Timon of Athens, National Theatre, NT Olivier, August 2012

Timon is a tragic figure who fails utterly to understand himself, and therefore cannot come close to understanding others. His vast wealth is from lands he owns and mortgages, and he spends it eagerly on his acquaintances along with others come to him for help. When there is no more left he abandons the city, and then chances upon hidden treasure that he also gives away. From loving the people around him, whom he mistakenly regards as friends, he learns to hate everyone, and Simon Russell Beale gives a riveting portrait of this absurd person.

Timon entertains, all images NT/ Johan Persson

The production by Nicholas Hytner sets Shakespeare’s play in a modern city with high-rise banks visible through a huge window. We see the Timon Room in an Art Gallery paid for by his largesse, but the counterpoint to his lavish generosity is embodied in the cynic philosopher Apemantus, well portrayed by Hilton McRae. He criticises everyone and everything, as when he tackles the poet who has received generous payment from Timon and considers him a worthy fellow, “Yes, he is worthy of thee, and to pay thee for thy labour: he that loves to be flattered is worthy o’ the flatterer”.

Timon and Apemantus

They all flatter Timon, but when he finds himself in financial difficulties no-one will help. There is a sub-plot with a man named Alcibiades, warm-hearted and impulsive, who would have helped Timon, but is in exile. He raises a small force, takes the city and comes to terms with its leaders, but by the time Timon could be welcomed back the now-wretched man is dead. Alcibiades never quite comes over as sincere in this production, unlike Timon himself, but that is the magic of Simon Russell Beale.

Timon and the treasure

Magic too appears in Bruno Poet’s lighting and the striking dichotomy of the flourishing city and the arid concrete exterior, expressed in Tim Hatley’s designs. This play nearly vanished completely from the record, and is rarely performed, so go to see it but do not expect too much. It is hardly King Lear.

Performances continue until November 1 — for details click here.

Antigone, National Theatre, NT, May 2012

The story behind this play is that before he died, Oedipus cursed his sons, and they ended up killing one another in a battle for Thebes. The city is now ruled by Creon, brother to Oedipus’s mother/wife Jocasta.

Antigone and Ismene, all images NT/ Johan Persson

Creon has commanded that one of the two dead brothers — he who ruled the city and exiled his brother — be honoured, while the other lies outside the city walls to be devoured by carrion. Their sisters, Antigone and Ismene appear at the start of Sophocles’ Antigone, outside the walls, with Antigone asking her sister’s support in giving her brother a burial. This yields a clash between familial obligations and the rule of the State, represented by Creon. The theme is timeless, and in Polly Findlay’s production it is staged in modern dress.

The set, with Creon’s office at its centre and various desks in a large common area to the front, can be rotated to show the outside of the city walls. Good designs by Soutra Gilmour, darkly lit by Mark Henderson and with occasional threatening musical crescendos by Dan Jones. But what of the acting?

Jodie Whittaker was a strongly sympathetic Antigone, and Luke Newberry as Creon’s son Haemon, was superb at respectfully, and then less respectfully, countering his father’s arguments. He loves Antigone, is betrothed to her, and the two of them were the heroes, defying the tyrant’s power, but I would have preferred a more nuanced treatment by the director. There are serious issues here about the right of the individual to challenge the power of the state, and Sophocles has given eloquent arguments to both sides.

Antigone bundled away

Christopher Eccleston played Creon as a harsh tyrant, looking like a cross between Vladimir Putin of Russia and Bashir Assad of Syria. Perhaps that was the intention, but his downfall lies not in his initial decision to deny burial to one brother but his stiff-necked refusal to ignore well-meaning advice. As it was he looked like a loser from the start, his eloquence turning to rants. When Jamie Ballard as the blind seer Teiresias enters, he too ends up ranting, which rather spoils the effect. Towards the end, Kobna Holdbrook-Smith held the stage brilliantly as the messenger, delivering news of Antigone’s death and Creon’s final clash with his son.

