50 Favourite Musicals: 30: The BEGGAR'S OPERA (1728) (John Gay)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life:

First performed: 1728, Lincolns Inn Fields Theatre, London
First seen by me: 1982, Cottesloe, National Theatre

Productions seen: two

Score: various
Book: John Gay
Plot:  In the slums of East London, legendary highwayman Macheth's luck finally runs out as he is arrested and taken to Newgate.  Facing the prospect of hanging, Macheath must rely on the help of his mistresses - but will they agree to help if they find out about each other?

Five memorable numbers: I LIKE THE FOX SHALL GRIEVE, LET US TAKE THE ROAD, IF THE HEART OF A MAN, I'M BUBBLED I'M TROUBLED, WHY HOW NOW MADAME FLIRT

THE BEGGAR'S OPERA has galloped down 291 years like it's anti-hero Macheath escaping the law.  Along the way it has discarded the satirical contemporary references that would have accounted for it's huge success - many saw in the outwardly respectable but secretly double-dealing Peachum a veiled allusion to politician Robert Walpole - as well as referencing 'superstar' villains like Jonathan Wild, Claude Duval and Jack Sheppard but it has retained it's involving plot, larger-than-life characters and it's over-riding message that what is forgiven if you are rich is criminalized if you are poor.  John Gay's original intention was to have the many songs and airs sung with no musical accompaniment but that was considered too avant-garde for the 18th Century - I am sure someone will come up with that idea now and be hailed as visionary.  THE BEGGAR'S OPERA was such a success that Gay wrote a sequel POLLY featuring Macheath and Polly in the West Indies but the satire was too biting for Walpole and it was banned for fifty years.  BEGGAR was of course the inspiration for Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's THE THREEPENNY OPERA which utilized most of the characters and plotline but the original remains the more sprightly.  It was thanks to Richard Eyre and his legendary 1982 National Theatre company that I first saw THE BEGGAR'S OPERA when it seemed a natural complement for their more optimistic GUYS AND DOLLS: Eyre gave it more of a Dickensian feel, the pervading gloom of John Gunter's rickety slum set and Peter Radmore's pea-souper lighting made it feel almost immersive.  Giving definitive characterizations were Paul Jones as the cocksure Macheath, Belinda Sinclair as Polly, Harry Towb as a Northen Irish Peachum, June Watson as a bustling "Carry On"-style Mrs Peachum ("not wiv an 'ighwayman, you sorry slut"), Kevin Williams' scene-stealing servant Filch and Imelda Staunton's explosive Lucy Lockett.

Annoyingly, although the Richard Eyre production was filmed for Channel 4 in 1983, there isn't any sign of it on YouTube.  Most of the videos are of either amateur productions or Peter Brook's lumpy film adaptation so here is a vocal clip of Jenna Russell as Lucy Lockett in the 1992 Royal Shakespeare Company production singing "Lucy's Lament".

The 7 Shows of Xmas 3: HERE LIES LOVE

Before I saw this, a work colleague asked me what I was seeing.  I replied "A disco musical about Imelda Marcos written by Fatboy Slim and David Byrne".  We both then burst out laughing as it sounded like I was just saying random words out loud!

It did indeed sound a mind-twanging concept, but it was one of the shows I was most looking forward to - as well as seeing what had happened to the National's Cottesloe auditorium now it has been redesigned and rechristened the Dorfman.

The Theatre has found space to fit in a new staircase, bar, cloakroom and loos, although there was still no room to swing a cat as the show was a sell-out as is the rest of it's run.  The auditorium doesn't look terribly different but it was exciting to see it transformed into a club setting, the lighting cues becoming more and more urgent the closer we got to start time while the audience who had standing tickets nervously bounced from one foot to the other to the banging electro tunes.

So the set-up: David Byrne had been intrigued when he read that Imelda Marcos was a disco fan and had visited Studio 54 when in New York and had even had a floor in her NY Townhouse equipped with a disco-ball.  Collaborating with Fatboy Slim, they have used this as a springboard to explore her and husband Ferdinand's rise and fall in the Philippines.  Together they have crafted a fascinating piece of musical theatre quite unlike anything else thanks to the imagination of director Alex Timbers.

Imelda's story is told using an excellent score, projections, lighting and a shape-shifting set of platforms that move around the auditorium floor.  Bizarrely, apart from the music and staging, Imelda's trajectory follows that of Eva Peron's in EVITA - poor girl makes good in the big city then meets politician with an eye on the prize, she rises to become the President's wife and, while inspiring great love among voters, is adept at turning a blind eye to the violent cracking down on any dissent.

Unlike the sexist approach to EVITA however, here at least there is an attempt at understanding the hunger that drove Imelda to strive for more as well as view her with sympathy in relation to her marriage to Ferdinand, who seemed to view it more like a business take-over.  One can then understand her anger when the Western actress Ferdinand was keeping as a mistress went public with covert tapes of their lovemaking when he dumped her.

