Issue 12 - 2006
Prompt Corner 
1989. I'm not saying that view is right, but surely in a play like this it ought at least to be acknowledged, to be engaged with in order to be refuted. But no, it's as absent from the picture as the Pistols, Joy Division, The Smiths et al. from the soundtrack. Neither those politics nor those musics fit the thesis of the play, which is one rooted in a conservative paternalism (its happy ending is symbolised by the Stones... in 1990, for heaven's sake!) rather than radicalism of any stripe.
And so I think that Stoppard's selective, partial and downright sloppy use of music ought to make one at least question whether there isn't a similar flaw in the play's ideology. I think there is, but the problem with its reviews is that the point isn't even questioned. The review of the play I'd really like to read has, to the best of my knowledge, yet to be written: it is by Charles Shaar Murray, Britain's greatest living rock journalist.
Inspiration
Well, at least I managed to avoid going back to harp once more on the Cambridge strain, for all that the English scenes of Rock 'N' Roll are set there. But I turn thitherwards now, for a blatantly personal remembrance. My life in and around theatre has had three principal catalysts: my grammar-school teacher Robin Glendinning, who first awakened the dramatic fervour in me; Robert Hewison, Georgina Brown, Sarah Hemming and Lyn Gardner, who between them gave me all the initial breaks that built up to the beginnings of a reviewing career, long before I recognised as much myself; and between them, Val Widdowson. You've almost certainly never heard of him. He was usually jobless, sometimes homeless, yet an inspiration to several generations of student actors and directors in Cambridge.
He grew up in the city, attending Cambridge County School for Boys, and soon became involved in acting both with the likes of Richard Spaul's Cambridge Experimental Theatre company and the numerous student dramatic societies, pre-eminent among them the University's Amateur Dramatic Club. By the early 1980s he could regularly be seen in the ADC Theatre's bar, and irregularly on stages around the city.
Val had an inclination towards self-destruction. Partly this took the form of alcohol: as his character notes in James Saunders' play Triangle, which became Val's signature piece, "I have achieved in the trade a certain notoriety - or let's say fame, I don't want to brag - as a person not unfond of his bottle. Or anyone else's." But he also showed a compulsion to sabotage his reputation whenever it showed signs of becoming too great for him to bear: every few years, he would disappear shortly before he was due to open in a major role. Among those student directors who suddenly found a Widdowson-sized gap in their cast was Sam Mendes in that production of The Changeling I mentioned a few weeks ago on this page.
Fascinating
Yet when he acted or directed, Val was consummate. Dominic Dromgoole, now artistic director of Shakeapeare's Globe and a student in the early 1980s, recalls, "He once spent about five minutes peeling an orange, alone on stage, in an intense drama about Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell. It was one of the most fascinating stretches of acting I have ever witnessed." As a director, he elicited remarkable performances from his casts through a mixture of instinctive psychological work and sheer play.
He showed a fondness for the plays of James Saunders, directing A Scent Of Flowers, Bodies and several times performing Triangle, an all-but-solo piece in which a mentally disintegrating actor supposedly has 20 minutes of material to perform and a 40-minute slot to fill in front of an audience (in reality, every word is scripted). The Actor also downs almost half a bottle of whisky in the course of the play. Although Saunders never intended it, Val insisted on performing with real whisky; such copious ingestion never interfered with the power of his performance, except on the one occasion when he gave the play twice on the same day - the second-house performance (at which I played the subordinate character of the Prompter) lasted 85 minutes, and his tearful exit was followed by a distinct, unscripted, man-sized thud from offstage.
And although drink was a refuge for him, he was peerless company on the way. Few who have ever heard it will forget his story of his old headmaster teaching Macbeth: the man's teeth whistled on S's, so when he got to "If th'assassination/Could trammel up the consequence, and catch/With his surcease, success...", dogs would come running from miles around.
Extravagantly bearded
A spell in Bristol in the mid-1980s was followed by a return to Cambridge and several months of homelessness during which he slept on a succession of friends' floors or on the street. He worked for a while in an ancillary nursing job at Fulboum mental hospital, then re-entered education with a view to working in dramatherapy, but found it difficult to allow himself to be formally taught skills that he had long since acquired experientially. In the early 2000s, he performed a number of solo shows consisting of dramatised readings of his own and others' work, usually with the ADC Bar as a formal venue. He also worked at the theatre's box office; the last time I saw him, nearly two years ago, he tested the authenticity of a ten-pound note proffered by a punter by holding up the portrait of Charles Darwin on the reverse of the note to compare it with his own balding and extravagantly bearded visage. (He always wore a beard of Marxian proportions unless a role had required him to trim or shave it.) The likeness was astounding; the note passed muster.
