Civilian Theatre

Truth and its many voices

Tonight I’m Gonna Be The New Me – Made in China @ Soho Theatre, until Sat 26 September (tickets)

Following rave reviews for Made In China’s previous work, Gym Party, and having caught the scorching This is how we die by associate dramaturg, Christopher Brett Bailey, I had already mentally
clocked the company as one to keep an eye on. Their previous work had been built on a reputation for intelligently confrontational productions powered by a strong interest in purposely playful narratives, and their latest proved to be no exception.

Tonight I’m Gonna Be The New Me takes the form of a monologue by Jess (Jess Latowicki) that covers the realisation that the sun was beginning to set on her relationship with Tim (Tim Cowbury). However her performance is subject to occasional interruptions by Tim, who is described as a playwright. As the performers names suggest the meta-fictionality is taken a stage further by the fact that Jess and Tim are a real-life couple and are credited as co-authors of the production; further blurring the level to which the monologue represents a fictional truth.

Through a series of well-handled, informal interactions with the audience, Jess explicitly draws the audience into the action. Whilst a play naturally requires an audience to witness the action, the role is often a passive one. Here we are pulled closely into Jess’ character, through her direct engagement, whilst Tim remains an off-stage blank. We become increasingly complicit in the action, and begin, on request, to speak the lines of the play. Forced through the participatory nature of theatre, and through the natural instinct to follow social convention, we become Jess’ mouthpiece in the acrimonious exchanges with Tim. We become her justifier and her defender against a strangely silent, impassive character.

Except Made In China are too smart for such an obvious narrative structure. The play throws up much more interesting questions about their relationship dynamic as Tim’s role as co-author becomes clearer. Early on he comments that Jess drops a line, and later we are told that he is written his own death scene. We are forced to contend with the fact that Jess’ offhand, friendly on-stage persona may be nothing more than a construct of Tim’s writing. It as if the curtain has been pulled back to show the insides of a room only to discover on closer inspection that it is in fact a trompe l’oiel.

<<Continue to full review>>

A bumpy tour around the 1950s

Hatched ‘n’ Dispatched – Park Theatre, until 26 September 2015 (tickets)

Hatched ‘n’ Dispatched, a new play by Gemma Page & Michael Kirk currently running at the Park Theatre, has received a bumpy welcome from HatchednDisaptched The Family press reviews. The complaints primarily centre on a script criticised for presenting a series of cardboard cut-outs instead of characters, and it does not do itself many favours by presenting itself as ‘a mucky romp through the morals, memories and music of the 1950s’. The line conjures up images of bedroom farce and end-of-pier innuendo, whereas it feels like Page & Kirk are trying to find a way into rather more dark territory. If some of the more laboured and crude jokes give it the feel of Carry On Up The 1950s, there is a sense that at its heart the inspiration it draws from is closer to the social commentary that underpinned Joe Orton’s finest work and the pointed class anxieties of Mike Leigh.

It is the tonal inconsistencies that do most to scupper the production. The opening is one of a bawdy sex comedy before developing into broad farce. Whilst it is clear throughout that storm clouds are gathering, it never does enough to justify the shift in mood from the start of the second half. It opens with a misconceived domestic violence subplot (not a bad idea in itself but really uncomfortably handled) and proceeds to lurch between kitchen-sink drama, social realism, black comedy and Ibsen-esque naturalism.

Part of the trouble stems from a script that is not sharp enough to glide through the transitions. The dialogue never reaches the kind of heightened language that makes the baroque melodramas of Tennessee Williams or the Shakespearian monologues of Arthur Miller so memorable. The problem with recreating the kitchen-sink drama is that it was a dramatic style that perfectly fit the developing medium of TV, and as a style it was swallowed up and transformed into what we know as soap operas. Given that the cast is built around Wendi Peters, famous for her role on Coronation Street, it becomes difficult not to think of the play in these terms.

It is a shame because the cast are working hard to round out the characters, and in Dorothy Needham, Wendi Peters has a formidable role to work with. One can argue that she comes close to a caricature of a ‘northern battle-axe’, but Dorothy is still a wonderfully monstrous creation. She dominates her family, and it gives Peters the opportunity to dominate the stage. She takes on the role with lip-smacking relish. It is hard to avoid thinking of Hyacinth Bucket when seeing Peters in full flow, but Bucket’s persona was just a veneer to a fragile ego whereas Dorothy Needham is built of solid oak in comparison. She remains unphased by the foibles of her family members, and demonstrates a stoic self-sacrifice that one can regard as being as admirable in intention, as it is terrible in result.

