LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN at the Vaudeville - Looking at the stars...

Dominic Dromgoole's Classic Spring Theatre Company has been set up to stage the works of great British dramatists from the 19th and 20th Centuries in the theatres where they were first presented.  Their first season is celebrating the work of Oscar Wilde at the Vaudeville Theatre, a theatre Wilde knew well, and after an excellent launch with Dromgoole's own production of A WOMAN OF NO IMPORTANCE, we now have LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN, fluttering away in a production directed by Kathy Burke.

Wilde's comedy of manners was first staged in 1892 and has been revived frequently since as well as being the basis for five film versions although it's fair to say that none of these have lived long in the collective memory.  I had only read the play so was keen to experience it properly, although I wondered at the choice of Burke as director.  Luckily I need not have worried as her production has a humanity and warmth to it that one might not expect from Wilde's comedy of shaken morals among the English upper class.

Lord and Lady Windermere have been married for two years and he has given her an expensive fan as a gift for her 21st birthday.  However two titled friends, Lord Darlington and the Duchess of Berwick, spoil her day by telling her that it is the talk of society that her husband has been making secretive visits to Mrs Erlynne, an older woman of scandalous reputation.  The priggishly moral Lady Windermere confronts her husband who admits he has been paying Mrs Erlynne money but says he has not been unfaithful; when he asks her to invite Mrs Erlynne to her birthday ball she refuses, but Windermere invites her anyway.

Mrs Erlynne arrives at the party and causes a sensation but Lady Windermere ignores her.  Alone with Lord Darlington he takes advantage of her upset and invites her to leave her husband for him as Darlington has always secretly loved her.  The confused Lady Windermere refuses and Darlington leaves saying he will leave the country the next day.  However when she sees how her husband stays with Mrs Erlynne and that their family friend 'Tuppy' Lorton is equally smitten with her, Lady Windermere changes her mind and after leaving a note, follows Darlington to his home.

Mrs. Erlynne finds the note but destroys it before the husband can see it; of course that's when we discover that Mrs. Erlynne is actually Lady Windermere's long-presumed-dead mother.  She too fled her husband and baby for another man but when he left her she found herself alone.  Under an assumed name she has returned to London and blackmailed Lord Windermere into bankrolling her to a new start in society.  However now her daughter looks about to repeat her own actions, Mrs. Erlynne will stop at nothing to save her from a life of shame...

I am sure the play could be acted in "the traditional style" - lots of declamatory readings, the cast in frozen tableaux and heavy brocade and Victorian excess everywhere - but Kathy Burke keeps the action souffle-like and it is a production full of air and light.  This is helped immeasurably by designer Paul Wills' stripped-back, simple set and costume designs as well as the chosen colour palette of soft hues of pink, purple and blues - it really makes for a delightful production to watch.

Kathy Burke is also helped with a cast who play with a twinkle in their eye which makes the sudden melodramatic moments seem all the more serious; they also all play with a disregard that they are saying some of Wilde's most memorable lines, there is no signalling to the audience as if to say "You are all going to know what I am about to say..."

After having graduated from drama school only last year, it would be unlikely that Grace Molony's Lady Windermere had any particular depth but she played it with a pleasing sincerity as did Joshua James in the tricky role of Lord Windermere who came into his own in the final scene of compromise and keeping secrets.  I also liked Joseph Marcell as "Tuppy" the Windermere's friend who finds himself besotted with the mysterious Mrs. Erlynne but fearful of her reputation; he played it with just the right air of happy befuddlement.

Kevin Bishop is an interesting choice as Lord Darlington who is another of Wilde's charming but dangerous titled womanizers but he fought the temptation to barnstorm lines like "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars" and made him a very subtle cad.

The real surprise - for me at lest - was the delightful performance of Jennifer Saunders as the self-entitled and snobbish Duchess of Berwick, a woman at the centre of her own universe and eager to know all the gossip.  I had fears that she might play it too over the top but she fitted into the tone of the production and seemed very at home within it.  Her character's relatively short appearances onstage is helpfully padded out with the Duchess leading the audience in a front-cloth sing-song.  It actually was interesting to watch her in performance, seeing her ease onstage and delivering her witty rejoinders and put-downs with the sure knowledge of how to land a laugh; Dominic Dromgoole... I think you have found your Lady Bracknell for the upcoming production of THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST. 

