Erin Doherty in The Crucible at National Theatre London 2022
Back in 1953, when Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible, a play about the late 17th century witch trials in Salem Massachusetts, he no doubt had in mind a modern day witch hunt in which a US senator persecuted perceived communists, especially in Hollywood. But it could be about any time when authorities demonise others to consolidate their power.
It’s a compelling study in how the process of a witch hunt develops a momentum of its own and triggers vengeance, fear and even mass hysteria. Lyndsey Turner’s intense production is powerfully acted by Erin Doherty, Brendan Cowell and the rest of the cast.
In a small town run by the church, some misbehaving girls try to get off the hook by claiming to be possessed by the Devil. This gets out of hand as they take the opportunity to get their own back on some respectable and respected citizens by accusing them of being disciples of the devil who lead them on. A trial ensues. Adults confess to outlandish encounters with demons, more accusations fly, more adults confess in a form of mass hysteria, and the children too start to believe their own tales.
The girls are led by Abigail. It’s a bravura performance by Erin Doherty. You might know her best as an excellent Princess Anne in The Crown but she shows her full range as an actor here. Her character is clearly a rebel but also scheming. So, we see her wheedling, pleading, and, in a terrifying scene, inspiring the other girls into wild-eyed, uncontrolled shaking, as if possessed.
Authoritarian power is just one of the subjects explored in Arthur Miller’s complex play, but it’s the one from which all elsefrom which all else arises. As we enter the Olivier auditorium, we are confronted by pouring rain. Every scene begins with pouring rain. Torrents of water team onto the front of the stage. It seems this community is already suffering the punishment of a pitiless Old Testament God. We’re told the community is a theocracy. No separation in those days between church and state: the Church is in charge and there can be no challenge to its authority.
Photo: Johan Persson
The church leader Reverend Parris is confronted by children secretly rebelling against the church’s rules by secretly dancing, among other things. Some of the citizens believe this behaviour has been caused by the Devil in the form of witchcraft. The priest is skeptical but he knows support for him in the community is shaky, so he calls in a preacher with higher authority and a knowledge of witchcraft: the Reverend Hale. A major trial follows, headed by Deputy Governor Danforth, played with a steely eye and a stern jaw by Matthew Marsh. He has his own reasons for wanting to stamp his authority on the community.
At this point, it’s a case of ‘to a hammer everything is a nail’. It seems obvious that the children are dissembling but, as the excellent National Theatre programme points out, the authorities see what they believe rather than believing what they see. As the witch hunt goes to extremes in the heat of the ‘crucible’, both Parris and Hale, given passionate and nuanced performances by Nick Fletcher and Fisayo Akinade respectively, begin to see how one-sided the trial is. They realise good people are being dragged down and note that ‘every defence is seen as an attack on the court’.
Brendan Cowell in The Crucible. Photo: Johan Persson
One man who speaks out against the trial is John Proctor whose wife is accused of witchcraft. It’s a thundering piece of acting from Brendan Cowell as a good but flawed man. In a heart-breaking sequence, he nobly tries to reason with the Court and is brought down by his own honesty and the challenge he poses to the Church’s teachings.
What else is going on? Oppression of women by the church. They are expected to be silent and obedient. As the girls are indoctrinated by tales of hellfire and damnation, they are primed for believing they have been taken over by unseen forces. And they have a readymade means of excusing themselves.
Fear, revenge and greed all play a part. People turn on each other to save themselves. The girls are only too quick to denounce the many adults they resent. Ruthless people take the opportunity to gain land from those found guilty of witchcraft. There’s a lot to think about and be shocked by in this intelligent, frightening play.
It’s easy to discern many parallels more modern than the McCarthyite witch hunt. We can see what goes in all totalitarian countries where a weak authority cannot be questioned: the actions of the morality police in Iran for example, or would-be authoritarians closer to home for whom an alternative point of view or a minor misdemeanour can ignite outrage on social media leading to death threats and cancellation.
Director Lyndsey Turner has created an fervid production, only marred by a tendency at times towards melodrama. One nice touch is that nearly all the characters point fingers as they argue, a metaphor made physical. The masterful set by Es Devlin is appropriately black-and-white except when we visit the Proctors’ warmer-coloured home. An opaque ceiling hangs over hhe entire stage. Through it filters a diffused flouredcrnt white light suggesting no one can hide from a pitiless regime.
Crucial to the production are Tim Lutkin’s lighting and the sound by Caroline Shaw, Tingying Dong and Paul Arditti. The cast are usually lit from the side creating a lchiaroscuro effect, again suggesting no middle ground. A stretched low note drones in the background, ratcheting up the tension.
The impressive cast also includes Sophia Brown, Karl Johnson, Eileen Walsh and Tilly Tremayne.
The Crucible was performed at the National Theatre 21 September – 5 November 2022, and will transfer with cast changes to the Gielgud theatre from 2 June to 7 September 2023
Chichester’s magnificent Crazy For You gets a London transfer but how does it compare to Anything Goes?
★★★★★
Crazy for You. Photo: Johan Persson
Crazy For You at Chichester Festival Theatre is a faultless production. Just like Anything Goes, another song-and-dance Broadway musical that also originated in the 1930s, it is a joyous, jaw-dropping spectacle with some of the best songs ever written and the best dancing you will ever see.
Charlie Stemp who has already impressed in Half A Sixpence, Mary Poppins and more is here stretched – literally – into twists and leaps and other astounding physical feats. He is not only athletic, his dancing conveys emotion and is beautiful to watch.
It’s interesting to compare and contrast Crazy For You with its rival, both in the 1930s and now, Anything Goes.
Crazy For You was created in 1992 but based on a 1930 musical called Girl Crazy by George and Ira Gershwin. Cole Porter’s Anything Goes followed in its 1934. This was the first golden age of the Broadway musical. The modern musical, in which a serious plot and deep characters drive the show, was still a decade away. It was the time not only of the Gershwins and Cole Porter but of Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern and Rodgers and Hart. The Jazz Age was at its peak. Light-hearted song and dance with a romantic plot were the order of the day.
Both musicals were revived in the late 20th century as Broadway made something of a comeback after the invasion of weighty British musicals. The sheer escapism of both musicals, and their predecessor 42nd Street, was just what audiences were yearning for. While the 1987 return of Anything Goes left it largely intact, with a few song changes and a rewriting of the plot, the 1992 revival of Girl Crazy, now called Crazy For You, involved a root and branch reappraisal. The plot was substantially altered, many of the original songs were excised and loads of additional Gershwin songs introduced. The result was, and is, a triumph for the book writer Ken Ludwig, director the late Mike Okrent and choreographer Susan Stroman.
