The 9th Annual Chrissie Awards... may I have the envelope please?

Yes it is that time again, get your best schmatta on and be seated in time for the ceremony, it is New Year which must mean the awarding of the 9th Annual Chrissies... theatreland's most sought-after awards.

BEST DRAMA (Original/Revival)

 

A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE - Arthur Miller (Wyndhams)

 

Nominees:

LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES - Hampton (Donmar) / NOT I; FOOTFALLS; ROCKABY - Beckett (The Pit) / MR. FOOTE'S OTHER LEG - Kelly (Hampstead) / THE MOTHERFUCKER WITH THE HAT - Guirgis (Lyttelton)

BEST MUSICAL (Original/Revival)

GYPSY - Arthur Laurents / Jule Styne / Stephen Sondheim (Savoy)

Nominees:

GRAND HOTEL - Davis / Wright / Forrest / Yeston (Southwark) / KINKY BOOTS - Fierstein / Lauper (Adelphi) / SWEENEY TODD - Wheeler / Sondheim (Coliseum) / XANADU - Carter Beane / Farrar / Lynne (Southwark Playhouse)

BEST BALLET/OPERA *new award*

  WOOLF WORKS - Wayne McGregor (Covent Garden)

Nominees:

MONOTONES I & II; THE TWO PIGEONS - Ashton (Covent Garden) / THE NUTCRACKER - Wright (Covent Garden) / ROMEO AND JULIET - McMillan (Covent Garden) / SLEEPING BEAUTY - Bourne (Sadler's Wells)

BEST ACTOR (Drama)

 SIMON RUSSELL BEALE - Mr Foote's Other Leg (Hampstead)

Nominees:

SIMON RUSSELL BEALE (Temple) / CHIWETEL EJIOFOR (Everyman) / JONATHAN PRYCE (The Merchant of Venice) / MARK STRONG (A View From The Bridge)

BEST ACTRESS (Drama)

 

LISA DWAN - Not I; Footfalls; Rockaby (The Pit)

Nominees:

JANET McTEER (Les Liaisons Dangereuses) / JULIET STEVENSON (Happy Days) / ZOE WANAMAKER (Stevie) / PENELOPE WILTON (Taken At Midnight)

BEST ACTOR (Musical)

KILLIAN DONNELLY - Kinky Boots (Adelphi)

Nominees:

SCOTT GARNHAM (Grand Hotel) / DAVID HAIG (Guys and Dolls) / MATT HENRY (Kinky Boots) / JAMIE PARKER (Guys and Dolls)

BEST ACTRESS (Musical)

  IMELDA STAUNTON - Gypsy (Savoy)

Nominees:

CARLY ANDERSON (Xanadu) / JANIE DEE (A Little Night Music)

EMMA THOMPSON (Sweeney Todd) / SOPHIE THOMPSON (Guys and Dolls)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (Drama)

MARK GATISS - Three Days In The Country (Lyttelton)

Nominees:

SEAN CAMPION (All The Angels) / DERMOT CROWLEY (Everyman) / PEARCE QUIGLEY (The Beaux Strategm) / YUL VASQUEZ (The Motherfucker With The Hat)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS (Drama)

JUDI DENCH - The Winter's Tale (Garrick)

Nominees:

KATE DUCHENE (Everyman) / DERVLA KERWIN (Mr Foote's Other Leg) / SYLVESTRA LE TOUZEL (Waste) / OLIVIA WILLIAMS (Waste)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR (Musical)

 JAMIE PARKER - A Little Night Music (Palace)

Nominees:

DAN BURTON (Gypsy) / NEIL McCAUL (Guys and Dolls) / PHILIP QUAST (Sweeney Todd) / GEORGE RAE (Grand Hotel)

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS (Musical)

LARA PULVER - Gypsy (Savoy) 

Nominees:

CYNTHIA ERRIVO (Songs For A New World) / HAYDN GWYNNE (Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown) / LAURA PITT-PULFORD (A Little Night Music) / JOANNA RIDING (A Little Night Music)

BEST BALLET/OPERA MALE *new award*

 

STEVEN McRAE - Romeo and Juliet (Covent Garden)

Nominees:

ALEXANDER CAMPBELL (The Nutcracker) / STEVEN McRAE (The Nutcracker) / STEVEN McRAE (The Two Pigeons) / GEORGE RAE (Grand Hotel)

BEST BALLET/OPERA FEMALE *new award*

ALESSANDRA FERRI - Woolf Works (Covent Garden)

Nominees:

FRANCESCA HAYWARD (The Nutcracker) / IANA SALENKO (The Nutcracker) / IANA SALENKO (Romeo and Juliet) / IANA SALENKO (The Two Pigeons)

