24 May 2019. Four Quartets at the Barbican

This was a fascinating hour and a half - a mixture of:

• dance by an ensemble under New York choreographer Pam Tanowitz
• the narration by Kathleen Chalfont of TS Eliot's poem
• music by Kaija Saariaho
• a set and lighting designed by Clifton Taylor and featuring paintings by Brice Marden 

All these worked together brilliantly while having their independent existences. It was less dancing to the poem and music as dancing with them.

The poem itself is hard to fathom and I tended to use the narration as music rather than intellectually processing its meaning - tuning in and out while focusing on the dancers.

An interesting discussion afterwards cast some light on Tanowitz's approach to the work that included pilgrimages to the locations referenced in Eliot's poem. It made me keen to try and gain a greater insight on the poem's meaning.

So, I came down on the side of the critics who found this a really engaging event. However, it was also somewhat soporific and the person next to me kept nodding off.

21 May 2019. Rutherford and son at the National Theatre

This very well crafted play conveyed all too convincingly the claustrophobic existence of a bourgeois family living on Tyneside. We have John Rutherford, a glass factory owner and his two sons and daughter. One son, John Jnr, his wife, Mary and baby (following the live-on-stage trend) have returned from London, forced their by impecuniosity and his ill-health. Meanwhile, Janet is trying to find secret love with the foreman, Martin and the other son Richard wants to become a curate.
John is a no-nonsense businessman who exudes Victorianism apart from religiosity. In the end he steals John Junior's invention for the sake of the firm, banishes Janet for her affair, sacks Martin once he has betrayed John Junior's invention, loses John junior and finally does a deal with Mary that she can live in the house as long as the baby eventually goes into the family firm.
What's the point of this play? It certainly affected me emotionally. By the end I felt that I had wallowed in these people's privileged but gnawingly circumscribed existence. You could almost feel the physical cold in their house, let alone the deadening nature of their repetitive daily schedule. It certainly illustrated why people in that era sought to get away and make a life abroad. It also emphasised for me the questionability of building and handing on the family firm. What dull existence that was painted as. However, I'm not sure it was a memorable play or that there were takeaways beyond the obvious.
The acting was generally convincing, though I felt Sam Troughton as Jon junior sometimes delivered his lines oddly and needed to find the character more convincingly. The set was simply the living room of the family house - it reminded me somewhat of Saltaire - but extremely well constructed with a fire burning throughout. The only silly problem with the production was that money seemed to consist far too much of coinage rather than notes but that's detail!
A group of singers introduced and closed each of the three acts and seemed to add to the air of gloom quite effectively.
All in all, a worthwhile way to spend an evening at the theatre but I came out with the thought articulated by another member of the audience - it's grim up North.

20 May 2019. White Pearl at the Royal Court

I really enjoyed this new play by Anchuli Felicia King and was surprised that one or two members of the audience gave up on it before the end. Played energetically by a company of excellent Asian actresses, the play tells the tale of a Singapore-based cosmetics firm that sells skin whiteners to women who are never happy with how they look. The firm has hit a crisis with the release on the internet of a draft advertisement that reveals all to clearly the racist attitudes of the firm. We watch as the crisis unfolds, as well as taking a brief flashback to the year before when the firm was getting going.
The play captured perfectly the rather back seat that values take in capitalism's pure version as found in Hong Kong and Singapore. It also portrayed the disdain that different groups (Hong Kong versus mainland Chinese; Chinese versus Japanese etc etc) have for each other.
All together a very worthwhile visit to the Royal Court. The acting was excellent as was the set and stage management. I came out looking forward to a future visit to Asia and the chance to rub shoulders with some of the more pleasant characteristics encapsultated in some of the parts - especially the Japanese Ruki (Kanako Nakano), the mainland Chinese Xiao (Momo Yeung) and the Korean (Soo-Jin (Minhee Yeo).
While a few Westerners left before the end, the Asian audience members all seemed thoroughly engaged which seemed to give the evening a stamp of credibility.

