Twelfth Night - Filter

One of those happy things in life: I’ve never seen a bad production of Twelfth Night. And Filter’s version (which I saw at Eastbourne’s Devonshire Park Theatre on 25^th March 2014) is no exception.

Anarchic, energetic, and with a definite sense of ‘licence’, Filter’s Twelfth Night offered just the refreshment I needed after a dull Tuesday in the office. (And no, I’m not referring to the pizza and tequila on offer from the cast!)

This production was less concerned with the romantic entanglements of the twins, and more interested in the foolish and drunken antics of the other characters. The notion of misrule wasn’t just acted out in front of us and contained on the stage – it was running right through the whole production.

The way the usually central plot was secondary to the revelry of Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. The way Shakespeare’s script was almost abandoned for large swathes of the evening while we did things like throw velcro balls at the stage. The way the audience was invited on to the stage in a conga line. Even Malvolio, in this version, was a wannabe rock star who was only too willing to throw off the shackles of convention (and most of his clothes).

I’ve seen a fair few of these elements elsewhere: throwing things at the stage (Bristol Old Vic’s Swallows and Amazons); Shakespeare mixed with audience interaction (The Pantaloons); getting the audience to join in the party (Kneehigh’s Midnight’s Pumpkin – and even Once had a functioning bar on stage). But seeing it at the Devonshire Park Theatre, with its proscenium arch and orchestra pit, just enhanced that sense of misrule.

A middle-aged Eastbourne gentleman near me muttered to his wife half way through: “Well I’ve never seen anything like this before.” And that summed up the evening for me. This stage, which has seen so many Agatha Christies, was overrun by a sort of joyous anarchy. We all joined Filter’s party and helped them turn the play and the theatre upside down for a little while.

And then we went back to work the next day, as if nothing had ever happened. The twins married the right people, and order was restored.

 

The Outsider by Albert Camus

This is going to be a short one - but then, I suppose it is quite a short book.

I recently read The Outsider by Camus (L'Etranger in the original French, sometimes translated as The Stranger). The original book, first published in 1942, was clearly written as a demonstration of a philosophical viewpoint - existentialism or a variation on it - but I couldn't help thinking that, looked at today, the hero of the book would probably be diagnosed with Asperger's or something along those lines.

I was talking with a friend who had also recently read The Outsider, and we both agreed that it reminded us slightly of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

An interesting thought, that's all.

Richard II - RSC at The Barbican

I have a work colleague who is a bit of a coffee connoisseur. One lunchtime, she left the office declaring that she was going to try the free coffee being offered to loyalty card holders at a nearby supermarket.

When she came back, we asked her what she thought of the coffee.

“Well,” she said, somewhat unenthusiastically, “There was nothing really wrong with it.”

I laughed at the time, but actually I came out of the RSC’s Richard II at the Barbican on Saturday 18^th January feeling the same way.

There was nothing really wrong with the production. But there was nothing particularly inspiring about it either.

David Tennant put in a good performance as the androgynous Richard. Oliver Ford Davies livened things up with his Duke of York. But somehow the production never quite elevated itself above ‘perfectly alright’.

I found myself comparing it throughout to the BBC’s version of the play, which formed part of The Hollow Crown series a year or two ago. I remember watching that version and raving about it afterwards – how beautifully it played with your sympathies and made you uncertain of where your loyalties should lie. How one moment you thought Bolingbroke entirely in the right, and the next you were won over by Richard.

In the BBC version, Rory Kinnear played Bolingbroke as a reasonable, likeable man. In this RSC production, Bolingbroke was a bloodthirsty brute. Both interpretations make sense dramatically, but Bolingbroke never for a moment had my sympathy in this production. But then, nor did Richard for very long.

The programme for the RSC production told us what a risky play this was for Shakespeare to write and to put on. Intellectually, I appreciated that. But there was little in this production that had a similar sense of risk.

One thing I was more inspired by, though, was the Barbican itself. Despite the fact that it’s a hugely confusing building, you can see how carefully designed the whole complex must have been. From the unusual auditorium (with an individual door into each row), to the surrounding estate (a sort of 1960s utopia, hewn from concrete) – the whole construction is a perfect example of its kind.

There are probably all sorts of things wrong with the place, but somehow it’s all exactly right. I just wish Richard II had been a bit more like that.

Once - The Phoenix Theatre

All these productions requiring actor-musicians; one wonders how actors who don’t play an instrument find any work at all...!

Once is not your average musical. There are no show tunes. No jazz hands. It’s not full of noise and spectacle. If you came to this expecting a Hairspray or a Wicked, you might go away feeling a little disappointed. Or you might go away unexpectedly delighted, depending on your musical tastes.

