Category: Theatre

Misty by Arinzé Kene, Bush Theatre, 17 March 2018

Janie and I both found this a very entertaining and unusual piece. A one man show written and performed by Arinzé Kene.

Friends who have seen my own little Mithras performance from earlier in the week – click here or below…

The London Mithraeum With The Gresham Society, 15 March 2018

…might expect Misty to be a sort-of jazz standards musical. You’d be so wrong.

So is Misty a play, a rap musical, an installation performance or what? It is sort-of all of those things.

Click here for a link to the Bush resource on this piece/production.

Below is a trailer showing one of the rap numbers from the start of the piece:

Below is a short “meet the writer” interview:

Kene explains that it is a piece about trying to write such a piece…

…which I suppose makes it a post-modern performance piece.

There’s some weird imagery too, with some orange balloon motifs acting as a recurring theme.

I don’t think this piece is aimed at the traditional theatre audience, but we were captivated by it.

We liked the poetry of Arinzé Kene’s language, we liked the music – both of the musicians, Adrian McLeod and Shiloh Coke (you can see them in the City Creature vid above) were excellent – I was especially impressed by Shiloh Coke, a young multi-instrumentalist – she should go far.

Arinzé Kene is a very talented rapper, along with being a talented writer and actor/performer.

At the time of writing Misty has only just opened, so you should be able to get to see it over the next few weeks – highly recommended as an unusual but entertaining theatrical, musical, image-filled evening.

Checkpoint Chana by Jeff Page, Finborough Theatre, 11 March 2018

After our excellent experience seeing Returning To Haifa on Friday…

Returning To Haifa by Ghassan Kanafani, Finborough Theatre, 9 March 2018

…we were really looking forward to the other piece running concurrently at the Finborough, Checkpoint Chana, but we found it comparatively disappointing.

Finborough Theatre, near Earl's Court, London

The topic is interesting – an academic/poet accused of making anti-Semitic references in one of her poems. But as a play it really didn’t work. The poet is also meant to be a soak – so there’s a lot of soak-laden drama involved, which tends to leave us cold.

There’s a lot of telling rather than showing in this play – which tilts it towards melodrama.

I thought it was almost a good short play, but could have done with a heavy prune/edit/revision. Janie really didn’t like it and thought the whole thing beyond redemption.

Here is a link to the Finborough resource on this play/production.

A search term that finds the reviews – mostly middling – can be found here.

Returning To Haifa by Ghassan Kanafani, Finborough Theatre, 9 March 2018

Janie and I rated this piece and production very highly.

I’m not usually a big fan of adapting cerebral novels into plays, but Ismail Khalidi and Naomi Wallace have done a superb job with this one.

Here is a link to the Finborough resource on this play/production.

Not without controversy – it was originally set to be performed in New York and then withdrawn under political pressure.

It is controversial material from a controversial author. The piece is the story of a  Palestinian couple returning to Haifa in 1967, some 20 years after abandoning their home and (inadvertently) their infant child in that city.

Here is a short vid about Kanafani and this play – basically it was the fundraising vid for the production:

Kanafani was clearly a serious intellect who could see the Israeli/Palestinian debate from both sides. There is nuance in this piece which is rarely seen in dramatic material on this subject.

It reminded me of a piece Janie and I saw nearly 20 years ago at the Tricycle, The Gardens Of Habustan – click here or below:

The Garden Of Habustan by Rebecca Wolman, Tricycle Theatre, 27 April 1999

It took me a while to identify the name and author of that play, despite the fact that it was written and directed by my old friend Rebecca Wolman. Weird – I remembered that play so clearly and I separately of course remembered going to see Rebecca’s play in 1999 and getting a chance to see her again briefly after so many years, but I hadn’t connected the two until I dug out my old archives. But I digress.

Rebecca’s play, similarly nuanced, used the fertility of the gardens as an allegory for the impotence of the displaced Palestinians. Kanafani’s piece uses the abandoned child as that symbol.

