Tag: Indhu Rubasingham

Catching up (Part 1)

February 2020

Yep. You read that right. February 2020. Just before you know what kicked off and the stages went dark. You would have thought that the last 18 months would have given the Tourist plenty of time and inclination to continue reporting on his cultural journey. But no. Despite his multiple privileges which meant the pandemic had minimal impact on his day to day existence he still fell into the pit marked “intellectual lethargy” spending way to much time looking at a screen and moaning about the world.

But a repeated dose of live theatre (along with Oxford/Astra Zeneca’s elixir – thank you) has, you may or may not be pleased to hear, given him back his mojo. And he has remembered just how useful it is to record what he sees and hears to make sure he keeps on learning and stops grumbling.

So a quick catch up to complete the archives and then some recent highlights. The watchword is brevity. So a few lines only.

The Tin Drum – Coronet Theatre. 24th February 2020. *****. A separate post finally completed.

Tryst – Chiswick Playhouse. 25th February 2020. ****. Front row in this charming space. Second time around at the CP of a play first seen a couple of decades ago. Karoline Leach’s script is based on the real life story of bigamist con-man George Joseph Smith, a serial killer infamous for the Brides in the Bath Murders at the start of the 20th century. Fred Perry played George with a mixture of menace and charm. Scarlett Brookes (just seen again by the Tourist at the Orange Tree) was more successful as the bright but naive shop assistant Adelaide Pinchkin dreaming of a better life. Power shifts intriguingly though the production, directed by Phoebe Barran and mostly narrated, sometimes dragged a little and dialled down the suspense. A smart set from Jessica Staton with the two actors artfully shifted props. Overall the SO and I were entertained. Mind you this was right up our collective street.

Pass Over – Kiln Theatre. 26th February 2020. ****. Antoinette Nwandu’s 2017 play was filmed in 2018 by no less a creative genius than Spike Lee. So we are dealing with a highly regarded rendering of contemporary Black experience here. Easy to see why Kiln’s AD Indhu Rubasingham was keen to take this one for herself. Moses (Paapa Essiedu) and Kitch (Gershwyn Eustache Jnr) are on an American city street corner shooting the breeze and dreaming of lives they will never have passe Vladimir and Estragon. This space though, simply staged by Robert Jones, is gradually revealed as limiting and threatening. Their swagger is matched by their fear of the police. They meet Mister (Alexander Eliot), a folksy eccentric with white suit and picnic basket, whose condescending offer of food and friendship masks racist privilege and manufactured offence. Absurdist but not tortuous, packed with allusion, to history, the Old Testament, contemporary race politics, heavy with carefully chosen dialogue but never dense. Tonal uncertainty can ruin plays of this type but not here, though it is at its best when its political message is not directly articulated as in the beginning of Act 2. Paapa Essiedu and Gershwyn Eustache Jr knock it out of the park as the nervy Moses and wistful Kitch but Alexander Eliot, as he did with Solyony in Rebecca Frecknall’s dreamy Three Sisters at the Almeida, mastered a very tough gig as both Mister and the overtly racist policeman Occifer. Can’t help thinking this needs a wider and bigger audience.

A Number – Bridge Theatre. 26th February 2020. ****. Caryl Churchill’s masterpiece from 2002 about cloning, its possibilities and its pitfalls, was given a robust workout by director Polly Findlay, with Roger Allam as the shambling father, Salter, and Colin Morgan as the sons. Once you get over the initial set up, which of the estranged sons is the “unsatisfactory real thing” and which are the clones, then there is not much in the way of CC’s usual formal experimentation or surrealist play on show here. And, in order to explore the various consequences of the subject matter, scientific, philosophical, ethical, familial, and otherwise, CC loads up with some sparkling dialogue. None of the sparse ellipses that characterise her very latest works. The setting from Lizzie Clachlan was dowdily domestic, the humour, of which there is plenty, played up, especially by the ever-droll Mr Allam. Salter didn’t really think through when he opted to “improve” on the original and the emotional effects on his son, and the copies, requested and rogue, were well played, without losing sight of the core “hard problem” of what it is to actually be human and how we “identify”. Colin Morgan offered a convincing degree of differentiation, Bernard 1 angry, Bernard 2 confused, “Michael” no 3 nonchalant, but this effort meant he, and Roger Allam, didn’t always connect or clash as much as they might/should. And some of the clues about the relationship between father and son didn’t always land. The play runs to an hour but felt a little longer with CC pauses and tics and some deliberately disorientating stage revolves between the five “acts”. Another production with, coincidentally given the above, Paapa Essiedu and Lennie James (a first on stage for me), and directed by Churchill specialist Lyndsey Turner, will appear at the Old Vic in early 2022. I can’t wait to compare, contrast and, as always on repeated viewing of CC’s work, learn and love more.

