Category: Current Productions

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Brokeback Mountain- romance and the kitchen sink

Gay love story throws in romance, heartbreak, and the kitchen sink

Actors Mike Faist plays a harmonica while he and Lucas Hedges crouch round a camp fire in the stage production of Brokeback Mountain at sohoplace theatre in London in June 2023
Mike Faist and Lucas Hedges in Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain is the heartbreaking story of a forbidden love that lasts a lifetime. And the stage version by Ashley Robinson, based on the original short story by Annie Proulx, is excellent at conveying both its romance and its anguish. Unfortunately, it has also ended my love affair with Sohoplace Theatre.

My disappointment wasn’t with the play itself or the acting or the songs . It was with the production. As you may know from my enthusiastic reviews of Medea and Marvellous, Sohoplace is a theatre in the round, but it seemed like this production had been designed for a studio theatre but had had to settle for Sohoplace while still being in denial that the audience is on all four sides there.
When you perform a show in the round, you need to keep at least one actor facing the audience as much as possible but the unquestionably talented director Jonathan Butterell – he directed Everybody’s Talking About Jamie–  took some strange decisions.
For example, the two main protagonists regularly huddle in one corner of the stage by a camp fire with their back to two thirds of the audience. A tent, blocks some sight lines for a while. The production even throws in a kitchen sink. The latter rises from the floor on one side of the stage for a number of domestic scenes and blocks the view for those of us on that side (Stalls row A low numbers). One of my friends who was at the performance said he felt he’d seen a good play about plumbing. And I still don’t know who Ennis’ wife Alma remarried.
View of the stage from the front row of the stalls

Then again, I had a great view of the pained looks passing between Ennis and Alma as they stood at the sink, which three-quarters of the audience must have missed. Tom Pye is the brilliant award-winning designer of My Neighbour Totoro but, on this occasion, his set seemed to ignore the needs of an in-the-round production.

I can’t say who in particular was responsible but I do feel somebody should have looked at this production from all angles and pointed out the restricted views. That’s assuming the producers care whether people who’ve paid good money to see the show can actually see the show. (And, yes,  I did buy my ticket.)

Well-crafted, superbly acted

You will almost certainly be familiar with the story, thanks to the film. Two cowboys Jack and Ennis are assigned the job of looking after a flock of sheep on a remote mountain. They gradually get to know and like one another until one cold night, they huddle together in a tent, and desire takes over. Nothing untoward about that except this is Wyoming in 1963, a time and place where Homosexuality is not only illegal but liable to get you killed.
This explains why neither admits their homosexuality until their bodies touch. Here and now, gay love stories are commonplace but even today a gay man will have come across prejudice and threats, and it’s a timely moment to be reminded of the effect of homophobia, given the rise in legal discrimination against homosexuality in some US states, and the introduction of the death penalty in Uganda for what the law calls ‘aggravated homosexuality’.
Although Jack suggests they could live together, Ennis holds back, trying to maintain a sham marriage, but lives for occasional meetings with Jack in remote places. I’m assuming you’ve seen the film or read the story so I can say Jack takes more risks than Ennis and with disastrous consequences. Ashley Robinson tells their story with a deep understanding and a superb ear for dialogue. It’s hard to believe this is his theatrical debut.
The two handsome American actors wear their parts like gloves. I felt their love and their pain.
Mike Faist with crooked good looks and ready smile is the reckless extrovert Jack. Lucas Hedges is the nervous, taciturn Ennis. They are totally believable as an affectionate couple: I remember a head resting casually on a chest that caught perfectly the comfort lovers experience in each other’s company.
Emily Fairn was convincing as Ennis’s bemused and badly done by wife, another victim of the situation who is by turns sad, understanding and angry.
I wasn’t sure about the presence of an older Ennis. He does appear in the prologue to the short story, to kick it off as it were, but I was puzzled by his continuing appearances on stage, without giving any commentary. It may have been a way of making clear that Ennis had never come out, so his only love was Jack, but, in practice, like the sink, he just got in the way.
There was a kind of commentary in Dan Gillespie Sells’ songs. You may know his work with The Feeling or his music for Everybody’s Talking About Jamie. Here he echoes American country and western music, with songs that are plaintive and full of deep emotion. Providing a moving counterpoint to the onstage action, they are beautifully performed by Eddi Reader and the slightly off stage band (at least they didn’t get in the way!).
Brokeback Mountain is a well-crafted, superbly acted play. I would love to have seen more of it.
Brokeback Mountain runs at sohoplace until 12 August 2023.
Paul Seven Lewis paid for his ticket
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Assassins at Chichester – review

Assassins looks and sounds great but misses its target

★★★

Danny Mac seated on a bale of straw with smoke around him while playing John Wilkes Booth in the Chichetser Festival Theatre production of Stephen Sondheim's Assassins in June 2023
Danny Mac in Assassins.Photo: Johan Persson

Chichester Festival Theatre’s reputation as musicals producer is second to none but its latest revival is, for me, a rare mis-step.

Stephen Sondheim’s Assassins may not rank as one of his greatest works, but its reputation has grown since its premiere in 1990. The bleak musical comedy, with book by John Weidman, shows how the American Dream- that anyone can be a success- has become a nightmare. Its bleak view is that celebrity has become a replacement for real achievement, and that one particular short cut to fame is assassinating a President.

A string of would be assassins follows the precedent set by John Wilkes Booth, who shot Abraham Lincoln, and leads ultimately to the traumatic loss of John Kennedy at the hands of Lee Harvey Oswald. However, we gain little understanding of the individuals beyond their desire for fame for themselves or their cause (if they have one).

There is a lot to enjoy along the journey. There are songs for a start, which are mainly pastiches of various kinds of popular American music. They may not be Sondheim’s finest tunes but the use of popular music styles to talk about murder is horrifying. There’s the jaunty anthem Everybody’s Got The Right, the right to their dream that is, that bookends the show; and Gun Song, a romantic love song to a killing weapon; and Something Just Broke, a hauntingly sad reaction to the death of Kennedy.

The show originally used the device of a fairground shooting gallery in which contestants are given a gun and invited to take a shot at a President for the prize of fame if they succeed. It’s a metaphor that serves well the concept of the randomness of celebrity. As each takes his or her shot, they sink into oblivion, forming a disappointed community until together they encourage Oswald to commit a presidential assassination that shocked the world.

So where did the Chichester production go wrong?

