Showing posts with label Rosalie Craig. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rosalie Craig. Show all posts

Friday, 7 January 2022

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. 




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Tuesday, 3 July 2018

Concert Review: The Light Princess in Concert (Cadogan Hall, 1 July 2018)



There are shows that you enjoy, and then there are shows that change you. An example of the latter, for me, was Samuel Adamson and Tori Amos's musical The Light Princess, which was a case of love at first sight and first hearing when I encountered it at the NT in September 2013. That love for Marianne Elliott's production only deepened across the 10 visits I made to the show - I wrote a little about why in a piece here - and it was with a heavy heart that I and many others who had connected deeply with The Light Princess bid farewell to it at the final performance in February 2014. A heavy heart - and also the sense that the musical hadn't received anything like its due from certain mainstream critics ("Saint" Lyn Gardner among them), who'd proved themselves inadequate to the task of engaging with the show's intricate, densely patterned, classically-inflected score and the highly original ways that it serves character and narrative. 

The release of the cast recording in October 2015 was a delight; still, the hope of seeing the show revived has remained. Organised by Club 11 London and Alex Parker Theatre Company, and directed by Paul Foster (Staff Director on the original production), Sunday's concert performance at Cadogan Hall went some way to fulfilling that desire. This most physical - even balletic - of musicals, with its floating heroine, requires a bold approach to movement (such as it received at the NT thanks to Steven Hoggett's startling, surreal choreography) to fully soar. But Foster's simple and unfussy concert staging - with the terrific ensemble occupying the back of the stage, the musicians, conducted by Parker, in the centre, and the leads at the front - succeeded in placing the focus firmly on the music, which sounded rich and glorious - with a chamber intensity - throughout. With so much character and narrative detail packed into the score, the show's themes of generational conflict, patriarchal tyranny and the necessity of finding your own path emerged clearly, as did the parallel arcs of its hero and heroine: she towards gravity, he towards levity, he learning the value of rebelliousness, she becoming responsible on her own terms. 

Returning to the role that she so powerfully originated, Rosalie Craig sang with all the passion, wit and sensuality of her NT performance, delivering standouts such as the yearning "My Fairy Story," the jubilant " Better Than Good," and the wrenching "No H2O" with deep feeling. Taking on the role of the Solemn Prince Digby, husband Hadley Fraser proved an unsurprisingly great sparring partner, bringing swagger to "Sealand Supremacy" and romantic spirit and sweetness to the intoxicating love duet "Althea," as well as thrillingly partnering Louis Maskell's Llewellyn on "Bitter Fate."

Gabrielle Brooks offered a winning combination of tenderness and defiance as Piper, doing well on the very complex duet pieces "Queen Material" and "The Whistleblower," and stepping forward for Craig to touch her tears on "No H2O." Trevor Dion Nicholas - the Genie of the West End's Aladdin - proved himself every inch King material with a galvanising performance as Darius that fully conveyed both the character's arrogant authority and his wounded core. As the Sergeant-at-Arms, the stylish Anna-Jane Casey took on the hilarious "Scandal" with relish; returning to her role as Falconer, Laura Pitt-Pulford maximised her "Sealand Supremacy" cameo (aka the show's "Bonnie Tyler moment"); and an on-fire David Langham tripled up spectacularly as Messers Flowers, Crabbe and Grey in the great "suitors" sequence. 

Some judicious edits set the scene and condensed the narrative so that only the omission of Darius's aria of repentance "My Little Girl's Smile" felt like a great loss. And, in a lovely surprise, the concert also restored to the score several sequences that were cut in NT previews. The addition of "Not a Fairy-tale" and Darius's death song brought the "Althea Selma Isadora Darcy" theme to completion beautifully, while tweaks to individual lines kept things fresh and interesting throughout. ("I'd rather eat my spleen" declared Althea on her great face-off with the King at the start of "Queen Material".)

