'Elizabeth' at the Barbican

A couple of weeks ago I went to see a Royal Opera House production of 'Elizabeth' at the Barbican. It was only on for a few performances and I was there for the final performance. It's a tale about Elizabeth I and was first performed at Greenwich where she was born. It's a mix of dance and song, music and spoken word about Elizabeth from her letters and those who knew her and tells the tale of her relationship with the men she was closest to.

It opens with Elizabeth in old age and, as she reminiscences about her life, we're transported back to see the young Elizabeth, our Virgin Queen assuming the throne and command over all English men. We hear how the men closest to her use that very closeness to garner power and wealth for themselves until Elizabeth sees what is happening and ends it. We see Sir Walter Raleigh and Essex, all close for a while and then time moves on. And through this we hear the solo cello, the words read from private letters and the songs. And, of course, the dance.

Elizabeth was danced by Zenaida Yanowsky, a former Principal with the Royal Ballet who retired from the Royal Ballet last year. She has all her skill and charm and kept all eyes on her when she danced. It was nice to see her brother Yuri, as well, who danced all the male parts with brief costume changes. They've danced together since they were children so can anticipate each other and make the whole thing fluid and alive. We also had Samantha Bond narrating some of the performance.

It was a really enjoyable production, only 90 minutes with no interval but that felt about right. The mix of solo cello, songs and readings highlighted by some glorious dancing, sometimes delicate and sometimes robust was all quite delightful.

The cast were enjoying a very lusty applause when Zenaida signalled for quiet and pulled a note out of her bodice and began saying that she was pleased to be dancing this role that was created for her by Will Tuckett since it was to be her last public performance. You could hear the collective gasps of breath at that announcement. I was astonished since I'd been present at her last dance with the Royal Ballet when she was awarded a rain of flowers thrown endlessly onto the stage and the parade of her Principal men dancers and choreographers, all paying tribute. To then be present at her last dance was very strange indeed. It was quite an honour to be able to say farewell to a great dancer who has, no doubt, inspired many others over the years to become dancers.

Farewell Zenaida.

'The Tempest' at the Barbican

The Barbican isn't my favourite arts venue but it's producing the latest version of 'The Tempest' but the Royal Shakespeare Company with Simon Russell Beale as Prospero and loads of technical floo-flam so I had to go. I want to see Ariel fly and create storms and one day I will. This was a step in the right direction but didn't quite do it for me - Ariel actually flies, y'know, he doesn't just pretend to fly.

You know the story of 'The Tempest' right? Prospero is the deposed Duke of Milan and is exiled to an island with his daughter where he finds Caliban and Ariel. He conjures a storm to shipwreck his enemies and extract his revenge, finally giving up his magic to return to Milan. O yes, a nice straight forward narrative that's anything but straight forward. But is full of magic and amazing verse.

Layered on top of this is a set decked out like the carcass of the great ship that is wrecked at the start of the play. The ribs of the ship like a giant whale on the stage. This is where the magic starts, with lighting that makes the ship rock and move like a ship in jeopardy before sinking. The magic lighting continues with Ariel as a physical actor and as a magical sprite playing in and around the lights on the stage, bound in the tree and escaping to see his new master, Prospero.

It was great to see the special effects that tried to bring the magic in the play to the stage. We see Ariel trapped in the tree by Sycorax, Caliban's witch mother, and freed by Prospero to then enslave the sprite to his will. It was all pretty spectacular and very well acted. but it was't quite the magic I expected. I don't really know what was missing but it seemed a bit contrived and over-worked. I liked the wedding scene when Proposer summons the three goddesses and I thought that worked better than some of the more tech-heavy scenes.

Overall, I'm pleased to have seen this new version of 'The Tempest'. It wasn't all that I'd hoped for but will any production have the seal of magic around it? On the plus side, this had Simon Russell Beale as Prospero, deposed Duke and master manipulator.  I also enjoyed Mark Quartley as Ariel slinking around the set when he wasn't captured in video shots somewhere in the air. It occasionally felt as if the set ruled the production rather than the play or the actors. Trying to fit everything into the stage is a problem particularly when the basic stage remains the same (ie the wreck of a ship) but it just about managed to rise above this.
 
I'm pleased to have seen this production but I'm still waiting to see my perfect 'Tempest'... one day ...

"Never let her go..."

O yes, that's easy for you to say but you did, Emile, you did you fool. You let her get away and look what happened. Luckily, you got her back.

What? O yes, I'm talking about one of the greatest love stories ever, the tale of Emile and Nellie in 'South Pacific', in one of the greatest musicals ever. I saw the Broadway revival at Lincoln Centre in New York five years ago and fell in love with the show. I'd never seen it before or heard it but I knew the songs from the '60s and '70s telly shows that they featured in. And seeing them together told the story I needed to hear. I bought the cast recording on the way out of the theatre and it echoed in my head as we walked out into the snow and ice of the New York winter night and back to the hotel. I floated on a Polynesian breeze...

