Issue 22, 2008
Prompt Corner 
Editing can be a funny old process. You may have noticed that one of the differences since I took over the editorship of Theatre Record from my esteemed colleague and predecessor Ian Herbert is that the Quotes of the Fortnight have tended to be longer – less aphorisms than condensations of entire stories. Quite often I do the condensing, by excising some sections of the original article and indicating as much by inserting “[...]”. usually, when I make such cuts, I’m trying to preserve the real meat of the article, not to bolster or undermine a particular point of view. But I have to admit that this issue, the quote opposite has been edited with different considerations in mind. Frankly, I’ve taken out the most embarrassing bits. And I’m now about to tell you what those bits are. (So why did I edit them in the first place? Space, and suspense!)
Offensive
My first edit occurs after the words “And that’s the issue.” I removed Marcel Berlins’ confession “I should mention that my wife wrote the book and directed the play, but that's beside the point I'm making.” Actually, it’s not; it’s at the heart of it, as I shall explain. My second cut, a little after that, concerns the bad reviews of which Berlins writes. “I'm not naming anyone,” he says, “because what interests me is a general reaction.” Indeed. Also, if he named people, I’m not sure who he would name beyond Patrick Marmion, whose single brief paragraph about Rue Magique in the Mail on Sunday is as far as I can see the only one of the reviews reprinted here – and that means the only one of the significant reviews the show received – to take the dogmatic stance Berlins claims is “a general reaction”. It seems to me that every one of the other negative reviews – even the strongest of them, Sam Marlowe’s piece for The Times – was quite explicit that the problem was not the subject matter itself, but the way the tone of Lisa Forrell’s and Brett Kahr’s musical meshed with that subject, or rather failed to mesh with it. Sam says directly, “what’s offensive is its trivialising of a deadly serious subject” – not the subject itself.
An entire paragraph is then excised from Berlins’ article. It reads: “There was more than a hint, too, that the story couldn't be true. It is more than true. The girls on whom the stories were based were in fact 11 when they were forced into prostitution, not 13. Two of them (now in their early 20s) came to see the musical; they were enraptured, and vouched for its authenticity.” I’m glad they liked it, but I can see no such hint, never mind more, about the implausibility of the story. Simon Edge’s Express review seems a little incredulous that the show’s 13-year-old protagonist “has apparently never even visited the corner shop until the day we meet her”, but that hardly strikes to the heart of the story. Similarly, when Louis Wise in The Sunday Times describes how young Sugar “sets out to escape the brothel, discover who her father is and find love — all in one day”, he’s poking fun at dramatic convention rather than the tale itself; indeed, he goes straight on to say in as many words, “in reality, you know these things coexist”. Hardly the torrent of incredulity that Berlins suggests.
Basic
The final edit is from the end of the article: “Yes, the trauma of young children is deeply upsetting,” writes Berlins; “there are some who would like to believe that such things don't happen” (though he won’t or can’t actually cite any of the reviewers as feeling that way); “the subject does make you think; and one doesn't normally associate that kind of misery with songs. But theatre reviewers ought to be beyond such considerations.” Er, why? Surely one of the basic things a reviewer should be aware of is whether the form of a piece is appropriate to its subject matter – i.e. whether it works in expressing what it sets out to express? And finally, the assertion out of nowhere and without explanation that “It is precisely a musical that can best convey such a story, a story needing to be told.” Hmmm.
The reason I have so scalpelled and dissected this article here is that it seems to me to contain one of the classic responses of practitioners (and/or those close to them, such as their spouses) to bad reviews. I’ve written before about the mistaken sense many practitioners have that bad reviews are a kind of treachery because reviewers are expected to be “on the same side”, when in fact we’re not even in the same business... and in any case, the side of wanting to see more and better theatre isn’t always the same side as any given practitioner! But one step beyond that sense of betrayal is the rationalisation that enables a theatre bod to discount a bad review: “Oh, they didn’t understand what we were doing”, or even better, as here, “Oh, they’re scared to look at it properly.” This allows the writer/actor/director etc. to ennoble themselves, to award themselves points for both daring and martyrdom.
Nutcase
To be sure, this is sometimes the case: the classic recent example was Jack Tinker’s first response to Sarah Kane’s Blasted. But Jack very soon saw his own error and became a champion of the play and the playwright. Generally, we do often see through our own mistakes. And if, in weeks or even years to come, there is a radical re-evaluation of Rue Magique, Marcel Berlins and Lisa Forrell can take
comfort in the knowledge that they were right all along, and can show their stripes proudly.
