Shibboleth, Tate crack
Mr E is a builder, who was working at Tate Modern while Shibboleth was being installed, and although for contractual reasons he does not wish to be further identified, he is very happy to recount what he witnessed. “They dug a dirty great trench about a yard wide and a yard deep. Then they brought in lorry-load after lorry-load of cement and poured it in, using 10-foot sections of what looked like carved polystyrene moulding to form the sides. Then a whole bunch of people lay down on their stomachs for about a week and finished it off with brushes. Looked bloody uncomfortable, I can tell you. It’s about racism? Can’t see it myself, but I’m not much of a one for modern art. It was a pretty good trench, though. And one hell of a lot of cement. Good luck to ‘em.“
Review: Masque of the Red Death
It is a must see theatrical event of 2007 but not without bewilderments.
What do you get with MOTRD?
You get to run around and explore a Victorian Town Hall transformed and brought alive with running parallel stories inspired by Edgar Allen Poe. On weekends you also get a gig that the Ball turns into.
You can find: the Palais Royale and its crazy cabaret shows (and a bar) and here you can take off your mask; a treasure hunt (which I never found) from Coney (Lyn Gardner says read Poe’s story The Gold-Bug and see my preceding link to the postcard… my Coney source wasn’t giving anything away); a wardrobe to walk through, a fireplace to duck under, cubby holes in the cellar (maybe this was the secret bar), an opium den, someone who will blindfold you and give you headphones (I didn’t find this), someone who comes out the crypt (I only found the empty crypt), a mind reader (I missed his show), seance (didn’t see this), a feast (also missed), a live cat (you guessed it, I missed this too), a fortune teller (don’t ask her, if your boyfriend has been unfaithful…and yes, I never got to find her in the show to ask her about whether now is a good time to buy a house), a production newspaper (I saw none of these but seaninthestalls says the critics definitely got them) and a couple throwing books (I did manage to see see this), rooms and rooms of life and character.
Personally, I didn’t manage to find even 20% of what the show has to offer. Not sure why, part of the luck of the event. But, I did much better than Mr Hart of the Sunday Times.
Is MOTRD fun?
Yes. It’s great fun. See Whinger’s review and comments and Lyn Gardner’s review. But you have to be active and engaged. I’ve tried to think about why MOTRD is fun? I don’t think it is just the sensory enjoyment that Billington and some have suggested.
Transformation of space
The BAC building is transformed. I believe this could mean more to people who know the BAC in its untransformed state (Charles Spencer claims many of his worst nights at the theatre were at BAC). It is no longer just “a Grade II* listed Victorian building designed in 1891 by EW Mountford, first as Battersea Town Hall in 1893.”
The joy and wonder people expressed over the buildings transformation points to the importance of re-examining performance space. A trend occurred on the continent perhaps earlier than in the UK. I hear stories of 10 to 20 years ago, exciting theatre moving to the deserted warehouses of Paris rather than its stuffy central (expensive, hard to break into) theatres.
As I think back, many of the most brilliant pieces of theatre seem to happen in temporary or transformed places. Places that make you question the nature of the space. Almeida did very well in a transformed bus depot, Young Vic was always the most permanent temporary space in town (Built for £60k in the 1970s!) and it has been reconfigured to be yet more temporary and more permanent; an important quality for its Stirling Prize nomination (incidentally Haworth Tompkins did both these as well as Gainsborough and Royal Court). Shunt have moved from railway arch to railway arch and underground to members’ bar! In Paris, Peter Brook’s Bouffes du Nord is in a theatre which has been pared down and transformed from its gilted first life. The list goes on.
How much of the joy is in the re-examination of space? I think about the wonderment the crack – Shibboleth – in the Tate turbine hall is causing. It makes us question the structures around us.
Choice
You choose the action. You choose the scene. Of course, not completely, you are guided between parameters. However, mostly you are free to wander. This produces a sense of an individual show but because you know everyone else is doing it, also that “shared experience” which seems a vital ingredient of brilliant theatre.
This is why you need to be active. Although, I do wonder for this show whether sitting in one room for 20 minutes and seeing the action pass by might be more fascination than trying to follow a story thread (one of my usher moles suggests it was more fun for her than running around in the show proper).