With the swell and soar of the voices on the majestic finale "Coronation" "ringing out" across the hall and inspiring a standing ovation, the love for this most loving of musicals was moving to witness. What emerged afresh was the huge ambition, originality and emotional range of the show, conveyed through music that's as thrillingly diverse as it is wonderfully cohesive. The show needs - and deserves - another full production soon. Still, this heartwarming evening proved conclusively that there's more than one way of feeling Light. 


See concert photos here: https://www.club11.london/light-princess-photos/ 



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Wednesday, 1 June 2016

Theatre Review: The Threepenny Opera (National Theatre)

Rory Kinnear in The Threepenny Opera (Photo Richard H. Smith)
My review of Rufus Norris's production of The Threepenny Opera at the National Theatre is up at PopMatters. You can read it here.

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Thursday, 11 September 2014

Theatre Reminiscence: The Light Princess, one year on (or, Levity Forever)




“Gravity, are you feeling?” Time flies. Or floats. It’s hard for those of us who loved it to believe that it’s almost a year already since The Light Princess, Samuel Adamson and Tori Amos’s “edible, delectable” musical, directed by Marianne Elliott, opened at the National Theatre. Readers of this blog won’t be at all surprised to learn that that first preview of the show remains, to paraphrase Carole Zucker, one of my “‘great evenings of theatre’ where one truly feels one has witnessed something important, fresh and even heroic.” Mostly, I remember feeling overwhelmed that night: by how much there was to explore, both aurally and visually, in the piece, by all the emotions that the show stirred up. The show felt totally fresh, surprising, unlike anything I’d seen before.  And yet, as with much of the art that’s affected me deeply, there was also a strange sense of familiarity to the experience too, a comforting recognition. As my friend Vicki Clark, who saw the show more than twenty (count ‘em) times, recalls, of that first preview: “The opening bars of 'My Own Land' sent shivers down my spine. I knew from that moment, and that dramatic, bold refrain, that I was going to love the show.”

Not quite equalling Vicki’s awesome tally (or that of my friend Erin Quilliam who “lost count” a bit but estimates that she went to the show more than sixteen times), I saw The Light Princess ten times in total: sometimes with family, friends, or my lover, and sometimes alone. In many ways it defined that period, September 2013 to February 2014, for me, to the extent that I recall various events of that time - whether joyful or sorrowful - through its prism. I made friends through the show, argued with people about it (online and in the real world), learnt the songs and sung them all over the place. Each of those ten visits has a different flavour and texture, as I recall them. The second time was about really beginning to appreciate the music, in all its richness and complexity, and starting to see just how intricate and densely patterned the score that Amos and Adamson had created was, and how integrated with the characters’ struggles and transformations. On subsequent visits I started to observe the work of the acrobats more and more and to really be captivated by the strange, beautiful ballet that their contributions, choreographed by Steven Hoggett, made the show into.

 
 
Always, always there seemed something new to notice: whether a detail in Rae Smith’s design, a previously overlooked aspect of a performance, or the brilliantly immersive build of the lengthy sequences “Queen Material” and “Nothing More Than This.”  Cherished individual moments such as Althea’s cry of “I can’t stand my own land!”, the sheer gleeful exuberance of “Better Than Good”, the operatic ache of the wrenching “No H2O” (which both Vicki and Erin single out as their favourite moment in the show), Nick Hendrix as Digby joyfully rising from the ground with his airborne lover in “Althea”, Laura Pitt-Pulford’s shimmering cameos,  Malinda Parris’s sublime “Scandal” moment, the "suitors" scene, Althea’s chilling reclamation at the end of “Queen of the Lake”, Clive Rowe’s fearsome bellow of “I am King, King of you all” … these gradually gave way to other moments, until ultimately what you were responding to wasn’t so much individual lines or sequences, but rather the whole thing: the gestalt of the show. 
 
 


 

It was fascinating, too, to see the diverse reactions of those I’d come with, or those around me, from the enthusiasm of an elderly woman next to me who loved the show so much that she vowed to return to it with her husband the very next night to an American tourist’s po-faced interval comment: “This is very, very weird.” My friend Adam, on his third visit to the show, wrote me: “I still have the image in my head of a woman with tears in her eyes at the end, shouting to her girlfriends: ‘OH MY GOD! THAT WAS UNBELIEVABLE!!’”


