I was in London mostly for work reasons this last week, but I did get some sightseeing and friends meeting done as well, not to mention some book shopping and theatre going, and I'll post a pic spam as soon as I am able. But first, have some reviews:

Plays:

Antony and Cleopatra: staged at the Globe, with Nadia Nadarajah and John Hollingworth in the titular roles. Antony and Cleopatra is one of those plays which just doesn't work for me when I read it but magically does work when I see it performed. In this particular case, there was of course also the charm of seeing it played on a reconstructed Elizabethan theatre, and the particular concept of this specific production, which was letting the Egyptians talk in sign language and the Romans out loud. (Going by the programm, the actors playing the Egyptians are indeed deaf; the Roman actors learned how to do British sign language as well.) (The costumes went for a standard antiquity look.) This made for strengths and weaknesses - on the one hand, the audience was focused even more on facial and body language, plus Antony either using sign language as well or not immediately said something about his current standing with Cleopatra, and the production had the audacity of letting their last scene play out mostly silent - you could have heard a needle fall, and it was breathtaking. On the downside, it meant that early on, the audience had to make up their minds whether to read the subtitles (the play was subtitled throughout, i.e. deaf people could enjoy the solely spoken parts as well) or watch the performances until getting in the rhythm of things. Also, some of the poetry of the language was lost - well, expressed in a different way, I suppose, but the last time I saw this play staged, it was at Stratford with Patrick Stewart as Antony and Harriet Walters as Cleopatra, and once you've heard these two recite those lines...

Otoh: the one point where we hear sounds from Cleopatra - after she, Iras and Charmian have been taken captive by Octavian's people, and a soldier holds her so she can't sign, meaning she has to speak out loud - it felt like a horrible violation, which tells you something about how immersed into this performance I've become.

Hadestown: a musical of which I'd heard a lot of good things, and justly so. Takes both the Orpheus & Eurydice and the Hades & Persephone myths and narrates them in a vaguely Depression era environment - but not "secularized", as it were, i.e. Hades isn't simply an industrialist, he really is a god and Persephone a goddess, etc. This said, the musical does lean into the whole Hades = Pluto = Plutocrat, master of the riches of the earth - symbolism, and the power he has is that of money in a world full of poverty; the famous scene in Ovid where Orpheus manages to make all the Shades who are getting punished in the Underworld - Tantalus, Sisyphus, even the Furies themselves - stop their torment and cry transforms into him being able to stop the exploited Dead/factory workers who've just given him a beating on Hades' behalf from working and make them feel again, for example. Eurydice doesn't get bitten by a snake, she makes a deal with Hades, who in turn is on the outs with Persephone, who increasingly can't cope with the constant switching between Underworld and World of the Living that makes her life. The fifth lead is Hermes (played by an actress looking Dietirch-esque in 1930s suits). The music is great, and the musical has the courage of its convictions apropos the ending.

Stranger Things: The First Shadow: yep, it's a theatre play that works as a prequel to the Netlix series, written by Kate Trefry based on a story from her and Jack Thorne (who has written Harry Potter and the Cursed Child as a way to prove he can write sequels/prequels to hits in another medium). Set during the 1950s, this is the tale of Henry Creel (as sketched out in flashbacks in s4 of the show), plus a new character, Patty Newby (adopted sister of Bob the Hobbit whom Joyce dated in s2), with the teenage versions of Joyce, Hopper, Bob and to a far lesser degree the parents of our future heroes getting involved in varying degrees as things go increasingly weird. ( Spoilers for the play and the series ensue. )

Books:

Sarah Gordon: Underdog: The Other Other Bronte. Poor Charlotte. Whenever she shows in fiction these last few years, it seems to be as a villain and/or the embodiment of sibling jealousy. Last year, she played the role of the envious sister in the frustrating movie Emily about
guess who; this year, she's the bad girl in this play which I did not have the chance to watch but bought the script of. It's (supposed to be) about Anne and much as the novel The Madwoman Upstairs does, about how Charlotte done her wrong. (Different authors, btw, but both postulate Charlotte, realizing her first novel The Professor sucked, stole the premise from Anne's Agnes Grey to create Jane Eyre. Only this play goes way beyong "Jane Eyre is a plagiarized Agnes Grey!" charge and the historically more accurate "Charlotte didn't allow any reprintings of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall once Anne was dead and thus is responsible for Anne's masterpiece getting forgotten for a century until it was rediscovered"; nope, Underdog has Charlotte constantly belittle and bully Anne like you wouldn't believe. (What about Emily? may a Bronte reader familiar with the fact Anne was closest to Emily and vice versa in the famliy ask. Well, much like Anne hardly shows up in Emily the movie, here Emily is an also ran in Underdog the play until near the end, when she tells Charlotte off for constantly bullying Anne just before her death. But really, otherwise she's just sort of there and not really taking Anne that seriously as a writer, either. As for Anne: supposedly this is her play, but the authorial eagerness in making her the perfect (not Victorian perfect, 21st century perfect) heroine who can see that Charlotte and Emily write unhealthy m/f relationships and is the true pioneer of feminist fiction paradoxically means she's never three dimensional. Also, this is a tale told by its villain, i.e. Charlotte. There's just one sequence where Charlotte isn't present and which isn't about her (Anne's first governessing job). But otherwise, Charlotte is the narrator, trying to justify herself but really unmasking, in a very 19th century novel style, though Wilkie Collins more than any of the Brontes. In conclusion, To Walk Invisible the movie is still the only take on the Sisters which manages to portray all three with sympathy and skill.

Katherine Moar: Farm Hall. Another play, this one set in the titular place in1945 where the British government hosted the German scienistst they'd gotten their hands on until the nuclear bomb(s) dropped, trying to figure out by recording them how far the German atom bomb project had gotten and what they knew. It starts with a quote from Michael Frayn of Copenhagen fame and very much feels like Copenhagen fanfiction in terms of Heisenberg's characterisation (maybe a touch sharper about his ego early on, but two thirds in, in the aftermath of the Hiroshima news, he does talk Otto Hahn through how it could have worked, thus as in Copenhagen providing the counter argument to "he wouldn't have been able to figure out the key bits anyway"). However, it's much more of an ensemble piece. A well done play, but unfortunately I kept having my disbelief suspension snapped, for example when they have some of the German scientists wonder about American movies being so popular and being produced with so much effort when there's a war going on. Dear Katherine Moar, while the German film industry undoubtedly greatly suffered from the Nazi caused exodus of many incredibly talented people, it really got dream funding from the government (a firm believer of panem et circenses, Goebbels), and was producing films for the purpose of entertainment and propaganda right until the bitter end. I mean, freaking Goebbels ordered parts of the army to play spear carriers in Veit Harlan's Colberg in 1944. =>' No German living at that time would have been the least bit surprised that the US film industry is doing well in the war. Also, I had the impression the Carl Friedrich von Weizäcker characterisation is mostly based on him being the son of a prominent, privileged family, so he gets to be the spoiled young man of the ensemble, and wellllllll, not the impression I had. Most characters go through similar arcs - they start out feeling smug in their scientific superiority and determinedly not talking about recent genocides, get the superiority shattered and, some of them, starting to confront the recent past. As fanficton, it works; I'm not sure it does as a play.

Lucy Jago: A Net for Small Fishes. A novel that deals with the same Stuart court scandal I wrote a story about, Frances Howard (Essex, Somerset) and the Overbury Affair, in this case, though, narrated by Anne Turner, the long term friend who got Frances the poison. It's written with much sympathy for both ladies, Anne and Frances, and when I came to the afterward, I saw it drew from the same main source I had used ("The Trials of Fances Howard", i.e. the most recent and most balanced account of the Overbury affair. Lucy Jago doesn't provide Frances with the same motives I speculated about, but I find her version plausible as well, and I appreciate the complexity of the relationships - especially Anne and Frances (I was half afraid she'd do a Philippa Gregory and go for the mean girl/ exploited good girl approach, but no, absolutely not). Even bit players like Queen Anne are interesting. A compelling historical novel.

