Much Ado about Tennant and Tate

It was January when we booked. A crazy day that I recorded on here, and which ended with a long rant as Corinne actually walked to the theatre to book our tickets in person, all web based efforts having failed. It was worth it, for we had fabulous seats. Definitely whites of the eyes (leading to the query ‘has he always had a wonky eye?’*)

Set in the early 1980’s, apparently in Gibraltar (though I don’t think you’d know without the programme), there were some lovely period touches, The play may refer to Messina, but these characters were thoroughly British. A hard drinking and smoking military community.

Initially, I had my doubts about Catherine Tate’s Beatrice, as she teetered on the edge of over-playing it at the start, but she settled into the play, and from the party scene onwards was excellent.

I had no doubts at all about David’s Benedick. He can speak Shakespeare as though it is entirely his everyday language. He brings a clarity and meaning to lines I’ve never really noticed before. He surprises me, and that is so difficult to do in Shakespeare. And he can deliver a line perfectly whilst reversing a golf buggy on stage. Now that’s skill.

His comic timing in the gulling scene was amazing. Unfair to spoil it here, but the scene is a gift to an actor, and he played it to the full.

As a production, it was ‘broad brush’ Shakespeare. Plenty there to hook in those who didn’t know the story (apparently the guy next to Corinne was genuinely surprised when Hero was alive!) But below the surface there were touches and nuances which made a Shakespeare geek grin. Crucially, they passed my ‘test’, which is the line ‘Kill Claudio’. A couple of sniggers, but that was all.

It has a very good looking cast, though I struggled to see beyond David (apart from Elliot Levey’s Don John). Claudio is a pig of a part, and even more difficult I feel if the play has a modern setting. You can only get away with it if he is played very young, which he was. The scene where he is tricked into believing Hero unfaithful the night before the wedding is played out during the stag and hen parties of the couple, all disco lights, music, drinking and disorienting revolve, which worked really well. The addition of his almost suicidal remorse helped, even if it did cut across the uncomfortable earlier scene where he and Don Pedro are cracking jokes until he is challenged by Benedick. There’s still a real issue about Hero forgiving him though.

The music, an 80’s pastiche which sounded authentic without using any actual songs, was excellent, and there were echoes of Wham in the final song and dance routine, which is always going to please me.

There was a real joy about the ending, and yet, we didn’t stand, though many of the audience did. It was great, but it wasn’t ‘Hamlet 1 November 2008’ great.

Afterwards, we did go round to the stage door. It wasn’t as busy as Hamlet. If I’d been determined, I could have got in there. However, I don’t need to push my way in. It’s the long game, and the time will come.

*The answer is ‘yes’, but it was more noticeable in this production. Possibly he’s tired.

Risen from the rubble

My first visit to the ‘new’ Royal Shakespeare Theatre was always going to be a bit of an event. It’s been getting on for 5 years since I’ve been to a theatre on the Waterside site, the last visit to the old theatre being Merry Wives the Musical in December 2006.

I remember the feeling of shock when I went down for The Glorious Moment and saw the shell of the theatre for the first time, and then gradually seeing the new theatre take place over subsequent visits.

The building has been open for a few months now, but the first productions specifically for the new auditorium have opened fairly recently.
As a building, it’s different, but the same. A place of mixed emotions, it feels strange to step back into what has always been the foyer, and is now the stalls bar. So much more space, now they’re not trying to cram everything onto that small area. The old fountain and the marble staircase up to the circle are back in place, but the circle bar is now accessible to all, not just to those with a circle ticket (and not, therefore, somewhere I’ve visited with much frequency). A new link corridor between the entrance to the RST and the Swan now provides shop space.

All the art deco features of the original building have been retained, the floor of the old stage has been re-laid in the public areas (and yes, I did find that thrilling), and some of the features in the old structure have been left exposed to show the history of the building. I can understand this, but am not sure I like it.

Through the doors which used to be the entrance to the stalls runs a semi-circular brick wall, the back of the new auditorium, with quick change areas for actors tucked away in alcoves. Higher up, bridges link across to the upper levels.

Inside the auditorium, it looks and feels like the Courtyard Theatre, which is slightly odd, as, if you know that theatre well, you feel like you’ve suddenly entered a different building, and one that seems very familiar. That theatre was always meant to be temporary, this isn’t, and therefore has some extra touches which make it feel finished off. None of the seats look to be that far way from the stage, and to have good sightlines.

Of course it’s the bits that the audience don’t see which have changed the most, the backstage areas, the facilities for wardrobe, technical, wigs make-up, dressing rooms . A rabbit warren of corridors that it must take actors a while to get used to. There’s depth below the stage that didn’t exist before. In the old theatre, there was so little space between the back walls of the RST and the Swan that actors appearing in each tended to bump into each other, now, it feels spacious.

At the moment, it still smells new, which feels exciting and full of possibilities. As for the Stage Door, well, of course I checked out where it was, for future reference

The one where the obsessive gene kicks in

As I checked twitter before getting out of bed, I saw that David Tennant and Catherine Tate were going to be on BBC Breakfast to make ‘an announcement’. Given the rumours that had been circulating for the last couple of weeks this could only mean one thing.

So, I got up, and I turned the TV on, and I waited. Around 9.45am they were finally on and confirming their joint project of Much Ado About Nothing at Wyndhams Theatre from May to September. Great news, but then David casually confirmed that tickets were on sale ‘from now’. While the BBC were still showing Doctor/Donna extracts, I was already texting Corinne to set the wheels in motion. For the problem was, commercial West End, no priority booking!

The next few hours were to make me realise just how easy getting tickets for Hamlet and Love’s Labour’s Lost had been with my priority RSC booking status.

As soon as the interview finished, I was on to the Delfont MacIntosh website. The trouble was, so was everyone else, and it had already crashed. After a few tries, I tried the phones. This wasn’t just about getting tickets, it was about getting good tickets. Whites of the eyes, not back of the balcony.

