#ReadaPlayaWeek: Frozen

Plays, of course, are meant to be seen and not read, but it’s not always possible to see every play. They are not complete on the page, certainly in contemporary theatre where plays can be more collaboratively made than ever before. However, it encourages us (and hopefully others) to read more widely. For the third year, here is our #ReadaPlayaWeek initiative. And, as achieved in 2015, we shall try to choose 26 male playwrights and 26 female playwrights for our play choices.

Week 17: Bryony Lavery’s Frozen (1998)

‘Grief is hard enough anyway. But when you don’t know the truth, everything freezes and it’s hard to move on.’

Page Eight, David Hare

The subject matter of Lavery’s play is difficult and harrowing. Mainly a three hander, it focuses on the story of Nancy, who has lost her youngest daughter Rhona; Ralph, who murdered her; and Agnetha, Ralph’s psychologist. Frozen spans over twenty years taking us from prior to the kidnapping in a scene which shows Nancy wanting to escape family arguments, to her struggle with grief after Rhona’s body and killer are found. It’s a story which is easy to sum up in a few lines. But the form Lavery has chosen for the play is, as the subject matter, difficult, ensuring that it never it veers into soap.

The play is made up of short scenes, all monologues or duologues. Characters both talk to the audience, confiding in them, and interact within the scene. To some extent, it reminded me of Gary Owen’s Iphigenia in Splott (2015). Offstage characters, particularly Nancy’s oldest daughter Ingrid, are evoked through characters’ monologues: how they look, how they speak, their attitude. Moreover, like Owen’s brilliant play, words are chosen carefully; brevity is the key. In both plays, there is an arrow-like precision, where few words and how they are presented on the page – like poetry verse – can conjure the characters’ worlds and thoughts. And the characters are so richly drawn. There’s a moment where Ralph is talking about his childhood in such a romantic and idealized way that you feel he’s lying:

            ‘Big kitchen … we had a big kitchen obviously …

            with filled cupboards … and shining work surfaces … and that’s where all

            the kettles and pans … copper, all copper, all gleaming

            in the light’

Whereas in Stockholm Lavery’s use of language provides an insightful study into a modern day relationship (albeit with a twist), with all a couple’s in-jokes and individualisms, in Frozen, the focused and poetic use of language helps to articulate what characters might not have been able to articulate in language which isn’t as stylised.

The monologues also allow for all three characters to be central characters, instead of being preachy or from one perspective. There’s anger and upset, but there is also compassion and moments of dark humour too. It also opens questions, particularly regarding, as Agnetha points out, of whether serial killers are evil or ill. Is they are ill, does that and should that make us think differently about how we distinguish between the thinkable and unthinkable, and so on.

The ‘frozen’ imagery is used adeptly throughout. As the play goes on, things are heard falling in the distance, chunks of ice breaking, characters thaw, Ingrid has found a new lease for her grief, and there are hints that Nancy is too. The play ends with ‘[t]he sun [breaking] through’, the ice beginning to break.

#ReadaPlayaWeek: Time and Time Again

Plays, of course, are meant to be seen and not read, but it’s not always possible to see every play. They are not complete on the page, certainly in contemporary theatre where plays can be more collaboratively made than ever before. However, it encourages us (and hopefully others) to read more widely. For the third year, here is our #ReadaPlayaWeek initiative. And, as achieved in 2015, we shall try to choose 26 male playwrights and 26 female playwrights for our play choices.

Week 16: Alan Ayckbourn’s Time and Time Again (1971)

Alan Ayckbourn is the UK’s most popular living writer. His 80^th play premieres in Scarborough this summer and there is even a theatre company by the name of Dick and Lottie dedicated to his work. What’s more is that his work is exceptionally popular with amateur theatres. From 1987 to 2013, there were 807 productions of Ayckbourn’s plays in theatres that are part of the Little Theatre Guild, beating the 703 productions of Shakespeare’s plays. And yet there seems to be an aversion to Ayckbourn. There’s a suggestion, perhaps, that his plays might pander to middle age audiences.

