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Wine time: The Frogs - Southwark Playhouse

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For a show called The Frogs, there isn’t much amphibian activity in the piece. But being a show with music by Stephen Sondheim, you could be mistaken for thinking it’s a critical theatrical piece. But like Sondheim’s final musical playing at the National Theatre, while it may not be a musical that fills you with provocative thoughts, it’s a fast-paced romp through hell and back to save the world for the sake of arts. With rousing choruses, thrilling choreography and plenty of cheap laughs, what more can you want from the theatre? It’s currently playing at the Southwark Playhouse (Borough) . There isn’t much to the plot, except that Dionysus (Dan Buckley), disillusioned by the state of a divided world, and his sidekick and slave, Xanthias (Kevin McHale), cross the river Styx to the underworld to find a great writer who they can return to the world to teach the world about life. He has his mind set on bringing back George Bernard Shaw until he hears the poetry of Shakespeare.  This v...

Theatre: A Round-Heeled Woman

A Round-Heeled Woman has just transferred from the Riverside Studios to the Aldwych Theatre. It is an opportunity for Sharon Gless (of Cagney and Lacey fame) to portray through part monologue / part drama the true story of Jane Juska. Juska is a woman who placed an advertisement in the The New York Review of Books that read: "Before I turn 67 – next March – I would like to have a lot of sex with a man I like. If you want to talk first, Trollope works for me." 

The play, which is based upon Juska's book, goes through some of the encounters that lead to love, heartbreak, rejection and laughs. The audience on Friday night was not prepared for the humiliation arising from this situation. There were audible gasps when one of her male suitors tells her why she needs to get some lubricant. 

But the sharp wit and brutal incisiveness is frequently undermined by a superfluous supporting cast that have little to do, and a set so distracting that it has your mind wondering to ask questions such as, "Why does Juska have a tomb in her front garden?" Maybe it is meant to be a metaphor. But perhaps cutting back on both would enable more time to focus on the central character. 

Still, Gless gives a pretty good performance and it is an enjoyable night. But perhaps the target audience is for those whose last outing was to see Menopause The Musical, although there were plenty of fans from Gless's Cagney and Lacey and Queer As Folk days in the audience... It runs until January. Incidentally Tyne Daly is appearing January in Masterclass... Maybe the two productions should have a mash-up?

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