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.
Four of the theatre’s stage-side boxes have been duly removed and a new metal seating box installed on either side of the old proscenium; even the theatre’s chandelier has been removed (to accommodate a new lighting grid) and re-sited “backstage” behind the new onstage seating banks, where it sits incredibly snugly (and is even lit) below the flytower. In this new “backstage” area, there are even bespoke temporary loos (a vast improvement on the Old Vic’s usual facilities, it has to be said, which are amongst the most inadequate in London - and currently reduced further by the fact that the upper circle ones are currently out-of-use), while the rear stalls entrance has a new temporary bar.
The Old Vic has always seemed a remote, chilly auditorium - the circles are set so far back behind the wide, deep stalls that you have always felt on a different planet before if you’re sitting either upstairs or further than half way back in the stalls. But suddenly this transformation brings everyone closer to the action in every sense; and brings each level closer to each other, too. And it has, of course, partly been possible to achieve precisely because of those physical dimensions: as designer Rob Howell says in an interview in the current copy of Time Out (issue dated October 16-22), “There aren’t too many theatres that have the depth from the circle to the proscenium front to be able to do this, but the Old Vic does.”
But both Howell and the director Matthew Warchus have been impressively alert to establishing and continuing the new contact that the audience, wrapped entirely around the stage, has with the actors here: as Howell also notes, “It’s a challenge to make sure you’re not excluding any of the audience when they’re sitting in a place that the building wasn’t designed for. Any proscenium-arch theatre is a tow-roomed space: there is a divide between the stage and auditorium, and any attempt to blur it in a gentle way with a thrust or something more bold like this is hard because architecturally the building doesn’t want to be like that.”
The greatest compliment one can therefore pay Howell, Warchus and Andrew Todd, architectural and design consultant of this transformation, is to say that they have made the building feel as if it was always meant to be like this; and not only does it give London its first large-scale in-the-round theatre since the days when the Round House was once used as a transfer space in the mid-80s for plays from Manchester’s Royal Exchange, but it also makes this one of most exciting uses of space in town. It would be thrilling if this new space - sponsored by the CQS hedge fund, for whom it has been duly named - could become a permanent fixture here.
It was also exciting to see the Hippodrome finally back in theatrical use on Friday night when I also caught up with La Clique, the burlesque circus show that has set up temporary residence there; but according to a story here last week, this is likely to be only a very brief interlude, as the venue has now been granting a gaming license to be turned into a casino.
Though the original features of this Frank Matcham designed venue have been all but covered up, if indeed they are still to be found anywhere at all from the quarter of a century that it has been used as a nightclub for, it was fun to take a brief peek inside this one-time house of variety and spectacle; and what better way than with a show of such extremes of variety and spectacle itself? I arrived in London too late to ever see the Hippodrome in its one-time guise as the Talk of the Town cabaret club; but once came here, during its nightclub years, for a gay club night in the late 80s when the late gay porn star Leo Ford took to its stage for a brief moment of furtive gyrations. I remember only that, thanks to the then-prevailing prudery of Westminster Council, he was forced to cover up his prize assets behind a flimsy silk towel.
There were no such restrictions, I’m happy to say, to Friday’s La Clique show, where Ursula Martinez did her usual party piece full body striptease, making a handkerchief mischievously disappear and then producing it again from a very intimate part of her body. It was another welcome sort of transformation in a weekend full of them.
And continuing that theme, the Menier Chocolate Factory (who are firing on all cylinders at the moment, with their production of La Cage Aux Folles transferring to the West End tonight as well) was also strikingly reconfigured when I visited it yesterday to see a matinee for its production of the Webster gore-fest The White Devil.
The Menier is sometimes criticised for an overtly-commercial approach to theatre that has seen it become a try-out house for West End shows; but artistic director and producer David Babani — who works entirely without subsidy — is clearly determined to buck that trend with this strongly-cast, strikingly-set classical revival. And designer Philip Witcomb, who sets it on a magnificent curtained traverse platform, has also proved once again that this is also one of London’s most versatile and flexible theatrical spaces.
And finally yesterday, too, I went to the Haymarket, arguably London’s most beautiful “fixed” theatre space, for a special celebratory production of Jason Robert Brown’s The Last 5 Years, produced by the Notes from New York series to mark their own fifth anniversary (and which coincidentally had of course received its British premiere at the Menier in 2006). Originally announced as a one-off performance last Sunday, it has extended its run to two more Sundays since the first night sold out instantly, and deservedly so. Julie Atherton and Paul Spicer - associate artists of the programme - have never been better than here. But the most creative part of all was another transformation: while The Girl with a Pearl Earring may have had its run prematurely cut short the night before, Notes producer Neil Eckersley struck a deal with that show not to strike their set but have left it in place for this run, where it provides a perfect interior for this aching song cycle of a relationship imploding within its walls.
You really felt that the set for The Girl with the Pearl Earring was perfect for The Last Five Years? Maybe the generic three walls that enclosed it , did no harm to the piece, but the rest was just furniture on the stage that told us nothing about Jamie and Kathy or in any way reflected the sound of Jason Robert Brown's propulsive music or words. Not that the enthusiastic audience seemed to mind the use of a "found" set. No designer should take credit for something like that.