Long Day's Journey Into Night - Review

Wyndhams Theatre, London

*****

Written by Eugene O'Neill

Directed by Jeremy Herrin

Brian Cox

Brian Cox heads an impressive cast in Eugene O’Neill’s grim take on early twentieth-century America. Widely considered the finest of O’Neill’s works and drawn from the writer’s autobiographical experiences, Cox plays James Tyson, a miserly washed-up actor in his sixties and the patriarch of a family wracked with alcoholism, morphine addiction and consumption. 

Cox may take the starriest billing but his fellow performers are equally magnificent. Patricia Clarkson is his wife Mary, with Daryl McCormack playing elder son James Jnr. and Laurie Kynaston as Tyson’s youngest child Edmund.

In a 3hr 20min show, each of the 4 characters is given ample room by O’Neill to explore and display the depths of their own personal tragedies. All of the quartet are profoundly flawed, with the evening proving a stunning combination of outstanding prose delivered to perfection. Cox may be the unlikeable linchpin of his family, but even he garners a modicum of sympathy as the full extent of his and his family’s misfortunes are laid bare. Clarkson and her take on Mary’s surrender to opiates offers perhaps the evening’s most poignant interpretation.

Set over the course of one long day, in the confines of the Tyson house located in a remote coastal Hicksville, Jeremy Herrin’s direction is masterful, enhanced by Lizzie Clachan’s simply designed set and Jack Knowles’ ingeniously effective lighting.

It is rare for such a magnum opus of a play to be performed by such a gifted company. The evening may be uncomfortable and unhappy, but it is also unmissable.

Booking until 8th June

Photo credit: Johan Persson

Assassins - Review

Festival Theatre, Chichester

*****

Music & lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Book by John Weidman

Directed by Polly Findlay

Danny Mac

Only on for a ridiculously short two-week run, Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins is a beautifully engineered weapon, which in the hands of Polly Findlay and her company of marksmen delivers a rifle-shot straight to the heart of American culture and politics. An all-American treat, Assassins is as scathing of American hypocrisies as Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd is of the corrupt British elite.

A wickedly satirical look at the individuals who, throughout history, have taken a (sometimes fatal) shot at their President, Sondheim’s depiction of these assassins / would-be assassins is as brutal as their own intentions, with all featuring on the spectrum of social inadequacy. The show’s genius however lies in the bravado of Sondheim’s lyrical wit that,  applied to John Weidman’s book and under Findlay’s direction of a stellar cast, delivers some of the finest performances in musical theatre to be found this year.

The audience in Chichester’s Festival Theatre are pumped before the show even begins. Lizzie Clachan’s designs see the Festival’s thrust stage transformed into a TV studio cum Oval Office, with patriotic American drapes festooning the auditorium. Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ plays as the popcorn-bearing (yes, Chichester are selling popcorn for this one) throng take their seats. And in what must surely be another first for this august theatrical venue, mise-en-scene cheerleaders whip the crowd into frenzied Mexican waves anticipating kick-off.  Big screens countdown the seconds before Peter Forbes as The Proprietor takes the stage, getting proceedings underway with Everybody’s Got The Right. 

Forbes is magnificently Trumpian in his style – and while his take on the role is a masterful trompe l’oeil, it shows a partisan interpretation from Findlay that skews Sondheim’s otherwise unbiased critique of the American machine. Trump may well be a great visual in terms of razzamatazz and bombast – but Findlay’s omission of any suggested reference to the current senile and absent-minded White House incumbent, that may have offered some balance, belies her personal politics.

A scene from Assassins

Danny Mac heads the list of the show’s gunmen and women, playing Abraham Lincoln’s killer John Wilkes Booth. Mac’s take on the role is assured and defined, taking Sondheim’s wry interpretation of his character and giving it a fabulously nuanced interpretation. Booth’s interaction with Lee Harvey Oswald (Samuel Thomas) in the Texas School Book Depository, telling the nervous, hesitant and self-doubting Oswald that by shooting JFK his place in history will be assured is a dramatic masterpiece. The exchanges between these two in the number November 22nd 1963 demands flawless performance skills and with fine ensemble work in support, the song lands with pinpoint accuracy.

Carly Mercedes Dyer again shows her excellence as Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme an acolyte of Charles Manson with a plan to shoot Gerald Ford. Everything that Dyer does is outstanding and it can only be a matter of time before she is cast to headline a major musical. Nick Holder chills as Samuel Byck, the wannabe loser who believes his problems will be solved by assassinating Richard Nixon. Byck is offered no solo songs, just monologues, with Holder nailing the complex role. Jack Shalloo is equally strong as John Hinckley, the Jodie Foster-obsessed loser, out to shoot Ronald Reagan.

Sondheim’s score is another beauty. Jo Cichonska conducts her band, all finely decked out in Americana and seated in a circular pit that lines the front of the stage, with a stylish aplomb. Their take on these inspired melodies is unlikely to be bettered.

This glorious production merits a transfer to a London stage. Whether there is a mainstream British appetite for such a deeply cynical view of the USA is, of course, a different matter.