But of course, the logic isn’t reversible: you can’t reason (though many do), “Great works have been badly received; this work has been badly received; therefore, this is a great work.” In refutation of this, I may have previously quoted the exchange from the original 1967 film of Bedazzled: Dudley Moore: “You're a nutcase! You're a bleedin' nutcase!” – Peter Cook: “They said the same of Jesus Christ, Freud, and Galileo.” – Dudley Moore: “They said it of a lot of nutcases too.” A couple of issues ago I certainly quoted the wise words of Michael Billington, which are as true of shows that get bad reviews as of ones that close early: sometimes the reason it happens is “because they are crap”.
Ian Shuttleworth |ian@theatrerecord.com
At the Back
Can You Hear Me In Canada?
Although theatre thrives all over Canada, outside the country we tend to hear only of its Quebec-based successes, the übertalented Robert Lepage and the überrich Cirque du Soleil – sometimes in tandem. A recent visit to Ontario helped me regain some sense of balance towards the English-speaking component. Toronto alone is a busy theatre centre, with over £80 million a year spent on theatre tickets.
Engaging
The great years for English-speaking theatre in Canada were the 1970s, when a series of indigenous playwrights produced truly local theatre for the first time in a burgeoning number of small spaces, mostly in Toronto. It was fitting, then, that my first excursion should be to The Factory, still going strong in a building that it owns – handy for raising loans when times are lean. Its founder, Ken Gass, is still in charge of a defiantly all-Canadian programme of new writing. The play I saw was Scratch, a raw but engaging account of a teenage girl’s struggles with her own emerging sexuality and her mother’s terminal cancer. Its author, Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman, now in her early twenties, wrote her first draft as a teenager, and has since been involved in a long process of workshop and development. The finished product still needs attention, but at its best is both funny and moving. Most remarkable, the author herself gives a stunning performance in the central role.
Longevity
Another time-honoured Toronto space is the Tarragon Theatre, which hosted a surprise success by a small company from western Canada, November Theatre from Edmonton. In 1998 they put on their version of the Tom Waits / William Burroughs / Robert Wilson musical The Black Rider, and had such a success with it that they have been touring it almost ever since. It is commonplace for Quebec companies to play a piece for as long as it takes, but English Canadian companies are much more like their British counterparts, so this longevity is unusual. The international critics with whom I watched the show responded to the group’s humble origins rather than the show’s avant-garde pedigree: they were inclined to dismiss this expressionist update of Der Freischutz as second-rate Rocky Horror, but having recently seen (and loved) the Waits / Wilson Woyzeck I was impressed by the way in which Ron Jenkins’ company, working with slender resources that included a fine, versatile three-piece band, managed to produce a strongly Wilson-inspired production with a very professional quality of its own.
Powerhouses
Outside Toronto, Ontario boasts two theatre powerhouses, describing themselves as festivals but in reality almost year-round operations with a huge economic impact. The Stratford Shakespeare Festival, with a turnover of £30 million and state grants less than 6% of that, bills itself as North America’s leading classical theatre, with some justification. This year has been a turbulent one for Stratford, with changes in direction that leave Antoni Cimolino as ongoing General Director, while Des McAnuff (who cut his teeth at the Factory, and has since made his name on Broadway with musicals like Jersey Boys) is now sole Artistic Director. His production of Romeo And Juliet, on the festival’s
Tyrone Guthrie-inspired main stage, had one neat idea, opening in modern dress with Vespas buzzing across a Verona square, then slipping into period as the blades dress up for the Capulet ball, reverting to today only when the lovers have breathed their last. Otherwise, it was adequate storytelling, with a one-note Juliet in Nikki M James proving a particular disappointment. How surprising, then to see Ms James holding her own opposite Christopher Plummer the same evening in McAnuff’s far more satisfactory, if seriously cut, production of Shaw’s Caesar And Cleopatra. Plummer, still charismatic at 81, brings a suitably wry cynicism to the play, but it is Ms James who lights up the stage (sumptuously decorated in Odeon cinema style, rich in gold leaf, by Robert Brill) on her every appearance.
