Antony and Cleopatra, Chichester Festival Theatre, CFT, September 2012

At the start of this production Cleopatra stands in a long golden gown with her back to the audience, and before committing suicide towards the end she appears in the identical position. Thus was framed Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, brilliantly served by Peter McKintosh’s fine designs and beautiful lighting by Paul Pyant. The split-level, with ladders leading from upper to lower, assisted rapid changes of scene as we move between Egypt and Rome, and sound effects by Sebastian Frost were excellent.

Antony in Egypt, all images Georgia Oetker

The comparatively long hair for Antony and his chief aide Enobarbus gave them a slightly alien air compared to other Romans, like colonial officers gone native, and Michael Pennington made full use of his wonderful voice in the role of Antony. As Octavius Caesar, Martin Hutson gave a wonderfully convincing performance showing a leader taking pains to be reasonable while keeping clear of messy entanglements, and his careful cleaning of the edge of a barrel before sitting on it in the drunken scene was a nice touch. In the small role of his sister Octavia, Ruth Everett was outstanding, and as the understudy for Cleopatra it would have been very interesting to see her perform that role. As it was we had American actress Kim Cattrall who came good in the end though her mercurial and manipulative histrionics at the start were unattractive, and there was little chemistry between her and Antony.

Cleopatra

It’s difficult to know whether this was partly due to a lack of focus by director Janet Suzman, and whether better direction might have helped Ian Hogg in the important role of Antony’s right hand man Enobarbus. His speeches lacked clarity and conviction, and the important turning point when he decides to switch sides came and went with little impact. Martin Herdman as Lepidus, the third member of the triumvirs, was excellent in the drunk scene, and there were some fine performances in smaller roles, with Jack Bannell very strong as the Roman officer Proculeius, and Offue Okegbe giving a sympathetic portrayal of the eunuch Mardian at Cleopatra’s court.

Octavius Caesar

In the end my main impression was of Michael Pennington’s Antony as a tragic figure, and Martin Hutson as the sure-footed young Octavius (he was 32 when Antony died) who will later become Caesar Augustus, while Cleopatra seemed more of a catalyst for these historical figures rather than a fascinating and intelligent woman in her own right.

Performances continue until September 29 — for details click here.

A Marvellous Year for Plums, Chichester Festival Theatre, May 2012

Following the debacle of the Suez crisis, Anthony Eden resigned as Prime Minister in January 1957, and he and his wife took ship to New Zealand. In this play a young Steward serves him tea, and Eden commends him on winning a boxing competition on board. They get into conversation, and when Eden asks the young man his name he gets the response, “Prescott, Sir”. The audience fell about.

Ian Fleming, Eden, Clarissa and Ann, all images Manuel Harlan

But this clever play by Hugh Whitemore is no comedy. And nor was the meeting between Eden and Prescott mere poetic licence, just a light moment amidst a serious study of political events that went badly wrong in 1956. Yet the grave nature of what was going on is relieved by a love affair, along with brief dancing interludes to excellent musical arrangements from Matthew Scott. The clever set designs by Simon Higlett allow scenes to merge from one to the next as various characters are slowly swept in or out of view by a revolving ring on the stage, aided by subtle lighting from James Whiteside, and this production by Philip Franks has great forward momentum.

Gaitskell and Ann

1956 was of course the year that Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal, and this play shows Eden’s extraordinary mishandling of the crisis. Firm in resolve to take military action, then willing to back off under American pressure even when the French told him to sleep on it first. Eden interrupts the French PM at lunch when he is discussing the formation of the European Economic Community with the Germans, and acting as perfidious Albion didn’t help Britain’s case, to say nothing of the lack of moral clarity that surely affected our response to the Soviet invasion of Hungary. What a year it was.

Anthony Andrews portrayed Eden as a decent man yet inadequate prime minister, with Abigail Cruttenden entirely convincing as Clarissa his devoted (second) wife. Nicholas Le Prevost was excellent as Hugh Gaitskell, leader of the opposition, who is carrying on an affair with the delectable Ann Fleming, elegantly played by Imogen Stubbs. Gaitskell accused Eden of being the captain of a sinking ship that he steered onto the rocks, but the real opposition close at hand was Anthony Nutting, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. Fiercely played by Martin Hutson, we see him with David Yelland as an urbane Selwyn Lloyd, successor as Foreign Secretary to Eden himself, but described by Macmillan as “a middle class lawyer from Liverpool”.

Eden and his wife

These were the days when Class counted in a way that it doesn’t now, and three of the characters in this play were Old Etonians: Eden, Nutting, and Ian Fleming, while Gaitskell went to Winchester, and Selwyn Lloyd to Fettes. Fleming appears very much as a man of the world, attractively played by Simon Dutton, and he and his wife Ann are friends of the Edens. They are with them when the telephone call comes through saying the last troops have been withdrawn from Egypt. Eden spills his drink and lets out a yell like a wounded animal. This was a man who lost two brothers in the First World War and a son in the Second. His attempt to be a man of peace brought war, albeit briefly, and humiliation for both himself and Britain.

