Issue 15, 2007
Prompt Corner 
I write this column from Edinburgh, a few hours before Mark Ravenhill premieres the first of 17 short Ravenhill For Beakfast plays at the Traverse Theatre. Ravenhill has written how post-epileptic partial amnesia has left him with no recollection of agreeing to this engagement, but that he presumes he had intended to write each day's play during the preceding 24 hours. Instead, he has written most of the pieces in advance. He could perhaps have taken a lesson in courage from Ampersand, the young company behind the production Headlines, which took place during the period covered by this issue but unfortunately received no published reviews at all.
One-to-one
Each day the company chose a current story from the press, and worked up a dramatic treatment of it for that afternoon's and evening's audience drop-in sessions. In each of four tents (which may be visited in any order), one punter would meet one performer playing one character in the story. The day I visited, the subject was a forthcoming TV documentary about a couple the husband of whom suffered from Alzheimer's disease, and which was said to include the very moment of his death on camera.
To be honest, the four performers were at root engaging in little more than character exercises: they worked out an identity, a viewpoint and a basic range of things to say, and improvised the rest It was the interaction with the audient, singular, that made it theatre, and in particular the one-to-one nature of that interaction. Because it depended entirely on the way one approached these encounters. You could be almost as passive as an ordinary theatre spectator, or jump in with the performers.
Transaction
Since my first encounter was with a supposed petition-seeker for the censorship-vigilante pressure group Mediawatch, I couldn't resist a verbal tussle (mainly asking how she could know what a programme was like and what its effects would be before it had even been seen). After that, it was highly discomfiting to have the character of a dying man (not of Alzheimer's) explain his funeral plans to me as a pretended friend, though a little simpler than that for me to "be" the film-maker in conversation with the couple's carer. By the end, I was taking an equal part as the widow talking with her once estranged daughter; I don't think the actress expected a hug of reconciliation at the end.
I think that to a very great extent, what you got out of the project must have depended on what you invested in it. But what it forcefully demonstrated is that theatre is a transaction rather than a simple send-and-receive process. I wish I had had the time to return a few days later, when the news broke that in fact the "death on screen" claim was bogus and had been debunked by the dead man's brother. Conversely, I'm relieved that I hadn't visited a day earlier than I did: on that occasion, the story chosen had apparently been the trial of actor and comedian Chris Langham for child sex offences.
Failed
From an absolutely up-to-date show to an antiquated one. At least, that seems to be the opinion of most of the reviewers of In Celebration. I don't agree. It was relatively recently, in 2001, that I made a belated acquaintance with David Storey's work through the production of this play at the Minerva in Chichester; it struck me with the force of a revelation. I can't believe that either the world or I have changed so much since then.
I don't think it's valid to argue that the world in which the play (written in 1969) is set is unbridgeably alien to us because Britain's coal mining industry has all but died since then, any more than Shakespeare's histories are alien to us because we no longer have an absolute monarchy. I don't believe that British men have become radically more expressive emotionally in little more than a generation. And as for the dissipation of class consciousness... as one of my reviews published last issue observed, all it takes to dispel that notion is to listen to an audience react to Shaw's Pygmalion. So I don't think it is the play that is at fault here. But I sat in the Duke Of York's Theatre watching the play that had so impressed me, and utterly failed to connect with my own previous responses.
Self-effacement
I have come to the conclusion that there's too much acting being done in this version... at least in the first half. Things happen after the interval, but mostly they take the form of shouting and crying and a general feeling that it's best to pretend they didn't happen after all. But that long first half is all about a stilted family reunion, and director Anna Mackmin and the cast have made the mistake of trying to fill the space with Personality, Emotions and the like. Tim Healy is a fine actor; he gives it all he's got as the father, and he has quite a bit, but I'm not sure this is the play for it. After all, legend has it that during rehearsals for the Royal Court premiere in 1969, director Lindsay Anderson at one point berated an actor, "Don't just do something – stand there!"
In a perverse way, what is impressive about Orlando Bloom is precisely how little he does: the fact is that the star name on which the production is sold is perfectly happy to just stand there much of the time. He performs with an admirable self-effacement that is entirely faithful to his character. But then, if the entire production had taken that tone, it would probably have felt dwarfed even in what by West End standards is a comparatively small venue, and its presence in the West End would be even more of a mystery than it currently is to many. Perhaps I was just lucky to make the play's acquaintance in a studio venue, and perhaps Bloom should have allowed himself to be enticed into a more intimate space like the Almeida for his stage debut if it was to be in this kind of piece.