Meeting friends is always one of the pleasures of being in London; yesterday I visited the "Sunken Treasures of Egypt" exposition at the British Museum with kathyh and self were amazed at various wooden statues made of Sycamore tree surviving the millennia. (They, btw, looked more Greek than Egyptian and depicted Serapis. This led us to a sidetrack to the Serapeion in Tivoli and Hadrian versus Alexander in who immortalized his grief over his dead boyfriend more efficiently. K and self agreed it was Hadrian but that Alexander would have if he could have; he died too soon after Hephaistos.)

In the evening, after a quick chat with kangeiko, I saw the Kenneth Branagh directed Romeo and Juliet at the Garrick. This one stars Derek Jacobi as Mercutio, Meera Syal at the Nurse and his two leads from the live action Cinderella, Lily James and Richard Madden, as the lovers, only Richard Madden was down and out and thus I saw the understudy, Freddie Fox. Not being a Jon Snow fan, I didn't mind. Mostly I was curious how Derek Jacobi as Mercutio would work, given, well, the age difference between him and the rest of the cast, and was looking foward to Meera Syal.

Now I wasn't surprised Branagh cast Jacobi per se; he's worked with him so often and clearly loves the man, in the introduction printed in the program he credits DJ with inspiring him to act as a teenager, and he's cast Jacobi as Mercutio once already, in the radio production of Romeo and Juliet he directed back in the 90s (that one had Samantha Bond as Juliet if I recall correctly). I strongly suspect the wish of letting Jacobi do the Queen Mab speech on stage might have also featured into the choice. But of course casting a man Jacobi's age in this particular role alters the dynamics; his Mercutio is basically everybody's fabulous gay uncle, with him and Romeo more resembling a non emotionally violent light side Falstaff and Hal than the bffs (with and without strong homoerotic overtones) the same age they usually end up as. Where the casting almost hits a logical snag but is pulled off by the strongness of acting is Mercutio's duel with Tybalt. Because Fabulous Gay Uncle Mercutio should be wiser than and way past minding that Romeo doesn't challenge Tybalt back, or getting into a duel at all.

The way the production pulls it off: by being in the middle between the two interpretations of the Mercutio versus Tybalt duel I've seen; usually it's either that the duel isn't at first meant to be serious and both are still posturing until Romeo tries to intervene, or that they go at it violently straight away. Here, Mercutio revealing that his walking stick on which he sauntered and danced through the play so far has a hidden blade comes as a shock to everyone, including Tybalt, but it's also clear at this point Mercutio doesn't intend a duel, he just wants to humiliate Tybalt with this shock after Tybalt, in M's pov, has scored one off Romeo due to Romeo not answering the challenge. Mercutio then turns to Romeo as if to say "see, that's how it's done", and that's when Tybalt also draws, which again causes shock in the rest of both gangs. They then start to actually fence a bit, but still stylized; there's the danger of blood letting, and you can see why Romeo is worried and tries to separate them, yet at the same time, arguably both Tybalt and Mercutio are still more posturing than meaning it. Mercutio getting lethally hit is a complete accident due to Romeo's well intentioned separation attempt, not a deliberately meant deadly thrust on Tybalt's part, putting the guilt of it completely on Romeo. Mercutio actually follows stage directions and woundedly walks off stage, which I don't think I've seen before - all the productions, both stage and film, that I've encountered let him die on stage instead of Romeo having to wait for Benvolio's report to freak out and go after Tybalt.

Speaking of Tybalt, the production gives him and Juliet some interaction at the Montague ball, letting them goof around and hug, and he introduces her to the crowd, which I thought was a neat touch, though it also included something that annoyed me throughout - the characters sometimes get random lines in Italian. This presumably is meant to fit with everything being supposedly set in 1950s Italy, fashion wise, and taking its aesthetic cue from La Dolce Vita, but instead only helps making the characters feel like movie Italians, and not in a good way. The programm tells me that the 1950s Italy look is meant to evoke glamor on the surface but deep dysfunction underneath, with fascism but barely over and not talked about, but on stage, there's no sense of that, just of random "ciao, bella" type of interjections.

The one point where it really gets disturbingly dysfunctional is, not surprisingly, the Juliet versus her father scene late in the play, where Papa Capulet not just freaks out at his daughter and manhandles her, which I've seen before, but even slaps his wife and the Nurse around, and that feels like a brief excursion into a 'verse where the bonhommie old Capulet has shown before covers the brutal authoritarian, even fascist, underneath. But that's the only point where I felt what the program claimed was the reason for the setting actually was on stage.