Engaged. But again, eventually, I got into a queue. I listened to music. I was told a few times that ‘all their operators were busy’ and I may prefer to try the website. Then the line went dead, or to an engaged tone. I never actually spoke to a person. During the next couple of hours, I got rather tired of the suggestions to ‘try the website’.

I did keep checking. The first time I got to date selection, my heart rose. I was in, I chose seating area, and then it crashed. The next time I got as far as having actual seats. Then I got to put in my card details, and it was only after I clicked ‘confirm’ that it crashed. This happened at least three times, the third time, as I looked at the selection of seats in the middle of C row, I felt that it was mocking me. These were OUR seats, why wouldn’t it let me buy them?!

What was worse was that by lunchtime it was coming through on Twitter that ‘lots of you are getting your tickets now’. Well, not us, and this didn’t help, as they were being sold, but not to me. And I was running out of time.

You see, I’d arranged to pick up my new car yesterday. You’d think that was a very exciting prospect, but it turns out it paled in comparison to booking theatre tickets. At about quarter to one that garage rang me to ask where I was, as they’d expected me in the morning.

‘I’ve, ermm, been distracted. I’m on my way.’ As I left, Corinne continued with the assault on the website to no avail. I kept checking, but we’d made no progress, though clearly others had.

We had one last strategy, personal box office assault, which Corinne was dispatched to carry out. It was, finally, the one thing which worked, as just as was setting off out for the evening, I got the call.

‘We’ve got them, Row F.

Phew. Though honestly, David, next time, do us a favour, and go back to Stratford. It’s much easier on my nerves, and my blood pressure.

A Twitter Encounter (and a few memories)

I’m relating how thrilling I found The Tartuffe to Corinne, and enthusing about how great it was to see a production that actually made you want to stand and cheer. We happen to be sitting at the Globe before the performance of Henry VIII at the time.

‘You need to see the Medea I saw at the Arcola last year, they’re brining it back. That was one of those.’

The conversation reminds me of something I read on Twitter a couple of days ago. ‘Did you see where Mark Shenton asked about theatrical productions which changed your life?’

‘Yes,…’ before Corinne could develop this much further, the chap seated directly in front of us turned.

‘I’m Mark Shenton’.

I have one of those slightly heart stopping moments. Well, we had been saying good things about him. We start chatting, and he asks what our theatrical ‘moments’ were. Of course, once asked, I can't come up with any one production, and just mutter, ‘oh, probably something at the RSC’, wishing I could be more specific.

Well, in hindsight, I can, so here goes. They are all RSC, they are all 1980’s, but they’ve remained in my memory whilst later performances have faded. Life changing, in that without my visits to the theatre in Stratford, moving to work, and live, in the West Midlands wouldn't have even been a consideration.

My first is Much Ado About Nothing, RST, 1982, Derek Jacobi and Sinead Cusack. It was my first visit to see a production in the main house, and I was utterly spellbound from start to finish. It was beautiful to look at, and the main performances just stunning. For a long time, all subsequent Benedick and Beatrice's were measured against that memory, and there are still things about it which I don’t think I’ve ever seen done better. I'd seen RSC productions on tour, but I think this was the one that made me utterly fall in love with Stratford, and the RSC, and feel that I needed to go there as often as I could.

My second is Les Liaisons Dangereuses at The Other Place in 1985. Again, a first visit, this time to TOP, when it was still a tin hut. An incredible cast, Alan Rickman, Lindsay Duncan, Juliet Stevenson, Fiona Shaw, Lesley Manville. At times I felt I was holding my breath for how the story would unfold. Looking back at my diary from the time, I described the experience as ‘like eavesdropping on the private intrigues between the protagonists’*. I’ve seen Les Liaisons a couple of times since, but I doubt any production will have the impact and power of that first production.

My third is The Fair Maid of the West in the Swan Theatre, 1986, it’s first season. An ensemble production of a not particularly great play but so full of energy and the sheer joy of life that it was another standing ovation show. It used the Swan space brilliantly taking the audience from shore, to shipboard, to pirate attack, to Morocco and back to Cornwall. Wonderful also because it was so unexpected. Again a great cast, Imelda Staunton, Sean Bean, Simon Russell Beale, Pete Postlethwaite. For many years it held the record of the show I’d seen the most, as I saw it 6 times.

There are many others which I’ve loved. Nicholas Nickleby, (the revival, not the original, as I wasn’t lucky enough to see that), The Plantagenet’s, through to The Glorious Moment of all the History plays. I know I’m incredibly lucky to have seen some of the great productions, and performances, of the past 25 years** but often it isn’t the individual performance which stays in the memory, it’s the company, the ensemble.

*which goes to show that I’ve been a diarist for a long time, and also a long term theatresnob
** which however you look at it is a pretty scary time span (and yes, I do know that it’s 28 years since 1982)

The 37th Play

However you look at it, I've waited a long time to achieve this. All 37* Shakespeare plays, on stage, in professional productions**. My rules.

Some have been very difficult to achieve. Timon of Athens was a toughie, in more senses than one, as Will seemed to forget about an ending to that one. Titus Andronicus was ticked off four years ago at the Globe, and it was the Globe which came up trumps again for the final play, Henry VIII***. And, really, the finale one had to be either there, or Stratford, didn't it?

Even better was when we discovered that Dominic Rowan was to play Henry (clearly the days of ginger Henry's are over), as we (re-)discovered him in As You last Summer.