You go to what interests you. The detail is compelling and extraordinary. Pieces of life written in books, postcards, everywhere you look fragments of story and character.
It can be exasperating, often very confusing and bewildering. Don’t explore thinking you will piece together a story, if you want to try the advice is to read Berenice, Ligeia, The Cask of Amontillado, The Fall of the House of Usher, William Wilson, and The Black Cat (supposed the BAC cat hangs out, although I didn’t spot him).
Perhaps consider it on the level of installation / performance art.
Audience/player – player/audience
You are part of the action although you also observe the action. Yes. All the world’s a stage. And in this you truly feel it. Not such how Schrödinger’s kittens would feel but being both audience and actor gives a good sense of satisfaction.
Is it the future of theatre?
Michael Billington says no. This is too simple. It is a past/present/future of a strand theatre. There have been interactive explorations of space and story before (has it been called site immersion theatre?) and we will be seeing more in the future, I guess. The key elements of duality and choice are ripe areas for theatrical exploration.
Is it good for those who don’t go to theatre often?
Yes. Very. But not if you wear high heels.
Is it good for glasses wearers?
No. In this regard, Mr Hart had a similar experience to me. But maybe because I like bending rules or because I felt I was valid part of the performance, I told the usher that they should try wearing glasses or getting the mask over them. I was partially stopped 4 times. 2 didn’t care/shrugged when I explained. 1 tried to insist but really wasn’t very convincing. And 1 I ran away from, I had better things to do.
Either wear contacts or just go with the flow. Or run away. See them chase you, that would be fun. Maybe you should also shout: Freedom to the glass wearers.
John Hegley writes “I have a notion of a nation / where greener grass is. / Where everyone is trying on everyone else’s glasses./ Where nobody cares about the colour of your skin/ or the colour of the case that your glasses came in.”
What is bewildering about MOTRD
You’ll find it very hard to trace story. You may find lots of empty rooms. Dead ends. You will get lost. You will be confused. If like the warrior who does not run in the rain because he knows he will be wet in any case, you absorb this into your experience, you will enjoy it.
“There is something to be learned from a rainstorm. When meeting with a sudden shower, you try not to get wet and run quickly along the road. But doing such things as passing under the eaves of houses, you still get wet. When you are resolved from the beginning, you will not be perplexed, though you still get the same soaking. This understanding extends to everything.”
How different is MOTRD to Faust?
MOTRD is much more different to me than it seems to be for some. There is nothing in MOTRD to compare to the surprising brilliance of stumbling across a pine tree forest smelling of pine or of wandering through a cornfield. But the minutiae detail is all the more compressed and apparent in MOTRD. You could sit and read a notebook for an hour in MOTRD.
Faust relies on one very strong well known story. You can piece it together reasonably easily. This is not possible expect for ardent Poe fans.
It was much easier to follow a character in Faust. In MOTRD characters change more often, they come on stage for cabaret, following the thread of a character’s story is not as good a tactic as it was in Faust.
The sheer exuberant physicality of MOTRD appears in smaller blazes. At the end. In glimpses of frenetic dances for two. But there is not the intensity of the Walpurgis Nacht night club dance orgy or the surreal cellar crescendo although the ball dance comes close.
There seems to be a lot more text in MOTRD although you can’t really hear it or follow it easily
The Palais Royale is a good development of the bar in Faust. The Late night gig blurs the lines of entertainment from performance to dancing and drinking and that is fun too.
Practical points
See Whinger’s Guide. I would add, don’t be scared and do what you fee like. If you want to sit on the stairs or read through a book, do so. OK, so don’t get in a fight with the ushers but still there should be an incredible leeway to do what you. It’s your night to explore! Also I’d make sure you have a drink a the bar it will be needed.
Overall
It is a great evening out and a must see for anyone interested in any of the art forms. It has its bewildering aspects and in some ways is not easy to follow but if you can overcome that psychological hurdle it will be a fulfilling evening.
Medea in ancient Greek
Have you ever seen or heard a Greek play, a tragedy, in the ululating cries and tones of ancient Greek?
