Monthly Round-Up: January 2012

As you may or (more probably) may not have noticed, this blog has rather dropped off the face of the internet over the last six months, beyond the occasional post. In the end it's proved too time consuming for me to write individual reviews and there's certainly no chance I'll be catching up. But I'm not quite ready to throw the blog away yet, so I thought I'd try doing some monthly round-ups of what I've been seeing.

88. American Trade - RSC at the Hampstead Theatre

American Trade was the third and final instalment of the RSC’s Hampstead residency and sadly I can’t quite shake the feeling that it’s lucky the long ensemble had New York to head off to as it would have been a shame to end such a marvellous tenure with a disappointing, uncelebrated and geographically peripheral end. As unfortunately American Trade suffered from the same problem as its two predecessors – interesting productions, strong performances but weak writing. Though not awful - like the other two plays, I thought there was great potential here but it may have needed longer to develop.

87. Cardenio - Swan Theatre

If the promise of Gregory Doran and the Swan and theatrical ‘archaeology’ wasn’t enough, having seen Double Falsehood at the Union Theatre in January made Cardenio a must see for me. In the end though, the last of these I think proved more of a hindrance than a help and I’ve found myself increasingly unable to separate my thoughts about one from my thoughts about the other. Which has made it rather difficult to work out truly how I felt about this.

86. The Merchant of Venice - RST

Oh, Rupert Goold, you marvellous, marvellous man. In some ways it shouldn’t be a surprise (given how he completely rehabilitated Romeo and Juliet for me) that he would produce something just as magical with Merchant of Venice. But having heard that he had transported the story to Las Vegas, I couldn’t quite shake my doubts. Which only goes to prove that I must have more faith. Not only does the setting work, it fits perfectly; not only is it flashy and impressive and feels like an event but it marries that with a genuine cleverness. Transformative is the only word that I can think of, on every level this is transformative and I think I will be hard pressed to ever see the play as a comedy again.

85. The City Madam - Swan Theatre

I feel a little sorry for The City Madam, sandwiched in between two of the most impressive productions I’ve seen at the RSC it was bound to suffer somewhat by comparison. In the end though I couldn’t shake the feeling that whilst there were some wonderful performances, an interesting design and some funny set pieces – that the writing just wasn’t strong enough to stand up against Shakespeare. (Though truly who can? I occasionally get irrationally sad that there was a genius in the world and there isn’t anymore – I may be more than a little odd).

84. Macbeth - RST

This is one of those productions that completely blew me away and I’m not sure if I’ve completely sorted out my thoughts and feelings about it yet (though that might partly be down to cramming so much theatre in to such a short time frame). It’s an incredibly clever production. Whilst Michael Boyd may not be as impressively flashy as Rupert Goold or as able to completely re-envision a play; I find his depth of understanding no less imaginative or magical and with Macbeth he has combined his cleverness and inventiveness with a strong emotional core and an intensity that left me shaken and shaking by the end. In fact my main problem with writing this review has been working out how to elaborate the wealth of interconnecting concepts and where to begin.

72. Silence - RSC and Filter at the Hampstead Theatre

Writing about this play, in itself, has proved to be an interesting experience and something of an opinion altering one. My overriding feeling when I left the Hampstead Theatre following Silence was of vaguely underwhelmed dissatisfaction. I certainly didn’t hate the piece but I definitely felt disappointed. Yet, as I’ve been working out what I want to say about it I’ve remembered more and more things that I loved, enough that under normal circumstances I might have been blown away. So why wasn’t I?

55. Little Eagles - RSC at the Hampstead Theatre

Hmmm... I’ve been struggling to work out what I think or feel about this one, let alone what I should write. There were a lot of things I really liked about the play, when I reread it a week later the memory of lots of the scenes made me grin, and it’s a great story they’re telling, a story I’ve loved for years. But overall this didn’t work, there was something vaguely unsatisfying about the experience and it’s taken me a while to put my finger on what the problem was.

King Lear / Romeo and Juliet - RST (The Final Shows)

This is an even more not-quite-review than normal as I’ve already discussed King Lear and Romeo and Juliet before, at length (ridiculous, ridiculous length). But I can’t not write something about these last two shows, as they feel slightly momentous to me in an oddly difficult to define way. I suppose it’s just that these productions have been a major part of my life over the last year and it’s still slightly hard to comprehend that I won’t be seeing them again. Plus even with the three Hampstead plays to go, this felt a little like we were saying goodbye to the ensemble (none of this is rational of course – but emotions generally aren’t).

