The Beast's Pen

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This review was originally written for The Reviews Hub: http://www.thereviewshub.com

A circle of bright red carpeting centre stage establishes the themes of Charlotte Josephine’s blistering assault on an era in which the human race is forever finding new ways to embarrass itself. Blush we should at the antics of a society in which, seemingly, all established norms of decent behaviour are cast aside behind the shield of a computer screen.

Josephine’s writing is as angry as the first character that appears, a woman whose 18-year-old sister has had revenge porn images posted on social media. 30,000 viewers have seen the images and the woman longs to gouge out 30,000 pairs of eyes and squelch them under her bare feet. A self-conscious woman, wanting to look like photographic models, finds that she can make herself appear more beautiful in erotic selfies and then she has to endure the torment of them going “vinyl” after the puts them online. A woman is distraught in a supermarket when the “boyfriend” that she has been sexting vanishes into thin air quicker than she can decide whether to buy bio or non-bio washing powder.

The play sees dated gender stereotyping clashing with modern behaviour, but it does not entirely relate stories of male aggressors and female victims. A high-flying web designer explains to an international seminar why social media sites can trigger addictive behaviour and then he falls victim to his own trap following an inappropriate advance to an attractive student. Another man finds that readily available internet porn is making him impotent. The conflicts and contradictions caused by technology advancing too rapidly are shown again when a bemused father objects to the explicit sex education given at school to his 13-year-old daughter, thereby attempting to block measures aimed at protecting her.

Ed Stambollouian’s racing 70-minute production affirms Josephine’s stark vision. The swirl of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Tinder and the rest is made to appear more as a giant spider’s web, entrapping its victims, than a worldwide web. Josephine herself and Daniel Foxsmith attack all the roles with vigour, expressing rage and trepidation through words and expressive movement. The play does not point the finger of blame at governments nor even at the giant corporations. It is a startling wake up call, telling us all that, individually and collectively, we need to recognise the destructive power of a modern monster and come to terms with it,

Performance date: 18 May2017

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This review was originally written for The Reviews Hub: http://www.thereviewshub.com

Beginning “In a place no one knows…at the end of the world…”, Karen Blixen’s Babette’s Feast sets off on a “once upon a time” road, establishing itself as a fable/fairy tale at least one move away from reality. We learn that, in this idyllic place, two sisters and their father occupy a yellow house, at which everyone is made to feel welcome.

A few weeks ago, the Print Room staged Out of Blixen, an overview of the Danish writer’s life and works and they follow it with this full adaptation of one of her stories, possibly best known from a 1987 film version with the same title. As an appetiser the wandering Babette narrates the story of one of the sisters, Martine (Whoopie Van Raam) thwarting the amorous advances of a young army officer (Ladi Emeruwa). For the hors d’ouuvre, she tells of the other sister, Philippa (Rachel Winters) meeting a renowned opera singer (Henry Everett) and being tempted to sing opposite him in Don Giovanni.

For the main course, Sheila Atim’s proud and dignified Babette knocks on the door of the older Martine (Diana Quick) and Philippa (Marjorie Yates), their father (Joseph Marcell) having died. She is a refugee from revolution-torn Paris where she had been a chef at a top restaurant. When, after many years of sanctuary with the sisters, good fortune comes her way, she pays for and prepares a magnificent feast for them and other townsfolk to celebrate what would have been the father’s 100th Birthday. Through the spinsters Martine and Philippa and the wasted culinary “artist” Babette, Blixen reflects ruefully on unfulfillment, but she tempers this with mellow tones of contentment in simplicity and homeliness.

Director Bill Buckhurst looks for parallels with modern refugee crises when kindnesses given and repaid emerge as themes and, with only a small company, he uses movement and music to generate a strong sense of community spirit in the devoutly Christian Scandinavian town. When the banquet arrives, there is no feast for the eyes and no appetising aromas to fill the air. It is all improvised and, outstanding among the townsfolk who dig in gleefully is Amanda Boxer’s Kara, downing glass after glass of vintage French “lemonade”.

There are tasty bites aplenty, but adaptor Glyn Maxwell does not move far enough away from Blixen’s original style of narration to allow room for meaningful character development and, as a result, the production overall feels slightly undercooked.

