Blue Stockings - Shakespeare's Globe

The first thing we noticed when we went to see Blue Stockings at the Globe (21/9/13 at 2pm) was that the audience, overall, was shorter than usual. Perhaps there were proportionally more women in the audience, with this being a play about women’s education. It’s funny, though, isn’t it: would a play about men’s education attract a predominantly male audience?

But for an audience of modern, educated women (and modern, educated men), Jessica Swale’s new play Blue Stockings hit all the right notes. You could feel the audience bristling with indignation at some of the male characters’ attitudes towards women. And that indignation manifested itself in audible gasps – and even erupted into boos at certain points of the play.

I do love a Globe audience – never mind the fourth wall, they’re a real part of any play. No passive spectators here. As the actors at the Talking Theatre afterwards said, the audience and actors at the Globe are ‘all in it together’.

Another thing I always enjoy at this theatre is the jig at the end of the play. They kept that here in Blue Stockings, despite the play being a more naturalistic piece than is usually seen at the Globe – and it worked beautifully.

Choreographed to reflect the themes of the piece – with the women sometimes taking the traditionally ‘male’ roles in the dance, and the choreography getting progressively more modern – the jig provided a strangely cathartic end to the play. It certainly left the audience on more of a high note than the script would otherwise have allowed. It felt as if we were celebrating the women and acknowledging how far we have come.

And I do think sometimes we forget how recent this all is. As someone who has been to university myself, and who never questioned my right to learn or to graduate, I was shocked that women were not given the right to graduate from Cambridge until 1948.

1948!

I still feel a bit sick at the thought of the way these women were treated. And yet, in some pockets of our society, similar attitudes prevail. I’ve never understood why women aren’t allowed to be bishops, for example. And judging by some of the abuse levelled at women online, there are quite a few people whose views haven’t changed much from the views of their counterparts in 1896, when Blue Stockings is set.

So it’s not even over. There are still battles to fight and votes to win; there are still attitudes to change – of both men and women. And that’s just in the UK – the education of girls and women is still a contentious subject in many countries around the world. Thinking back to Persepolis, I can see some remarkable parallels with Blue Stockings.

Someone suggested (and I’m not sure who it was) that Blue Stockings would make a great Call The Midwife–style television series.

I think that’d be brilliant. After Jessica Hynes’ not-as-good-as-I-wanted-it-to-be suffragettes comedy recently, maybe pioneering turn-of-the-century women need redeeming on TV. And maybe we need reminding of what they battled against and how they set us on the path we are walking today.

It wouldn’t be as good as a Globe production of course (there’d be no jig for a start), but I could definitely see Blue Stockings working on TV...

A Midsummer Night's Dream - The Pantaloons

I’ve seen quite a lot of versions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so it’s not always a play that fills me with much excitement. But you can rely on The Pantaloons to provide something fresh – and this production (which I saw at Michelham Priory on 25^th August 2013) was fun.

A recurring ukulele motif ran throughout: Bottom’s donkey head was rather ingeniously made from ukuleles; another ukulele doubled as the enchanted flower; and music played on ukuleles, banjos and guitars was used to signify the weaving of magic.

The Pantaloons’ trademark brightly coloured costumes were also used to provide a marker between the carefree atmosphere of the forest and the drab, everyday world of Theseus in his buttoned-up coat. I worried that the audience at Michelham Priory might be too firmly stuck in the buttoned-up world to be transported to the magical, colourful world of The Pantaloons – but after some cajoling, they did warm up a bit.

With the whole audience playing the forest (and one man a screech owl), and various unsuspecting audience members cast as fairies and even as Hippolyta, The Pantaloons made the audience part of the show. Even the most reserved audience couldn’t help being swept along by the sense of mischief and fun.

By the time we reached the rude mechanicals’ play at the end (the funniest Pyramus and Thisbe I can remember seeing), the audience were in stitches – kids and grown-ups alike. Bottom’s (Neil Jennings) reaction to ‘Hippolyta’s’ audience-member boyfriend ending up on stage was very funny, the death by umbrella was perfect silliness, and the whole cast seemed as though they were having great fun, particularly in their interactions with the audience.

Another set piece that worked really well, I thought, was the scene of the lovers’ confrontation in the forest. With the two men now in love with Helena (Kelly Griffiths), and the two women at each other’s throats, the whole scene was accompanied by Puck (Christopher Smart) on guitar. It played out almost like a dance to the music – one of those barn dance style, partner-swapping dances.