The mixture of accents, some of which sounded unnatural, did not help, but Antigone is always worth seeing, and I liked the sets, costumes, music and lighting.

Performances continue until July 21 — for details click here.

Grief, Cottesloe, NT review, National Theatre, November 2011

This powerful new play by Mike Leigh leaves a haunting sense of despair after the fine cast has brought to life characters who just don’t get it.

Lesley Manville, Ruby Bentall and Sam Kelly

It starts in 1957 when the Russians put up Sputnik, and the doctor’s son is working for Ferranti, designing computers, whatever they are. Exciting times, yet Lesley Manville’s Dorothy and her brother, Sam Kelly’s Edwin are stuck in the past. They share a house — Dorothy having lost her husband during the war — and in quiet moments they occasionally sing old songs in unison. The nostalgia is claustrophobic, and confusing to Dorothy’s daughter, Victoria.

The Doctor with Edwin

She is fifteen going on sixteen, and needs emotional support that her mother fails to provide, let alone her uncle or her godparents Gertrude and Muriel, friends of Dorothy from her days as a rather classy telephonist. These elegant, gregarious ladies, well portrayed by Marion Bailey and Wendy Nottingham, really haven’t a clue. ‘Garrulous Gertie’ answers her own kindly questions with no need for any response, and both are about as far from understanding Ruby Bentall’s teenage Victoria as the earth is from the moon.

Marion Bailey, Lesley Manville and Wendy Nottingham

Poor Dorothy. She’s elegant too, whisking off her apron when guests arrive, and trying to give her awkward daughter firm boundaries that aren’t really part of her own nature. Dorothy Duffy’s rude cleaning lady treats her with contempt, knowing full well her mistress can’t set the agenda. Yet Dorothy can and does stop her daughter having a tiny tipple of sherry before her sixteenth birthday, even on Christmas day, three weeks before the major event. You can say, no … no … no … and then yes, at which point the other person’s annoyance causes them to refuse. And even when it’s about to happen, on Edwin’s return from his final day at work after forty five years of steady slog, Dorothy can’t resist controlling the situation by telling her daughter to sip it slowly. What does she think she’d do — knock it back like a Russian sailor, or copy the subdued ways of her elders? And why does she need to reveal to Edwin what his Christmas present is just as he’s about to open it? Her emotional intelligence is poor, and that’s true of everyone here, even David Horovitch as the doctor friend with his witty one-liners, “He who laughs last thinks slowest”. No-one is ahead of the curve, not even the doctor. This is not Chekhov. It’s Mike Leigh’s beautifully observed portrait of ordinary folk unaware of their own failings, helped by superb acting and a well-balanced cast directed by the author.

Dorothy and Victoria in a rare lighter moment

“All’s well that ends” says the bouncy doctor, not once or twice but every time he appears …until his final appearance at the house when it really is the end.

Performances continue until January 28 — for details click here.

Blood and Gifts, National Theatre, NT Lyttelton, September 2010

On September 9^th, 2001 Ahmed Shah Massoud (aka The Lion of Panjshir) was assassinated by two suicide bombers — Al Qaeda agents posing as journalists. Two days later more suicide bombers crashed planes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The rest is history, as they say . . . meaning history that we remember. What we don’t remember is what led up to these events in 2001, and more particularly what led up to the Soviet retreat from Afghanistan in 1989 to 1991, and the subsequent evacuation of American interest in the country. That’s what this new play by J T Rogers is about.

