(A quick catch-up post. Still two plays behind after this one.)
Mid-late July isn’t exactly what the RZ would deem the best time to open a new show in the West End. With special events (the Proms) going on, local festivals (Chichester) taking place, and the entire industry gearing up for Edinburgh, the West End looks a bit haggard and unappealing. Nevertheless, new plays are still coming in (musicals seem to be on hold for a bit), so here we go.
I, Lear is a two-hander from award winning comedy duo Black Sheep. A Reduced Shakespeare-meets-39 Steps look at the theatre canon (“We’re going to do the best of British Theatre.” “I think you mean the best of theatre.” “Like I said, the best of British Theatre, such as Brecht and Chekhov.”), you can already guess what to expect and if you’ll like it. There’s the standard unevenness of sketch plays (the Brecht sequence is brilliant, the Sherlock Holmes one not so much) and a heaping dose of slapstick used to demonstrate the “techniques” required in acting.
The whole thing, as the title suggests, culminates in an abridgement of King Lear, easily the best segment, and the parts which dragged on earlier come back in a way which proved legion: better in the whole than on its own. At 75 minutes, I, Lear is the sort of thing you get a right laugh out of for £5-10 on the fringe, but £20 at Trafalgar seems excessive.
For those seeking out more intellectual fare, the non-air conditioned Vaudeville is hosting its own new one act, The Female of the Species.
Female is the antithesis to the manly I, Lear. Dame Eileen Atkins leads the cast as Margot Mason, a burned out feminist intellectual struggling to get one more book out to pay the mortgage on her new summer home. When a disgruntled ex-student appears and takes Mason hostage, chaos unfolds as Mason’s daughter intrudes on the verge of a breakdown.
The good news is that Female is actually humourous, something Atkins’ last appearance wasn’t. Her character is similar in both - a sharp tongued egotistical matron - but the character works better in this one, as she throws her status and weight around you see that this is a woman who made herself. The supporting cast are uniformly strong, and it’s nice to see a play done without mics in an intimate venue like the Vaudeville.
The bad news is that Joanna Murray-Smith ran out of ideas at the 75-80 minute mark when the play is 100 minutes long. As one might expect given the storyline (there’s a lot of this lately, isn’t there...), feminist theory is thrown around like peanuts at a baseball game, but for most of the play it works because it’s a part of the verbal sparring or sets up something in the plot and/or leads to a joke. The problems emerge when Murray-Smith has written herself into a corner with the daughter sympathising with the intruder (names escape the RZ at this point and it helps minimise spoilers anyway) and her emasculated husband being rather worthless. Turning to tired sitcom formulas, an angry new-man taxi driver is introduced, and this is where the play falls apart: Mr. Driver begins an extended, painfully dry monologue about gender roles and, still failing to resolve the story, Mason’s gay publisher is brought in to offer everybody book deals and bring about a happy ending for all. It’s trite, dull, and in a sweltering theatre, painful.
I, LEAR
Where: Trafalagar Studios 2
When: Until 16 August, M-Sa @ 19:45
How Much: £15 on Mondays, £20 all other nights.
Concessions: None
-----------------------------
RZ Unofficial “Worth Paying”: £10. Comedy club fare, comedy club price.
RZ Other Notes: Avoid sitting in Row A if you’re in the centre block. In fact, to play it safe, avoid Row A in general. It would be a spoiler to ruin the moment, but let’s just say it involves possible stains.
THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES
Where: Vaudeville Theatre
When: Until 4 October, T-Sa @ 19:30, W/Sa @ 14:30
How Much: £35-£47.50
Concessions: £20 in advance for Wednesday matinee or 1 hour prior to curtain all other shows.
----------------------------
RZ Unofficial “Worth Paying”: £15. This is a fringe play on steroids which, despite some good performances, badly needs an editor.
RZ Other Notes: It gets hot in the Vaudeville. Really hot. Bring a bottle of water and dress lightly.
Showing posts with label Feminist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Feminist. Show all posts
Tuesday, 29 July 2008
Saturday, 5 July 2008
REVIEW: "Vinegar Tom"
(A quick review in between shows. According to Blogspot, this is the RZ's 100th post.)
When the RZ arrived at the oddly posh Cobden Club (in the middle of a not so posh set of housing estates) for the new Gilt and Grime production of Caryl Churchill’s Vinegar Tom, he was given a free programme with a smile. He smiled back and went into the very nice member’s bar (which he couldn’t afford to go to otherwise), looked at the rather cute and pudgy fish swimming in the tank, and sat down on an all-too-comfortable black leather couch to see what he was in for. To his delight, an acquaintance was the rehearsal stage manager. To his semi-delight and possible trepidation, he proceeded to notice a number of contemporaries and alumni from his fine institution.
As house was opened, the RZ headed for the club’s grand hall, greeted by a pair of usherettes in quite low cut tops and dinner jackets and found a seat on a lovely sofa as the remaining audience filtered into a stylish, mirrored room with low lights and high ambiance.
And then the play began.
