Sam Tutty and Dujonna Gift in Two Strangers. Photo: Tristram Kenton
If you’re a fan of romcoms, I think you’ll like this sweet- but not saccharine- musical comedy. Two Strangers (carry a cake aross New York), and this is not a spoiler, is set in New York, but it feels very British. A naive British man and a cynical female New Yorker meet because of a wedding. Think Hugh Grant and Andie MacDowell in Four Weddings And A Funeral. In fact, if anyone is planning a remake, Sam Tutty would be a shoe-in for Mr Grant, and Dujonna Gift would be a blooming sight better than the insipid Ms MacDowell.
It begins with a naive British man who only knows America through the movies meeting a cynical female New Yorker, because of a wedding. He is the son of the groom, she the sister of the bride. They are the ‘two strangers’. As for the cake, well, that is what Alfred Hitchcock and other filmmakers used to call a McGuffin, in other words a device, unimportant in itself, but vital to moving on the plot.
What Kit Buchan’s amusing script is really concerned with is their burgeoning relationship with each other and, perhaps even more importantly, the two characters discovering themselves. There are a few twists which, frankly, you might see coming from a long way off but the ending helps keep the show from being completely predictable.
Two Strangers has the comforting feel of the kind of musical that Cole Porter or the Gershwins were so good at, and the musical style also reminds one of that bygone era. But let’s not get carried away- while Kit Buchan provides some clever lyrics and Jim Barne‘s compositions range from smoochy to stirring, they are not the Gershwins. There isn’t a showstopper in sight. In fact, I didn’t come out humming even one bar of any of the songs.
Sam Tutty and Dujonna Gift are the top
Nevertheless, Two Strangers is an enjoyable musical comedy with an appealing mix of jollity and pathos. It would be easy for these two slightly clichéd characters to have grated but the two actors, who are actually both British, are very good. There seemed to be more affection than chemistry between them but both are charming, funny and have pleasant voices: his nice and easy, hers powerful. Sam Tutty, who has already made a name for himself in Evan Hansen, establishes a good rapport with the audience, thanks partly to his particular skill at using his facial expressions to comic effect. Dujonna Gift conveys strength that hides vulnerability.
Sam Tutty and Dujonna Gift in Two Strangers. Photo: Tristram Kenton
Tim Jackson directs and choreographs with a light comical touch. Soutra Gilmour’s set may be low budget but it’s clever. Two piles of suitcases which set the scene for the opening meet-cute at the airport, also suggest the towers of New York. Specific elements of it adapt for the later scenes, becoming cupboards, tables, and so on. A revolve mimics a luggage carousel but also keeps the show moving, literally, by bringing the characters together and pulling them apart.
Since its premiere in Ipswich nearly five years ago, and its re-launch at London’s Kiln Theatre, Two Strangers has come on leaps and bounds. It certainly deserves its run in the West End at The Criterion. For me, it didn’t quite reach the heights of great musical comedy but it is a good romcom that will leave you with a smile on your face.
Two Strangers (carry a cake across New York) can be seen at the Criterion Theatre until 31 August 2024. Tickets from twostrangersthemusical.com
Intimate play swamped by huge theatre despite Paapa Essiedu’s giant performance
★★★
Taylor Russell & Paapa Essiedu in The Effect. Photo: Marc Brenner
How much does our brain make us what we are, and how much does our behaviour influence our brain, particularly when it comes to love? In The Effect, Lucy Prebble examines what makes us human and the nature of love. It’s a dizzying journey, ful of emotion, shock and stimulation for that blob of grey matter. The dialogue is not only snappy and funny and sad, but extraordinarily natural. It’s a gift to the actors who include Paapa Essiedu and Taylor Russell on top form.
The Effect was premiered over ten years ago in the National Theatre’s smallest auditorium. Since then, its author Lucy Prebble has received global acclaim as a writer for the TV series Succession, as well as I Hate Suzie. Now it’s back, and given pride of place in the National’s large Lyttelton Theatre. However, despite one massive star performance, this revival of The Effect is a disappointment.
