Theatre Review | Civilian Theatre

“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.

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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.

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Bye Bye Birdie, Hello sexually frustrated small-town America

Bye Bye Birdie – Ye Olde Rose & Crown, until 04 September 2015 (Tickets)

Life in post-war America seems to be one of the most curious periods in recent history. Despite, or more likely because of, the horrors of the previous decade, the 1950’s gives the impression of existing in a snowdome; a quaintly innocent age forever frozen in time protected from the changes to come. Apple pie, mom and pop diners, white-picket fences, the nuclear family; snapshot stereotypes summoned up by small-town conservatives as they hark back to a period they feel we never should have left.

Uncovering the truth behind the myth is one of the joys of Bye Bye Birdie. Performed on Broadway in 1960, this Tony-Award musical is notable for retaining its modernity right into 2015. Spoofing the hysteria surrounding Elvis Presley’s draft notice into the army, it explodes ideas that are often casually accepted about the period and raises questions about how rose-tinted are the glasses through which we look to the past.

Sharply written, it captures the casual racism (witness an amazing string of close-to-the-knuckle one-liners spewing forth from Mae Patterson’s Jayne Ashley) and assumed patriarchal control (witness a highly hilarious rant from Harry Hart’s continually undermined Harry Macafaee) of the times. It is a world where girls become women at fifteen and are seen as fair game from predatory rock ‘n roll stars. The town has a bubbling undercurrent of sexual frustration slowly heading towards boiling point before exploding with the arrival of Zac Hamilton’s Conrad Birdie.

That it found an audience in 1960 America is perhaps not surprising, but it is also not so surprising that it has fallen out of fashion in the UK to the extent that it has never had a major UK revival since playing for 269 performances in 1961. It is not really ‘our’ history. We were too busy clearing up bomb damage and inventing skiffle to find time to buy a Buick Convertible and head off to the 5-and-dime for a soda pop.

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A moving performance (comes with own travelator)

The Trial – Young Vic, until 22 August 2015 (Tickets)

Given the number of perplexed reviews that accompanied Richard Jones’ production of Kafka’s The Trial, it is a surprise that so many critics avoided the obvious puns the title allows (the honourable exception naturally goes to the Daily Mail). This production certainly reinforces the impression that Richard Jones is a director whose work divides critics between those who feel that his directorial hand does not give the text a chance to breathe, and others who find value in the kitsch lunacy that he establishes through his visual style.

It is a style that is so unique as to be instantly recognisable. The importance that visuals play in his work means that credit ought to be shared with his regular collaborators; designer, Miriam Buether, and costumier, Nicky Gillibrand. In both Public Enemy (his reworking of Ibsen’s Enemy of the People) and The Trial, he creates a world that could have come out of a Lynchian vision of a Californian wife-swapping party. The colour palette leans defiantly towards the 1970’s and is almost aggressively lurid. Yet behind the warmth of the orange and peach tones he establishes a clinical coldness that is reminiscent of Kubrick’s best work.

The Kubrick reminder can hardly be avoided as Nick Gill’s translation gives Kinnear’s Josef K an internal monologue written in a form of English that is not so different from Alex in A Clockwork Orange. This is the most problematic aspect of a mostly enjoyable production. Having spent a week reflecting, I am no closer to why the decision was made to give Josef K this curious internalised language. The play appears to suggest The Trial is located in sexual angst (a contentious point in its right) and Josef spend much time recounting the historic fantasies that have turned him into the person he has become. It might make sense that the dialogue was babyish, as it would lean towards giving the play a Freudian spin, but instead it is more of a freeform organic narrative that flexes adult English to its own purposes.

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You can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave (But why would you want to?)

Grand Hotel – Southwark Playhouse, until 05 September 2015 (tickets)

For over a year I only heard wonderful things about Thom Southerland and how he had a magic touch when it came to staging ridiculously impressive musicals in theatres that should have been far too small to do them justice. His version of Mack & Mabel (long a favourite of the cognoscenti) was longlisted for the Evening Standard Best Musical 2012, whilst he repeated the trick the following year with the decision to attempt a staging of Titanic at the Southwark Playhouse.

So it was slightly disappointing to discover that by the time Civilian Theatre got round to seeing his shows, the magic seemed to have become a little more elusive. The Mikado at the Charing Cross Theatre was fluffy, fun but ultimately inconsequential, whilst The Grand Tour at the Finborough was a curio but didn’t fully hang together. Both pieces demonstrated hints of brilliance but never quite delivered.

As a result it is a great pleasure to announce that his revival of Grand Hotel at the Southwark Playhouse is absolutely spectacular. Right across the cast through to the choregraphy, direction and staging – there is very little to fault with the production.

And this praise comes from a reviewer who could distinctly remember being unimpressed by the 2004 Donmar production (even if he couldn’t remember exactly why he didn’t take to Grandage’s version). It may have been an off night for the cast or the audience member, but since then I have rather dismissed it as a musical.

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Community tensions on a mysterious island

Secret Theatre Show, Secret Theatre Lab – London City Island, until 01 September 2015 (tickets)

Well Secret Theatre proves a tricky one to review. Given the whole purpose of the enterprise is for the show to be, well, secret, there are some fairly clear difficulties in talking about it without giving the whole game away.

In actual fact, press have been given permission to name the play in question. However that does not feel quite in keeping with the spirit of the event and so this review will provide some general clues and maybe a few more cryptic hints along the way – probably enough to give most readers a likely shortlist.

The production is of an existing play. Secret Theatre Lab have previously adapted Edward Scissorhands and Reservoir Dogs for live shows, but in this case the work is a regularly staged play. It is an extremely well known story. The chance of not being aware of it is very small indeed. And if you went to school in England then it will be practically zero.

It takes place in London City Island. One of those developments that rise unnoticed until you turn around one day and find that a previously unloved and forgotten corner of the city is now covered in flats being pitched at foreign traders who have a half million lying around in pocket change (not the penthouses naturally). It is canny choice of location. Not least because the half-built isolated state is perfect for a promenade production that requires both interior and exterior scenes. Everything is self-contained and there is less risk of unplanned factors derailing affairs.

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