I have experience of this first hand. As part of a production planning team at a theatre with a fervent dedication to Ayckbourn, we at times questioned the enduring popularity of the playwright especially after the odd dud production of one of his plays. Although we always aspire to produce a varied season of plays, we are also aware that we need to produce plays which bring in an audience. Ayckbourn’s plays, we have found, have nearly consistently achieved attendance rates of over 95% over the past decade, and so when putting together a season, we tend to include an Ayckbourn as one of the more popular plays in addition to some more ‘challenging’ plays. But does that not mean an Ayckbourn play can’t be challenging? Certainly, many offer technical challenges, including a swimming pool being needed for Man of the Moment, and body suits required for Body Language as so to give the effect that a rotund person and a thin person have switched bodies. The plays also pose significant challenges to the actors. The dialogue is often dense on the page and shorter lines are more common than monologues which can make picking up cues more difficult. And, I would argue, the plays often pose challenges to the audience too.

Time and Time Again is sneakily clever. Getting into it, it seems that all of the characters are tightly wound, they suppress their sexual desires and it takes half a page of dialogue to discuss how they like their tea or what the weather’s doing. The dialogue and the characters are everyday and the setting – a garden and conservatory backing onto some playing fields – is domestic. Audiences might well be able to easily relate to the goings on in the play. But then, characters behave in ways which you don’t expect characters to in these kind of plays. The inadequate, unconfident middle aged divorcee (Leonard) starts dating the younger, more confident Joan, and yet he is still able to have a laugh with her ex-boyfriend with supposed anger issues. Meanwhile, the grumpy, slightly envious, cocky, old-fashioned Graham watches over Leonard’s new-found prowess incredulously.

It doesn’t quite reach the peaks of farce as some other Ayckbourn plays might although the climax of act one of Leonard and Joan splashing about in the pond is nicely written. And, unlike some of his plays, Time and Time Again seems to be more character-driven than plot-driven and it’s interesting to see how characters change in the weeks between the scenes. Furthermore, Ayckbourn is often linked to Chekhov and Shakespeare in his understanding of human nature, but there’s a more concrete link to Chekhov here in that both Leonard in this play and Vanya in Uncle Vanya are apathetic protagonists who have surprising effects on those around them.

Ayckbourn, then, finds comedy in middle class lives in Time and Time Again. But there are darker ways of looking at the play: it’s a story of three men’s attraction to the same woman, Joan, whilst subdued housewife Anna (whose biggest excitement is choosing Battenberg cake for a change instead of Dundee cake) merely looks on; its portrayal of suburban tedium; its hint at midlife crises. Instead of pandering to audiences, staging plays with middle class characters and issues to largely middle class audiences can perhaps, to paraphrase that less popular playwright (!), hold a mirror up to nature.

Legally Blonde

Curve, Leicester

18^th April, 2016

Let me begin by saying I love Legally Blonde. It’s fluffy and feel-good and, yes, it has been dismissed (wrongly, I believe) as mere bubblegum feminism, but the message it sends out to women and girls is commendable; celebrating supportive female relationships and the importance of staying true to yourself. And everyone loves a good courtroom drama, right? So when it came to seeing Nikolai Foster’s latest production of the 2007 musical I admit that I was predisposed to enjoy it. And while the use of Curve’s technical abilities may be wasted – or at best, half-hearted – I did enjoy it.

It is rather unfortunate that while having the technical facilities to pull off big, spectacular set pieces (as seen before in Curve’s hosting the visually impressive Finding Neverland and Waterbabies), when it comes to their own productions the stage is often somewhat lacking. Legally Blonde is no different in this respect. The entire stage has been spray-painted pink. A hot, garish pink which even Elle Woods herself would declare as being a bit OTT. It smacks of laziness and the effect, to be polite, is tacky.