With Ferdinand's health in decline, Imelda seized her opportunity to woo world leaders to do business with the Philippines and to also take a bigger grasp of the political reins.

The interesting facet to her story was that the Marcos' opponent Ninoy Aquino had been Imelda's boyfriend when she first arrived in Manilla, allegedly dumping her because she was too tall.  This gives the politics an intriguing soap opera element.  My knowledge of Imelda Marcos was minimal so it was all an education to me!

For such a far-reaching subject, there are only four main characters in the show: Imelda, Ferdinand, Ninoy and Estrella, Imelda's maid who was her only friend in a loveless home.  She later ran foul of Imelda when she spoke to a reporter of her former friend's humble beginnings which ran counter to the official Marcos version - she was kept under house arrest for her pains.

The score gets darker as the Marcos grip on the people gets tighter until Ninoy Aquino is assassinated on the airport tarmac minutes after arriving back from exile in America.  We then leap three years to the Peace Revolution which brought down the Marcos regime in only four days.  This is done simply but very effectively by having the theatrics stop and with just the house lights on, a trio from the ensemble sing the song GOD DRAWS STRAIGHT.  This ends the show but you can't keep a bad girl down and Imelda reprises HERE LIES LOVE, a fantastic show song which lodges itself in your memory as soon as you hear it.  The title comes from an interview when Imelda was asked what she wanted inscribed on her tombstone.

The production was an astonishing combination of theatrical storytelling: music, choreography, lighting and performance melding together to make an unforgettable experience.  David Byrne and Fatboy Slim's score pulses and blares with energy but the attention never slips when the pace or tone gets slower or darker. 

Natalie Mendoza was electric as Imelda, effortlessly moving from ingenue to diva with an unstoppable energy that could power the whole of the Philippines.  If the supporting cast don't have quite the same opportunity to shine, it doesn't stop them making impressions: Mark Bautista as a slick Ferdinand, Dean John-Wilson as an impassioned Aquino and Gia Macuja Atchison as the increasingly invisible Estrella.

The ensemble worked every minute of the show and Frances Mayli McCann and Li-Tong Hsu caught the attention in their solos as the Mistress and Aquino's mother respectively.

It would be great if the show could come back in some way as it is sold out until it closes in early January.  More people should have the opportunity to experience this remarkable show.

Memorable Theatre Performances #5:

June Watson as 'Mrs. Peachum' in THE BEGGAR'S OPERA
(Cottesloe, NT, 1983, seen here with John Savident)

"The actors seemed to be enjoying themselves... June Watson was particularly good as Mrs Peachum" - Peter Ackroyd, Times ~

In a production teaming with vivid, memorable performances June Watson was a wonderfully conniving and venal Mrs. Peachum, firing off endearments to her daughter Polly as "Not wiv an 'ighway man you sorry slut"

Sometimes you see a production in a theatre that leaves you so shaken it takes a while to get over it. Peter Hall's latest whack at Shakespeare's TWELFTH NIGHT has left me thus... and not in a good way.

The production sold out to the National Theatre mailing list punters so tickets have been on the rare side - when two popped up on the NT website a few weeks back I nabbed them. No doubt Peter Hall wanted the Cottesloe so we are close to the action and, as is his lifelong mission, can concentrate on the text.

The production marks Peter Hall's 80th birthday and it's his fourth go at the play. I have to say that rather than seeing a production that showed that experience, I saw a production obviously directed by an old man.

An unavoidable problem was the clanging amateurishness of Rebecca Hall. Damn girl, how did you get the gig? Oh yes, I forgot for a minute. Her film career might be in the ascendant with roles in VICKY CHRISTINA BARCELONA, FROST/NIXON as well as winning a BAFTA for the RED RIDING trilogy on Channel 4 but her stage work leaves her with nowhere to hide.

Although she won the Ian Charleston award in 2002 for her performance of 'Vivie' in her father's production of MRS. WARREN'S PROFESSION I found that portrayal a bit two-dimensional but that at least fitted the kill-joy character, and felt she only succeeded playing Hermione in Sam Mendes' 2009 WINTER'S TALE at the Old Vic when she played the statue at the end!

Time and again Rebecca Hall give us true moments of jaw-dropping thinness. In her solo speeches to the audience she gave a masterclass in coarse acting - her arms stiffly raised from her sides for emphasis or looking from one side of the auditorium to the other to 'include the audience in' on her thoughts. It was a performance that semaphored cluelessness to the audience and more than once I found myself groaning quietly.

It all reminded me of when Jennifer, another of Hall's offspring, appeared as Helena in MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM at the Lyttleton in 1983 and gave a performance of resounding averageness.

