10 British Films about Love Across Social Divides (BFI online)

 

Ali & Ava (2021)

For BFI online I wrote about 10 British films dealing with romance across social divides. You can read the piece here. 

Film Review: The Lost Daughter (Cineaste)

I reviewed Maggie Gyllenhaal 's The Lost Daughter for the Spring issue of Cineaste. The review is available online here. 

Theatre Review: Pretty Woman: The Musical (Teatr Muzyczny, Łódź)

 

With both Waitress and Once currently being presented at Warsaw's Teatr Muzyczny Roma, it's obvious that the appetite of Polish theatre audiences for West End or Broadway-originated musicals, especially those derived from films, remains strong. 

Having opened late last year after a long pandemic-necessitated delay, Łódź's latest addition to the list of imports is Pretty Woman, the musical version of Garry Marshall's seminal romantic comedy, with music and lyrics by Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance. The Łódź production is directed at Teatr Muzyczny by the theatre's artistic director, Jakub Szydłowski. And it's not the only take on the show in the country, either: for those wanting to play "compare and contrast," Krakow's Variété Theatre also has a production running concurrently.

When the musical premiered on Broadway in 2018 and then in London in 2019 (where it's currently at the Savoy Theatre) critics were quick to point out the "problematic" elements of the material's Cinderella-meets-Pygmalion set up, in which Hollywood hooker Vivian Ward finds love with the businessman Edward Lewis after he's paid for her services - as if people hadn't been making such critiques since the film's release in 1990. (Among actresses who turned down Julia Roberts's star-making role over concerns about the "tone" of the script and its "degrading view of women" were Michelle Pfieffer and Daryl Hannah.) 

In most respects a facsimile of the film, with a book penned by Marshall and the film's screenwriter J.F. Lawton, Pretty Woman: The Musical certainly doesn't attempt a revisionist view of its source's sexual politics. What Szydłowski's production does do, though, is add a bit of a meta framework - mild but nonetheless welcome - which presents the production in the context of a sound stage film set, complete with crew, cameras,  clapperboards and the occasional "re-take" for a flubbed line. You'd hesitate to call it Brechtian, but, carried through to a witty curtain call, this self-conscious conceit puts a little bit of distance on the material, serving as a wry reminder of its origins. 

Pretty Woman: The Musical
© Teatr Muzyczny w Łodzi, Michał Matuszak

Otherwise the show offers a faithful, straight-down-the-line retread that delivers the expected mix of comedy, light social satire and romance. (Its machine-tooled slickness is the opposite of the last musical I saw, the National Theatre's wonky but characterful Hex.) Adams and Vallance's songs, with their upfront "80s pop/rock sensibilities, are generic and lyrically banal but serviceable and easy on the ear (well, except for the shrill "Rodeo Drive"): they sound good here in Polish translation by Daniel Wyszogrodzki, and are enhanced by fun, diverse choreography by Jarosław Staniek and Katarzyna Zielonka. 

Budgetary constraints are evident in elements of Grzegorz Policiński's  design - such as a meant-to-be-palatial Beverly Hills penthouse suite that looks more like the set of a 1970s sitcom. But there's an affectionate early '90s nostalgia to aspects like the displayed Cher, Thelma & Louise, and Terminator 2 posters. And the production reaches its romantic apex in a simply beautiful staging of the opera scene, with the La Traviata performance interwoven with the musical's centrepiece romantic ballad "You and I," that moves the couple from opera box to the stage and back to the apartment. It's the show's standout sequence in terms of fully integrating song, dance, design and lighting to develop character and move the narrative forward. 

Pretty Woman: The Musical
© Teatr Muzyczny w Łodzi, Justyna Tomczak

From costume choices to hairstyle to physique, Malwina Kusior as Vivian hews closely to Julia Roberts in the film. But Kusior succeeds in creating a strong audience rapport from the start, and from her impassioned delivery of Vivian's early "I want" song "Anywhere But Here" ("Jak najdalej stąd" - hej, Domalewski!), she makes all the musical moments count. As Edward, Marcin Jajkiewicz brings less to the party, but he does well by the soul-baring ballad "Wolność" which sounds much stronger and more meaningful here than in its blander English language incarnation, "Freedom".