Lloyd Owen for the CIA and Adam James for MI6, photo by Richard Hubert Smith

The characters are fictitious, but true to history, and various historical figures, such as the Northern Alliance leader Massoud, and the viciously fundamentalist warlord Gulbudddin Hekmatyar, are mentioned in passing. I particularly liked Lloyd Owen as the young CIA agent James Warnock, who understood what was going on, and was able to some extent to influence the raising and spending of American funds. His British counterpart, MI6 agent Simon Craig, was flamboyantly portrayed by Adam James as a brilliant chap who had no money to spend, even on his own transportation, and fell rather too easily into an irascible mood, catalysed by alcohol. His criticisms of Mrs. Thatcher’s tight-fisted policy with money for MI6 were trenchant, and made a stark contrast to the well-lubricated CIA machine, where the issues were of policy rather than lack of interest by the powers at home. The CIA tried calling the shots and circumventing the ISI (Pakistan’s InterServices Intelligence) by supporting another warlord, rather than Hekmatyar, but in the end Craig was right about not trusting anyone, “All this — it’s chess, Jim. Never good to get attached to one particular piece”. We found that out the hard way following the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and we ought to realise it now with the ground prepared for a second Taliban takeover.

The CIA with the Mujahideen, photo by Richard Hubert Smith

Among the large cast, Demosthenes Chrysan was very good as the fictitious Abdullah Khan, an Afghan warlord who looked rather like the real life Ismail Khan, one-time governor of Herat. His son Saeed was well played by Philip Arditti, and Matthew Marsh played the KGB agent Dmitri Gromov as a very sympathetic character. The ISI head, Colonel (later Brigadier) Afridi was played as decisive and smug by Gerald Kyd, leading an organisation that was, and still is, trying to hold Pakistan together by promoting Islamists to fight battles around their borders, but it’s a doomed strategy, just as was the American strategy of supporting Islamist extremists against the Soviet Union. You feed a monster to fight your perceived enemies, but when they are defeated the monster turns on you to feed its increased appetite.

Good direction by Howard Davies, clear simple designs by Ultz, and atmospheric music by Marc Teitler. If you don’t really know the chain of events, this play is a good history lesson, and if you do remember all this stuff, it’s well worth seeing if only to feel yourself trapped within the frustrations of the secret agents. They try to avoid being pawns of the ISI, as well as battling the personal frustrations of being barely in contact with their pregnant wives, yet unable to share the pain that their postings put them in. The play ends as 1991 turns into 1992 and the Americans leave for home — I await the sequel.

Performances continue until November 2.

After the Dance, National Theatre, NT Lyttelton, June 2010

“I love you, now change” is not a line in this play, but the young Helen lives this cliché, and at first seems to make it believable. Within a month she’s fallen in love with David Scott-Fowler and manages to get him to stop the drinking that’s destroying his liver. Her determined superficiality shatters her fiancé Peter Scott-Fowler, upends David’s 12 year marriage, and destroys his wife Joan. While these people wear the masks of gaiety and jest, and seem almost to have become their masks, reality persists beneath the surface, and the only person to fully comprehend it is John Reid, who lives with David and Joan in their spacious London flat as a self-confessed court jester, with a strong penchant for the drinks tray.

David with Helen

In the end it is John who tells David the truth about himself that kills the incipient marriage to Helen, and returns him to his former life, now as a widower. In the meantime we are treated to superb acting. Adrian Scarborough is brilliant as John, and Benedict Cumberbatch and Nancy Carroll are entirely convincing as the ever cool David and his wife Joan, who loves him but gaily pretends to be just as cool, so as not to bore him. Faye Castelow portrays Helen as a bossy little ingénue, and John Hefferman is a rather edgy Peter, who tries to take life seriously, but doesn’t quite succeed.

David playing Avalon for Joan

What I loved about this fine production by Thea Sharrock, apart from the spacious and elegant designs by Hildegard Bechtler, was the music. Certainly the play features the 1920s foxtrot ‘Avalon’ towards the end of each act, but the melody was pinched from Puccini, albeit in a disguised form, and in this production we also hear the original. For those who know it, this is powerfully suggestive because it’s the music behind E lucevan le stelle from the opera Tosca. Cavaradossi sings it before he dies, knowing that these are his last moments, and it was played here just before Joan goes out to the balcony on her own, never to return, and again at the end when David decides to return to the drinking that will destroy him.

