Two...count 'em two... visits to the National Theatre in the past week.

Midweek I flew solo to the Lyttleton Theatre launchpad to take Clifford Odets' ROCKET TO THE MOON. There, got all the puns in at the start. Owing to Owen's continued lurgy I had the option of an empty seat next to me to use as a table for coat, programme, bag etc. Better that than offering the ticket back to the box office due to the worrying sign Tickets Available for the Lyttleton.In 1984, Bill Bryden directed a revival of Odets' boxing melodramatic GOLDEN BOY at the Lyttleton and 27 years later the National Theatre have decided to do another of his plays!

When it comes to productions in London, Odets definitely loses out in the shakes to Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller and after seeing ROCKET TO THE MOON I'm not that surprised. His plays are well-constructed with well-drawn, meat-and-potatoes working class characters but they lack that extra something to lift them to a more profound level.
Last produced in London in 1982 at Hampstead which transferred briefly to the West End, ROCKET TO THE MOON takes place in New York during the broiling summer of 1938. In the stifling offices of dentist Ben Stark business has dropped as the heat has risen, and with the empty hours comes restlessness and temptation.

Ben had ambitions once but they have been stymied through circumstance and is happy to be under the benign thumb of his wife Belle, both of them trying to move on from the death three years earlier of their baby son. Their main point of contention is his friendliness with her father who she has distanced herself from since her mother's death.
Ben sublets his offices to a fellow dentist Phil Cooper, whose sardonic asides barely cover his desperation at his livelihood vanishing. Into this tinderbox situation sashays Ben's new dental nurse Cleo Singer whose office and nursing skills leave much to be desired but whose zest for life and affability can not be matched.

When Cleo confesses to Ben that her stories of a happy family background are told to cover up her real existence as the only wage-earner in an ungrateful household, they are drawn together and start an affair, Cleo's love making him believe in himself again. But when Ben's father-in-law starts laying siege to Cleo's affections too - and the Talent Agent down the hall starts sniffing around too - it can only lead to disappointment and regret.
The play, for all it's blue-collar ranginess of 'little' people struggling to keep their head's above the flow of the times, feels oddly paced and is hampered by a fairly long first half and a second which abruptly changes emphasis. It is as if Odets approached the play differently every time he came to write a new scene. One can only surmise that the actions of the Ben, Cleo and Belle characters mirrored at times his own life as at the time of writing he was married to Hollywood screen star Luise Rainer while romancing another, Frances Farmer.

Odets had started the affair with Farmer the previous year after she left Hollywood in an attempt to gain some kudos as a stage performer by appearing with The Group Theatre company in GOLDEN BOY. The Group Theatre - who had staged all Odets' plays since his ground-breaking debut about the unions WAITING FOR LEFTY in 1935 - was *the* theatre company to work for but Farmer eventually felt disenchanted with the company and, when no further roles were offered, had the impression she had only been used as a box office draw for the play. It was indeed their most successful play financially.Director Angus Jackson tries to keep the various shifts of emphasis under control and it's not entirely his fault or his company that the last odd lurch of the play doesn't quite ring true. He is not helped either by the play being staged on the expanse of the Lyttleton stage, no wonder Ben's business is dodgy - he is paying rent on an office the size of Grand Central Station. The play and Jackson's direction seemingly cries out for the intimacy of a space such as the Cottesloe or the Donmar.

That is not to put the blast on Anthony Ward's set which is virtually a 3-d rendering of an Edward Hopper painting - large windows illuminating solitary figures surrounded by suffocating silence.

Bizarrely enough I was even more impressed with the small corridor at the left of the stage - the perfect recreation of the awful, drab corridors found in any NY office block from the period. My attention however kept getting drawn to the fact that the top section of the set wasn't joined to the main back wall so kept waiting for a massive set change that never happened.

One thing Odets knew how to do was give actors chewy characters to work with and mostly they make good. Joseph Millson was an interesting choice as Ben, I suspect the character should be played by an older, more burnt-out actor but if there is one thing Millson does well it's the conflicted leading man and he made Ben more sympathetic for that age shift. Keeley Hawes however could do nothing with the role of the exasperated Belle, it was a portrayal that seemed to entirely consist of mannerisms with no interior spark.
Making the most of their supporting roles were Nicholas Woodeson as the wealthy and gregarious Mr. Prince, Ben's father-in-law and Peter Sullivan as the unlucky fellow-dentist. Always 'on' and with the rejoinders of a Catskills resort comic Mr. Prince can be an exhausting character but Woodeson played him with a roguish charm no more so than in his brusque proposal of marriage to Cleo, merely a business merger for their mutual gain.