Death of England. National Theatre Dorfman. 29th February 2020. *****. Apropos of nothing, and paraphrasing for dramatic effect, someone said in my hearing recently that Rafe Spall didn’t make for a convincing Judge Brack in Ivo van Hove’s 2016 Hedda Gabler at the NT. Something along the lines of not nasty enough. My first reaction was to disagree; in a production stripped of its historical context, his was a deliberately unsubtle and brutally physical Brack. But actually they had a point. There is a whiff of little boy lost about Mr Spall which left a scintilla of doubt. In Roy William’s and Clint Dyer’s one man confessional/state of the nation play, Death of England, this vulnerability, however, literally repaid us with interest. Spall played Essex’s finest, Michael, grieving son to a dear and recently departed, but racist father, and best friend to Delroy, who is his sister’s partner. Along the way Spall also takes in his Dad, Delroy’s Mum, a restaurant owner with a vital story to tell, amongst others. He does all this at lightening speed, in both voice and movement, plucking props out of nooks and crannies from Sadeysa Greenaway-Bailey and ULTZ’s St George’s Cross transverse stage and with occasional asides to the audience. There is much to like, and dislike, about Michael, a confident, lairy swagger fuelled by coke, convulsed by his Dad’s death, riven by contradiction about what it means to be white, male and working class in Britain today. Spall’s performance was hyper, exaggerated by Jackie Shemesh’s often glaring lighting, paralleling Michael’s own psyche, barreling towards the tour de force of his climatic drunken funeral oration. As in Roy William’s Sing Your Heart Out …. , football, nationhood and racism are intertwined though here more as metaphor, Dad dies just after the semi-final loss in 2018, than plot. Now with added Brexit. Michael knows what he is supposed to be against but what exactly is he for? OK so the script wobbles a bit on occasion and the intensity of performance and Clint Dyer’s direction makes it easier to recognise that completely understand the paradox of Michael but it was impossible not to be bowled over by its commitment.

What else that month? A couple of concerts. The Bang on a Can All Stars, champions of post-minimalism with a mixed programme including John Adams (The Chairman Dances), Julia Wolfe (Flower Power), Steve Martland (Horses of Instruction) and Philip Glass (Symphony No 2 arranged for string Orchestra), which was OK but nothing more and an energetic, spirited and ultimately convincing recital from pianist Boris Giltburg of Beethoven sonatas (Ops 26, 57, 109 and 111).

When the Crows Visit at the Kiln Theatre review ****

When the Crows Visit

Kiln Theatre, 6th November 2019

An adaptation of Ibsen’s Ghosts, relocated to modern day India. Seems like a good idea no? It was. In fact better than I had expected even with its visible flaws.. Anupama Chandrasekhar has written a play that takes the Norwegian master more as inspiration than instruction and created her own, hard-hitting, response to male violence, female exoneration and the visitation of the sins of the father on the son. And with a crack cast and Indhu Rubasingham directing it is powerfully realised.

Bally Gill, who shone as Romeo in the RSC production last year, plays Akshay, the spoilt entitled son of Hema, (the marvellous Ayesha Dharker who you will recognise from big and small screen), who, along with grandma Jaya (Bollywood veteran Soni Razdan in full-on say what you think mode), fawns over him. We first meet him at the games company he works for in Mumbai, getting a dressing down for the failure of his latest idea from David (Paul G Raymond), the school friend and now successful entrepreneur, who was cajoled into giving Akshay a job because of family connections. Uma, (Miriam Haque who also plays Hema’s progressive sister), gets the nod from David to work on a new game, denting Akshay’s pride. He is still sulking when the three go to a bar for after work drinks. Later he vents his fury in an horrific act of violence with a clear real life antecedent.