Both plays I believe contain sufficient insight to make strong arguments for a  peaceful resolution, but whereas Wolman’s piece is firmly oriented towards peace, Kanafani’s protagonist, Said, suggests that only fighting could resolve the conflict, even if that results in brother fighting brother. Kanafani’s own political career and life sadly went in the violent direction, although there is evidence that he renounced violence (certainly of the indiscriminate kind) shortly before he was assassinated.

Kanafani
Click this link to find reviews, most of which are very good.

A humorous aside – the play was performed in the round at the Finborough, with the audience seated on benches. The usherette (who admitted it was her first day) told us all that we needed to sit five to a bench as the show was sold out. I think she meant that some of the benches seated five people and that those would need to accommodate five people – some of the benches (ours for example) were quite modestly sized even for four people.

The result was a fair bit of jostling for position before the play started. I wondered briefly whether the mistake was deliberate, to get the audience into a “there’s not enough space for all these people…how do we resolve this?” frame of mind. But in truth I think it was just an honest mistake. It soon became clear that common sense could prevail and that, as long as four people sat on the four-seaters and five people sat on the five-seaters, there was enough room for everyone. If only the Israeli/Palestinian problem could be solved so easily.

Returning To Haifa is a fascinating play, extremely well acted and produced – it deserves a much larger audience than a short run at the Finborough will provide for it, which is a shame. I do hope it gets a transfer on the back of its success.

Acceptance by Amy Ng, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs, 3 March 2018

A truly gripping and fascinating moral drama about a young musical prodigy from Hong Kong applying to an elite university in the USA.

Here is a link to the Hampstead resource on this play/production. 

As the rubric infers, all is not as it seems in this play. Our assumptions and prejudices get tested to the limits, as do those of the characters.

Below is the trailer, with short interviews with the cast and creatives:

The young prodigy obsesses about some Bach, so I was tempted to headline this Ogblog article “Baroque And Enroll”, but Janie says that such a headline would be crass for such an emotive play.

It is certainly a very thought-provoking play and it is potentially a very moving production too.

We saw the second preview of this play/production, so it is possible that one or two of the wrinkles we observed will have been ironed out by the time it gets to press night.

The main wrinkle for us was the see-through screens that divide the stage from the audience. The purpose (if any) behind this device was unclear…as was some of the sound that emanated from the stage as a result of these clear screens. More importantly than the slightly muffled sound was the sense that we, as audience, were somewhat separated from the action. This is a highly emotive piece, yet the audience seemed strangely numb to it – I think the audience would far better be able to embrace and respond to this piece without the screens.

Another wrinkle, for me, was the complete absence of the particular piece of music that seemed so central in many ways to the story; the Mercy Aria – Erbarme Dich, from Bach’s St Matthew Passion.

While I imagine that the cast and crew didn’t want the play/production to be compared too readily with Death And The Maiden, the differences between the two plays are great and the similarities are there whether you use Erbarme Dich or not.

Erbarme Dich is described in so much detail, referred to so often and is so significant to the plot. Even if they simply played the violin part of Erbarme Dich right at the end of the play, I think it would have helped.

Even as seasoned Baroque-oholocs, Janie and I had to dig out Erbarme Dich and listen to it when we got home to remember exactly what the piece sounds like – most of the audience would have been even more in the dark.

Below is a beautiful rendition of Erbarme Dich:

I really thought Acceptance was a superb play – just the second play by Amy Ng, another new playwright to watch. The disturbing issues raised by this play are covered with a confident blend of subtlety, sensitivity and visceral moments.

The acting was truly excellent.

I would thoroughly recommend seeing this play/production even if the production team doesn’t make a few changes, but I sincerely hope that they will gauge audience reaction and make the few tweaks I think it needs to turn this production into an absolute stunner.

No reviews yet at the time of writing – this search term – click here – will find them when they come.

Trust by Falk Richter, Gate Theatre, 23 February 2018

This was a quite extraordinary piece. Weird, in a way that, it seems, only German plays can be weird.

Janie and I often walk away from such strange stuff baffled and dissatisfied, but certainly not on this occasion – we found the piece compelling to watch and entertaining, as well as baffling.