Val was nevertheless reclusive in his home life, and it is grimly unsurprising that, when authorities forced entry into his home for a gas inspection in April 2006, he was found to have been dead for some weeks. He died from a gastro-intestinal haemorrhage due to gastric ulceration, according to the inquest held last week, the report of which was the first I heard of his passing. He was eleven years and one day younger than Syd Barrett, and I shall miss him.
At the Back
Shaw and Stratford 2006
The population of Stratford, Ontario, is around 19,000; that of Niagara on the Lake is even smaller, at less than 14,000. Yet each supports a summer theatre festival, with over a thousand people employed in Stratford from March to October to present fifteen productions in four theatres, while nearly six hundred employees in Niagara work on the Shaw Festival's ten productions in three theatres from February to November. Both have to survive almost entirely on box office receipts, Stratford on a budget of around £25 million from 600,000 spectators, Shaw on half those amounts.
What is particularly impressive is that both festivals still operate a true repertory system, with shows changing between their daily matinee performances and the evening slot. In high season Shaw plays ten shows over two days, Stratford slightly fewer, which makes the National's present efforts look rather puny; even the RSC's Complete Works programme tends towards straight runs.
Elastic Mandate
In a crowded week I was able to see four Niagara productions and five in Stratford. Jackie Maxwell, who took over as the Shaw's artistic director from the long-serving Christopher Newton, expanded an already broad programming policy (plays by the long-lived GBS and his contemporaries) to include plays set in the time of Shaw's life: this season's (hopefully) moneymaking musical is the Arthur Kopit stage version of High Society, while the fairly recent The Magic Fire is set in Argentina at the time of Eva Peron's death - the policy is known as 'Jackie's elastic mandate'.
Shaw still gets his due, with a main house revival of Arms and the Man, and a more adventurous choice in the rarely played Too True To Be Good. Its three completely disparate acts offer plenty of off-beat humour and more than enough opportunities for GBS to ride his various hobby-horses, but hardly a coherent plot. Nevertheless Jim Mezon's production has plenty of energy, and a show-stealing performance from William Vickers, who brightens up Act 1 as a particularly disgusting Microbe and can then put his feet up in the dressing room as the play unravels.
Mezon also plays an unswerving Governor Danforth in The Crucible, which was in preview when I saw it. Tadeusz Bradecki's production starts with shadowy chanting and dancing which suggests we are to see a dark, European rendering of Miller's modern classic, but the text itself is more conventionally delivered, on a strangely cumbersome Peter Hartwell set. Benedict Campbell and Kelli Fox do well as the Proctors, also showing their talent for comedy in Too True To Be Good. Another impressive double comes from Tara Rosling, who personifies trusting naivete in Joseph Ziegler's sympathetic, beautifully costumed revival of The Heiress and visibly toughens up to narrate The Magic Fire (also seen in preview). Lillian Groag's semi-autobiographical piece is a regular in the US repertory, and well suited to the Shaw for its large, evenly distributed cast. As old-fashioned as any of the plays of Shaw's post-war period (think I Remember Mama or The Diary of Anne Frank) it is nevertheless a touching and highly enjoyable portrait of a family under pressure.
With Design For Living already playing, Rosmersholm and a new adaptation of The Invisible Man to come, the season has an air of bourgeois solidity about it that might recall 'forties London; but the Shaw's mostly elderly audience seem more than happy to be set down in this time-warp, where they can find big casts, fine production values and a high level of civilised entertainment.
Transition
Stratford is in a time of transition, with Richard Monette stepping down this year as artistic director and a team of three (Don Shipley of the Dublin Festival, actress-director Marti Maraden and Des McAnuff of the La Jolla Playhouse) arriving next year to advise Antoni Cimolino, the new general director. This year's programme is a strong one, led by four Shakespeares and a couple of money-spinning musicals.
