Julia Pascal
The Merry Widow, ENO. Review by Julia Pascal.
The Merry Widow
English National Opera
Franz Lehar
Viktor Léon and Leo Stein in a new translation
English lyrics by Richard Thomas
English book by April de Angelis
Julia Pascal
This was the first time I had seen this operetta and the idea of Viennese kitsch did not excite me. Director Max Webster clearly shares my antipathy for schlock. His production is a wonderful reframing of the story from a post #MeToo perspective.
The operetta is certainly ready to be reimagined. Hanna Glawari, a rich widow is the prize desired by all males in an imaginary Balkan country. There is a simple running gag that shows all the men, of all ages, chasing the merry widow for her pecuniary value. The government decides that she must marry a citizen to help the country’s economy. Innocent enough, or is it?
In the programme notes, writer Fiona Maddocks tells us that ‘Hitler adored The Merry Widow even though Lehar’s wife and most of his librettists were Jewish’. It is easy to see why this was a Nazi hit. The politics can be masked under the beauty of the compelling Lehar waltzes and the general silliness of the situation. Elements of French farce are seeded by the 1861 original comedy The Embassy Attaché written by Henri Meilhac. However, Lehar’s operetta was written in 1905 when revolution was in the air at the dawn of the twentieth century. And Webster’s production suggests a post-Freudian and post MeToo version which delicately keeps the spirit of 1905 while also plunging us, at moments, in to Brexit-crazed Britain. The brilliance of the production is the way Webster embraces the absurdism of Chaplinesque slapstick but layers it with political comment. He is well served by Richard Thomas’ satirical lyrics of and April de Angelis’ sharp book.
I enjoyed the line- up of men declaring their inability to understand women as they urinated together in an open-door vespasienne. I enjoyed the line- up of high-kicking dancers in Maxim’s declaring how their elderly clients were dosing them with the clap. Bravo for reducing the forced, commercialized eroticism of French burlesque to the reality of French gonorrhea.
Sarah Tynan was a witty widow and Nathan Gunn as Danilo, her former lover, was solid and compelling. Kristiina Poska brought a huge energy and sensitivity to the orchestra. I liked that Esther Bialas costumed The Widow as a 1930s movie star while dressing the rest of the cast in turn of the century costume. This aesthetic elegantly connected to the suggestion of consecutive time frames.
Max Webster’s Merry Widow is a hugely enjoyable version of Lehar’s loved classic and, happily, is a long way from apple strudel and whipped cream.
Julia Pascal © 2019.
Medea, The Barbican. Review by Julia Pascal.
Medea
International Theater Amsterdam
Barbican
Ends 9 March
Preview Blueprint Medea at the Finborough Theatre, May 21-June 9.
Julia Pascal
Medea is perhaps the most potent myth for the #MeToo generations. First-performed in 431 BC, Euripides’ drama has had countless interpreters. The action is horrifyingly compelling. Medea, the foreign princess and sorceress from Colchis –which is present day Georgia and Turkey- enters the Greek world to help Jason find the Golden Fleece. She falls in love with him. They have two sons. However, Jason is ordered to marry King Creon’s daughter Glauke. He abandon Medea. Medea sends a wedding dress as a gift to her rival. The robe is poisoned. Glauke dies. Medea’s further revenge is to kill her sons and, it is this act, which has horrified audiences from antiquity to today. The children are innocent, why should they pay for their father’s sins? This myth has no redemption or happy end. Medea is unpunished by Euripides and her outrage at her ill-treatment is her expression of her pride and honour. Here ‘honour killing’ is not an expression of patriarchy but one of self-respect and pride. We do not know if it can ever be defended but we see its roots in the injustice of male-domination.
Simon Stone, as writer-director, changes the names of the characters: his version is also inspired by the case of Deborah Green who has served 22 years in a US prison for the attempted poisoning of her husband and her three children. Stone loses the concept of Medea as a foreigner within the narrative but that does not matter in his wonderful production. Medea is now Anna. Jason becomes Lucas. Glauke is renamed Clara.
