Dvd/150: IDA (Pawel Pawlikowski, 2013)

Winning both the BAFTA and Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, Pawel Pawlikowski's film creeps into your bones like the film's chilly weather.

1960s Poland: orphan Anna, a week before becoming a nun, discovers she has a surviving aunt who must be visited before taking her vows.  Wanda is a former favoured judge with the Communists, now cynical and seeking solace in drink and men.

Anna is stunned to learn they are Jewish and her real name is Ida.  Wanda reveals Ida's parents were murdered in WWII by Poles who had promised to shelter them, and despite warnings that only sadness awaits them, Ida demands they visit her family's village.

Provoked by the villagers' silence, Wanda's reawakened sense of justice leads them to the tragic reality which changes them both.

Running 82 minutes, Pawlikowski directs with a forensic economy that, with committed performances and haunting cinematography, lingers in the memory.

Shelf or charity shop?  Undecided... I think I should share this one with others...

Exit Through The Giftshop - Postcards at an exhibition....

More postcards from exhibitions and galleries...

1) IL PROFETA ABACUC 'IO ZUCCONE' (1425) - Donatello

Donatello's statue is packed with character and humanity, I love the excellent way he has carved the swags and falls of the prophet's robes, supposedly this was Donatello's favourite sculpture. 

I bought this at the Museo Dell 'Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence where Zuccone (Bald-head!) resides.

2) LA MANDRA (1898-1900) - Ramon Casas

Bought from the Museu Nacional d'Art De Catalunya where room after room suggests to one that Catalonian artists followed rather than instigating movements down the years, one reaches the late 19th Century rooms with a sigh of relief to come across the great works of Barcelona artist Ramon Casas.

Yes they are again following the French impressionists but they have a charm and a quality that make them memorable - here a woman lazes on a bed in a quiet room, doing anything than what she probably should be doing...  This was painted just as Casas was becoming a proponent of the Spanish Modernista movement, this included being a part owner in the famous bar Els Quatre Gats with his friend Pe Romeu which became a hub from Barcelona's artist community.

3) LES PASSANTS (The Passerbys) (1906-7) - Raoul Dufy

Yes, London art galleries and museums... whenever you finally decide to have an exhibition of Dufy I will be there.

This glorious painting is in the Courtauld collection and whenever I visit, I love to spend some time entering into the lovely world of LES PASSANTS.  It's Fauvist colours and spare setting is a world I would love to live in... can I be in red please and own the green dog?

4) DAVID TRIBUNE (1501-4) - Michelangelo

I bought this in Florence at the Galleria dell'Accademia where Michelangelo's epic David stands in solitary majesty in a stark setting.

DAVID was originally placed in the Piazza della Signoria beside the magnificent Palazzo Vecchio.  It stayed there for 369 years until it was moved to it's present location in 1873.  Like all great art, it still manages to amaze when seen in the stone despite all one's previous sightings in books, films and adverts.

5) WOODEN CRUCIFIX (detail) (circa 1412) - Fillipo Brunelleschi

A detail from Brunelleschi's wooden sculpture which you can see in Florence's Church of Santa Maria Novella - see the full length postcard in my earlier "Giftshop" blog here.

According to the biographer/artist Vasari, this was Filipo Brunelleschi's response to a crucifix he disliked that Donatello had made in the church of Santa Croce. It's simple but glorious.

SONG OF THE EARTH / LA SYLPHIDE at the London Coliseum

Much to my surprise, my first ballet of 2018 was not at the Royal Ballet or a Matthew Bourne at Sadler's Wells, no it was at the infrequently-visited English National Ballet at the London Coliseum who were presenting an intriguing double-bill of Kenneth MacMillan's SONG OF THE EARTH and the classic romantic ballet LA SYLPHIDE.

It all made for a pleasant and enjoyable evening but both ballets seemed to lack *that* spark or *that* bass note that is found in practically all Royal Ballet productions.  It was all very well-danced but the connection of deep emotion and movement just seemed to be lacking.

