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Roderic Dunnett looks back on his 2018 highlights
One of the pleasures of being part of
Behind the Arras is the skill of our editors, Roger and Sue, at
selecting shows that tally closely with the interests of their writers.
I have been sent to numerous shows over the past
few years that have perfectly suited my passions: for the Greek and
Roman classics (the RSC’s Cicero cycle); for medieval history (two new
plays about Richard III); for Shakespeare but also his less familiar
contemporaries; and so on. It’s satisfying to be penning alongside an
incisive and supportive group of colleagues, who enhance BTA’s
reputation and give pleasure, hopefully, to its discerning and widening
readership. I have been introduced to The Old Joint Stock pub
and theatre company, who perform in many unusual venues. Their The
Full Monty was a treat, even rivalling the film starring Tom
Wilkinson and co.; also to a wonderful new play, Nell Gwyn,
in Leamington Spa; and to The Fantastic Follies of Mrs. Rich
- a hilarious stagework presented on tip-top comic form in the RSC’s
sensational Swan Theatre. Four 2018 events stick most in the mind, all five
star, but which I have not (through illness, but to my shame) done ample
justice to. The first, following the RSC’s triumphant staging
of the mighty Tamburlaine (Christopher Marlowe), is their unusual
take on Molière’s Tartuffe (running till Saturday 23 February). This production, classed by the company as ‘a
wicked new comedy’, a verdict agreed on by many of the nationals
(‘Biting Satire’; ‘Striking new take on Molière’; or ‘Just what theatre
needs’), ran initially into doubts from other critics. These did not
approve – and they had some point here – turning a 17th century comic
masterpiece (Molière’s works are scandalously neglected on the British
stage) into a questionable modern-day Indian sub-continent extravaganza
(translated and adapted by Anil Gupta and Richard Pinto, already Bafta-
and Emmy- award winners, known for Citizen Khan and Goodness
Gracious Me), with a cast of almost entirely Asian-originating
performers. The whole wheeze, originally proposed by the RSC
boss Greg Doran (‘a bloody good idea’, as the writers put it) seemed
forced, inappropriate, perhaps inept. And I might be inclined to agree, had not Director Iqbal Khan made such a feisty, tightly staged, in-yer-face and endlessly witty offering out of the material, which as in Molière teases out issues of, in particular, religious difference and diversity. Iqbal’s namesake Asif Khan made such a terrific
showing in the title role, as the manoeuvring, endlessly fibbing Tahir
Taufiq Arsuf (=Tar-t-uffe, get it?), and the brilliant (young!) Amina
Zia (as the side-splitting, amazingly subtly moved granny figure,
Dadimaa Pervaiz), that one often found oneself helpless with laughter. All of these performers have a striking list of
past roles, none more so than James Clyde, one of (perhaps) the few
non-oriental Brits in the cast, but a match for all the others (as he
must be, playing the friend, Khalil), whose list of credits almost falls
off the page – including five Shakespeare (he has just added a sixth,
Timon of Athens) and one other (Matilda) for the RSC - who
brought a terrific counterbalancing personality and punch to this
staging.
The cast was riddled with successes (not least
Sasha Behar, and Simon Nagra), who kept up the wisecracks and badinage,
echoing the best characteristics of RSC hilarity since at least the
1950s (The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, The
Merry Wives, The Comedy of Errors); indeed all of them
without exception – this was brilliantly cast in depth - turned 17th
century Parisian waggery into a marvel of modern-day Brummy raciness (to
be honest, ‘Ungrateful little shit’ could just as easily have figured on
Molière’s Louis XIV stage (most of his daring work was penned with Royal
Patronage in the 1660s). It was not all giggles. ‘Forgiveness is all very
well, but piety is more important’; ‘I do not need to be rational, I
must follow the word of Allah’ (fervent, or ironic? - or perhaps both).
‘Spending a lot of time on Wikipedia’, and ‘YouTube’, are just minor
examples of this cheeky updating. But Umayyad (7th - 8th C) and Abbasid
(8th C onwards) Caliphates also get a look in. Conversely, there is a
hoot of an attempted ‘seduction’ scene. Some soft, occasionally ironic, and delightfully
original music (Sarah Sayeed), contrasting with the occasional
appearance of Rap, Rag and Tabla, helped no end. Bretta Gerecke’s quite
spare set had many witty light touches, a pink sofa managing to appear
particularly tongue-in-cheek Bollywood. One complaint, and it is a major one, directed at
not just the RSC (prominent offenders) but many major theatre companies.
