Theatre Review: Mary Page Marlowe (Old Vic)

Scenes from an "ordinary" American woman's life are the thread of Tracy Letts' 2016 play Mary Page Marlowe. The novelty - or gimmick - of the piece is that snapshots of the protagonist's experiences are presented in a fragmented, non-chronological form and that the role of Mary is divided between five (in some productions six) actresses playing the character from ages 12 to 69. (A doll's good enough for a babyhood scene.)

The piece-it-together structure throws out and withholds narrative tidbits - a crime, affairs, alcohol dependency, an absent child - but overall the structure seems more interesting than what's done with it; don't expect the radical transitions of a Palindromes (2004) or an I'm Not There (2007). As a writer, Letts doesn't have the insight or the delicacy to pull off a play like this: he's more at home with bigger gestures and protagonists' spitting vitriol.  There are many plays that have made the details of daily life into something compelling, even monumental, but that's not achieved here, between thinly imagined supporting characters and dialogue that veers between inconsequentiality, belated, heavy-handed symbolism, and spelling out the themes. 

Despite putting the Old Vic stalls in the round again, Matthew Warchus, directing in his usual brisk, slick, proficient style, doesn't bring out much that's distinctive in the material. (Robert Howell's set and costume designs are just functional.) 

Even so, the cast come through to create vivid moments. Letts limits most of the supporting characters to one scene; for actors of the calibre of Hugh Quarshie (playing Mary's third and most satisfactory spouse) and Melanie La Barrie (as a sympathetic nurse), this production must be quite a nice rest. 

But the Marys maximise their opportunities. The sharing out of the role means that there are few chances for grandstanding, but Andrea Riseborough has the toughest emotional moments to play and she's compelling throughout, whether twitchily laying out a separation to Mary's children in the opening scene or sinking under the wreck Mary makes of her life at one stage. 

A minor Matilda: The Musical movie reunion is accomplished with the appearance of Riseborough's co-star from Warchus's film, Alisha Weir, as 12-year-old Mary; the scene is one of the play's weakest ones - it essentially only serves to indict Mary's unsupportive mother for the protagonist's later-life problems - but Weir is perfectly charming in her performance of  "Tammy."

Rosy McEwen also hits the right notes as the adulterous younger Mary, delicately trying to extricate herself from Ronan Raftery's persistent lover (also her boss). And playing Mary across three later-years scenes, it's wonderful - and a bit unexpected - to see Susan Sarandon on the British stage. In many ways, the role doesn't play to Sarandon's greatest strengths: one of the best actors at expressing blazing anger on screen has an essentially quiet, reflective role here. But Sarandon brings a beautiful, unstressed radiance to it; she seems totally at ease, connecting with the other actors in ways that fill out some of the writing's sketchiness. 

Mary Page Marlowe doesn't achieve the depths Letts seems to strive for. In the end, it's a modest work: a woman's life story as a shuffled, tentative impression. It isn't a play to go to with big expectations, but the accomplished cast  - plus a perfect song choice to bookend the evening - still send you out of Warchus's production feeling good. 

Mary Page Marlowe is booking at the Old Vic until 1 November. Further information here. 

Theatre Review: Sweet Bird of Youth (Old Vic)

Groggily rousing herself from her hotel bed sheets, Kim Cattrall requests her spectacles - the better to inspect the bare-chested boy-toy she’s hooked up with. “I don’t mind waking up in an intimate situation with someone, but I like to see who it’s with,” Cattrall coos. Her verdict on said stud? “Well, I may have done better but God knows I’ve done worse.”

Nope, this isn’t, as you might imagine, a deleted scene from some Sex and the City episode, but rather the opening Act of Tennessee Williams’s Sweet Bird of Youth, in which Cattrall is starring at the Old Vic. It’s to Cattrall’s credit that the spirit of SATC's iconic Samantha Jones doesn’t hover too closely over her characterisation of Alexandra del Lago (aka the Princess Kosmonopolis), a sexually voracious faded movie star whose desperate flight from a disastrous screen comeback has led her into the arms of one Chance Wayne, a would-be actor still grasping for his big break. But it’s not to the production’s credit that it ends up making something quite cumbersome and clunky out of Williams’s play.

