The Dark Earth And The Light Sky - Review

Almeida Theatre, London


**


Written by Nick Dear

Directed by Richard Eyre

This review was first published in The Public Reviews

Shaun Dooley (l) and Pip Carter watch Hattie Morahan (Helen)

The poet Edward Thomas led a full, if melancholy life, before enlisting to serve in the First World War and being killed in an explosion at Arras in 1917 at the age of 39.

Nick Dear’s play charts Thomas’ life from his younger days and meeting Helen, whom he was to marry, and pays particular attention to his relationship with the much lauded American poet Robert Frost, as their paths crossed shortly before the outbreak of war. Thomas also enjoyed an arguably unhealthy but nonetheless strictly platonic friendship with the 20th century writer Eleanor Farjeon, adding a complexity further deepened by Helen’s ensuing jealousy, which forms another strand of Dear’s writing.

Whilst the play’s canvas is certainly broad, it fails to be as effective as Dear would surely have intended, only occasionally presenting a moving depiction of the human condition. Thomas, sensitively played by Pip Carter, wrote of rural landscapes and as the programme acknowledges, often with a metaphysical reach that embraced the natural world around him. He was a man enchanted by birdsong and nature. To then attempt to recreate and import his beautiful world onto a theatre’s stage, albeit one sprinkled with genuine earth but nonetheless still within the intrinsically artificial environment of the Almeida auditorium and then pepper it with recorded sound effects and a starlit backcloth, seems to abuse all that was natural that inspired this wonderful poet. Dear has also reduced too much of the action of Thomas’ life to caricature, though Ifan Huw Dafydd relishes his role as Phillip, Edward’s father. Shaun Dooley as Frost is a stiltedly arrogant American, and when late in act two he relates the familial tragedies that have befallen him, it seems a strangely perfunctory inventory of death and illness.

The audience learn of Thomas’ death firstly in an act one monologue from Farjeon, touchingly performed by Pandora Colin and then after the interval, complete with sound effects and pyro, we have to witness the poet’s actual demise on stage. Dear’s re-visiting of this death is unnecessary and rarely has a stage reference to The Great War been as unmoving as this play’s. One jumps at the explosion, but does not weep at the loss. R C Sherriff’s Journey’s End achieved so much more with much less stagecraft.

Whilst the work’s intentions are noble, as a drama it is flawed. Richard Eyre has immense wisdom and creative talent and with further development, this tale could deserve a cinematic treatment. Eyre has excellent form behind the camera, and for him to capture England’s Hampshire and Gloucestershire and New England’s Franconia on film, would give Dear’s writing and Thomas’ verse the stage they so richly deserve.

Runs to 12 January 2013

Frankenstein - Review

Olivier Theatre, London - screened via NT Live


*****

Writer: Nick Dear, based on the novel by Mary Shelley

Director : Danny Boyle

Director for screen : Tim Van Someren







Benedict Cumberbact as The Creature and Jonny Lee Miller as Victor Frankenstein



It is a glorious crossover of digital technology and live performance, that is allowing National Theatre productions to be broadcast into remote cinemas. Whilst the projector can never recreate the intimacy and physicality of the shared experience of sitting in a theatre, when a production is either sold out, or impossible to get to, then NTLive is the next best thing. So it is with Frankenstein, a production that has by now garnered many deserved awards.

As has been widely reported, Jonny Lee Miller and Benedict Cumberbatch played the roles of the Creature  and Victor Frankenstein, alternating the parts between them throughout the run.  I was fortunate enough to see the staged production in the Olivier Theatre last year, with Cumberbatch as the Creature. More recently I saw the NTLive broadcast, recorded last year, with the roles reversed. Both Boyle and Dear had encouraged audiences if possible to see both casts , a luxurious ambition in itself as just getting hold of a ticket to one of the performances last year was nigh on impossible.

The Best Actor awards that the production has won have been rightly shared by both men. Whilst the role of Victor required acting perhaps of a more traditional style, the delivery of the Creature demanded the actor to convince the audience that he was truly an animal learning the most basic bodily movements, with guttural speech abilities that evolved over the show's two hour length. It is a testimony to writer, director, and above all both performers, that this learning process and development was presented on stage with no trickery or special effect but rather simply by acting , movement and facial and vocal expression of the highest standard. That the Creature is also able to share his emotional and intellectual development with the audience is further evidence of the tour de force that the performances were.



Jonny Lee Miller as The Creature and Naomie Harris as Elizabeth

 Having seen both castings, it is possible to compare  - and my preference erred towards Lee Miller as the Creature with Cumberbatch as his creator.  Cumberbatch provides a deliciously patrician performance, which added to the crazed creative arrogance of the scientist. I found myself moved to hate the wickedness of his  Victor Frankenstein more, which in turn suggests that Lee Miller perhaps evoked stronger empathy as the Creature. A hideous monster, borne trusting into a hateful and suspicious world as an innocent and who discovers first desire and subsequently betrayal .

Naomie Harris was a delight as Elizabeth, Victor’s fiancée. She showed honesty, love and compassion to both Victor and the Creature and earned the audience’s sympathy convincingly. Also noteworthy was Karl Johnson, as the blind and hence non-judgmental Delacey, who teaches the Creature to read and to reason.

The supporting cast was predominantly excellent. In two minor roles , Ella Smith provided a very effective setting of the scene. First as a buxom prostitute, horrified by the Creature, and later as Clarice, re-assuring maid to Elizabeth nervous on her wedding night, Smith added a touch of horrific authenticity, redolent of Hammer horror films, suggesting with her warm naiveté, that terror was never far away.

The NTLive broadcast camerawork was skilful and well directed. We had sat in Row A of the circle last year, but even there, had not been able to observe the meticulous detail put into the Creature's stitches and make-up. That the horrific scarring of the Creature’s body stood up to the HD scrutiny of  a large screen digital projection, is further testimony to the brilliance of the National Theatre’s creative team.

Lighting and design were excellent, and the music by Underworld set the tone perfectly.

The National Theatre have a theatrical masterpiece with this production. See it if you can.