WHILE THE SUN SHINES at the Orange Tree - Wartime Bedfellows...

Terence Rattigan's centenary in 2011 heralded a continuing wave of successful revivals of his plays and re-evaluation of his mastery for exposing the sadness in the lives of the English upper-middle class in his most well-known works.  However Rattigan's first big success had been the comedy FRENCH WITHOUT TEARS which was revived in 2015 by the small Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond which proved so successful that they produced it again the following year.

Now the Orange Tree has revived another Rattigan comedy WHILE THE SUN SHINES, which premiered in the West End in 1943, next door to the theatre where his wartime drama FLAREPATH was already playing.  Remarkably - bearing in mind Rattigan also wrote such hits as THE DEEP BLUE SEA, THE WINSLOW BOY and SEPARATE TABLES - his longest West End run was WHILE THE SUN SHINES.  Interesting too that these two productions played next door to each other on Shaftesbury Avenue as they are two sides of the same coin - both contemporary plays set in WWII England, both focus on men and women in uniform but one is an emotional drama and the other a comedy.  WHILE THE SUN SHINES was such a hit that Anthony Asquith directed a film version four years later.

FLAREPATH is the better play but it is fascinating to see WHILE THE SUN SHINES especially as Rattigan works in several occasional gay references, needless to say, these moments are fleeting and soon explained away but must have made his gay audience members recognize them for what they were.  The Orange Tree's Artistic Director Paul Miller directed their revival of FRENCH WITHOUT TEARS and he returns to Rattigan here with the same gossamer touch, it's a production full of grace and humour.

Bobby, the young Earl of Harpenden is on leave from the Navy to marry his sweetheart Lady Elisabeth who is also in the services.  He is an affable, genial soul who tries for promotion but knows he will never amount to much in the Navy.  On the day before the wedding, Bobby's butler finds him in bed with an American Lieutenant Joe Mulvaney - Bobby had found Joe raving drunk in Piccadilly and brought him back to his flat in The Albany to sleep it off.

Joe is thrilled to see inside the world of the aristocracy so Bobby leaves him there while he goes for yet another promotion interview but not before phoning up his sometime-mistress Mabel Crum, a typist in the Ministry who is also the easiest party girl in London, to come over as she has a penchant for Americans.  Appearing instead is Lady Elisabeth to surprise Bobby - and of course Joe thinks she is Mabel and gets her sozzled before realizing too late who she really is.

But that's only the start of an evening of misunderstandings and changed allegiances - the confusion being added to by the appearance of Elisabeth's military father The Duke who cannot resist a chance to gamble, a Free French officer Colbert who Elizabeth met on the train to London and who now swears devotion to her and of course Mabel, who watches the romantic to-ings and fro-ings with the resigned air of someone who knows what she wants but settles for what she can get.

While never uproariously funny, Miller bounces the play along on a bright and breezy tone and is helped enormously by a charming cast who all play their characters with a similar light touch.  I particularly liked Philip Labey's Bobby who, while playing the louche aristo well, also hinted at an inner life of listless wandering, as well as Michael Lumsden's Duke, full of splenetic fury which vanishes as soon as a game of cards or dice is offered.  There was also a nice display of suppressed emotions too from John Hudson's butler Horton.

By far the best performance was Dorothea Myer-Bennett as practical party girl Mabel Crum, loving life in the blackouts but aware that she has to make hay while the sun shines.  A few years ago we saw Shaw's THE PHILANDERER at the Orange Tree and Myer-Bennett shone in that as a woman trying to be a Shavian New Woman but ruled by her volatile emotions and that element of loving cynicism shot through her performance as Mabel too; every time she was packed off to the offstage kitchen to keep one of the men out of the way, I wanted to follow her as she was by far the most interesting character.

I also want to highlight Simon Daw's cleverly economic set which suggested well the living room of Bobby's Albany flat.  I really enjoyed this opportunity to see yet another facet of Rattigan's ability to craft that sometimes derided thing - the well-constructed play - with a collection of characters who even at their silliest were all delightful.  Paul Miller has again triumphed in bringing an admittedly minor Rattigan work to his stage and making it shine.

THE PHILANDERER at the Orange Tree - lovers' Shavian war of words

Last year marked my first visit to Richmond's intimate Orange Tree Theatre and that was to see a rare production of George Bernard Shaw's social comedy WIDOWERS' HOUSES, directed by the Orange Tree's artistic director Paul Miller.  I enjoyed it much more than I expected so was very curious to see if lightning would strike twice with Miller tackling another early Shaw comedy THE PHILANDERER.  Ouch!  It did.

The poster's photograph looks like the kind of hipster bloke you would see in Hoxton Square and the production is played in modern dress which actually works, Shaw's battle between women and a slippery man is always current!

