Issue 1/2, 2010
Prompt Corner
Welcome to Volume XXX of THEATRE RECORD... well, if the world in general can celebrate a new millennium beginning on 1 January, 2000, we can celebrate our 30th year instead of our 30th anniversary. When Ian Herbert founded the magazine in 1981, I was still at school in Belfast; I had hardly been to “straight” theatre at all, and then had often fallen asleep. (I still squirm in shame at dozing off as the mighty Donal McCann gave his magnificent performance in Brian Friel’s Faith Healer, and thank my lucky stars that he returned to the role a dozen years later so that I could realise how privileged I had been to see him in action.) Any notion of a career involving theatre, whether its practice or its study and analysis, would not occur to me for nearly another decade. I didn’t even read reviews at the time, never mind write them.
And now, two-thirds of my life later, bound volumes of TR take up several shelves in my office and boxes of back issues take up the entirety of my shed (not to mention Ruth Keeley’s garage and much of her house!). It’s remarkable to be able to dip into any issue and get a detailed sense of the whole critical conversation about a particular production in one place. There has been a growing feeling over the past few years that the Internet would make TR redundant, as all the reviews would be available at the click of a mouse. But it’s not happening. Most of the titles we cover don’t make their reviews available online, some other titles’ supplies are patchy or require payment, and above all it takes some sleuthing to assemble even what you might think of as the “major” reviews. As a reference and research tool, TR simply cannot be bettered. It’s only to be regretted that our limited reprint licences mean that we ourselves can’t publish online.
Online
But at least you can order the magazine online, and pay the same way via Paypal. A further service, new for 2010, supersedes our old fax-back facility. (Faxing’s so 20th century!) You can now request the reviews of any individual production and we’ll email them to you in a PDF file, for just £5 / $10 / €8 – one-third the price of the old fax-back! If you want a hard copy of the original issue, you’ll have to order that separately, but even the two of those together still cost less than a fax used to.
How else can we accommodate the online world? We’ll soon have a Twitter feed set up, so that you can enjoy the two Ians Tweeting from darkened auditoria from Tottenham to Tehran. (Ian Herbert’s Tehran report will appear in the next issue, along with Philip Fisher’s New York round-up; I’m afraid we couldn’t squeeze them into this bumper double issue.) The magazine’s web site at www.theatrerecord.com will also, as they say, bolt on a blog-style front end to the online appearance of these Prompt Corner columns and Can You Hear Me At The Back?, so that we can hear you right back. It’s a way of acknowledging that that critical conversation is no longer the sole preserve of print and paper... although, even online, those writings remain at its core.
Interactivity
It’s a bit of a paradox that, even as debate and discussion becomes diffused through more and more media and outlets, more and more of that discussion itself comes to be about the liveness, physicality and immediacy of theatre. Sometimes, though, the sectors and experiences inform one another. For instance, I suspect that if the Internet had not come along and made creative interactivity so easily accessible in its medium, the notion of interactivity in theatre would not have grown to the extent that it has.
Less than a decade ago, “interactivity” meant the audience using at-seat electronic consoles to vote on whether or not Jeffrey Archer was guilty in his play The Accused (I wonder, did he ever get acquitted at a single performance?); now, we are familiar with a wide a range of “flavours” of interactivity, which led to a series of weekend symposia on the subject held recently by the theatre group Three’s Company in tandem with their season at the Tristan Bates Theatre (see reviews p34). I served on the panel of a discussion session at which Yaz al-Shaater recounted how, at one performance, an audience participant decided to obey one of the cardinal rules of theatre – never introduce a gun in the first act unless it is to be fired in the third – by taking a shaken-up can of Dr Pepper and emptying it over Yaz’s head... which, he acknowledged, aptly dramatised the drink’s advertising slogan, “What’s the worst that can happen?”
