2015 Top Ten

10. The Merchant of Venice - Royal Shakespeare Company. 
Polly Findlay's melancholic production bold and striking, just what the RSC needed in a season of safe, uninteresting productions.

9.    Measure for Measure - Barbican Centre / Cheek by Jowl. 
This Russian-language production set the play in a fascist police state, with obvious similarities to Putin's Russia along with a stark design and gorgeous Russian folk music.

8.    Antigone - Barbican Centre / Theatre de le Ville and Toneelgroep Amsterdam. 
Ivo Van Hove's reserved, slow production disappointed some critics but blew me away with minimal movement and sudden explosions of voices and music in an idiosyncratic translation by Anne Carson. Full essay here.

7.    Temple - Donmar Warehouse. 
HRH Simon Russell Beale, ladies and gentlemen. 

6.    Lippy - Young Vic / Dead Centre. 
This strange new play (the term is used in the loosest sense of the word) explored just about every theme that's vaguely relevant: religion, the media, family, death, life, hate and the very ways in which we construct narratives. A gem.

5.    Hamlet - Barbican Centre / Sonia Freidman Productions. 
Much like number 8, Lyndsey Turner's production of Shakespeare's greatest play disappointed some. I, however, loved the design by Es Devil and Jon Hopkins' beautiful soundtrack along with just about all of the performances. Full essay here.

4.    The Crucible - Royal Exchange Theatre. 
My first visit to the Manchester's favourite in-the-round-venue, I initially found this productions fusion of traditional and contemporary dress odd, but the acting (and a brilliant central performance by Jonjo O'Neill as Proctor) and a stunning coup de theatre in the second half had waiter flood the stage from below while rain poured down on the doomed residents of Salem. 

3.    Bakkhai - Almeida Theatre
The second in the Greeks season at the Almeida, James Macdonald echoed the original performance model, using three actors and a Chorus. While the songs of the latter did ware, the three leads all juggled their parts well in a modern, wiry translation by Anne Carson. Full essay here.

2.    An Oak Tree - National Theatre / Tim Crouch 
Tim Crouch's semi-rehearsed two hander about a stage hyptonistic begins as a play about a magician above a pub and ends a play about life and love and the very nature of theatre itself. A quite one, but shattering nonetheless. 

1.    Oresteia - Almeida Theatre
It's hard to say how much I fell completely and utterly in love with this production. Every aspect of it blew me away. My review-slash-love letter is here.

Oresteia

"I may not always love you,

But long as there are stars above you,

You never need to doubt it,

I'll make you so sure about it,

God only knows what I'd be without you."

Iphigenia, "The Oresteia", 458 BC

It's quite difficult to write about the Almeida Theatre's production of Aeschylus' The Oresteia without saying what's already been written: this is a bold, brilliant piece of work which redefines the ways in which we will approach Greek theatre in the future. 

The thing which immediately strikes you about the production is how restrained and minimalist it is. Actions are implied more than performed, adding to the feeling of ritual which runs throughout. In a family dinner scene, for example, the characters discuss their venison dinner but there is no food on stage with the exception of a large decanter full of red wine. This atmosphere of restraint is often shattered by explosions of noise and sound; after the death of Iphigenia lights flash and doors fly open, and white feathers are blown onto the stage as Klytemnestra stands and screams at the euthanising of her child. 

Just like how he toys with theatrical convention, director/adapter Robert Icke has taken the body of the original trilogy, ripped off the skin and rearranged the bones. We no longer have three plays (Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and Eumenides) but instead are presented with one sprawling epic, framed  by a conversation between a grown-up Orestes and a nameless psychologist. Scenes flow into one another and overlap, conversations clash with other conversations and Icke's dialogue is sparse and simple, but certain phrases stand out. When Klytemnestra remarks that her daughter was "dead since the beginning" in the middle of bath-time, it's hard not to shiver. Because that's what the first chunk of the production does so well: it's stunning evocation of the familial 'tea time'. The children hide from dad when he gets in from work, the teenage Electra tries to persuade her parents to let her drink wine and dad tries to get the kids to describe their days because he feels bad he's never there for them. The reason that the production is so shocking is that it feels so, so real. 