18 May 2019. Phaedra at the Linbury

This was a truly operatic tale. Phaedra, falls for her stepson, Hippolytus, is rejected by him, claims to have been raped leading to him being killed by Poseidon and herself commits suicide. That's Act One. After writing this, Hans Werner Henze aged 79 apparently lapsed into a coma for two months. On coming to, he wrote Act Two, with the dead Hippolytus put back together on a operating table, renamed Virbius and confined in a cage while taunted by Phaedra. All the while, the minotaur - slain by Phaedra's husband Theseus, prowls around.

It would be hard not to be engaged with such shenanigans and Henze's music was played excellently by the Southbank Sinfonia - the percussion, clarinet and piano standing out for me.

17 May 2019. Yorke Dance Project at ROH

This evening to celebrate twenty years of the Yorke Dance Project in the vastly over-heated Clore Studio featured four pieces:
First was Kenneth McMillan's Playground - an apparently easy to follow tale of adolescent awakening in its first restaging since 1979. However, as the piece unfolds, we find we are not so much in a child's playground as a mental hospital ward. Hardly a laugh as minute, it ends with one dancer straight-jacketed and the rest in white coats.
After the interval, came the very brief Between and Within by Sophia Stoller and the much lengthier Communion, a commission by Robert Cohan, mentor to Wayne McGregor. Interesting at first, if I'm honest, I found communion too long. Just as I thought it was over, it carried on. It sarted with the dancers moving forwards and backwards in line with individuals stopping and then resuming. This was an interesting idea that I think could have been developed in much more impactful ways - e.g., all but one freezing. Anyway, there was then a second part where the dancers sat on two rows of chairs facing each other while some performed between them
Finally, after a further interval, we had Imprint by Yolande Yorke-Edgell. This struck me as by far the best piece, being infused with energy and positivity. It paid homage to Yorke-Edgell's influencers - Cohan, richard Allston and Bella Lewitsky and closed with some real exhuberance.
Irritatingly, the ROH had run out of programmes, so many in the audience did not know exactly what they were or had been watching.

16 May 2019. The Firm at Hampstead.

This ninety minutes in a quite classy bar/nightclub in the company of four ageing members of a gang together with a younger turk passed pretty effortlessly but had no real lasting effect on me. The entire actors' section of the theatre is the bar area where the action takes place. The bar is owned by one of the aged gang members - Gus - and the action opens with him engaging with Leslie. They are joined by Trent and Selwyn, but not by Shaun who they were expecting for a 'release' party. Instead, the younger Fraser is introduced to the group by Selwyn who believes him to be a relative. However, this youngster is recognised by Leslie as a cellmate who had messed about with Leslie's shoes. He is also recognised by Trent as a member of a gang who had menaced him a few days earlier. It transpires that he is, far from Selwyn's relative, the illegitimate son of Gus.
Without going into the detail of the plot, it is interesting to watch how sense is slowly made of who is who and why the gang are so against holding up a supermarket, as proposed by Fraser. The problem for me is what the takeaways are meant to be. Certainly the acting was great and all the brawls that flared up were convincingly done. All this action may have given insight into what 'real' gangs are like. However, I had the nagging feeling that I wanted reassurance that writer Roy Williams really new what this different world was like.
In summary, I was glad I went to see The Firm but I did not feel it was a memorable piece of work.

15 May 2019. Triple Bill at ROH

The triple bill consisted of;
Within the Golden Hour. This is the third time I have seen this Christopher Wheeldon piece and each time I have enormously liked it. With a very contemporary feel, the pairs and groups of dancers do extraordinary moves as if they were normal. The music and lighting complement and add to the dancing.
Medusa. This setting of the story of Medusa to dance is a good vehicle for dancers to demonstrate their talents - in particular the player of Medusa. tonight the dancer was Natalia Osipova who earned enthusiastic applause from the audience. I must admit, I did not take to the piece as much as that which had come first this evening. In truth, I don't think I picked up of all the subtleties of the telling of the story and could do with seeing the piece a second time.
Flight Pattern. I saw his Crystal Pite piece on its first run and found it as affecting on this second occasion. It has a huge number of dancers, creating a very convincing evocation of the crowd.
All in all, a good evening but I feel I rather missed the full impact of Medusa. My feelings were very similar to those expressed in the Guardian.

