Excellent play and production, not very accurately described in the blurb!
Janie and I were both really taken with this play/production. In some ways, not really our type of play. Indeed, had the Hampstead blurb for this production described the play more accurately, we might have chosen not to go, on the basis…
haven’t we seen enough of these Jewish families with grudges plays?…can get all that at home…not another narrator looking back at his family upbringing play…
…which would have been a terrible shame, because this one really is excellent, both as a play and a production. Well drawn characters – you end up caring about all of them – even the old dragon of an alcoholic, mischief-making grandmother.
Suzanne Bertish, Anna Francolini and Ryan Kopel all put in superb performances, ably directed by Josh Seymour.
The house was not full on the Saturday evening we attended. Perhaps the blurb, which made us imagine that the play was about modern art, attracted a smaller audience than a more accurate blurb might have done.
Who knows? In any case, it still has a couple of weeks to run at the time of writing and we would recommend this highly if there are still some tickets available when you read this.
We’re big fans of David Edgar’s plays. Indeed, this was our second David Edgar premier in the past few weeks – his plays seem to come along with the regularity of London buses these days (nothing for ages, then two together):
But in truth I cannot rave about The New Real the way I raved about Here In America.
There was a lot to like about The New Real. Terrific cast who all acted superbly well. Excellent production using the traverse stage and screen effects well. But the overall effect of this rather long play was a sense of over-stimulation by the end of it. So many ideas about politics. So many screen and stage effects. And relatively little human drama to illustrate rather than declaim the points David Edgar wanted to make.
Anyway, despite both coming out of the experience with headaches of over-stimulation, we’re both glad that we have seen this play.
Imagine politics in the USA embroiled in weird paranoia, obsessing about enemies within, making counterfactual accusations directed primarily towards people from migrant communities, with freedoms consequently being eroded by egotistical politicians.
But this isn’t a play about the Trumpian era; the play is about the Second Red Scare in the 1950s and the impact it had on the friendship between playwright Arthur Miller and director Elia Kazan.
I have been a fan of David Edgar’s plays since the mid 1980s, when I got busy reading every play I could get my hands on. In those days I was able to get my hands on a lot of David Edgar’s plays.
In the 80s and 90s I got to see several David Edgar plays performed, but he is not so prolific these days and not often revived in places that Janie and I tend to visit.
Still, like London buses, after a dearth of Edgars for several years, two new ones have come along at the same time: this one and The New Real, which we have booked to see in Stratford-Upon-Avon next month.
This one, Here In America, is just our sort of play – and this production at The Orange Tree is just our sort of production – we loved it.
I have long been fascinated by the phenomenon that became known as McCarthyism and in particular the impact it had on the performing arts. In 1952 Elia Kazan eventually agreed to name names rather than jeopardise his career, whereas Arthur Miller risked jail by refusing to name names when he was summoned to the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1954, around the time that Kazan was enhancing his career with films such as On The Waterfront:
In David Edgar’s hands, this story fizzes with political and interpersonal energy. The play is mostly dialogue between Kazan and Miller, with Kazan’s wife, Molly Day in a great many of the scenes. Several scenes also include Marilyn Monroe, who appears in Milleresque fashion, perhaps as flashbacks, perhaps as unreliable memories or perhaps as imaginings. Very reminiscent of such scenes in Miller plays, e.g. Death Of A Salesman. Very well done.
All the actors played their parts well: Michael Aloni (who struck us as very Arthur Miller-like), Jasmine Blackborow, Faye Castelow and Shaun Evans. Director James Dacre is also to be congratulated for making this multi-faceted play work extremely well within the limits of The Orange Tree’s small in-the-round space.
Janie and I left The Orange Tree with lots to discuss; many big-picture political matters, questions around loyalty to friends and also loyalty to loved ones. Both Kazan and Miller betrayed their wives with Marilyn Monroe and later, arguably, jointly betrayed Monroe’s memory through their work.
But before we left the auditorium, or rather as we were leaving, I was able to congratulate David Edgar in person. We were there on the first preview night for this show so it was hardly a surprise to spot him there. I asked him if Here In America and the forthcoming play The New Real are companion pieces.
Didn’t really think about it that way…but there are two lines that appear in both plays,
he said. I promised to form my own opinion on that question. I’m glad I had the opportunity to speak with David Edgar, albeit very briefly, having followed his work for so many decades.
It was a very memorable preview night in the theatre. I’ll add a review link once the play has been formally reviewed. It is running at The Orange Tree until 19 October. Highly recommended by both me and Janie.