It’s definitely some thing I would recommend in one’s life time of theatre going experiences.
And you have the chance coming up… Oct 10 to Oct 13 is Medea at the Cambridge Arts Theatre.
It’s in the original Greek of Euripides. I saw the last Greek play a few years back and it was astonishing. I’m going again on Oct 13, so maybe see you there. It’s worth the trip to Cambridge to hear what the Greeks would have heard even if you will see visual a very different performance.
Busy, radiohead, play
Seemingly running around like a confused bee.
Have heard Radiohead have a new album coming out called In Rainbows.
Saw MoonWalking in Chinatown, which was a simple story very atmospherically told (walking round Chinatown with its noise, pee and random people). It’s pretty much finished though but a good thing that Soho Theatre did.
Going to see Pure Gold tonight, of course I’m a huge Talawa supporter, but I’m expecting it to be good. Link.
And excitingly going to Masque of the Red Death link and the after show party. It is one of the must see shows for me this year.
OK. Have to continue buzzing around, more when I finally settle into my hive.
A Disappearing Number
Book tickets and go and see this.
It’s Complicite’s take on string theory/interconnectedness of everything, the beauty of mathematics, the repeatability of history (though mathematicians – strangely riffing on Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia in my mind, also spotted Tom in the audience, I think), a love story, a genius Indian mathematician (Ramanujan), infinity and infinites of infinity, and
Why 1729 is an intriguing number in the history of mathematics? Clue it is all to do with cubics
and if you listen carefully it will teach you the difference between countable sets of numbers, and uncountable sets and the different types of infinity.
More thoughts from my maths brain when I have a little bit more time, not sure when that will be…
Emperor Jones racist?
Life incredibly full at the moment.
GU blog debate on whether the Emperor Jones is racist or whether O’Neill is or what…
I’ve been thinking about this point in general, can you separate the life of an artist from his work?
Ezra Pound said some bad things. His poetry was ground breaking. Can we square the two or do we need to disregard his work, due to the evil things he said.
I think we need to have it in the front of our minds when we examine such work but to dismiss it out of hand without thought would probably be a mistake.
Black Watch finds a venue
Black Watch is going in to the Barbican.
Like most people who have seen it, I found it a brilliant piece of theatre.
It is good news that it has found a London venue although a slight shame it never managed to get a drill hall or to get permission for a space next to the Imperial War Museum (because of dog walkers?!).
It does also highlight that finding suitable spaces/venues for theatre pieces (particular, the non-straighforward ones) is difficult.
Perhaps, it would be good to have a structure like the Serpentine pavilion, which would allow a different temporary space every summer for theatre.
Theatre Boards
Following on from my comment on Jane Edwardes’ interviews with artistic directors, she mentions in her impression of the new Gate Artistic Directors.
“an apparent desperation not to upset the theatre’s board by saying the wrong thing”
This highlights a subtle but important aspect of running theatres and charities, its board.
I think Edwardes was potentially being unnecessarily hard in judging attempts “not to upset a board” as “apparent desperation”.
Generally, a board and its executives should meet in harmony and synergy with creative tension and direction where necessary.
Problems at board level, or a split between its board and executive would be a disaster for a company. A weak board is equally a potential disaster.
Nick Hytner at the NT has said this about NT’s board
Does the Board ever get involved with repertoire?
The Board never gets involved. It would be hard to point to a precise date when the Board stopped getting involved with repertoire choices, but it doesn’t any more. I report to the Board what the repertoire will be, on a meeting-by-meeting basis. They always have a clear idea of what the artistic direction of the theatre will be, moving forward. If I suddenly decided there was going to be a radical shift in the direction the National Theatre was going to take – if for instance I decided the National would do no more new plays, or no more classics – then they would intervene, and they would be right to intervene. But they don’t consider it to be their job to intervene in the day-to-day running of the National and that would include the choice of repertoire. But they do very much consider it their job to be overall custodians of what the National Theatre is.
For the record the current board is: Chairman, Sir Hayden Phillips GCB; Members, Anjali Arya, Susan Chinn, Nicola Horlick, Rachel Lomax, Neil MacGregor, Caragh Merrick, Grahame Morris, Caro Newling, André Ptaszynski, Philip Pullman, Rt Hon Lord Smith of Finsbury, Edward Walker-Arnott & Nicholas Wright.
