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Marble Cake (Susan Elkin reviews)

Marble Cake

Olivia Penhallow & Nathaniel Allen

Bridge House Theatre

Star rating 3

Co-written by the two actors who perform it, this ambitious play explores mixed race heritage, identity, male mental health and abandonment: quite a lot for a 65 minute piece

Keisha (Olivia Penhallow) had come “home” from Birmingham where she has a successful career, to visit her brother and mother in South East London. The family was abandoned by their Nigerian father when Kumi (Nathaniel Allen) was ten and their Irish mother is now ill. Gradually we learn that Keisha doesn’t often visit and there is misunderstanding and tension interspersed with sibling bonding including a rather nice dance sequence.

The play asks a lot of questions, some of which I struggle with because I’m a white woman and it’s outside my experience. Does a “white passing” person like Kumi really struggle because some regard him as not black enough and others as not white enough? Does someone like Keisha really yearn to visit her father’s village in Nigeria to find her heritage and feel resentful that no one taught her how to cook Nigerian food or to manage her hair? I’m left thinking of Scout’s observation in To Kill A Mockingbird that “Folks are just folks”, which has become my motto in life, but sadly it doesn’t hold for everyone and this play is a salutary reminder of that.

Issues of isolation and underachievement are explored too. Kumi is clearly bright but he works as a Tesco delivery driver, obviously isn’t going to finish his novel and is drinking. He’s also been in denial for months about his mother’s illness. At one point he observes that everyone in his life has deserted him: his father, his sister, his girl friend and now his mother is dying. Of course the play can offer no solutions or answers. It simply presents the issues – in a sensitive and thoughtful way.

Penhallow and Allen work deftly together. They are both strong naturalistic actors and we believe in their characters. The writing is decent too although as Penhallow tells the audience at the end, this is a play in development so it will, one hopes, continue to evolve.

Frozen

Bryony Lavery

Directed by James Haddrell

Greenwich Theatre

Star rating: 4

It is, of course, a harrowing play. The death of a child is the worst thing which can happen to any parent. The abduction, rape and murder of a child is ten times worse.

Lavery’s 1998 play is set in “the present” so that’s where we are. Nancy (Kerrie Taylor) is still struggling to come to terms with the murder of her daughter Rhona, twenty years ago. The other two sides of this triangular play give us Ralph, the murderer (James Bradshaw) and Agnetha (Indra Ové) who is an American medical academic researching the mechanics of serial killer brains.

It begins with a series of monolgues, before gradually becoming interactive, and I have rarely seen a set (Alex Milledge) more skilfully calculated to support the action. The circular revolve incorporates a diametric gauzy screen. Nancy and her world is on one side and Ralph and his on the other. Each time it swings it is almost literally like seeing the other side of a coin as, vaguely, we can still see the other person moving around behind the screen. Most of Ové’s scenes are played off the revolve, looking in from the outside, as it were.

Flashbacks  take us to various points since ten-year old Rhona’s disappearance – poignantly she has been sent to return a pair of garden shears to her grandmother a few streets away. Taylor who says this is “the longest hardest journey I’ll ever go on with a character” initially nails Nancy’s bright irrational hope. If you don’t know where she is then the child must still be alive and a parent is Nancy’s position can maintain that for decades – it isn’t hard to think of real life comparisons.  Then Ralph. despite his chillingly meticulous planning, is eventually caught and the truth comes out. We see Nancy active in an organisation for parents of murdered children, weeping silently in Rhona’s bedroom and ultimately in an extraordinary confrontation. It’s a fine performance – tragic, truthful and almost unbearably painful.

Bradshaw conveys Ralph’s mindset beautifully too. He never smiles as he rationalises his actions as casually but intensely as if were a humourless type planning a supermarket trip. And it’s especially disturbing because he shows no remorse or anything approaching a “normal” feeling or a shred of empathy. Is there a slight change of attitude at the end? That’s left to the audience to decide.

