Tackling
the sensitive subject matters of suicide, sexuality and depression, Late Company is subtle in its delivery, but
by no means skirts around the issues. It hits with a hard punch right to the
gut and puts you through the wringer, leaving you reeling afterwards.
Directed
by Michael Yale, who directed This
Little Life of Mine at
Park Theatre last year (read my review here),and written by Canadian
Jordan Tannahill, Late Company is set
in Canada. The play casts the audience as the awkward – in this case – sixth
wheel to a domestic dispute. When we meet married couple Michael (Todd Boyce)
and Debora Shaun-Hastings (Lucy Robinson), they are fussing over placemats and
pacing – backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards.
It’s
been a year since their 16-year-old, openly gay son, Joel, committed suicide. They
have invited one of the boys who bullied Joel at school, Curtis Dermot (David
Leopold), and his parents Bill (Alex Lowe) and Tamara (Lisa Stevenson) over for
dinner.
When
they arrive, Tamara’s a bundle of nerves, wrapped up in a neat package of blood
orange colour coordination, while Bill makes strained small talk and Curtis is
practically a mute. They’ve gathered so that Debora and Curtis can exchange
letters about words unspoken and feelings unshared since the incident. All the
while, a chair at the table remains empty for Joel, his absence looming large –
the elephant in the room.
Curtis (David Leopold) reads his letter to Debora (Lucy Robinson),photo courtesy of Charlie Round-Turner
Robinson
is adept at moving between Debora’s emotions of explosive rage and whimpering
remorse. She’s like a simmering pot of suppression – until she boils over. In
one scene, she throws and smears guacamole around the room. Debora is a
metalwork artist and as she engages in her solo food fight, she’s exploring a
whole new type of art – performance.
With
the Dermots’ insufferable nattering to eradicate any uncomfortable silences and
their self-serving comments – “boys will be boys” and “you’re inviting trouble
when you flaunt your sexuality” – we can hardly blame Debora for throwing
guacamole, nor would we blame her for throwing punches.
What
Late Company gets right is that
feeling of something bubbling just underneath the surface. It’s evident in
Curtis, who’s seemingly furtive and emotionless, but also acutely attuned to
his memory of Joel. The play does not directly address why, but we can come to
our own conclusions – and that’s enough.
The
timing and the venue could not have been a more perfect fit for the staging of Late Company. It began its run on April
25th, coinciding with Mental Health Awareness Week from May 8-14th,
and came to a close this weekend.
The
Finborough Theatre in Earl’s Court is entered and exited through the pub, which
makes for a quaint off-West End theatregoing experience. With its 50-seat
capacity, it makes the growing tension in Late
Company palpable – and inescapable. This is especially true from my front
row seat as an invisible guest, a fly on the wall of a very difficult
conversation.
Rihanna’s
“Stay”, the original featuring Mikky Ekko, is a chilling backdrop to an already
chilling narrative that informs the play’s dialogue. “I want you to stay…” And stay with you, this play will.
Alex (Jonno Davies) endures an experiment to try and "kill the criminal reflex", photo courtesy of Matt Martin
Anthony
Burgess’s 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange
has delighted and horrified readers for decades – as has Stanley Kubrick’s film
adaptation from 1971. Now, Action To The Word’s theatrical staging of the cult
classic has returned to London’s Park Theatre after its debut at Soho Theatre in
2009.
The
tale follows Alexander (Alex) DeLarge and his “droogs”, Georgie, Dim and Pete, in their quest for ultraviolence. But have the foursome found their feet on
stage? Well, this all-male production is –as they would say – real horrorshow.
The
teenagers use the termto indicate something good in Nadsat, which is English laced with Russian
influences. The play honours the original plot and language, so a
quick refresher beforehand might be advisable. Otherwise, the storyline is a
minefield to navigate, especially when the artistic director, Alexandra
Spencer-Jones, has sprinkled it with an additional layer of homoeroticism.
Photo courtesy of Matt Martin
Alex
(played by the hunky Jonno Davies) and his droogs casually kiss one another,
strip down to just their muscles – no complaints here – and brutally rape other
men. In one scene, Pete (Tom Whitelock) finds Alex being called “Little Alex” by his probation officer Mr
Deltoid (Damien Hasson) hilarious. The dots are joined pretty closely together
with a lascivious lick of Pete’s lips and a well-placed glance down to Alex’s…you
know what.
