Rose - Review

Ambassadors Theatre, London

***

Written by Martin Sherman

Directed by Scott Le Crass

Maureen Lipman

Maureen Lipman delivers a flawless performance in Martin Sherman’s fictional Rose, a play drawn from the experiences of his grandparents. Over two acts and two and a half hours, Lipman performs a monologue that charts the path of diaspora Jewry through the 20th century.

Set in 2000, the narrative sees Rose looking back upon her life. Born in a shtetl in the Ukraine in 1920, she was to experience Cossack pogroms and then the inhuman horror of the Holocaust that was to see her witness the shooting of her nine-year-old daughter by the SS in the Warsaw Ghetto. Escaping Europe and making her way on to the Exodus, bound for Palestine, Sherman is rightly unforgiving in his description of the harshness of the British rule over mandated Palestine and the accompanying hostilities shown by UK forces towards Jewish refugees.

The second act sees Rose build a life with the second of her three husbands, with Sherman offering up a description of the post-war American Jewish experience that will likely resonate with much of the play’s transatlantic audience. So far, so good, with the playwright having crafted a magnum opus in addressing the history that his writing has encompassed.

The wheels fall off in the monologue’s closing phase, as Rose equates Israel’s modern day actions in the West Bank with the Nazis' extermination of the Jews. This is a poorly argued conflation that offers a shallow and dangerous interpretation of a complex situation. It no doubt suits Sherman’s political agenda to promote this analysis, but as a historical comment his conclusion debases the preceding 90 minutes of brilliance.

Maureen Lipman’s performance of Rose is magnificent. Sherman’s writing however is ultimately found to fail to match her excellence.

Runs until 18th June

The Cherry Orchard - Review

Theatre Royal, Windsor

***

Written by Anton Chekhov

Adapted by Martin Sherman

Directed by Sean Mathias

Ian McKellen

There is a timeless allegory to Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard and in Martin Sherman’s adaptation the classic story's essence is maintained even if Sherman translates serfdom into the more recognisable description of slavery. The tragedy of bereavement and the fabric of life and heritage are woven into this tale of one family’s decline from a life of wealth and grandeur, and of another man's conquest over his family's one-time masters. It is a rich narrative and in Sean Mathias’ production much of Chekhov’s literary genius is maintained.

Francesca Annis’ Ranyevskaya is a tormented soul, bankrupted financially and fled to Paris to try and escape the grief of her young son’s tragic death, yet inextricably bound to the heritage of the Russian mansion of her earlier life and its cherry orchard. Annis is compelling, but fails to hit the sweet-spot that would truly bring the audience into sharing her deepening pain and loss.

Opposite Annis is Martin Shaw as Lopakhin, her nouveau-riche compatriot and ultimately her nemesis, in an equally measured performance, but with a shade more credibility to his character’s journey.

The glue that holds the story together is Ian McKellen’s elderly serf Firs. McKellen’s mastery is such that with the slightest word and nuance we empathise with his plight and his frailty, his humanity and above all his history, in a mastery of his craft that the two lead actors fail to match. 

The Cherry Orchard’s strength, particularly when set against our modern era, is that it speaks with such elegance on issues that our contemporary, curriculum-bashing activists tackle so crassly. Similarly, Mathias’ company replete with its gender-fluid diversity, distracts. This is unquestionably a quality night at the theatre – but it could have been so much more.

Runs to 13th November

Photo credit: Jack Merriman