That Dinner of '67 - Review

****

Sidney Poitier, Katharine Houghton, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy

Written by Tracy-Ann Oberman

Produced by Liz Anstee

Every cloud has a silver lining. So it is that amidst the ghastliness of the current pandemic and its impact upon the acting profession, Tracy-Ann Oberman has been able to assemble a cast of remarkable pedigree to breathe life into her her fascinating 45 minute drama examining the background to Stanley Kramer’s 1967 movie Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner. Kramer’s groundbreaking picture sought through both irony and carefully crafted characters, to comment upon inter-racial love in the USA at a time when, in some states and with civil rights still a burning American issue, marriage between black and white people was illegal.

It was a brave motion picture to film, only enhanced by Kramer’s stellar company. Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn played the parents of Joanna (Joey in the story), while playing Joey’s fiancé Dr John Price  was Sidney Poitier, a gifted actor who only some three years prior, had become the first black American to win the Oscar for Best Actor. In Oberman’s fictionalised glimpse behind-the-scenes, Kenneth Branagh plays Tracy, Daisy Ridley is Katherine Houghton (the actress who played Joey in the movie), and Adrian Lester is Poitier. David Morrisey takes on Kramer, while the writer herself steps up to the plate as Hepburn. As a radio play, everything hinges on the phonics – and amidst an array of stunning accents and impersonations, Lester’s take on Sidney Poitier is breathtaking in its pitch-perfect accuracy.

The story behind the movie itself is almost as remarkable as its on-screen narrative. The picture marked Hepburn and Tracy’s ninth and final collaboration, with the bond forged between these two consummate professionals clearly defined in Oberman’s script. Even more than this love however, was the fact that Spencer Tracy, riddled with disease, was close to death throughout the shoot, tragically passing away barely two weeks after wrapping his own principal photography. Such was the concern of his health, that the producers were unable to obtain completion insurance – with Hepburn and Kramer going on to stake their own salaries as a bond to guarantee that filming could continue. Rarely has a movie’s plot so piercingly captured the heart of a nation’s struggles – defined by the fact that just after Tracy died, the country’s anti-miscegenation laws were struck down by the Supreme Court.

But it is not so much these remarkable details that the play highlights, as much as its ability to capture the pulse of both Hollywood and the wider USA in the 1960. In a happy coincidence, this reviewer revisited the movie just before listening to Oberman's play - and if one is not familiar with the Kramer picture, then it's well worth a stream or rental. 

Oberman has delivered a cracking piece of writing.

That Dinner of '67 is available to download from the BBC throughout 2021

Guess Who's Coming To Dinner is currently available to watch on Sky, iTunes and Amazon Prime

Guys and Dolls Live in Concert - Review

Royal Albert Hall, London

****

Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser

Book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows

Directed and choreographed by Stephen Mear

Leading cast members|

Gamblers, gangsters and nightclub singers mingle together in 1950s New York in Guys and Dolls, Frank Loesser, Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows’ ‘musical fable of Broadway’, which returned to London in concert form for just 3 performances this October. Directed and choreographed by Stephen Mear and featuring a talented cast of star performers accompanied by the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, this production was filled with moments of sheer musical brilliance and perfectly demonstrated why, almost 70 years after its inception, Guys and Dolls is still one of the most beloved musicals ever written.

Assuming the lead role of big-time gambler Sky Masterson was acclaimed actor Adrian Lester. Lester is a magnetic performer with an easy charm and inexorable presence which dominated the gargantuan stage of the Royal Albert Hall effortlessly. He starred opposite Lara Pulver as Sergeant Sarah Brown, a pious missionary with a starry-eyed streak. The pair’s act one duet I’ll Know was an early indicator of the smartly cast lovers’ compatibility. Unfortunately though, large script edits that were presumably implemented in an effort to increase the show’s given its scaled-down concert form meant that the interactions between Sky and Sarah felt disconnected, resulting in much of their chemistry never being given a chance to fully blossom.

Another drawback of this usually impressive show’s concert staging was that its focus was inevitably pulled away from some of the more intimate numbers, such as Sky and Sarah’s delightful first act closing duet I’ve Never Been In Love Before. The Royal Albert Hall’s vastness left the more intimate scenes seeming a little distant and impassive, even more so when the energetic orchestra, enthusiastically conducted by James McKeon, filled every corner of the venue with rich sound.

The evenings large group numbers however energised the space quite thrillingly. The Crapshooters’ Ballet was a vibrant, frantic sequence masterfully choreographed to both showcase the virtuosity of the ensemble and emphasise the bustling frenzy encapsulated in Loesser’s score and was undoubtedly a concert highlight. The second half’s other invigorating ensemble number, Sit Down You’re Rocking The Boat was helmed by Clive Rowe with charisma and dynamism in excess.

