Louise's Theatre Reviews

Saturday, 18 July 2009

Hamlet *** TNT (starring Jude Law)

Friday 17 July 2009 17:49 GMT

Problems seem to have dogged recent productions of Hamlet. Illness meant that David Tennant barely appeared in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s transfer to London last year, and now, owing to Kenneth Branagh’s clashing commitments, Michael Grandage has replaced him as director of the final play in the Donmar West End’s high profile, sell-out season.

It proves a sombre, monochrome affair, with only a few splashes of colour and shafts of daylight breaking the gloomy claustrophobia of a prison-like Elsinore castle. But the star remains – and Jude Law, dangerously moody in grey, holds the stage as the grief stricken, vengeful Danish prince whose mother’s swift remarriage to her murderous brother-in-law has left him teetering on the verge of breakdown.

Whether huddled against falling snow to deliver the famous “To be or not to be” soliloquy, or sussing out the motives of his recently returned student friends, his performance – like the production – is swift and lucid. Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s fragile Ophelia comes into her own in the mad scene, singing with a sweet desolation as she distributes her herbs, but elsewhere this is a rather low-key affair. Her prattling father Polonius (the lines have been cut, so robbing him of the verbosity which so irritates the court and usually adds humour to the tragedy) is, here, a cold fish, barely missed when Hamlet skewers him as he eavesdrops on Penelope Wilton’s restrained Gertrude.

So this is very much Law’s night and (though the production’s dull modern dress suggests that the sumptuously costumed Madame de Sade which preceded it swallowed up most of the costume budget) he proves that he’s more than capable of delivering in black and white on stage as well as in full Technicolor on screen.

Wyndham's, Charing Cross Road WC2H 0DA Phone: - 0844 482 5120 (donmarwestend.com/hamlet/) Until 22nd August (£10-£32.50}

Saturday, 11 July 2009

Medea/ Medea * TNT

Friday 10 July 2009 16:43 GMT

I don’t mind spending Saturday afternoon at the theatre – even when, for once, the sun is shining and everyone else is heading for the great outdoors. But it’s really too much to ask of anyone to sacrifice a chunk of their weekend to sit through this 76 minute interpretive muddle of the classic Greek myth.

I’m not usually so precise about running times, either, but there on stage is a pair of TV monitors, one of which counts the interminable seconds from start to finish. It’s something of a mixed blessing – I knew exactly when I’d be released, but also how many more minutes I’d have to endure.

If that seems cruel, then any director who says in a programme note that “the theatre is a toilet” is setting himself up to be judged on what his freshening up efforts produce. What Dylan Tighe has done is to render the myth of the jealous Medea completely unintelligible to anyone who isn’t already familiar with the story and irritatingly pretentious for those who are.

It’s possible, of course, that the man’s a genius and I’ve failed to realise just how clever he is - but a quick exit poll revealed an audience (both young and old) that had been confused, bored and frustrated in equal measure by the productions slow, over-crowded progress.

Suffice to say that Helen Schoene brings a commendable intensity to the role of the vengeful Medea who not only hangs her children but also takes a blowtorch to a canary, whilst Glauce (her replacement in the marriage bed) spends most of her time on stage either naked or sporting a horse’s head.

And despite all the surrounding paraphernalia which this installation employs (including a light box, washing powder, slug killer and a fish tank) the multi-media, multi-lingual trappings do little to turn this into a theatrically satisfying account of a tragic woman driven to infanticide when her husband takes a new wife.

Gate, Pembridge Road W11 3HQ (020 7229 0706) Until 18th July (£11-£16)

The Cherry Orchard *** TNT

Friday 10 July 2009 16:50 GMT

The long-awaited Bridge Project, a potentially richly rewarding enterprise between the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Old Vic, brings together actors from across the Atlantic and the UK.

Playing in repertoire and cross-cast with The Winter’s Tale, Tom Stoppard’s new version of Chekhov’s classic is sometimes cheekily updated, but always clear, yet it proves the weaker of the two inaugural productions. It’s also the one in which the mix of accents tends to jar, despite the efforts of Ethan Hawke’s slightly grubby perpetual student.

On the whole, the Brits fare best. There are nice comic touches from Richard Easton as the ancient retainer Firs who’s losing his mind though not his loyalty to Paul Jesson’s bumptious, lazy Gaev. Sinead Cusack commands the stage as the spendthrift Ranevskaya, hanging on to past ways and scattering money she can’t afford as her estate – and beloved cherry orchard – are snapped up for development before her eyes.

But the acting honours are stolen by Simon Russell Beale’s parvenu Lopakhin, a businessman whose financial success is itself a sign of times to come and who can’t shake off the big chip of his peasant origins perched on his wealthy shoulders. Harbouring a secret admiration for Ranevskaya, he gives a masterclass in hesitation as he gets on one knee to propose – perhaps – to Rebecca Hall’s sad Varya.

But, overall, there’s something indefinable missing from Sam Mendes’ perfectly adequate production – it’s almost as though the director has tried too hard to impose his own vision on a masterpiece and has somehow diminished both.

