Featured Post

Prayers and thoughts: The Inseparables @Finboroughtheatre

Image
The Inseparables brings Simone de Beauvoir’s posthumously published novel to life. It traces a lifelong friendship between Sylve and Andrée, two unconventional girls who grew up in a stifling world where being a woman meant getting married or entering a convent. With a quick pace and engaging performances from the two leads, it is a journey back into the 20th century that captures two unconventional women trapped in a conventional world that will have you reflecting on how much or little things have moved on in the last century. It’s currently playing at the Finborough Theatre .  We’re introduced to Sylve praying for her country, France, to be saved from the war and indoctrinated into the world of faith and obedience. But too smart for all that, her life was full of detached guilt and boredom. But when she meets Andrée, a new arrival at her school, she is struck by how different she is from everyone else. She was burned in a fire and had a passion for life that nobody else she knew...

Drain the swamp: The Frogs @JSTheatre


The search for a great playwright to rescue society seems an odd subject for a musical-comedy. But these are no ordinary times we are living in. A frog called Pepe is now a symbol for the alt-right movement. So now may be the time for a show where frogs appear to be a symbol of conformity, distraction and mediocrity.

The Frogs was an ancient Greek comedy from 405 BC by Aristophanes. It became a short musical piece performed in the Yale Swimming Pool in the 1970s by Burt Shevelove. And it is now a somewhat fully fledged musical thanks to Nathan Lane's obsession and fascination with the piece. It is having its UK premiere at the Jermyn Street Theatre.



In the version by Aristophanes, Dionysus, Greek god of theatre and wine, goes to the underworld in search of a playwright to rescue society. Along the way he has to contend with some frogs. Once in Hades he  has to choose between two great writers of different styles. Either the harsh Aeschylus or the poetic Euripides. Burt Shevelove adapted the piece to be a contest between Shaw and Shakespeare. Sondheim contributed a few songs to the piece which  served as choral pieces. In this version, described as even more freely adapted by Nathan Lane, the desire is to find a playwright who can speak for our times and unite the world.

The journey to Hades is not without incident. Dionysus is almost stopped in his journey by a chorus of Frogs in a tour-de-force of movement, singing and general frogginess. It's an impressive scene carried off by a chorus singing "Brek-kek-kek-kek"!

Lane adapted the piece against the backdrop of the invasion of Iraq, and the non-existent weapons of mass destruction. Towards the end of the piece there is a call to action over rhetoric that in an era of media fragmentation and polarisation seems very current.

But there is nothing like the passage of time to make you realise how global politics and discourse can only go from bad to worse. Although if Shakespeare is the answer to our problems we definitely need to rephrase the question. It comes across as naive theatre-speak.

All told it helps if you understand your ancient Greek texts and are a musical theatre aficionado. Sondheim's extra songs to his original 1974 contribution fill out the piece, but don't always propel the action along.

The semi-seriousness of the piece and a lack of pacing at times also gets in the way of jolly good romp. But Michael Matus as Dionysus and George Rae as his slave Xanthias are admirable pairing in the show. And Sondheimista's will love it all the same.

Besides, it is hard not to like a show which opens with "Instructions to the Audience" and the line: "Please don't fart. There is very little air and this is art." Anyone who has ventured to the intimate space of Jermyn Street Theatre knows exactly what they mean.

Directed by Grace Wessels, The Frogs runs at the Jermyn Street Theatre until 8 April. The run is sold out but returns may be available.

⭐︎⭐︎⭐︎



Photos by David Ovenden








Popular posts from this blog

Opera and full frontal nudity: Rigoletto

Image
David McVicar's oddly modern production of Rigoletto is back at the Royal Opera House . This modern and minimalist dark production has evolved over the years. It is better lit now but there is still an orgy and full frontal nudity within the first thirty minutes. This enables anyone not in the stalls an excellent view of a flaccid penis and a nicely shaved bush. But as time goes it seems more and more superfluous to the main focus of this tragedy of a court jester who seeks revenge. Here is hoping that the production continues to evolve... Conductor John Eliot Gardiner keeps the music well paced. Dimitri Platanias in the title role sounded great and received a rapturous applause for his interpretation of the role. You get a sense more of the doting father rather than the court jester or cursed man here. Vittorio Grigolo plays the Duke and sounds too lovely to be the cad the role calls for, but it is hard not to like when he is on stage anyway. And it is easier to understan...
Read more...

Fantasies: Afterglow @Swkplay

Image
Nowadays no self-respecting gay play can be staged without full frontal nudity of some kind. It feels like the default response for the modern gay play now that gay rights are no longer an issue .   Afterglow, currently playing at Southwark Playhouse , serves it up in spades. From the beginning, three men are in a bed, naked. There’s what appears to be a very brief exhalation of ecstasy, before the obligatory rush to the shower. But the gratuitous nudity and excellent performances can’t conceal this is a pretty conventional and predictable story about a fantasy couple.  The three men in the simultaneous orgasm at the start of the piece are Josh, Alex and Darius. Josh and Alex seem to live in a New York world where they can afford a rooftop apartment in Manhattan while holding jobs as a theatre director and a grad student in chemistry. As writer S. Asher Gelman based it on his own experiences, perhaps gay plays with full frontal nudity are the way to achieve financial ...
Read more...

Play ball: Damn Yankees @LandorTheatre

Image
Damn Yankees at the Landor Theatre is one hell of a fun, sexy show. A great cast of dancers and singers give this show about a man who sells his soul to get on his beloved baseball team (and give them a chance of winning) new legs and balls. It also helps to up the ante with the sexiness with some healthy doses of cleavage and legs (and that's just the men). The musical is a retelling of the Faust story set in the 1950s when the New York Yankees dominated the game.
Read more...