 

A solid ensemble offers lively support, including Paweł Erdman as the hotel manager who schools Vivien in etiquette in an amusingly done number, and the ebullient Maciek Pawlak in two roles, including Erdman's bellboy sidekick. The biggest departure in terms of characterisation is Małgorzata Chrusciel's brassy, peroxided Kit, who's closer to a full-on John Waters heroine here than to Laura San Giacomo in the film. The definition of a fun, undemanding night out (though definitely over-extended at a whopping 3 hours), judging by the enthusiastic response of the packed audience it's easy to see Pretty Woman taking its place alongside Les Mis, Miss Saigon and Madagascar as a popular new addition to Teatr Muzyczny's repertoire. 

Pretty Woman: The Musical is booking at Teatr Muzyczny. Further information here. 

Theatre Review: Hex (National Theatre)

 

Its press night postponed twice and three weeks of performances cancelled due to Covid cases in the company, the National Theatre's new musical Hex seems to have fallen victim to the condition evoked by its title. Rufus Norris implied as much when he took to the stage before Wednesday night's performance, warmly welcoming the slightly sparse but nonetheless eager audience to a show he described as "particularly hard hit" over the previous weeks. The good news is that, all being well, Hex is now up and running again until 22 Jan. 

As it turns out, the show that Norris (direction and lyrics), Tanya  Ronder (book), Jim Fortune (music) and team have fashioned is a confounding mix of the enchanting and the inept. With a premise pitched somewhere between Into the Woods, Wicked and Tangled, Hex continues in the revisionist fairy tale mode, filtering the story of Sleeping Beauty through the perspective of the fairy who cursed her. 

A stunningly beautiful opening sequence introducing us to that lonely "Fairy in the wood" (played by Rosalie Craig as a part-melancholy, part-mischievous vision in tattered white tulle) promises much but the show only intermittently recaptures the spirit of that blissful opening, notwithstanding the sustained exuberance of Katrina Lindsay's design and the dynamism of Paul Anderson's lighting which create some memorable stage pictures throughout. 

A problem lies in Ronder's book which is patchy, to say the least. Lacking a strong dramatic centre, the show struggles to hold the characters in balance and the timeline is so confused in some stretches that it can be tricky to tell whether days or decades are meant to have passed. The ending is satisfying in terms of bringing the characters together but the themes don't quite emerge - at least not on a first encounter. In addition, Norris too often falls back on some of his bad habits of staging (familiar from his wonder.land and The Threepenny Opera productions, among others), with the cast facing out too much or scampering up and down wheeled-on ladders.

While the carryings-on of an ensemble of poncy princes and Prince-pricking thorns feel like forced fun, the show is at its strongest when at its darkest and most emotional. These are also the moments in which Fortune's score is at its most exciting and expressive, pushing beyond pop/rock parameters into more unpredictable, quasi-classical terrain. The independence anthem "Sixteen" delivered by Kat Ronney's Sleeping Beauty incarnation Rose feels too calculated and generic a belter, but the material written for the show's other women is much more arresting. 

While there's little Light Princess finesse to these proceedings, Rosalie Craig gives another thrilling performance full of swift wit, surprise and soulfulness. She's matched by an astonishing Tamsin Carroll  as  the devouring ogre-momma Queenie, who is disturbed by, then hellbent on satisfying, her cannibalistic appetites. At first it feels retrograde that the show, like wonder.land before it, falls back on making a female character the antagonist. But Carroll brings so much power to the part that she gives the character mythic stature and a tragic dimension that blows the crummier elements of the conception away.  Hex doesn't quite work as it stands, but I'm glad to have seen it: it has scattered moments of magic and daring, and two performances that are for sure the production's blessings.

Hex is in the Olivier at the National Theatre until 22 January. 

Review of 2021: Theatre - 10 Favourite Productions

At the time of writing these words, the prospects for live theatre again look precarious, with around half of West End shows cancelled or postponed, and more troubled times for an already beleaguered industry apparently in store. In this climate I'm grateful to have had the chance to see the amount of theatre that I have this year, in England and Poland; the 10 productions below are the ones that have stayed with me the most. 