Not with the performers, who are excellent. The characters they play do not have much depth, but are nevertheless given performances both vivid and amusing. Peter Forbes is suitably authoritative and sinister as The Proprietor or host; Danny Mac, with a strong singing voice, is the handsome and manipulative John Wilkes Booth, who you can believe would inspire the others; Harry Hepple is outstanding as the easy-going Charles Guiteau, who killed President Garfield because he believed he should have been made French ambassador; Sam Oladeinde shines as Leon Czolgosz, the shy, angry killer of President McKinley; Nick Holder as Samuel Byck wanders around the auditorium in a soiled Santa Claus outfit ranting about President Nixon (and Leonard Bernstein, for that matter) in a funny but frightening performance; Amy Booth-Steel is Sarah Jane Moore, the would be assassin of President Ford whose inability to shoot straight gains the most laughs; and Samuel Thomas is a chilling Lee Harvey Oswald, a man so feeble in his resolve as to make you squirm in your seat at the arbitrary nature of Kennedy’s death.

Why improve the perfect musical?

For me, the problem with the production was the way director Polly Findlay updated the concept to cover the modern cult of celebrity, starting with a reference to the recent celebrity President, Donald Trump. So, the on-stage band wear red baseball caps, and, as the audience enter, there are actors in animal mascot costumes encouraging Mexican waves.

The host looks very like Mr Trump. But why is the President handing out the guns? Trump may have encouraged the storming of the Capitol building, but this updating means you straightaway lose the distinction between people who achieve their dream of celebrity through assassinating a President and the Presidents themselves, who achieved their fame through a political and fairly democratic process.

Assassins at Chichester Festival Theatre. Photo: Johan Persson

In support of this change of emphasis, Lizzie Clachan’s wonderful set places the Oval Office rather than a fairground in the centre. Giant video screens on either side show the choice of targets, turning the original shooting gallery concept into a game show, suggesting the way TV turns nonentities into household names. Three TV news reporters replace the single Balladeer to provide the commentary. They hold their mics like guns, perhaps indicating the media’s contribution to the cult of celebrity killers. It’s certainly a long way from the fairground. This is all the more surprising since Stephen Sondheim once said he couldn’t think how to improve Assassins.

This is a musical that takes a superficial meander through various would-be Presidential assassins. It’s loosely held together by a concept that they are a corruption of the American Dream. Its fabric is too delicate to accommodate the tacking on of references to modern day celebrity. The Watermill Theatre production of 2019 didn’t stray from the fairground concept until the death of Kennedy, and was, in my opinion, the better for that single focus.

That quibble aside, Assassins is a musical worth reviving and Chichester Festival Theatre has come up with a fabulous looking production with superb performances.

Assassins can be seen at Chichester Festival Theatre until 24 June 2023.
Paul received a complimentary review ticket from the theatre.

Click here to watch this review on our YouTube channel Theatre.Reviews With Paul Seven

 

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Retrograde- review

Must-see new play by Ryan Calais Cameron with rising star Ivanno Jeremiah

★★★★★

Ivanno Jeremiah standing hands in pockets in the Kiln Theatre production of Retrograde by Ryan Calais Cameron
Ivanno Jeremiah in Retrograde. Photo: Marc Brenner

Retrograde, receiving its premiere at the Kiln Theatre in Kilburn London, is a tense, passionate play about racism and censorship, featuring a dynamite performance from rising star Ivanno Jeremiah. It is written by Ryan Calais Cameron, who recently achieved a West End hit with For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy. Thank goodness his new play has a shorter title!

Set in 1955, Retrograde describes Sidney Poitier’s early days in the film industry when he came up against racism and the so-called Hollywood blacklist which aimed to ‘cancel’, as we might say today, anyone with so-called anti-American views.

Sidney Poitier was a fabulous actor at a time when segregation was still legal and black performers were largely playing servants. We find him on the verge of getting a leading role. His experience could be that of anyone finds their career threatened because they want to exercise their right to free speech, or indeed anyone who has been asked to compromise their integrity for the sake of a job.

How, as an actor, do you play one of the greatest actors of all time, especially one with the added value of charisma? The challenge for Ivanno Jeremiah is made even greater because the play begins with a young writer Bobby and a long-established Hollywood lawyer Mr Parks discussing Sidney Poitier’s great qualities, thus building up the anticipation. Add to which, Mr Jeremiah looks nothing like Mr Poitier.
It doesn’t matter. He makes us believe he is Sidney Poitier. When he enters, there is the kind of still centre, the confidence, the relaxed style, the impeccable American English that he learnt to disguise his Caribbean accent, all of which were such a part of Poitier’s appeal. When he’s on the stage it’s hard to look anywhere else, excellent as the other two actors are. 
This is a play about the racist treatment he received, the torment of having to make a decision between his principles and fame and fortune in the film industry. As it becomes clear to Sidney that he isn’t there simply to sign a contract that recognises his talent, Mr Jeremiah’s startled eyes and slumping body portray confusion, nervousness, vulnerability, and even panic. It’s a monumental performance that marks Ivanno Jeremiah out as one of the great actors of his generation.
But even the greatest actors need words put in their mouths. Writer Ryan Calais Cameron has intentionally evoked those great scripts from the golden age of Hollywood. The play sparks with fast rhythmic exchanges, verbal dexterity and passion.
There is also a great deal of humour, lots of it bouncing around Mr Parks, although this tails off as the seriousness of the situation grows. When Bobby asks Mr Parks: ‘What do you think of me, be honest’, Parks replies: ‘I never think of you’. Here’s another Parksism: ‘If your phone doesn’t ring, it’s me.’ My favourite funny line was said about him: ‘Your ass must be pretty jealous of your mouth with all the shit that’s coming out if it.’
Mr Cameron builds the tension as if stretching a rubber band until you feel it must break.  If there is a fault in the play, it would only be that it is prolonged a little too much at the end, as we wait for Sidney’s decision, although this is redeemed by a couple of powerful polemic speeches from him.
There is also a conflict between the other characters, who represent two kinds of white people of that time- and probably modern times. Bobby is a writer and Sidney’s close friend. Played by Ian Bonar, he represents the white liberal who believes in equality and is anti-racism, but hasn’t himself been the victim of racism.  His early statement ‘I’d jump a bullet for that guy’ proves wanting when tested against threats from Daniel Lapaine’s frightening Mr Parks.
He’s there to oversee Sidney’s signing of the contract to play the lead role in Bobby’s TV movie. But he wants more. The studios, and as it turns out other powerful forces, want Sidney, as a tame black star. So he is required to sign an oath of loyalty to the United States and to denounce Paul Robeson, at that the highest profile black actor and an activist in anti-racism and pro-communism campaigns.
To give you some context, at this time many Americans were frightened of both communism and of the rise to power of black people. Hollywood had become the focus of these fears and many actors, writers and directors were blacklisted. This meant they were prevented from working, because they were communists, or simply insisted on their right not to talk.
And if it seems incredible to us today that this could happen in the USA, a country in which the first amendment to the constitution protects freedom of speech, and in which being a member of the communist party wasn’t actually illegal, I suppose we ought to ask how many people today, and maybe still black people in particular, are being careful about what they say for fear of offending the left or the right or some other powerful group and thereby not getting work in the creative industries. I may be wrong but I imagine the play is called Retrograde because Mr Cameron thinks we’re taking steps backward at the moment.
Mr Parks represents fascism, with its denial of facts, its bullying, its call to patriotism and its identification of those that disagree as enemies of the state. Mr Cameron makes little attempt at subtlety but that doesn’t stop Mr Parks’ words and his shark-like smile sending a chill down your spine.
Set depicting a 1950s office with three actors in Retrograde at the Kiln Theatre
Ivannop Jeremiah, Ian Bonar and Daniel Lapaine in Retrograde. Photo: Marc Brenner

