THE LARAMIE PROJECT

THE LARAMIE PROJECT

Chelmsford Theatre Workshop at the Old Court

26.07.12

Jim Hutchon was there for the Chelmsford Weekly News: 

"For her début as a director, Kelly McGibney has chosen a subject close to her heart - the brutal murder of young gay American Matthew Shepard in a hate crime that shook the insular world of Laramie, Wyoming.

The play depicts the events leading up to the murder through the words of Laramie residents, and Kelly employed a simple, clear-sighted approach to the cold-blooded and casual details of the murder and reactions. This was highly effective in getting the sheer enormity of the appalling crime and the underlying attitudes through to the audience.

The story then rather started to unravel as the narrative was increasingly given over to the well-rehearsed arguments for gay tolerance in a frankly rambling, undisciplined and over-long follow up. There were still signs of very imaginative directing – stunning visual cameos and superb acting, but they couldn’t balance the general tedium of a 3 hour play that, with the superb material at the writer’s command, should have been highly selective, much more effective and shorter.

The eight actors played greatly differing parts from red-necks to vicars to anti-gay campaigners to residents, all convincing and with great understanding and rock-solid accents. The set was beautifully minimal and the sparse music well-chosen and to the point."

Docudrama, verbatim theatre or agit-prop – however you label it, this is an important piece, a GCSE set text and a classic of its kind.

None of which makes it any easier to do. The original piece was done by actors [Tectonic Theatre] who went out to Wyoming to interview the characters who people the play. The eight members of the company took on the sixty-plus roles, as well as occasionally playing "themselves".

CTW, in a typically ambitious project of their own, are at one further remove from the reality: standing on the other side of the world, playing the actor/researchers as well as the huge range of real people whose lives find themselves under the media microscope when a brutal attack becomes a notorious hate crime. Mothers and medics, friends, walk-on strangers, community leaders, academics and students see their Wyoming town – "good people, lots of space" – re-defined by a sordid assault.

The eight performances were excellently done – a small detail of costume, a subtle change of tone, of body language, and there's another Laramie local before us under the harsh glare. We watch, scarcely breathing, scarcely believing, as the place tears itself apart; the incoherent, the inarticulate, the poetical and the passionate all clamouring for our attention. Hearts are often on sleeves, emotions rarely held in check. We sense that many of these people would have been just as happy to open up to Jerry Springer.

Amazing how much religion shapes the story. Not just the priests and the preachers, but the echoes of the crucifixion against the fence, the vigil at the shrine, the suggestion of martyrdom, the excommunication [by the Mormons] of one of the accused, the constant presence of God and the Bible in the lives of Laramie.

A strong, impressive end to the season for CTW, directed by Kelly McGibney and Tony Ellis.

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME

THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME

National Theatre at the Cottesloe

25.07.12

This review refers to an early preview. If you want to do what I did, and come to the piece with the book unread and the plot unspoiled, look away now. Get into the Cottesloe if you can, or see the show beamed via NT live to your local cinema.

They promised that if we were interested, we could stay behind to hear how he solved his A-level maths problem.

[In the book, it's an appendix.] But like many promises in the troubled life of Christopher Boone, it seems to have been broken. No train ran round level 2 in the Cottesloe, either.

How to turn Mark Haddon's unique book into a stage play ?

The chief obstacle is the narrator's voice: the book he writes – prominent, with its green cover, in this staging – is the medium for everything we learn about the two mysteries in his teenage life, and though there is direct speech, it is presumably as he remembered it.

Approaches might include narration, or a physical theatre approach, with minimal set and props, or a literal acting -out [reflecting Christopher's metaphor-free world view], or a high-tech spectacle, in deference to his love of computers. Or, if desperate, have the story acted out as a play at his special school, Marat/Sade-style.

Simon Stephens' adaptation, directed by Marianne Elliott, has elements of all these; the last, despite acting being a kind of lying, provides some nicely witty moments, including the head-teacher of the school having her verbatim say, and Christopher intervening to adjust details of accuracy and casting.

But, perhaps deliberately, it makes for a confusing experience. When he finds the letters hidden beneath the toolkit [after an amusingly literal search of dad's bedroom], they are real letters [they later flutter down from the roof]. But when he sits down to read them, they are mimed. The panic at Paddington is partly physical [movement by Frantic Assembly], partly soundtrack, as is the – very successful – sequence on the train. And then there's the question of empathy. We cannot help putting ourselves into the shoes of the chap who rescues Christopher [and Toby] in the tube, and misses his train. More importantly, Paul Ritter's Ed and Nicola Walker's Judy – both superb performances, the father hesitant and desperate in his frustration, the mother longing to love her literally unlovable boy – are known by us directly, which seems to go against the spirit of the original.

Niamh Cusack's Siobhan has much of the narration, and is a positive, stable voice in a very turbulent tale. Excellent support from the ensemble, who spend much of the time sitting around the edge of the acting area, Equus-style. Including of course Una Stubbs as the neighbour who blabs and longs to chat with Christopher.

The boy is played very convincingly by Luke Treadaway. Obsessive, gifted, confused, bruised and edgy, he manages to show us the hurtful, damaged adult world from his naïve viewpoint, and let us inside his very private universe, helped by some haunting images of space and mathematics.

