Review: Woyzeck

So, my theatre production of the week was Woyzeck, currently running at the Old Vic.

They say:

The multi-award-winning Jack Thorne (This is England, Let The Right One In, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) breathes new life into Woyzeck, one of the most extraordinary plays ever written.
It’s 1980s Berlin. The Cold War rages and the world sits at a crossroads between Capitalism and Communism. On the border between East and West, a young soldier (John Boyega) and the love of his life are desperately trying to build a better future for their child.
But the cost of escaping poverty is high in this searing tale of the people society leaves behind.

And it was alright; Woyzeck, in this iteration, is at least okay, occasionally more than okay, often not.

Tom Scutt's set design is dynamic and exciting, whilst Isobel Waller-Bridge's music and Gareth Fry's sound design are in turns looming and magnificent. Further more, the first Act holds together beautifully, fulfilling some of the drive of Buchner's original play.

After the interval, however, things start to go awry.

When the plot gives way to Woyzeck's deteriorating mental state, John Boyega, who had hitherto been quite good in the role, over acts it terribly. There's a lot of writhing and gurning, which stereotypes mental illness in a way that is really quite problematic. It's like Jack Thorne and Joe Murphy felt it was necessary to signpost at every opportunity 'THIS MAN IS HAVING A BREAKDOWN!' when really a lot more subtlety would have served the piece better.

The performances of the rest of the cast - Ben Batt as 'Andrews' particularly - are more consistent, and I realise that in focusing on Boyega I'm buying into the 'big-stars-in-plays-in-London' vibe that is currently dictating the casting of a lot of major London productions.
In this vein, I am being critical. In the field of big-stars-in-plays-in-London Woyzeck is more engaging than Obsession (starring Jude Law) was at the Barbican, but it falls way short of Angels in America (starring, well, lots of people) at the National. Overall, then, Woyzeck manages to still be worth seeing.

It's not the best thing I've seen this year, but it's far from the worst. You probably wouldn't be disappointed if you saw it, and it's pacey enough to keep you on-board.

3/5: Worth a watch, though not a game-changer
The Old Vic
Until 24th June

Review: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead last graced The Old Vic's stage 50 years ago. This time around Daniel Radcliffe (Rosencrantz) and Joshua McGuire (Guildenstern) take to the stage with David Haig and a beautiful cast of royals and misfits.

The Old Vic say:

Half a century after its premiere on The Old Vic stage, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, the play that made a young Tom Stoppard’s name overnight, returns to The Old Vic in its 50th anniversary celebratory production directed by David Leveaux.
Against the backdrop of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, this mind-bending situation comedy sees two hapless minor characters, Rosencrantz (Daniel Radcliffe) and Guildenstern (Joshua McGuire), take centre stage with David Haig as The Player. Increasingly out of their depth, the young double act stumble their way in and out of the action of this iconic drama. In a literary hall of mirrors, Stoppard’s brilliantly funny, existential labyrinth sees us witness the ultimate identity crisis.

Directed by David Leveaux, and set in the wings of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is a clever, witty play, and I enjoyed it a lot. It is unashamedly intellectual in its humour, at a time when so much cultural output is simply aimed at the lowest common denominator. Though I'm not such a culture snob that I would dismiss light entertainment out of hand, it feels good to be able to watch something with a bit more challenge to it.

Radcliffe and McGuire do a stellar job of portraying Stoppard's balance between humour and his exploration of human transience: there are moments of real poignancy as well as points of unapologetic postmodernism. Haig's role as resident deviant is also seedy and well played, providing a knowing commentary on the unfolding events.

The design work - part renaissance, part anachronism - is pleasing too, as is the musical direction. The aesthetics suggest a faded glory around the edges of Hamlet, whilst the meander of the characters gives a life to the incidental details that provide the framework for theatre's big stories. As well as asking 'what ifs' and 'who are wes' Rosencrantz & Guildenstern offers a window on two souls, broken free from their original scripting and trying to find a place for themselves in a wider world: it is sad and beautiful.

I would strongly recommend the Old Vic's production of Stoppard's classic, but not if you want something mindless. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead requires a bit of thinking, but you are rewarded with a narrative that stays with your for days, asking questions, making you remember, giving you space to think.

4/5: Clever and well played
The Old Vic
London
Until Sat 29 Apr 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: 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