Director Amit Sharma does a great job at maintaining the tension through what is one real-time 90-minute scene. I am guessing that Mr Sharma is responsible for the way clothes and furniture play an important part in the production. All three men wear hats, jackets and ties, as was the fashion then, although Sidney’s clothes are much brighter than the others’ plain suits. Early on, Mr Parks bullies Sidney into taking off his tie, thus establishing superiority over him, just as he forces whisky on him. At various points, the level of tenseness is reflected by hats and jackets being taken off or put on.

The set is a naturalistic, convincingly 1950s office, designed by Frankie Bradshaw, whose imaginative versality and eye for detail have been responsible for Blues For An Alabama Sky at the National, her award-winning Donmar and West End production of Sweat, and Kiss Me Kate in the cramped confines of The Watermill. The creation of two areas, one of comfortable chairs, the other a desk and more formal seats, allows for continuous movement around the stage. Placing the rectangular platform on which the set is built at an angle to the stage floor, adds to the taut situation.
To sum up: an unforgettable performance by Ivanno Jeremiah in an electrifying play by Ryan Calais Cameron. It thoroughly deserves a West End transfer.
Finally , a quick word about The Kiln. I’d never been there before, not even when it was called the Tricycle. It’s a theatre for the local community in Kilburn, and what a lucky community they are, because it has been the launch pad for many new plays, including, in its early days, Return To The Forbidden Planet, and more recently Moira Buffini’s Handbagged and Florian Zeller’s The Father.  You can easily get to it via the Jubilee tube line and it’s a welcoming, comfortable place to see a show.
Retrograde can be seen at the Kiln until 27 May  2023.
Paul paid for his ticket 
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Bleak Expectations – Criterion Theatre – review

Plenty of fun but not enough steam

★★★

Th cast of Bleak Expectations at The Criterion Theatre in London May 2023
Dom Hodson, John Hopkins, Ashh Blackwood, Serena Manteghi and Rachel Summers in Bleak Expectations. Photo: Manuel Harlan

Whether or not you’ve read any Dickens or heard the BBC Radio 4 comedy Bleak Expectations, you’ll find plenty to keep you amused in this send-up of Dickens’ novels and of Victorian values.

If you’re not familiar with the show, the nearest comparison I can give you is probably Blackadder. Mark Evans is a talented comedy writer who shares that series’ love of outlandish similes, anachronisms and silly names. He peppers the play with them, although he could have been more liberal with this seasoning because what he has cooked up doesn’t quite provide the feast of laughter you might hope for.
The jokes offer the best of times: ‘it was as if a giant teapot had poured sorrow upon the household and no one had said when’ (or something like that). Or the twisting of famous Dickens phrases, as when in response to awful food: ‘Please, Sir, may I have some less.’
There is a familiar mocking of Victorian society that you will recognise from pretty much every Victorian parody. We love to laugh at its patronising attitude to women, its prudery, and its toxic masculinity, as if contemporary society has wiped these things out. The play might be stronger if it had a message relevant to today, and some character development.
One difference from the radio show is, of course, visual humour. It may have lost the power of the imagination that the outlandish verbal descriptions evoke but the show takes full advantage of the opportunity to introduce a great deal of physical comedy: slapstick, gurning expressions, fighting (a duel between sword and a baguette is particularly funny), lots of falling over, and a French farce amount of going in and out of doors.
Caroline Leslie’s slick direction ensures the visual element never flags. Katie Lias’ set, as well as being suitably Dickensian, incorporates countless doors through which the farce can flourish.
The evening greatly benefits from having a celebrity guest playing Pip, the narrator who tells us the story of his life. He is the author of many semi-autobiographical novels bearing a similarity to the works of Dickens- such as ‘Massive Dorrit’. Each guest is engaged for a week and you can look at the schedule to choose whom you would like to see. Our storyteller was Sally Phillips. Complete with false moustache, deadpan delivery, knowing eyes, and the air of someone who would rather not be there, she provides one of the highlights of the show.
The cast are excellent as they take Pip and his cohort through numerous trials and tribulations inspired by Mr Dickens, from tragic childhood to horrific boarding school, to having his fortune stolen in a court case, to constantly losing people he loves.
Dom Hodson makes a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed hero, J. J. Henry is his warm but dim friend Harry, Serena Manteghi plays his plucky sister Pippa, Rachel Summers is a young woman dripping with sexual frustration, Shane David-Joseph and Ashh Blackwood bounce around in many roles. John Hopkins is an excellent pantomime villain while Marc Pickering made the most of the opportunity to play multiple members of the nasty Hardthrasher family, rolling his eyes and hamming it up for all he was worth.
Bleak Expectations is great fun when concentrated into a half hour episode, but when spread over two hours, it begins to seem like a lot of variations of the same few jokes.  Like a Victorian railway train, the play chugs nicely down the track at first, but the novelty doesn’t last and, by the end, it runs out of steam.
I found I had enjoyed my evening but I was not thinking: ‘Please, sir, may I have some more?’
Bleak Expectations, originally produced at The Watermill Newbury, can be seen at The Criterion Theatre until 3 September 2023.
Paul received a press ticket from the producer.
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Dancing at Lughnasa – National Theatre -review

Derry Girls fill the Olivier stage with their grand performances


★★★★

Actors dancing on stage in a production of Dancing At Lughnasa at the National Theatre London in April 2023
Blaithin Mac Gabhann, Alison Oliver, Louisa Harland and Siobhan McSweeney in Dancing at Lughnasa. Photo: Johan Persson

Brian Friel‘s Dancing at Lughnasa has come to be regarded as a modern masterpiece. The National Theatre first staged it straight after its 1990 Dublin premiere. Now this intimate play is back there on the huge Olivier stage in a new production directed by Josie Rourke.

Siobhan McSweeney and Louisa Harland from Derry Girls play two of five unmarried sisters approaching middle age whose life is suddenly upended in 1936. The story seemed relevant to 1990, but does it still seem like a masterpiece 30 years on?