The last time Henry VIII was performed at the Globe, the cannon set the thatch alight and the theatre burned down. 'Risky', I commented, when we got to that bit in the performance.
As a spectacle it worked really well, with wonderful costumes, and really suited the Globe space. As a play, well, it's not one of Will's best, though some scenes and characters are very strong. Dense and unfamiliar, it took some concentration at the start until your ears adjusted to the words. It suffers from not having one main protagonist, and could do with more severe cutting than it had received in this production, as the second half of the second act did drag a bit. Henry doesn't have a great deal to do, apart from stand around in rather fabulous costumes (very fine calves, Dominic), and I can see why they kept this section in, as it's the bit that shows Henry as the just and wise king, but it did seem unneccessary.

The strongest characters are the Duke of Buckingham, Katherine, a fine and very moving performance from Kate Duchene, and Wolsley, a disappointing one from Ian McNeice, so much so that his fall from power went for nothing, and you never felt that he actually cared at all. In contrast, Katherine was electric in the trial scene. It was a production which also utilised the lesser characters well to add some humour, and to play off the Globe audience. As we've done before we had two seated tickets, and two groundling tickets so that we got two different expereinces of the performance.

And the sun shone. An excellent way to mark this milestone - and thanks, and many hugs to Corinne, Cat, and Dean who were there to celebrate it with me.

*Let's not talk about any additions to the canon, ok?

**So no conflations of the Henry VI's, and no, Kneehigh's Cymbeline does not count, given it met the Shakespeare play once in a bar

***There have been two other occasions when know I could have seen it, both in Stratford, in 1983 and 1996. It doesn't come round very often.

Overheard in a theatre bar

I’m waiting to be served, and eyeing up a piece of ginger cake (which confirms that the diet is so far going nowhere fast), when I casually tune in to the conversation in front of me. It seems the server has recognised the customer

‘Hello, do you remember me, we were in Titus Andronicus together?’
‘Oh yes, I was Saturninus, the Roman Emperor, and you were...?’
‘I was one of Tamora’s son’s…I ended up in a pie’

When it’s my turn he sees I’m smiling at the conversation.
‘You don’t hear a conversation about Titus Andronicus very often’, I say.
‘Did you see it?’ he asks. He has that look of an actor who's thinking they might get a bit of praise. I guess it’s a reasonable expectation, given how infrequently it's performed. I know I’m going to disappoint him, and out myself as a theatre snob in the same sentence.
‘No, I saw it at the Globe, it was one of the plays I still had to tick off on my list’.

This time the rest really is silence

In amongst all the various showings of episodes of Doctor Who, interviews with DT, radio programmes, quiz shows, etc etc, I'm sure it can’t have escaped your notice that the RSC/David Tennant Hamlet was also shown over Christmas. Yes, the BBC let us watch David Tennant die in two different roles over the holiday period, and, yes, I have wept a lot of tears over this (and it will probably be a long time before I can watch The End of Time without crying again).

A story which I thought had ended in January 2009 actually came to it’s conclusion on Boxing Day. Having said on here that it needed to be filmed, well, there was no way I wasn’t going to watch it. I pretty much planned my day around it.

Although the setting was opened out a little, so that it wasn’t just a film of the stage production, it retained much of the feel of the stage, with the use of mirrors, though the surveillance cameras gave a more intense sense of being watched.

Basically, the things I liked on stage, I still liked, and the things I didn’t like, I still didn’t, with one exception. Seeing it produced in a different medium got me annoyed about the cuts all over again. Watching the supporting Learning Zone programmes (hidden away in the early hours of the schedules but sleuthed out thanks to following David_Tennant on Twitter) provided insight into the reasons for some of them, so that even where I don’t agree, I now have more idea why they did it. For the record, I still don’t think a lot of them worked.
Whilst nothing will come close to that magical performance on 1 November 2008, I did love David’s performance. Though the soliloquies didn’t quite have the freshness that they had on stage, when it really did feel like he was saying the words for the first time, they were still immensely moving. He still broke me with 'the readiness is all', though I did manage to hold it together till that moment. I thought the closet scene was tremendous, and he and Penny Downie were magnificent, balancing the horror of Polonius's murder and Hamlet's accusation of Claudius with the mundane 'Goodnight Mother'. If I had been giving the supporting actor awards, they would have gone to Penny’s Gertrude, and Oliver Ford Davies’s Polonius, which were the two performances which still stood out, though I do have a soft spot for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who deserve a much better epitaph than they get.

The performance which to me came across better on film than it ever had on stage was (Sir) Patrick Stewart's Claudius. Perhaps his performance was always more filmic? Ryan Gage was also good in the small role of Osric, his interplay with Laertes marking him out as someone else who is party to Claudius’s’ scheme.

I still didn’t like Ophelia at all. Apparently most of her mad scene was improvised so that the other actors didn’t quite know what she would do each night. Whatever, it didn’t work for me, and she failed to touch the heart. Similarly Mark Hadfield’s Gravedigger remained a very ‘hammy’ performance from an experienced RSC actor. As I’ve liked other performances of his, I can only blame the director.

I did think that you got a sense of the ensemble in the film, though not to the extent that you did on stage, though it was also clear that some actors were much more comfortable, and experienced in working with the camera than others. The doubling of parts seemed a little odd in a film, though it's a very familiar stage convention, I did wonder if some viewers would be puzzled by it.

Overall, it's a great reminder of the production, and it's also wonderful that so many others will now have the chance to see it, including those who ended up watching Ed Bennett's Hamlet (good, by all accounts, but I'm glad I didn't see it), rather than David's. Hopefully it might attract more new people to Shakespeare.

Just always make sure you leave a seat in the theatre for me.

'How many ages hence shall this our lofty scene be acted o'er, in states unborn, and accents yet unknown'

One day, and 200 miles later, and I was in Newcastle for the evening performance of Julius Caesar at the Theatre Royal. Setting aside the annoying children* in the row in front of us, who fidgeted throughout, and were distracting until I was fully gripped by the performance, I really enjoyed Lucy Bailey’s production.