Performance date: 15 May 2017

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This review was originally written for The Reviews Hub: http://www.thereviewshub.com

“What’s the point of surviving if you’re not going to live a little?” asks Finlay Bain’s irreverent hour-long post-apocalyptic comedy. This is the philosophy of Rob and Paul, survivors who are holed up in a chaotic flat as the world outside falls apart. Their strategy becomes to party like there is no tomorrow, accepting that there probably isn’t one.

Scotland has been conquered by zombies, the undead who only have to bite the living to conscript them to their ranks. Rob (played by the writer), swinging a baseball bat with the aggression of a modern day William Wallace, regards Paul (Paul Thirkell) as a replacement for the beloved pet dog that his father killed for being gay. Paul is not gay, but, being very camp, he is the closest thing to it. When Paul is interrupted by an intruder while quietly pleasuring himself, the flatmates’ cosy sanctuary is shaken.

The new arrival, sabre-wielding Penelope (Pearl Appleby), has found marauding gangs of survivors and participants in The X Factor more threatening than the zombies. The boys offer their guest the luxuries of a shower and baked beans (both cold), before bringing out the stronger substances. Laddish Rob and straight-laced, fussy Paul approach Penelope in very different ways, sparking much of the comedy in the lead up to a no-holds-barred party. Paul’s slow reaction to a drink spiked by Rob, as a tenor sings Con te partirò, is a gem of physical comedy in the middle of the raucous revelries.

There is an air of the band playing on while the Titanic sinks, but Bain manages to keep sombre themes bubbling under the surface without allowing them to drag the comedy down. He finds humour in dark, unexpected places and director Jordan Murphy’s production fizzes like the lager in cans hoarded by Rob, uncaring that survivors outside are dying of thirst. The actors too find the perfect balance between hilarity and pathos. This is a case of living a little and laughing a lot.

Performance date: 10 May 2017

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This review was originally written for The Reviews Hub:  www.thereviewshub.com

For years we have been told that global warming poses the biggest threat to our future, but now Alexandra Badea’s play suggests that globalisation could prove a still greater danger. Viewed through the eyes of four employees of multinational corporations in Europe, Asia and Africa, she shows us how individuals can become controlled, dehumanised, disconnected from reality and effectively pulverise.

Badea is a Romanian-born writer living in France and her play has been translated from French by Lucy Phelps. Its director, Andy Sava is a British trained Romanian. The play’s vision is bleak, its characters entering seemingly unstoppable downward spirals from the outset, telling their stories in overlapping monologues, moving like zombies and playing “dead” while others speak.

Based in Lyon, a quality assurance of subcontractors manager (Richard Corgan) travels the world to be greeted by airports, hotels and offices that all look the same. He loses his sense of time and place, talking to his son via Skype on his lap top while ogling a sex worker on his i-pad. A research and development engineer (Kate Miles) in Bucharest, divides her time between being a mother and making presentations to executives who are falling asleep.

A factory worker (Rebecca Boey) in Shanghai makes boxes for export to France, confined in a tight space like a battery hen and facing penalties for taking a toilet break. Slogans such as “if you don’t apply yourself to your job today, you’ll be applying for another job tomorrow” are drilled into her, as humanity comes in a poor second to statistics. A call centre team leader (Solomon Israel) in Dakar puts on his fake Versace suit and gives his team of cold callers French names, even asking them to eat French cuisine and reeling off a list of  replacements for Boeuf Bourguignon when the beef runs out. Globalisation, it seems, steamrollers over national cultures and identities without mercy.

With the narratives vague and linked together only loosely, the play sometimes loses its grip and it feels overlong at 90 minutes. However, Sava’s messages are discomforting and alarming, all the more so as she offers little hope that the course of the globalisation juggernaut can be changed by any of us little people.

Performance date: 5 May 2017

Photo: Dashti Jahfar

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Helena Rubinstein, pioneer of the cosmetics industry in post-World War II America is a role that fits the inimitable Miriam Margolyes like a glove and, given this dream casting, there seemed every reason to hope that John Misto’s new biographical play would provide sharp insights into a fascinating woman. In the event, Misto is content to make more than half of the play a hilarious bitch-fest involving Mme R and her rival, Elizabeth Arden (Frances Barber), leaving it until very late before starting to probe deep beneath Rubinstein’s well moisturised skin.

