A Week of Great Performances

In my sister blog, I said I had seen Vanessa Redgrave, Robert Lindsay and Kenneth Branagh in a marvellous week of theatre going at the beginning of October. I had intended writing reviews of all three plays, "The Year of Magical Thinking", "Aristo" and "Ivanov", but realised I was never going to complete the task, so instead have concentrated on the three star performances.

Vanessa Redgrave portrays Joan Didion, the writer and political commentator, and tells us the story of the year falling the unexpected death of her husband and the protracted terminal illness of her daughter. The stage is totally bare except for a single wooden chair on a wooden planked floor. There are a series of backdrops, which signifying passages of time in the year being described. The monologue is directed by David Hare, one of my favourite writers. Miss Redgrave is remarkable. In the packed Lyttleton auditorium, she seemed to employ no artifice, no theatrical tricks, no histrionics, but held our attention throughout and made each one of us present feel privy to a private conversation. The retelling of the husband's collapse in the evening and the bewilderment and hurt felt by his intelligent widow as she struggled to come to terms with his sudden departure and the manner of his going. We laughed, we sighed and we cried in sympathy and in empathy. We saluted the courage of humanity and the sheer resilience needed to keep going. Joan, as personified so fully by Vanessa, is a patrician who never played upon or asked for our sympathy, but instead sought our understanding of the devices, the stratagems employed in that year of "magical thinking". At the end I applauded not so much the great actress but the great story she had told, had embodied. I liked the fact that the last image was a huge photo on the final backdrop of Joan Didion with her daughter and husband, in happier times, on a balcony looking at the camera with a sea scape in the background. I felt I had learned a little more about a remarkable human being and a little more about myself.

The second performance of the week was of another real life person, the story of Aristotle Onassis, "Aristo", in Martin Sherman's play at the Minerva. (Martin Sherman wrote "Bent", which is one of my favourite Bench productions) The play takes a modern story and tells it in the manner of a Greek tragedy. Robert Lindsay plays the lead role as a human force of nature and is a charismatic, powerfully physical actor. I did feel there were elements of Anthony Quinn as Zorba the Greek but Robert Lindsay is one of a rare band of theatre actors who can carry off that sort of role. When he was on stage, I was fascinated but when he wasn't, I felt the play was diminished by his absence. I must confess that I suffer from paranoia and am something of a conspiracy theorist - I love political intrigues and thrillers - "Michael Clayton" rules - and although I accept that most history supports the idea of a cock up rather than a conspiracy, I feel that most cock ups begin with a conspiracy in some one's head. This is a long winded way of saying that some of the political conspiracies advanced by the play felt old hat and hardly revelatory. The performance on the night I saw it was marred by a cock up on lines. Elizabeth McGovern, playing Jackie Onassis, as the great prize, his Helen of Troy, seized by Aristotle despite the whole world being against the idea. (Do none of these people ever read history?) In a more than a little underwhelming performance, Miss McGovern has the line, "I thought he was a pirate, not a gangster", referring to her Turkish - Greek husband. She muffed the line and it didn't come out clearly and I thought that was something of a summation on the play generally. I felt Sherman played the European versus the American viewpoint too heavily. To us northern Europeans, a Turkish-Greek is as strange a concept as the Americans. Perhaps I am not totally tuned to the Greek theatre but Robert Lindsay's performance deserved a stronger play.

The final performance of the week was that of Kenneth Branagh as Ivanov, the depressive eponymous farmer . The master stroke of the performance and indeed of the whole production was to eschew completely the idea that depression is slow, lumbering and laborious. Ivanov is a man fighting to contain his demons and they drive him on in a roller coaster of highs and lows fuelled by enormous energy and insight. Some productions of Chekhov fall into the deadly trap of being so slow, dull and boring, because that is what boredom and depression is assumed to be about, that, as a member of the audience, I would cheerfully have slaughtered, or even have strangled with my bare hands, the entire cast. Personally I am a grumpy person, which is usually a result of my sense of physical well being, who is fortunate enough to be married to a Pollyanna in the Best Beloved. I find it difficult to envisage the mindset of a depressive, although I have known a number of depressives in my time. However Kenneth Branagh's performance gave me an insight into what goes on inside, but how the exterior is still punctuated with bright and vivid colours, high energy and creativity. He gives a wonderfully physical performance and one can understand how the other people in the play are drawn to this attractive Ivanov. There are comic highlights, in which Mr Branagh excels without ever losing the reality of the character, and he is ably accompanied by a superb supporting cast. As with Robert Lindsay, I felt I had been in the presence of a theatrical master, but as with Vanessa Redgrave, I felt I had met a real person rather than a character. I personally felt uplifted by the story of Joan Didion and the tale of Ivanov. This is why I love going to the theatre.

