Reopening The Curtain

After a full semester of trampling across the English countryside to go to London, navigating the tubes to get to a different theatre from the night before (always 7 o’clock for the 7:30 performance, excepting matinees), some good some bad, last night was our final onstage show. The schedule for English 3713: British Drama in Performance will never again be so fresh as it is right this moment. Consider this a retrospective look back at Fall 2011.

September 14, The Criterion Theatre – The 39 Steps

A hilarious, four-person whodunit based on Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 [more serious] film. What a completely ridiculous and awesome start to our program.

September 15, The Royal Shakespeare Theatre (Stratford-upon-Avon) – The Homecoming and A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Whimsical fairies and disgruntled families; Pinter and Shakespeare couldn’t be less alike, and their plays got some very different reviews.

September 20, The Royal Court Theatre – The Faith Machine

A new play that tackled love, philanthropy, religion, and politics. Great when it asked big questions, but faltered when it tried to answer them. Also featured Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid) before turning to the Dark Side.

 

September 21, The Victoria Hall Theatre (Old Harlow) – Outside Edge

A small community play about a cricket team, and their dysfunctional lives off of the field. No groundbreaking drama or stellar performances, but an endearing change of scenery from the West End.

September 22, Canal Café Theatre – NewsRevue

A sweaty little club with some stripped-down, energetic, fast-paced comedy sketches. The world’s longest running live comedy show still felt like a well-kept secret – and that made it all the better.

September 26, The National Theatre – Grief

In Mike Leigh’s new play, not a lot happened, except the slow deterioration of a family, leading to a tragic ending. One of my favourites – still more than a bit chilling.

September 28, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre – Doctor Faustus

Christopher Marlowe’s classic play about a bored academic who sells his soul to the devil to have a hell of a time for a few years. Staged in the newly-restored, outdoor Globe Theatre, the show was true to the source, utilizing spectacle and enough self-awareness to have a lot of fun while addressing heavy things. Standing front row was easily one of the best theatre experiences this year.

September 29, Oxford Playhouse (Oxford) – The Wild Bride

Another story of selling your soul to the devil, except that the Kneehigh Theatre troupe delved more into the absurd, melding blues music and Tim Burton storytelling techniques to make a weirdly wonderful piece.

October 4, The National Theatre – Mike Leigh in Conversation and The Veil

The director took part in an interview that tried to be intimate in an auditorium of a few hundred people, not exactly hitting on any profound revelations but speaking a little bit on Grief. The Irish ghost story that followed, just down the hallway at the Lyttelton Theatre was even more lifeless . . . and not in the good way that ghost stories should be.

October 7, Trafalgar Studios – Top Girls

Caryl Churchill’s 1982 work featured three very different acts, revolving around the roles, responsibilities, and professional life of a career woman in an era of Margaret Thatcher. 

 October 6, Theatre Royal Haymarket – The Tempest

Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) took on the lead role of Prospero in Shakespeare’s surreal final play. The show was engaging enough for me, the spectacle of the fairies impressive enough, but the comedy felt stiff throughout.

October 11, The Bush Theatre – Sixty-Six Books

Half a dozen vignette performances – from a monologue to a full-band performance – focussing on the Biblical books Esther through to Isaiah, part of a full series tackling the whole thing, on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the New King James Bible.

October 11, Ambassadors Theatre – Showstopper! The Improvised Musical

An improvised musical – “Sewercide” – like a very, very extended skit on Whose Line is it Anyway? Lots of fun, especially since one of the dudes in the show, Sean McCann, had been teaching our Satire class how to improvise. 

October 12, Southwark Playhouse – Bound

A real fringe show with no props other than a table and a hanging lightbulb, staged in a cozy cave. Pulling the audience into the lives of half a dozen Devon fishermen, it struck a powerful chord with all the Newfoundlanders in the audience. Incredible – Mary Walsh is trying to get the b’ys to take their show to the LSPU Hall, and she just might be the one to get that done.

October 13, Cambridge Arts Theatre (Cambridge) – The Madness of George III

18th century historical political comedy with a headcold (not metaphorically – I was sick). Not much more to say.

October 15, The O2 Arena – Katy Perry in Concert

Ok, not exactly part of the course syllabus, but definitely a show that indulged in theatrics and gave me a hummingbird heartbeat, even if my stuffy nose made me miss the Candy Cane smell-o-vision.

October 18, Greenwich Theatre – The Pit and the Pendulum

I really enjoy Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, because he deals with suspense expertly. Hearing the story backwards, told by two semi-competent actors, with a stupid twist thrown in (“Meeeeee, Sair? Well I don’t . . . Maaaaaaaybe I do!”) doesn’t have the same effect. Nice try.

