October 2008 Archives

In the midst of the global credit crunch, it may be odd to be declaring that the best of times is now, but that’s what they’re doing nightly at the Playhouse in London, where La Cage Aux Folles last night officially re-opened after transferring from the Menier where it was first seen at the end of last year. They may actually be right, though, at least as far as gay-themed theatre in London is concerned.

Only the night before I was at the National for DV8’s London premiere of their latest show, To Be Straight with You, a verbatim dance documentary that shines an unyieldingly revealing light on the prevalence of homophobia in Britain and around the globe, and the kind of religious intolerance in particular that fuels it; and last week saw Matthew Todd’s Blowing Whistles, a bracing comedy drama about contemporary gay relationships, deservedly blow back into town to the Leicester Square Theatre - and which I’ve already blown a whistle for, too, on this site in my review here.

Critics are only human - we all make mistakes. And no one beats me up more for mine than me! So today it’s time to fess up, as they say Stateside, to one of mine: I’ve already admitted here to attending Waste at the Almeida (not so) fresh from a transatlantic return journey, and now I’ve discovered that I must have written my review, too, in an advanced state of jetlag, too.

In my Sunday Express notice, I referred to a fine ensemble cast that includes “Will Keen as the politician and the superb, graceful Phoebe Nicholls as his long-suffering wife. ” Except, of course, that Phoebe Nicholls is playing his sister, not wife.

Of course it’s no surprise to see theatre critics at the theatre: it’s where you’ll find us most nights. And of course, thanks to the way the press night system works, we’re mostly there together on the same night - which can, of course, give a skewed perspective on how the social push and pull of the event works. Go to the Rose at Kingston on a press night, for instance, as I did last night, and the place is always teaming - but go on another night and you’ll be hard pressed, I’m told, to find much of an audience around you: the Evening Standard’s Fiona Mountford told me that the last time she went there she was in an audience of 12, and Charles Spencer of the Daily Telegraph said he’d been there with around 30 others once.

But last night, at least, saw a welcomingly full house for the Rose’s first homegrown production as Peter Hall (the driving force behind the theatre’s foundation) directed Love’s Labour’s Lost - and a full showing of national critics, too.

I caught up with a couple of new productions on Saturday and Monday that both imposed something completely unexpected on the text, respectively creating environments and perspectives on the action that were not specified by either of the playwrights concerned.

In the case of Tarell Alvin McCraney’s In the Red and Brown Water, now at the Young Vic to November 8, designer Miriam Buether and director Walter Meierjohann have created a massive onstage lake that the actors perform the entire play on, wading through it ankle-deep and creating a splash in every sense as they move around it. (Even the piano is in the water - though I hope it is somehow protected from possible water damage). Not since Cirque du Soleil’s watery Las Vegas spectacle ‘O’ (and its rip-off successor, La Reve) has the use of water been so integral to a performance. The idea may takes its cue from a literal interpretation of the play’s title, and early on a character says, “It’s always about the water, my dreams. Near it or around it.”

But the intriguing thing is that nowhere is this translation of those themes specified in the playwright’s own stage directions.

The report in last Friday’s Guardian that Alan Bennett is to donate his entire archive - including “his manuscripts, diaries, letters and, on his death, all remaining papers and his working library, including hundreds of inscribed first editions of his own and other books” — to Oxford’s Bodleian Library for free isn’t just an extraordinarily generous and practical gesture, but also surely an instructive and chastening example for authors and estates looking to cash in on interest in their work. 7 As Bennett told The Guardian, “I really feel that Oxford is where I was educated and where I belong, and that if Bodley would like them, then they should have them. It sounds rather grand to say I can afford to, but libraries in England anyway are not well-endowed; they don’t have much money. Me and my partner, we’re relatively well off, and so I felt I didn’t really want to take money for them.”

It’s an opening night convention that performances begin at 7pm. That’s historically been to accommodate the overnight critics - the handful who have to rush for the exits as the curtain falls to file their reviews for the next morning’s papers - so they can get an extra half an hour headstart on doing so. And for the management, their guests and the company, it also gives them a headstart, too, on beginning their post-performance party.

