Before I left London, I was able to get to the theatre twice more. Only twice? Yes, I know...only twice? There were certainly many more things I wanted to see, but I was watching my budget. After all, there are tons of things I want to see here in New York and haven't. Anyway...
One of the shows I caught was a revival of Luigi Pirandello's Six Characters in Search of an Author at the Gielgud Theatre in the West End. This is a modern classic and one that I'd never actually seen before. This production is billed as "a new version," and credit for this adaptation is given to director Rupert Goold and Ben Power. (If Goold's name rings a bell, it's probably because he was the director of last season's revival of Macbeth starring Patrick Stewart.)
Goold and Power have updated Pirandello's original concept without actually making any significant changes to the structure of the piece or the ideas that Pirandello presents. Instead of a taking place in a theatre during a rehearsal, the action of the play is set in an editing suite where we see a producer and her team trying to assemble a documentary about euthenasia. They are having a tough time and it doesn't get easier when six mysterious figures show up in the studio claiming to be abandoned characters and begging the producer to tell their story.
Pirandello (and, presumably Goold and Power) are interested in big questions here. Are we real? Do we exist? If we are/do, how do we know? And what makes us so? Does anything really matter?
I found this to be immensely interesting, especially in the latter half as the play's various realities keep changing and collapsing in on each other. In one marvelous site specific coup de theatre, a character goes in search of medical attention (shown to the audience on a giant video screen), only to find that, instead of being in an editing facility, she's backstage at the Gielgud Theatre. And her terrified flight through the theatre leads her out onto Shaftesbury Avenue, then back into the theatre, through the bowels of the building and into the Queen's Theatre next door...where the West End production of Les Miserables plays. In the evening's most surreal moment, we see this character carrying an unconscious child on the stage of the Queen's Theatre during a barricade scene in Les Miz. Talk about meta...
It wasn't all fun and games and, to be honest, it sometimes felt like a lot of exposition, but, on the whole, the pay off was worth it. The cast was amazing, especially Ian McDiarmid (Star Wars' evil Emperor) and Denise Gough as two of the Characters and Noma Dumezweni as the Producer. Additional kudos go to Miriam Buether, whose set design perfectly replicates the sterile, florescent-lit environment of a modern office block.
The other show that I caught was the West End transfer of the Menier Chocolate Factory revival of La Cage Aux Folles at the Playhouse. I've got to tell you that I have never liked this show very much. I was underwhelmed with the revival we had on Broadway a couple of seasons ago and I had seen a tour years ago that starred the original Georges, Gene Barry, that was uninspired at best. And I still think that the show was some book problems.
But this production was amazing! And I loved every minute of it!
Given it's origin at the tiny Menier Chocolate Factory (the equivalent of an off-Broadway theatre), this production is probably the most intimate La Cage you're ever likely to see. The cast is smaller, and the sets and costumes are less glitzy, but the heart of show, the characters and the relationships, are brought to the fore. And it was a wonderful change.
The creators of the show, Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein, say in the program that the thing they like about this production is that it feels more like the experience of seeing a show in a seedy 1970's drag club.
No idea if that's really the case, but I liked how the human stories were able to take center stage. I saw relationships between characters that I'd never seen before and saw with new clarity the relationships that form the crux of the story.
The cast was uniformly excellent and lead by Douglas Hodge as Albin and Denis Lawson (replacing Philip Quast, who played the role during the initial run) as Georges. Hodge, rather than presenting a comic screaming queen, gives us an Albin who's a real person with real feelings who just happens to have a talent for the flamboyant. The scenes leading up the first act finale played like kitchen sink drama and the audience's heart just broke for this Albin. When he finally breaks down and claims the stage for himself alone in "I Am What I Am," we were right there with him and made this much co-opted moment the stuff of grand tragedy.
Special mention must go to Stuart Neal as Jean-Michel who was able to find in this character something besides the complete asshole that is presented by the libretto. This was a Jean-Michel that I didn't want to strangle and whose point of view I could (sort of) understand. This character still deserves a kick in the ass, but, if his father acted as anyone would and actually did that, there would be no play.
Also, I totally loved Adrian Der Gregorian as Francis, the drag show's not-as-hapless-as-he-seems stage manager. This is not a role that I ever took any special notice of before, but Der Gregorian takes each of his bits and really creates a fun character that was a pleasure to watch each time he was onstage.
If you have the opportunity, definitely go and check out this production.
Hey, folks! I'm back home and working hard to get things straightened out and put back together at the apartment. I had a hell of a time getting back, but I'll write about that later.
So Tim and I are in the midst of traveling around Britain this weekend. On Thursday, we left London and drove to Cardiff, the capital of Wales. This was my first trip to Wales and I was especially excited because I'm partially of Welsh descent and I wanted to check the place out.
Cardiff is a really nice small city, a regional center with much industry and much culture. It seems like large swaths of the city are under construction and, whenever it's all completed, Cardiff will be an odd compilation of your typical older British architecture and ultramodern 21st century buildings.
What did we do there? We took a walk around the city center on Thursday night, including passing by one of the city's theatres, which had a production of Romeo and Juliet on, and seeing the television star playing Romeo signing autographs on the sidewalk after the show. He was some guy from Eastenders and Tim gave me the tabloid dirt on the guy as we headed down the street. Some nasty stuff there, which is partly why the guy is now doing regional theatre and no longer on a popular television show.
