Issue 13, 2007
Prompt Corner 
Perhaps enough attention has been paid for a while to
provocative remarks about theatre critics. I said last issue that, this time around, I expected to address A A Gill's
remarks in The
Sunday Times of June 24 (available online at http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment
/stage/theatre/article1961473.ece), but I'm not sure
there's that much to say. It is an artide that berates critics for ill serving
their subject, written by a man who consistently foregrounds
himself in his own writings, and indeed on this occasion got the front cover picture of the paper's Culture section; that wants us to be more like critics the most recent
of whom (Harold Hobson) died 15 years ago and stopped writing regularly 15 years before
that, a lifetime ago in joumalistic terms. It exhorts us, in
effect, to care less about content and more about style. This is no way to stem the tendency in mainstream cultural journalism
– and, indeed, culture –
towards precisely such superficiality. But the real
core of the policy is that the ideal is to be more like Adrian
Gill himself. Well, as Jack Nicholson remarked in a movie whose name
unfortunately escapes me, "I'd rather stick red-hot needles in my eyes." Gill
is a professional gadfly rather than a critic, so in many ways the perfect response to his yapping is to ignore it. Alas, I'm not that well disciplined.
Still, one firm slap on the gadfly and let that be.
Bourgie-baiting
I am worried that I may have suffered a major sense-of-humour failure over The Pain And The Itch. The obvious assumption would be that I identify too mush with the liberals being baited. However, on the contrary, I couldn't for a moment find anything in these gross caricatures to give me any insight into any actual group or type or tendency of people. For me, it failed as satire because its target was not remotely identifiable enough in real-world terms. On that score, the most prominent instance of Dominic Cooke's professed new Royal Court policy of bourgie-baiting scores lower than any of its smaller-scale predecessors this season, whatever Quentin Letts' fantasies to the contrary.
As regards fantasies, I think all too many of us were imagining that really was Boris Johnson up on stage in Angels In America; Mark Emerson's unkempt blonde mop lent him a disturbing resemblance to everyone's favourite gaffe-prone Tory front-bencher. But, well, we needed something to keep us amused. I think I'm prepared to venture an overview of Daniel Kramer's directorial tendencies now, as follows. He takes a strong position against repressive tolerance: of youth counterculture in Hair, of gay people in the sixty years since the era portrayed in Bent, and even the bare decade and a half since Angels In America was fully premièred. The mainstream believes itself tolerant of such groups, and so pays little attention or makes little effort to interrogating the at-best-patchy reality behind such smug self-congratulation. Society needs to be woken up, needs to be made to confront such groups in graphic and vocal manifestations. Unfortunately, in practice, Kramer seems all too often to equate this with turning characters into screaming queens, regardless of sexuality: KGrsty Bushell's Harper in Angels, for instance, is a gibbering cartoon more or less from beginning to end.
In any case, Kramer's limited tonal range (one high-pitched note) here coincides with a pair of plays that have not aged at all well once one steps beyond the, for want of a better word, euphoria of their arrival in the theatrical and cultural grey of the early 1990s. Now, it would be very easy to dismiss such criticism as resulting from homophobia, whether conscious or not. But what's interesting is that the review which most forthrightly pins the shortcomings of play and production alike is by Simon Edge, who spent several years as an editor in the (now, alas, effectively defunct) serious gay press. There is no homophobia, no "self-hatred", no insincerity to meet reader profiles, no anything of any such kind in Simon's review. He's just calling a turkey a turkey. Interesting, too, that the Scottish reviews at the beginning of the collection, from the production's run at the Citizens in Glasgow, remain much more positive about the plays.