Aside from the first preview, my own most memorable encounter with The Light Princess was an impromptu visit I made to a Sunday matinee performance on December 1st, following one of those crushingly miserable evenings that you’re not sure you’ll ever quite recover from. I stayed out in the city all night, found myself Southbankside in the morning and ended up day-seating the show. (In what turned out to be pretty much the coolest-ever day-seating queue.) In my emotional state, the impact of the show was staggering.  I remember feeling embraced, comforted, energised and inspired by the images, voices and melodies, and feeling that, though massive changes had to be made, everything would be OK after all, if I could just summon the courage to face it. If I ever need reminding of the power of art to help and heal then I only have to think back on that strange weekend when pretty much everything I’d hoped for fell apart, only to be redeemed and restored in this unexpected way. 
It’s not every show that could withstand so many visits in such a short span of time, of course. But the richness of The Light Princess - and how all-of-a-piece the show felt despite the very many different elements in its composition - was part of what made it so special. (And it’s worth pausing briefly to remember that there were quite a number of people who really, really did not like the show, but let’s not linger over those stupid cunts misguided souls here.)  For all the fierceness of the show’s critique of patriarchy, it’s a work of rare generosity of spirit, a show without cynicism, and one possessed of an openness that really allowed and encouraged you to find your own way into it. As Erin comments: “There were so many different ways you could react, and the show was left almost entirely for your own interpretation. So you felt and found different things each time.”

“We hope that women, men, of all ages, all sexualities, all races, and different experiences relate to our piece,” Amos said at the Platform that she and Adamson did together in October. “Because really the idea of Althea and Digby is that they’re responding differently to a tragedy [the death of their mothers]. And we all respond differently, don’t we? And sometimes we’re judged for the way that we respond or the way that we are… So we wanted our story to resonate with all kinds of situations and with all kinds of people from different backgrounds.” 
 



Part of the impact of the show, I think, was that the parallel arcs of those two protagonists - Althea towards gravity, Digby towards levity; he learning the value of rebelliousness; she becoming “responsible” on her own terms  - tapped into something archetypal and profound about the human condition, and about the balance required in human affairs. (Just as every good fairy-tale should.)  “I related to the show a lot, especially to the character of Althea,” Vicki tells me. “I think most young women my age will have been in a situation where they feel like they don't fit in for some reason or another, or have had their own issues to cope with, much like Althea's lack of gravity. Seeing her eventually overcoming her struggle in her own way, in her own time, was reassuring to watch.” Erin identifies the relationship between Althea and Piper (Amy Booth-Steel) as one of the main things she connected to in the show.  “I saw so much of myself and my best friend in those characters. (Though I don’t have to keep hold of her ribbons, thankfully.)”
For me, the show’s exploration of escapism was its most relatable – and surprising – element. Adding an entirely new psychological dimension to the original MacDonald story, Amos and Adamson made their Light Princess very much a work about the strategies we employ to deal with loss, pain and grief. “The air didn’t have shadows and nor does this place,” Althea tells Digby in the lake, having traded the air for Amphibiava, one safe space for another. The arc that Adamson and Amos devise for Althea is all about her overcoming her need for such comfort zones, as she opens up to love (with all its challenges and complexities) and faces up to the darkness in her world rather than trying to escape it. 
 


