The Price - Review

Marylebone Theatre, London

****

Written by Arthur Miller

Directed by Jonathan Munby

Henry Goodman

Arthur Miller’s The Price, now playing at the Marylebone Theatre is a timely reminder of the writer’s ability to dissect both the human condition and the American Dream. As Victor Franz, a cop, meets up with Gregory Solomon, a furniture appraiser in his dead father’s house, he is unexpectedly joined by his brother Walter, a successful doctor. Solomon is there to give Victor (and Walter) a price for the building’s contents, but as Miller’s narrative unfolds and we learn of the resentments and envious complications that simmer between the brothers (where Victor had previously devoted much time caring for his dying father, as Walter had been more estranged towards his family), it becomes clear that the prices Miller seeks to explore are more than just monetary.

Elliot Cowan and John Hopkins are respectively Victor and Walter, but it is in Henry Goodman’s take on Solomon that this production truly takes flight. Miller’s language is acutely New York Jewish in its style, with Goodman savouring every word, delivering his words with an immaculate understanding of the pauses and emphases that each sentence demands. Miller’s observations are wry and Solomon is gifted some sublime wisecracks and perceptive analyses to inject into the conversation from time to time. Under Goodman’s masterful delivery, each gag lands perfectly – the audience chuckling at the accuracy of the actor’s interpretation.

Faye Castelow plays Victor’s wife Esther, in a role that adds little heft to the narrative. Castelow’s performance is fine, but the dialog and reactions given to her frequently sound superficial and cliched.   

Jonathan Munby directs with sensitivity, but ultimately The Price is not Miller’s finest work. The play’s second act in particular as the brothers’ verbally spar, each line revealing yet another twist in their father’s decline, feels more like an emotional whodunnit rather than the critique of wealth, poverty and jealousy that Miller has sought to explore.

The Price may not sit alongside Miller’s Death of A Salesman or All My Sons, as a seminal work of 20th century American literature – but it is nonetheless compelling theatre.

Runs until 7th June

Photo credit: Mark Senior

King Lear (at Chichester) - Review

Minerva Theatre, Chichester

*****

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Jonathan Munby

Ian McKellen and Tamara Lawrance

King Lear at the Minerva Theatre is the jewel in the crown of Daniel Evans’ opening season as Chichester’s Artistic Director. Ian McKellen is every inch a king in Jonathan Munby’s production that is currently playing a short, sold out season. Staged unpretentiously in modern dress, the court of this King Lear bears the accoutrements of the 21st century, yet still respects and celebrates the beauty of the mediaeval verse.

At 78, McKellen brings a credibility of age that only underscores this definitive interpretation, bringing a masterful touch to Lear’s mental decline - “Oh let me not be mad” has rarely carried so much pathos. It is however the strength of the company around McKellen that adds the lustre to this, the finest of recent King Lear productions. 

Dervla Kirwan’s Goneril flinches as her father curses her with sterility, in a performance of understated excellence. Modestly dressed (in contrast to her sister), Goneril’s murderous malevolence is masterful. Kirsty Bushell’s Regan, by contrast, is a sometimes scantily clad, Louboutin toting, femme fatale. The zest with which she accompanies Patrick Robinson’s Cornwall in ripping out Gloucester’s (Danny Webb) eyes with a butcher’s hook could be straight out of a grindhouse movie, but is never once overplayed. (Bravo to fight director Kate Waters for work that is, as ever, bloody good!) 

And that lack of overplay is the essence of this show’s class. Damien Molony’s Edmund is a role that is too often played to as a calculating pantomime villain. Here, Molony’s soft Irish brogue offers an Edmund imbued with an embellished evil that again comes with a classy credibility.

Tamara Lawrance’s Cordelia creates a particularly distinctive magic with Lear in their Act 4 reconciliation. Her talent combined with McKellen’s aged genius offers a moment of tenderness that is, again, rarely achieved.