It’s
all fun and games until Alex is arrested for murder and rape. In jail, he takes
part in an experimental programme that will reduce his sentence and render him
averse to all forms of violence.
Each
of the eight cast members, besides Davies, performs three roles. They morph seamlessly
and manage to excel at each accent, posture or gender change. For the limited
female characters, they don a tutu or a pair of killer heels.
Pete (Tom Whitelock) drinks his moloko like a good boy, photo courtesy of Matt Martin
Davies
is the cheeky chappie we all expect Alex to be, with his cocksure attitude and
cat-that-got-the-cream grin. In this case though, his drink of choice is milk,
or moloko, spiked with drugs.
The
minutiae of facial expressions are detectable because of the
theatre-in-the-round setup. The stage almost spills into the audience on all
four sides, making for intimate viewing in a space with a capacity for 200
people.
When
Alex takes a bite of an orange, peel and all, the audience feels the juicy
spray. As the droogs run rampant and target their next victims, the fight
scenes are literally in-your-face. It’s a wonder no one receives a blow to the
head with Dim (Sebastian Charles)'s golf club for looking at him funny. Ultraviolence,
not love, is all around.
Photo courtesy of Matt Martin
The
droogs occasionally break into graceful dance sequences –
choreographed by Spencer-Jones and set to a soundtrack ranging from Gossip to
Placebo to Alex’s favourite, Beethoven.
A
wooden table and four chairs receive most of the battering in the minimal set. Pops
of orange are cleverly interjected throughout – in the form of a camera, underwear,
a bottle of Lucozade and even the blaze of an orange spotlight.
While
the play’s conclusion is not as satisfying as the film’s, we must raise a big glass
of moloko to this rendition of A
Clockwork Orange – it’s real horrorshow.
A Clockwork Orange is showing until 18
March at Park Theatre, N4 3JP. Phone the box office on 020 7870 6876 or book online here. The runtime is 90
minutes with no interval.
Ralph Fiennes takes on the psychopathology of Shakespeare's most notorious villain, Richard III, photo courtesy of Miles Aldridge
Shakespeare’s
Richard III at the Almeida Theatre,
under the masterful vision of Artistic Director Rupert Goold, is the hottest
ticket in town at the moment. If you can get your hands on one, that is. The
Almeida, with its capacity to seat 325 people, makes this reworking of
Shakespeare a particular rarity in its intimate access to stars of such high
caliber. It's been 16 years since Ralph Fiennes stepped foot on the Almeida's stage. He's back and better than ever to take on Shakespeare’s most notorious villain and lead antagonist, who will do whatever
it takes, and kill whomever it takes, in his pursuit of the British throne. With
Vanessa Redgrave making her Almeida debut playing Queen Margaret, it’s a match
made in theatre royalty.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, photo courtesy of Marc Brenner
The play
begins on an excavation site, where a curved spine is unearthed – a reference
to the 2012 discovery of Richard III’s bones in a Leicester car park. The spine
soon is reanimated and reattached to its rightful owner, Richard, Duke of
Gloucester. Fiennes is given a protruding “S”-shaped spine, which pokes through
his clothes and even his armor. He has also adopted a limp and a disfigured,
unusable, right hand. These new adjustments haven’t come without taking their
toll on the actor, who confessed to Radio 4’s Front Row, “I’ve got a lot of
tension in my left side. I’m monitoring it day by day, because it’s three hours
where you’re putting your spine out of true…I’m not in pain, but I’m aware.”
Ralph Fiennes tries his new spine on for size, photo courtesy of Miles Aldridge
Hildegard
Bechtler’s set design illuminates the driving force of the play, the king’s
crown, at the back of the stage, where it sits cloaked in a distinct sense of
foreboding. From the same wall, skulls emerge one by one as physical trophies
of the lives lost to Richard’s hit list. With even the tiniest of touches, the
chainmail curtain clinks and sways, rising and falling to reveal silhouettes in
a shadowy kingdom where no one is safe.
What
Fiennes delivers with razor-sharp precision throughout his performance is the
ability to turn on the audience at a moment’s notice. Fiennes brings charm and
humor to the role, so much so that we almost forget about Richard’s murderous
intent. Well, until he snaps. He has us laughing one minute and recoiling in
horror the next. One of the most chilling moments occurs when he fixates his
frosty gaze on the audience and his insincere smile morphs into a scowl.