October 19, Finborough Theatre – Mixed Marriage

What happens when a Catholic and a Protestant try to get married in early 20th-century Ireland? That’s not a joke, especially when the staunchly Protestant father of the lad is heavily involved in a factory strike, but rather the setup for something altogether brutal and compelling, especially considering the theatre only seats some 50 people, and we were sitting in the Rainey family’s kitchen.

October 20, The Rose Theatre – The Importance of Being Earnest

Sitting right up in the pit didn’t distract me too much from Oscar Wilde’s absurdly satirical romantic comedy. Lots of tomfoolery from start to finish – and a good transition to midterm break.  

 November 1, Cambridge Theatre – Matilda the Musical

Based on Roald Dahl’s classic story, this new, innovative musical was a fun night out, pulling some cool tricks along the way. Plus, the cast of primarily children put off a real professional, West End show.

November 2, Apollo Theatre – Jerusalem

Mark Rylance stars in Jez Butterworth’s 2009 play, a show that has been hailed as an instant modern classic. More than a few people told us that we’d be telling our grandchildren that we got to see Mark Rylance as Rooster Byron in the show’s original run, and they may be right – the show had a fantastic blend of humour, epic grandeur, English mythology, and tragedy.

November 3, Duchess Theatre – The Pitmen Painters

The true story of the Ashington Group, a bunch of miners-turned-painters in the 1930s, felt more like a lecture on art appreciation than a piece of theatre. Human interactions were sacrificed in favour of philosophical discussions on the value of art – which would actually be ok, if the show had said something I’d never heard before.

November 5, Apollo Victoria Theatre – Wicked

The untold story of the Wicked Witch of the West from L. Frank Baum’s world of Oz is fun, sublime, tragic, and cathartic. Another step away from the course curriculum, but one of the most incredible, gorgeous, grandiose things I’ve ever seen on stage, defying gravity from start to finish.

November 7, Trafalgar Studios – 3 Days in May

A historical drama literally about 3 days in May during the Second World War when Winston Churchill and his War Cabinet considered bending the knee to Mussolini. Gripping story, lacklustre storytelling.

November 8, Theatre Royal Haymarket – The Lion in Winter

Another historical drama, except this one actually had heart. The play is nearly 50 years old, set in the 12th-century court of Henry II during Christmas, when he and his estranged wife are attempting to have a civilized holiday with their children, all of whom aspire to the throne after the king kicks the bucket.

November 9, Fortune Theatre – The Woman in Black

Daniel Radcliffe is starring in a new film adaptation of The Woman in Black, but nothing can be better or more terrifying than seeing her appear on an intimate West End stage. I’m still careful looking over my shoulder on dark nights – just in case.

November 14, The National Theatre – Juno and the Paycock

An Irish drama about . . . you know what? I couldn’t really understand half of what they were saying, and I cared even less about what I did hear. I saw enough good performances this fall to not feel guilty about this one. I’d rather watch the Pitmen Painters tell me the story of The Veil than sit through this one again.

November 16, Gielgud Theatre – Yes, Prime Minister

A comedy set in the PM’s office chambers, while he discusses foreign deals and the BBC. Not exactly the setup for anything particularly spectacular, except that it was so ridiculous, and the actors’ timing so perfect, it didn’t falter or get stale like some other political works this semester.

November 21, The New London Theatre – War Horse

A really weak story about a boy who enlists in the English army during WWI to find his horse, Joey, who’s been volunteered to the cavalry. Turns out the show was freakin’ spectacular all the same, because the horses (and the goose) were acted out with complicated, artistic puppetry.

November 22, The National Theatre – The Comedy of Errors

Mayhem ensues when two sets of twins, separated at birth, get loose in the city and mistaken for each other around every turn. I’ve seen a hundred movies and tv shows that use this trope, but seeing the Bard’s own work in a contemporary sphere made for a whole new experience.

*          *          *

By my count, that’s 30 shows, not including the few that I saw outside of the program. Who gets to spend 12 weeks in London, doing that? It was a tiring few months, with more than a few days where we actually shuddered to think that we had to go see another show, but looking back over the whole list, I have a lot of fantastic memories, and can hang on to highlights from every single performance (even if it’s just the ending of Juno which, believe me, was the highlight).

A good play should make you think, should make you feel, should give you an experience you wouldn’t have had otherwise. I just spent a full three months having those experiences, 30 different times.

What a lucky, undeserving bastard I am.

Cheers,

rb