Review: "1984" by Matthew Dunster

Originally published by London Theatre Reviews, November 10th 2019:
http://www.londontheatrereviews.co.uk/post.cfm?p=1970

The cast of 1984. Credit: Rishi Rai

Seemingly ever-more relevant in our age of ubiquitous tech and social media surveillance, the Questors Theatre celebrates its 90th anniversary with a new production of Matthew Dunster’s stage adaptation of Orwell’s classic tale of Big Brother dystopia.

In a future with a boot stamping on a human face forever, rebel Winston Smith fights back against the system even as he works in a government office responsible for erasing and rewriting the history of the Revolution and The War, with devastating consequences for him and the non-conforming woman he loves.

Director Roger Beaumont’s production is a technically spectacular achievement, with the lavish, beautifully detailed set making ingenious use of multiple video screens, sound systems and film to immerse the audience in an unusually participative, cinematic theatre experience. Lighting and sound renders the unfolding scenes in visually striking, artful ways, and the entire show’s Production Team deserves high praise for pulling off such outstanding, complex technical work which is by far the biggest highlight of the show.

Julian Smith and Clare Purdy as Winston and Julia. Credit: Rishi Rai

Regrettably for this production, however, it seems that perhaps too much effort went into executing the technical side without a hitch, and that the actors’ need for rehearsals went neglected. With few exceptions, the majority of the cast seem to still be in the early phases of book work, doing little more than reciting their lines, albeit with great enthusiasm, but which nevertheless betrays a lack of thorough character work, leaving them feeling as though they are actors playing characters, not yet believably the characters themselves. The effect leaves Winston and Julia in particular feeling robotic, flying in the face of perhaps the entire point of the work, that the pair stand out as recognisably emotive and human against the brain-addled masses they rebel against. Later scenes that should inspire disturbed horror and revulsion are left far less impactful for it.

That less technically lavish productions have previously portrayed more believable versions all of the characters is a shame, and perhaps a warning against hyperfocus on one component over the other in future productions. Suspension of disbelief is often far more contingent on an actors’ ability to sell that belief than any lavish set’s efforts to convince an audience.

Still, there are some memorable performances to be found. David Erdos clearly enjoys chewing the scenery as an unconventionally loud O’Brien, John Turner’s Man in Pub is someone you’d like to share a half with, and the inventive staging of Simon Taylor’s Goldstein in his signature scene will, in the Questors’ particular space, surely give former students flashbacks to their stultifying lectures.

David Erdos' O'Brien with Julian Smith's Winston. Credit: Rishi Rai

"Death of a Salesman" by Arthur Miller

Performed at The Piccadilly Theatre, London's West End, November 4th 2019
Also published in London Theatre Reviews, November 6th 2019: http://www.londontheatrereviews.co.uk/post.cfm?p=1954

Newly transferred from its lauded Spring season run at the Young Vic, directors Marianne Elliot and Miranda Cromwell bring their seminal production of Arthur Miller’s classic Death of a Salesman to the Piccadilly Theatre for Autumn.

Any production of Miller’s tragic, dramatic tale of the downtrodden Willie Loman and his desperate, seemingly hopeless struggles to make a living for his poor family passionately condemns the condescending nonsense of The American Dream, and the cruelty and abuse wrought by the excesses of capitalism on ordinary people – but this extraordinary reinvention confirms the long-held suspicions of many that Willie’s is a uniquely black socio-economic struggle by casting the Lomans as a black family from the South, eking out subsistence in the hurly-burly of 1930s’ New York, in the aftermath of both the Great Depression and the 1920s’ black cultural revolution throughout the American North.

Wendell Pierce and Sharon D. Clarke as the endearing Willie and Lorna Loman. Credit: Brinkhoff/Mögenburg

Elliot and Cromwell’s production is immediately enhanced with thematic urgency and with the depth of black history, one shared with a rich literary tradition of novels and plays, and which now seems so acutely necessary to any true grasp of this play that any other, white, staging of Willie Loman’s struggles comes off as almost wilfully ignorant and sorely lacking by comparison. Every aspect of Arthur Miller’s text is powerfully reinvented and reinvigorated, remade into a stirring clarion call against not only economic injustice, but all forms of racial discrimination under capitalism, and is rendered spectacularly better for it.

Leading a stellar cast with an outstanding performance is Wendell Pierce as Willie Loman. His new incarnation of Miller’s tragic hero masterfully embodies a unique shared history of distinctly black economic and social relations, brilliantly capturing a wonderfully complex interplay of forces bearing down upon him from within and without, his dogged adherence to the romantic notion of the American Dream always battling against a simultaneous harsh reality which he is endlessly driven to deny. Immediately commanding a powerful stage presence, Pierce’s Loman is by turns hugely energetic, funny, deeply complex and conflicted, and full of a palpable grief, frustration and anger ever-simmering beneath his seemingly happy exterior.