This riveting play by Terence Rattigan had the misfortune to open in June 1939, shortly before war was declared, and when the country’s mood rapidly changed it was taken off. So it failed to enjoy a good run, and Rattigan left it out of the collected plays he published in 1953. It’s been somewhat ignored for that reason, but this production and cast do it full justice, and I recommend booking tickets before word gets out.

Performances continue until August 11^th — for details click here.

The White Guard, National Theatre, Lyttelton, May 2010

Stalin loved this play by Mikhail Bulgakov about the aftermath of the revolution in 1917. It’s set in Bulgakov’s home town of Kiev, capital of the Ukraine, which had achieved autonomy in 1917, before becoming a founder member of the Soviet Union in 1922. He’d served as a doctor during the second half of the First World War, and writing later about the years between 1917 and 1920 he said, “The inhabitants of Kiev reckon that there were eighteen changes of power. Some stay-at-home memoirists counted up to twelve of them. I can tell you that there were precisely fourteen, and what’s more I personally lived through ten of them”.

In 1920 he wrote a play about these confusing events, called The Turbin Brothers (the name Turbin came from his mother’s side of the family), but destroyed it, and during 1921–23 turned it into a novel, The White Guard. In 1925 he adapted the novel as a play for the Moscow Art Theatre, and after the censor passed it, with various cuts and additions, the premiere took place in 1926, under the title, The Days of the Turbins. This play, full of pathos and humour expressing the confusion and misplaced sense of honour surrounding the aftermath of the revolution, became a huge success, but the critics were almost entirely hostile, and in 1929, after Stalin made adverse comments about Bulgakov’s work, it was taken off. Then in 1932, Stalin, who had already seen the play numerous times, casually enquired why they were no longer performing it. The theatre immediately put it on again, and in 1934 at its five hundredth performance, wrote to Bulgakov that, “The Turbins has become another Seagull for the new generation . . .”. But it was not to last, and as Bulgakov’s wife Elena wrote in her diary in 1937 and 1938, “Today in Pravda there was an article . . . about the Moscow Art Theatre. There was not a single word in it about The Turbins, and when they listed the Soviet-era dramatists who have been performed in the Art Theatre, Bulgakov’s name wasn’t even there!”

This new production of The Turbins, now called The White Guard, has been adapted by Andrew Upton.  Its large cast of over twenty was headed by Richard Henders and Justine Mitchell, who brilliantly played the roles of Nikolai Turbin and his sister Lena, a sympathetic woman much adored by all the men staying in the house. The last to arrive at the Turbin household is the student and poet, Larion, very well portrayed as a bit of klutz and dreamer by Pip Carter. The Hetman — the Ukrainian leader — who flees under the protection of the Germans, was strikingly played, almost as a Yes Minister character by Anthony Calf, and his aide-de-camp Leonid, the only occupant of the house in whom Lena has any romantic interest, was very well portrayed as a man of the world by Conleth Hill. Good direction by Howard Davies, and the designs by Bunny Christie gave a fine sense of space to the Turbins’ apartment and a claustrophobic sense to the spaces occupied by the military. They were complemented by Neil Austin’s excellent lighting, and the production was enhanced with music arranged by Dominic Muldowney.

Performances continue until July 7, and the £3 programme is a gem containing helpful excerpts and comments by Julie Curtis of Wolfson College, Oxford. The quotations I wrote above are all taken from her notes.