A highlight of the production - certainly for this reviewer - is to see Phil Daniels return to the role of Fool. Daniels last played the Fool at Exeter in 1980, a production that I had the privilege of seeing. He was 20 then and fresh out of the success of Franc Roddam’s Mod movie Quadrophenia, bringing a cheekily youthful mania to his nuncle-baiting. That boy has now grown up into a bespectacled, tank-top sporting man (think Ronnie Corbett, but taller) and in this coming of age, Daniels brings a level of nuance to the Fool that is rarely (if ever) seen. Daniels still sports his coxcomb magnificently, but now his mirth belies a profound and troubling worldly wisdom and in an inspired touch, Munby has him sing his (many) songs, self-accompanied on the ukulele. It's a music hall touch, juxtaposed onto a modern interpretation of a century's old play and it works perfectly.

Phil Daniels

The Fool’s exit from the play has long been a source of debate as Shakespeare famously leaves it vague in the text. Here however, Munby has had some fun, introducing his own little kicker just before the interval ice-creams.

And again, in one of the play’s smaller roles, Michael Matus delivers a pompously priggish Oswald, making more of the obsequious functionary than is typically encountered in the play.

This is also a King Lear that having freed itself from the constraints of racial and gender specific casting loses none of the play’s impact in the process. Indeed the modernity of Munby’s staging lends itself to a bonfire of traditional casting stereotypes. Most distinctive amongst these translations is Sinead Cusack’s Countess of Kent, in place of that county’s traditional Duke. Cusack brings a steely kindliness to the role which opens up a different and rather enchanting take upon the loving devotion she shows towards Lear. 

Notwithstanding the contemporary staging, Munby spares us any heavy-handed spin on the ancient yarn, allowing us space to draw our own contemporary political comparisons. 

“See better, Lear” is how Kent admonishes his King in Act 1. I doubt there'll be a better Lear to see, and for some time. 

Runs until 28th October (sold out)

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan

The Merchant Of Venice - Review

Shakespeare's Globe, London

*****

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Jonathan Munby

Phoebe Pryce and Jonathan Pryce

Jonathan Munby's production of The Merchant Of Venice at Shakespeare's Globe is likely to prove a long remembered classic. The staging offers an interaction with the groundlings that defines the raison d'être of this remarkable venue and with some of the Bard's finest verse bestowed upon both Shylock and Portia, Jonathan Pryce and Rachel Pickup respectively provide a masterclass in English poetry. 

It can be all too easy to forget that The Merchant Of Venice is one of Shakespeare's comedies. Munby's production however makes much wonderfully timed merriment, with Stefan Adegbola’s Launcelot Gobbo putting on a class act that is as much Vaudeville stand up as it is classic Elizabethan drama. Elsewhere, David Sturzaker’s drunken Gratiano and Dorothea Myer-Bennett as Nerissa make for excellent comic foils.

The design of both costume and stage is gorgeous. The dress is of the period, with the Venetian masked Carnevale a prominent theme. Designer Mike Britton's Belmont is suggested magnificently by drapes of burnished gauze that billow in the Southwark breeze, cleverly catching the light and evoking a modest understatement to the wealth of Portia’s estate 

So much for the hilarity, there is heartbreak too - and in the most complex of parent-child dilemmas, Pryce wrestles with the demands of his Jewish faith as daughter Jessica spurns both father and tradition for her gentile lover, Ben Lamb's Lorenzo. That Jessica is played by Pryce's real life daughter Phoebe (who eschewing any whiff of nepotistic stunt-casting, more than earns her stripes) only adds to the moments of emotional devastation hurled at us. 

Much too is made of Bassanio's bisexuality as Daniel Lapaine and Dominic Mafham’s Antonio the eponymous Merchant, make frequent references to their past love. Away from the comedy again, Munby spotlights Portia's anguish as she comes to realise her new husband's sexual history, making for another neat and credible shot of pain.

Throughout, Munby's work is nothing short of visionary. His Princes of Morocco and Arragon (Scott Karim and Christopher Logan respectively) are stereotyped caricatures - indeed Karim’s Arabic creation could be straight out of Disney's Aladdin. But Munby knows just when to ease off too. Whilst his Princes may be buffoons, there is no hint of grotesque Jewish caricature to Shylock, with the director letting the evil of the play's prejudice speak for itself.

Whilst Shakespeare's original English text is respected, Munby takes brave linguistic licence elsewhere. Shylock and Jessica converse in Yiddish behind closed doors, whilst a devastating epilogue sees the now proselytised Jewess lament in Hebrew, whilst her father is subject to the full baptismal onslaught of a Catholic Latin liturgy.