Problematic
We can never be quite sure what will happen. Sometimes we cannot be quite sure what is happening. Paul Taylor, in his review of The Whisky Taster, discerns a father/daughter relationship between two of the characters which no other reviewer noticed, or thought present; Tim Walker, in his review of The Little Dog Laughed, conjures a “marriage of convenience” between two characters out of a single kiss between them which does not even take place onstage but is reported as part of the back-story. And some of us forget what did happen: my own review of Greta Garbo Came To Donegal claims that Earl Mountbatten was murdered in (or rather, in a boat off the coast of) that county; in fact, I misremembered, even though I was only a few miles out; it took place in neighbouring County Sligo. But then, Irish geography can be problematic. Henry Hitchings’ review of the same play referred to Donegal as part of Ulster; the Evening Standard’s sub-editors, aware that the name “Ulster” now carries political connotations, replaced that word with “Northern Irish”. Unfortunately, Donegal is part of the ancient province of Ulster, but not of Northern Ireland. Since the error was one over which Henry had no control, we have restored his original wording for the reprint in this issue.
Ian Shuttleworth | ian@theatrerecord.com
At the Back
At the Back does not appear this issue
Reviewed in issue 1/2, 2010
| Production | Venue | Opened |
Closed |
Page |
| London | ||||
| AROUND THE HOUSE / THERE IS NOTHING THERE Site-specific and youth performances | Oval House | 13 Jan |
23 Jan |
40 |
| BARBERSHOPERA II New musical by Rob Castell and Tom Sadler | Trafalgar Studio 2 | 8 Jan |
6 Feb |
32 |
| BOUNCERS Revival of play by John Godber | Leicester Square | 28 Jan |
6 Mar |
73 |
| THE CARETAKER Revival of play by Harold Pinter | Trafalgar Studio 1 | 18 Jan |
17 Apr |
43 |
| Chekhov Jubilee Festival of commemorative events | Hampstead | 18 Jan |
23 Jan |
32 |
| DAISY PULLS IT OFF Revival of play by Denise Deegan | Arts | 21 Jan |
6 Feb |
28 |
| DAVID HOYLE’S LICKING WOUNDS Solo performance | Royal Vauxhall Tavern | 7 Jan |
4 Feb |
8 |
| DECADE Season of new plays by various writers | Theatre 503 | 19 Jan |
23 Jan |
41 |
| DOCTOR FAUSTUS Revival of play by Christopher Marlowe (Present Moment TC) | Stratford Circus | 14 Jan |
6 Feb |
33 |
| ENRON Transfer of new play by Lucy Prebble (R Ct / Chichester / Headlong) | Noël Coward | 26 Jan |
65 |
|
| EVERY GOOD BOY DESERVES FAVOUR Return of play with music by Tom Stoppard and André Previn | Olivier | 9 Jan |
17 Feb |
15 |
| FOOL FOR LOVE Revival of play by Sam Shepard (Love & Madness) | Riverside | 28 Jan |
21 Mar |
78 |
| THE FORECAST New play by Marvin and the Cats | Greenwich Playhouse | 21 Jan |
7 Feb |
14 |
| GENEROUS New play by Michael Healey | Finborough | 7 Jan |
30 Jan |
9 |
| A GIFT FROM BABY JESUS New play by Dan Silva (Silva Prods) | Barons Court | 12 Jan |
17 Jan |
12 |
| GRETA GARBO CAME TO DONEGAL New play by Frank McGuinness | Tricycle | 11 Jan |
20 Feb |
19 |
| HAMLET Revival of play by Shakespeare (RSC Young People’s Shakespeare) | Kenton, Claremont High School | 22 Jan |
29 Jan |
77 |
| I AM YUSUF AND THIS IS MY BROTHER New play by Amir Nizar Zuabi (Y Vic / ShiberHur) | Young Vic | 21 Jan |
6 Feb |
68 |
| INNOCENCE Revival of play by Dea Loher | Arcola | 8 Jan |
30 Jan |
12 |