The production transferred to the Barbican in London in 2011 and I was there to see it again. A different stage and a different cast (other than Bloody Mary) and it was still marvellous. So I got tickets to see it again. And when it went on tour in 2012 I bought tickets to see it at Wimbledon. It was still wonderful and I bought a fridge magnet to remind me of the joy. Listening to the cast recording brings it all back. Sometimes things just click and you get it.

I love this show. I love the songs and the structure, the repetitions of the themes and phrases from the songs. It works as a complete whole with no need for a prequel or sequel. It opens with Nellie and Emile appearing after a lovely day together and we don't need to know how they met, we just know that they've discovered love. It's self-contained and I like to think of Nellie and Emile living their lives quietly in the hills of their Polynesian island, hosting occasional parties and bringing up children and grandchildren with visits to the USA now and then. Nellie would keep up to date with nursing practices in the local hospital and Emile would generate money for college scholarships for local children.

Life goes on y'know.

Five Plays

Last week I saw five plays. I know that's a bit much but I saw three of them in the space of 55 minutes so it wasn't really that extreme. I saw 'High Society' at The Old Vic, 'American Buffalo' at Wyndham's Theatre and the trilogy of short pieces 'Not I/Footfalls/Rockaby' by Samuel Beckett as part of the Beckett festival at the Barbican.

First up was 'High Society', the stage version of the classic film with Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra. The stage is set in the round for some obscure reason which makes the stage even smaller, especially when they do some big dance pieces. It's nice that they use the whole space but I couldn't see why it was needed. I liked the minimal staging with grand pianos rising and falling through the stage at different times and the only constant was a small bar that doubled as a breakfast bar and trebled as a cupboard to display wedding gifts. For, of course, this is about a wedding.

Tracy Lord used to be married to Dexter, a rich playboy and yacht designer but is now going to be married again from her parent's home on Rhode Island. And Dexter turns up the day before the wedding with news that two journalists will arrive to cover the wedding as part of a deal to keep her father's latest affair out of the newspapers. Tracy decides to play the outrageously privileged daughter of wealth and go over the top for the journalists before getting sloshed at the evening's party and swimming naked with one of the journalists when her husband-to-be appears. Could it get any worse? O yes, of course it could.

It's fun as far it goes, lots of music and movement, lots of laughs and dancing. But it didn't make me interested in the characters or like them or care what happened to them. I don't particularly care whether a rich heiress marries the journalist, the bore or the yacht designer and I should. Why was that? I like the film and the characters but that didn't follow through to this play. It wasn't helped by Kate Fleetwood's accent being unintelligable some of the time so I couldn't follow what she was saying or by the loudness of Jamie Parker as the journalist - a bit of subtlety goes a long way sometimes. Something that really irritated me was the long dance sequence that opened the second half - all dancing with little of the main characters to help the story along.

Yes, it was ok, and I'm pleased I've seen it but I won't be going back for a second glass.

The second play was 'American Buffalo' at Wyndhams with the star turns of Damian Lewis and John Goodman. It's a small story set in a neighbourhood junk store in New York or Brooklyn or somewhere where the shop owner has just sold an old coin for a comparative fortune that makes him plan to steal another one from a house around the corner to make another good sale. And that's sort of the story but there are lots of twists and turns along the way along with some laughs.

John Goodman is the amiable store owner with a good word to say for everyone, including the local junkie kid who hangs round the store. Then in comes Damian Lewis as the typical loud-mouth with his 70s porn star moustache and cheap suit. He'll help with the robbery and brings along a gun. But it all goes wrong when the junkie needs money.

I suppose that's the whole story. I didn't get any more really and I wasn't terribly impressed. It was ok but... and that's where I get stuck. The continuous repetition of phrases and questions got irriatting after a while (y'know, the Robert de Niro 'you talking to me?' thing) and that's all Damian Lewis's character seemed to do. I'm sure I missed a lot of very clever acting by being distracted by the repetition and that's the play, not this production or the actors. Wyndham's seems to specialise in working class American plays, with 'A View from the Bridge' a few months back and now this. I'm tired already.

It was good to see John Goodman and I really liked his cool, gentle portrayal of the junk shop owner with his basic trust in humanity. His is a nice character in poor circumstances. I was less keen on the rapid-fire and repetitious porn star of Damian Lewis and the annoyance of Tom Sturridge's junkie.