The Lyttelton is a cavernous auditorium, and that’s the problem, because everything about this play says ‘intimate’. There are only four characters, two of whom are taking part in the trial of a drug, two of whom are supervising doctors. And it nearly all takes place in the confines of a clinic.
I assume it’s the idea of director Jamie Lloyd to reconstruct the auditorium into a traverse configuration. There is now a massive bank of stalls seating on what would be the back of the stage, facing the usual (albeit reduced) stalls and the circle. The stage has been brought forward so both sides are given equal weight. It’s a good way to try to bring the audience closer to the action and restore some of that lost intimacy. But it wasn’t enough for me, because this is still a huge space with around 900 paying customers.
Like theatre-in-the-round, a traverse stage demands minimal props. (Don’t get me started about how the sink and bed blocked views during Brokeback Mountain at sohoplace.) In this production, there is an empty platform with a chair at each end. Any physical representation of a clinic is replaced in Soutra Gilmour’s striking set by varying uplit rectangular sections indicating different scenes. It’s still clinical but in more of a sci-fi film way. Yet, this is not a futuristic play: it’s very much about today’s world, and in particular our reliance on medicine and what being human means.
So this entire setting has the effect (sorry, no pun intended) of making us, the audience, feel like clinicians looking dispassionately at an experiment. This may be the intention, but, if it is, it undermines the strength of the play which is the way it draws us into the feelings of the characters, feelings which basically wreck the clinical testing.
There is superb music by Mikey J Asante that helps ratchet up the tension and release the euphoria.
Beyond that, everything hinges on the actors. And they do well, but it’s a lot to ask of them: to provide an intimate performance in a vast auditorium. Inevitably they’re mic’d, as is usually the case these days, to amplify their voices. So, at least they sound normal rather than strained, but it is also a reminder that they are playing to a large crowd.
This is the story. A man and a woman are taking part in a four week trial of a new anti-depression drug and the effect it has on the brains of healthy volunteers. I don’t speak as an expert but my understanding is that antidepressants rely on raising dopamine levels- the chemical in the brain that makes us feel good. So, when two participants fall in love, we ask ourselves, just as the doctors do: ‘is it really love or the effect of the drug?’ This inevitably leads us to question: ‘what is love?’ We do eventually get some answers as we go beyond the end of the trial but I’ll say no more about that, because I don’t want to spoil how this marvellously written play pans out.
Paapa Essiedu and Taylor Russell are a believable couple
Paapa Essiedu is the man, Tristan. It’s the latest in a string of impressive performances that must cement his position as one of the top actors of the new generation. Appropriately this experienced actor plays a seasoned participant in scientific tests, which he does for the payments, and doesn’t take too seriously. Triss is an East London boy, fast-talking, edgy, constantly jigging up and down. He gets the funniest lines as he pushes boundaries or steps with both feet into delicate situations. When he falls in love, he is puzzled and deliriously happy, but skeptical that chemicals are playing a part. It’s a bravura performance, full of complexity and authenticity.
The woman he meets- Connie- is a psychology student who gets involved in a trial for the first time out of what you might call professional and possibly personal interest. She is serious-minded, knows a lot about the way the trials are conducted, and believes the chemical affects the brain. But she is also needy in her relationships with the doctor and with Triss whom she finds amusing and intriguing, but also irritating.
Paapa Essiedu & Taylor Russell in The Effect. Photo: Marc Brenner
Just as Connie is new to being a participant in scientific trials, the part is played by a newcomer to the stage, Taylor Russell.
So there is a parallel here between the experience of the characters and of the people playing them. I don’t know if this affected the dynamics between them as actors, but they are certainly believable as a couple. There is a series of rapid short scenes in which they escape the clinic and play games with each other and explore each other’s bodies with laughter and euphoria, that left me as giddy as them.
It’s a high profile debut but Taylor Russell proves to be a talented actor who takes it in her stride.
There are twists and misdirections that make us, the audience, constantly reassess this relationship, and the question of how much is the result of the dopamine they are being fed and how much comes from the dopamine they are producing naturally.