Stone stages his interpretation on a white stage with almost no props. Screen techniques are integrated in to the dramatic action, for example when Anna’s sons film their parents in bed and show the video to their father’s lover, the result is comic. Stone makes us laugh before transfixing us with the horror of murder to come. But the importance of this adaptation, and the play itself to the #MeToo zeitgeist, is to reveal the abuse of a hugely intelligent woman by the ruling patriarchy. Classical Greek drama is so now.
Stone’s production is set in modern day Amsterdam. The creative team is strong and the directorial overview offers a pleasing aesthetic synthesis. Medea premiered in 2014 in Amsterdam and comes with financial support from Holland and Fonds 21. Marieke Heebink won the Theo d’Or prize for her portrayal of the main role. The myth is so strong that it regrows with each telling and with each cultural transplantation. This is subsidised state theatre at its radical best.
Blueprint Medea, my own adaptation of the myth, opens at the Finborough Theatre May 21-June 9. I have transposed the original setting to London today. Fascinated by the idea of Medea as an outsider, after all Colchis is also part of modern Turkey, the original story of woman-in- political-exile, is partly based on interviews with former Kurdish soldiers from Turkey and Iraq. My 2019 Medea is a Kurdish warrior from Turkey who comes to London on a false passport. She has fought the Islamists and arrives with a history of war. In London, her Jason is the son of an Iraqi taxi driver. They are both Muslim but their cultures are utterly different and the battleground of love, sex and patriarchy is played out against the Middle Eastern conflicts in Syria, Iraq and Turkey.
https://www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk/productions/2019/blueprint-medea.php?spektrix_bounce=true
Julia Pascal © 2019.
The Good Person of Szechwan, By Bertolt Brecht. Review by Julia Pascal.
The Good Person of Szechwan
The Moscow Pushkin Drama Theatre
By Bertolt Brecht
Translated into Russian by Egor Peregudov
Directed by Yury Butusov
Barbican Theatre
Julia Pascal
It is rare to see productions of Brecht in London today. It is even rarer to see them performed in Russian. This jewel from Moscow came only briefly to London but it showed audiences that there is an antidote to endless naturalism. Here is an international style that is brazen and brilliant. It is loud and it is risky.
Brecht’s parable on whether a person can be ‘good’ in a corrupt society offers huge scope to directors and here Yury Butusov seizes the text and roughs it up as an extraordinary spectacle that engages on every level. There is music and dance, there is Expressionism and there is carnival. There is Brecht’s Verfremdungseffekt which makes the audience think as well as feel. It is a total theatre experience that is constantly surprising.
Brecht’s anti-parable is set in an imaginary China. We know that in 1935 he saw performances of Chinese Opera in Moscow and that this influenced his own thoughts on epic theatre and contributed to the creation of his theory on the Verfremdungseffekt. Butusov’s production also has an operatic element. He uses Paul Dessau’s score but there are additions of jazzy compositions by Igor Gorsky’s band Pure Music.
Adding to the alienation effect, I liked that the text was in Russian but the songs were sung in German. It gave an edge to the vocal soundscape and reminded us that Brecht wrote the play in exile beween 1938 and 1942. Uncredited in the programme are Brecht’s co-writers actor, writer, translator Margarete Steffin and writer, director, photographer Ruth Berlau.
The story is simple but the text is a complex interrogation of morality. Its protagonist is Shen Teh, the prostitute visited by the gods in search of one good person. Jewish tradition requires 36 wise men to save the world. Brecht’s gods are less ambitious.