In general, this was a fast paced, enjoyable production - Meera Syal wasn't just an earthy but highly attractive Nurse who wasn't too bothered by the young crowd & Mercutio's comments, and Lily James delivered the gallops pace speech in a way that made it clear even to the last row that this was Juliet looking forward to having sex and was a hormonal young teenager in general, with the big shift when the Nurse switches to Team Paris and Juliet realises she's alone and no longer confides in her coming across clear. Freddie Fox was a seasonably good Romeo, which is why I thought it was a shame his scene with the Apothocary was cut - to me, that scene says a lot about Romeo. I did miss some intensity in his relationship with Mercutio - the production does the by now usual thing where Mercutio gets carried away into his own rethoric in the last third of the Queen Mab speech, and Romeo has to talk him down again, but because of the age difference, this came across as a protegé calms suddenly fragile parental figure thing.

In conclusion: not a must, I've seen better, I've seen worse, but I enjoyed seeing this one.

Sunday was a bit gloomy, weather-wise, but Monday was sunny, and thus I did again something I hadn't for two decades and went to Kew Gardens. Then, because it was such a fine day, I added something I hadn't done during previous London trips, full stop, and took the boat on the Thames instead of the train in order to get from Kew Gardens to Hampton Court. (Aka how the the kings and queens and their courts did it.) Of course, by the time I arrived in Hampton Court clouds had gathered and I was a bit frozen, but never mind, it had been worth it. All in all, it was a great way to say goodbye to London for this year, although not quite, because in the evening I went to rozk's book launch, which was fabulous. Now I'm off to the air port, but won't be able to resume my fannish life until next week because tomorrow I'm bound for Prague! (Where I was only once in my life before, and then I was 13, so I hardly remember anything.)


Meanwhile, share the beauty of gardens, mansions and palaces, not to mention the Thames:





( More beneath the cut )

Because there was the occasional spot of sunshine. Like yesterday morning, before I had to catch my flight. Guess what I did before I left that island on the silver sea?




( Pity the traffic which has to go through Abbey Road because they literally have not a moment of uninterrupted access from dawn to dusk... )

Yesterday was actually a sunny day, and I met the St. James pelicans on my way through the park.

I always visit the National Portrait Gallery when I'm in London; it's less crowded than the National Gallery, and it appeals to the historical obsessive in me. This time, as it turned out I could also visit the exhibition showcasing David Bailey's work over the decades, Stardust. There is an undertone of "I didn't just photograph the 60s, you know" there, but then, it's true. Mind you, whether 60s, 80s or 2000 onwards, what's undeniable is that black and white is Bailey's metier; the occasional colour photograph simply isn't as effective. The title not withstanding, the exhibition doesn't solely consist of Bailey's celebrity photos; there is one room with showing his photos of New Guinea people and Australian Aborigines, neither of whom are treated condescendingly or in any different from the way he photographs Western people, and another with his contribution to Live Aid which was to go to Sudan and document the situation there without fee. But inevitably, this being David Bailey, two thirds of the exhibition show people which one does know. (Well, I did, anyway.) Two of the most interesting portraits to me which I hadn't seen before were photos Bailey did of fellow photographers, of Don McCullin (probably most famous for his Vietnam work and in this the antipode of Bailey in terms of subject matter in the 60s) in the 90s, looking craggy and sage and yet somewhat amused, and of Linda McCartney in 1985, the face unabashedly without make-up and showing every line of a woman in her mid forties, and strong in herself for it. Incidentally, in terms of self portraits, Bailey's are a mixture of unflinching sense-of-humor about himself - the more current day ones not only are as unflattering as possible but also tend to have him posing as a clown, all grimaces, puffed up cheeks and nose - and youthful showing off; there is one photo of the young David Bailey lounging in bed which is amazingly sexy and makes it understandably why supposedly two thirds of his models ended up having sex with him.