This mis-firing performance colours the whole production and is not helped by being paired with the rather odd Orsino of Marton Csokas. Looking not unlike a shaggy Russell Crowe, it was a performance that again consistently hit wrong notes all over the place. Like... was Peter Hall having his afternoon sleep during the rehearsals?

Rebecca Hall's Amateur-Night-In-Dixie turn is illuminated all the more by her scenes with Amanda Drew as Olivia. Where Hall speaks her lines with the studied earnestness of an over-achieving schoolgirl, Drew simply acts. For her the lines are learned and tucked away and she simply plays the role with a bemused air that is a pleasure to watch.One of the reasons I wanted to see the production was that Simon Paisley Day was playing Malvolio. His last two roles in ENTERTAINING MR. SLOANE and PRIVATE LIVES have shown him as one of our best high comedy actors but here the life seems drained from him, the comedy gold that Simon Russell Beale and Derek Jacobi have found in Malvolio's pomposity and gulling by his enemies is here fitful and on a very low-light. He is a good enough actor to be able to adapt to Hall's doleful take on TWELFTH NIGHT and he certainly makes you sympathise for Malvolio's longing for revenge at the end of the play - I just felt cheated out of the performance I know he could have excelled in.

Sir Peter doesn't seem interested in the play's lovers. No, for him TWELFTH NIGHT is a serious rumination on death and the autumnal shades of Shakespeare later plays. As early as 1960 when he wrote a long preface to the play that is reprinted in the programme, he identified the central role in the play as Feste, Olivia's rueful clown . Not Viola, not Malvolio, Feste.Now as much as I admire David Ryall who plays the woeful jester, his ponderous delivery and lengthy scenes slowed the night to a crawl. While one can understand Hall's desire to make an elderly character the one we should pay most attention to, it unbalances the play so one sits there enduring the molasses-like atmosphere rather than enjoying a proven enjoyable play. Ryall plays the final scene alone, singing one of his interminable songs. Hall's decision to attempt to do it as an audience sing-a-long was a very wrong call.

As much as I liked Ryall's performance, I could not help thinking what the late John Normington could have done with the role as he was an actor capable of the lightest of touches.Apart from Drew, the best performances come from the devious characters in the Lady Olivia's house. Simon Callow's rambunctious Sir Toby Belch, Finty Williams as a sly Maria and, best of all, Charles Edwards as a delightfully daft Sir Andrew Aguecheek lifted the spirit with their every appearance - but these characters should surely be the mischievous devils who are the icing on the cake - not the ones who you are watching the wings for their next entrance?

I really can't be bothered to write any more about it but I must mention the bizarre design of Anthony Ward - a bare stage with a canopy of autumnal leaves - YEAH WE GET IT - with a tiny row of houses on the left-hand side of a shelf that runs along the back of the stage which doesn't so much suggest perspective so much as the remnants of a seaside gift shop at the end of it's closing down sale. The second-act addition of a large doll's house version of Olivia's mansion suggests a large piece of Capodimonte sitting in a litter tray.

Avoid.

The second little-known play I have seen this week at the National Theatre was SPRING STORM, one of the first plays written by Tennessee Williams.

I had wanted to see this production which started at Northampton's Royal & Derngate Theatre but as it was in the Cottesloe it had sold-out thanks to the advance booking knobstains. I had hoped that it and it's companion piece, Eugene O'Neill's BEYOND THE HORIZON, would transfer to a bigger space but that hadn't transpired. Constant Reader, imagine my surprise when, while idly checking for an odd matinee seat, I found a couple of tasty H row seats going begging for the next evening! See... always worth double-checking these things. Owen braved yet another Williams play although his current batting average after 3 productions was liked 1, disliked 2.

Although SPRING STORM does betray a youthful over-egging of the play's pudding - Tennessee was 26 at the time with two plays already staged by a St. Louis am-dram society - it was still great to see and to realise that the themes of survival, lust and despair that are so prevalent in his later works were there from the beginning. It also helped that Laurie Sansom's production was in itself hugely entertaining.
The play takes place over a few days in a small Mississippii River town in early 1937 and the action centres on a wilful 22 year-old, Heavenly Critchfield. She is the only daughter of a respected Southern Old Family who are now living in reduced circumstances, always keeping an eye on the cotton share price.

Her overbearing mother Esmeralda refuses to let her current surroundings sway her from her rigid believe in her family's noble traditions while ruling her household with steely determination much to the chagrin of Heavenly's placid father - already troubled with a recurring stomach complaint that bodes ill - as well as his widowed sister Lila.Unknown to Esmeralda, Heavenly has already "given herself" to the rough and ready Dick Miles who wants to get out and see the world and is urging Heavenly to join him. However, much to Esmeralda's joy, the scion of the town's leading family Arthur Shannon has returned from being educated in England and wishes to start courting Heavenly. Heavenly bridles at the pressure being put on her to marry for money but goes along with Shannon's attentions.

