The Roof at Lift 2014

Someday you will die. And you can’t escape. So, you go out and find stuff. You attach meaning to the stuff. You keep the stuff. You need more stuff. You meet people. You get to know them. They’re weird. You like them. You give them your stuff or share it with them. You have a misunderstanding. You break up. Some idiot might beat you up for your stuff. You’re not quite sure why but you’re sure it wasn’t your fault. Basically, you’ve got one go at figuring out the messy thing that is life, and then you’re gone. What I’m trying to say: metaphysical scope isn’t really the problem of Fuel’s new show The Roof.

In a purpose-built arena on the Doon St Car Park behind the National Theatre, a headphones-clad audience is welcomed to a kind of nerdy live version of the board game LIFE, only with more rubber ducks and Space Invaders on the walls. The audience on the ground is surrounded by a kitsch cityscape reminiscent of the 1990s computer game Commander Keen: slightly non-menacing but very wacky. Player 611, after struggling with what looks like a broccoli monster which has had an unfortunate encounter with a shaver, only has one life left to fulfil the mission: get the girl, save the princess, hit an overgrown mothball suit wearer personifying your mother – the usual. One life left. Off you go.

There’s a hint of well-placed irony in inviting people to witness a videogame-style play they can’t actually influence themselves. The production struggles to extend its insights to the audience of what exactly there might be beyond the rat race of life. The solution to not giving and not wanting to give an answer is design, design, design, and playing with reiterations. Directors Frauke Requardt and David Rosenberg have assembled a cast of eight experienced movement performers and free runners who jump, slide and dance around the stage area. The set by Jon Bausor has lots of hidden doors, visual gags, and a plexiglas box with a woman who delivers a different service every time the player makes it to the end of a level. Guns, medi packs, a kiss and somewhere in between a point that our relationship to technology might make us lose our sense of urgency about life.

It’s generally a lose/lose situation if you watch a play that has the universal question of the meaning of life at its core. If it’s sometimes a bit shit and you don’t quite understand what’s going on, then you might argue that, actually, the artists have captured the point rather well. For example, it can seem quite disappointing that these free runners are constrained by the walls of the set. It’s all wonderfully choreographed throughout but they don’t do really do the expected risky, breath-taking jumps. They’re not free at all and their movement potential is in contrast with the 2D strip-like set around the audience. After 35 minutes of mulling this over my mind begins to drift and I start to imagine Nietzsche having fisticuffs with Kant about free will while dancers in zentai rabbit suits dance soothingly to the beat. Sorry if you just had a disturbing experience googling “zentai rabbit suit”.

Someday you will die. And you will still have all your stuff and some guy will have punched you and you still think it wasn’t your fault. Obviously all because this show you once saw, The Roof, didn’t make you care enough about not breaking out of the rat race. Or it did, and you’d still rather sit down to play Flappy Bird on your phone. At least you could play it yourself.

Written as part of the Ideastap Critical Writing Workshop for LIFT 2014.

Handbagged at the Vaudeville

“Mrs Thatcher has got eyes like a psychotic killer, but a voice like a gentle person. It is a bit confusing.” This could have been a line uttered by one of the characters in Moira Buffini’s new play but it’s actually taken from Adrian Mole’s Secret Diary. It is fitting to quote Adrian today not just because we should remember the unparalleled Sue Townsend who has sadly put the lid on her writing pen forever. It’s fitting because Handbagged displays the sort of sharp and observant humour we have come to love from Townsend. Considering the characters we’re dealing with the piece is a surprisingly joyful and entertaining romp.

For Artistic Director Indhu Rubasingham, however, the production is no laughing matter. Having just openend another production in New York (Red Velvet), this West End transfer marks an important point for The Tricycle theatre and the Arts Council funding it receives. Handbagged has been expanded from a 2010 short play at The Tricycle and it whizzes wittily through Margaret Thatcher’s time as Prime Minister of Britain.

Like Peter Morgan’s The Audience it uses the confidential weekly meetings the Queen has with her Prime Ministers as a theatrical conceit to explore the relationship of the women. The creatives needn’t have to worry about the uniqueness of the angle though. It might never be revealed who said what in these meetings, which is something that’s highlighted by the characters constantly exclaiming “We never said that!”, with varying degrees of tongue-in-cheek. It doesn’t matter though because Buffini’s guess is as educational as it is entertaining.