Of course, the supposedly early start also marks the night out as different from the others, to give the evening a heightened sense of occasion; but all too often, that merely means it is turned into a social occasion rather than a theatrical one, and the apparent advantages of the early curtain are lost as the evening turns into an unholy scrum of people who are more engaged in air-kissing than getting to their seats.

“It’s a great idea to take away the barriers to the good things in life”, said Andy Burnham, Secretary of State of State for Culture, Media and Sport, as he addressed a deputation of members from the various disciplines within the Critics’ Circle yesterday at the Garrick Club in Covent Garden. He was talking about a new proposal to take away entry charges to swimming pools for under 16s and over 60s, but it also tied in, of course, to the government’s much-publicised scheme to give access to free theatre tickets to those under 26.

We may have been sitting in a bastion of privilege - and as one female member of the Critics’ Circle complained to me before the meeting started, it actually sends a very bad signal that we were meeting at a place that doesn’t, of course, admit women as members - but Burnham seems to be keen above all to remove that sense around everything from the arts to swimming.

The Donmar Warehouse has now unequivocally become the artistic hub of the West End. For years, of course, it has had a disproportionate impact on the quality threshold there, doing that rare thing in central London - producing theatre according to an artistic rather than commercial policy - but limited, inevitably, by the comparatively short length of its runs and its reach, since only 250 people a night could actually see their shows. No wonder that some - including me - sometimes saw it as merely a “boutique theatre”, appealing to and playing to a cognoscente of those keen, connected or knowledgeable enough to actually get tickets.

Its artistic director Michael Grandage himself rejected that claim, as I previously wrote here, but he has now proved it by defiantly breaking the brand beyond the theatre’s own four walls, first when he co-produced Guys and Dolls as a Donmar show directly in the West End in 2005, and now with the establishment of the Donmar’s year-long West End residency at Wyndham’s, triumphantly inaugurated by the current sell-out production of Ivanov.

And last night the Donmar took itself on another step in its current colonisation of the West End, transferring their production of Piaf — that sold out its entire Donmar summer run ahead of the opening night back in August - to the Vaudeville.

The Independent noticed yesterday that “A spate of West End shows have issued early closure notices over the weekend, prompting caution in theatreland as the credit crunch hits box office sales.” Actually, as I asked here only on Friday, “Are these the sorts of shows that would have closed early anyway? These would have had a tough time surviving their reviews in any market; but right now, with the West End full of shows that people actually want to see, it’s no surprise that there’s no room for those that no one does.”

Hence the fate of Riflemind, The Girl in the Pearl Earring and the fact that Never Forget will soon be forgotten after it closes at the Savoy and fails to make its planned move to the Lyric. Nobody was seeing the latter at the Savoy - or at least not enough people to warrant a move, which was always a surprising idea.

For producers, of course, it is a handy excuse to alleviate their own lack of taste and judgement in producing the thing in the first place.

Continuing my theatrical catch-up over the weekend of shows that I missed while I was in the US, I have also seen a number of welcome physical transformations and even the reclamation of a long-lost theatre space, albeit only temporary ones; but I hope that the stunning one at the Old Vic becomes a regular fixture.

Spending the entire day there on Saturday for the Alan Ayckbourn The Norman Conquests trilogy, which has been justifiably acclaimed as one of the funniest yet simultaneously saddest sets of plays in the London theatre at the moment, they have been gloriously returned to being staged in the round for which the were originally written.

But this was no casual, half-hearted intervention but has seen an entire make-over of the stalls and former stage area, with the stalls covered over and re-raked to rise up to meet the front of the dress circle and seating wrapped around a new circular stage platform in the middle of the room, continuing onto what used to be the stage in tiered rows and even a new dress circle balcony above them.

I know I was recently on a different schedule while in the US, but I typically endeavour to post this blog at the start of the London day, or as close to it as I can manage. But Fridays often present a scheduling backlog, since it is the day I usually file my weekly review column for the Sunday Express, and today I have also been inundated with news announcements that I file elsewhere.

But those news stories prove that I’m obviously not the only one who is behind, since what is interesting about them is as much about what you’re not told as what you are. An announcement today, for instance, that Calendar Girls will take up residency at the Noel Coward from April 4 presupposes that its current tenant, Avenue Q, will have to close before then, but no release has been issued yet. The PR for the show, however, has confirmed to me that it will shutter on March 28.

