King Lear - Review

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford Upon Avon


*****


Written by William Shakespeare
Directed by Gregory Doran

Nia Gwynne, Natalie Simpson, Antony Sher and Kelly Williams

William Shakespeare's tragedy depicting the 17th Century King's descent into madness has been given a pared down, modern retelling by director Gregory Doran in this new production at the RSC. The audience draw is clearly Antony Sher, taking on the eponymous role (the Stratford run is apparently returns only) but this production has much to commend it.

King Lear decides to abdicate & divide his kingdom between his three daughters. He asks each of them to make a public declaration of their love for him. When his youngest daughter, Cordelia, (Natalie Simpson) refuses, she is disinherited, marries the King of France with no dowry & the elder daughters Goneril (Nia Gwynne) & Regan (Kelly Williams) inherit. And so the story of destruction begins. 

From the outset, the seemingly monastic set, looming bare brick walls & a huge rear iron door, invite us to the openness of the Swan stage. Set designer Niki Turner has created a world of angles, cubes & clean simplicity. The costumes would not look out of place on a couture runway; the female gowns are artful, flowing but with bodice structure or faux breastplates, rhinestone embellishment or matte sequin "armour". However exquisite, the costumes never overshadow the actors but seem to empower them.

When Antony Sher enters, carried aloft within a gilt glass box, enveloped in an enormous fur coat and hat, he looks majestically ursine. His Lear appears huge when the audience first encounters him, both in stature and arrogance. Sher proceeds to disintegrate before our eyes, mentally and physically, totally engaging the audience throughout the 3 hour duration. Even within the play's unremitting bleakness, Sher keeps the man behind the monarch the pivotal focus.

An exciting and diverse cast move across the stage seamlessly. Doran's deft direction allows the actors' performances to flourish, unencumbered, allowing Shakespeare's text to sing. This is a version vicious, visceral and venomous.

James Clyde as the Duke Of Cornwall and Kelly William's Regan open Act 2 with a scene of torture, which is bold but quite brilliant in the way the actors convey the utter callousness and casual acceptance of their evil. He takes out a man's eyes as the blood drips through his hands and she stabs a servant who protests as if crushing a spider. In a neon glass torture chamber cube, centre stage, they are delightfully despicable. Tim Mitchell's lighting is akin to an unnamed character here, highlighting the macabre.

David Troughton brings a heartfelt realism to the Earl of Gloucester, a man who disinherits his legitimate son Edgar and believing the lies of his bastard son Edmund, is forced into hiding to save his life. His later scenes were poignant and physically compelling whilst cast-out in the unknown, dealing with blindness. 

Graham Turners' Fool has the commitment of an old Broadway hoofer with an infectious Northern confidence. Both actors have integral scenes with Sher's Lear that are so warm & connected, you completely believe the relationships of these men are endearingly enduring.

As Edgar, Oliver Johnstone is tremendously exciting, using every inch of the stage, blood stained, conveying a manic craziness to his very toenails. Johnstone's physical acting is bold & top notch. Concealing his true identity to his blinded father, you can almost smell the frustration and pain from Johnstone. Head in hands his body expresses as much as his words do.

And then there was Paapa Essiedu. He plays Edmund with such authority and conviction it's startling. His delightful diction makes bullets of choice words; he brings a modern voice to this Shakespeare text as if hearing the speeches anew. When you feel like someone's up on the stage just chatting with you, something good is happening. Mr Essiedu does that. And the audience lapped it up. 

Sher is outstanding in this marvellous rendition but what elevates this production is the cast working together in harmony, telling a well-told tale, in a new and vibrant way. Truly a great night at the theatre.

Runs in Stratford upon Avon until 23rd October, then transferring to the Barbican Theatre London from 10th November to 23rd December

Reviewed by Andy Bee

Photo credit : Ellie Kurttz

Death Of A Salesman - Review

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon

*****

Written by Arthur Miller

Directed by Greg Doran

Harriet Walter and Antony Sher

To read my interview with Harriet Walter and her analysis of the role of Linda, click here

Death Of A Salesman not only marks the centenary of Arthur Miller’s birth, but in Greg Doran’s production being staged over Shakespeare’s April birthday, is also the RSC’s jewel in its 2015 crown.

Widely acclaimed as the greatest American play, we witness a meticulous dissection of the last 24 hours of Willy Loman’s life. His sales are flagging, buyers won’t see him anymore and he has been reduced to “commission only” by his young and ruthless boss Howard, a man who (in one of many moments of Miller’s cruel perception) Willy has watched grow up from boyhood to inherit his family's business. The mounting finance bills on car (and hellishly, even the refrigerator) remind us of the domestic pressures that Antony Sher's Willy can never escape.

