FUN HOME at the Young Vic - Drawing out the past...

I had never heard of Alison Bechdel's 2006 graphic novel/memoir FUN HOME until it's musical adaptation transferred to Broadway in 2015 where it won five Tony Awards including Best Musical, Best Score and Best Book.  I can't say I was particularly interested in it until the Young Vic announced it was going to stage it's London premiere and I thought "Uh-oh, that will sell out there so I had better go - just in case".  I am glad I did because I enjoyed it a lot.

The Young Vic production is staged by the Broadway creative team - directed by Sam Gold, choreographed by Danny Mefford, designed by David Zinn, lighting by Ben Stanton - so it's a rare opportunity to get the full intention behind the original musical over here.  To be honest, I can't say I totally loved the score but allied to the excellent performances, I was won over at the end.

Alison Bechdel wrote (and drew) FUN HOME to come to terms with her upbringing in a Funeral Home (FUNeral HOME) in Pennsylvania.  If that wasn't odd enough, it was only when she went to University - and came out - that she realized she had been unknowingly living in an emotional pressure-cooker: her father - full-time teacher, part-time funeral director - was a closet homosexual who had indulged in risky encounters throughout his marriage, even leading to police involvement.  After a visit from Alison to the now-bleak family home, her father walks in front of a speeding lorry.  Her father might have been destroyed by his sexuality but Alison is liberated by hers...

Lisa Kron's book slides back and forwards in time as Alison reviews her life: from Small Alison first realizing that she might be different to Medium Alison's coming out while confronting her family's secrets.  Indeed I felt that Kron's book is better than her lyrics, I am sure she would say that repeating a line three times reflects Small Alison's limited vocabulary but after a while it got wearing "I wanna play airplanes / I wanna play airplanes / I wanna play airplanes..."  Really Lisa?

Jeanine Tesori is on a bit of a UK roll at the moment: THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE has just toured (cancelled abruptly by shady producers), CAROLINE OR CHANGE is due to open later this year in the West End after a sold-out run at Hampstead and now FUN HOME is sold out at the Young Vic.  Her score was certainly soaring at times and had her usual pastiche numbers - a Jackson 5-style number when Alison and her brothers pretend to be in a tv ad for their Fun Home, and a Partridge Family pastiche about living in a loving family - but they stay in my mind while I am in the theatre, none of them have stayed with me since.  However within the show they worked very well, I really liked the scene where Small Alison and her brothers are visiting New York with their father, and when she catches him leaving them alone at night-time, he sings her a lullaby, almost whispered and a capella, you could hear a pin drop as we watch a moment of tenderness while knowing he wants her to sleep so he can leave them to have sex.  

Sam Gold's direction is excellent however - you can believe all characters have an inner history and motivation - and he brings out performances which draw you in to the story (apart from one).  David Zinn and Ben Stanton's contributions also make this show a surprisingly visual delight - there was a reveal in the second act which even elicited an 'ooooo' from the audience.  The music also sounded rich and full under Nigel Lilley's musicians, hidden away at the back of the stage.

As I said, one of the nine performers, for me, stood out for the wrong reasons: Zubin Varla as Bruce, Alison's father, gave a jangling, odd performance that was resolutely charmless.  As written, Bruce is an unsympathetic character so the actor playing him has to have some spark of charisma and humanity to understand him but Varla remains a cold fish throughout so his desperate suicide makes no impact.

No such problems with Jenna Russell as Helen, Alison's schoolteacher mother, hers is a performance that, from the start, is intriguing.  Tense and stoic, Helen's life is spent watching for signs of Bruce's infidelity and this finally cracks when she tells Alison of her unhappy life; Russell's singing of the angry "Days and Days" was one of the show's highlights.

Kaisa Hammerlund was very good as Alison, hardly ever offstage and totally sympathetic; she also had one of the best musical moments: riding in the car with her father on her last visit home, they struggle to speak to each other and the moment to connect is lost while Alison watches the telephone lines stretching out into the night.  Eleanor Kane also created a sympathetic Medium Alison, stumbling bashfully into her lesbianism.  She was partnered with the delightful Cherrelle Skeete as her fellow-college student lover Joan.