It's a play which, every time I see it, makes me reflect on what it says about war, and the nature of man. Very modern in so many ways. I think this production would have gripped me even more in the Courtyard Theatre, where the audience would have ‘become’ the citizens of Rome that Brutus and Mark Antony appeal to, wrapped around the thrust stage. The actors had to work harder in a proscenium arch theatre to involve the audience, and it too a while to get into it.

I really liked Greg Hicks’s Caesar, as he captured the hubris of the man. This Caesar was a danger to the republic because he was still climbing the greasy political pole, whereas I have seen Caesars in the past who were doddery old men.

Bailey used projection of crowds onto screens at the back of the stage, mingled with the actors, to represent the people of Rome, and whilst effective I felt that sometimes this was used too much.

The conspirators were a nervy bunch, almost afraid to carry out their plan. The murder itself was gripping; whilst knowing what was to happen, it made you hold your breath. The speeches after the murder were even more so, with Brutus’s fatal error in allowing Mark Antony to speak to the crowd turning them from supporters of the conspirators to a pack baying for their blood.

I loved Darrell D’Silva’s portrayal of Mark Antony as a fleshy boozer of a man, who was devastated by the murder of Caesar and in his performance you could easily see the seeds of what the character becomes in Antony and Cleopatra. You could already see the antagonism between him and Octavious, uneasy allies against the conspirators. D'Silva will play Antony in the later play next summer, and I'm quite excited by the prospect.

As the chief conspirators, Sam Troughton’s Brutus and John Mackay’s Cassius (definitely ‘lean and hungry’) missed some of the depth of the relationship between the two, perhaps because Mackay’s Cassius was a master manipulator of his friend.

Troughton’s Brutus was much younger than usual, which made it difficult to understand why the other conspirators should defer to him, and be so keen to have his support. Yet his performance as the good and noble man, trying to do what he felt was right for the state, yet constantly making the wrong decision, moved me, and I found myself in tears at his death.

I felt it was a much stronger production than Twelfth Night, not relying on 'stunt casting'. Perhaps some of the choices didn't always work, but they were always more interesting than those made by Doran.

*Who would take two young girls to Julius Caesar? It’s not the best way to introduce them to Shakespeare, and they were clearly bored to tears.

I have been called obsessive about Shakespeare…

But to me, it seems entirely reasonable to see two plays by the RSC, in two days, in two different parts of the country over two hundred miles apart. If the opportunity presents itself, take it.

It started with us booking to see the RSC Julius Caesar in Newcastle, part of their annual residency in the city. I wanted to see this production, as it was directed by Lucy Bailey, who also directed the rather fabulous (and fabulously gory) production of Titus Andronicus which we saw at the Globe a couple of years ago. In that she’d struck me as quite an exciting director.

Then work decided at the last minute to send me to a conference in Bromsgrove. The last time this happened, in Spring, well, there was only one outcome. When I’m only 20 miles away, how can I resist? It all depended whether there were any tickets left for Twelfth Night. A quick check on line found two single tickets remaining. One of them clearly had my name on it.

So last Thursday evening I found myself in the Courtyard Theatre settling down to watch Gregory Doran’s production of Twelfth Night. You may know that Doran isn’t one of my favourite directors. It was David Tennant’s performance as Hamlet that I loved, along with the ensemble, but I had issues about some of the directorial decisions.

This time, he’d also cast a couple of very well known TV actors, Richard Wilson and James Fleet, as Malvolio and Andrew Aguecheek, alongside some seasoned RSC performers*. Such casting puts ‘bums on seats’, but it doesn’t always work as brilliantly as it did with DT. I felt that this time it was less successful, and that both actors gave rather under-powered performances, and therefore much of the comedy was lost, particularly with Aguecheek.

By casting Malvolio as quite an elderly man, it did make him a sadder character than usual, his deluded belief that Olivia loves him drawing sympathy rather than humour at his pomposity being punctured. At the end, this wasn’t a man who would seek his revenge, and perhaps wisely, his last line was delivered after he had left the stage. I think I might have been tempted to cut it, as it seemed to work against the character.

The best performances for me were from Nancy Carroll as a charming, and witty Viola, Alexandra Gilbreath as an ageing Oliva, Jo Stone-Fewings as Orsino, and Richard McCabe as a gross and manipulative Toby Belch. All experienced RSC actors, and it showed.

The eastern Mediterranean setting was very reminiscent of Bill Alexander’s 1987 production, in both set and costumes, so that I frequently felt that I’d seen it all before.

Overall, it was enjoyable, without being in any way challenging. It was ‘comfortable’ Shakespeare, but I’m not sure that that’s what he should be. It took no risks, which I find to be one of the hallmarks of Doran as a director. I need the moments, either in production, or performance, which make me hold my breath, and this didn’t have them.

*Though I guess you could call Fleet the same, as I first saw him there back in the mid 80’s

Where I discover once again that I don't have a lot in common with the people I work with

I did a lot of interviewing last week. 3 days of it. Some candidates didn’t turn up, and didn’t have the courtesy to let us know they weren’t coming, so there was some hanging around waiting, and making conversation with colleagues. The thing about work is that usually we’re so busy, we don’t actually talk to each other, not about anything other than work that is.

At one point, I find myself chatting to our medical director, who tells me that he was in Stratford last week, and went to the theatre. At least he knows enough about me to know I like theatre.

‘Oh, what did you see?’
‘As You Like It.’
‘What did you think?’

‘I really liked the theatre. As for the play, well, I have seen it before, many years ago, but I did find it hard going, trying to work out what they were saying.
We left at the interval’

I can’t actually say anything, as I’m gaping rather.

‘Well, I look at it this way. I’d enjoyed it up to that point, and felt that I’d seen enough. If I’d have stayed, I wouldn’t have enjoyed it so much. And, after all, I have seen it before.’

