SHOW BOAT at the Crucible, Sheffield - back to the beginning...

Last Saturday we took a long journey up to the Crucible Theatre, Sheffield and also journeyed back to the first milestone of the American musical, Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's legendary SHOW BOAT.

I had previously seen the show once before in 1991 when Ian Judge directed an Opera North revival at the London Palladium with a memorable cast of Jan Hartley (Magnolia), Bruce Hubbard (Joe), Marilyn Cutts (Julie), David Healy (Cap'n Andy), Karla Burns (Queenie) and Margaret Courtenay (Parthy).  Nearly 25 years later I can still remember the production well.

But Daniel Evans - soon to be the artistic director of Chichester Festival Theatre - has directed a fine production which smoothly moves through the show's timespan of 40 years.  It's a shame we do not see this show produced more often because it's one of the best Broadway shows which boasts a stunning score including "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin Dat Man", "Bill" and "Why Do I Love You?" among other classics.

The show, based on Edna Ferber's novel, broke the mould of previous revue-style shows and operettas, by telling a story which touched on serious themes with it's musical numbers allowing the story and the characters to develop.  Indeed Hammerstein's book, although admittedly thin on character development, does indeed touch on the racism that the black workers on the Show Boat faced from their overseers, which of course lend "Ol' Man River" a greater weight when seen within the show's context.

Through the timespan, apart from the travails of Magnolia's love for gambler Gaylord, we also see the times changing for the Show Boat performers too - song-and-dance team Frank & Ellie evolve from low comedy performers to headliners until they reveal in the final scene that they have moved to Hollywood.

Lez Brotherston's set design makes good use of the Crucible's thrust stage and his minimalist Show Boat was hugely evocative - although the cast probably could do without all those stairs!  The great lighting designer David Hersey has also given the show a glowing vitality and kudos too for Tim Reid's video projections which helped the years melt away within the show.

There are sparkling performances from Evans' handsome cast - Michael Xavier was in excellent voice as the raffish Gaylord Ravenal (although Owen did note that ultimately his character could be given more to do), Gina Beck was a delightful Magnolia (although at times her strong operatic soprano lent too hard on the notes), Allan Corduner was (and appeared to have) great fun as Cap'n Andy and was well-partnered by Lucy Briers' scowling Parthy Ann.

Emmanuel Kojo nearly stopped the show with his rousing "Ol' Man River" and he too was well partnered by Sandra Marvin's no-messing Queenie.  As you will see, it's interesting how there are so many couples within the show, another being the song-and-dance team of Frank and Ellie and they too were well played by Danny Collins and Alex Young - Collins energetic, athletic dancing betrayed his extensive work with Matthew Bourne.

Although initially partnered with Bob Harms' Frank Baker, Rebecca Trehearn as Julie LaVerne always suggested her character's inner solitude.  Julie is the star of the Show Boat cast until a jilted co-worker tells local lawmen her secret: Julie has been hiding that she is a half-caste.  She has to leave the boat which starts a downward spiral ending up as an alcoholic club singer.  Trehearn sang my two favourite songs in the score "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man" and "Bill" and gave a haunting, quietly tragic performance.

It was wonderful to experience this show on stage again, and it proved that a historical milestone from 1927 can be as vital, touching and entertaining as ever.

 

TAKEN AT MIDNIGHT at Haymarket - remembering the forgotten

Last night we went to see something rare in the West End - a new play by a new author in one of the most prestigious of London theatres.  Nope, not the Donmar or Almeida or some poky over-a-pub fringe venue but in the Haymarket, the sometime home of all-star revivals.

If I am honest I think that although this transfer from Chichester is to be applauded for introducing a new voice with a thoughtful and engrossing new play, I think it was an uneasy fit in the plush surroundings of the Haymarket, a more intimate auditorium would have served the play better and made it more powerful.

Mark Hayhurst is certainly no stranger to the tragic tale of Hans Litten as he has already written a tv drama and documentary about him so he is the right person to bring it to the stage but this time he shifts the focus to Litten's mother Irmgard.

Hans Litten was a young barrister in Berlin who specialised in defending the left-wing working-class in court.  In 1931 he prosecuted three members of the SA for killing three and wounding twenty others in an attack by the paramilitaries on a left-wing dance hall.  His bold coup-de-grace was to call Adolf Hitler to the stand where he was cross-examined on his claims that the Nazi Party did not propagate violence and were a credible political party.

