Metamorphosis

Metamorphosis
Lyric Hammersmith

I had high hopes for this production of Metamorphosis, returning to the Lyric after a previous successful run. But, despite a strong ending, it didn't quite live up to its billing.

Adapted from Kafka and directed by David Farr and Gísli Örn Garðarsson, this take on the oft told tale of Gregor Samsa, the public servant who wakes up as a beetle, somehow doesn't hold together. The family scenes often run too long, there is a little overacting going on, and the fascist implications are pushed too strongly in an overcooked scene where a potential lodger comes for dinner. 


The set is undeniably impressive, a split level stage with the family dining room downstairs and Gregor's room on top, flipped on its side so the furniture juts out towards the audience. Gísli Örn Garðarsson gives a fine, acrobatic performance as Gregor, crawling and leaping across his bedroom, anguish growing by the minute. But the family scenes lack fizz, and there is little attempt to contextualise the true fears and horror of Gregor's transformation. 

It only really catches fire in its final, electrifying moments. As the rich music of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis spools out, Gregor hangs suspended from the dining room ceiling, while his sister Grete swings indifferently in front of a backdrop of blooming flowers. It is a shocking and effective ending, in which the production's creeping sense of dread finally comes to full fruition.

In the Republic of Happiness

In the Republic of Happiness 
Royal Court

This review of Martin Crimp’s In the Republic of Happiness is about four months late, but that’s possibly the amount of time it’s taken me to wrap my head around it.

Joking! I never wrapped my head around it. Which is certainly not to say I didn’t enjoy it.   

Republic is split into three acts: The Destruction of the Family, The Five Essential Freedoms of the Individual, and In the Republic of Happiness. The first was my least favourite – a disintegrating family at dinner, saying exactly what they feel, to horrible effect. For whatever reason, it took a while to engage me, and I feel it only really came alive with the arrival of Uncle Bob, primed and ready to reveal to the family what his partner Madeleine thinks of them all. Initially Crimp seemed to be employing that cheap (but irritatingly watchable) archetype of drama; the character who shows up to destroy a family gathering by dropping some unexpected truth bombs on all and sundry. This being Crimp of course, Bob’s truth bombs come in surreal form (“She says you both smell like flood damaged carpet and wishes you were dead”), his thoughts fractured and increasingly frantic. When Madeleine arrives, no explanation of her psychotic hatred is forthcoming, other than the haunting song she sings that takes us into the second act...

...in which all characters are dropped and the cast sit in a semi-circle and discuss topics like The Freedom to Write the Script of My Own Life, and The Freedom to Experience Horrid Trauma. The rhythm of this extended act was classic Crimp – hesitations, repetitions, and perfectly timed prevarications. And the content seemed half searing critique of contemporary self-obsession and paranoia, and half blatant piss take of the (predominantly liberal, middle class) Royal Court audience itself. The audience I was in laughed (A LOT) but I’m not really sure who the joke was on. But it was supremely watchable, helped in great part by several spine tingling songs sung with perfect blankness by the cast.

Then came the controversial third act, in which Uncle Bob and Madeleine find themselves the presumed rulers of some sterile new republic. I say controversial because this was the section that seemed to get the most heat from critics and audiences for being boring and nonsensical. I quite liked its quiet rhythm, although I confess to being none the wiser as to its meaning. As in the whole production, the song was the highlight – a final, quiet plea from Uncle Bob to ‘hum, hum, hum the happy song’.

So what is Republic about? I think I’ve made it clear that I have no real answers, only a few vague thoughts. The middle section could be seen as a continuation of the ideas explored in Attempts on Her Life, whilst the fruitless search for happiness in a theme that resonates in Play With Repeats and No One Sees the Video. Some critics have looked at the three act structure as representative as Past, Present and Future, or Dante’s Divine Comedy. I’m partly tempted to view it as a skewering of the progression of theatre – from families spilling with secrets, to psychoanalytical navel gazing and personal revelation, to the cynical dystopia beloved of modern drama. But all these theories seem like an oversimplification. There’s just too much going on here, one definitive explanation won’t fit. I’m left with loose ends and niggling provocations and lingering doubts.

Would I want every play to be like In the Republic of Happiness? No. Am I glad this one was? Yes. Whatever shortcomings Republic has, you can say one thing for Crimp. He makes other playwrights look lazy.

TV Review – Black Mirror, My Mad Fat Diary, Utopia

(Mild spoilers ahead)

I often think of January and February as being a bit of a dead space on television; like the post Oscars film industry, weak formats seem to prevail (see last week’s ridiculous Mayday, a murder mystery that seemed to be resolved with a slight variation on A Wizard Did It). But Channel 4 solidly bucked that trend in 2013 with a strong return for Charlie Brooker’s Black Mirror, as well as two new and unexpected treats.

I wasn’t a massive fan of the first series of Black Mirror. I liked it well enough; it just didn’t set my world on fire. But the first episode of series two – Be Right Back – was a powerful tale of loss and desperation set against the backdrop of our increasing reliance on technology.

