Pressure - Review

Park Theatre, London

*****

Written by David Haig

Directed by John Dove

David Haig

First seen in Edinburgh and Chichester in 2014, David Haig’s acclaimed Pressure finally arrives at London’s Park Theatre where it runs for a month or so before heading in to the West End for a well deserved transfer. Haig leads the cast too, in a magnificent performance as Group Captain James Stagg, the meteorologist responsible for forecasting the June 1944 weather in the days leading up to D-Day.

Rarely is a drama so ingeniously titled. Not only is the audience on the edge of their seats as they learn the rudiments of isobars, millibars and anticyclones, the play also reflects the human pressures that pound the cast, much like the unseasonably fierce storm that Stagg predicted would hit the English Channel on June 4th and 5th and which led to, on his advice, the postponement of D-Day to the (now memorialised) date of June 6th.

Haig’s scripts have already displayed an uncanny ability to depict the humanity in our history and he does it again here. Stagg is a dour Scot, principled and meticulous and beautifully contrasted with his US counterpart, Philip Cairns’ Colonel Krick. The Yank is a slickly greased all-American quarter-back who’s brash and arrogant and, every inch, ‘over here’. The contrast between Jock and jock could not be more pronounced. 

The dialogue is so sweetly crafted too. When Stagg is being pressed for his forecast he exclaims “I’m a scientist, not a gambler!” – a powerful comparison, only heightened by the stakes that surrounded the Normandy landings being nothing short of existential. Stagg’s personal pressures are compounded by a concern for his (off-stage) pregnant wife who faces a risky and complicated confinement, while he too is confined to his weather room by the War Office.

But it is more than Stagg’s battles that make this such a stunning piece of writing. In close support of Haig are Malcolm Sinclair’s General Eisenhower and Laura Rogers’ Kay Summersby, the British adjutant assigned to Ike during his posting in Britain to plan Operation Overlord. Both Sinclair and Rogers created their roles back in 2014 and it shows.

Where Stagg (before this play) was one of history’s unsung heroes, Eisenhower has long been famed as a legendary General - and Sinclair’s interpretation of the man is one of the finest supporting performances to be found. Together with Haig (and director John Dove) Sinclair unlocks the enigma of military greatness, showing not only the pragmatism and steely resolve required in a leader, but also a heart capable of the most profound compassion. When Eisenhower speaks of having quietly visited the 101st Airborne Division the night before the landings, to wish “his boys” good luck in the face of possible death, the emotion in his words is as tangible as it is sincere. Beautiful stuff.

And then there’s Summersby who’s support and devotion for Eisenhower has clearly crossed the parameters of the military covenant, leading her to become the General’s lover and rarely is love defined so exquisitely (think perhaps of Celia Johnson in Brief Encounter). This pair’s passions may have been consummated, but Summersby’s devastation on being ruthlessly discarded by Ike, as he leaves Britain to continue his military campaign on the continent, is a work of magnificence from Rogers.

Colin Richmond’s subtle yet brilliant set, all Bakelite phones and massive weather charts depicting the Atlantic storms, alongside Philip Pinsky’s sound design, serve perfectly to create the play’s time and place. 

There is something magical about Haig’s carefully researched script, with a text that could almost be a paean to the British climate. Stagg’s description of a typical summer’s day on a south coast beach, in which all four seasons can easily expect to be encountered, and which leaves the incredulous Krick dumbfounded, had the audience chuckling at its recognisable familiarity.

Pressure is an unmissably beautiful piece of theatre.

Runs until 28th April

Then plays at the Ambassadors Theatre, London from  6th June to 1st September

Farinelli and the King - Review

Duke of York's Theatre, London


****


Written by Claire van Kampen
Directed by John Dove

Mark Rylance

At the age of 32, at the very height of a superstardom today reserved for the Hollywood A-list, the great 18th Century castrato Farinelli turned his back on the stage, never to return, to sing for only one man – Philippe V, the King of Spain. The King, suffering from a madness brought on by depression, could only find solace and sanity in Farinelli’s heavenly tones.

This apparently true historical titbit is the basis of Claire Van Kampen’s Farinelli and the King, recently transferred from the Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse to the Duke of York’s Theatre. At the play’s heart is an attempt to imagine the relationship between these two men, both ‘Kings’ in their own spheres and explain their friendship. And it is in exploring the dichotomy of these private, ordinary men and the public roles that they were forced to play that the piece is most interesting. After telling Farinelli how he became King, Philippe asks ‘When were you robbed of your normality?’

That dichotomy is given literal form in the case of Farinelli since the character is played by two men on any given night – Sam Crane taking a speaking role and counter-tenor Iestyn Davies joining him on stage to portray the singing superstar. This device, no doubt born out of necessity (countertenors of Davies’ quality are rare enough without expecting them to also be capable of acting the lead in a West End play), works well. Crane’s diffident ordinariness is a fine contrast to Davies’ strutting, golden-voiced megastar and it is Davies who provides many of the show’s highlights, aided by Robert Howarth's fine band. 

Of course, most of the audience had come not so see Farinelli but the King. Few actors are capable of playing bewildered, childlike madness as magnetically as Mark Rylance. At turns broadly comic, at others brooding and sinister, it is a predictably fine performance by one of the finest stage actors of his generation. And yet, there is perhaps a suspicion that a part so obviously written for him (van Kampen is his wife) has resulted in a one that he could do with his eyes closed without ever really needing to be at his glorious best – essentially a watered down version of his Richard II. 

Whilst the sometimes thin script provides fine moments of both humour and pathos, it at times straying dangerously close to Blackadder territory. Melody Grove in particular, has a rather thankless ‘one note’ task as Philippe’s long-suffering wife Isabella and neither she nor Crane convince in a predictable and possibly unnecessary love triangle.

Thank goodness, then, for the glorious music and the sublime voice of Davies, whose interjections bolster the piece. The scintillatingly beautiful “Lascia ch’io pianga” that closes the play is as memorable a moment as you will see on stage all year.

Runs until 5th December 2015