| JIHAD! THE MUSICAL New musical by Zoe Samuel and Benjamin Scheuer | Jermyn Street | 14 Jan |
6 Feb |
37 |
| THE LADY OR THE TIGER Revival of musical by Michael Richmond | Orange Tree | 5 Jan |
13 Feb |
4 |
| LEGALLY BLONDE New musical by Laurence O'Keefe, Nell Benjamin, Heather Hach from Amanda Brown | Savoy | 12 Jan |
23 |
|
| THE LITTLE DOG LAUGHED New play by Douglas Carter Beane | Garrick | 20 Jan |
52 |
|
| London International Mime Festival 2010 See review pages for full production details | various | 13 Jan |
31 Jan |
83 |
| MIDSUMMER New play with songs by David Greig and Gordon McIntyre | Soho | 12 Jan |
6 Feb |
29 |
| MIRACLE New play by Reza de Wet | Leicester Square | 7 Jan |
24 Jan |
11 |
| PLAN D New play by Hannah Khalil (Resister Th) | Tristan Bates | 27 Jan |
13 Feb |
56 |
| PLAY ON WORDS New play by Three's Company | Tristan Bates | 5 Jan |
23 Jan |
34 |
| PROGRESS Revival of play by Doug Lucie | Union SE1 | 19 Jan |
6 Feb |
82 |
| RIGGED New play by Ashmeed Sohoye (Theatre Centre) | Unicorn / touring | 27 jan |
28 jan |
51 |
| RITES OF PRIVACY New play by David Rhodes | New End | 19 Jan |
14 Feb |
42 |
| THE RIVALS Revival of play by Richard Brinsley Sheridan (Red Handed TC / Primavera) | Southwark Playhouse | 15 Jan |
30 Jan |
39 |
| SILENCE! THE MUSICAL Transfer of musical by Hunter Bell, Jon & Al Kaplan | Above The Stag | 21 Jan |
28 Feb |
22 |
| SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION Revival of play by John Guare | Old Vic | 19 Jan |
3 Apr |
46 |
| SKIN TIGHT Transfer of play by Gary Henderson (Shaky Isles Th) | Riverside | 19 Jan |
24 Jan |
42 |
| STAY WITH ME UNTIL DAWN / KNUCKLEBALL New plays by Graham Farrow / William Whitehurst | Rosemary Branch | 21 Jan |
7 Feb |
56 |
| THREE SISTERS Revival of adaptation by Christopher Hampton from play by Anton Chekhov | (Lyric / Filter) Lyric Hammersmith | 25 Jan |
20 Feb |
59 |
| THREESOME New play by Hal Iggulden | Tabard | 19 Jan |
6 Feb |
64 |
| TRILOGY Performance piece(s) by Nic Green | BAC / Barbican | 12 Jan |
23 Jan |
57 |
| UNVEILING HAGAR New play by Gloria Tessler | New End | 25 Jan |
13 Feb |
16 |
| VAREKAI Return of show by Cirque du Soleil | Royal Albert Hall | 5 Jan |
13 Feb |
6 |
| WAITING FOR GODOT Revival of play by Samuel Beckett | T R Haymarket | 27 Jan |
3 Apr |
74 |
| WET WEATHER COVER New play by Oliver Cotton (p10) | King's Head | 28 Jan |
21 Feb |
10 |
| THE WHISKY TASTER New play by James Graham | Bush | 26 Jan |
20 Feb |
71 |
| THE WORLD'S WIFE Revival of adaptation from poetry collection by Carol Ann Duffy | Trafalgar Studio 2 | 13 Jan |
6 Feb |
31 |
| A YORKSHIRE TRAGEDY Revival of play by Thomas Middleton (probably) | White Bear | 7 Jan |
24 Jan |
50 |
Regions |
||||
| ANGUISH WITH POSIE Play by Ian Macpherson (DiScOmBoBuLaTe Prods) | Glasgow, Tron | 19 Jan |
23 Jan |
91 |
| HANDEL AND THE DARKENING MOON New play by Tracy Spottiswoode | Bristol, Brewery | 6 Jan |
17 Jan |
89 |
| JOURNEY’S END Revival of play by R C Sherriff (Icarus Th Collective / Original TC / Anvil Arts) | Basingstoke, Haymarket | 28 Jan |
30 Jan |
89 |
| LES MISÉRABLES Revival of musical by Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg, Herbert Kretzmer | Cardiff, Millennium Ctr / touring | 12 Dec |
16 Jan |
88 |
| THE PRICE Revival of play by Arthur Miller | Edinburgh, Royal Lyceum | 16 Jan |
13 Feb |
90 |
| PRIVATE LIVES Revival of play by Noël Coward | Salisbury Playhouse | 21 Jan |
20 Feb |
89 |