Ian Shuttleworth | ian@theatrerecord.com
At the Back
No "At the Back" this issue
Contents / Reviews
London |
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THE AGENT Transfer of the play by Martin Wagner |
Trafalgar Studio 2 |
26 Jul |
18 Aug |
884 |
AS THE MOTHER OF A BROWN BOY New play by David Carey and Christine Niering (Chickenshed) |
Rayne |
18 Jul |
28 Jul |
882 |
BETTER/AFTERWARDS Revival/new play by Glenn Mortimer |
Rosemary Branch |
11 Jul |
28 Jul |
887 |
CRACKING THE WHIP New play by Darren Raymond and Fabian Spencer (Intermission Actors) |
Intermission |
26 Jul |
4 Aug |
856 |
THE FAMILY (SEMIANYKI) New piece by Teatr Licedei |
Hackney Empire |
24 Jul |
29 Jul |
879 |
A HARLOTS PROGRESS new play by Daniel whelna based on engravings by William Howarth |
Montague Square, SE1 |
23 Jul |
11 Aug |
873 |
H.M.S. PINAFORE revival of the operetta by W S Gilbert & Arthur Sullivan |
Union SE1 |
18 Jul |
12 Aug |
862 |
H OF D New piece by Teatr Biuro Podrozy, inspired by Heart Of Darkness by Joseph Conrad |
National Theatre Square |
25 Jul |
4 Aug |
880 |
THE HOTHOUSE revival of play by Harold Pinter (NT) |
Lyttelton |
18 Jul |
27 Oct |
865 |
IMMORTAL 007 Return (revised) of circus show written by Firenze Guidi (NoFit State Circus) |
Roundhouse |
26 Jul |
5 Aug |
883 |
IN CELEBRATION revival of play by David Storey |
Duke Of York's |
16 Jul |
15 Sep |
852 |
JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT revival of musical by Tim Rice & Andrew Lloyd Webber |
Adelphi |
17 Jul |
|
857 |
KEATS IN HAMPSTEAD New piece by James Veitch |
Keats House |
20 Jul |
29 Jul |
869 |
LADY BE GOOD! Revival of musical by George & Ira Gershwin, book by Guy Bolton & Fred Thompson |
Open Air |
19 Jul |
25 Aug |
870 |
ON A DAY IN SUMMER IN A GARDEN Stage premiere of radio play by Don Howarth |
King's Head |
24 Jul |
12 Aug |
880 |
PLAYING GOD New play by Paula Garfield and Rebecca Atkinson (Deafinitely Th) |
Soho |
25 Jul |
18 Aug |
881 |
ROMEO AND JULIET revival of play by Shakespeare (JMK Award) |
BAC |
24 Jul |
12 Aug |
878 |
TAKE FLIGHT New musical by Richard Maltby Jr & David Shire, book by John Weidman |
Menier Choc. Factory |
25 Jul |
22 Sep |
874 |
Regions |
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BOUNCERS Revival (revised) of play by John Godber |
York, Theatre Royal |
17 Jul |
4 Aug |
892 |
THE DECORATOR Revival of play by Donald Churchill |
Richmond I touring |
23 Jul |
28 Jul |
893 |
MARTIN GUERRE Revival of musical by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schonberg |
Newbury, Watemill |
16 Jul |
1 Sep |
890 |
NAUMACHIA New piece by la Fura Dels Baus |
Newcastle, Spillers Quay |
20 Jul |
21 Jul |
892 |
OTHELLO Revival of play by Shakespeare (Bard in the Botanics) |
Glasgow, Botanic Gardens |
19 Jul |
4 Aug |
895 |
REBECCA Revival of adaptation by Frank McGuMnbess from novel by Daphne Du Maurier |
Keswick, Theatre By The Lake |
20 Jul |
31 Oct |
893 |
RELATIVELY SPEAKING Revival of play by Alan Ayckboum |
Scarborough, Stephen Joseph |
25 Jul |
15 Sep |
895 |
SOUTERRAIN Return of piece by Wildworks |
Cambome, Dolcoath Mine |
13 Jul |
4 Aug |
890 |
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW Revival of play by Shakespeare (Creation TC) |
Oxford Castle |
24 Jul |
25 Aug |
894 |
TWELFTH NIGHT Revival of play by Shakespeare |
Chichester Festival |
20 Jul |
31 Aug |
888 |