Theatre Review for UnderPinned freelancing magazine: Wise Children at the Old Vic

Written for publication at UnderPinned.co:
https://underpinned.co/2018/10/theatre-review-wise-children-at-the-old-vic/

CW: On-stage suggestions of sexual abuse, miscarriage, and incest.

Reworking Angela Carter’s 1991 novel Wise Children, Emma Rice’s theatrical imagining of the text is an explosive ode to the carnivalesque and a sensuous, bohemian feast of a pantomime. It’s a haunted fairytale which explores the shades between good and evil with darker moments offset by nostalgic musical numbers. The scene is a Brixton car-park in 1989 and our protagonists are twin sisters Dora and Nora Chance, accompanied by a gaggle of pastel-coloured mime artists and leggy thespians. A live band play a bewitching score in an alcove behind the centre-stage caravan and beneath the bulb-lit lettering of ‘Wise Children’, keeping guard of the pair. We meet the sisters on the day of their 75th birthday when they are unexpectedly delivered with an invitation to a birthday party from their estranged father, the actor Melchior Hazard. ‘There may be trouble ahead!’ the company croons, and the narrative sketches their complex and adulterous lineage, through which we meet a diverse host of eccentric and extraordinary members.

The importance of Shakespeare to the text is an intriguing thread which certainly feels appropriate given the timings of Rice’s departure from the Globe theatre. There’s a disdain for convention and a playful approach to gender and role-swapping with Ankur Bahl playing both the young Melkior and, later, the bratty female RADA student with whom Melchior has an affair. Katy Owen’s portrayal of the bawdy Grandma Chance is particularly worthy of praise and nothing short of comic brilliance. She has a stubborn disposition and as the parental guardian of the young girls, she spends her days drinking stout and delivering life lessons to the girls, most of which are conducted whilst Owens dons a plump (nude) fat suit with tastefully bejewelled areola and pubic region. The play’s set and costume design, overseen by Vicki Mortimer, is a visual pleasure, wonderfully camp and charmingly mismatched; wigs poorly fixed with sagging lace-fronts; ungodly high-waisted trousers and lashings of gender-bending and breaking. The musical number at the beginning of the second act confirms this as they sing, “Girls will be boys when they want their own way . . . there’s a sudden realization at the end of the play, that we’re all a bit distracted by the choice of passageway!”. This is Rice at her absolute finest.

Theatre Review for UnderPinned freelancing magazine; Mrs Dalloway at the Arcola

Written for publication at UnderPinned.co :
https://underpinned.co/2018/10/mrs-dalloway-at-the-arcola-theatre/

This adaptation of Virginia Wolf’s Mrs Dalloway isn’t for everyone. For some, it is a chaotic and claustrophobic clamour of self-indulgent Modernism. For others, it is a chaotic and claustrophobic clamour of self-indulgent Modernism. Attending to Virginia Woolf’s essay ‘Mr. Bennet and Mrs. Brown’, Hal Coase deduces that the text’s primary occupation is that of character formation, with an eye to Woolf’s distrust of “theatrical moments which might deliver the ‘final’ truths of life”. Drawing upon the rich catalogue of writings on and by Woolf, her eccentric creations are tastefully draped in muted beige linens with a background of white drapes. It’s minimalist to the extent that it habitually relies on narrative descriptions to project the image of London. Coase’s refusal to wholly visualise the setting is an abstract and painterly decision which is in keeping with the expressively experimental sentiment of the text but is also, albeit, a little lazy.

Before we meet Clarissa (Clare Perkins), the rest of the cast sketch her character by listing her traits until they grow restless at the redundancy of language and limits of knowledge. “There is never enough of someone to make a judgement”, they surmise. The four cast members disperse like birds into the four corners of the room, playing metropolitan ‘found-sound’ on cassette players in a contemporary flourish. Thus, the character of Clarissa Dalloway is born, clutching (fake) flowers, which she bought herself, against an Yves-Klein-blue canvas; one of few temporal markers. Later, a cloudier canvas is brought out to indicate the fading light.

There are several instances of wrongly executed and misspoken lines and the shaky synchronisation feels indicative of insufficient rehearsal. Despite this, there is a supremely accomplished and nuanced performance from Moody who brings surprisingly humorous tones to the characters of Miss Killman and Mrs William Bradshaw. D’Arcy’s monologue as Rezia is also worthy of note, her musical Italian timbre summoning audience tears as she pleads for her shell-shocked husband’s sanity. In its denouement, the play pulls together its aphoristic threads in the aftermath of Septimus’ death. “To love makes one solitary”, is one, “the people we are most fond of are no good for us when we are ill”. In this, the cynicism of Woolf’s earlier mentioned distrust for theatrically delivered truths is lost, operating more as moral lessons than sardonic phrases.

Whilst it might not be as beautiful as Woolf’s prose, Coases’ theatrical imagining of Mrs Dalloway must be credited for its ambition in adapting such a well-loved canonical Modernist text. The adaptation might not be a meticulous reiteration of the original, it’s every bit as cluttered and befuddled as urban life has always been.