While speaking about all of this, it would be very easy to ignore the fact that the acting is all very, very good. Amazing, actually. Angus Wright is an understated Agamemnon, who contrasts perfectly with Lia William's Kyltemnestra who is a women driven insane by grief and hate. Luke Thompson and Jessica Brown Findlay are more naturalistic as Orestes and Electra but still impress. Another standout is Hara Yannas as prisoner-of-war Cassandra, and while the part may be small (this is a 220 minute play though, so not sure if "small" is fair), she's legitimately frightening when she begins to scream her prophecy in a mixture of Greek (the original Aeschylus) and English. 

Time also plays a large role in this production. An LED ticker above the stage tells us the exact time a character dies (real world time, so Agamemnon died around 2:30pm, but I may be wrong) and the production is set on the day it's performed (so the Oresteia *I* saw was set on the 7th of November). Intervals are also timed down to the precise second. It all adds to to idea of fate and religion, and you get the distinct impression that it's not just Iphigenia who was dead from the start.

Hildegard Bechtler's design takes the form of a large space divided by two sets of three sliding glass doors, sometimes transparent, sometimes not. At the back of the stage is a stone bath, whilst downstage is a clean white table with four white benches. It's all very Scandinavian. But it also comes back to the idea of reality and projecting consciousness: the furniture isn't real. Not to the characters, anyway. Bechtler/Icke wants us to imagine the set for whatever we want it to be. All the set does is act as a physical and spacial indication of the household, not as an accurate representation. But that's another essay for another time...

To cap it off, I just want to say that this really is one of the best pieces of theatre I've ever seen. If not, THE, best. I was absolutely knocked out by it in every conceivable way. It's unbelievably good, one of the most unique, essential productions that will ever play on the West End. It restored my faith in theatre and just about everything else. 

THAT Hamlet at the Barbican (Or, I Was Wrong)

I'll come out and say it loud and clear before we go one word further: I was not a big fan of Benedict Cumberbatch. Yes, I enjoy Sherlock. Yes, I enjoyed him the in The Imitation Game. He seemed like the kind of theatre actor who'd be good in modern plays but would struggle to do justice to one of Shakespeare's greatest characters. The fact of the matter is, I got a ticket to see the fastest selling theatre production of all time simply because it was Hamlet, and simply because it was directed by Lydnsey Turner. As the big day (I took to calling it B-Day seeing as we booked the tickets 14 months in advance), I quickly began to worry that all I'd done was pay a lot of money into a commercial monstrosity in which profit was placed before art. 

And from the moment I walked into the Barbican (cold and concrete, but difficult to dislike), it seemed that I was correct. Especially for Hamlet there were mugs, notebooks, bags and a myriad selection of tat and collectibles that were all wildly overpriced but bound to be snapped up by keen fans. I couldn't help but feel a twang of regret as I paid for my £8.50 programme, and the fact that it was marketed as a 'souvenir collector's item' didn't really make the financial damage any less painful. 

I also got the distinct impression that the powers-that-be at the Barbican were doing all they could to hype up the importance of the production. We'd all been told to bring photo ID else we'd be banned from entering, and were also constantly reminded not to take any pictures inside the theatre. Yes, they made us turn our phones off outside the actual auditorium so we couldn't take pictures of the Barbican's safety curtain, pictures of which are easily accessible on Google. This sounds annoying, and it was, but it was all worth it due to one simple thing: atmosphere. 

I've never been in a theatre when there's been such a buzz, such a spark of anticipation in the air. Even in the Barbican's large 1156 seat theatre, everyone was connected by a sense of childlike excitement that I've never really experienced inside a theatre before. When a voice told us that the performance would begin in one minute even I felt my pulse start to race a little bit, and everyone started to speak a little bit louder, a little bit quicker, until the opening of Nat King Cole's Nature Boy pierced the chatter like a knife and everyone fell silent. 

And there he is. Benedict Cumberbatch, every fiber of his being completely and utterly in role, even down to the tears trickling down his cheeks. I realised just how wrong I'd been. 