He runs back to Mummy and we watch as the truth comes out. But Akshay’s guilt is not punished. Instead the corrupt police inspector, (a somewhat mannered Asif Khan, who plays neighbour Gopi in a similar way), and Hema concoct a plan to shift the blame and Akshay’s toxic aggression turns against Ragini (Aryana Ramkhalawon), the carer for the irascible Jaya. Whilst the development of the story is sickeningly predictable, Ms Chandrasekhar, has her writing hand firmly on the disclosure tiller, ratcheting up the tension, through to the explosive ending. Family history, as you might surmise from the source, plays a big part in this disclosure. There is no hope here; just brutal truth.

The dialogue is leavened with Hindu religious monologues from Jaya and the pesky crows, (realised by the puppetry of Matt Hutchison), which she feeds provide a symbolic edge well matched to Richard Kent’s claustrophobic, shadowy Chennai mansion house set, accented by Oliver Fenwick’s lighting and the Ringham brothers sound.

It isn’t subtle, teetering close to melodrama at times, and the original victim of Akshay’s horrific crime has no voice. There are, early on, humorous lines built on stereotype. Many reviewers recoiled from both play and production seeing sensationalism. But I was not clear if they were saying this subject shouldn’t be dramatised, or shouldn’t be dramatised this way. Personally I trust writer and director here and if the narrative and characters didn’t fit received wisdom then, for me, so much the better in terms of getting the message across. This is not a subject or setting that regularly finds its way on to mainstream London stages. There is nothing nuanced about the grotesque, misogynist violence which disfigures all societies, not just India, and reminding audiences outside the normal echo chambers of understanding seems to me a laudable aim. The casual and callous way with which female victims of male violence are portrayed every day of the week on the telly, or elsewhere in popular and high culture seems to me to be a far more pertinent target than this uncomfortable play.

Wife at the Kiln Theatre review ****

Wife

Kiln Theatre, 3rd July 2019

How difficult can it be to get to Kilburn? Very it would seem if you are the Tourist, this being the second time this year that he has missed the start of a matinee performance, (and having cut it perilously fine on another occasion). Message to self. Stop twatting about with the Overground and buses to get here and stick to the Jubilee.

Anyway it was a somewhat frustrating idea to watch the first scene of Wife on the tiny black and white stage telly, however accommodating the ever friendly front of house. Aussie Samuel Adamson’s latest play, (you may know him from The Light Princess musical at the NT of his Chekhov/Ibsen adaptations), is an intertwining affair which examines the relationships of four couples from 1959 to an imagined 2049. Ibsen is the stepping off point. Specially A Doll’s House, (there is a lot of Doll’s House inspiration coming up, see the Lyric Hammersmith, the Young Vic and International Theater Amsterdam).

After that scene and the infamous door slam, Wife opens with stiff-necked Robert (Joshua James) properly wound up after the performance, which he sees as an attack on the sanctity of marriage. His wife Daisy (Karen Fishwick), who dragged him along, doesn’t agree. She is in love with Nora the character and yearns for a similar freedom. Things ratchet up when we find out she is also in love with the actress, Suzannah (Sirine Saba) who plays Nora in the production. This is the scene I missed “live” but it was still plainly a compelling set up even if I couldn’t completely follow the subsequent ding-dong exchange of ideas and feelings between these three characters .

Next up 1988 and a couple of young gay men, with something of a class difference, the posh, volatile Ivar, (Joshua James again, named after one of Nora’s children), railing against the straight world, Thatcher and Section 28 and the younger, not-yet-out Eric (Calam Lynch) . They have retired to the pub after a Norwegian language version of the Doll’s House, and, after some exquisite verbal jousting, are joined by another Suzannah. On to 2019 and Clare (Karen Fishwick again) and Finn (the versatile Joshua James) who are at the Kiln Theatre bar (!) waiting for ….. well not the Suzannah who breezes in from the avowedly queer production of A Doll’s House being staged but Ivar, now 58 (Richard Cant, who also plays Peter in the first Doll’s House and the pub landlord in Scene 2), now bruised by life, and, after a while, his younger husband, bitchy actor Cas (Calam Lynch again). Clare and Ivar, as you pretty quickly surmise are connected.

