SWEET CHARITY at the Donmar - The Thin and Thick Of It...

They say you should never judge a book by it's cover - but sometimes it saves an awful lot of time.  My issues with Josie Rourke's production of SWEET CHARITY began right at the top of the show and fluctuated throughout the evening.  I suppose any show is open to be re-imagined but when the production constantly gets in the way of the material then you know the director probably has no understanding of the original's worth.

Musicals don't have a continuous life for over 50 years because of the concepts visited on it, and while I am sure SWEET CHARITY will survive Rourke's attempts to make it 'relevant', she might walk with a limp for a while.

As I said the sinking feeling started before a note was sung.  For some reason Rourke and designer Robert Jones have decided that the defining stage image for their SWEET CHARITY is the silver and metallic world of Andy Warhol's Factory.  Showing crashing obviousness they must have surmised that as SWEET CHARITY premiered in 1966 they should look for images of New York in the mid-1960s and the first thing they found was The Factory.

The production starts with the cast all in black on black outfits, sitting around in icy hauteur while a film of the Empire State Building is projected on the back wall and The Velvet Underground's whacked-out VENUS IN FURS blares out.  I would dearly love to know what this has to do with SWEET CHARITY and it's sleazy world of neon-lit dance halls, blaring car horns along 42nd Street, and shadowy men smelling of cheap after-shave?  This world is wonderfully conjured up in Cy Coleman's exciting Overture - which, of course, Rourke dropped.

As I said any production where the Concept takes precedence over the material's internal logic is bound to fail - with Rourke it reaches the height of stupidity when Helene and Nicky, Charity's fellow-dancehall hostesses, sing BABY DREAM YOUR DREAM after Charity quits the business to seek happiness with boyfriend Oscar.  They sing cynically about Charity's future, but ultimately it dawns on them that her hopes will probably never happen to them and the song ends on a sad, wistful note.  So what does Rourke have them doing while they sing it?  Walk on with large Brillo boxes - a la Warhol - and unpack smaller Brillo boxes from inside, Russian doll style... which end up all over the stage... and which are swept away in the scene change.  So a nothing idea meaning nothing which results in... nothing.

The always wobbly end to the show again plays right into Rourke's cack-handed Concept. The original production has Charity alone again, her happy dreams collapsed, but she admits that at least he didn't steal her purse like the guy before did so picks herself up and heads off as titles appear saying "And she lived - hopefully - ever after".  Bob Fosse shot two endings to the film version - one truthful, one happy - but went with the truthful version.  But Rourke isn't dealing with characters, she is dealing in Concepts and worse, an Agenda.  So she ends with Charity and the Fandango Dance-Hall girls lined up reprising THERE'S GOTTA BE SOMETHING BETTER THAN THIS like so many Times Square Miserables.  Needless to say, Rourke's attempt to claim Charity for the #MeToo movement just comes across as crashingly Obvious.  Hamlet famously says "The play's the thing.." but sadly thanks to the oppressive Director Theatre climate of today, the Agenda's the thing.. no matter whether it serves the material.

One of the disappointments of the show was Wayne McGregor's choreography.  In a show so famous for it's dance numbers - especially Fosse's moves - McGregor's choreography is either remarkably basic or remarkably absurd: HEY BIG SPENDER is choreographed with about six step-ladders for the Dance-Hall divas to clamber up or lounge on then descend to move somewhere else on a revolve.  Because they are not busy enough singing one of the show's great standards.  The RICH MAN'S FRUG number was more successful with a stage full of quaking Andy Warhols look-a-likes.

So where do we find the positives?  Anne-Marie Duff can certainly act the role - and her honeyed rasp of a voice did finally grow on me - but something seemed off about the performance, as if she didn't really commit to the wide-eyed optimism of Charity.  Whether the fact that she is the oldest actress to play Charity in London or New York has anything to do with that is open to conjecture.  She is always likeable however.

It's an odd CHARITY where the most memorable performance is from the actor playing Oscar but Arthur Darvill was excellent in the role.  He gave us a totally believable character who was ready to commit to Charity but ultimately unable to leave her past behind.  The Donmar has hit on the odd idea of having a regular guest performer play Daddy Brubeck for short periods - we got Kobna Holdbrook-Smith, fresh from his Olivier Award-winning Ike Turner in TINA.  His sparkly silver shirt made the biggest impression sadly.

Lizzy Connolly and Debbie Kurup were ok as Nickie and Helene but - along with Martin Marquez as Italian matinee idol Vittorio Vidal and Stephen Kennedy as Herman the grouchy manager of the Fandango club - everyone seemed to be acting on a fairly low-light.  It's almost like they are all using 40w bulbs instead of iridescent neon.

SWEET CHARITY currently sits on my list of favourite musicals and there was still enjoyment to be had thanks to the combined excellence of Cy Coleman's music, Neil Simon's book and Dorothy Fields' lyrics but they had to fight hard to get through the vacuous trappings of Josie Rourke's Concept.  Oh I didn't mention the lifesize plastic-ball pit that doubles as Central Park lake...

Never mind Charity, you will survive till the next time we meet...

The 7 Shows of Xmas 6: TREASURE ISLAND

To paraphrase Cole Porter: another ev'nin', another show...  This time it was back to the ever-welcome comfort of the Olivier stalls to see the latest in the National Theatre's Christmas productions based on literary children's books.  However this year Robert Louis Stevenson's TREASURE ISLAND has been given a particular female twist.

The production is directed by Polly Findlay and the adaptation by Bryony Lavery has reassigned Jim Hawkins to being a girl along with sex changes for Dr. Livesey and several pirates.