<<Continue to full review>>

Accessible opera in unlikely venues

The Medium & The Wanton Sublime – Arcola Theatre, until 29 August 2015 (tickets)

Now in its ninth year, Grimeborn stands as east London’s answer to champagne, strawberries and washed-out picnics on the South Downs. It must symbolise the gentrification of previously gritty London that opera, in the form of The Medium and The Wanton Sublime, had sold out on a Wednesday evening, and that no less a person than Joanna Lumley, the doyenne of Jaguar-driving men everywhere, was in attendance. Perhaps finding La Boheme or Tosca had sold out would have been less surprising, but these are not such well known pieces. The Medium is so obscure that it does not even warrant a mention on Peter Maxwell Davies’ Wikipedia page, whilst The Wanton Sublime is an entirely new composition from Tarik O’Regan.

This blog does not profess to know much about opera, and was partly attending due to the strength of the festival’s wonderful punning title. However at around ninety minutes including the interval, the evening provides the opportunity for a taster session of what classical music is all about.

Both pieces are written to be performed solo, and are taken on by mezzo-soprano, Hai-Ting Chinn. From a lay-person’s perspective Chinn was fantastic in both roles. Previously seen in Einstein on the Beach, it must be strange to perform in the incredibly intimate Arcola Studio space. It places the performers within touching distance of the audience, and allows for a degree of intimacy that would not be possible in a traditional opera house. Chin handles this very well, and watching a singer close-up made apparent the amount of acting that goes on alongside the singing. It is a fascinating process as it takes a very different skillset to acting with written dialogue. The libretto must be sung which must make vocalising emotion difficult, and as a result much more reliance is place on externalised gestures (much as you would find in silent pictures).

<<Continue to full review>>

“He’s loved of the distracted multitude, / Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes”

Hamlet – Barbican Theatre, until 31 October 2015 (returns and day tickets only)

“He’s loved of the distracted multitude, / Who like not in their judgment, but their eyes”

Shakespeare, as is so often the case, provides the perfect introduction to the matter. He may have been giving voice to Claudius’ concern about how to deal with Hamlet following the death of Polonius, but these fifteen words pithily capture the frenzy surrounding Benedict and the Bard.

Whilst I do not intend to rehash the countless articles, Twitter-debates and journalistic etiquette that preceded opening night, one cannot ignore the implications of the media circus for the production. That the show was going to sell tickets was never in doubt, but the collective madness that took hold shocked everyone. Cumberbatch may be a star name but the West End is hardly lacking in this department; Oscar winner and genuine Hollywood A-lister Bradley Cooper could be seen in his boxers in The Elephant Man, while John Goodman and Damien Lewis are flexing their stage muscles in Mamet. Both shows sold well but not close to the stratospheric demand for Hamlet.

I disregard the casual elitism of those who seem to fear the masses will come bearing placards professing their undying love, wolf-whistle the sweet prince and general treat the experience like feeding time at the zoo. My view is that if just one-tenth of the near 40,000 people who bought tickets decide that theatre might be for them then I don’t really care if the only reason they had for going was because they live in a house built of discarded copies of Sherlock fanzines.

However we must consider how audience expectations and the surrounding pressures may have impacted on the production. In the theatre we allow the illusion of being outside of reality, but it would be naïve to believe that Lyndsey Turner, Benedict Cumberbatch and all others involved did not feel the weight of hype pressing down on them. Productions face a difficult problem when the audiences’ focus is so clearly on one man; they are attempting to perform Hamlet the play, but many are watching for Hamlet the man.

<<Continue to full review>>

Birds of Paradise in Arden’s Forest

Arden Creatures – Footfall Theatre @ Cockpit Theatre, 25 August 2015

Time was when August was a month when theatrically-inclined Londoners could catch their breath. Brave parents would wave goodbye to aspiring thespians at Kings Cross and with a song in
their hearts, a rucksack full of dreams and a hand filled with flyers, bright young things would flock north of the border ready to discover that the course of the Royal Mile never did run smooth.