The tale of Chance’s return to his Gulf Coast hometown where he hopes – in a decidedly harebrained scheme - to use his acquaintance with the Princess to finally kick-start his career and reconcile with his teenage lover in the process, Sweet Bird of Youth is far from Williams’s most perfectly constructed work. But still it has interest and appeal. There’s a definite charge to the Princess and Chance’s interaction (they’re both using each other flagrantly but can’t help swerving into tenderness at times), as well as bite and poignancy in the exploration of what “the enemy - Time” does to human aspiration, plus a fascinatingly grisly, animalistic undertow to the piece. In a choice bit of symmetrical plotting, our hero’s girl, Heavenly, has undergone a hysterectomy after being infected with syphilis by him, and Chance now faces castration by Heavenly’s odious politician father Boss Finley and his goons should he attempt to contact her again.

But rather than embracing the kinky, heightened elements that Williams has provided, Marianne Elliott’s po-faced production treats the material with unseemly seriousness and reverence, often draining the humour and quirky lyricism from the piece. What needs to be bright, vivid, bold and arresting is here mostly gloom and pathos. Dan Jones supplies grimly portentous music, Bruno Poet’s lighting is glum, and Rae Smith’s design – while enabling efficient quick scene changes – makes the hotel set look ludicrously palatial. These opening scenes, which should be funny and sexy as the Princess and Chance negotiate the terms of their relationship, seem interminable and turgid; the production achieves the not inconsiderable feat of making Williams look like a boring writer.

Trying for the occasional melodramatic flourish, Elliott adds shadowy figures and hokey lightning flashes to the proceedings, but her heart doesn’t seem to be in it and there’s very little camp fun to be had. Nor is the evening very intense. For all its cuts (no hysterectomy, no castration, no evils-of-miscegenation chatter), Richard Brooks’s 1961 film version offered a much more compelling rendering of the play than this one ends up being. Elliott and dramaturg James Graham have made their own trims and tweaks to the text - including (very oddly) the omission of Chance’s final monologue. But with a running time of three hours, the production still feels torpid, and it seems highly likely that further cuts will be made, especially to the first half.

Cattrall (her natural sexiness somewhat hampered by an unbecoming wig) and Seth Numrich (making his London stage debut as Chance) are still clearly in the process of feeling their way into their roles during this preview period; both actors have strong, compelling moments, but sparks don’t yet fly between them. The production’s energy level does thankfully pick up, though - especially when dynamic Owen Roe starts snarling and sleazing away as Boss Finley. His scene with Heavenly (the striking, touching Louise Dylan) and Aunt Nonnie (spot-on Brid Brennan) is the only time when the play’s mixture of humour and menace really steams through. Still, a production of Sweet Bird of Youth in which these supporting characters, rather than Chance and the Princess, emerge as the most engaging figures, can’t feel anything but underpowered. Or rather: neutered.

Booking until 31 August.

Theatre Review: Richard III (Old Vic)

Six years ago, in his second year as Artistic Director of the Old Vic, Kevin Spacey took on the role of Richard II, directed by Trevor Nunn. The production was well received by most, but I remember it as one of the weakest stagings of a Shakespeare play that I’ve seen. Over-reliant upon poorly-executed gimmickry, with Spacey competent yet oddly colourless at the centre, the production didn’t do the play justice, for me, instead seeming to bleed most of the poetry and tragedy out of it.

Happily, Spacey’s latest, highly-anticipated foray into Shakespeare’s Histories has, I think, yielded much more successful and dynamic results. Collaborating with Sam Mendes for the first time since American Beauty (1999), in what will be the last production in the transatlantic Bridge Project, Spacey takes on the title role in Richard III and delivers an assured performance in a very strong production. This Richard doesn’t come close to matching Propeller’s current staging of the play for inventiveness, exuberance and sheer bloody bravura. But it remains an intelligent and persuasive production, perhaps the strongest I’ve seen during Spacey’s reign at the Old Vic. The following remarks were written after the third preview of the play on the 21st June.

Mendes first directed Richard III for the RSC 20 years ago with Simon Russell Beale in the title role. And, from the bits and pieces I’ve read about it, he seems to have recycled a fair few ideas from that production here.* For the most part, they’re good ideas, though. The first thing we see upon entering the auditorium is the word “Now,” projected in white on a black screen: a suggestion, if ever there was one, that the production is aiming for contemporary relevance.

