The London Trip: Theatre
Nov. 30th, 2010 02:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
przedI'm stuck at home with Ros today (she has an ear infection, I've got a migraine, and we're neither of us happy, though at least she's sleeping) so I thought I'd get a start on the theatre reviews from London.
First up is the first play we saw: The Country Girl with Martin Shaw. And how was it?
While it wasn't the worst production I've seen in the West End--I think that honour goes to Suddenly, Last Summer with Diana Rigg that was quite, quite awful--it certainly wasn't one of the best.
The play is about Frank Elgin, an alcoholic actor who is given one last chance at stardom by a young director who saw him in better days. I have no complaints about the main cast. I'm obviously fond of Shaw (he was brilliant in A Man for All Seasons), and Jenny Seagrove as Elgin's long-suffering wife, Georgie, and Mark Letheren as the young director were all solid. But there was an essential spark that seemed to be missing from the whole thing. There should have been far more tension between Frank and Georgie, but they both seemed more resigned. And the relationship between the director and Georgie, which becomes the centre of the play as things progress, has a few twists that were so out of the blue and seemingly out of character that my reaction to them was more WTF than OMG.
I think the essential problem with the production is that it's not a great play, and the director didn't play a strong enough hand in really honing the performances of his cast. Even if the play falls down in preparing the way for some of the twists in the characters' relationships, better direction could have made those twists less, well, ridiculous.
I'm not unhappy I saw the play--Martin is always lovely to watch--but I do wish he and the rest of the cast had been better served by the material. (In the end, my favourite role might actually have been the stage manager, for the way he turned remarkably protective towards Frank and Georgie when things all nearly go south in the end.)
The second play we saw, and frankly the one I was looking forward to most, was Deathtrap. It's a comedy thriller from Ira Levin, and the two stars were Simon Russell Beale and Jonathan Groff. It's not a deep play, but it's funny and clever and has some twists that are both fun and unexpected. Beale might be one of the best dramatic actors of his generation, but he's also remarkably skilled at comedy, and he pulls off the role of failing playwright Sidney Bruhl with an easy charm. And Groff was equally fun as the young writer who shows up with a surefire play that no one but Bruhl knows about.
The final play of the trip was The Master Builder by Ibsen. I'm not big on the northern playwrights, though I've seen two Chekhov productions in the last year that I very much enjoyed, but I figured this was worth a go for Stephen Dillane in the lead. And it very much was, though Dillane was quite possibly overshadowed by Gemma Arterton giving easily as much as she got.
Dillane plays Halvard Solness, the master builder of the title. Solness is at the pinnacle of his professional life, but his personal life if a mess and he lives in fear that his assistant will surpass him as he surpassed his superior. Into his life comes Arterton's Hilde Wangel, a young woman Solness met when she was a child. Wangel proceeds to overturn Solness' life completely.
The production had a very stripped down set--with a staircase at the rear and several chairs being the only set decorations--and was done in modern dress of muted colours. And at just under two hours with no interval, the drama itself was stripped down and muscular. It was, strange to say, rather demented fun.
And that was it for the theatre portion of the trip.
First up is the first play we saw: The Country Girl with Martin Shaw. And how was it?
While it wasn't the worst production I've seen in the West End--I think that honour goes to Suddenly, Last Summer with Diana Rigg that was quite, quite awful--it certainly wasn't one of the best.
The play is about Frank Elgin, an alcoholic actor who is given one last chance at stardom by a young director who saw him in better days. I have no complaints about the main cast. I'm obviously fond of Shaw (he was brilliant in A Man for All Seasons), and Jenny Seagrove as Elgin's long-suffering wife, Georgie, and Mark Letheren as the young director were all solid. But there was an essential spark that seemed to be missing from the whole thing. There should have been far more tension between Frank and Georgie, but they both seemed more resigned. And the relationship between the director and Georgie, which becomes the centre of the play as things progress, has a few twists that were so out of the blue and seemingly out of character that my reaction to them was more WTF than OMG.
I think the essential problem with the production is that it's not a great play, and the director didn't play a strong enough hand in really honing the performances of his cast. Even if the play falls down in preparing the way for some of the twists in the characters' relationships, better direction could have made those twists less, well, ridiculous.
I'm not unhappy I saw the play--Martin is always lovely to watch--but I do wish he and the rest of the cast had been better served by the material. (In the end, my favourite role might actually have been the stage manager, for the way he turned remarkably protective towards Frank and Georgie when things all nearly go south in the end.)
The second play we saw, and frankly the one I was looking forward to most, was Deathtrap. It's a comedy thriller from Ira Levin, and the two stars were Simon Russell Beale and Jonathan Groff. It's not a deep play, but it's funny and clever and has some twists that are both fun and unexpected. Beale might be one of the best dramatic actors of his generation, but he's also remarkably skilled at comedy, and he pulls off the role of failing playwright Sidney Bruhl with an easy charm. And Groff was equally fun as the young writer who shows up with a surefire play that no one but Bruhl knows about.
The final play of the trip was The Master Builder by Ibsen. I'm not big on the northern playwrights, though I've seen two Chekhov productions in the last year that I very much enjoyed, but I figured this was worth a go for Stephen Dillane in the lead. And it very much was, though Dillane was quite possibly overshadowed by Gemma Arterton giving easily as much as she got.
Dillane plays Halvard Solness, the master builder of the title. Solness is at the pinnacle of his professional life, but his personal life if a mess and he lives in fear that his assistant will surpass him as he surpassed his superior. Into his life comes Arterton's Hilde Wangel, a young woman Solness met when she was a child. Wangel proceeds to overturn Solness' life completely.
The production had a very stripped down set--with a staircase at the rear and several chairs being the only set decorations--and was done in modern dress of muted colours. And at just under two hours with no interval, the drama itself was stripped down and muscular. It was, strange to say, rather demented fun.
And that was it for the theatre portion of the trip.
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no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 09:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 04:13 am (UTC)MS is definitely worth seeing if you ever have the chance. Even in a dodgy production.
no subject
Date: 2010-11-30 11:50 pm (UTC);-)
no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 04:14 am (UTC)Theatre is always a good thing. I hope you can get back into the swing one of these days.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 03:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 04:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 05:13 am (UTC)I was curious about what you'd think about the play. Of course I'd jump at the chance to see MS live in *anything* and it's been a long time since I read the play but I do remember it not particularly grabbing me. I'm sure he classed up the joint. *g*
I don't get to see much theatre here and feel positively starved for it.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-01 11:24 am (UTC)I try to see at least a bit of theatre locally, and the Toronto scene is pretty good, but London theatre is truly in a class by itself. I feel very lucky to have been over twice this year. It's been years since I was over.