And, in a final meta flourish, the finale is set in 2042, with an extract from a naturalistic play featuring Daisy, Robert, Suzannah and Marjorie (Pamela Hardman), a dresser. Now the whole point of this journey through time and coupledom is to show we are no closing to reconciling the struggle between the need to explore individual freedom, and the desire for equality, in domestic relationships, than Ibsen and his characters were in 1879.

In other hands this have could have become more than a little tricksy or worthy or muddled, but Mr Adamson pulls it off largely through the quality of his dialogue, they are some terrific lines and witty observations, and the way in which the cast it self has to shift pretty radically between the characters, even those that are linked by family ties, notably Joshua James (who has a knack of standing out in smaller roles in previous productions that the Tourist has enjoyed), Karen Fishwick (following her RSC stint, a fine Juliet, and Our Ladies from NT Scotland) and Calam Lynch (whose Claudio in the Rose Kingston’s Much Ado attracted disproportionate attention from LD, and not just for his acting talent). All three young actors served up really fine performances.

Of course it helped that Kiln AD Indhu Rubasingham took the chair herself lending customary energy to the production and papering over the cracks when words and actions pushed a little towards the artificial: these people don’t really do reflective silences. Richard Kent probably had more fun designing the costumes that the somewhat unremarkable set, as did Alexander Caplen with his sound contribution and Guy Hoare with lighting.

The proper reviews were, rightly, pretty positive overall. I have a very strong feeling that this will not be the last we see of this play.If so the Tourist will make damm sure he turns up on time.

White Teeth at the Kiln Theatre review ****

White Teeth

Kiln Theatre, 21st November 2018

I have never read Zadie Smith’s 2000 debut novel White Teeth. So I have no benchmark against which to set the adaptation by Stephen Sharkey, directed by Indhu Rubasingham, which is still showing at the Kiln. I gather it is something of a sprawling, hyperbolic tale of multi-cultural Britain across three generations beginning at the end of WWII, (though largely set on the doorstep of the Kiln), through the eyes of two, connected families. It is stuffed with plot, event, location, character and is both comic and tragic. 

Well if that is the case then I would say that the creative team here has done it proud. Not quite a musical, yet not entirely a play, there are times when the surreality of the story telling threatens to break the spell, but if you leave your critical eye, and ear, at home, don’t take it too seriously (as it doesn’t itself …),  and just go with with the exuberant flow you should have a great time. This feels and looks like community theatre, about the community in which it is performed, but, as is usually the case when Indhu Rubasingham is pulling the strings, making it look this spontaneous has, I would surmise, require a great deal of thinking, planning and rehearsing over its 5 years gestation. 

It doesn’t sound like the adaptation has been completely faithful to the book, chopping out strands and characters, and recasting the stream of events (as I gather did the 2002 TV adaptation). The story is told through a series of flashbacks from the perspective of millenial Rosie Jones (a droll Amanda Wilkin), the daughter of Irie (the superb, again, Ayesha Antoine), trying to find out about her “complicated” heritage, probably pregnant, in the present day. We still get the ornate intertwining of the Jones family, the bashful Archie (Richard Lumsden), and headstrong Clara (Nenda Neurer) with the Iqbal’s, peppery Samad (Tony Jayawardena) and forthright Alsana (Ayesha Dharker) and their two very different sons, volatile Millat (Assad Zaman) and studious Magid (Sid Sagar). And the posh Jewish-Catholic family up the hill, Marcus Chalfen (Philip Bird), Joyce (Naomi Frederick) and son Josh (Karl Queensborough) but we have assorted friends and colleagues along the way, notably local “character”, doomsayer and sometime deus ex machina, Mad Mary (the wonderful Michele Austin, who dives in with both feet). 

