Tag: Detroit

Detroit at the Guildhall School review ****

Detroit

Guildhall School, Milton Court Theatre, 5th February 2019

The Tourist has remarked before on the benefits of checking out the productions staged at Britain’s major theatre schools. Excellent actors and creatives destined to to go on to greater things, usually professional directors, interesting repertoire, often first revivals of recent lauded plays, and usually a bargain, no more than a tenner in most cases. Right now a quick perusal shows a production of Orca by Matt Grinter at the Bristol Old Vic, one of my top ten plays of 2016, Alice Birch’s Anatomy of a Suicide at the Royal Central School opposite the Hampstead Theatre, similarly a top tenner in 2017, Woman and Scarecrow by Irish dramatist Marina Carr at RADA, Pomona by Alistair McDowall, (who should turn up with a new play at the Royal Court soonish), which I contrived to miss at both the Orange Tree and the National, a Doctor Faustus at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Boy at the Mountview Academy, a success a few years ago at the Almeida, a production of Peter Flannery’s Our Friends in the North, which you might know from the TV adaptation, at the Manchester Metropolitan School of Theatre, the adaptation of Nikolai Erdman’s classic The Suicide by Suhayla El-Bushra, which I loved at the National in 2016, and man of the moment Martin Crimp’s shocker Attempts On Her Life at the Guildford School.

Not bad eh. I strongly suggest you follow what they are up to if you love theatre. Makes a change from spunking £60 or £70 on a West End or NT turkey.

So this is how I came to see Lisa D’Amour’s Detroit. Ms D’Amour was, and still, is something of a bright young thing in US theatre, and now interdisciplinary performance, (for which read site specific extravaganza), circles, with a long association with the Steppenwolf Company. Detroit was a Pulitzer finalist and it is pretty easy to see why. It focuses on the unravelling of the American Dream (as do, I loosely estimate, 50% of all US plays, with the other 50% centred on dysfunctional families), but with a twist as it is set, metaphorically at least, in the suburban sprawl of Detroit, colonised, like so many American cities by whites fleeing the centre in the 1970s, 80s and 90s. Around half of all Americans live in suburbs apparently.

Anyway all is not well in this particular street. The marriage of Mary (Poppy Gilbert) and Ben (Oli Higginson) is under pressure. Ben has been made redundant from his job at the bank but claims to be seizing the opportunity to strike out on his own as a financial adviser by setting up a website, armed with self-help homilies. Neurotic paralegal Mary is all about appearances and is a bit too fond of the drink. Things seem to take a turn for the better when younger couple Kenny (Nick Apostolina) and Sharon (Laurel Waghorn) move in. They come with an admitted past of drug abuse but our now clean, working in a warehouse and a call centre and, whilst they haven’t much in the way of bucks, they appear excitingly YOLO’ish and curious to make friends. Cue a round of BBQs in their respective backyards. Eventually they all get sh*tfaced and things, shall we say, get a little out of hand. The truth, and a blast of nostalgia, emerges when Kenny’s uncle Frank (Wyatt Martin) pays a visit.

Ms D’Amour’s dialogue is vibrant and dynamic, the characters are interesting and well matched, the plot is sufficiently engaging and the themes it examines are never oversold. It resembles a kind of modernised, reversed, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf which is no bad thing. It doesn’t have the range, acerbity, humour or pain of Albee’s classic but in its odd, twitchy, serendipitous way it manages to make the mundane come to life on the stage. It asks for performances from the four leads beyond the naturalistic, but not lurching into the exaggerated, which director Charlotte Westenra grasped, and the set design of Charlie Cridlan, albeit with a little man-handling from cast and SMs, did the job.

At the end of the day I guess the point is that all four of them are living a lie, unhappy with their lot, and looking for a way to escape. A satire on precarious middle-class America, the shattering of dreams, and the urge to connect in misfortune, in an increasingly uncertain world. Worked for me. Especially with some fine performances. Poppy Gilbert was a particular delight, though Mary’s unravelling gave her plenty of opportunity to shine. Oli Higginson brought an air of vulnerability to Ben, Nick Apostolina made sure we saw the chip on Kenny’s shoulder and Laurel Waghorn revealed Sharon’s emotional, if not intellectual, intelligence.

Next up from the School an Orestes. Reworked. Like we would ever get a literal translation from Ancient Greek.

My top ten films of 2017

 

Most of the films I see at the cinema are good, often very good, and mostly excellent. That is thanks to the insight of critics and the adopting of a moderately elitist approach in choosing my viewing. As you can see from the below though it isn’t all miserabilist Central European art cinema. Note the list reflects when I saw the film not when it was released. Right off we go.

