"Sweat" by Ian Hoare

Also published by London Theatre Reviews, February 29th 2020: http://www.londontheatrereviews.co.uk/post.cfm?p=2478

Hot on the heels of its critically-acclaimed West End run, the Tower Theatre have seized the first opportunity to stage Lynn Nottage’s timely, Pulitzer Prize-winning period drama of the endless urban war between class and capital, and its countless civilian casualties.

In rural rust-belt town of Reading, Pennsylvania in the year 2000 (readers of a certain age, perhaps sit down - 2000 qualifies as period drama these days), its community and people are caught in the ruinous hurly-burly of de-industrial revolution as the steel-work industry begins to collapse. Over the course of the play’s series of inter-connected vignettes, industrial strike action fractures the social landscape, and over the cruel course of time tears friends and family apart, poisons minds, and leaves lives ruined.

Ian Hoare directs the unfolding tragedy almost reverentially, clearly having a great admiration and respect for the material. Under his careful, light-touch stewardship, things move along at a good pace, and tension builds and maintains itself nicely throughout, with the sense of time and place reinforced by the Tower Theatre’s customarily excellent set design and use of sound to enhance their dramas. One practically steps right into an all-American watering hole on entering the theatre with Wendy Parry’s set, and the clever deployment of faux radio recordings to frame the vignettes carries us through the surrounding politics of the turn of the century, thanks to sound designer Laurence Tuerk.

Photography by David Sprecher

A strong ensemble plays out the tragic drama, with the entire cast putting in earnest and impassioned performances. It is an unfortunate hindrance to this production, though, that much of the cast seem to focus rather too much on putting on a convincing American accent, robbing Nottage’s superb writing of much of the import of its dialogue as the performers seem to be too distracted by this requirement to focus on really characterising the text. Especially in the first half, this comes across to the detriment of the production’s believability overall; but when more confident cast members, who have mastered their accent work, can put aside that worry and get on with the performance, the work is wonderfully heightened, and its brilliance shines through.

This is especially apparent in the second half, when curtain nerves have subsided, and genuinely harrowing drama powerfully plays out on its own merit, elevating the production to fantastic heights once again. It can make for a somewhat uneven presentation, but it is hard to begrudge this of a talented amateur company bravely tackling West End fare so soon after the end of its recent run.

Nevertheless, it makes for a bold and compelling night of theatre, and a perfect second opportunity to see it away from the West End.

"The Refuge" by The Balon Rouge Company

The Balon Rouge Theatre Company brings their latest production, a Gothic Christmas mystery, to the Barons Court Theatre in London. Regrettably, there is very little to feel festive or charitable about here. The decision to stage a play set at Christmas so late into a new year is a bizarre and poor choice by itself, to say nothing else of the difficulties which plague this wholly lacklustre and unconvincing show.

The writing is by far the weakest component in this uninspired, melodramatic tale, which leans heavily on references to classics of Gothic horror in an obvious and unsophisticated manner, as though crassly trying to better the work by association, but this attempt fails, and only succeeds at coming across as the worst kind of pretentious literary name-dropping.

The poor world-building is upset further by any sense of the time and place crucial to atmospheric Gothic stories skewed by characters veering wildly between speaking as if they’re in a Victorian novel - a hindrance by itself - to suddenly using bizarrely modern choice language.

The cast struggles with the insipid, one-dimensional writing and its ridiculous plot throughout, all sounding as though they have barely started read-throughs, let alone gone on stage, with none of the stilted performers at all convincing in their soap opera roles.

Sound design leaves much to be desired, too, with melodramatic, too-loud stings of clichéd suspense music forming the bulk of a distinctly unimaginative, grating soundscape, and the set – although it didn’t before seem possible – is far too small for the scope of the work’s ambition, with the attempt at audience intimacy only causing a great deal of trouble for the cast, forced to duck and weave to avoid hitting their heads on overhead speakers (to one actor’s misfortune), and leaving supposedly tense scenes of threatening pursuit looking completely ridiculous.

A dreadful, drab sleep-aid of a production, one poorly timed and executed in nearly every significant respect. One can only hope Balon Rouge does better next time. Fortunately, that shouldn’t prove too difficult.