As guilt and failure take their toll on Loman, we see early on how wise his wife (Harriet Walter's Linda) is to his confusion. “Your mind is overactive, and the mind is what counts, dear.” But she is being kind. As act one unfolds, Harriet Walter delivers one of the most devastating female performances, telling sons Biff and Happy that not only is she fully aware of Willy’s suicidal depression, but that she cannot let him know that she knows, for such a revelation would destroy him. Linda’s strength as a wife and mother, desperate to glue her family together is a recognisable pain and as Walter spoke, the sobbing around the auditorium was profound.

Miller is merciless as he twists the knife into Loman’s last desperate hours. As Biff again disappoints him, the true depths of Willy’s guilt and shame are revealed, whilst Happy (Sam Marks convincing as the shallow even if ultimately loving son, too easily led by his trousers) is happy to desert his desolate father in a restaurant, as he heads off in pursuit of women.

Loman’s descent will be recognised by all and quite possibly be familiar to many and yet along the way he encounters everyday kindnesses too. Linda’s love for her husband breaks our hearts, whilst Charley (a beautifully weighted performance from the lugubrious Joshua Richards) provides one of the most touching definitions of friendship ever penned. In the play’s Requiem, Charley’s eulogy echoes Horatio's "now cracks a noble heart" speech from Hamlet, as the old New Yorker says of Willy: 

”He’s a man way out there in the blue, riding on a smile and a shoeshine. And when they start not smiling back — that’s an earthquake. And then you get yourself a couple of spots on your hat, and you’re finished.”

Nowhere else in the canon has the so-called “American dream” been so concisely revealed as the nightmare that it can so easily become.

Besides the faultless text, it is Doran’s company that mark this production as one of the greats. Sat at his kitchen table, the shoe-shining Sher defines Miller’s anti-hero for a new generation and as his mind unravels, Sher’s Loman is as brilliantly desperate as he is pitiful.

In a pairing that has seen Alex Hassell play Hal to Sher’s Falstaff, so is the younger man now Biff. Magnificent throughout, it is late into act two when Hassell, with minimal dialogue and outstanding acting, portrays a young man watching the rock that he had previously believed his father to be, crumble before his eyes. Watching the equal despair of the humiliated father and his devastated son, both now destroyed, is almost unbearable. 

Stephen Brimson Lewis’ powerfully overbearing set depicts a tenemented Brooklyn, the Lomans’ home, where nothing grows anymore – and as Miller has the play’s action flash between the years, so too does the staging mirror Loman’s muddled mind. Credit also to Tim Mitchell’s lighting and Paul Englishby’s music, both perfectly enhancing time and place.

In 1979 Miller described Warren Mitchell in Mitchel Rudman’s National Theatre production, as “definitive”. I saw the NT show more than once and Greg Doran’s version shares that pantheon. 

A tragedy that is timeless and epic and yet also everyman, Death Of A Salesman plays at Stratford, before an immediate transfer to London. The production is unmissable. Drama does not come better than this.

Plays at Stratford until 2nd May 2015. Then plays at the Noel Coward Theatre from 9th May until 18th July 2015

King Henry IV Part I

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford upon Avon

****

Written by William Shakespeare

Directed by Greg Doran

Antony Sher and Alex Hassell

It has often been mooted that Henry IV Pt 1 should arguably have been re-named Sir John Falstaff, such is the impact of the legendary bon-viveur upon the history play and Greg Doran’s production at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre only endorses the argument.

Commencing with the spirit of Richard II gazing down from the gods (a robed and long-haired David Tennant lookalike) we find Jasper Britton has assumed the mantle of Bolingbroke, opening the play as the newly crowned king. Britton’s performance is assured and he convincingly presents first, as a father initially struggling with his son’s errant Eastcheap ways and later as a monarch grappling with the destructive forces at work amidst his realm.

Alex Hassell is Hal, giving a performance of the Henry V (to be) that defines the young royal’s energy, vivacity and nobility far better than any recent stage portrayal of the warrior king. The robbery at Gadhill and Hal’s banter with Sir John is royal japery at its finest, yet Hassell also defines both mettle and honour in the play's later scenes, defending and loyally supporting his father. The young actor displays astonishing talent and of his generation he is unquestionably “one to watch”. Matched against him is Trevor White’s Hotspur. Envious of Hal’s preferment and bearing a chip on his shoulder, Hotspur is one of Shakespeare's more unforgiving roles. White’s energetic effort is hampered by an overplayed chip, trying just a little bit “too hard”.

