Issue 7, 2010
Prompt Corner
Sometimes, with the best will in the world, a review backfires. I thought I was being cleverly preemptive in my review of the Willy Russell plays at the Menier: Russell, I thought, as a fine dramatist of the working class, would inevitably be strongly patronised. In the event, my own writing reads as far more patronising than anything by any of my colleagues. Charlie Spencer sings Russell’s praises a lot more directly, and thus a lot more effectively, than me.
Revealing
And sometimes we simply misunderstand. I find reviews of plays dealing with mental illness among the most revealing of reviewers’ attitudes and understanding, and the crits of Mark Haddon’s Polar Bears are no exception. Quentin Letts sees protagonist Kay’s problem as being that she “has a split personality”; Tim Walker, as subtle in his distinctions as ever, calls the play simply a “depiction of madness, or bipolar disorder as we are supposed to call it these days”. (This is the kind of taxonomical grasp that led World War I panels to classify shell-shock as “lack of moral fibre”, leading to the execution of more than 300 sufferers.) Statistics show that one in four of the British population will suffer from some form of mental illness in any given year, yet some of us either can’t or won’t distinguish between basic kinds.
It’s not as if they have no examples to draw on: I am hardly the only critic known to be a unipolar depressive (sometimes I feel at least half-seriously that I miss out on the fun of the manic phases of bipolarity), and of course Paul Taylor’s lengthy, insightful review is written with the knowledge and experience of one who lives with a similar (though less intensive) bipolar condition to Kay’s. I’m not suggesting that DSM-IV should be every reviewer’s bedtime reading, but such casual and on occasion even blithe ignorance about any other comparable number of people in the population as a whole – three times as many as the entire non-white UK population, four to five times as many as the homosexual population, more even than the entire non-Christian or non-professingChristian population of the country – would be seen as clearly culpable.
Otherness
The “as we are supposed to” mentality also seems to manifest in Quentin Letts’ review of Andersen’s English. He writes: “The creed of ‘colour-blind casting’ insists that a black man can play a white man [ ... ] and that audiences and critics should not protest, but I’m afraid it is absurd here.” It strikes me that Quentin is here making a basic error of implicitly equating “should not protest” with “should not notice”; it doesn’t seem to occur to him that we may have been meant to pay attention to the casting of Danny Sapani as Hans Christian Andersen.
Aleks Sierz, on the same page of this issue, grasps it entirely and deals with it almost in passing: Andersen’s “Danish otherness”, he notes, is “emphasised by the fact that he is played by a black actor”. When the only non-white member of the cast is playing the only character from outside the hermetic Dickens household, it’s surely not unreasonable to wonder whether there might be a connection. Max Stafford-Clark has apologised if the after-effects of his stroke lead to his occasionally leaving actors too static for too long, explaining that he loses them from his now-limited peripheral vision... but he is unlikely not to notice such a correspondence, and unlikely not to intend it to be noticed and understood.
Enjoyment
Once again, the openness of the participants in the National Student Drama Festival can serve as an admirable example to the rest of us. A few years ago, discussions at the festival would regularly run aground on the unwillingness of companies to accept virtually any significant criticism, and indeed such criticism was regularly condemned as negativity (spot the irony – they didn’t) which interfered with an “all must have prizes” kind of attitude. That has changed radically, with participants now both more thoughtful in wording their criticisms but above all eager to learn from frank discussion of the aspects of their shows that didn’t work as well as those that did.
In the middle of the decade, I once or twice arrived in Scarborough with an article already written, which I knew would be needed as a counterblast to “constructive criticism is all very well, but not this...” complaints; now, I turn up anticipating virtually unalloyed enjoyment... and yes, that can even include a production of Sarah Kane’s Phaedra’s Love. Congratulations to the winners of this year’s student critics’ awards, Dan Hutton and Jasmine Woodcock-Stewart, whose prizes include a year’s free subscription to Theatre Record beginning with this issue.
Ian Shuttleworth | ian@theatrerecord.com
Reviewed in issue 7, 2010:
Place cursor over title to see cast.