With actors of the calibre of Margolyes and Barber spitting out the vitriol to each other, the entertainment value is high and it may seem churlish to complain. However, bitchery is not enough to sustain a play that runs for 125 Minutes (including a completely unnecessary 20 minute interval) when Margolyes does enough to whet the appetite and make us want to know a lot more.  A Jew of Polish origin (or possibly not, as she lied about almost everything in her past), Rubinstein survived Nazi persecution and bad marriages to become a miserly old lady with a rock-hard exterior. Misto structures the play around Rubinstein’s fractious relationship with her gay Irish assistant (Jonathan Forbes) and her encounters (unlikely to have really happened) with Arden; other key characters in Rubinstein’s life are mentioned repeatedly, but never seen and, accepting that the production has budget constraints, there is always a feeling that its scope needs to be expanded in order for its story to be told properly.

Alistair Turner’s set design, dominated by a projected image from a cosmetics ad, also fails to impress. Tables and chairs are hauled on and off by stage hands during overlong breaks between scenes, interrupting the flow and making Jez Bond’s unimaginative production feel stuttering. Yes, the script gives us plenty of laughs and the lines are delivered with the expected aplomb, but the play should have offered so much more.

Performance date: 4 May 2017

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It is August 1981, Mrs Thatcher is in Downing Street, Kim Wilde tops the pop charts, Bobby Sands and other Irish hunger strikers are dying. Jez Butterworth’s devastating new play takes us back to rural County Armagh at the height of the Irish troubles and shows with chilling clarity how violent extremism gets its claws into the lives or ordinary people and refuses to let go.

The farmhouse, the interior of which is realised beautifully in Rob Howell’s stunning set, is home to three generations of the Roman Catholic Carney family. Quinn (Paddy Considine) and his wife Mary (Genevieve O’Reilly) have seven children, all still at home and they have also given refuge to Caitlin (Laura Donnelly), the wife of Quinn’s missing brother Seamus, and her teenage son Oisin (Rob Malone). Under the same roof are Quinn’s Uncle Patrick (Des McAleer) and his two aunts, the near senile Maggie (Brid Brennan) and the bitter and angry Pat (Dearbhia Molloy), who had been a witness to the 1916 Easter Uprising in Dublin. The drama is triggered when the body of Seamus is found 10 years after it is assumed that he had been executed by the IRA for disloyalty.

A huge cast, many of them children, plus a baby and a rabbit, on the Royal Court’s modestly sized stage causes potential traffic jams, challenges for director Sam Mendes that could make directing a Bond film seem like a breeze. He delivers a production in which exuberant bursts of humour and life contrast with searing intimate exchanges and the spectres of violence and death are always hovering overhead. Quinn, an activist in his youth is now a family man who rebuffs IRA demands for his silence. Considine’s demeanour shows Quinn as a weary man, made so not only by ongoing Irish Republican struggles but also by keeping secret the glowing but forbidden love between himself and Caitlin. Butterworth weaves together intimate personal stories and epic political themes with consummate skill.

The IRA’s grip over the family comes from history, a sense of community and the bullying of their commander, Muldoon (Stuart Graham), who even becomes a moral guardian, displacing an enfeebled church that is personified by the weak and dishonest Father Horrigan (Gerard Horan). The play encompasses fierce ideological arguments, as between Quinn’s pacifist son Michael (Fra Fe) and a potential activist cousin Shane (Tom Glynn-Carney) and lyrical passages, such as Aunt Maggie’s memories of her lost love and Uncle Pat’s recitation from Virgil. Many lighter moments are provided by the simple-minded English-born tenant farmer Tom Kettle (John Hodgkinson), although Butterworth’s contrivances to make him a symbolic figure are perhaps questionable.

This almost flawless production comes straight out of theatre’s top drawer. Running at over three hours, it is far, far too short.