Litten set out to show that Hitler was in fact the leader of a party that terrorised it's opponents.  Hitler's obvious discomfort at being cross-examined was not forgotten.  In 1932 the Nazi party rose to power and the following year, on the night of the Reichstag fire, Hitler exacted his revenge - Litten was arrested at midnight and spent almost five years being shuttled around various prisons and concentration camps, subjected to beatings and torture.  This was done while he was being held without trial in "protective custody" - another fine example of the Nazi's corruption of language.  Eventually moved to Dachau, Litten hanged himself on 5th February 1938.

All the time he was in prison, his mother Irmgard relentlessly pursued the Nazis for his release, haunting their offices with increasing desperation, happy for any information of his whereabouts from released prisoners as proof he was still alive.

There was one moment of real hope when Litten's case was picked up by British politician Lord Clifford Allen but although Allen had a meeting with Hitler, nothing came of it as Allen believed in appeasement with the Nazi party.

After their son's death, Irmgard moved to England while his father relocated to Northern Ireland.  She lived to see her son's tormentors defeated and died in 1953 but her husband had predeceased her in 1940.

The play has them at odds over how to react to their son's fate and indeed, Hans had grown distant from his father, a Jew who converted to Lutheranism to further his legal career.  Baptised a Christian, Hans embraced Judaism to get back at his father although this rebounded on him when he arrived at Dachau as he was classified Jewish and made to wear the yellow star.  Which is also ironic in that the tragedy that overtook Hans Litten, his colleagues and other disaparate groups in the 1930s risks being lost in the wake of the overwhelming later Holocaust.

Some artistic licence has been taken in casting the tall and graceful Martin Hutson as Hans Litten as, in real life, he was more of a Billy Bunter lookalike, but he gave a heartfelt and affecting performance, nuanced enough to suggest that Litten realised that he had been the unwitting agent of his own fate.

The supporting roles have been cast well with solid, experienced actors: Pip Donaghy is very good as Erich Muhsam, the anarchist poet/playwright who shares Hans' cell and who remained unbowed in the face of his own death while Mike Grady plays Carl von Ossietzky, a left-wing journalist who also shares their cell.  Ossietzky was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1935 but remained in prison until he died in the following year from TB.

David Yelland was good as the affable Lord Allen, full of waffle about freedom but doing nothing to anger Hitler while John Light was suitably chilling as Dr Conrad, the Nazi who is Irmgard's one unpredictable link to her son's release.  She has to demur to him in the hope that in doing so Hans will gain freedom but all the time you get the feeling of a sometimes-interested cat playing with a mouse.

There is a final confrontation scene between them when the avuncular mask drops and the real brutal face and mind of Nazism is revealed and it is to the credit of the lean, sinewy writing and committed playing of the actors that in this and similar scenes you could hear a pin drop - apart from the obligatory coughing.

Penelope Wilton was excellent as Irmgard, her unflinching quest for justice reflected in her tense, ramrod posture and her fists clenched.  Lesser actresses would play the sentiment but Wilton remained believably stoic, aware that any sign of weakness would be seized on by her son's captors.  She finally relents in her last meeting with Hans when she begs him to realise that "the time for bravery is over".  Early on in the play it occurred to me that she almost seemed to be channeling her CHALK GARDEN co-star, the late Margaret Tyzack; both in her lower register and speech.  Once I thought that I couldn't shift it from my mind.  I hope she takes it as a compliment that I thought that. 

Jonathan Church's direction has a relentless forward motion to it, moving inexorably towards the inevitable conclusion although after a while I wanted something more than the actors walking on, saying their lines and walking off.  Robert Jones has designed a simple but very effective set which helps the action move seamlessly from scene to scene and is helped enormously by Tim Mitchell's marvellous lighting suggesting the looming shadows of German expressionism.  In one memorable moment, Litten strides off after a reanactment of the 1931 trial with his shadow growing ever larger across the back wall only for it to suddenly change to the shadow of him hanged.
 

As I said, Mark Hayhurst's taut writing kept us subdued and attentive and with mothers across the world plaintively asking madmen for the return of their sons and daughters, the story of Irmgard and Hans Litten will tragically always be relevant but ultimately the play felt at times like a radio play transposed to the stage.

This week we finally got to see PASSION at the Donmar. You know the year is speeding by when that show it seemed absurd to book so far in advance for is suddenly the next day.

I had deliberately not read any reviews for this production but I was worried going in as Jamie Lloyd is not a favorite director and I had heard there was 'streamlining' of the score - this worried me as the score for PASSION seems so hermetically-sealed that it's hard to see where trimming could take place without disrupting the flow.