In the same way, we are asked to consider whether depression is biological or psychological. It’s a debate that concerns the two doctors: Dr Lorna James who is supervising the test, and Dr Toby Sealey who is supervising her. Just to complicate matters further, it turns out they have had a relationship in the past.
Toby, in an authoritative performance by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, is totally committed to the idea that depression can be cured by pharmaceuticals, and at one point he is seen giving a well-rehearsed, smug lecture on the subject. Lorna is not so sure. It emerges that she herself suffers from depression and does not trust the drugs used to treat it. In one of the most powerful scenes in the play, she talks about the parts of her brain and what function they have: ‘Here’s my impulse to kill myself. Here is my controlling that impulse.’ Michele Austin, in a strong performance, delivers most of her lines in the flat monotone you might expect of someone suffering from depression.
The play has been changed to accommodate, among other things, the background of the actors (London and Canada), and the fact that the cast is all black. Michele Austin‘s character is given the wonderful line: ‘I’m a working-class Black woman. Getting out of bed is a political act’, which generated applause from some of the audience.
The two doctors discuss the effects of the drug but, like the participants, or indeed any human being, they have their opinions, their experience, and their secrets that influence what happens in the trial. It seems Lucy Prebble is saying there is no possibility of a truly objective scientific trial, despite the use of placebos and bias testing.
And she really piles it on to make the point. In a confined space, I suspect we would be carried along by the characters’ passion, but, in the arms’ length environment of the Lyttelton, I for one was left wondering how these people ever got to be on the trial or supervising it, in the first place.
The nature of depression is one thread running through the play but the more dominant one is about the nature of love: why do we fall in love, why do we sacrifice for love, why does it last long after the initial dopamine infatuation fades? In her convincing story of Triss and Connie, Lucy Prebble covers a lot of ground, and establishes that, in a world in which medical science may sometimes seem to have all the answers, love remains one of life’s mysteries.
The Effect is performing at the National Theatre until 7 October 2023.
Paul paid for his ticket to see a preview performance of The Effect
Josh O’Connor & Jessie Buckley shine in fast-moving Shakespeare film
★★★
Jessie Buckley & Josh O’Connor in Romeo & Juliet. Photo: Rob Youngson
The National Theatre‘s Romeo & Juliet is another of the hybrids of theatre and film that have emerged during lockdown. In this case, William Shakespeare‘s play, directed by Simon Godwin, is a film but filmed in the Lyttleton Theatre and as if it’s a spontaneous development from the rehearsal room.
As film, it is beautiful. The backgrounds are nearly always plain , often grey or black. In fact the colours generally are blue or grey, with faces brightly lit from the side, appropriately like 17th century portraits. Credit for the design goes to Soutra Gilmour.
The two lovers are wild and rash, as they should be. Jessie Buckley is intense with passion, Josh O’Connor overwhelmed with emotion. They have great faces which is great for the close-ups. Their scenes together- the balcony, the wedding, the consummation (the film features a lengthy lovemaking only alluded to in the original play) are all believably romantic.
Thank goodness because this is a Romeo & Juliet that strips away all it can from the surrounding story of adults who should protect the youngsters but instead are misguided, self-centred and irresponsible. We also lose Shakespeare’s intention to emphasise the ultimate reconciliation of two warring factions as they acknowledge their part in the death of their young heirs.
Some of the most glorious poetry is filleted. There’s no ‘light from yonder window’ breaking in Emily Burns’ adaptation. Rather than rely on the verse that remains, there is a great deal of music, as if the makers didn’t trust Shakespeare’s words to convey feeling. Having said that, the music, which includes Henryk Gorecki’s Symphony of Sorrowful Songs is superb.
The editing of text and film means this Romeo & Juliet goes at a terrific pace which is good because, in this play, you need to be carried along by the speed with which the youngsters fall deeply in love, get married and (spoiler alert) commit suicide.
Of the older actors, I particularly liked Tamsin Greig, playing the part that was Lord Capulet in the original. She’s cold, calm, as softly spoken as a snake, verging on a pantomime villain.
