Much Ado
Because I am fed up with fretting about house woes and complications (trust me, you don't want to know), I thought it was about time I reviewed last Saturday night's performance of Much Ado About Nothing...
Many things about it were very good; some aspects of a play I'm very fond of were, for me, a bit lacking, or not strongly enough put across. It was, however, enormous fun...
I should probably declare something at the start; my favourite ever interpretation of Much Ado is the Kenneth Branagh/Emma Thompson film, which is so sunny and joyful, and yet doesn't shy away from the darkness which isn't far from the heart of the play. This production, on the other hand, while it absolutely revelled in the slapstick and the humour and the affection between many of the characters, didn't for me always manage to convey the depth of other emotions.
Good things; the sheer exuberance, the willingness to be silly, the sharpness of the costuming and design. I liked the idea of setting the play in a villa in a Spanish seaside resort - judging by the programme, inspired by Gibraltar - with Don Pedro and his troops as a naval detachment on shore leave, all immaculate in their white uniforms. That entirely caught the "holiday" mood of the play and provided a perfect setting for the partying (with Beatrice swigging from her bottle of lager, continually lighting up, and flopping on sun loungers with her sunglasses pushed up on the top of her head). DT's first entrance in the wake of his comrades, loudly honking the horn on the golf buggy he was driving festooned with silly straw hats and other souvenirs, was (literally) a hoot.
The cast were clearly revelling in the more slapstick aspects of the humour. The scene where Benedick is set up to listen to Leonato and Claudio claiming that Beatrice is madly in love with him was hilarious; for those who've not seen the production, the scene's set in a courtyard where workmen are repainting, and while hiding behind pillars and trying to recover from his amazement at what he's hearing DT gets steadily more and more plastered in white paint.
(The reverse scene where Beatrice is eavesdropping didn't, for me, work quite so well - she gets hoisted high in the air on a painter's harness and because we were sitting up in the balcony, we couldn't actually see her properly, so couldn't see any of her facial expressions etc. My sister also pointed out later that in both the "painting" scenes, but especially the latter one, because the audience were laughing so hard at the slapstick she couldn't actually hear a lot of the dialogue. I'm in two minds about whether that mattered - in both those scenes, you get the gist almost immediately (the conspirators are going to go on and on about how Benedick is half-dead of unrevealed and unrequited love for Beatrice, or vice versa) and there's then a good deal of repetition, which perhaps directors feel will pall without some physical comedy to back it up. In the film, something similarly absurd is done by diving in and out of a maze of hedges in a formal garden.)
DT and CT were clearly having a whale of a time; DT, in particular, was being an absolute tart, playing gloriously to the gallery (literally - winking at lucky ladies whose eye he caught!) in the various scenes where Benedick does get to address the audience directly. The moment at the end of his "revelation" scene where Beatrice has been sent "against my will... to bid you come in to dinner", and he appeals triumphantly to the audience "There's a hidden meaning in that!" brought the house down.
The pair of them sparked off each other wonderfully - it was obvious what a rapport they have. Their mock-argumentative flirtation was very believable, as was the idea that here were two friend-foes of very long standing who had never allowed themselves to consider that their affection might be more than fraternal. Their mutual world-weariness at the pickle that the younger, naiver Claudio and Hero have managed to get themselves into, as B&B reclined on their sun-loungers shutting out the world behind their sunglasses, rang very true.
What didn't always work so well was the text's lightning shifts of mood from comedy to potential tragedy. Much Ado flips on a dime from light to darkness at various points, and demands very deft and persuasive acting to take the audience along with those shifts. DT does it superbly, on numerous occasions; a sudden drop in his voice, a lift of an eyebrow, a moment of stillness. He can take it in either direction, too; he declares with genuine passion “I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thine eyes...." before leaping to his feet with a huge grin and "And moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle’s” - brought the house down again.
Not everyone managed those transitions so deftly, though. One of my favourite moments in the Branagh/Thompson film, because the two of them handle it so perfectly, is the scene after Hero's abortive first wedding when Benedick declares to Beatrice that for love of her he will do anything - and Beatrice responds, with utter damning certainty and complete seriousness, "Kill Claudio", and the romance and warmth are chilled to the bone in an instant. Catherine Tate tried to do that - but the line got a laugh. The audience were used to the idea by this point that Beatrice And Benedick Are Funny, and CT didn't put across the shift in mood powerfully enough to take them with her.