Be Right Back has been compared to Stephen King’s Pet Sematary, and films like Caprica and Solaris, but I was most reminded of W.W. Jacob’s classic horror story The Monkey’s Paw. It’s been reworked and referenced countless times in popular culture (for example, the series five episode Forever of Buffy the Vampire Slayer) but Brooker’s take was a subdued and poignant reflection on the madness grief can drive us to. Beautifully acted by Hayley Atwell and Domhnall Gleeson, the moments of creeping horror were artfully balanced by the moving scenes in which Martha comes to realise that the new Ash was a poor substitute for the man she loved indeed.

Business was resumed for the following two episodes, as disturbing dystopia and political satire took centre stage, but it was the first episode that lingers in my mind. The final image of Ash stuck up in the attic with all the other useless mementos was a striking conclusion to a reflective and affecting piece of television.

Moving in an entirely different way, E4’s My Mad Fat Diary was an unmitigated treat from start to finish. Following the attempts of Rae Earl, a Lincolnshire sixteen year old recently released from a mental hospital, to make friends, navigate crushes, and find happiness; My Mad Fat Diary was a wry, hilarious, and sometimes sad look at the teenage years.

The whole cast is great but Sharon Rooney in particular gives such a warm, unaffected performance as Rae that it’s impossible not to root for her. Special mention too for Ian Hart, her sympathetic yet screwed up psychiatrist who helps her muddle through life on the outside. There’s not enough great female leads in television so thank God for gobby, bolshy Rae, effortlessly dominating every scene with her sparky vulnerability. Roll on series two.

There’s a lot of cross pollination between playwrights and television. Mike Bartlett recently delivered superior murder mystery The Town, Jack Thorne moved from plays at the Bush to writing for This is England and The Fades, and now Dennis Kelly, co-writer of Pulling, has delivered Utopia: a tense, disturbing, funny, and action packed dystopia centred around the hunt for a graphic novel.

I can’t praise Utopia enough, to be honest. It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, with its ultra-violence, twisting plot, and downright depressing themes - but I watched it on the edge of my seat. The writing is so tight and meticulous, managing to deliver massive amounts of exposition without ever once seeming clunky. The characters are incredibly well drawn – from Adeel Akhtar’s Wilson Wilson, conspiracy theorist and lovable paranoiac; to Paul Higgin’s desperate, out of his depth civil servant Dugdale. And fourteen year old Oliver Woollford gives an incredible performance as Grant, by turns cocksure, terrified, and old beyond his years. I remember him being similarly impressive in last year’s noir drama Blackout, he’s clearly a talent on the rise.

The plot itself is ingenious. Like all great thriller writers, Kelly constantly ups the stakes. At least twice an episode, he pulls the carpet from under your feet. Characters switch sides, ulterior motives are revealed, each new piece of the Network puzzle introduces a different threat. The search for the graphic novel becomes the search for Jessica Hyde which becomes the search for Janus which becomes the search for Mr Rabbit. But it never becomes a Lost style maze of loose ends; the final episode wraps everything up satisfyingly whilst at the same time leaving open the possibility of another series (which I’m torn about, because I want it so much, but could it ever improve on the first?)

The direction is stunning, full of heightened hues and wide angles on endless fields and roads. Americans often complain about the low production values of British television, and while I don’t necessarily agree (we all know the best episodes of Doctor Who are the bottle episodes), it’s certainly not a criticism that could be levied at Utopia. The direction and photography are perfectly complementary to the action of the series, sublimely coloured with a vaguely sinister dreamlike quality.

In conclusion, my cup runneth over. Channel 4 has made a real strong showing of late, and I hope this spirit of ingenuity continues. This is British television as it should be.

Ripper Street: When Men Were Men, and Women Were... Horribly Mutilated?

One can only imagine the general delight with which the BBC's new crime drama Ripper Street pitch was received. “Prostitutes, you say? And policemen? And violent, sexualised murders? Why, this is the stuff televisual dreams are made on!”

I’m working on a half-baked theory that the number of prostitutes and policemen in television and films actually equals the number of their real life counterparts. But seriously, where would television be without them? World weary cops knocking back the whiskey and promising themselves just one more case, while tarts with hearts of gold pop up to add a little titillations to proceedings.

I’ll save my (incredibly fascinating) thoughts on coppers for a another day, but right now let’s take a trip down television’s seedy red light district and see what we can find…

Televisual prostitutes come in three notable forms:

•       Tarts with hearts of gold
•       Sexy, liberated “feminists”
•       Mutilated/raped/strangled/shot/stabbed/burned/dismembered victims

The tarts tend to pop up as side characters in cop shows or comedies, adding a bit of colour to proceedings. They’re usual working class, chippy and cheerful, viewing their job as just another way to pay the bills. If it’s a comedy, expect hilarious misunderstandings about the nature of their work. 

The sexy liberated “feminists” are business orientated career gals who see nothing wrong with using their God-given assets to make moolah  – think Hannah in Secret Diary of Call Girl, Inara in Firefly, Laurie in the first series of The West Wing. This lot tend to be middle class, educated, impeccably dressed, and fully prepared to defend their position as empowering and liberated. You don’t meet that many of this type in real life because THEY DON’T REALLY EXIST.