Sharon D. Clarke as wife Linda Loman beautifully performs a much-needed voice of calm and reason to Willie’s exhausting, hyperactive ambition, skilfully concealing her own pain and sorrow to play the dutiful, supportive wife – a sorrow which, when it fully emerges in the play’s most affecting scenes, is superbly realised. Together, their warm and loving relationship in their time together on stage, in bad times and good, is a heart-warming joy to behold, and full of great chemistry between the two.

Pierce's Willie Loman with his sons, Sopé Dìrísù’s Biff and Natey Jones' Happy Loman. Credit: Brinkhoff/Mögenburg

The boys of the Loman family are strong in their turns as well, with Sopé Dìrísù’s Biff commanding a great presence and energy of his own alongside Natey Jones’ compelling Happy. In them both, resonant – indeed, renascent - themes of black struggle, and the attendant political contest of the means of liberation, persist. If their father is a Booker T. Washington type, intent on servile negotiation with the system, Happy is W E B Du Bois, determined to brook no restrictions on black freedom or enterprise, with the ambitious, soulful Biff instead a latter-day Marcus Garvey, insistent upon a need to get away from the capitalistic cruelties of city life to seek independent success away from New York’s hotbed of white prejudice, and from a system that demands he succeed only on its own terms. Jones and Dìrísù both perform with a keen awareness of this intertextual historical significance, and infuse their respective characters’ noble ambitions with a resultant richness, urgency, and complexity which it is a pleasure to watch, both actors transitioning skilfully from embodying their father’s fond hopes and dreams for them, to the pains and frustrations of their imperfect real lives.

Through Charlotte Sutton’s superb casting sensibilities, the Loman men’s struggles for success are ingeniously further situated as a struggle – both to beget and to be liberated from – proximity to whiteness. Whether by Willie leveraging the dorky white Bernard’s (a meek, earnest Ian Bonar) greater access to education for his underachieving son Biff, a literalised, torrid affair with whiteness embodied in Victoria Hamilton-Barritt’s seductive Woman, Joseph Mydell’s memorably enigmatic, gregarious Uncle Ben - dressed head-to-toe in conspicuously white finery whilst promising Willie diamonds for ever more toil - or the insensitive evil wrought by Matthew Seadon-Young’s cruel white boss Howard, the supporting cast is full of standout performances, enriching the drama and providing the play’s final revelation – that this essential release from capitalism’s myriad racialized cruelties comes, tragically, to mean very different things for Willie and his family - almost unbearably powerful, shocking dramatic effect.

Particular praise must go to set designer Anna Fleischle, whose singular, beautifully complex work has created something which seems as fluid and alive as any other character on her stage. It glides gracefully from scene to scene without interruption, with Aideen Malone’s dynamic lighting moving and changing just as seamlessly, much of it poignantly evocative of grim cold, and of a desolation both spiritual and material which is implicitly shot through the play’s text, made explicit by this wonderful design. Fleischle’s efforts seek to embody Willie’s erratic, panicked thoughts as he struggles with his patriarchal duty to his family, and his experience in a world which renders him small and insignificant against its own uncaring vastness. Fleischle’s spectacular achievement does just this, whilst also seeming to capture as well the transient, unstable nature of black life itself under such deplorable economic and social conditions. Hers is a truly masterful achievement, deserving of the highest commendation.

Left: Ian Bonar's Bernard with the Loman family. Credit: Brinkhoff/Mögenburg

Further manifesting the compellingly rich world of the play is the superb soundtrack, which pays loving tributes to both the bluesy jazz of the 20s’ Harlem renaissance and to the beautiful, soulful singing of the black gospel tradition, with tense and foreboding original composition underscoring Willie’s tragic tale in-between. Some fine costume work helps last of all, though not least, to put the final touches to a singularly brilliant production, which is never without tight direction from Elliot and Cromwell and consistently high energy from the spectacular cast. Although some transitions, particularly between penultimate scenes, seem somewhat out of step with the fluid grace of others, and energy may perhaps falter in places for having so often been taken to such extremes elsewhere, these are no detriment overall.

This incarnation of Miller’s most famous work is a superlative tour-de-force in every respect, a definitive theatre experience which is more than worthy of the standing ovation it received, and that deserves to be seen again and again.

Anna Fleischle has designed a beautiful set. Credit: Brinkhoff/Mögenburg