1. Graduation

Director Cristian Mingiu’s study of endemic, everyday corruption in his native Romania, and the lengths to which a parent will go to secure the future of their child, is an intricate, intelligent masterpiece, with echoes of Haneke. Adrian Titieni plays a surgeon with secrets, and fraught relationships with daughter, wife and mistress. Following an attack on his daughter, (played by Maria Dragus), the day before her British university entrance exam, our surgeon is forced to call in favours to help her get through, but only with her complicity. This tragic set-up permits a queasy, gripping journey through personal and social morality. Astounding stuff.

2. Elle

Another uplifting tale. Not really. This time from the hand of Paul Verhoeven. A rape revenge black comedy with the magnificent Isabelle Huppert in the lead. It is intended to provoke. It succeeds. Ms Huppert is a divorcee who is the unlikely head of a video-game company. She is attacked and raped in her flat but, because of her past, does not go to the police and seeks to track down the assailant herself. Through it all Ms Huppert’s character remains brisk, brusque and unlikeable. Hard to imagine anyone else being capable of, or wanting, to take on the role. The tone is as unsettling and inflammatory as it sounds, and I don’t know how to resolve the ugly contradictions here, but it is one of the single best performances I have ever seen on screen. You’ve been warned.

3. Blade Runner 2049

I know there are many who found this a ponderous, portentous, pretentious bore, and it was a box office “disappointment”, but I loved it. It looks stunning, courtesy of cinematographer Roger Deakins, sounds amazing thanks to Benjamin Wallfisch and Hans Zimmer, the cast, by and large, is at the top of their game, and the story has much to say about the human, no make that, post-human condition and the nature of consciousness. It is way better than the original. The plot, “orphan” sets out on a journey to discover his true identity, is as old as drama itself, so it works, and director Dennis Villeneuve knows it works.. It you just want 100 minutes of CGI crash, bang, wallop with more plot-holes than a warehouse full of Emmenthal, then you have plenty of choice elsewhere. If you want to see what sci-fi cinema is truly capable of, look no further.

4. The Levelling

Now I am guessing that this won’t appear on too many other best of 2017 lists. It should. Hope Dickson Leach had to scrabble around to get the funding for this, her feature length debut. I pray that, given her extraordinary talent, this won’t happen again. Clover, an immensely thoughtful performance from Elle Kendrick, is a vet student who returns home to crusty Dad, veteran David Troughton, after the mysterious death of her brother. Secrets seep out, and the stunted relationship between father and daughter is probed. The film also offers a rare insight into farming life and economics. It is beautifully put together, though this is no Arcadia, more folk horror. Yet still, as with Graduation, ruthlessly naturalistic. Seek it out.

5. Detroit

A vital and fearless polemic from director Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal, which pulls no punches in its telling of real life events at the Algiers Motel during the Detroit race riots of  1967. Hand held cinematography from Barry Ackroyd follows the confrontation between racist cope, led by one Philip Krauss, (an extraordinary performance by Will Poulter), seven black men and two white women, that ended with three murders at the hand of the police. The film is bookended with the events that led up to the “incident”, and the court cases and repercussions which followed. It is powerful, gut-wrenching stuff which will make you very angry and leave you wondering how much has really changed in America since those dark days.

6. Mother!

Bonkers stuff from director Darren Aronofsky which somehow works. Home invasion horror meets eco-catastrophe parable with Javier Bardem, as a writer with severe block, and wife, Jennifer Lawrence, doing up his childhood home after a fire, whilst trying for a baby. A knock at the door. Ed Harris turns up followed by his wife Michelle Pfeiffer, then their grown up sons and soon what seems like the whole world ahead of the apocalypse. Unsettling, bewitching, laugh out loud funny, brilliantly shot. I can’t wait to see it again.

7. The Florida Project

Another visual feast. Director Sean Baker has set his tale of America’s dispossessed, literally on the other side of the tracks, just next door to Walt Disney World. Halley, an astonishing debut from Bria Vinaite, does what she needs to to support herself and daughter Moonee (Brooklynn Kimberley Prince). Motel manager Bobby (William Dafoe) does what he can to watch over them. It doesn’t end well. Yet most of our attention is focussed on the brilliant blue skies and pastel pink architecture of their motel block neighbourhood, seen from the point of view of sassy 6 year old Moonee and her friends. This may not look like a damming indictment of the gap between rich and poor in America but that is exactly what it is. Along with Graduation and The Levelling it is the film her that sticks longest in the memory.

