Review: Hedda Gabler

My last theatre visit of 2016 was a trip to the National for Hedda Gabler. After an epic year, for me, in performances, it had a lot to live up to.

Hedda Gabler, widely acknowledged as Ibsen's masterpiece, is rarely out of performance, so the question was: what could a new production by the National Theatre bring to such an oft-performed, well-known play?
The answer, when it's in the hands of superstar director Ivo van Hove, turns out to be quite a lot.

Ruth Wilson, as the lead, offers a new angle on the play, which itself is a new translation by Patrick Marber. Her take on Gabler is mercurial throughout: in some ways incredibly sympathetic, in others the direct opposite, and Wilson is masterful in her ability to balance all of the extremes required by the title role. Even for those familiar with the play it is a surprise how each next line will be delivered, such is the volatility of Wilson's Gabler. The Hedda in this iteration is dangerous, but is so because she doesn't know how to be content in and of herself. Rafe Spall as Brack, meanwhile, knows exactly what he wants, and wields power in a way that brings a leering confidence to clash with Wilson's Hedda, whilst Kyle Soller as Tesman is not the dull, ageing academic one might expect.

The set design, by Jan Versweyveld, creates a sparse, unfinished living space for the Tesmans to inhabit, which very much fits with the tone of the piece. This fairly simple staging is brought to life, however, by some very clever lighting design, which warms, shifts, and then is blocked out as the story progresses. The design work overall is skilful, and helps realise the trap that Hedda Gabler creates for herself, which ultimately proves to be her downfall.

This version of Hedda Gabler is captivating. The understated but genius attention to detail
 makes it impossible to look away, even if you find yourself banging heads against the idea of womanhood the play suggests. The National have rounded of a blockbuster year in some serious style.

4/5 - Subtle, compelling, and complex: truly a Hedda for our times.
The Lyttelton, National Theatre until 21st March

Review: Anselm Kiefer - Walhalla

Walhalla is Anselm Kiefer's latest exhibition and, currently situated at White Cube Bermondsey, it is really rather brilliant.
The White Cube have the following to say about it:

Titled ‘Walhalla’, the exhibition refers to the mythical place in Norse mythology, a paradise for those slain in battle, as well as to the Walhalla neo-classical monument, built by Ludwig I King of Bavaria in 1842 to honour heroic figures in German history.

This gives you the context, but does nothing to describe the atmosphere.

You enter a corridor, something that wouldn't be out of place in a field hospital set up during some hellish war: dark, metallic beds line the walls on either side, which, you notice as you get closer, are sometimes labelled with the names of figures from Norse mythology or Germanic folklore. Branching off from this corridor are a series of rooms, some housing paintings, others instillations.

The instillation work is fascinating in its ability to raise questions about well known narratives and subvert any expectation you have about the idea of what 'Valhalla' might be. Everything is grimy, harsh, toxic: you think about what being slain in battle might mean in the contemporary world. Meanwhile, when you depart for the more brightly lit rooms housing the mixed-media paintings, the rawness of the work, combined with their sheer scale, makes for a powerful, almost overwhelming, experience. The diversity of this body of work in terms of technique is at the same time held together by unifying ideas, materials and shapes that echo through all of the rooms. Kiefer has taken an idea and explored it inside and out. The result is jaw-dropping.

Walhalla is one of the best exhibitions I've seen this year, both in terms of scope and ideas, and in its aesthetics and realisation. It is really worth the trip out to Bermondsey to go and explore it for yourself: my brief description here has not done it justice. You only have until February, so get a move on!

5/5 - A mythic combination of installation, sculpture and painting: go and lose yourself in the stories

White Cube Bermondsey
144-152 Bermondsey St
London
SE1 3TQ 

23 November 2016 – 12 February 2017

Review: The Radical Eye

The Radical Eye is a Tate Modern exhibition, looking at the impact of Modernist photography on the medium as a whole. The exhibition is described, by the Tate, in the following terms:

This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see one of the world’s greatest private collections of photography, drawn from the classic modernist period of the 1920s–50s. An incredible group of Man Ray portraits are exhibited together for the first time, having been brought together by Sir Elton John over the past twenty-five years, including portraits of Matisse, Picasso, and Breton.

This spiel suggests that it is an exercise in big-name spotting, especially given the identity of the collector, however, it is much more than that.

The photographs on show represent a significant turning point in the history of photography, and the aesthetics that are emergent in the collection are clearly the foundation of a lot of the journalistic and commercial photography we see around us today. Additionally, seeing this particular collection of Man Ray images together is a rare opportunity to observe some of the more 'radical' uses of photography, which creates an interesting contrast with the more straight portraiture and the photo-journalistic work. The combination of straight and experimental photography is powerful, and the images on show are captivating in their purity of expression.

