Midnight Cowboy - Review

Southwark Playhouse, London

**

Music & lyrics by Francis'EG' White

Book by Bryony Lavery

Based on the book by James Leo Herlihy

Directed and choreographed by Nick Winston

Max Bowden and Paul Jacob French

James Leo Herlihy’s 1965 novel Midnight Cowboy presented a bleak take on America. A land of hustle and exploitation that saw an unlikely friendship develop between Texan cowboy Joe Buck and the polio-riddled New Yorker Rico Rizzo, both men desperately lonely souls and each in pursuit of their own American dream. Buck by making his fortune as a stud and Rizzo with his dreams of reaching the sunshine state of Florida. John Schlesinger directed the triple Oscar-winning movie in 1969 and now Herlihy's famed fable has been reduced to a musical by Bryony Lavery and Francis 'EG' White. 

Paul Jacob French as Joe Buck possesses the required statuesque attractiveness - but is not allowed to come close to exploring the complexities of his character. Max Bowden’s Rizzo is a more rounded construction. Bowden goes some way to unlocking the crippled man’s tragic destitution in a sensitive interpretation that is filled with pathos. Both leads are also given a solo chance at the same number. Bowden wraps up the first half with the haunting Don’t Give Up On Me Now, as French gets his chops around the song to close the show. The tune was worth a repeat as it proved the evening’s only decent new composition.

In a moment of prematurely tantalising delight the show's musical money-shot, Harry Nilsson's Grammy-winner Everybody's Talkin', taken from the movie, was sung by French as the evening's prologue, but from then on it was downhill. To be fair though, the show also included frequent nods to the movie's haunting motif of a melody that had been scored by John Barry - a welcome respite as it transpired, from much of White’s mediocre new music. As a side comment, although the legendary lyricist Don Black had nothing to do with Midnight Cowboy, to see him in the audience at this musical's press night forged a strong connection with Barry, a man with whom Black had penned numerous movie classics.

Lavery’s book does not match Herlihy’s original and when one considers how much of the Midnight Cowboy movie’s magic came not just from its harrowing tale and its towering central performances, but also from its stunning photography and direction, one realises the extent to which this production does not do justice to the story’s famed previous iterations. The narrative demands a physical staging more inspired than Andrew Exeter’s set - projections onto a translucent screen are an ambitious conceit at the best of times. Throw in a 45 degree viewing angle for this reviewer and the projected backdrops become a distraction, with their intended scenic depictions becoming nigh-on invisible.

Midnight Cowboy demands scenes of a sexual nature that should trouble us with their tawdry casualness. In this production the intimacy is clumsily faked and so is the story's class.

Runs until 17th May

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

Her Aching Heart - Review

Hope Theatre, London

****

Written by Bryony Lavery

Music by Ian Brandon

Directed by Matthew Parker

Colette Eaton and Naomi Todd

It might be more of a 'play with songs' than a full blown musical but Bryony Lavery's Her Aching Heart now playing at the Hope Theatre, is one of those rarely performed gems that displays just the sort of quirky wit in its writing that many of today's new musical offerings could do well to emulate.

The time-hopping two-hander sees Colette Eaton and Naomi Todd play contemporary women Harriet and Molly who are both reading the faux bodice-ripper Her Aching Heart and who fall in love as the evening pans out. What gives the show such glorious heart however, is how Eaton and Todd drop in an out of a range of characters in the novel they are engrossed in, as lesbian passions smoulder both on and off the page. The fiction within a fiction is wonderfully pastiched and amongst the Mills and Boon clichés of its Gothic romance there are nosings of Austen, D H Lawrence and even a hint of Oscar Wilde. The songs are well pitched too, with Ian Brandon having written new melodies for Lavery's now 25 year old text and lyrics.

Both performers are beautifully voiced and equally matched, with Harriett's solo Good Manners along with the duetted It's Spring - Hearts Mend being perhaps the musical highlights. Producer Andrea Leoncini has invested thought into his creative team. Anthony Whiteman's modest choreography enhances the work, Rachael Ryan's designs are amusingly kitsch and imaginative, while Alex Payne's fight direction of a full blown sword fight is as wonderfully overplayed as it is thrilling!

Unpretentious and never taking itself too seriously, Her Aching Heart represents much of what makes London's fringe theatre scene so rich and wonderful.

Runs to 23rd December

Photo credit: Roy Tan

Frozen - Review

Maltings Arts Theatre, St Albans

**1/2

Writer: Bryony Lavery

Director: Stephen Cunningham

This review was originally written for The Public Reviews

24 February 2012

Frozen touches upon some of the darkest aspects of (in)humanity and is written to be performed within simple staging parameters. The cast comprises Ralph, a serial killing paedophile, Nancy the grieving mother whose 10 year old daughter Rhona, he has murdered and Agnetha, a psychiatrist responsible for assessing his behaviour. It is a challenging production to stage.

The play opens with Nancy tending her garden and sending Rhona on an errand, the journey that will lead to her being snatched. Interestingly, a gardening theme is echoed in the National Theatre’s London Road, written 13 years later. This popular domestic activity is now being recognised as a metaphor by which normal sub/urban life can be defined, a task so humdrum and routine that it throws into sharp contrast the horror of a nearby murder.

The aims and scope of the play are massive. With a lot of the text delivered as monologues, some deeply distressing, there is a huge responsibility upon the cast to carry the intensity of Lavery’s writing effectively. There is nowhere for an actor to hide within this production.

Ralph is possibly one of the darkest monsters of modern theatre. An apparently typical “white van man”, no Hannibal Lecter he, his most chilling feature being this apparent normality. John Stenhouse tackles the role admirably, portraying a breadth of emotion as he told Ralph’s story. However, whilst he had breadth, I felt he lacked depth. I have seen an audience flinch in disgust and loathing as Ralph describes aspects of his perverted sexual appetite, but Stenhouse failed to reach the understated menace that surrounds his character’s supposed normality and which, in the right hands, can chill an entire theatre.

If Ralph is the darkest modern monster, then the role of Nancy is arguably one of the most harrowing. Debbie Oakes as Nancy played the role sensitively, avoiding the slip from tragedy to melodrama, however for me, her harrow was just not deep enough. It felt as though we were spectating upon her pain, rather than sharing it. In her closing speech to act one, acknowledging the grief that her surviving elder daughter Ingrid has suffered following the murder, Oakes moved me deeply, but those moments were all too rare.

As Agnetha, Lisa White is excellent, accurately portraying not only the doctor's own sense of personal guilt and confusion as a sub-plot unfolds, but also her sense of cluttered mania, as she attempts to manage the therapeutic assessments of Ralph, as well as her own complicated life.

Phil Hamilton’s sound and lighting design enhanced the production, with effective backgrounds to mood and scene.

Sadly on press night there was only a sparse audience in St Albans. Given the hard work and effort that the cast had clearly put into this show, such a poor attendance is disappointing, but it begs the question: Was the show poorly marketed, or was there simply no appetite for such bleak and upsetting theatre in an out of town venue? As in the big city, regional productions are entitled to challenge audiences as well as entertain then, but with London only 30 minutes away by train, a production as dark and adult as Frozen needs to be simply outstanding if an audience is to be attracted.

The play’s writing is largely 5-star and for the power of the text to be conveyed it needs actors of a similar calibre. Anything less, and the arc of this painful story freezes.