Sunday, February 07, 2010
Opera and Theatre: The Rake's Progress and Dalston Songs
This week saw two trips to the Royal Opera to catch the final performances of The Rake's Progress, an opera by Stravinsky and directed by Robert Lepage and Dalston Songs, a song cycle written by Helen Chadwick.
Stravinsky's Rake is inspired by the paintings by Hogarth, although the action here takes place on the west coast of America during the 1950s. It is a pity that it didn't take its modernisation a bit closer to the present day as then the tale of green might have had a bit more bite... As an opera it does tend to drag a bit (all that neoclassical window dressing), but what it lacks in focus and brevity it sure made up with the performances and the stunning production design. The moral of the story summed up very nicely in the epilogue was that the devil makes work for idle hands... Obviously for idle operas it doesn't matter so much when they look this good...
Saturday night's performance of Dalston Songs was a different affair. There were no fancy set pieces or flashy projections. Instead the set looked like either a community hall or a internet / phone cafe. I was glad I was sitting close to the action as from the upper levels of the Linbury Theatre it looked like it was half built. Eight performers in everyday dress sang a cappella and danced about the life and musings about home from the people who live in Dalston, a north east part of London. The songs were interrupted with recordings of people from Dalston talking about their life. The recordings seemed unnecessary as the music and the performances had a life of their own. It will be interesting to see where this show goes next as it deserves further outings...
Scenes from cheap eats in London...
Asking for extra katsu curry sauce almost makes you forget that the chicken at Wagamama is dry and overcooked...
Scenes from the streets of London...
Thursday, February 04, 2010
Monday, February 01, 2010
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Theatre: Silence The Musical
The Silence of the Lambs is a movie that calls out for a parody... At least to take the edge of some of its more intense moments. Therefore it was with much anticipation that I ventured to Above the Stag theatre in Victoria to see Silence! the musical. For anyone who has seen the Silence of the Lambs more times than they care to remember, this is a great little musical that doesn't disappoint, which even bases its main theme on what the composers call a "pleasant major mode variation" on Howard Shore's Silence of the Lambs theme. This production in the intimate (or cramped) Above the Stag theatre is full of fine detail from the movie, such as Jodie Foster's inexplicable accent, her lesbian relationship with her roommate, and her cheap shoes...
The music includes such little gems as I can smell your .... complete with slightly suggestive ballet and a tango Quid Pro Quo. Throughout the show a chorus of lambs can be found running on and off stage... The cast were particularly good and managed to keep the laughs coming for the most part.
Probably the only slightly unnerving thing about this show is the venue itself. Given its location, the Stag seems to be a pub that is mostly populated by creepy gay civil servants who would not look out of place in Buffalo Bill's home... And you do have to make your way past them to get to the upstairs space. The entire place also smells like a toilet. However, if you just pretend the grimness it is all part of the atmosphere for the show you'll be fine... It runs all this month and is worth catching...
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Theatre: High Society
It was practically a full house on Thursday evening at High Society playing Upstairs at the Gatehouse. That meant that Johnnyfox and I had to sit in the front row to enjoy this high energy and high furniture moving production. It must be hard to work in these productions to dance and sing your heart out, and then have to move the sofas about. When you're not worrying that they will drop a lampshade on you or kick you in the face, the cast in this show are great. And since the music is Cole Porter it is fairly enjoyable stuff it makes it hard to not enjoy it at some level...
On another level it is just an awful musical with a dull book and vaguely appealing characters. It probably was a bad idea to see a show with Johnnyfox that has lines that mention something about stroking her pussy out the back as well. And it wasn't helped by the decision to transplant the setting to England, perhaps so we didn't have to cringe at English actors attempting American accents. The ladies around us in the audience apart from being sympathetic to our tittering also provided some added amusement with their reactions to what was going on onstage, particularly as the evening wore on as being a theatre pub you can bring your drinks into the theatre. They were looking suspiciously like hard core Gatehouse goers... And they had sat well away from where the furniture kept flying in and out. Sort of worth catching... if you steer clear of the exits. Also avoid Finsbury Park when heading home as the vomit matches the floor there and you can go for a bit of a slide... Although Johnnyfox thought that was a tad more entertaining than the show we saw...
Monday, January 18, 2010
Theatre: An Inspector Calls
It's January so it is Get Into London Theatre time... Which is a great way to see a play for a bargain that you might have been ambivalent about seeing previously. One such play I was ambivalent about was the revival of An Inspector Calls, directed by Stephen Daldry. Having now seen it, I still remain ambivalent. Sure I understand how important it must have felt when this production first came on the scene in 1992. Thatcherism was a very recent memory and was a critique of her legacy as much. However eighteen years on, times have certainly changed... And the play feels overproduced and overstaged. And (on the night I saw it...) over-acted...
There is nothing subtle about the JB Priestly's text, which is fine from a historical point of view, but this production decides to ram things home in big large letters, and a tiny little house... And if you aren't being deafened by the nightmare sequence score from Vertigo, you find yourself being moistened by the mist from the rain machine... For a drawing room drama, it all seems like overkill... Still it has proved popular and with Get Into London Theatre prices, it's cheap enough to enjoy being ambivalent. The play runs until March and GILT has been extended now until then too...
