Written worlds

The Letter Writer
Circa Theatre, Wellington, 7 – 21 March 2010

Courtesy is a dying art. During the production, four phones went off (one twice) and there were two latecomers who shuffled noisily in after the play (one hour and forty minutes with no interval) had started. Apparently the art of letter-writing is also moribund. Mr Rouvesquen (Peter Hambleton) is a professional who helps people become more erudite although, with world-weary cynicism, he also tries to dissuade them from using his services.

From the beginning the tone is unsettled – comedy sits alongside something infinitely more sinister. The sliding doors and panels form a cosy and well-appointed office but they also create hiding places and darkened corners for fraught departures; the mood heightened by dramatic music (Stephen Gallagher) and tight lighting (Jennifer Lal). The scenes flow seamlessly into one another and techincal cues are often taken from musical notes rather than lines of dialogue, negating the importance of the spoken word.

Rouvesquen has a number of customers to whom he explains that words can both clarify and obfuscate. Asked to write speeches and letters for all occasions he has a price list in which ‘weddings are situated between baptisms and funerals, just above love letters – those are obsolete’.

With wonderful indecision Tim Gordon plays Mr Ralph who wants a father-of-the-bride speech, afraid that he will shame his daughter because he hasn’t mastered the words. Rouvesquen asks Ralph to speak naturally so that he can see the sort of man he is. “I need to assess your oratory abilities so that I don’t render you a Socrates in gumboots.” He is instructed to stop rambling, to eliminate gestures, and cut to the witty stuff without waffling. Clearly this is great advice for playwrights too, and Juliet O’Brien has taken it to heart with dialogue that is both precise and loaded with meaning.

Another client, Mrs Balia (a delightfully uptight Helen Moulder) requests an erudite codicil to her will, setting out the ‘whys and wherefores’ of who gets what. She is concerned that ‘unexplained wills create misunderstanding’, which she is anxious to avoid. It seems that ritual is very important and words are part of procedure. However, Rouvesquen abhors the absurdities of polite language – phatic communication – and speech patterns, pronunciation and grammar.

He likes poetry, wine and music; hedonistic pleasures. When he is asked, “Are you alcoholic?” he replies complacently, “It’s possible.” He listens to music, which “enthuses your thoughts”, but it is always the same piece performed by different artists as he searches for perfection as the author imagined it. When he later descends into an alcohol-induced insanity, it is both chilling and seductive.

Into this slightly ridiculous and aesthetic world intrudes the refreshingly earnest Lansko, (Benoit Blanc), a refugee from a totalitarian state who wants to express his love for Leila (Anne Bardot), the girl he left behind and apply for political asylum and citizenship. To help with his powers of description, Rouvesquen gives Lansko a wine appreciation lesson; he explains that if you describe something with your imagination and your words, it gives you a new appreciation of the thing. While trying to explain the appeal to the senses, the dialogue revels caustically in humorous humbug.

Words may be what we use to explain, but they are poor substitutes for emotion. The clearest indication of Rouvesquen’s feelings is when he guides Lansko’s hand, tenderly holding a pen to shape his signature. The scene between Lansko and Leila is touching and wordless as they huddle and snuggle beneath a tarpaulin. Fear is evoked through glances and movement that have nothing to do with words. Gordon also plays Enrix, a postman with cipplingly crude Tourette's. He cannot speak to others without swearing, but he can deliver their words in silence.

But words can also lie, pretend and hide things you would rather not see. When Rouvesquen learns something that he attempts to conceal from Lansko, you wonder at his motives, which can only have disastrous consequences. There is much that these characters would rather not face squarely and the denouement comes sideways from out of the shadows; harsh and unexpected. Some things will simply not remain hidden.

Off with her head!

Mary Stuart
Circa, February 27 – April 3


In 1587 Elizabeth I of England signed the warrant that led to the death of her cousin, Mary Stuart. That much is recorded as fact; most of the rest of this three-hour intense drama is conjecture. Originally written in 1800 by Johann Christoph Fredrich von Schiller, this 2006 adaptation by David Harrower brings many of the political concerns into the contemporary climate.

