A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN / THREE GUINEAS at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse - Woolf Works

This year marks the centenary of Nancy Astor being the first woman to take a seat in the House of Commons, but she was not the first female MP; that was the Sein Fein member and feminist Countess Constance Markievich who refused to take her seat in the UK Parliament.  A woman who deserves greater acclaim in my eyes than Astor who later was an appeaser and virulent anti-Semite. 

However to celebrate Astor taking her seat and the passing of the first law that banned discrimination based on gender or marriage, the Globe hosted a reading of Virginia Woolf's two most famous essays: A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN on the subject of women and fiction and her more controversial THREE GUINEAS in which she explored the connection between patriarchy and militarism.  It was definitely a game of two halves.

First up was Hattie Morahan with A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN which she interpreted wonderfully.  Both essays were abridged by Globe artistic director Michelle Terry and directed by Blanche McIntyre and it felt like Morahan got the better attention. In A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN, Woolf brilliantly explores the many interpretations of the phrase "Women and fiction": she had been asked to give a talk on the subject in the autumn of 1928 at Newnham and Girton, the two foremost colleges for women in Cambridge, and after these events she enlarged them into a book.

Virginia explores, in a wonderfully 'meta' style, her process of understanding what they wanted to hear: the role of women in fiction or women who have written fiction?  While exploring this quandary, she enlarges it to show us the world around her - being told to stay off the grass by a Cambridge beadle, being refused entry to see a book in the college library by an attendant, musing on the actual financing and building of the college by rich men for their sons' education, the delicious food served at lunch in the men's college compared to the plain and dull dinner served at the women's college.  Back in London and starting her research at the British Library, she discovers many books on the subject of women and their place in society, both here and overseas... all written by men who seem to be very angry about the subject.

It is these unseen influences that leads to Virginia stating that her conclusion is that in the future for a woman to be a successful writer she needs to have an independent income and a room of one's own.  Being allowed to write, unfettered from the distraction of a job or family or visitors, will lead to generations of female writers writing not just fiction but books on many subjects "for books have a way of influencing each other".  On her way to her conclusion she cites such originators as Aphra Behn, the playwright who proved that women could earn a living by writing, the poet Anne Finch, Jane Austen - who Woolf compares to Shakespeare as a writer whose writing shows a clarity of vision with no petty hatreds cluttering that vision - George Elliot, Charlotte Bronte and Emily Bronte. 

She also famously imagines Shakespeare having a sister whom she names Judith, a woman with the same wish to write as her brother and with the same need to express herself but, diametrically opposed to her brother, had no chance of education, no chance of becoming a performer to gain access to the theatre, but meets an actor-manager who promises to help her but instead gets her pregnant and in a fit of despair, Judith killed herself and "lies buried at some cross-roads where the omnibuses now stop outside the Elephant and Castle".  One of my favourite things to do is to read Virginia Woolf's writing out loud and twice Hattie Morahan paused to simply take a breath, obviously affected by what she was reading.

After the interval Joan Iyiola read THREE GUINEAS, Woolf's controversial reaction to the encroaching shadow of Fascism.  In 1932 Virginia Woolf started writing a new book which would intersperse the fictional story of the well-to-do Pargiter family and their changing fortunes from 1880 to the 1930s with essays relating to aspects within the fictional chapters.  She found it ultimately not to be working so she concentrated on the fictional chapters which later turned into her novel THE YEARS. published in 1937 to huge success.  But the rise of Hitler and Mussolini in Europe led her back to her 1932 essays and she expanded on them, concentrating on the links between the patriarchal society and the rise of militarism and the rush to war.

Like in A ROOM OF OWN'S OWN, Virginia uses repetition to enforce her central thesis, forever circling back to certain thoughts or phrases, but while Morahan made these distinct from each other, Iyiola offered no variation to her tone and sure enough, people started leaving while she was only mid-way through.  I mentally wandered quite a few times and started to feel the agony of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouses's purgatorial seats.  It felt like the first half had been worked on more and poor Joan was left to just read out the text without being able to illuminate it. But any excuse to hear my favourite writer celebrated and spoken aloud is to be grasped at.