Old Tales from the Green Room

Melanie has recently joined the ranks of the Bench and as a reader of my blog. Bless her socks, she also expressed an interest in the history of the Bench. Somewhere in the archives of this page are some of the Tales from the Green Room, in which I give a personal account of the Bench's past. These aren't complete as I didn't publish some of my earliest attempts. In honour of Melanie, I intend rectifying that omission over the next few weeks.
The Best Beloved also suggested that we collate the stories together into a booklet for the Bench Ruby Birthday on August 1st in 2009. If you are a past Bench member reading this page, please do get in touch with us as we would love to hear from you. We run a web page at www.benchtheatre.org.uk (there is a link to the right of this column) if you would like to keep up to date with what's happening at the Bench Theatre.

Badger in rehearsal

I had a lovely rehearsal last Sunday with Ratty, Moley, Toad and myself. Under the direction of the inestimable Damon, we worked through the scenes in Act 1. Ratty is already a rounded character and is the perfect master of ceremonies to lead the audience through the world created in "Wind in the Willows" In Alan Bennett's script, Mole becomes the favourite companion of all the creatures and in Kelly's performance will certainly do the same with the audience. Mark is a wonderful Toad and is almost as difficult to keep in check as an actor as the character is in the play. He is full of energy and invention and ideas just bubble forth in an almost constant stream. The Best Beloved appeared as Albert the horse and threatens to be something of a scene stealer herself. Albert is a pure Alan Bennett creation but lives up to the standards set by Kenneth Grahame.
Badger, played by yours truly, sounds an awful lot like Stephen Fry as General Melchett in "Blackadder Goes Forth". I don't think this is a bad thing but was somewhat unexpected.
This week we are choreographing the trial (action but few lines for Badger) and the battle of Toad Hall, two of the major set pieces, and it promises to be hard work but a lot of fun. Damon is highly skilled at getting a large cast to be creative as well as active. His intention is that we should own the scenes rather than have moves imposed upon us. Tallyho, what, what!

The Walworth Farce

I love the writing of Conor McPherson and Martin McDonagh, and this week I added a new list to that roll call of honour. Enda Walsh is another young Irish writer with the gift of the gab, a talent for using language and a great storyteller.
"The Walworth Farce" is presented at the National Theatre by Druid Productions, the first professional theatre company in Ireland to be based outside Dublin in Galway. Druid premiered Martin McDonagh's "The Beauty Queen of Leenane" in 1996 as a co-production with the Royal Court.
We find ourselves in a council flat at the top of a block on the Walworth Road,off the Elephant and Castle, in South London. There is a living room in the centre, a kitchen to stage left and a bedroom to stage right, Much of the plasterboard has been removed and what remains are the wooden frames of the stud walls beneath. This is a brilliant device for allowing us to see into all three rooms simultaneously. This is crucial as this play lives up to its title of being a farce. It is a comedic story told at speed by characters prompted by quiet desperation (and sometimes not so quiet). In the flat we meet the charming but terrifying Dinny (Denis Conway) and his two put upon sons, Sean (Tadhg Murphy) and Blake (Garrett Lombard). We learn their tragic family story told in a high octane and sometimes side splitting style. The arrival of an outsider, Hayley (Mercy Ojelade), threatens the whole structure of the family and beneath the laughter we see the pain and hurt.
The cast is impeccable in its timing and the direction under Mikel Murfi is designed to elicit every comic and tragic element from the play. Denis Conway as Dinny though was splendid. He is a large Irish actor ( those who know me will recognise why I might feel an affinity) who delivers a superlative performance full of enormous energy. He made me roar with laughter and yet also tugged at my heart strings. The part must have been written for him because he inhabits the character so thoroughly. Druid Productions are renowned for their work on John Millington Synge's plays and certainly, for me, this one is up there with "Playboy of the Western World", which Druid toured to Australia in 2005 and in which Denis Conway appeared. Denis also won an Irish Times Award 2001 for his performance of "Richard III" - I wish I had seen that!