The Absence of War – Liverpool Playhouse – 24/03/2015

"We need not waste time on the design of the envelope, so long as we trust the document inside"

Politicians thrive on conflict, and there’s nothing like a threat to national security to get them mounting their high horses but, in the absence of war, what is there to galvanise them to a cause and show their mettle?

Recent controversy over the relative willingness of various political leaders to take part in televised debate has once again made me despair that the people I want running the country are the ones with sound policies and the ability to carry them through, not those who polish up best and make good television personalities. I frankly couldn’t care less if an MP or a Prime Minister looks smart and has slick answers for Jeremy Paxman, and I suspect that George Jones would agree with me.

George who? I hear you ask...

David Hare’s play is over 22 years old, but sadly the issues it raises seem almost more relevant today than when it first appeared shortly after the failure of Neil Kinnock’s Labour Party to win the 1992 election. Hare was keen at the time to state that his play was not a portrait of that election, albeit based on research he did during the campaign. It is nonetheless very hard not to see it that way in retrospect.

Moreover today’s audience would be forgiven for seeing more than a few parallels between George Jones and certain other people who are struggling with their public image as they try to focus on the politics rather than the packaging.

George Jones is the leader of the opposition in David Hare’s Labour party, and he is up against Charles Kendrick, Prime Minister, who calls an election with no notice, throwing Jones’s campaign office into a panic. “You lot, you’re the maids” he says to his team “And as in Moliere you’re all of a tizz in order that I may be calm”. The role of the theatre loving party leader was played in its original incarnation by John Thaw, who famously made his professional debut on the boards of the Liverpool Playhouse. Reece Dinsdale, who played Thaw’s on-screen son in Home to Roost, now recreates the part for this touring revival.

I recall seeing a somewhat younger Mr Dinsdale 32 years ago in a play with Peter Ustinov, and have been interested to see his face appear fairly regularly in various guises over the years. He was a jolly good sparkling wine back then. Nowadays he’s an altogether more full bodied red, and shows himself as a fine character actor here. George Jones’s heart is in the right place and he believes passionately in his party’s policies. Problem is that, by the time he has been through the PR polishing process in which every member of the team is trained in what to say and how to say it, he seems unable to remember what those policies are and ends up saying almost nothing.

There is a splendid scene in which he is interviewed by veteran broadcaster Linus Frank on his election special and crumbles horribly before our eyes. Linus Frank is played with wonderful gravitas by Don Galloway, who also fascinatingly doubles as Charles Kendrick, the statesmanlike but overbearing Prime Minister.

There is an excellent ensemble cast under the breakneck direction of Jeremy Herrin, and of particular note are very strong performances from Cyril Nri as political advisor Oliver Dix, Charlotte Lucas as Lindsay Fontaine, the PR adviser, Maggie McCarthy, George’s diary secretary Gwenda and James Harkness, his minder Andrew.

As we’d expect from Headlong, who have co-produced this production with Sheffield Theatres Crucible and Rose Theatre Kingston, there is very slick use of physical staging, light and sound. Translucent rectilinear screens and projections rise and fall in Mike Britton’s set and there’s a proliferation of 1990’s style TV monitors that provide alternative views of the action as would be seen by a TV audience. Tom Gibbons’ sound design incorporates some rousing music, including that specified in the text for the Cenotaph ceremonies, but also some rather chilling allusions to Götterdämmerung.

David Hare’s writing shows once more its enduring currency and genius and this is a revival that is as finely crafted as it is timely.

In the current tour The Absence of War has already played in Sheffield, Norwich, Watford, Bristol, and Cheltenham. It runs at Liverpool Playhouse until Saturday 28th March, after which it will continue as follows:

Citizen’s Theatre Glasgow - Tue 31 March – Sat 4 April 

Oxford Playhouse - Wed 8 – Sat 11 April 

Rose Theatre, Kingston - Tue 14 – Sat 25 April 

Cambridge Arts Theatre - Tue 28 April – Sat 2 May 

Theatre Royal Bath - Tue 5th – Sat 9th May

Don Gallagher and Reece Dinsdale - Photo (c) Mark Douet

A Midsummer Night's Dream - Liverpool Everyman - 21/03/2015

The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve;

Lovers, to bed; ’tis almost fairy time.