And three hours later I realised just how wrong the reviews had been. This is an exhilarating production, with a great beast of a play staged as a taut political thriller which grips you by the throat and never lets go until the fade to black 180 minutes later. It was my second time watching the play, and even I found myself wondering whether or not Hamlet would escape the inevitability of his death. Yes, it's a messy, cluttered production. But it's a messy, cluttered play. From Es Devlin's massive set to Jon Hopkin's gorgeous electronic score which fuses pianos and synths brilliantly. Turner has also trimmed the fat off play considerably, and a lot of the minor, supporting characters only speak their most important lines to keep the focus firmly on the central characters. And unlike quite a few critics, I liked the slight reshuffling of the first act. 

Every single one of the cast gave stellar performances, and I especially enjoyed Ciarán Hinds as a slimy, manipulative Claudius and Anastasia Hille as a power hungry Gertrude who by the end seems resigned to death. I also liked the little hint at her being a bit more involved in Ophelia's death than she initially claims.

This was one of those rare productions which left me both elated and shattered. It's Shakespeare for 2015: it's raw, focused and energetic and I'm so, so happy I got to see it. I'm also very excited that for lots of young people, this will be their first introduction to Shakespeare. And what an introduction it will be. 

I don't normally review productions on this blog, but just for the record I give this one top marks. 5/5 or 10/10.

Hamlet will also be broadcast to cinemas through National Theatre Life. It's well worth catching it beamed on the night or through one of the encore screenings.

"Obviously it's just sex. I've put most of them in jail": The Wild Contradictions of the Almeida Theatre's Bakkhai

We enter to Almeida Theatre to see a dirt floor and a raised white platform, set against a backdrop of earthen hills. A lone figure clambers to the top of the highest mound and looks out across Thebes. He skips down, a slender figure, and plants himself in the middle of the platform. A coy grin crosses his lips. "Here I am. Dionysos." Standing relaxed in jeans and a t-shirt, he describes to us his birth (his mother being impregnated by Zeus and her subsequent death by thunderbolt) and his reasoning for coming to Thebes (rumours have started about the authenticity of his godliness). Also, he wants to have a bit of fun: "I came to thrill you, Thebes. Don't doubt I will."

It immediately becomes apparent that this is a Dionysus of wildly contrasting personalities. There's the 'fun' Dionysus; this is the man who lives for the party and is the one who pays for the wine. Then there's the 'showman' Dionysus; this is the man who lures women out of the city to lead a life of revelry. We've also got the 'trickster' Dionysus: this is the man who lured king Pentheus into dressing up as a woman, an act which will cause the king to be ripped limb from limb by his own brainwashed mother. And finally, we have Dionysus the God: this is the horned, soil-skinned wendingo, who, in a moment of catharsis arrives to condemn the royalty of Thebes to a life of suffering and pain. 

Pentheus is also a character who is far more complex than he appears. His first entrance echoes Dionysus yet differs from it greatly: he climbs to the top of the mound into sight, but instead of surveying Thebes like Dionysus he briskly strides down ready to face the day's political agenda. Unlike Dionysus - who is very much  a man of the moment - Pentheus is a man consistently aware of his role and the political ramifications of every action he makes. His characterisation also leaves us with many unanswered questions. Does he view Dionysus in a sexual way? Is he someone sexually oppressed by his role? His initial trepidation at donning a woman's clothes to spy on the Bakkhai could come as a past trauma. This desire to entire womanhood isn't new, whatever the case. And why does he have a woman's jacket and blazer hanging up in his wardrobe? Unlike Dionysus, Pentheus has a hidden longing for sexual and social liberation which has been hammered into nothingness by years of ruling Thebes.  Dionysus rejects the notion of sexuality completely, whilst Pentheus is a man ruled by heteronormativity.

Over the course of the play, Dionysus and Pentheus come to represent the opposing side of the human personality. We have the wildly irreverent Dionysus placed directly against the logical, calculating Pentheus. And as is often the case in classical tragedy: it is the logical ones who fall from the heighest heights: Pentheus is ultimately ripped apart, and his head and limbs are carried around Thebes in celebration. His mother Agave, upon realising that she took part in the murder of her son, is shattered by grief and Cadmus (mother of Agave, grandfather of Pentheus) is transformed into a snake. 