Ové’s character, meanwhile is delivering lectures and posing some very difficult but pertinent questions, based on her encounters with Ralph and others like him. “If a person’s brain is physically built differently from the norm then how much responsibility can be assigned to him or her for his actions?  Is a murder like Rhona’s a crime of evil or illness? Is the murder itself a sin or a symptom?” There are, of course, no definitive answers.

Ové is a convincing actor and a strong  dramatic contrast to both the others but I think the play’s attempt to give her a completely disparate back story of her own fails. It feels like a sideshow. And it’s a puzzling start to the play to show Agnetha standing in the auditorium (standing in for an airport) in distress. It’s just a distraction although you can’t fault the quality of Ové’s acting.

This is an intensely serious, deeply disturbing play – impeccably directed by James Haddrell. Expect to leave in sober, very thoughtful mood.

 

Philharmonia

Masaaki Suzuki, Jean-Guihen Queyras

Royal Festival Hall

28 April 2024

It’s interesting to see what a man, widely associated with and famous for, Bach and original instruments, does with a full-size symphony orchestra, modern instuments and nineteenth century repertoire. Well the answer is that without baton or histrionice, Masaaki Suzuki simply allows the music to work the magic. His Egmont Overture was packed with more incisive drama (all those heavy down bows and the percussive horn) than I’ve heard in this work for a very long time.

Forces were slightly reduced for Schumann’s cello concert. Jean-Guihen Queyras brought an attractive blend of warmth and seriousness to the opening movement with a sensitive accompaniment from the orchestra. It must feel odd, incidentally, to play a cello concerto with the cello section fanned out only inches behind you: Suzuki  had them placed them in front of the podium with second violins on his right.  The double stopping passage in the slow movement was played with delicate sensitivity and Queyras found plenty of colour and verve in the finale. These two men have never, apparently, worked together before – and this is Suzuki’s first time with the Philharmonia – but there was a palpable sense of musical rapport in this performance.

The concerto went down very well with the audience so of course there was an encore: a short folk song followed by the prelude from the Second Suite by JS Bach. Queyras – who has lots of French charm – told the audience that he’d just completed a good tour of Spain with the Philharmonia, and then played his encore with clean passion.

And so in this gloriously cosmopolitan concert we moved on, after the interval, to a work by a Czech composer conducted by a Japanese in an English concert hall played by an orchestra led by a German/Hungarian (Zsolt-Tihamer Visontay – always excellent).

Suzuki gave us lots of Bohemian brightness and balance in the opening movement of Dvorak 6 with every wind part (even the tuba) biting through the texture. Yes, he’s conjuring or damping down sound with hand gestures but he’s also (mostly) beating time which I’ve always regarded as a conductor’s main job but which seems to have gone out of fashion. It explains, I think, why almost every bar of music in this concert was so crisply together. The second movement delivered well controlled lyricism with exceptionally pleasing horn work. The folksy (it’s based on a Bohemian furiant or peasant dance) third movement was slightly ragged at the segue into the trio  but the magical piccolo sound more than compensated. And we got  an exuberantly triumphant finale to round off the evening.  I went home happily reflecting that, despite the familiarity of this symphony. Suzuki had made me notice entries and lines which aren’t usually audible.

The Other Boleyn Girl

Adapted from Philippa Gregory’s novel by Mike Poulton

Directed by Lucy Bailey

Chichester Festival Theatre

Star rating: 4

Given the compelling originality of Philippa Gregory’s 2001 novel, Mike Poulton’s track record as a playwright and Lucy Bailey’s directorial talent, I had high expectation of this show. And I wasn’t disappointed. It’s sumptuous.

The Howard/Boleyn faction is a cess pit of ruthless, self-interested schemers. So they’re delighted that they’ve managed to manoeuvre the somewhat reluctant Mary Boleyn into King Henry’s bed. When that palls, Anne manages to hook him, famously denying him sex until her position is secure. Except that, as we all know, it’s not. Failure to produce the longed-for male heir eventually leads to the most famous execution in history. The whole point of this play, and the novel it’s based on, is to heighten awareness of Mary’s having been there first and getting, against the odds, a much happier ending than her sister.

