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One of the great attractions of London: come whenever you want, there'll always be great plays to watch. So far, I've managed to see the following:
1) Absolutely! Perhaps. Otherwise known as "Right you are if you think you are", by Luigi Pirandello, newly translated by Martin Sherman (who wrote "Bent"), and produced by Franco Zeffirelli. Zeffirelli is something of a theatrical spectacle himself - very unorthodox life, extremely conservative politics - and his films - think the classic "Romeo and Juliet", think "Taming of the Shrew" with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton" - tend to be a feast for the eyes, so I was quite surprised there was little opulence in this particular stage design. Instead, Zeffirelli went for a geometrical labyrinthine pattern in the background and two opposing stairs of seats, always occupied with watchers, inserted in the living room which was where the play's action took place. Most amazingly, considering how much he let Mel Gibson go over the top as Hamlet, was the restraint the actors showed. There was no "hey, we're in a farce anyway" overacting. Which gave the play its emotional reality, which was ultimately horrifying.
Not because of the idea that there's no such thing as a generally understandable truth, but because of the even more disturbing idea we can't really connect with each other. We can never, ever break out of our own invidual mind frames. Wrap this up in rapid-fire witty dialogue and some great performances and you've got one fascinating evening. (Though I wouldn't single out Joan Plowright which a lot of critics have done. She does the worthy old woman bit which she did in every production I've seen her in so far. )
2) The Master Builder. My first Ibsen on stage. Starring Patrick Stewart in the title role. In which he was free of any body language and mannerisms of other parts I've seen him in. The character he plays, Solness, is one of these 19th century drama egotists with an growing inner emptiness he fears. Not an easy man to like, but what makes him human is that he's not so wrapped up in his own tragedy that he can't see his wife's. He's a user, but not with her; there is a simultanous co-dependency and complete alienation caused by their history together. With fitting irony, Solness ends up being used, only half-deliberately. The whole drama and the character can be seen as a parable of the artist, and Solness, who feels the need to use everyone else for his art and simultanously feels guilty about it, ends up being rewritten himself by the girl wo applies for the Muse position. And the person she rewrites him as naturally, since this is the only fit end for her drama, has to die.
What surprised me in Ibsen: the dry touches of humour. Or maybe it's a Stewart addition to his part. (Solness being the only character who can be sarcastic on occasion.)
What did not surprise me: that this was Freud's favourite play. Between all this talk of building towers and wrapping one's self around them, it was about the most Freudian language ever.
Favourite scene Patrick Stewart wasn't in: Hilda (the girl) and Aline (the wife) alone together. Here we see Hilda function is a positive catalyst, as she brings out the grief Aline has forced herself to repress for so long, and touching Aline's womb with her head is a very poignant gesture in this context.
3) Brand. Ibsen again, this time an early drama, not really written for the stage. But by no means impossible to stage. Here Ralph Fiennes plays the title role. It's a religious drama, and yet it reminded me of nothing so much as Sartre and Camus' existentialist efforts, and Anoulih's. The central challenge - is living a life without compromises possible? - is certainly something all of them were interested in, and Brand, demanding that his mother give up her greed for money and refusing to come to her otherwise even though he loves her, could just as well be Orestes in "The Flies", demanding that Electra give up her guilt and refusing to compromise for her even though he loves her.
Ralph Fiennes is magnificent in the role. There are two scenes in particular - when Brand has to decide whether or not he should leave his calling to save his child, and later, after the child is already dead, when he challenges his wife to give the child's cloths away to a gypsy woman with a baby - where it's crucial we see Brand's agony, that we see that this isn't easy for him, that it's torture, and yet he does it because of his belief. It's also the story of Hiob, of course, as well as another artistic parable -reaching for the absolute. Adrian Noble directs and managed to make me flinch in shock and horror with what is, depending on your interpretation, a ghost scene or a hallicunation or a vision, in a way I had not in most horrow movies I've watched.
1) Absolutely! Perhaps. Otherwise known as "Right you are if you think you are", by Luigi Pirandello, newly translated by Martin Sherman (who wrote "Bent"), and produced by Franco Zeffirelli. Zeffirelli is something of a theatrical spectacle himself - very unorthodox life, extremely conservative politics - and his films - think the classic "Romeo and Juliet", think "Taming of the Shrew" with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton" - tend to be a feast for the eyes, so I was quite surprised there was little opulence in this particular stage design. Instead, Zeffirelli went for a geometrical labyrinthine pattern in the background and two opposing stairs of seats, always occupied with watchers, inserted in the living room which was where the play's action took place. Most amazingly, considering how much he let Mel Gibson go over the top as Hamlet, was the restraint the actors showed. There was no "hey, we're in a farce anyway" overacting. Which gave the play its emotional reality, which was ultimately horrifying.
Not because of the idea that there's no such thing as a generally understandable truth, but because of the even more disturbing idea we can't really connect with each other. We can never, ever break out of our own invidual mind frames. Wrap this up in rapid-fire witty dialogue and some great performances and you've got one fascinating evening. (Though I wouldn't single out Joan Plowright which a lot of critics have done. She does the worthy old woman bit which she did in every production I've seen her in so far. )
2) The Master Builder. My first Ibsen on stage. Starring Patrick Stewart in the title role. In which he was free of any body language and mannerisms of other parts I've seen him in. The character he plays, Solness, is one of these 19th century drama egotists with an growing inner emptiness he fears. Not an easy man to like, but what makes him human is that he's not so wrapped up in his own tragedy that he can't see his wife's. He's a user, but not with her; there is a simultanous co-dependency and complete alienation caused by their history together. With fitting irony, Solness ends up being used, only half-deliberately. The whole drama and the character can be seen as a parable of the artist, and Solness, who feels the need to use everyone else for his art and simultanously feels guilty about it, ends up being rewritten himself by the girl wo applies for the Muse position. And the person she rewrites him as naturally, since this is the only fit end for her drama, has to die.
What surprised me in Ibsen: the dry touches of humour. Or maybe it's a Stewart addition to his part. (Solness being the only character who can be sarcastic on occasion.)
What did not surprise me: that this was Freud's favourite play. Between all this talk of building towers and wrapping one's self around them, it was about the most Freudian language ever.
Favourite scene Patrick Stewart wasn't in: Hilda (the girl) and Aline (the wife) alone together. Here we see Hilda function is a positive catalyst, as she brings out the grief Aline has forced herself to repress for so long, and touching Aline's womb with her head is a very poignant gesture in this context.
3) Brand. Ibsen again, this time an early drama, not really written for the stage. But by no means impossible to stage. Here Ralph Fiennes plays the title role. It's a religious drama, and yet it reminded me of nothing so much as Sartre and Camus' existentialist efforts, and Anoulih's. The central challenge - is living a life without compromises possible? - is certainly something all of them were interested in, and Brand, demanding that his mother give up her greed for money and refusing to come to her otherwise even though he loves her, could just as well be Orestes in "The Flies", demanding that Electra give up her guilt and refusing to compromise for her even though he loves her.
Ralph Fiennes is magnificent in the role. There are two scenes in particular - when Brand has to decide whether or not he should leave his calling to save his child, and later, after the child is already dead, when he challenges his wife to give the child's cloths away to a gypsy woman with a baby - where it's crucial we see Brand's agony, that we see that this isn't easy for him, that it's torture, and yet he does it because of his belief. It's also the story of Hiob, of course, as well as another artistic parable -reaching for the absolute. Adrian Noble directs and managed to make me flinch in shock and horror with what is, depending on your interpretation, a ghost scene or a hallicunation or a vision, in a way I had not in most horrow movies I've watched.