In 1965 Kenneth MacMillan choreographed his dance version of Gustav Mahler's song cycle "Das Lied von der Erde" for the Stuttgart Ballet at the invitation of the company's director John Cranko who was an admirer of MacMillan's work.  His vision is based around a man, a woman and a figure representing death who slowly perform solos and pas de deux within a larger ensemble until the figure of death claims the man, but as MacMillan said they "find that in death there is the promise of renewal".

His production was a huge success and eventually opened at the Royal Ballet six months later to equal acclaim, a particular triumph for MacMillan who had wanted to stage it at Covent Garden six years previously but was told the music was wrong for a ballet!  SONG OF THE EARTH famously provided the swansong for Darcey Bussell when she left the Royal Ballet in 2007, the event even being broadcast live on BBC2.

Tamara Rojo was captivating as The Woman while Joseph Caley as The Man and Fernando Carratalá Coloma as The Messenger of Death gave good performances too.  I loved the austere beauty of the production and any occasional lapses I had during it I think can be attributed to that indefinable something that separates the good from the very good.  I would definitely see another production of it again.

After the lyrical and austere symbolism of SONG OF THE EARTH, it was time for the over-the-top narrative romanticism of LA SYLPHEDE - it was quite a wrench!

I have two memories of LA SYLPHIDE - seeing HIGHLAND FLING, Matthew Bourne's modernised take on it in 1994 as well as, and I remembered this just as the curtain went up, having a Walt Disney album when I was growing up of famous pieces of ballet music which had music from LA SYLPHIDE included on it... the memory eh?

LA SYLPHIDE first appeared as a ballet in 1832 in Paris by the choreographer Filippo Taglioni whose equally famous daughter Marie danced the lead role.  Four years later the Danish choreographer August Bournonville wanted to stage it at the Royal Danish Ballet but, when faced with an inflated price by the French for the original score, he simply choreographed his own version to a new score by the Norwegian composer Herman Severin Lovenskiold.  Bournonville's version has been the production that has lived on - indeed this production was from the Royal Danish Theatre - while Taglioni's choreography has vanished from public memory. 

Both were based on an 1822 gothic romantic novel by the French writer Charles Nodier which set the template for Romantic ballets with doomed love, winsome heroines, strapping heroes and flurries of ghostly spirits.

James, a young Scottish man, is asleep on the eve of his wedding day but watched over by a Sylph that adores him.  He awakes but she vanishes before his eyes, he questions his friend who saw nothing but readies himself for the arrival of his bride Effie and her family and their friends.  He thinks he sees the Sylph again but it is an old witch who prophesies that Effie will marry James' best friend.  Finally the Sylph appears again and realizing he loves the ghostly creature, James follows her into the woods, leaving the wedding party in disarray.

Once in the woods the old witch conjures up a cursed diaphanous shawl just as James and The Sylph appear.  The Sylph summons her ghostly ensemble of sisters who dance for the couple but they are eventually interrupted by the wedding guests.  They all leave when James' friend proposes to Effie who accepts.  The witch gives James the shawl to wind around the Sylph but when he does he inadvertently destroys her.  After watching her being lifted to the heavens, James dies.

Unlike the more sombre GISELLE which premiered five years after Bournonville's production, LA SYLPHIDE cannot help but look a bit overwrought and unintentionally lame with it's reliance on over-the-top mimed gestures between the lead characters but it has a charm and what's not to love with a stage crowded with a female ensemble, moving as one in long tutus and wings?

Although the performances of Erina Takahashi as the Sylph and Ciro Tamayo as James were full of light and airiness, again I felt I would have gained more if the Royal Ballet had been dancing it; yes it should be lightweight but there should also be some gravitas in the peril James and the Sylph find themselves in which was lacking here.

However, as an introduction to the two ballets, it more than served it's purpose and I enjoyed the double-bill as such... and it was nice to recall the Disney l.p. too!