The budget seems to have been blown on superfluous neon lighting and projections which add little, barring the effective use of video in the Brooke Wyndham ‘Whipped Into Shape’ number. Consequently the pieces of constructed set look to have been cobbled together in haste. Amidst the exposed nails and chipped paint, the beds and closets were alarmingly wobbly at times and the loud creaking accompanying many of the set changes did nothing to alleviate my worries. It’s a shame because beneath the dodgy aesthetic, the show is in good shape, and leaves one feeling that Curve’s over-reliance on budget stretching shortcuts indicates a lack of faith in their own productions, which is rather sad.

With that said, my misgivings concerning the design elements were made up for by the exuberant performances, and the energetic choreography enlivens and counterbalances the sparseness of the set. The ensemble are extremely hard-working and display true triple-threat talent, especially the female cast members. Lucie Jones is a likable Elle with a stellar voice, if a little subdued in the comedic sections. She is backed up by solid supporting performances from the likes of Jon Robyns’ nerdy Emmett and Tupele Dorgu as the brassy but down-trodden Paulette.

While some of the self-referential lines felt crowbarred in – do people still associate Jones with The X Factor? It was six years ago and she’s made quite a name for herself in musical theatre since – the second half especially gained a great response from the audience, ‘There, Right There’ being a particular highlight in which the whole ensemble shine. I’ve also come to the conclusion that there really is nothing an audience likes more than seeing a dog (or two) on stage – guaranteed ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’!

It’s heartwarming to spend an evening enveloped in the fluffy, girly world of Elle Woods and I came out of Legally Blonde humming the songs and feeling slightly better about the world. But I put this feeling down to the sheer joy of Benjamin and O’Keefe’s score, the natural humour of Hach’s book and the inexhaustible efforts of the cast, as opposed to Foster’s direction. As a piece of good-natured, poppy musical theatre it’s nigh on impossible to dislike.

Legally Blonde plays at Curve, Leicester until 14^th May 2016.

 Credit: Catherine Ashmore

#ReadaPlayaWeek: Life x3

Plays, of course, are meant to be seen and not read, but it’s not always possible to see every play. They are not complete on the page, certainly in contemporary theatre where plays can be more collaboratively made than ever before. However, it encourages us (and hopefully others) to read more widely. For the third year, here is our #ReadaPlayaWeek initiative. And, as achieved in 2015, we shall try to choose 26 male playwrights and 26 female playwrights for our play choices.

Week 15: Yasmina Reza’s Life X3 (2000)

One

Evening. A living room.

Two married couples at a dinner party, although the only food Henry and Sonia can offer is Cheez-Its (Wotsits in the London production) and chocolate fingers because the guests, Hubert and Inez, have arrived a day early. Similar to God of Carnage, we see the two couples argue and compete, as they get increasingly drunk. It’s a riotous, farcical power play. Henry is trying to impress Hubert for the chance of a promotion, Inez can’t open her mouth without Hubert putting her down, and Sonia finds her husband pathetic. Soon after arrival, Hubert plunges Henry into disarray by teasing him that his three years of research on the flatness of galaxy halos might be wasted. Meanwhile, Henry’s and Sonia’s crying child relentlessly interrupts the soiree.

Two

Evening. The same room.

The scene is replayed going much the same way but is slightly different, reminiscent of The Mother.

Things fall apart, they get more drunk and argue even more.

Three

Evening. The same situation.

Henry seems more on top of it this time and things end more amicably.

---

Characters, particularly Henry, can feel euphoric one moment and then melancholic the next in Life x3. They can talk about the mundane including specific and recognisable snack food, from Laughing Cows to chocolate fingers, and then drift into chit chat about those larger things such as the cosmos and the impenetrable and unreachable galaxies. What can they make sense of, and does humankind make any valuable input?

However, I couldn’t help but feel that it was fairly slight, not as meaty or funny as not dissimilar plays such as God of Carnage or Moira Buffini’s Dinner. But I did admire the play’s ability to ask big questions about the significance of human nature whilst keeping as something as menial as a Wotsit at stake.

#ReadaPlayaWeek: Silent

Plays, of course, are meant to be seen and not read, but it’s not always possible to see every play. They are not complete on the page, certainly in contemporary theatre where plays can be more collaboratively made than ever before. However, it encourages us (and hopefully others) to read more widely. For the third year, here is our #ReadaPlayaWeek initiative. And, as achieved in 2015, we shall try to choose 26 male playwrights and 26 female playwrights for our play choices.