Performance date: 2 May 2017

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This review was originally written for The Reviews Hub: http://www.thereviewshub.com

We hear a lot about the problems of the young, a fair bit about those of the elderly, but what about the middle-aged? Barney Norris’s 70-minute play, the inaugural production in the Bush Theatre’s brand new studio space, brings together two lonely people who are old enough to have regrets and young enough to start again, if only they could find a way to break free from the past.

Carol (Tessa Peake-Jones) is a divorced empty nester, still living at her childhood house near Portsmouth, inherited from her parents. Her dull, featureless living room, as seen in James Perkins’ set design, mirrors her life, which revolves around going to work for the local Council, watching television and sleeping. She has taken the safe course, but Eddie (Andrew French) has driven along the rocky road. Raised in foster care and beset by mental health issues, he has drifted from job to job and become rootless.

The pair, lovers 20 years earlier, meet by accident at a bus stop and Carol invites Eddie to stay with her temporarily. Norris and the two actors capture precisely the initial awkwardness of renewing friendships after a long gap; Carol talks incessantly about her office, Eddie babbles on nervously about the otters of Ireland, the Arctic and the Amazon, both flash too many forced smiles at each other and their attempts at jokes show senses of humour that are now completely out of sync. Never mind, when the going gets tough, Carol can always break the tension by brewing a nice cup of tea.

Lines are drawn, as Carol makes it clear that the friendship can never be more than platonic, yet Peake-Jones suggests with great subtlety that this is not how she really wants it. Dictated to by routine and habit, she simply knows no other way, just as she knows no way to break free from any of the shackles that she has placed around herself. Eddie remains somewhat enigmatic, unable to stay grounded and wondering whether it is worth bothering to plan a future. He has exuberant bursts of optimism, but French never lets us forget that a deeply troubled man lies behind them.

Alice Hamilton’s unshowy production is steadily paced, allowing the quality of the writing to shine. Norris, a young writer, captures the essence of mundane lives and of characters much older than himself with great perception. His gentle and melancholic play is low-key, but it tells us to make the most of life while we’re here, a message that all ages can relate to.

Performance date: 28 April 2017

Photo: Mark Douet

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James M Cain’s 1934 novel The Postman Always Rings Twice has been adapted into two Hollywood films noir of the same name, but it is the 1943 Italian version, Ossessione, the first feature directed by Luchino Visconti that provides the inspiration for Ivo van Hove in this production, an import from Toneelgroep Amsterdam.

van Hove has made his name in London by reimagining plays by the likes of Miller and Ibsen, but here he cuts himself adrift from classic texts and turns to reinventing the work of a fellow director in another medium. When Robert Icke directed the noir thriller The Red Barn in the National’s Lyttelton Theatre, similar in size and shape to the Barbican, he made his production feel cinematic by closing down spaces, but van Hove and his set designer, Jan Versweyveld, go in the opposite direction, acknowledging that this is about turning cinema into theatre. They open out the entire wide space and litter it with a few curious objects – a tin bath, a car engine and a piano accordion that plays itself – but some cinematic features remain – moving images projected onto large screen surrounding the stage and a prominent musical soundtrack that ranges from Giuseppe Verdi to Woody Guthrie. As always with van Hove, there is something to engage the eye and the ear even when the drama itself is flagging.

There is also a plot, which, at times, feels almost incidental. Hanna (Halina Reijn) is trapped in a loveless marriage to an older man, Joseph (Gijs Scholten van Aschat) when a rootless drifter, Gino (Jude Law) walks into the cafe/petrol station that they run jointly. There follows adultery, murder and guilt. A gay drifter, Johnny (Robert de Hoog) and a dancer, Anita (Aysha Kala) try to lure Gino away once he has himself started to feel trapped, while a priest and a police inspector (both Chukwudi Iwuji) press for the truth to emerge. Law shows the inner weakness of the outwardly macho Gino and Reijn smoulders as the repressed Hanna, but, between them, they struggle to generate passion on this vast empty stage.

Obsession is a classic crime passionnel drama, but, in terms of meeting the expectations of theatre, the dialogue is little better than perfunctory and the production misses the claustrophobic feeling needed to support a story in which characters feel boxed in. On this occasion, perhaps van Hove’s obsession with creating innovative theatre drowns out key elements needed to bring out the essence of Visconti’s original work convincingly.