Whereas in Opera you always get a synopsis, straight theatre has all but
dispensed with them. Thus, although here you get essay after essay – all
fascinating and instructive, and a list of credits, neither tells the
audience who’s who, or what’s going on. Synopses are incredibly helpful,
and audiences need them. At the very least, I wanted to know,
from the cast list, who was really Orgon, Elmire, Pernelle (the original
granny), the amorous Valère, Cléante, and so on. At least the
relationships (‘stepdaughter’, ‘family friend’) are explained. But why
give Tartuffe’s real name, yet omit the others? I suppose the argument might be that plot
summaries give the game away. But except for, say, The Mousetrap,
so what? This omission insults, certainly does not help, audiences, and
should be rectified. If there must be fourteen pages of
‘explanation’ (all fascinating), plus a spread of rehearsal photos, for
heaven’s sake make one of these a play synopsis. In something
like Brummyised Tartuffe it’s crucial, but the same goes for
every other stagework. It helps. So what’s so wrong? The composer Janáček has proved one of Welsh National Opera’s huge ongoing successes: Katie Mitchell’s delicate staging of Kátya Kabanová was a classic of British Theatre. David Pountney, since his ENO ‘Powerhouse’ days (Richard Jonas, Pountney and Mark Elder), has made himself an inspiring expert on not just this composer, but on all Czech and East European Opera. His 2017 From the House of the Dead was a revelation of how to turn a Russian labour camp into an extraordinary gathering of clearly - and movingly - defined individuals. He took us into the heart of desolation – and hope. These were real people, and they had hearts and souls and even, despite their plight, aspirations and optimism. But just as Pountney, WNO’s Artistic Director, revealed Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina as the massive, yet brilliantly followable, tale of political machination that its four-odd hours make it (although remember, Graham Vick’s ‘community’ production for Birmingham Opera Company in 2015, The Khovansky Affair’, achieved something pretty comparable), so Pountney has now braved something yet more largescale with War and Peace, surely Prokofiev’s most important opera (though he wrote several others, a few of them scarcely seen). It falls into two halves:’ Peace’, which is
surely a misnomer, for there is as much machinating as in Verdi’s
Masked Ball, directed by Pountney last season; and outright ‘War’.
Stalin, famous for terrifying artists, seemingly found no grounds – for
the subject was actually an evocation of the events around Hitler’s
invasion of the Soviet Union, and subsequent defeat – for banning or
demonising it when it was staged at Leningrad’s Maly (‘small’, surely
another misnomer) Theatre in 1946. Prokofiev reworked or tinkered with
parts of it right up to its next main staging, in 1956, by then the
Khrushchev years. It reached London in 1972 with two marvellous
character singers, tenor Kenneth Woollam and bass Norman Bailey, heading
the cast, under the versatile conductor David Lloyd-Jones. But this is history. The source, or inspiration,
was Tolstoy’s vast 19th century novel. Apart from the invaluable
programme synopsis (see above), WNO still managing 14 pages of
background material, what made this production an additional treat from
start to finish was the marvellous, richly conceived costumes, by
Marie-Jeanne Lecca, Romanian-born but another Czech-Russian opera
specialist; somewhat awesome sets from the brilliant Robert Innes
Hopkins; and electrifying lighting from Malcolm Rippeth.
It’s the military genius General Kutuzov (Simon
Bailey, wise and amazingly moving), who is faced with the major decision
of whether to abandon Moscow to Napoleon (David Stout, usually a
magnificent presence, yet who deserved better direction here to make a
real impact, though the Emperor’s flummoxed and unaccustomed indecision
he excellently evoked). Kutuzov – then 67: he died a year later -
involves his staff in the decision but takes full responsibility
himself; and surely made the greatest impact of all the cast. But
Jonathan McGovern (Prince Andrei, with fabulous projection, and allotted
at least one gorgeous rhapsody), Lauren Michelle (Natasha) and Mark Le
Brocq (Pierre) brought the personal side of the plot fine sensibility;
Adrian’s Dwyer’s gave strong characterisation to the emotionally
intrusive Anatole; and a host of major and minor figures served up
convincing vignettes. A host, because many of them doubled parts, some
taking as many as four to six different roles: Prokofiev’s cast, like
Tolstoy’s, is ginormous – (Pountney alludes to War and Peace’s
‘razor sharp depiction of a huge gallery of characters’). The WNO
chorus’s enunciation of Rita McAllister’s translation was second to
none: but one has come to expect that from WNO’s ever-involved massed
forces. The hero again was Pountney: the internal movement amongst the
chorus was, time and again, masterfully engineered; that includes one
amazing moment when all as one suddenly sit; all this manoeuvring, far
from irrelevant, is vital to the impact of the whole. For once, Pountney’s love of bevies of trudging
figures (Martinů, Weinberg, etc.) is more justified than ever. The
relationship between the (latterly disgraced) Nastasha and her maid, and
indeed the courting scene, made rather beautiful contrasts to the rugged
chaps, bound up in the approaching war and prospective final stand
against the increasingly bogged down French. A brief kerfuffle of seven-strong dancing struck
me as a bit so-so, but not because of the score – Prokofiev’s
instrumentation and galvanising syncopation, together with dramatic
skill and artistry at expressing and underlining the story, is a marvel.