45. YPS Comedy of Errors - RST

We possibly couldn’t have chosen a more dramatic shift in mood than going from The Rape of Lucrece to the YPS Comedy of Errors – thankfully a night of mild drinking, a legendary Adelphi breakfast and the fact that this production is something of an old friend (I first saw it in 2009) – eased us between the two. So by the next morning we were ready for the crazed, slightly psychotically gleeful, utterly energetically mad hour we were set to enjoy. And I have to say I still utterly love it.

41. The RSC Ensemble Revealed - The Swan Theatre

And now for something completely different... literally every 3 minutes or so, as those of us in The Swan Theatre on Sunday were treated to poetry one moment, comedy the next, singing, dance and some things that defy all description. Whilst I certainly hadn’t been planning to visit Stratford-Upon-Avon three weeks in a row (though I really don’t need much excuse) hearing that the ensemble were putting on a cabaret afternoon to raise money for James Gale and his family after his sad diagnosis with leukaemia, I couldn’t have imagined being anywhere else.

37. The Tempest - The Swan Theatre

Oh, I truly loved this co-production between the RSC and the Little Angel Theatre and was shocked recently to see the London run getting a two star review. All I can say is that I think the reviewer was completely wrong and also possibly a bit of a miserable fart as comparing a brutal Russian production of the play to a version designed for children is rather missing the point, especially as part of the joy of the Tempest is that it can take such polar opposite productions. And this one was utter magic from start to finish, filling me with a childish sort of wonder and glee that is exactly what I want to feel in the theatre and exactly how I would want children to first experience Shakespeare.

RST Re-Opening

Decided I’d probably be best off writing about these two together as, although I do love both productions dearly, what I was really there for was to see the new theatres in action at last. Plus having just written a 2,000 word or so... well, essay on this King Lear, I’m still feeling a little burnt out (it may have made me cry multiple times again, but that’s all I’m going to say).

15. As You Like It - RSC at the Roundhouse

I must admit, having already seen six serious plays at this point, it was relief to get a comedy and this is a production and play that I'm exceptionally fond of and had already seen several times. Weirdly I've been finding it much more difficult to work out what to say about the plays that I've seen lots of time. I'm sure I had lots of random thinky thoughts when I first saw this a year ago but possibly my brain had melted from all the theatre, because I've been struggling to remember any of them.

14. King Lear - RSC at the Roundhouse

For me the RSC production won out in the battle of the Lears - though it didn't really feel like a fair fight - between the Donmar's bad audience, Jacobi's illness, my awesome seats at the Roundhouse, the fact that this is a repeat visit so I'm able to pick out details, an interesting behind the scenes type thing in the morning and that I come pre-programmed to be fond of the actors - it was practically a David and Goliath scenario.

12. Julius Caesar - RSC at the Roundhouse

Going to say upfront this one was an utter joy for me. It felt like I had the best seat ever. This is a play that works for me on a lot of levels and I haven't seen the production for well over a year, so it felt very fresh again - but also the improvements the long run has made feels almost immeasurable. The performances in particular are much stronger and it's made it into a really great production (possibly even my second favourite of this ensemble's Shakespeare's following Romeo and Juliet).

11. YPS Hamlet - RSC at the Roundhouse

Ah... sadly I feel I might have to woefully short-change Hamlet a little here as I've fallen far too behind on these things and I've been putting writing this one off (I've already written my Caesar review and the ones for both Lears as I sit here at 2am trying to write this). Not even sure why I've putting it off, accept the odd feeling that I don't have much to say - which is no reflection on how much I enjoyed the production as I really loved it. I think partly it's that seeing this again, didn't really give me any new revelations about it. It's like I have very little to add, so here is what I wrote last time:

2. Romeo and Juliet - RSC at the Roundhouse

THIS WAS ORGINALLY POSTED AS PART OF MY TOP TEN PLAYS OF 2010 LIST, WHERE IT OF COURSE CAME IN AS NUMBER ONE :D :