Holding a rosary in his hand, Richard raises a clenched fist, the cross
dangling helplessly in his crushing grip.
Richard is triumphant in gaining the crown, but the skulls symbolize at what cost, photo courtesy of Marc Brenner
In his
Radio 4 interview, Fiennes warned, “I don’t want the audience to escape into a
relaxation of humor.” With Fiennes’ calculated portrayal of Richard, and
because we can read his every micro expression and often meet his steely stare,
he needn’t worry. He is terrifying enough to make me shrink in my seat when he
passes by in the aisle. I’m reminded of scary films, where most people’s coping
mechanism is to laugh, especially when viewing them in the public setting of a
movie theatre. Why then, are their hands clammy or their faces pale?
It is
this same unease, this false sense of security, that Fiennes lulls us into when
he addresses the audience, cajoling us to laugh, but then condemning us for
doing so. Richard’s threats are not empty; they are in fact so bold that they
are delivered to his rivals’ faces. He licks William, Lord Hastings’ (James Garnon) blood from the chopping block. His lascivious advances on Lady Anne
(Joanna Vanderham) and his rape of Queen Elizabeth (Aislín McGuckin) are
nothing short of uncomfortable. No, this is certainly not a man in whose
company we can relax, even with humor. It’s Fiennes doing what he does best:
playing a good baddie.
The cast of Richard III mostly wore modern dress, photo courtesy of Marc Brenner
I spoke
with Thomas Weaver, Associate Artistic Director of Gamut Theatre Group in
Pennsylvania in the United States, who was visiting London for the very first
time. He waited from 4pm at the Almeida Theatre to get a ticket for the 7pm
showing. As someone who often puts on Shakespeare plays and has seen his fair
share of them, including various productions of Richard III, I asked him what he thought about Fiennes taking on
the role: “He wasn’t playing a villain; he just was a villain. There was an
honesty to it. It just felt natural. He was saying, 'You may be watching me
seduce this woman, but don’t forget who I am.’”
Redgrave forces
you to sit up and listen when she makes her infrequent but powerful appearances
as Queen Margaret. She seems to stealthily creep up out of nowhere, issuing her
curses, before she shrinks away again into the darkness. The self-proclaimed “prophetess”
clutches and coos at a baby doll and wears a boiler suit, giving the impression
of someone who’s not “all there.” When Richard deflates the doll’s head in his hand
in an attempt to stop her truthful warnings, Queen Margaret might be the sanest
person in the room.
Richard loses his temper with Queen Margaret (Vanessa Redgrave), photo courtesy of Alastair Muir
Richard III is set in a time period of which
we are not certain. It seemingly unfolds in a contemporary age, with the cast
in modern dress. The sharp suits make them look like members of the mafia –
stylishly nefarious. Richard’s henchmen (Daniel Cerqueira as Catesby and Mark
Hadfield as Ratcliffe), with their blood red gloves, have distinctly East End
London accents. Richard pops a Berocca into a glass, which effervesces into a
familiar fit of orange. Phones are cleverly used as a means to communicate and
distribute information, much as we would show a friend photos from last night on ours. Then, the
final scene introduces armor and swords, and we are transported to a far more
distant time.
When the gloves come out, you know Catesby (Daniel Cerqueira) and Ratcliffe (Mark Hadfield) are up to no good, photo courtesy of Marc Brenner
As
Richard dies and plunges back into the grave where he came from, the excavation
team returns. There he will lie, until he is rediscovered (with the same amount
of enthusiasm) time and time again by audiences the world over.
We end where we began: Richard's final resting place, photo courtesy of Marc Brenner
Richard III is playing at the Almeida Theatre
until August 6th, but due to high demand, you might have to get a
little creative and be a little tenacious when it comes to securing a ticket.
Find out what your options are here.
The
company will be taking the production to Crotia for the Kazaliste
Ulysses Festival from August 11th – 13th. Almeida Theatre Live is being
launched in partnership with Picturehouse Entertainment. Cinemas around the
world will have the opportunity to see Richard
III broadcast on July 21st. For your nearest screening and to
book tickets, visit the website here.
