Opening Night - Review

Gielgud Theatre, London

****

Music, lyrics & orchestrations by Rufus Wainwright

Original film by John Cassavetes

Directed by & book written by Ivo Van Hove

Sheridan Smith

Every show has an opening night. In Mel Brooks’ musical The Producers he even included a song entitled Opening Night, so it was surely only a matter of time until a creative (step forward Ivo Van Hove) grabbed hold of John Cassavetes’ 1977 movie to fashion a two-act show around one of theatre’s most consistently nerve-wracking challenges.

In one of the boldest upendings of the genre, Van Hove’s multimedia, mind-meddling, meta-musical presents us with the decline of the fragile Myrtle (Sheridan Smith). A leading lady in The Second Woman, a Broadway play that’s four days from opening, Myrtle is already battling profound insecurities about her age and career. Early on in the narrative she witnesses the brutal death of Nancy, a fan killed in a road traffic accident immediately after having very nervously obtained the actress’s autograph. Following Nancy's death, the musical then tracks the ticking time-bomb of the impact of that trauma upon Myrtle’s mental well-being.

Smith is outstanding in a performance that mixes gravitas with fragility. The linchpin of both The Second Woman and Van Hove’s musical, it is her energy that drives the show. There are fine supporting performances too. Hadley Fraser is Manny, the demanding Broadway director who is all too happy to blur professional boundaries if it will reassure his leading lady. Nicola Hughes has the complex role of NY playwright Sarah, who is required to handle Myrtle’s mangling of her script as the actress’s mind unravels. The duet between Myrtle and Sarah, Makes One Wonder, is spine-tingling in its exploration of the pair’s respective vulnerabilities. Amy Lennox as Manny’s wife Dorothee has a modest but useful role in the narrative, providing a robust and challenging foil to her husband’s inappropriate conduct. 

The most impressive work amongst the supporting roles comes from West End debutante Shira Haas as Nancy. Haas takes this unfortunate young woman, transitioning her from a star-struck fan with issues to a ghost-like apparition that plagues Myrtle’s troubled mind. This is a bold conceit addressed brilliantly by Van Hove and lending an almost horrific edge to the second act. 

The use of video and live-action multi-camera projections (designed by Jan Versweyveld) deploys a massive upstage screen that not only plays around with cleverly storyboarded close-ups, but goes further with the merging of camera shots. In a remarkable coup-de-theatre, as Myrtle reaches her mental nadir, Versweyveld and Van Hove use time-lapse to add another visible dimension to the actress’s distress.

Rufus Wainwright’s music is, for the most part, a joy to experience taking in a range of American styles. Nigel Lilley’s 9-piece onstage band are terrific with standout work from Huw Davies on guitar. Wainwright’s lyrics occasionally drift into repetitive triteness, a feature perhaps of his rock and pop background rather than the more rigid disciplines of musical theatre.

Opening Night makes for a challenging night of unconventional theatre that is at times deeply upsetting. Sheridan Smith’s performance is one of the finest to be found on a London stage.

Booking until 27th July

Photo credit: Jan Versweyveld

A View From The Bridge - Review

Wyndham's Theatre, London

*****

Written by Arthur Miller
Directed by Ivo Van Hove

Mark Strong and Phoebe Fox

Ivo Van Hove's production of A View From The Bridge, first presented at the Young Vic last year, was one of the capital's 2014 highlights. Transferring across the Thames for a limited run at the Wyndham's, the searching intensity of this sensational piece of theatre has been stunningly maintained.

A View From The Bridge is a classic of 20th century American literature, yet this modern play's themes, drawn from classic lines of Greek tragedy are both universal and primeval. Treachery and revenge amongst immigrant American community, fuelled by an abusive and incestuous craving that burns inside longshoreman Eddie Carbone. Wife Beatrice is neglected as Eddie's infernal desire for orphaned niece and ward Catherine, a girl on the cusp of womanhood, stealthily consumes him.

Performed predominantly barefoot, against Jan Versweyveld's simple white rectangle of a stage that is barely fenced in by a shallow perimeter, the concept is stark. And yet with no scenery, the claustrophobic oppression of a Brooklyn tenement is cleverly suggested. There are moments when the actors appear in silhouette such is the brightness of the arena, the contrast between the dark and the good so cleverly, yet so simply suggested.

Mark Strong reprises his latin Carbone in a performance that is akin to a perfectly-tuned engine throbbing at the heart of a Ferrari. Strong's power of expression and his physical presence are immaculately presented. Muscular and forceful it is easy to see how he has so wrongfully channelled his passion towards the young girl. And yet in a moment of truly rare dramatic intensity, when illegal immigrant Marco challenges Eddie to a test of strength in lifting a chair one-handed, Strong's wannabe alpha-male is simply and virtually - and publicly -  emasculated in an abject and humiliating display of failure. 

Echoing a Greek Chorus, Michael Gould's Alfieri is Eddie's lawyer. Part counsellor to Carbone, part narrator to the audience, Alfieri's character, critical to the narrative is a moral compass that the Longshoreman is bound to ignore. Such is the level of craft, not only in Miller's writing but also in this company's performances that Carbone's destiny is subtly signalled and sensed.

Nicola Walker's Beatrice imbues the complex bitterness of a woman who sees and understands all around her yet is powerless to effect change. Walker's work is flawless. Catherine is played by the gamine Phoebe Fox. Initially unaware of the desire she stirs in the men around her, Fox masters the girl's interwoven naïveté and unintentional provocation. As she wraps her legs around her uncle during an embrace, we shudder.

Emun Elliott's Marco commands both fear and sympathy as he strives, albeit illegally, to earn money for his family back in Italy. Together with his brother Rodolpho (Luke Norris), both characters define the decent everyman of the play - though Miller relentlessly has us question Rodolpho's sexuality even as Catherine is falling in love with him.

Like an expert surgeon, Miller understands the human condition like no other modern dramatist, stripping it to the bones in a play that is as gripping as it is unbearable. As Van Hove’s bloody conclusion leaves you stunned, there is no finer play in London.

Runs until 11th April 2015