Issue 16 / 17 - 2004
Prompt Corner 
I'm still on the long, hard road back to lucidity after nearly four weeks and over 100 shows in Edinburgh, so forgive me if I wimp out and limit myself to a single page here this issue. (Our Edinburgh supplement will be published, under separate cover but as a free addition, just as soon as we've sorted through the myriad reviews and figured out how many we can accommodate.)
Margarita time
As Ian Herbert indicates in ...At The Back, a number of reviewers have commented upon there being two stage adaptations this summer of Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master And Margarita, but only Fiona Mountford and John Thaxter noticed that there have actually been three, and I suspect that only Theatre Record (preen, preen) has seen them all. I agree with Ian H. about the versatility and verve of Blanche McIntyre's production at Greenwich Playhouse in July, but it has to be said that if I hadn't read the novel I would have often been at a loss to follow the energetic but opaque happenings onstage.
Mind you, I regret to say that exactly the same is true of David Rudkin's adaptation for the National Youth Theatre at the Lyric Hammersmith, and his version runs nearly three hours compared to McIntyre's two. I'd been particularly looking forward to the Rudkin version; I've lamented here on a previous occasion the unfashionableness of such a writer, of whom the description "difficult" becomes a term of approbation. Alas, in this instance he takes the opposite of his usual tack: instead of tapping into archetypes of historical continuity, he goes for topical updates. In so doing, he not only fumbles the process on his own terms, but robs himself of many opportunities to bring a necessary focus to Bulgakov's sprawling, hither-and-yon narrative. It's easy to see how current anti-terrorist legislative hysteria can be compared to Stalinist oppression, but not especially enlightening in this context. And when he replaces the honorific "Comrade" with "Stakeholder", a term briefly floated and then abandoned by Blairite Labour in the mid-1990s, he suggests either that some form of this adaptation has been languishing in a drawer for several years or that his grasp of contemporaneity is somewhat shaky. Director John Hoggarth marshals his three-dozen-strong cast well, but without the foundation of a disciplined script he's fighting a rearguard action and one doomed to failure.
Exuberance
Consequently, I've come to re-evaluate Edward Kemp's adaptation for Steven Pimlott's Chichester production. When it opened, I wrote a review (for ITV Teletext, therefore not reprinted here) saying that McIntyre's Greenwich adaptation caught the atmosphere of the novel but lost much of its strange coherence, whereas with Kemp it was vice-versa. I now think that was overly dismissive. I still find it odd that the dialogue adapted from such an often surreal novel should settle into the heightened, melodramatic, even declamatory register that Kemp increasingly finds himself using; however, Rudkin falls into the same trap. And I belatedly appreciate the genuine exuberance which most of my colleagues discerned at the time; there's a lot more than contrivance to the various bits of wacky staging that Pimlott deploys.
To achieve all this and also find a firm narrative through-line is worth more praise than I gave it first time around. Both Kemp and Rudkin turn the Master from a novelist into a playwright, but Kemp takes matters further by plunging us straight into a scene in which Jesus is under interrogation by Pilate... until "Jesus" breaks away and launches a question to the back of the theatre, at which point it becomes apparent that we're watching a rehearsal of a play within the play. At last I can say, "This play makes total sense to me", echoing the casual remark of the giant cat Behemoth.
Messy hearts
At the National, Rebecca Lenkiewicz offers a similar kind of endearing sprawl in her second play The Night Season. With its combination of Irish family drama, self-conscious Shakespearean quotations, explicit allusions to WB Yeats and implicit ones to Chekhov (come on: the youngest of the three sisters keeps yearning to go to Moscow, literally!), one's not entirely sure that Lenkiewicz ever became firmly resolved on what it was that she'd wanted to write. Nevertheless, if the "what" doesn't coalesce, the "how" is a thing of beauty. Plymouth-born Lenkiewicz captures both Irish cadence patterns and my homeland's delicious, often self-deprecating sardonicism. A clutch of top-notch performances include the obvious candidates Annette Crosbie and David Bradley, Susan Lynch cast boldly and astutely against type as a buttoned-up librarian, and Lloyd Hutchinson who after years of unobtrusive excellence really deserves to be better known than he is. Director Lucy Bailey is rather too disposed towards unnecessary scene-changing business (a fault which I, in the minority, thought crippled her stage version of Tennessee Williams' Baby Doll some five years ago), but she handles the play's ordinary, messy hearts and loose-end lives deftly and sensitively.
