Equus - Review

Menier Chocolate Factory, London

*****

Written by Peter Shaffer

Directed by Lindsay Posner

Toby Stephens and Noah Valentine

Lindsay Posner is back in the saddle at the Menier Chocolate Factory, jockeying his cast of thoroughbreds into a stunning interpretation of Peter Shaffer’s 1973 classic.

Teenager Alan Strang (Noah Valentine) has just been committed to a psychiatric hospital after having blinded six horses at the stables where he worked. Dr Martin Dysart (Toby Stephens) is the psychiatrist tasked with unlocking the young man’s deeply damaged mind, with Shaffer’s drama offering a brilliantly structured analysis of the challenges the doctor faces.

Onstage throughout, Stephens is sensational, gradually peeling away Strange’s defences to reveal his vulnerable core that led to such a horrific attack. Not only does Dysart unravel the teenagers traumatic life, such is Shaffer’s genius that he is also forced to face his own flaws too.

Stephens may be a sensation but he is well matched by the youthful Valentine a comparative newcomer to the London stage. In a story that revolves around flawed parenting, sexual frustrations and mixed attitudes to Christianity, it is no wonder that young Strang finds solace in the company of horses. Valentine is straining at the bit as he charts his most complex character’s arc with a graphic and brave brilliance. As a double act, Stephens and Valentine offer one of the best pairings in town.

The supporting cast are all given full rein to deploy their skill, notably Colin Mace and Emma Cunniffe as Alan’s bewildered parents who nurse troubled histories of their own. Bella Aubin - another relative newcomer - puts in fine work as Jill, the stable girl attracted to Alan.

It is however the ensemble of six performers, all trained in dance and who depict the horses, that offer some of the evening’s most powerful visuals. Moses Ward and Ed Mitchell do most of the heavy lifting in carrying their riders around the stage, but their stablemates of Luke Hodkinson, Aristide Lyons, Zack Parkin and Tommi Sutton have all been brilliantly cast for their sublime strength and movement. Credit too to Movement Director (or should that be Trainer?), choreographer James Cousins, who has groomed this talented sextet into mimes of equine beauty. Paul Farnsworth’s designs and Paul Pyant’s lighting only enhance Posner’s stylish direction.

After this Menier run, the production canters down the M4 for a brief stabling at its co-producers, the Theatre Royal Bath. Expect to see it galloping into the West End soon!

Runs until 4th July, then at Theatre Royal Bath from 14th - 25th July

Photo credit Manuel Harlan

Oslo - Review

National Theatre, London


***



Written by J.T. Rogers
Directed by Bartlett Sher

The company of Oslo

Oslo, a new play from J.T. Rogers is evidently meticulously researched. It tells the story of the channel of communication brokered by Norwegians, that culminated in the 1993 handshake and peace accord between Yasser Arafat, chairman  of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) and Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister of Israel. It is a tale of diplomacy and negotiation and as a history lesson it offers moments that are fascinating.

It is also, for the most part, very well acted. Toby Stephens is Terje Rød-Larsen, a Norwegian whose time spent in Gaza suggested to him that there could well be a path to peace to be explored. Rød-Larsen opens the narrative and as the evening unfolds, holds the process together as tempers fray, although there's more than a hint of a Scandinavian Hugh Grant in Stephens’ work, which detracts from his overall impact. Other neat turns in the production come from Peter Polycarpou’s Palestinian Ahmed Qurie, Philip Arditti as an Israeli Foreign Ministry official and Paul Herzberg who who delivers a cracking take on Shimon Peres.

But research and acting do not a great play make - and quite how Oslo scooped its Tony is hard to fathom. At three hours, the play could easily lose 45 minutes – it lacks the wit to justify such a long haul, with Rogers resorting far too often to the cop-out of having his characters just shout at each other. Ultimately Oslo is a stitched together series of "behind the scenes" anecdotes with little dramatic analysis and a heavy sprinkling of bias.

There is also an underlying sadness to the whole piece - there may well have been that momentous handshake in the Rose Garden (24 years ago today), but so what? Fast forward to 2017 and it appears that little has changed . 

Runs until 23rd September

Then at the Harold Pinter Theatre from 2nd October to 30th December

Photo credit: Brinkhoff/Mögenburg