Coincidentally, this show premiered at the National Theatre of Scotland, just as Black Watch had done before it came to these shores and blew audiences away at the previous New Zealand International Arts Festival. Sadly, this is not in the same class. Although the drama is good, the directing assured (Ross Jolly) and the acting fine, it is not as excellent as it needs to be to hold the attention. A lot of back-story and history is crammed into the dialogue and it needs highly-skilled practitioners to execute it well (pun entirely intended) if they are not to sound like an amateur historian at a debating society.

The times were treacherous; rumours were rife and suspicion led to death. The claustrophobic atmosphere is enhanced by a sparse set with pillars which provide peepholes to hide behind, and the edges of the stage in shadow – perfect to hatch conspiracies. The espionage, bluff and double-bluff is all conducted like a fatal game of chess where the stakes are as high as the pikes on Tower Bridge.

The play centres around the two women – Mary and Elizabeth – and pivots around an imagined meeting. Mary (Tina Retigen) is cut off from the world with no news and a Puritan guard, Sir Paulet (Nick Blake in an admirable restrained performance); ‘an honest man’ with overtones of Iago as he stands by and eavesdrops. The three central black columns and severe wooden pews that define her world are transformed through lighting (design by Ulli Briese) to a sumptuous throne or an elaborate altar as the colourscape ranges from austere light to golden glow, royal purple and blood red.

Elizabeth (Carmel McGlone) is surrounded by quarrelling men as she struggles to deal with the allegations and counter-accusations. Unsure whether to listen to her heart or her judgement, she is equally isolated. We feel her anguish as she stammers, “I don’t know what to say; I don’t know who to believe. I think you’re guilty; I hope you’re not.” The talk is of innuendo, rumour, martyrs and propaganda. Elizabeth knows that, “Public opinion will invariably side with the accused” and she feels alone: “The Pope against me; betrayed by France’s Judas kiss; and Spain wages war against me on the sea.”

The spymasters whisper in her ear and she is constantly provoked by people’s demands and entreaties. The court wants her to marry to share the burden of rule and to provide an heir to the throne, but she protests, “A ring signifies marriage and yet it is from rings that chains are made.” Robert Dudley (a wonderfully manipulative Aaron Alexander) may be her closest confidant and potential lover and yet even his questionable affections are demonstrably eleswhere. Elizabeth is finally left alone on stage in a spotlight; abandoned to her conscience and history as her judge.

While talking of imprisonment, both queens stare out longingly towards the audience – we feel that we represent freedom; we are also the jury and the electorate. Hounded to make a decision over whether Mary Stuart will live or die, Elizabeth cries, “I am my people’s slave, ruling in servitude. Is this the voice of the people? Is this the voice of all the world? What happens when they charge and condemn me?” Elizabeth is connected to the land of her people and when she beats the ground with her hands, she draws strength from it. Mary, by contrast, stamps petulantly upon it.

For one to live the other must die, and their meeting is charged with anguish. Mary kneels at Elizabeth’s feet in an outward show of passion but finds Elizabeth to be, “like a rock, harsh and unyielding”. Although she states, “I renounce all claim to this throne. Give me back my life, my liberty”, Mary taunts Elizabeth with her illegitimate birth.

The fear or Catholicism was strong and Mary makes no attempt to hide her rosary or her crucifix, “Carrying Christ in her hand as pride and lust burn in her heart.” Elizabeth worries that she is the figurehead for a French or Spanish plot to depose her, asking, “What lock can win your loyalty that cannot be unlocked by St Peter’s keys?” This was no mere theological whimsy as Elizabeth makes clear with her barbed reminder, “Your uncle taught me massacre on St Bartholomew’s Day” (when at least 10,000 French Protestants were ordered to be massacred by the Catholic mob).

A semi-circle of male advisors (well represented by different ages and characteristics) forms around them as the contretemps becomes a cat-fight with each trying to prove that she is more desirable and humiliate the other. Mary’s appeal was largely based on her looks and powers of persuasion, “Her influence on men’s minds is too strong.” She is seductive but dangerous and Elizabeth reminds her, “no one wants to be your fourth husband”.

With so few other weapons in their armoury, neither is above using her womanly wiles to get her way. Tina Retigen (as Mary Stuart) has breathing issues, often running out of breath before she finishes her sentences, and recites her lines with a self-conscious declamatory style. She says, “I can’t move so quickly from misery to hope” and it’s true that she can’t, at least not convincingly.
 