The Plots are fun
So, what about those plots? Well, they’re both simple fun. Anything Goes features a romance aboard an ocean-going liner, Crazy For You is a romance taking place in a run-down theatre in Nevada. Both involve bumps on the road to love and, of course, disguises. Here, I think, Crazy For You has the edge, for a plot that is a little more coherent and more muscular, by which I mean Anything Goes is almost too frothy.
The Music is divine
So, dare we compare the music? I think this is going to be a matter of taste. I love Cole Porter’s work. It’s such a perfect marriage of music and lyric. The melodies seem effortlessly elegant. The words always clever and witty. But sometimes this elegance and wit makes them seem removed from real life. His greatest love songs are up there with the best in the Great Amercian Songbook- Night And Day and Ev’ry Time We Say Goodbye (‘There’s no love song finer, but how strange the change from major to minor’)- but they’re not included in Anything Goes which nevertheless has some of the cleverest songs ever written (‘Good authors too who once knew better words / Now only use four-letter words / Writing prose / Anything goes’).
In my opinion, George Gershwin was the finest popular composer of his day and Ira Gershwin is a contender for the finest lyricist (although I might award that title to Lorenz Hart). Ira has a way of finding the unexpected rhyme. Take Someone To Watch Over Me: ‘I’d like to add his initial to my monogram
Tell me, where is the shepherd for this lost lamb?’ or the internal rhyme in Embraceable You: ‘I love all the many charms about you
Above all, I want these arms about you’. Fabulous.
It’s very hard but I have to choose the Gershwins for that extra feel of real emotion. And in Crazy For You, you get almost the best of the Gershwins, with Shall We Dance?, I Got Rhythm and possibly my all time favourite love song They Can’t Take That Away from Me all thrown in. The new orchestrations by Doug Besterman display a masterful lightness of touch, by the way.
The productions are extraordinary
Carly Anderson, Charlie Stemp & the company of Crazy For You. Photo: Johan Persson
So what about these two revivals of the revivals? Anything Goes undoubtedly scores on its set, with a huge ship occupying the back of the stage. Chichester’s thrust stage makes large sets impossible, so, although the great Broadway designer Beowulf Boritt’s sparkling curtain representing a Broadway theatre sent a tingle down my spine when the lights went up, and his trucks showing the exteriors of a Nevada hotel and theatre are effective, the Chichester production of Crazy For You never feels as lavish as you might hope for a major musical. Anything Goes also features a cast about twice the size of the pretty big Chichester ensemble.
The Performers are outstanding
The current production of Anything Goes at the Barbican in London, originally starred Sutton Foster and Robert Lindsay, and now features the equally enjoyable Kerry Ellis and Denys Lawson. The co-lead is a comic gangster and not, as might have been the case in previous productions, Miss Ellis’s romantic interest. Crazy For You features Charlie Stemp and Carly Anderson as the two lovers, Boby and Polly.
Both musicals are well led and offer a talented cast in depth. In Crazy for You’s 26 strong cast, it’s difficult to pick out individuals but I must mention Tom Edden as Bela Zangler, the exasperated producer, and who extracted maximum laughs. The mirror scene in which he and Charlie Stemp match each other’s actions is hilarious. Meryl Ansah is Bobby’s desperate, dominant would-be fiancée who gets to sing the delightful Naughty Baby. Gay Soper is Bobby’s imperious mother, and Matthew Craig is Lank, Bobby’s threatening but ultimately comical rival in love.
The performers in both productions sing well. Kerry Ellis is possibly the finest singer of the bunch, but I did love Carly Anderson’s moving versions of Embraceable You and Someone To Watch Over me.
Charlie Stemp in crazy For You. Photo: Johan Persson
As for the dancing, of course they are all great. The chorus line tap dancing in Anything Goes, led by Miss Ellis, is eye-popping. But, when it comes to individual dancing, Charlie Stemp is in a different class to the others. Superlatives fail when it comes to his ability to spin and jump over and over again. He combines this athleticism with beauty and emotional truth. Crazy for You is worth the ticket price just to see him. He’s also nice looking and sings and acts well.
The Directors are geniuses
Both musicals have a combined choreographer and director. The great Kathleen Marshall brings her skills to Anything Goes and the result is very slick and impressive, especially in the chorus work. Susan Stroman, who choreographed the original 1992 Crazy For You, now directs as well. I left feeling I’d like her choreograph every musical I see from now on. There is so much invention in the solo, duet and chorus numbers.
I have one reservation about Crazy For You. Act one ends in an overwhelming routine for I Got Rhythm. It builds and it builds, and just when you think it can’t build any more, it does. A standing ovation halfway through a show is a rare thing. But it also happens in Anything Goes, when the title song is given a similarly exhausting work out. You think, how can they follow this? Well, Anything Goes does with Blow Gabriel Blow, and a big ending. Crazy for You continues to excite with brilliant song and dance but never again hits the height of I Got Rhythm. The end is more of a walk down than a finale. Then again, that soaring final line of ‘Who Could Ask For Anything More’ did bring the audience to its feet once again.
I’d love to see both these shows again but if I was offered tickets for them both right now, which would I choose? At the end of last year, I said Anything Goes with Sutton Foster had given me my best night in a theatre since they reopened. But, right now, I would choose the exuberant Crazy For You at Chichester Festival Theatre starring Charlie Stemp.
Crazy For You ran at Chichester Festival Theatre until 4 September 2022. It will transfer to the Gillian Lynne Theatre in London’s West End from 24 June 2023 to 20 January 2024
The old songs still soar in this new look at Oklahoma!
★★★
Arthur Darvill in Oklahoma! at Young Vic. Photo: Marc Brenner
If the optimistic, can-do nature of Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals grates on you a little, the new Broadway production of Oklahoma!, now the Young Vic, will be right up your Stetson.
Daniel Fish‘s production, co-directed at the London end by Jordan Fein, examines this 20th century classic from a 21st century perspective. It’s even been nicknamed ‘Wokelahoma’ by some wags. Curly is less heroic, Judd less of a villain, the previously admirable strength of the Oklahoma community more sinister.
Let’s start with Laura Jellinek and Grace Laubacher ‘s design. Most of the audience is on either side of the stage, traverse style. On the back wall is a painting of open plains with sketches of a couple of farm buildings. At the other end is a live band. The unraised stage is bordered by long trestle-style tables; the cast stays on stage most of the time. It feels and is meant to feel like a community hall, all the more so because the entire auditorium is evenly and brightly lit. The last time I experienced this kind of lighting was when I went to see my daughter in a school play. It’s as if we the audience are part of that community and that the community is commenting on their own story. Very Brechtian. But this does mean emotional involvement and dramatic tension are kept at a distance.