Week 14: Pat Kinevane’s Silent (2010)

Silent, performed and written by Irish playwright Pat Kinevane, won the Olivier Award this week for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre (Soho Theatre). In performance, signs and bits of clothing are used as aide-memoirs, voiceovers and music play an integral part, and silent movie is also incorporated. But the text alone is rich and bursting with ideas and insights into humanity and those living on the edge of society.

Silent is about a homeless man, Tino McGoldrig, telling the story of his gay brother Pearce and his different suicide attempts, the last of which was successful (an odd word choice!). He also reflects over his life, how he used to have a job and a wife and a kid, constantly finding parallels with his own life and that of the romantic world of Rudolph Valentino.

There’s so much that I liked about the play: its rough around the edges, it’s at turns darkly hilarious and extremely raw. The title inspires thoughts on the state of homeless people when you walk by them in the street. Homeless people can be silent, lying under sleeping bags asleep or sitting there as the world goes by their feet, but likewise the passers-by can be silent too, rejecting their pleas for spare change as if they are an inconvenience, or pretending not to have heard them ask for money at all. Kinevane upturns the title’s connotations by the having McGolrig as a very chatty figure. The density of the text is noticeable as you flick through the pages. Likewise, he is very likeable, opening his tales with a joke.

Kinevane’s writing is astute. He takes the instantly recognisable minutiae of everyday life and places it in a situation that is nightmarish. He also takes subject areas such as mental health difficulties and broken marriages and writes about them in a down-to-earth way which connects easily to the audience. Those who have experienced mental health issues will recognise the annoyances of phrases like ‘Pull yourself together’, and McGoldrig (in the manner of an observational stand-up) addresses those attitudes and difficulties with honesty and humour. As well as the play exploring feelings of shamefulness regarding homelessness, depression and alcoholism, Kinevane also touches on hints of how delicate relationships can be for the sake of people saving face. There’s his wife who felt like she had to turn away instead of helping him and his mum who felt put out by Pearce’s failed (and blackly comic) suicide attempts. Furthermore, like Mike Bartlett’s My Child, Kinevane evokes the extreme possible effects of being ostracised from your family.

Silent is an extraordinary play. There’s one particular moment of insight into McGoldrig’s life on the streets that opens your eyes to the difficulties of homelessness. People with homes have the ability to turn off at the end of the day, ‘going home to kisses and radiators and gravy and slippers and biscuits and Emmerdale… all the loudness is locked outside’ (Kinevane 2011: 12). People on the street don’t have that luxury.

Silent was commissioned by Fishamble: The New Play Company. I’m unfamiliar with much of the Irish canon, but Silent seems much more directly contemporary than some Irish plays – those which delve into the world of myths. But, like so many Irish plays, Silent is a play featuring stories and storytelling. And there’s a big twist at the end of it.

Don Quixote

Swan, RSC, Stratford-Upon-Avon

2^nd April, 2016, matinee

Updated 9th November 2018:

James Fenton has taken on an enormous task: turning Miguel de Cervantes’ 1605 novel Don Quixote, which is roughly 800 pages long, into a piece for the stage. The result is highly theatrical and very funny, whilst also conveying the story’s relevance. Angus Jackson’s production is charming, inventive, gloriously funny, physically dynamic, and musically imaginative.

Don Quixote (David Threlfall) has read all the books on chivalry and laments the loss of it in the real world. So he sets out on a quest to become a chivalrous knight, on which he slays dragons, wrestles giants and rescues damsels in distress. It’s a fairy tale, and like with all good fairy tales has a moral which is resonant today. Here is a man who is disenfranchised from and disenchanted with the real world, seeking to better it and endeavouring for it to live up to the sometimes heady world of literature. He is joined by the ill-suited companion Sancho Panza. Put upon by his wife and a small clang of crying children, he seems otherwise contented with his lot (the fat suit adorned by Rufus Hound perhaps conveys that). He knows where the sun rises in the winter and where it sets on the longest day, but, alas, not much of what happens between. Threlfall and Hound make for a great double act, off together on a journey of largely unsuccessful self-discovery and misguided gallantry. Their aim may be blinded but it is ambitious and seems a fitting story to tell in a theatre used to telling such epic stories.