To see production pictures |
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London |
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| Production | Venue | Opened | Closed | Page |
| ANDERSEN'S ENGLISH New play by Sebastian Barry (Out Of Joint) | Hampstead | 8 Apr | 8 May | 367 |
| APARTMENT 2012 New play by Julian Sims | White Bear | 8 Apr | 25 Apr | 361 |
| BEDROOM FARCE Revival of play by Alan Ayckbourn (Rose, Kingston) | Duke Of York's | 30 Mar | 26 Jun | 350 |
| BEYOND THE HORIZON Revival of play by Eugene O'Neill (Northampton Royal & Derngate) | Cottesloe | 7 Apr | 363 |
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| BEYOND THE PALE New play by Jamie Harper and Andrew Pawlby (London Quest Co) | Southwark Playhouse | 1 Apr | 17 Apr | 348 |
| BUDDY Revival of musical by Alan Janes and Rob Bettinson, with the songs of Buddy Holly | Upstairs at the Gatehouse | 16 Mar | 18 Apr | 348 |
| THE CHERRY ORCHARD Revival of play by Anton Chekhov | Greenwich Playhouse | 1 Apr | 25 Apr | 366 |
| DUMB SHOW Revival of play by Joe Penhall | Rose, Kingston | 7 Apr | 17 Apr | 378 |
| THE EMPIRE New play by D C Moore | Royal Court Upstairs | 8 Apr | 1 May | 370 |
| ENCHANTED PALACE Installations curated by Wildworks | Kensington Palace | 25 Mar | 25 Mar | 362 |
| FOREST FRINGE MICROFESTIVAL See review pages for full details | BAC | 2 Apr | 3 Apr | 362 |
| IF THAT'S ALL THERE IS Return of piece by Inspector Sands | BAC | 31 Mar | 10 Apr | 347 |
| JESUS HOPPED THE 'A' TRAIN Revival of play by Stephen Adly Guirgis (Synergy Th Project) | Trafalgar Studio 2 | 7 Apr | 24 Apr | 377 |
| KURSK Return of play by Bryony Lavery (Sound & Fury) | Young Vic, Maria | 29 Mar | 17 Apr | 346 |
| A MODEL FOR MANKIND New play by James Sheldon | Cock Tavern | 29 Mar | 17 Apr | 353 |
| 1936 New play by Tom McNab (Attick Th) | Arcola | 7 Apr | 24 Apr | 372 |
| THE NOTEBOOK OF TRIGORIN Tennessee Williams play inspired by The Seagull by Anton Chekhov | Finborough | 1 Apr | 24 Apr | 354 |
| PARIS Revival of musical by Cole Porter (Lost Musicals) | Lilian Baylis | 28 Mar | 25 Apr | 345 |
| PICCADILLY REVISITED New piece by Alice Lee and David Tse Ka-Shing (Chinatown Arts Space) | Royal Opera Ho., Linbury Studio | 30 Mar | 31 Mar | 376 |
| POLAR BEARS New play by Mark Haddon | Donmar Warehouse | 6 Apr | 22 May | 357 |
| SHIRLEY VALENTINE / EDUCATING RITA Revival of plays by Willy Russell | Menier Chocolate Factory | 8 Apr | 8 May | 373 |
| SHOOT/GET TREASURE/REPEAT and ESCHARA By Mark Ravenhill and Phillip Whiteman respectively | Union | 1 Apr | 24 Apr | 369 |
| SPRING STORM Revival of play by Tennessee Williams (Northampton Royal & Derngate) | Cottesloe | 7 Apr | 363 |
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| STUDIES FOR A PORTRAIT Revival (revised) of play by Daniel Reitz | King's Head | 7 Apr | 23 May | 369 |
| TAKING STEPS Revival of play by Alan Ayckbourn | Orange Tree | 26 Mar | 29 May | 344 |
| WET WEATHER COVER Transfer of play by Oliver Cotton | Arts | 7 Apr | 12 Apr | 349 |
Regions |
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| THE COMEDY OF ERRORS Revival of play by Shakespeare | Manchester, Royal Exchange | 6 Apr | 8 May | 383 |
| THE ELVES AND THE SHOEMAKER Revival of Mike Kenny adaptation from the Brothers Grimm | Dundee Rep | 2 Apr | 10 Apr | 387 |
| THE GIFT / GLORY, GLORY New plays by John Moorhouse / Lisa Evans | Lancaster, Dukes | 31 Mar | 24 Apr | 379 |
| HANDFUL OF HENNA New play by Rani Moorthy (Rasa / Oxfordshire TC) | Manchester, R Exchange Studio | 26 Mar | 27 Mar | 379 |
| HUMBLE BOY Revival of play by Charlotte Jones | Newcastle-under-Lyme, New Vic | 7 Apr | 17 Apr | 384 |
| HUXLEY'S LAB New play by Ben Harrison (Grid Iron / Lung Ha's) | Edinburgh, Informatics Forum | 2 Apr | 8 Apr | 388 |
| THE MERMAID PRINCESS New adap'n by Teresa Ludovico from Hans Christian Andersen (Teatro Kismet) Leicester, Curve / touring | 25 Mar | 27 Mar | 379 |
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| National Student Drama Festival 2010 | Scarborough, various | 27 Mar | 2 Apr | 385 |
| RASPBERRY New play by Garry Robson | Glasgow, Tron | 31 Mar | 3 Apr | 386 |
| THE SECRET OF SHERLOCK HOLMES revival of play by Jeremy Paul | Edinburgh, King's / touring | 30 Mar | 3 Apr | 386 |
| SHELF LIFE New site-specific piece (National Th of Wales / Volcano Th / Welsh National Opera) | Swansea, Old Library | 8 Apr | 25 Apr | 389 |
| THE TEMPEST Revival of play by Shakespeare (SATTF) | Bristol, Tobacco Factory | 31 Mar | 1 May | 380 |
| THERE'S ONLY ONE WAYNE MATTHEWS! Revival of play by Roy Williams | Sheffield, Crucible Studio | 31 Mar | 2 Apr | 383 |
