The dark march toward whatever it is we're approaching...

A few weeks back I had my second NT Live experience, and oddly enough, neither have been National Theatre productions.  Go figure.

Another not-too-odd thing is that both times the production had been in a small venue with a big star in the lead: Tom Hiddlestone in CORIOLANUS at the Donmar and now Gillian Anderson in A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE at the Young Vic.

What is a guy to do?  Stand on the street queuing for possibly non-existent returns - or sit in a comfy seat watching it with a bag of popcorn?  Well yes I know it should be queuing but I am SO aged Constant Reader.  So it was with a guilty heart that we went to the Curzon Victoria to have a gander at the Young Vic's acclaimed revival of STREETCAR, the fastest-selling show in it's history.

First off, let me say that for a newly-built cinema, it would appear that the last thing they want you to do at the Curzon Victoria is see a film there with more space given over to the design of the foyer and bar areas - bizarrely though, at the play's interval the bar staff could not cope.  Odd that eh?

My jury is still out on the whole "live theatre in cinemas" thing, it's like having a shower while standing outside the curtain - you can hear it, you can experience what's going on but you are not immersed.

Especially when the production you are seeing has a site specific design as this one does.  Australian director Benedict Andrews, has for no real purpose that I can see, updated Tennessee Williams' magnificent play to "modern dress" and has it play on Magda Willi's white frame set which slowly rotates during the course of the play.  I am sure it makes sense sitting in the Young Vic, making you feel you are circling the action, but it really makes no sense when you are relying on static cameras to convey the action to you - time and again, a key moment was ruined by the actor being suddenly obscured by a post, doorknob or a door-frame.

The lighting was also bright white light, giving the impression of the characters being seen almost under laboratory conditions.  My main complaint with Andrews' approach was rather than bringing anything revelatory to the text it just underlined, highlighted and rang a handbell over anything and everything obvious.  Williams' poetry was subsumed by the "look-at-me, look-at-me" obviousness.  It ties with Trevor Nunn's misjudged National Theatre production as the worst I have seen of one of my favourite plays.

As with every stage STREETCAR I have seen, the actor playing Stanley just didn't cut it.  Paul Herzberg in 1984, Iain Glen in 2002 and Elliot Cowan in 2009 have all failed to make anything of the role.  I really don't know what the problem is, it never seems to be a problem for the actor playing Mitch or the actresses playing Blanche or Stella.  Are they all trying so hard not to be Brando that it leaves them with nowhere to go?

Ben Foster certainly brought a different attitude to the role - short and pugnacious - but his performance seemed to slide off Williams' character like sweat.  Andrews' vision of the character seemed to have him take his trousers off a lot which wasn't too upsetting for the viewer but there really didn't seem to be any other idea from him of his vision for the character.

 

I liked Corey Johnson as Mitch.  It's a wonderful role and he made the most of the buffonish comedy it allows but also the desperation that hides behind most of the character's actions.  It's a shame that he seemed to underplay Mitch's confrontation with Blanche.  He was easily out-acted in the scene by Gillian Anderson and it's a scene that needs to be equally balanced and here it didn't have the punch that Rob Ashford's production did at the Donmar - see my review of that one here.

I also liked Vanessa Kirby as Stella, the younger but more grounded DuBois sister.  She had an easy naturalism and you really felt her confusion at being torn between her sister and her husband.  Along with all the others, sadly she had to act in Victoria Behr's deliberately ugly costumes.

 

However the real reason for going to see this was to experience Gillian Anderson as Blanche DuBois and, despite all that I disliked about the production, she was worth it.  They really didn't need all that white light as she BLAZED through the play.

She seized every nuance of Williams' text and although she might not be my favourite Blanche DuBois she gave a performance of unrelenting power.  Funny, tragic, grating, touching, haunted and ultimately haunting, it was an astonishingly brave performance that will live in the memory for a long time.

  

 

Every so often one of her line readings would break through the screen - and Andrews' bloody obvious trops - and Williams' wonderful poetic imagery would make me gasp.  Her performance was the only thing that made me wish I had seen this production actually in the audtorium to really feel the power.

 

O has let it be known that he never wants to see another Tennessee Williams revival so Constant Reader, keep your diaries clear.

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.