Currently I'm definitely in Geek heaven. Arrived on Friday afternoon only to be greeted by London in sunshine, which is always nice though rarely the case, and proceeded to acquire mym coveted
Much Ado ticket(s) for Saturday, about which later. I also went and watched
Pygmalion on Friday evening, with Rupert Everett as Higgins, Kara Tointon as Eliza and Diana Rigg as Mrs. Higgins. It's always a pleasure to hear Shaw's words spoken out loud, and this was the first production I've seen which took him at his word in another sense, to wit. Now, the final scene of the play
Pygmalion as written can be played ambigously and with the implication that Eliza despite her declaration will return to Higgins, which is of course also what the musical version,
My Fair Lady does. But in the afterword (and in many letters during the original production to the actress who played the first Eliza in 1913, Stella Patrick Campbell), Shaw is crystal clear that she won't, that she'll stick to her declaration of independence, and that this is a good thing. As I said, this is the first on stage production which really takes him up on it and makes the Eliza-Higgins confrontation at the end as the heart of the piece, making it as a coming of age tale for Eliza rather than emphasizing the romance. Which is not to say that there is an absence of emotion. When Higgins says "I shall miss you, Eliza", there's no doubt he means it and that he does feel affection. But there is also no doubt that this is one jerk hero (tm) belonging to the school that eventually produced House and current Sherlock whom the heroine is far better without after having learned from him what he had to offer, because he won't chance, that that makes him stuck. Everett starts waspish (also it occured to me, not for the first time, that the first scene of
Pygmalion where Higgins performs his naming everyone's place of origin by accent trick is Shaw taking a leaf from contemporary ACD's Sherlock Holmes and that in many ways, Higgins and Pickering are a reply to Holmes and Watson, with the difference that neither of them in the end are the heroes of their story) and ends very vulnerable and aware of his loss but also, finally, of the whys; Kara Tointon gives you a really strong sense of Eliza's personality and makes you actually believe her when she ways in the final confrontation that what she wanted from Higgins was never romance and that if they ended in bed together they'd hate each other five days later.
(A mother and her two daughters were next to and in front of me respectively, and the daughters hadn't realized until the play started that this was the version without the songs. And they were much insulted that "it didn't work out". Ah, teenagers. And also, Loewe & Lerner.)
Saturday started by me meeting
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kangeiko for breakfast, proceeded to meeting
rozk for lunch, and then saw us spend a geekfest of an afternoon and evening by watching
X-Men: First Class and
Much Ado About Nothing. Reviews under the cut, thoroughly enjoying both.
( X-Men: First Class )After a break at the rooftop of my hotel, we then went on to watch Tate 'n Tennant tackle
Much Ado. It's modern dress production going in the Italian farce direction (or
Mamma Mia the film - that kind of atmosphere), but glorious fun. Based on other people's reviews I was a bit afraid they'd play Beatrice's "Kill Claudio" moment for laughs, too, but they didn't. Justly so, this is the moment when things get serious in so many ways between them, and the contrast to the relieved giggles just before when they finally admitted they loved each other is all the more efficient. There is no farce there in that moment and no doubt Beatrice means it, and on Benedick's part DT plays it with complete awareness of the enormity as well; ditto in the subsequent scene where Benedick delivers his challenge.
There is a lot of slapstick in the scenes where first Benedick and then Beatrice are tricked by their friends, but then I haven't seen a production where there isn't, including the Branagh film; it just begs for it. Something I hadn't seen before and which our T & T duo carried off with aplomb was that the masked dance scene, CT is dressed as a man in suit (looks good on her!) and DT as a woman in a miniskirt. (He has great legs.) It's not just a visual gag, it also emphasizes the fluid gender dynamics between them, as opposed to the conventional couple of Hero and Claudio. I was amused that Leonato's brother Antonio is made into his wife in this production and renamed, no, not Antonia, but, wait for it, Imogen. As a reminder of how later Shakespeare would deal with this whole jealousy, fake death and restoration plot, it was neat.
Chemistry and comic timing: as excellent as ever. As with
Hamlet a couple of years ago I was surprised of how much younger DT looks in person. As opposed to the other Shakespeare I saw him in, here he uses his Scottish accent, which works for Benedick. CT seems to have lost a bit of weight but still proudly owns her curves. The only times when I could not quite suspend my role disbelief was when she said "nooooo" because that drawn out "no" is a Donna mannerism (she didn't do it when I saw her in
Under the Blue Sky).
Hero is in many ways a thankless role but I thought Sarah Macrae made the most of it, especially strong in scene after Claudio and Don Pedro have stomped off and her father attacks her. (One thing I always liked about Benedick in any production and during reading is that he's the only man at the aborted wedding who reacts rationally. Even her father is ready to believe the worst of Hero.) She's not tearful in her denials but quietly strong as she assures her father that she's innocent, and my attention at that moment was on her and not on B & B, which deserved kudos.
Finally: the funky disco rendering of
Sigh No More at the end just about summed up the brash vitality of this production.
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