Review Richard III

Richard III
by William Shakespeare

Living The Dream
http://www.arcolatheatre.com/

Near the end of the Arcola Theatre's Richard III we gained a glimpse of what this production could have been.

Richard (Greg Hicks) has just been visited in his sleep by those he has wronged and murdered. Suddenly the pangs of conscience cripple him. Hicks's Richard in a nuanced soliloquy envelops us with the cold sweat of the villain as both his past and future merge and he turns his frightened gaze round the audience.

It's a highlight of an otherwise mostly over-emphatic production directed by Mehmet Ergen which nevertheless has other instances of clarity and ingenuity.

Mark Jax's suddenly repentent murderer is both comic and affecting. There's a modern chime to Jim Bywater's Mayor of London, puzzled but then expediently adapting to all the twists and turns, as well as when we hear from Peter Guinness's savvy Buckingham the reaction of the London crowd and the city wives.

Annie Firbank's fine Duchess of York, Richard's mother, conveys a clear-sighted doughty aristocrat, becoming a spokeswoman for the grieving Royal widows dislodged by the son she abhors.   

However, at other times we found the inconsistency of the mash up strange and distracting.

The start of the play places us in Italian café society with Richard in black leather  - part mafiosi, part Stasi - sipping on wine and spinning a tiny top. When he stands up to the cawing of crows, we see the chain extending from flexed foot to his hands to help him walk. Bespectacled Matthew Sim as Catesby extends the sense of a Communist apparatchik or Fascist henchman carrying out Richard's instructions.     

At another time we wondered whether we were in the midst of artisans who decided a change was needed from usual mystery plays, deciding instead to put on the arch-Machiavel's story. Yet the concept seemed tried  - and then left behind.

The overpowering television-style sound effects also struck us as intrusive, sometimes unnecessarily disturbing the rhythm and tension of the play.

We've nothing against a production paced television thriller style. But we were far too aware of the sound effects rather than the sound being seamlessly part of the background. In one instance, a very loud cock crow was followed by the information that - er - a cock had crowed.

Anthony Lamble's two tier design is fine as far as the lower space goes, surrounded by the audience on three sides. However, sitting in the seats stage left, we had major sightline problems for the upper tier. The raised walkway running above our seats blocked our view of the second tier at the back of the space and the actors above mainly had their backs towards us. This felt like a thoughtless piece of staging.

Hicks certainly has the potential to be a great crow-like Richard III but we felt he was hampered by more than his chains in an uneven production which needed more variety in its pacing. Individually there were some fine performances and good moments but overall it's an amber light.

Review Run The Beast Down

The latest member of the TLT community is Peter Barker, who worked on local newspapers before stints at ITN, UK and China news agency branches and on free commuter paper Metro. He now reviews a compelling new play as a City slicker fallen on tough times goes native in London's feral landscape.  

Run The Beast Down
by Titas Halder

Brush With The Wild Side
http://www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk/

As many a London resident will tell you, foxes are a menace; unwelcome in the city, tearing into rubbish bags, looking for hidden trifles and trotting the sidewalk with a cheek that makes you want to call the hunt -  if only Tony Blair hadn't banned it, damn him!

But it’s the fox within the man that Titas Halder’s new play ‘Run the Beast Down’ pursues at the Finborough Theatre.

Arrive early in the auditorium and the inventive soundscape from on-stage DJ Chris Bartholomew working decks and computers with virtuosity will greet you.

After that, the main man, Charlie, appears in what is otherwise essentially a one-man play  -- played with vulpine good looks and energy by the charismatic Ben Aldridge.

He is truly a creature of these times, probably a sure bet for a successful life with a loving partner, a high-flying job (in the City) and the sought-after London apartment. 

OK, he may also be a TK Maxx kind of guy; clad in cheap black jeans, cheaper black T-shirt and bold-coloured sneakers. But can you tell from the outside what the man is -- what motivates him, what has shaped him, what he is?

