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Showing posts with label The Rose Playhouse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Rose Playhouse. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
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I've got no time for haters when it comes to the Rose Playhouse. An original Elizabethan-era theatre, it was considered lost to time before being rediscovered during building work in 1989. Now the remains lie in stygian gloom beneath a steel and glass multi-story monstrosity. It's an incredibly evocative place: frozen solid in winter and chilly even in the height of summer, the vast room dominated by a pool of still water that protects the archaeological remains. It's hardly surprising that it's described as "one of the weirdest sights in London".
All the best productions I've seen here exploit this unique performance space, and Rebecca Rogers' Reckless joins them. This is the tale of a nameless weatherbeaten island and the frayed lives of its inhabitants, particularly a relationship between father and son. Long ago their wife and mother drowned, leaving the father riddled with paranoia at the thought losing his beloved son. Consequentially he keeps a close eye on him, scolding him whenever he strays close to the crashing foam. Yet the arrival of a bright-eyed, pretty young girl entrances the son, and the two lovebirds make plans to leave the island.
This is a one hour, one-act narrative crewed with familiar archetypes, making Reckless less about character complexity and more about atmosphere and symbolism. For the latter, the show does an impress job of creating a dangerous coastline under the busy London streets. Seagulls caw and swooping down to snatch at the characters' lunches; the beam of a lighthouse swooshes across the stage; and effective sound design builds scenery in the mind's eye - you can almost smell the tang of salt in the air.
Helping matters is that while Reckless' community is quickly sketched what we see comes tinged with authenticity. Mid-way through the play we observe a village ceremony where the inhabitants each bring a picture of a loved one who's died at sea. They explain that for this one night they dredge the drowned from the deep and ensure that their memory will live in. Moments like these give this community gravitas - no small achievement considering the brevity of the play and the small cast.
As far symbolism goes, Carl Jung once said "The sea is my favourite symbol for the unconscious, the mother of all that lives." Roger's writing feeds into this, using showing individuals in awe of a vast uncharted emptiness, their actions entirely informed by the effect of the ocean upon them. Ideas like these are incredibly potent in the soft, malleable, clay textures of the Rose, where the soft lighting makes Elizabethan ghosts flit from the corner of your eyes. Within the narrative we draw parallels between scenery and character - the forlorn wreck of a warship beached on the coast mirrors the once-proud father's depression and gloom, and the artificial gaze of the lighthouse dovetails with the presentation of the lighthouse keeper as an interloper.
It's in this dreamy, free-associative haze that Reckless works best - a kind of woozy meditation on passion, paranoia and loss guided by the fourth-wall busting writer/director/actor Rebecca Rogers as the harbourmaster. The broad dramatic strokes feel like they're aligning with the Rose's typical fare - resurrections of obscure Elizabethan plays and manipulations of ancient Greek drama.
But though she succeeds in controlling tone and atmosphere, Reckless isn't without its flaws. Billed as 90 minutes long, I was a little confused when it ended after just an hour - and just when it was getting interesting! There's lots dramatic territory left unexplored - we never get to see the emotional timebombs that stud the drama go off. Similarly, there's the somewhat vestigial character of the lighthouse keeper, who appears to be the quasi-villain of the tale but feels crowbarred in.
It's difficult to wholeheartedly recommend Reckless. Granted, it does a great job of establishing tone and place - Rogers is clearly a writer/performer with talent to spare. Similarly the cast are uniformly good, though no-one exactly stands out as mindblowingly amazing. But, walking out, I felt like I'd only seen Act 1. This is a promising skeleton, but desperately in need of musculature.
★★★
Reckless is at the Rose Playhouse until 27 September 2015. Tickets here.
Friday, June 19, 2015
Friday, June 19, 2015
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You can't fault Iphigenia for being a bit glum. Her Dad Agamemnon, an A-lister of Greek Mythology, was all set to offer her as a human sacrifice. Escaping by way of divine intervention she now finds herself stuck in Tauris, unhappily working as a Priestess in Diana's temple and being amorously pursued by King Thoas, who she's doing her best to put in the friend-zone.