As I
waited in the Almeida Theatre’s lobby before viewing Carmen Disruption by Simon Stephens and directed by Michael
Longhurst, I perused my program. How coincidental that the very thing I was
reading about paralleled a long time fear of my own: technology and its
detrimental effects. Stephens, the award-winning playwright behind The Curious Incident of the Dog in the
Night-Time (reviewed on my blog here),
wanted to channel how media alienates and disconnects human relationships. He
was also intrigued by the way in which European cities all start to blur into
one. The unusual medium that he chose to tell his story was opera, specifically
Georges Bizet’s Carmen. While
Stephens was listening to the music from Carmen
on the Underground, he realized that people’s lives possess operatic
elements and he set out to reveal the inner Carmen in all of us.
The singer (Sharon Small), photo courtesy of Marc Brenner
In the
United States, 40 percent of people admit to being lonely, a number that has
doubled in 30 years. In Britain, a registered charity is devoted to ending chronic
loneliness. As Elizabeth Renzetti notes in the program, “It is the great irony
of our age that we have never been better connected, or more adrift.” I second
this sentiment wholeheartedly. In fact, some might say that my soapbox is
talking about the way we use our phones and social media and how this is
resulting in a society where we are more alone than ever before. Not only are
we isolating ourselves from human interactions and relationships, but we are
also forgetting how to forge those relationships in the first place.
This is
the age of dating apps like Tinder, where someone can say whatever they please while
finding comfort in the protective aspects of their phone. Translate that to the
real world, and suddenly, the same individual doesn’t have the confidence to
recite the same line in person. Stephens muses, “How many truly fascinating
conversations have you been part of, then pulled out of when you get a text
message? We start to split ourselves off from other people.” This is a question
we should all ask ourselves, yet it is most likely avoided because of what the
answer might unveil. I could rant about this topic for hours, but I will spare
you all and turn back to the matter at hand.
Don José (Noma Dumezweni), photo courtesy of Marc Brenner
Carmen appears to have been given a new
burst of life in London at the moment. The opera is currently running at the
English National Opera. I have never seen it in person, but after watching it
for the first time on DVD, I was hooked. I recently attended a performance of
Matthew Bourne’s The Car Man, which was
a sensually modern retelling of the original through dance (review coming
soon). Last but not least, the Almeida Theatre is presenting Carmen
Disruption, where a disruption is exactly what we received.
If you
are unfamiliar with the storyline of Carmen,
it is most likely one that you already know because it is rooted in love, jealousy,
and human nature. The opera is based on a novella by Prosper Mérimée. It charts
the love triangle between feisty cigarette factory worker Carmen, solider Don
José, and bullfighter Escamillo. She dangerously toys with the two men’s hearts
until she is eventually killed by Don José when Carmen seems to favor
Escamillo. Carmen’s death outside of the bullfighting arena coincides with
Escamillo’s killing of the bull inside the arena.
Carmen (Jack Farthing), photo courtesy of Marc Brenner
Carmen Disruption alluded to this tragic ending with
a silent but forceful character in the shape of a dying bull. The
realistic-looking animal, with its chest heaving up and down, acted as an
inescapable foreshadowing that could not be avoided throughout the entirety of
the play. The performance had its own versions of the characters from the
opera. This time around, Don José (Norma Dumezweni) was a hardened taxi driver,
Escamillo (John Light) was a money-crazed global trader, Carmen (Jack Farthing)
was a stunning, self-absorbed male prostitute, and Micaëla (who was supposed to
marry Don José; Katie West) was a disillusioned teenager. Then there was the singer (Sharon Small), who travelled to different cities playing the role
of Carmen throughout the play, and the mysterious chorus member (Viktoria
Vizin), the spirit of Carmen.
Escamillo (John Light) and the symbolic, ever-present bull, photo courtesy of Marc Brenner
Vizin is
an internationally-renowned mezzo-soprano and has played Carmen 100 times in 17
productions overall. As she belted out the songs and arias, the unexpected
lyrics hung in the air: “We feel the skin of your telephone…” It is not the
skin of others we feel anymore from genuine human contact. There is actually a
cuddle service, where people can pay a lady for cuddles. To me, this is a sign
of the times, a sad one at that. It is human nature to crave human contact, yet
we just aren’t receiving it in the same way that we used to. The Almeida Theatre's productions always keep me on the edge of my seat, because they often deal with
serious subject matter. While the typical show tunes of the West End are
predictably feel-good, it can be a breath of fresh air to sink my teeth into
something meatier with more substance.
