Magic - Review

Festival Theatre, Chichester

****

Written by David Haig

Directed by Lucy Bailey

Hadley Fraser hangs out in Magic

Magic is an ingenious new drama from David Haig, an actor and playwright with a talent for spotting an episode of history and then building a fictitious drama that is grounded in a fact-filled foundation. The play explores an imagined series of meeting between Harry Houdini, the acclaimed illusionist and escapologist, and Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle. The author is of course renowned for his creation of the detective Sherlock Holmes, but what is not so well known about Conan-Doyle was his belief in the world of spiritualism and seances.

The essence of Haig’s drama draws on Houdini’s mastery of trickery and ultimate cynicism – he was a man who made his fortune by skilfully deceiving his audiences via fairgrounds and flim flam – and how he deploys that skill to challenge what he believes to be the fraudulent trickery of the spiritualist mediums, who he is convinced are deceiving their clients, not via circus-style chicanery but rather, and arguably far more sinister, by preying on their emotional vulnerabilities. 

Magic is set in the 1920s when Conan-Doyle was already a widower and on his second marriage and had recently lost numerous close relatives including Kingsley, a much beloved son, to the fighting in the First World War. Haig sets out Conan-Doyle’s belief in the spiritual world as almost obsessive, with the clashes between the writer and the illusionist making for compelling theatre. There are moments in the evening when one feels that the ground is familiar, as some 30 years ago Haig wrote the play My Boy Jack that focussed on Rudyard Kipling’s grief over his only son Jack, who had been killed in the Great War. 

The evening’s physical theatre is magnificent. Hadley Fraser is Houdini, while Haig himself takes on Sir Arthur. Lucy Bailey directs with her usual flair of shocking brilliance that sees the play open to Fraser being suspended upside down while escaping from handcuffs. Fraser masters the scene spectacularly, but the visuals are striking enough to remind one of Bailey’s stunning Titus Andronicus at Shakespeare’s Globe in 2006 that left audiences fainting, such was the impact of her take on that play’s violence.

 

Aside from Fraser wowing the Chichester audience with his immaculate 6-pack, ( This reviewer jealous? Never! ) his take on the escapologist is passionate and convincing. Equally, Haig’s interpretation of the complicated author desperately seeking a connection with his dead son is deeply moving. There is strong work too from Jenna Augen and Claire Price as the spouses Bess Houdini and Jean Conan-Doyle respectively and a fabulous cameo from Jade Williams as Mina Crandon, a famed medium of her time, who Houdini tries to expose. 

The tone of the evening is classy as Bailey and her designer Joanna Parker create ‘just the right level’ of tawdry in the dancing troupe that supports Houdini’s vaudeville turns. The special effects and illusions are fun too – this could almost be a family show if the subject material wasn’t so troublingly dark.

Spellbinding theatre.

Runs until 16th May

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

Nachtland - Review

Young Vic, London

*****

Written by Marius von Mayenburg

Translated by Maja Zade

Directed by Patrick Marber

Jane Horrocks

Nachtland is an intriguing, brilliantly delivered examination of post-Holocaust German identity. 

Philipp and Nicola (John Heffernan and Dorothea Myer-Bennett) are brother and sister meeting in the house of their recently deceased father to clear his belongings.

Opening with typical sibling squabbles over who had cared the most for their father in his decline, their dynamic soon shifts on the discovery of a framed picture in the attic that on close inspection, is found to be one of Adolf Hitler’s early watercolour paintings. The drama quickly evolves into an exploration of base greed, as the siblings engage Evamaria (Jane Horrocks) to verify the artwork’s provenance with a view to realising its value, contrasted with the emotional agonies of Philippa’s Jewish wife Judith (Jenna Augen), who is appalled at the siblings’ crass materiality in their exploiting an artefact of Hitler. 

Marius von Maayerburg’s genius (expertly translated by Maja Zade) lies in his crafting of brilliantly worded arguments that never once fall into maudling or simplistic explanations, but rather outline the ongoing traumatic legacy of the Holocaust and its impact upon modern Jewish identity - and counterpointing this impact with the blunt disinterested disconnection of Judith’s in-laws.

