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!

RICHARD II at the Globe Theatre - non-Cumberbatch Shakespeare

You would never know it from the press hype surrounding Benedict Cumberbatch's HAMLET but there is another vacillating royal in serious trouble on the London stage and we were lucky to see it last week.

RICHARD II is the latest production in the Globe Theatre's 2015 season based around the themes of Justice and Mercy, qualities that are singularly lacking in the story of the downfall of the vain, misguided Plantagenet King who learned too late that it's more important to be human than majestic.

Charles Edwards brought his upper-class panache to the role of Richard: by turns pampered, remote, haughty and witty, he sailed through the first act on an air of privilege, uncaring of the turmoil he was creating in his wake among his lords and barons, sure in his knowledge that as an anointed King he was impervious to complaint.

However when Richard II tires of the dispute between Henry of Bolingbroke and Thomas Mowbray and banishes them both abroad he sets off a chain of events which swiftly leads to disaster.  Caring little for the angry remonstrations of Bolingbroke's dying father John of Gaunt, Richard seizes his property and goods to pay for his war with the Irish and in doing so deprives Bolingbroke of his legacy.  The King returns from Ireland to discover that Bolingbroke has returned from exile and rallied an army while his own followers have vanished.

Up until this point Richard has been fairly unlikeable but his realisation that his destiny is now uncertain leads him through various stages of self-pitying anger, despair, and finally to a wisdom that is touching in it's resignation.  Up until the arrival back on English shores, the only moment of real poetry has been John of Gaunt's denunciation of Richard, brooding on what his reign has done to "This sceptre'd isle".  William Gaunt in the small but haunting role of John of Gaunt was excellent, using up the last of his energy to rain down anger on Richard's reign.

But with Richard's growing realisation of his inadequacy, Shakespeare ups the ante and Richard finds his poetic voice, in particular when he invites his admirers "let us sit upon the ground and talk about the death of kings".  Two excellent scenes follow where Richard and Bolingbroke confront each other, first at Flint Castle where Richard attempts to face down his enemy but eventually capitulates to fate and the following scene at Westminster Hall where Richard is called before the council to abdicate.

This magnificent confrontation - where vacillating Richard literally makes Bolingbroke pull the crown from his grasp and then ruminates on the transition from King to man - saw Edwards at his finest and indeed, his final scene was shot through with a noble pathos.

David Sturzaker also upped his game as Bolingbroke in his scenes with Edwards although he at times felt a bit lightweight to play such an important main role.  There was very good support from William Chubb as the honest Duke of York, Richard Katz as both the murderous Exton and the Queen's head gardener and Sarah Woodward as the Duchess of York.  However her major scene at the end where she begs Bolingbroke to spare the life of her traitorous son while her husband the Duke demands his son's death was played almost as slapstick and threw the tone off dramatically.

Overall, Simon Godwin's production was very enjoyable although some of the cast were a bit lightweight and the first act seemed to feature one too many scenes of the rebellious lords sweeping on to only sweep off again after a few minutes.  Despite this I enjoyed it more than the Kevin Spacey/Old Vic production from 2005.

Where the production did score well was with Paul Wills set of cracked and peeling shining gold paint.  As soon as I saw it I was reminded of the famous portrait of the ill-fated King in Westminster Abbey.

AMERICAN BUFFALO at Wyndhams Theatre: In for a penny...

I have now seen David Mamet's AMERICAN BUFFALO in four different productions.  I wouldn't call it one of my favourite plays but as it features a flashy, kinetic star role it is one that usually attracts interesting actors, and that usually attracts me!

Well I have been drawn back into the seedy, conniving, occasionally touching, world of small time crooks in 1970s Chicago with this new production at the Wyndhams Theatre, directed by Daniel Evans.

This time around, the lead role of the gambling chancer 'Teach' is played by Damian Lewis in a return to the West End after six years away in which he became an award-winning tv star in the US with the gripping thriller series HOMELAND.  Joining him is the one and only John Goodman as Don, owner of a rundown junk shop where the action is centred and coming actor Tom Sturridge as the flaky junkie Bobby.

Lewis joins my gallery of former 'Teach's: Al Pacino at the Duke of Yorks in 1984, Douglas Henshall at the Young Vic in 1997 and William H. Macy at the Donmar in 2000.  So now it's a straight split between UK and US actors and I must admit (unsurprisingly) that the US actors were the most convincing.  Pacino was mesmerising, a human dynamo of itchy anger while Macy was a more rundown and venal 'Teach'.

This production marks the 40th anniversary of the play's first performance and Mamet's idiosyncratic, pungent, salty dialogue, heavily indebted to Pinter, is still a delight to hear.  The plot seems simple enough: Don (Goodman) owns an untidy junk shop where he occasionally also holds after-hours poker-nights.  He keeps a warily protective eye on recovering heroin addict Bobby (Sturridge) who is his unpaid go-fer. 

Don is rattled by the sale of an old nickel (showing the titular American Buffalo) to a coin collector for $90 and, feeling it is obviously worth more, he plans a robbery of the collector's flat to get it back.  The unpredictable chancer 'Teach' appears and shoehorns himself into the burglary plot, persuading Don that Bobby would probably mess up.  When another friend who is recruited for the burglary fails to show up at the appointed time, paranoia and anger lead to an explosion of recriminations and violence.

Snaking around and through the plot however is an exploration of the power struggle between men, the constant shifts in power among so-called friends.  While Daniel Evans certainly keeps the verbal volleys firing across Paul Wills' over-the-top cluttered set, the pace sometimes dipped during it's quieter moments which loosened the tension within the play.  What he certainly did highlight was the underlying care that Don feels for the damaged Bob which Goodman played with gruff tenderness.

John Goodman gave the performance of the evening, catching the rhythm of the prose perfectly, every pause, shrugged response and sudden burst of anger hit the money every time, his stillness being a bedrock of the production.  Whirling around Goodman was Damain Lewis who, while getting the slick self-centredness of 'Teach' well, came across more more like a fly than a mosquito.  It was a very showy star performance which is what most of the audience were happy to see but after one has seen Pacino and Macy really shake the life out of the part, it felt a bit thin.  It was almost like he was letting his 70s pornstar facial hair and brown two-piece do all the work, which was a pity as he is a very likable actor.

I liked Tom Sturridge's Bob as well, you could almost feel the character's itchy clamminess.  Bobby has a brief moment when he senses he is in control of the powerplay and Sturridge played his preening importance well just before being literally felled by a vindictive 'Teach'.

As I said, Paul Wills' junkshop set was certainly eye-catching if over-powering and as with nearly every play in the West End, the lighting was up to Mark Henderson's usual standard.  If you have not seen AMERICAN BUFFALO before I would recommend grabbing one of the few seats left before the end of it's limited run at the end of this month.