – 5th & 6th November, Lincoln Performing Arts Centre – 7th November and ArtsDepot, North Finchley – 12th November 2013

Pictured below: Philip Bosworth, Christian Roe & Angela Clerkin - Picture © Richard Davenport

The Master and Margarita – Unity Theatre Liverpool – 4th October 2013

Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel nearly never saw the light of day. He famously burned the original manuscript and then his second manuscript remained unpublished until 26 years after his death, even then in a heavily cut and censored version.

Since then, it has refused to remain hidden, having not only become extremely highly regarded as a novel but having also been adapted many hundreds of times for the stage and screen.

More than a hundred characters and numerous interlocking lines of plot present seemingly endless challenges and opportunities to theatre companies to find ways of staging it. Contemplating doing so in the intimate 150 seat Unity Theatre, though, where the lighting grid is barely 15 feet above the stage could be thought of as either very brave or slightly mad.

All the more reason to rate the result as a tremendous triumph for the Liverpool based Lodestar Theatre Company.

This production is an experience akin to stepping through the canvas of a Magritte painting and finding the cast of Monty Python living there.

A cast of eight actors are assisted in playing their multiple roles with some ingenious and creative use of video projections of themselves (with some parts pre-recorded on a blue-screen and overlaid on the set) and by some imaginative and occasionally hilarious costume changes.

Joseph England, Simon Hedger, Jack Quarton and Hannah Gover (as the feline Behemoth in full-face prosthetic makeup) gave particularly fine performances. I would like to single out others too, but the programme design uses such a stylised typeface that in some cases makes deciphering the cast names a challenge at best, but suffice to say that they all deserve plaudits.

The staging is a masterclass in making the best use of space. How do you create multiple settings on an enclosed stage with no fly-loft without clunky, time consuming shifting of lots of scenery? Digital Artist Adam York Gregory and animator Colin Eccleston have worked with Video Mapping artist Gray Hughes to create a virtual set, which transforms itself elegantly from scene to scene.

How many of the cast or crew would be old enough to remember him I don’t know, but I was oddly reminded of the remarkable Robert Harbin who I recall from the TV in my childhood. Harbin was famous for two things – as a creator and performer of stage illusions (the David Copperfield of his day) and for popularising the art of Origami to the masses.

On the stage was a structure looking as though it may have been an origami exercise; a collection of irregular geometric shapes incorporating a series of entrances and exits and finished entirely in white. It was onto these surfaces that the video-mapped set designs and animations were projected, creating a world that melted and coalesced as we globetrotted through the story. In front of this backdrop the cast performed a similar series of visual tricks and sleights of hand that added to the illusory nature of the tale.

The finishing layer of gloss on this production is a sweeping musical score created by Composer David Ben Shannon and Musical Director Jack Quarton, the latter appearing in character at one point playing an accordion. An early tweet from the company during rehearsals said that the theatre sounded as though they had hired the Phil from round the corner, and I can see what they mean. Adding to this the well-chosen pieces of Shostakovich that are used for the pre and post-show music and I think Vasily Petrenko would feel quite at home in the Unity this week.

The play was adapted and directed here by Max Rubin, who clearly loves the book and has gone all out to capitalise on the surreal and comedic aspects of it, while never losing sight of its satirical bite.

The second of two ambitious adaptations of classic Russian novels to hit our Liverpool stages this month, The Master and Margarita plays at Unity One until Saturday 12th October. Performances are selling out fast, so grab a ticket while you can.

Contact www.unitytheatreliverpool.co.uk or call 0844 873 2888 or 0151 709 4988 for details and ticket sales.

Crime and Punishment – Liverpool Playhouse – 01/10/2013

Let’s have some toast and talk about murder.

Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov is not a man to mess with - he has an axe and some challenging views on morality.

Chris Hannan’s new adaptation distils the well over 500 pages of Dostoyevsky’s novel into just shy of 100 pages of play-text. I say distils rather than condenses, as what he has set out to capture here is what he believes to be the essence of the book. Members of the cast I have spoken to all seem to hold Chris in high reverence for the words he has given them. In his interview for the programme notes he describes the book as spiritual more than political, and the play certainly offers us a series of deeply philosophical arguments.

We became suddenly acquainted with the rear wall of the Playhouse stage a year ago, in the closing scene of Colin Richmond’s designs for the Alchemist. For Crime and Punishment, Richmond has taken this wall as the canvas for his backdrop, in front of which he has created a stark, distressed, atmospheric space for the performance, with scene changes able to take place fluidly, keeping the action moving at a pace.

A ten-strong cast not only play multiple roles but also create the soundscape that underpins the drama. A variety of instruments and sound-effects, from drums, pianos and bass through to rattling buckets, are ranged about the rear of the stage, where the cast remain throughout when they are not in a speaking role, forming a chorus, who watch and interact with the spectacle before them.