Peter Sullivan was excellent as the flailing, failing fellow-dentist, denied help at every turn and finally becoming a paid blood donor to make ends meet. Through this role and Sullivan's performance one gets a suggestion of why the play is being performed now with his fear of being unable to pay the never-ending bills that his family and failing business engender.The performance of the evening was Jessica Raine as the endearingly naive Cleo. In a role that Marilyn Monroe would - and should - have triumphed in, Cleo's ditsy exterior covers a heart as cowed and afraid as the men surrounding her and in the final scene, when Odets gives her the possibility of a shining future lived according to her own ideals, you find yourself willing her on.

Odets seems entranced with his glittering creation and I suspect Cleo would have had a more depressing end in the hands of other writers. Raine went from fluttering Judy Holliday-like daftness to wordly-but-wise Jean Harlow go-getting broad in the blink of an eye and was utterly enchanting.If you want a meandering but solidly well-acted night at the theatre, than you could do a lot worse than visit the Lyttleton. Ultimately however, I left feeling once again that Clifford Odets' literary reputation isn't fully justified.

I guess you had to be there at the time.

Twice this week I have come away from the National Theatre pondering how hard it must be for artistic directors as to how to fill their schedules.

The Donmar or the Menier for example are looked upon as having a certain caché but with runs allotted to a month or so that means these theatres at best can stage only 12 productions a year - and what plays get chosen? Monetary demands mean that a healthy sprinkling of popular titles and playwrights crop up again and again... but what gets left behind? What falls through the cracks?

The reason for these musings is down to seeing two excellent revivals of little-known early plays by Terence Rattigan and Tennessee Williams currently playing to packed houses at the NT.

Think of a Rattigan that gets revived and you will probably have THE WINSLOW BOY, THE DEEP BLUE SEA or SEPARATE TABLES on your list. At the Lyttleton however, Thea Sharrock has directed a revival of Rattigan's second play AFTER THE DANCE which I saw with Owen, Sharon and Eamonn.It opened in June 1939 to good reviews and enthusiastic audiences who no doubt responded to not only the high drama onstage but Rattigan's capturing of the zeitgeist of the country as it approached an unavoidable war. However this very atmosphere also was the production's downfall and as the situation worsened the play ended it's run after 2 months, less than a month before war was declared.

Rattigan appears to have had mixed feelings about it in hindsight, not including it in his Collected Plays when first published, probably because of it's failing to achieve as big a box office success as his later plays. There is also a theory that he was haunted by using the possible suicide of a young lover as a plot device in the play but then he is accused of using the same incident 13 years later in THE DEEP BLUE SEA so it appears to have been a handy haunting.The years in between might have lost out but it is this year's gain as what Sharrock's production showcases is a beautifully-crafted three-act play which nails a moment in time perfectly while also providing 5 cracking parts for actors to shine in.

Surprisingly only now making his NT debut, Benedict Cumberbatch (God, that name) is paired with the always-watchable Nancy Carroll as David and Joan, an archetypal Golden Couple who now find themselves at the wrong end of the 1930s after 12 years of marriage and secretly realise that their excessive round of drinks, parties, larks and more drinks will not stand scrutiny in the gray light of a possible war in Europe.

Independently wealthy, David is drinking himself into an early grave while half-heartedly writing a biography of a little-known Balkan hero. Joan fills in her time by being the effortlessly chic hub of a circle of feckless, equally-sensation-craving group of drinking friends. She also chooses to ignore her husband's frequent but non-threatening flings with pretty young things for to mind would of course be a crashing bore.

They also share their large London flat with John (Adrian Scarborough) one of their drinking friends who has become an unofficial lodger and spends his time happily lying on the couch singing for his supper by keeping them amused with his cutting quips about all and sundry. Also sharing the flat is David's cash-strapped cousin who he 'employs' to type up the occasional page of his never-ending book and the couple are friendly with his fiancee Helen (Faye Castelow) who is a frequent visitor.