The second half of this ninety minute one-act work introduces Angus Wright as Kahl, a would-be purchaser of the painting and Nazi sympathiser, who is found to be a vile misogynist. Throw in a small turn from Gunnar Cauthery as Nicola’s husband Fabian who contracts tetanus in picking out nails from the picture’s antique frame and the evening’s sextet is complete.

The writing is brilliant, the cast is flawless and as the evening evolves, occasional pockets of humour lead to a final act that is both harrowing and shocking. Anna Fleischle’s deceptively mind-bending set is the perfect complement to Patrick Marber’s assured and deft direction.

With occasional musical interludes ranging from Bowie to Beethoven and Mahler, Nachtland is outstanding theatre.

Runs until 20th April

Photo credit: Ellie Kurttz

The Knowledge - Review

Charing Cross Theatre, London

****

Written by Jack Rosenthal

Adapted for the stage by Simon Block

Directed by Maureen Lipman

Steven Pacey and Fabian Frankel

Jack Rosenthal’s BAFTA-nominated  screenplay of The Knowledge was a gem of a 1970’s television movie. The most routine facets of life, in Rosenthal’s hands, could become perfectly portrayed vignettes, as he transformed the recognisable into the bitter-sweet hilarious.

The titular knowledge is famously what is required to become a licensed London black-cab driver, a process so demanding that 70% of hopeful candidates fail to make the grade. This is hardly surprising as those who pass will, over a period of a year or two (that is, for the fast learners) have committed to memory the nigh on 15,000 streets that sit within a 6 mile radius of Charing Cross. Of equal importance, they will also have convinced their examiner that they have the patience and strength of character to deal with the full range of humanity that could, at any point in time, end up in the back of their cab. Rosenthal’s genius lay in not only recognising that “doing” the knowledge was a massive feat of memory, but that it also impacted upon the would-be cabbies’ domestic lives.

Above all, within his cast, Rosenthal created the most brilliantly tyrannical of examiners in Mr Burgess. A finely scripted, complex character, capable of the most sadistic of pedantries yet also, ultimately, caring for the overall good of the taxi trade. Mr Burgess ranks alongside some of that decade's finest dramatic creations.  

Remember too that the original screenplay was written at a time when the internet (let alone Uber) was barely heard of. There is much talk today of the cheaper and far less regulated online service threatening the licensed cab trade. Those fears are probably valid and with this adaptation, The Knowledge does a fine job in reminding us of the asset London has in it’s black-cab drivers.

The play is directed by Maureen Lipman who not only featured in the 1979 film, but was married to Rosenthal until his untimely death in 2004 and rarely has a task been undertaken that is such a labour of love. Lipman makes a decent job of her late-husband’s material, supported by a strong cast of well fleshed out caricatures. James Alexandreou puts in a strong turn as a feckless womanizer, caring as little for wife Brenda (Celine Abrahams, in the role played on TV by Lipman) as he does for his taxi studies. Fabian Frankel is a well acted Chris – an intellectually challenged young lad who struggles with the gargantuan task of mastering London’s geography.

Famously, Rosenthal had an innate understanding of the Jewish community, many of whom work in the taxi trade. Ben Caplan’s Ted , a third generation cabby captures both the man’s passion as well as his nebbish qualities in equal measure – though it is Jenna Augen as his wife Val, who so brilliantly nails the angst-ridden Jewish mother and wife. Lipman played a memorably interfering Jewish matriarch “Beattie”, in a 1980s ad campaign for BT. With Rosenthal’s creation of Val, one can see from where she may have drawn her inspiration.

The finest contribution of the night comes from Steven Pacey’s Burgess. It was Nigel Hawthorne who played the role in 1979 (with ITV’s The Knowledge just preceding the BBC’s Yes, Minister onto the nation’s TV screens). Pacey thus has massive shoes to fill and he makes the role his own. Onstage throughout – on a raised platform representing his office, a device that proves surprisingly effective - he delivers a vocal wit and physical presence that convinces us at all times of his compassionate power over the fledgling drivers.

For the most part the evening is a warm and entertaining night out. The politics may be mild and dated, but the fondness that Rosenthal (a Mancunian by birth) felt towards his capital city is there in every line. The Knowledge is a gorgeous period piece with a lavish programme (highly recommended) that is chock full of recollections and current day comparisons.

If you love Seventies culture, you’ll love this show.