Unlikely suicide attempts, coin flips, parties, age differences, O’Connell’s, the improbable tank crew, a Nazi eugenicist, an inability to pull a trigger, the development of twins, religion, non-observance, affairs, fundamentalism, the worse named ever terror organisation, experiments on mice, the menage a trois, the unlikely denouement, dentistry. All this remains, but, and why not, now amplified with on stage band (Matthew Churcher on drums, Zoe Guest on guitar and Nanda Neurer, yes that’s right she is also playing Clara, on bass), 13 songs from composer Paul Englishby and multiple dance routines. 

Tom Piper’s set is a faithful line drawing, in exaggerated perspective, of the High Road, across which Oliver Fenwick’s lighting, and Lizzie Pocock’s projections, ring the changes. I  marvelled at the intricacy of Polly Bennett’s movement, which plays up the story’s slapstick strengths. With music director Chris Traves, and sound designer Carolyn Downing, this is, make no mistake, an A list creative team.

Is it easy to follow the story? Amazingly, given the activity, yes it is, in part thanks to some light-touch commentary and exposition when needed. Will it make you smile? Yes, unless you are some crotchety Daily Heil reader in which case I would politely us you to p*ss off out of our City. Are the songs a bit too pastiche, musical theatre, by pop culture numbers? Yes but their sly humour means you will forgive. Do some of the myriad of thoughts and ideas that Zadie Smith apparently threw out in her novel, notably the darker sides of the immigrant experience, get a little bit lost, or smothered? Yes I am guessing they do. Are the characters fully realised? No. But then this comes in at under two and a half hours so what do you expect. If you want Chekhov go elsewhere. 

But if you want theatrical story telling at its very best, homegrown magic realism, made by a team that really cares about what it has doing, brimful of energy, and you are proud of the cultural melting pot which is London, then look no further.

I don’t read much but White Teeth has now reserved a place in the summer holiday luggage. 

Holy Sh!t at the Kiln Theatre review ****

geograph-766483-by-David-Wright

Holy Sh!t

Kiln Theatre, 19th September 2018

Their exclamation mark not mine. Even at my age I get a vicarious thrill out of swearing to cause offence. A little bit of punk attitude remains I like to think.

Actually, on the subject of manufactured offence, I gather there have been picket lines outside the newly re-opened Kiln Theatre objecting to its change of name. Really? Like the Tricycle wasn’t a bit of a daft name to begin with. Maybe if the artistic team, led by the redoubtable Indhu Rubasingham, had ditched some connection to the building’s history, the Foresters’ Hall, I could see the point, but the original Tricycle didn’t even start here. Anyway what we now have is an absolutely wonderful space. The Kiln, in terms of design, comfort and facilities, has easily catapulted itself into the leading local, large, fringe theatre in London. All the scaffolding bric-a-brac of the interior is gone, sight-lines  are optimal upstairs and downstairs, leg-room is good, seats plush and wide enough for the Tourist’s ample rear. The performing space is intimate yet airy, as are the bar and restaurant, with the main entrance now matching the box office side. Staff tip top friendly as ever. The SO loved it, even convincing herself that the trek to urban Kilburn was “easy”.

And if Holy Sh!t is anything to go by, this season is shaping up to be one of Ms Rubasingham’s best. I like the look of the next two productions, White Teeth (based on the Zadie Smith novel) and Approaching Empty, and the new season, just announced, has such goodies as the UK premiere of Florian Zeller’s The Son (Zeller was a Tricycle “discovery”), Inua Ellams (Barber Shop Chronicles) latest work The Half God of Rainfall which sound bonkersly ambitious, Wife, connected with Ibsen’s Dolls House, which also looks similarly progressive, and When the Crows Visit, this time with Ghosts as an inspiration, and which looks set to add to a fine run of plays bringing modern India to the London stage. Oh, and if that weren’t enough, Sharon D Clarke in a blues musical revival. If you haven’t see her in Caroline, or Change, reprising at the Playhouse Theatre, then you are, I am sorry to say, a ninnyhammer.