You can find out quite a bit about a critic by reading them regularly. My Daily Telegraph colleague Charles Spencer is often refreshingly open about his own life experiences - in his recent review of Riflemind at the Trafalgar Studios, he was able to draw on some of them directly to declare authoritatively, “As someone who has done time in the Priory, I must also say that Upton’s portrayal of alcoholism and drug dependency, and the possibility of staying clean, rings false throughout.”

In this case, Charlie’s honesty is able to underline the play’s apparent dishonesty; but more often you may simply find out about a critic’s own tastes, whether it be in men (such as Nicholas de Jongh’s declaration of Hollywood star Josh Harnett’s current London appearance in Rain Man that “his classic good looks and physique, in the style of a college Jock, will surely drive the libidos of thousands of heterosexual women and gay men into excited top gear”) or soft furnishings.

Writing this blog is, of course, frequently a self-revelatory exercise, and it is one of the freedoms of this forum to be able to do so.

As I was in the US last week, I missed a bunch of press nights back home - it was a particularly busy week, so I am slowly chasing my tail to catch up this week. I may never completely do so, given that the relentless tide of openings is continuing unabated, but there are some interesting side-effects to catching up in this way.

The most obvious is that I’m seeing the plays after I’ve read some of my colleagues, so there is already a critical consensus about them that I am inevitably absorbing - and is impossible to avoid.

Last night, for instance, at the Almeida there was a poster of four and five star raves and favourable quotes for Waste beside the entrance door; and the night before, when I saw No Man’s Land at the Duke of York’s, they’ve already posted blow-ups of Nicholas de Jongh’s Evening Standard and Charles Spencer’s Daily Telegraph raves outside the theatre, too. (Baffled members of the audience were duly clustered outside the theatre during the interval reading the reviews to see if they helped them to make sense of what they were watching).

Crossing time zones, as I have been doing - from London to west coast America (minus eight hours), back to the east coast (plus three hours) and now finally back in London (plus five hours) - I’m not quite sure if I’m coming or going. That’s an occupational hazard of flying so much and so quickly (and if I’m feeling slightly woozy, imagine the poor planet and the carbon footprint I’m leaving on it as I do….)

But if my trip was largely for pleasure, how do those that have to travel for work manage to pick up the reins in each place? I was amazed, for instance, to recently read that Gerard Mortier, the new general manager and artistic director of New York City Opera who takes over full-time next year, spends roughly one week a month in New York while he winds down from his current tenure as director of Paris National Opera.

But if he’s dealing with two full-time jobs simultaneously in separate time zones, at least New York City Opera is currently on a hiatus and presenting no staged performances while their Lincoln Center home is being extensively refurbished. I sometimes think I’ve got six jobs simultaneously - not least this one, writing this daily blog, and trying to resume it on a normal schedule now that I’m back (but failing, at least today, to do so).

I ended my stint in Vegas on Thursday night by returning to Bette Midler’s The Showgirl Must Go On at Caesar’s Palace, which I first saw soon after she began her residency there back in February, and I reported on at the time here. It was, once again, an astonishing show - at 63, she has the same unflagging energy and subversive high spirits that I was originally blown away by when I first encountered her with the release of her 1980 film concert Divine Madness.

That, of course, was 28 years ago; and in the years since, she has added a career as a movie star to those of recording star and legendary comedienne. She’s a one-woman force of nature, and commands the massive stage of the Colosseum stage at Caesar’s with total authority; but the conviction she brings to it is that of a true burlesque entertainer who will do anything - and that means anything - to raise a smile. No one quite combines the brilliant colours and variety of entertainment palettes to the stage that she does - whether singing, dancing up a storm (and keeping up with dancers who are no doubt less than half her age), or telling filthy, bawdy jokes, she’s irrepressible and irresistible.

There’s only one Vegas “Strip”, but there are two parts to it - the “new” strip of luxury theme hotels, that stretches from the luxury Mandalay Bay at one end to the super-luxury Wynn at the other (with quite a few tackier ones in between), and then the old town that picks up at the Riviera, Sahara, Circus Circus and Stratosphere before clustering around Fremont Street. In six visits to Vegas, I have only headed to the Old Town once - and even then not for a show but just to see the place. All of the “big” shows are clustered in the new strip, which is why I’ve never strayed much beyond it.

