I've decided to split May in to two posts, partly to keep on top of the almost ridiculous number of plays I'm seeing this month and partly to fit in with the theme of plays followed by Roman numerals that I seem to have fallen into.
2 - Someone Who'll Watch Over Me - Southwark Playhouse (38/44/45) *****
4 - Richard II in Palestinian Arabic - Shakespeare's Globe (39/45/46) ****
5 - Black Battles With Dogs - Southwark Playhouse (40/46/47) **
6 - All Good Men + Thermidor - Finborough Theatre (41/47/48) ****
10 - Someone Who'll Watch Over Me - Southwark Playhouse (41/47/49)
11 - Henry VI part I in Serbian - Shakespeare's Globe (42/48/50) ****
12 - Henry VI part II in Albanian - Shakespeare's Globe (43/49/51) **
12 - Henry VI part III in Macedonian - Shakespeare's Globe (44/50/52) *****
14 - Conquest of the South Pole - Arcola Theatre (45/51/53) **
15 - Misterman - National Theatre (46/52/54) ***
18 - King Lear in Belarusian - Shakespeare's Globe (47/53/55) ***
It's nice to kick off the month with a superb production and Someone Who'll Watch Over Me at the Southwark Playhouse fit the bill perfectly. This is exactly my sort of play, so good that I squeezed in a second visit a week later. Like Bound, another of my favourites of the year, this explores the intense friendships created amongst men in extreme situations - in this case, three men taken hostage in Lebanon. It's an incredible piece of writing - both bleak and beautiful, heartbreaking and humanity affirming; full of humour, imagination, storytelling, music, bravado and vulnerability. Jessica Swale provides clever, sensitive direction - creating a sense of claustrophobia and threat, alongside wonder. I particularly loved the choice not to have the characters touch meaningfully until late in the play. There was excellent use of music and a beautiful lighting design, subtly adding emotion to the scenes (a gorgeous purple light that enthused the stage as Joseph Timms sang Amazing Grace). What really made this unmissable for me, however, were the excellent performances from all three of the leads - Timms, Robin Soans and Billy Carter (Carter especially was magnificent, both his expression as he watched Timms reading Song of Songs and the tears in his eyes as he imagined Ireland have lingered with me). They perfectly captured the nuances of the text, the balance between the characters and the beautiful rapport between the men. Plus their friendship was so open and inclusive; it was hard not to feel involved in their story.
Unfortunately the second play of the month from the Southwark Playhouse, Black Battles With Dogs, couldn't maintain the standard and was for me deeply flawed on many levels. The space - vast, impersonal and unfortunately freezing - failed to capture any sense of Africa, or the intimate intensity that the play seemed to need. Likewise, the lighting, whilst effective at creating atmosphere at some points, destroyed it again moments later. My enjoyment of the play itself was limited, partly because it seemed to believe itself deeper than it demonstrated, instead vaguely meandering through much more complex ideas than it may have realised and which it should have taken more care with. I must admit to a shuddering sense of dread when seeing that some of the first lines in the programme were the author explaining that the play was not, in his opinion, about race or Africa - never a good sign. And in this case patently untrue. Partly though, these text limitations may be the fault of the translation which failed to find any naturalness or believability in the text, contributing to generally stylised and disconnected performances from the actors, which, for me, mostly failed to be engaging. All of which, in the end, created a production that was deeply unsatisfying.
Sadly it wasn't my only disappointment of the month. On the surface Conquest of the South Pole is exactly the sort of play I should love - again focusing on tight bonds of friendship between men, highlighting the importance of imagination, and the grimness of reality pressing right up against the wonder of fantasy. At least that's what I'd taken from the advertising material. In the end though it was all shouting and not enough substance. They neither seemed to fully realise the grimness or the wonder of their worlds, real and unreal, and there was no shade given to the high-octane performances. More problematic I never quite got a grip on the characters, what was holding them together or what the South Pole represented to them, beyond the most shallow, obvious reasons. I needed something more, something slightly off centre and real. As it was I was left feeling like I was watching faintly enjoyable, nonsense.