HAMLET at the Globe - "To hold the mirror up to nature..."

Last week I found myself back in the dangerous corridors of Elsinore, this time via the bare stage of The Globe Theatre.  Yes folks, another week, another Globe visit...

So here I am again, seeing an actor taking on the challenge of Hamlet for the eleventh time - and who was following in the steps of Kenneth Branagh, Jeremy Northam, Ian Charleson,  Simon Russell Beale, Dan McSherry (indeed, who?), Jude Law, Rory Kinnear, Michael Sheen, Benedict Cumberbatch and Andrew Scott?  Michelle Terry, my first female Hamlet - apart from seeing Frances de la Tour doing a scene at a charity event - and a major challenge for The Globe's new Artistic Director.

HAMLET is presented by the same 12 actors who also appeared in AS YOU LIKE IT and I think the comedy succeeded more than the tragedy.  The same two directors are credited but there is no sense of direction during the play: people come, people go, with no sense of escalating tension for either Hamlet or Claudius.  Hamlet goes to England, he comes back from England...  people drop like nine pins in the final scene but with no real sense of mortality or that this is the climax of the actual play.

The directors' blocking and positioning of the actors on the stage, as with AS YOU LIKE IT, suggested it was possibly all worked out in the rehearsal room and just dropped onto the stage as is; there was a lot of traffic on the stage but none of it seemed to make any sense or helped with the dodgy acoustics in the round auditorium.  It was all a bit infuriating.

As I said, this Elsinore had gone minimalist and appeared to have no furniture to speak of at all.. and don't start me on the costumes or lack of them.  I was not totally surprised to read in the programme that they have brought their own stuff in to act in.  That might explain the light blue floaty dressing gown that Gertrude - the Queen of Denmark remember - wears in the closet scene:  they were obviously having a sale on at Primark.

There actually was one concept that worked: the scene with the players and Hamlet's staging of "The Mousetrap" - that never fails to get a laugh - is usually a problematic one because you have to see the play twice: once in mime, then the players act it out.  It can really try one's patience when you just want to get on with the plot, and also it's a bugger to focus on because you are too busy concentrating on watching Hamlet watch Claudius watch the play to see his reaction to the player king being murdered.  Here the players did the dumb show to set up what they were going to act but then vanished into the audience and the play was not shown, just the reactions front and centre of Claudius, Gertrude and Hamlet; loud and ominous percussion was played behind our first-level back-row to suggest the play.- which was effective but a bit-heart-attack inducing.

The casting, as with AS YOU LIKE IT, was ethnic and gender blind and created as many problems as with the comedy.  Surely an idea behind gender-mix-up casting is to possibly give a new slant on the role in question but here that was not in evidence apart from possibly within Terry's performance.  There were some seriously under-powered performances: James Garnon as Claudius made no impression at all as Claudius - he seemed to just point his elaborate hair-style at people (think Cameron Diaz in THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY) while Catrin Aaron was colourless as Horatio and Helen Schlesinger played Gertrude as if she had come into a room and forgotten what she was looking for.

The main problem was with the tipsy-tarty casting of Bettrys Jones and Shubham Saraf as Laertes and Ophelia respectively - if they had switched roles it might have proved more interesting and allowed them to give better performances, but no: Saraf brought no insights to Ophelia - just a man in a dress - and James was as lightweight and as vaguely irritating as she was in AS YOU LIKE IT in yet another male role.  I have enjoyed her performances in previous productions but in these two plays she has proved that she is a lousy man.  Shubham Saraf did redeem himself briefly as a very characterful Osric.

