Prompt Corner
Issue 11, 2009
Well, after several issues all containing one controversy or another, and sometimes several, we seem to have hit a relatively quiet period... not in terms of theatrical activity but at least as regards any kerfuffle surrounding it. All we have to report this time is an apparent attempt by a publicist for the Donmar’s West End Hamlet starring Jude Law to get a non-laudatory article, dating from several months before the production opened, removed from the Internet. As Arnold Schwarzenegger remarks in Last Action Hero, “Big mistake!” The ill-advised effort subsequently got blogged itself, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/lostinshowbiz/2009/jun/08/jude-law-hamlet-internet-reviews, and spawned a few dozen comments. (Naturally, I couldn’t resist a snipe or two myself.) But other than that, nothing.
Luxuriating
Not even that doyenne of too-plain-speaking, Sandra Bernhard, could generate any significant shock with her West End run of Without You I’m Nothing. Well, the show was 21 years old by now, despite some updates about Twitter, a Christina Aguilera number and so on. Bernhard’s mixture of song and sarcasm, autobiography and satire was so potent first time around because, firstly, the celebrity culture she simultaneously adored and mocked was not yet a pervasive fact of life, and secondly, she was not at that stage an integral part of it. Much of her material on fame seemed in 2009 to be “kidding on the square”: superficially she is lampooning or ironising these values, but underneath she is luxuriating in them. This is apparent not least in her natural showmanship: her overdone version of the soul classic “Me And Mrs Jones” has some absurd moments of vocal flight, but fundamentally it is showing off Bernhard’s more than serviceable set of pipes. Once or twice at the performance I saw she committed the classic showbiz-American-in-Europe error of expecting applause simply for mentioning some acquaintance or event and being momentarily caught out when none came.
In many of these respects she reminded me of Joan Rivers, who played the same venue last autumn and was just over the river in the huge purple-cow-shaped tent called the Udderbelly while Bernhard was at the Leicester Square Theatre. The attempt to have one’s cake and eat it by being both celebrity and gadfly at once is something the two performers have in common. So, to a degree, is facial work. Bernhard is nothing like as nipped and tucked as Rivers (who is?), but nevertheless, when she spoke of “having some light injectibles performed by my dermatologist”, it had more than a whiff of Riveresesque pre-emption about it. She still has a full set of performance “chops”; I wish I had seen her back in the day when she also had facial expressions.
Cavalier
More visually striking by far is Iain Glen in Walenstein, Mike Poulton’s condensation of Schiller’s three (or two and a half) plays about the Habsburg military leader of the Thirty Years War. Glen looks like a van Dyck portrait come to life. It is not simply his appearance, with luxuriant moustache, trimmed beard and period military officer’s garb. His manner, too, is not quite swashbuckling nor yet reckless, but... there is no better word than cavalier: this Wallenstein, provided only that his stars are favourable, is supremely confident both of his own military ability and of his men’s loyalty to him. Although he is aware of factionalism against him in the court at Vienna, nothing seriously dents his self-assurance, even as he prepares to desert the Holy Roman Emperor and ally with the enemy Swedes in order to obtain the throne of Bohemia, which is after all no more than the emperor has promised him. So it is that an effective first-half cliff-hanger can be fashioned not out of a momentous military event but simply his sudden realisation that he has been manoeuvred into a position where, one way or the other, he can only lose.
This is one of Schiller’s high-Romantic historical tragedies in which moral and political issues come together in a crisis for some towering figure. Poulton has form as a translator of such plays, having already tackled the same author’s Don Carlos and Mary Stuart (the latter of which was recently revived at Clwyd Theatr Cymru – see last issue for reviews). He ably captures the passion and idealism in the various characters’ major speeches without making them sound airy-fairy. It is only in the latter stages that interest flags, when Wallenstein’s downfall is inevitable and it is merely a matter of when, where and at whose hand he falls. Angus Jackson’s focused production can carry us through the thicket of military officers’ names and shifting allegiances, but not so fluently down the long ramp to the general’s ultimate fate. Once his dear protégé Max (Max Irons, son of Jeremy, in his professional stage début) decides that loyalty to the Emperor must outweigh his love both of Wallenstein and of his daughter, much of the human drama dissipates; the tactics of Charlotte Emmerson as Wallenstein’s sister-in-law have succeeded, and Max himself dies offstage. Wallenstein’s own murder, and the subsequent elevation of his nemesis (Max’s father) to a Dukedom, come as a grim but somehow almost perfunctory ending. One of the crucial elements in tragedy is to make the inevitable and inexorable seem nevertheless dramatic; I don’t think Schiller and Poulton pull it off.
ERRRATUM
The production details of one or two plays on the review pages of this issue carry erroneous start dates in March. This should, of course, read “May”. The correct dates are given on the Contents page. Apologies for any confusion this may have caused.