His thrilling music for Eisenstein’s second world war film Alexander
Nevsky, his ballet Romeo and Juliet, and indeed elements of
his friend Shostakovich (Symphonies 3 and 4, for instance) all figure.
WNO’s orchestra excelled as usual, with solo flute, some trudging double
bass, trumpet and an almost buzzing tuba making a particular impression. There is some stunningly eloquent singing, not
least from Chetham’s (Manchester)-schooled and former Royal Opera
Jette-Parker young artist James Platt (Tikhon) in this otherwise
war-drumming section. Is it a cheat to show large passages of
monochrome film above the action, like a hyperactive A rather wooden Shakespearian 1950s parody of not
very convincing Wars of the Roses, of Richard II or Richard
III combat, would scarcely suffice for this Napoleon-cum-Hitler
standoff. David Haneke designed the Video Projection, so perfectly
synchronised, working marvels. It was mind-blowingly good. Still on the opera front, if not exactly, I
managed to worm my way into English National Opera’s late autumn staging
of Britten’s War Requiem. This ran a risk. Deborah Warner’s
staged version of Bach’s St. John Passion struck me, to my
surprise, as remarkably limp: hordes of chorus floating up and down
stage to scant effect. Stephen Layton’s delivery of the music made up
for that, for he is a period instrument specialist. Jonathan Miller’s
staging of the St. Matthew Passion in a West London church (Holy
Trinity, Sloane St.) set the ball rolling a quarter of a century ago and
succeeded precisely because it realised that less equals more.
ENO fielded their top team for this War
Requiem. Daniel Kramer, its Artistic Director, did the staging and
Music Director Martyn Brabbins, already proving a pleasingly sensible
appointment, took on the music. I have something to field opposite this,
for I had the same couple of weeks heard the Requiem in its original
Midlands location, Coventry Cathedral, with the (now) Coventry Cathedral
Chorus conducted by the 40-plus years Coventrian (and frequently music
director of BBC TV’s long-running Songs of Praise), Paul
Leddington Wright, and by Simon Over, who went from school in Coventry
to found the hugely successful Southbank Sinfonia and Parliament Choir. So much was right about this Coventry performance
that I cannot praise it too highly. But the highlight for me,
undoubtedly, was the young soloists Gwilym Bowen, a former Hereford boy
chorister (his father is that Cathedral’s Director of Music and recently
presided over a hugely successful 2018 Three Choirs Festival), who is
carving an enviable name as a concert and operatic tenor. The diction,
the drama, the intensity, the passion of his delivery of Wilfred Owen’s
savagely biting poetry, with Over accompanying, could scarcely have been
bettered: more terrifying, or more touching. Move on the Coliseum and the outstanding figure
there was the baritone, Roderick Williams. He is widely known as a
marvellous solo singer of English music, unearthing and restoring many
little-known gems. But Williams is also, like Bowen, an opera performer.
The first time I saw him visually dramatise anything was in the late Sir
Peter Maxwell Davies’ legendary in-your-face music theatre work Eight
Songs for a Mad King. He made an impressive stab at it. Much later,
Williams brought character to a rare staging – at ENO’s original home
(Sadlers’ Wells) of Vaughan Williams’ Pilgrim’s Progress/ That
was pretty good. His title role for Opera North in another Britten work,
Billy Budd, was particularly moving near the end, in the great
lilting soliloquy as Billy, sentenced to hang, takes his leave of the
world. Ever sensitive and invariably inspired and
inspiring, Williams is perhaps not quite a top-notch actor; but he can
be when nursed appropriately. What struck one here was the athleticism,
the sense of irony and even mischief, with which he found layers in the
baritone arias, and especially the almost scampering first duet (‘Out
there, we’ve walked quite friendly up to Death….’ ‘He’s spat at us with
bullets and he’s coughed at us / Shrapnel.’). The soprano, the immensely gifted opera actress
Emma Bell, I not sure came across as well as the increasingly impressive
Ilona Domnich in the cathedral acoustic (‘Lacrimosa’); nor could
ENO’s David Butt Philip match the marvellously articulate and even
savage – and, so crucially, youthful - Bowen. But the long-impressive
(now celebrating their 60th year) Finchley Children’s Music Group proved
almost as dazzlingly good as the Cathedral boys’ and girls’ choir under
Kerry Beaumont, whose expert nursing has turned the Coventry forces into
easily one of the most enthralling cathedral choirs in the country,
filling the choirstalls with brilliant young talent where previously
there was none. Before their closing ‘In Paradisum’, and
their bell-accompanied, haunting augmented fourths or diminished fifths
(the close balancing the original ‘Requiem aeternam’), at
Coventry the final duet, the tenor’s ‘It seemed that out of battle I
escaped…’ and the German’s ‘I am the enemy you killed, my friend’,
so aptly originated with Peter Pears (Owen’s Tommy) and Dietrich
Fischer-Dieskau (the Hun), was utterly searing. If anything was needed
to confirm the work a masterpiece and Britten a genius, here it was. I have seen a little less amateur theatre this year. Yet early this winter I found myself at the Criterion Theatre in Earlsdon. The Criterion company, launched in 1961 in Coventry, has had a mixed career. Periodically it has failed to hit the jackpot.
