Chains by Elizabeth Baker, Orange Tree Theatre, 24 November 2007

Truthfully, I recall very little about this one. No doubt Sam Walters was wandering around like an expectant father on the night we went; a production directed by his wife, Auriol Smith and starring their daughter, Octavia Walters. Although we were past the preview stage, so perhaps Sam wasn’t there that night.

Anyway, here’s the helpful Orange Tree stub about it.

Michael Billington in the Guardian, as usual with Orange Tree stuff, loved it, here.

Philip Fisher in British Theatre Guide is reasonably impressed but observes that there is a lot of dull chit chat, here.

The Standard suggests that it is interesting as social history but lumpen as drama, here.

I have a feeling that we found it a bit lumpen too. We tended to with Orange Tree pieces from that period, often observing that Sam’s reluctance to use an editing pencil on Edwardian revivals is a bit of a disadvantage. A shame really. Especially as so many of my great aunts and uncles made that trip to Australia 100 or so years ago, the subject really is of interest to me.

Still, we no doubt still enjoyed our evening and no doubt rounded it off with Spanish food at Don Fernando, as most often we do after the Orange Tree.

 

The Years Between by Daphne Du Maurier, Orange Tree Theatre, 15 September 2007

The Years Between is a 1940s period piece by Daphne Du Maurier. Orange Tree Theatre stubs from 2007 are a bit thin on detail, but here’s a link to the stub.

I remember this play seeming a bit slow and dated, but it did hold our attention and the acting was very good.

A Glass Of Water by Ludmila Petrushevskaya, Orange Tree Room, 17 May 1997

Janie and I noted “not really memorable” by this one not so long after we saw it. It sure doesn’t live in the memory now.

To be fair, we’d seen a lot of cracking theatre around that time, including Out Cry the night before.

It might be the last thing we saw in The Room at the Orange Tree – I think they topped using the room above the pub around that time.

Fortunately the local paper has a little something on it in the Newspapers.com archive.

Hounslow Chronicle Glass Of WaterHounslow Chronicle Glass Of Water 08 May 1997, Thu The Hounslow Chronicle (Hounslow, London, England) Newspapers.com

Family Circles by Alan Ayckbourn, Orange Tree Theatre, 30 November 1996

Blooming heck – Janie and I took Pauline with us on this occasion, to see an Ayckbourn play about a family with three daughters…

…and yet our logged verdict on the event was:

Very good.

It must REALLY have been very good.

The play was subtitled “The Story So Far aka Me Times Me Times Me” and is one of those lesser-known Ayckbourn plays. Possibly it is lesser-known precisely because it is less predictable, glib, farce-oriented comedy than many of his works.

My friend, Michael Billington, clearly liked the play and this production:

Family Circles BillingtonFamily Circles Billington 10 Dec 1996, Tue The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

After reading that Billington review, I am for some reason (“Dance Of Death played for laughs”, perhaps, or “three sisters in comparison with whom Lear’s daughters look like balanced and beneficent progeny” reminded of one of my favourite Peter Cook quotes:

I go to the theatre to be entertained. I don’t want to see plays about rape, sodomy and drug addiction – I can get all that at home.

Nick Curtis in the evening Standard was less sure about the piece:

Family Circles Nick Curtis StandardFamily Circles Nick Curtis Standard 12 Dec 1996, Thu Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

We would no doubt have dined at Don Fernando’s after the show. Families, eh?

Bodies by James Saunders, Orange Tree Theatre, 24 August 1996

Not especially memorable, this one…

…I noted in my log.

Janie and I were very keen on The Orange Tree at that time and on the whole the plays and the productions were excellent. James Saunders is not the easiest playwright, though.

Here is a link to the Bodies page on the James Saunders website.

We saw a revival of the piece, which had been an early effort at the Orange Tree back in the 1970s. Sam Walters had directed the original version; Dominic Hill directed our revival – no doubt mentored by Sam at that time. Here is a link to the Theatricalia entry for the version we saw.

Here is the review from the Independent.

Bodies Adrian Turpin IndependentBodies Adrian Turpin Independent 25 Sep 1996, Wed The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Here is Nick Curtis’s review from The standard:

Bodies Nick Curtis StandardBodies Nick Curtis Standard 03 Sep 1996, Tue Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

The Good Person of Sichuan by Bertolt Brecht, Orange Tree Theatre, 3 February 1996

Janie had never seen this play before and The Orange Tree was on a bit of a roll with us, so we decided to give this a go.

Given the scale of the piece, I thought we’d try sitting upstairs rather than downstairs for once. It was just for once, because we didn’t find upstairs very comfortable – less leg room and peering down didn’t please us.

I had seen a cracking good production of “Good Person” with Bobbie at the National a few years earlier:

In truth. the Orange Tree was probably biting off a bit more than it could chew attempting such a large-scale piece in the round, but Sam Walters obcviously wanted to have a go.

We enjoyed the production. I think Janie got more out of it than I did because she hadn’t seen the play before and didn’t have a big production with which to compare it.

No newspaper reviews to be found but I did find this interview/preview by Carol Woddis on TES. That piece is scraped to here just in case that link disappears.

Each Day Dies with Sleep by José Rivera, Orange Tree Theatre, 8 July 1995

We thought this was a very good production. José Rivera was not a well known writer back then, pre Motorcycle Diaries, but we chose this on the back of interesting sounding subject matter and the quality of stuff we were getting at The Orange Tree, which was on a bit of a roll at that time.

From the bowels of my memory, I recalled it as sort of magical realism…

…so I was delighted to see that Michael Billington used that term in the first sentence of his review. At one point Billington suggests that the production was as if Tennessee Williams had been done over by Pedro Almodovar. No wonder we really liked it.

Billington on RiveraBillington on Rivera Wed, Jul 5, 1995 – 83 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com