Written in 1893, Shaw's stance on women having an active say in their lives and loves was so free-thinking that it didn't get a proper theatrical production until 1907 at the always courageous (Royal) Court theatre.  It had however already been published in 1898 in the collection "Plays Unpleasant" with WIDOWERS' HOUSES and MRS WARREN'S PROFESSION and there was a private performance staged in 1905.  Shaw dropped the last act of his play when it was suggested to him that discussing divorce onstage was beyond the pale but Miller has reinstated it to give us Shaw's real intention.

Our philanderer of the title is Leonard Charteris, a man incapable of fidelity who confesses to his new lover, an elegant widow called Grace, that he never did break off his previous affair with the fiery Julia.  When Julia arrives unannounced all Hell breaks loose as she demands that Leonard stays with her but while she pleads with him, Charteris chides her that her actions are counterpoint to her much-trumpeted idea of being a 'new woman'.  Just to complicate matters further Grace and Julia's fathers both appear and are totally confused by the morals of the day.

The arguments spill over to the fashionable Ibsen Club where you are only allowed membership if you are a non-manly man or non-womanly woman in keeping with the great writer's thoughts but needless to say this is all just a pose for most of them.  Also there is Dr Paramore who confesses to Julia's father that he is not in fact dying because the good doctor misdiagnosed him.  If only he could experiment on a bigger range of animals, then he could have made a proper diagnosis!  One thing he is sure of is that he adores the tempestuous Julia and she actually accepts the doctor's marriage proposal to spite Leonard - not realizing that he arranged it all.

Shaw's last act takes place four years later and - surprise surprise - both Julia and Paramore are both thoroughly bored with each other and Paramore has started a relationship with - what a surprise - the widow Grace.  To divorce or not divorce?  How does Julia feel about Grace being a rival again?  And more importantly, can Leonard stay teflon-coated when women are concerned?

Paul Miller's production crackled with Shaw's wit and was a joy to experience, I think I enjoy early Shaw the best, before he became a bit of a pompous old windbag.  It was interesting that THE PHILANDERER comes relatively soon after seeing his MAN AND SUPERMAN where another man tries to escape from the marauding chasing woman but THE PHILANDERER makes it's point with a great deal more economy.

Miller's cast of eight were all impressive at keeping Shaw's emotional souffle whipped up.  Rupert Young could have been a bit more dangerous as the philanderer Leonard but was nicely laid-back and wisely stayed out of the way of the deliciously explosive Julia of Dorothea Myer-Bennett who was so effective as Nerissa in MERCHANT OF VENICE at the Globe Theatre last year.  Here she caught the quicksilver quality of Julia, desperately trying to be a cynical, modern woman but betrayed by her emotions.

I liked the wry coolness of Helen Bradbury's Grace, the wheedling neediness of Christopher Staines' Dr. Paramore and the double act of exasperated fathers from Mark Tandy's Cuthbertson and Michael Lumsden's Colonel Craven, both clinging on to a vanishing world.  There was also a saucy, eye-catching performance from Paksie Vernon as Julia's cynical younger sister Sylvia.

THE PHILANDERER is on until the 26th June and is well worth a visit to the wilds of Richmond.

FRENCH WITHOUT TEARS: Rattigan again

Well wouldn't you know?  After sitting bored and irritated through the  Branagh production of HARLEQUINADE that made me see how John Osbourne and his contemporaries could view Terence Rattigan as a middle-class, non-relevant writer, my next theatre visit was to see the play that catapulted the then-25 year old Rattigan to fame, FRENCH WITHOUT TEARS at the Orange Tree theatre in Richmond.

Not the best time to see the play but actually I enjoyed it very much and Mr Rattigan is suitably re-established in my sympathies.  Maybe I should blame Branagh and Rob Ashford for HARLEQUINADE...

FRENCH WITHOUT TEARS is a souffle of a play that is whipped into shape nicely by the Orange Tree's artistic director Paul Miller who also did a fine job last year with Shaw's WIDOWERS HOUSES and the play sat nicely with the Orange Tree's cosy audience who laughed uproariously at strangled attempts of the terribly English characters to speak French.

(By the way in the picture above you can see where our seats were, in the second row next to the green French windows!)  Four young men have come to a finishing school in the south of France to perfect their knowledge of the language before they sit their final year exams for the diplomatic corps. 

However what they all struggle with is the presence of the seductive Diana, an English seductress who flits from man to man sussing out which is the best prospect for a wealthy life.  In the wings waits Jacqueline, the daughter of the school's strict Professor who quietly nurses a love for one of them.