‘I have my shocked face on, don’t I?’

All the World's a Stage (or, the whirligig of time*)

We’d booked to see As You Like It at the Globe. I didn’t get there last year, so was determined to this year.

Before the performance, we’d come to the conclusion that they have a rather brilliant gift shop, and, according to Cat, very good chocolate brownies. I’d bought a rain cape, as the sky looked threatening, and then had a bit of a rant about the quotation on it**.

It was as we went in that I saw him on the piazza. I was almost sure, but not certain. I mean, it’s been years since I’ve seen him in the flesh, and he’s not exactly looking like himself in his currently most familiar role. When we went into the yard, I scanned around to see if I could see him. Cat must have wondered what I was on as I went on about how the wood had mellowed over the years, but I soon spotted him on the back row of one of the bays directly behind us. By this time I was pretty sure, for that profile is unmistakable, but I still sought Cat’s confirmation at the interval. Our first response was to Tweet this news!

I was only in the same theatre as Alan Rickman! Not only that, we were watching ‘As You’, which was the first play I ever saw him in. I’d been talking about that production earlier, as there was a photo from it in the programme. The Jaques on stage wasn’t a patch on his performance, the consensus being that this one was a bit sleazy.

At the end of the play we were out first, being groundlings, and were meeting Corinne. I rang her, knowing that she’d never forgive me if she missed him:

‘Where are you?’
‘By the river, near the gate’
‘You need to come towards the gate’
‘There’ll be a lot of people’
‘You need to come to the gate!’

By this time I was almost following him down the steps. Through the gate I spotted her, and dashed over, pointing him out as he headed in the other direction. There was a moment, a look, and an ‘oh my God!’

Later, I reflected in the weird theatrical circle which had brought us from that performance in Stratford all those years ago, to August 2009 at the Globe. For Alan was the start of my stage dooring. I’m not even sure I’d have done it without him (though I guess I’d have found another actor somewhere). I didn’t realise then what I was letting myself in for. I don’t think I’d change a bit of it though!

*Yes, wrong play, I know!
**According the Globe, ‘it falleth as the gentle rain from heaven’, according to all my texts, ‘it droppeth’. The Globe needs to find a quarto or an alternative text, or there may have to be words.

'The great Globe itself'

We’ve been sitting drinking wine in the Anchor* pub on Bankside, complaining about the misleading information on their menus, which proclaim the pub to be on the site of the ‘original’ Globe Theatre.

‘Hmmm, only of the Globe was really huge’
‘Maybe it had a very big yard’
‘Actually, sitting here, we’d probably be in a brothel, or a bear pit’

There’s a further issue about the plays proclaimed to be ‘first performed’ at the Globe. Henry V, Richard II, ok.
‘Romeo and Juliet?! I don’t think so!’

Coza decides she needs to take me past the real site of the Globe on the way back to the station. It is a couple of streets back from the river, and adjacent to the Rose Theatre.

There’s not much to see. The ground has been marked out, but the majority of the theatre site is buried beneath a listed Georgian building. I look at it. It’s not an impressive building. You’d think they could have sacrificed it for the history beneath the stones.

‘Just think what could be down there’
‘Cardenio…, or perhaps Love’s Labour’s Won!’

Just for a moment, my mind drifts. The sense of history as I stand here is almost overwhelming. This was the centre of Elizabethan Theatre, and I’m in the footsteps of Will perhaps more than I ever am in Stratford. Never mind that who knows what I’d be standing in! THIS is where it happened.

*A pub with an orderly queue at the bar. Tourists!

I feel I’m rather letting my blog name down at the moment

It isn’t that I’m not seeing theatre (though I’m not seeing as much as I would like to), it’s just that I’m not writing about it. I have written more about walking over the last few months than I have about theatre, and that’s rather shocking.

To bring you up to speed, I have seen the following:

Twelfth Night
Peer Gynt
Dido, Queen of Carthage
His Dark Materials Parts 1 & 2
Barbershop Quarter – an Avignon Festival Fringe show – in French!
Blood Brothers

Quite a mixed bag really, and all enjoyable in their own way. Twelfth Night was a YTR production, and was pretty good, though I didn’t like their Olivia. Peer Gynt was a National Theatre of Scotland production, but it was at the Barbican, and I wondered if once again the Barbican was going to be the theatrical pits. Thankfully, though not ‘my’ Peer, which is much more beautiful, there were a lot of things I liked, and ultimately it moved me. Dido I enjoyed, though as a play it’s clear from the writing that Marlowe* wasn’t Shakespeare (not even very early Shakespeare). Some good performances though. If this is all sounding a bit half hearted, well, none of the productions were standout.

I did really enjoy the two parts of His Dark Materials at West Yorkshire Playhouse. I hadn’t really liked the books and had stalled part way through the second one, so I came to a lot of it new. What stuck me was that it’s a very complicated story. As with most alternate universe stories, there’s a lot to take in, as you can’t rely on the natural order of things to carry you through, also, the names can be difficult to remember. The other problem with any fantasy story is, of course, how do you stage it? This one has an ‘armoured bear’, and I’d never actually worked out what one of those was in the books, never mind what it might look like on stage.

They actually did it very well, though I felt Part 2 worked much better than Part 1. It was definitely a production where you needed to see both parts – a potential problem in Leeds, as there were considerably more performances of Part 1.

As for the last two, well, one is coming up in my ‘holiday blog’, and the other is a whole other story.

*Though it is equally very clear that Shakespeare knew the play, and ripped off some of the ideas mercilessly for Hamlet. It’s a good job Marlowe was dead by then, as Will did it all so much better

Goodnight, Sweet Prince

The story which began in September 2007, when I received my RSC mailshot with the news that David Tennant would be playing Hamlet at Stratford, is over*.

