Henry V - Review

 Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon

****

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Tamara Harvey

Alfred Enoch

Alfred Enoch delivers an attractive, forceful and youthful performance as Henry V. In a production that at times is elsewhere workmanlike in its spoken prose, Enoch grasps some of the most iconic speeches in the canon, delivering them with an understated passion and a profound understanding. His is a youthful king, a wise and focussed leader who in the ugliness of war, can both inspire his troops and also make bold and tough decisions.

Enoch commands the stage with his presence, offering up a truly enjoyable snapshot of this most celebrated of warrior kings. One cannot help but reflect that as head of state some 600 years ago, his almost Churchillian stance offers up a bold contrast with the vapid leadership that England suffers today.

Tamara Harvey may coax beauty from Enoch in his Henry, but elsewhere the company work suggests that the RSC’s Co-Artistic Director needs to focus more on the individual than on the broader ensemble. Save for the wry comedy of Paul Hunter’s Pistol and the quality contributions from Jamie Ballard as both a soldier and the King of France, the rest of the cast fail to stand out.

Lucy Osborne’s set, largely a massive scaffold on a revolve does well to double as the walls of the besieged city of Harfleur but otherwise provides a questionable contribution to the story. Ryan Day’s lighting however is magnificent, beautifully depicting the night leading into dawn that builds towards Henry’s St Crispin’s Day speech and adding a rich texture to Enoch’s beautifully delivered verse.

A large squad of supernumeraries add a human heft to the fighting and while Harvey’s decisions regarding the battle scenes may be a little bit fanciful, her Henry V makes for an entertaining take on this most celebrated of Shakespeare’s histories.

Runs until 25th April

Photo credit: Johan Persson

Red - Review

Wyndhams Theatre, London



*****


Written by John Logan
Directed by Michael Grandage

Alfred Molina and Alfred Enoch

There’s a chapel in a suburb of Houston, Texas, whose hexagonal walls each carry a black or nearly-black canvas by the abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko. It’s a lonely, eerie space that can be meditative or depressing, depending upon your mood.

Rothko was an unknown abstract expressionist until 1959 when the architects of New York’s prestigious Four Seasons restaurant asked him to provide large scale paintings for decoration. The $35,000 that was paid to Rothko marked the highest value commission of an artist in America.

Having begun the paintings, Rothko dined at the restaurant one evening to “scope it out”. On finding the clientele pretentious, arrogant and at odds with everything in his Ukranian Jewish heritage, he tore up his contract, returned the money and eventually gifted eight of the pieces to the Tate Modern in London. They’re still there in room 3, and worth a look.

John Logan’s play focuses on Rothko in the throes of creating these masterworks.  In Michael Grandage’s tight, revived production (that first played at the Donmar Warehouse in 2009) all the technical elements serve to surround Alfred Molina, as Rothko, with excellence.

The replica canvases themselves, strung up in an enormous atelier as part of Christopher Oram‘s finely detailed scenic design, are variously dull and dark or glow mysteriously under Neil Austin’s bravura lighting design.  Music from Chet Baker to Gluck to opera attends the artist’s musings as Adam Cork’s sound design punctuates both the action and the scene changes with style.

Rothko is voiced with authority by Alfred Molina, a meticulously well-observed characterization as he shares his internal dialogue with Ken, a fictitious assistant played tautly - and possibly better than the original Eddie Redmayne - by Alfred Enoch whose own ‘story’ is neatly, if slightly melodramatically, linked to the dried blood colours of Rothko’s paintings.

Molina grows visibly both as a character and an actor during the performance: sarcasm, pain, pathos and anger all feel real, and the hints at future despair and suicide are as subtle as sighs.

There’s a stupendous scene in which the two work as a team to ‘size’ a canvas, filling the panel and spattering themselves with gore.  It’s physically thrilling: part ballet, part competition, part fight, played by the actors facing entirely away from the audience in one of the best wordless two-person scenes you could hope to encounter.

This is not Yasmin Reza’s Art, - a jejune 1990’s comedy vehicle for three luvvies off the telly to make cheap jibes about modern painting – rather, it’s an intense, well-written and tightly directed drama that in ninety minutes provides a rare insight into a man whose work seems baffling to the untutored eye.

Tutor yourselves, go and see it.  Then go to the Tate.

Booking until 28th July

Reviewed by Johnny Fox

Photo credit: Johan Persson