I only know writer Alexis Zegerman from her role in Mike Leigh’s Happy Go Lucky but she can plainly wield a pen. Now I can see why some might think Holy Sh!t is a little overwritten, It identifies, and then takes aim, at its target demographic, and I mean target in both senses here, and doesn’t let go. Two couples, web designer Sam Green (Daniel Lapaine) and journalist Simone Kellerman (Dorothea Myer-Bennett), and teacher Nick (Daon Broni) and marketeer Juliet Obasi (Claire Goose), are forty-somethings whose friendship is put the test when they “compete” to get their daughters into St Mary’s, a North London Church school. Sam and Simone are liberal Jews though Sam now professes atheism, Nick is of Nigerian descent and Juliet is happy to turn up her Catholicism dial when it suits. The play starts off with a little too much forced exposition but once it gets into its stride, and moves beyond the par for the course comedy of manners, it doesn’t hold back using the four characters ethnicity and religion to expose the hypocrisy and prejudice that lie beneath their cultural liberalism as well as the lengths they will go to to protect themselves and their children.

I can’t pretend it is subtle, at times everyone gets a bit hysterical and the set-ups test credulity, but it does have killer line after killer line which left us (the SO agreed) hooked. It is the accumulation of well observed, and often funny, detail that made us forgive some of the crasser ploy mechanics. By the end, when Nick delivers his powerful rejoinder to the perceived victimhood of the other three, I did care about these people even as I recognised the forced stereotyping in their creation. Ms Zegerman has packed a lot of observation into the play, which is after all a comedy, and if some of it lands a little too heavily I didn’t object. I was still royally entertained. There is a whiff of Yasmina Reza about Ms Zegerman’s writing; you know you are being guided a little too forcefully down the corridors of her imagination but there is more than enough to see and enjoy along the way.

Ms Rubasingham’s brisk direction helped ensure the comic energy wasn’t dissipated whilst still making the points and Robert Jones served up pitch perfect (and flexible) aspiring metropolitan interiors. Dorothea Myer-Bennett was the standout performer the last time I say her at the Orange Tree (The Lottery of Love at the Orange Tree review ***) and once again she edges it. She captures Simone’s air of brisk certainty which contrasts with Claire Goose’s (Twitstorm at the Park Theatre review ***) more hesitant character. At first it is a little hard to believe they would be university friends but, as the tension escalates, their dependency does become more convincing. Daon Broni, who we last saw in the somewhat underpowered Slaves of Solitude, (Slaves of Solitude at the Hampstead Theatre review ***), was the most sympathetic of the four with Daniel Lapoine, (last seem by me in The Invisible Hand on this very stage), probably the actor who suffered the most from having to pull all of Sam’s traits into a believable whole.

So a production definitely worth seeing in a theatre definitely worth seeing. The first of many to come I’ll wager.

The Great Wave at the National Theatre review ****

the_great_wave_off_kanagawa

The Great Wave

National Theatre, 24th Mar 2018

Now theatre can do a lot of things. Delve deep into the psychology of characters and shed light on the human condition. Convey a passionate and heartfelt message. Put poetry into the mouths of actors. Dispense shock and awe through sound, light and material. And, of course, tell stories. And sometimes those stories are so fascinating that the rest can take a back seat. So it is with The Great Wave.

Japanese/Northern Irish playwright Francis Turnly has alighted on an absolute belter of a story to tell in his play and he doesn’t let anything get in the way of its telling. Bolshie Hanako, (a performance of great breadth from Kirsty Rider given Hanako has to hide her true feelings for much of the play and age 25 years), is winding up swotty sister Reiko, (Kae Alexander who is rapidly turning into one of my favourite young actors), and putative boyfriend Tetsuo, (Leo Wan, last seen by me in Yellow Earth’s stripped down version of Tamburlaine the Great). She flounces off in a huff to the beach near where they live on a stormy night and disappears. Mum Etsuko (Rosalind Chao), Reiko and Tetsuo won’t accept that she was swept out to sea and  won’t give up on the search for her, badgering police chief Takeshi (who initially suspects Tetsuo), and eventually government minister Jiro, (both played by David Yip,) to find the truth. It transpires that Hanako has been abducted by the North Korean regime so she can train spy Jung Sun (Tuyen Do) to pass as Japanese all under the watchful eye of an Official, (a marvellous turn by Kwong Loke). And there’s more, involving smart performances from Vincent Lai and Frances Mayli McCann.