That’s a very powerful board in reach, reputation and clout.
The Gate’s board (Kevin Cahill, Jonathan Hull, Pim Baxter, Mark Bayley, Diane Borger, Rupert Christiansen, Susan Hitch, Rima Horton and Colin Simon) may not on the face of it seem quite as scary but they are the custodians of the Gate Theatre and its only right to have respect and not to upset them. Challenge them, yes. (Although as ADS they will employ you)
Boards must be proper custodians too. Some speak of recent issues at the Bristol Old Vic of the board maybe not being brave enough. I don’t know the circumstances but theatre boards are a vital part of actually getting a theatre building/company to work.
[Note, I speak with a bias being on the Talawa Theatre board.]
Artistic Directors
Jane Edwardes (and Rachel Halliburton) from Time Out have done some interviews with recently appointed Artistic Directors. She forms a critical first impression of Natalie Abrahami and Carrie Cracknell, who are the Artistic Directors at the Gate.
She writes “I have to admit that when I came back from interviewing Natalie Abrahami and Carrie Cracknell, the young artistic directors at the Gate, the theatre above a pub in Notting Hill, my feeling was that if they were the future of British theatre, I didn’t want to know. There was far too much talk of ‘going on journeys’ and their references to ‘brave and bold decisions’ was in sharp contrast with an apparent desperation not to upset the theatre’s board by saying the wrong thing. It seemed a far cry from the charisma and drive of their predecessors, who include Stephen Daldry, Mick Gordon and Thea Sharrock. But to be fair, when your programme is still being finalised and can’t yet be talked about, it’s difficult to deal in anything but abstractions…”
Everyone is entitled to opinions and first impressions make valid copy.
However, I would like to say, having worked with both of them at the Gate and Natalie previously that I think they will be brilliant there. Both strike me as thoughtful directors and I expect them to put on interesting and brilliant work.
Perhaps, as new ADs running a building for the first time they will have steep learning curves but I have no doubt they will fill the shoes of their illustrious predecessors.
Edwardes ends her article on a more upbeat note:
“A week later with crucial contracts signed, Abrahami rings to tell me that Cracknell will be directing the first production, ‘The Sexual Neurosis of our Parents’, by Swiss playwright Lukas Bärfuss. She is then following it up with Fernando Arrabal’s ‘Car Cemetery’, which she describes as an ‘irreverent, exuberant absurdist play’, a celebration of the playwright’s seventy-fifth birthday. Given that Bärfuss has never been seen in this country before and that the Spanish playwright, Arrabal, has never been particularly popular, they are indeed ‘brave and bold decisions’ – and, of course, just what the Gate should be doing.”
They also interview Josie Rourke (Bush, with the wrong photo image at the time of writing), Dominic Cooke (Royal Court), Lisa Goldman (Soho, again wrong photo), Paul Robinson & Tim Roseman (Theatre 503).
They gave a flavour of what each director may be looking for but I’m not sure they represent them that accurately in my opinion. Maybe.
Andrew Haydon also has an interesting take on it suggesting interviews are hard when there’s no track record.
Thoughtful graduation speeches
Dana Gioia (head of the National Endowment for Arts in the US, think super-powered UK Arts Council) gave a speech to Stanford Graduates – here:
Saying:
“…The loss of recognition for artists, thinkers, and scientists has impoverished our culture in innumerable ways, but let me mention one. When virtually all of a culture’s celebrated figures are in sports or entertainment, how few possible role models we offer the young.
There are so many other ways to lead a successful and meaningful life that are not denominated by money or fame. Adult life begins in a child’s imagination, and we’ve relinquished that imagination to the marketplace…”
And
“…Marcus Aurelius believed that the course of wisdom consisted of learning to trade easy pleasures for more complex and challenging ones. I worry about a culture that bit by bit trades off the challenging pleasures of art for the easy comforts of entertainment. And that is exactly what is happening—not just in the media, but in our schools and civic life.”