As I’ve discussed in relation to other Shakespeare productions I’ve seen (namely a Georgian language production of As You Like It), the music and physicality of performance take the pressure off the audience when it comes to understanding the language. And this is something that The Pantaloons, at their best, can make look effortless.

The Pantaloons don’t just do Shakespeare for people who have studied it. They work hard to make it understandable to a modern audience. And the music, physical comedy and ad libs work alongside the verse-speaking to achieve that.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is only on tour for a few days more, so take a look at The Pantaloons’ website to see venue details and book tickets: www.thepantaloons.co.uk

You can also read my review of their production of Sherlock Holmes here.

Harlequin Goes to the Moon - Rude Mechanical Theatre Company

Thursday 1^st August 2013. Outdoor theatre was made for evenings like this. How often does it happen, in England, that you don’t need to put on a coat or wrap yourself up in a blanket even after the interval, when the sun has gone down?

I chose a good night to go and see the Rude Mechanicals perform their latest play Harlequin Goes to the Moon.

This was the second piece of theatre I’ve seen recently that was about love, loss, and travelling into space. (See also Something Very Far Away at the Unicorn Theatre). The idea of travelling far away to find what is lost was central to both pieces. It’s an effective theme; implicitly connecting the personal with the universal.

In Harlequin Goes to the Moon, the character of Paglia believes that all the lost things are kept in bottles on the moon. His idea is dismissed by others, but this hopeful little play suggests that lost things can be rediscovered. Characters who seemed beyond hope find a way to be happy in the world. And yet there is also the poignant acknowledgement that not everyone can get what they want. Some things remain out of reach, on the moon.

A few years ago, I was at a music festival, and there was a ‘tree of lost things’ on the site. On paper tags, people wrote down what they had lost (some literal, some philosophical), and tied them to the tree. These tags became like leaves on the tree, and it remains one of my most vivid memories of the festival.

In the programme for Harlequin Goes to the Moon, the audience is encouraged to do something similar. We’re asked to write what we have lost on a slip of paper and put it into one of the bottles that hang from the trees on the stage.

I must admit, I didn’t see anyone doing this from where I was sitting, but it was an invitation that tied in with the Rude Mechanicals’ idea of community. Beyond the audience interactions and the cast improvising around local distractions (eg. being upstaged by a cat wandering across the set), the Rude Mechanicals seem to work hard to build relationships with their audiences and with the communities they visit.

Another note in the programme tells us that the company doesn’t search for venues by thinking “this would be a good place to have a show”. Rather, they start by thinking who the audience will be and which venue would be best for that audience. They say: “What matters is that it is where that community meet and do things.”

It’s rather strange to think of a group of commedia dell’arte inspired actor-musicians performing in a modern recreation ground in the south of England. And yet apparently it works for the Rude Mechanicals.

As with The Pantaloons and Little Bulb, the Rude Mechanicals ask a lot from their actors. And they’re a multi-talented bunch: acting, singing, playing instruments, improvising about cats... Even the stage manager has a speaking/playing part in this piece.

So I’m glad that the sun has been shining more than usual this summer. Hopefully it means that more people will get a chance to see them.

The Rude Mechanicals are on tour until August 11^th so catch them while you can! http://www.therudemechanicaltheatre.co.uk/

Gabriel - Shakespeare's Globe

On Saturday 20^th July at 2pm, I went to see Gabriel at Shakespeare’s Globe. It was billed as ‘An entertainment with trumpet’ and that’s exactly what it was. It was entertaining. There were trumpets.

Gabriel is a new play, which came about because the trumpeter Alison Balsom wanted to play at the Globe. Or that’s what I read in the programme, anyway. The play featured a cast of Globe actors (most of the same cast as were in The Tempest) alongside musicians from the English Concert, and music was very much at the heart of the piece.

The play was structured as a series of miniature stories from the period when William and Mary were on the throne and Purcell was writing music for the trumpet. While the cast brought all the characters vividly to life, I did feel that it could have done with something apart from the music to pull the stories together.

I’ve seen ‘compilation’ shows like this before (The Pantaloons’ Canterbury Tales and Grimm Fairy Tales spring to mind), and these sort of pieces seem to work better if the audience is given a clear reason for the bitty structure. Why are we hopping from one tale to the next? Why should I care about these new characters? What has this tale got to do with the last one?