Review: Mood Music at the Old Vic for AYT

Propelled by the anxious collision of psychological expression and repression, Mood Music interrogates the boundaries of creative ownership and the extent to which we are emotionally invested in our artistic products. Written by Joe Penhall (Sunny Afternoon, Blue/Orange) and directed by Roger Michell, the piece chronicles the ego-clash of producer Bernard (Ben Chaplin) and wide-eyed vocalist and protégé, Cat (Seána Kerslake). After moving to London from her native Dublin, Cat is scouted by the esteemed producer who promises fanciful collaborations, avowing that he is “no stranger to excitement”. Dialogue splices between conversations with their respective doting psychotherapists (Jemma Redgrave and Pip Carter) on a stage decked with a low ceiling of vintage microphones.

The relationship between the two soon turns sour. Cat becomes increasingly demystified by the façade of musical success and pines for a ‘purer’ method of musical expression to spiritually reconnect with her deceased father. Studio quarrels are spurned by Bernard’s self-assured musical machismo and confident misogyny. The trope is all too familiar and he is superbly repugnant. The declaration by Bernard’s Lawyer (Neil Stuke) that “It’s time to change the balance of power… within reason” illustrates the extent to which misogyny is embedded in the operation of the music industry and manifests throughout the play’s legal struggles and the propagation of Bernard’s intuitive ‘genius’. “We’re essentially midwives, but the songs are our babies” he affirms. In this, and other references to songs as his “babies”, we see the heart of Bernard’s quest to erase female presence and stabilise his unstable identity. Chaplin’s performance garners audience chuckles, which I suppose is either rooted in his brashly exuding charm or their own reflective identification. I’m impressed, but as a young female creative I’m far from amused.

Ultimately Cat descends into substance dependency in the midst of legal toils as she struggles to rationalise her trauma. There are moments when the language feels cheap, underscoring the soulless performativity of the industry as Bernard philosophises “Sometimes the dark heart of a song can never be known because frankly it’s too squalid”. For a play centred on the production and performance of music, there is surprisingly little actual music, albeit a sorrowful string-ensemble conducted by Cat which concludes the evening and injects a grain of optimism to the story of female creative and legal oppression. Whilst it might be a bitter pill to swallow, Mood Music is a timely rumination on the purpose of psychotherapy under capitalism and its use in fostering creative production and profit at the expense of those too weak to speak out.

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Written for A Younger Theatre magazine, link here: https://www.ayoungertheatre.com/review-mood-music-the-old-vic/ 

Review: The Suppliant Women at the Young Vic: for [smiths] magazine

Ferociously executed and deliciously, faultlessly synchronised, David Greig’s revision of Aeschylus’s play, The Suppliant Women is in the spirit of the community-based original. Greig’s reworking of the text has been championed by community choruses in Edinburgh, Belfast, Newcastle and Dublin and now takes pride of place in London’s Young Vic theatre. It charts the journey of fifty women, daughters of Danaos, from Egypt to Greece fleeing forced marriage with their cousins, the “unholy sons of King Aegyptos”. The Suppliant Women presents the female condition in flight, navigating Diasporic identities under a strict patriarchal thumb. In keeping with Ancient Greek performance, the evening is prefaced by an announcement from a civic official; Conservative MP John Glen, parliamentary under-secretary for Arts, Heritage and Culture. Glen recites the names of the play’s sponsors, marking government subsidisation of the arts through percentages of ticket prices. Glen conducts a libation, pouring a bottle of red wine along the porous grey stone of the open stage, squawking “in the name of Dionysses, god of wine, rejoice!”  I find the inclusion of a true-to-life politician here intriguing. When theatre is so often a place to evade reality, Glen injects realism and reminds the audience of their benevolent rulers and the cultural allocation of their taxes.
Women are at the heart of this play, and the chorus rightfully take centre stage. It is a patchwork flurry of multi-coloured women, all residents of Southwark- having trained for the play since September under the direction of Ramin Gray, choreographer Sasha Milavic Davies and vocal leader Mary King. The chorus of women largely operate as one body, only splitting off to individual voices in times of crisis, Gemma May giving a highly commendable performance as chorus leader. The use of incense, candles, torches, flapping scarves and confetti all invite a high sensory engagement. Live percussion and woodwind accompanies Greig’s rhythmically loaded language, reminiscent of Kate Tempest’s metered delivery, albeit en-masse. The women brandish suppliant branches threaded with white fabric which they use to simulate the motion of their journey by sea, swing over their heads and lay down as offerings to their recipients. The women are plagued by the violence of men, their attractive youth and their vulnerability as asylum seekers, crying “the worries of women as exiles are endless”. This speaks of a universal female condition; their only bargaining chip in the kingdom of men being the threat of self-destruction through suicide, cursing the city of Argos. This is a play that ruminates on human migration and attitudes towards migrants, transcending the historicity of the original; “if you’re a migrant the people will talk”.
"Equal power to all Women" is the triumphant closing war-cry. It is eternally relevant.

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Words by Literary and Creative Editor, Ellie Potts. 
--- @eldpotts

Photo by Stephen Cummiskey