The acting company are magnificent. It is unfair to pick out individuals in a stunning ensemble but, as the production centres on Shen Te the prostitute and her alter ego, her male cousin Shui Ta, it has to be acknowledged that Alexandra Ursulyak’s huge dual performance is magnificent. There are moments of Chaplinesque humour and poetic beauty. The extraordinary set by Alexander Lisyansky is plastic and inventive. Although the production was Brechtian in its soul it also had a post modern feel as all staging suddenly broke down when actors sat onstage to face the audience while speaking the text.
The play has no happy end. It resolves no Christian dilemma about Good and Evil. It remains complex and disturbing as Shen Te utters a solitary cry to the audience ‘Help!’
My only regret is that this production had such a short run. We need to see much more of this Company and this ensemble.
Julia Pascal © 2019.
Guys and Dolls, Royal Albert Hall. Review by Julia Pascal.
Guys and Dolls
Royal Albert Hall
19 and 20 October 2018
Julia Pascal
Damon Runyan’s short stories inspired what has become an iconic and much-loved Broadway musical and movie – Guys and Dolls. Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows, this premiered on Broadway in 1950. Sinatra and Brando took the male leads in the 1955 movie with Vivian Blane and Jean Simmons as their dolls.
This is the first time it has had a staging at the Royal Albert Hall or rather a semi-staging. Those who know the work will be aware that it is a partly abbreviated version. Stephen Mangan’s narrator neatly fast-tracks us over the gaps in the action. It should not work. But it does. And it is wonderful.
Meow Meow
The book would not pass the Bechdel Test today. The woman mainly talk about men but what huge female roles these are. Meow Meow as Adelaide is a hoot and has amazing comic timing as well as a real gift for sprechgesang. Lara Pulver as Sarah Brown matches Meow Meow and their duet Marry The Man Today, is wildly funny.
Adrian Lester
I enjoyed Adrian Lester’s Sky Masterson. He had a physical presence that seemed released in a way that I have never previously seen. Jason Manford’s multi-layered Nathan Detroit was a rich performance. His comic timing is genius.
Jason Manford
The rest of the company was excellent and Sharon D Clarke’s lustful Salvation Army Officer is a delight.
The choreography was mainly re-imagined for this staging and Stephen Mear raised the house with his acrobatic inventions for a gifted group of male dancers in Luck Be A Lady Tonight.
The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, firmly planted centre stage, was wild, energetic and thrilling.
This is a marvellous event full of wit, virtuoso singing and dancing and a deep love for one of the best American musicals of the 1950s.
Julia Pascal © 2018.
La Malady of Love, Katie Mitchell, Barbican Theatre. Review by Julia Pascal.
La Malady of Love
Katie Mitchell
Barbican Theatre
Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord
Julia Pascal
This piece of theatre is inspired by La Maladie de la Mort, Marguerite Duras’ 1982 novella. The original text explored a homosexual’s purchase of a woman in a vain search for love. Alice Birch overturns the premise by making the protagonist a heterosexual middle aged man who buys a prostitute’s nights in an existential search for his own emotional identity. The creation becomes a philosophical study of pornography and misogyny which is brutal, unremitting and repetitive. And, that’s the point.
Mitchell’s work is played on a three-dimensional visual. The action in a hotel bedroom is the play. Simultaneously, a film crew is shooting the actors. We see the technicians wait for angles and framing. At the same time we see the black and white screening so that the aesthetic visual is triply fractured. Mitchell is the auteur and makes us think of Godard and Bataille. Her vision is a joyless autopsy of heterosexual relations. The actors are mainly naked and choreographed in a way that is shocking. Laetitia 2018. Dosch and Nick Fletcher perform with courage and integrity. It is a disturbing creation that is meant to upset the audience. And it does.
Julia Pascal © 2018.