Of course what soon becomes apparent is that Helen is besotted with David, determined to lead him to the right road of Great Writing and Sobriety through her devotion. She manages to get her doctor brother to examine David and he is confronted with the fact that he is in the early stages of Cirrhosis. David's vanity cannot withstand Helen's passionate declarations and eventually confesses that he has fallen for her too and knows with her help he can lead a Life With Meaning.Helen then becomes that most dreaded creature, one who knows that everyone will be happier if they all know the plain truth. She confronts Joan on the afternoon of a huge party being held at the flat and tells her plainly that Joan's marriage is over as David now loves her.

Joan responds just as Helen and David expect, calm and excepting of the ways of the world, however the reality is witnessed by an appalled John who finds Joan, broken and in despair. The party goes ahead but events take a shattering turn from which their lives are changed just as the approaching war will change their world forever.

Thea Sharrock's direction is a model of empathy and clarity, her handling of characters who could easily be looked upon as irritating and distancing are instead presented to us with an immediacy and sympathy that is rare among today's directors. Both Scarborough and Castelow appeared last year on the same stage in Rupert Goold's take on J.B. Priestley's TIME AND THE CONWAYS in which the characters were treated as mere caricature. Here Sharrock is unafraid of allowing her characters to have an inner emotional life which resonates strongly.

She has elicited strong performances from her cast, namely from Cumberbatch, Carroll and Scarborough, all of whom know exactly how to balance the brittle, knowing banter of the opening scenes with the raw emotional hurt that all the stylish wit is a carapace for.

Nancy Carroll was quite breathtaking as Joan, her early scenes suggesting the unforced, confidant glamour of Kay Hammond but shattering that image with her lonely devastation at the news of her husband wanting to end their life together.

Cumberbatch fitted almost seamlessly into the role of David, he even resembled any number of tall, ramrod-backed, English leading men like Michael Rennie or David Farrar. However like Carroll he also found layers of emotion within David which while not making him sympathetic, did make his choices understandable.

My friend Sharon asked me afterwards if I thought Adrian Scarborough was a possible future Knight of the theatre and his performance here suggested it's possibly only a matter of his getting a tiny step up to some good lead parts. Again he gave a subtle and nuanced performance as John, scathingly funny with the timing of death but able to suggest the anger, fear and loneliness of a man all to aware of the superficiality of his place in life.
Faye Castelow was fine as the frighteningly single-minded Helen although even Rattigan would have been alarmed by her Cut Glaws Eckcent which could have been slightly toned down. In a fine supporting cast special mention must be made for yet another exquisite performance by Jenny Galloway as Miss Potter, the no-nonsense, Widdecombe-esque copy typist that David finally employs.

A special word of praise for Hildegard Bechtler's deliciously sprawling set design for David and Joan's apartment and ravishing costumes, especially for Nancy Carroll. In particular, I really liked the subtle changes that turned the set from the casually elegant, lived-in home of the first two acts to the cold and empty haunted space of the third. Mark Henderson's lighting also was beautifully used to enhance the play.Next year is Rattigan's centenary and it is being marked with not only a retrospective at the National Film Theatre of films and tv plays based on his many works - PLEASE let them show the 1955 film of THE DEEP BLUE SEA starring Vivien Leigh - but a tribute at Chichester (where he has never gone out of fashion) and yet another screen remake of THE DEEP BLUE SEA but directed by Terence Davies which sounds quite exciting. So roll on next year!

In the meantime get yourself to the National Theatre to see AFTER THE DANCE.

The second trip to the theatre last week was to see Howard Davies' National Theatre production of Bulgakov's THE WHITE GUARD at the Lyttleton which was a healthy antidote to the tortured dramaturgy at the Donmar.

Andrew Upton has adapted the 1926 Russian play with a muscular and rangy twang and although I was daunted by the 2 hour 40 minute running time - and there are some longueurs in the first act - I found myself hooked in the argument and sweep of the action.

Bulgakov's play is part satire, part-family drama, part tragedy and I was struck how no one has ever felt it warranted a film version as the action constantly moves from the intimate to the epic. Oddly enough it has previously been televised for the BBC as stand-alone plays in the 1960s and 1980s.

The play focuses on the constantly changing goalposts in the lives of people caught on the losing side in a war. We follow the fortunes of the Turbins, two brothers and a sister, who live together in a large Kiev flat - which is lucky for their friends and relatives as the Turbin's is an open house to them.
A major draw-back for the uninitiated is that Bulgakov was writing to an audience who knew exactly what their immediate history was so it was necessary in the interval to have a quick speed-read of the programme to find out what exactly the background was.