The famous opening song Oh, what a beautiful mornin’ is sung initially by Arthur Darvill accompanying himself on guitar before others join in. Straightaway you know that this is going to be a different kind of Curly because, although he’s an attractive guy, he’s nothing like the famous Curlys of the past, tall, well built men like Arthur Drake, Howard Keel and Hugh Jackman. Mr Darvill is small and wiry, and, unlike those rich baritones, he has a beautiful tenor voice, with a nice falsetto.
There was a certain way in which romantic male leads were expected to behave in the mid 20th century when Oklahoma! was written. Even if sensitivity does actually figure in the finest male roles of the period, Hammerstein clearly admired the strong self-assured roll-up-your-sleeves type of hero: the common man who built America. Like Curly. He is even contrasted with weaker male figures like Ali Hakim and Will Parker, played for a great many laughs by Stavros Demetraki and James Davis. Now, we can and usually do choose to take Curly’s character as being of its time, but in this production, looking through 21st century eyes, his charm does lean over into smarm, his cockiness becomes arrogance, his laddishness seems awfully like harassment, and his possessive jealousy spouts toxic masculinity. So he’s not as obviously attractive as one would normally expect.
Then again, nor is Jud the hired help as nasty. Curly’s prospective spouse Laurey is frightened of Jud, which is why she doesn’t reject him and thus he’s encouraged in his pursuit of her. By making him less sinister and more misunderstood, this production undermines the basis of her fear. Patrick Vaill plays Jud with sad-eyed sensitivity showing that he’s awkward with women. There’s a hint of the ‘incel’ about him and, although he’s potentially violent, it does seem that he’s despised by everyone simply because he’s a loner. He’s considered a genuine outsider, not simply someone from outside like Ali Hakim, who’s been accepted into the community. People’s descriptions of this nicely coiffed clean boy as dirty seem to stem from simple prejudice.
When Curly talks with Jud and encourages him to think about suicide, which I guess was always weird, the talk becomes distinctly nasty because it takes place in pitch black. Normally exit signs or some sliver of light enable your eyes to pick up something, but here you literally couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. Then in the second act, when Curly is determined to outbid Jud in an auction, the humiliation of the outsider seems less like punishing him for his unpleasantness and more like simple malice.
Anoushka Lucas and Arthur Darvill in Oklahoma! Photo: Marc Brenner
The lighting isn’t always bright or nonexistent. Sometimes Scott Zielinski’s design bathes the room in orange or green or shines spotlights, as befits the moment.
Rather than the country music you might associate with a southern state like Oklahoma, the band plays bluegrass style: in other words, lots of stringed instruments. And, under Musical Director Tom Brady, what a marvellous sound they make. That most romantic of songs People will say we’re in love is as beautiful as it could be.
Three women dominate this production
Anoushka Lucas plays Laurey as confused, vulnerable and passionate in equal measures. She’s not only a fine actor, she’s another fantastic singer. Lisa Sadovy plays Aunt Eller with a twinkle in her eye, but harder and more cynical than you might expect. And all the better for that. The women definitely hold their own in this production.
The plot is unchanged, at least until the end. Curly makes clear he likes Laurie but plays it down a bit. Laurie feels the same about Curly but won’t admit it. The suppressed sexual desire rises like steam. When you think about it, an awful lot of this musical concerns young people desiring one another. The surrey with a fringe on top is not the familiar jaunty tune that matches the rhythm of a horse and carriage. Instead, it’s slow and sensuous. The line ‘Don’t you wish it could go on forever and you’d never stop’ is delivered with a lascivious smile. It’s clear it’s another kind of ride Curly’s thinking about.
Marisha Wallace in Oklahoma!
The emphasis on sex continues when we meet Ado Annie and her big number. I cain’t say no. She’s not portrayed as an amusingly silly girl but as a woman confident in her sexuality. Marisha Wallace is not only hilarious., she also has a tremendous voice that blasts the song into the category of showstopper.
Oklahoma! is famous for being one of the first, if not the first, musical to be led by the book, or story. So the songs serve the book, which was written by Oscar Hammerstein II, by revealing character and driving the narrative forward. It may also be the first to fully integrate dance. In fact, Agnes de Mille‘s choreographed dream sequence is one of the iconic moments in the original and her name still appears in the credits, even though her choreography has disappeared.
Now Laurey’s dream is a contemporary dance, choreographed by John Heginbotham. It starts with an electric guitar screaming a stretched out version of Oh, what a beautiful mornin’ that generated the same startled surprise in me as when I first heard Jimi Hendrix playing another classic, The Star Spangled Banner. This is the moment when Laurey is supposed to see clearly that she should choose Curly but it’s less explicit than Agnes de Mille‘s ballet so it confuses more than clarifies.
This production isn’t the only one recently to try to update Rodgers and Hammerstein. Chichester Festival Theatre‘s South Pacific, which is due a London run, dampened down the sexism and bolstered the anti-racism. The Open Air Theatre‘s Carousel faced its domestic violence head on. And I think this is right if we’re to continue to enjoy the positive qualities of their musicals.
However, the ending of this reimagining of Oklahoma! left me disappointed. Not a word has been changed., remember, but the actions have. For me, the reassessment of Curly’s character is pushed too far. I don’t want to give you a spoiler, but I’ll just say that the sham trial now seems like a real miscarriage of justice brought about by a community that sticks together against outsiders. And it makes the ending considerably downbeat.
While I love the new arrangement of the songs, the comedy, the sexiness, and the examination of maleness, I did hope to leave with a smile on my face. It felt like Daniel Fish had tried too hard to shoehorn the actual Oklahoma! into his vision of it.
Oklahoma! is performing at the Young Vic in London until 25 June 2022.
Impressive but confusing immersion into the Trojan War
★★★
Alison Monique Adnet in Punchdrunk’s The Burnt City. Photo: Julian Abrams
The Burnt City is hard to understand and difficult to find your way around. So, this is not only a review of the show but a guide to how to get the best out of it.
Punchdrunk are the leaders in ‘immersive theatre’, in which you are right in the middle of what’s going on. There are lots of stories being told in The Burnt City. They add up to a beginning, middle and end, but not necessarily in that order. Like anything you’re in the middle of, you don’t have the big picture until afterwards, if then.
I usually love this form of theatre so I was desperate to see The Burnt City, but once there, my desire turned to disappointment. I had expected this show about the myths of the Trojan War to be non-linear. As you walk around the 100 thousand square feet of floorspace, you don’t expect to understand what’s going on. As you might be told if you ask for directions, ‘Let fate be your guide’.
There are many stories being told simultaneouslly throughout two buildings,. They are repeated but don’t expect them to be chronological. I had a general idea of the many Ancient Greek myths connected with the Trojan War but I still struggled to identify or connect them. It doesn’t help that they’re mostly told through through dance, rather than spelled out using the spoken word.