Deborah Findlay as the Nurse and Lucian Msamati as Friar Laurence both convey the way the adults miscalculate the situation because of their own desire to meddle. The great Adrian Lester has so little to do as the Prince, because of the cuts, that a cynic might say he’s only there to provide a star name.
Romeo & Juliet can be seen on Sky Arts catch-up and on PBS on 23 April
Miriam-Teak Lee and cast in & Juliet. Photo: Johan Persson
I’m pretty sure I’m not the target demographic for & Juliet but I loved it.
It’s a jukebox musical which is an art form usually well down the West End hierarchy. It features the work of Max Martin whom I’d never heard of until now. Although I vaguely recognised a lot of the songs, they arrived a long time after I lost interest in teens and twenties music. The choreography is mainly street dance, which I admire but am usually unmoved by. The plot is a love story with a strong dose of girl power which I applaud but the story is too lightweight for me.
And yet love it I did. Why? Because the songs are actually great. The performers generate enough energy to power Regent Street lights. The costumes, the set, the sound quality (great to be able to hear the words) and most of all the singing are phenomenal. If the director Luke Sheppard were a football manager, he’d be winning the Premiership.
The show features nearly 30 hits from the most successful songwriter of the last 20 years, Max Martin – songs like ...Baby One More Time, It’s My Life, Roar, Oops I did it again, I Kissed A Girl, Can’t Stop The Feeling and many more which fit like a glove around the story. The plot imagines Juliet living on after Romeo’s death and going on to write her own story.
It’s presented as a kind of workshop in which at Anne Hathaway’s insistence, her husband William Shakespeare rewrites the ending of Romeo & Juliet. She wants it to be about empowering women and about finding true love. She wants the love to spread beyond the traditional romantic leads. She even writes herself into the plot. Will tries to undermine this, partly to inject some conflict and setbacks into the drama but also to re-build his male ego.
It’s not quite F—ing Perfect (another Max Martin song). David West Read’s book has some cheesy moments, unlikely plot twists, cliche characters and terrible puns but it is all tongue-in-cheek and, as in all good musicals, you are carried along by the emotion of the music more than the words in between. And you definitely Can’t Stop The Feeling!
Miriam-Teak Lee: Stardom beckons
There’s slick street dancing choreographed by Jennifer Weber. Paloma Young’s colourful costumes nod to Elizabethan symbolism as well as today’s streetwear. Soutra Gilmour’s set joins in the fun by melding various centuries plus street art and pop culture and giving many opportunities for the principals to spin round and to rise into the air. (It’s been a good year for Gilmour with her stark dramatic set for the Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre’s Evita helping the show win an Evening Standard Award for Best Musical.)
Cassidy Janson, Miriam-Teak Lee & Melanie La Barrie in & Juliet. Photo: Johan Persson
Then there’s the cast. I was exhausted just watching them. Miriam-Teak Lee is destined to be a great star. I thought she was outstanding in the Open Air Theatre producton of On The Town, this time she blew me away with her Juliet- a powerful voice and a strong character mixing strength, emotion and comedy.
Matching her is Cassidy Janson as Anne Hathaway. This musical is as much about her disappointment in her relationship with Will as anything and her poignant rendering of That’s The Way It Is is a highlight of the show.
The third in the triumvirate of strong women in this show is Melanie La Barrie as the Nurse. Her comic performance deservedly got the most laughs. She has a heartwarming mature love affair with the poised Lance, charmingly played by David Bedella, who is bowled over by love.
This is a musical in which women dominate so generally the male characters fare less well. William Shakespeare (Oliver Tompsett) is a deliberately one dimensional sexist. Juliet’s gay friend played by Arun Blair-Mangat is a cliche. His love interest Francois (Tim Mahendran) is lightly drawn. Romeo is amusingly shallow and given an appropriately preening performance by Jordan Luke Gage.
Much to my own amazement, I came out of the theatre singing I Want It That Way and I’d be delighted to see & Juliet..Baby, One More Time.
& Juliet is performing at the Shaftesbury Theatre in London. For tickets, visit the official website shaftesburytheatre.com
Paul Seven Lewis was given complimentary review tickets.
Click below to view this review on my YouTube channel One Minute Theatre Reviews