The only draw-back if the exhibition is the fact that, if you're coming to the work without a sense of the history of photography, it is difficult to fully appreciate how much of a dramatic change in technique these images imply. You may also be left curious, as much is made of Sir Elton John's 8000 strong collection of photographs, and we are only permitted to see a very small portion of that number. The exhibition could have been much less sparse and delved deeper into that archive, as the amount on show seemed quite small.

Overall, The Radical Eye is a an exhibition of great - but simple - beauty, on the level of aesthetics. It's real power lies in its message about the boundary between photography and art, and as such raises questions about how we perceive photography today.

4/5: Well worth your time - incredible if you know the field, but might bear a bit of prior research if not.
 
Tate Modern, Bankside: 10 November 2016 – 7 May 2017

Review: Art

Art, a translation of Yasmina Reza's 1994 play, was originally directed by Matthew Warchus for its London premièr in 1996. Now staged at the Old Vic, as part of his run as its Artistic Director, Warchus has united the creative team from his 1996 stint with a new cast.

During the clean 90 minute production, we see Serge (Rufus Sewell) buy a modernist painting, a white canvas with some white stripes across it, which becomes the nexus for a friendship breaking apart. Marc (Paul Ritter) rails against his friend's willingness to spend a small fortune on such a painting, and Yvan (Tim Key) gets caught between them.

'A man buys a painting: his friends don't like it,' seems a dull premise for a piece of theatre, but this production of Art proves more funny than it has any right to be. The sharp dialogue and brilliant comic timing give the piece serious pace, and the audience appeared to whole-heartedly buy into the world of the play. By the time the action came to a crescendo, the tension in the auditorium was incredible, especially for a narrative in which very little actually happens.

In terms of what builds the play, there isn't much to discuss in terms of set - a blank canvas, as it were - there is just a great script brought to life by a trio of talented actors. Sewell and Ritter's cynical intellectualism versus Key's hysteria builds comedy that, though absurd, steers clear of slapstick. The quality of the writing-in-translation, courtesy of Christopher Hampton, is gloriously barbed.

Taking the play in context, when you consider the nature of the work immediately preceding Art, and look at what will happen later in the season, you cannot help but have admiration for Matthew Warchus' brave and diverse programming at the Old Vic. He seems to have gone from strength to strength as an Artistic Director, and I, for one, am looking forward to Woyzeck, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in 2017.

4/5 - Sewell, Ritter and Key are a brilliant trinity, and their delivery alone makes Art well worth catching.
The Old Vic until 18th February

Review: The Red Barn

The Red Barn is a new work by David Hare, based on the novel, La Main, by Georges Simenon. Staged at the National, directed by the inimitable Robert Icke, and boasting a cast including Mark Strong and Elizabeth Debicki (of Night Manager fame), it is hard to see where it could go wrong.

The piece's initial reviews had been positive. However, I've been wary of glowing reviews since going to see Lazarus (widely loved) and hating it, so I wondered how good Hare's new work was actually going to be.

Thankfully, The Red Barn lived up to expectations, and them some.

The central performances by Strong, Debicki, and Hope Davis (God of Carnage) are beautifully understated, and the gradual development of Donald Dodd (Strong), as he becomes aware of his lack of agency in the world is a fascinating thing to watch unfold. Strong's communication of Dodd's simmering jealousy underpins the whole piece, and the performance gives coherence to the fragments of the unfolding story.

The stand-out feature of this production, however, is the staging. It is a prime example of the National pushing what it is possible to achieve on the stage, which they have the clout to do. The cinematic nature of the rapid scene changes is stunning to behold, and the audience's dialogue on the way out of the theatre revolved around how some of the set changes were actually possible. It is a triumph of form.

This success of execution makes The Red Barn a must-watch. To see scenes on a stage transition between a blizzard and an interior is a marvel of stage craft, and utterly unlike anything else around at the moment. With this in mind, I would suggest you get yourself down to the Lyttelton before The Red Barn closes, because it truly lives up to the hype.

4/5 - Innovative stage craft and slow-burn performances: see it... don't get left out in the cold!
The Lyttelton, National Theatre until 17th January

Review: No's Knife

When Matthew Warchus revealed his initial season for the Old Vic, he made it clear that he wanted the theatre to offer 'something for everyone.' Programming the likes of Ralph Fiennes in Ibsen’s The Master Builder, a musical adaptation of Groundhog Day, and Timothy Spall in Harold Pinter’s The Caretaker against a monologue adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s short prose collection ‘Texts for Nothing’ certainly fits that bill.

Beckett's writing is recognised for pared back, experimental form - he is held up as one of the last modernist writers - and his dramatic works are challenging. No’s Knife, presented by Lisa Dwan, an actress known and respected for her revivals of Beckett's work, at no point backs away from that challenge.