I witnessed many events. What I didn’t expect was how uneventful the events would be, how lacking in dramatic tension. The biggest tension is the fear that while you’re watching one event, you’re missing something much more dramatic in another room.
I may not have been as engaged as I would liked to be, or found the events as dramatic as I think they should have been, but it’s still a great experience to be immersed in this world of war and revenge, and to be standing right next to its inhabitants as they meet their fate.
So what is The Burnt City about? It’s based primarily on two Ancient Greek plays, Euripides’ Hecuba and Aeschylus’s Agamemnon, that cover the war between Mycenae (or Greece) and Troy, the largely mythical Trojan War. Will it help if you know these plays? Probably not that much.
What does help is that, as you enter the building, there’s a brief audio history of the Trojan War and its aftermath, so you’ve a fair idea of the big moments you may see. You go through a faux museum which is even more helpful in explaining the events. So, my advice is to take a few moments to look at the exhibits. The case containing the last exhibit has been broken open, as if to say the past is now coming to life. You’re then in for three hours with no interval, unless you choose to take a break.
Fania Grigoriou in Punchdrunk’s The Burnt City. Photo: Julian Abrams
Punchdrunk have acquired their own home for the first time in their twenty plus year history, and have converted their building at One Cartridge Place in Woolwich and the adjoining one into Mycenae and Troy. The sets by Felix Barrett, Livi Vaughan and Beatrice Minns are extraordinary. There is astonishing attention to detail. Mycenae is inspired by perhaps Fritz Lang’s 1920s film Metropolis. Troy suggests a period before the Second World War with a neon sleaze reminiscent of 1920s Berlin.
After the museum, you make a choice about where to go first. Lights beckon you but, to help you find your choice, look carefully and you see signs, one welcoming you to Troy which is down a long tunnel, the other a border crossing gatehouse to Mycenae. Each space has two floors. In both, you witness violent acts or feel the threat of violence but in Troy you find people having fun, while the city is under attack, and you can wander through small spaces and a warren of rooms. On the other side, there’s gloomy Mycenae, a military state where the warriors prepare for war, then return and face its consequences. Here there are two large open areas, downstairs is what appears to be a military camp, upstairs a palace. There are only a few rooms off.
This show, directed by Felix Barrett and Maxine Doyle, is much more about the effect of war than the fight itself, and cycles of revenge dominate. So what are the big moments?
First, at the start of the war, Agamemnon sacrifices his daughter Iphigenia to the Gods in exchange for good fortune. You need to look for a bride getting ready for what she thinks is a wedding. This is in one of the few rooms in Mycenae. You can then watch her taken to the ground floor and placed on one of two giant tank traps, which look like misshapen crucifixes, on which she is killed. Agamemnon’s wife Clytemnestra is not happy about this, but more of that later.
Over in Troy, the Greeks invade using the famous Trojan Horse (which apparently is there is some form but not obvious, so it’s something to look out for). Queen Hecuba’s daughter Polyxena is murdered by invaders and strung up. I found this to be one of the most upsetting scenes.
Hecuba has learned that King Polymester, an ally of the Greeks, has murdered her son, whom she sent to him for safekeeping. He doesn’t know she knows. When he arrives in Troy, she and fellow women do a friendly dance with him in a red room, possibly a nightclub, on the top floor, that eventually turns violent as they overwhelm and blind him.
Back in Mycenae, Agamemnon arrives home in triumph with Cassandra in tow. You can recognise him by his splendid gold head mask, just one of dozens of imaginative, almost superhero costumes by David Israel Reynoso, inspired by Ancient Greece. Agamemnon’s wife Clytemnestra greets him. He goes upstairs where there is a huge block, made of concrete (I think), like a fashion show runway, where he is at first feted, until he takes a shower and Clytemnestra, in revenge for his killing of their daughter, goes all Psycho. It’s one of the more horrific moments, but even so, I found that, because of the time it took to get to that point, with all the slow entwined dancing, it became boring rather than tense.
All the events are repeated so you have three opportunities to see them. If you know what you’re looking for, you can hope to see them all in three hours
Stay until the end because, given that killing is a dominant theme, there is a climax in which many of the performers take part in a kind of techno dance of death, half naked and possibly in hell, but more literally in Mycenae.
A useful approach may be to follow what you might call the wisdom of the crowd. If a group of spectators has accumulated, there’s usually something going on. Their spookily anonymous masks, which we are all required to wear, take away individuality, even more so when they form a crowd and are so focused on following a particular train of events, that they almost crush you or push you to one side.
Some people like to fix on one performer and follow them, because these various stories do have beginnings, middles and ends, unlike the overall show, and those beginnings usually start small, build to a climax which may well be a killing, with some kind of anguished coda. I found these events strangely uninvolving but I think I might have felt more involved if I had adopted this approach.
Much to my surprise, and perhaps because there is so much room, I found there were times and spaces when nothing was going on. I went round a whole floor of Troy at one point and saw nothing going on.
While you may feel you want to spend all your time watching things happening, there is much to be gained from exploring some of the nearly 100 (apparently) small rooms in Troy. These are often bedrooms, sometimes shops, seemingly abandoned in the course of the siege or attack. Go into them, or some of them, take a look at the books and pictures, look behind the clothes in the wardrobes. Not only will you get amazingly detailed insights into their lives, but you will also be rewarded with clues as to what’s going on around you.
Yilin Kong and Steven James Apicello in Punchdrunk’s The Burnt City. Photo: Julian Abrams
Perhaps, before you even buy a ticket, I should give you this tip, and it won’t be a surprise if you know Punchdrunk’s past work. This is a dance show, and I don’t mean Anything Goes dance, I mean contemporary dance. There is next to no speech to help you understand what’s going on, and the dancing is nearly always in slow motion, and stretched out. I’m not questioning for a moment the brilliance of choreographer Maxine Doyle or her dancers but, if you’re not familiar with the language of dance (which I’m not) you may struggle to comprehend what it is the dancers are trying to convey. The performers embrace erotically or sinisterly, push each other apart, swing one another around. You’ll find it portentous or pretentious, depending on your opinion of contemporary dance. Personally I like that kind of dance but in small doses, which this isn’t.
This show is not for the claustrophobic, or people with visual impairment. You may find being in the building overwhelming at times because it’s mostly dark, with haze as well on occasion. And there are some trip hazards, even if they are highlighted with tape.
Given such an underlit environment, it seem odd for me to compliment the lighting designers but F9, Ben Donoghue and Felix Barrett have done a great job of adding to the sense of fear and wonder, with their mixture of murkiness, sudden flashes, and bright spotlights.