And will he beat the pack chasing him, or get cornered?

Our rummaging through Charlie’s rubbish begins with the unexpected woes which descend on him all at once -- he loses his job and has been - sort of -  burgled. At least his girlfriend has left him, taking almost everything, apart from the curtains.

Insomniac Charlie is the filter through which we experience his increasingly bizarre environment and the people around him. Writer Halder demonstrates considerable flair, building the momentum of a fantastical mental and physical journey with a poetic wit. In Aldridge’s Charlie he certainly finds an actor who can rise to the task -- his transformations of mood and movement are seamlessly defined.

The mystery at the heart of the play, the threats, whether real or imagined, and Charlie's metamorphosis are intriguing. Yet, it must be said at the same time, he is just another one of those middle class 20-something London guys you see on the tube whom you'd assume has a good job and comes from a relatively privileged background. So he remains neither quite heroic enough to be admired nor twisted enough to be... well, admired.

But we can pity him and, when he dissolves, there is literally and metaphorically something of everybody about him.

As Charlie unravels, we see him maniacally writing a label for each new scene on the floor of the stage until, finally, there is little space left untouched. The bare plinth set, designed by Anthony Lamble, with a rear wall of thick upright metal tubes and LED lighting,  is ultimately not even covered with words, just a crowded jumble of letters.

Like the set, the lighting from Rob Mill is versatile, unintrusive, without gimmickry. Equally the electronic score orchestrated by Bartholomew and sound by Ben and Max Kingham  complements the pace of the play and makes a significant contribution to the evening.

Director Hannah Price keeps the feral drama tightly focussed, skilfully maintaining the precarious balance of Charlie's flamboyant high-wire act which must reach the end of the line before he really crashes and burns. This 80-minute debut from writer Titas Halder, developed at Canterbury's Marlowe Theatre, emerges polished and sharp in Price's production with Aldridge's gripping  performance all deserving a green light. 

Review The Inn At Lydda

The Inn At Lydda
by John Wolfson

Citizen Caesar
http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/

Ah, better late than never, TLT and her automotive sidekick had the immense pleasure of attending for the first time the Sam Wannamaker Playhouse the intimate wood-panelled, candle-lit indoor theatre adjacently attached to the main Globe theatre.

The occasion was The Inn At Lydda, a 1999 play by American John Wolfson -  picking up from a hint in  New Testament Apocrypha - which imagines a meeting between the emperor Tiberius (Stephen Boxer) and Jesus (Samuel Collings) at a Judean hostelry.

Influenced by Jean Giraudoux's La Guerre De Troie N'Aura Pas Lieu (an A level set text for TLT which has entered her thoughts lately as being due a modern translation!), the play even more obviously is a Shavian-like riff with traces of Shakespeare with echoes near the end of Chekhov. But you don't need to know all this to enjoy the mix of serious reflection and light touch Pythonesque/Carry On humour.

The three wise men, Balthasar (Richard Bremmer), Caspar (Joseph Marcell) and Melchior (Kevin Moore) have been on the road for thiry three years and now find themselves once again about to encounter Jesus, an  "old friend in trouble".

 The word resurrection is never used - there are only ambiguously supernatural or magical events with simple but effective use of the beeswax candle chandeliers rising and falling and often subtle music composed by Nick Powell..

Jesus is also the object of the despotic but dying Emperor Tiberius's voyage. The Imperial ruler has left his island retreat, dragging along his physician cum astronomer cum magician Thrysullus (David Cardy) in the hope that the Judean healer will give him a new lease of life.

Here, there and roundabout lurks the dark brooding red-swathed figure of apostle John (Matthew Romain) swinging round the pillars, not bringing the good news of the Gospel but the dire apocolyptic predictions of Revelations.

Yet everyone is cut adrift by the actions of one Pontius Pilate in Jerusalem who has carried out run of the mill executions to stop perceived threats to the Roman Empire. Everyone except Caligula (Philip Cumbus) who like some latter day pop star is doing a "singing tour of Europe", ordering sex on tap from both sexes and waiting for his chance to fill Tiberius's sandals and be "elected" by the Senate.