The fine Jack Laskey was reduced to playing Fortenbras and the player who recites the Priam speech - but even he was defeated with being placed over at one side of the stage in that scene and his speech went for nothing.  But credit where credit is due: Colin Hurley was a dull Ghost but seized his laughs as the Gravedigger, Richard Katz was a suitably irritating Polonius - while missing any suggestion of threat in his relationship with Ophelia - while the indispensable Pearce Quigley and Nadia Nadarajah made a good Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Above all else, it was Michelle Terry's show; she played with a solid authority and spoke the lines with great intelligence - oh, and that speech?  She played it kneeling at the front of the stage, holding an audience member's hand and asking him "To be or not to be?" which was a very nice touch, it somehow personalized it, as if Hamlet was asking his opinion.  Sadly she was given no help with the absurdly ugly costumes she had to wear and ultimately, a lot of the production was not up to her level.

I will have to ponder where Michelle Terry sits in my pantheon of Hamlets, but I know that her interpretation did not move me as others have; it is possible for this to happen even within a shonky production - Andrew Scott is a good example - but here I suspect Terry was unwilling to out-shine the ensemble - she didn't even get a solo bow!  This strikes me as a rather false humility, after all, as the Globe's artistic director she nabbed the role for herself.  Despite all the failings of the production, I have to admit that I was pleased to have seen it and I still have high hopes for Michelle Terry's tenure.

AS YOU LIKE IT and THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN at the Globe - Back to the Bard...

Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer, by this daughter of Terry... well, for now anyway.  Like a Duke in a Shakespeare play I have been in exile from The Globe in Southwark since 2016, after being subjected to the childish Theatre-In-Education-style productions under that victim-card-playing creature Emma Rice, the personification of all that is ghastly with dumbed-down British Director Theatre where all is surface and hollow.  Her leaving was trumpeted as sexism on the part of the Globe Board, when in fact other issues were more pressing... like, where did all the volunteer staff go?

But now we have the fine actress Michelle Terry as the Globe's new Artistic Director and the first two performances have been great fun... yes, they have the now mandatory non-traditional casting but they were both played with such brio that it could be forgiven, unlike Rice's infantile look-at-me look-at-me revisionism.

For me AS YOU LIKE IT is an ironical title as I have never seen a production that I have liked!  Some have been good in parts but none have seized my imagination and proved truly memorable unlike other Shakespeare plays.  Terry has started her season with AS YOU LIKE IT and HAMLET performed by a rep company of 12 and I must say the cast was an area that was problematical for me.

Jack Laskey was a very good Rosalind, playing up the ambiguities when she disguises herself as Ganymede, but her two main onstage partners were a bit of a worry.  They will no doubt say that the gender balance was maintained by Bettrys Jones playing Orlando - but what's the point when she made absolutely no impact in the role?  Something that is unanswered in gender-blind casting is: which would an actress rather play - Rosalind or Orlando?  Why take roles from actresses only to reassign them to male roles that they cannot bring to life? 

Laskey's other stage partner proved more problematical - deaf actress Nadia Nadarajah is playing Celia, and while dramatically it worked to illustrate Celia's own marginalization within her father's court, when one's understanding of any particular scene is compromised by the fact that Celia's lines are rendered silently, what is the point?  I had honestly never realized how many lines Celia had until they were silently spoken.  I am all for Nadarajah being given her chance to work but "The play's the thing" and surely any casting choice that deliberately hinders the understanding of that play should be questioned.  I must admit I have wondered now we are in the tipsy-tarty world of gender and ethnic blind casting, which brave theatre director will choose a white actor for OTHELLO?  Not this tide.

Meanwhile back in the forest of Arden... there were excellent performances from Colin Hurley as a loud and leering Touchstone and, in the performance of the evening, Pearce Quigley brought his louche and whacked-out charm to Jaques, for once his mournful and cynical interjections ringing totally true; there was even a really nice touch when he concluded "The seven ages of man" speech by suddenly bursting into tears.

There are other charming performances lurking in the invisible forest too: Tanika Yearwood made a real impression with some quality singing as Amiens and took to the skies as Hymen,  Helen Schlesinger did some neat slight-of-hand swapping from the kindly exiled Duke to the usurping Duke by simply turning her frock-coat inside out, Shubham Saraf was a memorable Oliver - not often said - and James Garnon, not an actor I usually like - had great fun as a stroppy and sluttish Audrey.  It goes without saying that I liked Michelle Terry's supporting turn as Adam, Orlando's old courtier - as soon as she spoke her lines you knew she was a real Shakespearean.

