Sub Menu

Other

 

issue 04 - 2006

Prompt Corner

I spent most of my last column musing about what circumstances are or aren't germane to a review. This fortnight has thrown up a graphic example.. indeed, graphic in several senses.

In early February I went to Warwick Arts Centre to review the first British performance of Peter Brook's production of The Grand Inquisitor. Had I known it was also the first time actor Bruce Myers had played it in public, I might have realised why he simply could not remember the lines, limping through the 50-minute performance with frequent resort to a copy of the text. Clearly, such an event was no basis on which to review the production. (Moreover, there had been an unofficial press embargo on the show at that point, though nobody told me.) However, it lent perspective to the much changed version I returned to on its arrival in London.

In far greater command of his lines now, Myers was freed to attend to his characterisation and to give a rather more intelligible shape to what, even in Marie-Hélèlene Estienne's edit of Dostoevsky's original from The Brothers Karamazov, remains an argument of Jesuitical complexity and density. The most obvious change in staging was the addition of a second presence onstage, billed simply as The Listener (although the character is the returned Christ). Rohit Bagai sat, silent and immobile, as the Inquisitor attempted to indict Him. This, too, added to the dynamic of the piece, although Myers had not yet sorted out the business of delivering some sections to the figure and others out to the audience.

Contrivance

It became apparent, however, that Bagai's principal function may well have been to sit in a particular spot, a few feet in front of an apparatus that looked out of place on an otherwise bare stage and turned out to be a teleprompter. For most of Myers' performance he kept Bagai in line of sight between him and this contrivance, such that taking a prompt looked all but undetectable as his gaze barely deviated from his listener to the screen; two or three times Myers hesitated in his lines when looking elsewhere, only to resume with greater assurance after glancing back.

Now, is the use of a teleprompter relevant? After all, this same issue carries reviews of The Exonerated, whose cast sit at stands and read openly from their scripts. But this is a very different matter. The Grand Inquisitor is not a verbatim testimony piece; it is presented as drama, and contriving an arrangement like this strikes me as... well, "deceitful" is too strong a word, but certainly pretty tricksy. It's especially so, I think, in that this is a Peter Brook production. For decades now, Brook has been extolling the virtues of a theatrical communion, "holy" but technically unadorned, whereby performers and audience share in an intimate event of narrative re-creation. The Warwick performance showed the limitations of this approach: particularly in a solo presentation (as it then was), there was nowhere in terms of staging, onstage interaction or really of characterisation for the performer to hide, and similarly no way for us in the audience to evade sharing his palpable torment. But to circumvent this with a teleprompter smacks to me of an almost casual abandonment of the central aesthetic of intimacy and communion for the sake of a "quick fix". It lets the commercial imperative of fulfilling a sold-out-in-advance booking override a supposedly long-championed artistic philosophy. It's understandable, perhaps - a contract is a contract - but it still smells a bit dubious.

Embarrassment

This seems to me to be a circumstance which it is perfectly proper to mention in review, as it goes to the heart of both the technical aspect and the motivation of the staging. Yet Sharon Garfinkel's Tribune review is the only one that mentions the teleprompter. She could actually see the captions from where she was sitting; other reviewers perhaps could not, but I know for certain that some had their suspicions. Certainly, suspicion isn't enough to damn a production, but in this case it's a suspicion that can be fairly easily confirmed or rebutted, and in this case it's confirmed. Charlie Spencer (who's on something of a roll at the moment as regards vigorously laying into shows) remarks that the emperor has no clothes on. Whether or not one agrees, the emperor's attitude becomes even more conspicuous when he tries to cover his embarrassment with a screen.

(Trivia point: I've used the generic term "teleprompter" throughout this column. "Autocue" is apparently a proprietary brand of teleprompter, so referring to all such devices as "Autocues" is like calling all vacuum cleaners Hoovers or all refrigerators Frigidaires. Isn't that an interesting fact? Oh, well, please yourselves...)

