Issue 5, 2007
Prompt Corner 
That's a remarkable step Sam Walters has taken at the Orange Tree (see Quote of the Fortnight opposite). Mobile phones blight many – perhaps even most – theatrical performances now. There's a story about John Guare attending an off-Broadway performance of one of his plays, when the cellphone of the woman in front of him went off, and she took the call: "Hello?... No, I can't talk now, I'm in the theatre.,. I'M IN THE THEATRE... We-ell..." – with an equivocal hand gesture that condemned the play as nothing to phone home about.
I'm more easily distracted, and annoyed, than many by such things (and would like to take this opportunity to 'fess up and apologise for one of only two occasions when my own phone has gone off during a show, just at the point when David Warner's King Lear at Chichester a couple of years ago was beginning to be grievously worked upon by Goneril and Regan; matters were not helped by the fact that my ringtone at the time consisted of a character from the marvellous animations at www.strindbergandhelium.com chirping in a high-pitched voice, "Misereeeee!")
Raucous
However, I wonder whether we aren't getting carried away here. Historically, the cathedral hush which is currently expected in most theatres is an anomaly. You only have to go to Shakespeare's Globe to find how even contemporary audiences can easily slip "back" to less reverent, even somewhat raucous modes of viewing. And dealing with lively crowds has long been viewed as part and parcel of an actors task. If anyone berated me the way, say, Richard Griffiths has notoriously done to individual "offenders" on more than one occasion, I like to think I'd have the courage to respond: "Well, if you aren't up to keeping your composure and our attention through such transient interruptions, maybe you're in the wrong line of work." Part of me even thinks I should leave my phone turned on during Griffiths' performances, just on the off-chance. (I'm bigger than him, anyway.) There's an aspect of double standards at work here as well. Why do theatres inveigh so fervently against mobile phones yet continue to sell snacks in packages that rustle, crackle and fistle (and sometimes the nibbles themselves do likewise)? Answer: because the snacks bring revenue to the theatre, so the noise from them is a price worth paying. Well, rats to that.
The best solution, I believe, would be that currently practised in some Stateside venues: operating tight-radius phone jammers within venues. Such devices are not legal in the UK, on the grounds that emergency calls must not be blocked. But what did we do in such circumstances in those far-off days, as much as a decade ago, when mobiles weren't commonplace? We used alternative methods, or we made do. Have we really quote-progressed-unquote so far that these options are inadequate now? Is it going to be argued that the ability to receive mobile telephony is a sacred human right? Rats to that (take two). Legalise jamming in theatres, I say; and if not, well, caveat actor, surely working against competition – even such shrill, tinny, mechanoid competition – can ultimately only sharpen a performer's craft.
Furore
Richard Griffiths, of course, is currently struggling against a second contemporary theatrical blight: celebfocused hysteria. On the night I went to see Equus, a couple of young men were circulating among the punters outside the theatre at the interval, asking them, "Has he taken his clothes off yet? We want to find out how big his penis is." Well, it could have been the size of a matchstick and still have dwarfed their brains. (You can even spot a couple of coy willy-size references in the reviews reprinted here.) as ever, it's interesting to see people responding to the furore rather than the play. There's even a touch of that in Lloyd Evans' way off-beam prediction that "The trade will adore it". And as for Tim Walker, in fulminating mode again, about "a 17-year-old superstar commanding thousands of his disciples to come and worship..." – I don't actually think that Daniel Radcliffe is that astute a self-marketer. He's allowing himself to be used, certainly, but why fume as if he were the culpable one? That's not enough, though; Tim continues, "Let us anyway consider this disreputable little play on its own terms", thus doing the precise opposite by getting his damning judgement in before he even begins. (He also plumps for the wrong Firth as the star of the original production; Peter Firth, who played the role for the National Theatre, is no relation to Colin Firth, whom Tim names and who was 12 at the time.)
Pretty much every reviewer gets het up to some degree about the state of the play in the issue's other famous-face opening, Treats. There is near-universal observation that Christopher Hampton didn't do a very good job of examining what leads people to return to abusive relationships. I don't recall seeing any claims that he meant to set about examining the whys, only to write about this strange, unsettling thing that sometimes happens. We want the play to judge; it doesn't, so we judge the play instead. As regards star Billie Piper, note simply that elsewhere Quentin Lefts admirably maintains the old-school practice of referring to actors as Mr or Miss Such-and-Such, but in Treats the cast apparently consists of "Mr Marshall", "Mr Fox" and "Billie". Quentin is one of the last people I would have expected to succumb to the illusion that we're all on first-name terms with some celebrities.
Wimped
And, indeed, some royals. No-one mentioned one of the finest bits of discreet set-dressing by King Of Hearts designer Tim Shortall: the politicians' red boxes of state papers were monogrammed G-VII-R, a reference to Prince Charles' remark once that as king he would be likely to take the regnal name of George VII. Pity the play was so like much of Alistair Beaton's other recent political-satire writing: time and again it got close to making really sharp observations, only to veer off towards fish-in-barrel easy targets or plain fantasy. But then, I'm among the minority that didn't rate his breakthrough stage work Fee/good either, believing that it wimped out of far more political shots than it dared take.
Final brief observation re. Rupert Goold's magnificent Tempest: how many other recent stage works can you think of that deal with Arctic shamanism? Only one occurs to me. The parallels don't work in detail, but in many respects the look and feel of this production are of Prospero's Dark Materials, right down to (what is effectively) the death of its world's God at the end.