It could have been a heavy handed clunky mix of the serious and the comic. Yet it's directed iwth a delicate touch by Andy Jordan and somehow works in a fluent production which manages to bring tension to pre-destined events including in the words of the play "the come back" of Jesus.

At the same time, there's enough clarity,  characterfulness and coherence in the carefully-crafted text to bring thoughtfulness, reversals and conundrums with a distinctly modern tinge. It may be a slight play but it's an amber/green light for an enjoyable and thoughtful evening. 

Review Allegro

Allegro
Book and Lyrics Oscar Hammerstein II
Music Richard Rodgers

Notes From A Small Town
http://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/ 

A new day and a new musical - new to us, that is! Allegro, a lesser known 1947 Rogers and Hammerstein show which followed Oklahoma!, the movie musical State Fair and Carousel in their canon and before they thematically travelled outside the United States for South Pacific.

In Rodgers and Hammerstein terms, it was a flop, although still notched up a respectable 315 Broadway performances and even, according to some accounts, made a small profit, although it failed to transfer to London for a run.

Inspired in theme by Our Town, the plot follows the life of Joseph Taylor jr (Gary Tushaw), the son of a doctor (Steve Watts), in rural small town America.

In a kind of Portrait of The Medic As A Young Man (and maybe influenced by Scottish novel The Citadel),  we're taken on a psychological and literal journey from Joe's birth in 1905 to his midlife crisis  after he finds his medical ideals tarnished by Chicago hospital boards, trustees and big business.

And in Thom Southerland's engaging production, it feels like a transitional piece, a show deliberately exploring and willing to confront unfinished business.

After a quick Google about American politics in this period, we feel, in some ways, the trajectory of this musical with unresolved finale reflects a question mark hanging over American government at the time.

Harry S Truman had become president following FD Roosevelt's premature death and was trying to push through his "Fair Deal" with its call for universal health insurance, never enacted during his tenure, and the giving of federal aid for the construction of hospitals in poorer areas of America. 

Indeed there may even be a direct political musical reference with the first song Joseph Taylor Jr reminding us of a July Garland hit, written by Harold Rome, Franklin D Roosevelt Jones.

Allegro, of course, is an Italian word, both a musical term for "fast, quickly and bright" and a dance term meaning brisk or fast steps incorporating any step where a dancer jumps. The choreography for the 16-strong cast by Lee Proud is equally bright and breezy with Dean Austin leading a band of eight with keys, bass, drums, reeds, trumpet, trombone and French horn. 

Played in the traverse, it dawned (we hope correctly!) on TLT and her own little motorised helpmate that the mobile ladders and configurations designed by Alexander Lamble reflected musical, as well as wooden, staves so that the cast itself becomes part of a visual musical notation.

So this innovative show with fragmented songs and choric commentary works on several levels.

A visual musical composition, a straightforward, some would say hokey tale, of a young man drawn away from his vocation to keep up an affluent lifestyle which had become far more precarious since the Wall Street Crash, the career and compromises of Rodgers and Hammerstein themselves and the politcal atmosphere of the time.

While some may criticise the lyrics of songs like"A Fellow Needs A Girl", it struck us with harder edged songs such as The Gentleman Is A Dope sung with characterful verve and vigour by Kate Bernstein as Nurse Emily West and the title song Allegro about the tempo of modern life and money, there's more to this piece than a homely fable. Juxtaposition brings irony and hope.

This is an enjoyable production of a rarely-seen piece. Emily Bull brings depth and takes the audience along with her in  the role of wayward, ambitious wife Jennie while Julia J Nagel displays soaring vocals as watchful mother Marjorie.

It's perhaps not a perfect show, but then life ain't perfect either and we give Allegro an uncompromised green light for a delicately precise and tender production.