Until then, head to Chichester – for outstanding musical theatre, Assassins is unmissable.

Runs until 24th June

Photo credit: Johan Persson

The Truth - Review

Wyndhams Theatre, London


****


Written by Florian Zeller
Directed by Lindsay Posner

Alexander Hanson and Frances O'Connor

Florian Zeller is a precocious writing talent. The Truth is his third play to enthral London theatre goers in a year. Zeller's drama The Father reduced some viewers to tears with its' poignant and painful depiction of dementia. The Truth, a modern day farce about lies and adultery, brings tears of laughter.

Laurence (Tanya Franks) is married to Michel (Alexander Hanson) who is having an affair with Alice (Frances O'Connor) who is married to Michel's best friend Paul (Robert Portal). We watch in fascination as the reality of the characters' lives implode. Who is telling the truth? What are the lies? The audience is cleverly manipulated as the story unfolds. Zeller has certainly tapped into the male psyche concerning adultery but what makes this interesting is that the female characters are as complicit (or are they?) as the men. 

Alexander Hanson starts the proceedings, yanking up his underpants and meandering the stage like an impatient John Wayne. Never has the search for a sock been so amusing. Throughout, Hanson moves around the stage, a caged creature, whilst the other characters have a centred quality and often, a stillness. The simple, effective direction by Lindsay Posner keeps the action clean, letting the dialogue shine, lines ricocheting around the auditorium. 

Lizzie Clachan's stylish, minimalist set is highly effective in its simplicity. A pale, streamlined background of rooms that change ever so subtly; no doors are used as associated with our expectation of traditional farce. There is restrained embellishment, beautifully allowing the focus onto the actors.

Frances O'Connor has a regal quality in her sharp stilettos and brings a disarming coldness to Alice. For a play steeped in sex, O'Connor's Alice is calculating & practical, her sensual side kept under-wraps in her skin tight designer dresses. Tanya Franks' Laurence appears stoic, a perfect portrayal of middle class normality. She has a payoff in the final scene which she plays beautifully, the veneer that had been held together throughout, crumbling before our eyes. 

Robert Portal's Paul, has strength and conviction but an under lying sadness. Portal's body language and broad-chested stance belie his internal questioning. His confidence seems contrived and Portal keeps the audience questioning to the very end of Paul's motives. 

Throughout the 90 minutes duration (without an interval, which works perfectly) I found myself constantly drawn to Hanson's Michel. Even as a loathsome narcissist, he never fails to have immense charm and aplomb. His increasingly nervous, nuanced, suppressed manic philanderer is the glue that holds the whole piece together. It is a quite mesmeric performance which deserves as big an audience as possible.

The Truth packs the entertainment punch of a really good old fashioned farce, though Zeller has brought the genre into 2016 with barbed words, stating uncomfortable truths: with lies dressed in the hubris of modern day self belief. At one point, a character asks if they are in a comedy or a tragedy. And there is the truth - the play is both but manages to keep the tragedy of this predicament firmly within the comedy genre. This is darn good theatre, highly recommended. Go see it!

Booking until 3rd September

Reviewed by Andy Bee

All My Sons

Open Air Theatre, London

****

Written by Arthur Miller

Directed by Timothy Sheader

Tom Mannion and Brid Brennan

Challenging perceptions of right and wrong and forcing us to question personal choices, Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, his 20th century scorching classic on lies, deceit and integrity, is given a powerful revival by Timothy Sheader at the Open Air Theatre. The Regents Park setting suits the play, with Lizzie Clachan's simple set of a square lawn underpinned by long mangled roots being dominated by a huge Norman Rockwell image of a ‘perfect’ 1940’s post-war smiling family. The irony is profound.

Tensions rise as we encounter the Keller family, seemingly close and still grappling with the loss of son Larry some three years after his death. Surviving son Chris sensitively portrayed by Charles Aitken wants to move on with his life but is thwarted by a mother who refuses to accept that Larry is dead and by his father Joe who doesn’t want to rock the boat. Chris seeks inspiration and something beautiful to come home to, whilst Joe (a finely tuned performance from Tom Mannion) just wants something tangible to pass on that will have marked his existance. But soaring around this family are guilty secrets and a history of hideous compromises. With a nod to Greek tragedy and a grim inevitability, Miller skilfully weaves the threads that will lead to Joe Keller’s destruction. This is a harrowing production of a devastating play.

Brid Brennan’s powerful, intense matriarch Kate, grief stricken and in deep denial, tries to hold her family together as the overhead roar of Heathrow bound jet planes adds an unexpected layer of poignant pain to the events on stage. Powerful work too from Amy Nuttall as girlfriend Ann, harbouring her own devastating secret and also from Andy McKeane as her brother George.

Nick Powell’s atmospheric music is ominous throughout, complementing Sheader’s interpretation, with the evening proving to be coruscating theatre.  Effective productions of Miller should never be easy to watch and this production is as harrowing as it is brilliant.

Runs until 7th June 2014