RUTHERFORD AND SON at the Lyttelton, NT - Emotions Under Glass

In 1912 a play opened at the Royal Court which received such praise that it transferred to the Vaudeville Theatre where it ran for a respectable 133 performances.  RUTHERFORD AND SON, a family drama set against a Northern factory background, chimed with the recent social dramas of Granville Barker, Galsworthy and Shaw; in the same year, the play even appeared in New York.

KG Sowerby's debut play should have launched the writer to success but soon after the play's opening it was revealed that the playwright was a woman, Githa Sowerby.  Newspapers curiously interviewed this odd phenomenon of a female playwright and reported how such a demure lady could write such a hard-hitting work - in truth she was 35 and had a lifetime of experience to help her write her semi-autobiographical play.

Githa's family owned a glass works on the Tyne in Gateshead and she drew directly from that world for the background to her family drama.  She continued to write children's literature and a further six plays but none had the success of RUTHERFORD AND SON, most appearing in small theatre club presentations.  By the time of her death in 1970, her plays had fallen into obscurity.  In 1980 RUTHERFORD AND SON was revived, and it saw a later production at the National Theatre in 1994 with Bob Peck as the tyrannical John Rutherford; in 1998 the play was judged one of the 100 Plays Of The Twentieth Century in a National Theatre poll.

Any thoughts that this might be tokenism are forgotten when you see RUTHERFORD AND SON: it's a gripping play that has hardly aged at all and indeed must have been a seismic shock in 1912 with it's powerful feminist arguments for the 'angel in the house' who could not think for herself.

John Rutherford owns a glass-making factory in Gateshead and rules both factory and home with a will of iron, secretly hated by both employees and family.  His oldest son John Jnr had been sent to Harrow to be educated, but earned his father's displeasure by staying in London and marrying Mary, a working-class girl.  With his health failing, John has returned home with Mary and their baby son Tony, both of them ignored by Rutherford.

His daughter Janet has retreated into a sullen, bitter existence after a lifetime of emotional coldness from her father and the youngest, mild-mannered Richard has earned his father's disdain for becoming a local curate.  With his children failing him, Rutherford has favoured his young assistant Martin, who grew up with his sons.  He approves of Martin's move to a nearby lonely cottage but we later discover he only moved there so he and Janet can continue a clandestine relationship.

Trouble finally erupts when John reveals that, while in London, he discovered a formula for making glass cheaper - Rutherford expects him to give it to him as he is his father but John demands he is paid a good price.  John shocks his father telling him he has shared his formula with Martin who thinks it's a great idea.  Richard brings a woman to the house whose son has been sacked by Rutherford for stealing; when he refuses to take him back, she retaliates by telling him what the workers really think of him, she tells Richard he is thought of as an idiot and tells Rutherford his daughter Janet is the main subject for gossip for 'carrying on' with Martin.  Unseen by anyone, a humiliated Richard leaves the house forever.

Rutherford confronts Janet but she denounces him for cutting off any possible joy that might have been hers.  Rutherford demands she leave his house the next day but Janet is triumphant in knowing that she will be united with Martin.  But the next morning a dazed Martin tells her that Rutherford persuaded him to reveal the secret formula - and then promptly sacked him for colluding with his son and for making his family a laughing stock by 'ruining' her.  Janet realizes that her dreams are in tatters now he has capitulated to her father, and leaves the house to face life alone. 

John rages when Martin tells him what he did and is determined to succeed to spite his father.  He breaks into Rutherford's cash box and steals the money, despite Mary's pleading that if he is going to succeed it should be not using his father's methods but he refuses.  When John says he will go abroad to achieve success Mary realizes that she and her son will never feature in these plans and suggests he let her know when he is settled, an idea to which he all too quickly agrees. Rutherford returns to his house, triumphant but alone - but is he?  An unexpected offer comes from the most unexpected place...  who will blink first to secure the continuation of RUTHERFORD AND SON?