BARNUM at the Menier Chocolate Factory - Life Under The Small Top...

It's not for want of productions that I have never seen the Cy Coleman musical BARNUM which I have finally caught up with at the Menier Chocolate Factory.  Michael Crawford, Paul Nicholas, Peter Duncan, Christopher Fitzgerald and Brian Conley have all played the title role in UK productions and now it falls on the lofty shoulders of comedian Marcus Brigstocke.

BARNUM opened on Broadway in 1980 with Jim Dale in the title role and upcoming actress Glenn Close as his long-suffering wife Charity, it was nominated for 10 Tony Awards but so was EVITA which won most of the top prizes, BARNUM eventually ending up with 3, including the Best Actor nod for Dale.

For such a populist and popular musical, my only reference for it was the 1983 skating routine by Torvell and Dean, and I find that odd as I am a bit of a musicals fan.  None of the songs are particularly famous in their own right and I think ultimately it might be because the material is actually fairly thin.  The role of Barnum needs to be played by a charismatic, show-off, starry performer because - not only is he hardly ever offstage - but he needs to carry the thinness of the book.

For all the time onstage, what do we ever learn of P.T. Barnum through Mark Bramble's threadbare book?  That he was a bit of a chancer and believed in flim-flam as much as the punters he was always trying to attract, be it showbiz or politics?  What do we learn of his wife Charity?  That she was that most awful of things - long-suffering - and met all of her husband's outlandish plans with a wry smile and a pat on the hand?  Yeesh.  The workman-like lyrics by Michael Stewart tell us as much as we need to know and nothing more.  Bramble and Stewart both were responsible for the paper-thin book for 42nd STREET so it comes as no surprise that they are similarly bereft of imagination here.

Cy Coleman's music is also fitfully memorable but does finally pull out a showstopper with "Come Follow The Band" but it's sad when one considers this was the man responsible for LITTLE ME, SWEET CHARITY, ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY and CITY OF ANGELS, but maybe he flourished better in more hard-nosed entertainment worlds than folksy Americana.

Marcus Brigstocke certainly gives a likeable and quietly-winning performance as Barnum, one that certainly fits within the Menier's limited performing space, but therein lies the production's problem.  As I said before, the role cries out for a performer who is not content in simply inhabiting a space - Dale, Crawford, et al are all larger-than-life, unabashed show-off performers who also have that underlying thread of being unlikeable.  As I said, Brigstocke is likeable which isn't enough for this role.  His singing voice also seemed to remain in his mouth - SING OUT P.T.!

Where the production scores is in it's female characters - for all the afore-mentioned dullness of material, Laura Pitt-Pulford was very good as Charity, the level of musicality seemed to perk up whenever she was onstage and her lovely voice got the most out of her earnest ballads.  The inexplicably busy Rosalie Craig isn't a patch on Pitt-Pulford.

Also hitting their mark are Celinde Schoenmaker as the Swedish diva Jenny Lind - her voice belts out and bounces around the small Menier auditorium so you really feel it's force - and Tupele Dorgu also registers as both Joyce Heth, Barnum's first successful 'personality', and in the second act as a luscious-toned blues singer.

The ensemble seemingly never draw breath as they spin, dance, somersault and cavort around Paul Farnsworth's mini-big top set - mind out for the flame-twirler!  Shining out of them is the remarkable Danny Collins, fresh from Matthew Bourne's EARLY ADVENTURES, whose sinuous physicality stands out in Rebecca Howell's energetic choreography.

Gordon Greenberg, whose Chichester production of GUYS AND DOLLS so impressed, here keeps the action flowing and ingeniously uses every opportunity that the Menier's playing space can provide but, again we have to face the fact, that with such thin material to work with Greenberg has no other option but to keep the show moving and distract us with flames, gymnastics and a constant whirl of movement.

It is a tribute to Greenberg, musical director Alex Parker and the non-stop cast that the show ultimately wins one over - it sure ain't because of the material they have to work with.