But the heartbeat of this production lies in its devastating depiction of racist hatred. Shylock speaks of having been and is, spat upon. The courtroom scene is imbued with a lynch-mob menace that bays for the Jew’s blood. Whilst his desire for murderous vengeance can never be condoned, this production more than most, speaks clearly of the lifetime of abuse that the old money-lender has endured.

In what is likely to prove one of the capital’s stand out Shakespeare plays of the year, Pryce’s performance dominates and devastates. We share the pain of his yelp as his skullcap is brutally removed, realising more than anything else that the prejudices of 17th century Venice were barely different from those of Hitler's Berlin in the 1930s. And when we read today of the barbarity wreaked upon Iraq's Yazidis and upon many of Africa's Christian communities, we can only weep at Shakespeare's timeless wisdom.

Runs until 7th June

Image by Manuel Harlan

Wendy & Peter Pan

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon

*****
Written by Ella Hickson
Adapted from the novel by JM Barrie
Directed by Jonathan Munby

Fiona Button and Guy Henry

Yet again the RSC surpass themselves with their festive offering of Ella Hickson’s new adaptation of the JM Barrie classic. The ingredients are all there for a fabulous family theare trip. Lavish flocks of flying actors, scenery that swirls from the Darling children’s bedroom in Edwardian London, to the lagoons and secret hideaways of Neverland. A thoroughly dastardly Captain Hook (for once not doubled up by the actor playing Mr Darling) and possibly the most stylish Crocodile ever to grace the stage. Oh and the pirate ship is impressively scary too.

So, with the kids sorted, what have the RSC laid on for the grown-ups? Quite simply a tale that will make one think, laugh and leave tear ducts positively drained by the final curtain. Introduced to the Darling children, all played by adults and thus lending an enhanced air of make-believe/pretend to the whole tale, we meet Wendy, Michael and John along with their fourth sibling, Tom. Early on, Tom takes ill and dies. (His death is not at all visually harrowing for little ones, but lays down an emotional sub-text of such simple power that it renders many adults sobbing in the first 15 minutes). And this is where Hickson strikes pure gold. Wendy, the most caring of the children, is concerned for the grief of her family and from her desire to just “bring Tom back” to assuage their pain, so does Peter Pan become conjured up as the play takes us to Neverland to look for Tom amongst the Lost Boys.

In her debut RSC season Fiona Button is Wendy. Wanting to play with the boys, but weighed down by the expected sexist burdens of expected household and family responsibilities, hers is a cracking performance of a young woman on the verge of a much longed for emancipation. The depth of Wendy’s character and how Button makes her soar (in all senses of the word!) will stay with me for a long time. Sam Swann is Peter, playfully pushing at Wendy’s naivete yet craving the maternal nurturing for so long denied him in a performance of clever complexity. Guy Henry’s Hook is truly boo-deserving, capturing a neediness to Hook that hints at a desire for Wendy. As the tick-tocking crocodile (a classy green-eyed Arthur Kyeyune) swims past his ship, Hook’s sad reflection on the passing of time is another wonderfully perceptive comment from Hickson. 

Amongst a company of perfect performances, a sparkling gem of this Neverland is Charlotte Mills’ Tink. No size-zero diminutive waif, this fairy is an amply proportioned Estuary-English voiced chav who rips up our “fairy-tale” expectations of Barrie’s famous sprite and makes her a spirit for the modern common era. Bravo to the RSC for making a bold statement that rips up at least one of today’s ghastly role-models, so easily foisted on young girls.

Andrew Woodall and Rebecca Johnson’s Darling parents are subtle portrayals of devastating grief and also some touching humour. As he occasionally hits the bottle whilst she, in a nod to the Suffragette times, explores a world of employment outside the home, so does the RSC subtly educate and inform.

A (truncated) roll call of the show’s creatives salutes fightmeister Terry King who has packed the show full of swashbuckling sword fights, Colin Richmond’s gorgeous designs that use the full height and drop of the world class Royal Shakespeare Theatre and Matt Costain’s breathtaking aerial work. All under the wise and clever helm of Jonathan Munby.

This is a classic tale, re-imagined and brought bang up to date whilst staying true to its heritage. Flawless perfect theatre that is unquestionably unmissable. Fun for all the family – and don’t forget your tissues!

Runs until 2nd March 2014