Measure for Measure, at the Almeida March 22, 2010
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , add a commentShakespeare’s Measure for Measure is a difficult play. Its not really a comedy although everyone pairs off, more or less, at the end. It’s not really a tragedy, though Angelo at least doesn’t come out of it too well. What is the Duke? A noble ruler tiring of his role, or just a nasty old meddler who likes setting people up for a fall? And then there’s Isabella. What to make of her? Isabella is a novice in a convent, about to take her vows. Her brother is condemned to death for fornication, but Angelo, who has been left in charge of Vienna while the Duke goes away, promises to free him if she will sleep with him – Angelo, that is. She refuses. Fair enough, if a little harsh. She then expects her brother to be perfectly happy with this, and go nobly to the scaffold. Sometimes, particularly in the BBC film version, Isabella comes over as naive, caught up in her own black and white world, little caring for anyone.
In the Almeida’s beautifully nuanced production, I finally get Isabella. Here, played by Anna Maxwell Martin, she’s strong and self-confident, but there is something damaged about her attitude to men. She argues forcefully with Angelo (Rory Kinnear), refuses to give in to him, but the body language is a little ambiguous. In telling her brother of her decision, and persuading him to accept it, she hugs him in a way that close enough to incestuous to be uncomfortable. Is she flirting with the Duke (Ben Miles)? In the end, when the Duke’s plot to deceive her is revealed, she’s not particularly happy to see her brother return from the dead, and her rejection of the Duke is scornful. This is clearly a woman who, for whatever reason, wants to get to her nunnery.
As Ben Miles said in the aftershow talkback, in Shakespeare, the characters always have the perfect words to express themselves, and one of the joys of this production is the extremely high quality of the speaking, from every actor. They are truly wonderful.
The Almeida theatre has very cheap restricted view seats (£8), behind narrow poles that you can easily see around. Even from E21, at the back of the circle, I had a reasonable view. It’s all sold out now, though there may be returns until it finishes on 10 April.
The Female of the Species September 28, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , add a commentA misunderstanding, and a hasty decision at the discount theatre booth in Leicester Square led me into Joanna Murray-Smith’s The Female of the Species. I knew it is based on the hostage taking of Germaine Greer, but hadn’t expected a comedy.
Anna Maxwell Martin, last seen (by me at least) as Cassandra Austen in Becoming Jane, plays the student Molly, who turns up at the home of Eileen Aitkens’ Margot Mason, a middle-aged feminist intellectual suffering from writer’s block. After telling her how much she admires her, Molly pulls a gun on Mason and handcuffs her to the table, holding her hostage. She calls her to account for her world-changing ideas, and the effect they’ve had on the lives of those who’ve taken them to heart. Molly’s birth mother, having abandoned her as a baby threw herself in front of a train holding a copy of Mason’s seminal work ‘The Cerebral Vagina’. Molly is not happy.
Each of the characters who appears, and does very little about the hostage situation, has a different challenge to Mason’s feminism. The daughter feels unloved, never knew her father and longs for a more assertive husband. Her husband values and supports his wife while they still fall into traditional roles. The taxi driver tried to be a new man but his wife left him anyway, and is now getting back in touch with his inner caveman. The camp publisher just wants his new book. It comes very close to being a direct attack on Mason, and feminists of the seventies, but she is big enough to take it on, and send it back to lead us through the changes to feminist ideologies over the last forty years without losing her integrity.
Aitkens is perfect in the role, slightly unsympathetic, very strong and certain of herself. Martin is wonderful, quirky and awkward, but full of a determination which suggests she’s absorbed more of Mason’s feminist ideals than she may choose to admit. At times, it almost becomes farce (in a good way) and ends with an implied Shakespearean pairing-off. It’s clever, witty and occasionally poignant.
This is a bit of a surprise for a big WestEnd theatre, and was only 2/3 full. It’s good to see something other than musicals and the very popular in Theatreland, though many who would appreciate it would balk at the ridiculous WestEnd prices. At £47.50, I wouldn’t bother, but there are lots of tickets available at the TKT booth, for a more reasonable £27.50. I had a good, if rather small, seat in the middle of the fourth row of the dress circle. The Female of the Species plays until 4 October at the Vaudeville.