8. Manchester by the Sea

Another film that doesn’t shout at you but is no less effective for that. Kenneth Lonergan has written and directed a film about one man’s grief and his opportunity for partial salvation. Just as well that that man, Lee, is played by Casey Affleck whose performance is jaw-droppingly good. To make it really work though, it needed Lucas Hedges, who plays his nephew Patrick, whose guardian Lee becomes after the death of his brother, to act up to his level. The past filters through the present, there are moments of lightness and pathos, but no simple resolutions. Make sure to see it.

9. The Death of Stalin

Satire is the most difficult genre to pull off it film. Especially when you are writing about a country and a time which has been endlessly satirised by its own people. Armando Iannucci is a master of the art but this was still his most ambitious project to date. It is blackly and bleakly hilarious.

10. Toni Erdmann

One more father-daughter relationship to set alongside Graduation and The Levelling. A few more laughs here though not always of the most expected kind. As always the best comedy flows from tragedy. Sandra Huller plays Ines, a high flyer posted to Bucharest. Dad Winfreid, played with relish by Peter Simonischek, follows her. She humours him and sends him on his way. But, with nothing to go home for, he stays and assumes an alter ego as a life coach, Toni Erdmann, with bad wig and buck teeth. Through a series of cringe-worthy, but strangely uplifting scenes, we see Dad and daughter emotionally reconciled. Apparently writer/director Maren Ade whittled this down to a still leisurely 160 minutes. Suggest the DVD extras will require their own disc. Loved it.

Detroit film review *****

detroit_teaser_poster

Detroit, 29th August 2017

I sheepishly admit that, up to now, I had not see a film directed by Kathryn Bigelow in its entirety. I have tried to get going on The Hurt Locker a couple of times but seemed to recall interruptions and general life business got in the way. I mean to correct this omission on the assumption that her previous work is as powerful as Detroit.

For gut-wrenchingly powerful this is. Ms Bigelow and previous collaborator-writer, Mark Boal, have taken the real life events at the Algiers Motel in July 1967, set against the backdrop of the Detroit race riots, and created a genuinely gripping polemic against racial injustice. Hate, fear and violence are realistically portrayed by a uniformly excellent cast. From the direct historical prologue, through the police raid on the “blind pig” celebration party, which was the catalyst for the 12th Street Riot, and finally the closing scene where one of the survivors, Larry Reed, seeks some closure by returning to a career in singing, I was transfixed. The hand held cinematography of Barry Ackroyd takes you right inside the Algiers Motel during the crucial hours, but the cameras work just as effectively in the “vintage” riot scenes, the courtroom scenes and the scenes in the police station. It seems to me that every shot has been thought through to craft a “realistic” experience. The soundtrack adds to the intensity and the story of soul group, the Dramatics, whose lives changed dramatically that night, adds an agonising poignancy to complement the anger. 

If I had to single out one performance it would be Will Poulter as Philip Krauss, the leader of the Detroit Police Force patrol which raids the Motel. He is up against pretty stiff thespian competition in the form of John Boyega as Melvin Dismukes, the conflicted security guard who gets caught up in the incident, and Algee Smith, as the aforementioned Larry Reed. Poulter captures the matter-of-factness of Krauss’s racism perfectly, but also shows the way he seems to be both addicted and fearful of his own paranoid recklessness. You will hate him but you will recognise him.

I confess I knew nothing of these events and only had a vague knowledge of the Detroit riots. I certainly had no idea as to the scale of the response by the authorities to these riots – National Guard, army, tanks, artillery, snipers – the spectre of Vietnam hangs heavy. I gather Ms Bigelow and Mr Boal have made some fairly significant changes to explain the gaps in the “known” facts of the case, and have collapsed down the investigation and subsequent trials. In a telling construction the black characters in the film largely reflect the real life protagonists but the names of the white characters have been altered. This has served to heighten the drama and the argument. It seems from the extensive Wikipedia entry that the injustices meted out to the victims here were carried through into the subsequent trails of the police perpetrators, and that the events had a profound impact on the nature of race relations in the US.

And yet you will be left with a profound feeling that very little has changed. I am no expert on the nature of racism in the US, and my view is informed by my politics and reading (so damn me as a hand-wringing liberal), but, it seems to me, that by dramatising these events of 50 years ago, the makers of this film have served to underscore what is still so wrong now.

I can see that some might recoil at the graphic way in which events are portrayed or might reject the way in which white police brutality is so absolutely contrasted with black helplessness. But I was left reeling and seething from a very fine piece of film-making. There is enough utter escapist shite on the screens of cinemas everywhere, or indeed, serious films that run scared of taking a view. So those like Ms Bigelow, who get the budget and the cast to make such howls of indignation, should be rewarded by us the audience with our attention in my humble opinion.