Performance date: 27 April 2017

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“In Italy for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed. They produced Michaelangelo, da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock” (The Third Man). In India they produced the Taj Mahal.

American writer Rajiv Joseph’s 80 minute one-act play, first seen Off-Broadway in 2015, is a fresh examination of the links between beauty and beastliness. Humayun and Babur are young friends, charged with standing guard at dawn in front of the near-complete Taj, not allowed to speak nor to look at the glorious monument behind them. They do both. Humayun (Danny Ashok) is a conformist who knows the rules imposed by a totalitarian Emperor and abides by them. He berates the errant Babur (Darren Kupan), a sensitive idealist who dreams of freedom and a life filled with beauty.

The Taj, a breathtaking structure of white marble inlaid with priceless gems, was built as a memorial to the Emperor’s lost love, but a price for its creation was paid in human blood. When the two guards are forced to execute their ruler’s callous and barbaric edicts, their friendship becomes strained and Babur comes to believe that he has “killed beauty”. Joseph realises that events as harrowing as those described can best be dramatised in the form of pitch black comedy and much of the joy of his play comes from his skill in blending tragedy and comedy together. Guards at the Taj is funny, shocking and heartbreaking all at the same time.

It is reasonable to assume that Jamie Lloyd’s production here is very different from that seen in New York. The two guards can be readily identified as modern British Asian men from their speech and their characters and, perhaps surprisingly, Joseph’s dialogue fits this interpretation perfectly. Ashok and Kupan create a chemistry that, in other circumstances, could make them rivals for any double act on the comedy circuit, their laddish banter, dashed with absurdism and surreal dreams. Their characters hope that their efforts at the Taj will be rewarded by an assignment to guard at the Emperor’s harem, where perhaps they will be allowed to look; they dream of a simple life in the forest where they can enjoy all the beauties of nature and leave all the horrors and injustices that they have become involved in behind.

Soutra Gilmour’s barren set design, with a raised battlement for guard duty and ditches filled with water, appears through a dusty mist in Richard Howell’s atmospheric lighting. The setting befits the play’s grizzly narrative, while allowing its irreverent humour to shine. This production marks a triumphant return for the newly refurbished Bush Theatre.

Performance date: 26 April 2017

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There seems to be some doubt as to the correct collective noun for lawyers – a disputation? an eloquence? a greed? a huddle? a quarrel? – but Nina Raine’s new play features one of whichever, demonstrating to us all that the law is an ass and making asses of themselves in the process.

Couples Kitty (Anna Maxwell Martin) and Ed (Ben Chaplin), Rachel (Priyanga Burford) and Jake (Adam James) both have marital difficulties. All four are barristers. They congregate, smoke weed, down vodka and examine their own and each other’s cases, probing into current and “historic” misdemeanours, interrogating and cross-examining. Added to the mix is another friend, prosecuting counsel Tim (Pip Carter), a bachelor who has the good sense to cast his eyes towards a different (if only slightly) profession in the shape of Zara (Daisy Haggard), an actor. This is the metropolitan elite of Lewisham, Enfield and Camden in full flow and there is a great deal of humour to be drawn from lawyers unable to distinguish between their own emotional lives and legal processes. Raine finds the comedy in cutting exchanges, but, when it comes to the serious stuff – a rape trial in which the victim is Gayle (Heather Craney) – her play hits rocky ground, starting to feel too contrived and uncertain.

Roger Michell’s production, performed in the round, is classy if a little over-animated. The stage resembles a boxing ring, with a few items of furniture appearing from below, actors confronting each other usually standing in gladiatorial fashion. In contrast, an array of lamps in all shapes and colours and a chandelier hover overhead, making the Dorfman resemble the lighting department of John Lewis. Mirroring these contrasts, the production moves between light comedy and emotionally-wrought drama rather awkwardly and the play’s essential point – that the law and human entanglements are ill-suited to each other – often gets lost. Overall, Consent feels like a series of sparring matches. Punches are landed, but they are soft jabs and the knockout blow that is expected and needed never comes.

Performance date: 25 April 2017