Diana is the sister of Ken, a younger pupil at the school, and as much as the men fear her animal magnetism but are irresistibly drawn to it they all seem to treat him with a genuine love, as far as Rattigan could show male love in 1936 possibly.

It is all very irresistible and disappears like a popped bubble minutes after you leave the theatre but while I was there I enjoyed it very much although the Orange Tree really must invest in some better wardrobe technicians as Holly Rose Henshaw's costumes were badly tailored - at times it was difficult to imagine Diana as an irresistible femme fatale with some very dodgy bust lines and hems.

There were rewarding performances from the oddly named William Belchambers as Commander Rogers, the new pupil who temporarily is Diana's latest target much to the other men's discontent, Tom Hanson had great fun as Brian, a diffident chap who enjoys the pleasures of the local bar and it's tarts than his French grammar. 

In two professional debuts, Alex Bhat as Alan who wishes to be a writer more than a diplomat and Genevieve Gaunt as the captivating Diana - although Rattigan has her looking foolish in the final moments of the play I am sure that was a sop to the morals of the time as I suspect he enjoyed her character enormously.

 All in all another hugely enjoyable revival from the cramped confines of the Orange Tree theatre.

PLAY MAS - Richmond Revivalists

After the enjoyable production of Shaw's WIDOWERS' HOUSES earlier this year, it was revival time again at the Orange Tree Theatre as we went to see their latest offering from the neglected plays of yesteryear, Mustapha Matura's PLAY MAS, first staged in 1974.

PLAY MAS was first seen at the Royal Court with a stellar cast including Norman Beaton, Mona Hammond, Stefan Kalipha and Rudolph Walker, and not only transferred to the West End but also won Matura an Evening Standard Most Promising Playwright award; and now 41 years later it gets it's first revival, and at the Orange Tree no less.

As I noted for WIDOWERS' HOUSES, the audience at the Orange Tree appears to have a very specific demographic (mature, white, clubby) but it was good to see a diverse audience for this play.  Being in a theatre which is only three rows deep presents all sorts of challenges - especially if the lights are turned up to 11 to suggest the tropical atmosphere of Trinidad.  In other words, it was very easy to start nodding off.  But honestly, cast - I did enjoy the play!

The play is set in Port of Spain, Trinidad in the late 1950s: Samuel, a young Trinidadian is the overworked assistant/dogsbody in a tailor shop owned by an Indian mother and son.  Although feckless and picked on by Miss Gookool, Samuel is indulged by Ramjohn who takes time to explain the trade to him and chat about "flims".  However when Miss Gookool fires him for wanting to attend a political rally for Dr Eric Williams' PNM Independence party, Ramjohn does nothing to help him.

Soon afterwards, with Port of Spain exploding with noisy bedlam during the annual carnival or Play Mas (Masquerade), a drunk Samuel crashes into the Gookool's shop in fatigues, brandishing an automatic rifle and threatening to kill them as class enemies.  Ramjohn protects his terrified mother and pleads for their lives only for Samuel to laughingly reveal that he is joking.  However Miss Gookool dies from a heart attack and Ramjohn is driven to despair by the increasingly nightmarish parade of visitors.

We then jump to 1963, the PNM party are now in power and have secured Independence from Great Britain.  Samuel has risen through the ranks to become the new Commissioner of Police and adapts quickly to the corrupt life endemic to this position of power.  He has also acquired a nagging, social-climbing wife who demands all that privileges she think she deserves.

The irony is that the government now face a new wave of student rioters, angry at the PNM's wholehearted flooding of the country with American expansionism.  Increasingly desperate to show his US backers he can deliver security, Samuel threatens to cancel his once beloved Mas to stop any public show of dissent and even tries to recruit former friend Ramjohn to be a spy among his neighbours.

I enjoyed Matura's use of ironic contrasts to Samuel's progress to power: his former love of Hollywood movies replaced by his attending European foreign-language films to show his new status in life; his former shabby outfit in the tailor-shop now replaced by expensive imported suits; his blindness to replacing one colonialist power - Great Britain - with another - the USA and ultimately his use of the Mas festivities to hide a darker purpose.

Seun Shote was excellent as Samuel, going from the clueless assistant to the equally clueless Commissioner while suggesting the insecurity of a man promoted above his ability and aware it could all come crashing down at any minute.

Director Paulette Randall elicits fine performances from Melanie La Barrie as the bossy Miss Gookool, Victor Romero Evans as the chancer Frank who makes it big when the Americans come to town and Llewella Gideon in two contrasted roles of religious females.  I felt though that Johann Myers faded into the background too easily as the hapless Ramjohn.