Runs until November 11th

Photo credit: Scott Rylander

Bad Jews - Review

Arts Theatre, London

**

Written by Joshua Harmon

Directed by Michael Longhurst 

Ilan Goodman and Jenna Augen

Acclaimed at Bath last year and sold out at London's St James Theatre in January, Bad Jews now makes the short hop across town to the Arts Theatre to meet an almost insatiable demand to see the show. Indeed the clamour for tickets has been so strong that it led comedienne Ruby Wax to tweet recently of Bad Jews' "mostly Jewish audience. If you insult them, they will come”.

The play is provocatively titled because as Harmon admits in the programme, eleven years ago and before a plot had even evolved, he thought it would be "a good title for a play". Hmm. A dodgy premise for any creative work. Substance needs to come before the packaging and ultimately Bad Jews makes for mediocre drama.

Three Jewish cousins (plus Melody the Christian girlfriend of one cousin) are gathered in New York for the funeral of grandfather Poppy, a Holocaust survivor. Amidst familiar and familial spats of jealousy, rivalry and momentary affection, the plot's action focusses upon a Jewish necklace (a Chai) that Poppy had kept concealed during his time in the camps.

Religiously committed granddaughter Daphna believes the Chai should rightfully be hers whilst assimilated cousin Liam (who via some family chicanery, already possesses the necklace) is on the cusp of proposing to Melody and plans to give her the Chai in place of a traditional engagement ring. Daphna’s nauseated fury at Liam’s plan is understandable. However where Harmon abuses our disbelief, whose suspension is already hanging by a thread, is in asking us to accept the conceit that WASP Melody would even prefer the battered Chai over a diamond solitaire.  It makes for an in-credible pivotal plot-line.

To be fair, Harmon does thread some strands of relevance into his work. His exposition of the vain and arrogant self-belief of Daphna's piety is spot-on and he offers a further morsel of intellectual meat to chew on as he references the impact of assimilation and "marrying out" upon Judaism's cultural heritage. Noble arguments and credit too for his attempt to address the impact of the Holocaust upon third generation survivors. But ultimately it's all packaged up in a bundle of writing that far too often makes for a tedious naivety. Where Arthur Miller once brought a scalpel-like precision to such complex studies of humanity, Harmon wields mallet and chisel and it shows.

Speaking to The Guardian recently Harmon tells of how just before the play opened in Bath, that he had cut a line from the text that referred to the safety in being Jewish today, recognising that the sentiment didn't accurately reflect the current experience of European Jews. Whilst the edit was necessary, actually the chopped words should never have been written in the first place. For most of the last millennium continental Europe has been a deadly place for Jews - and that's both before and after Hitler - and Harmon's failure to acknowledge that continuum, even as he wrote Bad Jews, evidences a worrying ignorance.

And that side-splitting comedy? The programme notes reference Mel Brooks’ The Producers in which Brooks brilliantly lampooned Hitler in his 1968 farce and subsequent musical.  However, that The Producers worked at all was because Brooks craftily mocked an evil regime. Here, by contrast, Bad Jews' audience rather than laughing at the Nazis, are invited to guffaw at a surviving family's struggles to cope with the Holocaust's devastating legacy. There’s a whiff of freak-show here and it leaves a nasty taste.

Further credit to some of the performers. Ilan Goodman's Liam is a focussed channelled force, who notwithstanding the ridiculously Fawlty-esque extremes imposed upon his character, makes us believe in his comfortably assimilated Jewish identity, as well as his love for Melody. Playing his love interest, Gina Bramhill is a strawberry blonde genteel gentile. It's a novel twist that sees the non-Jew sketched out as a caricatured stereotype, but again and to her credit, Bramhill makes fabulous work of some occasionally ghastly dialogue. That Jenna Augen's Daphna, almost a year into the play's run, speaks too often in a squeaky gabble is mind boggling.

Completing the quartet, Joe Coen's Jonah is the Beavis-type silent one, who too little too late offers an endgame revelation that deserves more analysis from Harmon than the (yet another) sensational moment it is given.

In his song Shikse Goddess, taken from The Last Five Years, Broadway composer Jason Robert Brown, nails the complex and awkward nuances of assimilation with witty yet profound analysis in four minutes. Harmon takes more than an hour and a half to clumsily cover much of the same ground. Somewhere in Bad Jews there could be a good play struggling to emerge. This ain't it.


Runs to 30th May 2015