Dancing at Lughnasa is a multi layered play which is part of the reason it’s so riveting to watch. For a start, it’s a memory play, which in this case means that a narrator tells us at the beginning and at points during the evening that what are witnessing is from his memory, mainly from when he was seven years old. So straightaway, the play raises questions about the reliability of memory but also about the nature of writing itself. Did all that happens really occur in the space of a couple of months, or is it memory (or the writer) rearranging them for the sake of a more dramatic narrative?

This leads us to think about what is true- whether facts are truth or whether fiction tells us a greater truth about life. Ostensibly a play about five unmarried sisters, it is about human relationships universally: what holds them together, what may drive them apart. And those same questions apply to much larger communities.

Running through the play is the eternal battle between body and mind, id and ego. Lughnasa is an annual Irish harvest festival dating back to pre-Christian times, taking place at the beginning of August. It’s a time of all kinds of celebratory activities dedicated to pagan gods: walking up hills, picking wild bilberries, and, yes, dancing. So, while it was appropriated by the Catholic Church, in essence it opposes the asceticism of Christianity, and encourages physical release.

All this aside, its core is a funny and sad description of the lives of a family under pressure. The five sisters, who for one reason or another, are unmarried and live together, without parents, in poverty. They are moving into middle age realising they are too old to find a husband or indeed to dance. They still dream of doing both at the Lughnasa festival.

They rely almost entirely on the income from the oldest, Kate, who is a teacher. Kate is straightlaced and sees it as her job, to be a quasi-mother. Although she tries to hold firm to her Christian principles, the cracks in this façade constantly show. Played by Justine Mitchell, we feel the tension of her trying to hold herself aloof but constantly bewildered and tempted by her wilder sisters. And she shows her joy when she lets herself go.

Maggie is the heart of the home. She cooks and plays, she also has the clearest vision, realising what feelings are being suppressed, and able to defuse tense situations with a joke or a song. Siobhan McSweeney, whom many will recognise from the TV series Derry Girls, is tremendous in this complex role. Just to spend the whole evening watching her eyes, sizing up situations and wondering how best to respond, would be a masterclass in acting.

Agnes and Rose provide the household with some additional income by making gloves. Agnes, played by another Derry Girls alumna Louisa Harland, is quiet; Rose, played with sensitivity by Blaithin Mac Gabhan, has a learning disability. The others recognise her vulnerability and the need to protect her, at which they are not always successful.

The youngest sister Chris is the unmarried mother of Michael who, as an adult, is our narrator. Alison Oliver gives her a brittle naivety, particularly remarkable is the way she comes to life when she sees her child’s father.

The power of dance

We are told by the narrator, played by Tom Vaughan-Lawlor in flat, almost neutral terms, what is going to happen, and, at the end, what happened after the family broke up. This makes watching the play is akin to watching a car crash in slow motion.

Tom Vaughan-Lawler in Dancing at Lughnasa. Photo: Johan Persson

Director Josie Rourke deserves every award going for the way she has brought this production together. I’ve already indicated that the casting is perfect., but there is also the challenge of presenting an intimate play on the enormous Olivier stage. Her designer Robert Jones achieves this by creating a circle that follows the arc of the edge of the thrust stage. Within that is placed a really quite small platform representing the main living area of the house, thus retaining the play’s intimacy. In front of this room is a yard or play area, a space mainly occupied by the child Michael (whom we never actually see, as everything is seen by him). Behind, a hill rises, (a metaphor perhaps for this family being at the bottom in society, but also a nod to the hill climbing that is part of Lughnasa rituals). At the top is ripe corn ready to harvest and at the back what look like hanging string or chain curtains onto which are projected images of the sky but which also seem to trap the people below.

In Josie Rourke‘s precise direction of the cast around the tight living area, you can literally see how close the sisters are physically as well as emotionally. when they trek away from the house, you feel the separation.

So what are the disruptive events that destroy this family? Firstly, there is the arrival of two men, both in their different ways damaging the reputation of the family. They are caricatures compared with the sisters but this can be interpreted as being Michael’s memory of them. It does have the effect of making them very amusing.

The sisters’ older brother Jack returns from missionary work in Africa, mentally confused at first, but eventually revealing his change from Catholic priest to believer in paganism. It’s an hilarious performance from Ardal O’Hanlan, as he talks almost in a stream of consciousness, oblivious to the effect on others of the shocking things he is saying. One of the funniest moments is when he keeps unconsciously grabbing a sheet his sisters are attempting to fold, symbolising his disruption of their ordered world. His rejection of Catholicism seems to be the reason Kate loses her teaching job, and the family her income.

Michael’s father, a feckless charmer called Gerry, also turns up. Something of a man-child, he appropriately spends most of his visits in the garden, making many promises he cannot keep before disappearing again. Having tried and failed at many jobs, he has decided to join the International Brigade, who are fighting for democracy against the catholic church-supported dictator Franco. Played by Tom Riley, he is a likeable character, and he loves dancing. Dancing seems to be the thing that still unites him and Chris. And dancing is in the title of the play for a reason.

Which brings me to the third disrupter: the new wireless set. It is not news from the outside world that changes their lives, but music, because hearing music inspires them to dance.

As the narrator tells us: ‘Dancing as if language had surrendered to movement- as if this ritual, this wordless ceremony, was now the way to speak, to whisper private and sacred things, to be in touch with some otherness.’

Two of the best scenes in this production are once when Irish music plays on the radio and, slowly but then with increasing pace, the sisters start to dance, even eventually Kate, until they are frenetically jigging round the tiny kitchen, jumping and high kicking with abandon. It’s a glorious moment, thanks to the women of the cast and choreographer Wayne McGregor. Then, later in the play, when Anything Goes is playing on the wireless, two of the characters combine in an erotic dance that reveals their feelings, and changes relationships forever.

Then there is the glove factory that opens- the industrial revolution has finally arrived in their small corner of Ireland- and it puts Aggie and Rose out of work.

So this small community is a microcosm of what happened to Western society as a whole, as seen from the end of the 20th century. The family dynamics at the centre of Dancing at Lughnasa remain fascinating and totally believable, and the dialogue is still a joy. But, nearly a quarter way through the 21st century,  we have moved on. Now we are grappling with the changes wrought by digital technology which in very different ways is revolutionising our society and the way we relate to one another. Consequently, the play’s nostalgia isn’t what it used to be, and it no longer packs quite the punch it once did.

Nevertheless, a great production of a still brilliant piece of writing.

Dancing at Lughnasa can be seen at the National Theatre until 27 May 2023

Paul received a complimentary review ticket from the theatre

3 May 2023: I might have added when talking about Siobhan McSweeney’s acting skills that all the sisters use their eyes to great effect.