Sowerby's play remains remarkably relevant with it's take on patriarchy at home and in the workplace and women's rights but above all is a rattling good yarn and a well-written play which has languished in the shadows for too long.  Polly Findlay keeps the pressure-cooker atmosphere on all the way through it, even in the quieter moments you just know a ticking bomb is waiting to go off.  Her production starts with sheets of rain pouring from the heavens and ends the same way, compounding the claustrophobic feel of the play.

She is blessed with an ensemble who all give committed, unsentimental performances: Roger Allam is on sensational form as Rutherford, glowering and immovable in his disdain for the world, and in particular, his family. Interestingly, he does not dominate the other actors; it is genuinely an ensemble performance leaving his own stamp on his role.  He is ably matched by Justine Mitchell as Janet, who found colours within the role so while she initially drains one's sympathy in the character, once her plight is revealed she shows the tragedy of a life allowed to atrophy.  Her scene with Allam where father and daughter declare their hatred for each other was spellbinding.

The other male roles are all played with just the right central note of weakness: Joe Armstrong as Martin really gives the role an initial sturdiness that completely deserts him when he loses his job, he is genuinely adrift in his shocked sadness, unable to acknowledge Janet's desperate need for help.  Sam Troughton exudes a clammy, fidgety quality as the oldest son who feels he can challenge his father with his secret formula, only to be outdone again and in defeat, shows he is as devious as Rutherford.  In the smallest role, Harry Hepple is touching as the Curate who finds himself a disappointment to family and community.

Anjana Vasan, so good in SUMMER AND SMOKE at the Almeida, here shines in the difficult role of Mary, a young girl thrown into an alien environment who finally succeeds by simply sitting and watching the power games around her, although it is intimated that in doing so, she loses something too.  As Rutherford's sister Ann who runs the household despite his many whinges, Barbara Marten is dessicated and as brittle as chalk after years of simply existing.

Lizzie Clachan's set aids the feeling of heavy claustrophobia with seemingly no natural light allowed into the fussy, genteelly cluttered living room and the lamp-lit lighting of Charles Balfour also keeps the Rutherford family trapped in glowing gloom.  I will have to ask Owen if Simon Money's vocal coaching was up to speed to a naturally north-east ear!  If I had to find fault I would suggest that the 6-women choir that opens each act doesn't quite provide the haunting aural experience that was intended.

 

RUTHERFORD AND SON is playing until 3rd August and I recommend it very much; hopefully this revival will show that Githa Sowerby's play is not just a curiosity but one of the best plays of the early 20th Century.

THE WAY OF THE WORLD at the Donmar - dwindling into marriage...

The playwright William Congreve devoted only 7 of his 58 years to the theatre but he left us with a handful of plays that stand with the best of the genre of Restoration comedy: THE DOUBLE DEALER, LOVE FOR LOVE and his most famous work THE WAY OF THE WORLD, which gave the canon Millament and Mirabell, one of the most enduring and sparky of couples.

Under Josie Rourke's artistic directorship the Donmar has frankly overdone the gender-blind, non-traditionalist casting as well as modern-settings for classic plays so I was quietly worried what was going to be pulling focus from the text this time, but director James Macdonald puts no such hindrances in the way of Congreve the playwright and the production was a pure delight.

On Anna Fleischle's panelled dark wood set, we follow the twists and turns of Congreve's convoluted tale of love and money: Mirabell wants to marry the captivating Millament but there is a problem: to get her full dowry the match must be agreed by Millament's aunt Lady Wishfort - and she hates Mirabell for his licentious lifestyle (and more importantly, she is still smarting from him telling her that he wasn't in love with her when she believed he was).

It doesn't help that Mirabell was once the lover of Lady Wishfort's daughter who he helped marry off to his dashing if untrusted fellow man-about-town Fainall who, in turn, is currently having an affair with the sly Mrs Marwood.  If Mirabell's life wasn't complicated enough, he has plotted that his servant Waitwell is secretly married to Lady Wishfort's maid Foible and together they will arrange a plot: Waitwell will pretend to be Mirabell's rich uncle Sir Rowland who will then woo Lady Wishfort, marry her and then all Lady Wishfort has to do to stop any public shame in marrying a mere servant is to agree to Mirabell and Millament's marriage!  What could POSSIBLY go wrong?  Plenty.