It turns out that we were to be at what passed for David’s press night. Having reviewed understudy Ed Bennett’s performance on the official press night, it seems that a number of the nationals went back on Wednesday to see what they had missed. The reviews had been in many cases more favourable than I felt the production deserved back in Stratford. This time, they had gone to see the Prince – and what a performance he gave them.

For me, this was the best performance by the whole ensemble. Perhaps their performances had strengthened in David’s absence, but it once again showed the value of the revitalised ensemble ethos in the RSC. My favourite ‘David’ performance will remain November in Stratford, but mainly because we were much closer on that occasion. Other cast members were the best I’d seen them, with Penny Downie and Oliver Ford Davies standing out. I also loved Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who seemed bewildered by the machinations of the court and caught up in things they didn’t understand, which made their lack of an ending even sadder**. I thought Patrick Stewart was the best I’d seen him, but that he still lacked authority, and, from where we were sitting, he was almost inaudible at the start.

Originally directed for the thrust stage of the Courtyard Theatre, and now adapted to a proscenium arch theatre, and there were times when the staging was slightly at odds with the space it occupied. There was, however, more of a sense of spectacle about the big set pieces, the play within the play, the duel, and for the first time we could see the reflections in the mirrored doors at the back of the stage.

As for David as Hamlet, well, once again, he broke my heart. I do not understand how it is possible for someone to perform those speeches as though they are being said for the first time, but he did. He had always been brilliant at the start of the play, but now the performance was sustained. You would not have thought he’d recently had an operation, except that the duel was slightly less energetic than before.

This time, it was ‘Oh what a rogue and peasant slave’, and ‘How all occasions do inform against me’ which made me hold my breath, and, incredibly, his reading of ‘the readiness is all’. He’d found a way to do it, giving it a sense of acceptance and finality, which didn’t make me long for ‘let be’.

As a production, it still has its flaws. It remains clumsily cut; the curtailing of R&G’s story, and the loss of Fortinbras, being the worst excesses of this (seriously, if you don’t know, just who is this guy who comes in at the very end?), and it isn’t particularly innovative in its approach.

But on that night in London, I truly felt that the promise that was there in July was delivered. It will live in my memory for years to come, as many earlier productions still do, and every audience member will have their own, different, memories, and perhaps that is what theatre is all about. There is no ‘correct’ way of doing Hamlet, just, (to steal from Cleopatra), infinite varieties. And that’s as it should be.

For now, the rest is silence.

*At least, the Hamlet chapter is, unless we are lucky enough for them to make the DVD. The David story will continue.

**Yup, still bitter about the pirates!

Backstage

As the tour guide opens one of the Perspex screens and we peer through, I whisper to Corinne ‘this is as close as we get to David’s view!’ There’s a moment, as we let this sink in.

We’re ‘backstage’ at The Courtyard theatre, and there’s not much of it. I’m standing pretty much where David Tennant would have been standing last night before he made his first entrance.

When we called in at the theatre earlier, I’d spotted the notice about theatre tours. We’d just missed the 11 o’clock, but there was another at 12, so we asked in the shop.

‘I’m sorry, it’s fully booked…but if you have a word, he might be able to squeeze you in.’ So we head into town, and back again (‘at least we’re getting exercise’), and wait. The 11 o’clock tour comes out. There are quite a lot of them. The 12 o’clock assembles. There doesn’t seem to be as many, so we’re in. Even better, it’s free, and you can take photos in the auditorium.

It proves fascinating, as he tells us about the creation of the ‘rusty shed’ as the temporary replacement for the RST, and we get to view the stage, still set for Hamlet, from each level. We decide that the top balcony will never be seats of choice, though the sightline isn’t awful. He explains that there’s only about three and a half feet below the stage, and how the actors in The Histories got calluses on their knees and elbows from crawling around underneath. Sometimes, theatre isn’t very glamorous!

He tells us we can’t go on the stage, which has a shiny black floor for Hamlet, Love’s Labour’s and the Dream – all Gregory Doran productions. Apparently they initially let groups go on the stage as long as they took their shoes off, but he objected. Someone pipes up ‘so, the clog dancers* don’t damage it then’. We curl our lips slightly in the metaphorical direction of Mr Doran.

As we pass by the back of the stalls, we spot a list of scenes

‘Look, no pirates’
‘Maybe we could just add them back in!’

It’s very tempting!

Then, we’re backstage. It’s very narrow. There are a few props, and a quick change area, and a scenery dock behind a curtain. He opens one of the screens and it’s only as I look out that I get a real sense of the size of the theatre, and just how little space the actors have. As I resist the urge to step onto the special surface, I don’t ask the guide any questions. I don’t need to. I’m just drinking in the theatre magic.

*In Love’s Labour’s – for a minute there I thought I was watching Northern Broadsides!

'Suit the action to the word, the word to the action...'

After three months, I made a return visit to Stratford at the weekend, seeing Love’s Labour’s Lost, and Hamlet. I’ve given myself a few days to reflect on it. Partly because of work, but also because I wanted it to settle in my mind.

When I first saw Hamlet, some of the directorial decisions and cuts jarred to the extent that they marred the production, and I marked David Tennant’s Hamlet as a ‘very good Hamlet, with the potential to be great’. This time, the choices and cuts didn’t bother me in the main, as I was expecting them, and therefore they didn’t detract from what was happening on stage.

And what was happening on stage was amazing. There was theatrical magic in the air, and he was everything that I’d felt he could be. It was like hearing some of the speeches for the first time. Lines I can repeat in my head along with the actors sounded new minted. He actually made me cry in the soliloquies, even ‘to be or not to be’! For a self confessed ‘theatre snob’ who is incredibly difficult to please when it comes to Shakespeare, it was mind blowing.

He seemed so young, and so vulnerable in his performance, heightening the tragedy of wasted potential. His interaction with both father and mother was very emotional, with the closet scene immensely powerful.