His favourite band, the Rolling Stones, get their own room (the notes informing us that David Bailey first met Mick Jagger when they were dating the Shrimpton sisters, Jean and Chrissie, in 1963, and that they're friends till this day), but in terms of his older work, the non-Stone photos are more memorable; another part of exhibition shows the "Pin-Box" collection he published in 1965 which had most of Swinging London (some of whom remained famous, and some folk who have since fallen into obscurity) in it, including the most notorious gangsters of the day, the Kray twins. Now I had seen Bailey's portrait shot of Ronnie and Reggie Kray before (and so have you, if you've seen photos of the Krays at all), but what I hadn't been aware of was that he took that photo in session with all three Kray brothers (yes, there was a third). Older brother Charlie was subsequently edited out of all the pictures (the exhibition has the originals, though), since no one cared about him. I sometimes wonder whether it's the awareness of who the Krays were that make me imagine you can see the cold brutality in the eyes, a certain psychopathic blankness, and whether I would read the photographsh differently if they were labeled "Ronald and Reginald Smith". But I think not; Bailey, at his best, can get across much character in his pictures.

Among the today obscure/forgotten people from the 1965 Pin-Box is for example Gordon Waller (of Peter & Gordon); among the still instantly recognizable one of the most famous pictures ever taken of John Lennon & Paul McCartney. So I knew that one, of course, but what I hadn't known was that Bailey also took portrait shots of Brian Epstein, three of which are included in the exhibition, two regular shots and a double exposure portrait, all excellent. It's worth noting that while the exhibition has several portraits of Jean Shrimpton, there are none from the photo shooting that made Bailey famous in 1962 (maybe Vogue still has the copy right?).

From photography to theatre: after visiting the National Portrait Gallery, I headed off to the other side of the river to see King Lear at the National Theatre, starring Simon Russell Beale in the title role, directed by Sam Mendes. Which was a very strong production, even if I'm still uncertain about some of the choices. Mendes went for a vaguely 1940s - general 20th century look, military dictatorship instead of traditional monarchy; interestingly, the French forces under Cordelia are clad in a brown guerilla look while the English ones both under Lear and later under Albany and Edmund are clad in a fascist black. Beale's Lear, as most good Lears do, starts very unsympathetic and gets more and more human and pitiable as the play proceeds. When he first says "let me not go mad" it's also the first time I felt any sympathy for him. Mind you, the autocratic behaviour in the opening scene of course means Lear comes off badly towards Cordelia and Kent however you play it, but in this production he also came off badly towards Goneril and Regan, with no warmth towards them yet expecting them to love (and proclaim their love for) him, plus the production had the hundred knights really rowdy (and, remember, in sinister black) at Goneril's, so Goneril feeling threatened and wanting to get rid of them in addition to having a strained relationship with her father was understandable. When Lear curses her, you can see how terrible this is for her. And then, like I said, the first human moment: "Let me not go mad". And suddenly Beale is projecting this fear, the moment of awareness, and it's so relatable - the fear of dementia, of Alzheimer's, of your own body and mind betraying you, of the helplessness when everything threatens to be taken away.

This is a production that feels very fast paced, but not in a bad way, as things go from bad to worse in both the Lear and the Gloucester plot; the suspense never snaps. Two outstanding moments in the first half before the interval - Gloucester's blinding, with the servant's intervention given its dramatic due when most productions I've seen tend to get that moment over with very quickly. (I think it's a great touch of Shakespeare's, especially given the "even if the King's cause is wrong, our duty towards him absolves us from any blame" debate in Henry V, because here you have a character who is not a noble going against the rule of duty and obedience because he can't stand seeing a man tortured this way. Also, before the blinding there is waterboarding as Regan and Cornwall interrogate Gloucester. Obvious contemporary nod is obvious. And speaking of Regan and Cornwall, usually because Regan moves on quickly to Edmund and is the less present sister in any case she doesn't get more emotional range beyond sadistic sex kitten; here she's sadistic and enjoying sex, but she's also sincerely in love with her equally cruel husband and devasteted when he's killed, desperately trying to stop the bleeding and save him. (She's also played by Anna Maxwell Martin of Bletchley Circle fame.)

