Last week, at the height of the glorious English summer, I decided to go and see John Gay’s classic popular opera, The Beggar’s Opera. An interesting piece that at the time satirised the excess of Italian opera, it is perhaps most famous today for Kurt Weill’s and Bertold Brecht’s adaptation that turned it into The Threepenny Opera and the originator of the song, Mac the Knife. Anyway in a change to my normal prose, today’s review comes in the form of a flowchart.
As usual the gigantic world of the blogosphere is putting me to shame in terms of creative output. Whilst I summon up the mental fortitude to begin writing a review of Emperor and Galilean, Ibsen’s monumental effort that deserves to be ranked alongside Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate in terms of auterial epic fail, here are some of the more interesting things that are going on elsewhere:
1) For those who like their blogging hi-tech then you should head over to theatreVOICE (because capitalisation is so 19th century). I have recently discovered this impressive site but just a quick delve into the archives reveals a rich back catalogue of debate and analysis that dips into all area’s of theatre.
2) Whilst I fully intend to dedicate a full post to the wonderful Digital Theatre in due course, in the meantime you should most definitely visit their homepage. There is a long way to go but it finally seems as if their might be a decent way of watching expensive and sold-out shows in the comfort of your own home. Having downloaded the Open Air Theatre’s production of Into the Woods, I can confirm there is still work to do but it is definitely worth checking out.
3) Lyn Gardner talks to Felix Barrett, director of The Crash of the Elysium, and it makes me wish I was a child.
4) I went to see Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead and it is somewhere on the ‘to be written’ pile; there could be some sub-Stoppardian conceit in that but as it is you can read an even-handed assessment at Everything Theatre.
5) A pithy review of A Women Killed With Kindness which opens on July 19th at the National.
6) And falling neatly into ‘And in other news…’ we can all learn about the fascinating history of a well-travelled suitcase over at the fabulous London Particulars.
Girlfriends
Upstairs @ Ye Olde Rose & Crown, 01 July 2011
While watching All Star Productions revival of Howard Goodall’s 1986
musicalGirlfriends I was reminded of the sheer vastness of new British writing since the 1960’s. It can seem that there is a play for any occasion; metaphor for the crisis in Serbia? Try Sarah Kane’s Blasted. Verbatim reportage on a racist killing? How about Colour of Justice. Dissident Russian’s that require a full-scale orchestra? Stoppard’s Every Good Boy…should hit the mark.
Given this incredible legacy that exists it’s dispiriting to scan the West End and see endless Musicals based on bands – Thriller / Jersey Boys; films – Legally Blonde / Shrek; or written by Andrew Lloyd Webber Shakespeare – seemingly everything else. All Star Productions should be congratulated for getting their hands on this little known musical that is written by one of our best known composers and with input from a young Richard Curtis. It may not be a classic but a man who has won an Ivor Novello, a BAFTA and been nominated for an Emmy is more than capable of writing a few catchy tunes. The fact it is a completely original musical comes as a huge relief and at least a modicum amount of time has been devoted to a plot and characters, which if wafer-thin, is always engaging. Continue Reading Here
The Infernal Comedy – Barbican Hall, 17 June 2011
It is difficult to imagine the path that led John Malkovitch to decide that one of his rare forays into the theatre would involve producing a piece based on the true life story of the notorious Austrian serial killer, Jack Unterweger. If that is hard to picture then staging it is a darkly comedic one-man show, with a dead Unterweger recounting his life story alongside a string orchestra and two opera singers tackling selected arias from the likes of Mozart, Vivaldi and Haydn, must seem totally unfathomable.
To say that The Infernal Comedy is an original piece of work is something of an understatement. Sticking faithfully to the traditional adage of truth being stranger than fiction, the story of Unterweger is fascinating. Originally sentenced to 25 years for murder Unterweger became a cause celebre among liberal Austrian intellectuals, who held him up as a model for the powers of rehabilitation on the basis of his poetry and short stories.
In 1990 Unterweger was released; soon becoming a national celebrity and writing articles about the conditions of Austrian sex workers. However, within a year of his release he had killed six more prostitutes and, even more audaciously, murdered three more in California after being invited to America. Eventually caught, Unterweger hung himself in prison after again being found guilty of murder.
That this story works as a play is testimony to the virtuoso performance at its centre from Malkovitch. In cinema he has become the by-word for a certain type of ‘acting’. And whether you love or hate him there is denying that he is one of the few actors around today who envelops the screen whenever in shot. It is this magnetism that propels the play forward. Continue reading here
School for Scandal – Barbican Theatre, 14 June 2011
There isn’t much left to write about the Deborah Warner directed School for Scandal currently playing at the Barbican. An award-winning director who was
most recently seen at the National with a stellar production of Mother Courage and Her Children, Warner’s original take on Sheridan’s 18th century classic became the rather surprising subject of unusually intense critical debate, before descending into a rather indecorous war of words between Warner and the theatre critics, Michael Billington and Charles Spencer.
The production demonstrates fairly conclusively that Sheridan’s restoration comedy continues to withstand the test of time. A sparklingly witty acidic comedy, the dense wordplay maybe be occasionally hard to follow for modern audiences but taking the time to really listen is more than worthwhile, with a script packed with lines biting enough to make you think of an 18th century Thick of It. The cast do fine work with the material. Alan Howard as Sir Peter Teazle is first rate, finding the perfect blend of genuine compassion mixed with the kind of grumpiness evident in older men who find themselves in a fractious relationship with a younger wife. It is interesting to watch Howard and remember back to a time in the 1970’s when he was one of the coming men of the stage, running through the repertoire of romantic leads for the RSC. Matilda Ziegler’s Lady Sneerwell and Vicki Pepperdine as the irrepressible Mrs Candour are both excellent and wring the maximum amount of humour out of two of the funniest roles in the play.
Leo Bill, playing Charles Surface as a trustifarian with a, very deeply hidden, moral centre, is entirely convincing. A bundle of nervous energy, constantly on the move, Bill injects some much needed pace into a play that, while constantly zipping along and never feeling flabby, is still a three hour haul.
However fans of Sheridan maybe scratching their heads at the description of Charles Surface as a trustifarian and this is where problems in the production begin to arise. The criticisms of Warner’s production have focused on the modern flourishes that have been brought to the play and a certain irritation that parallels with society today were being, in some cases literally, clearly signposted for the audience. Continue reading here
A truth well recognised by those who must do the things they enjoy on an unpaid basis is that one must spend much time squeezed between the work you are paid to do and the work that you would like to do. Having spent the last few weeks dedicating some serious time and energy to the former, it feels that the latter requires a little more attention.
So now that the natural equilibrium of all things can look forward to being restored, here are the reviews that you can look forward to over the next month or so:
a blog about theatre and performance // @rcurtis0914
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The labyrinth where night is blind.
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#AreTheyIn - The Absent Reviewer
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