Chris Davey’s dark lighting against Joanna Parker’s set with with its shadowy upper tier on the back wall supports the atmosphere of skulduggery and fear and Parker’s in-period costumes are beautiful. Video projection (Dick Straker) doesn’t add much, however, and is – if anything – a distraction. Why do we suddenly see a huge hound?

Orland Gough’s music, performed by Chris Green on lute and Sarah Harrison on violin is very appealing, It is rooted in the 16th century but includes a lot of quirky modern spin. It’s especially effective when it’s accompanying court dancing including a lovely moment when Harrison plays a take on Sellinger’s Round and the cast dance around her. There’s also some commendably accurate choral singing  which underpins the sense of church music in the 1530s.

The piece, in all its power, is performed by a generally strong cast of eighteen with especially noteworthy work from Lucy Phelps as Mary, troubled, determined, put-upon and wanting nothing more than to be allowed to retire to Kent with her children. Kemi-Jo Jacobs finds statuesque dignity in Queen Katherine and sordid realism in the midwife who attends Anne’s abortive pregnancies,

Andrew Woodall’s irascible, controlling Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk,  commands the stage and is often funny because by 2024 standards his attitude is laughably outrageous. Alex Kingston does something similar as his sister, mother to Mary, Anne and George and apparently without any maternal feelings at all. For her it’s entirely about power and control.

One of the most interesting things about this take on events in the 1520s and 30s is that we are firmly with Anne and Mary. It’s a feminist angle. The period’s famous men – Henry VIII, Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Cromwell, for example – are very minor,

The Other Boleyn Girl is the opening show in the first season programmed by CFT’s new Artistic Director, Justin Audibert. It augurs well.

Photograph by Stepen Cummiskey

Three Queens

Rosamund Gavelle

Directed by Sharon Willems

Barons Court Theatre

 

Star rating: 3

 

It’s an oddly, but rather refreshingly, old fashioned play: no gimmicks or “edginess”. Just six actors in a small space performing to a sparse audience. We’re in the 1550s during a single night with the “ten day queen”, Lady Jane Grey who briefly succeeded Edward VI, due to be executed in the morning. Rosamund Gavelle’s 60 minute play explores the political power struggle, all rooted in religion in the mid 16th century, between Mary Tudor, now Queen and her half-sister Elizabeth who will follow her to the throne finally returning the country permanently to Protestantism.

It’s darkly lit (by Leo Bacica) to connote candlelight and when the action moves into a Catholic chapel, actors carry in trays of tealights and sing (not particularly well) which evokes the right sort of atmosphere. There’s a sound track which suggests a stormy night but it’s samey and gets monotonous especially when there’s noise from the bar upstairs and you can’t always tell which is which.

The acting is generally quite pleasing. Becky Black gives us a Mary desperately trying to assert her authority but inwardly troubled and already feeling her age. She is 38 but contemplating a dynastic marriage to Philip of Spain. Black finds a lot of depth and range in a complex role. Eliza Shea as Elizabeth is a good dramatic contrast in a light coloured dress, calm, rational, kind, perceptive, pragmatic and wary. Martha Crow’s Jane is terrified but resolute in what is effectively martyrdom. She will not convert to Catholicism to ease Mary’s predicament and she won’t adhere to Elizabeth’s suggestion that she should pretend.

In the supporting roles Les Kenny-Green makes Cardinal Pole a surprisingly kind, avuncular figure and Sushant Shekhar is charismatic as the flirtatious but scheming Dudley. Sally Sharp gives Kat Ashley, Elizabeth’s beloved companion, a maternal warmth which feels very truthful.

In short, this production is a worthwhile, quite decent effort to tell the story of a bit of Tudor history which is not particularly well known.