Playing Small Alison was Harriet Turnbull, she was remarkably charismatic and shone with a directness that totally swept you along with her; none more so than in her solo "Ring of Keys" where for the first time, while sitting in a diner with her unobservant father, she notices a butch lesbian delivering a parcel and immediately feels a connection.  Hers was the performance of the evening. She also had a good onstage partnership with Archie Smith and Eddie Martin as her siblings.

Who knows if FUN HOME will transfer, it certainly deserves a chance for it's remarkable originality, production and performances but would it find an audience?  Watch this space...

 

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM at the Globe Theatre - O for a glass of Love-In-Idleness...

Last week we went to yet *another* production at The Globe - we should get some sort of badge shouldn't we?  This time it was to see - it's her again - Emma Rice's version of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

I say 'version' as Rice has done her usual shtick of ripping out every third page from the text, rearranging the character genders for no real discernible reason and then throwing a bucket of coloured paint over it all.  Oberon uses the juice of the flower Love-In-Idleness to smear on the eyes of his Queen Titania and the mortal lovers in his wood to make them fall in love with the first thing they see.  Sadly I didn't have a glass of it on me as I had issues with the production.

Appropriately Rice has gone for an Asian flavour to her production with a sitar player front-and-centre, bright saffron-coloured flower garlands hanging in the doorways and several Asian actors in the cast paying the lead roles of Hermia, Oberon and Helenus.  Helenus I hear you cry?  Who is Helenus in the DREAM?  Welcome to the tipsy-tarty world of Emma Rice.... Helenus is the swapped gender character Helena, formerly the affection-starved female ex-lover of Demetrius, now Helenus the affection-starved GAY ex-lover of Demetrius.  It's all terribly modern.

The familiar Globe space has also undergone a transformation with huge inflatables almost blocking out the sky and long green diaphanous tubes which suggest tree trunks suspended over the groundling's heads.  It's certainly visually striking even if the 'tree trunks' can obscure the action at times.  It certainly does suggest the world of the stage spilling out into the auditorium as indeed it actually does... there are three large tables at the front of the stage which allow the actors to jump from the stage into the audience and back again.

So despite all this - was it magical?  Not really.  It was all fairly earthbound and for a season that is all about Wonder and losing yourself in storytelling there was precious few opportunities to do so.  The 'rude mechanicals' were dressed as Globe ushers and there was an interminable intro where two of them went through the do's and don'ts of the theatre which was tedious.

We also had to do without the presence of Australian cabaret star Meow-Meow in the double role of Hippolyta and Titania as she was having one of her regular nights off so Nandi Bhebhe was on instead.  As Hippolyta she let her red high-heels do all the acting while her Titania was regal in bearing if not in performance.  Having such an under-powered Queen threw more emphasis on Zubin Varla's Oberon which sadly didn't merit it - he played the role like a surly England football supporter still wandering around Marseilles looking for a fight.  I did like Titania's descent from the gods for her first entrance however, her voluminous frock spreading across the stage.

There were better performances among the lovers - Anjana Vasan was an impassioned and forceful Hermia and teamed well with Ankur Bahl as her best gay friend Helenus - this being an Emma Rice production their lifelong friendship was shown by them doing the dance routine from Beyoncé's SINGLE LADIES.  The sex change for Helena got wearying after a while as the character was played less for desperate comedy value than just as a prancing nancy boy.  How very not modern.

Edmund Derrington - last seen in the original cast of SUNNY AFTERNOON - was very good as Lysander and was particularly brave for the amount of time he was on stage in just his pants.  Ncuti Gatwa was an anonymous Demetrius although he is probably the basis of some interesting anagrams.

Ewan Wardrop as Nick Bottom got his laughs easily and well and as did Katy Owen's Puck although her constant 'business' pulled focus from scenes which she was not in - the confrontation scene between Oberon and Titania was largely ignored by the groundlings as Owens picked on them to snog.  Lucy Thackeray played the am-dram theatre director Quince in the style of a very bad Julie Walters impression.