When the Everyman does Shakespeare we expect it to have an edge, especially when the play is one with a supernatural element to it. In his new production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Director Nick Bagnall casts a dark spell over his characters and audience alike and, along with the mischievous humour, he excavates some of the shadowy imaginings that haunt our dream time.

For his first production in his new role as Associate Director at the Everyman and Playhouse, Nick Bagnall has chosen to work with a former collaborator, designer Ashley Martin-Davis. They shared a vision of Shakespeare’s Dream in which there would be none of the obvious visual cues such as trees, moon and fairy wings, preferring to work in a more abstract setting whereby the audience could invoke their own imaginings.

The Athenian court of the opening is alluded to by the plinths of columns with the rest of the stage relatively unadorned. Peter Mumford’s lighting sets the tone for the production, and while the colours of light and costume shift dramatically from scene to scene, it remains in a variety of striking monochromes until a blaze of colour announces the final act.

I would hesitate to say that this is a ‘modern dress’ rendering, as many of the costumes are evocative of other times and places, but the school uniforms of the young lovers in the early scenes contribute strongly to our belief in them as teenagers. The mechanicals too, in their hi-vis work gear, bring us firmly down to familiar earth. It is the trip to fairy-land that flies into fancy, even without its fairy wings, with a dramatic and transformative scene change that takes us into a bewildering wasteland and seems to double the size of the Everyman’s open stage. From this point the action shifts a gear and the entrances and exits become even more imaginative.

Garry Cooper and Sharon Duncan-Brewster are our Theseus/Oberon and Hippolyta/Titania, while Puck has shifted gender and is played by a spritely Cynthia Erivo, who floats about the stage wielding her cane like some spectral ringmaster. The former pair have great poise as the Athenian Duke and his mistress. Cooper presents a malevolent form when he reappears as a troubled King of the Fairies and Duncan-Brewster’s Fairy Queen shimmers with light and passion.

Andrew Schofield appears as a spry site foreman as Peter Quince, assembling his motley crew of overalled players to rehearse their theatricals. Michael Hawkins is a sharp Robin Starveling /Moonshine, who seems a little confused by his dog, and Ozzie Yue plays Snug, his Lion putting me in mind of Bert Lahr’s creation in the Wizard of Oz. Alan Stocks (also a suitably enraged Egeus) is Tom Snout, who bears a witty wall. Lewis Bray (late of Cartoonopolis) is Flute, the bellows mender, whose turn as Thisbe is a sight to behold. And of he who plays Pyramus? Let’s just say that Dean Nolan’s Bottom has to be seen to be believed. It is a larger than life rendering in which there are moments when he could almost be channelling Brian Blessed.

Hermia and Helena are played by Charlotte Hope and Emma Curtis. They bring a naivety and schoolgirlish coyness to the parts but are equally able to find real venom when roused. Matt Whitchurch and Tom Varey are their confused lovers Demetrius and Lysander, and both have great charm and energy in their performances. The speed of delivery in the exchanges of this quartet is breathless in places, but even from the back row of the stalls I didn’t miss a syllable.

James Fortune’s music is a mixture of recorded sound and onstage performance, including recording work from Members of the Young Everyman Playhouse, and as well as creating the soundscape for the play the music occasionally finds humour of its own.

I have remarked in an earlier posting that I saw performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the old Everyman in January 1983, which broke the mould of theatre for me and made me fall in love with the Everyman space. This play is as open to reinvention as the theatre itself and invites directors to do something bold and new with it.

Nick Bagnall’s production finds aspects of light and shade that bring the work to the stage with renewed freshness and excitement. As well as exploring dusty corners of the text he also reaches out into the new Everyman space making maximum use of its openness, and we see more of the building’s capacity to surprise.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream lasts for approximately 3 hours, including one interval set between acts 3 and 4. It runs at Liverpool Everyman until Saturday 18th April. There is an age recommendation of 14+ due to one very brief scene with sexual innuendo and partial nudity.

Production photography (c) Gary Carlton:

 

Tom Varey and Charlotte Hope in rehearsal - image (c) Brian Roberts

The Three Lions – Liverpool Playhouse – 16/03/2015

And you… Colour in your grandmother’s head!

Following its critical success at the Pleasance during the 2013 Edinburgh Fringe, William Gaminara’s irreverent comedy is in Liverpool this week as part of a short tour en-route to London.