Brand

Another great theatrical brand covered in this issue is that of Complicité, with the return of Simon McBurney's Measure For Measure to its co-producer the National Theatre after two years on tour around the world. I was fairly enthusiastic about this production first time round (TR issue 2004/11), though my stance was one of persuasion by the production's argument rather than of rooted conviction. Now, I find that argument far less persuasive, and I share Benedict Nightingale's reservations. Perversely, I slightly prefer Angus Wright's Angelo to that of Paul Rhys in 2004: Wright begins more plausibly as a desiccated apparatchik, and so also shies away from excesses of passion when his sensual race is given the rein. Naomi Frederick's Isabella remains fervent but unmoving.

But once again the matter of branding assumes an unwelcome importance in matters. It is the presence of McBurney himself, replacing David Troughton as the Duke, which may be most problematic: quite apart from the actuality of his oddly desultory performance, he now personifies Complicite to such an extent that it's like having a TV station logo permanently displayed in a corner of the screen. He hardly ever betrays Shakespeare's writing, but simply by being there he signals that the company brand dominates that ofthe playwright.

Breezy

Elsewhere at the National, Samuel Adamson's Southwark Fair shouldn't have sought the implicit comparisons with Jonson and Hogarth mentioned in several reviews. It's a breezy delight while it lasts, though I'd not go as far as Alastair Macaulay in urging all my friends to see it, and I simply don't understand where in the play Lloyd Evans finds the homophobia he alleges runs through it; it seems to me that it's the reviewer who's associating the negative characteristics he mentions with homosexuality, notthe playwright.

Joanna Murray-Smith's Honour, first seen at the NT, is now revealed as a much thinner piece, having this time received a production which is no stronger than the writing deserves. (Has anyone, by the way, ever spotted Martin Jarvis acting without a capital A? Answers on a postcard, please...) And Laura Wade slightly overdoes the driving metaphor in her Other Hands, but confirms the verdict of the Critics' Circle in awarding her 2005's Most Promising Playwright gong. Lloyd Evans (again) interprets this as Most Over-Hyped Future Has-Been; if Wade joins such nonentities as former winners Stephen Jeffreys, Rona Munro, Philip Ridley, Kevin Elyot, Conor McPherson and Oscar winner Martin McDonagh, I suspect that she and we will be quite content.

Back to top

At the Back

Wake Up At The Back!

Last week I went twice to the Theatre Museum, not a place I visit often, but worth the trip on both occasions. It is now under an unspoken but very real threat.

First, I went with some fellow critics to Blythe House, behind Olympia, where the Museum's huge library and many other hidden treasures are kept, including thousands of costumes, tons of photographs, a mountain of press cuttings, yards of journals including complete runs of Theatre Record and Time Out, and the archives of individuals such as Henry Irving or Michael Redgrave and organisations like the Royal Court or Windmill theatres. Ask nicely and they will show you Ivor Novello's visitors' book. The study room, where scholars and researchers can get at all this material to work on it, has been moved - logically enough - from the Museum's more visible exhibition site in. Covent Garden, where I went later in the week for the opening of Two Way Mirror (see next issue). The Museum has cunningly carved out a separate theatre entrance and a foyer (rather a substantial one for the Fringe, complete with box office and bar) from its ground floor exhibit A Great Night Out, a striking visual survey of the West End past, present and future that makes intervals more interesting than usual. Downstairs, the theatre is much more usable now that its stage is at floor level and its seats no longer fixed, although its four obtrusive supporting pillars still remain.

Small bid

It was at Blythe House that someone pulled out Richard Brooks' paragraph in the day before's Sunday Times: now that the Museum's second application to the Heritage Lottery Fund had failed, their masters at ria and Albert Museum were considering closing the Covent Garden site. This was the first the Blythe House staff had heard of it. The lottery rejection makes an interesting story in itself. I gather that the Museum put in a small local bid, after the first, rather too ambitious one was rejected: the London HLF came back and said, "This looks fine - why not ask the main board for more money?" So they did - I think the new request was for an extra half million or so - and got turned down for not being value for money. Talk about a double bind.