Two adverbs which cannot, I'm afraid, be applied to Paul Kerryson's staging of Singin' In The Rain. The other Ian is warm about this production; I disagree. This was the show at which I realised I'd had the same reservation about a number of Kerryson musicals, and that it might be a trait. It is this: he loves putting oomph into such shows, but he can ignore little details in a way that lets them mount up until they threaten the whole. In this case, these details include not only misfortunes like a misbehaving rain system and trainspotterish minutiae such as anachronistic-looking film clips, but serious faults such as (again) an excess of scene changes (the first half here ran almost as long as the entire movie), a tendency to overplay and blunt the comedy, and a lead in Adam Cooper who can stand comparison with Gene Kelly as a dancer but not as an actor or singer. It ends up trying too hard in some areas and not nearly hard enough in others.
Ian Shuttleworth
At the Back
August is never the greatest month for London theatre, and even the absence of the Boss in Edinburgh for most of it didn't really leave a great choice for what some critics coyly refer to as "this reviewer". All the same, the half-dozen I saw on either side of my own excursion northwards offered a refreshing variety, from full-scale musical to ten-minute fairground ride, from starlit outdoor venue to stuffy, unventilated Fringe.
Olde Times Furnishing
Upstairs at the Gatehouse doesn't qualify as stuffy Fringe - it's a surprisingly big space, with comfortable seating on two or three sides. The shows it presents don't usually stray far from the middle of the road, but attract a loyal Highgate audience in spite of (or perhaps because of) rarely being nationally reviewed. Alexander Holt's production ofDeathtrap was able to offer high production values in Anna Calligaro's almost opulent, Olde Times Furnishing set (paid for, perhaps, by coming tours of Germany and the Middle East) but unable to match them in the hesitant performances of an indifferent cast. As a result, neither the comedy nor the thrills of Ira Levin's comedy-thriller came fully to life, so much so that you began to wonder how it could have achieved its long runs on Broadway and the West End. Let's hope its stuttering pace will pick up during the run.
Bombing civilians
The stuffiness was at the Finborough, where a kindly management compensated for the lack of air by offering free glasses of water to the audience. In these difficult conditions it was remarkable how cool an atmosphere John Terry's cast were able to create in his adaptation of Rolf Hochhuth's monumental Soldiers. Terry is fresh from an apprenticeship at the Orange Tree, and on the strength of this production I'd predict a very bright future for him. To cut the prolix Herr Hochhuth down to two hours was an act of mercy, and though it occasionally resulted in an exchange of aphorisms rather than a well-fought argument (its central subject is the all too topical one of the morality of bombing civilians) the overall effect was of strong characters in strong situations. ,Trevor Cooper's Churchill, one of those wonderful examples of an author giving all the best lines to the character he least likes, stood out particularly in a good, hardworking cast, along with Graham Bowe, making quite a leap forward from his June cameo in the Union's Government Inspector.
Sheer magic
Behind the thronging Brick Lane, in a derelict space, Marisa Carnesky has set up her Ghost Train, an experience that is neither quite indoors nor out. You enter what seems a traditionally tacky fairground ride, and are then subjected to ten minutes of thigh-caressing, spine-tingling illusion from a group of strange émigrée women who drift in and out of view on your roundabout journeying. After a final, dreamy dance of a curtain call they disappear before your very eyes, leaving a faint scent of patchouli and a strong desire to see them all over again. It's a little moment of sheer magic, to be caught and treasured.
False tits
Then across town to The Scoop, the stone amphitheatre in the lee of Ken Livingstone's mayoral palace beside Tower Bridge, where coincidentally a real fair was in full swing on the other side of the building. Here, after a test run with Oedipus last year, Phil Willmott is taking on the classics with an Androcles And The Lion in rep with Agamemnon. I wish I'd seen Androcles - my Lavinia for KCJS Dramatic Society a full half-century ago is still one of my happiest acting memories, even if my false tits never would stay in place. But the Aeschylus was a marvellous surprise. The challenge of keeping the attention of an audience who can drift in and out of this free entrance show, and slope off to the fair if they wish, is huge. Willmott meets it completely with a production which for intensity and invention would not disgrace the National Theatre - and certainly packs more punch than Katie Mitchell's self-indulgent Iphigenia playing there. Clever use of minimal lighting positions (Hansjorg Schmidt) and a musical accompaniment (Joe Fredericks) played by the actors themselves enhanced what built into a terrific atmosphere, and Willmott's clever deployment of a strong chorus ensured that the intention of the original was perfectly served in Kenneth McLeish and Frederick Raphael's muscular, modern translation. Very few of the ad hoc audience left before the end.