King Thoas isn't best pleased, threatening to reinstate the old tradition of human sacrifice, and forcing Iphigenia to wield the knife. Things look bad, though a ray of light arrives in the form of Iphiena's long lost brother Orestes and their cousin Pylades. They reveal that everything's gone a bit Jeremy Kyle back home in Mycenae. Agamemnon's wife, Clytemnestra, a bit miffed that he was prepared to murder their daughter, killed her husband. In turn, her children (even more miffed) killed her. Now Orestes is cursed - pursued by the Furies - his only chance to fulfil a challenge of the gods and swipe a statue of Diana from a temple, which is why he's here.
Sounds pretty exciting huh? Well, none of that actually happens in this play. This is Goethe's 1779 adaptation of Euripedes 414BCE play, written with an emphasis on poetic language, emotional intensity and philosophical and moral explorations.
Okay, I've got to get something out of the way. It gives me no great pleasure to say it and it's a criticism that I don't ever like levelling at a piece of theatre. To say it says as much about me as it does about the play, particularly as Goethe is considered a titan of literature. But here we go: Iphigenia in Tauris is boring. Really, really goddamn boring.
I'd never heard of the play before this production, and frankly I can see why. Essentially a series of long-winded, static duologues, the characters go on and on in poetic metre that rapidly approaches incomprehensibility. The language is overwrought, self-indulgent and bulging with self importance. As the characters launch into complex flights of poetic embellishment (full of obscure references to Greek mythology) I felt my eyes glaze over, the dialogue collapsing into a word salad.
It'd take an astonishingly talented creative force to pummel this creaky old thing into anything remotely palatable, and this production just isn't up to the task. Perhaps as if to contrast the florid language, the set and costume design is austere to the point of non-existence. The 'half theatre/half archaeological dig' nature of the Rose resists elaborate stagecraft, but an empty, flatly lit stage decorated only by a white sheet doesn't exactly excite the eye.
Granted, much appreciated efforts are made to exploit the full space. An altar to Diana is set up at the far back of the room, and the characters periodically scamper across the distant earthern floor. This gives rise to one of the few truly successful dramatic moments; the opening in which an ethereal Iphigenia emerges from the shadows and processes towards us, filling the theatre with her atmospheric voice.
I can't really fault the cast too much either, finding myself feeling slightly sorry for them. You can see every dramatic sinew strain as they delve through the soupy dialogue trying to find something - anything - relatable to a modern audience. They're fighting a doomed battle and often, despite their obvious efforts, they end up simply reciting the play. Suzanne Marie as Iphigenia comes out looking best, though even she frequently struggles to locate any glimmer of humanity buried within this mannered poetry.
Maybe if you were a scholar of Greek mythology or a particularly big fan of Goethe you'd enjoy this. Otherwise I wouldn't bother: becoming emotionally involved in Iphigenia in Tauris is next to impossible. Being intellectually involved is a little more achievable, though not without enormous effort. And frankly, it's not worth it.
★★
Iphigenia in Tauris is at the Rose Playhouse until 4th July 2015. Tickets here.
Photos by Lidia Crisafulli
Photos by Lidia Crisafulli
Friday, February 6, 2015
Friday, February 6, 2015
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In 1973 evolutionary biologist L. van Valen proposed The Red Queen Principle. In Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, the Red Queen observes "in this place it takes all the running you can do, to stay in the same place". He applied this principle to evolution; explaining that for an organism to merely survive and reproduce requires a titanic effort. Watching the harried pinstriped crowds sweatily bustling out of Bank Underground station, you wonder whether the same principle applies to commerce.
Pamela Schermann, director of Time Zone Theatre's Othello, explains that one of the primary inspirations for this production was the death of Moritz Erhardt, who collapsed after working a 72 hour shift at Bank of America in the City. These hothouses of activity are populated by ruthless coke-addled workaholics who'd stomp their co-workers into the mud if they stood in the way of profit. An atmosphere of ambition, avariciousness and amorality? The perfect Petri dish to grow an Othello.
With its smart suits, minimalist office furniture and weaponised flirtiness, this production is end result of Shakespeare violently colliding with The Apprentice. With the muggy heat of Cyprus exchanged for the pressure cooker of the City of London, Othello (James Barnes) becomes a successful manager, whose nickname "The General" slots neatly into City Trader machismo. Iago (Trevor Murphy) and Cassio (Denholm Spurr) are hungry underlings, eager to slime their way up the corporate ladder. Desdemona (Samantha Lock) is imagined as a rake-thin, trouser-suited power exec, trailed everywhere by her faithful PA Emilia (Ella Duncan).