What the play ultimately preaches: just because the rulers of a particular society are in power does not mean they are always right. Even Tiresias, the blind prophet, failed to predict the grizzly events that would unfold. Humans were powerless to stop the all encompassing power of fate. These are all concepts illustrated in the Chorus' final speech: "What seemed likely did not happen. But for the unexpected a god found a way. That's how this went. Today." 

July in Theatre

This July was defined by four trips to see four very different plays. 

We kicked off the month with a trip to see Tim Crouch's An Oak Tree, which was in the National Theatre's Temporary Space. I've already written a lengthy post on just how much I loved it. But I'll just say it again: it's an incredible piece of theatre and is about to embark on a short tour. It's well worth getting to one of the venues to catch it. 

Then it was to Stratford-Upon-Avon to see the RSC's Othello, which left me disappointed in both the production and the director Iqbal Khan's seeming lack of trust in the play itself. It was full of annoying gimmicks; at one point a television was lowered and a scene was acted out over a live video link, but it was blatantly prerecorded. Cheek By Jowl's production of Ubu Roi is how you use multimedia, and the work of the Toneelgroep Amsterdam  also demonstrates a brilliant use of live video. The actors never stood still, they were always fussing about enacting mundane tasks like setting up wi-fi and changing items of scenery. Khan didn't seem to understand that this play is still so popular for a reason, that reason being that the language and characters are brilliant. Lucian Msamati was a very good Iago, but even his pantomime cackle at the end seemed cliche. The RSC'S Othello is an uninteresting reading of a brilliant play, which the elderly Stratford audience lap up, calling it 'radical' and 'out there'. It just left me feeling a bit cold and a bit numb from the three hour running time. 

Then it was to London's Donmar Warehouse to see Temple, a new play by Steve Waters about the Occupy movement and the action initiated against it by the City of London. The play was nice. It was a calm, measured production directed by Howard Davies, with a lovely, powerful performance from HRH Simon Russell Beale as the Dean. Sure, it's not going to change the ways we look at theatre as an artistic medium, but it was a well written, brilliantly acted piece which trusted the audience to answer the questions the play raised themselves. And SRB could be an underdog Olivier nominee. 

And finally, back to Stratford to see Marlowe's The Jew of Malta, directed by Justin Audibert. It was brilliant. And I'm not just saying that because the RSC has, on a whole, been a bit disappointing this year. It's a really brilliant production. Jasper Britton is hilarious as the titular Jew, Barabas, and it makes great use of the smaller Swan Theatre. There were some goregeous period costumes, and having the choric Machiavel appear in a Royal Marlowe Company t-shirt was a clever touch. Basically, if you see anything in the RSC's summer season, go and see The Jew of Malta.

I Didn't Like Antigone at the Barbican, But I Loved What It Had to Say About Us

When the Barbican announced that their production of Antigone, written by the ancient playwright Sophocles in a translation by Anne Carson and directed by the man-of-the-moment Ivo Van Hove, anticipation began for what was one of the hottest tickets of 2015. It was going to tour all over the world, and to top it off Juliette Binoche (making a return to the London stage) would play the lead role.

So it was all a bit awkward then, that when it opened people found the production to be quite different from what they were expecting. I was one of these people. I found the production to be slow and lacking in focus. I wouldn't have been surprised if, in the rehearsal room, Van Hove just told the actors to "move around a bit" and to "shout that line". It seemed loose and methodical, which is interesting when this is a play about a young woman defying the state to continue the cause of the gods, with two suicides and a government issued burial (whilst alive) all happening within the 90 minute run time. Although the use of Lou Reed's Heroin does deserve special mention: that's one powerful way to end a show, with that discordant lament to the 60s rocker lifestyle blaring as the chorus continue to, well, live. 