The jewel in this production’s crown however is unquestionably Antony Sher’s Falstaff. A corpulent, drunken profiteer, as likely to be found in the arms of the pox-ridden Mistress Quickly (a wonderfully be-scabbed Paola Dionisotti) as to be gaming with the Prince of Wales. Sher relishes Falstaff’s every moment and that his sozzled patrician Falstaff is so at ease with the Eastcheap cutpurses only adds to the color of his character. With a perpetually unpaid bar bill and the quickest of wits, Sir John precurses the latter day comic creations of Arthur Daley or Norman Stanley Fletcher, each a quintessentially lovable rogue. One of our finest actors, Sher’s “What is honesty?” soliloquy is an outstanding delivery, with so many of his lines being pathos-laden comedy gold. A good comic must master timing as well as voice and physical presence, Sher nails the lot and one is unlikely to see a finer Shakespearean performance this year.

Other notables are Joshua Richards with a wonderfully pagan Owen Glendower and Simon Thorp's Rickman-esque Lord Chief Justice.

The RSC is again at its creative best. Terry King elicits breathtaking fightwork (Sean Chapman’s scottish Douglas menaces with the mace) whilst Tim Mitchell’s lighting and Martin Slavin’s sound design effectively suggest both location and time. A finely produced treat, Greg Doran’s interpretation is thoughtful, perceptive and hilarious.

Plays to 6th September 2014, then tours.

The Sound Of Music

Open Air Theatre, London

****

Music by Richard Rodgers

Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II

Book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse

Directed by Rachel Kavanaugh

Charlotte Wakefield is Maria Rainer

How do you solve a problem like The Sound Of Music, this season’s highlight from the Open Air Theatre? It may be one of the most famous musicals written, containing countless memorable songs that have been hard-wired into our collective psyche, yet its underlying structure remains shallow and ridiculous. A story that sugar-coats enormous issues and trivialises them, glossing over stifled and stilted parenting and an abused and damaged childhood, whilst the ever menacing loom of the Anschluss suggests that the Third Reich is more of a fairy tale baddy that can be easily hoodwinked, rather than a regime that was to prove to be the century's most infernal monstrosity. The story is clichéd, flawed and quite how it achieved epic status would confound today’s book-writers. Nonetheless, The Sound Of Music is a global behemoth and one whose staging always presents the challenge of how to make such a well loved and familiar classic appear fresh and new.

Without question Rachel Kavanaugh, together with her cast and creatives rise to that challenge. Charlotte Wakefield is a Maria who in act one beautifully meets the demands of the solos and duets of some of the world’s most well-known songs. Wakefield convinces us as the delightfully dotty nun, struggling with her emerging emotions of love and desire for Captain Von Trapp. Shame though on Rodgers and Hammerstein for simply dismissing the damage of her “wicked childhood and miserable youth” with such casual lyrical disdain in Something Good.

Michael Xavier a stalwart of the musical stage, is miscast as the dignified and stoic albeit struggling Von Trapp. We learn that his Captain had been awarded military honours in “the war” which would have seen him so decorated at least twenty years before this story takes place and suggesting that he is a man at least in his mid-40’s. Notwithstanding that Xavier is a consummate actor, he lacks the gravitas and presence to effectively portray the uber-potent but nonetheless almost middle-aged, naval commander.

Fans of Stuart Matthew Price, prepare yourselves for a disappointment. A vocal legend of his generation, he is cast with not one note to sing. Price’s butler Franz displays a definite leaning in style towards The Rocky Horror Show’s Riff-Raff and whilst he is magnificently clipped and elegant in his ultimately traitorous role, this actor's immense musical theatre talents are woefully squandered.

Michael Matus as flamboyant promoter Max Detweiler is his usual irrepressibly excellent self. Matus exudes brash bonhomie just by being on stage, with a glorious voice that matches his striking character. Credit too to Caroline Keiff whose Elsa Schraeder is an elegant and well crafted depiction of understated nastiness. 

Michael Matus and Caroline Keiff

The show’s set design is clever, simply switching between the Von Trapp mansion and the convent and the skills of Tim Mitchell and Nick Lidster in light and sound respectively, ensure that the entire show can be clearly seen and heard throughout the Regents Park amphitheatre.

Kavanaugh aquits herself well with such a well known work. If you are unfamiliar with the tale, then consider seeing the show, if only to observe some of the very best aspects of London’s world-class theatre industry. If though, like most people, you love the work then definitely take that stroll to the park. You will be uplifted and exhilarated by the quality of the production.

Runs until 7 September