But this is an ever-evolving environment, and the ante keeps getting upped. It was Siegfried and Roy who, in 1990, first established a new kind of permanent residency when they opened a sit-down show at the Mirage Hotel in a new purpose-built auditorium - a run only brought to an end in 2003 when Roy was mauled onstage by one of his tigers. By then, of course, the landscape of the Vegas show had changed forever; and if Siegfried and Roy had ushered it in, it was Cirque du Soleil who picked up and ran with it, opening their first resident show here, Mystere at Treasure Island (now re-branded TI), in 1993.

Since, of course, Times Square has in the last few years come to resemble a Vegas-like mall environment of generic chain stores (and some of the shows, too, have become franchise operations, born on Broadway but planned to simply roll out to other territories across the world), it is only natural that Vegas has repaid the compliment and brought bits of Broadway to the Strip.

I’ve already blogged here yesterday that Phantom - the La Vegas Spectacular has re-made the show into a 95 minute Vegas version that ups the spectacle and reduces the running time.

But some shows are left intact, and Jersey Boys that I saw last night broke two Vegas rules.

A late afternoon posting, London time today, made later by the fact that the internet connection went down in the hotel I’m staying at in Las Vegas, the five-star Wynn, and truly one of the man-made wonders of the world. In case you think I’m obviously earning too much as a freelance journalist, I’m here as the guest of a friend; and if the luxury and attention to detail here is on an unimaginable scale - and a vivid antidote to some of the tackier pleasures of this town — it’s good to know that even here, in the lap of luxury, the laptop is at least fallible.

Wynn is, in every other way, a premium Vegas experience; I’ve just come up from the breakfast buffet (an institution in every hotel here, but the one at the Wynn is a true feast), and fortunately the internet connection has now been restored, too! (Never mind the world financial institutions crashing everywhere we look; we know the world will truly end when the internet goes down and doesn’t come back up again) So I’m back online in every sense, and my temporary sense of powerlessness has at least evaporated.

Vegas is, of course, a place of unprecedented excess - as the shows here prove, too, and keep drawing me back to this amazing town.

Arriving in LA last Wednesday evening - where film billboards are, of course, ubiquitous on every highway and byway - one of the first I saw was for How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, which had a simultaneous US release last Friday to its UK opening. As ever, one can’t escape Toby Young anywhere! Just before I left, I had been speculating here about it that “a story about the failed pursuit of celebrities is in imminent danger of turning Toby into a celebrity himself, if he isn’t already; and he has turned that story of failure around into one that has made him a success.”

Actually, I may have spoken too soon; it opened Stateside to lethal reviews last Friday, including one in the New York Times that referred to the fact that it features “a young actress who will do anything to sell herself out, which at least suggests that, unlike this movie, she has a goal”, while the New York Post quotes someone describing Toby’s writing as ‘snarky, bitter, witless’, and adds, “The last part pretty well sums up this movie”.

On Broadway anyone can keep track of how shows are doing: the Broadway League (the equivalent of SOLT) release the weekly box office grosses for publication in Variety and on Playbill.com. Though individual producers can opt out - as Young Frankenstein has from the beginning of its run - this apparent frankness about the business of show in showbusiness creates a sense of openness and allows every producer to size up the opposition publicly as well as privately.

The West End, by comparison, is a “closed shop”; though investors will be given information on how their shows are doing, and SOLT collects and publishes annual figures across the board of the member theatres they represent, individual accounts (and accountability) are hidden from view.

I am travelling today to the US, first stop: Los Angeles; then Las Vegas and New York. Normal service will therefore be interrupted, but not suspended: I intend to continue blogging from there, though it obviously won’t be to the same timetable - the 8 hour time West Coast time difference means that I won’t be posting till late afternoon UK time instead of early morning. I look forward to continuing our dialogue from there! (And if you want to hear what I sound like, as well as write like, you can catch the latest critical round-up I host monthly on Theatrevoice.com here, in which I am joined by critics Charles Spencer, David Benedict and Matt Wolf to discuss Ivanov, Six Characters in Search of an Author, Now or Later, Riflemind, Rain Man and in-i).