The other outstanding scene, and a production choice I'm not sure about, is the climax of Lear's mad scene just before the interval. In the text, he stages a mad mock trial of his daughters. "Is your name Goneril" etc. In Sam Mendes' production, he doesn't just mistake a stage prop for Goneril, though he starts out with that. No, he then ( does something spoilery and unique to this production ) Then again, madness. I just don't know.

Later Lear also acts kindly towards Edgar-as-Tom, and towards Gloucester, which shows why Cordelia and Kent love this man (which is important; if you play Lear as solely bad, which I've also seen - and Jane Smiley does it in her modern Lear, A Thousand Acres, where he's a daughter rapist to boot - then not only there's no tragedy but it doesn't make sense anyone would feel love and loyalty for such a man). And the reconciliaton scene with Cordelia is outstanding; I have never seen a production where not only there is a Lear reluctant because he's so ashamed at how he treated her but also Cordelia who on the one hand loves and pities him but on the other is scarred by what happened herself, and so there is physical distance and uncomfortableness and slow, slow getting closer, so that when they do at last embrace, it is incredibly moving.

Always a question for actors for Lear: are you on the one hand old enough not to need ghastly make up but on the other strong enough to carry your Cordelia on the stage? Beale is up to the job. I've seen Lears drag their Cordelia because carrying an adult woman in your arms is no mean feat, but he accomplishes it. He's also one of the Lears whose "look there, look there" isn't a comforting final delusion that Cordelia still lives and starts to breathe again,but a despair about her death. It's heartrendering.

I haven't said much about the Gloucester plot, which is partly because it contains another of those choices I'm not sure about. Now this production's Edmund (Sam Troughton - a relation, I wonder?) with his sleeked back blond hair is slick enough in the machinations early on but also presented as a cold fish, which, fair enough, it's just that you have a hard time seeing why Goneril and Regan (both played by charismatic and beautiful actresses conveying much emotion) would fall for him. And in the later half, Mendes cuts Edgar's narration of Gloucester's death (so while on the one hand he adds ( that spoilery thing from the big madness scene ) on the other he lets Gloucester survive), and thus also Edmund's moment of being moved by it and the following not exactly repentance but at least attempt to take his orders for Lear's and Cordelia's deaths back. Also cut is Edmund's possibly vain and/or possibly being moved remark re: Regan's and Goneril's demise, "so Edmund was beloved". In short, those slight touches which don't make Edmund less of a villain but do make him human.

These caveats not withstanding, it is an excellent Lear, and I'm glad to have watched it. Onwards to more London theatre!

Sadly, the weather, as of easing me in to my departure, remained on the cold and cloudy side, so I paid the Dickens museum a visit, where, as with the Tower, I hadn't been since I was 21. It is as a I dimly remembered a really well reconstructed Victorian house, and the three things which struck me most this time were:

- Dickens's reading desk with a manuscript for his vaunted public readings, full of crossed out print and handwritten sentences over it
- the serpent ring which Kate Dickens gave to her sister, Georgiana Hogarth, as a very pointed present (Georgiana stayed with Dickens and sided with him in the infamous separation after he kicked his wife out) - it is so large a ring that Georgiana must have had thick fingers, btw
- the bust of Dickens' eternally broke father John and on the opposite side of the room a drawing of Wilkins Micawber from David Copperfield ; the fictional Micawber looks so remarkably like John Dickens (who was his real life model), that I suspect either the artist who made the illustrations knew Dickens's father (possible), or conversely the artist who made the bust knew the illustration (even more likely)

With the occasional drop of wetness in either watery or snowy form from the sky I decided to indulge myself and round my time in London off with what was basically a Beatles tribute band going through their entire career, the show Let it Be. Not a musical, as there was no plot or pretense at dialogue, aside from the occasional quip, but the songs themselves and the musicians in costume as appropriate to whichever period the songs hailed from. (Though they stopped short of fake beards of depression for the final year.) It was great fun, though it was a bit distracting that the Paul player was not left handed! Other than that, though, they had the body language for each Beatle down, and the voices were pretty good. The sheer range of songs, the development within a few measly years, reminded me all over again why the Beatles are my favourites. Since it was a matinee performance but still completely filled, I was in company in that regard.:) Most bewildering moment: first the George, while their Paul is moving from bass to piano, says the next song was never written to be played with an orchestra arrangment (boo, hiss, Phil Spector!), but to be heard like this, cue "Paul" playing piano and singing The Long and Winding Road... and then, after the first two verses, up pops the cursed Spector arrangment on playback in the background. I swear, it's a conspiracy.