As they set off on their wooden horses, Don Quixote banging his head on a beam as soon as he sets off, Jackson’s production and Robert Innes Hopkins’ rustic design ensure that the calamitous journey is full of slapstick comedy and visual delights. Don Quixote attacks windmills thinking they’re giants, kills sheep thinking they’re soldiers, and clumsily attacks a barber and uses his bowl as a hat. The performances are remarkably physical and comical, highlights being Don Quixote being taken up by a windmill wing and Sachno Panza hilariously and breathtakingly falling down a small hole. (Looking back on this in 2018, Hound's prat fall still makes me wince; mistimed and it could've easily gone very wrong). Threlfall’s Don Quixote is like the calm at the centre of his own storm, causing chaos around him everywhere he goes. Hound, with his experience as a stand up and in One Man, Two Guvnors helping him, keeps the whole thing together with moments of audience interaction.

The company’s commitment and energy shines through, and it is no mean feat that some members of the cast are also in Doctor Faustus and The Alchemist this season. Furthermore, largely due to the episodic structure, they do well to make their portrayals of smaller characters memorable as well as act as stage hands and impressively operate Toby Olié’s puppets. Additionally, the play’s mythic quality and talk of giants that we never see, and a hugely demanding central performance of a rebellious character, invites comparisons to Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem.

A mobile phone went off at the start of the final scene spoiling much of the pathos intended. Rufus Hound stopped the show, the house lights went up, and front of house came in until an audience member eventually found the phone and left the auditorium. I’m not in support for the rather prescriptive sounding idea of a theatre charter but I understand that the cast felt it necessary to stop the show. However, full kudos goes to Richard Leeming who, in character, asked if it was an ice cream van (the ringtone did sound like one – indeed some may have thought it was part of the scene). Leeming’s quip was completely in keeping with the jovial and relaxed tone of the show. Again, in 2018, this still annoys me; I wonder if  Hound's reaction would have been different if it rang in an earlier, more playful, part of the show...

The play continued, showing a rather frail and defeated Don Quixote in bed. But Sancho Panza encourages him to stand up and take a bow before he dies. As the lights went down on Threlfall standing triumphantly on his bed as it lowered sub-stage, the production reminds us that the road to happiness is often happiness itself. Even though Don Quixote may feel he never got to be like the chivalrous knight he read about in his books, he may have got closer to his goal than he realises. Angus Jackson’s production stays optimistic until the end and makes for an entertaining piece of theatre which is not merely diverting but is also a reflection on living up to the magnitude of stories.

Don Quixote played at the Swan Theatre, RSC, until 21^st May, 2016.
Don Quixote now plays at the Garrick Theatre until 2nd February, 2019.



David Threlfall and Rufus Hound in Don Quixote. Credit: Helen Maybanks

Hamlet

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, RSC, Stratford-Upon-Avon

1^st April, 2016

A dark figure holding a skull, a po-faced brooder – the iconic image has over time come to represent Hamlet the character, Hamlet the play, and has even been conflated with the Bard himself to become a symbol of Tragedy with a capital T. Yet it is ironic that a play so complex, so slippery, so full of paradox and ambiguity has come to be simplified by such singular visual iconography. The many questions surrounding the drama and its protagonist - is Hamlet really mad, or just playacting? Does he crave maternal love, or carnal lust? Is he an eloquent wordsmith, or merely a pretentious prat? Is it even a good example of tragedy in the traditional sense? – all point towards a play which is unsure of itself, and this in turn poses the question - what are we as an audience supposed to make of it?