However Shannon, who has loved Heavenly since their schooldays where he was hated for being studious, still has the the memory of her laughing at him as he was bullied. Unknown to Arthur, he is also the object of quiet desire by Hertha Neilson, a bookish lonely girl who works in the town library. However, like in AFTER THE DANCE, the events that take place on the night of a summer party change the lives of the four young people forever.As I said, Tennessee's youthful desire to leave nothing uncrossed or undotted sometimes leads to the play running away with itself but on the whole I enjoyed immensely. The joy for us fans of his work was seeing the seeds being sown for later plays: refined Heavenly's pleasure with her manual worker lover echoes Stella with Stanley in STREETCAR and her chance of a secure if unexciting possible husband echoes Blanche and Mitch in the same play; Esmeralda has traces of the controlling Southern mothers of Amanda Wingfield in THE GLASS MENAGERIE (even down to the Jonquils) and Mrs. Venable in SUDDENLY LAST SUMMER; Heavenly and Arthur's painful courtship in the parlour appears to be a dry run for Laura and The Gentleman Caller in THE GLASS MENAGERIE while Heavenly's dread of enduring the living death of the Old Maid, sitting alone on a porch waiting for a gentleman caller who will never come, reminded me of Blanche's bitter memories in STREETCAR of living alone at Belle Reve with the squabbling old women. And of course there were the sudden flashes of pure Tennessee prose such as Heavenly telling Arthur about Lila's penchant for saving fallen rose petals "she puts them in sachets to perfume her handkerchiefs, the scent of old maid's memories" or Hertha's heartbroken wail of "Why did God have to give homely girls the same dreams as pretty girls?" Mind you the script also contained a great line shouted by Heavenly at her shocked mother "I'm going to be married to Dick... by a black preacher... and live on a houseboat!" Surely the greatest line John Waters never wrote for Divine.

Laurie Sansom's direction was as fluid as the Mississippi moving the action swiftly around Sara Perks' standing set, a promontory fashioned from a collapsed house with the playing areas littered with debris, a constant reminder of the fickle nature of the river which could easily sweep lives and houses away with no warning.The company have been performing this and the O'Neill play since last October so unsurprisingly the whole company had a unity of style and commitment which helped the feel of a close-knit onstage community.

Liz White was a hypnotic Heavenly, a girl who knows she has a power over men but who does not know what to do for the best. Skittish, imperious, hilariously gauche and wildly impassioned, White captured all these moods without becoming a caricature - at times she resembled a young Lee Remick which is no bad thing for any actress - and her final capitulation to fate had a tragic sadness.

It is almost certain that parts of her character were inspired by Tennessee's older sister Rose. It is sadly ironic that as he was writing the play while attending a playwriting course in Iowa, back in his St. Louis family home Rose - who had declined over several years with increasingly manic behaviour - had been diagnosed with a form of schizophrenia and lobotomized with the consent of their parents.Although the role of Esmeralda was written with a furious pen - based almost to the letter on his mother it seems - Jacqueline King played the role wonderfully, with a unbending genteel ferocity which reaches it's zenith when she finds herself alone with Arthur Shannon in the parlour while her daughter is upstairs loudly packing to run off with Dick. She jabbered, prattled and kept up a non-stop stream of inconsequential chatter to distract his attention before exiting, still chattering as she leaves. It brought the house down. She was delightfully partnered by Joanna Bacon as her amiable but more empathetic sister-in-law Lila.

The role of the unloved but loving Hertha was touchingly played by Anna Tolputt who spiralled wonderfully into despair after being confronted alone in the Library by a drunken Arthur who trashes the room and her last hope of happiness. I would also like to mention Janice McKenzie who, as the head librarian Birdie, in this one scene created a character one knew instantly and wanted to see more of.Although well-played, the male members of the cast - Michael Thomson as Dick, Michael Malarkey as Arthur and James Jordan as Heavenly's father - were all saddled with under-written roles, only there to give the powerful women in the play something to react to.

I suspect of these two plays that Rattigan's AFTER THE DANCE will now be revived more often but I am grateful to have been able to see them both in such great productions. It would be heartening to see some more of Tennessee's work other than the usual STREETCAR, GLASS MENAGERIE, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF trilogy, no matter how great those plays are. Enough of his work from the early 1960s onwards have the taint of being 'problematic' but surely what these two productions prove is that given a director's insight into the text anything is possible.

Gore Vidal is quoted in the SPRING STORM programme as saying that what made Tennessee Williams a great writer was his channeling of his life into his plays - that unhappy love affairs or family memories could be exorcised by the arranging of them into scenes, words, themes so ultimately they were his, and not God's, to bring to life and to own. I think much the same, in his own way, can be said of Terence Rattigan.