And
“…How do we explain to the larger society the benefits of this civic investment when they have been convinced that the purpose of arts education is mostly to produce more artists—hardly a compelling argument to either the average taxpayer or financially strapped school board?
We need to create a new national consensus. The purpose of arts education is not to produce more artists, though that is a byproduct. The real purpose of arts education is to create complete human beings capable of leading successful and productive lives in a free society. ”
And closer to home, many congratulations to Dr. David Eldridge who echoes some of the same thoughts in his speech along with
“A favourite memory of my time here at Exeter was with Peter when our year group wrote a Brechtian version of The Wind in the Willows.
We ventured on to Exmoor to experience a real Wild Wood and to find some badger sets and then afterwards the group spent a magical hour or two reading Brecht’s poems to each other in the embrace of a generous pub fire.
Of course, we began to form some of the essential bonds required to make a show and began to taste something of the famous German playwright’s rich flavours and to create a rooted reality for our play.
But years later it occurred to me that actually he mostly did it because it would be fun. He knew that we might remember moments like this as they lodge fast in the heart and are amongst a life’s greatest riches.
Although Peter might baulk at the comparison in a way Hector the hero of Alan Bennett’s thoughtful hit comedy The History Boys seems like a bed-fellow.
Even with the bike and the motorcycle leathers Hector seems a bit old-fashioned even in the play’s context of the eighties – quoting Houseman and espousing the notion that all knowledge is precious. But let me say this IS a precious idea that IS worth standing up for today and tomorrow.“
When to run, Sophie Woolley
I’ve met Sophie, so I don’t think this review, if you can call it that, can be unbiased. Suffice to say, I enjoyed her show WHEN TO RUN greatly.
It’s going to be on again 15 August at the Regents Park Open Air Theatre, which I think will be a brilliant venue for it. It’s then at a few more venues which you can check here.
Her show is a mix of comedy and character performance, which falls between stand up comedy and the monologue.
She interweaves character (or even caricature) monologue stories and touches upon the emotional heart of why her characters run. They are all women. And they are all missing something or someone. This missing part also interweaves.
Running to look good. Running to compete. Running to make up for a lost part of your life.
However, perhaps my enjoyment mainly stems from: the straight up jokes, the commitment to performance and the comedy characters which although larger than life somehow still seem a bit true.
If you like comedy with a story, you’ll like Sophie’s show. Also it’s less than an hour.
Sophie is also very good about making her work available on a captioned basis, so if you’re hard of hearing this show would also suit (although not the Regents Park performance).
Screenwriting
Article on screen writing by Ronald Harwood
“…an important lesson when adapting for the screen: always to be true to the source material, the original author’s truth.
… Certainly, I have learned that the screenwriter’s relationship with the director is at the very heart of film-making, but the cult of the film director is now so pervasive that the screenwriter is mostly consigned to oblivion. If a critic admires the film the screenplay is ignored; if he finds fault, the screenplay comes in for a mauling. Thus, the screenwriter must learn that he is not an equal partner; indeed he is somewhat subservient. …
But most important of all, the writer must be sure of the world about which he’s writing and has to approach the screenplay with the same degree of commitment as he or she would any other work. I have also come to understand that form is of secondary importance to content. What a film is about stands above all else. Moreover, the screenplay, besides supplying all the information that it needs to supply, must be enjoyable to read. My advice is: just tell the story – which is not as easy as it sounds. And, finally, the director should shoot the film laid down in that document and no other. I talk, of course, of an ideal world.”
He makes an interesting point about the cult of the director in film making (and the subservient role of the writer), which is not as strong in theatre making, although we have our fair share of brilliant auteurs.
Growing food
I’ve eaten my first crop of rocket. Tomatoes are growing. Radishes have just sprouted. I’ve had flat leaf parsley for a year, all over winter, but it decided to flower as is its way and I chopped it away to make for spring onion amongst others.
And I just ate my first one. Yum.
Nakamitsu coming to an end
Sadly. Sadly. This big adventure and incredible journey is nearing its end. The greatest big thank you to all those who have helped along the way. You’ve been amazing.
There have been some late reviews this week, a good one in the Metro, not available on the web and this brilliant one from Sam Marlowe at the Times.