I almost didn’t book for this one, as I saw the football connection and thought it wouldn’t be for me, but seeing Philip Wilson in the directorial chair made me take a second look, and my visit on the opening night here won’t be my last this week.

The three lions of the title are not printed on a football shirt – they’re David Cameron, David Beckham and Prince William, and the opening scene finds them checking in to a Zurich hotel as they prepare to go and present their pitch for the 2018 World Cup. What follows is two hours of satirical comedy teetering on the brink of farce.

Gaminara makes no pretentions to have based this on any sort of fact, aside from the obvious that they were all there for the central purpose of the actual bid. He has allowed his imagination to run with ideas about the sort of exchanges that might take place if you put these three very different big-shots in a room together. Cameron is pompous and self-important, incensed that the hotel manager doesn’t know who he is and showing a not even thinly veiled contempt for his colleagues’ intelligence. Beckham might glaze over while he tries to fathom what the other two are talking about but he comes out on top in the charisma stakes, while William (in the midst of wedding preparations) is played as something of a buffoon, although he can of course fly a helicopter…

The actors are keen to point out that these are not impersonations. The performances come across as more of a caricature, although Séan Browne serendipitously bears an almost frightening resemblance to David Beckham and has absolutely nailed the voice. Dugald Bruce-Lockhart somewhat put me in mind of a love-child of David Cameron and Nick Clegg (I really regret having that concept in my head, but now it’s there you can share it with me!) but he too has captured Cameron’s vocal traits very convincingly. What can you say about Tom Davey’s characterisation of William? I know I actually saw him 9 times on stage during the run of the Norman Conquests, but it wasn’t until I saw him after the show with his own hair that I actually recognised him (sorry Tom!). He has a great time with Gaminara’s writing, revelling in scenes where William becomes totally lost, and I loved his diversion into cricket and his clutching at straws to keep a hold on his dignity.

There are strong performances too from Antonia Kinlay as Penny – a frustrated PA desperately trying to keep them all on track – and Ravi Aujla, who plays the uncannily similar Vikram and Ashok, apparently hotel managers who struggle to find enough rooms for our three lions. But keep an eye on Ashok, as he might have his own agenda. Finally, Lewis Collier is another hotel guest whose accommodation causes the party some confusion.

As for the three hotel rooms they’re all strikingly similar in Colin Falconer’s stylish set, differing only in their size and the ostentation of the floral arrangements, but the transformation from one to another is a neatly added splash of wit.

This is the third play that I have almost failed to see due to the sporting connection but, as with Jumpers for Goalposts and Gaffer, I have proved my preconceptions spectacularly wrong. Here is a hugely entertaining and slickly staged piece of comedy that will appeal whether or not you’re a devotee of football. The beautiful game on display here is one of wicked wordplay, garnished with some nifty sight gags and a gentle seasoning of farce. This is proof again of the folly of pre-judging a play from its title and I’m that glad I continue to allow my curiosity to override my scepticism.

The Three Lions runs at Liverpool Playhouse until Saturday evening, including matinee performances on Thursday and Saturday. It will then transfer to St James Theatre London until May 2nd.

Krapp's last tape - Unity Theatre - 10 and 12/03/2015

A memorable Equinox?

Graeme Phillips has chosen to begin his new production of Beckett's 1958 play by screening his little known "Film" made in 1964. This may seem an unusual directorial choice but it works astonishingly well.

On the opening night the film had to be omitted for technical reasons, and without it the play alone stands as a great achievement for Phillips and his solo actor Nick Birkinshaw. Seeing Film and Krapp spliced seamlessly together on stage two evenings later I could really see the reason for the pairing. The two works, each tell a story of a man examining his past, but in one he cannot bear to have it seen or recalled at all, while in the other he seems intent on examining and preserving every detail of it.

Film essentially has two characters, O and E. O is performed in silence by a 69 year old Buster Keaton. We begin with a shot of an all-seeing eye (E), personified throughout by the camera - or us, the audience. We then follow O as he scurries through an urban landscape, bumping into two startled and horrified passers by, and heads into a run-down building which he appears to occupy. He plans to deal with an envelope full of photographs documenting his history but before he can do this he has to shut out the world, covering the window, the mirror, the parrot and the goldfish, ejecting the dog and cat and destroying a painting of what looks like a pagan God on the wall. He even has to turn the folder sideways, as the eyelets that fasten it appear like eyes to him.