You might think a modern reimagining would be out of kilter with the Tudor surroundings of The Rose Playhouse. We are after all sitting in an active archeological site, the skeletal remains of Henslowe's theatre rising from the dirt below. Yet above us lies floor upon floor of girders, chrome and glass, across the road sits the offices of The Financial Times. In this chilly, subterranean cavern we're in a pocket of history, Elizabethan theatre subtly influenced of by the presence of big commerce.
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| Othello (James Barnes) |
But the modern tendrils creeping into this adaptation go beyond corporate outfits and haircuts; here Cassio has depressed, stressed conversations over Skype, and Iago waves an iPad in front of the audience to show us Bianca's Facebook profile. These moments, both imagination and playful go a long way towards easing the tension inherent in any contemporary reimagining of Shakespeare.
This is aided by consistently intelligent interpretations of the characters from the cast. Barnes' Othello methodically takes us through the process by which a confident, debonair businessman is reduced to a deranged, jealous murderer, gradually peeling away the layers of intelligence and civilisation to reveal the animalistic, territorial core at the heart of any powerful businessman. As he violently asserts his right to Desdemona she transforms from partner to property - an asset rather than an individual.
Trevor Murphy's Iago similarly slots neatly into the corporate world, his sly ambition and manipulative skills feeling less like intrinsic character flaws and more like the logical psychological endpoint of trying to get ahead in this dog-eat-dog world. Murphy plays him as a man slowly losing his morality, as much convincing himself that he's doing the right thing as he is convincing Othello of his wife's unfaithfulness.
The rest of the cast approach their characters with similar care and attention. I particularly enjoyed Ella Duncan's slightly immature Emilia. Alone among the characters she's having fun; dabbling her toes in the corporate waters without becoming tainted. Duncan tackles Emilia's Act IV monologue with impressive dollops of humour and personality; one of the more naturalistic Shakespearian performances I've seen in some time.
Having now seen a few shows in The Rose, I was also impressed by the way the company effectively used the room. With a performance space limited in size and scope (set changes are essentially impossible) most companies settle for the existing historical ambience as backdrop. Not so here; the red LEDs that outline the old building are requisitioned to signify mood and increase tension, and in a bold move the dig itself is used as performance space.
It's not all sunshine and roses; I do have a few minor quibbles. Firstly that for the entire first scene there's a 15 second muzak loop repeating over and over again. It started to drive me crazy about five minutes in, gradually building to a skin-crawling annoyance. Slightly more egregious was the somewhat limp murder of Desdemona. The last Othello I saw was The Othello Syndrome in 2013, a feminist production that drew out the misogyny in the text. There, the climactic murder was a monstrous, physical affair that left audiences in no doubt as to the depths Othello had sunk to. Here there's a bit of half-hearted protesting before Desdemona seems to peacefully acquiesce to her death.
Those nitpicks aside, this is a highly enjoyable production. Obvious care has gone into understanding and interpreting Shakespeare, Time Zone Theatre expertly moulding the play into 90 pointed, relevant and well-performed minutes.
Othello is at the Rose Playhouse until the 28th of February, 19:30 weekdays, 15:00 Sundays. Full £12 / Cons £10. Tickets available here.
Friday, January 23, 2015
Friday, January 23, 2015
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As much archaeological dig as theatre, The Rose Playhouse isn't the cosiest space to spend a January night. Nestled underneath a skyscraper, it's unheated and cavernous, the air rapidly chilling to a couple of degrees above zero. I'm wearing a few extra layers and swaddled in a blanket, but the cold still creeps its way in. The ghastly thought strikes me that being stuck atop a burning bonfire might not be so bad after all.
I'm here for Defiant Reality Theatre's production of Jean Anouilh's The Lark; a play about the trial, condemnation and execution of Joan of Arc (Maud Madlyn). Captured by the English and considered a political hot potato, the authorities want her out of the way; trying her on charges of heresy (and cross-dressing).Eager to prove she's either mad or lying they quiz her on complex ecclesiastical philosophy and ask her to recount how she rose from an illiterate peasant to leading France's armies.