… Nakamitsu, Benjamin Yeoh’s reworking of a Noh drama, thrillingly suggests the violence endemic in the maintaining of a feudal system through a glossily 21st-century cinematic face-off and through music, movement, symbolism and poetry…
The play’s bare simplicity is swathed in a staging of restrained beauty. …Richard Clews’s compelling Nakamitsu … And throughout, Ansuman Biswas’s live music, with its drums, bells, gongs and trembling strings, scintillates and thunders.
The play is just 50 minutes long, yet its richness gives it stature. There’s a loveliness to the way that Yeoh’s words are absorbed into a whole in which a single gesture has compelling eloquence.
Rare and riveting.
One is meant to be relatively sanguine over reviews, but rare and riveting did bring a smile to my face.
John Berger, learningtoloveyoumore
I’m a great admirer of John Berger‘s work. I’m not very pro-smoking at all but he makes it sound very attractive:
“Berger on smoking, which he does with the fierce enjoyment of a true addict. ‘A cigarette’, he says, inhaling deeply, ‘is a breathing space. It makes a parenthesis. The time of a cigarette is a parenthesis, and if it is shared you are both in that parenthesis. It’s like a proscenium arch for a dialogue.’”
I also saw something on this brilliant idea of a wesbite and art work (part Miranda July colloboration) Learning to love you more
Kissing stops you thinking.
Edinburgh preview 2
Statler and Andrew Field as well as Lyn Gardner suggest
Nonsenseroom’s production The Ballad of James II in the setting of Rosslyn Chapel
There seems to be a Shunt car show [not really it's actually a colloboration see comments for correction], which sounds great
Andrews says “…Pinochio in which two girls from Rotozaza and Shunt drive an audience of three round Edinburgh in a car performing Pinochio”
“…Wait outside! We will pick you up. We are driving. Caught up in Pinocchio’s great diversion, you are lost. Is the city through the windscreen still the same city? You have new eyes, and a brand new pair of ears…”
It reminds that I missed Hush productions’ A Mobile Thriller “performed to an audience of three in the back of a luxury car as it hurtles through the city towards an assassination and Broken Road that intertwines with A Mobile Thriller at its dramatic conclusion….” [Note, Carrie Cracknell is now an AD at the Gate so I’m bound to be bias] I’m also working on an idea based in a mini-cab.
Although I can’t find it listed I can find at the British Council showcase Rotozaza’s Etiquette
Etiquette is for two people at a time. There is no-one watching. You wear headphones which tell you what to say to each other. There are also instructions for small actions. It lasts 25 minutes
and must be experienced from start to finish. Best done with someone you know, someone to share this with – but not essential. You won’t be asked to ‘act’ and it isn’t difficult
- anyone who understands English can do it – but its success does rely on you listening hard to each instruction and responding accordingly. Bring reading glasses if you need them.
Also in the showcase, Gecko are doing The Arab and The Jew A story of brotherhood, loyalty and conflict
Statler also recommends in the comments… “Emergence-See and have hopes for Armageddon & Fishcakes despite an 11:30am start….”
And finally there were references to bananas in my last two stage shows. So by entering banana into edfringe.com and clicking on the last result I get
Stinky Flowers and the Bad Banana A young boy, A grandfather’s wisdom, A mother’s sadness. Join Sinclair on a multimedia journey as he discovers meaning in imagination. Warring monkeys and enchanted lakes vividly come to life in a dreamer’s attic at C soco
Not as fun as Andrew’s drinking game but random, which is a lot about what the fringe is….
Royal Court Open day
The Royal Court is having an open day.
Click here to download the full Open House programme
They ask you to book in advance by calling 020 7565 5000. What follows is from its site:
Tours, 11.30am-12pm, 12-12.30pm, 12.30-1pm, 1-1.30pm FREE
Talk, Do You Remember The First Time? 12.15 – 1.45pm, The Site FREE
Playwright Simon Stephens, former Artistic Director Max Stafford-Clark, Richard Wilson and Lindsay Duncan share their stories about their own ‘firsts’ at the Royal Court.
Workshops
Technical Design, 11am – 12pm on THE PAIN AND THE ITCH, Jerwood Theatre Downstairs.