My final fringe theatre of this batch was much more impressive. The combination of All Good Men and Thermidor proved an auspicious first visit to the Finborough. Whilst I imagine, All Good Men, would be a strong case of talking heads if you weren't interested in the topics being explored, it managed to embrace a variety of issues that fascinate me: political idealism vs. reality, the future of socialism, public vs. private beliefs, family tensions, class betrayal/guilt - all tied together with one foot historically in the mining strikes (for family reasons guaranteed to tug at my heart strings). Even better, these issues were handled with a deft touch, not oversimplifying these complicated issues and allowing neither side to be entirely right or entirely wrong. This was also where the pairing with Thermidor came into its own; it's display of the paranoias and strict horrors of the Russian Communist state adding important echoes to son William's extreme Socialist rhetoric. Exactly the way plays should be combined. Performances were strong from all of the small cast, with Sophie Steer particularly impressing with her nervy performance as Anya in the first play. I also enjoyed the gentle nostalgia of the set (though somebody really needed to write something on all those blank note cards pinned everywhere, they were very distracting).
I found myself admiring rather than loving Misterman at the National (the one play of this batch that wasn't on the fringe or in a foreign language at the Globe), though it was hard to put a finger on exactly why. Cillian Murphy was certainly impressive, with a masterful handling of the various accents and great energy, although I found the performance a little manic for my taste and by the end was longing for more pauses and quietness. The weaving of the story was also clever, the combination with the recordings and the use of repetition - but I found myself unsurprised throughout, unenlightened and unmoved.
Now onto the Globe to Globe portion of this round-up, I followed up Richard III last month with a mad dash through the Histories (minus those concerning the various incarnations of Henry V) and a brief stop off for a historical tragedy in the form of Lear.
First up was Richard II in Palestinian Arabic. Though in some ways this was a fairly unexceptional modern dress production (I almost used the words 'now traditional', which whilst technically wrong, does suggest a bit of an unfair burn-out at the style for me), in others it had such inventive clarity that it made me re-evaluate the play. For example, I had never considered before how important it is to the tone of a production whether they and we, the audience, believe Richard and Bolingbroke were implicated in their respective murders; it's something that has been glossed over in most the productions I've seen. Here where Richard's guilt remains uncertain, Bolingbroke's was clear and it electrified the final scene. It was also viscerally powerful to see Gloucester's murder at the start, reverberating through the rest of the play. One of my favourite moments was Bolingbroke crouching before his exile and pressing his hand against the spot on the stage still stained with Gloucester's death. In fact the violence and death inherent in the play was powerfully handled, with the dead physically lingering in the following scenes, running their hands across their blood stained faces and staring at them in surprise and horror. It was incredible. And whilst I sometimes doubted that Semi Metwasi reached Richard's emotional revelations, the sight of his charming, affable king crouched, blood soaked and numb at the front of the stage has stayed with me.
Despite the fact that I have only the vaguest concept of what happens in the first part of Henry VI, I was convinced by a friend to brave the entire trilogy. Expecting little more than confusion, I was absolutely blown away. What fantastically overlooked plays, especially the third part (Why is this not performed all the time? Why is it not put together as a double bill with Richard III? Why is someone not making this happen for me right now?)
Representing Henry VI part I we had the National Theatre of Belgrade in Serbian, with an inventive, energetic, madcap dash through the play. Though it was far from perfect and contained some fairly major flaws, I think this might be my favourite play of the entire festival so far. The flaws mainly consisting of an inventive staging revolving around flexible round metal tables, which would have been awesome in a traditional theatre but frequently blocked the groundlings view; and some fairly heavy handed cutting (jumping straight from news of Talbot's death to Joan's inquisition was somewhat baffling); and whilst I ended up loving their comic approach to the play, I felt that given the carefully maintained menace and power created by a sound-scape of metallic drumming and chanting, as well as a compelling performance by Jelena Dulvezan as Joan, suggested that if they'd given themselves the chance they could have managed a balance between the comedy and tragedy and provided a more complete production (though this might be because I was a little heartbroken to lose the majority of the Talbot scenes). Thankfully, though the bits that were brilliant more than made up for these short comings. I loved the humour they found in the political wranglings of the plot: the childish bickering; the quick switch during a handshake, hands still clasped, when they realised they were suddenly the wrong way round; the Talbots attack on the French. Best of all, perhaps surprisingly, was the duo of Pavle JerenÃc and Bojan Krivokapic who created a pair of jesters from an amalgamation of a variety of smaller roles including Vernon and Basset - dipping in and out of the action they were also able to comment upon it, almost like watching the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead of Henry VI (or the Lion King 3 if you're more that way inclined). Their clowning, fights and mimed explorations of the complicated ins and outs of the dynastic struggles (including drop kicking imaginary crowns and babies into the audience) have had me giggling for weeks since. And I think it will be a long time before anything tops the climax as they accidentally spilt the ashes of Henry V and hurriedly, guiltily swept them away.