The sound by Stephen Dobbie with its screeching thudding reverberating chords adds to the febrile atmosphere.
Practical Tips
Let’s start at the beginning. The organisers quite rightly would like you to use public transport to get to the show. But it is in Woolwich, which is a long way from the centre of London, so you, like me, may have to go by car if you’re not going to spend most of your day travelling. The best place to park, I found, is Calderwood Street multi storey Car Park, which is a ten minute walk away from the venue.
Arrive in good time at the venue, at least 15 minutes before your allocated slot, because there will be a queue to get in, even with staggered entry times. You are asked to put your mobile phone in a locked bag which you then carry around with you. Bags and coats and even bottles of water will need to be checked into the cloakroom. So I advise that you travel light to avoid the massive queue at the end the show. Can you manage without taking a phone? Big decision I know, but if you do leave it behind, don’t forget to print out your tickets and take a payment card (if you want to buy something at the bar). But here’s a tip, the bar stays open after the show ends, so you can go there to wait for the queues to die down.
You will be asked to wear a Covid-safe face covering. This is pretty sensible since you will be in close proximity to a lot of people as you walk around. On top of that, you will be required, in the Punchdrunk tradition, to don a carnival style mask which is actually quite comfortable. Also, this is a promenade show: you will doing a lot of walking, so wear sensible shoes.
There are toilets throughout the building. But finding the one Bar is another story. Here’s a clue. It’s in Troy. Here’s another: ask a steward. They won’t give you any information to do with the show but they will point you to toilets, exits and, crucially, the Bar (which incidentally is a good ploy if you can’t find Troy). You can remove your two masks (hurrah), buy a drink, find a table, and enjoy excellent live entertainment. The whole decadent feel gives Cabaret a run for its money.
It opens an hour after the start, so Troy may be the best place to begin. That way you can spend an hour or so looking round, then take a break in the bar, before moving on to the bleak foreboding of Mycenae. As I mentioned before, it stays open after the show, so you can use every minute of your three hours on the Trojan War if you wish, and still enjoy the cabaret.
The above tips are from my own experience of visiting the show and also from other people’s reports. They are not in any way official information. In fact, Punchdrunk go out of their way not to give you any directions or timetable, and the stewards won’t help. Therefore I apologise if there are any factual mistakes.
Punchdrunk’s The Burnt City continues at One Cartridge Place until December 2022. Tickets available from onecartridgeplace.com
Some critics have acclaimed Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of) as the funniest show currently in London’s West End. I was late seeing this little gem at The Criterion, but I can’t disagree.
It is an outstanding achievement by Isobel McArthur. She not only wrote it, with a little help from Jane Austen, she also co-directed it with Simon Harvey, and stars in it.
What’s particularly clever about her take on Pride & Prejudice is that, although it’s a spoof, it is extremely faithful to the story. Much of the comedy derives from the same situations that are funny in the book, and it is, at key moments, quite moving. I was surprised at how touched I was by the ending.
So, she has paid homage to the qualities of the story and some of the dialogue, while extracting a great deal more lol.
It’s funny before it even starts, when we’re presented with the concept of five modern working class women playing early 19th century maids who recreate the story with makeshift costumes and props. So we have the bathos of this classic story and its characters being presented from today’s perspective. There’s 21st century language, including a lot of swearing: Darcy is described as a ’twat’ (and that’s one of the milder insults). Elizabeth tells Mr Collins exactly what he can do with his marriage proposal. So, there’s the shock of seeing Jane Austen’s reserved characters, who normally use sensitive language, mouthing expletives. But there’s also the anachronism of party food at a ball being Pringles and Wagon Wheels.
Is there no end to Isobel McArthur’s talents?
Of course, the basic material is great. Pride & Prejudice is not only Jane Austen’s most popular work but one of the most read novels written in the English language. That’s thanks in no small part to the character of Mr Darcy, played over the years on screen by Laurence Olivier, Colin Firth and Matthew McFadyen. To that pantheon, we can now add Isobel McArthur.
There have been many excellent takes on Pride & Prejudice, like Lost In Austen, Bridget Jones’ Diary, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and a Bollywood musical Bride & Prejudice. It is without question a crowded market, but Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of) manages to stand out.
To add to the enjoyment, it’s actually a musical comedy. The story is interspersed with moments when the characters grab a microphone and sing classic romantic pop songs like Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, Holding Out For A Hero, Young Hearts Run Free and You’re So Vain (about Darcy of course). And Lady in Red, a song by Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s relative Chris de Burgh! It’s tremendous fun, a bit like karaoke at a hen night.
The cast of five take on all the parts. Isobel McArthur is a wonderful Darcy. She conveys very well the stiff reserve that conceals a romantic heart. In addition, she plays an even more coarse than usual Mrs Bennet. Tori Burgess creates a truly obnoxious Mr Collins, Christina Gordon plays Lizzie’s sister Jane and the appalling Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
There were two understudies on the night I saw it, which is par for the course at the moment in theatre, mainly because of the Covid. I had been looking forward to seeing Hannah Jarrett-Scott and Meghan Tyler who are both highly experienced actors and were very well reviewed. However Annabel Gordon did well as quietly desperate Charlotte trapped in her hellish marriage, as well as playing the soppy Charles Bingley. Leah Jamieson acquited herself well as the strong-willed but annoyingly self-satisfied Elizabeth Bennet.
Sometimes the characters are too much of a caricature and I did expect, having set the idea in motion, that the play would give us more of the maids’ angle on events than it actually did. But it is rich in ideas and displays non-stop creativity.
I particularly liked the moment when Elizabeth looks at a painting of Darcy and Isobel McArthur slides behind the empty frame to pose as the portrait, whose eyes then follow Lizzie round the room.
There is one simple set, designed by Ana Inés Jabares-Pita, that suggests a rich household, not dissimilar in décor to the lovely Criterion Theatre, using minimal props, and with books as a motif. It features a magnificent centrepiece of a wide staircase that winds all the way up to the flies, with steps supported by books.
This is a light hearted and lightweight play. It doesn’t have the depth of Laura Wade’s Austen inspired comedy The Watsons, which I saw at The Menier, and which was due a West End transfer before Covid struck. Nevertheless, it’s just what you need to cheer you up in a year that has started as depressingly as the last one ended.
Covid is scaring audiences away from theatres, which is a shame, because this is a show that should be selling out, and looking forward to a long run, rather than closing prematurely. I recommend you to see it while you can.
Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of) is performing at the Criterion Theatre in London until 6 February. An autumn 2022 tour is planned with a possible return to London in 2023.