Freely adapated after the story by Marguerite Duras, Director Katie Mitchell, Script Alice Birch, With Laetitia Dosch – the woman, Nick Fletcher – the man, Irène Jacob – a narrator. 16 Jan to 3 Feb 2018. Associate Director Lily McLeish. Video direction Grant Gee. Set and costume design Alex Eales. Composer Paul Clark. Sound Design Donato Wharton. Video Design Ingi Bekk. Collaboration Video Design Ellie Thompson. Lighting Design Anthony Doran. Assistant Director Bérénice Collet. Technical Manager John Carroll. Deputy Stage Manager Lisa Hurst. Video programmer / Operator Caitlyn Russell. Camera operators Nadja Krüger, Sebastian Pircher. Trouble Shooter Matthew Evans. Sound Programmer / Operator Harry Johnson. Boom Operator Joshua Trepte. Lighting Programmer / Operator Sébastien Combes. Assistant Stage Manager Elodie Huré. Deputy Stage Manager Marinette Jullien
Emilia, Shakespeare’s Globe. Review by Julia Pascal.
Emilia
Shakespeare’s Globe
(Vaudeville Theatre from March 2019)
Review by Julia Pascal.
This play is a picaresque adventure describing the life of Emilia Bassano Lanier. Emilia, born in 1569, was a direct contemporary of Shakespeare, and perhaps the inspiration of his Dark Lady of the Sonnets. She was a dynamic playwright and poet who struggled for publication and recognition. This script takes the few facts known about her life and charts an imaginary journey showing her presence as a creative artist who was refused recognition merely because she was a human without a penis. With this work, Morgan Lloyd Malcom has written one of the most important dramas of our time.
What is achieved here is a hugely popular, muscular epic structure with a deep political drive. This Emilia is played by three black actors. Not only does Lloyd Malcom highlight the cruelty of gender discrimination but she imagines Emilia as part of England’s seventeenth century black community and thereby the production simultaneously critiques English misogyny and racism. The text is extremely clever suggesting that Emilia was the probable author of many of Shakespeare’s famous lines. We can spot allusions to many of Shakespeare’s dramas including The Merchant of Venice, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Othello – all of which have their roots in Emilia’s creative impulses. This is the thesis behind the drama- Emilia’s genius was stolen by Shakespeare.
The script is utterly of the moment. Emilia demands equality as a professional dramatist. Outraged, Shakespeare asks ‘What would you have me to-refuse to write until women are given the same freedoms?’ ‘Yes’ replies Emilia and, with that ‘yes’, the audience erupts in wild applause. For women to gain equality as the storytellers on our stages, men have to share power. This comedy seriously reveals this chronic gender imbalance making us realise that the drama is not just about seventeenth century England but 21st century Britain. It asks why equality has not been realised in our society where stage narratives are still dominated by men. This is an entertaining, anarchic and revolutionary work that has enormous weight, passion, humour and debate. I can’t single out performances as it is clear that the whole ensemble is totally invested. Brava to Michelle Terry for commissioning this radical work, Nicole Charles for such an inventive and exciting production and to Morgan Lloyd Malcolm for honouring Emilia and all creative women who demand equal rights.
Julia Pascal © 2018.
BBC Proms 50. Review by Julia Pascal.
BBC Proms 50
Sunday August 19
Royal Albert Hall
Julia Pascal
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Clarinet Concerto in A major, K622
Clarinetist Amelien Van Wauwe
Gustav Mahler
Symphony No 5 in C Sharp Major
The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
Conductor Thomas Dausgaard.
The evening opened with Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A Major K622. This is Mozart’s last finished orchestral work. Composed in 1789, it is one of the most exquisite of Mozart’s creations. Annelien Van Wauwe’s interpretation was curiously intimate and delicate. She did not go for the yearning quality of the Adagio, rather she caressed the sound with such subtlety that it excited a new way of revealing this poignant second movement. However, there was a problem about the placing of Van Wauwe. For those of us sitting stage left, she was masked by the positioning of conductor. The gifted Van Wauwe, a BBC New Generation performer, has a strong performing presence therefore it was maddening that no director had realised she was unseen by so many.
Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5 in C sharp major was written during 1901 and 1902. Although it has deeply lyrical elements, most particularly the poignant Adagietto for strings and harp, written for Mahler’s new bride Alma Schindler, it feels as if it were written later in the century. Mahler’s use of late-Romanticism and modernism provides a strangely disjointed mix. Stephen Johnson’s programme notes tell us that the Symphony has been considered by some to be schizophrenic. Certainly, there is no real sense of unity to the five movements and this fragmentation of style is not displeasing. The Scherzo seems redolent of Vienna at the turn of the century. Is Mahler honouring Viennese sweetness or mocking it? We know that as he was writing this Symphony, he had resigned his post as conductor at the Vienna Philharmonic and was suffering antisemitic attacks. The Symphony starts with the grim Funeral March. Did this express Mahler’s state of mind? This is an eloquent and sometimes angry composition which appears to lay the ground for Kurt Weill and Hans Eisler’s jagged rhythms. The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra performed both works with passion under the energetic direction of Thomas Dausgaard.
Julia Pascal © 2018.
Much Ado About Nothing, Gray’s Inn Hall. Review by Julia Pascal.
Much Ado About Nothing
Antic Disposition
Gray’s Inn Hall, London.
This is Shakespeare light. Very light. Antic Disposition’s presentation of Shakespeare’s 1598 comedy is aimed at touring in South West France during the summer months when Paris empties and the French take to the countryside. The performance, with a cast of musically talented French, English and Belgian performers, is set in newly-liberated France. Music, costumes and the invention of the French restaurant situate the action in 1945. It is a selective vision. Here there is no sign of the shooting of Nazi collaborators nor of women with shaved heads accused of horizontal collaboration.
Directors Ben Horslen and John Riseboro have placed the comedy’s action within a simple French provincial restaurant setting. Tablecloths are red and white gingham and the dish of the day is cassoulet. They have invented a head waiter who is a mixture of Jacques Tati and Basil Fawlty. He is played with great bravura by Louis Bernard. This martinet castigates his idle staff in French as a warm up for the audience. So far so un-Shakespearian. Into this provincial backwater enters an army of British soldiers who fall in love with the local women. It is a harmless concept and meant to charm.
Antic Disposition creates productions to be seen in spaces that are not traditional theatres. Its London presentation of Much Ado About Nothing takes place in the magnificent Gray’s Inn Hall. This beautiful structure which originates from 1388 was a refectory for students. As a playing space however its acoustics are tough. Comedy requires a flat-on presentation and therefore the production has to work hard for the visual gags to work in a traverse layout. Some of the performers do not have the technique required to overcome this and often text is lost. Those who unite delicate performance with clarity and vocal strength are Floriane Andersen as Hero, Chiraz Aich as Beatrice, Alfie Webster as Don John, Alexander Varey as Claudio, Tommy Burgess as Borachio and Nicholas Osmond as Benedick. Each projects well and overcomes the handicap of the setting.
There are areas of deliberately crude acting and pantomime. The audience were entranced and all was very merry. Anyone looking for a deeper reading of this dark comedy should stay away.
Julia Pascal © 2018.
Andersson Dance/Scottish Ensemble – Goldberg Variations – ternary patterns for insomnia. Review by Julia Pascal.
Goldberg Variations ternary patterns for insomnia
Barbican Theatre
Andersson Dance and Scottish Ensemble
This is a playful, absurdist and yet serious performance of contemporary dance set to Bach’s Goldberg Variations. The collaboration between Swedish choreographer Orjan Andersson’s dance troupe and Glasgow’s Scottish Ensemble, questions traditional renderings of classical music where musicians are semi-hidden in the pit and dancers take the stage. In this inventive production, Andersson animates a musical-dance dialogue between dancers and musicians where both are stage equals.
Sometimes the musicians dance and this feels as if Andersson is asking his audience to question the rigidity of formal divisions. Performers sometimes speak to the audience making us aware that this work is also a comment on performance itself. Sometimes dancers sweep the stage or bring on a row of costumes to suggest that this is also part of a rehearsal.