I could also have done without some of the endless references in her performance to some of her Catherine Tate Show characters. You could tell a lot of the audience got them and enjoyed them, but eventually the variety of trademark Silly Laughs began to grate on me - just decide who Beatrice is and play her!, I felt like yelling. Am tempted to blame the director for this - after all, those of us who've watched her in Doctor Who know that CT is more than capable of playing a character other than one of her own comedy personae, and doing so with great conviction and depth - maybe she needs telling to do it? And I think you could tell that CT has a good deal less recent theatrical experience than DT - her vocal projection wasn't always quite there, for those of us high up in the balcony. Whereas DT has the well-trained stage actor's knack of always being audible even when he appears to be speaking very quietly; and his incredible, expressive, rubber features make his facial expressions equally easy to pick up even from the gods!
Leonato's performance was a bit uneven, I felt. Not enough rage along with the defeated grief in the scene where he confronts Claudio and Don Pedro after Hero's "death". And the young actors playing Claudio and Hero, too, were struggling a bit to engage us enough with what are, admittedly, rather awkwardly cardboard roles to begin with by comparison with the wit, wisdom and depth of experience of Beatrice and Benedick. The gentlemen of the Watch were great; hapless in the Dad's Army mode. And I loved the kid who kept wandering on and off with his half-completed Rubik's cube (complementing the general 1980s setting) and got a huge cheer when he took his bow with the cube completed at the end!
Overall, though, it was impossible to carp, because it was all done with such verve and joie de vivre. And what made me absurdly happy was that they were all, but particularly DT, obviously having such a completely wonderful time. DT loves the theatre. He clearly adores being on stage; he falls totally in love with the audience, and they with him, and flirts with them outrageously. When he was taking his curtain calls at the end I thought he'd split his face with grinning. More theatre, David! More theatre! You know you want to!
And a final postscript; as my sister, the Resident Geek and I made our way happily out of the theatre, we suddenly realised that the exit for those, like us, descending from the cheap(er) seats in the balcony led right past the stage door. Where an expectant crowd had gathered with programmes etc to be signed - and DT had just emerged! Well, I hadn't intended to go and haunt the stage door, but clearly that was too good to pass up - so despite not getting closer than a couple of rows from the rope, I saw DT up close and personal and am now the proud possessor of a programme with a barely-legible "David" scribbled across it! (He wasn't taking dedications etc - just scrawling his name as many times as he could on all the programmes thrust towards him, in between posing for photos with people, still grinning away and clearly still as high as a kite on all the adrenaline.) Bless him, fancy doing that every night when you've just come off stage. Catherine Tate came out and was signing too, but compared to DT she's tiny, and from 2/3 rows back I couldn't pass my programme to her, so no signature from Beatrice. Never mind, I'll make (much) ado with David.
Many things about it were very good; some aspects of a play I'm very fond of were, for me, a bit lacking, or not strongly enough put across. It was, however, enormous fun...
I should probably declare something at the start; my favourite ever interpretation of Much Ado is the Kenneth Branagh/Emma Thompson film, which is so sunny and joyful, and yet doesn't shy away from the darkness which isn't far from the heart of the play. This production, on the other hand, while it absolutely revelled in the slapstick and the humour and the affection between many of the characters, didn't for me always manage to convey the depth of other emotions.
Good things; the sheer exuberance, the willingness to be silly, the sharpness of the costuming and design. I liked the idea of setting the play in a villa in a Spanish seaside resort - judging by the programme, inspired by Gibraltar - with Don Pedro and his troops as a naval detachment on shore leave, all immaculate in their white uniforms. That entirely caught the "holiday" mood of the play and provided a perfect setting for the partying (with Beatrice swigging from her bottle of lager, continually lighting up, and flopping on sun loungers with her sunglasses pushed up on the top of her head). DT's first entrance in the wake of his comrades, loudly honking the horn on the golf buggy he was driving festooned with silly straw hats and other souvenirs, was (literally) a hoot.
The cast were clearly revelling in the more slapstick aspects of the humour. The scene where Benedick is set up to listen to Leonato and Claudio claiming that Beatrice is madly in love with him was hilarious; for those who've not seen the production, the scene's set in a courtyard where workmen are repainting, and while hiding behind pillars and trying to recover from his amazement at what he's hearing DT gets steadily more and more plastered in white paint.
(The reverse scene where Beatrice is eavesdropping didn't, for me, work quite so well - she gets hoisted high in the air on a painter's harness and because we were sitting up in the balcony, we couldn't actually see her properly, so couldn't see any of her facial expressions etc. My sister also pointed out later that in both the "painting" scenes, but especially the latter one, because the audience were laughing so hard at the slapstick she couldn't actually hear a lot of the dialogue. I'm in two minds about whether that mattered - in both those scenes, you get the gist almost immediately (the conspirators are going to go on and on about how Benedick is half-dead of unrevealed and unrequited love for Beatrice, or vice versa) and there's then a good deal of repetition, which perhaps directors feel will pall without some physical comedy to back it up. In the film, something similarly absurd is done by diving in and out of a maze of hedges in a formal garden.)