Lady Wishfort has arranged for Millament to be married to the country squire Sir Willful Witwoud who arrives at the same time as Waitwell disguised as Sir Rowland but more disastrously, Mrs Marwood overhears Foible and Mrs Fainall discussing Mirabell's plot and she tells her lover Fainall who sees the perfect opportunity to enact revenge on them all and lay claim to the Wishfort fortune and Millament's dowry.

The plot spins so fast that I admit at times I sat back and waited for it to come round like a carousel and so jump on again but the ride made it all worthwhile.  James Macdonald keeps the characters spinning like giddy tops as everyone's plans fly up in the air only to land finally in a pattern that suits everyone; indeed there are so many resolutions to tie up in the final scene that the engine does finally run down as exposition tops exposition... and then a dance... and then another few lines... but coming so soon after his revivals of WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF and GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS, it's nice to see Macdonald turn his laser-like direction on an English classic.

Macdonald's cast has also had to face some twists since rehearsals: Linda Bassett had been cast as Lady Wishfort but dropped out of the cast for personal reasons a month before opening night and then shortly after the play opening, Alex Beckett who had been playing Waitwell died unexpectedly.  That is enough to throw any cast off-kilter but that they have banded together and are giving such a fine ensemble performance is to their credit.  Standouts included the very funny double-act of Fisayo Akanade and Simon Manyonda as the fops Witwoud and Petulant who excel at getting drunk, Sarah Hadland as the mischievous Foible and Robin Pearce who has taken on the role of Waitwell in such unhappy circumstances.

Jenny Jules and Tom Mison gave us a pair of very hissable villains as the icy Mrs Marwood and the conniving Fainall.  However one of the main joys of the evening was Haydn Gwynne as the aristocratic Lady Wishfort.  As I said she was a replacement during the rehearsal period for Linda Bassett - who I always thought an odd choice - but Haydn Gwynne rose to the challenge superbly.

Lady Wishfort could easily be played as a gorgon but Gwynne gave her a human dimension as well as being very funny - she was in her element in the scene where Lady Wishfort runs through her options in seducing Sir Rowland, should she lie seductively on the couch affecting a languid air or wandering around her room lost in her thoughts - all of which are acted out in increasing giddy desperation?

Mirabell and Millament are on a par with Shakespeare's Benedick and Beatrice - a couple you know will end up together but they have to get over the plot's hurdles!  I must admit it took a while for me to warm to Justine Mitchell's performance as Millament as she played it on a seemingly different beat to the rest of the cast; her slightly arch, hesitant delivery gave me the idea that she was commenting on a performance rather than actually giving one.  Her slight Irish lilt was intriguing too.

However she shone in the play's famous 'proviso' scene, Millament then Mirabell lay down conditions which must be agreed to before a marriage is contemplated. Millament will not get up early, not be addressed to as 'dear' or 'darling', not have her liberty curtailed because she is married, to have her own letters, to keep her tea table for herself.... if he grants them, then she may - in the play's most famous line - "by degrees, dwindle into a wife".  Mirabell then counter-offers that he wants a wife who will not keep company with scandalous women or fops, will not use excessive beauty products, won't partake in strong drinks etc.  It is a gloriously written scene - sparkling, teasing, well-argued, and utterly modern.

Luckily the wonderful Geoffrey Streatfeild was playing Mirabell, and he was a delight from start to finish; his Mirabell could play the dandyish man-about-town but he was also the cleverest man in the room, secretly holding all the cards and, although the final scene where all the subplots are resolved, was a bit long-winded, he pulled the surprise resolutions out of his hat with great style.  He is a class act and his dry, witty performance was excellent.

I am glad my first time seeing this Congreve classic was with such a fine production, one that any future versions will have a hard time measuring up to.

THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS at the Lyteltton Theatre - War on your doorstep...