Ian Shuttleworth | ian@theatrerecord.com
At the Back
No "At the Back" this issue
Contents / Reviews
Reviewed in this issue:London |
||||
THE AGENT New play by Martin Wagner |
Old Red Lion |
8 Mar |
24 Mar |
244 |
BLACK CROWS New play by Linda Brogan (Clean Break) |
Arcola |
8 Mar |
24 Mar |
259 |
THE CAUCASIAN CHALK CIRCLE Revival of play by Bertolt Brecht in new version by Frank McGuinness |
Cottesloe |
9 Mar |
14 Apr |
269 |
THE ELEVENTH CAPITAL New play by Alexandra Wood (Young Writers' Festival) |
Royal Court Upstairs |
26 Feb |
10 Mar |
224 |
THE END OF EVERYTHING EVER New piece by NIE |
BAC |
1 Mar |
18 Mar |
227 |
THE ENTERTAINER Revival of play by John Osborne |
Old Vic |
7 Mar |
26 May |
254 |
EQUUS Revival of play by Peter Shaffer |
Gielgud |
27 Feb |
1 Jan |
228 |
THE FOUR SEASONS Revival of play by Arnold Wesker (Version Th) |
Arcola |
1 Mar |
24 Mar |
241 |
GENERATIONS New play by debbie tucker green |
Young Vic, Maria |
27 Feb |
10 Mar |
235 |
GLASSBODY new installation/performance piece by Anna Furse (Athletes of the Heart) |
Guy's Hospital |
7 Mar |
24 Mar |
274 |
KING OF HEARTS New play by Alistair Beaton |
Hampstead |
5 Mar |
31 Mar |
247 |
LOVELY AND MISFIT European première of three plays by Tennessee Williams |
Trafalgar Studio 2 |
8 Mar |
31 Mar |
260 |
LES MISÉRABLES Revival of musical by Alain Boublil & Claude-Michel Schönberg (Pimlico Opera) |
Wandsworth Prison |
2 Mar |
10 Mar |
262 |
MR SOLE ABODE New piece by Leo Kay and Benji Reid (Madrugada) |
Lyric Studio |
1 Mar |
17 Mar |
264 |
MOJ OF THE ANTARCTIC New piece by Mojisola Adebayo |
Oval House |
8 Mar |
24 Mar |
274 |
NINE YEARS New piece by Lone Twin |
BAC |
23 Feb |
25 Feb |
239 |
PEER GYNT Revival of play by Henrik Ibsen (National Th of Iceland) |
Pit |
28 Feb |
10 Mar |
240 |
PLUNDER Revival of play by Ben Travers (Watermill Th) |
Greenwich |
8 Mar |
17 Mar |
239 |
PRAMFACE Retum of play by Lizzie Hopley |
Warehouse Croydon |
2 Mar |
25 Mar |
234 |
STUNG New play by Pilar Orti |
Theatro Technis |
27 Feb |
10 Mar |
273 |
THE TEMPEST Revival of play by Shakespeare (RSC) |
Novello |
28 Feb |
24 Mar |
242 |
THINGS OF DRY HOURS New play by Naomi Wallace (Gate/Royal Exchange) |
Gate |
8 Mar |
31 Mar |
263 |
TREATS Revival of play by Christopher Hampton |
Garrick |
8 Mar |
1 Jan |
265 |
THE UNCONQUERED New play by Torben Betts (Stellar Quines) |
Arcola |
28 Feb |
3 Mar |
245 |
VERTIGO New adaptation by Jonathan Holloway from novel by Pierre Boileau & Thomas Narcejac |
Pleasance |
6 Mar |
18 Mar |
273 |
WHIPPING IT UP Transfer of new play by Steve Thompson |
New Ambassadors |
1 Mar |
1 Jan |
251 |
WHISKY GALORE! - THE MAKING OF A FILLUM New adaptation by Giles Croft from Compton Mackenzie |
Hackney Empire |
26 Feb |
3 Mar |
226 |
Regions |
||||
BULLETPROOF SOUL New play by Jennifer Farmer |
Birmingham Rep, Door |
5 Mar |
10 Mar |
280 |
CORIOLANUS Revival of play by Shakespeare (RSC) (Complete Works) |
Stratford, Royal Shakespeare |
6 Mar |
31 Mar |
276 |
HUGHIE Revival of play by Eugene O'Neill |
Glasgow, Arches |
2 Mar |
17 Mar |
285 |
HUMBLE BOY Revival of play by Charlotte Jones |
Perth |
2 Mar |
17 Mar |
286 |
INTIMATE EXCHANGES Revival of the eight-play sequence by Alan Ayckbourn |
Scarborough, Stephen Joseph |
6 Mar |
5 May |
280 |
JOHNNO New adaptation by Stephen Edwards from novel by David Malouf |
Derby Playhouse |
8 Mar |
31 Mar |
281 |
MACBETH Revival of play by Shakespeare |
Leeds, WYP Quarry |
28 Feb |
24 Mar |
279 |
National Review of Live Art / New Territories Season of work by various companies (full listings p282) |
Glasgow, Tramway |
7 Feb |
3 Mar |
282 |
THE RECOVERY POSITION New piece devised with Mark Murphy (NTS Young Company) |
Glasgow, Platform at the Bridge |
28 Feb |
3 Mar |
284 |
STRANGERS, BABIES New play by Linda McLean |
Edinburgh, Traverse |
27 Feb |
17 Mar |
284 |
THE TEMPEST Revival of play by Shakespeare |
Newcastle-under-Lyme, New Vic |
1 Mar |
17 Mar |
279 |
TO BE SURE New play by Tim Loane |
Belfast, Lyric |
7 Mar |
31 Mar |
281 |
TOAST Revival of play by Richard Bean |
Hull Truck |
2 Mar |
24 Mar |
280 |
TWELFTH NIGHT Revival of play by Shakespeare (Chekhov International Th Festival) (Complete Works) |
Stratford, Swan |
28 Feb |
3 Mar |
275 |