Aleshea Harris’ bloodbath thriller is a bit anemic
★★★
Cecilia Noble, Tamara Lawrence and Adelayo Adedayo in Is God Is. Photo: Tristram Kenton
Is God Is by up-and-coming American playwright Aleshea Harris is a revenge tragedy, or perhaps tragicomedy, in a tradition that dates back to the Old Testament and takes in Jacobean tragedy and Quentin Tarantino along the way. Perhaps it most resembles the plays of Martin McDonagh, but, in any comparison with them, I’m afraid Is God Is comes off worse.
17 year old twins find out that their mother, whom they thought had died in a fire when they were small children, is actually alive but finally succumbing to her injuries. The reunion is not entirely joyous because she wants them to kill the man responsible for her condition, her former abusive partner and their father. She wants him ‘dead. Real dead. And lots of blood is fine’. The young women, who were also scarred by the fire, don’t really question whether this is moral or legal or even practical. As far as they are concerned this is a mission from God, since their mother created them. They are driven by the need for vengeance and so is the plot.
So begins a killing spree.
Aleshea Harris’ play won the Relentless Prize in the USA and the relentless speed is helped by the device of the characters introducing themselves in the third person, rather than reveal their characters through their words and deeds. The killing spree leaves no time for a pause for thought about morality, family, class and race, which are all touched on. And the play’s high speed drive straight down the highway gives no opportunity for a twist or a turn, like the sudden slamming on of brakes and or a hairpin bend, except perhaps at the very end when you might be left wondering whether vengeance is worth it. Compared with all the plays by Martin McDonagh that I have reviewed in the last couple of years, The Lieutenant Of Inishmore, Hangmen, A Very Very Very Dark Matter and his early work The Beauty Queen Of Leenane, seen recently in Chichester and at the Lyric Hammersmith, there are no shocking twists or unexpected revelations, of the kind which enrich his work.
No blood but real fire
The older more extrovert sister Racine acquires a rock- which is thought to be the weapon with which Cain killed Abel- and proceeds to use it against all she comes into contact with, even after the slightest offence.
Unlike, I believe, the original New York presentation of Is God Is, there is no blood splattering Ola Ince’s production. So much for ‘lots of blood is fine’. The violence, while plentiful, is so stylised that it neither shocks nor is any more convincing than the characters’ motives. The horrific scars become symbolic tattoos. Once you take both horror and nuance out of the equation, you’re not left with much.
There might not have been any blood but there was real fire in Chloe Lamford‘s design. I liked her simple cartoon-like sets, with the titles for each scene like Going West and Showdown from the script writ large, encouraging the sense that we were watching chapters of a pulp novel being acted out.
I also enjoyed the acting. Out of a uniformly strong cast, I’ll mention in particular Cecilia Noble as the mother or God or, as in the cast list, She. It was a chilling moment when she conjured up what happened to her on the fateful day of the fire, and her powerful command to ‘make him dead’ was like the word of God.
Her two twins, the older Racine played by Tamara Lawrence and younger Anaia played by Adelayo Adedayo were a great double act. Their repartee was sharp and funny, made more so by the use of the Southern States vernacular and rhythms of speech.
It’s clear that Aleshea Harris is a writer to watch. She has a poet’s ear for dialogue. She is also able to make subtle homages to past masterpieces of the vengeance genre without laying it on thick. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot more from her but I don’t think she’s quite there yet.
Linda Bassett & John Heffernan in What If If Only at the Royal Court. Photo: Johan Persson
At the beginning of What If If Only, we meet a man referred to in the cast list as ‘someone’. He’s sitting at a table in a small room talking to himself or rather to someone who isn’t actually there.
His first words are about a man who spent ten years trying to paint an apple so that it looked just like an apple, then seven years trying to paint an apple so that it looked nothing like an apple. Given that Caryl Churchill’s new play is less than 20 minutes in length, I assume she wouldn’t waste words. So what’s the significance of the apple fable? I’ll come back to that.
We immediately discover that his partner has died but that he still likes to talk to his beloved and wishes he could get in touch with them, beyond the grave, as it were. John Heffernan’s portrait of grief is touching, it’s so quietly sad. A bit too quiet actually in terms of being heard at the back which is a shame because James Macdonald’s production savours every word.
Our ‘someone’ wonders ‘what if’ his loved one had lived, and wishes ‘if only’ they had lived. He longs to see a ghost. Designer Miriam Buether’s cube-shaped room, which is a metaphor for being contained by the present, rises to let in a ghost from outside the present moment.
Thought provoking and cleverly told
What follows in this short comedy about loss is both thought provoking and unexpectedly funny. Much to our surprise, and that of the protagonist, the ghost that appears is not wished-for dead figure from the past but a ghost from the future, then more futures. All are represented by a smiling and occasionally stern Linda Bassett who has great fun switching between characters in some packed monologues.
Actually, we do meet one more character- a child who could be part of this man’s future. ‘Child Future’ was confidently played on the occasion I saw it by Samir Simon-Keegan who may well be part of the future of acting.
It’s a play about dealing with grief and the theme that emerges is that you can’t bring back the past, only take one of many possible routes into a future that is certain to be different from the past. Not a hugely original idea, but cleverly told.
So what about the apple? Is the apple a metaphor for the present? While his loved one was alive, each new moment resembled the previous moments in his memory, so was he at that time painting an apple that looked like an apple, but when his loved one died, the present was no longer matched his memories, so he was trying to paint an apple that looked nothing like an apple.
Maybe I’m reading too much into the apple. What if I hadn’t tried to analyse the meaning of the apple story? If only I hadn’t mentioned the apple.
Hilary Mantel and Ben Miles provide a fitting end to a great theatrical trilogy.
★★★★
Nathaniel Parker and Ben Miles in The Mirror And The Light
It’s a few years since the Royal Shakespeare Company‘s outstanding stage versions of the first two books in Hilary Mantel‘s trilogy about the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell. At last, we arrive at the final volume The Mirror And The Light. So did episode three reach new heights or fall from grace?
Just in case you don’t know your history or haven’t read the book, we begin with Cromwell in prison, his fate already sealed. We see who his enemies are and who among his allies has betrayed him.
The prison set is dark and foreboding with high steely grey walls, designed by Christopher Oram. Then we go back in time to when Cromwell was still riding high, and, with a jolt, we realise the court is almost identical to the prison.
Even the King is trapped by what is required of his position but the rest are prisoners to his whims, as well as constantly vulnerable to enemies in the court.
The story of Cromwell’s fall then plays out and is more, not less, tense for our knowing the fate that awaits him. This is not a simple adaptation of a novel. It is a gripping piece of theatre, as if writers Hilary Mantel and Ben Miles have taken the story of Cromwell and written a play about it from scratch.