Sixteen very different scenes, ranging from videos with voice-overs, to seemingly straightforward two-handed romantic strife, to a Mandarin Chinese lesson for the audience…

…I suppose it’s all about the abuse of trust – domestic, financial and governmental.

Here is a link to The Gate’s resource on this production – click here…

…and below is the trailer, although the play only gives a passing mention to Brexit – you might expect more Brexit based on the trailer.

Excellent performances from Pia Laborde Noguez and Zephryn Taitte…and indeed from Jude Christian, the ubiquitous director who chose also to appear in this one.

Exceptional use of an infeasible quantity of props in a small space.

We thought the piece was very imaginative indeed and would recommend it highly. Yet another feather in the cap for Ellen MacDougall and her Gate tenure.

It will be interesting to see how critics and other people react to this piece. We saw a preview, but Daisy and I were interviewed for reaction on the way out – so we might well “form part of the conversation”, as the young folk say.

Update: yes, I got my 1.5 seconds of fame in the vox pop – see below but don’t blink or you might miss it:

Go see this show for yourself, if you are able – at the time of writing it has three weeks more to run.

Once it has reviews, this search term – click here – should find them.

The B*easts by Monica Dolan, Bush Theatre, 17 February 2018

This was a very interesting piece about sexual exploitation of children, written and performed by Monica Dolan, who was excellent on the stage.

Click here for the Bush resource on this play/production.

Janie got more out of the piece than I did – I found the ending a little contrived and felt the piece lacked drama. It is difficult to make monologues truly gripping – we’ve seen some corking good ones lately. This one is redeemed for me, though, because the piece is so interesting and Monica Dolan is such a strong stage presence.

Below is the trailer…

…and below is a “meet the writer” vid:

The reviews are, deservedly, pretty darn good – click here for a search term that finds them.

Another winner at The Bush as far as we are concerned.

Booby’s Bay by Henry Darke, Finborough Theatre, 9 February 2018

Oh dear.

We found this one a real dud. Both the play and the production.

The subject matter really interested us. The housing crisis and the notion of a protester taking on the establishment…

…but this play missed the mark for us in so many ways. The protester was not only a flawed hero (that’s a good idea for such a play) but is in many ways a shirking beneficiary of the housing crisis. It is hard to buy into the conceit of a play when you find the moral hero at the core quite so conflicted and irritating.

Click here or image below for a link to the Finborough resource on this play/production.

The production had ideas beyond its ability to deliver too, with several long interludes of singing and movement that were almost embarrassing in their amateurishness. Janie struggled (failed) to avoid laughing in inappropriate places at times – the good news being that those were such noisy times, few if any other people would have noticed.

Another scene that really didn’t work for us…let’s call it the shark scene…had us laughing at the artlessness of the performance rather than at the material itself, which was meant to be comedic, but not in that way.

The good news for us was that we were both in a pretty relaxed mood on that Friday evening; this lemon of a play/production was so poor it almost entertained us to share that sorry experience and chat about it afterwards. Had we been in a stressy-end-of-the-week mood, having rushed to get to the theatre on time, we might have been far less amused.

Also, as we were just around the corner from Mohsen, we had a very tasty Persian meal to look forward to and then enjoy in Noddyland after the show.

Here is a link to the reviews, which have not been brilliant although some have been much kinder than ours.

We really do think it is a shame that this one was such a flop for us. We’re becoming very fond of the Finborough and we also both think that the subject matter – the housing and inequality crisis in our society, is a very relevant topic for theatrical treatment at the moment. Just not this play/production.

Here is a link to the trailer:

BOOBY’S BAY Trailer 1 from Henry Darke on Vimeo.

The Believers Are But Brothers by Javaad Alipoor, Bush Theatre, 3 February 2018

“Please leave your mobile phones on and be sure to set the volume to loud”…

…is not an entreaty you’ll often hear in the theatre just before the start of the show, but for this show it makes a great deal of sense. It makes even more sense to join the Whatsapp group set up for the piece – not a requirement but an experience-enhancing move for sure.

The scene as we entered the theatre

Janie and I both obliged, but while I found all the social media discussion and exposition fascinating, Janie got lost in the techiness of it all and said the piece left her cold…

…which is a shame.

