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By Paul Nelson
I
DON'T think I'm all that wrong when I say that, not that long ago, say 20
or 30 years, the very idea of doing a MUSICAL?! at the Royal National Theatre
would have had people handing back their medals and knighthoods at Buckingham
Palace.
Look at it now. They have just had a stunning critical success with, of all
things, Anything Goes (pictured), a show that, in retrospect,
seems to have been destined to a chequered history, based, as it was on a
shipwreck, and cursed by the fact that a real big one happened just before
the play opened.
Prior to that, they have paid tribute to, among others, Rodgers and Hammerstein
and Frank Loesser.
These matters are for historians, not me. The musical side of the theatre,
long ignored in revivals, except for Broadway successes, presents a whole
load of questions as to suitability. Who would have thought that Romeo
and Juliet could ever have inspired West Side Story? The list of
unlikelies is a very long one.
Looking back on the output of the theatre for 2002, I am forced to draw several
conclusions and the main one is that we, in the 21st century, are seriously
lacking in playwrights who can command an audience that can sustain a run
of their play for more than six months.
When did we last have a Boeing Boeing? A Blithe Spirit? Both
enjoying massive long runs.
Nowadays, it is nearly always musicals. It is as if the public hasn't got
the attention span to sit for two hours and be entertained by a play. Possibly
the films and television have had lot to do with that. Whatever, it is a sad
comment on us, the audience.
I still think there is nothing like a well-constructed play, be it comedy,
thriller or anything else, but apart from revivals where can one find such
an entertainment? Nowadays, the long runs are for the musical theatre. With
such huge expenses, producers need an extremely long run in order to recoup
their initial outlay, as they pursue spectacular effect after spectacular
effect.
The critics at Bombay Dreams all mentioned the fountain scene, for
The Lion King it was the amazing effects and animal puppets. Splendid
artefacts, but hardly a substitute for what one could call the real thing,
a story that could hold your attention.
Another innovation is the recent phenomena of cast changes being announced
in the Press as if they were national events. Usually, these cast changes
involve someone with no stage background at all, their public interest arousal
either being something in their private lives or based on a fleeting television
appearance.
At best, this is messy, at worst, it is destroying appreciation of theatre,
which although the word encompasses freaks and sideshows, should also embrace
something on a grander scale that might enlighten the receiver, and make him
go home inspired to write or create something original himself, instead of
being shown that a fast buck can be made just around the corner by fooling
as many people as possible.
It is, therefore, with little surprise that of the theatrical entertainments
of the year which were to me the most satisfactory, by and large they were
musical entertainments, the alternatives being rare specimens.
Always remembering that I am not Superman and cannot flash around all the
theatres in London, my choice of the best has to be limited.
Nobody who saw it could not help but turn into a fireball over the sheer bravado
of The Maias at the Greenwich Playhouse. This excellent play, taking
on a virtually unknown novel by a Portuguese writer, which happened to be
a perfect observation of his life and times, was turned into an evening that
was never to be forgotten and must be ranked at least as first rate (click
here for review).
Screaming with adrenaline and oestrogen, the Union Theatre revived and gave
us an unforgettable example of male jocks out for the night, out for trouble
and basically rooting for England, as well as their football team in Arrivederci
Millwall, a joyous yet telling examination of football loutism tinged
with sympathy. Their gung-ho jingoism not far removed from their national
loyalty (click here for review).
This
Is Our Youth, at the Garrick (pictured right), and still at it,
presents in a delightful fashion the moral obligation we all have to our past.
Hell, we were kids once, and here they are again, aren't they? Or are they
us? Well, yeah, and it's a knockout (click here
for Paul Nelson's review, or here
for Jack Foley's notice of the revival).
Still on a serious note, and with superb performances, Life After George
at the Duchess, took the audience's breath away. A deeply plotted play,
it demanded the attention that today's audiences have lost. An absorbing play,
beautifully staged, it gave Stephen Dillane and the rest of the cast an opportunity
to see what we are missing in the theatre today. What a satisfactory evening
(click here for review).
One that sneaked past almost everyone but me was The Lodger, a dissertation
on the life of Ivor Novello, a talented and romantic composer who is crying
out for a revival if ever there was one.
The play was presented on a shoestring at The Jermyn Street Theatre, not
a venue to be sneezed at these days, and was actually magnificent in its tiny
way. Tiny because of the size of the venue (click here
for review).
There were, of course, magnificent performances in plays that didn't make
the grade, noticeably Judi Dench in The Royal Family, in which, one
felt she had been cast to redeem an otherwise disastrous evening (click here),
and Googie Withers in Lady Windermere's Fan, another salvage job (click
here). However, we have to move as
I have indicated, into musical theatre for the real gritty that is theatre
these days. Alas, most of them revivals.
Leading the parade was Happy End, which gave us the thrill of seeing
two artists well matched in a relationship that, while not love-hate, was
at least love-suspicion. Alasdair Harvey and Tracey Wiles electrified a brilliant
show set in a pub (and performed in a pub). I can only wish that Brecht and
Weill could have seen it. It was a show they had virtually washed their hands
of and abandoned, but one which they didn't actually realise was, in itself,
a sensation. The cast and production team made a meal of it which we all enjoyed
(click here for review).
It would be a shame not to include The Singing Group, a touching, yet
obvious, story of a gang of diverse people brought together by the temptation
of singing together. The Chelsea Theatre needs to beware that if it goes on
presenting plays like this it will lose its identity as an avant-gard theatre
and become trendy (ugh, that word). (Click here
for review).
Even the heatwave could not stop audiences from going to see the revival of
Cabaret at the Union Theatre. With literally in-yer-face French knickers,
this tiny theatre made the play explode with sordid insouciant sex, while
Nazis gladly used this titillation as a smokescreen and part of their excuse
to seize power. The show came to life like never before (click here
for review).
In an entirely different vein, amidst a welter of biographies, each seemingly
more endless than the last, Lady Day At Emerson's Bar and Grill brought
us a picture of Billie Holiday that etched itself into the very soul of the
beholder (click here for review).
On the cabaret stakes, The Donmar Warehouse presented a tiny bundle of unstable
radioactivity, Kristin Chenoweth, who thankfully only brought the house
down. She has more than enough talent and energy to be a weapon of mass destruction.
Certainly there was little left of her audience after they had stopped cheering
and applauding.
Our own Gay Soper flew the flag with her own inimitable act at Pizza on the
Park, and later at the Dulwich Art Gallery. It is high time this unique artist
grabbed the attention of those who create legends. She is, after all, already
a star.
Again
on the revival arena, The Landor Theatre did its bit with Anything Goes
(incidentally pipping the National at the post by at least six months; click
here for review) while, in the meantime,
giving the long overdue British premiere of The Apple Tree, a memorable
show and one which produced a stunning piece of star metal in Suzanne Toase
(pictured left), who can only be described as a Scud. She is unerring
and devastating (click here for review).
Not to be missed and still running as I write, is Stomp at the Vaudeville
(click here), and if, like me, you want to
see a really good play well performed, then go to the Strand and see the revival
of Mrs Warren's Profession where you will find Brenda Blethyn awesomely
heading a flawless cast (click here).
Happy New Year, sorry you missed some of the above, maybe next year you will
take just that bit more notice of Indielondon. In our independent way, we
think we know what we are talking about.