So we’re not inside Cromwell’s head, as in the book, but rather witnessing this central character’s interaction with those around him, showing how others see him and how he works the court. We see the fragility of his power and his own awareness of his vulnerability.
Jeremy Herrin’s production feels Shakespearean
The play feels Shakespearean, and under Jeremy Herrin’s direction, it looks like a traditional production of one of the history plays, with everyone looking like they’ve stepped out of a painting by Hans Holbein. The language while not as poetic has an Elizabethan style, but also pace and a natural flow. The resemblance to modern day politics or even office politics is striking.
Cromwell, hated by his fellow councillors and by the people, is dependent on the goodwill of the King. British prime minister Harold Macmillan said the greatest challenge for politicians was ‘events, dear boy, events.’ So it proves for Cromwell. A mishandled northern rebellion, the death of Jane Seymour, a disastrous marriage to Anna of Cleves and the king begins to have less faith in his right-hand man. It’s all his enemies need, chief of which is the Duke of Norfolk, played by Nicholas Woodeson as a little weasel of a man, who resents the rise of a blacksmith’s boy above his ancient aristocratic family, and takes every opportunity to bring about his downfall.
Cromwell is always either on stage or being discussed. He is not exactly a good man, actually he’s a greedy manipulator, but he comes across as honourable, at least by the standards of the day, and compassionate, for example to Princess Mary, in a way that few of the others do.
Ben Miles and Nathaniel Parker head a well chosen cast
Ben Miles‘ performance as this complex man- laughing, worrying, macho, submissive- his eyes constantly flicking round the room- is a tour de force.
Both he and the King are lonely at the top. Nathaniel Parker’s Henry, the mirror and the light of the title, is a capricious child in an oversized man’s body, self indulgent, self pitying, isolated. A telling moment sees him by alone, feeling the cold, desperate for the warmth of the fire.
With a cast of 24, this Royal Shakespeare Company production has an epic feel. And it is a well chosen, diverse cast, who are a compliment to the RSC’s casting director Helena Palmer.
Melissa Allan reveals the steel in Mary Tudor. You can see Bloody Mary waiting to emerge. Geoffrey Lumb as Thomas Wriothesley and Leo Wan as Richard Riche make you recoil at their sliminess. Terrique Jarrett as Cromwell’s son Gregory adds a bright presence, and Jordan Kouamé was moving as Cromwell’s ally Rafe Sadler, desperate to save him without offending the King. Matthew Pidgeon’s double act as the friendly ambassador Eustache and the vicious Bishop Gardiner was impressive.
Inevitably death hangs over this evening. The two most influential people in Cromwell’s life appear as ghosts: his old mentor Cardinal Wolseley, played by a jolly Tony Turner, and his father, played with a spitting nastiness by Liam Smith.
I’m sorry if I’ve made the evening sound grim, it’s actually leavened with a great deal of humour. Paul Adeyefa brings much comedy as Cromwell’s faithful French servant Christophe. Nicholas Boulton is a Tigger-like Duke Of Suffolk, a friend to Cromwell in the sense of ‘with friends like these who needs enemies’. Jo Herbert is a cynical Lady Rochford. One of the funniest moments of the evening is when the new queen Jane Seymour, played as a likeable young woman by Olivia Marcus, complains to Cromwell about Henry’s unreasonable demands. An embarrassed Thomas, assuming them to be sexual, tries to coax more detail out of her, only to discover she is referring to the King wanting her to ride with him to inspect the fortifications at Dover.
After the rollercoaster of events leading to Cromwell’s arrest, the ending is downbeat. This is partly because Cromwell accepts his fate with dignity. Despite a dramatic beheading orchestrated by illusionist Ben Hart, it’s a climax that didn’t leave me quite as shocked or drained as I expected. Nevertheless the play is a fitting conclusion to a fine trilogy.
The Mirror And The Light is due to run at the Gielgud Theatre until 23 January 2022. Tickets from delfontmackintosh.co.uk
Larry Kramer’s blistering attack on prejudice and complacency in the early days of AIDS epidemic
★★★★
Ben Daniels & Dino Fetscher in The Normal Heart at the National Theatre. Photo: Helen Maybanks
The Normal Heart, written in 1985 as the AIDS epidemic was finally beginning to be acknowledged, is based on author Larry Kramer’s own experience of this period. It’s a play that highlights prejudice and ignorance, fighting for what is right, and what it’s like to live in a time of plague.
The lead character Ned is semi-autobiographical and it’s great to see Ben Daniels given the starring role. He’s an excellent actor who always delivers on stage or screen. These days is probably best known for playing Princess Margaret’s husband in The Crown but in this production, directed by Dominic Cooke, he shows how he can carry a whole show.
This production was stopped in its tracks by the COVID -19 pandemic. So, inevitably, now that it’s finally made it onto the Olivier stage, we view it in the light of our experience of what’s happened over the last year and a half. We recognise the authorities’ slowness to respond to what was going on, albeit nothing like the fatal head-in-the-sand attitude to the early deaths within New York’s gay community. In the unwillingness of people to do what’s necessary to save lives, we can see a parallel with some gay men back then refusing to modify their sex lives. We are also familiar with wide-ranging and sometimes wild theories about causes and cures that have since gone by the wayside. In the play, you get the sense of bewilderment and panic about where this so-called ‘gay plague’ has come from and how it’s being spread.
What’s also happened between the postponement of this production and now is the joyous but devastating TV series It’s A Sin by Russell T Davies. That was set in the UK rather than New York and took us into the 90s but anyone who has seen it will recognise the way some newly liberated gay men became highly promiscuous during the 70s and 80s, and again the slowness to react, and the crushing sadness of friends dying all around, and the reconciliation between some parents, especially mothers, and their dying sons.
The Normal Heart is much more overtly political than It’s A Sin. It might be better compared with Albert Camus‘ The Plague, in which an outbreak of bubonic plague follows a similar trajectory and is intended as an analogy for the rise of Nazism.
The Normal Heart follows closely the developments in early 1980s New York: the early deaths, the uncertainties, one doctor flagging up the concern, and the forming of an organisation intended to warn gay men of the danger, help those that contracted AIDs, and pursue the authorities for support.
It’s hard to know what’s more depressing: people faced with the possibility of contracting a fatal disease still carrying on with a reckless lifestyle, or the authorities and media trying to pretend it wasn’t happening because this seemed to be only to do with gay men, and not something they wanted to be associated with. So both familiar and yet still shocking.
Ned is instantly at odds with his fellow campaigners. He is all for directness and shouting from the rooftops in order to pressurise those in power into action, and his fellow gay men to refrain from sex. I guess he’s the kind of person who these days would be gluing himself to the motorway. Others, some still in the closet, argue for a more softly softly approach.