1.30pm – 2.30pm on ALASKA, Jerwood Theatre Upstairs.
Accompanied by a matinee ticket for a special price of £10.
Play On Words, 10.30am – 12pm, The Site, Suitable for ages 8 – 11 FREE
Led by Leo Butler, this workshop includes drama games, improvisation and other practical exercises designed to inspire children to write a short play.
Working With Masks, 2.30 – 4pm, 4.30 – 6pm, Rehearsal Room, FREE
Mask creator Roddy Maude-Roxby leads two interactive workshops in which participants get the chance to try on a variety of masks and play with their personas.
Directing The Pain and The Itch, 3.45 – 5.15pm, The Site, Dominic Cooke talks… £7.50
Directing Alaska 5.30 – 7pm, The Site, Maria Aberg leads a practical workshop £7.50
Masterclass
Directing New Writing
2 – 3.30pm, The Site, A rare opportunity to witness a Royal Court director lead actors through a demonstration of some rehearsal techniques. Led by Sacha Wares, Associate Director. £7.50
Drop-In Events
Performances in Promenade
11am – 5pm, Iconic scenes from Royal Court playwrights’ first plays make their impact on different spaces around the building. FREE
Mask Exhibition
11am – 2pm
An exhibition of Roddy Maude-Roxby’s exquisite masks which were first used in rehearsals in the 1950s by Royal Court founder George Devine. Roddy was an original member of the English Stage Company and also a founder member of the legendary mask and improvisation group Theatre Machine.
FREE
Sneaky Peak Tour
11.30am – 2pm
Weave your way through, under, around and over the stage on a rolling tour and discover what makes the Royal Court tick. See performances along the way and the backstage team in action. FREE
Street Theatre
11.30am-12pm, 1-1.30pm, 2.30-3pm. 4-4.30pm Stop, look, and listen at outdoor performances in Sloane Square. FREE
Edinburgh preview 1
Lyn Gardner has done her own personal preview of the Edinburgh fringe – see link here.
I’m hoping to go up but it’s likely I won’t be able to stay very long, so what would I see…
I am an admirer of Chris Goode’s work (as long time readers can probably tell) so his home show with Lucy Ellinson, Henry & Elizabeth is intriguing – details I think will be posted here. I think his Hippo World Guest book (which you can also catch in the artsadmin season on June 16, last night of my play so can’t make it) may also be going up. Have a look at Hippo World.
I never made it to Sheffield to see Fin Kennedy’s play, which is my loss, but MEHNDI NIGHT I’m sure will be worth seeing:
“At a traditional Bengali celebration the night before a wedding, the women of the community gather to sing, dance and bless the bride-to-be. But when an uninvited guest turns up bringing painful memories from the past, everyone present is forced to confront their own fears, prejudices and longings. An extraordinary insight into a community all too often overlooked by British theatre, MEHNDI NIGHT puts third generation Bengali women centre stage and reveals the joy and the pain of a 21st century cross-cultural identity.”
I loved Tim Crouch’s OAK TREE and he has ENGLAND going on at the Traverse
‘The patients like to look at the art. It helps them to feel better.’ Two guides in a gallery. A bad transaction. A bad translation. A transplantation.
And as usual the Traverse line up looks very strong Lynda Radley’s ART OF SWIMMING, David Greig’s DAMASCUS, Rona Munro’s LONG TIME DEAD and National Theatre of Scotland doing VENUS AS A BOY.
NToS are also doing a version (Greig from a literal by Ian Ruffell) of the BACCHAE with Alan Cumming (which will come to the Lyric in Hammersmith London and Theatre Royal, Glasgow too).
There’s likely to be a lot more interesting stuff and I really want to make it to Aurora Nova work but here I’m influenced by Andrew Field who has an intriguing Edinburgh drinking game to try out…
Nakamitsu: last week
Going in to the last week of Nakamitsu (so if you haven’t seen it but want to, you’d better get moving!) and the show is in very good shape but I can hardly believe it is almost all over.
Having said that, I could do with a nice long rest.
What the Whingers (and others) thought
Don’t read further if you don’t like reading reviews.