In flashback we see the young Joan experiencing terrifying visions of the Archangel Michael, St Catherine and St Margaret instructing her to support Charles VII (Tristan Hyde) and save France from English tyranny. This is a big ask for a teenage girl, especially coming straight from God. Nonetheless she miraculously succeeds, and through flashback we watch her transformation into a symbol of religious adoration and example of military ingenuity.
Cackling from the sidelines are her judges and captors. Leading them is the Earl of Warwick (George Collie), portrayed here as a basically decent (if slightly dim) man tasked with an unpleasant job. He's played here with a slightly Alan Partridge bumbling quality, making cringeworthy comments to Joan and seeking the politest way out of any situation. More sinister are her inquisitors (Samuel Heagney, Pip Gladwin and Lawrence Toye). These vulturelike, black-cloaked presences surround Joan, peppering her with questions laced with condescension and mockery.
The the story of Joan of Arc isn't exactly sunshine and roses, so it's surprising that The Lark so damn funny. Though Madlyn's Joan is never anything less than a paragon of sincerity and righteousness, every other character is a grotesquely overwrought caricature. Paradoxically this makes the heaven-struck visionary the only sane person around. Rather than a fierce, violent warrior this Joan's best weapon is her brain; manipulating the dozy men around her with appeals to their vanity and using their low opinion of her as a woman (and as a peasant) to her advantage.
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| Maud Madlyn as Joan |
The best examples come in two brilliantly comedic scenes. The first where Joan convinces the incredulous Robert de Baudricourt (Pip Gladwin) to grant her armour, horses and a retinue of men-at-arms to accompany her to see the Dauphin. North plays a great preposterously pompous ass, harrumphing and bumbling around the stage like he's stepped out of a pantomime. The second features the awkward, incompetent Dauphin. In him Tristan Hyde appears to be channelling the late Rik Mayall, showing us a deeply stupid individual whose ego is gradually inflated by Joan. He's a quintessential coward here, Joan harnessing that fear to get what she wants.
The tone reminded me of CBBC's excellent Horrible Histories; both shows determined to blow away the stuffy cobwebs of academia and, through comedy, make the past something we can empathise and emotionally engage with. The Lark generally succeeds at pinning this tone down, largely courtesy of the wonderful performances of George Collie and Tristan Hyde. Of the cast, these two truly grasp the twin requirements of being both comedic and serious at once.
Not every member of the cast navigates this territory successfully. In particular Lawrence Toye spends most of his time on stage furiously mugging, constantly contorting his face in an exaggerated manner that only succeeds in distracting from everything else on stage. It's perhaps unfair to criticise given that the entire male cast does a lot of face-pulling, but this could really be toned down a bit and still be effective.
But the centrepiece is undoubtedly Madlyn's Joan. She's a rock of faith in a mire of corruption and preening vanity. Madlyn pitches her between mania and terror, giving her the wide-eyed glistening gaze of the pious. Crucially, while utterly convinced of the truth of her visions, she's riddled with doubt and fear. In a feminist twist, this Joan is ultimately concerned with maintaining her chosen identity in the face of men who'd reduce her to a mere baby-making, sock-mending machine. She turns the final moments of the play, where Joan realises that she can face either a horrific death as the legendary Joan of Arc or a lifetime of purgatory as a quiet, ignored pet, into a unexpected triumph. Madlyn plays making the decision to be burnt alive perfectly, making it not only understandable but the obviously correct choice.
Maud Madlyn is no Maria Falconetti, but I've seen a lot of Joans over the years and Madlyn is easily in the upper echelons. The Rose Playhouse's performance space forces the audience into close proximity with the action and it's difficult not to feel a twinge of sympathy and emotion when Madlyn turns her smart, desperate true believer eyes in your direction, as if seeking salvation from those who've paid to watch her suffering.
While the Rose Playhouse might be chilly as hell at this time of year, The Lark is funny, interesting and moving enough to stave off even frostbite. Though you'll laugh this is also a sincere and touching piece of drama that does justice to the legend of Joan of Arc. Check it out, but be sure to wrap up warm and accept the theatre's offer of a blanket!
The Lark is at The Rose Playhouse until; 31st January 2015 All Performances at 7.30 pm (Sundays at 3.00 pm only) No Monday Performances
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