And then there are the victims. Pick a crime show, any crime show. Whether it’s CSI, Law and Order, or Criminal Minds, chances are a dead prostitute will pop up at some point. This is a good excuse for the characters to gaze off into middle distance and contemplate what kind of sick mind would do a thing like this, godamnit. Bonus points if she’s an illegal immigrant, has a kid at home, or is under sixteen. Super bonus points if they show her getting naked before she’s brutally murdered. After all, she can’t be sexy once she’s dead, eh?

Ripper Street gets to have its cake and eat it too, with the whole ‘But it’s in The Past! People were sexist in The Past!” Indeed, they were. The Past, as L.P. Hartley famously wrote “is a foreign country. Full of sexy prostitutes.” (I may be paraphrasing). But who can question the legitimacy of violence towards women in the context of a time period that was extremely violent to women? To not show it would surely be to deny the true horrors of Jack and his copycat friends.

Except the true horrors of violence against women are freaking everywhere on television. Call me squeamish but I don’t know how much further my eyes need to be opened. And Ripper Street really specialises in lingering close ups on dead prostitutes. The first, found in an alley, is lovingly caressed by the camera, throat slit and crosses carved in her eyes. Mmm, mutilate-y. Fully clothed, disappointingly, but they’ll rectify that soon in a delightfully intimate autopsy scene. But fear not, it’s not all violent death for the streetwalkers of Victorian England, we then get to enjoy one of the leads ‘pleasuring’ a prostitute in a brothel that resembles a miniature Ritz. “There are no rules here” American Surgeon Guy whispers sensually. Except, you know, I’m paying you and you can’t say no. That’d be one rule.

This weird dissonance between the depiction of unfortunate streetwalkers who get ripped apart by sadists, and the cossetted prostitutes of Long Susan’s salubrious brothel is jarring, to say the least. Ultimately, Ripper Street has it both ways – on the one hand solemnly pontificating about the abuse of vulnerable women, and on the other serving up a stream of scantily clad sex minxes on the grounds that That’s How They Did It Back Then.

It’s a shame. I like most of the actors in Ripper Street, the pace rattles along nicely, and the general air of Victorian grime and restlessness is well rendered. But I won’t be back for more. After all, if I need my fix of murdered prostitutes, I don’t need Ripper Street. I can just read the papers.

Women in Theatre: Dismantling the Master's House

It’s taken me a while to form a coherent response to Charlotte Higgins' excellent article for the Guardian about the under-representation of women in British theatre; partly because I spent most of December spitting feathers about it, and partly because I’m really really lazy. But here goes.

I don’t have anything to add about the ways in which we can redress the balance as they’ve been outlined by much smarter people than me: gender blind casting, producing and commissioning more work by female writers, writing more parts for actresses, encouraging more women to build a career in the theatre through education, scholarships, and equality based hiring practices. All of these things need to happen, and soon.

What I do want to talk about is why the facts laid out in this article came as such a shock. On this topic, as on most topics, I refer to the superior genius of Audre Lorde in her essay ‘The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House’. Lorde addresses, through the experience of being one of the only black lesbian women invited to speak at a conference on feminism, how the feminist movement is drastically weakened by its failure to acknowledge the concerns of non-white, non-heterosexual, and non-middle class women.

What’s this got to do with theatre, I hear you cry. Well, the comparison I’m rather ineptly trying to draw is that theatre, much like feminism, prides itself on being a site of inclusivity and an instrument of social change. But, like the feminists who organised Lorde’s conference, Higgin’s report shows theatre up to be something of a pretender.

You might think I’m painting theatre with a bit of a broad brush to call it a ‘site of inclusivity and an instrument of social change’. The Adelphi’s new musical adaptation of The Bodyguard, for example, is possibly a little less high minded in its aims. But I honestly believe that theatre has long been a home for the misfit and the outcast, a place where hidden lives and untold stories can be revealed onstage. It attracts the oddballs, the eccentrics, the ones who see the world a little differently. Today, new writing is often socially engaged and politically conscious and many venues around the country specialise in commissioning work that gives a mouthpiece to those whom society often overlooks.

Is this a romanticised vision of theatre? Yes. But it’s a vision I want to believe in. I love the idea of theatre being a place where everyone is welcome. Which is why a report that shows over fifty percent of the population are dramatically under-represented in almost every area of the theatre industry is something of a sucker punch.

Theatre cannot represent itself as a radical institution without redressing this balance (this article focusses only on women but of course there are many other groups that suffer the same treatment – from those of non-white ethnicities, to those with disabilities). If someone tells me women are grossly outnumbered by men in investment banking, I’ll be annoyed. But not surprised. I don’t exactly expect the investment banking industry to be a hotbed of gender equality. But the theatrical world should know better. It can’t call itself an open forum and then shout down half of society.

As Lorde puts it: “Difference must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic.” Theatre is best when it makes inclusivity its goal.