The Power of Yes, National Theatre, January 2010

In Spring 2009 the National Theatre asked David Hare to write a play about the financial crisis precipitated on 15^th September 2008. That was when the US Government rejected an appeal to rescue Lehmann Brothers in New York, and liquidity between banks collapsed. The result is this play about a writer trying to get to grips with what happened and why. He has meetings with numerous experts and important players, including that magnificent Hungarian guru, George Soros, who tells us how he learned from his father all about the Russian revolution, a lesson he never forgot. Things can go suddenly very badly wrong, defying the self-professed experts, who can’t imagine that the worst-case scenarios will ever happen. This is backed up by another of his interlocutors, David Freud, a government advisor who now works with the Conservative opposition, when he mentions his father leaving Austria in 1938, the year of the Anschluss with Nazi Germany. By contrast many of the bankers were unable to see what was coming because of a lack of historical perspective, and in the case of the Royal Bank of Scotland boss, an acquisitions geek named Fred Goodwin, couldn’t see anything beyond their own aggrandisement.

The powerful people who attract the most contempt are the previous British Chancellor of the Exchequer — now Prime Minister — Gordon Brown, and to a slightly lesser extent the previous Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan, with his zeal for Ayn Rand’s book Atlas Shrugged. The governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King also attracts a few negative comments, but otherwise the author’s interlocutors come over as sensible, intelligent people who were caught up in events beyond their control. David Hare has constructed a play that gives the audience a nuanced insight into what happened and why, and it should be required viewing for anyone who thinks it was all simply a question of greed.

Most of the performance took place on an empty stage, with only the occasional chair, and at the end two chairs and a long table, to disturb the clear telling of a story. It worked very well, with a large cast headed by Anthony Calf as the author. He was entirely convincing, as were the other actors, some of whom appeared in different roles. The exits and entrances came fast on one another, giving the story drive and urgency. I liked Bruce Myers as George Soros, and he has the last word in recounting a conversation with Alan Greenspan in Zürich, when he flatly contradicted Greenspan’s airy optimism. Perhaps the man who invented the phrase “irrational exuberance” had a little of it himself.

The Habit of Art, National Theatre, December 2009

This new play by Alan Bennett shows actors rehearsing a new play about W.H.Auden. The key scene is when Benjamin Britten arrives to consult Auden about his forthcoming opera Death in Venice.  That places the action in 1972, since the opera was first produced in 1973 — I remember it well. It also provides a focus for the homosexuality that is a key element in this drama. Thomas Mann’s novella Death in Venice involves the middle-aged writer Gustav von Aschenbach, who is erotically drawn to a boy named Tadzio. There is no sex, only a desire that becomes an obsession, but the desire is a metaphor representing Britten’s own yearnings for boys, which is contrasted with Auden’s indelicate habits and use of rent boys. The juxtaposition of Auden and Britten shows the horribly uptight Britten bringing out the best in Auden, who encourages him and offers to edit or rewrite Myfanwy Piper’s libretto. This warmth and enthusiasm shows another side of Auden, whose character is wonderfully portrayed by Richard Griffiths.

Alex Jennings plays Britten, and both he and Griffiths also play the roles of actors rehearsing these creative men with their habit of art, and in Jennings’ case his role as a somewhat camp and homosexually-knowing actor contrasts with his clever representation of Britten’s careful correctness. Elliot Levey portrays the supposed author of the play they are rehearsing, showing confused irritation at the actors’ attempts to alter the script, including Adrian Scarborough’s effort to interpose a song and dance routine. He plays the role of Humphrey Carpenter and is frustrated at being merely a device, but that, and the occasional frustration of actors forgetting lines, are dealt with by Kay, the stage manager who keeps it all going, despite the unexpected absence of the director. She is brilliantly played by Frances de la Tour, and I only wonder whether this delightful fancy of a rehearsal within a play would work as well with less gifted actors. As it is, the direction by Nicholas Hytner gives an excellent forward movement to Bennett’s text. This is theatre about theatre, a play about a play, and an exploration about homosexual boundaries in a world that wasn’t sure where it wanted those boundaries drawing. But in the end it’s a play about Auden, Britten and indeed Bennett himself, and as usual his dialogue is wonderfully effective.