Ian Shuttleworth |ian@theatrerecord.com
At the Back
"At the Back" does not appear this issue
Reviewed in issue 11, 2009: |
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London |
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ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL Revival of play by Shakespeare (NT) |
Olivier |
28 May |
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594 |
AMONGST FRIENDS New play by April De Angelis |
Hampstead |
26 May |
13 Jun |
580 |
AUNT DAN AND LEMON Revival of play by Wallace Shawn |
Royal Court |
27 May |
27 Jun |
587 |
BASILDON New play by Peter Hamilton (Clockschool TC) |
White Bear |
26 May |
21 Jun |
579 |
Burst festival Season of new work –see review pages for production details |
BAC |
15 May |
30 May |
572 |
CIRXUS New play by John Harrigan (FoolishPeople) |
Arcola, Studio K |
28 May |
13 June |
610 |
COLLABORATION / TAKING SIDES Revival of plays by Ronald Harwood |
Duchess |
27 May |
22 Aug |
590 |
COMPANY Revival of musical by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth |
Union SE1 |
21 May |
13 Jun |
579 |
FOREPLAY New play by Mpumelelo Paul Grootboom from Arthur Schnitzler (Stratford E / A African State Th) |
T R Stratford E15 |
26 May |
13 Jun |
597 |
HAMLET Revival of play by Shakespeare (Donmar) |
Wyndhams |
3 Jun |
22 Aug |
605 |
THE HOKEY COKEY MAN New play by Alan Balfour (Music By Arrangement) |
New End |
21 May |
21 Jun |
582 |
ÌYÀ-IL É New play by Oladipo Agboluaje (Tiata Fahodzi) |
Soho |
21 May |
20 Jun |
573 |
JESUS – THE WASTED YEARS New play by Robert Meakin |
Old Red Lion |
28 May |
13 Jun |
584 |
MACBETH Revival of play by Shakespeare (Love & Madness) |
Riverside |
21 May |
22 Jul |
574 |
THE MISSIONARY'S POSITION New play by Penny Dreadful |
Hoxton Hall |
3 Jun |
21 Jun |
600 |
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING Revival of play by Shakespeare |
Open Air |
1 Jun |
27 Jun |
598 |
NAKED BOYS SINGING New musical revue |
King's Head |
29 May |
5 Jul |
582 |
ROMEO AND JULIET Revival of play by Shakespeare (Iris Th) |
St Paul’s Church |
29 May |
13 Jun |
610 |
SANDRA BERNHARD: WITHOUT YOU I'M NOTHING Comedy show |
Leicester Square |
26 May |
5 Jun |
583 |
SCHOOL FOR WIVES revival of play by Molière, in translation by Ranjit Bolt (Planet Th Prods) |
Upstairs at the Gatehouse |
15 May |
6 Jun |
604 |
SISTER ACT New musical by Alan Menken / Glenn Slater / Cheri & Bill Steinkellner |
Palladium |
2 Jun |
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601 |
TAKE ME TO HOLLYWOOD! New cabaret show by Scandimaniacs |
Blue Elephant |
21 May |
6 Jun |
572 |
THE UNSINKABLE MOLLY BROWN UK première of musical by Meredith Willson, book by Richard Morris |
Landor |
29 May |
20 Jun |
584 |
WHEN THE RAIN STOPS FALLING New play by Andrew Bovell |
Almeida |
21 May |
4 Jul |
575 |
Regions |
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THE ART OF NOT LOOKING BACK Dance presentation by Hofesh Shechter Co (Brighton Festival) |
Brighton, Dome |
14 May |
15 May |
618 |
BLITHE SPIRIT Revival of play by Noël Coward |
Newbury, Watermill |
25 May |
27 Jun |
619 |
BREAKING NEWS New piece by Rimini Protokoll (Brighton Festival) |
Brighton, Theatre Royal |
7 May |
9 May |
616 |
DUMB SHOW Revival of play by Joe Penhall |
Newcastle-under-Lyme, New Vic |
29 May |
20 Jun |
620 |
THE ERPINGHAM CAMP Revival of play by Joe Orton (Hydrocracker) (Brighton Festival) |
Brighton, Palace Pier |
12 May |
24 May |
617 |
THE HOMECOMING Revival of play by Harold Pinter |
York, Theatre Royal |
3 Jun |
20 Jun |
620 |
Imaginate Festival Festival of work for children – see review pages for production details |
Edinburgh, various |
25 May |
1 Jun |
622 |
INNER CIRCLE New play by Renato Gabrielli, adapted by Martin O’Connor (Subway Festival) |
Glasgow, underground trains |
23 May |
24 May |
621 |
JULIUS CAESAR Revival of play by Shakespeare (RSC) |
Stratford-upon-Avon, Courtyard |
26 Mar |
2 Oct |
613 |
JUST BETWEEN OURSELVES Revival of play by Alan Ayckbourn |
Northampton, Royal |
26 May |
13 Jun |
619 |
KURVA New piece by Reial Companyia de Teatre de Catalunya (Brighton Festival) |
Hove |
12 May |
17 May |
617 |
LITTLE LEAP FORWARD New play by Alison Duddle based on book by Clare Farrow and Guo Yue |
Manchester, Royal Exchange |
28 May |
13 Jun |
620 |
LOST MONSTERS New play by Laurence Wilson |
Liverpool Everyman |
27 May |
13 Jun |
619 |
SUB OPERA New piece by Proudexposure (Subway Festival) |
Glasgow, Underground trains |
23 May |
24 May |
621 |
UNDER THE INFLUENCE New piece by Ontroerend Goed |
Plymouth, Drum |
3 Jun |
13 Jun |
621 |
WALLENSTEIN Revival of play(s) by Friedrich Schiller in new version by Mike Poulton |
Chichester, Minerva |
29 May |
13 Jun |
615 |