DT and CT were clearly having a whale of a time; DT, in particular, was being an absolute tart, playing gloriously to the gallery (literally - winking at lucky ladies whose eye he caught!) in the various scenes where Benedick does get to address the audience directly. The moment at the end of his "revelation" scene where Beatrice has been sent "against my will... to bid you come in to dinner", and he appeals triumphantly to the audience "There's a hidden meaning in that!" brought the house down.
The pair of them sparked off each other wonderfully - it was obvious what a rapport they have. Their mock-argumentative flirtation was very believable, as was the idea that here were two friend-foes of very long standing who had never allowed themselves to consider that their affection might be more than fraternal. Their mutual world-weariness at the pickle that the younger, naiver Claudio and Hero have managed to get themselves into, as B&B reclined on their sun-loungers shutting out the world behind their sunglasses, rang very true.
What didn't always work so well was the text's lightning shifts of mood from comedy to potential tragedy. Much Ado flips on a dime from light to darkness at various points, and demands very deft and persuasive acting to take the audience along with those shifts. DT does it superbly, on numerous occasions; a sudden drop in his voice, a lift of an eyebrow, a moment of stillness. He can take it in either direction, too; he declares with genuine passion “I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thine eyes...." before leaping to his feet with a huge grin and "And moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle’s” - brought the house down again.
Not everyone managed those transitions so deftly, though. One of my favourite moments in the Branagh/Thompson film, because the two of them handle it so perfectly, is the scene after Hero's abortive first wedding when Benedick declares to Beatrice that for love of her he will do anything - and Beatrice responds, with utter damning certainty and complete seriousness, "Kill Claudio", and the romance and warmth are chilled to the bone in an instant. Catherine Tate tried to do that - but the line got a laugh. The audience were used to the idea by this point that Beatrice And Benedick Are Funny, and CT didn't put across the shift in mood powerfully enough to take them with her.
I could also have done without some of the endless references in her performance to some of her Catherine Tate Show characters. You could tell a lot of the audience got them and enjoyed them, but eventually the variety of trademark Silly Laughs began to grate on me - just decide who Beatrice is and play her!, I felt like yelling. Am tempted to blame the director for this - after all, those of us who've watched her in Doctor Who know that CT is more than capable of playing a character other than one of her own comedy personae, and doing so with great conviction and depth - maybe she needs telling to do it? And I think you could tell that CT has a good deal less recent theatrical experience than DT - her vocal projection wasn't always quite there, for those of us high up in the balcony. Whereas DT has the well-trained stage actor's knack of always being audible even when he appears to be speaking very quietly; and his incredible, expressive, rubber features make his facial expressions equally easy to pick up even from the gods!
Leonato's performance was a bit uneven, I felt. Not enough rage along with the defeated grief in the scene where he confronts Claudio and Don Pedro after Hero's "death". And the young actors playing Claudio and Hero, too, were struggling a bit to engage us enough with what are, admittedly, rather awkwardly cardboard roles to begin with by comparison with the wit, wisdom and depth of experience of Beatrice and Benedick. The gentlemen of the Watch were great; hapless in the Dad's Army mode. And I loved the kid who kept wandering on and off with his half-completed Rubik's cube (complementing the general 1980s setting) and got a huge cheer when he took his bow with the cube completed at the end!
Overall, though, it was impossible to carp, because it was all done with such verve and joie de vivre. And what made me absurdly happy was that they were all, but particularly DT, obviously having such a completely wonderful time. DT loves the theatre. He clearly adores being on stage; he falls totally in love with the audience, and they with him, and flirts with them outrageously. When he was taking his curtain calls at the end I thought he'd split his face with grinning. More theatre, David! More theatre! You know you want to!
And a final postscript; as my sister, the Resident Geek and I made our way happily out of the theatre, we suddenly realised that the exit for those, like us, descending from the cheap(er) seats in the balcony led right past the stage door. Where an expectant crowd had gathered with programmes etc to be signed - and DT had just emerged! Well, I hadn't intended to go and haunt the stage door, but clearly that was too good to pass up - so despite not getting closer than a couple of rows from the rope, I saw DT up close and personal and am now the proud possessor of a programme with a barely-legible "David" scribbled across it! (He wasn't taking dedications etc - just scrawling his name as many times as he could on all the programmes thrust towards him, in between posing for photos with people, still grinning away and clearly still as high as a kite on all the adrenaline.) Bless him, fancy doing that every night when you've just come off stage. Catherine Tate came out and was signing too, but compared to DT she's tiny, and from 2/3 rows back I couldn't pass my programme to her, so no signature from Beatrice. Never mind, I'll make (much) ado with David.