Sunday 21 May 2017

Don Carlo at the Royal Opera, or, A Revival That Falls a Little Short

This is one of those works I always try to catch when performed. To me, it is one of the most satisfying music dramas in the repertoire. This revival gradually finds electricity but the search is often a bit laboured.

Aficionados will know that there are multiple versions of the score. The Royal Opera does at least include a version of the opening Fontainebleau Act, but persists with a crucial omission (as it has done on every occasion I've seen this work performed there). The opening chorus of distressed French peasants adds a crucial layer to the drama of Act 1, fleshing out Elizabeth's motivations for accepting Philip II's hand. The House should really catch up with other British companies and include it.

Wednesday 10 May 2017

The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui at the Donmar, or, Mistakenly Dispensing with Subtlety

My previous encounter with this play was at Chichester in 2012 in a stunning production by Jonathan Church featuring a chilling, compelling central performance by Henry Goodman. So this new staging at the Donmar was up against very tough competition. Unfortunately, it falls some way short.

Almost from the moment of arrival this is an in your face show. A cast member confronted me at the ticket check to wish me an enjoyable evening, programmes are wrapped in brown paper (this is the second novelty programme in recent months – at least less bulky than the ridiculous hospital notes folder at the dreadful NT Pacifist's Guide – I do hope this isn't going to become a thing). The Stalls with their cabaret set up clearly aim to embed the audience in the action, up in the Circle performers are soon appearing to issue instructions. The result, as far as I was concerned, was that this show and I got off on the wrong foot. I don't take kindly to being ordered to participate like that, indeed my immediate reaction is to get my back up and resist.

Monday 8 May 2017

The Ferryman at the Royal Court, or, There Is No Escape

The fundamental mood of this gripping piece of theatre is established in the first scene as a fearful Catholic priest, Father Horrigan (a fine, understated piece of work by Gerard Horan) is threatened by representatives of the IRA. Lighter, indeed often very funny, moments follow over the following three hours but that threat never goes away. My gaze periodically drifted to the door at the back, expecting doom to enter through it and, in due time, inescapably, it comes.

Jez Butterworth's new play at the Royal Court is, as should already be clear, a tale of a Northern Ireland imprisoned in a cycle of hate, violence, revenge. Butterworth explores this through an extended Irish Catholic farming family. To begin with, we may deceive ourselves that this family is managing to stand aside from the events of 1981 – alluded to, at first subtly, via Thatcher's voice on a radio. Slowly, inexorably, they are ensnared, one by one. Trapped in my seat, I kept wanting them to choose some other path but this is a play that offers essentially no redemption or escape for any of them. Among a plethora of striking scenes in that process, I would mention Shane Corcoran (Tom Glynn-Carney) boasting about his recent IRA activities and, slowly, fatally, corrupting others, and the poisonous rage Aunt Patricia Carney (Dearbhla Molloy) has built on one event decades before.

Obsession at the Barbican, or, Unengaging and Self-Indulgent

Note: This is a belated review of the matinee on Saturday 29th April 2017.

This was, I think, my third Ivo van Hove directed show. I remain very unconvinced of his alleged brilliance as a director. This isn't as annoying as his Shakespeare mash up Kings of War but it is slow, dull and gimmicky.

The show is, apparently, based on a film by Luchino Visconti. Not having seen the film, I have no idea how closely the scripts compare but if they are very similar I can only assume that the film being in Italian masked the cliched nature of the dialogue. Certainly the text confers few plaudits on either adaptor Jan Peter Gerrits or English translator Simon Stephens. The story is a familiar love triangle – woman married to older man falls for passing younger heart throb who eventually murders husband, is consumed by guilt and everything ends unhappily. To make this material work you need persistent high tension between the characters and a sense of pace driving everybody towards the successive disasters. For reasons that were never clear to me, van Hove moves things forward at the speed of a snail, leaving me longing to shout at the ensemble to get on with it. Minimal tension is created at any point.