DE PROFUNDIS at the Vaudeville Theatre: Oscar Wilde and the space between...

The first theatre visit of 2018 was to see Simon Callow performing Frank McGuinness' adaptation of DE PROFUNDIS, Oscar Wilde's deeply moving exploration of his relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, written three months before his release from Reading Prison.

Oscar had begun his prison sentence of two years hard labour in the spring of 1895, being housed first in the London jails of Pentonville and Wandsworth where he soon was physically broken by the poor food, deprived conditions and the meaningless, gruelling tasks that made up his sentence.  In the chapel at Wandsworth, he collapsed and burst his right ear-drum.  He was transferred to Reading jail in the hopes he would be given easier work but the brutal governor made sure he was punished for any infringement.

In 1897 a new governor Major Nelson was installed and made a point of visiting his infamous prisoner and bringing him a book from his own library, a small act of kindness that reduced Oscar to tears.  Oscar had not been allowed to write anything while in prison but Nelson soon arranged for him to have a page of paper at a time to write to friends and his legal team, an important lifeline to any prisoner approaching the end of their sentence.

Apart from the surroundings and the debilitating nature of his punishment, Oscar had been emotionally distraught that he had heard nothing from Lord Alfred Douglas, his volatile young lover.  With time to dwell on the catastrophic nature of their relationship, Oscar slowly worked on a letter to 'Bosie' which took the last three months of his confinement, each page was taken away when completed.  He was not allowed to send it to Douglas or Oscar's close friend Robbie Ross but Major Nelson gave him the many pages when he was released.

On release he gave it to Ross to have a copy typed up and the original sent to Douglas but Ross wisely did the reverse; Douglas burnt his copy without bothering to read it.  The first publication was in 1905, five years after Oscar's death from Meningitis, believed to have been a result of the fall in Wandsworth.  It is a bitter irony that Lord Alfred Douglas was himself imprisoned for six months in 1923 for libelling no less that Winston Churchill.

Alone in his cell without any distractions, Oscar cast his memory back over their three years together and reveals to Lord Alfred - and himself - that their relationship was always one-sided with Oscar becoming just a pawn in the power-play between members of the poisonous family and, once he was no longer of use, was discarded...

HM Prison, Reading
Dear Bosie,
After long and fruitless waiting I have determined to write to you myself, as much for your sake as for mine, as I would not like to think that I had passed through two long years of imprisonment without ever having received a single line from you, or any news or message even, except such as gave me pain ...

Oscar recalls with bitter clarity the times when his generosity wasn't reciprocated, most notably the occasion, when staying in Brighton, when he nursed Lord Alfred through a bout of influenza but when Oscar caught it 'Bosie' left him alone to suffer alone and when asked to simply fetch some water for him, Oscar was met with screaming rage.  He also recalls the times when rooms were hired for him to meet a deadline for a play, only to be distracted by an insistent Douglas to take him out to many dinners.

Oscar constantly returns to the misery he inflicted on his wife Constance and his sons Cyril and Vyvyan and his misery in the knowledge that a court order forbade him from ever seeing them.  He contrasts this with the damaging relationship between Lord Alfred and his dangerously vindictive father The Marquess of Queensbury.  After Queensbury's eldest son Francis was found dead, a suspected suicide, having been implicated in a homosexual relationship with the Prime Minister, Queensbury pursued Oscar and Lord Alfred until Oscar fatally sued him for slander.  Citing that Bosie had wanted to revenge the abuse that his mother had suffered at the hands of his father, Oscar tells Bosie he just has to see how Constance is a woman truly destroyed by a husband's actions.

Remarkably, despite his situation, there are still flashes of Oscar's preening ego at what the world has lost with his fall from grace.  He writes well on the that great leveller, Pain - he remembers the disgrace he felt when he was surrounded by a jeering crowd while left to stand on Clapham Junction to the way to prison, and also the heartbreaking pathos of seeing his friend Robbie Ross raise his hat to him in salute as Oscar was led away from the courtroom. The sting in the tail is that on release he still wishes to see Bosie again, even after all that he now understands of their relationship. They did meet again three months after his release but lived together only for a few months in Naples before parting forever due to family pressures and their own disenchantment with each other.