However very soon into the show I was forgetting all my worries. Jamie Lloyd, for all his speeding problems, has directed the best version of the show I have seen. The original London production was top-heavy with the casting of Michael Ball and the over-rated Maria Friedman and the Bridewell production - as was usually the case with that theatre - was slightly under-whelmingly cast. But here, the production is as intense, focused and driven as the play's anti-heroine Fosca, it has the hothouse atmosphere of an invalid's sickbed.
The musical has a book by James Lapine and is based on Ettore Scola's 1981 film PASSIONE D'AMORE which is itself based on the novel 'Fosca' by Ugo Iginio Tarchetti. Tarchetti died of Tuberculosis aged only 29 while writing the novel so the strange, feverish nature of the story can be fully understood knowing that fact. The original production ran only nine months from 1994-95 but still deservedly won the Tony Awards for Best Musical, Score, Book and Actress for Donna Murphy.

Giorgio is an army Captain who is enjoying a passionate affair with the married Clara which is interrupted when he is drafted to a remote outpost. He is warmly welcomed by Colonel Ricci and Dr. Tambourri while being viewed somewhat suspiciously by his fellow soldiers for his literary interests. He soon learns there is another inhabitant of the outpost, the Colonel's sickly cousin Fosca who stays in her room and whose agonised cries are heard often.
Giorgio lends her some of his books and Fosca makes a rare appearance at dinner to thank him for his generosity which he confesses in his letters to Clara he only did at the prompting of the Doctor. It is soon apparent that Fosca has become obsessed with the handsome Captain and haunts Giorgio wherever he goes, driving him to distraction. His attempt to end their friendship leads to a decline in her health and the Doctor begs him to see Fosca again. Fosca asks one thing of him - that he writes her a love letter which she dictates much to his discomfort. He later learns she was married once but was swindled of her fortune and left destitute.

The constant drain on his emotions takes its toll and Giorgio becomes unwell. However he cannot bring himself to go on a lengthy sick leave which angers his superiors and makes him the subject of barrack room gossip. Giorgio slowly begins to question whose love is more real - Clara's carefully managed trysts or Fosca's total devotion. The news that Giorgio is to be transferred leads to a hysterical collapse from Fosca and the Colonel, suspecting Giorgio has led her on, challenges him to a duel...

Sondheim's lush score seems to never pause for a moment, using several leitmotifs to keep the music swirling around the mind only coming to rest really for two wonderfully pure love songs - or declarations of intent - sung by Fosca "I Wish I Could Forget You" and "Loving You". I defy anyone to listen to the score and then make the complaint that Sondheim is not a romantic composer.

The production has no interval so the plot's momentum is allowed to sweep one along unlike the original London production which had an interval after the scene where Fosca dictated the letter to Giorgio and which completely destroyed any intensity.

The usual Donmar design suspects are also much in evidence - Christopher Oram's stark set of three rounded double doorways beneath a painted faded mural of classical lovers is aided immeasurably by Neil Austin's romantic lighting, grey/blue for the outpost or warm sunlight for Clara's Milan.

The role of Fosca demands an actress who can turn on the intensity and Elena Roger can certainly do that. The Donmar's artistic director Michael Grandage is getting a lot of use out of her: she was his Evita in the West End, his Piaf at the Donmar and beyond, now she is Fosca... he must be scouring the shelves to see what will fit her ripe personality next as she ain't the easiest performer to fit in a show. One might suggest Googie Gomez in THE RITZ!

Her intensity and heavy accent at first pull the focus a little as there are no other attempts at Italian accents in the cast and I *did* fight hard to get the images of Edith Piaf, Rita Moreno and Liliane Montevecchi from colliding in my mind but slowly the intensity became muted and she had a wonderful quality of stillness in her solo numbers, you could feel the audience holding it's breath as she sang them.

She has been unfairly picked on by some - yes Whingers - but I am glad she played the role - it could have been Jenna Russell playing another Sondheim female role in an 'ecky thump' Northern accent.David Thaxton was new to me and I thought he excelled in the role of Giorgio, he has a fine singing voice and although his singing slightly overshadowed his acting he is still a name for the future methinks. Scarlett Strallen played Clara and, despite a worrying degree of Langfordism (Bonnie is her aunt) in voice and expression, she also was fine.

There was excellent support from Allan Corduner as the meddlesome Dr. Tambourri and David Birrell as Colonel Ricci. Birrell was sporting an eye patch from the incident in early October when the gun he uses in the duel scene misfired and led to him being hospitalised and a few shows cancelled as the Donmar has a no understudy policy. I should praise too the nine piece orchestra under the musical direction of Alan Williams for their rich, full sound.

It may not be one of Sondheim's more popular works but you will find PASSION a haunting experience if you can get a ticket.