Carmel McGlone (as Elizabeth I) is far more natural in both speech and action. She looks the part with her regal bearing, tempestuous mood swings and expansive gestures. Elizabeth was famously proud of her fine hands and long fingers, and McGlone waves her arms like a tree in the wind or a spider in its web. When she signs the death warrant she exclaims, “The arrow has left the bow and flown to its mark” and her hands flutter through the air; elsewhere they are pressed together in supplication, prayer or applause.

Hands implicate personal responsibility and there is a touch of the Lady MacBeths about Elizabeth as she attempts to keep her royal hands free from the taint of blood, “Free from doubt, free from guilt, let the people choose.” When she gives the death warrant to Davison (Gavin Rutherford in fine form) she instructs him, “Take it with you; I have placed it in your hands; God’s business is in your trembling hands.” Aware of the weight of the document, Davison falls to his knees and the equivocation over the delivery of the death warrant adds an element of macabre comedy.

Although the drama is firmly focused on this specific moment in history, it has wide-reaching implications. The madrigal music that opens the play instantly transports us back to sixteenth-century England, while the closing bagpipes might be considered either an elegiac call or a triumphant procession. The costumes (designed by Gillie Coxhill) are a curious mix of mob caps and modern dress; capes and feathered hats are worn with double-breasted suits to show a blend of eras. Some of the gestures are also contemporary, such as the mocking bows and the flippant insincerity.

David Harrower’s adaptation is non-too subtle with lines such as “An Englishman will never show a Scotsman justice” getting a knowing laugh in performance. Mary’s argument is that the accused must be judged by a jury of equals, “And who are my equals?” This is a basic tenet of English law and Lord Burleigh (Jeff Kingsford-Brown with an unfathomable accent) notes, “For someone who claims not to be bound by English laws, you know a lot about them.” As do all renegades and underdogs.

Despite their warring factions, the countries have many similarities; “The narrow Tweed is all that separates us and often runs red with our soldiers’ blood.” The suggestion is made that these wars and conflicts will never end until the two parliaments are joined (which they were in 1707, but devolved nearly 300 years later in 1998). Occasionally the patriotic tub-thumping jars, especially when the characters talk of Britain – there was no Britain until the first Act of Union in 1707 which politically united the Kingdom of England (which included Wales) with the Kingdom of Scotland.

Perhaps the moral of the story is embodied in the words of Lord Shrewsbury (Eddie Campbell) who cautions “The most votes do not mean it is right. The present England is not the future England or the past England.” The inference is that rather than hankering back to historic insults, we should all just move on and stop reopening old wounds; a theory that has resonance in New Zealand politics also.

Beware of False Gods

God of Carnage
Circa Theatre, 4 April – 2 May

Ferdinand (son of Annette and Alain Reille) has broken Bruno’s (son of Veronique and Michel Vallon) teeth with a stick. The middle-class, middle-aged parents gather to discuss the consequences like the polite and reasonable adults they are. Instead their civil conversation degenerates into adults behaving badly as they become as infantile as the children they are discussing. The question is asked, ‘Are we ever interested in anything but ourselves?’ and the answer is that I am certainly not interested in anything on this stage.

Veronique Vallon (Carmel McGlone) is a writer with expressive hand gestures who cares deeply about things, particularly at present the history of Darfur. Her husband, Michel (Andrew Foster) is a hardware salesman who appears to be acting in homage to John Cleese as Basil Fawlty. His impressions of a paralysed hamster liberated on the pavement and his mother hobbling along on crutches are hyperactive and amusing at least. Veronique has no sense of humour which is in itself quite funny despite the hints at alcoholism and deep depression.

Their world is highly structured with neat piles of art books, starkly positioned furniture (if this is meant to be a natural front room the setting of the sofa alone negates it) and arrangements of tulips. Living against a backdrop of red corrugated iron walls, it is clear that this couple are minimalists who don’t like mess. It is equally predictable that chaos (represented in this case by drunkenness and vomit) is exactly what will be introduced. This is because the god of carnage has ruled since the dawn of time, apparently.

Apart from people discussing their diets (thanks to my sister for pointing that out), the most boring topic of conversation on this earth is parents discussing their children. We are ‘treated’ to 90 minutes of debating different child-rearing techniques. Alain (Jeffrey Thomas) concedes that his son really is a savage, but despite the best efforts to interest children in reading and art, all boys really want to do is belong to gangs and pretend they are John Wayne or Spartacus.