For those familiar with the works of Caryl Churchill, Vinegar Tom is standard fare. It’s militantly feminist, utilises bizarre techniques to grab one’s attention (in this case Brechtian song insertion, frequently led by the usherettes) and keeps things safely under two hours. It also takes a good 15-20 minutes before anything useful happens, and the final scene comes across as uncomfortably tacked on.
Taking a look at 17th century witch hunts, Churchilll uses feminine sexuality as the grounding for her strands of persecution: the village slut, midwife, and widow are all accused and tortured by the end (it hurts the audience as much as the characters), as is a happily married woman who forces a miscarriage in a fit of despair. The hunt is, of course, sparked off by a childless couple who never have sex and are naturally upstanding Christians, despite the husband begging the slut for a lay early on.
Simon Kenny’s sets are minimal, just some white curtains and a wicker chest. Pablo Baz does what he can with the Cobden stage’s minimal lighting capabilities, relying heavily on white, less white, and red to set tones and moods, but the whole thing is mercilessly minimalist, as is Tom Platten’s direction: there’s a massive “I can be more fringe than you” vibe as if edginess comes from flat acting all around, though the exception is Peter Saracen as upstanding dairyman Jack, last seen in You’ve Been A Wonderful Audience. Readers shouldn’t mistake that as a compliment, however, as the RZ found him an obnoxious whinging prat in both. He did, however, enjoy Moya McGinn and Alice Keedwell’s usherettes, and when the cast had to do little but stand and sing they were at their best.
There’s really not much else to say. If you like your political theatre with a sense of the absurd and the brutal, this Vinegar Tom is a must-see. If, like the RZ, you expect a play about sexuality to actually feature something sexy, you’re better off elsewhere.
Where: Cobden Club
When: Until 26 July. W @ 19:30, Sa @ 14:00, 24 Jul special @ 19:30
How Much: £15 General Admission
Concessions: £10
----------------------
RZ Unofficial “Worth Paying”: £10 for a chance at the surroundings before the show and varied levels of amusement within.
RZ Other Notes: The RZ may love where he studies, but he also has an open disdain for many of the excesses and traits inherent in the productions. While Gilt and Grime are sharper than the average postgrad production he’s seen this year, the trademarks, for better or worse, are all there.
When the RZ arrived at the oddly posh Cobden Club (in the middle of a not so posh set of housing estates) for the new Gilt and Grime production of Caryl Churchill’s Vinegar Tom, he was given a free programme with a smile. He smiled back and went into the very nice member’s bar (which he couldn’t afford to go to otherwise), looked at the rather cute and pudgy fish swimming in the tank, and sat down on an all-too-comfortable black leather couch to see what he was in for. To his delight, an acquaintance was the rehearsal stage manager. To his semi-delight and possible trepidation, he proceeded to notice a number of contemporaries and alumni from his fine institution.
As house was opened, the RZ headed for the club’s grand hall, greeted by a pair of usherettes in quite low cut tops and dinner jackets and found a seat on a lovely sofa as the remaining audience filtered into a stylish, mirrored room with low lights and high ambiance.
And then the play began.
For those familiar with the works of Caryl Churchill, Vinegar Tom is standard fare. It’s militantly feminist, utilises bizarre techniques to grab one’s attention (in this case Brechtian song insertion, frequently led by the usherettes) and keeps things safely under two hours. It also takes a good 15-20 minutes before anything useful happens, and the final scene comes across as uncomfortably tacked on.
Taking a look at 17th century witch hunts, Churchilll uses feminine sexuality as the grounding for her strands of persecution: the village slut, midwife, and widow are all accused and tortured by the end (it hurts the audience as much as the characters), as is a happily married woman who forces a miscarriage in a fit of despair. The hunt is, of course, sparked off by a childless couple who never have sex and are naturally upstanding Christians, despite the husband begging the slut for a lay early on.
Simon Kenny’s sets are minimal, just some white curtains and a wicker chest. Pablo Baz does what he can with the Cobden stage’s minimal lighting capabilities, relying heavily on white, less white, and red to set tones and moods, but the whole thing is mercilessly minimalist, as is Tom Platten’s direction: there’s a massive “I can be more fringe than you” vibe as if edginess comes from flat acting all around, though the exception is Peter Saracen as upstanding dairyman Jack, last seen in You’ve Been A Wonderful Audience. Readers shouldn’t mistake that as a compliment, however, as the RZ found him an obnoxious whinging prat in both. He did, however, enjoy Moya McGinn and Alice Keedwell’s usherettes, and when the cast had to do little but stand and sing they were at their best.
There’s really not much else to say. If you like your political theatre with a sense of the absurd and the brutal, this Vinegar Tom is a must-see. If, like the RZ, you expect a play about sexuality to actually feature something sexy, you’re better off elsewhere.
Where: Cobden Club
When: Until 26 July. W @ 19:30, Sa @ 14:00, 24 Jul special @ 19:30
How Much: £15 General Admission
Concessions: £10
----------------------
RZ Unofficial “Worth Paying”: £10 for a chance at the surroundings before the show and varied levels of amusement within.
RZ Other Notes: The RZ may love where he studies, but he also has an open disdain for many of the excesses and traits inherent in the productions. While Gilt and Grime are sharper than the average postgrad production he’s seen this year, the trademarks, for better or worse, are all there.
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