The Holy Rosenbergs - Review

Menier Chocolate Factory, London

**

Written by Ryan Craig

Directed by Lindsay Posner

Tracy-Ann Oberman and Dorothea Myer-Bennett

Set in north west London’s Edgware, Ryan Craig’s The Holy Rosenbergs was a muddled collection of Anglo-Jewish stereotypes when it premiered at the National Theatre back in 2011. Fast forward 15 years, and it transpires that time has not treated Craig’s playtext kindly.

David and Lesley Rosenberg had three children. Ruth is a human-rights lawyer working for the United Nations, Jonny is struggling to find his way in life and Danny, who had emigrated to Israel, has recently been killed in action serving as a helicopter pilot with the Israel Defence Forces in Gaza. The play takes place on the eve of Danny’s memorial service at the local synagogue.

Against this backdrop of conflicting views and profound loss, Craig weaves a narrative that lurches from the sensational to the implausible in a two-act play that is at best, problematic. Ruth, and equally improbably, her boss Sir Stephen Crossley (played by Adrian Lukis) who appears half way through the second act, lays out the charges against Israel’s allegedly criminal military conduct, while offering scant criticism of Hamas’s corrupted governance of Gaza and minimal objective comment upon its terrorist activities. It has sadly taken the horrors of October 7th 2023 and that day's ensuing revelations, including the intimate connections that have been found to exist between agencies of the UN and Hamas, to realise the naïveté, or perhaps more accurately, the useful idiocy, of Craig’s argument.

Done well, Jewish self-deprecation can provide moments of masterful drama as demonstrated by the likes of 20th century greats such as Sheldon Harnick and Jack Rosenthal. Craig aspires to be an (Arthur) Miller Lite, offering us clumsily constructed nods to the American's Willy Loman and Joe Keller in the character of David Rosenberg. His writing however doesn’t come close to matching Miller's genius.

So the work may be profoundly flawed, but what of Lindsay Posner’s production values? Tracy-Ann Oberman as Lesley and Dorothea Myer-Bennett's Ruth are both magnificent. Oberman in particular, capturing the complex emotions of a mother struggling to maintain her equilibrium while simultaneously dealing with unimaginably traumatic grief. Her take on the role is credible and carefully crafted. Equally, Myer-Bennett in a part that is hard to be seen as believable, makes a first-class job of some mediocre writing.

As for the men, Adrian Lukis's human rights lawyer offers up the best work of the night. As David, Nicholas Woodeson struggles to suspend our disbelief, and though his final scenes in the play are delivered with a sincere poignancy, it is too little, too late.

Tim Shortall’s set may be authentic Edgware, but lest there be any doubt about this production’s bias, as the audience take their seats in the Menier an audio mise-en-scene plays clips of Gordon Brown’s and Barack Obama’s criticisms of Israel’s military.

Notwithstanding some outstanding work from the women, The Holy Rosenbergs does not stand up to the scrutiny of being revived and should have been allowed to rest in peace.

Runs until 2nd May

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

I’m Gonna Pray For You So Hard - Review

Finborough Theatre, London

***

Written by Halley Feiffer

Directed by Jake Smith

Adrian Lukis and Jill Winternitz

At first glance, I’m Gonna Pray For You So Hard appears to be a somewhat self-indulgent glance into the life of David, an egotistical celebrated playwright complaining about a ‘hard done by’ life, whilst surrounded by a lavish and modern apartment, with a long standing marriage and a loving daughter. However, it quickly transpires that years of poor choices in his childhood and career have instilled in David a highly damaged and addictive persona that, in a single night, whilst waiting to read his daughters off Broadway play review, destroys his comfortable, conceited lifestyle and brings his world crashing own around him.

Adrian Lukis is David, in a role spans a great deal of emotional intensity, varying from playful, fatherly pride and affection, to spiteful and egotistical aggression within the space of seconds. Lukis portrays each state with great intelligence and depth. His is the standout performance of the two hander and his clear understanding and depiction of David’s destructive personality and ingrained sense of self-loathing is heart wrenching and ultimately, praiseworthy. In spite of this, the juxtaposition of David’s apparent obsession with leaving himself a more positive legacy than that left by his own father and his near violent mistreatment of Ella (whether intentional or not) creates some confusion within the character. A fault not in the acting but in the writing and direction of the play.