Artistic integrity
The final day covered by this issue was the day on which regulations came into force banning smoking in enclosed public places in England. I'm immensely relieved that, as I had hoped, an exemption is provided "Where the artistic integrity of a performance makes it appropriate for a person who is taking part in that performance to smoke". This has the potential to turn local authorities into artistic arbiters, having to rule on "artistic integrity". More likely they will simply presume against permission to smoke. Neither option is helpful. I suggest a simple, obvious criterion: if smoking is explicitly included in a script, it is by definition integral to the author's artistic vision. End of problem. Certainly, I'm glad to say that I have seen no problems arise so far; I record only one instance of frustration at the smoking of a foul-smelling coltsfoot herbal dg onstage instead. Fair enough, actors may have reservations, but really, especially when the artistic-integrity exemption is being invoked, the least you could do is observe that integrity in its olfactory aspect as well.
There were various points during The Lord Of The Rings during which a number of us wondered whether we had been passively smoking an altogether different mixture. My review is reprinted later in the issue; I merely note here that at one point, as the cheery little hobbits gambolled across the stage in their flesh-coloured shoes with tufts of hair affixed to the tops, I couldn't help recalling This Is Spinal Tap: "And oh, 'ow they danced, the little people of Stone'enge...!"
Ian Shuttleworth | ian@theatrerecord.com
At the Back
Can You Hear Me In Beijing?
A fairly new landmark in Beijing's busy downtown shopping district is the Oriental Plaza, another of those huge glass temples of Mammon which dominate Hong Kong, Singapore, the Gulf and now mainland China. In its side chapels you will find the usual set of international brands, from Bulgari, Fendi and Dior to Levi's and Starbucks, with the inevitable Macdonalds as well as a "Gourmet Row" of more interesting restaurants. It will do well during next year's Beijing Olympics, but it is already thronged with fashionable young locals.
Next door is a smaller but no less elegant centre, which boasts a theatre, the Xian Feng or New Work theatre, on its third floor. Outside, ticket touts are offering seats for the city's latest sell-out commercial hit, Two Dogs' Views On Life. Popular director Meng Jihui has put together a two-man show with a couple of young actors who seem to have caught the mood of Beijing's well-off younger set to perfection – and they are paying between 100 and 400 Chinese Yuan (at 15 to the pound) to see it.
Kennels
The Xian Feng is a comfortable modem space, very like the Soho Theatre, with a single row of balcony seating on either side of its steeply raked auditorium. A crucial difference is that the seats can be taken back to allow for different stage configurations, but tonight we have a normal Soho-style end stage, with a couple of faintly Brechtian, scruffy curtains at the back. Stage left are a couple of garbage cans and two cardboard kennels, stage right a big drum kit and the two guitarists who accompany the show. It all gives off an air of "poor theatre", and when th principals arrive this is confirmed in their shabby costumes. One is a rumpled Stephen Fry lookalike, the other something of a Matt Lucas.
After a warm-up session in which the audience are gently ribbed – and solicited for cash donations – the actors go into character as the two dogs of the title: no fur coats and wagging tails here, just the occasional sniff at a rump as they slip in and out of a huge range of roles, animal and more often human. The story line follows the dogs, who may or may not be brothers, as they journey from the country to seek fame and fortune in the big city, but it is in effect a peg on which to hang a series of well observed sketches poking fun at the foibles of modem urban China. At one point, one of the dogs is adopted by a wealthy family and lives a life of luxury, before his big brother arrives, demolishes all the food in the apartment and persuades his companion that such a dependent life is morally unacceptable. They then effortlessly switch to playing the couple who own the apartment, and we get a brief and very funny love scene. Another scene has them finding work as guard dogs on a new casino-cum-apartment block development, an opportunity to guy not only the culture of private security guards that is as common in Beijing as in Putin's post-KGB Russia, but also the turf wars between developers that are a feature of the new, bubbling Chinese economy. Other scenes find the pair taking off notable TV personalities, soap stars and game show hosts, and displaying unexpected musical talent as they use popular Chinese song successes of the last twenty years (as well as the Iggy and the Stooges punk classic "I Wanna Be Your Dog") as the medium for quite biting social commentary, taking turns to back one another with some accomplished drumming.