 
It was a journey that Rosalie Craig’s radiant performance illuminated at every stage, as her Althea metamorphosed from gloriously truculent (though obviously damaged) teen to victimised bride-to-be, ardent romantic heroine and dragon-slaying warrior to gracious womanly presence. What was amazing for those of us who saw the show multiple times was not only the apparent effortlessness with which Craig negotiated the singular physical demands of the role (including singing upside down, twirled around, and, during “My Fairy Story,” with a foot in her crotch) but the risks that she took in it. Every single performance (and the actress missed nary a one during the show’s entire run)  seemed utterly new-minted, spontaneous and  in-the-moment, so much so that a line like “I am the last of the Darcys” might be delivered in an airy defiant whisper at one show and then shouted as a triumphant declaration at the next. As Sam commented in the last interview we did: “She seems constantly to be reinventing herself and the role.”
There was still much more exploration to be done with The Light Princess, one feels: for audiences and actors alike. And the fact that the show got its extension at the NT but didn’t get the West End transfer that many of us hoped for makes the whole experience incredibly special and incredibly bittersweet.  Each to their own and all that, but I can’t help but feel annoyed that a piece of cobbled-together, Broadway-by-numbers tat like Dirty Rotten Scoundrels finds a life in the West End while a show as challenging, inventive and carefully crafted as The Light Princess doesn’t.  Reminiscing about that final show on February 2nd, Vicki recalls “a lot of tears, mainly! But I'll never forget that day. I was so sad to say goodbye to The Light Princess but the audience was full of people who had mainly seen the show before, and it was like a big family. The cast were on top form as always and it was so moving to see them just as sad about it closing as we were! If I could have spoken to the cast, Tori and Sam collectively, I'd love them to know how happy they'd made so many people with their work. I've never felt so excited or attached to a piece of theatre before, and I doubt I will again. (Until it's revived, obviously!)”
 
It’s a happy thought that the release of the cast recording (scheduled for 2015) will be the next step on the journey of The Light Princess, offering those of us who loved the show the chance to revisit - and those who missed it the opportunity to discover - all the characters and emotions brought to life so vividly in a wilderness of emerald, and kingdoms gold and blue.




 

 

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Thursday, 26 September 2013

Theatre Review: The Light Princess (National Theatre, Lyttelton)



Jerry Springer: The Opera, London Road, the sublime Caroline, or Change: the musicals staged at the National Theatre during the reign of Sir Nicholas of Hytner have all been, in different ways, radical, challenging affairs that have stretched the form in new directions - a deliberate attempt, it would seem, to get away from the cosier, Broadway-leaning inclinations of Trevor Nunn’s tenure as artistic director of the theatre. The Light Princess, Tori Amos and Samuel Adamson’s swooningly ambitious adaptation of George MacDonald’s 1864 fairy-tale, demonstrates once again Hytner’s commitment to creative, non-conservative musical theatre programming. This much-anticipated show – the first foray for both writers into the musical genre – has been long in development, as my two interviews with Adamson (here and here) attest. But, on the evidence of last night’s staggeringly confident and rapturously received first preview, it’s been worth every single second of the wait.

Taking MacDonald’s story about a young girl cursed to have no gravity merely as their starting point, Amos, Adamson and director Marianne Elliott – herself flying high after War Horse and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time – have fashioned a fantastically fierce, fresh, frank and funny feminist fable. You won’t find an evil spinster Aunt dispensing a curse in this version; instead, this story is – true to form for Amos – more concerned with the damage Daddies do.

The action unfolds in two warring kingdoms, Lagobel and Sealand (gorgeously rendered in Rae Smith’s sumptuous design), where the teenage heirs to the respective thrones, Princess Althea and Prince Digby, have reacted to the deaths of their mothers in contrasting ways. The response of the Princess - played and sung with breathtaking passion, biting wit and luscious sensuality by the stunning Rosalie Craig - is weightlessness, which is presented here as a psychologically-motivated escape route for the avoidance of pain. In contrast, Digby (excellent Nick Hendrix: as sweet of voice as he’s buff of bicep) has become heavy-hearted and solemn in his grief. When the two meet in the Wilderness that separates their territories, a love affair ensues – one that certainly doesn’t win the approval of their fathers or the populace.