BEST DIRECTOR

IVO VAN HOVE - A View From The Bridge (Wyndhams)

Nominees:

Walter Asmus (Not I/Footfalls/Rockaby) / Richard Eyre (Mr Foote's Other Leg) / Jonathan Munby (The Merchant of Venice) / Indhu Rubasingham (The Motherfucker With The Hat)

BEST DESIGNER

 ES DEVLIN - Hamlet (Barbican)

 Nominees:

CIGUÉ, WE NOT I, WAYNE McGREGOR (Woolf Works) / ROBERT JONES (The Motherfucker With The Hat) / KATRINA LINDSAY (Dara) / JAN VERSWEYVELD (A View From the Bridge)

BEST LIGHTING

 NEIL AUSTIN - Dara (Lyttelton)

Nominees:

LUCY CARTER (Woolf Works) / JAMES FARNCOMBE (Not I/Footfalls/Rockaby) / TIM MITCHELL (Taken At Midnight) / JAN VERSWEYVELD (A View From The Bridge)

BEST CHOREOGRAPHY (Musical)

 JERRY MITCHELL - Kinky Boots (Adelphi)

Nominees:

DREW McONIE (In The Heights) / TIM PROUD (Grand Hotel) / SUSAN STROMAN (The Scottsboro Boys) / NATHAN M. WRIGHT (Xanadu)

BEST CHOREOGRAPHY (Ballet) *new award*

WAYNE McGREGOR - Woolf Works (Covent Garden)

Nominees:

FREDERICK ASHTON (Monotones I & II/The Two Pigeons) / DAVID BINTLEY (The King Dances) / KENNETH McMILLAN (Romeo and Juliet) / PETER WRIGHT (The Nutcracker)

THREE DAYS IN THE COUNTRY: Marber can't stay for the month

Much has been made of Patrick Marber's 'writer's block' which has meant that his new play THE RED LION is his first since 2006.  Well it would appear the genie is out of the bottle now and residing at the National Theatre.

His play about semi-professional football THE RED LION is currently playing at the Dorfman auditorium, he had a hand in sprucing up Farquhar's THE BEAUX' STRATAGEM at the Olivier and now he is featured at the Lyttelton with his adaptation of Turgenyev's 'A Month In The Country' here re-named THREE DAYS IN THE COUNTRY.  Marber obviously is too busy to write a whole month!

I had seen a production before back in 1988 with Celia Imrie, Helen Fraser, Faith Kent and Sophie Thompson but could remember little about it but that it featured silly people falling in love with all the wrong people but this production (directed also by Marber) peels back layers to reveal the sad, lonely people behind the comic situations.

Natalya is married to Arkadi, a rich landowner, and they have a loving son Kolya but she longs for something more, something out of touch, a secret, exciting experience.  She flirts with the family friend Rakitin who hangs around primarily in the hope that she will finally take him seriously but Natalya's dream of excitement arrives in the shape of Belyaev, a young tutor for Natalya's pretty ward Vera.  But of course, he is also the object of affection for Vera too...

The initial frivolous nature turns more serious as Natalya tries to make her wishes become reality and her actions start to impact on those around her.  Sometimes you shouldn't wish too hard...

I must admit that after a stressful day at work the first act rather floored me and I found myself drifting but then found that the effect of Owen drifting too made me concentrate and focus, and I like what I saw very much.  Marber's adaptation is crisp and clean, the relationships quickly established among the large cast of characters and at times it was obvious that this was the same writer as CLOSER as the characters found it very easy to say what they hated about those who they are supposed to love.

The real surprise of the show is the abstract set by Mark Thompson, a bare stage - and the Lyttelton is a large stage - with a set that mostly consists of see-through plastic walls and a free-floating red door with the cast seated around the back of the stage, ready to make their entrances if and when.  Neil Austin's subtle lighting also contributes towards the overall delicate feel of the production.

The big casting coup of the show is to have tv names John Simm as Rakitin and Mark Gatiss as snobbish local doctor Shpigelsky who becomes embroiled in Natalya's attempts to steer Vera away from her tutor.

Simm usually leaves me cold but here he was excellent, giving a vinegary performance as Rakitin, knowing he will get nowhere with Natalya but hanging around just in case.  Gatiss also gave a delightfully characterful performance as the disdainful doctor, all too aware of his shortcomings, who after careful consideration proposes marriage to Lizaveta, the plain companion of Arkadi's mother.