The Normal Heart (Photo: Helen Maybanks)

The Normal Heart (National Theatre, London) 

Ryan Murphy's 2014 HBO adaptation of Larry Kramer's 1985 classic was so obvious, glossy and overwrought that it put me off the play. Dominic Cooke's bracingly direct, uncluttered National Theatre production made it look like a different work entirely. Robust, sensitive, infused with renewed urgency, and with a couple of heart-grabbing music cues (The Wailin' Jennys covering Dolly Parton plus Brian Kennedy's "Christopher Street" as exit music), the production was anchored by an exceptional ensemble including the mighty Liz Carr and Danny Lee Wynter, and crowned by an(other) extraordinary performance from Ben Daniels as Ned Weeks that dug deeply into the character's anger, obstinacy, pride, love and grief. 

Under Milk Wood (Photograph: Johan Persson)

Under Milk Wood (National Theatre, London) 

The care home setting added so much that was fresh and poignant to Lindsey Turner's beautiful, loving production as  the relationships, dreams and daily doings of the inhabitants of Llareggub became a tale told by a son to make contact with his Alzheimer's-afflicted Dad (the perfect pairing of Michael Sheen and Karl Johnson).

Śmierć na gruszy (Photograph: Agnieszka Cytacka Fotografia)

Śmierć na gruszy  (Death on a Pear Tree) (Teatr CHOREA, Łódź)

Now in its 10th edition, the international theatre festival Retroperspektywy, programmed and hosted by Teatr CHOREA at their HQ of Art_Inkubator, remains a vibrant highlight of summertime in Łódź. While several productions from the festival make it on to this year's list, no show went further in combining the dark, the comic and the absurdist than the premiere of Śmierć na gruszy  (Death on a Pear Tree). Adapted in the most radical fashion by CHOREA and director Łukasz Kos from Witold Wandurski's 1925 satire on militarism and capitalism, the result was a gleefully excessive extravaganza from its opening relay onwards. Kos's production rendered even the interval a riot,  while the second half became a full-on phantasmogoria replete with severed limbs and buckets of blood in its allusions to 20th century conflicts. Both horrifying and hilarious, this was by far the wildest ride I had in a theatre in 2021. 

Powinniśmy być… (Photograph: HaWa)

Powinniśmy być…Impresja na kilka czasowników (We Should Be...Impression on a Few Verbs)  (Teatr CHOREA, Łódź)

Directed and choreographed by Wiktor Moraczewski and Janusz Adam Biedrzycki, this dynamic one hour two-hander combining text, movement and dance seemed a deeply personal project for its talented young performers, Anastazja Bakhtyukova and Michał Rudkowski, suggesting both a portrait of a relationship and an internal dialogue with a divided self. Indelible moments of separation and symbiosis were created, as Tomasz Krukowski's lighting bathed the stage in a rich range of hues, the mood shifting from the playful to the combative to the tender. 

The Cherry Orchard (Photo: Jack Merriman)

The Cherry Orchard (Theatre Royal Windsor)

The (mostly) glowing reviews for Ian McKellen's Hamlet reflected more the current goodwill towards the actor than the merits of the endeavour, since, novelty value aside, neither production nor performance was very good. (The standout was Frances Barber's Polonius, all the more remarkable since Barber was a last-minute replacement for a browned off Steven Berkoff.) Far more accomplished was the follow-up production in Sean Mathias season. Partially cross-cast with Hamlet, this was a beautiful and insightful Cherry Orchard headed by Francesca Annis' magnificent Ranevskaya - and with the bonus of on-stage seating that made the experience an unforgettably intimate one. 

Księżniczki (Photograph: Agnieszka Cytacka Fotografia)

Księżniczki (Princesses)  (Teatr CHOREA, Łódź)

Uniting The Little Mermaid, Cinderella and Snow White, Julia Jakubowska's show offered a truly delicious mash-up of fairy tale figures, deconstructing archetypes in a manner at once witty, loving and provocative - and with a captivating trio of performers in Anna Maszewska, Katarzyna Gorczyca and Małgorzata Lipczyńska. 

Rockets and Blue Lights

 (Photograph: Brinkhoff-Moegenburg)

 Rockets and Blue Lights (National Theatre, London) 

Turner's legacy, slavery, art, historical representation... Winsome Pinnock's play came stuffed with big themes, and sometimes looked set to sink under their weight. But Miranda Cromwell's atmospheric staging transcended the flaws as it placed past and present in dialogue with elegant expressiveness. 