The strength of his performance did mean that others got less attention, though Penny Downie, Oliver Ford Davies and Peter de Jersey all impressed me. I couldn’t find the ‘smiling damned villain’ in Patrick Stewart’s Claudius though, apart from one or two flashes.

I still don’t think the placing of the interval added anything, and I still miss the pirates, ‘let be’ and Fortinbras at the end, but I almost cried as he tenderly stroked Yorick’s skull, and was in tears throughout the last scene – hence my issue with the abruptness of the ending. Yes, the rest really is silence after the loss of such a sweet prince, but I need time to mourn before the cast come on to take their bow.

As the lights went down, I glanced at Corinne. ‘I’m going to stand’, ‘Me too’, and we were on our feet. He deserved it. And he knew – he could tell that it had been a good one, as you could see it in his grin, and his face. It was once of those theatrical experiences that I want to save forever, and it’s part of the magic, but also the transience, of theatre that I can’t and it has to live in my memory*.

I don’t have the words to capture it really. It’s still not the greatest production of Hamlet that I’ve seen, but on Saturday night’s performance, he has become my best ever Hamlet.

*But come on, RSC, you know there’s going to be a market if you record it – it’s been done for lesser productions

Everybody Dies

I mention that I’m going to see Hamlet in Stratford.

‘What’s it about? I’ve never seen it’

I know I look a little dumbstruck. Does she really not know? How do you sum up the greatest play in the English language in a few words?

‘Well…It’s about Hamlet’. She looks at me questioningly. ‘Prince of Denmark’. Clearly this means nothing, so I begin.

‘Hamlet’s father has died. He’s a student and he’s come back from Uni. His uncle has become king, and married his mother. He sees the ghost of his father on the battlements and he tells Hamlet he was murdered by his uncle’.

‘And was he?’

‘Yes, but at first Hamlet isn’t sure, so he pretends to be mad and tried to trap him. When the players come to court, he asks them to perform a play that’s like the murder of his father, to see his reaction. Claudius (that’s the king), does react, and Hamlet goes to kill him, but doesn’t, and is banished. Oh, and the girl Hamlet loves goes mad and kills herself because he rejected her and killed her father, and her brother comes back and challenges Hamlet to a duel, and everybody dies!’

‘Oh! So, it’s not a barrel of laughs then!’

Faith, Hope and Clarity, and the Rutter School of democratic dictatorship

I saw the Northern Broadsides production of Romeo and Juliet at the West Yorkshire Playhouse last week, and overall I enjoyed it. I like Broadsides as a company, with their clarity and use of ‘Northern voice’, despite the overuse of clogs*. And also despite the Barrie Rutter ego trip that tends to be there in every performance. This time, he was Capulet, and it seemed to suit him.

The setting was modern, with a minimal set – practical as it’s a touring production, so has to fit into theatre spaces of various styles and forms. Romeo and Juliet were presented as very modern teenagers, which both worked, and sometimes jarred. They are difficult parts to cast, as the actors have to be young enough to convince, and yet old enough to play the emotional depth, and also to have the experience to deliver the lines. Here we had a pair who looked young, but who sometimes struggled with the verse, occasionally to the point of making me wince.

That said, it did move me, and I found I was crying both when Juliet was found ‘dead’, and then in the last scene**.

In the ‘Talkback’ after the performance, Rutter said that they’re often called ‘the Shakespeare company for those who don’t do Shakespeare’, and I think that’s about right. I could see this production connecting very well with those seeing their first Shakespeare. He was also right when he said that whatever else you thought, you couldn’t fail to grasp the story. He did say a lot I didn’t agree with, mainly about character – but again I agree that with Shakespeare you don’t need to look for the back story as it’s all there on the page for you.

*Yes, I know it’s their trademark, but I really don’t believe that the Capulets would have been clog dancing at their ball!
**I also always cry at the apothecary scene, but that has more to do with the death of Smike in Nicholas Nickleby*** than with R&J
*** too long to explain

‘And gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves accursed they were not here’

I wake on Sunday to another dull morning. After the intensity of the last couple of days, and practically eating on the run, I actually have time…and discover that there really isn’t a lot to do in Stratford on a wet Sunday morning in March!

There’s no show till 3pm, but first we have brunch and a talk from Michael Boyd. I’m fascinated to hear what he has to say about it all. I wish there’d been more of this, as I could have listened to him talk for hours, or that it had come at the beginning, as it throws a different light on the productions.

He talks about bringing back the ensemble to the RSC, and I realise that this is what I’ve missed. It’s the ethos on which the company was created, and for the last few years it hasn’t felt the same without it. But Boyd trained in Russia, and strongly believes in the ensemble. In fact, he has plans for the next one, starting in January 2009. I’m excited already.

After this, there’s a palpable buzz as Richard III starts, at the same point where we left it, only now the bundle Richard holds is a napkin, as the prince is about 10 years old. We also have modern dress, suits and guns – more modern elements have been gradually introduced, with battledress reminiscent of WWI in the Henry VI’s, but this brings us up to date, although some characters, Margaret, and Elizabeth, retain their original costumes.

It’s fabulous. Richard is repulsive, volatile, intelligent, vicious, even charming. It’s a marvellous part, and Jonathan Slinger seizes it with both hands. He’s been a real star of the cycle, playing so many different parts, but always convincing. It feels intensely emotional all the way through, for us as well as for the actors.

There are so many highlights in this one:
James Tucker’s Clarence trying to defend himself against the murderers; the court of Edward IV circling round each other round each other, spitting hatred, until Margaret enters, travel stained, and carrying the bones of her dead son, which she proceeds to lay out before the court; Chris McGill, as Grey, saying to Margaret of York’s death, ‘Northumberland, then present, wept to see it’ which he did, as the same actor was playing Northumberland; the death of the princes – when Richard asks ‘didst thou see them dead?’ Tyrrel takes out a digital camera, and shows him the picture.