Samantha Spiro was an inspired choice as Mrs. Erlynne, sensuous and languidly in command of the men's slavish attentions but able to become passionately sympathetic in defending the daughter she has returned to but realizes will have to leave again without her identity being revealed.  The final scene where she makes her only demand - a photo of her now-grown daughter and grand-child - was played with a lightness of touch which hinted at the emotion beneath.  She really has a uniquely quicksilver personality on stage.

It is impossible to watch any of Wilde's classic plays without looking for clues relating to the downfall that awaited him only three years after the play's premiere, and indeed it is interesting that Wilde wrote of a wife finding out about her husband's clandestine visits to a disreputable woman in the same year that Lord Alfred Douglas started to introduce him to male prostitute 'renters'.  Interesting too that the play's seemingly happy end for the married couple is based on the keeping of secrets from each other.

I highly recommend LADY WINDERMERE'S FAN which runs until April 7th but it will also be screened in cinemas on the 20th March.  Classic Spring's next production is AN IDEAL HUSBAND... and yes Constant Reader, tickets are already booked!

New Shows For Old...

Three of the productions I have seen recently are shows that I have either seen before or seen in different productions and had intrigued or delighted me enough to see again.

The first one was Mary O'Malley's ONCE A CATHOLIC - first seen in a far-flung 1979 at the Wyndhams Theatre.  It struck a chord with me and I saw it a few times, enjoying the memories it stirred with my own Catholic secondary school as well as the dirty jokes. 

ONCE A CATHOLIC at the Wyndhams, along with the National Theatre's transfer of BEDROOM FARCE at the Prince of Wales, both started a burgeoning interest in theatre-going but I wasn't in the right place to fully appreciate what theatre could do - that would come three years later with the NT's GUYS AND DOLLS.  But here we are years later in 2013 in the oddly-shaped Tricycle Theatre auditorium, would the play hold up?

The first thing that struck me was how much I remembered of the text - time and again I was remembering lines *just* as they were about to be said so I guess the play did have a lasting effect on me!

This production was directed by Kathy Burke and while she elicited good performances from her cast, the pace felt a bit sluggish - not helped by several ungainly scene changes.  I will admit we saw one of the previews so maybe this was just teething troubles.

ONCE A CATHOLIC is set in 1957 in a Catholic girl's school in Willesden and it's sense of place is excellently evoked - it was hugely enjoyable to be seeing the play not far from where it was set!  Three girls are preparing not only for their final exams but also their launch into the big world and more importantly Life and by natural extension, boys.  They are hindered rather than helped by the religious diktats handed out by the nuns who teach them and the priest who oversees their spiritual wellbeing.

 

The three are the studious Mary Gallagher (Katherine Rose Morley), the hapless Mary Mooney (Molly Logan) and the brassy Mary McGinty (Amy Morgan).  Mary Mooney is a girl who asks the wrong questions and who is always in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Good at heart and baffled by what the nuns insist is the truth, she constantly gets herself into trouble through no fault of her own.  Molly Logan played her with a delightful hangdog expression as if she seemed to expect to be in trouble all the time.  The odd thing is that she is the one who most wants to be devout but fate keeps tripping her up.  She oddly resembled a young Kathy Burke too!

 

 

After her scene-stealing performance in THE AMEN CORNER earlier this year, it was a joy to see Cecilia Noble again.  She was in excellent form as the three Marys' form teacher Mother Peter.  Whether she was ruling on the proper length of school knickers, enacting the miracle at Fatima or turning girlish in the presence of the priest she was a total joy.  Kate Lock played the dry and stern Mother Thomas Aquinas and Clare Cathcart was the scary science teacher Mother Basil.

 

 

There was also excellent support from Sean Campion as Father Mullarkey, the parish priest whose visits send the nuns a-twitter and the girls into boredom.  Campion was hilarious in his addresses to the class and gave the distinct impression of being one question away from cluelessness.  The know-it-all choirboy Cuthbert and horny teddy-boy Derek were played well by Oliver Coopersmith and Calum Callaghan.

 

 

It was good to see the show again and enjoy it's spiky, truthful humour once more.

 

I have seen the Leonard Bernstein musical CANDIDE twice before - but have never seen the same show twice as it's a piece that almost dares each director to make their production *the*  definitive version by adding dialogue, cutting songs or adding songs that other productions had previously dropped!  It's like everyone agrees the score is a jewel but the setting keeps getting hacked at, re-set and the jewel *still* looks wrong.