This really happened, to a handful of Japanese citizens, as you may or not know. That would be enough maybe in itself. Where Mr Turnley is really clever is drawing out the human dramas at the centre of this thriller and, gently, pointing out the political accommodations that allowed it to persist from 1979, before finally, unravelling. in 2002. He also, again without taking a sledgehammer to proceedings, shows how the histories of Japan and Korea are intertwined and paralleled to some degree. Finally, and maybe most importantly, he asks us how identity and self is actually constructed. Why did Hanako “co-operate”? Why do Jung Sun and the Official believe in, and do, what they do? How was this allowed to happen? I won’t answer as there are a few more performances left (grab a ticket) but, rest assured, you will get wrapped up in the journey. You will also, if you are an old softie like me, actually be quite moved at points. And you will, as you should, reflect on today’s geo-politics.

Tom Piper’s set, a simple revolve with uncluttered, but still authentic, cube rooms, means the episodic structure of the play, jumping between Japan and North Korea, flows without interruption. The sound design of Alexander Caplan’s stealthily kicks in to good effect as well. There are some occasions where the economy of Mr Turnley’s prose becomes a little clunky but this can be forgiven as it gets us from A to B quickly, which frankly, with a story this good, is what you want.

With a powerful story, simply told, the last thing you need is a director over-egging the souffle, as it were. Indhu Rubasingham was never going to do that. What she does do though, so deftly you barely notice, is put the right people in the right place at the right time to highlight the emotion of the story. That takes real skill. When she gets her own theatre back, (the Tricycle), after all the investment, expect fireworks.

BD, being a Japano- and Koreano- phile, was never going to be allowed to miss this. Not quite as difficult to please as her mother when it comes to the theatre, she is still a stern critic. Didn’t move a muscle from start to finish. And I am rewarded with multiple future credits.

So a real-life thriller that, like the set it is set upon, revolves around and around until it becomes something more surprisingly profound. I suppose the fine British East Asian cast could have been afforded more lines to show off their class, and bring full complexity to their characters, but, if so, this may well have clocked in at well over 3 hours, and the suspense dissipated. Like I say, sometimes the story is so good it just needs telling.

 

 

Ugly Lies the Bone at the National Theatre review ****

ugly-lies-the-bone-1280x720-sfw

Ugly Lies the Bone

National Theatre, 28th March 2017

Tricky one this. It was by no means perfect, a little too thinly drawn for me, but there was so much to applaud that I think it worthy of a strong positive review.

The playwright, Lindsay Ferrentino is entirely new to me, but the string of awards, the intriguing content and the imprimatur of the NT, was enough to sucker me in. The play focuses on Jess, played by a massive favourite of mine Kate Fleetwood (her performance in Medea at the Almeida, directed I recall by hubby Rupert Goold, and written by a Kate Atkinson in full-on spleen venting mode, was a cracker), who returns ravaged physically and mentally from tours in Afghanistan to her native Space Coast Florida. She undergoes a pioneering virtual reality therapy, which gives set designer Es Devlin and her video, lighting and sound colleagues carte blanche to pump up the pyrotechnics, and boy do they seize the opportunity, whilst rebuilding relationships with sister (Olivia Darnley), an old flame (Ralf Little), sister’s maybe dodgy boyfriend (Kris Marshall) and eventually mother.

The text is direct but funny, Ms Fleetwood draws out Jess’s p*ssed-offedness with the world brilliantly, the supporting cast are uniformly excellent and Indhu Rubasingham’s direction (how is that Tricycle refurb going?) is clear as a bell. The reliance of Jess’s hometown on the NASA space programme is also well articulated to mirror Jess’s personal demons. So all good. I just wanted a little bit more. The technical pyrotechnics were a bit guilty of overshadowing the personal dramas, and the urge to maintain a lightish touch and neatish resolutions, left me liking the characters more than caring for them. Smaller stage, more lines, less fancy-dan stuff might have served it better.

Anyway definitely worth seeing though (on for a few more weeks and plenty of tickets) and I hope to see more of Ms Ferrentino’s work.