Pillar-ridden

One can only guess at what is going on here. Lips are contractually buttoned at the Theatre Museum, and the V&A seems to be working through leaks to the press rather than public statements. Their Press Officer merely says that the Museum is "conducting a review of the best way forward", but the implication is that someone at HQ has it in for Covent Garden.

Last financial year the Theatre Museum attracted 225,000 visitors. If we assume a hundred researchers a week at Blythe House, that leaves 220,000 going through Covent Garden. This year's figures, it must be admitted, are noticeably down at 135,000 so far (they halved in August after 717), though one wonders whether they include the evening theatregoers who are now flocking to sell-out shows. The V&A's own attendance is down 10% too, which may be behind some of the threat to Covent Garden. All the same, here is an underfunded, specialised museum, still pulling in quite a crowd.

The awkward, pillar-ridden site, most of it under the Transport Museum, is not the easiest to use, but for the theatre community it would be a tragedy to lose. You're in the heart of Theatreland, in sight of both the Opera House and Drury Lane, in an area thronging with tourists. As a point of contact for London's theatres with the visitors who bring so much to them and to the capital's broader economy, it should be crucial. The Museum's current director, Geoffrey Marsh, who has been tied up with the lottery projects ever

since he arrived, is well aware of the need to stress links with liveLondon theatre, as you can see from a cursory glance at the programme of talks, tours, performances and educational activities on the Museum's busy website. It's hard to pick out from published figures what its true costs are, but I'm told that the overhead for Covent Garden is about a million a year. The unexpired lease could raise about a million quid on the open market, a tempting economy for a cash-strapped V&A.

Eggs

What we'd get in its place, if HQ had its way, would be a few galleriesin South Ken containing the gems from Covent Garden, the occasional special exhibition (which would presumably have to fight for space with displays of Fabergé eggs or Art Deco), and maybe some touring shows. The public face of a separate, identifiable showcase for our theatre and its history would disappear into the home of "an ace caff with a museum attached". Any educational activity would become part of a broader design-based programme, not particularly performing arts-oriented.

There is an interesting moral side issue here: the Theatre Museum took on not only the V&A's theatre collections, but those from the privately founded Theatre Museum in Leighton House. Many of the gifts to this establishment, and probably some subsequent gifts to the Theatre Museum itself, were made on the understanding that they would be part of a dedicated Theatre Museum, not some all-embracing arts and crafts collection. The V&A might have to give some of them back.

But what should concern us more is the possibility of losing a prime site in the West End for the theatre and its wares. If the Lottery can't give it money, there are surely other donors, from SOLT and its individual members to the London Development Agency, who should see it as a good cause. It wouldn't cost all that much to endow it, and set up a programme that would develop even more the outreach that is now well in place.

Thriller

It seems to me that the biggest problem, which has dogged the museum ever since it opened, is its link with the V&A. There is enough back-stabbing among curators there for an Agatha Christie thriller, but otherwise its links with theatre are tenuous. Because the V&A has its own fundraising, its own Friends organisation, the creation of similar activity for its "branch" has been frowned upon. The Theatre Museum's first curator spent more than a decade within remained a known thorn in the V&A's side rather than an independent, energetic separatist.

Yet there have been vigorous campaigns in the past whenever the Museum's solo status has been threatened. In 1982, five years after Leighton House had closed, when the Rayner Report recommended scrapping the Covent Garden plan before it had even got under way, 32,000 signatures were collected in its support, largely as a result of a campaign by the Evening Standard. It may be time to start another campaign - if the V&A still doesn't like the Theatre Museum, let's find someone who does. Later, we can consider theatre history's pressing needs for the future: real development of the Museum's pitifully small video archive, more large-scale exhibitions, a parallel big space for a Museum of Theatre Design and Technology (Battersea Power Station?) and many more ideas kept down by V&A inertia or downright opposition. For the present, we must make sure that we hang on to the Covent Garden site, pillars and all.