Scenes from window shopping in Mayfair Sunday 2
Come to think of it, you don't see this either... I couldn't work out where you hit the button to flush...
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Art and Pornography: Pop Life at the Tate
The Tate Modern's Pop Life exhibition finished today. Basically it was a collection of minge from the seventies onwards with a few bits of Warhol thrown in for good measure... While there was some attempt to put it all into the context of "it seemed like a good idea at the time", it was a pity there wasn't some of this interview with Jeff Koons describing how his then-wife Cicciolina expressed herself with her shaved vagina. This interview was filmed without irony at the time they created the Made In Heaven works that made up one room of the exhibition...
After a while of looking at the artworks (or pornography) it was almost enough to make you want to run away from it all and see some real art... Well at least not art that you could have created yourself with some nifty clippers, a Gillette disposable and a compact mirror. But if you missed it, an intrepid reporter captured it all on Youtube... And at about the speed it should be seen. Tate Shots with Jonathan Yeo also gives it a good wrap up as well, standing at one point strategically in front of something very large and very naughty indeed...
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Theatre Preview: Six Degrees of Separation
The play has a sort of legendary status, but this is less to do with the play itself... In 1993 it was made into a film with Stockard Channing (reprising her Broadway role) and Will Smith, who largely was remembered for playing a gay character and not being that gay as there was no kissing and not much nudity (it was all a bit no homo)... Shortly after the film came out Kevin Bacon made the statement he worked with everyone in Hollywood and thus gave birth to the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon phenomena. Amongst some circles, this became better known than the play itself. So much so that a colleague thought that was what I was seeing...
Anyway, headlining the show is Obi Abili, Anthony Head and Lesley Manville. All of them are excellent in delivering what seems like a series of three-act monologues that make up this show. Abili has no problems playing a gay con man who ingratiates himself into the lives of some rich New Yorkers. There is a large cast on stage at times, but the focus is between the relationship be Abili's character Paul and Ouisa (played by Manville).
As the play was unfolding, the audience's reactions became more and more intriguing... When the character Paul is revealed for who he is, there was an awful lot of tut tutting going on in the audience, especially when there were the gay references. It started after the full frontal nudity (and a rather unconvincing condom) and then reappeared when another character was describing a sexually provocative ride in Central Park... Maybe it was all that talk that just led to the audience just letting their mind go wild a bit too much. On the other hand, there was a lot of tittering during an unfortunate revolve malfunction during a particularly silent and dramatic part of the play so maybe the audience was just badly behaved.
The play runs a sharp ninety minutes without an interval. Afterwards at the bar discussing what we had seen, the troupe had mixed views about it all. Sure it does take characters, build them up and then completely turn them on their head (or show them having sex), but many just found the characters too unlikable... And perhaps a little too gay... When other gay-ish plays such as Public Property and Prick Up Your Ears also have trouble finding audiences maybe gay isn't so fashionable anymore at the theatre. Well at least not when you have to pay £90 for two top price tickets. Here's hoping it finds an audience as gay gore aside, for me this is a great play and a great looking production and a great cast. Worth catching in its run until April 3.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Theatre: The Power of Yes
Despite gusts of wind and snow, what looked like a full house was there on Saturday night to see David Hare's new play The Power of Yes at the National Theatre. Not even freezing conditions could prevent National Theatre audiences from seeing a lecture on the financial crisis. Well we're that sort of audience I suppose.
The Power of Yes has been playing since September, but rather than see it early on in its run and be bewildered about it (such as I was with his Stuff Happens show), I waited a bit, hoping it would be trimmed and better formed by now. It probably was.
David Hare is a bit of a star writer nowadays so it seemed to make sense to make him the focus of the show. Its a show about a playwright trying to understand the credit crunch and the recession of the last two years for a play he is being commissioned by the National Theatre to write. I guess being a star playwright, you can do that sort of thing. Some say Enron the play treats a similar subject matter far more creatively but having not yet seen it, I had to be content with the less inspired premise...
Of course if you were the slightest bit interested in the recession of the past two years, you would be familiar with the subject matter from reading the Financial Times. Although here it seems so much better written... And better looking than a pink sheet with its cool steel set... And sassier. I don't think anyone in the FT used the word cunt to describe the former head of Royal Bank of Scotland.
Of course watching this you could either feel smug and satisfied like all good nights out at the National Theatre can make you do, or feel just incredibly depressed that the economy in Britain is... Stuffed... It was easy to feel both...
Sunday, January 10, 2010
News: The weather
As the Guardian blogged, there is nothing like a cold snap to bring out the cliches... News stories this past week will feature at least one of the following:
- Talking about the winter spirit that evokes memories of the blitz. Since when is Jack Frost a Nazi?
- There really is community spirit after all... Although this only occurs after people realise the government is not going to do something for them first...
- Fear of running out of grit. Birmingham will run out in 48 hours. Death will ensue after.
- Take matters into your own hands and clear a pavement. And then you will be sued.
Oh and BBC weather reporters must have a dress code for crumpled or ill-fitting suits... Won't somebody think of the dry cleaners?
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