There are two directors credited for the production but I was vaguely annoyed at how the blocking of the scenes seem to have been worked out in the rehearsal room rather than the stage so The Globe's dodgy acoustics were not addressed and more often than not lines were not heard by them not being addressed to the whole audience: when you are battling noisy crowds outside, incongruous emergency sirens and aircraft noise above you need all the help you can get by simply taking in all the sides of the stage.

But despite my issues with it, I enjoyed it a lot!  The sheer joy of playing to that audience on that stage came through loud and clear and I felt some of the delight that I got from seeing productions at the Globe before the Bitter Rice years.

Four days later we were back to our new-found favourite seating - the back row of the first tier as it has an all-important back to the purgatorial benches - to see my first-ever production of THE TWO NOBLE KINSMEN, written circa 1613-14 which has the claim of being possibly the last play Shakespeare ever worked on, here in collaboration with John Fletcher, one of three dual plays, the others being HENRY VIII and the now-lost CARDENIO.

It has the distinct cut-and-shunt quality of a play that has been passed back and forth between two writers, each taking their favourite plotline in new directions before the tone shifts again and we are back on another plotline.  Singularly lacking in poetic flight, it gives you an idea of the plays which would have been quickly worked on and put on to feed the need for new plays in the new theatres of Jacobean London.

The rulers of Athens, Theseus and Hippolyta, declare war on the ruler of Thebes and vanquish the tyrant.  Theseus captures two of Thebes' finest fighters, the close friends Arcite and Palamon, and although he admires their courage and skills, he has to imprison them.  The two friends are happy they are together and do not fear imprisonment as long as they are together.  However this sworn devotion is broken when they both fall in love at first sight with the beautiful Athenian princes Emilia.

Arcite is released but is banished from Athens, he returns in disguise and after winning a wrestling match, becomes Emilia's bodyguard.  The jailer's daughter has fallen in love with Palamon and she releases him from his cell; he escapes into the Athenian woods with the lovesick daughter in pursuit but he ignores her which drives her mad.  Her madness however does not stop her joining in an exuberant Morris dance for Theseus and Hippolyta.

Palamon and Arcite meet again and despite the latter providing his friend with food and arms, they fight again. They are interrupted when the court discover them and Theseus demands them both executed.  However after Hippolyta and Emilia plea for mercy, he ordains that the friends fight in a public tournament with the winner marrying Emelia, the loser to be put to death.  Who will win the challenge, and who will ultimately win Emelia?

It has odd echoes of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM with lovers pursuing the unloving into the Athenian woods, a group of Athenian citizens rehearsing in the forest and the characters of Theseus and Hippolyta, while the jailer's daughter lovesick derangement reminds you of Ophelia in HAMLET - it feels like Shakespeare thinking "Oh I'll just chuck in one of my greatest hits..."  It is such a disjointed tale that I would think twice about seeing a straight version of it.

But here we have Barrie Rutter directing it, his first production since standing down from being Artistic Director of Northern Broadsides, the company he set up in 1992, and he gives us a rollicking, colourful, big-hearted version of the play which is totally winning.  He keeps the action moving around the Globe's stage and never lets the pace drop until the inevitable final jig.

He elicits unshowy, committed performances from his band of merrie players: Bryan Dick and Paul Stocker are good as the former friends, Francesca Mills is a delight as the jailer's daughter and there is fine support from Moyo Akandé as a Gorbals Hippolyta, Jude Akiwudike as Theseus and Jos Vantyler as the teacher leading the Morris dancers.  Ex-KINKY BOOTS star Matt Henry plays Theseus' right-hand man Pirithous so slightly that one suspects his MBE for services to theatre might have been bestowed somewhat prematurely, while Elloria Torchia's lightweight Emelia made you wonder what our Two Noble Kinsmen saw in her.