CANDIDE opened in 1956 with a book by Lillian Hellman (who originated the project), score by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by John Latouche (who died before it opened), Dorothy Parker, the poet Richard Wilbur and Bernstein but it lasted only 73 performances.  However the original cast album grew in cult status - understandably so as it has fine performances from Robert Rounseville as Candide, Max Adrian as Dr. Pangloss and the wonderful Barbara Cook as Cunegonde singing the magnificent "Glitter And Be Gay".

Hal Prince directed a 1973 revival but Hellman refused to let her book be used so Hugh Wheeler provided a new one and Stephen Sondheim supplied a few new songs.  This version was a success but in 1988 Jonathan Miller's version for Scottish Opera added 30 minutes of music and in 1989 Bernstein had another go at the show, re-arranging the second act songs.  In 1999 John Caird rewrote the book *again* making it closer to Voltaire's original novel... and that's where the Menier comes in.

 

 

The Menier have based their production on the 1988 Scottish Opera version but the episodic nature of the show makes it still seem a ramshackle structure for Bernstein's great score so I really wouldn't be surprised if sometime down the line someone has another go at writing a definitive version.  Sigh.

Matthew White has bounced back from the pedestrian TOP HAT with a production that is ever inventive and eye-catching.  Played in the round you can bet there are always going to be moments that you don't catch as the cast are performing at the back of where you are sitting - and although I was seated on one of the inner aisles I managed to avoid the audience participation business... apart from getting pelted with torn-out pages from a book and getting sprayed with water when Candide's boat sank!

The premise is a troupe of players putting on CANDIDE, all elaborate gestures and patched costumes and Paul Farnsworth's designs were a delight as was his ramshackle set easily suggesting each of the locations where our hero shored up.

We follow the journeys and misadventures of Candide as he searches for his love, the beautiful but shallow Cunegonde, who he keeps finding but losing again as fate constantly intervenes.  Characters are seemingly killed only to pop up again in a different country, usually with a baffling reason for their survival but still Candide believes in the philosophy of his teacher Dr. Pangloss that "All's for the best in the best of all possible worlds", always optimistic despite what life throws at him.

The absurdly-named Fra Fee sang Candide well but was easy to forget when he shared the stage with the sensational Scarlett Strallen as Cunegonde and Jackie Clune as The Old Lady the eternal survivor (even with only one buttock).

The Old Lady gave Jackie Clune ample opportunities to display her considerable musical and comic talents while Scarlet Strallen followed up her energetic performance as 'Cassie' in A CHORUS LINE with a wonderful Cunegonde.

Both times I have seen the show before, the actresses playing the role had been too busy trying to sing the coloratura parts of "Glitter And Be Gay" to also bring out the humour in the lyrics but Strallen nailed it - while also making each word decipherable.  It was great to see her triumph in this particular song while also racing around snatching jewels not only from out of her treasure chest but also snatching the strings of diamonds from the chandelier too!

James Dreyfus was off  the night we went so the roles of Dr. Pangloss, Cacambo and Martin were played by Martin Cahill who rose to the occasion well.  A special mention as well for David Thaxton's Maximilian, it's a shame he was in such a small role as he sang it very well and had a commanding stage presence.

The show is also very well staged by Adam Cooper.  Oh and on the subject of Mr. Cooper...

The last show seen before Christmas was the one that made Cooper a star, yes it was time to return to Matthew Bourne's SWAN LAKE at Sadler's Wells.

 

This was the fourth time I had seen SWAN LAKE at Sadler's Wells - previous visits were in 2004, 2007 and 2009.  I can't believe it's four years since I saw it!  I have blogged about the 2007 production here and 2009 here so there is little more to be said about how much I love this production but suffice to say that it worked it's magic all over again as again I felt a tear or two trickle down my cheek at the heartbreaking climax.

 

What I will add is that we saw Jonathan Ollivier as The Swan / The Stranger who played the same role when we saw it in 2009!  He has a darkly charismatic presence on stage and was excellent.  Simon Williams was a tortured, troubled Prince - and we had seen him play the role in 2007.  Even more delightful is the fact that he was a mere swan ensemble member when we first saw it in 2004!!

 

 

The Christmas treat was that two other New Adventures favourites were on: the delightful Kerry Biggin was great as the clueless Girlfriend and Michela Meazza's Queen was imperiously cold.

 

This iconic production is on until 26 January 2014, you know you have to see it!