How would it have been different if they’d pushed on? Selwyn Lloyd muses on these things, and has no answers. But towards the end, Eden’s father, an irascible baronet whose occasional stage appearances lie in Eden’s imagination, has some cutting words to say about how to live your life, “Run straight … don’t play a double game …”. Eden did and he failed. We hear Rab Butler’s gibe that Eden was “half mad baronet, half beautiful woman”, referring to his father and mother, and towards the end we even see them both dancing together.

This play is cleverly constructed, with video images adding a subtle background, and in exposing the British background to the tragedies of 1956 it is hugely effective. As to the title, you have to wait for the words of Selwyn Lloyd’s gardener, for whom international politics holds not the slightest interest. But if you are interested, this is a must-see that should surely go on to the West End.

Performances continue until June 2 — for details click here.

Collaboration, and Taking Sides, Chichester, and the Duchess Theatre London, May 2009

These two plays by Ronald Harwood, dealing with how Germany’s Nazi regime affected the lives of two of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century, were performed on the same day, with the same actors, and the experience was riveting. The first play centred on the collaboration between Richard Strauss and Stefan Zweig, who took over the role of Strauss’s librettist when his previous collaborator, von Hofmannsthal died. The second play dealt with the aggressive questioning of conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler after the war when an American army Major was determined to find reasons for him to be prosecuted at the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal. Both plays are sympathetic to the musicians, but pass no moral judgements, and Taking Sides allows the audience to form its own conclusions and take sides. These two productions have now transferred from Chichester to the Duchess Theatre in London’s West End.

Collaboration starts with Strauss’s desperate need to find a new librettist after von Hofmannsthal’s death. He hasn’t the confidence to ask the great writer, Stefan Zweig, but his wife Pauline, irritated by his indecisive insecurity, takes matters into her own hands. Zweig is only too delighted to assist a man he regards as the greatest composer on earth, and the two of them hit it off brilliantly, and form a close relationship. Strauss is enamoured of one of Zweig’s suggestions, namely Ben Johnson’s 17^th century play The Silent Woman, which they turn into the opera Die Schweigsame Frau. The story of its luckless premiere in 1934 is well-known, with the Nazi authorities deleting Zweig’s name from the playbill, because he is Jewish, and Strauss insisting they reinstate it. Zweig’s later insistence that he can no longer be Strauss’s librettist, though he will help whomever Strauss chooses, is followed by his subsequent departure from Austria, and later suicide in Brazil. These events are well portrayed, as are the Nazis, represented by ministerial official Hans Hinkel. He puts pressure on Strauss by making threats against his Jewish daughter-in-law, to say nothing of his half-Jewish grandchildren, compelling him to remain silent and simply get on with his work. When faced with Allied soldiers at the end of the war, and questioned about possible collaboration with the Nazis, he repeats his distress at Zweig’s suicide, which could itself be seen as a kind of collaboration. The use of music from Strauss’s Four Last Songs at the end left the audience with a powerful feeling for this remarkable genius who wrote sublime music, even if he was unable to manipulate the Nazis as they manipulated him. Despite these well-known facts, and his despair at losing Stefan Zweig, there are still people — I’ve met them — who condemn Strauss as a Nazi. This play, and the next, should show even the dimmest of bigots that life is not so simple.

Taking Sides is a highly charged encounter between American army major Steve Arnold and Wilhelm Furtwängler. Major Arnold was an insurance assessor good at detecting fraud, and was charged with the job of uncovering Nazi collaboration by Furtwängler. Arnold has no appreciation for classical music, though his two assistants certainly do and resent his insolent treatment of the great conductor, or ‘band leader’ as he refers to him. Clearly Furtwängler helped numerous Jews, but Arnold is sincere in seeking motives as to why he remained in Germany. Arnold has nightmares and mentions the smell of burning flesh, yet Furtwängler comes through it all with dignity and integrity. Eventually Arnold’s secretarial assistant Emmi, whose father was executed after the failed plot to kill Hitler, lets out a piercing scream. She has had enough of this bigoted interrogation, and yells at the Major that her father only tried to kill Hitler after it became clear they would lose the war if they carried on this way. The other assistant puts on a record of Beethoven’s 9^th conducted by Furtwängler, and refuses to take it off. The major gets on the phone saying he knows a journalist who will tell them what they need, but this and his earlier use of a Nazi informer in Furtwängler’s Berlin Philharmonic, who makes some unsubstantiated claims about his earlier master, undermine Arnold’s investigative techniques. You cannot use bigotry to condemn bigotry, yet retain the moral high ground.

The direction of both plays by Philip Franks, with designs by Simon Higlett, was excellent, and the use of music was superbly done. The acting was extremely good. Michael Pennington as Strauss in the first play and Furtwängler in the second, was emotionally and visually convincing in both roles. David Horovitz as Zweig in the first and Major Arnold in the second was equally convincing, a calm and controlled European in one and a brash American from Minnesota in the other. They were ably assisted by Martin Hutson as the awful Nazi official Hinkel in the first play, and Arnold’s junior officer in the second; by Sophie Roberts as Zweig’s secretary and later girlfriend in the first, and Arnold’s assistant Emmi in the second; and by Isla Blair as Strauss’s wife Pauline. The performers in both plays, particularly Pennington and Horovitz, showed how a good actor can portray different emotions in different roles, though it must have made for an exhausting day. I applaud them and the rest of the cast for their interpretations, and Harwood for creating such excellent and thought provoking theatre.