Strangulated vowels
When the first stage version of Singin' In The Rain hit the Palladium in 1983, Cole Porter and George Gershwin got into the list of composer credits. Jude Kelly's 1990 West Yorks version stuck with the original Arthur Freed/Nacio Herb Brown songs, as does the Adam Cooper version now gracing Sadler's Wells. Mr Cooper got deserved raves as actor-singer-choreographer for last year's summer special, On Your Toes, but here his multi-tasking is no longer a novelty and it has to be admitted that his singing lacks attack, his acting finesse. Still, this is a very efficient staging (by the trusty Paul Kerryson) of a fun show. Cooper's choreography is always inventive, with good stage versions of the title song and "Make 'Em Laugh", the film versions of which would be quite impossible on stage: you can also quibble about the excessive use of film inserts, not very good ones at that, but the overall sense is of a cast enjoying themselves and communicating that enjoyment to a satisfied audience. Ronnie Ancona has received special praise for the strangulated vowels of her Lina Lamont, and well merits it.
By the way, Snoopy, which also first opened in 1983, got rather better notices then than in its recent revival at the New Players'. Having seen it late in its curtailed run, I was reminded how good Larry Grossman and Hal Hackady's songs are. It seems a pity that the revival's very young, to my mind very competent cast should have been so savaged. Tastes may have changed enough to reject the homespun Schultz philosophy, but it's still possible to respect its bright, bouncy staging. The real problem is with the building itself, a performing space as large as the Gatehouse surrounded by unnecessary bars and eating spaces left over from the old music hall club, and very hard to manage. I fear the new owners are in for a bumpy ride.
Real discovery
It's always bumpy at the Arcola - that's part of the excitement. For Release the Beat, their ambitious homegrown musical, director Mehmet Ergen must have been relieved at the late arrival of Kate Young as its replacement musical director. She's one of the best (The Hired Man), and with the experienced Golda Rosheuvel was able to hold together an energetic and sincere but largely tyro cast in a production that was obviously not quite ready. As work in progress, it can be highly praised, but Judith Johnson is going to have to improve her cliché-ridden plot before it goes further. The real discovery of the evening is Karl Lewkowicz, the intricacy of whose score rose well above the drum 'n' bass rap that is the infinitely duller preference of the show's Ibiza-bound characters. Lewkowicz has the sensitivity of a true musicals composer, happily offering duets, trios and quartets alongside ensemble numbers. I really do hope to hear more of his work, preferably fully orchestrated.
Monstrous cat
Ian Shuttleworth has been collecting Master And Margarita productions, so I'll leave this issue's versions (with some relief, I must say) to him, but I'd like to put in a good word for the first of the bunch, the Blanche McIntyre version seen at Greenwich Playhouse back in July. In the confined Greenwich space, Ms McIntyre managed to pull off some spectacular theatrical tricks (which any M & M demands) by the most simple means, and I would commend her to your attention both for the sharpness of her adaptation and the resourcefulness of her direction. She got a great set of performances out of her cast, too - ten actors doubling madly and very successfully to create Bulgakov's parallel worlds of Moscow and Judea. Woland's crew were truly sinister, with Ben Bishop's monstrous cat a total, spine-chilling delight.