But now the Cri, as it is fondly known, has
really picked up. I missed their Christmas offering, Alan Bennett’s
adaptation of The Wind in the Willows. There wasn’t a ticket to
be had. Marvellous. But I couldn’t resist nipping down (again a last seat available) to see their staging of I Am Shakespeare, a fascinating look at who ‘really’ wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Nor would I miss, for anything, Ann-marie Greene’s staging of a play written by none other than Sir Mark Rylance, my theatrical hero, whether in man’s or woman’s clothes. And there HE was, as I’d fervently prayed, in
Coventry that Friday night! His play, a collaboration (2007) which
easily predated the 2011 film Anonymous starring Rhys Ifans as
the Earl of Oxford (played here by Pete Meredith) features a delightful,
and perceptive, tussle between a motley gang of characters circling
around ‘Shakspar’ himself (Alan Fenn). It’s as intriguing as an Agatha
Christie, or Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time (which
exonerates Richard III, one of Mark Rylance’s more shamelessly evil
portrayals). Rylance’s play starts as it unfolds, highly
entertainingly, with a very funny opening soliloquy. Right from the
start, the Criterion company’s subtlety and precision must have
delighted their knight-visitor, who has not seen it staged –
ludicrously, for it is so pithily crafted, agile and smart - since that
original London production. A travesty. There was a medley of clever detail: wobbly legs,
a bit like David Troughton on Speed; some marvellously expressive use of
the eyes (surely, like so much else, an input by the Director); an
utterly charming young Policeman, doubling (Samuel Grant); allusions of
their day, to ‘necromancers’, and, inevitably, ‘pederasts’, plus some
scrumptious more acceptable lust; side-allusions to Gandalf, and to
Freud; phonecalls; likewise a witty sequence involving a chat show
hotline; a spectacularly well-sourced Geordie accent. ‘There are more books written about my plays than
about the Bible…’. Yes, but not about him. The basis of the
argument (there is a website,
https://doubtaboutwill.org, which perhaps overstates the case) is
that the mentions of Shakespeare dating from his time are
staggeringly few. And that the tombstone in Holy Trinity Church has
been meddled with; that this (Brummy-speaking) Shakspere, from a known
Stratford family (his father an alderman and in effect mayor) in not
really, in fact in no sense, a writer or leading playwright: more
likely, a trader. The evidence for these doubters is virtually as flimsy
as for the believers, but they are right in saying that the matter
should be opened up, to and by academics. By introducing, one or two characters (Frank
Charlton, a Coventry-based Shakespearian authenticity specialist)
alongside real and significant participants in the debate: Edward de
Vere (Oxford), Lady Mary Sidney, Francis Bacon (another candidate) the
author(s) open up the debate additionally to enquiring modern minds and,
in a way, pays tribute to the acumen of its audiences. The Criterion team was on top form. George
Rippon’s shifts of, for example, yellow to white lighting (for TV) and
back were especially effective; thus the lights and other essential
adjuncts - sound (Dave Cornish), original music (Paul Forey, also ‘Barry
Wild’ in the cast), should match the cast’s and director’s adroitness
obviously counted for much. Will proclaims his genuineness: ‘I was your
Will, for my name is Will … not Edward (Oxford); not Francis (Bacon).’ The thrill that night was that Sir Mark spent 20
minutes with the audience, and then another at least 20 minutes with the
cast. How one applauded that. His modesty alone is a lesson in how to be
a human being. I am Shakespeare. Well, was he or wasn’t
he? This was not only a first-class play, but a delicious tease as well.
Great for staging by amateurs and professionals alike. Come on some of
you, pick it up and run with it. 02-01-19 Home Awards Home |
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