The Woods - Review

Southwark Playhouse

****

Written by David Mamet

Directed by Russell Bolam

Francesca Carpanini and Sam Frenchum

Catching up with The Woods late in its run at the Southwark Playhouse, offers an opportunity to consider this by-now well matured interpretation of David Mamet's 1977 study of the sexes. 

Covering one night from dusk to dawn the tight two-hander sees Nick and Ruth staying at his remote summer house in the northern USA. Mamet deliberately leaves the history of the couple's relationship opaque, it is evident that there once was a burning love between the pair, the smouldering ashes of which are extinguished before our eyes in the play's 90 minute one-act narrative. 

Mamet's text outlines a clear connection with nature and the gods even as Nick and Ruth’s love breathes its last, flailing like a landed fish that dies before our eyes. Sam Frenchum's Nick is the more damaged of the two, lurching from tender intimacy through to violent misogyny. But while Nick clearly can exert physical power over Francesca Carpanini's Ruth, it is she who ultimately wields the emotional axe. 

Typically Mamet holds the drama's darkest menace back until the play's bloodied, enigmatic endgame but as Nick loses control, Ruth emerges to dominate her beastly, beasted ex-lover by the final curtain.

 

Russell Bolam directs with sensitivity with an equal nod to Haruka Kuroda for staging the moments of undoubtedly complex intimacy with a convincing authenticity. Likewise, Anthony Lamble’s simply stark set and Bethany Gupwell’s lighting are as effective.

A rarely performed piece, this iteration of The Woods has one week left to run and is well worth seeing.

Runs until 26th March

Photo credit: Pamela Raith

Bitter Wheat - Review

Garrick Theatre, London


****

Written and directed by David Mamet

John Malkovich

Bitter Wheat introduces us to Barney Fein, an obesely mysogynist movie mogul who, drunk on money and power, views women as little more than his playthings. It is no coincidence that post autumn 2017 and in the #MeToo era, the assonance of the name and the description of the man sound troublingly familiar. 

Fein is an ugly man - inside and out, with an ugliness that is matched only by Mamet’s writing. For this is a play of two halves - a first act that builds towards an explosive exploitation of sexual violation, and a second half that rapidly disintegrates into implausibility. And yet - for all of Mamet’s madness, the chaos of his writing still holds a withering mirror to Hollywood’s vile, vacuous and timelessly rapacious culture. While recent scandals may have rightly pushed Tinseltown’s casting couch into the spotlight - that toxic masculinity and mindset has riven the movie industry for as long as cameras have been turning. 

John Malkovich is a fine Fein. Padded up he is as massive the role that sees him onstage throughout the two hour piece. There is satire here but without the slapstick - Malkovich marvels in a role that, like Pravda's Lambert Le Roux in Pravda or The Producers' Max Bialystock, takes recognisable caricatures, magnifying them into a driving force. Mamet takes no prisoners in his writing, with Fein’s Jewish ancestry proving an uncomfortable butt for some of the venom he receives. However, Mamet is to be applauded in recognising the close and long-established ties between his anti-hero and America’s Democrat Party - a recognition that will not sit easily amongst the liberal literati on either side of the Atlantic.

Malkovich is well served by his fellow ensemble who, to differing degrees, are there merely as foils to his monstrous nature. Doon Mackichan is his much put-upon assistant Sondra, a woman of questionable ethics and evident complicity and who, rat-like, flees Fein's sinking ship. Making her West End debut, Ioanna Kimbook plays the South Korean movie star Yung Kim Li who finds herself the subject of Fein's abusive lust. The writer has allowed little room for nuance in the part, but Kimbook turns in a neatly measured performance.

There may be a whiff of sensationalised cliché to this world premiere, but no matter. Mamet's subject is timely and relevant and Malkovich's performance is electrifying.

Booking until 21st September

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Glengarry Glen Ross - Review

Playhouse Theatre, London

****

Written by David Mamet

Directed by Sam Yates

Christian Slater

Glengarry Glen Ross, David Mamet’s concise study into the snake-pit of commission fueled property sales, is as relevant today as it when it opened 33 years ago. In a Chicago real estate office, men plead and hustle as they focus only on closing deals, no matter the human price.

Sam Yates’ production is built around a tight, stellar cast. Camel coated Christian Slater (who bears more than a hint of Tony Blair in his appearance) is Ricky Roma, the alpha-male of the pack. Canny and mercenary, Roma’s senses and reflexes are razor sharp. Not only can he sniff out a potential sale across the banquettes of a Chinese restaurant (with a convincing turn from Daniel Ryan as James Lingk, the hapless john) he’s two steps ahead of the aggrieved Lingk the next day when he appears at the office to exercise his cooling-off option. Throughout, the playwright’s genius shines through as much as in what is not said, as what has been scripted. Mamet only hints at the characters’ outside lives with his play cruelly entertaining us in our ringside seats as we watch men crumble in the pressure cooker of the deal.

At the aged end of the spectrum are Stanley Townsend’s Shelly ‘The Machine’ Levene and Don Warrington’s grey haired, wizened Aaronov. Glengarry Glen Ross will always draw comparisons with Arthur Miller’s Death Of A Salesman and here it is Levene who is the realtors’ Willy Loman, a man so desperate for a lead that his once canny judgement leads him into catastrophe. Aaronov by contrast is almost a spent-force. Perhaps once upon a time he might have closed deals, but in Warrington’s artful interpretation we see a pathos-infused ineptitude.

Robert Glenister is Dave Moss, who brings an angry fire to his picture of a man who would happily contemplate incriminating his colleagues in pursuit of lining his own pockets, while as the youthful company-man, Kris Marshall is John Williamson, overseeing the leads and the deals and with a disquietingly accurate knack for sniffing out the poor performers in the team. Williamson shares Roma’s instincts, but combines them with a dispassionate, clinical ruthlessness. He may be the most principled employee of the firm, but he’s unquestionably the least empathetic.

Yates’ direction of his ensemble is tight, amidst a fast-paced script that allows little room for interpretation. Chiara Stephenson’s set comprising the Chinese eatery in act one and the men’s trashed office in the second half supports the narrative with an authentic detail.

The tragic essence of the play is that Mamet’s men are everymen, defining an ugliness of the human condition that is probably timeless. In an evening that is more of an American Nightmare rather than dream, Glengarry Glen Ross is an ugly story, beautifully told.

Runs until 3rd February 2018

Photo credit: Marc Brenner