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.