London theatre: love, sex, and marriage (not necessarily in that order)
This is the third of (I hope) five posts about the theatre productions I saw in London in June.
Private Lives, by Noël Coward
Gielgud Theatre
dir. Jonathan Kent
Despite the fact that in some ways the text hasn’t aged well (more on that in a minute), Private Lives gets revived regularly, largely because it’s a star vehicle and always has been: it requires, and rewards, big personalities and sharp actors who play off each other well.
Toby Stephens (Elyot) and Anna Chancellor (Amanda) absolutely fit the bill: their chemistry is fantastic, their comic timing flawless. Everything just works: the line readings, the interactions, the facial expressions, the mimicking of each other (Stephens is especially brilliant at this).
For someone who knows the play, there are no particular revelations about it here: the two halves of a divorced couple re-encounter each other while on their honeymoons with their new spouses (Sibyl and Victor) and discover that they still have sexual chemistry like nobody’s business, still cannot get along for more than five minutes, and still want to fuck each other senseless anyway. Meanwhile, the two new partners discover that they may be better suited for each other than for their spouses. The comedy comes from symmetry, the pair of pairs: once would be sad, twice is hilarious.
On the other hand, this production is not mere comic fluff; it makes some fairly interesting comments on gender. Anna’s slinky glamour and dramatic, occasionally androgynous dress are a striking contrast to Sibyl’s pinker, fluffier, younger femininity; Anna’s age and wit are what make her sexy. Stephens’ version of Elyot is especially interesting: Coward wrote the role for himself, and the character is decidedly camp in some ways-a dandy with a fancy dressing gown who refuses to be serious-and Stephens plays that aspect of the character very well, but also brings a different physical energy than one might expect: bluff, broad-shouldered, unmistakeably masculine. I’ve never seen Stephens do straight-up comedy before, and he was hysterical-as was Chancellor, but given what I’d seen of her past work that wasn’t a surprise.
The thing that’s always bothered me about this play is its casual violence, both physical and (potentially) emotional; finding humor in domestic violence is a really hard sell for me. In discussion with one of my theatre companions, we agreed that the question has to be: “Do we worry for these characters?” In this production, I worried about Amanda (and for that matter Elyot) most in the play’s first scene, in which they both seem at risk of dying of boredom in their new marriages; their physical fights were sufficiently, well, stagy-and also sufficiently well-balanced physically, not least because the actors are almost of a height-that they looked and felt less like abuse than like two siblings slapping at each other in the back seat of a car. This was a relief, as you might imagine.
All in all, a funny, sexy production of a play that I'll never see for its own sake but will always be happy to see great comic actors use as a chance to shine.
A Mad World, My Masters, by Thomas Middleton
edited by Sean Foley and Phil Porter
Swan Theatre (at RSC Stratford)
dir. Sean Foley
Mad World is a city comedy from ~1605 featuring parallel plots about sex and money (which should surprise no one who knows anything about city comedies). Dick Follywit gulls his uncle out of a large sum of money; Mrs. Littledick finds a man who can satisfy her sexually; whore and heroine Miss Truly Kidman plays pretty much everybody and gets exactly what she wants at the play's end. The RSC's production uses an edited and updated script, which I thought was a terrific choice: many of the character names and more of the scenes rely for their humor on now-inaccessible slang, and so the choice to translate those innuendoes into contemporary slang does a lot to preserve the play's hilarity and its filth, which are largely the same thing.
The production, set in 1950s Soho, is delightfully accessible, hilariously kinky (and remarkably kink-positive), wonderfully choreographed (especially the fight scene and the succubus scene-yes, you read that right), briskly but not frantically paced; it features excellent live music and brilliant set details (the various abstract sculptures on the bookshelves of Sir Bounteous Peersucker bear an unmistakeable resemblance to expensive sex toys).
I haven't laughed so hard at the theatre in a very long time.