Aided and abetted by many of her collaborators on her previous NT-originated successes (including Smith, choreographer Steven Hoggett and puppetry director Finn Caldwell), Elliott makes the production another thrilling “total theatre” experience: one that’s equal parts cutting-edge and traditional. A lovely animated prelude outlines the histories of the kingdoms, but a simple sheet serves initially as a lake for our two lovers to liaise in. As per War Horse, the creatures of the kingdoms are puppets, designed this time by Toby Olié. The most graceful of these is Digby’s majestic falcon companion Zephryus (Ben Thompson); the funniest a little pink mouse who gets a mighty gross-out moment. And the Princess’s lightness is conveyed by two means, with the undulating Craig sometimes borne aloft by wires, at others by the bodies of black-clad acrobats.

You might fear (as I did) that all this activity will swamp the story. But no. The narrative feels very intricately worked out by Amos and Adamson in terms of theme, imagery and metaphor, and all the elements enlisted by Elliott contribute to its lucid, expressive telling. There are some brilliantly surreal stage pictures which I won’t reveal, but suffice it to say that the director and her team find wonderful ways to bring the story’s revision of fairy-tale tropes to life and into a contemporary teen context that still feels timeless enough, not least in a sublime scene in which Althea’s father King Darius (Clive Rowe) enlists the help of a series of suitors to bring his daughter down to earth. (As in Wicked - a spiritual sister to this show in its revisionist attitude, near-homophonous heroines and firm female-focus - a song called “Defying Gravity” could easily find a home here.)

Then there’s the music. Supple and robust, delicate, playful and strident by turns, Amos’s score is a glorious thing, intricate, demanding and complex at times, instantly hummable at others, and Adamson’s book matches it for beauty, cheek and charm. Amos’s emotional range as an artist has always astounded, and she brings that to bear here in a quirkily structured, diverse score that can move fluidly from wild humour to melancholy, from swaggering aggression to the most tender of laments, in an instant. With her regular collaborator John Philip Shenale overseeing the orchestrations, liberal use of strings and woodwind, and - yeah! - a Bosendorfer in the pit (where dynamic Music Director/Supervisor Martin Lowe can be seen displaying his customary infectious exuberance), it’s perhaps no surprise that The Light Princess is closest to Amos’s classically-inspired Night of Hunters project musically. And yet it’s totally fresh and distinctive too: Amos is in no way resting on her laurels or repeating herself. There’s a stirring soul and gospel moment here, a pop/rock flourish there, but everything feels cohesive and organic, the music emerging from the protagonists and their ever-shifting emotional states.

There are some jaw-dropping duets, not only for Althea and Digby but for other characters too: a stunning sustained sequence finds the Princess’s loyal companion Piper (brilliant Amy Booth-Steel) fiercely challenging the King for his belligerence. Disgracefully wasted in The Hothouse, the great Clive Rowe does not go to waste here as the patriarch made tyrannous by loss. At one point scarily bellowing his belief in his own authority, he later gets a standout aria that’s one of the production’s most intensely moving moments. And the contributions of an exceptionally well-drilled ensemble are also very fine.

Meanwhile, Amos’s lyrical dexterity – her delight in word play, allusion, assonance and alliteration – is also on display. Book and lyrics allow genuinely complicated emotions into them, and when Digby speaks about being indoctrinated by his father’s beliefs, one hears the voice of many Amos characters, challenging themselves to overcome their reliance upon others’ opinions and judgements. There’s a gorgeously rebellious spirit to this musical, and a clear political dimension too: here the “duties” of marriage and monarchy – as expressions of patriarchal power – weigh a girl (and a boy) down. (Which makes the conclusion, for all its cheeky twists, look a tad too conventional, it must be said.)

For those of us to whom Amos’s music has meant so very much over the years, it’s especially exciting and moving to see her venturing into this new form and thriving there. But I think it’s fair to say that even those who aren’t dedicated Toriphiles will find plenty to engage and beguile them here. “I don’t fly; I float,” Althea is given to reminding those around her. This show flies and floats. It’s an awesome achievement for all concerned and deserves to run and run.

The Light Princess is currently booking until January 2014. Further information at the National Theatre website.
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