Schulz: Pętla (Photograph: Agnieszka Cytacka Fotografia)

Schulz: Pętla (Schulz: The Loop)  (Teatr CHOREA, Łódź)

Expanded from last year's intense and distilled performance Schulz: Skrawki (Schulz: Scraps)  director Konrad Dworakowski's production returned to several motifs from the earlier show but emphasised the power dynamics at the heart of the Bruno Schulz material; the sexy, surreal and unsettling ambience gradually moved into more obviously political terrain.  

JA JESTEM PAMIĘCIĄ (Photograph: Agnieszka Cytacka Fotografia)

JA JESTEM PAMIĘCIĄ (Teatr Nowy, Łódź)

Wojciech Faruga's JA JESTEM PAMIĘCIĄ (I AM MEMORY) evoked the culture and history of the Lemkos - the Carpathian highlanders who lived in the Beskid Niski mountain area for four centuries, until a 1947 decree was issued to resettle them- in a way that was both expressionistic and attuned to lived, daily detail, giving the piece the haunting quality of a requiem. 

Twelfth Night (Photograph Krzysztof Bielinski) 

Wieczór Trzech Króli albo Co chcecie (Twelfth Night) (Teatr Narodowy, Warsaw )

Twelfth Night as opera buffa: the musical elements added to Piotr Cieplak's fragrant new production gave some pleasing fresh textures to the most lyrical of Shakespeare's comedies. 

Review of 2021: Cinema - 10 Favourite Films (+ Extras)

All the individual Top 10 Films of the Year lists by Sight and Sound contributors can be read here. My list as submitted is below... along with a few honourable mentions and extra categories. 

 1. The Power of the Dog (dir. Jane Campion)

2. Annette (dir. Leos Carax)

3. Leave No Traces (Żeby nie było śladów) (dir. Jan P. Matuszyński)

4. The Souvenir: Part II (dir. Joanna Hogg)

5. The Tragedy of Macbeth (dir. Joel Coen)

6. Mosquito State (dir. Filip Jan Rymsza)

7. The Lost Daughter (dir. Maggie Gyllenhaal)

8. Never Gonna Snow Again (Śniegu już nigdy nie będzie) (dir. Małgorzata Szumowska)

9. Everyone Has a Summer (Każdy ma swoje lato) (dir. Tomasz Jurkiewicz)

10. My Wonderful Life (Moje wspaniałe życie) (dir. Łukasz Grzegorzek)

Honourable Mentions (or seen after submitting the Top 10):

Nowhere Special (dir. Uberto Pasolini)

Hyacinth (dir. Piotr Domalewski)

Passing (dir. Rebecca Hall)

Ammonite (dir. Francis Lee)

Poly Styrene: I Am a Cliché (dir. Celeste Bell, Paul Sng)

Drive My Car (dir. Ryûsuke Hamaguchi)

Extras: 

90th Birthday interview with Claire Bloom at BFI

Festival coverage: New Horizons, Polish Film Festival in Gdynia

50 Years of Sunday Bloody Sunday (A Conversation with Michał Oleszczyk at Cineaste)

Baffling Acclaim Awards: IWOW: I Walk on Water, Beginning, Bad Luck Banging, or Loony Porn, Last Night in Soho, Ultraviolence 

So Bad it's Good Award: Diana: The Musical (rather this than Spencer, any day) 

Favourite Scores: The Power of The Dog (Jonny Greenwood), The Lost Daughter (Dickon Hinchliffe)

Favourite Credit Sequence: Mosquito State

Cinematographer Heroine: Weronika Bilska (Everyone Has a Summer, Bo we mnie jest seks, My Wonderful Life, Songs About Love, Simple Things) 

TV: Uprising (BBC, dir. Steve McQueen, James Rogan), Stephen (ITV, dir. Alrick Riley)

Unexpected Crush: Adam Woronowicz (My Wonderful Life, Zupa Nic)

Sight and Sound Winter Issue 2021-22

 

The Winter issue of Sight and Sound is now availabe. It includes the Top 50 Films of the Year list (individual Top 10s are online here), and interviews with Joanna Hogg, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Paul Thomas Anderson among lots of other features. I wrote a tribute to Melvin Van Peebles and a piece on Nigel Finch's The Lost Language of Cranes for this issue. More details here.