Russian Roulette
One of the show's comic highlights finds them acting out a scene from a classic Chinese drama of the 20s, Cao Yu's Thunderstorm, in the florid style of the Beijing People's Theatre, their equivalent of the National>. The act, which brings happy memories of Binkie Huckabuck and Dame Celia Volestrangler in Round The Home (with "Matt Lucas" a fine Dame Celia), is instantly recognised by its theatre-savvy audience and brings the house down.
The show, which plays for over two hours without interval, is far more than a stand-up comedy act. Here are a pair of skilled actors demonstrating the full range of their craft, singing, drumming, miming, parodying a gamut of styles. They use techniques unusual in China, like invading the audience on their begging expeditions – one fan offered a 100-Yuan note, which they returned, saying, "You can't afford it." There is also plenty of commedia-based slapstick: the scene in which one of them contemplates suicide, playing Russian roulette and graphically miming what will happen to him when the gun goes off, is pure commedia.
Yellow Submarine
Underneath it all is an almost Beckettian sense of two lost souls clinging together for comfort in a world they do not understand. By a charming coincidence, they call one another by the Chinese names for "Little Brother" and "Big Brother", which sound very like Beckett's "Didi" and "Gogo" – perhaps this is no coincidence. Instead of Godot, their guide is their mother, who advises them in a series of letters which Big Brother reads to comfort the illiterate Little Brother – no matter that Big Brother himself can't read either, he can use the letters to perdsuade Little Brother to take the next, usually disastrous step on their journey The ending, however, is not one of end-of-theworld gloom, but a rousing rendition of The Beatles' "Yellow Submarine".
I watched this show as the guest of Beijing's Central Academy of Drama, where I was attending the first meeting of the newly formed Chinese section of the International Association of Theatre Critics. The night before I'd seen some of the students taking on Leonard Gershe's 1969 Broadway hit Butterflies Are Free, in the Academy's black box theatre (one of three spaces on their expansive city-centre campus). It seemed a strange choice for modem China, but the young actors acquitted themselves well.
Sarah Kane
The Chinese critics I met were eager to know about the cost of mounting West End shows, about British political theatre, and – inevitably – about the plays of Sarah Kane. They talked – as do critics almost everywhere – about the crisis in their theatre, and about the decline> in space for newspaper theatre criticism, although there appears to be a good number of Chinese theatre journals. They were particularly interested in the British experience of censorship, seeing their own continuing and apparently very restrictive censorship as a force holding back creativity. They don't seem to have adopted the coded use of theatre (Hamlet as dissident, Macbeth as dictator) that was so common in the Soviet Union and its satellite states before the fall of the Berlin Wall. A more liberal commentator suggested that this fear of censorship was really a mask for a lack of creativity – and one has only to recall how little real dramatic comment appeared in the satellite states, once they were given the freedom to comment on their situation, to guess that this might be the case.
Meanwhile, the young performers of Two Dogs' Views On Life are getting away with a surprising amount of political comment in front of >an appreciative audience in the Xian Feng Theatre, and it looks as if they will be there for quite a while.