Back to top

Contents / Reviews

London
ANATOL Revival of play by Arthur Schnitzler, translated by Carl Mueller (Back 2 Back Prods)	Arcola	24 Feb	18 Mar	182
BLACKBIRD New play by David Harrower	Albery	13 Feb	13 May	165
CHRISTMAS IS MILES AWAY New play by Chloë Moss	Bush	24 Feb	25 Mar	197
THE EXONERATED New verbatim play by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen	Riverside	24 Feb	11 Jun	201
FABULATION New play by Lynn Nottage	Tricycle	20 Feb	18 Mar	190
FIVE IN THE MORNING New piece by Rotozaza	Hackney Empire, Bullion	22 Feb	12 Mar	189
THE GRAND INQUISITOR New play by Marie-Hélène Estienne, adapted from Fyodor Dostoevsky	The Pit	21 Feb	26 Feb	195
THE GREAT HIGHWAY Revival of play by August Strindberg, translated by Gregory Motton	Gate	13 Feb	4 Mar	169
HAMLET Revival of play by Shakespeare (English Touring Th)	New Ambassadors	20 Feb	192
HONOUR Revival of play by Joanna Murray-Smith	Wyndham's	14 Feb	173
THE LINDEN TREE Revival of play by J B Priestley	Orange Tree	17 Feb	25 Mar	187
MEASURE FOR MEASURE Return of revival of play by Shakespeare (NT/Complicité)	Lyttelton	15 Feb	18 Mar	178
OTHER HANDS New play by Laura Wade	Soho	17 Feb	11 Mar	188
PAPER THIN New play by Azma Dar (Kali Th)	Watermans	23 Feb	5 Mar	203
THE SHADOW BOX New play by Michael Cristofer	Southwark Playhouse	16 Feb	4 Mar	177
SOMETHING DARK Performance piece by Lemn Sissay	BAC	21 Feb	13 Mar	200
SOUTHWARK FAIR New play by Samuel Adamson	Cottesloe	16 Feb	5 Apr	183
SPEAKING LIKE MAGPIES New play by Frank McGuinness (RSC)	Trafalgar Studio 1	15 Feb	25 Feb	181
STEPTOE AND SON IN MURDER AT OIL DRUM LANE New play by Ray Galton and John Antrobus	Comedy	22 Feb	198
SWEET YAM KISSES New play by Pat Cumper and Courttia Newland	Lyric Studio	23 Feb	11 Mar	180
Regions
WOMEN BEWARE WOMEN Revival of play by Thomas Middleton (RSC)	Stratford, Swan	23 Feb	1 Apr	204
THE BARBER OF SEVILLE Revival of play by Beaumarchais, in a new version by Lee Hall	Bristol Old Vic	14 Feb	11 Mar	206
ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT New adaptation by Robin Kingsland from Erich Maria Remarque	Nottingham Playhouse	14 Feb	25 Feb	207
SMOKE New play by Bryony Lavery	Newcastle-under-Lyme, New Vic	17 Feb	4 Mar	208
HEDDA GABLER Revival of play by Henrik Ibsen, adapted by Mike Poulton	Leeds, WYP Quarry	22 Feb	11 Mar	208
FURTHER THAN THE FURTHEST THING Revival of play by Zinnie Harris (Prime Prods)	St Andrews, Byre / touring	9 Feb	18 Feb	210
DR KORCZAK'S EXAMPLE Revival of play by David Greig	Dundee Rep	16 Feb	18 Feb	210
BLOOD WEDDING Revival of play by Federico Garcia Lorca, in an English version by Ted Hughes	Glasgow, Citizens	16 Feb	4 Mar	211
FREE FALL New play by Christopher Deans (7:84)	Paisley Arts Centre / touring	16 Feb	18 Feb	212
HOME Ten new pieces to launch the National Theatre of Scotland	Scotland, various	23 Feb	27 Feb	215

Back to top