Alas, the Albanian's offering of Henry VI part II failed to live up to the high standards already set or the glory that was to come, proving a dull damp squib of a production. Failing dramatically to capture the quality or spirit of the rest of the festival. Partly this may have been down to the audience, featuring an impressive Albanian contingent, it was nice to see them so supportive of their countrymen but it also managed to be somehow exclusionary and it was unfortunate that a lot of the behaviour in the yard on this occasion fell well outside my normal rudeness limits. Mostly what let the production down, however, was that it was very straightforward with no breakthrough ideas and was generally shallow and uninventive (the use of a pair of glasses to represent a learned character was frankly symptomatic of the issue). Worse it lacked energy, only picking up slightly in the second half, with only a few of the performers managing to break through. These weak performances combined with costumes that looked cheap and laughable gave an overall appearance of amateurishness which was disappointing.
Thankfully the National Theatre of Bitola came along mere hours later to sweep part II aside and blow me away. Though part I may be my favourite, the Macedonians vivid stylistic production of Henry VI part III was easily the best. Given how full of exclamation marks my notes are it's hard to know where to begin with this production or how to do it justice. It managed to be both symbolically theatrical and coherently real; it found a masterful balance between the comedy, violence and tragedy of the play; and constantly brimmed over with emotion and passion. (It even had amazing surtitles, with exceptional timing for the announcement 'Edward decides to marry her'.) The performances were strong all round, though I was particularly impressed with Sonja Mihajlova's steely female Warwick; Nikolche Projchevski's confusingly heart breaking and repellant combination of Rutland and a sweet sucking Prince Edward; Ognen Drangovski's boyishly compulsive Edward; and Martin Mirchevski's compelling and nuanced Richard. Most striking of all was Gabriela Petrushevska's unforgettable performance as Margaret, it will be a long time before I forget the image of her slowly pulling the hair grips from her wild hair as the never-ending cycle of killing was enacted behind her; or of her broken, dragging her dead son across the stage. Though this scene is just one of many that stand out brightly in my mind - each had its own special tone, all working together perfectly - from the light comedy of the fishermen to the hilarious debauchery of the French court. The final scene on its own could have earned this five stars, a deceptively happy family photo of the Plantagenets, Elizabeth's wedding dress stained with blood and Richard's final, lingering grin at the audience. It's almost unbearable that we don't get to see their Richard III.
My final foray into the Globe to Globe festival for the first half of the month was the Belarus Free Theatre's production of King Lear and I must admit to finding myself a little disappointed. Though mostly, I suspect, that's because I have a huge amount of love and affection for the company and their quirky, brutal theatricality but I'm not sure it entirely worked here. I'm used to them producing short pieces or loosely connected atmospheric scenes and whilst the skill and flair this has provided them produced some fantastically dramatic and striking moments in this production, they failed to create a sustained story. By the end I was longing for more quietness and character development. And whilst Lear can certainly carry a violent totalitarian reading - with Lear beating his daughters and his knight's as a threatening, masked force - it doesn't give Shakespeare's story of spiritual redemption and tragedy anywhere to go. Despite these reservations though, there were lots of amazing moments - with the storm proving a highlight - a simple sheet of tarpaulin and a bucket of water creating the most visceral, realistic storm I've yet seen (particularly if you were stood at the front of the yard). I was also greatly enamoured of the decision to play Edgar at the start as a dick, and would love to see this in future productions as it makes so much more sense of Edmund's bitter jealousy (and later emulation?), Gloucester's willing suspicion and Edgar's own journey (somewhat missing from this production) than the wet, obedient blanket he's normally portrayed as.
So that's all for now, roll on the rest of May.
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