Simon Callow certainly caught all the shifting emotions Oscar conjures up in the letter seated most of the time in a hard-backed chair, occasionally trudging around the stage as Oscar would have walked around the prison yard.  It was a very powerful performance aided by Frank McGuinness' adaptation of the text.

It was well paced by director Mark Rosenblatt and the stark overhead lighting was courtesy of Paul Keogan.  With two more breaks between productions in Classic Spring's year-long Oscar Wilde celebration at the Vaudeville, DE PROFUNDIS might just come back for another limited engagement.

Dvd/150: SUFFRAGETTE (Sarah Gavron, 2015)

The struggle to win the vote for British women in the early 1900s oddly fits into a genre of British film: working-class group make a stand against their lot eg. MADE IN DAGENHAM, PRIDE...

SUFFRAGETTE is expertly directed by Sarah Gavron but Abi Morgan's script at times feels obvious.

Morgan's fictional heroine is Maud, an East-End laundress, wife and mother. While witnessing suffragettes smashing shop windows, Maud recognizes co-worker Violet among them. When the government refuse to change the law, a brutal attack by policemen leads to Maud's arrest and jail sentence which confirms her as an activist; her loss of job and family cannot make her betray the cause.

Carey Mulligan is wonderful as Maud with fine support from Anne-Marie Duff as Violet.  Helena Bonham Carter never quite convinces as a politicized pharmacist but there is a marvellous cameo from Meryl Streep as Emmaline Pankhurst.

Shelf or charity shop? A keeper in the dvd limbo of a plastic storage box.  No room sadly to mention the fine support of Ben Wishaw and Brendan Gleeson or that Helena Bonham Carter is the great-grand-daughter of Herbert Asquith, the Prime Minister who refused the suffragettes the vote!

and the envelope please...

It's the end of the year so apart from comedy fireworks going off everywhere it also means it's time for the 11th Annual Chrissies...it's the one that they want.

BEST DRAMA (Original/Revival)

THE FERRYMAN - Jez Butterworth (Gielgud)

Nominees:

ANGELS IN AMERICA (Lyttelton) / THE GLASS MENAGERIE  (Duke of Yorks) /
HEDDA GABLER (Lyttelton) / WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (Harold Pinter)

 BEST MUSICAL (Original/Revival)

 FOLLIES - Stephen Sondheim (Olivier)

 Nominees:

AN AMERICAN IN PARIS (Dominion) / EVERYBODY'S TALKING ABOUT JAMIE (Apollo) / 42nd STREET (Drury Lane) / THE LIFE (Southwark Playhouse)

BEST BALLET/OPERA

 ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND - Christopher Wheeldon (Covent Garden)

Nominees:

THE DREAM; SYMPHONIC VARIATIONS; MARGUERITE AND ARMAND (Covent Garden) / FLIGHT PATTERN (Covent Garden) / JEWELS (Covent Garden) / MAYERLING (Covent Garden)

BEST ACTOR (Drama)

 ANDREW SCOTT - Hamlet (Almeida)

 Nominees:

SIMON RUSSELL BEALE (The Tempest) / PADDY CONSIDINE (The Ferryman) /
BRYAN CRANSTON (Network) / CONLETH HILL (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?)