Click here to watch this review on YouTube

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Guys And Dolls – Bridge Theatre – review

Daniel Mays & Marisha Wallace lead an extraordinary theatrical experience


★★★★★

The cast of Guys And Dolls at the Bridge Theatre London dance on stage
Guys And Dolls at the Bridge Theatre. Photo: Manuel Harlan

From the moment you walk into the auditorium at the Bridge Theatre and see the in-the-round arrangement, with half the audience milling about on the stage floor, neon lights hanging above them, you know this production of Guys And Dolls is going to be something special.

If you’re not familiar with Guys And Dolls, you might wonder what makes it for many people including myself the greatest musical. Of course, there are other candidates but it’s hard to find another that offers quite such riches. Thanks to Abe Burrows, and the source material by Damon Runyon, it has a clever, fast moving, romantic plot with witty, captivating dialogue. This is integrated with a packed score of classic songs by Frank Loesser from solos to duets to trios to ensembles, that set the mood, carry the story forward, and bring out all the complexities of the characters.

Until now, Richard Eyre‘s legendary National Theatre production of 1982 (for those of us that saw it) is probably the one every other production is judged by, but the Bridge Theatre‘s Nicholas Hytner has produced a rival.

The overture begins, the neon signs fly upwards, and risers appear out of the floor. Designer Bunny Christie has choreographed the rise and fall of numerous platforms across the whole of the stage area as beautifully as Arlene Phillips has the dancing. Working in the round is never easy for the lighting designer, but the stage, or stages are cleverly lit by Paule Constable so all is illuminated without the light getting in your eyes.

It took some time for my jaw to stop dropping, as the incredible front-of-house staff, many in police outfits, gently corralled the crowd out of the way of the many different interconnecting platforms going seamlessly up and down.

And that’s just the beginning of the way director Nicholas Hytner tackles the challenge of presenting a musical that, for all its qualities, is still riven with the sexism of the 1950s. By making a significant chunk of the audience part of the show, they (and by proxy those of us who were sitting)  join the strange parallel universe of Runyonland, a world with stylised language, comic criminals, and binary guys and dolls. In this fantasy world, the men can all be gamblers and wastrels following Nathan Detroit’s floating crap game, and the women can all be Christian missionaries or strippers- the classic virgin or whore, until the happy ending brings us back to a more normal world, as if we have woken from a dream.

Then there’s the way Mr Hytner has cast the show. There are two love stories that give Guys And Dolls its momentum. For a bet, gambler Sky Masterston needs to seduce Sarah Brown, the buttoned-up leader of a Salvation Army-like mission. And Nathan Detroit needs to keep stringing along his hapless fiancée of 14 years, Miss Adelaide. In other words, the women are presented in the musical as the weaker sex. So, as if to make up for this, the production gives them the best and strongest voices in the show.

That’s no offence to Daniel Mays in the role of Nathan Detroit who has a decent singing voice. He sings his big duet Sue Me with great poignancy, but it is not challenging as a song, given that it was originally written for Sam Levine who was tone deaf. Andrew Richardson as Sky Masterson also sounds perfectly good but Celinde Schoenmaker as Sarah has a big lunged, high note hitting voice. And Marisha Wallace, who plays Miss Adelaide has a voice that could blow the roof off, and a personality to match. So while Miss Adelaide is a slave to her love for Nathan, in every other respect she comes across as a liberated, strong woman.

When Sarah and Adelaide sing the duet Marry The Man Today, they match one another note for note and provide one of the highlights of the show.

The rest of the cast are racially diverse, which is another way of pulling the musical into the present day.

The tone of the musical is set from the first number when out of the bustling crowd of actors and audience emerge a trio of petty criminals who sing Tinhorn Fugue, a song about betting on horses in which the actors sing different lyrics simultaneously to the same tune. The complexity of this circular canon delights and exhilarates, and sets us up for a musical which will continue to excite those emotions.

And what emotions they are. We’re quickly plunged into the first meeting between Sky and Sarah in which they sing the beautiful romantic song I’ll Know in which each describes their ideal lover.

The transformational power of love is the driving force of this musical, or, as the song puts it: ‘When you see a guy reach for stars in the sky,
you can bet that he’s doing it for some doll.’ In this production, the sexual side of love is accentuated. Miss Adelaide’s cabaret act is raunchier than I’ve ever seen it, especially when the Hot Box dancers give us a highly suggestive strip show to the tune of Take Back Your Mink; and in the Havana night club to which Sky takes Sarah, there is some very sensual dancing, at times between male couples (another nod to modernity).

Arlene Phillips’ dance routines are outstanding

Guys And Dolls at the Bridge Theatre. Photo: Manuel Harlan

And that trip to Havana is the point at which Sky and Sarah fall in love. Sarah, having got drunk, gets in a fight, then sings the stand-out song If I Were A Bell. Celinde Schoenmaker hits jaws and notes with equal force. For me, this was the best of legendary choreographer Arlene Phillips’ many outstanding dance routines, as Sarah leaps on and off lampposts and free falls into Sky’s arms. Both song and movement express the exuberance of falling in love.

Daniel Mays is peerlessBack to the floating crap game: before Andrew Richardson‘s slightly rumpled Sky Masterton sings a tense version of Luck, Be A Lady, Nathan Detroit is found squirming in the threatening presence of the gangster Big Jule, played by Cameron Johnson. While Daniel Mays is perfectly capable as a singer, as an actor he is peerless. Think Del Boy Trotter meets Arthur Daley and you get some idea of his realisation of a character who is both dominant to those below him and submissive to those above. Nathan may have a New York accent but in Daniel Mays’ hands he is straight out of the East End, titfer and all.

Then, as the gamblers assemble in the Mission Hall, we come to the moment we’ve all been waiting for: Sit Down, You’re Rocking The Boat, another fast, intoxicating song. It’s a classic 11 o’clock number (the name given to a showstopper that comes near the end of a musical), and Cedric Neal as Nicely-Nicely Johnson certainly does stop the show!

The song gets the many encores it deserves and the audience expects, not only for Mr Neal’s enthusiastic singing but also for the way the congregation sway in unison in their seats- yet another inventive dance sequence choreographed by Arlene Phillips. It’s a climactic moment that catapults us to the resolution of the plot.

But it ain’t over til it’s over. After the finale featuring the song Guys And Dolls, and the bows and the applause, the cast stay on the floor to dance with the audience, as the orchestra under the direction of Tom Brady plays us out.

If I have one reservation, it’s this. It’s inevitable that, with the risers going up and down, there is minimum scenery. No problem most of the time, but occasionally you may lose track of where we’re supposed to be.

One last thing. While the show is intended to be immersive and is aimed first and foremost at those standing on the floor, not everyone will want to stand and look up for over two hours. If you decide to buy a seat, the best in my opinion are in the centre of stalls rows BB and CC. In these seats, you will be level with the actors on the raised platforms, and feel close to the action. You will also be able to see the splendid orchestra on the opposite side of the auditorium at the back of the circle, and, as a bonus, you will have easy access to the onstage party at the end of the show.