It is upon these ambiguities that Shakespeare’s play thrives and which cements its status as (arguably) the most revered and famed of the Renaissance tragedies. Hamlet presents the opportunity for endless interpretation, psychoanalysis, and academic speculation. It is our continual attempts to grasp and hold on to this most evasive play that keeps us coming back for more, and this is why, 400 years after his death, Shakespeare – when done well – is the most exciting, sumptuous and addictive playwright ever to come from Britain, if not the world.

Amongst the RSC’s year-long anniversary celebrations is Simon Godwin’s fresh and vibrant production of Hamlet, presented with a beautifully clear concept which ensures maximum impact. Paapa Essiedu stars as the RSC’s first ever black Hamlet (this is shocking, I can’t fathom what took them so long!) and his youthful energy breathes life into the character, making him much more than philosophical mouthpiece.

Godwin begins the play with a short but necessary prologue: we are introduced to Hamlet as he graduates from the University of Wittenberg before an explosive paparazzi flash heralds the death of old Hamlet and returns the Prince to his motherland. This device is intrinsic in Godwin’s vision of youthful displacement – the return to the familial home following the independence and educational enlightenment of university is heightened by newfound feelings of alienation within the homeland.

The resounding African drumbeats of Sola Akingbola’s music emphasises the cultural heritage which pulsates within Hamlet’s veins, despite his long absence. Furthermore, the appearance of the Ghost (Ewart James Walters) in traditional dress stresses the importance of national heritage which now rests upon young Hamlet’s shoulders. He is not only the inheritor of his father’s title, but the inheritor of an entire nation: the strain of responsibility is palpable.

Essiedu’s Hamlet is in limbo, no longer a child but not yet mature enough to grasp the responsibility thrust upon him as a graduate, as an heir, as an adult. The ‘undiscovered country’ of the famous speech has particular resonance; Hamlet lies in the purgatory of youth, the purgatory of a homeland he no longer recognises, thus the afterlife and the unknown can’t help but weigh heavily on his mind. He unravels with speed (literally – Essiedu is lithe and nimble, flitting around the stage with manic energy). His crude drawings adorn the stage, garish war paint adorns his body, an illustrative outlet for his frustrations and a physical manifestation of his arrested development. This culminates in his revealing a tattoo of his dead father etched across his chest – youthful transgression exemplified by the definitive cliché.

Similarly, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (James Cooney and Bethan Cullinane) are typical ‘gap year’ types, complete with naive cultural appropriation as seen in their drug-fuelled mimicking of the local dance. Even Laertes’ (Marcus Griffiths) subdued reaction to his sister’s death points towards the widespread displacement of a generation isolated from their origins and unsure of their place within a disillusioned world.

However, Hamlet’s resultant regression, like his revenge, is a hot mess as he strives to embody both child and man. He treats sexuality with adolescent sniggering; his predatory attention to Ophelia (Natalie Simpson) undermined by his physical distance from her ‘c(o)untry matters’ during the play scene. His blasé reaction to gunning down the obsequious Polonius (Cyril Nri) shows up his honest descent into lunacy. The moment is played with a tone of hysteric humour, the murdered Polonius becomes the eternal butt of the joke, a scapegoat within Hamlet’s fantastic game. It is a credit to Essiedu’s charisma and immense watchability that the character remains empathetic - I’ve always advocated the benefits of a young, age-appropriate Hamlet, and this performance proves it.

Rounding off a great cast, Tanya Moodie’s Gertrude embodies a feline physicality, stalking across the stage she shows little of the submissive vulnerability often reserved for the mother. Along with Clarence Smith’s Claudius they represent the modern power couple, and it is fitting that in this production Gertrude refuses to die without a fight.

Godwin’s production is colourful, refreshing and resolute (positively lacking the wishy-washy hero-worshipping of Lindsay Turner’s production last year). As a young person I feel it resonates with a generation – my generation - where children are forced to grow up too soon, and many young adults are trapped in a form of post-educational purgatory. As attested by the 400^th Anniversary promotional material and merchandise, this production proves that, in the words of Ben Jonson, Shakespeare ‘was not of an age, but for all time’.

Hamlet plays at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre until 13^th August 2016

 Credit: Manuel Harlan