CoIm Feore returns from a burgeoning career in film and television to play three roles. A punishing schedule sees him move in one day from a lovable, not too Jewish Fagin in his wife's fine revival of Oliver! to an almost too lovable Coriolanus in Cimolino's production, one whose emphatic heroism leaves little room for the self-doubt and adolescent tantrums that one usually expects from this complex figure. In both productions the Festival Theatre's thrust stage has to accommodate huge casts, and Donna Feore in particular shows herself rather more imaginative in this department than in her choreography. Santo Loquasto's Oliver! costumes are far more successful than his fussy homespun robes for Coriolanus - in his stated desire to avoid a toga party he makes it hard to distinguish high-born from low, friend from foe.
Later in the season CoIm Feore will take on Molière's Don Juan, in English as well as French, in a production by Lorraine Pintai that will visit the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde in Montreal.
Impressive
The proscenium stage of the Avon Theatre allows Desmond Heeley to provide a suitably extravagant series of Victorian sets and costumes for Brian Bedford's revival of London Assurance, in which he also follows Donald Sinden as a gloriously foppish Sir Harcourt Courtly. A strong cast ensure that Boucicault's farce moves along at a clip, with notable performances from Seana McKenna and Brian Tree as the splendidly ill-matched Spankers. Back at the Festival, Lucy Peacock and Peter Donaldson enjoy themselves as a rather mature Beatrice and Benedick in Stephen Ouimette's workmanlike Much Ado, in which Robert Persichini's gravely pompous Dogberry and his watch are so lovingly drawn as to distort the flow of the plot. Nevertheless, Michael Gianfrancesco's spare, mahogany sets and Edwardian costumes back up an attractive, no-frills production that works well.
Peacock and Donaldson also feature in the most impressive of the productions I saw, Peter Hinton's Duchess of Malfi at the converted gym which is now the Tom Patterson Theatre. A cast of two dozen move about the long, almost traverse stage in Carolyn Smith's superb period costumes, all black except for the red robes of Donaldson's cardinal. Hinton is not afraid to let the plot develop slowly and without early excess, so that Ferdinand's persecution of his sister is all the more shocking when it comes, with the final act a bloodthirsty coda. Some precise lighting states from Bonnie Beecher are also central to this beautifully visualised staging, with Lucy Peacock at its still centre as the indomitable Duchess.
Alumni
The Tom Patterson is where years ago Robin Phillips had some striking successes with his Young Company, a group of graduating actors who spent the summer developing their skills in Stratford. The tradition continues with what is now called the Birmingham Conservatory, a baker's dozen who have come through a highly competitive selection process and will go on to professional experience in the main company. The present company includes a good scattering of Birmingham alumni, some of whom will appear in Ranjit Bolt's version of Corneilles The Liar, one of four small-scale shows to be mounted in the festival's fourth space, the recently opened Studio, neatly slotted in at the back of the Avon. Although it seats only 260, its thrust stage is not a lot smaller than that of the Festival, which it imitates.The one cloud on the horizon for both festivals is the proposed US legislation which will ask American citizens to carry a passport when they enter Canada. This could seriously reduce the large number of US visitors, particularly students, who at present cross the border to be introduced to some top-class theatre.