But as the days passed since I saw it, something began to grow inside the back of my mind. An idea, just a notion of something bigger. Which was weird, because I'd felt my eyes getting heavy when I was actually watching the production. After watching the filmed version of the production on BBC 4, it quickly began to dawn on me, however, just how wrong my thinking about the production was. It wasn't until I sat down to read the programme the following week that I began to appreciate just how bold and powerful Van Hove's reading of the play was, which is summarized in the form of an essay entitled The Unanswered Question - How to Get to the Dark Soul of Antigone.  For the rest of this post, I'll put Van Hove's notes in italics, complete with the Greek (as opposed to the traditional Latin) spellings this production employed. 

Antigone goes on a long, solitary road towards death. That's interesting. Does Van Hove feel Antigone is fully aware of the fact that she won't survive? Scene by scene, she cuts herself loose: from her sister, who won't help with her brother's burial; from Polyneikes (not sure I fully see this. It's Polyneikes who causes her to do what she does, right until the bitter end); from the love of her fiancé Haimon; from Kreon's policy; and, as an inevitable consequence, from society. This seems to suggest that Van Hove didn't approach the play as a political thriller in which the course of modern democracy is changed forever by the actions of one woman, but views it more as a structurally abstract death-note. When the political aspect is ignored, the play turns into one woman effectively preparing herself for death.

I also love Van Hove's idea that the blind prophet Tiresias acts almost as an anti-Chorus, saying what the actual Chorus are too afraid to: that Kreon is the cause of all of the problems in the play, and not Oedipus, nor Antigone, nor Polyneikes nor Eteokles. In Antigone, the chorus take the form of Kreon's advisers. Their status within the clear political hierarchy of Thebes stops them from fully speaking what they think.  

But the most powerful piece of Van Hove's writing comes at the end of his essay: Kreon's efforts to turn around his punishments come too late. By the end of the play his wife, Eurydike, and two sons are dead. Like Antigone, Kreon is 'alone on his insides.' Like many directors, Van Hove is aware of the fact that Kreon ends up in the same position as Antigone. He has lost everything, but has no choice but to keep moving forward into an uncertain future. He has been driven by a sincere ambition to turn Thebes, his beloved city, into a better place and has failed In every scene he is given the chance to adjust his law but he can't. His inflexibility leads to his downfall. The sums up the character of Kreon perfectly: he is a man with a clear sense of morals, and is someone who sticks to his own laws without hesitation, even rejecting Tiresias (and because of this the Gods) until he realises that the prophet actually speaks the truth. 

And then, finally, the kicker: Antigone develops from a play about a brutal war to a play about politics and public policies and ends as a play about the helplessness of humans, lost in the cosmos. It is a play about survival: not the survival of an individual or a family, but of a whole society, perhaps even the world. The play is ambivalent and dark, modern and mythical, leaving one with more questions than answers. This could be considered Van Hove's manifesto when approaching the play; to create a production which doesn't follow one woman, but to stage a production which explores the role of every individual in society. To Van Hove, Thebes isn't a city in ancient Greece, but a space metaphoric for every city ever, regardless of time or place. Van Hove was also influenced by the response to the victims of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 being left in an open field for a week, an act which seemed to violate timeless laws of death and the ways through which we honour and respect it. Just like how the Western press criticised all involved with the bodies (until the Dutch government intervened and arranged a 100km funeral procession, almost like the honours bestowed onto Eteokles), Antigone defies Kreon to bury her brother. Van Hove placed the play in a world which was timeless yet grounded in the present, in which Antigone's defying of Kreon's edict is an act of both personal empowerment and political protest, almost akin to the Occupy protesters. And like the war in Iraq, Kreon ignored the advice of his people to avoid showing weakness to his citizens.

At the end of Antigone, the surviving characters are forced to accept that they have no choice but to keep moving forward blindly, past a devastating war and into whatever the future holds. In Anne Carson's translation, a member of the Chorus remarks to a sobbing Kreon: "That's the future, this is the present. You deal with the present." This becomes a parallel to us: we don't know what's coming, but we know what's happened. Wars, a recession, austerity. So we deal about the present, and wait to deal about the future when we're living through it. 