To be honest I was dreading what had been done to the story - revisionism for -isms sake? - but after a short while I didn't notice the gender shifts.  I guess it's all about finding the right actress to play the role rather than doing it for the role's sake and they have found the perfect actress to play plucky Jim in Patsy Ferran.

After impressing in her West End debut earlier this year as the gauche servant Edith in BLITHE SPIRIT, here she is a natural centre of attention with her sly wit and bright personality.  What a year she has had!

Actually she gives such a winning performance that she quite pulls the focus from Arthur Darvill as the show's famous villain Long John Silver.  Playing against the stereotypical representation of the character, Darvill's Silver is a cunning, sly adversary who easily infiltrates himself among the crew aboard Squire Trelawney's ship which sets out to find the titular island.  His performance is in keeping with the 'ensemble' feel of the show - but damn it all, this *is* the Olivier stage, an easy place to get lost if you are not flashing the bottle a bit.

Apart from Gillian Hanna as Jim's sparky Innkeeper grandmother, the cast are by and large anonymous although I liked Nick Fletcher's egotistical Squire and Tim Samuels as the aptly-named Grey, a sailor so anonymous the pirates forget to tie him up with the others.

There is also a great animatronic parrot playing Silver's ever-watchful Captain Flint which steals scenes easier than any pirate.

The National has also called again on it's favourite folk composer John Tams whose songs are atmospheric enough to give you a flavour of shanties heard through a dense fog.  Dan Jones' score and in particular his chilly soundscape help conjure the mood too.

The other big plus for the production is Lizzie Clachan's ingenious set which uses the Olivier revolve well, none more so than when the Squire's ship, the Hispaniola, rises majestically into view from what had been the desolate Inn minutes before.  The large curved plinths that surround the stage are also an excellent design choice suggesting both the bare bones of a ship's hull... and just bare bones!

 

Looking back, my only real annoyance was Lavery's overuse of archaic poetical speech patterns for Jim which sometimes pulled the focus away from the actual play and character.  Also, oddly enough for a show that succeeded so well with the onstage mise-en-scene, the occasional use of lighting cues above the audience to suggest the parrot's flight were usually mis-timed and a bit confusing.  This was also the case with the final effect - what should have been a haunting 'button' actually was a bit of a clunker.

But I was surprised how much I enjoyed the show and the good news is that Treasure Island fan and secret pirate king Owen was hugely impressed with it.

New Year ahoy!

On Sunday I made it to the Globe Theatre for only my second visit - the first time was... um... 7 years ago. What can I say... I obviously don't like alfresco theatre! However both Owen and Sharon's keenness on seeing Christopher Marlowe's DOCTOR FAUSTUS found me risking the elements - to say nothing of the bum-numbing bench and lack of leg-room... it's a known fact that they were of a smaller stature in the Elizabethan era - is there to be NO progress?After a good chomp at the Anchor pub, Owen, Sharon, Eamonn and I made our way to our front row gallery ledge then it was eyes down, here comes Faustus!

Surprisingly this was my first ever Christopher Marlowe play although I had seen the 1967 film of DOCTOR FAUSTUS co-directed and starring Richard Burton, based on the production he appeared in with the Oxford University Dramatic Society with a cameo from one E. Taylor as Helen of Troy. To be honest it's her several wordless appearances that I remember from the film.

I must admit my heart sank when Felix Scott spoke the opening prologue as I could not make out horned head nor pointed tail of what was being said but before long I was hooked by Marlowe's oft-told tale of Faustus, an intellectual who has become frustrated by the limits of knowledge and turns to the lure of magic. He offers to sell his soul to the Devil for the possibility of 24 years of limitless possibility and we follow him through the years as he becomes debased by his own power, relying constantly on the Devil's emissary Mephistopheles, and he becomes all too aware of his day of reckoning.Faustus' story is, of course, mirrored with a 'rude mechanical' tale of a couple of thickos who use the magic book for their own means and as usual it was in these scenes that the production pushed too hard on the button that blares "See, it's rude this bit... see, this is like Carry On". This was at variance with the delightfully subtle performance of Pearce Quigley as Robin who reacted to the most frightening apparitions from Hell with a baleful indifference.

Matthew Dunster's production moved along at a good even pace - the only mis-steps being the grating burlesque moments and also what I assume is an in-house tradition of having a musical coda which here jolts you from the dramatic ending of the play to a jolly jig-about onstage with stick puppets. Again, I am sure the Elizabethan audiences needed something to sugar the pill but we don't need it anymore. There was also a worrying touch of modern dance at the start that, as usual, was a bit of a worry.Have a haunted, lead character who doesn't get many laughs? Call for Paul Hilton! I have seen him in the past as the haunted Orestes in THE ORESTEIA, Eugene O'Neill's version of Orestes as the haunted Orin in MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA, the haunted Hjalmar in Ibsen's THE WILD DUCK... you get the deal. Needless to say the role of Faustus was a good fit for him and he charted Faustus' hubris with ease, making his descent from scholar to court 'turn' a fascinating one.

Hilton was well partnered by Arthur Darvill as Mephistopheles. I assume Darvill accounted for the enthusiastic younger strain to the audience numbers thanks to his tv role as Doctor Who's sidekick and he gave a leisurely performance which finally caught fire when Mephistopheles shows his true nature when Faustus turns to him in his final hour. I only wish he had more presence in the role, more often than not I found myself concentrating on the more charismatic Hilton.In the busy supporting cast who doubled and tripled roles I found much to enjoy in the performances of Felix Scott as Faustus' servant Wagner as well as his aristo foppery as the Emperor Charles, Jonathan Cullen as the deposed Pope Bruno, Nigel Cooke as a dessicated Lucifer and Michael Camp, appropriately playing an obviously bubbly bi Duke.

It certainly made me keen to see more of Marlowe's canon.
Production photographs by Keith Pattison.