Humour, pain, anger and compassion
Because the abrasive Ned is never afraid to tell it like it is, he has some barnstorming moments, but the other actors in Ned’s circle including Luke Norris, Dino Fetscher, Daniel Monks and Danny Lee Wynter, take hold of their well drawn, varied characters and fill this evening with humour, pain, anger and compassion.
Liz Carr in The Normal Heart at the National Theatre. Photo: Helen Maybanks
Liz Carr plays Doctor Brookner who first notices the increase in this distinctive illness and goes from compassionate but objective medic to militant campaigner, with a blistering speech in the second act. ‘How does it always happen that all of the idiots are always on your team?’ she asks her opponents.
Ned is also in conflict with his straight brother Ben, given a nicely nuanced performance by Robert Bowman, who shows the love he feels for his brother while barely able to disguise his homophobia.
Not only does Kramer give the various members of the group the space to express their differing feelings and opinions, he digs deep into his main protagonist’s character. Despite all the risks of intimacy, the previously lonely Ned falls in love and suddenly the story of this epidemic becomes very personal. Love is what makes Ned a human ding rather than a simple polemicist
The end is heartbreaking, compounded by the misery of the latter stages of the disease and, even after their death, the continuing prejudice in the treatment of their bodies. If you are not in tears by the end, I would question whether you have a heart.
Although the setting is specifically the gay community of New York in the early 80s, the behaviour it shows can be seen again and again in many other situations. We’re reminded by Ned in the play how governments turned a blind eye to the Nazis’ treatment of Jews. And if we look around today, we could take the example of the way a male-dominated, misogynistic judicial system consistently fails to take effective action against the number of rapes and other violence against women. Or the way elderly people in care homes were treated during the COVID -19 outbreak (see Help by Jack Thorne on All4). Or the daily discrimination against black people (see my review of Typical).
A word about the set. The Olivier at the National Theatre has been converted into a theatre-in-the round. The stage is a circle with a thin light all the way round the circumference, perhaps suggesting the way gay men were seen at that time as separate from the rest of society. It’s pretty much bare apart from a few benches so this production is all about the acting, and that to be frank is a relief after many productions I’ve seen in this large space where the set design has dwarfed the play. The set, designed by Vicki Mortimer, also has a flame burning high up throughout. I took this to represent the kind of eternal flame you find at a tomb of the unknown soldier, as if to say these thousands who died through the prejudice and ignorance should not be forgotten.
To make this truly in-the-round, there are seats on what would normally be the stage, though it was my impression, sitting in the circle that the actors faced to the traditional front the majority of the time. A word of warning: there are lighting towers positioned around edge of the circular stage. These will inevitably give you a restricted view if you sit in the right or left stalls and circle. I know this to be true because a delayed train caused me to arrive at the last moment, so I was sitting to the side for the first act before I was able to take my central seat.
The Normal Heart is a deeply moving play, with scintillating, witty, powerful dialogue that deserves this well acted revival.
Revision made on 1 October 2021 to add more about the significance of love and the universality of the message
Martin McDonagh’s early work hints at greatness to come.
★★★
Orla Fitzgerald and Ingrid Craigie in The Beauty Queen Of Leenane (Photo: Helen Maybanks)
We’ve come to know Martin McDonagh very well over the last 25 years. Revivals of his plays The Cripple Of Inishmaan with Daniel Radcliffe and The Lieutenant of Inishmore with Aidan Turner were West End triumphs and confirmed his status as a leading playwright.
He continues to dazzle with hits like Hangmen and A Very Very Very Dark Matter. Then there are his films In Bruges, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and more.
His work is notable for unpredictable storytelling, humorous dialogue and sudden violent shocks. And that’s all here in his first play The Beauty Queen Of Leenane, revived in a co-production by Chichester Festival Theatre and the Lyric Hammersmith.
The play centres on the relationship between 70 year old Mag, played by Ingrid Craigie, and her 40 year old daughter and carer Maureen (Orla Fitzgerald). The pair are isolated in a run-down Irish village in the mid-1990s. They only have each other, and this dependency has led to a toxic, indeed abusive relationship in which each torments the other in petty, or occasionally significant, ways.
Mag empties her chamber pot into the kitchen sink each morning to the annoyance of her daughter, Maureen only buys biscuits her mother dislikes. It reminded me of the co-dependent parent-child relationship that formed the heart of the classic TV sitcom Steptoe And Son.
Mag schemes to undermine Maureen in order to keep her at home. She destroys important notes and letters. The mentally unstable daughter, having apparently sacrificed her life to perform her filial duty, crosses from care to cruelty. The relationship is dark, sinister even, but the interplay between them is also amusing.
Both actors convince in the ease of their conversation, which sounds like they have been having the same exchanges for the last 20 years, much like a Becket or Pinter play. I particularly enjoyed the animation and barely contained look of triumph that Ingrid Craigie gave when her character had secret knowledge about the truth of a situation, and mischievously led Maureen on in her lie about it. Orla Fitzgerald was tremendous whenever she tried to lord it over her mother, stepping out with hips swaying.
An absorbing look at a toxic relationship
The co-dependency is threatened when Pato appears on the scene. Although a local, he is also an outsider, having emigrated to London. England is always seen as a malign influence in this play. The country that has destroyed Ireland and continues to ruin this village. It’s a relationship perhaps not dissimilar to that of Mag and Maureen.
Pato forms a liaison with Maureen, whom he calls his beauty queen, and threatens to take her away to the promised land of America. Not if Mag has anything to do with it. A violent and unhappy end seems inevitable.
Adam Best and Orla Fitzgerald in The Beauty Queen Of Leenane (Photo: Helen Maybanks)
Adam Best is moving as Pato, a sad lonely man set apart from the English by his Irish village origins and by the prejudice and dangers of London’s building sites. At the beginning of act two, he writes a letter to Maureen about his life and wishes that is truly heartbreaking.
The fourth member of the cast is Kwaku Fortune who portrays Pato’s brother Ray. His main role is that of a miserable messenger but in his short scenes he convincingly illustrates the dead end nature of life in Leenane, which for him lies mainly in an obsession with Australian soaps and a surly attitude.
The set by Good Teeth Theatre was so dingy you could almost smell the urine. The rainy monotone backwall projection was appropriately bleak. The set was spread out with Mag’s armchair and a stove on one side and Maureen’s chair and kitchen area on the other. This suggested a boxing ring in which each protagonist had their corner. The sound by Anna Clock that accompanies the scenes breaks was equally desolate.
Martin McDonagh certainly has a way with words, and if The Beauty Queen Of Leenane isn’t as laugh-out-loud funny nor as original in its subject matter as his later work, it is still absorbing. Rachel O’Riordan’s production does it proud.