Ian Herbert | ian@herbertknott.com
Contents / Reviews
London |
||||
ANGELS IN AMERICA Revival of two plays by Tony Kushner (Lyric/Headlong/Glasgow Citizens) |
Lyric Hammersmith |
26 Jun |
22 Jul |
760 |
THE BOATSWAIN'S MATE Revival of opera by Ethel Smyth from a story by W W Jacobs |
Finborough |
18 Jun |
2 Jul |
771 |
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (ABRIDGED) Return of piece by Reduced Shakespeare Co |
Arts |
21 Jun |
23 Sep |
753 |
ENOCH ARDEN IN THE HOPE SHELTER New play by Judith Thompson (Footpath Prods) |
Rosemary Branch |
22 Jun |
8 Jul |
754 |
THE FIVE WIVES OF MAURICE PINDER New play by Matt Charman (NT) |
Cottesloe |
20 Jun |
27 Aug |
747 |
FLOATING New piece by Hoipolloi |
Pit |
19 Jun |
30 Jun |
735 |
FUTURE ME New play by Stephen Brown |
Theatre 503 |
21 Jun |
7 Jul |
772 |
Greenwich + Docklands International Festival 2007 See page for full details of productions |
Various |
21 Jun |
24 Jun |
759 |
A HOLE IN THE FENCE New play by David Foley |
White Bear |
21 Jun |
8 Jul |
771 |
INTO THE WOODS Revival of musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine |
Linbury Studio |
18 Jun |
30 Jun |
732 |
KISMET Revival of musical by Robert Wright and Luther Forrest (English National Opera) |
Coliseum |
27 Jun |
14 Jul |
767 |
LIMBO: STORIES FROM 7/7 New piece by Verb Th |
Hackney Empire, Studio |
26 Jun |
7 Jul |
752 |
LONGWAVE Revival of play by Chris Goode |
Lyric Studio |
20 Jun |
30 Jun |
750 |
LORD OF THE RINGS New musical by Matthew Warchus/Shaun McKennaNärttinä/A R Rahman/Christopher Nightingale |
Drury Lane |
19 Jun |
736 |
|
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE Revival of play by Shakespeare |
Globe |
28 Jun |
6 Oct |
773 |
MOJO-MICKYBO Return of revival of play by Owen McCafferty |
Trafalgar Studio 2 |
28 Jun |
21 Jul |
779 |
NOT KNOWING WHO WE ARE New play by Maggie Drury (The Ugly Tree) |
Blue Elephant |
14 Jun |
30 Jun |
742 |
THE PAIN AND THE ITCH New play by Bruce Norris |
Royal Court |
21 Jun |
21 Jul |
755 |
QUESTION DE DIRECTIONS Circus show by Collectif AOC |
Roundhouse |
21 Jun |
25 Jun |
751 |
LA RONDE Revival of play by Arthur Schnitzler, translated by John Barton (BOLT Prods) |
Jermyn Street |
25 Jun |
21 Jul |
776 |
SMALL MIRACLE New play by Neil D'Souza |
Tricycle |
19 Jun |
7 Jul |
745 |
TAOUB Return of circus piece written by Aurélien Bory (Collectif Acrobatique de Tangier) |
Roundhouse |
28 Jun |
4 Jul |
751 |
THE TINKER'S WEDDING / THE SHADOW OF THE GLEN Revival of plays by J M Synge |
Union SE1 |
26 Jun |
14 Jul |
780 |
Regions |
||||
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS Revival of play by Shakespeare (Ludlow Festival) |
Ludlow Castle |
25 Jun |
7 Jul |
781 |
DETAINEE A New adaptation by Vivien Adam from screenplay by Shahid Nadeem |
Glasgow, Arches |
26 Jun |
28 Jun |
785 |
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM Revival of play by Shakespeare (Bard In The Botanics) |
Glasgow, Botanic Gardens |
28 Jun |
14 Jul |
784 |
MONSTER New play by Duncan Macmillan |
Manchester, Royal Exch Studio |
29 Jun |
7 Jul |
781 |
THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES Revival of play by Molière, translated by Ranjit Bolt |
Bristol, Tobacco Factory |
27 Jun |
14 Jul |
781 |
TENDER DEARLY New play by Jodie Marshall |
Leeds, WYP Courtyard |
19 Jun |
30 Jun |
780 |
UNDER THE BLUE SKY Revival of play by David Eldridge |
Keswick, Theatre by the Lake |
15 Jun |
3 Nov |
780 |
THE WALTZ OF THE TOREADORS Revival of play by Jean Anouilh in new translation by Ranjit Bolt |
Chichester, Minerva |
21 Jun |
4 Aug |
782 |