Guys And Dolls is at The Bridge Theatre until 2 September 2023

Paul paid for his ticket

Click here to watch this review on our YouTube channel Theatre.Reviews With Paul Seven

 

 

 

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Sheridan Smith in Shirley Valentine – review

Is this Sheridan Smith’s best ever performance on stage?

★★★★★

Sheridan Smith in Shirley Valentine. Photo: John Wilson

You know those newspaper features where people are asked who they would invite to dinner.? Sheridan Smith has gone right to the top of my list. She may only have been acting out Willy Russell’s excellent script, but her performance in Shirley Valentine shows what an exceptional actor she is. From the very start, she has the audience in the palm of her hand. She looks at them, she smiles at them, she draws them into her confidence. And she knows how to tell a story and deliver a punchline. It is probably her best ever performance on stage.

Shirley Valentine is one of a triumvirate of plays, along with Educating Rita and Blood Brothers that were written in the 1980s by Willy Russell and established him as one of the great playwrights of his generation. All feature Liverpudlians, they’re all funny, they all have a natural flowing dialogue, and they all show deep understanding of what it is to be human. Shirley Valentine is a woman trapped in a humdrum life, with grown up children and a loveless marriage to an unappreciative, domineering man.

We first meet her in her kitchen. There’s a challenge in producing an intimate play for one person in a small space but set designer Paul Wills has been very clever. He compensates for the height and depth of the Duke Of York’s stage by adding an upstairs layer to the three walls of the kitchen, which sketches a monochrome bedroom and bathroom level. The three walls make no pretence to be a contained room, in fact they clearly take advantage of the space by using the gaps to suggest a brighter world beyond.

There is no danger of this one woman show being static, director Matthew Dunster keeps Sheridan Smith moving about the stage. At one point, she actually cooks ‘chips and eggs’ while continuing to talk- great acting indeed, and so much better than a plate of fake food.

Astounding rapport with the audience

Shirley chats about her life, using the concept of her talking to the wall but actually removing the fourth wall altogether to address the audience directly. She uses a treasure chest of acting skills: she speaks as if she is sharing a confidence with friends- clearly but without ever seeming to raise her voice, she smiles sweetly at us, gives us a sly glance, pauses for us to fill in, in our minds, what she is about to say. Her rapport with her audience is something to behold- and indeed experience.

Shirley knows that she has reached middle age unfulfilled but she accepts her submissive role in life and sees no prospect of escaping it. It’s not that she is without insight or dreams or the thought of rebellion: ‘I have allowed myself to lead this little life,’ she says, ‘when inside me there was so much more.’

She tells many amusing anecdotes about her life at school, where her confidence was knocked out of her, as happens to so many working class kids. Even funnier are her subsequent encounters with her grown-up and apparently successful friends, which only underline the emptiness of her repetitive, servile life in which dinner must be on the table each evening as her husband walks through the door.

Then she is presented with the opportunity to go with a friend to Greece. At first, it’s more of a fantasy than something she would really do, but certain events tip her into deciding to do it.

After the interval, we spend a short but intense time with Shirley in Greece. The stage is now wide open with a blue Mediterranean sky as a backdrop. She tells us- and a rock- what has happened. Her impressions of a philandering bar owner, jingoistic English tourists, and her own liberated self make this a hilarious and satisfying final act.

Sheridan Smith took the curtain call like someone genuinely happy to have shared the evening with us, nodding and smiling and pointing. And, judging by the loud and long applause, the feeling was mutual.

Shirley Valentine is at the Duke Of York’s Theatre until 3 June 2023. There are hopes it may tour.

Paul purchased his ticket.

Click here to watch this review on YouTube

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James Norton in A Little Life with Luke Thompson – review

James Norton is a terrific choice for the lead role in  Ivo van Hove’s production


★★★

Luke Thompson and James Norton, two actors in A Little Life, are seated on the ground looking at each other
Luke Thompson and James Norton in A Little Life. Photo: Jan Versweyveld

Director Ivo van Hove has made quite a bit about the trauma the audience for A Little Life will have to go through when they see A Little Life at the Harold Pinter Theatre or later at the Savoy. There are indeed pints of blood spilt as the central character played by James Norton self harms and attempts suicide. But, to me anyway, this was clearly stage blood, so not that disturbing. I believe the real trauma audiences risk is in their reaction to the detailed descriptions of the physical and sexual and emotional abuse suffered by a child, and the catastrophic effect it has on his adult life.

The little life in question is that of Jude played by James Norton. We see chronological scenes from over twenty years of his adult life starting at 30 years old. Within this narrative are flashbacks to his childhood in which the abuse he has suffered is revealed, up to a point where you may wonder how one person could be so unfortunate. It is probably best to regard the play as a fable about suffering to avoid a reality check.

Although the play is set in New York in modern times, it is deliberately isolated from the historic events and detail of modern life, and we know nothing of the background to Jude’s childhood. This has the effect of making the story more timeless, more universal.

What we learn in the course of the play is not only how child abuse is hugely damaging psychologically as well as physically but also how the love of those in his circle helps him to manage his adult life, and to heal emotionally, at least to some extent. But it is a harrowing journey, in which the past is never far away. His self disgust leads him to self harm and attempt suicide.

Jude’s saviours take the form of his three friends from college who have formed a lifetime bond. Exactly what attracted them to each other is unclear, but I assume it was more than the fact they all pursued careers beginning with ‘a’- artist, architect, actor and attorney, the latter being Jude’s profession. Although he needs them, we find out they need him too.

James Norton, who you may know as Tommy Lee Royce from Happy Valley, is a terrific choice for the lead role. He never changes his appearance from when he is an eight year old to a fifty year old. Yet, through his posture and his body language, he convinces as a child who trusts and is betrayed, and his face as an adult make you feel his pain as well as his indomitable niceness.

The other characters are less well drawn. Luke Thompson as his best friend Willem gives a solid performance, showing love, confusion and desperation in his open face.

The two other friends- JB, an insecure artist JB and Malcolm, an architect with puppy-like enthusiasm- are played by Omari Douglas and Zach Wyatt. His tormentors are all played by Elliot Cowan sometimes oily, sometime vicious, but all unredeemable, unsubtle villains.

Jude’s guardian angel Ana, someone who helped him but sadly died, continues to stay at his shoulder (literally) as a voice in his head encouraging and warning him. Nathalie Armin gives her character strength and warmth. Emilio Doorgasingh plays Jude’s concerned medical friend.

Best of all, Zubin Varla, who has just won an Olivier Award for Tammy Wynette The Musical and who was impressive in Fun Home at the Young Vic, plays his mentor and adoptive father with humour and tenderness.