To mark 100 years since the Dublin Easter Rising the National Theatre is staging Seán O'Casey's masterpiece THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS - a damn sight more appropriate than the Globe's awful TAMING OF THE SHREW, a decision which still has my head a-spin.

I had never seen the play before and, indeed, my only O'Casey play seen onstage was in 2000 at the Grammercy Theater in New York when I saw the transfer of the Donmar's JUNO AND THE PAYCOCK.  I missed the National's production of THE SILVER TASSIE in 2014 so was determined to see this.  I am glad I did, it was one of the most thrilling nights I have had at the National in ages.

The play famously was the cause of a riot after it opened in 1926 but to know why you have to go back to the roots of Irish nationalism.  John Casey was born into a protestant, middle class family in Dublin, and slowly became interested in Irish nationalism; after joining the Gaelic League in 1906 he changed his name to Seán O'Casey.  His involvement in worker's rights led him to become General Secretary of the Irish Citizen Army - a militia of trade union members to protect workers while on strike.  He resigned however when he felt the militia was corrupting it's socialist principals by becoming allied with the Irish Volunteers, a military organization fighting for Irish nationalism.

In 1913 O'Casey had been involved in the Dublin Lockout, the Irish version of the General Strike, and had been appalled that the Irish nationalists had not supported the strikers and he had a particular dislike for the Republican and teacher Patrick Pearse who continued to use the transport system during the strike although the transport bosses were violently against the strike.  O'Casey took no part in the 1916 Easter Uprising but must have been given pause knowing that his ex-Irish Citizen Army colleague Jim Connelly and Pearse were both executed by the British in the aftermath.

Ten years after the uprising he premiered his third great play staged by the Abbey Theatre THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS and a few nights after it's premiere there was an organized riot by Republican women in the theatre which intensified with the arrival of Pearse's mother soon after.  But why choose the play to riot?  Because O'Casey had dared to flout the belief that the uprising had been the results of martyrs attempting to cast off the yoke of British bondage and had used parts of Pearse's rabble-rousing speeches in his second scene where a prostitute is trying to pick up men in a pub where outside a Republican gathering is taking place.

The genius of O'Casey's writing is that he uses the uprising as a device to focus on the effect of civil war on the non-combatant people in the danger zone, people whose petty squabbles and attempts to get on in life are thrown into turmoil by being witness to, and in the cross-hairs of, two warring sides.

O'Casey sets his play in a tenement building on an anonymous Dublin street in 1915 where the swirling anti-British feeling is growing louder on the periphery of the lives of the tenants.   In and out of each other's lives and rooms, the tenants strike up friendships that last only up to the next argument.  Two widows - the catholic Mrs Gogan and protestant Bessie Burgess - hate each other and are always rowing, although Bessie always spares time for Mrs Gogan's consumptive daughter Mollser.

However what they both agree on is the proud ways of Mrs Nora Clitheroe who also lives in the tenement.  But the recently-married Nora is arguing with her husband Jack as he has discovered she hid a telegram from the Irish Civilian Army which gave him orders to be part of the upcoming insurrection.  Also in and out of the tenement building are Fluther Good the carpenter, The Young Covey a root and branch communist fitter and Norah's uncle Peter, an old-time Fenian Republican.  Also floating through the men's lives is local prostitute Rosie Redmond.

Over the Easter weekend 1916 however, the characters' local streets become dangerous sniper alleys as the English army retaliate against the Republican Uprising and while Bessie Burgess shouts 'God Save The Queen' from her attic room, pregnant Nora goes quietly insane with fear at Jack's safety on the front line.  Fear gives way to excitement when the locals start looting but as the violence becomes more random and arbitrary, no one is safe.

THE PLOUGH AND THE STARS has the feel of a typical Howard Davies production but he fell ill during it's set-up and Jeremy Herrin stepped into the breach.  The pace has an unrelenting quality once the uprising starts and the final scene has an unsettling, almost inevitable, conclusion.  If I have a criticism of the production it's that Vicki Mortimer's sets tend to look lavish when filling the Lyttelton stage which is a bit of a disconnect when you consider the characters are supposed to be living in near-poverty.