But these two quibbles aside, I thought Barrie Rutter - one of my original GUYS AND DOLLS heroes from the National Theatre in 1982 - triumphed with this production and shows that he has just the right populist touch needed for The Globe.  I hope it's not too long before he is back there.

So two productions in and I am won over to the Globe under Michelle Terry's leadership - we have HAMLET, LOVE'S LABOURS LOST (at the pretty but agonizingly painful-seated Sam Wanamaker Playhouse), and OTHELLO to go so I will keep you updated on the progress through the season.

As Michelle Terry quotes from HAMLET in her introduction to the season "Come, let's go together..."

MACBETH at the Globe: blood, knocks, spots....

Last week we visited the Globe Theatre for the fourth time since Emma Rice became Artistic Director.  I cannot say that I have enjoyed any of the productions whole-heartedly although her MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM eventually won me over (although this was more to do with Shakespeare's words) so how would Iqbal Khan's production of MACBETH go over with me?

To be honest I have never seen a production that I liked very much.  I was taken with the school to see a production at the Young Vic in 1975.  Directed by Frank Dunlop, his idea was to have three actors (Alfred Lynch, James Bolam, Derek Fowlds) play Macbeth to chart the three stages of the character's development while his Lady Macbeth was played by two actresses (Joanna McCallum, Judy Wilson) to show scheming Lady M and broken Lady M; the supporting cast also featured Cleo Sylvestre and Anthony Daniels.  Even at that tender age I thought that the idea of multiple actors playing the roles was daft - surely an actor would want to play all the shades of the character rather than just one aspect?

I didn't see another MACBETH until 1993 when I saw Alan Howard and Anastasia Hille in an underwhelming National Theatre production directed by Richard Eyre, then in 2005 there was another unsatisfactory production directed by John Caird at the Almeida starring Simon Russell Beale.  Yes he spoke Macbeth's speeches wonderfully but hardly convinced as someone who will murder anyone to stay King.

I actually liked making the acquaintance of the play again and it's unrelenting narrative drive but again found a lot to make me sigh.  First off, as Owen suggested, for all Emma Rice's reported love of the stage she does seem to put on productions that cover it up as much as possible:  Ciaran Bagnall's black metal mesh set design covered up the stage pillars and the back of the stage as well as extending the stage outwards with a metal walkway (for no real reason).

A black tarpaulin hung above the stage to be utilized at times, notably as Banquo's ghost.  Also dotted around the yard - for no discernible reason - were Gormleyesque metal figures.  I watched them intently, expecting them to sprout branches and to advance on the stage at the finale to represent the English army advancing on Dunsinane castle.  But no, they didn't do a thing.

Khan's decision to have the three witches represented as three escapees from a grotty Kate Bush lookalike contest didn't move me much and neither did the artistic choice for their lines to be sung in a sing-songy way by offstage singers which made it hard to concentrate on what was actually being said.

He also had the profoundly irritating trop of having a small boy schlep around the stage during the action, seemingly the child of the Macbeth's, which goes against the text.  The ending was particularly odd: the newly-crowned King Malcolm flinched when he turned and saw the little boy - why?  All through the play the text says that Banquo's children will reign, not Macbeths...

Ray Fearon as Macbeth bellowed his way through his speeches while Tara Fitzgerald gave a smaller, more naturalistic reading of Lady Macbeth's soliloquies, they did work well together in their joint scenes however.

The supporting cast held some interesting performances: Freddie Stewart was a smarmy Malcolm, Jacob Fortune-Lloyd's Macduff was virile and a rare Scots accent and Jermaine Dominique was missed with the murder of Banquo.  Sam Cox's King Duncan was a bit of a misfire however.  The Porter's speech was livened up by one-armed Nadia Albina's almost stand-up routine - although did we really need a reference to Donald Trump?  Really??

It sounds like I hated it doesn't it?  But like I said, I found it oddly gripping.  Maybe the next one will be the production that I find definitive.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM at the Globe Theatre - O for a glass of Love-In-Idleness...