But despite this little niggle, Gabriel really was very enjoyable. The bawdy humour was fun. I loved the ‘true stories’ told by the waterman (Sam Cox) in the first half and enjoyed the acting lesson given by Kate (Jessie Buckley) in the second half. The reference to A Midsummer Night’s Dream was nicely done, and I did giggle at the cardboard cut-out London landmarks being run across the stage to signify a boat’s progress along the Thames.

And the music was beautiful. It was all so evocatively played and sung that it seemed to bring a real stillness to the Globe. When, near the end, the actors shared out and passed sheets of music around the stage, it was a wonderful symbol of the sense of sharing that comes from experiencing music and theatre in a space like the Globe.

We went to the Talking Theatre afterwards, which featured Jessie Buckley and Richard Riddell from the cast, and which was almost as entertaining as the play itself. The talk started as a formal question and answer session, where the cast members spoke (amongst other things) about the unique experience of performing at the Globe, and how theatre is all about ‘sharing stories’.

And then somehow this sense of sharing seemed to spread out amongst the audience, and stories were shared amongst the Talking Theatre group. We heard from a lady who’s been to see this year's production of The Tempest 12 times, from a young boy who’s learning to play the trumpet, and from an 84 year old lady who has been going to the Globe as a ‘groundling’ since 1997. She’s giving a talk at her local WI about her Globe experiences, apparently. I kind of want to go.

So my experience of going to see Gabriel ended on a communal sort of note, with the audience just as important as the cast in making the afternoon what it was. Sharing stories. I like that.

Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi

This was something of an enlightening read for me – for two main reasons. I’ve never read a graphic novel before. And I know next to nothing about the culture and history of Iran.

So Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi was educational on both counts.

First off, let’s deal with the graphic novel thing. Being a literature sort of person, I’d probably been guilty of an unconscious snootiness regarding graphic novels. Having read comic books as a kid (mainly Asterix and Tintin – sometimes in the original French as my dad thought this would help us learn the language!), I associated the form with light-hearted fiction for children.

Nothing wrong with light-hearted fiction for children – I read quite a lot of children’s books – but I think I may have been a bit suspicious of the comic-style form being used for adults. I certainly didn’t approach Persepolis expecting to be challenged by it intellectually.

But I was challenged by it. Not in terms of the words or syntax used, but by the ideas expressed and the themes explored. This is not a light-hearted ‘comic’. It graphically depicts violence, murder and suicide. The characters swear. They talk about sex, politics, religion. And through the words and pictures that Marjane Satrapi uses to tell her story, we are guided through a turbulent time in Iran’s history.

Persepolis is autobiographical, and through seeing how our main character’s life changes, we are given a glimpse into the political and religious upheavals in Iran in the late 20^th century. It’s pretty hard going sometimes. Some moments are powerfully moving and some are ideologically challenging.

I know very little about Iran’s history, and of its culture I only really know what I see on the TV news or what I’ve read about in books like Reading Lolita in Tehran. Most of what I know is about the oppression of women. And while this is undeniably a big deal in Persepolis, it’s made clear that it’s all part of a larger tapestry.

So this book opened a window. I learnt something about the revolution and the unrest that came before and after it. I couldn’t help reflecting on the situation in Egypt at the moment as I read it. I also learnt a bit about Iran’s war with Iraq (I was just about being born when this was actually happening), and it made me wonder about all the subsequent conflicts in and around the area.

What struck me most was how complicated it all is. The drawings in this book may all be in black and white, but the narrative itself doesn’t fall into black and white morality. I think I’ve come away from reading Persepolis feeling even more confused about Iran as a country. But then, perhaps that’s what happens when you have a little more knowledge. It’s easier to be certain when you’re ignorant.

So there are books that come and go and don’t leave much impression, and there are books that leave you thinking. I know that next time Iran is mentioned on the news I’ll be thinking about this book. And I know that next time someone recommends a graphic novel to me, I won’t be so slow to read it. Persepolis has left me just that little bit more knowledgeable, and just that little bit more open-minded.

Always good things for a book to do.

The Tempest - Shakespeare's Globe

I love the Globe. £5 to see a production like The Tempest is a complete bargain.

With a sold-out auditorium, the sun shining and a sense of summertime in the air, Saturday 29^th June was a brilliant afternoon to go to Shakespeare’s Globe. I was in a good mood before I went in, I laughed a lot during the performance, and the just-under-three-hour running time flew by without my feet aching at all.

I don’t exactly know where to begin with writing about this production, because it just hung together so beautifully as a whole. It almost seems a shame to pull out any particular bits. There wasn’t a single weak link in the cast and the mixture of humour and poignancy was perfectly balanced.