I had some idea of what to expect, as I’d seen the film of Once (before it was turned into a musical). I knew it was a very understated film – and it has been translated into a very understated musical. I liked it – but I know a few musical theatre fans who would probably not enjoy it so much.

The music is all slightly folky, slightly indie. I was reminded of Damien Rice: the lead actor’s delivery was similar; the female harmonies layered on top were reminiscent of his tracks; and the songs themselves had the same kind of low-key, bittersweet, melancholy kind of feel. I can imagine this musical attracting quite a different audience from a lot of West End shows.

But whoever the audience was, at the end of the matinee performance I saw on 16^th November 2013, they gave the cast a substantial standing ovation at the end of the show.

I heard people commenting on how much like real life it was (not something you’d associate with most musical theatre). And, for all its theatricality, it did feel like Once was striving for a sense of authenticity.

On the incoming, audience members bought drinks from the onstage bar. They milled about in their coats on the stage as the cast started playing in a folk jam session, well-choreographed to appear spontaneous. As the audience members were gradually ushered to their seats, the jam session seamlessly turned into the start of the play. The lights went down only after we’d all already fallen silent, and the bar remained the set for the whole piece, regardless of where the action was supposed to be taking place.

Somehow this acknowledgement of its own artifice – this very lack of fourth wall-style realism in the set – this somehow added to that sense of authenticity. As if, just like the audience, the characters were real people treading those boards and in that same bar.

That the actors were playing instruments on stage helped too. When several strings on the lead actor’s guitar went during a song, it felt raw and powerful and real.

Of course, Once is every bit as scripted, sculpted and choreographed as any other musical – but it does feel different. The story, the music, the performances, the set – Once seems to speak in a different language from most musicals. In some ways, you could see it as doing something similar to what The Beggar’s Opera did a few hundred years ago: putting recognisable characters from the here and now on stage and telling their stories with music from the here and now.

A folk opera for our times, perhaps. Or an indie musical. Either way, it’s quite a trick to pull off.

The Canterbury Tales - The Pantaloons

Like a lot of people, I studied part of The Canterbury Tales at school. I’ll be honest and admit that I don’t remember a great deal about the text – except that I remember thinking it wasn’t as difficult as I expected it to be.

At around the same time, I saw the film A Knight’s Tale, with Heath Ledger and Paul Bettany. So Chaucer was always that slightly impish Paul Bettany figure in my head.

These two vague notions are probably always going to inform any encounter I have with The Canterbury Tales. And happily, they fit right in with The Pantaloons’ take on the tales – which is not difficult at all, and definitely slightly impish.

I went to the Underground Theatre in Eastbourne to see The Pantaloons’ production of The Canterbury Tales (10^th Nov 2013). As soon as we walked in, we could feel a bit of a buzz in the air. The cast were in character, chatting with audience members – and, unlike the very reserved audience The Pantaloons had to play to at Michelham Priory in the summer (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with largely the same cast), this audience was chatting back.

It may have been partly because everyone seemed to know each other (as the cast remarked upon more than once), but there was definitely a friendly sort of atmosphere in the almost sold-out UGT.

And that atmosphere carried on right the way through this colourful, funny and energetic take on The Canterbury Tales. Incorporating song, rhyme, puppets, chickens, Shakespeare, opera, improvisation and more, The Pantaloons took us through each of Chaucer’s tales in turn. They’d even printed a list in the programme so you could mark which tales you liked best, and at the end they asked for our favourite. (I think it was the chickens that won the audience vote in Eastbourne).

I’d seen The Pantaloons do The Canterbury Tales before – a couple of years ago, with a different cast and out in the open air. Having only seen them perform outdoors before, I wasn’t sure how their style would translate to an indoor setting.

But it was great. The house lights were only half dimmed, so we could all still see each other (which helped with the audience interaction bits), and in a way I think the indoor setting actually helped to build the atmosphere. Walking through the doors into the auditorium was a bit like going through the wardrobe into Narnia. Outside was the normal, workaday world – and suddenly inside we were in the bright, boisterous Pantaloon-land.

I used to work front of house in a theatre, and one of my favourite parts of the job was seeing the audience leave with smiles on their faces at the end of a show. I think I would have enjoyed working for a Pantaloons performance.

The Pantaloons are currently on tour with The Canterbury Tales and Grimm Fairy Tales (which I’ll be seeing when they return to Eastbourne in December). See their website www.thepantaloons.co.uk for full tour details.

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.