E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India by Simona Hughes at The Tower Theatre

My dearly-departed paternal grandmother was born and raised an Anglo-Indian in Calcutta, her young life spent with war always brewing, either with the wider world, or the British occupation, before her father – a non-serving British Army brat whose forefathers had, for five generations, faithfully served the Empire’s cause – forcefully declared one day, as all around them was destroyed by resistance fighting in the streets, that “these idiots can kill themselves if they please, but my family will have nothing to do with it”, and fled to England, where his family found themselves so helpless without their old servants that they could not so much as make a cup of tea by themselves.

My extended family on her side, in particular my great uncle, retain their distinctly dark brown skin tones. Her five children with her Franco-Italian husband are clearly ethnically mixed – but by the time of my brothers and I, all that remains are the stories she passed down to me. I often wonder at times how to reconcile myself with that erased biological history, with the bizarre colonial implications of its having been subsumed by European whiteness, and never to return to our bloodline. I do not want children. I feel great sorrow and pity for my forebears that this history of our family, along with all those stories of India, and of the Indian women that lived before my grandmother, may well die with me. I am drawn back across the tides of time to the Raj with the overpowering sense that the history of British India is my own family’s immediate history.


Adnan Kapadia stars. Credit: Robert Piwko

Martin Sherman’s theatrical adaptation of E.M. Forster’s classic novel serves as a timely reminder that the dynamics of human relations both within and across cultures and time periods are infinitely complex and delicate – and that our imperial history is far less clear-cut and rosy than many today may be inclined to remember it. When the magnanimous and friendly Indian Doctor Aziz (Rahul Singh) is accused of a terrible crime against an English woman, a terrible clash of cultures ensues, one in which the full ugliness of the evils of imperialism, colonialism, racism, and naked white supremacy is revealed.

Director Simona Hughes, together with an unusually large cast, brings a new adaptation to the Tower Theatre in Stoke Newington – one which may come to stand as one of the best, and most exquisitely beautiful, the company has ever produced, and which one is loathe to divulge too much detail on for fear of spoiling a wonderful experience. This is an absolutely gorgeous production, with Max Batty’s picturesque, dynamic set front and centre in the proceedings, making excellent use of the Tower’s stage throughout. Stephen Ley’s beautiful lighting sets the tone perfectly, and this play in particular pushes the boundaries of anything the company has previously attempted in their space with the use of evocative light and shadow.


Credit: Robert Piwko

Costume designers Sue Carling and Elion Mittiga have perfected the era’s sartorial sensibilities, with every member of the cast superbly dressed, and the triple-threat of sound designer Rob Hebblethwaite, soundtrack composer Tamara Douglas-Morris, and live musicians Mahesh Parkar, Devina Vekaria, and Amiya Bhatia creating an immersive, authentic soundscape of time and place wonderfully steeped in lyrical mysticism. Things move along at a gripping, pacey clip with Hughes’ tight direction, which doesn’t forget when to slow down, nor how to pace these slower moments, resulting in an almost pitch-perfect runtime. Above all, Sherman’s writing sparkles as much as ever, beautifully composed, with so much of it still retaining all of its power to shock and to sober, and to reverberate through to our modern age.

So, too, does this adaptation showcase a huge number of superb, memorable performances from its huge – and hugely talented – cast of 17. Lead Rahul Singh brings Dr. Aziz to vivid life, brimming with infectious, vivacious joy and energy as well as beautifully portraying the aftermath of the terrible accusations against him. South Asian Theatre veteran Adnan Kapadia as Professor Narayan Godbole makes for a wonderfully expressive and evocative narrator of events, and Alison Liney turns in a particularly moving performance as Mrs. Moore, very much the work’s moral centre. Meanwhile, Rebecca Allan is compelling as the conflicted and complex Adela Quested, Simon Lee convinces as the brave and dignified, though very much flawed would-be white saviour Cyril Fielding, and Robin Taylor makes a superb Tower debut performance as the hateful villain of the piece, Ronny Heaslop. So, too, does Paul Willcocks get his turn as a detestable bad sort with a memorable performance as the cruel and conniving McBryde. 

"Macbeth" by Douglas Rintoul at The Queen's Theatre Hornchurch

Also published by London Theatre Reviews, February 12th 2020:
http://www.londontheatrereviews.co.uk/post.cfm?p=2393

Macbeth faces the Weird Sisters.