I enjoyed the mix of dance vocabulary which was sometimes balletic, sometimes reminiscent of Feldenkreis and, at moments, was a flash of Hatha Yoga. The root of Andersson’s complex dance vocabulary is influenced by his experience with Birgit Cullberg, Mats Ek and Batsheva Dance Company – who are also known for challenging contemporary dance traditions. Andersson’s extraordinarily gifted dancers are varied in body shape and training which makes Goldberg Variations ternary patterns for insomnia a richly textured intellectual and aesthetic spectacle. As for the Scottish Ensemble they are quirky and quite brilliant.
Julia Pascal © 2018
Polarity and Proximity, Birmingham Royal Ballet at Sadler’s Wells. Review by Julia Pascal.
Polarity and Proximity
Birmingham Royal Ballet
Sadler’s Wells.
Review by Julia Pascal.
Polarity & Proximity, a triple bill, follows the success earlier in the week of Romeo & Juliet. This London programme’s aim is to reveal the range of styles this strong company employs. It is certainly exciting to see the ensemble’s blatant display of diverse dance languages.
Alexander Whitley’s Kin premiered in 2004. What I particularly enjoyed in this work is its playful interrogation of dance itself. Whitley’ is a choreographer who possesses a fine intellect as well as a refined aesthetic. He plays with traditional forms and questions their rigidity. An arabesque swiftly moves to a sharp angle. Elegance suddenly becomes inelegance. The classical vocabulary shifts to jazzy. Women’s bodies sometimes look like arrows as their acute arabesques slice through air. There is a constant ‘dialogue’ between dancers. I also liked Jean-Marc Puissant’s neo-brutalist set design and Phil Kline’s thrilling score. As soon as this short ballet was over, I wanted to see it again.
The programme notes give insight into the choreographer’s personality. Whitley says that he is ‘not asking any big questions ‘whereas George Williamson, who premieres Embrace, tries to philosophise about being ‘Other’. This is one of the most pretentious ballets I have ever seen. It is full of theatrical cliché. At the centre is an angst-ridden man clutching himself in a state of existential worry as he looks for love or perhaps sex. Williamson’s dance language is stale. It lacks the breadth of vision seen in Whitley’s Kin. The connection/non-connection of straight or gay couples strives very hard for meaning but the tone is merely a wash of general agony. The old clichés of strobe and dry ice are trotted out to no effect at all. I found this creation often risible and certainly puerile. I have no desire to ever see it again.
Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room was made in 1986 to a commission by Philip Glass.Tharp has been called the both the Nijinksy and the Busby Berkeley of our age. What does this mean? Certainly she uses an utterly classical legacy which she simultaneously stretches and challenges. In this brilliant 42 minute piece, the classical is expressed in the red pointe shoes worn by some of her dancers but the women also wear red ankle socks and some are in trainers so that we know that we are in modern America and never in the territory of the Bolshoi. This is a compulsive ensemble piece which explores space and time while sharing the utter pleasure of dance itself. Here is no pretension or striving for meaning. It is a testament to Birmingham Ballet’s training that the Company is looking as good in the modern repertoire as in the classics. One such dancer who shines in both genres is Fergus Campbell who gave us a passionate Paris in Romeo and Juliet and now displays a louche insouciance in the Tharp.
What works here is the synthesis between Tharp’s witty and stimulating dance, Norma Kamali’s red, black and white costumes, Glass’ pulsating rhythms and Jennifer Tipton’s clear lighting, all of which are interpreted wildly by dancers whose evident enjoyment of marrying the classical with the modern is infectious. When the last note was played, I wanted this ballet to start .all over again.
Julia Pascal © 2018.
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Proms 2019. Review by Julia Pascal.
August 27, 2019 by Julia Pascal • music, performance, year 2019 • Tags: Julia Pascal, music, performance •
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