Facilitated by a strong female director (Rubasingham herself) this well-researched history lesson covers all the major events from Rhodesia, the Falklands war, the miner strike, IRA or the Brighton bombing from a distinct female perspective. The two main characters (in their younger and older incarnations played by four actors) go through eleven eventful years together and as they sit together every week and have their tea, there is no sign of domestication of its topic matter. Fenella Woolgar’s younger Thatcher opposite Lucy Robinson is caught between reverence for the Queen and the need to prove herself as a strong achieving woman.

Thatcher’s complete refusal to accept that the community is worth supporting and that social responsibility is not born from a liberal market, seems to perpetually confuse the monarch. A clever sub motif about unemployed actors (the performers address the audience throughout) links in nicely with Thatcher’s attitude towards strikes and employment policies. Marion Bailey excels as the older Queen not just in her eery likeness and Stella Gonet’s older Thatcher is as sharp-tongued as you would expect. Both older characters deliver a running commentary on the events their younger counterparts live through; this structure is a tricky setup but is facilitated by the addition of two male actors playing all the men these women had to deal with throughout their lives. From Denis Thatcher to Geoffrey Howe or Prince Philip, Jeff Rawle shines in the various roles he inhabits. He and Neet Mohan are clad in white trousers to blend in with Richard Kent’s clever and simple set design. As the issue of power is threaded deeply into the fabric of the play even the bright costumes of the women carry out their own unspoken battle.

Some of the characterisation can surely be objected to. Ronald Regan is a mere caricature and to have the Queen so vehemently defend social values (or socialist, as Thatcher would have put it) to the degree she does here seems a bit of a stretch. Also, her love for gossip may or may not be vastly overplayed. This is, however, political satire and where would the fun be without a bit of leeway? In a balancing act to avoid both alienation and patronisation of the audience the play abstains from taking too obvious a stance on Thatcher’s politics, sometimes disappointingly so.

The second half of the piece goes to some very dark places placing both Thatcher and the Queen into the proximity of death because of their power. When the Iron Lady seems unmoved by war, riots and explosions around her it’s hard not to admire her self-assertion. One can agree with Adrian Mole: looking at Thatcher is indeed confusing. With a questionable legacy that reverberates until this very day she might not be an easy person to sympatise with, but this production takes a good shot at shining a light on her motivations. It does so without mawkishness or judgement, but with a good dose of humour.

 

Once We Lived Here at the King’s Head Theatre

On the farm Emoh Ruo in the Australian outback Amy (Melle Stewart), the oldest of three siblings, looks after her sick mother Claire (Simone Craddock). Amy runs the place which has been plagued by a long-lasting drought on sheer force of will. She has sacrificed a lot to her determination to maintain the family home which was once built out of nothing. On a sweltering hot weekend, they all come together again and old demons and questions of guilt rise from the dusty outback earth.

Although Amy is carer, cook and handyman, all rolled into one, she becomes the object of scorn when her sister Lecy (Belinda Wollaston) descends on the old home. Now living the glamorous media life in the city Lecy fails to understand why her sister is holding on to the hard and gainless farm life. One sister unable to change her ways and one changed so much she is completely unrecognisable – that is the scope of character development in this piece and its textured exploration of the women’s desires and worries is a welcomed change on a theatrical stage. Stewart’s Amy with her self-denying earnestness provides a great contrast to Wollaston’s initially vapid Lecy who gets all the good laughs and outrageous lines. And then there are the men. Brother Shaun (Iestyn Arwell) struggles with his past and seems unable to take his future into his own hand. When the ruggedly handsome Burke (Shaun Rennie) visits the farm long needed change in the family’s life kicks into motion. Rennie gives a grounded performance linking the other characters desires and anxieties without becoming a cypher.