One caveat, though, which has nothing to do with Three Queens: Barons Court theatre is in what was probably once the pub’s cellars. And it stinks of bad drains so visiting it is never a particularly pleasant experience. Surely something could be done to rectify this?

 

The Fan

Carlo Goldoni, adapted by G Ritter and Helen Zimmern

Directed by Flavi Di Saverio

Tower Theatre, Stoke Newington

Star rating: 4

It is the job of a critic to assess the worth of a production as a show of its type. Obviously, you don’t try to compare Polka Theatre’s Ten in a Bed with Max Webster’s Macbeth or the panto at Worthing with Hamilton although they may end up with the same star rating.

Well, I can’t think of many community companies who would be brave enough to take on eighteenth century Commedia, in a sometimes creaky translation, and run with it as cheerfully as Tower Theatre does with The Fan. It is, literally, incomparable.

Apart from Richard Bean’s famous One Man, Two Guvnors which reworked The Servant of Two Masters for the National Theatre and a memorable RSC production of The Venetian Twins in 1993,  Goldoni hasn’t crossed my radar much anyway. So this production at Tower Theatre seems freshly novel and it has an unusual charm which stems, I think, from an Italian-Argentinian director working with a gloriously diverse cast of fourteen whose backgrounds range across several continents.

The titular fan is a symbol of love and intrigue which passes through several hands, gets lost, hidden and argued about in a comedy about marriage that asks lots of questions about who should be with whom. Giannina (Teo Mechetuic) should definitely be with cobbler Crespino (Iacopo Farsusi) because – a bit like Susanna and Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro – they really love each other unlike the rest of the crowd, most of whom are  jockeying for prestige and money.

This is Commedia so it’s gorgeously stylised. As the audience finds seats at the start, the entire cast is on stage (prettily lit, brick floor) frozen in a tableau engaged in an activity such as spinning, drinking coffee or sweeping. It looks like a Dutch, or maybe Italian, courtyard painting and is very effective – especially when the action starts and they set up a rhythm with their teaspoons, broom, hammer and so forth and suddenly, it’s like Stomp. It’s so interesting the way these theatrical traditions richochet, or can be made to, from one genre to another. The second half starts well too with a traditional masked dance by five actors retelling the main story. The use of Vivaldi (he was a generation ahead of Goldoni) in quick dramatic bursts alongside other music is inspired too.

Some roles are mostly naturalistic – Mechetuic and Farusi – for example, both talented actors, convince us of the genuineness of their love by communicating (mostly) without exaggerated gesture. Michael Neckham (who hails from Russia, where he did initial actor training, and is also known as Mikhail Ushakov) is, on the other hand, outstanding as Signor Evaristo who minces, tiptoes, gestures in the falsest possible way. It’s a richly commanding performance and very entertaining.

In a generally strong cast there are is also noteworthy work from Sangita Modgil as the aunt of an eligible young woman and from Stephanie Irvine who has huge fun in a character role as fragrant Giannina’s coarse brother. Several of the male parts in this production are, incidentally, played by women and of course that works perfectly.

All in all then, this show is an imaginatively original take on a tradition not likely to be very familiar to modern audiences – and it makes a quirkily jolly evening’s theatre.

 

 

Astrid is an elderly actress who hasn’t worked for decades but has played the National and the RSC in big roles. Today she lives, with a woman she usually calls Mrs Baker and three dogs, in a draughty cottage attached to a delapidated Sussex windmill. There is no money for anything much and certainly none to rectify the windmill’s disrepair. Somehow they struggle on from day to day. The evocatively sensuous writing means that you can hear the creak of the timbers, smell the dogs, see the smoke billowing out of the elderly car which can’t be trusted to go more than short distances and taste the simple food and drink which practical Mrs Baker practically conjures from scant resources. There’s eccentricity too – how about a stuffed stoat they call Tony Blair?