Because the story was, in my view, well written and well told by writer/performer Javaad Alipoor. He shows, through the stories of three disaffected young men, how people can be radicalised through social media, both to Islamic extremism and also to alt-right type fanatical politics.

Janie said she found the whole idea of it rather depressing. It didn’t make me feel that way. Concerned, yes, but not depressed. Disaffected youngsters have always been susceptible to extremism – social media is just the modern way of grooming and recruiting them.

I’m more concerned with the ways social media seem to be polarising opinion and dragging communities apart from each other, rather than fulfilling their potential role as universal media that can bring people closer together.

But that’s another story…and if Javaad Alipoor wants to write a play about that, I’d be up for seeing more of his work…

…but Janie might not be so keen to go with me.

Here is a link to the Bush resource on this piece/production.

Mixed reviews from me and Janie – similarly mixed reviews from the critics – click here for a search term that finds them.

Out Of Love by Elinor Cook, Orange Tree Theatre, 27 January 2018

Another day, another excellent preview of a short play at the Orange Tree Theatre.

We saw Black Mountain the previous night – click here or below for that one:

Black Mountain by Brad Birch, Orange Tree Theatre, 26 January 2018

Out Of Love is the same cast, same creatives, but a different play in this rep season.

The acting was once again excellent. The set was the same – no props; just light and soundscape.

Here is a link to the Orange Tree resource for this play.

Janie and I had different views on the relative merits of the two pieces. Janie preferred this one, finding the tender emotional elements of it more gripping than the psychological thriller.

I was a little surprised that Janie warmed so much to this piece – she is usually very resistant to plays that leap backwards and forwards in time, complaining that they mess with her ability to follow the narrative line. She felt that the way the actors deployed their bodies and their voices made it very clear, most of the time, whether they were children, youngsters or adults.

I’m usually fine with temporal gymnastics, but this play had even me a bit confused right at the end, when the two female characters suddenly acquired names we’d never heard before and pregnancies…

…I heard several people wondering about that as we left the theatre…

…but about 15 minutes later, while washing my hands at Don Fernando before dinner, I worked out that the pregnant duo in the final scene must have been the mothers of the two female protagonists just before the main pair were born.

Below I have embedded the trailer:

Here is a link to a term that should pick up all the reviews – at the time of writing just reviews from previous venues as this piece is still in preview at the Orange Tree.

Going by the reviews, Janie is right and I am wrong – Out of Love seems to have gone down better on the whole with the reviewers.

 

Black Mountain by Brad Birch, Orange Tree Theatre, 26 January 2018

We thought this was a very good play/production indeed.

We have been very pleased with most of our visits to the Orange Tree since the dawn of the Paul Miller era; one of those excellent visits was a couple of years ago to see a Brad Birch play called The Brink – click here or below:

The Brink by Brad Birch, Orange Tree Theatre, 9 April 2016

That experience was good enough to have us looking out for Brad Birch, so we very much wanted to see Black Mountain…

…so much so that we decided to make a rare trip to Richmond on a Friday…

…indeed we shall repeat the visit today (the very next evening) to see Out Of Love; the other play being shown in rep with Black Mountain at the moment…

…we are looking forward to seeing the same cast and production team again, because Black Mountain was that good.

Here is a link to the Orange Tree resource on Black Mountain.

Very suspenseful, it reminded us a lot of The Brink, in that we see the psychological disintegration of one male character and at times cannot tell the extent to which the images and sounds we are hearing are supposed to be genuine or in his head.

But Black Mountain is also about relationships and guilt and whether trust can ever be restored fully after a major breach.

Great trailer – embedded below:

I suspect that the Orange Tree’s success with these modern plays owes a great deal to the spirit of collaboration; in this case with Paines Plough and Theatr Clwyd. Long may that spirit continue.

Here is a link to the reviews Black Mountain has had – it seems to have divided the critics with some excellent reviews and some indifferent ones. None of these at the time of writing are from this Orange Tree production (which is still in preview), although I suspect that this piece is already quite well honed over the autumn by this production team.

Janie and I vote it a hit.