Having reviewed the photographs he tears them to shreds, only to see E move round to face him. He gives a look of terror or despair and covers his face, and we return to the eye as the film ends. The clarity of the general photography (our viewpoint as E) is contrasted by blurred shots when we see objects from O's point of view.

Darkness.

And then the lights rise for us to meet Krapp, staring blankly toward us across his desk in a small, dim pool of light from an anglepoise lamp. (During “Film” we saw the back of his motionless head as he viewed the screen with us.)

The set is a small rectangular platform representing his room, its grubby carpet strewn with dried-up banana skins which overflow from a waste paper basket. The desk contains a large open reel tape recorder and he is surrounded by stacks of boxes, most of which are full of tape spools.

What follows is little short of a masterclass in acting, with the first 15 minutes or so delivered wordlessly, until Krapp consults his ledger and goes looking for the spool he recorded 30 years ago on his 39th birthday. From this point onward the words flow in abundance, both from the 69 year old on stage and from his younger self on the tape recording.

There is tremendous colour in Nick Birkinshaw’s voice and he captures both ages of his character in his delivery. Like a lot of Beckett’s writing, there is a great deal of introspection as Krapp revisits his earlier self and finds disbelief, nostalgia, regret and astonishment as he listens to himself. Birkinshaw’s ability to draw us in and hold our attention never ceases to amaze, and after 2 viewings I could still have gone back for more and not caught all the nuances in the performance.

Beckett captures extremes in his work, often placing his characters in some sort of emotional or physical trap, and the juxtaposition of these two works somehow illuminates and elevates both of them in their strange, obsessive, opposing standpoints.

Set, costume and lighting here were by Phil Saunders and Ashley Shairp. The gradually shifting colours in the light, much of which comes from within the set, builds an atmosphere which is enhanced by subtle but detailed sound design from Patrick Dineen.

As Graeme Phillips steps back from his position as Artistic Director of Unity we have every hope that this will give him more opportunity to directing work for these stages, which he has been associated with for over 30 years.

Krapp’s Last Tape plays at Unity One until Saturday evening.

Broken Biscuits – Lantern Theatre Liverpool – 05/03/2015

Trisha Duffy’s debut play has enjoyed two previous sell-out runs at the Lantern last year - so well attended, in fact, that I missed the boat on both occasions and was unable to get a seat, so I took the opportunity when it had a further revival this week.

Two young men were posted to Afghanistan but only one returned, his life saved through the selfless bravery of his friend. Back home in Liverpool two mothers, who have been friends for years, battle with the emotional scars that have driven a wedge between them. One is consumed by grief, the other by guilt and compassion.

Rita sits, paces and cries, slowly falling apart behind a locked door, a bottle of whisky in one hand and a bottle of pills in the other. Her neighbour Maggie perches on an upturned crate on her doorstep and tries to talk her into opening the door, but Rita’s emotions run so high that she can’t bring herself to face the friend who seems to represent the reason her son was lost. How can Maggie possibly know how she feels when her son came home safe?

Leanne Martin and Gillian Hardie play the two innocent casualties of war in an hour during which they never come face-to-face, but spar with words and exchange cigarettes and memories through a letterbox. Both deliver powerful performances, negotiating the rollercoaster of emotional peaks and troughs with poignancy.

The play would be a two-hander, were it not for the occasional appearances of Louise Garcia as Molly – a teenage neighbour who comes and goes from a noisy party across the street – and her interjections offer some of the opportunities for comedic relief from the tension that pepper the script.

For all its dark despair there are a surprising number of laughs to be had in the dialogue, which is well written and falls naturally from the actors’ lips. Lantern Theatre A.D. Margaret Connell directs with care and maintains a tension that holds right through to the play’s tragic climax.

Some of the offstage, recorded dialogue overheard from the party felt a little superfluous to me and I would have been happy without it, but this in no way detracted from a moving and thought provoking evening.

Safe to say that debut writer Trisha Duffy has a distinctive voice that could be heard throughout the play.

The team are looking to re-stage the play for this summer’s Edinburgh Festival, and is looking for crowd funding via Kickstarter to help get them there. Anyone wishing to support the project can do so via this link:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/399278474/broken-biscuits-edingburgh

Leanne Martin as Rita in Broken Biscuits