The pieces that make up 'No's Knife' are adapted by Dwan from the original prose and she, with her co-director Joe Murphy, produces a fractured monologue, which exhibits her supreme command of voice. Her solo performance captivates, expressing, as the Old Vic put it 'A voice searching in the dark for who it is and why it speaks.' Even through the difficult nature of the plays form, Dwan draws you in to follow her through the twists and turns of the voice's journey.

Designer Christopher Oram has created a setting that is part bog, part battlefield, and all bleak. The dull, fractured landscape provides the perfect backdrop for Dwan's voice(s), as it clatters against itself in a search for direction and identity. The hugeness of the space contrasts with her apparent frailty, which then clashes up against her power as an actor.

No's Knife is, overall, an amazing bit of theatre. It is not easy to concentrate on 70 minutes of monologue, but if we expect theatre to be always easy, then we are letting a vital element of it atrophy. Dwan's work forces you to examine what it is to be lost, and what it is to be conflicted: it is an important reminder of what theatre can be and do. It makes you think on a deep, real level, about identity, and the discomfort you feel watching a lone woman struggle through a broken landscape is part of that. Theatre can unsettle, and as an audience we should embrace rather than avoid the difficulty. After all, struggle is a function of being alive.

4/5 - Desolate and challenging: remind yourself there's more to theatre than a night at a musical.
The Old Vic

Faustus - Not Hell (nor I wouldn't want to be out of it)

Search for the RSC's current Doctor Faustus (now playing at the Barbican) and you'll find the following description:

Two actors enter. Each lights a match and watches it burn. Whoever’s goes out first ‘loses’ and must play the fated doctor, while the other plays the demon Mephistophilis, in this notorious tale of vanity, greed and damnation.

That was intriguing enough to get me to buy a ticket, and I'm really glad I did.

From the moment the actors walk, unannounced, onto the stage, to the inevitable tragic ending, Maria Aberg’s brilliantly updated Marlowe charts the highs and the lows of the erring Doctor's life with slickness and style. Naomi Dawson's design for the show is striking, especially the summoning of Mephistophilis, and the sound design, courtesy of Orlando Gough and Claire Windsor, equally so. It is also clear that Doctor Faustus does not suffer from being trimmed to a one act play, either.

And then we consider the opening conceit - that Sandy Grierson and Oliver Ryan don't know who will be Faustus and who Mephistophilis before they are on stage. This is achieved so subtly that the tension built from it is incredible - as if whole audience has leant in, holding their breath.
Grierson (as Mephistophilis on the night I attended) and Ryan produce beautifully subtle and deeply unsettling performances that seem completely timeless in quality.

If you can get yourself to the Barbican before the show's close, do so. You are in for a magical night.

4/5 - A Devilish delight: summon up a ticket
The Barbican
Until 1st October

Review: Burning Doors

'Burning Doors' is the latest work of the Belarus Free Theatre. Political exiles, the BFT specialise in performances that reflect on rebellion, politics, and injustice, and Burning Doors is no exception. With the début acting performance of Maria Alyokhina of Pussy Riot, Burning Doors tells the stories of Russian artist Petyr Pavlensky, Ukrainian film-maker Oleg Sentsov, currently serving a 20 year prison sentence, and Alyokhina herself.
The play is a brutal exploration of the consequences and limitations of freedom of expression. The physicality of the BFT ensemble is unforgiving, and the actors push themselves, and consequently the audience, way beyond their comfort zone, in order to represent the brutality of state versus body in the battle for order and control. There are points of the piece that are very difficult to watch, and not in a bloody, Titus-Andronicus-at-The-Globe kind of way. The raw, visceral nature of the performance is mapped onto conditions in Russian prisons, so there is nowhere for the audience to escape the feeling that the performed violence is real.
The discomfort of watching the show is a signal of its success - it would not be effective if it were safe. The only detraction from the piece is that at times it feels as if the performers are trying too hard to hammer a point home, and things descend too far into caricature. On saying this however, Burning Doors is a powerful piece of theatre, and its creators are not afraid to make their voices heard. The freedom to create and to hold opinions is, after all what this play is about, and part of the drive behind the piece is to raise awareness of Sentsov's situation, and to try and secure his release. The severity of his captivity is made very clear to the audience, and it is hard to leave the show without a sense of the injustice faced by artists who come into conflict with repressive state politics.

In short: Heavy-handedness balanced with moments of painful beauty. More importantly, a clear, unflinching, relevant politics. Go and see it for a wake up call and a shock to the system.

Note: For further information on BFT's part in the campaign to free Oleg Sentsov, see here.

Rating: 4/5

Disclaimer: I was invited to the press night for Burning Doors after supporting the development of the production on Kickstarter.