Tag: Lauren Grace

Macbeth at the Chichester Festival Theatre review ***

Macbeth

Chichester Festival Theatre, 16th October 2019

Still waiting for that, ha ha, killer production of Macbeth. This unfortunately wasn’t it. Paul Miller, the inestimable AD of the punching-above-its-weight Orange Tree, had money to spend here. An 18 strong cast (with many actors in minor roles that had caught my eye before), so minimal doubling, led by John Simm and Dervla Kirwan as milord and lady, a beautifully designed set from Simon Daw, with lighting (Mark Doubleday), sound (Max Pappenheim) and video (Tim Reid) to match all set with the excellent sight-lines afforded by the Festival Theatre. And a full house boosted by enthusiastic GCSE’ers.

It certainly looked and sounded impressive. A circular glass floor which split open during the murders covering a pit of bodies. Some well tailored costumes in the non-specific militaristic style which defines modern Macbeths. A banqueting table straight out of Heals which would enhance the poshest Xmas lunch. Every lighting trick in the book including overhead “crown”. Atmospheric video signalling ghosts, heaths, blood, clouds, Dunsinane, Birnam Wood. Weird Sisters (Roseanna Frascona, Lauren Grace, Leah Gayer) sporting Strawberry Switchblade chic who keep popping up, again in the modern Macbeth fashion to frame the action. A proper Porter (Harry Peacock). An explicit nod to the Macbeth’s grief at the loss of their child. Dissonant strings and menacing percussion.,

But for all that it was, well, bloodless. Which for Macbeth is not a good look. John Simm especially, and Dervla Kirwan, delivered the verse faultlessly, (even up to my perch at the back which afforded a perfect view of the visual feast). Yet they both lacked a bit of passion, at least until things got going in Act V post the Macduff genocide. They were well supported by Beatriz Romilly as the gender-switching Malcolm, Stuart Laing as Banquo and Michael Balogun as Macduff. Mr Miller’s deliberate pacing, this ran for 3 hours, brought clarity to each individual scene and petty much nothing was left out. However Macbeth is a story that needs momentum. A hurtling towards the inevitable conclusion. We know the story so crack on. Then the repetition and call backs in the text have greater impact and the madness more harrowing.

I couldn’t help thinking that, with these two outstanding actors, half the cast and just the Orange Tree space to play with, Paul Miller might have actually come up with something more visceral if he had stayed at home. Being right up close as the blood flows and the minds unravel. No need for all this overthinking. Mind you I guess directors, like us all, have to follow the money.

Exquisite Sound. Designer Fury. Signifying … well not nothing but not as much as it should have done. Still there’s always tomorrow. And Tomorrow. And Tomorrow. Because the one thing you know is that Macbeth will be coming to a theatre near you soon.

The Wolves at the Theatre Royal Stratford East review ****

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The Wolves

Theatre Royal Stratford East, 26th October 2018

…. or 3 stars if you would prefer the opinion of LD which may be more relevant since she should have a greater affinity with the subjects of Sarah DeLappe’s novel debut play. The SO similarly enjoyed the production but was less enthusiastic than the Tourist. Thus proving that association with the subject/object in theatre may not always be the best indicator of potential satisfaction.

It was very heartening to see a full, and young, house at TRSE drawn in, I would guess by the subject, and by the reputation of the play. I have remarked before on just how attractively Nadia Fall’s first season as AD at the TRSE is shaping up what with this, The Village just gone, and The Unreturning (by Anna Jordan and produced by Frantic Assembly), Equus (from English Touring Theatre) and August Wilson’s King Hedley II (with Lenny Henry), to come.

So what’s to like about The Wolves. First off the subject. 9 diverse young women who are part of an indoor soccer (that’s football to you and me) team in middle, middle America. Second the dialogue. Their animated conversations centre on what is important in their lives. School, families, relationships, futures, politics, emotions, well-being, fears, frustrations. With 9 characters across 90 minutes, each carrying some specific trait relevant to their age and gender it was probably too much to ask that they become fully rounded individuals, but I certainly wanted to hear them. We laugh with, not at them, adult perspectives are peripheral, and the specifics of identity, obstacle and dilemma are not rammed down our throats. Not wives, not daughters, not girlfriends, not objectified, not victims.

This the play, with one minor exception, sails through the Bechdel test: there are other new plays emerging which featured strong, determined young women, but they are still few and far between. At least it would sail through the test if the women were named. For Sarah DeLappe has deliberately eschewed giving the women names, instead they refer to their kit numbers. This, together with the fact that each scene is played out during their warm-ups ahead of their competitive games, complete with movement guided by Ayse Tashkiran and ball skills courtesy of West Ham, (no comment from this Spurs fan), creates an echo of the military boot camp at the outset of a war movie, as Sarah DeLappe intended. Without of course the violence and toxic masculinity.

Rosie Elnile’s set, artificial turf enveloped by bright green inflatable walls, is striking, though this and the bright lighting and abrupt sound of Joshua Pharo and the Ringham brothers, brings a harshness which detracts from the musicality of the movement and dialogue. There is no connection to a world out there, (their grasp of global geo-politics is deliberately restricted), not a problem for yours truly, but this is I think what left LD a little perplexed. There is a plot of sorts, new player turns up to unsettle the equilibrium of the team, and a twist at the end, but even a director of Ellen McDougall’s imagination, cannot quite prevent it from feeling a little contrived and tacked on.

Now I am a shocker for identifying the authenticity of accents. I fake a bit of Mockney to make myself feel more “working-class” which is truly pathetic, and deep down, you can still hear the Devonian roots in me straining to get out, but I am about as boringly Home Counties as it gets. So, for the first couple of scenes, I was convinced that the cast was the real deal having come over en masse for the run. Nonsense obviously, made more so when it dawned on me that I had seen several of the actors before: Seraphina Beh (Leave Taking and Parliament Square at the Bush), Nina Bowers (Twilight at the Gate), Rosie Sheehy (Escape the Scaffold and The Hairy Ape) and Rosabell Laurenti-Sellers (at the Guildhall where she trained). They, and the rest of the cast, Annabel Baldwin, Lauren Grace, Francesca Henry, Shalisha James-Davis and Hannah Jarrett-Scott, were just so convincingly American, thanks to Michaela Kennen’s voice guidance. Preserving the balance of the ensemble, whilst sketching out the characters and, to paraphrase the mighty Harry Redknapp, “f*cking running around a bit”, is an exacting challenge but each and every one of the cast rose to it.

So for me a success because I got to see into an unfamiliar, yet recognisable, place in a witty and dynamic way. Maybe less interesting to LD precisely because it is familiar, in which case the fact that the story doesn’t really go anywhere, and the various “secrets” that are revealed about each of the young women are never properly developed, was more of a drawback. Team sport as metaphor for life is beyond cliche but Ms DeLappe has smartly subverted the trope by omitting victory or defeat. I will be very interested to see where she goes next.