Alain and Michel agree that perhaps the lads should just have it out ‘man to man’ until it is pointed out that they are only 11. Alain gets some of the best lines, such as ‘Children are the worst thing you can inflict on anyone’; ‘Children fracture and consume our lives’; ‘I’m not a pushchair father – it’s deathly all that’. Veronique questions, ‘Why have children in the first place?’ Why, indeed? There is no satisfactory answer to this question.

Alliances shift throughout the play between couples who fall in and out of agreement quicker than they down their rum. Initially the couples hold hands with an intimacy that will clearly be broken. When the Vallons bicker and Annette (Carol Smith) begins to argue with Alain, he cautions her, ‘Just because their marriage is fucked up, we don’t have to compete.’ Things reach such a state of suburban cliché, I am almost surprised that they don’t indulge in a spot of wife-swapping

In a rare moment of accord, the women agree that men are a dead weight when it comes to parenting and that they are instead wedded to their gadgets. Annette is irritated when Alain, a lawyer embroiled in a pharmaceutical debacle, takes increasingly frequent business calls. Having had a husband who is permanently on call and will answer his mobile in the middle of a conversation, I have to disagree with the reviewer who found this ‘compromised credibility’.

Evidently this is a play about words, which are emotive and have connotations. For example, was Ferdinand ‘armed’ or ‘furnished’ with a stick? The Reilles ‘don’t care for the word disfigured’ to describe Bruno’s toothless appearance. The courtroom parlance is introduced to the courtly parlour, as the couples find the art of co-existence goes deeper than the veneer of politeness.

It takes half an hour before they call each other by their first names; to ‘tutoyer’ someone is a big deal in France and this scene could echo the introduction of Gwendoline Fairfax to Cecily Cardew in The Importance of Being Earnest, except it lacks the comic and social commentary. It might be possible that the fault lies in the translation, but Chistopher Hampton (who wrote Les Liaisons Dangereuses) is not entirely to blame.

The acting is uniformly good, and each character gets their moment to shine with acerbic barbs and witty ripostes. All production values are more than adequately met, which indicates that the fact this falls flat is in the writing. Although I have never seen Art or any other works by Yasmin Reza, I had great expectations of this play based upon her reputation.

One of the characters says, ‘We are a lump of potter’s clay – it is up to us to shape something out of it’. The God of Carnage proves that sometimes idols really do have feet of clay.

Betrayal - Harold Pinter

Last night I went with Him Outdoors and my parents to Circa Theatre to see Betrayal. It was fabulous – all four of us thought so, which is a pretty good strike rate from a fairly diverse audience. My parents first saw this play about 30 years ago and were keen to see it again. Him Outdoors has never seen a play by Pinter and wondered what I meant when I said a play was ‘Pinteresque’. I think he has a pretty good idea now.

Betrayal is the story of an affair between Emma (Danielle Mason) and Jerry (Toby Leach). Emma is married to Robert (Jason Whyte), and Robert and Jerry are best friends. Yes, it’s an old story and the love triangle has been played out on stage in so many ways, but this feels fresh and memorable. The split level divided set works well and the sound and lighting add to the ambience without intruding, allowing the audience to concentrate purely on the three people in the ring.

It is a play about power and the distortion of assumptions, which is told in reverse. The effect is like finishing a book and going back immediately to re-read it to wonder, ‘would I have seen that coming?’ Founded on dramatic irony, there are times when we know that she knows that he knows, but he doesn’t know. If this sounds like it’s confusing, it could be. It pays to pay attention; to keep the upper hand.

Toby Leach is on crutches due to a pre-play incident which must have altered the staging of some scenes. It is tricky to indicate power when you are sitting on a sofa with your leg in plaster, but the play is one of verbal sparring rather than anything physical and many of the scenes are critical in their repressed motion – an arm flung across a sofa; a tightly belted coat; a briskly-snapped-shut book all speak volumes.

The revealing moments thick and fast, and the sympathy switches from wronged husband to aggrieved couple to man/woman desperately trapped in a loveless marriage and back again. This play was written in 1978, and there is a tendency of critics to ask, ‘Is Pinter still relevant?’ Hell, yes. Love; jealousy; repression; competition; excitement; self-affirmation; and, indeed, betrayal – aren’t these universal themes? Or are we all perfect now?