Ian Herbert
Contents / Reviews
London |
||||
ADAM'S APPLE New piece by SharpWire TC |
BAC |
29 Jul |
14 Aug |
1013 |
AGAMEMNON Revival of play by Aeschylus |
The Scoop |
31 Jul |
5 Sep |
1019 |
ANDROCLES AND THE LION Revival of play by George Bernard Shaw |
The Scoop |
5 Aug |
5 Sep |
1018 |
BALLROOM New play by John Retallack |
Riverside |
17 Aug |
22 Aug |
1024 |
CANNIZARO PARK SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL Twelfth Night and Much Ado About Nothing |
Cannizaro Park |
3 Aug |
7 Aug |
1026 |
CARNESKY'S GHOST TRAIN New installation/performance by Marisa Carnesky |
Old Truman Brewery |
2 Aug |
23 Sep |
1021 |
CHERRY PICNIC New play by Paul McNeilly and Emma Keast |
Old Red Lion |
24 Aug |
11 Sep |
1037 |
CIRCUS OZ Circus show |
RFH |
20 Aug |
5 Sep |
1052 |
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS Revival of play by Shakespeare |
Lincoln's Inn |
3 Aug |
3 Sep |
1041 |
THE DAYS LENGTHEN BY ONE HOUR AND THIRTY-ONE MINUTES Play by Eric-Anthony Dumas |
Tristan Bates |
16 Aug |
28 Aug |
1038 |
DEATHTRAP Revival of play by Ira Levin |
Upstairs at the Gatehouse |
10 Aug |
18 Sep |
1027 |
DOCTOR FAUSTUS Revival of play by Christopher Marlowe |
Barons Court |
10 Aug |
5 Sep |
1036 |
HEART OF DARKNESS Adapted by Troy Webb from the novella by Joseph Conrad |
Old Red Lion |
3 Aug |
21 Aug |
1047 |
ITALIAN-AMERICAN RECONCILIATION Revival of play by John Patrick Shanley |
Finborough |
25 Aug |
4 Sep |
1040 |
THE MASTER AND MARGARITA New adaptation by David Rudkin of the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov |
Lyric Hammersmith |
23 Aug |
11 Sep |
1050 |
THE NIGHT SEASON New play by Rebecca Lenkiewicz |
Cottesloe |
3 Aug |
1 Jan |
1028 |
PRETTY BOY New play by Sam Hall |
White Bear |
18 Aug |
28 Aug |
1037 |
RELEASE THE BEAT New musical by Karl Lewkowicz, with book by Judith Johnson |
Arcola |
29 Jul |
21 Aug |
1012 |
SCOTCH AND WATER / PONIES Double bill of new plays by Brett C Leonard / Mike Batistick |
Hen & Chickens |
3 Aug |
29 Aug |
1039 |
SEVEN SCREAMS AT SEA Play by Alejandro Casona, translated by Robert Arme |
Theatro Technis |
3 Aug |
22 Aug |
1037 |
SINGIN' IN THE RAIN Revival of musical by Betty Comden/Adolph Green/Nacio Herb Brown/ Arthur Freed |
Sadler's Wells |
3 Aug |
4 Sep |
1042 |
SIVE Revival of play by John B Keane |
Riverside |
12 Aug |
29 Aug |
1038 |
SOLDIERS Revival of play by Rolf Hochhuth |
Finborough |
29 Jul |
21 Aug |
1014 |
SOTOBA KOMACHI / THE DAMASK DRUM Double-bill of Yukio Mishima adaptations |
Greenwich Playhouse |
12 Aug |
5 Sep |
1048 |
SQUALOR New play by Paul Birtill |
Pentameters |
12 Aug |
5 Sep |
1049 |
WELCOME HOME Revival of play by Tony Marchant |
Landor |
10 Aug |
21 Aug |
1023 |
THE WIND IN THE WILLOWS Revival of play by David Conville |
Open Air |
30 Jul |
21 Aug |
1016 |
WOMEN LAUGHING Revival of play by Michael Wall |
King's Head |
9 Aug |
22 Aug |
1025 |
Regions |
||||
BLITHE SPIRIT Revival of play by Noël Coward |
Bath, Theatre Royal |
24 Aug |
4 Sep |
1063 |
CRUEL AND TENDER New play by Martin Crimp, adapted from Trachiniae by Sophocles |
Chichester, Minerva |
5 Aug |
4 Sep |
1061 |
THE MASTER AND MARGARITA New adaptation by Edward Kemp of the novel by Mikhail Bulgakov |
Chichester Festival |
29 Jul |
24 Sep |
1057 |
THE MYSTERY PLAYS Revival of guild play cycle |
Canterbury Cathedral |
5 Aug |
29 Aug |
1066 |
PRIVATE FEARS IN PUBLIC PLACES New play by Alan Ayckbourn |
Scarborough, Stephen Joseph |
17 Aug |
4 Sep |
1062 |
ROMEO AND JULIET Revival of the play by Shakespeare |
Oxford, Headington Hill Park |
3 Aug |
11 Sep |
1062 |
TRAMPING LIKE MAD New play by Julie Mciernan |
Keswick, Theatre By The Lake |
29 Jul |
3 Nov |
1061 |