Theatre Compendium II: 'An Ideal Husband', 'Swan Lake' and 'Hamlet'

Another compendium of things what I saw in June, this time Oscar Wilde, the glory that is the Royal Ballet and 'Hamlet'.

'An Ideal Husband' at the Vaudeville Theatre

The Oscar Wilde season continues at the Vaudeville with 'An Ideal Husband'. It's always fun to see an Oscar Wilde play, especially when it's well produced like this season is, but we've sort of seen it before. It's another morality tale of the upper-class high-minded wife and the not so high-minded husband, the problems with their friends,  deep secret that must never be spoken of that somehow comes to light and the inevitable fall-out of that secret becoming known to a few more people.

There are, of course, all the shenanigans that need to take place to make the play enjoyable and make the audience laugh at (not with) the characters with Wilde's authors voice coming through loud and clear at times. He is rather forensic with his digs at Victorian 'society' and morality and I suspect he would've been more scathing if he thought he could get away with it.

I really liked this production and even laughed out loud a few points (a rarity for me) but two things spoiled it - the Foxes, Edward and Freddie. Fun as it was to have a real father and son play the father and son, I just have to wonder if they were the right father and son. Edward's been around forever and knows his stuff but his accent was so impenetrably posh that I couldn't always make out what he was saying. Freddie is the (relatively) new kid on the block and I've seen him on stage, on telly and on film and I've never really liked his performances. He seems to do a lot of floppy-haired camp but I've yet to see any real and convincing acting. And I'd include this play in that - it's quite a central role but he seemed so lightweight for it. And too young if he's supposed to be a school-friend of the husband of the title.

Frances Barber was excellent as the trouble-making minx Mrs Cheeverley even though her costumes went over the top - too far over the top with the red dress! I also really liked Faith Omole as the sister and love interest for Freddie Fox's character - she had a real presence and confidence on stage and I look forward to seeing her again.

All of this season of plays have been very well produced and I'm looking forward to the next one - 'The Importance of Being Earnest'.

'Swan Lake' at the Royal Opera House

I saw 'Swan Lake' danced by the Bolshoi Ballet a couple of years ago when the Bolshoi did a short summer season at the Royal Opera House. I wasn't all that taken with it  at the time but when it was announced that the Royal Ballet would dance a new production of 'Swan Lake' I was determined to see it. I'm so pleased that I did because it was magical and marvellous.

A beautiful princess is cursed my an evil magician to be a swan by day and a human by night. The evil magician masquerades as the court adviser to the Queen and he menaces the young prince with the Queen's decision that the prince must decide who to marry. Distraught, the prince runs into the forest, to the lake, and meets a beautiful princess who, in the morning turns back into a swan. Scenes build upon scenes until the prince falls for the Black Swan who looks exactly like the princess but is actually the daughter of the evil magician. Tragedy builds on tragedy and, ultimately, the princess takes her life since the curse cannot be lifted. A sad end to a magical tale.

This was a marvellous production with new choreography added by Liam Scarlett, the number of ballerinas on stage together (at one point there were 28 in white tutus) and the astonishing and athletic  dancing. This is a production I'll remember for a long time and hope it is repeated frequently. William Bracewell was our prince and Akane Takada was the swan princess - I was particularly impressed with Akane's transformations into swan when we could see her arms ripple to become wings, a sight not easily forgotten.

All in all, it was a stunning production with sets, lighting, dancing and the wonderful music all coming together to provide the magic. Thank you Royal Ballet, that production has set the standard for all future productions I see of 'Swan Lake'. Please come back soon.

'Hamlet' at Shakespeare's Globe

There seems to be a never-ending supply of productions of 'Hamlet' with big production seemingly every year. The latest version is at the Globe under the new leadership of Michelle Terry who also took the lead role playing 'Hamlet'. It's one of my favourite Shakespeare plays and is full of beautiful poetry and 'sayings' we all recognise. So no pressure there then.

Like others in this opening season for Michelle Terry, casting is gender-blind so we have a female Hamlet and Horatio, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are half and half with a  deaf woman as part of the double-act and Ophelia is played by a man (of course) while her brother is played by a woman. None of this really matters since it's the quality of acting that draws you in to any production, not whether the actor is male or female. It was the same ensemble cast as I saw playing 'As You Like It' a month or so earlier and shared some of the same problems, particularly with Betrays Jones being largely unintelligible as Laertes throughout the play - you really really need to learn diction and how to project for a venue like the Globe.