As it turns out, though, the caption is less an allusion to the production’s temporal setting than a pointer to the first word of Richard’s famous opening soliloquy. For, although clearly contemporary, the world of this production is pretty non-specific. Catherine Zuber’s stylish costumes suggest England in the 1940s or 50s (sometimes earlier and sometimes later), while Tom Piper’s effective design opts for minimalism, the stage-space expanding and contracting as it economically conveys the various locations, and giving the production a stark intimacy and an epic grandeur as required. Titles like the opening “Now” appear throughout the production, mostly serving to introduce characters at the beginning of scenes: my companion deemed this a somewhat patronising device, but I think it’s fairly effective, helping to focus a play that can seem diffuse and cluttered on a first viewing. Although the production is long (it runs for 3 hours 15 minutes), with few cuts, it maintains fluidity, momentum and drive throughout, with dramatic scene changes underscored by excellent sound and music (heavy on the drumming) from Gareth Fry, Mark Bennett and Curtis Moore.

There’s the occasional quirky touch, such as the presentation of ‘The Citizens’ as chattering commuters, while Richard’s fake-reluctant acceptance of the crown is the most elaborately staged set-piece, becoming something of a comic crowd-pleaser. But mostly Mendes avoids attention-grabbing gimmicks here, instead choosing to present the play's big scenes in as uncluttered a manner as possible. His approach carries over to the stagings of the murders, which, with the exception of the killing of Clarence, are handled very discreetly, contrasting sharply with the extravagant Saw-ish theatrics that are such a distinctive feature of Propeller’s production.

The sparse approach allows the actors plenty of space. From the moment we first see him, slumped bitterly in a chair before images of Edward IV’s coronation, Spacey’s Richard rivets attention. Hump-backed, left foot twisted inwards, every inch the “bottled spider” of Queen Margaret’s description, the role allows Spacey scope to exercise his special gift for communicating malevolence. And yet there’s nothing grotesque or excessive about this Richard; rather he cuts an all-too-human figure. There have been more insidiously charismatic, more sexually suggestive interpretations than this but few that have dug much more deeply into the character’s self-loathing, his profound sense of isolation, or his misogyny. (A few twists on a few key lines soon establish this Richard as one with clearly unresolved Mummy Issues.)

As in Richard II, Spacey uses the slightly affected mid-Atlantic accent that he seems to find appropriate for speaking Shakespeare, but he’s much more vocally expressive in this production. He takes the soliloquies very fast, as a rush of thoughts and ideas and impressions, and carries the audience with him every step of the way. He develops a nice line in ironic humour, too, but the performance also has its startling moments, from the sudden ferocity with which he turns on Jack Ellis’s Hastings to the awed shock tinged with anger with which he repeats “on me!” following his wooing of Anne. Indeed, the seduction-of-Anne sequence is particularly inspired here: Spacey and the excellent Annabel Scholey play the scene not simply as a war-of-words but as an intensely physical encounter that leaves Richard gasping with relief and disbelief, not quite able to believe his success. (Spacey makes the scene a transitional moment in which Richard really becomes aware of his power and potential to manipulate.) By the time Richard is writhing, bloodied, on the floor yelping “My kingdom for a horse!” Spacey’s performance has traced a clear and compelling arc. It’s a distinguished interpretation, and a great achievement for the actor.

Surrounding Spacey’s star turn is a strong ensemble of British and American performers, from Chandler Williams as a deeply sympathetic Clarence to Chuk Iwuji’s well-drawn Buckingham; Iwuji succeeds in making sense of the character’s journey from co-conspirator to doomed rebel. Broadway veteran Maureen Anderman brings wonderful feeling and intensity to her scenes as Richard’s mother, the Duchess of York, while as a ratty-haired, bag-lady-ish Margaret, Gemma Jones is goosebump-inducingly good, wonderful to listen to as she delivers curses and prophecies. Of the play’s female characters, the critic John Jowett has noted: “Shakespeare empowers them as chroniclers, the voices of those who understand and know.” Jones’s Margaret functions here as just such a figure of power and knowledge, and, by making the character a ghostly presence in the latter stages of the production, Mendes succeeds in turning her into the heroine of the play.

Unsurprisingly for the preview stage, a few performances lack a bit of definition. Haydn Gwynne will no doubt dig deeper into Queen Elizabeth’s grief and strength as the run progresses, and Nathan Darrow’s Richmond is sadly bland, although that’s probably due to Shakespeare’s characterisation as much as the actor’s performance. And a couple of scenes still need work: the Eve-of-Bosworth nightmare, in particular, doesn’t yet pack the punch it should. Even so, the production is in terrific shape already and is sure to only get stronger as time goes on. If you only have space in your life for one Richard III this month, then I’d say make it Propeller’s. But Mendes’s production is a thoroughly involving and gripping account of the play, and (in more ways than one) it ends the Bridge Project initiative on a definite high.