The third was a trilogy of plays performed as part of the Beckett Festival at the Barbican. Now, I'm not a particular fan of Beckett but sometimes it's worth seeing things you wouldnt normally go to see if ony to open up the mind a little bit and that's what these plays did - illustrate that the theatre and the stage can be many things and don't have to be the same old same old. The trilogy was 'Not I' followed a few minutes later by 'Footfalls' and then by 'Rockaby' all performed by Lisa Dwan and completed in 55 minutes.They were staged in The Pit theatre, many levels underneath the Barbican - so many stairs going down means we must have been close to the centre of the Earth. I was slightly conscious of the sheer weight of building above us.

We were let in to a dimly lit theatre with no lights on the stairs and with emergency exit signs covered up. It's to be seen in pitch black with very few lights, sensory deprivation and atmosphere, just words and some movement. First up was 'Not I' with a totally blacked out stage with a spotlight on lips and teeth spouting words high up above the stage. Speaking at an incredible rate, so fast that I couldn't follow what was being said and, every now and then, she'd slow down and then speed up again, a chatterbox just needing to get the words out. A stream of conscious internal monologue taken to extremes. How on earth could she learn so many, many words and spew them out so quickly? Most impressive!

Beckett had obviously used up his quota of words and the second play, 'Footfalls', replaced many words with the character of Amy pacing slowly back and forth as she carried on a slow dialogue with her (dead?) mother. Pacing back and forth, back and forth, setting up a conscious rhythm to the play. There was slightly more light in this one as Lisa paced across a lighted strip on the floor and her shoes echoed.

The final piece was 'Rockaby' with Lisa in a rocking chair rocking slowly back and forth while listening to her life retold by either herself or someone she knows, I was never sure, every now and then shouting out for 'more!' that keeps her story and her life going and developing until ... the end.

My favourite of the three was 'Not I' and that was also my favourite of the week's worth of plays. It did it's job admirably. It challenges the convention of the play and the stage, the glam and glitz that are totally absent, even the actress is absent other than her mouth and voice. It was most impressive - and so was Lisa Dwan. I'll be watching out for her name in future.

Suzanne Vega at The Barbican

On Friday Ms Suzanne Vega came to town to sing songs old and new and take us into the realm of the Queen of Pentacles (her new album). Suzanne played at the Barbican in London where her live album from 2012 was recorded. It was mainly just her and guitarist, Gerry Leonard, on that wide stage, joined for a few songs by Alison Balsom on trumpet. It was a very stripped back set, even with Gerry's inventive guitar playing.

With a new album to promote for the first time in about seven years we had a 'hits' plus new songs kind of setlist and it worked really well with the new songs blending in unobtrusively with the classics. That, of course, meant that some of the songs I love hearing Suzanne play live had to be dropped to make space for the new ones but that made it quite intriguing trying to guess what she'd keep in the set. It was also good to hear the new songs played live, some of which will undoubtedly stay in Suzanne's repertoire long after this tour to launch them is over.

Suzanne came on, dressed in black and holding a black disc that she hit and it turned into a black top hat which she put on to open with 'Marlene On The Wall', the first song of hers I heard back in the '80s. We were then taken back and forward in time with old favourites and new songs from the latest album. Old favourites included 'Caramel', 'Gypsy', 'The Queen and The Soldier' and 'Left Of Centre'. Her voice is as soothing and powerful as ever and continues to draw me in as she unfolded the lyrics to her songs. We also had two of my personal favourites, 'Solitude Standing' and 'Small Blue Thing'.

From the new album, 'Tales From The Realm Of The Queen Of Tentacles' we were given  'Fools Complaint' (that introduces the Queen of Tentacles), 'Crack In The Wall', 'Jacob and The Angel' (which Suzanne introduced by saying she was brought up as a Buddhist), 'Don't Uncork What You Can't Contain' and 'Song of The Stoic'. This latter song is a sort of follow-up to 'Luka' that tells us what happened later in his life. Alison Balsom came on to add trumpet to 'Horizon' and, while introducing the new favourite 'I Never Wear White', Suzanne explained that a different version of the album had to be released in the Bible belt in America because the song contains the word 'virgin'. It's a dark song with dark riffs and tells us why Suzanne always wears black.

The set ended with the almost mandatory 'Luka' and 'Tom's Diner' with Suzanne once again wearing her top hat as she moved around the stage. The encore was a surprising version of 'Walk On The Wild Side' in memory of Lou Reed followed by 'Some Journey' and 'Rosemary' and then on she came again for a second encore with 'In Liverpool'.

It was a very enjoyable evening with Ms Vega sharing her songs with us. It wasn't just me that enjoyed her either, the gig was sold out and she received standing ovations several times. The new songs work really well mixed into a setlist with the older songs - they're all her creations, afar all, and there was no jarring between old and new. It'll be interesting to see which songs stay in the setlist for future gigs. That means I'll just have to keep going to see Suzanne play live whenever she's in London. And I will.

Thanks for a great evening Suzanne!