On Friday, we strolled up to Cardiff Castle (every town of any size in Great Britain has a castle...what can I say? I love castles). This particular castle actually dates to the 16th century, although there have been fortifications on this site going back to Roman times. Most of the castle interiors date from the 19th century when the castle's owner at the time basically redid the whole place. Tim was a bit disappointed with that, referring to this owner as "nouveau riche coal money" but I didn't mind so much and thought the faux-medieval/19th century stuff made for something different. All in all though, this castle just wasn't as impressive as others I've seen.
After the castle, we went to the waterfront to check on the bay and the Millenium Center, which is where some of the exteriors for the BBC television series Doctor Who and Torchwood are shot (the Torchwood headquarters are supposedly located below the plaza here). Again it was lovely, without really being anything special. It seems larger on television. No John Barrowman or David Tennent sightings though. Sigh.
Afterward, we headed back into England and drove down to Devon to visit friends of Tim's who live in farmhouse in the midst of some of the most spectactular countryside I've seen anywhere in the world. And such nice people too.
Tonight we spent the evening watching British originals of two popular American television shows. The X Factor is even cheesier than American Idol if that's possible and Strictly Come Dancing is almost identical to Dancing With The Stars with some cosmetic differences, although I didn't know any of the celebrity dancers. This edition of The X Factor even comes with its own version of last year's American Idol second place finisher, David Archeleta, a teenager who looks like he's 12 years old and who is extremely popular for reasons that escape me. He had a pretty good voice, but, again like Archeleta, it was pretty clear that he had no idea what he was singing about.
I'm having such a lovely time.
Tonight Tim and I went to see Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders in their limited run at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in the West End. You probably know French as the star of the Britcom Vicar of Dibley and Saunders is, of course, world famous as Edina Monsoon of Absolutely Fabulous. What you may not know is that they've been writing and performing comedy together in the UK for 30 years and are as close to gods here as performers can be.
This production is called French and Saunders: Still Alive and is being billed as the duo's farewell performance as a double act. This is a huge deal here in the UK. Huge. HUGE.
The show is structured as sketch comedy with the stars revisiting popular characters and bits from their long career while also "spontaneously" talking to each other as themselves between sketches. And it IS basically just the two of them, augmented by video bits that allow them to get offstage for a few moments to change costumes.
Loved it! Laughed all night long. One of my favorite sketches was a modified version of the original sketch that eventually evolved into Absolutely Fabulous with Saunders reprising her iconic Edina and French as daughter Saffy, a role she actually originated.
The whole evening was just so much fun. So glad I got the opportunity to go and experience something that is so especially British in nature.
Okay, I'm alive.
My laptop has been up and down (mostly down) over the past few weeks and I haven't been able to score enough time at the library or with friends' computers to really think about writing much. Thanks to Tim, ye olde laptop seems to be working again and I'm hoping to get back to writing on a regular basis.
Speaking of Tim, I'm in London at the moment visiting him. Yea! I haven't done much yet this trip because I was felled almost as soon as I got here by a combination of stronger than usual jet lag and a cold that I managed to catch on the plane.
The cold I attribute to the recirculated air on the plane. The jet lag was worse than usual, I think, because, instead of flying overnight as usual (and as most people do flying east), I was on a morning flight. This meant that I left New York at about 9.00am and arrived at Heathrow at about 9.00pm...only it felt like 3.00pm to me. I didn't get to bed till the wee small hours of the morning and have been playing catch up ever since. The cold hasn't exactly been helping matters either.
But I'm hoping that I have both the cold and jet lag licked for now.
As you might expect, I've been to the theatre, but only once thus far. I took in a matinee of the Donmar Warehouse's new production of Chekhov's (by way of Tom Stoppard) Ivanov in the West End at Wyndham's Theatre starring Kenneth Branagh in the title role.
I wanted to catch this production even though I dislike Chekhov AND Stoppard. But I made it though a marathon of The Coast of Utopia plays in New York, so I knew I could take it. I've never seen either the play or Branagh before and this was a perfect opportunity and one that I'm unlikely to have in New York. So I grabbed a 10 pound standing room ticket and headed up to the balcony to catch the show.
And...I liked it. The play itself, Chekhov's first, isn't really much. The comedy is a little funnier than your standard Chekhov fare, but the (melo)drama is right there in the strike zone of your expectations. There's much here that the playwright would later put to better use in other plays. There's a bit of The Cherry Orchard here and The Three Sisters and The Seagull there. It's sort of like an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical that way. You feel like you've seen all this before elsewhere...only...better.
As per usual, the play takes place amongst the fading Russian society in a country district far from anywhere. Branagh's Ivanov is a gentleman farmer "on the wrong side of 40" who's having a midlife crisis. His farm is failing, he's in debt, he's fallen out of love with his dying wife, and seems destined for a love affair with a friend's daughter that he's pretty sure he doesn't want.
Branagh manages to make the most of a character whose self-absorption literally knows no bounds. Really, you just want to reach across the footlights and shake some sense into this Ivanov. He runs off the rails in the last scene, but it's more a matter of the text (which plays a bit like an SNL Chekhov parody) letting him down than the other way around.
The rest of the cast does well by their stock Chekhovian characters without many of them challenged unduely. The sets, by Christopher Orem, were gorgeous and this play required four of them...one for each act.
The standing room really wasn't bad. London theatres tend to be much more intimate than their New York counterparts and I had no trouble seeing or hearing, even from the balcony.
So that was fun...glad I went.