Running time: 3 hours 15 mins. The production runs until 11 September 2011 at the Old Vic. It will also tour internationally – taking a break from London for the Athens and Epidaurus Festival (29-31 July), and then post-London, visiting Hong Kong Arts Festival (16-18 September), Spain’s Centro Niemeyer (28 September-1 October) and Singapore Repertory Theatre (17-26 November) – before opening the at BAM, where it concludes from 10 January to 4 March 2012. Additional international 2011 dates to be announced.

*I’d dearly love to hear from anyone who remembers the 1992 production and can confirm what Mendes changes and retains here. In particular, as Richard makes his way to the throne for the first time, doesn’t Spacey recycle a moment that's gone down as a classic SRB moment?

Review: Cause Célèbre (Old Vic Theatre)

Thea Sharrock’s Olivier-honoured production of After the Dance at the National Theatre last year was one of the most acclaimed Terence Rattigan revivals in recent memory; it’s a production that I’m still kicking myself for missing. In the centenary of the playwright’s birth, Sharrock now takes on another lesser-known Rattigan text - this time the author's last play Cause Célèbre, in a production which had its first performance  at the Old Vic last Thursday. Written in 1976, the play takes as its focus a real-life 1930s murder case: the trial of Alma Rattenbury and her much younger chauffeur/lover Percy ‘George’ Wood for the killing of Alma’s elderly husband, Francis, who was found battered to death with a mallet. The trial caused a media and public storm, and elicited much moral outrage, not least because of the disparity in the lovers' ages. (Alma was 39; George 18.) Rattigan's play combines this incident with a fictional narrative concerning the forewoman of the jury at Alma’s trial, Edith Davenport. Edith is a moral stickler who’s divorcing her philandering husband and feels prejudiced towards Alma on grounds that go beyond the murder she may have committed.  As the trial progresses, however, Edith’s attitude to Alma gradually begins to change.

Sharrock’s swish production has many things going for it: it’s well-cast, and cleverly designed by Hildegard Bechtler, with some memorable details and a good sense of atmosphere. And yet as the evening progresses it’s hard to escape the feeling that something is missing, namely a sense of urgency and dramatic momentum. Despite the play's more salacious subject matter, the production never achieves the emotional hold of Trevor Nunn’s revival of Flare Path, and grips only fitfully. Part of the problem, I’d argue, lies with the play itself, which isn’t one of Rattigan’s strongest works. Structurally, the drama's leaps between past and present are intriguing but sometimes awkward, and certain key roles and relationships end up feeling under-developed. The result is that several good performers in Sharrock’s cast go to waste. In particular, I wanted to see much more of Jenny Galloway as Alma’s maid/companion, and Timothy Carlton who, as Alma’s husband, gets just one decent scene.

Of the main performers, Niamh Cusack, as Edith, is exceptional as always, and responsible for some of the production’s most emotionally affecting moments. Anne-Marie Duff is very good too, but, despite Rattigan’s evident sympathy for Alma as a victim of English sexual puritanism, the character remains something of an enigma to the end. As the sequence is staged here, Alma seems set on seducing George before she’s even clapped eyes on him, and Rattigan stints on scenes between the lovers that would give us a deeper sense of the development of their relationship - this despite the fact that the play's dialogue  is considerably franker in its treatment of sexual matters than much of his earlier work.

Of the other cast members, Tommy McDonnell is fine as George, but this role more than any other feels under-written and, while Rattigan appears to lavish sympathy upon Alma, there seems to be an element of class hostility in his presentation of this character. Nicholas Jones gets good comic mileage out of his role as the shrewd, slipper-wearing barrister who’s defending Alma and who isn’t adverse to bending the rules when he sees fit. And Freddie Fox is memorable as Edith’s son, a character every bit as randy as the one Fox played in the previous OV production, A Flea In Her Ear. (But minus the “comedy” speech impediment, thank God.) The principal problem, though, is that the play seems structured around a connection that isn’t really there. The parallels and contrasts between Alma and Edith’s predicaments that Rattigan develops feel rather strained and contrived, at least until the production’s very final moments which leave an impressively bitter and ironic sting.

Despite effective sequences, then, Sharrock's cool, controlled production doesn't achieve the kind of sustained intensity that we might expect from a Rattigan drama. It's a worthwhile evening overall, but if you’re opting for just one London Rattigan revival this Spring, then Flare Path remains the better bet.

The production runs for 2 hours 40 minutes. Further information at the Old Vic website.