I felt Randall's best work was in the two middle acts - there was a tangible air of unease in Ramjohn's nightmarish Mas night and a great satirical edge to the comedy of Samuel's delight in power.  However the final act seemed oddly misjudged.  I suspect Matura is at fault too with a too-sudden shift in tone, but Randall had so much happening on the limited stage area that the intended powerful ending actually felt mistimed and cack-handed.

On the whole however, I enjoyed the production and the Orange Tree are to be congratulated again on a long-overdue revival.

A Shaw thing: WIDOWERS' HOUSES, Orange Tree Theatre

Well last week was a novel experience - I went to a theatre I had never visited before!  Yes, Constant Reader, believe.

I have wanted to visit the Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond for a while as they have a policy of staging little-seen and neglected plays but had hitherto put it off.  The news that they were staging George Bernard Shaw's 1892 play WIDOWERS' HOUSES was the spur to finally go.

 

My default setting for Shaw is "Oh my lord all those WORDS" but on reflection I find that more often than not I have enjoyed what I have seen.  Of his many plays I have seen MRS WARREN'S PROFESSION, HEARTBREAK HOUSE, PYGMALION and SAINT JOAN in the theatre, as well as having seen CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA, MAJOR BARBARA, PYGMALION, SAINT JOAN and THE MILLIONAIRESS on film and television.  Yes that hectoring tone is always lurking in the background somewhere but I have enjoyed the plays seen.

WIDOWERS' HOUSES actually plays like a fast-paced drawing-room comedy but with lurking shadows among the teacups.  Shaw was 36 when it was staged at the Royalty Theatre in 1892 and it proved to be his first major success.  However it is not seen as regularly as some of his other works, I had only heard of one production before in 1970 at the Royal Court with Nicola Pagett, Frank Middlemass, Anthony Newlands, Robin Ellis and a young Penelope Wilton.  Mind you, it has only been staged on Broadway once - and that was in 1907!

Shaw sets up the play as a romantic comedy but then pulls the rug under our expectations.  Idealistic Dr. Trench is holidaying in Germany with his affected friend Cokane and has fallen for one of their fellow travellers Blanche Sartorius but although she is more than happy to reciprocate his feelings, Trench has to win over her stern widowed father, a secretive self-made man.

Back in London, Trench discovers that Sartorius has made his fortune from being a slum landlord, squeezing extortionate rates from tenants in poorly-maintained flats in deprived areas.  Sartorius even dismisses his unctuous rent-collector Mr Lickcheese for sympathising with his tenants' well-being.  Trench's shock is compounded when Sartorius reveals that the doctor's income is drawn from interest accrued from a mortgage on one of Sartorius' buildings!  Trench is further disenchanted when Blanche refuses to live without her father's 'tainted' money that has kept her in the style she has come accustomed to and they call their engagement off.

Four months later Sartorius is visited by a newly wealthy Lickcheese, grown rich by investing in a dodgy property company that renovates tenements to hopefully sell on or knock down for municipal building projects.  Sartorius' buildings - the Widowers' Houses of the title - are of interest to the company and Lickcheese hopes to persuade his former employer to join in the scheme so they can all get rich quick - including a certain doctor who has a mortgage on one of the houses.

Will Trench remain unsullied by the nefarious property deal or will he ditch his principals for a piece of the action and the chance to reconcile with Blanche?  It all leads to a surprisingly modern ending.

As I said, I was quite surprised how much I enjoyed the sharply defined characters and the swift pace.  The small in-the-round Orange Tree auditorium suited the piece well, giving the action an intimate immediacy.  

Simon Daw's design idea of having the playing area surrounded by a frieze of Charles Booth's 'poverty' map of central London helped to visualise the play's themes as these iconic maps were published around the time that Shaw wrote the play.

The Orange Tree's new Artistic Director Paul Miller's direction brought out Shaw's moments of comedy and drama in equal measure and he elicited strong performances from Patrick Drury as the commanding Sartorius, Alex Waldmann as the baffled Trench, Stefan Adegbola as the preeningly pretentious Cokane and it was a delight to see Rebecca Collingwood as the opinionated and 'modern' Blanche.  

We saw her last year in GRAND HOTEL, her final year production at the Guildhall Drama School, where she was an eye-catching and vivacious Flaemmchen so it was a thrill to see her again at the Orange Tree making her professional stage debut. Simon Gregor certainly made a splash as the oily Lickcheese - another of Shaw's working-class characters who refuse to know their place - but the Dickensian caricature he gave us was sometimes at odds with the more restrained performances around him.

As I have said, I was surprised how much I enjoyed WIDOWERS' HOUSES and hope to visit the Orange Tree again - even if the 'age specific' sold-out audience made it's small bar/foyer and narrow staircases a bit of a logistical log-jam.