Tolstoy said in Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” And I think this is a clue to one of the failings of this play. The people who help the adult Jude are all nice, but, like happy families, it is difficult to make good, balanced people distinctive and interesting, compared with the unhappy person that is Jude.

Harold addresses the audience directly on a number of occasions to tell us about how to be a good parent, and indeed a good friend. There is quite of bit of exposition in this adaptation of Hanya Yanagihara’s book, almost as if we’re not trusted to draw our own conclusions.

We as an audience are commandeered into being part of Jude’s support group. It is stated explicitly near the end of the play but it is also implied from the start because there are three rows of audience at the back of the stage creating a traverse setting. This has the effect of making the actors closer to the audience, and the audience part of the play. It is as if simply by being there we are bearing witness to Jude’s suffering and giving him the love he needs.

A group of actors stand in a semi circle in a scene from A Little Life at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London 2023
Luke Thompson, James Norton, Zubin Varla,Emilio Doorgasingh, Omari Douglas and Zach Wyatt in A Little Life. Photo: Jan Versweyveld

The set, lighting and video are designed by Jan Versweyveld. Most of the stage floor is painted light red like a faded pool of blood. There are some accoutrements of a home, soft seating, a kitchen area on one side, and a washbasin in the centre representing the bathroom that is the scene of Jude’s self harming and suicide attempts.

One thing that fascinated me was the smells: onions cooking, and the strong scent of Dettol used to clean up the spillages of blood- and there was a lot of symbolic cleaning up by those around him. This may have been meant to underline for us how strong Jude’s memories were of the smell of his abusers.

There is music from a live string quartet placed very visibly at the front of stalls. Written by Eric Sleichim, it is slow, piercing and haunting, evoking Jude’s edgy state of mind. The musicians deserve a credit and are Alison Holford, Eleanor Parry-Dickinson, Hazel Correa, and Alison d’Souza.

A video is projected continuously on the side walls. It is mainly in slow motion, as a camera winds its way through the streets of New York, suggesting I think Jude’s enervated mind, but it quickens and is covered in screen noise as Jude gets high on self harming. At one point it goes as red as the blood being shed.

The nudity is about humiliation and vulnerability

You may have heard that there is nudity in this production. The abuse that Jude suffers involves him being forced to strip naked on a number of occasions. This also happens sometimes when he is attempting suicide. So, if you were wondering, far from being erotic or sexy, the nudity is about vulnerability and humiliation. By contrast, when he gets naked for a scene of lovemaking, he remains under the covers, while his lover parades easily in the nude, showing the equality of true love.

When he is stripped naked to be abused, James Norton adopts a hunched pose that reminded me of Masaccio’s renaissance painting of Adam and Eve, who having lost their innocence are expelled from Eden; and when his friends carry him tenderly to a hospital bed after a suicide attempt, another iconic image from religious paintings came to mind, this time by Caravaggio and Michelangelo‘s images of Christ being tenderly carried by those that cared for him from the cross to his tomb. If these Biblical allusions are deliberate, they may help explain a dramatic ending that could be intended to evoke the entombment of Christ.

The production is nearly four hours long. Not that I was bored, but I did wonder whether the effect of the play would have been the same if it had been an hour shorter and therefore the experience more intense, or if there had been less horror-film blood, or if the self harming had been described or mimed- as the sexual abuse is. I say this because by the end I was less shocked than I think I would have been if more had been left to my imagination. But it’s not for a critic to try to rewrite a play, we can only describe what we saw and felt.

I did find some of Ivo van Hove‘s adaptation and production heavy-handed, but there is much to recommend. As a visceral description of child abuse, A Little Life is painful to watch. As a story of the power – and limits – of love, it is moving. And James Norton does give an extraordinary performance.

The italicised sentence at the end of paragraph 2 was added a few hours after the review was posted, for clarification.

A Little Life is performing at the Harold Pinter Theatre until 18 June 2023 and then transfers to the Savoy Theatre until 5 August 2023. Details from https://alittlelifeplay.com/

Paul purchased his ticket to see A Little Life

Click here to watch this review on the YouTube Channel Theatre.Reviews With Paul Seven

 

 

 

 

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The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel – touring stage version – review

Golden Oldies Shine In This Gentle Comedy 


★★★

Production photo from the 2023 touring stage production of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel showing some members of the cast standing next to others seated at a table
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. Photo: Johan Persson

You’re probably familiar with The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. The film of that name spawned a sequel and a reality TV show. Now there’s a play of that title currently touring the UK.  Starring are three big names with a long history on stage and screen: Paul Nicholas, Hayley Mills and Rula Lenska. I won’t describe them as old, it’s simply that they’re the same age as old people.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is primarily about retired people and aimed at that market, but there’s no reason why a younger audience (by which I mean people under 60) shouldn’t enjoy it. It’s a story of the triumph of love and hope over adversity.  When I worked in theatre, I remember the midweek matinees were very popular with retired people, so much so that one member of the front of house staff looking from the back of the auditorium at all the white hair, described the audience as the cotton fields. A description I was reminded of when I saw this touring show when it stopped off at Chichester Festival Theatre.

Yes, I am aware that I’m now one of them. So I do know first hand the challenges of getting older, not least of which is the fear of failing memory. And this play doesn’t help, because I found myself thinking ‘I don’t remember some of these characters or sub-plots from the film.’ Well, it turns out it wasn’t a senior moment I was having. Because, despite the title, this play is not based on the film you’ve seen. Like the film, it is inspired by These Foolish Things, a novel by Deborah Moggach. The play is certainly similar  to the film and no worse where it differs.

The shared idea is that a number of retired Brits go to a hotel in India because it’s cheap- oh, and the weather is hotter than good old Blighty. They all have slightly different back stories which are slowly revealed, usually with a twist. Younger generations are represented by a mother and son who have falsely marketed their run-down hotel as being somewhat better than it is. The son is being pressured to marry for money so they can do it up. He would rather marry for love.

It’s as if the play has been fitted with a pacemaker during the interval

The play’s first act gets bogged down in the set-up. The consequence is that it moves at the pace of a 90 year old using a zimmer frame. It probably didn’t help that the actors had a lot of ground to cover on Chichester’s large thrust stage. I took my seat for the second act in trepidation but then the twists emerged and the characters took on new leases of life. It’s as if the play has been fitted with a pacemaker during the interval. And maybe a catheter too as joy, sadness and humour flow in abundance. There’s also a smattering of social commentary too, on India and its call centres and caste system, and on the British attitude to class and to care.

As their characters begin to see more purpose to their lives, the older actors begin to look brighter and move faster, showing that their first half entropy was just an act.