As a side note, this production is the latest in the unbroken string of terrific productions I've seen at The Swan. Apparently they just don't do mediocre productions there. It's one of my favorite spaces in which to see plays; I've never been disappointed.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth || Read
comments on Dreamwidth
Private Lives, by Noël Coward
Gielgud Theatre
dir. Jonathan Kent
Despite the fact that in some ways the text hasn’t aged well (more on that in a minute), Private Lives gets revived regularly, largely because it’s a star vehicle and always has been: it requires, and rewards, big personalities and sharp actors who play off each other well.
Toby Stephens (Elyot) and Anna Chancellor (Amanda) absolutely fit the bill: their chemistry is fantastic, their comic timing flawless. Everything just works: the line readings, the interactions, the facial expressions, the mimicking of each other (Stephens is especially brilliant at this).
For someone who knows the play, there are no particular revelations about it here: the two halves of a divorced couple re-encounter each other while on their honeymoons with their new spouses (Sibyl and Victor) and discover that they still have sexual chemistry like nobody’s business, still cannot get along for more than five minutes, and still want to fuck each other senseless anyway. Meanwhile, the two new partners discover that they may be better suited for each other than for their spouses. The comedy comes from symmetry, the pair of pairs: once would be sad, twice is hilarious.
On the other hand, this production is not mere comic fluff; it makes some fairly interesting comments on gender. Anna’s slinky glamour and dramatic, occasionally androgynous dress are a striking contrast to Sibyl’s pinker, fluffier, younger femininity; Anna’s age and wit are what make her sexy. Stephens’ version of Elyot is especially interesting: Coward wrote the role for himself, and the character is decidedly camp in some ways-a dandy with a fancy dressing gown who refuses to be serious-and Stephens plays that aspect of the character very well, but also brings a different physical energy than one might expect: bluff, broad-shouldered, unmistakeably masculine. I’ve never seen Stephens do straight-up comedy before, and he was hysterical-as was Chancellor, but given what I’d seen of her past work that wasn’t a surprise.
The thing that’s always bothered me about this play is its casual violence, both physical and (potentially) emotional; finding humor in domestic violence is a really hard sell for me. In discussion with one of my theatre companions, we agreed that the question has to be: “Do we worry for these characters?” In this production, I worried about Amanda (and for that matter Elyot) most in the play’s first scene, in which they both seem at risk of dying of boredom in their new marriages; their physical fights were sufficiently, well, stagy-and also sufficiently well-balanced physically, not least because the actors are almost of a height-that they looked and felt less like abuse than like two siblings slapping at each other in the back seat of a car. This was a relief, as you might imagine.
All in all, a funny, sexy production of a play that I'll never see for its own sake but will always be happy to see great comic actors use as a chance to shine.
A Mad World, My Masters, by Thomas Middleton
edited by Sean Foley and Phil Porter
Swan Theatre (at RSC Stratford)
dir. Sean Foley
Mad World is a city comedy from ~1605 featuring parallel plots about sex and money (which should surprise no one who knows anything about city comedies). Dick Follywit gulls his uncle out of a large sum of money; Mrs. Littledick finds a man who can satisfy her sexually; whore and heroine Miss Truly Kidman plays pretty much everybody and gets exactly what she wants at the play's end. The RSC's production uses an edited and updated script, which I thought was a terrific choice: many of the character names and more of the scenes rely for their humor on now-inaccessible slang, and so the choice to translate those innuendoes into contemporary slang does a lot to preserve the play's hilarity and its filth, which are largely the same thing.
The production, set in 1950s Soho, is delightfully accessible, hilariously kinky (and remarkably kink-positive), wonderfully choreographed (especially the fight scene and the succubus scene-yes, you read that right), briskly but not frantically paced; it features excellent live music and brilliant set details (the various abstract sculptures on the bookshelves of Sir Bounteous Peersucker bear an unmistakeable resemblance to expensive sex toys).
I haven't laughed so hard at the theatre in a very long time.
As a side note, this production is the latest in the unbroken string of terrific productions I've seen at The Swan. Apparently they just don't do mediocre productions there. It's one of my favorite spaces in which to see plays; I've never been disappointed.
Originally posted at Dreamwidth || Read
comments on Dreamwidth