An excellent ensemble of actors brings O'Casey's play to life but two performances in particular stood out: Judith Roddy gave us an impassioned Nora Clitheroe, losing her reason at the unknown fate of her husband and the death of her newborn child, while Justine Mitchell was truly remarkable as the seemingly hard-hearted protestant Bessie, proudly declaring to her neighbours that her son is fighting for King and Country on the Western front, but ultimately showing sympathy to those she has castigated.  Her final moments in the play will not be forgotten by anyone who sees it.

The final moments are given over to two British soldiers who take over the tenement building to flush out a Republican sniper and who help themselves to the tea that Bessie had made.  They drink their tea and wistfully sing Ivor Novello's sentimental "Keep The Homefires Burning", the irony being that Bessie had been doing just that for her son away in France.

At the end of that Easter weekend in 1916, 450 people were dead.  O'Casey's play stands as a reminder that over half of that number were civilians including 40 children.  Watching the fear and terror that swept the tenement building was also to be reminded that this was happening as we sat watching the play, in Africa, in Syria, in the Palestinian territories....

My last theatre visit of 2010 was the much-anticipated KING LEAR at the Donmar with Derek Jacobi playing the King more sinned-against than sinning (actually that's debatable).

As I said it was much-anticipated and when the lights went down I had a real sense of "Eyes down, here we go..." However despite many excellent things going for it, I felt afterwards a slight sense of disappointment. It was the production I had expected to see: well-acted, clearly directed, well-designed and lit... but all very mannered and contained. Maybe I am just used to the Grandage Donmar house-style.

Michael Grandage has given us a no-nonsense production that does nothing to divert attention from the text - it's one of the clearest and speediest LEARs I have seen.

Christopher Oram's setting also does nothing to pull focus from the text or performers - bare boards daubed with dabs of white paint, the smell of which still tweaks the nose, and costumes of black or grey. The production is atmospherically lit by the excellent Neil Austin.

Derek Jacobi's Lear is, as expected, beautifully thought-through and he invests his speeches with shades of meaning which make you feel you are hearing them for the first time. At all times however I felt that he and Grandage were plotting a course to the last scene - even in his maddest moments, I always felt Jacobi had one foot in the floor so to speak.
I think the problem I had with the production was that it had been cast so there would be no fireworks to distract from Jacobi's blazing rocket. Not that the acting was bad, they all just seemed to build to a certain point and then stop. I remember back to Ian Holm's stunning Lear at the Cottesloe - he dazzled, but so did Michael Bryant's Fool, Barbara Flynn and Amanda Redman's Goneril and Regen, Finbar Lynch's seductively evil Edmund et al. Here, the actors seem to knowingly stop short of pulling the focus from Jacobi.

I feel a bit guilty as I write this that I seem to be putting the blast on it - I did enjoy it and am mindful of how lucky I am to get a chance to see it as I presume the run is sold out and it will be unlikely to transfer. The good news is that the production will be screened live in cinemas here and abroad as the first production outside of the National Theatre to be so filmed in the NT's LIVE project - click HERE for details.
So... good things in the production: a great pulling-the-carpet-from-under-expectations moment by having the boarded set rattle and lighting quiver between the cracks during the storm scene but stop for Jacobi to whisper his "Blow winds" speech which is all the more unsettling for being done so; Justine Mitchell's Regen who, after dropping her placid and complaisant nature when confronted by Gloucester, made one wish that she had more scenes in the latter stages of the play; Ron Cook's cautionary Fool who showed again how great the role is when entrusted to an actor worthy of it.The most sublime moments belong to Jacobi however - his turn-on-a-groat changes from sovereign security to apoplectic rage when confronted by Cordelia's refusal to put her love for him into words, his violence in cursing Goneril to childlessness, his childlike madness, his joyful hopes to Cordelia that "We two alone will sing like birds" in hoped-for captivity and of course, his playing of the final heartbreaking scene.

All in all, a very suitable way to end a year of theatregoing.

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.