Theatre Review: Danton’s Death at the National Theatre
Article first published on Blogcritics.
by Natalie Bennett
The production of Danton’s Death at the National Theatre is pretty well everything you’d expect – well-acted, spectacularly staged, snappily directed.
Toby Stephens is a charismatic Danton, the set of Christopher Oram and the lighting of Paule Constable are hugely powerful – sometimes even more than the action. And if the staging sometimes seems to too often involve the very large cast swirling around the stage as brothel/tavern mob, Assembly, or court, the two-level set is frequently effectively utilised.
This is not, however, despite the billing, exactly, or even largely, Georg Büchner’s acclaimed 1835 play – so politically explosive it couldn’t be staged until 1902.
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This is Howard Brenton’s heavily cut-down version of the play, with the focus on Danton and Robespierre (Elliot Levey), mostly their personal interactions and interactions with their respective factions, but with a strong dose too of Danton’s personal (libertine) life.
What disappears, unfortunately, is the politics. We end up wiith a French Revolution that’s mostly about the personal power struggle between two men, and a couple of wives (Kirsty Bushell is powerful as Danton’s Julie in a frustratingly 19th-century role) who’ll be so attached to their husbands that they’ll respectively go mad and commit suicide at their deaths.
This is a revolution as a romantic personal tragedy, which really has to be described as a misused revolution.
And it’s a tragedy of two men who are neither attractive characters – Robespierre emerges as the purest of blacks (such that today’s Sunday matinee audience booed the actor at the curtain call) and Danton – certainly historically inappropriately- as pure white.
I’m also less than convinced by an ending that simply goes: four main characters guillotined, the end. The staging is highly, gorily literal, but the audience was clearly waiting for some final exposition, so less (literally) messy ending, but it fails to arrive.
The production continue until October 14: online booking.
Other views: Guardian, Telegraph, Independent.
Theatre Review: Don Juan in Love at The Scoop (free)
by Natalie Bennett
Outdoor theatre is tough, particularly in central London. You’ve got helicopters, birds, passing drunks – a lot of distractions.
Free outdoor theatre, where the audience can wander in and out at will, is doubly tough. You’ve got to not just get people, but hold them.
That’s something that the opening night production of Don Juan in Love at The Scoop (the sunken ampitheatre beside City Hall) managed pretty well. A few people left, but most of those who were there at the start were still there 90 minutes later, if rather chilled by an unseasonal August evening.
The company chose the play well – plenty of sexual innuendo (played with physical glee), lots of violence, and non-stop drama in the oft-told story of the great lothario, here drawn from the 1839 dramatisation by Spanish romantic Jose Zorrilla.
If you’re looking for subtle psychological exploration of machismo, then you won’t find it here. But if you can enjoy a lively tale, well-staged (the final death scene – a coffin lid covered in blazing candles and skulls, used by the furies to force Don Juan down into hell – is particularly notable), and well-acted. (Although perhaps it is time to declare a moratorium on on-stage sword fights – they’re really never convincing.)
Presented by the Steam Industry Free Theatre, the show runs until September 5 at 8pm at The Scoop. Practical notes: limit of 1,000 seats. May be cancelled in case of rain.
From the editor, Natalie Bennett: I've lived in London for seven years, and I still love every minute of it. With the theatres, the museums and galleries, the streets dripping with history, there's so much here that many visitors miss. On this site I and a few friends share our enthusiasms, and provide tips of getting the most out of visiting, or living, here. 