Last week we went to yet *another* production at The Globe - we should get some sort of badge shouldn't we?  This time it was to see - it's her again - Emma Rice's version of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

I say 'version' as Rice has done her usual shtick of ripping out every third page from the text, rearranging the character genders for no real discernible reason and then throwing a bucket of coloured paint over it all.  Oberon uses the juice of the flower Love-In-Idleness to smear on the eyes of his Queen Titania and the mortal lovers in his wood to make them fall in love with the first thing they see.  Sadly I didn't have a glass of it on me as I had issues with the production.

Appropriately Rice has gone for an Asian flavour to her production with a sitar player front-and-centre, bright saffron-coloured flower garlands hanging in the doorways and several Asian actors in the cast paying the lead roles of Hermia, Oberon and Helenus.  Helenus I hear you cry?  Who is Helenus in the DREAM?  Welcome to the tipsy-tarty world of Emma Rice.... Helenus is the swapped gender character Helena, formerly the affection-starved female ex-lover of Demetrius, now Helenus the affection-starved GAY ex-lover of Demetrius.  It's all terribly modern.

The familiar Globe space has also undergone a transformation with huge inflatables almost blocking out the sky and long green diaphanous tubes which suggest tree trunks suspended over the groundling's heads.  It's certainly visually striking even if the 'tree trunks' can obscure the action at times.  It certainly does suggest the world of the stage spilling out into the auditorium as indeed it actually does... there are three large tables at the front of the stage which allow the actors to jump from the stage into the audience and back again.

So despite all this - was it magical?  Not really.  It was all fairly earthbound and for a season that is all about Wonder and losing yourself in storytelling there was precious few opportunities to do so.  The 'rude mechanicals' were dressed as Globe ushers and there was an interminable intro where two of them went through the do's and don'ts of the theatre which was tedious.

We also had to do without the presence of Australian cabaret star Meow-Meow in the double role of Hippolyta and Titania as she was having one of her regular nights off so Nandi Bhebhe was on instead.  As Hippolyta she let her red high-heels do all the acting while her Titania was regal in bearing if not in performance.  Having such an under-powered Queen threw more emphasis on Zubin Varla's Oberon which sadly didn't merit it - he played the role like a surly England football supporter still wandering around Marseilles looking for a fight.  I did like Titania's descent from the gods for her first entrance however, her voluminous frock spreading across the stage.

There were better performances among the lovers - Anjana Vasan was an impassioned and forceful Hermia and teamed well with Ankur Bahl as her best gay friend Helenus - this being an Emma Rice production their lifelong friendship was shown by them doing the dance routine from Beyoncé's SINGLE LADIES.  The sex change for Helena got wearying after a while as the character was played less for desperate comedy value than just as a prancing nancy boy.  How very not modern.

Edmund Derrington - last seen in the original cast of SUNNY AFTERNOON - was very good as Lysander and was particularly brave for the amount of time he was on stage in just his pants.  Ncuti Gatwa was an anonymous Demetrius although he is probably the basis of some interesting anagrams.

Ewan Wardrop as Nick Bottom got his laughs easily and well and as did Katy Owen's Puck although her constant 'business' pulled focus from scenes which she was not in - the confrontation scene between Oberon and Titania was largely ignored by the groundlings as Owens picked on them to snog.  Lucy Thackeray played the am-dram theatre director Quince in the style of a very bad Julie Walters impression.

However, as with even the worst version of the DREAM - and this wasn't that - by the time Bottom and his crew did "Pyrimus and Thisbe" I was enjoying it - Rice even managed to stick in a reference to the famous Peter Brook RSC production from 1970 - and by the time Katy Owens' Puck addressed the audience for a final time while Titania and Oberon flew above the stage (albeit on very thick hawsers) I found a trickly tear on my cheek - there is something quite magical in that last speech where Shakespeare addresses his audience down the centuries:

If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumber'd here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream, Gentles, do not reprehend: if you pardon, we will mend: And, as I am an honest Puck, If we have unearned luck Now to 'scape the serpent's tongue, We will make amends ere long; Else the Puck a liar call; So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, And Robin shall restore amends.

The production plays at the Globe until September, go see what you think...