Mathew Frank’s songs swing between very conventional modern musical theatre style and a slightly-off Sondheim experiment. They tell the story efficiently and among them are some really beautiful pieces. The energetic ‘What The Hell’ is a lot of fun and the ballads ‘As Far As The Eye Can See’ or ‘Patch Of Dust’ are genuinely touching. A good book by Dean Bryant although some of his lyrics are quite a mouthful for the performers and sometimes the sincerity of the story takes over and the drama can feel a bit excessive. Effective lighting by Seth Rook Williams and an impressive set by Christopher Hone that changes from patio to roof top within a matter of seconds conjure up the Australian outback on the King’s Head’s small stage.

After playing in Australia and America it took a good five years to bring this show to a UK stage and with its specific focus on family farming it’s easy to see why it would be a hard sell for European audiences. However, the well-drawn characters will manage to reel you into this foreign world and if you didn’t think a quip about a water pump can be suitable end gag for a musical wait until you see Amy’s redeeming moment. She douses herself with the sparse water – is change after hardship possible after all?

This is a very solid production allowing a glimpse into life in the Australian outback that’s neither cliché nor trite. Not all the humour and topics translate smoothly to British audiences but there is enough meat around the family story with its strong female characters to make this a watchable show. Add some good tunes and you have a rather enjoyable evening.

Mozart Undone at the Barbican

Quite what they were expecting when attending a theatre-concert based on Mozart, the audience at the Barbican didn’t seem to know. There was promise to take the ennui out of a concert experience and add some visual spice to it. The delivery on that promise turned out to be a little more daring than simply that.

Thankfully it’s not controversial just for the sake of it. As a creative endeavour Betty Nansen Teatret, Cederholm & Hellemann Bros’ Mozart Undone is a tremendous achievement. A balance between theatrical performance, modern dance piece and music concert, the event reimagines and illustrates some 28 pieces from all corners of the Köchel catalogue. Well-known melodies are constantly broken down and visual expectations are reversed and played with. The piece tumbles across the genres of modern music history stealing movements from country music to electronic, from pop ballad to soft rock. The characters, too, are like feathers blowing from one situation to the next.

It starts with a harmless flirtation on a piano. In a decrepit theatre space, a group of eleven performers and musicians innocently fool around with water dripping from the ceiling as a version of Piano Concerto No.23 in A, 2. Adagio is being played live on stage. Usually instruments are hidden away, but to have them as part of the action is a nice treat, and not just when the electric guitar is played like a fiddle might be played by a possessed violinist. Over time the performance works itself into a wild frenzy of disturbing images spliced with slapstick humour and plenty of glitter.

Lotte Andersen from the Danish crime drama The Bridge and her fellow cast member are once in highly inventive makeshift rococo costumes (Anja Vang Kragh) and in the next minute locked in hour-glasses, submerged in bath tubs or transformed into nightmarish plaster orcs. The scope of just what the performers do with their voices and how they melt into one organic Gesamtkunstwerk is extraordinary. Claus Hempler is channeling David Bowie on more than one occasion and his powdery, dramatic voice adds a surreal cabaret dimension. When the vocally stunning Louise Hart and the rocker of the ensemble, Bjørn Fjæstad, perform ‘Under The Heartwood Tree’ we get hints of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. The breadth of musical trickery paired with visually exciting transformations is full of flourishes and never fails to amuse and surprise.

If you are a Mozart purist then you might not appreciate the unabashed way the ensemble reworks the classic melodies to an audio-visual spectacle. The rejigging of songs not only adds an additional layer of a different musical genre, but it also causes a significant change in the visual contexts the classic Mozart songs are associated with. Viewers might take exception to loading Mozart’s tunes with claustrophobic or sexual imagery because any original artistic intention might be subverted or overpowered.

Audiences tend to either love or hate what they don’t fully understand because it feels as if those pieces reach into a different realm. Although contrasting motifs of pure water and sullied flesh and bellicose humans, Nikolaj Cederholm’s direction steers clear of tying anything up too neatly. Inventing new forms of musical expression is what the wunderkind Mozart has become known for, so what better way to pay homage than to use his music to explore new theatrical formats? Mozart Undone is definitely whimsical and may have picked up some influences from iconic director Robert Wilson, but the conviction of the concept of a theatre-concert upholds nonetheless. There are few shows truly as spellbinding as this one. Unsurprisingly there were instant standing ovations at the final bow.