The Turbins find themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time - namely the Ukraine in 1918. The Bolsheviks are in control of Russia and their Red Army is besting the White Army of Tsarist sympathisers whom the Turbin brothers fight for. When Russia signed a peace treaty with Germany to get out of the war they handed the Ukraine over to Germany who installed a puppet leader, the Hetman.However 8 months later WWI was over - Germany fled the Ukraine, taking their Hetman with them, chased out by a vengeful Ukranian people's army. Now the beleaguered White Army were fighting the militia who hated them for supporting the Hetman - and the Red Army was rolling ever closer, ready to crush them all.

Through these events, the Turbin siblings cling together, occasionally finding a moment to rest before a new enemy is firing rifles in the street outside. Their flat is the base for the Turbin's White Guard friends as well as a student cousin who has landed on their doorstep from nowhere. Among them is the dilettantish Shervinsky, a Lieutenant with artistic leanings who always checks the ground around him to know where to land on his feet when it kicks off.
In true Chekhovian fashion every man who walks over the Turbin doorstep falls in love with the cool and ever-practical Elena - no doubt because she appears to be the only woman in Kiev. However with the flight of the Hetman and German occupiers, the Turbin brothers are forced out into the streets and here Howard Davies steps up the action to take us from the relative safety of the flat to the violent and explosive outside world.

Howard Davies has always shown a remarkable clear-eyed and straightforward directing style but unlike Jamie Lloyd's efforts as mentioned at the Donmar, he never loses his grasp of the actual text and you trust him when he lets the play seemingly coast so you get to know the characters then to subtly change the tempo to give you and them a feeling of impending danger.
In this he is helped immensely by the set design of Bunny Christie who seamlessly moves the action from the apartment to the outside world, indeed the first transition is the sort that usually garners a round from the audience - the whole fussy and cluttered set for the Turbin's flat slides away from the audience for what seems like miles until the stage is left bare for the next scene in the empty Royal Palace.

Christie also takes us into the cramped basement headquarters of the militia where there is hardly room to swing a corpse and into the soulless gym of a deserted school which is under shellfire. Her effortless stagecraft is combined with the usual excellent lighting by Neil Austin to give us a real world in crisis.Davies also elicits fine performances from all his ensemble, he has the unerring gift of being a great director of a large NT company as was seen in his productions of BURNT BY THE SUN. THE HOUSE OF BERNARDA ALBA, THE SHAUGHRAUN and FLIGHT (also by Bulgakov).

Conleth Hill makes the potentially unlikeable Shervinsky into a genuinely intriguing character, one whose pragmatism will always keep him one step ahead of his enemies while Justine Mitchell plays the idealised heroine Elena with a real humanity which overrides any irritation that may come with her character's all-round saintliness.

There are notable supporting performances from Pip Carter as the gentle cousin who arrives unexpectedly to stay, Anthony Calf as the ludicrous Hetman who swears undying devotion to the country while doing all he can to escape, Kevin Doyle as Elena's cowardly politician husband and Barry McCarthy playing two examples of Ukrainian worker stoicism.

Although it is not a forgotten masterpiece, the play still touches on the unrelenting turmoil caused by war.

The real irony, which Bulgakov must have appreciated, happened when the serialised version of his initial novel was banned by the Bolsheviks. The Moscow Arts Theatre had liked what they had read and commissioned him to write it as a play which finally saw it's debut in 1926 after several rewrites forced on Bulgakov by the censors. Despite getting bad reviews by the Party critics. the play had a sold-out run - and one of it's biggest fans was one Joseph Stalin!
Amazingly Stalin saw the play shining reflected glory on the Bolsheviks - if they could defeat such worthy opponents then they must be themselves worthy winners. He saw the play 15 times so the play was kept in the repertoire.

However having Stalin as a front-row regular had it's cost. When the dictator criticised him in 1929 all his plays were quickly withdrawn from theatres and nothing he wrote was ever staged again - apart from THE WHITE GUARD which quickly appeared again in 1932 when Stalin happened to wonder aloud why it didn't seem to be on anymore! It ran for another 7 years providing Bulgakov with a steady income but no other outlet for his work.

Bulgakov, unlike a good number of his contemporaries, survived the show trials and executions only to die aged 48 from a kidney disorder in 1940.