But anyway: it was a good way to say goodbye, and I'm heading towards the airport now, with a much heavier suitcase full of books and dvds I did not arrive with. Oh, to be in England, now that April is there.:)

Due to being in London, I won't be able to indulge in my annual pictorial admiration of our Franconian Easter Wells, but London at Easter isn't half bad a sight, either.:).




Let me share some more London with you below the cut.

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Yesterday I started my Easter time in London with the Manet exhibition at the Royal Academy, which was fabulous. I knew some of the paintings - the obvious suspects are there, like the "breakfast" that made Manet famous - but a lot were new to me, and also, the context of such an exhibition creates a new way of seeing them. For example, the various portraits he did of his fellow painter, maybe at one time romantic interest and later sister-in-law Berthe Morisot, which show her across the time span of several years, with an intense, very arresting face which in its earliest rendition has youthful cheer and its chronologically later, painted after the death of her father, version is haggard with grief but still observing and looking back, not away. There is one portrait that was never shown during Manet's life time, and may have been unfinished, which is a more in profile study but also, maybe because of the unfinishedness, feels very intimate.

Manet's portrait of his younger colleague and near name sake Monet gardening, with his wife and child sitting contently in the gras, has a snapshot family album quality which only later makes you wonder: but wouldn't the grass have left stains on Madame Monet's very white dress? (And thus: did he paint what he saw, or how the colours fitted?) Not while watching. Though the colour Manet really did amazing things with is black and a very dark brown - whether it's a man, like his portrait of Emile Zola, or a woman, like Berthe Morisot, black hair and dark cloths come across not as becoming one with the background but as something starkly etched like a Japanese drawing. All in all, a great exhibition, and I'm glad I still caught it (it's ending soon).

The other highlight yesterday was Peter Morgan's new play The Audience, starring Helen Mirren as the Queen. Whom she had already played in the equally Morgan-scripted The Queen, the second entry in his Tony Blair trilogy. (Consisting of: The Deal - Blair and Brown - The Queen - Blair and you know who - and The Special Relationship - Blair and Clinton.) The Audience shows the Queen with several, but by no means all of her twelve Prime Ministers during the decades of her reign, and it's one of those plays you can't imagine working on film, because what Helen Mirren does, moving from old to young to middle aged to old in a non linear way with a fantastic display of voice and body language conveying age and youth, isn't something you can do in a medium which depends on close up. But on stage, it's perfect.

The Audience's McGuffin is the weekly chat the Queen has with the PMs, which, the play informs us, isn't due to a law but was a custom that basically became one. For Peter Morgan, it makes for a highly useful storytelling device to play of his leading lady against various men, and one other woman, all of whom are in various different ways her temperamental opposites. He does that in a non-linear way - the play isn't chronological, it moves in a zig zag course through the decades of Elizabeth's life, and it also expects you to have some awareness of British politics through said life time, i.e. to recognise more than Churchill and Thatcher. Both of whom, btw, get only one scene, while John Major (aka The One Between Thatcher And Blair) gets two, including the opening one, where the first lines of dialogue make you aware Peter Morgan is in high one liner form:

Major: I only ever wanted to be ordinary.
Elizabeth: And in which way do you consider to have failed in that ambition?