Old Vic, The Cut, SE1 8NB (0870 060 6628)

The Winter’s Tale **** TNT

Friday 10 July 2009 16:56 GMT

Part of the Transatlantic Bridge Project, Sam Mendes’ production of Shakespeare’s tale of all-consuming jealousy is more comic celebration than tragedy once the glimmering candles of Sicilia give way to the rustic pleasures of Bohemia, with its fun-loving comedy characters.

Ethan Hawke’s guitar-strumming, light-fingered Autolycus and Tobias Segal’s Young Shepherd bat brilliantly for the US contingent, while Brits Richard Easton (as the Old Shepherd), Simon Russell Beale and Sinead Cusack are equally effective.

The famous “exit pursued by bear” stage direction raises a laugh (even though it proves a lanky specimen), and sausage-pink balloons are put to saucy use when a bucolic hoedown gets under way.

» Old Vic, The Cut, SE1 8NB (0870 060 6628). In repertoire with The Cherry Orchard until Aug 15. £9-£45

Tuesday, 7 July 2009

The Observer This is London

The observer herself is being carefully observed in Matt Charman's interesting and, it would seem, well-researched new play set in a fictitious former colony in West Africa as preparations are made for its first democratic elections.

The incumbent president is expected to romp home with a resounding victory, but the initial results prove inconclusive and Fiona, deputy chief of the international observation team, becomes aware that by extending the polling hours – and thereby enabling more of the rural population to cast their votes – a change of government might become a possibility. But herposition is meant to be completely impartial, and Charman raises important questions of whether intervention – with the best intentions and the most fairminded of motives – is permissible or even in the best interests of those it is meant to benefit.

Anna Chancellor gives a fine, determined performance as the hardworking and dedicated Fiona, and is well supported by, amongst others, Chuk Iwuji's local translator, Lloyd Hutchinson's cynical BBC journalist, James Fleet's somewhat seedy Foreign Office civil servant (whose covert reports on her activities include intercepted personal e-mails to her husband), and Cyril Nri in several roles including an intimidating General.

Richard Eyre's fluent and engrossing production makes it clear that what was meant to be a free and fair process has been tainted by offstage violence, and designer Rob Howell incorporates a tension-boosting ticker tape style to monitor the countdown to the final result.

Cottesloe at the National Theatre

Saturday, 4 July 2009

Apologia *** TNT

Friday 03 July 2009 17:35 GMT

There’s some nifty writing in Alexi Kaye Campbell’s new play – and some pretty good acting, too - but there are also some jarringly manoeuvred exits and entrances which disturb the flow of respected art historian Kristin’s birthday get-together. Not that things are going particularly smoothly anyway – she’s a sharp, intellectually shrewd Left Winger, still campaigning in her sixties, who won’t say something kind if she can deliver an insult instead.

She hasn’t been much of a mother, either, and her recently published memoirs don’t even mention her two sons. So, not surprisingly, things are rather tense when her older son Peter (a banker) arrives to introduce his new fiancée Trudi, an over-enthusiastic American with a strong Christian belief.

Then there’s TV soap actress Claire (Nina Sosanya) in her designer dress, unaccompanied by her partner, failed novelist Simon.He arrives later, and the midnight confrontation between him and his mother forms the still, central section of the piece – a moving account of a pivotal childhood memory epitomising her habitual absence whilst she was busy pursuing her career and political protests.

Sarah Goldberg’s kind, wholesome Trudi is the polar opposite of Paola Dionisotti’s brittle Kristin, and John Light crumbles affectingly as the damaged Simon. But it’s Philip Voss’s camp Hugh, (Kristin’s loyal, protective old friend and fellow marcher), whose expertly timed one-liners get the biggest laughs as he tries, with limited success, to forge some understanding between the differing ideals of different generations.

Bush Theatre, Shepherds Bush Green, W12 8QD, (020 8743 5050) till 18th July (£15)

Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme **** TNT

Friday 03 July 2009 17:48 GMT

The Hampstead Theatre’s 50th Anniversary season really hits its stride with a fine revival of Frank McGuinness’s award-winning drama which was first staged here in 1986. Compassionate, hard-hitting and sometimes very funny, it follows (in flashback) a handful of Ulster volunteers during the Great War, from their first days as raw recruits to their final stand at the Battle of the Somme.

Yet it isn’t just the war with Germany which concerns the playwright (surprisingly, he comes from a Catholic background) but the vehement antipathy with which these Protestant Ulstermen view their Papist countrymen. United, ostensibly, only by their religion, his eight privates are a very mixed bunch – ranging from a preacher to a pair of Belfast townies, to Owen Sharpe’s colour-blind weaver (whose chirpy disposition is battered into terror by what he has witnessed at the front) and to the cynical black sheep of a privileged family (who welcomes the prospect of death and is, ironically, the sole survivor).

Richard Dormer is outstanding as the mercurial, trouble-maker who finds brief happiness with Eugene O’Hare’s solid blacksmith. But John Dove’s production is commendably acted throughout and it proves a lasting, poetic tribute to young soldiers who died, ultimately, not just for their beliefs or for their country, but for the men who stood next to them in the trenches.

Hampstead, Eton Avenue, NW3 3EU (020 7722 9301) until 18th July (£15-£25 -under 26’s £10)