BEST ACTRESS (Drama)

IMELDA STAUNTON - Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Harold Pinter)

Nominees:

LAURA DONNELLY (The Ferryman) / CHERRY JONES (The Glass Menagerie) / 
 AUDRA McDONALD (Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill) / RUTH WILSON (Hedda Gabler)

BEST ACTOR (Musical)

 PHILIP QUAST - Follies (Olivier)

Nominees:

ROBERT FAIRCHILD (An American in Paris) / ALEXANDER HANSON (...Committee...)
/ TOM LISTER (42nd Street) / JOHN McCREA (Everybody's Talking About Jamie)

BEST ACTRESS (Musical)

 IMELDA STAUNTON - Follies (Olivier)

 Nominees:

JANIE DEE (Follies) / CLARE HALSE (42nd Street) / 

SANDRA MARVIN (...Committee...) / JOSIE WALKER (Everybody's Talking About Jamie)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (Drama)

NATHAN LANE - Angels In America (Lyttelton)

Nominees:

STUART GRAHAM (The Ferryman) / JOHN HODGKINSON (The Ferryman) /  

NATHAN STEWART-JARRETT (Angels In America) / PETER WIGHT (Hamlet)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS (Drama)

DEARBHLA MOLLOY - The Ferryman (Gielgud)

Nominees:

BRID BRENNAN (The Ferryman) / SUSAN BROWN (Angels In America) / 

 KATE O'FLYNN (The Glass Menagerie) / JULIET STEVENSON (Hamlet)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (Musical)

PETER FORBES - Follies (Olivier)

 Nominees:

MARK HADFIELD (Pinocchio) / CORNELL S. JOHN (The Life) / 

CHRIS KIELY (Yank!) / ANTHONY O'DONNELL (...Committee...)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS (Musical)

 SHARON D. CLARKE - The Life (Southwark Playhouse)

Nominees:

JOSEPHINE BARSTOW (Follies) / DI BOTCHER (Follies) / 

DAWN HOPE (Follies) / LUCIE SHORTHOUSE (Everybody's Talking About Jamie)

BEST BALLET/OPERA MALE

AKRAM KHAN - Desh (Sadler's Wells)

Nominees:

DANNY COLLINS (Early Adventures) / STEVEN McRAE (The Dream) / 

STEVEN McRAE (Rubies) / LIAM MOWER (Cinderella)

  BEST BALLET/OPERA FEMALE

 ZENAIDA YANOWSKY - Marguerite and Armand (Covent Garden)

 Nominees:

LAUREN CUTHBERTSON (The Judas Tree) / LAUREN CUTHBERTSON (Mayerling) / ALESSANDRA FERRI (Woolf Works) / ZENAIDA YANOWSKY (Symphonic Dances)

BEST DIRECTOR

DOMINIC COOKE - Follies (Olivier)

Nominees:

MARIANNE ELLIOTT (Angels in America) / IVO VAN HOVE (Hedda Gabler) / 

JAMES MACDONALD (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) / SAM MENDES (The Ferryman)

BEST DESIGNER

 VICKI MORTIMER - Follies (Olivier)

 Nominees:

BOB CROWLEY (Alices's Adventures in Wonderland / BOB CROWLEY (An American In Paris) / IAN MacNEIL (Angels in America) / JAN VERSWEYVELD (Hedda Gabler)

BEST LIGHTING

  PAULE CONSTABLE - Angels in America (Lyttelton)

Nominees:

PAULE CONSTABLE (Follies) / NATASHA KATZ (An American In Paris) / 

NATASHA KATZ (The Glass Menagerie) / JAN VERSWEYVELD (Hedda Gabler)

BEST CHOREOGRAPHY (Musical)

 BILL DEAMER - Follies (Savoy)

Nominees:

TOM JACKSON GREAVES (The Life) / KATE PRINCE (Everybody's Talking About Jamie) / RANDY SKINNER, GOWER CHAMPION (42nd Street) / CHRISTOPHER WHEELDON (An American in Paris)

BEST CHOREOGRAPHY (Ballet)

CRYSTAL PITE - Flight Pattern (Covent Garden)

Nominees:

FREDERICK ASHTON (Marguerite and Armand) / KENNETH McMILLAN (Mayerling) / KENNETH McMILLAN (The Judas Tree) / CHRISTOPHER WHEELDON (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland)