Cause Celebre ***

Terence Rattigan’s last play was one of the first ideas he had. Having seen the media hype around the trial of Alma Rattenbury in 1935 the idea stuck with him until the end of his life. He returned to it when commissioned to write a radio drama for the BBC in 1974 with the stage version finally being forced into existence in 1977, the year of his death. The story revolves around the undeniably simple concept of the law not being a vessel for morality and the excitement of the real-life case is almost entirely lacking in his laboured adaptation for the stage.

      

The show looks as if it has been treated like a radio show. The set is sparse and bland throughout. The necessaries are in place and undeniably set the scene well but there is no more than that from the set. It was all very dark, large and brooding that matched the style of the play but didn’t help the staging of it. It did the bare minimum and I don’t think you’d miss much if you had someone record it into a microphone and you listened to it at home as if it were a radio play. Except you might be bored to death and long for someone to come round with a mallet and smash your head in. Lighting effects were good when people needed to be isolated and I was actually very fond of the part of the stage that remained raised above the rest for the more intimate scenes. It was used well if not enough.

      

The script is dry and dull. The sub-plot, which is about as useful as a sidecar for a passenger who never climbed in in the first place, is almost non-existent. Nimah Cusack makes the most of a one-dimensional role that leads nowhere. It adds a dynamic to the court case but no part of the backstory is tied in at all to any relevant factor and it hangs like a loose piece of skin.

      

The interesting aspect of the show is the relationship between Alma Rattenbury and her teenage lover and how such a relationship develops into the form portrayed in the later court scenes. This is entirely glossed over. Instead of the action of the story we are given the retrospective considerations of the court, which is nowhere near as interesting unless you’re studying law or are a lawyer in which case you see it every day anyway. Every scene in the court was dry, slow and uninteresting. There were occasional good lines and the competitive relationship between the barristers was interesting and well played if underdeveloped.

      

Unfortunately there was no saving grace at the end. The final verdict was predictable from the first explanation of Cusack’s character and the ‘twist’ given at the end did about as much as a Chinese burn on a mannequin. Remarkably ineffectual.

      

The whole play seemed to be a shoehorn for Rattigan to shove his last pearls of wisdom into the theatrical size nines. The point of the law not being a moral force is basic and the intrigue of the court minimal at best. There’s no substance to the story and the fringes are underdeveloped. The action is skipped entirely so the play can act as a retrospective over something nobody has any experience of. I could go on but I’ll just leave it at saying it’s a poorly constructed play.

      

The acting is thankfully not as bad as the script. There are a number of strong performances that do what is possible to rescue it all. Anne-Marie Duff leads from the front and gives a passionate and electrifying performance, moving from shock to flippancy to despair as quickly as a breeze through winter woodland. Her relationship with Tommy McDonnell’s George didn’t come across with the strength necessary when they were on stage together but they made a good effort of it, the fault probably lying with the fact that they didn’t have much stage time at all to convey the depth of their relationship. I’m not sure they had any after they had become involved at all.

      

My favourite performance was from Nicholas Jones as the old lawyer O’Connell. He brought the humour that Rattigan was groping for the role, giving both strength and vulnerability to the character, breathing life into a desolate room. His witticisms were well delivered and his courtroom antics relieved the monotony.

      

The rest of the cast did their best. None of the characters really had a large amount of time with which to make an impact on the audience. There were a lot of them and not much to them. The basic points they were there to make were obvious and no matter how hard they tried to add character it was clear they were there as devices. The judge and the members of the court were strongly played, as was Christopher, Alma Rattenbury’s eldest child. Nimah Cusack deserves a mention for her work with a character struggling with so many tangles that it seems as though she’s living in a massive knot, even if none of the tangles are fully explained. All in all, the supporting cast all do fantastic jobs with their characters and all the actors can pat themselves on the back when they're out of the woods on this one.

Having recently seen Blithe Spirit at the Apollo theatre, another somewhat disappointing production, my eyes are drawn to the fact that they have the same director in Thea Sharrock. Whether having two shows on in major London venues has led to a lack of necessary attention or whether the lack of attention was there before I cannot tell because I haven't seen any of Sharrock's work before. Both suffer from a lack of depth and nuance (though admittedly Cause Celebre has a disadvantaged script - there's little excuse with Noel Coward) and perhaps she has over-exerted herself somewhat.

      

Respect is due to the Old Vic for partaking of the centenary celebration of Rattigan’s birth year but a different play would have been advisable; Flare Path is much better. As a play it is one-dimensional and self-indulgent and I didn’t care for it at all. Lord knows how the actors are pulling off such a good job of it…

Written by Terence Rattigan; Directed by Thea Sharrock; At the Old Vic; Starring Anne-Marie Duff, Nimah Cusack, Freddie Fox, Tommy McDonnell, Jenny Galloway, Nicholas Jones, Patrick Godfrey; Runs from 17 Mar 11 - 11 Jun 11.

http://www.oldvictheatre.com/whatson.php?id=70

John Ord (06/04/2011)

Blithe Spirit ***

Blithe Spirit is the story of an ageing novelist looking for inside knowledge on the fantastical world of mediums and séances who learns far more than he ought to when his first wife is brought back from the other side and sets about dismantling his second marriage with blissful flippancy. The plot progression is typical of Noel Coward’s flights of fancy and is delightfully funny. Unlike a lot of Coward’s other work, the humour here doesn’t stem primarily from witty quips and subtle nicks but more from the inevitable mix-ups when the situation develops. His nimble mind is still clear in the occasional remark but it’s interesting to see a more physical style of comedy.

      

The set is plain and demure; a symphony in creams and pale greens. It provides a backdrop that’s easy to impress on and one that the characters go about doing straight away. The final destructive scene brings the best out of the previously subtle set, breaking the mould and shattering the calm with a sudden outburst of chaos, very impressive work from the backstage team.

      

From the first entrance the tone is set for the rest of the performance. Jodie Taibi’s cautious Edith enters with a tray and tries to place it on a table, a seemingly simple directive but one that ends up involving her doing the splits and other gymnastics. It’s a good start to a good performance from her as she rushes about at either warp speed or super slow motion providing not only good physical humour but also a varied pace to the action onstage.

      

The main entrance at the back of the stage allows for powerful entrances and first to exploit this is Hermione Norris. She bursts onto the scene and immediately takes control of the room, which she fights to maintain throughout the action of the play. Her character’s nagging and controlling nature is frustrating and it becomes more so from the initial probing questions to the full-blown arguments later on. She also loses herself in a few of her more fervent outbursts. A few of the cast fall victim to the occasional speedy rant that eventually falls on the wrong side of intelligible, which is upsetting given the base quality of Coward’s dialogue.

      

Robert Bathurst plays the character caught between the wife and the spirit place, two wives fighting over him and not on a level playing field, either. His efforts to promote good relations between them are ill fated from the start but are certainly very funny. The mix up as to who he’s talking to when he says something harsh doesn’t becomes less funny the more it’s used and retains its use throughout courtesy of good acting. He is another victim of the speedy rant syndrome but all in all he gave a very strong performance. His distraught Charles was very different to his affirmed Charles and his relationships with his wives were mature and well developed but more could have been done.

      

Alison Steadman is delightful. Taking the crazy old lady archetype to the extreme looks to be a great amount of fun for her as she prances about on stage lecturing on ectoplasm and poltergeists before dancing around like an animal with the occasional outburst before passing out on the sofa. She is clearly enjoying herself and her presence is one that seems to steady the ship somewhat. When she enters you somehow know the play is going to run smoothly, even with the chaotic nature of it all. Her character is well played; she strikes the balance between unbearable and hilarious so well that you are constantly undecided as to whether you like her or not: she’s realistic as a medium and you are perfectly willing to accept the existence of the ‘other side’ as a result of her performance alone.

      

Ruthie Henshall gives a fantastic performance. Given what is essentially a free reign to do whatever she wants on stage (largely because only one person knows she’s there) she personifies the title role of a ‘blithe spirit’. Carefree and flippant to the utmost she exploits her situation well and is very funny in doing so, playing the physical and verbal gags to the full and being tremendously good fun to watch. Her underlying sinister motives even seem gleeful, which is testament to the work she put into her exceedingly mischievous and deeply alluring character. I also liked the lighting effect of holding a blue spotlight on her the entirety of the time she was there, it succeeded in giving a more ethereal feel to her presence and supported her performance well.

       

This production is, simply put, jolly good fun. Death isn’t the most obvious source of comedy, particularly at the time of Blithe Spirit being written (1941) and the play gives a very harsh view of women as either barking mad, devious or plain unbearable and this seems wholly unfair but it is undeniably humorous. The cast do well to push the comedy to the fore but one cannot help but notice there’s other things going on that aren’t so jolly.

      

Sharrock’s direction appears solid but not nuanced. It’s broad brush strokes. There’s very little in the way of detail and more subtle edges. It’s all very funny and we’re laughing at what’s going on but we’re not really affected by it, we’re not invested in what is going on in the play, merely taking it all as it comes and laughing at the action. That may be the intention but the execution could do with some refinement.

Written by Noel Coward; Directed by Thea Sharrock; At the Apollo Theatre; Starring Jodie Taibi, Hermione Norris, Robert Bathurst, Bo Poraj, Charlotte Thornton, Alison Steadman, Ruthie Henshall; Runs from 02 March 11 - 18 June 11.

http://www.apollo-theatre.co.uk/

John Ord (02/04/2011)

Interview: Richard Katz

Richard Katz

This interview was conducted at the time of the RSC London Season 2010/11, in which Katz was involved in Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It and the YP Comedy of Errors.

Richard has been working with the RSC on and off for the last five years and finds it some of the most exhilarating work available to an actor, primarily because the majority of the work is Shakespeare. To play a Shakespeare role well, says Richard, you need to put in a lot of hard work, you need to be constantly paying attention and asking questions of yourself. It’s a ‘vigorous and rigorous endeavour’ that rewards as much as it demands. The current ensemble have been together for two years and will have been involved in a total of ten plays by the end of their run, which is very exciting for everyone involved and is something that Richard is relishing.

            

Playing Lord Capulet is a step away from the norm for Richard, who openly admits to being more suited to comic roles, but he loves every moment of it, relishing the chance to be a ‘really nasty person’. The role allows him to explore what he can’t do in real life and as a real-life parent he finds it challenging and enlightening to play someone so different to himself. The atmosphere within the production is one of collaborative advancement with people working together to further the show and these elements clearly come out in the production, Richard’s own comic touch evident in his opening scene (the fight in the street) where he spends about a minute disarming himself of various concealed weapons. This suits his style well; his idea of the theatre process being at its best is when there are ‘twenty people who are good at their jobs nudging it together’.

            

Katz as Lord Capulet in the RSC's Romeo and Juliet

I found it very interesting talking to Richard about his perspective on Romeo and Juliet as a play. He said he had never seen it on stage before he had agreed to the role and he thought this was a good thing as he was unaware going in of any ‘supposed to be’ aspects that would stick with you if you had seen it. This gives him the opportunity to make Lord Capulet his own in a more original and fresh way than an expert on the character who has seen multiple incarnations and studied him ferociously. He said that as he was preparing for the show he was reading Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. The observation that when a species is under threat it attacks itself before its enemy was something he was able to take to the role of Lord Capulet as he sees the conflict between the Capulets and the Montagues as similar to this infighting. They are turning on themselves to establish who’s in charge before turning to others and this production in particular does have the feeling of a family that has had a fallout trying to remedy it before taking on the rest of the society. It’s an insight that, in hindsight, does come through in the play.

            

He is very attentive to the smaller details of the character, something that is encouraging to hear indeed. Already a tall actor he made the decision to wear boots that made him even taller. He says that he wanted people to feel scared for Juliet and I certainly did when I saw the show. In the opening scene he fights with two large sticks and intentionally maximises the amount of space that he takes up on stage, giving his character a physical manifestation of his natural strength. He was certainly imposing and threatening throughout and it’s his attention to detail that allows him to deliver such a carefully composed performance.

            

However, Lord Capulet is only one part of Richard’s commitment to the London Season. Looking ahead there are plenty of shows on the horizon for audiences to enjoy, including Richard in As You Like It and the young persons’ Comedy of Errors. He describes repertoire acting in no uncertain terms as ‘the best thing ever’. His role of Lord Capulet couldn’t differ more from Antipholus of Syracuse and playing them on consecutive days keeps things fresh. The repertoire programme is a fundamental part of the RSC and they run a season every year in London that has been at the Roundhouse for a couple of years now.

            

Katz in The Comedy of Errors

Pretending is something that helps Richard keep abreast of the vastly differing challenges each character poses. ‘It’s just pretending, that’s the great thing’ he said, ‘you can pick the things you pretend [and you’re always going to pick the exciting things]’. He finds that being aware that he is pretending to be someone else takes all the pressure off and lets you look at the role from a more objective position, also allowing you to throw new things at it. If you come in lost or sad one day, the character will be subject to that and throwing that kind of difference at the scaffolding will test it and see if it’s strong enough to stand the strain. If it isn't you know you have more work to do before you've built a complete character. Richard is a good source for an opinion on acting as a very active and creative process, saying that you ‘can’t work in a vacuum’ and that you ‘make amazing discoveries up on your feet’. This is perhaps how he has found a place in such an established and respected theatre ensemble as the RSC.

The Lipton-Pivot Questionnaire: Richard Katz What is your favourite word?             Nuance What is your least favourite word?             Compromise What turns you on?             Accidents What turns you off?             Someone’s ‘BIG’ idea What is your favourite curse word?             Fuck What sound or noise do you love?             Kettle Boiling What sound or noise do you hate?             Alarm Clock What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?             Nuclear Physicist What profession other than your own would you least like to attempt?             Paramedic If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say to you when you arrive at the pearly gates? Well done, you made it!

John Ord (16/12/2010)