Jason Whyte is excellent as Robert; his fast-paced delivery with crystal clear enunciation is the perfect counterpoint to Leach’s more languorous posturing. Whyte plays his part with controlled menace and a smile that could give you nightmares. Danielle Mason could concentrate less on the accent and more on the assent. Her Emma is beautiful in a willowy way, but she radiates more constipated sterility than consummate sensuality.

The dialogue is almost frustratingly natural, giving the play its moments of humour. The circuitous communication conceived here gave birth to the conversations beloved of modern comedy (think Teachers; Green Wing; The Office; Alan Partridge). Apparently Harold Pinter hated actors (or other directors) messing with his script. Why would you when one of the definitive playwrights of modern theatre has laid it all out for you?

Unless they have been seduced by American popular psychology talk shows, real people don’t analyse their feelings in excruciating detail. You have to surmise what they mean from what they say and how they act, and that is exactly what we are given in Betrayal.

Is there an underlying current? Under close questioning from Emma, Jerry barks back, ‘I said exactly what I meant’. There is a lot of movement beneath these still waters, and, as a popular contemporary advert would have it, ‘If you’ve never learned to swim, you’re like a baby in the water.’ Will these characters drown or stay afloat? It all depends how well they have learned to negotiate the hidden rapids.

Read other reviews

Wait Until Dark

Wait Until Dark
Circa Theatre, 11 Oct - 8 Nov

I remember seeing this as a film when I was a child and I was terrified. I wondered whether the fear and suspense would translate to the theatre, and it did. I knew the story but still felt the thrill. I went with some friends and they were all on the edge of their seat staring at the stage.

Despite Circa being an open-style performance area, a curtain is rigged up and footlights placed on stage to make it more 'theatrical' and as though you are a fourth wall. At the climactic moment when all the lights go out, the audience experiences exactly the same blind isolation as the characters in the play. There are a few nervous titters at this point, but it is a powerful moment of intense drama.

Ban Abdul is excellent as Susy - she is blind but not disabled, with a sharp mind and a quick temper. Her physicality is excellent and I love her fluttering hands. Her husband, Sam, is played by Robert Tripe, and he seems brusque and demanding - his 'encouragement' of Susy to make her extend herself appears mean and bullying rather than playful and challenging. Perhaps this is just my interpretation, but I don't feel that Kiwis do playful.

Toby Leach is Croker; a comedy villain - a little over-the-top with his skittish indecision - where Tom Gordon is cold, clinical and precise. He invests the character of Roat with the chilling mien I would expect from a suspense thriller. Mike is a kindly baddie who doesn't want anyone to get hurt, and Paul McLaughlin plays the role with smooth gentleness but firm persuasion that I thought might have been more suited to Sam.

Gloria, the little girl, is played by either Holly McDonald or Rebekah Smyth (I'm not sure which - they alternate nights). She was is as child actors usually are - unnatural, exaggerated gestures and gabbled speech; too loud on some lines, inaudible on others; unable to read the nuances of the particular perfomrance and unable to adapt. I find children on stage a chore which has to be endured for plot purposes, but I generally wish they'd hurry up and get off so we can concentrate on the real acting.

The Lumiere review made me wonder if our differences are generational. I didn't feel that the first half dragged, nor did my three companions. It was all part of the set-up which you expect, and in return you get the pay-off later, which was very well done. She questions the modern relevance to which I would answer, it was entertaining and isn't that the purpose of theatre? Aren't home invasion and human vulnerability - needing to trust someone and rely upon them - still pertinent?

I also have no problem with nostalgia - not everything has to be new and ground-breaking. Sure, modern theatre eschews convoluted plots, but a lot of people still like them. There is a place for good old-fashioned drama, complete with red velvet curtain and footlights, just as there is for avant-garde, surrealist, Brechtian, improvisation and musical theatre.

Also, most people who pay to go the theatre are over 50, and they like dramatic suspense - they are the ones who have made The Mousetrap the longest-running show in the West End. It is not innovative or modish and it sticks to well-known conventions, but I would never dismiss its relevance simply because it didn't appeal to me. Is this a Gen X/Y thing?