by Sarah Cope

Tennessee Williams spent more than ten years working and re-working The Two-Character Play, and he described it as his “most beautiful play since ‘Streetcar’”. Despite this, however, it is one of his less well-known plays and has rarely been performed.

The two characters in question are Clare (Catherine Cusack) and Felice (Paul McEwan), sibling actors who have been abandoned by their company and are staging a play for an audience who may or may not be there. Trapped in a theatre with an incomplete set, they embark on performing a play which is either based on or has strong similarities to their own traumatic lives. Acting seems to provide both an escape from reality but also a chance to confront emotionally difficult issues.

Clare first appears on stage bedecked in a tiara, which of course brings to mind Williams’ most memorable heroine, Blanche du Bois, brought to life so unforgettably by Vivien Leigh in the 1951 film of A Streetcar Named Desire. Clare is in many ways an archetypal Williams heroine: neurotic but witty, needy but resilient.

The power-struggle between the siblings at first manifests itself in their struggle over the content of the play they will perform. Whilst Felice ordinarily has control over this, Clare insists that “it’s going to be total collaboration on this occasion”.

All the classic Tennessee Williams themes are here: troubled families, loss, pain, fear, mental illness, and a traumatic past event that the characters skirt around but never quite address.

It doesn’t sound like the lightest of evenings, and perhaps it isn’t, but the unexpected wit, the superb performances (that of Catherine Cusack is particularly of note) and the rare chance to see a forgotten Williams play mean it is to be recommended.

The Two-Character Play is at the Jermyn Street Theatre until 20th November.

by Sarah Cope

A tap-dancing rector with a tooth fetish and an obsession with prostitutes is perhaps an odd choice of subject matter for a sing-a-long play, but that’ s what the award-winning company Penny Dreadful are currently touring with. The play’ s title alone is enough to make one groan, and the production itself is full of jokes and puns which provoke a similar reaction.

The play is based on the true story of the Rector of Stiffkey, a man who trawled the streets of Soho for prostitutes who he could ‘ help’ . The assistance offered to them by ‘ the prostitutes’ padre’ , however, did not come without certain conditions. This resulted in him being accused of rape and ex-communicated, ending his life working in a freak show, and eventually being mauled to death by a lion. “ We’ ve added nothing,” we were told “apart from the three-part harmonies.”

In the grand tradition of Victorian vaudeville, the play sent up the upper class, though no one escaped ridicule – the depiction of a mean-spirited landlady was particularly funny, taking many a cue, I thought, from Julie Walters’ ‘ Mrs Overall’ in Victoria Woods’ Acorn Antiques. It also dealt with issues such as rape and syphilis with
many a one-liner and intentionally inappropriate ditty.

The play was full of physical comedy, which, much of the time, worked better than the verbal gags. The five-part cast (some of whom took on several roles) were incredibly lithe and acrobatic. Indeed, the bodies of the women cast members were more like those of dancers than actors, which is little surprise given that this is such a
physical, energetic show, lasting just short of two hours with no interval.

“The English are sick,” commented by Canadian companion when the play ended, songs about limbs falling off and blow jobs not being quite her thing. The point, though, of vaudeville is not only to amuse, but also to shock. It’ s a genre that disappeared for some time, but there’ s no doubt, with companies such as Penny Dreadful, it is alive again. Not always comfortable viewing, but that is kind of the point.

Seen at Jackson’ s Lane Theatre, Highgate – touring in Norwich, Chelmsford, Trowbridge: details.

Article first published on Blogcritics

by Natalie Bennett

There are several things that make Hamlet an enormously difficult play for any company to tackle. One is the fact that while psychologically on the page this is, many would argue, Shakespeare’s finest work, it’s tough to transfer its confused, strong emotions on to the stage.

Another is the familiarity of so many of the lines. What DO you do with “Alas poor Yorrick”? It’s been taken far past cliche.

And the sheer implausibility of the plot, particularly the denoument, can very quickly dissolve into slapstick horror.

The Recognition Theatre company, presenting a production oddly set in the 1930s (a jazz soundtrack serves only as distraction, not amplification), hasn’t really got on top of the problems. Which isn’t to say this a show without its merits – the mostly young cast do a decent, if somewhat declamatory job with the language, which rings out clearly, both the familiar and less-known.

Perhaps the best performance here is Helen Clapp’s Ophelia; she’s powerful without dissolving into hysteria, and Leanne Rivers manages an interesting cross-dressing Horatio. David Eadie as Hamlet and Adam Smethurst as Claudius were uneven – both growing in confidence as press night went on, but still not quite getting there.

Tanith Lindon’s staging is effective – the action not marred by too much faffing around with the furniture, as have a few shows I’ve seen lately, and the recurring imagery of funeral shrouds notably effective.

There’s much to recommend more generally about productions like this – much, much better than 50 people sitting in their living rooms watching television to have them gathered in a communal, social, active atmosphere – and seeing the Bard’s words live in slightly rough and ready form, much like they were once originally performed.
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by Natalie Bennett

Press night for a new production of Love on the Dole, Ronald Gow’s adaptation of the Thirties literary classic came with appropriate news symbolism – a story hugely popular among the poor and dispossessed of the Depression revived on the day signs of a looming global repeat became harder to ignore.

But it quickly became clear that this is a play, and a production, with much more than timeliness going for it. It’s a gripping, human drama, and most of the melodrama comes from the all too genuine drama of the desperate poverty of 1930s Salford: “Every week sees another hundred out of work.” (And if the portly pseudo-capitalist – in fact just a low-rate bookmaker sucking the blood of the poorest of the poor – is a caricature, he’s an enjoyably horrible but appropriate one.)

Although this is an apparently male-dominated society, it’s the women who hold it together, and so it’s just that the character at the centre of the story is Sally Hardcastle (Emily Dobbs), the young and beautiful working class lass who’s in love with Larry Meath (Carl Prekopp), the dirt-poor but passionate, self-educated political agitator. Hanging around, however, is the obnoxious bookmaker Sam Grundy, who fancies having her as his “housekeeper”.

You couldn’t say there’s suspense; that this is a story never destined to end well is written on the rusting grate and tattered tablecloth of the ultra-realist set. But you’re very quickly rooting for these characters, particularly Sally (spectacularly well played by Dobbs).

It isn’t, however, all misery – you’re also laughing at, and sometimes with, the weary, gin-fueled lines of the three crone chorus – fortuneteller Mrs Jike (Colette Kelly), clinging-to-respectability soak Mrs Dorbell (Liz Bagley), and resigned, good-hearted realist Mrs Bill (Janie Booth). Often on the fringe you’ll find young actors trying to play characters much their elder, but these three experienced actors deliver a quality and comic timing seldom found in the inexperienced, and almost steal the show.
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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.

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.