The spirit of Carmen (Viktoria Vizin) and Carmen (Farthing), photo courtesy of Marc Brenner
The
permeating intrusion of technology was felt strongly throughout the play. An
LED board flashed words at us throughout the play to indicate incoming texts or
other messages. The singer was utterly anxiety-ridden without her phone and
found conversation difficult. Carrying a suitcase of pills from location to
location, she frequently said she would need to look up details or names she
had forgotten by consulting her phone. In other words, she could not
function without it.
The paths
of the unlikely characters would cross in the street. They were so fixated on
their phones that they didn’t realize where they were going and almost bumped
into one another. This reminded me of an excellent video I saw online, where
the artist imagined a world where people never
look up from their phones and what the consequences of that might be (watch it
below).
Wowwww.upfade.com Posted by StreetArtGlobe on Saturday, April 25, 2015
We are
increasingly living in a digital age, where if we don’t keep up, we get left
behind. One of the lines in Carmen
Disruption is that porn tells you more about a country than anything else.
Micaëla started an online flirtationship with one of her teachers, where they would
exchange sexual Skype encounters. All of these things are examples of being
violated through a computer. Some people believe that cyber bullying cannot
exist, simply because we can all turn off our computers or other electronic
devices at any point. It is worth thinking about though that cyber bullying
would not exist if we did not have access to such devices. Micaëla goes on to
describe naked photos as honest, because that nakedness is the most honest
thing a person can give of themselves. Photos shared online are there to stay
and haunt you forever.
Micaëla (Katie West), photo courtesy of Marc Brenner
There’s a
scene in Carmen Disruption where a
boy on a motorbike was killed and the first thing that everyone did at the
crime scene was take out their phones. To document this boy’s memory, complete
strangers took selfies with his mangled body. While I was eating at a
restaurant the other day, the couple across from me were barely talking to one
another. Perhaps they had been in an argument, but the first thing the woman
did when her dessert arrived was snap a photo of it on her phone. No doubt she
will have posted that photo on some form of social media, exclaiming what a
“wonderful” meal and time out she was having with her husband. The phone
occupies an ominous space at the dinner table now. It’s the ultimate third
wheel, but through the individual’s choice.
There
seems to be a disconnect in the way that we interact with others in today's society. Micaëla
wanted someone to know her, so much so that they know what she does with her
hands when she walks. When Don José visited her son, she was moved that he
remembered how many sugars she took in her tea. She felt as though
someone noticed her and thought about her. It’s about the way we make each
other feel. It’s in these small gestures that we really get the feeling of knowingsomeone, not superficially, but
really intimately knowing them. It’s hard to do that when we’re too distracted
by our phones, when we’re in a virtual world that does not exist outside of
this real one, a life that we only get the chance to live once.
Let me take a selfie, photo courtesy of Marc Brenner
The
standouts of the night for me were Farthing (Carmen), Light
(Escamillo), and Vizin (the spirit of Carmen). Farthing oozed sexuality
and self-importance to veil an underlying mask of insecurity. Light reminded me
of Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman in American
Psycho, speaking in the same monotonic, calculated way. Vizin beautifully
and chillingly brought the play to life with her opera singing. Although the
characters occupied the same stage space, they were each absorbed in their own
bubble. The running thread throughout the whole play that connected them was the spirit of Carmen.
It's a shame I couldn't fit the man to the right of me with his iPad in as well...
The
singer became so linked to Carmen that she didn’t know where she ended and
Carmen began. Carmen the lover, Don José the fighter, Micaëla the lost girl,
and Escamillo the macho: there are elements of all of them running through each
and every one of us. Depending on the circumstances, we choose who we let loose
into the world. Stephens’ reimagined version of Bizet’s Carmen was awakening and different, a true theatrical achievement.
I leave
you all with one of my favorite YouTube videos called “Look Up” by Gary Turk.
You might have already seen it, but I beg you to take its message to heart.
Remember to look up, people. Who knows what you could be missing when you’re
looking down.
For a
dose of disruption, book your tickets for Carmen
Disruption until May 23rdhere.
For
another great YouTube video on the same theme, view Prince Ea’s “Can We
Auto-Correct Humanity?” here. If you
would like to share your opinions on the matters discussed in this blog post,
I’d love to read them below!