Now, having recently been visited by a pleasant young writer named Nina, Astrid – who hasn’t travelled for a very long time – decides, against Mrs Baker’s wishes and sensible advice, to travel to Scotland to confront her ex-husband. He’s a world famous actor now dying of cancer and we quickly realise that forty five years ago he treated Astrid very badly and wrecked her career. The details of what happened – a truly appalling incident – are skilfully and tantalisingly drip-fed before we finally learn the details.

But this novel is like a three strand plait because there are two other main narratives. First, who is Mrs Baker and what has happened to her in the past? She too has suffered at the hands of a man whose name is casually mentioned many times and an unmentionable “appalling incident” carefully put in a corner of Astrid’s brain where it can be ignored. The novel is written in the third person but the narrative point of view is mainly Astrid’s. She and Mrs Baker live in a sort of intimate, bickering, very fond and caring sorority but they are not, contrary to the opinion of villagers, a sexual couple. So how did she and Astrid become a household?

The third strand in the plait is the history of the windmill which has a personality all of its own. It was bought after the first war by a woman in defiance of her husband who has gone to America on business and prefers – ahem – male company. Astrid, who thought of writing a book but lacks the tenacity, has their letters and they form part of the narrative. Astrid, of course, identifies with Constance.

Thus there are a lot of flashbacks in this intriguing, compelling novel but Atkins handles them with immaculate clarity. It’s moving, original, full of strongly drawn characters and well worth spending a few hours with.

Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: We all want impossible things by Catherine Newman  

Why I Stuck A Flare Up My Arse For England

Written and performed by Alex Hill

Directed by Sean Turner

Southwark Playhouse, Borough

 Star rating: 4

First, an admission. I am not remotely interested in football or its culture. I loathe crowds and shouting. My spirits drooped when I saw how full (free drinks for invited guests) the Southwark Playhouse bar was when I arrived at Press Night – some people wearing football shirts. By the time I got into the auditorium where the audience chanted as if in a football crowd I was beginning to wonder if I could slip out and go home to listen to some Beethoven with my cat.

Which all goes to show how very wrong one can be. Once Alex Hill’s beautifully written, very funny, one-man play gets going, it’s riveting. And of course it isn’t really about football at all. That’s merely the setting for an exploration of friendship, the alluring danger of toxic masculinity and how one young man, perforce, has to do a lot of growing up.

Billy (Alex Hill) loves playing football with his friend Adam from whom he is inseparable. They go to matches and as they get older, pass through school and meet for chats in a café where Billy meets a young woman who becomes his girlfriend. Then it’s the pub and an older man known as Wine Gum, whose real name turns out to be something much more prosaic, Mass outings to matches, huge quantities of alcohol, drugs and violence, instigated by Wine Gum, gradually drive a rift between Billy and Adam.

Hill, who graduated from Arts Ed only two years ago, is an astonishingly skilled physical actor – tiptoeing round the pool table in the pub, leaping up and down in excitement at matches and at one point picking his way through the audience to a seat because he’s at the theatre with his girlfriend. So creative, and fiercely energetic is he that it’s hard to recall afterwards that we didn’t actually see Adam, Billy’s dad, Daisy and Wine Gum. He’s almost mercurial in the way he switches moods, roles and voices  I once saw Stephen Berkoff live in a one-hander and that is what Alex Hill’s performance reminds me of.

The narrative is a journey which starts and then works back to  the Wembley 2020 Euro Final. (I had to Google it, of course, to find out what actually happened: England beat Germany in the semi-final before losing to Italy in the final which triggered a lot of violence). Billy – high on drugs, booze, adrenaline – does literally do the stupid, attention-seeking thing the play’s title refers to. But at the very end there’s quiet circumspection and it’s searingly moving –  supported by Matt Cater’s rather good lighting design.

Hill looks strained and exhausted – sweat and tears, if not blood – when he takes his well deserved applause. Given the intensity of this show, I suspect it takes him a while to climb out of role.