This delightful scene was superbly played by Gatiss and Debra Gillett, a comedy of embarrassment as painful to endure as anything Mike Leigh could have thought up - especially when Gatiss' back gives out making him hobble and crawl around the stage while proposing!  The cast also bristles with marvellous performances: Lily Sacofsky is a real find as Vera who finds her first vision of love is flawed, Gawn Grainger as a gruff German tutor, Cherrelle Skeete as Katya, the family maid also on the lookout for love and escape and it was nice to see Lynn Farleigh as Arkadi's disapproving mother.

But for me the performance of the evening was Amanda Drew as Natalya.  This is a role that could easily have been given to a starrier name but Drew effortlessly pinpoints the character's restlessness, wanting more out of life than just being a wife or mother and in particular, her final scenes of distress in the face of the collapse of her dreams was wonderfully judged and more effective for seemingly coming out of nowhere.

Despite being a bit noddy at the start of the play, I was won over by the exquisite performances and Marber's back-to-basics production.  I am thinking a second visit may just be on the cards....  It is highly recommended for anyone who would like an intelligent but moving evening.

The Popcorn Play

A week or so ago I had a totally new theatrical experience.  Constant Reader I hear your cry "But what can that be?"  Well, I have finally been to see a NT Live screening.  And what a strange experience it was.

 

NT Live has been running for nearly five years but I have put off seeing one as the previous broadcasts have either been productions I have seen previously onstage or wasn't interested.  But here we had an interesting cast - Tom Hiddleston as Coriolanus, Deborah Findlay as Volumnia and Mark Gatiss as Menenius - in a play that I had wanted to see again after having seen Ralph Fiennes' film version in 2012.  I was curious as to how to classify this: film or theatre?  But I boiled it down to the question "Would I chomp popcorn during a play?" So, film it is.

 

The Brixton Ritzy was packed with an interesting mix of older punters with glasses of wine and younger, media-types with bottles of wine.  Can you see a connection?  You could see we were the first-timers as we had bottles of Pepsi-Max.  There was an odd, jittery atmosphere in the auditorium as the screen showed us the Donmar audience taking their seats interspersed with 'trailers' for upcoming screenings (Owen shut his eyes during KING LEAR as we are seeing it actually onstage this week) and an introduction from Emma Freud.

 

To be honest I'm not sure what I should be talking about: the screen experience or the stage production. As a screen experience, the first thing that struck me was how strange it was to be seeing what the theatre audience was experiencing but with none of the inherent atmosphere you get, especially in such a small auditorium as the Donmar.  It was also odd at the end to have the actors take their bows to rapturous applause while we sat gawping.  My friends Sharon and Eamonn were seeing it in a cinema in West London and, again, it was odd to text her in the interval to chat about the theatre production we were watching but be miles apart!

 

The actual production was interesting but by the middle of the second act I had started to weary of it's sameness.  Was it because I was not actually there that I felt that?  Maybe.  Tom Hiddleston certainly gave an excellent performance, charismatic and nicely shaded.  During the play you feel Shakespeare becoming more and more fascinated with his lead character to the detriment of others and to be honest there were some very dodgy supporting performances here.  There is a real dearth of good supporting performers these days but I enjoyed Elliot Levey's duplicitous politician Brutus, happily engineering Coriolanus' downfall with his cohort Sicinia.  Oh yes, Sicinius has been given a sex change and is played by Katherine Schlesinger for no real reason but to up the actress rate and for the two nasty senators to share a snog.  Schlesinger actually was good but it reared unhappy memories of the transgender casting in the National's EDWARD II.

 

Hiddleston was better matched by Mark Gatiss' Menenius and Deborah Findlay's Volumnia.  Gatiss gave a fine performance as the peace-making senator who runs out of excuses for Coriolanus' behaviour and is ultimately let down by his friend while Findlay was in excellent form as Caius' mother Volumnia. 

 

A woman who has channelled all her ambition into her son, Volumnia is the one person Coriolanus cannot refuse and constantly pushes him: to become a senator, to suck up to the crowd and with the Senators, but who also seals his fate when she convinces him to turn back from over-running his native city of Rome.  Frustratingly, this climactic scene came across as flat and one-note, again leaving me to wonder was that the fault of Josie Rourke's direction or for the fact that the tension was dissipated by not being in the same room as the actors.  It certainly didn't have the power or the subtlety of playing that Vanessa Redgrave brought to the role of Volumnia in Fiennes' film.  The role of Virgilia, Coriolanus' wife is one of the least interesting of Shakespeare's women especially as she is over-shadowed by the character of Volumnia, but I liked the weary sadness of Birgitte Hjort Sørensen.

 

 

I'm not sure the NT Live thing is something I would do too often but it is an excellent initiative to make these theatre productions truly national events.