After the Dance, at the National August 14, 2010
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , add a commentSometimes, theatre hurts. Sometimes, a well-made drawing room drama full of elegant people and witty lines comes up from behind and attacks, but it does it so beautifully that you’re grateful. After the Dance, Terrance Rattigan’s tale of 1920s socialites growing older and desperately trying to stay bright young things in the face of the Depression and the approaching war, is such a play.
The Scott-Fowlers have been happily, if rather distantly, married for 12 years, and are the mainstay of their Mayfair set. They have a long-term houseguest, John and a secretary, Peter, with whose fiance Helen David Scott-Fowler falls in love, and a set of stereotypical 30s B-listers – a drug addicted aviatrix, a wealthy socialite with an eastend toyboy, the former lover who’s become ‘serious’ and runs a window washing business in Manchester. Everything is extremely well lubricated (“Everybodies a bore unless you drink”) and they dance around each other almost never saying what they mean.
Nancy Carroll is superb as the gay hostess Joan Scott-Fowler, intent on gossip and frippery, drinking her way through life, refusing to be ‘boring’. There’s something terribly fragile about it all, and when she finally breaks, even with the stilted emphasis on being ‘in love’, the agony is painfully real.
But it is the questions posed by the central character, David Scott-Fowler, that really resound. What do you do when you realise your life has been meaningless? When you don’t like who you are, but know that to change would be impossible? When you’re smart enough to see your faults, but not strong enough to change? Played by a far more serious Benedict Cumberbatch than we’ve had in Sherlock, he takes us through the painful reality of a destructive mid-life crisis step by self-absorbed step. Cumberbatch is wonderful, with a voice that could be standing right beside you even at the back of the Lyttleton, a large theatre. I think I’d be happy listening to that man read a phone book.
When this play was first performed, in 1939, it ran to sellout audiences which suddenly disappeared when war broke out, and was rarely performed again. I wish I’d caught it earlier in its run, as it would reward seeing again, but sadly, it finished on Wednesday. It is a classic.
Dido, Queen of Carthage May 3, 2009
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Miscellany , add a commentPerhaps I should be grateful that my first Shakespeare was Macbeth, not the Taming of the Shrew. If this play is anything to go by, there’s a good reason that Shakespeare is venerated as the greatest English playwright, while Christopher Marlowe is an Elizabethan curiosity, occasionally staged for historical interest. Dido, Queen of Carthage was Marlowe’s first play, probably written for a company of boy actors.
The story is based on book 4 of the great Roman epic, the Aeneid. Aeneas, lost at sea after fleeing Troy, finds himself shipwrecked on the shores of the newly-built city of Carthage. Manipulated by the gods, he and the Carthaginian Queen fall in love. Eventually he is pushed to his senses by Jove and leaves for Italy, allowing his descendents to found Rome, and eventually destroy Carthage. She never regain hers, and kills herself.
Marlowe’s Dido is a pathetic creature, absolutely enslaved to her love for Aeneas, giving him her kingdom, re-rigging his ships and then taking the rigging away to prevent him escaping. Even in her seduction of him, she is annoying. Would a mighty queen be so surprised when he fell for her? At least Virgil has her consider the political implications of the alliance, when her sister tells her that Aeneas would be a useful ally.
The cast do a better job than the play deserves, although Anastasia Hille as Dido does occasionally overplay it, and the agonising about Aeneas’ departure became tedious after a while, but that’s the material she had to work with. Mark Bonnar (last seen as Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night) is a fine Aeneas, genuinely torn between his love of Dido and his duty to his destiny.
Unfamiliar Elizabethan verse isn’t always easy to follow, but there was no difficulty understanding the cast and keeping concentration through this three-hour production. Even the extended Latin quotes from the Aeneid were well-spoken (at least as far as I could tell from dim sixth form memories).
The manipulative gods, playing out their own games with the mortals below, are wonderfully surreal. Siobhan Redmond as Venus and Susan Engel as Juno are disdainfully cruel, completely inconsiderate of the humans despite Venus’ supposed concern for her son.
It was worth seeing for curiousity’s sake, not a bad evening out, but perhaps a minority interest.
Dido, Queen of Carthage plays at the National Theatre until 2 June 2009. Seat C17, in the second row, gave an excellent view.
Oedipus November 16, 2008
Posted by CamdenKiwi in : Reviews , add a commentI woke up yesterday morning, feeling a cold starting. Ignoring it, I checked the National Theatre’s site for returns for Oedipus, which is sold out but I was keen to see. Apollo was on my side, and I got a seat for the matinee just as Hygeia decided to have a go and the cold set in. Full of sudafed and feeling very sorry for myself (but at least not coughing and spluttering) I headed down the road to the theatre.
The story is well-known. Oedipus, King of Thebes (played by Ralph Fiennes), discovers that he has murdered his father and married his mother in unwitting fulfilment of a prophecy made at his birth. Freud thought it represented a common male fantasy, and Tom Lehrer had great fun with it.
Reviews of this have been mixed. As with most Greek drama, is very wordy, with events explained more than they are shown. Fiennes himself is almost unbearable to watch at times, so intense is the tragedy, but Clare Higgins as Jocasta is the one who really seems to get to the heart of it and draw the audience in As Oedipus works out what has happened, she sits silently, the truth slowly dawning, shaking in horror. The chorus of middle-aged, besuited men is a little odd and occasionally seems more church choir than Greek chorus.
The set is a large, bronzed dome, with huge doors at the back and a long wooden table. The doors move round through about 90 degrees and back during the performance, perhaps trying to illustrate a day. Behind and on either side of the doors, trees are occasionally revealed and also used as an entrance. The leaves fade from full summer to deepest winter as the tragedy unfolds.
Seat H26 in the stalls was perfect. Oedipus runs until 4 Jan, returns only.