The Camden Fringe, celebrating its 10^th anniversary this year, rather adeptly stepped into the breach and offers what perhaps could best be described as the Fringe’s Fringe. Rather than have venues lie fallow in August, it offers a wide variety of performers a chance to test out new material without having to make the kind of financial commitment Edinburgh requires.

Footfall Theatre took the Edinburgh route last year and their show, Lear’s Daughters, sold out at the Fringe before getting a Christmas run at the Hope Theatre. It was a text that fit clearly with the newly formed theatre company’s mission to explore how to bring new life to the female voice in Shakespeare. This blog is a sucker for any attempt to do something innovative with Shakespeare (hence a joyous trip to mercurial avant-garde polyphonic Polish renditions of King Lear) and so this philosophy instantly attracted me to Arden Creatures, performed at the Cockpit Theatre as part of the Fringe.

<<Continue to full review>>

Bloggers, Press, Twitter-spats and Facebook-cliques. Or how to cause offence without really trying

As much as we like to pretend otherwise, the vast majority of blogs are read by not many people. That doesn’t reduce their value. If people are reading what you have to say, and gaining something from it then does it matter if it is 10 people or 10,000. Brand recognition, quality of writing, length of service or knowing how to game google; whatever the reason, there are few sites that hoover up the vast majority of web clicks searching for reviews.

This blog has always been comfortable with its hit count (its not the number of clicks that matters but the number of repeat visitors, ooh-er missus etc etc). And anyone who has bothered to read anything on the site will note that it contains an almost perverse desire to write in a style entirely out-of-keeping with the move to Buzzfeed listicles and short-form content designed to be read through the latest phone gadgetry.

Equally there has been a conscious desire to avoid giving star ratings. The classic 5* rating is a ridiculously unsubtle device for providing a quality rating (assuming equal banding, the difference between a 3* and 4* show could either be 1 or 39 percentage points; hardly an equal assessment of quality) and reading many many blogs, I am convinced that very few would hold true to Gaussian distribution patterns come the end of the year. Other factors do come into play (going to see shows you are more likely to like) but given a theatre review should help people make an informed decision on whether to see a show, it is hardly helpful if everything you see is a 5* classic.

Friends have called me a tough reviewer but that is because I see a lot of ‘good’ shows, and so a 3* rating for me would be indicative of a ‘good’ show. This year I have seen four shows I would definitely have given 5* to, and maybe another two that were on the cusp. However the primary reason this site doesn’t give star ratings is because people should take the time to read what it has taken the writer time to think about and write.

Ultimately its about personal choice. The web is brilliant because it doesn’t constrict you. There are no rules. This site has its own philosophy but it doesn’t seek to impose it on other people.

Yet there is also social convention. And here we get onto more unsure ground. Do we say that conventions do not apply on the web. This ventures into the land of the trolls. Most people feel that conventions, the unsaid rules that govern the functioning of society apply online. They might accept a certain loosening of the rules but we feel there are limits to this. Personal moral codes have no weight online but the majority of people would agree that issuing rape threats to female journalists for having the temerity to express an opinion is beyond the pale.

However these are the extremes. What about the everyday unwritten conventions of the blogging world. They may not matter to everyone, but break them and unleash the hellfire of Twitter upon you. And thanks to The Times, The Daily Mail and assorted publications, the journalist silly season has had the perfect content to bring this into the wider world in the form of the Barbican, the Benedict and the Bard. The preview is a theatrical convention that has held for years. You do not publish a review before press night because press night is the first night. That the media broke this is frankly ludicrous but the fall-out in the blogging community has been substantial and often quite illustrious.

The desire for the most clickbait-y post is understandable. But London theatre bloggers are a tight-knit community and breaking this code was never going to go down well. We are fully aware of the contempt and sneer that the likes of Dominic Cavendish and more ill-informed commentators hold us in. Lets not give them any more ammunition.

So the wonderful folks who have set up Theatre Bloggers (the soon-to-be-far-away Rebecca Felgate, the mysterious West End Wilma and doyenne of the South-East theatre scene, Sammi O’Neill) have come together to produce a set of blogging guidelines. These aren’t rules, they aren’t a charter, you won’t be excluded for not following every single one. Rather they are practical tips if you want your blog to have the veneer of professionalism (and if you don’t want that, then that’s ok too).

And just remember (jazz hands at the ready) – to paraphrase Matron ‘Mamma’ Morton – “when you’re good to theatre bloggers, theatre bloggers’ good to you”