Lyn Gardner liked it:
“Small but exquisitely formed, Benjamin Yeoh’s new version of a 14th-century Japanese Noh play is fusion theatre, borrowing from east as well as west. It is both strange and familiar, accessible and remote, restrained and yet somehow full-blown. The story, in which honour and love rub against each other and ignite, is surprisingly and effectively framed by the equivalent of a dumb show and set in a low-life strip joint, which offers a contemporary spin on an age-old story….the dilemma faced by Nakamitsu seems strikingly modern, and the struggle between what he should do and what he desires to do is beautifully realised. In Jonathan Munby and Michael Ashcroft’s production, movement and sound combine with Yeoh’s script to create something both rich and spare. Mike Britton’s effective design offers echoes of both a catwalk and a scroll. There are moments of great beauty – fluttering fingers represent weeping, and a book wrapped in a bloody cloth becomes a severed head.”
But did also think the show “a titbit”
Aleks Sierz also had good praise “…Benjamin Yeoh and directors Jonathan Munby and Michael Ashcroft have succeeded in making this archaic form both relevant and dynamic…. Yeoh’s translation [] retains a touch of the strangeness of the original, and yet is completely comprehensible and relevant… The cast – Richard Clews (Nakamitsu), Daniel Williams (Mitsunaka), Peter Bankole (Kochiyo) and Matthew Burgess (Bijiyo) – are both suitably dignified and thoroughly convincing. Percussion by Ansuman Biswas is superb throughout. All in all, this production successfully crosses continents and centuries.”
Philip Fisher put into his alternative top 5 with “Nakamitsu may last under an hour but this visually and aurally stunning event punches well above its weight and offers a very enjoyable and unusual evening with plenty of time for dinner at the end.”
But Lucy Powell while she thought “Benjamin Yeoh’s translation is an elegant achievement: powerfully suggestive of the antique traditions of Noh, but cleverly accessible to the uninitiated” and liked the design and music; the piece didn’t “lift off the scroll” for her.
And Kieron Quirke thought “Indisputably the best piece of Japanese Noh theatre in the capital at present, Nakamitsu boasts vivid visuals and enthralling music. If at times, the slow, ritualistic drama is too ponderous for western tastes, the cross-cultural riches on display more than compensate”
But who wants Kieron Quirke et al. when you have the West End Whingers? Surely a better barometer of whether the show was worth leaving your merlot for and like David Eldridge, it was most nerve racking waiting for their opinion.
And they enjoyed themselves and liked it! Ok, so they claim it was out of giri (and they know I know what they look like)… but really 45 minutes above a pub with live drumming and a dripping blood scene must have been the real draw…
“Yeoh told us that in modern Noh productions [in Japan ] half the audience falls asleep as they only go out of a sense of duty so the Whingers felt rather proud of the fact that not only did they not fall asleep (rare for Andrew) but that they enjoyed themselves and that they had correctly predicted that if you only see one piece of Noh theatre in west London this year, this is definitely the one you should choose.”
Andrew Field also has some erudite points to make on translation, Sara-Mae Tuson and Natasha Tripney liked it “the staging and the story are poetic in their simplicity and, this combined with the music, makes the piece into something that you can connect with on both an intellectual and emotional level. It’s also very visually striking…. It’s all over in under an hour, leaving you with ample time to migrate to the pub downstairs and talk about this unusual, yet strangely magical production.”
*
I think that’s more or less it for the reviews, with perhaps Variety to come. I’d have liked to known what John Peter and Susannah Clapp thought and it’s a shame the Sundays haven’t come as far as I know. But that’s the way…
-
About me
I'm a playwright and investment analyst. I have a broad range of interests: food, gardening, innovation & intellectual property, sustainability, architecture & design, writing and the arts. I sit on the board of Talawa Theatre Company and advise a CIS investment trust on socially responsible investments.
-
Recent Work
Recent plays include, for theatre: Nakamitsu, Yellow Gentlemen, Lost in Peru, Lemon Love. For radio: Places in Between (R4), Patent Breaking Life Saving (WS).
-
Nakamitsu
-
-
Yellow Gentlemen
-