Contents / Reviews
London |
||||
ANA IN LOVE New play by Paloma Pedrero (Inside Intelligence) |
Hackney Empire, Acorn |
14 Jun |
8 Jul |
703 |
BEFORE BRISTOL New play by Robert Meakin (Bowman Prods) |
Old Red Lion |
13 Jun |
1 Jul |
702 |
CRUISING New verbatim piece by Alecky Blythe (Recorded Delivery) |
Bush |
9 Jun |
1 Jul |
686 |
THE DERANGED MARRIAGE Return of new play by Pravesh Kumar (Rifco TC) |
T R Stratford E15 |
14 Jun |
2 Jul |
704 |
DIAMOND New play by Linda Wilkinson (WIT) |
King's Head |
7 Jun |
8 Jul |
702 |
THE ESTATE New play by Oladipo Agboluaje (Tiata Fahodzi) |
Soho |
7 Jun |
17 Jun |
684 |
FOOL FOR LOVE Revival of play by Sam Shepard |
Apollo |
15 Jun |
|
711 |
FUERZABRUTA New piece by Diqui James et al. |
Roundhouse ' |
5 Jun |
31 Aug |
669 |
KICK FOR TOUCH / CLARA Revivals of plays by Peter Gill / Arthur Miller |
Orange Tree |
16 Jun |
24 Jun |
689 |
KILLING CASTRO New play by Brian Stewart |
Greenwich |
12 Jun |
17 Jun |
690 |
KOSMOS New devised piece by corpus soma [sic] |
Camden People's |
31 May |
18 June |
672 |
THE LOVE-HUNGRY FARMER New adaptation by Des Keogh from John B Keane |
Jermyn Street |
12 Jun |
24 Jun |
683 |
MARKET BOY New play by David Eldridge (NT) |
Olivier |
6 Jun |
24 Aug |
676 |
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM Revival of play by Shakespeare |
Open Air |
9 Jun |
30 Aug |
688 |
OUR LADY OF THE DROWNED UK première of 1947 play by Nelson Rodrigues (Stone Crabs) |
Southwark Playhouse |
16 Jun |
8 Jul |
685 |
RED New play by Chris Fittock (LLT) |
Theatre 503 |
13 Jun |
24 Jun |
691 |
ROCK 'N' ROLL New play by Tom Stoppard |
Royal Court |
14 Jun |
15 Jul |
705 |
SHOW BOAT Revival of musical by Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein II |
Royal Albert Hall |
13 Jun |
26 Jun |
692 |
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW Revival of play by Shakespeare |
Open Air |
5 Jun |
2 Sep |
673 |
THIS IS YOUR CAPTAIN SPEAKING New play by Sylvester Stein and Robert Troop |
Pentameters |
6 Jun |
1 Jul |
680 |
TWELFTH NIGHT Revival of play by Shakespeare (Cheek By Jowl) |
Barbican |
13 Jun |
17 Jun |
696 |
A VOYAGE ROUND MY FATHER Revival of play by John Mortimer |
Donmar Warehouse |
13 Jun |
5 Aug |
698 |
A WASP IN WINTER New play by Wayne Leonard (Straight & Curly Prods/Sweetheart Prods) |
Etcetera |
8 Jun |
25 Jun |
683 |
WHISTLING MAGGIE Return of play by Courttia Newland (Post Office TC) |
Oval House |
14 Jun |
1 Jul |
683 |
WHITE WHITE BLACK STORK New adaptation from Abdulla Kadyri (likhom Th, Tashkent) |
The Pit |
6 Jun |
10 Jun |
675 |
WILD FRUIT New play by Robert Farrar (Psychodrome) |
Oval House |
7 Jun |
25 Jun |
695 |
YOU ARE RIGHT IF YOU SAY SO Revival of play by Luigi Pirandello, adap. Massimo Marinoni (N1 TC) |
Courtyard |
8 Jun |
25 Jun |
710 |
Regions |
||||
BABYLON BURNING New play devised by Robert Rae and co-written with several others |
Edinburgh, Theatre Workshop |
8 Jun |
17 Jun |
727 |
BAD GIRLS - THE MUSICAL New musical by Maureen Chadwick and Ann McManus, songs by Kath Gotts |
Leeds, WYP Quarry |
6 Jun |
1 Jul |
721 |
CAROUSEL Revival of musical by Richard Rodgers & Oscar Hammerstein II |
Chichester Festival |
12 Jun |
1 Sep |
722 |
CHIMNEYS première of 1931 play by Agtha Christie |
Pitlochry |
8 Jun |
19 Oct |
726 |
IN PRAISE OF LOVE revival of play by Terence Rattigan |
Chichester, Minerva |
15 Jun |
8 Jul |
724 |
INGLORIOUS TECHNICOLOUR New play by Christopher William Hill |
Scarborough, Stephen Joseph |
8 Jun |
1 Jul |
720 |
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM Revival of play by Shakespeare (RSC) (Complete Works) |
Stratford, Swan |
8 Jun |
17 Jun |
717 |
SHADOWMOUTH New play by Meredith Oakes |
Sheffield, Studio |
7 Jun |
17 Jun |
719 |
SUMMER LIGHTNING Adapted by Giles Havergal from novel by P G Wodehouse |
Pitlochry |
7 Jun |
21 Oct |
726 |
A TASTE OF HONEY Revival of play by Shelagh Delaney |
Richmond / touring |
5 Jun |
10 Jun |
720 |
A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE Revival of play by Oscar Wilde |
Pitlochry |
5 Jun |
20 Oct |
726 |