Notwithstanding a flush of tremendous performances, the night truly belonged to actress and cabaret artiste Meow Meow, who played a terrifically funny Miss Adelaide, the sniffling fiancée of Jason Manford’s hapless crap game promoter Nathan Detroit. Perfectly balancing bawdy grit with cutesy charm, her larger than life performance commanded the stage at all times. Meow Meow’s rendition of Adelaide’s Lament, a comedic gift of a song in its own right, was an expertly mixed cocktail of neurosis, fury, and flair which encompassed the tone of the entire concert!

Reviewed by Charlotte O'Growney

Othello

National Theatre, London

*****

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Nicholas Hytner

Rory Kinnear and Adrian Lester

Nicholas Hytner's Othello in the National Theatre's Olivier auditorium is a disturbing and brilliant reworking of the tale, setting it squarely amongst the complexities of our modern era. However, in modernising the fable and notwithstanding two outstanding performances, Hytner has highlighted how morally flawed the work is. A play famed for its take on deception and jealousy, this 2013 treatment throws the closing act's charnel-house of uxoricide, be it casual or passionate, into the spotlight of modern day unacceptability.

We first meet Iago, in civvies, outside a Venetian inn. The impression he creates of callous contemptuous envy of the Moor, with a heavy racist twist, could sadly be straight out of 1990s Eltham whilst the contempt that Brabantio, Desdemona's father shows to his new son in law, similarly drips racist vitriol that has a chillingly contemporary familiarity.

General Othello and his wife are posted to Cyprus where he is to command the fortress against Turkish attack. Under Vicki Mortimer's astonishing design, as the Venetian facades  fly up they reveal the full, gaping magnificent reach of the Olivier stage transformed into the island outpost. Barrack rooms are fabricated from steel containers, blast proof walls peppered with sterile fluorescent bulkhead lights are everywhere whilst around the perimeter a guarded wall serves as much to trap and foment trouble within its confines, as to keep marauding Turks out. If suburbia inspired the director's view of the civilian mainland, then it is Camp Bastion or maybe even Abbotabad that has provided the vision for this hellish garrison.

Rory Kinnear's Iago is a horribly plausible rendition of modern evil. Cynical and jealous, despising of his General and himself lusting for Desdemona, his is no pantomime villain. With words and manner that drip envy and contempt, Kinnear's exploration of the ordinariness of evil is a masterclass in classlessness.

As one of the leading black actors of his generation and working amidst a canon of literature that displays a shameful paucity of classic roles written for a black performer, one assumes that over the years Adrian Lester has been flooded with offers to play The Moor. If he has chosen to bide his time until the "right one" came along, he has chosen wisely . Under Hytner's direction and with Kinnear as his malevolent on-stage sparring partner, Lester's performance defines a nobility, that like the vapour trail of a rogue missile tumbling destructively out of control from the sky, is so horribly abused and manipulated by Iago.

Never forget however that both Iago and Othello are ultimately no more than wife-murderers who both wilfully kill their spouses. But because Othello was deceived about his wife's infidelity the murder that he commits, so swiftly followed followed by his guilt-ridden suicide, are seen as the actions of a tragic hero. This tacit acceptance that his jealousy-motivated murder of Desdemona is "acceptable" suggests that the violence of men against women that underlies this tale, is far more sinister than the age old textbook issues pertaining to race,  jealousy or what makes for a good General. There is almost an unwritten suggestion that if Desdemona had been unfaithful that Othello would have been justified in murdering her. This classic tale has such a mysogynist root that it arguably deserves outright condemnation, wherever it is staged.

Modernising the story puts Desdemona (Olivia Vinall in this production) in an invidious position. Shakespeare's words were penned long before women's emancipation, so whilst Hytner may have placed his Desdemona amongst a mess-room full of beer drinking squaddies and jealous violent men (gender traits that are sadly timeless), her response to Othello's accusations are out of kilter with our expectations of a modern woman. And that she finally tries to shield Othello from his guilt with her last dying breaths, proclaiming his innocence, is as sickeningly compliant with a patriarchal society as it is intended to be heartbreakingly romantic. Would a modern woman pardon her brutal murderer? It's actually a revolting question to even consider. To see and to celebrate a play that ends with two husbands murdering their wives in cold blood surely has to trouble our collective conscience.

Notwithstanding the play's amorality, rarely have two actors so magnificently embodied this infernal double-act . These performances will be discussed for years to come and for lovers of either Shakespeare or simply outstanding stagecraft, the production is unquestionably unmissable.

The play is sold out in the National Theatre repertory until 5 October 2013

Making the Unmissable unmissable, those wonderful people at NTLive will be broadcasting Othello live to cinemas across the country and also globally, on and from 26 September 2013 . The broadcast production values of the NTLive series are world class, bringing outstanding theatre to within not only the geographical reach, but also the budget, of all.

NTLive booking details can be found here.