Try to congratulate Adam Best on his performance and he will shrug and try to deflect your attention to his colleagues, but his portrayal of Raskolnikov is genuinely mesmerising and I find myself at a loss for superlatives. This is a very complex character who, having decided that murder is his right and of benefit to all, spends the next two hours fighting with himself. You can see the inner punches as he reels and twitches about the stage and there is something terribly disturbing in his eyes.

He is right, though, in pointing to his fellow actors. It is very much an ensemble piece and there are many tremendous gems in this jewel box of characters. Cate Hamer is not only the drooling, ill-fated pawnbroker Alyona but among her other roles is the splendidly wrought Katerina Marmeladova, whose reaction to the accidental death of her husband is truly astonishing. George Costigan treads a fine line in balancing the comedy of Marmeladov whilst John Paul Hurley brings menace to his Ilya Petrovich. Obioma Ugoala gives a quiet solidity to Raskolnikov’s loyal friend Razumichin, and his considerable stature comes in useful in scenes where Adam Best becomes almost a rag doll in his hands.

Mabel Clements, Amiera Darwish, Chris Donald, Jessica Hardwick and Jack Lord complete the cast, and I could go on, but the list of their parts is seemingly endless. Suffice to say that the entire ensemble work together generously whilst producing a series of richly drawn characters.

I have already mentioned the sound design, in which Nikola Kodjabashia uses the cast members to perform his score, which is a sonic landscape that blends with Colin Richmond’s designs and Chris Davey’s lighting to create an atmosphere maintaining the tension and the ebb and flow of the narrative. Dominic Hill’s direction brings remarkable lucidity and an overarching architecture to the piece, and we do feel that we have travelled the troubled journey with the cast, rather than just sitting watching them play it out.

This is a hugely successful adaptation that very much achieves the sense of a piece written directly for the theatre.

As a postscript I can now add that I have become something of a glutton for this form of punishment, having returned to see it again a number of times since writing this blog posting, and it simply gets better with repeat viewings.

Crime and Punishment was co-produced by Citizen’s Theatre Glasgow, Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse and the Royal Lyceum Theatre Edinburgh.

It runs at Liverpool Playhouse until Saturday 19th October 2013 after which it transfers to Edinburgh from 22nd October to 9th November.

See the trailer here and visit www.everymanplayhouse.com for further details and ticket sales for Liverpool.

See www.lyceum.org.uk for ticket sales for Edinburgh.

Adam Best – Picture © Tim Morozzo

 

A Day of Pleasure – Liverpool Playhouse Studio – 27/09/2013

We have to believe in free will – we have no choice.

The 1960s was a good decade, it seems, as in the ’60s Stuart Richman was a founder member of the Liverpool Everyman and Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote his novel A Day of Pleasure. When Richman stumbled across a copy of the book in a Hoylake saleroom he fell in love with the stories it contained and has been crusading to bring them to life for new audiences.

He didn’t originally want to make a play out of it, and so it is with the very minimum of dramaturgy that the book found its way onto the stage of the Playhouse studio, with Stuart Richman portraying the author.

We meet Singer in his New York apartment in 1978. He is packing his bag and getting changed as he waits for a taxi for the airport en-route to Stockholm to collect the Nobel Prize for Literature. He muses that here he is, an old Yiddish writer - tomorrow he will be a Nobel Prizewinner and the day after that he will just be an old Yiddish writer again. His mind travels back to his childhood and for the next 90 minutes he relates reminiscences of growing up in Warsaw and memories of his neighbours on Krochmalna Street.

The tales he tells serve as modern parables and, like the very best theatre and storytelling, reflect on some of the great truths of life. “Life is God’s novel - let him write it” says Singer, but he provides all the illustrations in this kaleidoscope of a work. Sometimes moving, sometimes wryly humorous, but always compelling – Richman holds the audience in the palm of his hand throughout. I had an uncle who could tell a good tale, in which the line between fact and fiction became distinctly blurred, and there was much of the sense of sitting round the fire sharing tales from the past about this work that took me back to my own childhood.

In one story, a man carrying a wardrobe on his back was told that “…come the revolution you won’t be carrying that”. The man’s reply was to wonder whether, after the revolution, the closet would carry itself. I was immediately put in mind of a line being spoken downstairs in the main house in another play, running concurrently, (see “Melody Loses her Mojo”) in which a character says “We can’t all live the dream or there’ll be no-one left to empty the bins”. This serves to highlight for me the many ways in which theatre can continue to find new and different ways of underlining the realities of life.

This consummate demonstration of great, old-fashioned storytelling, directed by Neil Sissons, was played out in front of a beautifully detailed set designed by Anna Gooch and it ran in the Playhouse Theatre Studio for four performances only, from 26th to 28th September 2013. Useful Donkey Theatre Company, who produced it, hope to be touring the production in the spring of 2014, so watch out for further opportunities to see it near you.