Mother Courage, National Theatre, November 2009

This play by Bertolt Brecht — Mother Courage and her Children — was written very swiftly after the German invasion of Poland that year, but is set in the period of the thirty-year war from 1618 to 1648. It deals with a shrewd canteen woman who follows the troops across northern Germany, making a living from the business of war. At one point there is an ending of hostilities, which distresses her since she has just stocked up with provisions, whose value will rapidly fall. But in fact the war carries on, and the action is contained in twelve years during the middle of the war, represented in twelve scenes. An important technique used by Brecht is his Verfremdungseffect (alienation effect), which he says “prevents the audience from losing itself passively and completely in the character created by the actor, and which consequently leads the audience to be a consciously critical observer”. This is achieved by the use of very simple props and scenery, often named by placards, and using the same actors in varied roles. It works in the sense that we are observers who remain unmoved by some of the terrible events that occur. Nor indeed do we feel any sympathy with Mother Courage herself, who was brilliantly played by Fiona Shaw. Her wily toughness comes over as part of her personality, rather than a survival mechanism, but who is to say? Her mute daughter Kattrin was well portrayed by Sophie Stone, and her younger son, the simple but honest Swiss Cheese was beautifully played by Harry Melling.

There is not a single character for whom one really feels much sympathy, and the dark side of war is ever-present. The play was well directed by Deborah Warner, with songs by Duke Special and ‘musicscape’ by Mel Mercier. The fine translation was by Tony Kushner, and the narrator’s voice was that of Gore Vidal, whose extremely bleak view of war, seeing it as a way of balancing the budget, was quoted in the programme. It was rather odd to have a variety of accents, American for Vidal, Irish for both Mother Courage and Stephen Kennedy as the chaplain, and English for most of the cast, but in some ways this conveyed a sense of internationalism to business carried on by other means, and aided the Verfremdungseffect desired by Brecht.

Phèdre, National Theatre, June 2009

This play by Racine, originally performed in 1677, was presented here in a 1998 version by Ted Hughes, originally staged just weeks before he died. The story is based on the ancient Greek legend of Hippolytus, who was the object of unremitting desire by his father’s wife, Phaedra. In the Greek original, well expressed in Euripedes’ play Hippolytus, the young man is a devotee of the chaste goddess Artemis (Diana in the Roman version), and Aphrodite takes revenge against his rejection of erotic love by inspiring his step-mother with insatiable desire for him. His father Theseus, king of Athens, and of Minotaur fame, believes Hippolytus has forced himself on Phaedra, and calls down a curse from Poseidon. Only after the curse has taken effect, and Hippolytus has been killed by a bull-like monster from the sea, does Theseus realise his error. Racine’s main change to this legend is the creation of a new character, Aricia with whom Hippolytus is secretly in love, and she with him. This removes the misogyny from Hippolytus, and since Aricia is the daughter of an earlier king of Athens, it creates a political dimension. The other important difference is that Euripedes has Phaedra commit suicide after writing a note accusing Hippolytus of rape, whereas in Racine the accusation comes from Phaedra’s nurse while her mistress still lives.

In this performance, Phaedra was played by Helen Mirren, portraying an insecure woman only too conscious of her own inadequacies. Her stepson Hippolytus was played by Dominic Cooper, calm and secure in his own feelings, and her husband Theseus was powerfully played by Stanley Townsend, roaring his anger at Hippolytus and summoning Poseidon to avenge him. These three made a strong cast of principals, well supported by Margaret Tyzack as Phaedra’s scheming nurse, Ruth Negga as a sincere Aricia, and John Shrapnel as Hippolytus’ counsellor, whose speech describing the young man’s fearful death was very dramatically rendered. In fact this superb Nicholas Hytner production, with designs by Bob Crowley, lighting by Paule Constable, and an excellent sound score by Adam Cork, ends dramatically with Aricia dragging the dead remains of Hippolytus in a bleeding sack from stage rear to stage front. The broad trail of blood on the clean wooden stage is very effective.