It's Helen Mirren's delivery that makes the entire room laugh that early in the evening. But what makes the play is that it's actually not going for caricature with any of the PMs, including Major, and including Margaret Thatcher. Incidentally, if you've been reading the journal longer you may recall that when I reviewed two Thatcher tv biopics, "The Long Road To Finchley" (young M.) and "Margaret" (the last days, basically), I mentioned that while Thatcher getting power and Thatcher losing power have become dramatic subjects, but Thatcher depicted while having power is something scriptwriters still shy away from (even the latest biopic, which I haven't seen, went for an Alzheimer days frame narration), and I suspected this was because you can't play the "Margaret versus the old boys's club" card and have to actually say something about her politics. Well, her scene in The Audience is from Thatcher at the height of her power, and of course she's on stage with another woman. Morgan avoids any implication of "catfight" while making it clear that the Queen is no fan. Nor, one suspects, is Peter Morgan, though one of the things he has M.T. say is the kind of pronouncement that probably makes Thatcherites cheer while sending chills through everyone else: I came to office with one deliberate intent, to change this country from a dependent to a self reliant culture, and I think in that I have succeeded. Britons now instinctively understand that there is no longer such a thing as society. They have learned to look aftet number one, use their elbowsm get ahead, and are richer for it. No one would remember the good Samaritan if he hadn't had money.

One PM who doesn't show up, presumably because our author feels he's been there and done that is Tony Blair. However, Blair gets talked about and alluded to, in the Queen's scenes with Gordon Brown (who is played by Nathaniel "Agravaine" Parker, which made for a weird moment for this viewer) and David Cameron, and also Morgan uses the historical parallel thing and his non linear storytelling for good effect. We hear the Queen remark that a conversation she had with Tony Blair reminded her of one she had with Anthony Eden several scenes before Eden shows up. The topic of the Eden scene is the Suez canal affair, which I suspect the majority of the audience doesn't remember anymore, but it's also Iraq, since we get this dialogue:

Elizabeth: With what justification?
Eden: Every justification.
Elizabeth: (...) An unjustiable incursion into a sovereign nation to depose its leader and plunder its canal based on personal animosity?
Eden: No.
Elizabeth: Is it even legal?
Eden: Let's keep the lawyers out of it.(...) (W)e rehabilitate a country ravaged by a maniacal tyrant, and reinstate a co-operative, friendly pro-Western government. An MI6 agent placed deep inside Egypt confidently predicts emancipated Egyptians will cheer our soldiers in the streets, and carry our generals on their shoulders.

If there is a danger, it's that Morgan more often than not lets the Queen get the better of the argument, and I presume one scene is specifically in there to show her in the wrong and being the one in need of advice so there is a bit of balance. (The second John Major scene, set shortly after Andrew Morton's Diana biography has been published.) But Helen Mirren carries it off, the one liners ("a letter stamp with a pulse" as a wry self description) as well as the pointed silences, since NOT saying something can be used to devastating effect as well. Along the way, the audience gets a refresher course in British politics in an entertaining way: also, apparantly Elizabeth's favourite PM was Harold Wilson, who therefore gets three scenes, interspersed at various points of the play, with him telling her about his Alzheimer diagnosis and her telling him she'd like to dine with him at Downing Street, something she only did for Churchill and no other PM upon his resignation, as the poignant emotional climax of Morgan's non linear narrative. Wilson is played by Richard McCabe in a Yorkshire accent (I think), and Morgan employs a bit of romantic comedy here, as their first audience is a disaster with Labour man Wilson (arriving in 1964) determined to change the country and its institutions.

Speaking of institutions, Morgan sums up the current monarchy and its PMs thusly in Elizabeth's concluding monologue (she is talking to her younger self): No matter how old-fashioned, expensive and unjustiable we are, we will still be preferable to a elected president meddling in what they do, which is why they always dive in to rescue us every time we make a mess of things. Basically, the impression you're left is that Morgan isn't pro monarchy per se but thinks it's better than the alternative as long at least as the current Queen is still in office. (Wilson gets to deliver a zinger about Prince Charles.) Coming from a country where we had at least two cringe worthy Presidents and otherwise mostly dignified fellows whose existence sometimes was a good counterpoint to their respective Chancellor's, I doubt that, but by the power of a witty script and a great actress , he certainly makes me glad the second Elizabeth ruled and rules as long as she did/does. :)

Some photos from last week in England, because London, no matter how often one visits, is a glorious place.

( As proven below the cut )

Yesterday I was in Cologne for another conference, and before I went back to Munich, I could pay homage to the cathedral. I mean, I'm biased and in favour of the Bamberg cathedral emotionally, but there is no question the Cologne one is one of the most majestic buildings we have. Check it out by daylight and at night:

( The Cathedral of Cologne )

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 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.