Production photo from the touring theatre production of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel in February 2023 showing the cast dancing on stage
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Photo: Johan Persson

Of the three stars, I found Hayley Mills the most impressive- investing her lines with clarity and urgency- as her character Evelyn came out of her shell. Rula Lenska was full of fizz as the never-too-old-to-have-fun Madge. I was disappointed with Paul Nicholas. He’s a fine actor and portrays the soft-spoken, retiring character of Douglas well enough but he doesn’t quite convince as a grey, brow-beaten husband. The fact is, he’s just too handsome, despite the disappearance of his golden locks, and there’s no concealing his natural vivacity.

The rest of the cast perform well. One of the characters talked of ‘adventure til dementia’ and it is a delight to see these mature actors- Eileen Battye, Richenda Carey and Andy de la Tour continuing to ply their trade and give us a first class example of why old people should not be written off. Of the younger actors, I particularly liked Nishad More as the put-upon Sonny, who displayed appropriate sheepishness in the face of his domineering mother Mrs Kapoor, played with gusto by Rekha John-Cheriyan.

Lucy Bailey directs this large ensemble with finesse and the set by Colin Richmond is just the right blend of the magnificent and the dilapidated. I would have loved to have heard more of the music composed by Kuljit Bhamra which conjured up both ancient and modern India.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is touring the UK with dates annnounced until June 2023 marigoldshow.com

Paul paid for his ticket.

Click here to watch this review on the YouTube channel Theatre.reviews With Paul Seven

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The Lehman Trilogy – review

Theatre at its most pure


★★★★

Production photo from the National Theatre production of The Lehman Brothers showing three actors holding their hands out
Michael Balogun, Hadley Fraser & Nigel Lindsay in The Lehman Trilogy. Photo: Mark Douet

Lehman Brothers Inc was the highest profile bankruptcy of the 2008 financial crash. Of course there were bigger investment banks in America that played an even bigger part in the collapse of the financial markets and many banks, in the UK as well as the US, ended up being bailed out with our money. But it was important that someone got punished and Lehman was not in the category of ‘too big to fail’.

We are all still suffering from that collapse and subsequent bailout, of course, but at least one good thing came out of it- The Lehman Trilogy. It began, as so many great shows have, at the subsidised National Theatre, went on to the West End then to Broadway and now it’s back in the West End, laden with Oliviers and Tonys, at the Gillian Lynne theatre. With a new cast. So do they measure up to the originals, and what is it that has made a play about a subject as dry as finance such a huge success?

The Lehman Trilogy asks the question, how did a company as important and powerful as Lehmans end up being so reckless and destructive. To find out we travel back to when Henry Lehman and his two younger brothers first came to America back in 1844.

It’s an epic story told on a large stage. At the centre is a large box in which the action takes place. Parts of it are glazed, and the inside is divided into spaces by glass. It is the kind of modern characterless glass office occupied by financial institutions everywhere. It is decorated with a desk, a boardroom table, and lots of boxes used for transporting files- memorably seen as sacked employees carried them out of the building.

We start with the moment Lehmans went bust. Everything that happens in the 164 years leading up to that moment takes place in that space, so we never forget where we’re heading. At the back and sides of the stage, designer Es Devlin has placed a semi-circular wall onto which projects appropriate landscapes that give us a visual context- the cotton fields of Alabama that provided the Lehmans with their first trading opportunity to the skyscrapers of New York.

Production photo from The Lehman Trilogy February 2023 showing an actor standing reading a newspaper with two other actors sitting each side of him
The Lehman Trilogy. Photo: Mark Douet

As I said, the scale of the story is epic, the set feels epic, yet amazingly, just three actors play not only those three brothers but the succeeding generations and everyone they come in contact with. They tell us the story, and act it out, sometimes without even carrying out the actions they are describing. At one point, a character says about himself ‘he adjusts his tie’ but he doesn’t actually do it. Our own imagination creates the epic.

Myriad characters come and go, often briefly but vividly sketched. The actors, without changing costumes, become children, brides-to-be, cotton farmers, and many more. This leads to a lot of comedy but it also means they never quite stop being, nor can we forget, those immigrant brothers who started it all.

It is the purest kind of acting that relies not on props or costumes but entirely on voice and body. They speak a rhythmic language that verges on poetry or perhaps more accurately rap. In fact, much of this play’s power comes from Ben Powers’ adaptation of Stefano Massini’s Italian original script.

It’s a Brechtian way of telling a story, interesting, funny and gripping but not emotionally involving, which is reinforced by it taking place within a glass box.  So, we always see that this is a story not of a family but of American capitalism.

It is an acting tour de force from Michael Balogun, Hadley Fraser and Nigel Lindsay. There is one wonderful moment I remember when Hadley Fraser plays eight different potential brides in rapid succession. Or the same actor, who I would have to say was the first among equals, briefly plays a man described as someone whose body is built around his smile. And it is.

So, in three acts, we see the brothers committed to their Alabama community trading in actual goods- cotton- buying , selling and transporting it. Helping rebuild the cotton trade after a disastrous fire. At first, you admire their ability also to see disasters as opportunities.

The new generation born in America begin to forget their Jewish roots: shiva when the first brother dies lasts seven days, the next three days, then, so anxious are they not close the business, three minutes silence for the last of the brothers.

Money becomes all important. They no longer trade in something physical- they never see the coffee or iron or other commodities. They trade shares not products. As the new generations succeed the old, the Lehmans become shareholders not partners so they have much less to lose, and the risks become greater. After a period of regulation following the Wall Street Crash, the American idea of liberty, so inspiring but also so potentially damaging, re-emerges and the scene is set for the final disaster.

It’s a salutary tale that makes you admire these entrepreneurs, then despise the heartless money grabbers they become, while laughing at the sheer lunacy of ithe world of finance.

Production photo from the National Theatre production of The Lehman Trtilogy February 2023 showing actor Hadley Fraser dancing on a table
Hadley Fraser in The Lehman Trilogy. Photo: Mark Douet

The third act tails off a little as the final Lehman dies, without any of them suffering the consequences of their actions. It is others that take the company and the financial world over the edge. But not without a , as they found out when the music stopped moment when a metaphor of dancing sees the last of the Lehmans, again it’s Hadley Fraser, no longer making decisions but simply standing on a table doing the twist, as the computer coding spins across the back projection, showing the algorithms that have taken over from human beings, making him and his colleagues more and more money but taking them further and further from the real world. It is literally dizzying, as dizzying as the bankers found it trying to understand their own complicated and ultimately worthless financial packages, which became apparent when the music stopped. A special word of praise to the video designer Luke Halls.

This may not be a story that you can get emotionally involved in, but this is Theatre at its finest, thanks to director Sam Mendes and his writers.

If you haven’t already seen it, don’t miss this opportunity.

The Lehman Trilogy can be seen at the Gillian Lynne Theatre until 20 May 2023

Paul was given a review ticket by the producers

Click here to watch this review on the YouTube channel Theatre.Reviews With Paul Seven

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