9 May 2019. Betrayal at the Pinter Theatre

This production had the audience gripped for its 90 minutes with hardly a cough being heard. The play works backwards from the end of an affair to its beginning. Tom Hiddleston stars as the husband whose wife and best friend embark on an affair which is revealed to him during a trip to Venice when the wife receives a letter from her lover.
Under the direction of Jamie Lloyd, the actors deliver their lines at a volume that is just audible but one is left feeling one is over-hearing the intimate revelations of their complicated lives. The subject matter is familiar, yet the play challenges one to think about the motivations for embarking on an affair and to face up to the near inevitable trajectory that it will take.
All in all an excellent if somewhat over-priced ninety minutes that left me wanting to buy the text.

7 May 2019. Billy Budd at ROH

By some magic, one finds oneself totally engrossed and immersed in this gloomy tale of bullying and abuse set at the turn of the 18th century. Billy Budd has been press-ganged from the merchant ship 'Rights O'Man'. His effusive farewell to his old ship using its name is misinterpreted as a sign that he is a potential mutineer. The master-at-arms, Claggart, takes a particular downer on Budd and tries to frame him but Budd strikes and kills Claggart when the latter makes his accusation in front of the Captain, Edward Vere. For this murder, Budd is sentenced to death by hanging from the yardarm. And so the opera ends, with Vere in his old age recalling these events with sorrow.
We are left wondering why Claggart took such an extreme dislike of Budd - was it his handsomeness that is frequently referred to? I was also struck by the graphic portrayal of the harshness of life at sea for those below decks - as well as the enviable club class life of the Captain. It is incredible that this was life just over 200 years ago.
The orchestra was excellent in its playing of Britten's score and gained well-deserved applause. The set designed by Michael Levine was also magnificent with the deck raised and lowered, revealing the men in their hammocks and other life below decks. The only element that jarred for me was a trench full of water that people routinely splashed through. It seemed a bit of a distraction.

6 May 2019. Top Girls at the National Theatre

I was really absorbed by this complex play by Caryl Churchill. The first act in which Marlene (played by Katherine Kingsley) hosts a dinner with a diverse group of women from history was incredibly effective and gained a well-deserved round of applause at its conclusion. The playing and drawing out of the different characters was extremely well-done, especially the chatty Lady Nijo (played by Wendy Kweh) and Pope Joan (Amanda Lawrence). It transpires that many of these had a story about children - e.g., Lady Nijo and Patient Griselda had their children taken away from them while for Pope Joan the act of having a child had resulted in her being stoned to death once it was realised she was not a man.
We then switch to the second act with the child Angie playing with her young friend Kit and voicing her dislike of her mother. Next we move to the Top Girls office with Marlene and her colleagues working as recruitment consultants. Marlene has just heard she has won promotion, to the cost of a male manager. Suddenly office life is interrupted by the arrival of Angie who has come for an extended but unannounced stay with her Aunt - Marlene. The act concludes with Angie sleeping on the sofa and Marlene telling her co-workers that she is thick.
After the interval, we are a year earlier and Marlene is visiting her sister in East Anglia, having been invited by Angie without consulting her mother. Marlene brings presents for the child including a turquoise dress into which she had changed earlier in the play. Marlene, a Thatcherite, and her sister, a socialist, fall into argument during which it transpires that Angie is actually Marlene's daughter who had been adopted by her Aunt. The play ends with Angie coming downstairs, her sleep having been interrupted and declaring how she was scared.
As I said at the outset this is a complex play that would merit some studying and I'm sure that all its angles were not captured by me at the time. However, it was most certainly and interesting evening, cleverly directed by Lyndsey Turner and with sets at the top of the National's high standards. 

3 May 2019. Death of a Salesman at the Young Vic.

This was an excellent and engaging evening. Casting Willy Loman as an African American (played by Wendell Pierce), the co-Directors (Marianne Elliott and Miranda Cromwell) did a particularly fine job of interleafing the flashbacks and the present time. The terrible moment when Biff visits his father in an out-of-town hotel only to find him with The Woman was particularly well conveyed - it is the fulcrum of the play, explaining Biff's current behaviour and attitude and getting the audience to consider Willy's betryal of his loyal wife, Linda (played by Sharon D Clarke).
My only hesitation was the set which was somewhat minimalist and didn't convey the oppressive surrounding of the Loman's home by more recent apartment blocks - a metaphor that was very clear in the RSC production I saw in 2015.