It is clear that Ella (Jill Winternitz) has an almost obsessive admiration for her father and hangs on his every word, even going so far as to mirror not only his drinking and drug habits but his use of language as well. Winternitz’s performance feels underwhelming against the performance given by Lukis. What she lacks in subtlety however is made up for in passion creating a performance that seems almost surreal in such an intimate space giving credence to the adage “less is more”.

Despite its flaws Halley Feiffer’s play is a harrowing yet interesting story that genuinely makes one care for the characters. Jake Smith creates a piece that both moves and distresses the audience, touching upon a number of sensitive topics.

Runs until March 25th 

Reviewed by Charlotte Darcy
Photo credit: Scott Rylander

Orson's Shadow - Review

Southwark Playhouse, London


***

Written by Austin Pendleton
Directed by Alice Hamilton

Louise Ford and John Hodgkinson

35 years after his death, Kenneth Tynan still has the power to slice through the loudest chatter a rabble of theatre-goers can summon up. In Orson’s Shadow – Austin Pendleton’s knowingly smug biography of the founding fathers who devised the blueprint for the National Theatre – the legendary critic, played by a dashing Edward Bennett, strolls onto the stage before the lights go down. Right from his nonchalant entrance and through a meta-fictional commentary that sees him refusing to leave his profession in the wings, Bennett’s character casts himself as the driving force behind this show.

That being said, Orson Welles’s character - taken on by the excellent John Hodgkinson - is furnished with many sharp and keenly applied digs, seen most strongly when he wisecracks that Kenneth has "a brilliant mind, but it contains no information". In turn, when asked to verify rumours that Orson's movies were playing to empty houses, Tynan humorously quips that his source was "the [only] other member of the audience”. There are some smashing witticisms here, which are complemented with the subtle references to films of this era. These allusions are alive in the re-appropriated anecdotes and reclaimed quotes that subtly show that, no matter how hard these characters try to escape, they remain explicitly tied to their industries.

Orson’s Shadow gives us a veritable megamix of some of theatre’s biggest wigs: Gina Bellman's Vivien Leigh brings the flailing glamour; John Hodgkinson equips Orson Welles with a grand and spirited pessimism and Adrian Lukis's Laurence Olivier fights to live up to his biographical reputation, spouting elaborate flights of wordplay between crude attempts to soothe his rocky love life. The problem here, though, is that Orson’s Shadow remains very much in the shadow of the stars that illuminate its centre. Its obsessively tight script, rife with lofty Southbank aspirations, pushes too hard at the walls of its sterling Off West End Home and this - together with the dropped names and all too regularly detonated in-jokes - gives the air of a play that seeks to pose as a historical piece before doing its time as a fresh new work. It’s a shame, given Pendleton’s evident respect for Rhinoceros – Eugène Ionesco’s exhilarating 1959 play that united characters Olivier and Joan Plowright, under Welles’s direction and Tynan’s inspiration – and the creative powerhouse that is the Royal Court.

Welles’ decidedly less-cultured man-servant Sean (Ciaran O’Brien) exists solely to reinforce the other characters’ frightful superiority. With his regional accent cementing his status as high society’s whipping boy, Sean’s efforts work only to underline this play’s blinkered devotion to its famous subjects.

Olivier, Welles and Tynan have all the power in this piece. They can debate the nature of strong directing, can strive to distance themselves from that Hollywood hit or that weak review. They bicker and embrace - safe in the knowledge that their each and ever move signposts monumental shifts in Western performance. They can strive for greatness or yearn for simplicity. Yet, despite a raging effort from Bellman and a modestly graceful attempt from Louise Ford's Plowright to steal the final scene – “I’m the only person in this play who’s still alive, so...let me wrap this up”" – our female characters come across as mere accessories to their male counterparts' might.

In Pendleton's piece, five household names are incapable of sharing the spotlight though it remains unfortunate that the two mighty yet weakly-sketched and under-scripted female figures are left inhabiting these shadows.

Runs until 25th July

Guest reviewer: Amelia Forsbrook