However, as with even the worst version of the DREAM - and this wasn't that - by the time Bottom and his crew did "Pyrimus and Thisbe" I was enjoying it - Rice even managed to stick in a reference to the famous Peter Brook RSC production from 1970 - and by the time Katy Owens' Puck addressed the audience for a final time while Titania and Oberon flew above the stage (albeit on very thick hawsers) I found a trickly tear on my cheek - there is something quite magical in that last speech where Shakespeare addresses his audience down the centuries:

If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: if you pardon, we will mend: And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearned luck Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call; So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.

The production plays at the Globe until September, go see what you think...

DARA, National Theatre

Following on from David Hare's BEHIND THE BEAUTIFUL FOREVERS in the Olivier auditorium, we now have another play set in India at the National Theatre only this time in the Lyttelton.  Another difference is that while FOREVERS is set in present-day Mumbai, DARA is set in the 17th Century, but telling a true story that haunts India to this day.

Tanya Ronder has adapted the Indian writer Shahid Nadeem's 2010 play which tells the true story of two Moghul princes who fought each other to claim the Peacock Throne but whose personal enmity also was built on their different Islamic beliefs.

Emperor Shah Jahan is remembered as the man who built the Taj Mahal to the memory of his beloved wife Mumtaz but 25 years later his ailing health was the trigger for his sons to start battling to be his successor.  His eldest son Dara and his third son Aurangzeb emerged as the strongest contenders and battles raged for the next two years.  After a heavy defeat Dara was betrayed by an ally and was paraded through Delhi by a victorious Aurangzeb.

However it was more than sibling hatred that drove Aurangzeb to defeat his brother.  For Dara was a Sufti Muslim, seeking an inner truth in the religion and open to exploring the comparative ideas of other beliefs as well as writing poetry and meditations which are still in print today.  Aurangzeb however was a fervent Islamic fundamentalist.  Dara was put on trial for apostasy, found guilty and was summarily executed leaving Aurangzeb free to impose his hardline Islamic views on the country.  Well, Constant Reader, I am guessing you can see why this play is being staged now?

I had wondered whether I would be engaged by the play but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it.  I will admit that a lot of my enjoyment came from Nadia Fall's handsome production: Katrina Lindsay's evocative marble palace of arches, steps and sliding metal screens conjured up that far-off world of power and opulence while the always excellent Neil Austin's lighting created striking images reminiscent of panoramic 19th Century paintings of mysterious Asian scenes.

There is also much to admire in Niraj Chag's score as played by 3 onstage musicians who provide a constantly involving soundscape to the action.

However despite the internecine plotting of Shah Jahan's fractious family - which also involves his sensible and loving daughter Jahanara who sides with Dara and the vindictive daughter Roshanara who allays herself to Aurangzeb - sadly I never really felt emotionally engaged by any of the characters.  They all go through the whole gamut of emotions and the religious arguments are well presented but none of the characters feel like they are being mined for depth, it all remains on the surface.

Sargon Yelda as Aurangzeb is suitably infuriatingly pious and Zubin Varla's righteous Dara are certainly well-played but again I felt that the writer didn't wish to explore them too deeply, it usually boils down to Aurangzeb glowering while Dara suffers nobly.

The structure of the play is also slightly off-kilter mainly because the long and exhaustive trial scene where Dara defends himself against the charge of apostasy comes at the end of Act One when one feels it would have been a better fit in Act Two.  At times during this lengthy scene I was reminded of the similar ones from SAINT JOAN and A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS - I wonder if that was the intention?

There were other good performances - Anjana Vasan as Hira Bai the Hindu dancing girl loved by Aurangzeb, Vincent Ebrahim as Shah Jahan, Anneika Rose as the spiteful sister Roshanara, Emilio Doorgasingh as the exasperated judge of Dara's trial, Prasanna Puwanarajah as the Prosecutor and Chook Sibtain as Itbar the court eunuch who hides a savage anger.

I enjoyed the production and it plays at the Lyttelton Theatre until 4th April.