Geoffrey Streatfeild catches the eye again in the small part of Rivers, reaching out to his dead brother before he too is shot.

Julius D’Silva is impressive as Catesby, Richard’s stage manager, particularly in the gulling of the Lord Mayor and citizens of London – we happily join in with ‘God save Richard’.

Richard waking from his ‘dream’ without his deformities, and the ghosts forcing them all back on him.

The ending feels too quick, in that Richard doesn’t get to fight, but is quickly despatched by Richmond (Lex Shrapnel again, but not even his performance will ever make me like Henry Tudor).

As it finishes, the whole audience are on their feet, people are throwing roses onto the stage, and the whole ensemble, plus crew, plus Michael Boyd are on stage. Some of the actors have brought cameras with them, and are taking shots of the audience. This is as big a deal for them as it is for us. There are tears, as I feel I’ve been privileged to be present at something very special.

Afterwards, there’s a reception for the company, and all those who had bought the ‘Glorious Moment’ pass. A chance to mingle, and chat to the actors about the experience. Some people are getting programmes and posters signed, but for me, it isn’t about that. It’s about thanking people, but also getting their thoughts on what it has been like. Many of them also seem a little choked up, and also sad to be leaving Stratford. It isn’t the end, for they still have a two month run at the Roundhouse, but I guess it feels like the beginning of the end, as they’ve spent over two years in Stratford.

‘From off this briar pluck a white rose with me’

The third day, and our second full day of productions, this time all three parts of Henry VI. Years ago, I saw the Plantagenets* over two days, and that felt epic. You have to bear in mind that these plays were written before, not after the ones that we’ve already watched. It’s early Shakespeare, and relatively unfamiliar, and therefore has the ability to surprise you. I’d also seen Michael Boyd’s production of Henry VI Part 2 in the Swan back in 2000**.

I buy a white rose lapel pin just so that no one is going to doubt my allegiance today. During the day, I realise just how much my view of the history of the Wars of the Roses is coloured by Shakespeare’s version, even though it’s not always historically accurate.

By now, the actors welcoming us to the theatre, and telling us to turn off our mobile phones are greeted with loud applause, and have to wait for it to die down before they can make their announcement. It’s beginning to feel natural to be sitting in a theatre on a Saturday morning, and as the weather is pretty dire outside, there’s no better place to be.

Part 1 begins with the funeral of Henry V, (Geoffrey Streatfeild returning briefly before his transformation into Suffolk) as his coffin is lowered into the ground and it’s mainly about the loss of all he fought for in France, as the bickering begins between the nobles, literally over his coffin.

Richard Cordery returns with an excellent performance as Humphrey of Gloucester, a good man trying to serve the country and his king, mirroring his Duke of York. It’s quite a shock to see the ‘young guns’ from Henry V now transformed into middle aged men.

Strong performances emerge. Clive Wood as Richard Plantagenet, Keith Bartlett as Talbot, Katy Stephens as Joan La Pucelle, (there’s an incredible scene where she taunts Bedford with his severed arm), followed by a fifth act transformation into Margaret of Anjou. It’s also good to see some characters continuing from Henry V, John Mackay as the Dauphin, and Matt Costain as Burgundy.

Henry himself doesn’t appear until about halfway through the play, and Chuk Iwuji plays him with a childlike innocence befitting his youth, anxious to please, but also giving doubt to whether this king will rise to the challenge.

There’s another magnificent father and son double act from Keith Bartlett and Lex Shrapnel as Talbot and his son John, and their presence echoes through the subsequent plays, as they become the pirates who capture and execute Suffolk in Part 2, and the son who killed his father, and father who killed his son in Part 3.

Geoffrey Streatfeild reappears as Suffolk, plotting to turn the king’s marriage to his own ends, and the play ends with what Michael Boyd describes later as ‘the jaws moment’, as Margaret prepares to leave for England.

Part 2 - I love it! It’s the House of York in the ascendant, and the first appearance of ‘my’ Richard, (another great performance by Jonathan Slinger).

Gloucester is betrayed and murdered, and Suffolk is banished and murdered– his head being delivered to the queen, who cradles it while standing in the ‘hell mouth’. Maureen Beattie is wonderfully dignified as the proud but ultimately duped and disgraced Duchess of Gloucester.

All hell is let loose in Jack Cade’s rebellion. It’s quite a jolt as the rebels enter from the audience, and proceed to get an unsuspecting audience member on stage. I like the fact that the rebels are made up principally of all those who have been murdered, or died in the conflict. I’m a little less sure about Suffolk’s headless body dancing around!

Part 3 – my favourite part of this trilogy, but also the most emotionally traumatic one, as York is captured and murdered by Margaret. The killing of Rutland is horrific, as Alexia Healy’s squeals are animalistic, and the death of York almost makes me cry. The later image of York’s head upon Micklegate bar (achieved simply by the actor kneeling behind the balcony) haunts me for a few days afterwards.

Richard comes into his own, throwing off his wig (similar to when he played Richard II) but this time to reveal a disfiguring birthmark upon his bald head, and sharing his ambitions with the audience. I’m thinking how much I love Richard (yes, I know I’m odd) as I leave the auditorium at the interval, when someone behind me says ‘gosh, he’s a nasty piece of work, isn’t he!’ I think you understand him better when you see the society he is a product of. He never apologises or excuses his actions, and by sharing his plans with us, we become his co-conspirators.

That ending – Richard cradling the new born prince and beginning ‘Now…’

I can’t wait for the conclusion of the story, but I have to, until the following afternoon.

*A conflation of the three parts of Henry VI into two plays, Henry VI and Edward IV, followed by Richard III

**For some bizarre reason, probably related to scheduling, we saw Part 2, and therefore only the middle of the story.