What can make a British theatregoer jealous of the Stratford setup is that they can still run a repertoire system in their four theatres. After these two productions on the main stage, next day it housed a Hamlet and a Taming Of The Shrew. Adrian Noble staged the Hamlet, with some echoes of his Ibsenite RSC production with Kenneth Branagh, not least in Ben Carlson’s strong performance in the lead – an energetic student, manifestly in love with Adrienne Gould’s touchingly vulnerable Ophelia.
It was a relief, to be honest, to escape from the below-par classics in the main theatre to a superb revival of The Music Man on the Avon stage – again, the repertoire meant that punters could have seen a very good Cabaret the same afternoon. Next year’s visiting directors include David Grindley and James Macdonald, and there will be three new Canadian plays in the smallest Stratford theatre, the Studio.
Colonial
The Shaw Festival, in the charming colonial setting of Niagara-onthe Lake, has about half the budget of Stratford for its three theatres. I must confess to some disappointment in the two main house productions I saw, Jackie Maxwell’s Mrs Warren’s Profession and Jim Mezon’s An Inspector Calls. Again, one had to admire the stage staff for their same-day transition from Sue LePage’s three fussy sets for Mrs Warren (which suggested that Surrey was situated somewhere just outside Minsk) to Peter Hartwell’s elegant realisation of the Birling household, complete with elevator, for Inspector.
Shaw, too, has a relatively new director in Ms Maxwell, whose preferences can be seen in the presence on this year’s programme of a new Githa Sowerby discovery, The Stepmother, and Lillian Hellman’s The Little Foxes. Next year she will direct Osborne’s The Entertainer in a new studio theatre space, while the highlight of the year will be the staging of all nine playlets in Noël Coward’s Tonight at 8.30 sequence.
Both Shaw and Stratford are suffering under the new regulation which insists that US visitors to Canada have to carry passports, but the box offices are holding up well. What should also be admired is the enthusiasm of the two festivals’ audiences, hordes of unusually well-behaved schoolchildren in Stratford and coachloads of grey panthers in Niagara. All were ready to give the warmest of standing ovations, however little this cynical observer might think they were deserved.
Ian Herbert | ian@herbertknott.com
Contents / Reviews
Reviewed in issue 22, 2008 |
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London |
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AMERICAN BRIEFS Collection of new short plays (see review pages for full details) |
Above The Stag |
29 Oct |
23 Nov |
1215 |
BLOWING WHISTLES Revival of play by Matthew Todd |
Leicester Square |
23 Oct |
29 Nov |
1213 |
BROKEN SPACE SEASON New plays by various writers (see review pages for full details) |
Bush |
6 Oct |
25 Oct |
1204 |
LA CAGE AUX FOLLES Transfer of revival of musical by Jerry Herman / Harvey Fierstein, from Jean Poiret |
Playhouse |
30 Oct |
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1233 |
CATALYSTA New play by Allister Bain |
Oval House |
23 Oct |
8 Nov |
1224 |
THE DAY THEY BANNED CHRISTMAS New play by Christopher James (Grunt Prods) |
Courtyard |
21 oct |
9 Nov |
1212 |
DRACULA New musical by Alex Loveless from novel by Bram Stoker (Okai Collier) |
White Bear |
30 Oct |
23 Nov |
1214 |
THE DYING OF TODAY New play by Howard Barker (Wrestling School) |
Arcola |
22 Oct |
22 Nov |
1211 |
FACES IN THE CROWD New play by Leo Butler |
Royal Court Upstairs |
21 Oct |
8 Nov |
1206 |
FOLLOW New play by Dameon Garnett |
Finborough |
31 Oct |
22 Nov |
1210 |
THE GLASS BOTTLE AND THE CHILD etc. New play by Emma D’Arcy / Premières by Robert Calvert |
Pentameters |
28 Oct |
9 Nov |
1224 |