I’m not sure I’ve seen a production of The Tempest that was this funny before. Right from the start – where the actor playing Trinculo (Trevor Fox) came on to remind people to turn their mobile phones off and told us that the afternoon’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream would be starting shortly – a teasing, light-hearted tone was set. And this carried on throughout the afternoon. Even Miranda and Ferdinand – characters who can often be a bit insipid – were laugh-out-loud funny as played by Jessie Buckley and Joshua James in this production.

But then there were moving moments too: the final speech by Prospero (Roger Allam); the halting way Ariel (Colin Morgan) asked if Prospero loved him; the petals falling from the rafters during the wedding masque. I actually saw people picking up some of these tissue paper petals and taking them home as souvenirs.

The music, too, was really effective in conjuring that idea of an isle full of noises (a description familiar to everyone now as part of the Olympics ceremony speech). From the unaccompanied singing in parts to the way music came from unidentified parts of the auditorium – even to the noisy aircraft flying overhead – it all contributed to the feeling that the language being spoken by the human characters was overlaid on top of this ‘natural’ state and was almost usurping the place of music on the island.

That reading would certainly fit the rest of the plot, which is largely concerned with usurping in one form or another. I’m trying to resist going into a deeper analysis of the text of The Tempest (postcolonialism, language, the place of magic – all that kind of stuff). But I will just say that the major themes I took away from this particular production were all to do with power and redemption.

A few other bits of flotsam and jetsam before I finish: the model ship ‘sailing’ over the audience at the beginning really reminded me of Bristol Old Vic’s production of Swallows and Amazons a year or so ago; Sam Cox’s Stephano reminded our group variously of Bill Nighy and John Cleese in his mannerisms and silly walks; and – as someone said of Jessie Buckley’s post I'd Do Anything career as the audience traipsed out of the Globe at the end – ‘well, that was better than Oliver’!

To me, watching The Tempest felt like watching a production from Mark Rylance’s heyday at this theatre. Especially with the jig at the end. It never feels like a proper Globe production unless there’s a jig at the end.

Sherlock Holmes - The Pantaloons

Playful, fun, inventive, silly, clever. If you’ve seen a Pantaloons show before, you’ll already know the adjectives I’m going to use. Irreverent – that’s another one.

The Pantaloons are touring two productions this summer, and I went to see their Sherlock Holmes when they stopped off at The Scoop at More London on Thursday 13^th June.

This production features an all-new cast for The Pantaloons, and, with it being early in the tour, I did get the feeling that some of them are still getting used to The Pantaloons’ brand of carefully-constructed anarchy. But the ingredients are all there – the audience interaction, the over-the-top characterisations, the songs, the self-referential jokes, the doubling up of roles – and, despite the lack of familiar faces, this is definitely still a Pantaloons show.

There’s always a slightly pantomime-like feel to Pantaloons productions, and Sherlock Holmes is no exception. With an all-male cast, comprising one Holmes, one Watson, and two energetic others playing all the remaining roles, there’s plenty of cross-dressing – and knowing references to their casting choices.

Mrs Hudson’s grumble that she’s not a tea lady – in fact she’s not even a lady elicits a big laugh from the audience, and the justification of alternating who gets to play the role of Moriarty is inspired. I couldn’t help thinking of the recent NT production of Frankenstein at this point, where Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller alternated the roles of Frankenstein and his monster.

Of course, both of these actors have played modern-day Sherlocks in recent years – and, of course, both of those adaptations (along with the Robert Downey Jr. films) are referenced by The Pantaloons in this production. If there is a contemporary reference to be made, rest assured that The Pantaloons will make it. I suppose that’s another way it’s all a bit like panto.

Personally, my favourite bits of Sherlock Holmes were the silliest bits: Holmes and Moriarty jumping and sinking very slowly to their (presumed) deaths; Elliot Quinn’s noisy Dr Roylott in the tale of The Speckled Band; the so-much-fun-they-did-it-twice Circle Line gag. It’s that mix of self-referential knowingness and pure, exuberant silliness that makes Pantaloons productions such a joy to watch and interact with.

I’m looking forward to seeing their take on A Midsummer Night’s Dream later in the season.

The Pantaloons are on tour with Sherlock Holmes and A Midsummer Night's Dream at venues across the UK this summer. Take a look at their website for full tour details: www.thepantaloons.co.uk

 

UPDATE APRIL 2014: You can see my review of the 2014 indoor tour version of this production here