The stage was sparse throughout and there was simple lighting as the evening drew in in the second half. I really like that approach since it's up to the actors to create the magic and make me see castle battlements that aren't really there and, y'know what? I saw pretty sturdy battlements. One of the things I really liked was seeing Hamlet dressed in white for most of the play - normally he's always in black and that gets so boring. Well done to whoever came up with that!

I've seen a number of Hamlets over the years, from Jude Law to Dominic Cumberbatch, Rory Kinnear and Andrew Scott - and my first Hamlet was Derek Jacobi way back in 1978. And you know what? With the possible exception of Mr Jacobi, I think Michelle Terry's Hamlet is the best I've seen. She really knows how to speak verse and she brought it to life by treating some lines as almost off-the-cuff quips rather than venerated lines of poetry. I was most impressed. Not everyone in the production was as excellent but she lifted the whole thing for me.

Another plus was Tanika Yearwood playing various parts, minor roles, but still there and influential. She had excellent diction and great projection, sending those words effortlessly to the back of the balcony and instantly appearing as a different character to the one she was just playing. I was most impressed.

The production wasn't perfect by any means but it's up there with the best for me, particularly Michelle Terry's Hamlet. She deserves flight of angels.

'As You Like it' at Shakespeare's Globe

Last week we went to the new production of 'As You Like It' at Shakespeare's Globe, the first time I've been in well over a year. This is Michelle Terry's first season as artistic director at the Globe so it's interesting to see what sort of direction she is taking the place. If 'As You Like It' is anything to go by, then it's in broadly the right direction for me. The season is gender-blind and that worked well enough for this production.

The last time I saw 'As You Like It' was at the National Theatre a few years ago and I loved the trees of the Forest of Arden in that production - in this one, there are no trees, just a bare stage, but I still saw a forest. Sometimes less is more and the imagination is a powerful tool.

It's the tale of Rosalind and Orlando, one the daughter of a Duke banished from her home and the other has been done out of his inheritance by his brother. They meet brief and fall in love before they have to flee separately into the Forest of Arden for their lives. To ensure her safety, Rosalind dresses as a young man and that's where things start getting strange since she meets Orlando in the forest and urges him to live out his love for Rosalind by pretending that she is, well, Rosalind. Which of course she is. But ... It gets complicated.

It's even more complicated since Rosalind is payed by a tall man and Orlando is played by a small woman - I'm sure their relative height difference was an influence on the casting. I didn't mind the gender-blind casting at all and, if anything, it actually brought some nuances to the play that we wouldn't have otherwise had. Of course, way back then, Rosalind would've been played by a boy anyway.

A bit more challenging was casting a deaf woman as Celia, Rosalind's cousin and partner in crime, who has quite a bit of explanatory dialogue in the first few acts. The actor signed her lines rather than speak them and I think she did really well in this, maintaining the drama while her hands were working overtime to sign the words. The only problem there was that there weren't any surtitles so there were chunks of speech I missed because I didn't have the text in front of me. There must be a common-sense solution to that.

All in all, I have to say that I thought it was a great production and a big return to form for the Globe. I liked the bare stage, the simple lighting and the absence of amplifiers - this is simple Shakespeare that uses those immortal words and the imagination to bring it to life. The costumes were lovely, especially the mad costumes for the clown figures and the floral gowns of the two ladies. It all worked very well for me and, for a Shakespeare comedy, even got me laughing out loud.

The only real downside for me was Bettrys Jones who played Orlando and who seemed to have difficulty projecting her voice - for chunks of the first few acts I could hardly hear her. I don't know if it simply takes time for her voice to warm up or what but it was rather frustrating. Other than that, she was a great Orlando scampering around an imagined forest pinning poems to trees. However, a great new find was Tanika Yearwood who had great projection and a good singing voice too. I also liked Nadia Nadarajah as Celia.

Jack Laskey played Rosalind with some great comic timing and moments but it seemed as if he was channeling a manic Jack Whitehall at times so maybe calm that down a bit. I also really liked Pearce Quigley as the melancholic Jaques in his back suit. He had some inspired moments, not least eating a banana and then starting into the 'All the world's a stage' speech with his mouth full. Naturally he swallowed and started again for such a great speech but it's the little touches like that that help to bring the play to life, to make it part of the here and now.

Well done to Michelle and to the ensemble, I think this is possibly my favourite version of 'As You Like It' so far. It was great fun and, I suspect, truer to the spirit of the play that other versions. I'm seeing a few other plays in this season so I'm hopeful for good things. Looking forward to the next one now!