The floor is used as a screen [glad we chose an upper level] – negative graph-paper, bits of which move up to be a desk, down to be the tube track. The model railway works [as a metaphor, for me] and Sandy is flesh-and-blood. There are blocks [numbered] for furniture, which re-inforces the feel of drama-school work, and the primes are scattered around the auditorium, with envelopes promising prizes. "293", next to us, was that promise kept, I wonder ?

RICHARD III

RICHARD III

Shakespeare's Globe

21.07.12

Shakespeare's play, one of his earliest successes, has such a strong hold on the popular imagination that his hunchback, fascinatingly repulsive and ruthlessly ambitious, is now our stock image of this much-maligned monarch.

Mark Rylance, in a triumphant return to Shakespeare's Globe, effortlessly holds the stage in a fast-moving production by Tim Carroll. No-one knows better how to engage with the groundlings, and his trademark delivery – hesitant, natural, off-hand – suits most of the soliloquies and the asides. Shakespeare's Richard is shockingly honest, and there is a palpable frisson at some of the most outrageous lines.

Though this is dangerously close to being a one-man show, there is excellent support from some of the greatest Globe actors from the last ten years. Colin Hurley, ashen and asthmatic as the dying King, Peter Hamilton Dyer as Catesby, Liam Brennan outstanding as an imposing, and beautifully spoken, Clarence. And James Garnon, [who also gave us his Duchess of York] worth waiting for as the triumphant Henry VII.

This is an original practices production, with young men for the Queens, including a remarkable Queen Elizabeth from Sam Barnett, and none of the stage design excrescences that have marked directors' visions recently.

So more room in the yard for the mob, all too ready to laugh at the hunchback's asides and to cheer him on to kingship. But we were attentive, too, for some of the more intense moments: the dream before Bosworth, for instance, with its shrouded ghosts, who also returned to haunt the field of battle.

SMALLS TALK

SMALLS TALK

Little Waltham Drama Group at the Memorial Hall

20.07.12

Lingerie party plans are big business – KnixKnaxKnox in Stoke, Aphrodyte in Mold, and in Little Waltham last week, Lady Lace: "Rain, snow, sleet or storm, Lady Lace will keep you warm" – these fictional, and very flimsy, scanties would struggle in our climate.

This short comedy – often done as a one-acter – provided some super opportunities for girl talk, seized enthusiastically by the cast, especially Karen Allan as the man-hungry Carole, Kim Travell as the dowdy doormat who, to no-one's surprise, is transformed by Dawn's undies and a major makeover, and Vicky Weavers as the heartless Jessica. Julie Cole was the rep; like the others she loosened up as the Liebfraumilch flowed, and the sherry, and the pea pod wine ...

The token man – butt of much sexist banter – was Ken Little's Rex, with excellent comic timing.

The suburban snobbery puts this piece firmly into Abigail's Party territory – just the Demis Roussos and the olives missing – and, although it's not a period piece, it did feel strangely dated, with its references to Dennis Healey and Ex-Lax.

But the party-plan scene is ripe for sending up, and this production, directed by Kathy Jiggins and Viv Abrey, provided much uncomplicated fun for the loyal audience, and for the cast, too, no doubt.

LIGHTING UP THE LANE

LIGHTING UP THE LANE

Queen's Theatre Hornchurch

19.07.12

So that's why it's called the Queen's. Like Her Majesty, Hornchurch's own theatre is celebrating sixty glorious years. And what better way to do it than one of its community musicals, filling the stage with enthusiastic, and impressively talented, local actors, directed by Patrick O'Sullivan, and supported by a dedicated professional team from the Queen's Education and Outreach Department.

It is an amazing story. The first council-funded theatre in the UK, born out of noisy public meetings and the unstoppable enthusiasm of youngsters whose love of theatre was sparked on the steps of the silent cinema.

But this is not a dry documentary. Devised specially by a local writing team, headed by Dave Ross, it's more of a fable, a fantasy of the way Chaplin's City Lights, re-enacted by the kids on the block, fuels a passion for performance which survives war and politics, and sees the fleapit on Station Lane transformed into an auditorium for fortnightly rep, pantomime and amateur operetta.

In front of a near-life-size façade, this affectionate alternative history features heroes and villains, and an angel in the unlikely shape of actor-laddie Steven Roberts [Steve Probert].

Steven Markwick's music [he was also MD for the show] catches the mood nicely, with a knees-up opener – "The Pictures or the Pub", a clever dovetailing of the cynical "More" [I'd Rather Be A Wealthy Philistine – still a common cry sixty years on] and "On The Rebound", the tongue-in-cheek dream sequence of "Paying Guest" and the charmingly poignant "On The Steps Of The Silent Cinema".

The end of Act One, with the whole company reprising two of the strongest numbers as tragedy strikes, was very effective, as was the moment when the children turn into young people.

The chief protagonists were Real Best Friends Georgie [Ben Cooke / Matthew Gentle-Shepherd as a child – both superb] and Jimmy [Samuel Ward-Smith / Harleigh Stenning], Maggie [strongly sung by Gemma Castle - Amelia Bright her younger self] and baddie Brian [Alex Donald / James Elliott], with a lovely cameo from Sharon Sims as the barmaid Jeanie.

But fittingly, it is a company show, and everyone involved gave 100% to this timely retelling of a success story which still continues to this day. The bulldozers did eventually raze the picture house, once the company had moved up to Billet Lane and the purpose-built house we know and love today. And the Queen's Players were succeeded by Cut to the Chase, whose special anniversary season starts in August with Return to the Forbidden Planet, one of the greatest hits ever to come out of the Queen's ...