HAPPY JACK Revival of play by John Godber |
Landor |
22 Oct |
8 Nov |
1226 |
HARD TIMES New adaptation by James Hyland, Tom Peters and Raewyn Lippert, from Charles Dickens |
Warehouse Croydon |
28 Oct |
16 Nov |
1205 |
I AM FALLING Transfer of dance-theatre piece (Gate) |
Lilian Baylis |
29 oct |
1 Nov |
1214 |
IF THE CAP FITS / SPORADICITY New double bill by Dean Stalham |
Hen & Chickens |
23 Oct |
8 Nov |
1212 |
LOLA New piece by Trestle |
Riverside |
23 Oct |
2 Nov |
1216 |
LORD ARTHUR'S BED New play by Martin Lewton |
Drill Hall |
21 Oct |
2 Nov |
1213 |
LOVE'S LABOUR'S LOST Revival of play by Shakespeare |
Rose, Kingston |
28 Oct |
15 Nov |
1221 |
MEASURE FOR MEASURE Revival of play by Shakespeare (Centurion TC) |
Courtyard |
29 Oct |
23 Nov |
1215 |
MOUNTAIN HOTEL / AUDIENCE UK première / revival respectively of plays by Vaclav Havel |
Orange Tree |
31 Oct |
21 Nov |
1231 |
NOT EVERYTHING IS SIGNIFICANT New piece by Ben Moor |
Etcetera |
27 Oct |
3 Nov |
1205 |
PIAF Revival of play by Pam Gems |
Vaudeville |
21 Oct |
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1209 |
THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY New musical adaptation from Oscar Wilde |
Tabard |
22 Oct |
15 Nov |
1230 |
RED FORTRESS New play by Carl Miller |
Unicorn SE1 |
22 Oct |
8 Nov |
1232 |
RUE MAGIQUE Revival (revised) of musical by Brett Kahr and Lisa Forrell |
King's Head |
29 Oct |
7 Dec |
1225 |
SWEET CIDER New play by Emteaz Hussain (Tamasha) |
Arcola |
24 Oct |
15 Nov |
1220 |
TO BE STRAIGHT WITH YOU New piece by Lloyd Newson (DV8) |
Lyttelton |
29 Oct |
15 Nov |
1227 |
WARM New play by Jon Fosse (Theatre 503 / Presence Th) |
Theatre 503 |
24 Oct |
15 Nov |
1216 |
YARD GAL Revival of play by Rebecca Prichard |
Oval House |
30 Oct |
15 Nov |
1219 |
Regions |
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ANIMAL FARM Revival of musical by Peter Hall / Richard Peaslee / Adrian Mitchell, from George Orwell |
Leeds, WYP Quarry |
22 Oct |
8 Nov |
1237 |
ANTIGONE Revival of play by Sophocles in new version by Owen McCafferty (Prime Cut Prods) |
Belfast, Waterfront Hall |
23 Oct |
1 Nov |
1238 |
ANTIGONE Revival of play by Sophocles in version by Don Taylor |
Manchester, Royal Exchange |
20 Oct |
8 Nov |
1236 |
THE CARETAKER Revival of play by Harold Pinter |
Glasgow, Citizens |
22 Oct |
15 Nov |
1245 |
COCKROACH New play by Sam Holcroft (Traverse / NTS) |
Edinburgh, Traverse |
24 Oct |
1 Nov |
1247 |
THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA Revival of play by Federico Garcia Lorca, in version by David Johnson |
Coventry, Belgrade |
28 Oct |
8 Nov |
1243 |
I-WITNESS New piece inspired by novel The Rings Of Saturn by W G Sebald (Volcano Th) |
Swansea, Taliesin / touring |
31 Oct |
1 Nov |
1244 |
INDEPENDENT MEANS Revival of play by Stanley Houghton |
Manchester, Library |
28 Oct |
22 Nov |
1243 |
JACK LEAR New play by Ben Benison adapted from William Shakespeare |
Scarborough, Stephen Joseph |
21 Oct |
8 Nov |
1237 |
MARAT-SADE Revival of play by Peter Weiss (Th Workshop) |
Glasgow, Tramway |
23 Oct |
25 Oct |
1247 |
MARY ROSE revival of play by J M Barrie |
Edinburgh, Royal Lyceum |
24 Oct |
15 Nov |
1248 |
MIDSUMMER New play by David Greig and Gordon McIntyre |
Edinburgh, Traverse |
28 Oct |
15 Nov |
1249 |
A MONTH IN THE COUNTRY New adaptation by Philip Wilson from novel by J L Carr |
Salisbury Playhouse |
31 Oct |
22 Nov |
1238 |
NOT ABOUT HEROES Revival of play by Stephen MacDonald (Rowan tree TC) |
Selkirk, Bowhill / touring |
17 Oct |
18 Oct |
1244 |
ROMEO AND JULIET Revival of play by Shakespeare (Royal Shaksepeare Co) |
Brighton, Theatre Royal / touring |
23 Oct |
25 Oct |
1241 |
SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT New adaptation by Daniel Buckroyd from Simon Armitage poem |
Huddersfield, L Batley / touring |
23 Oct |
25 Oct |
1243 |