Performing at The Queen’s Theatre in Hornchurch (proud recent recipient of the 2020 Stage Awards’ London Theatre of the Year Award) in collaboration with Derby Theatre, director Douglas Rintoul and a talented, diverse cast make a valiant effort to bring Shakespeare’s superstitiously so-called Scottish Play into our modern era – one in which, some may say, it does indeed seem that certain individuals’ reckless political ambition will soon come to set Scotland at bloody odds with England.

There is certainly no lack of meta-dramatic punch, then, to this new iteration of the classic political thriller. Indeed, one could even find themselves feeling somewhat regal in the vast, well-appointed space of the Queen’s Theatre as this undoubtedly artful production plays out. Between them, Designer Ruari Murchinson, Lighting Designer Daniella Beattie, and Sound Designer Paul Falconer have crafted beautifully evocative technical work with their set. As the play begins, an inspired clash of light and shadow immerses us in the backstory of war and strife, and throughout the 2-and-a-half-hour runtime, the drama is accompanied by picturesque Gothic imagery aplenty, bringing a wonderfully engrossing atmosphere to proceedings. The stage is a characterful presence unto itself, most befitting of a play that revels in the sinister machinations of unseen ghostly forces.

Lady Macbeth pours poison in Macbeth's ear.

Rintoul confidently directs the work to move at an often bewilderingly swift, panicked pace, perhaps trying to evoke feelings of the Macbeths’ guilt-ridden panic at their terrible deeds, a choice which doesn’t necessarily work, particularly in the work’s first half, and especially before the grisly regicide central to the plot. Although those already familiar with the text will be able to comfortably follow along, and the cast are no doubt full of a range of diverse experience and talent, it nevertheless feels as though they are rushing through the text most of the time, without giving much of Shakespeare’s wonderfully evocative wordplay time to breathe, and to properly impact the audience. A play of murder most foul this may be, but its pace need not be quite so break-neck.

In a work which thrives on a deliberately slow build-up of unbearable tension, everyone being in such a seeming haste to recite the lines cannot help but feel like an oddly inappropriate directorial choice. Many talented people end up deprived of chances to deploy the full depth of their skills when so much of their focus seems to be on hurrying things along, and this is a great shame, since many of the play’s best moments come precisely when the pace slows down enough to enjoy their work. Paul Tinto’s Macbeth proves capable of delivering affecting monologues and commanding real stage presence when he is not distracted by having to hurry – indeed, his whole performance is worsened at those times when he is compelled to overplay maddened ranting with far too much speed, ending up almost totally unintelligible to the audience. This is most unbecoming of a play that absolutely depends on the clear and precise use of language by its actors, particularly one that already has the proper pitch and pace built-in as standard by iambic pentameter in the first place.

Macbeth weighs his deeds.

So, too, do Lady Macbeth’s best moments come from laying off of the production’s full throttle. Leading lady Phoebe Sparrow’s screaming anguish and maddened sense of unreality is genuinely, wonderfully disturbing to behold when she is being given the time and space to play out the moment to its full dramatic potential – but she is let down for much of the rest of the time by too much pressure to hurry. Many of the play’s talented cast are reduced to performances that feel as though they are little more than too-hasty readings, when much of their best material is arrived at during deliberately slower moments. Amongst them, Rikki Chamberlain is hugely entertaining as the bumbling Porter; Martin Johnston is a fine King Duncan, as well as a solid double act as a Doctor, together with Connie Walker’s Gentlewoman; Adam Karim is a compelling Banquo when given the chance; Ewan Somers is full of righteous fury as Macduff, with Danielle Kassaraté bringing beautifully performed presence to Lady Macduff, as well as a variety of smaller roles; and Tilda Wickham makes for a striking, motivated Malcolm refreshingly free of gendered convention.

Quite apart from the sometimes absurd speed of the run – one perhaps too conscious of our ravaged attention spans in the digital age versus a hefty two-hour-plus runtime, especially with the school-aged in attendance – an argument could be made that this production also somewhat over-eggs the Gothic pudding at times. One counts rather a few dramatic lightning strikes amongst the technical cues, perhaps so many that it is in danger of sending this production veering headlong into 1930s Hammer Horror territory best avoided.

Nevertheless, few could argue that this is not a beautifully staged production, and one full of genuine passion and stand-out moments, amongst them, a genuinely thrilling, pacey finale – even if, rather unlike the brutal, cruel murder of King Duncan, t’were not best this were done quickly.

Lady Macduff with companions.