This took a while to write, and nearly all of it came from myself, although Van Hove's essay obviously formed the basis. However, the Guardian's article, Death Becomes Her: How Juliette Binoche and Ivo Van Hove Reinvented Antigone was very interesting and is easily available online, and having the production when it was broadcast of BBC 4 recorded also proved to be invaluable.

Tim Crouch's An Oak Tree or: How I Learned To Stop Caring and Just Watch

When I first booked tickets to see Tim Crouch's An Oak Tree at the National Theatre's Temporary space I didn't really know what I was going to see. I knew that Crouch wanted details of the piece to be kept deliberately secretive, and I knew that half of the cast changes every performance and hasn't read a word of the script until they step onto the stage in front of the audience. To be completely honest, my main reason for going was because I'd sat in front of Crouch when I saw Our Town at the Almeida Theatre last November and wanted to see him on stage.

I also knew that the cast was two people, including Crouch, and that the show was Kind of a Big Deal. It was Kind of a Big Deal in that this was the tenth anniversary revival after runs in London, New York and Los Angeles, and it was also Kind of a Big Deal because famous people have done it. People like Mike Meyers, Sophie Okendo and Frances McDormand. People that you tell your friends about over dinner. And tickets were £15, so even if it was awful, it was only £15 worth of awful.

So when we sat down in the theatre, the start of the show was indicated not by the dimming of the lights or a loud sound effect, but by Tim Crouch strolling onto the stage, completely out of character and saying hello, which we warily replied to.

"Hang on", I thought. "This is supposed to be experimental! Shouldn't he be contemporary dancing around the set to an unsettling ambient score, while we all try to figure what's actually going on? Maybe it'll start normal and get weirder."

I was wrong. An Oak Tree is a simple, raw piece of theatre. It's the complete antithesis of the stereotypical 'experimental' piece. There's no gimmicks. The other characters in the piece are played by white chairs. The script walks the line brilliantly between beautifully abstract and language so simple it could have been improvised on the spot.

But the thing that made me fall in love with An Oak Tree is that every performance is just so, so special. The inherently repetitious nature of theatre means that, even if you're in love with a production, you're always aware of the fact that what you're watching will happen again. And again. And again until closing night and then if the show gets a West End transfer the process just repeats itself.

Every performance of An Oak Tree, then is a completely individual performance. Even the cast lists could be seen as collectors items. I wondered why no programmes were being sold until I realised that it would be kind of of impossible to do so. On a side note though, I'd happily pay for a commemorative limited edition book on the play, a bit like what Punchdrunk just did with their book on The Drowned Man. It's this feeling of individuality which makes every performance of An Oak Tree so special. Because the second actor changes every performance, the bond between cast and audience ceases to exist after the cast take their bows. We can't look at pictures on the website to bring back memories, nor watch a trailer on Youtube. We just have in our heads what we saw with our eyes and listened to with our ears. I even felt my eyes getting a bit damp at one point, which has never happened to me in a theatre ever.

And as much I hate the word, An Oak Tree is defined by the metatheatrical. Crouch plays a hypnotist, who hypnotises a man whose daughter he killed in a car crash. But isn't that just theatre in itself? Aren't the actors on stage the magicians, and we the willing participants? We hand over our tickets, find our seats and wait to be amazed? The piece is so dense, so jam-packed with clues and puzzles that it would be impossible to analyse it in the theatre. You come to appreciate the language not for what it symbolizes, but for how it sounds. When Crouch halts the piece to ask the second actor how they're finding it, never have questions so mundane sounded so shattering. Even as the lines between author and performer start to blur, I've never felt so emotionally exposed as I was on that sunny Saturday afternoon in July. I've been wanting to write something about An Oak Tree since I first left the theatre, but words have just escaped. Only three weeks later can I speak about it in a vaguely coherent way.

Because, ultimately, An Oak Tree is a love letter to theatre. Crouch (who seems to know much more about theatre than any Oxbridge-educated director does) has constructed a tender, heartfelt piece about something which the government want to cut to oblivion. The play could be seen therefore as a piece of political protest, standing tall in the face of everything. But I think it's best to just appreciate An Oak Tree for what it is: two people transforming themselves before our very eyes, and as a result, the audience transforming with them.