Robin Ince – Stand-up plus host

Martin White – Did the attempt at a random catchy tune – DaNgErous! (Helen Arney helped with keyboard)
Helen Arney – Also performed songs on ukulele
Marcus Chown – Did awards show for scientists (author of We need to Talk about Kelvin)
Matt Parker – Standup maths on homeopathy and ancient civ of Woolworths
Joanna Neary – Did the two characters (olde worlde housewife diary and psycho children’s entertainer)
Darren Hayman – Did the protons and neutrons song
Simon Singh – Bit on Katie Melua song
Helen Keen – It is Rocket Science – satanists andnazis oh my!
Baba Brinkman – Rap on creationists….for the people in the room who couldn’t understand what he was wanting you to respond with (like someone I was with) – it was “We off that”

Is there anyone I missed?

This is the program we caught one late night on TV that made us want to go:

First, Middlesbrough Theatre was easy to get to (Laurie served as satnav) with free parking available right near the theatre. The seats were surprisingly comfortable. Appropriately enough to the evening’s performance, Middlesbrough Theatre was the first architect-designed theatre to be built after the Second World War.

The concession stand sells delicious ice cream from Jersey – we had chocolate and a toffee caramel flavour.  I need to find out the brand it was -  delicious (even better than the ice cream at the Sage). I definitely want to return, which is good since some people from work want to go see Alfie. It’s a reasonably priced night out.

I realised on the way over that it was actually my first time visiting a small regional theatre.

Now for the play.  Lotty’s War is by By Giuliano Crispini. Directed by Iain Davie. Set design by David Crisp. Costume Design by Susannah Tidy. Produced by Giddy Ox. Katie Howell as Lotty, not sure the names of the actors who played General-Major Rolf Bernburg and Ben.

Lotty is 17 at the start of the play, we meet her and her best friend and romantic interest Ben as carefree and playful youths. Her mother and sister leave to England before the occupation and when Guernsey is attacked and her father is killed, she is left alone in her house which is taken over by Nazi General-Major Rolf Bernburg. While other people are referenced by the characters these are the only people in the play.  All the action takes place in Lotty’s kitchen.

My companions were amazed by three actors being able to hold their attention for that long and tell a complicated story. There are loads of positive reviews kicking about, calling this a brave play at a time when Britain is occupying two countries and also commending it for exploring a little-known part of history…I wanted it to be better.

This review pretty much sums it up for me though I would blame the writer and the director more than the actors who do what they can with what they’re given.

The first half feels long. At the end of the play it made me question whether, in a meta way, they were trying to give me a little taste of the long years of occupation. There are some interesting ideas in the play about the psychological toll of long term occupation, the ability to identify or understand or love one’s captor, the requirements placed by one’s people or country, and just rewards in the face of survival.

Time going by is marked by the radio news. Unfortunately there are no visuals to back up the sense of time passing so the transformations in the characters can sometimes seem abrupt.

I was concerned that this would be another warm fuzzy Nazi story. While I don’t require that stories about WWII should resemble old school Westerns with a villain in a Black hat and a hero in a White ten gallon hat, and I accept that many Nazis were people in difficult situations, who compartmentalised their lives, I don’t want to ever forget their victims or turn them into bigger victims by the stories that get told.

I also felt that the power difference between a 17 year old girl and a Nazi general in his 40s/50s or so was not written sharply enough. He is civilised and they are portrayed as near equals with equivalent power. (Though in a discussion with a friend he pointed out that in those years that may have been a more reasonable age gap between men and women.)

Overall, I felt there were some interesting ideas and in Neil McEwan’s words in his review they “failed to match ambition to delivery.” I was left wanting a strong editor / director to shape it.

On an amusing note, the Nazi and I, as foreigners shared something in common in the middle of the play.  Neither one of us had seen a panto.

Promo video of stills from the play below:

I was wearing:

Would have been just as happy wearing:

Some photos from the evening:

The show was good fun.  Multi-generational audience. Our only lament was that we weren’t seeing it in the US or Japan where it would have been sure to sell out and more people would have been dressed up.

Jack Wall was the conductor, Tommy Tallarico was the MC. It turns out he composed the music to one of the games I used to play Earthworm Jim (also loved the cartoon). Martin Leung the video game pianist also performed including a rendition of Super Mario blindfolded. There was also a skype video chat with Marty O’Donnell.

You can watch a good chunk of it with the youtube playlist below.

Going to see Waiting for Godot with Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan in Newcastle.

Have previously seen it at the Classic Stage Company in NYC starring John Turturro, Tony Shalhoub and Christopher Lloyd.

I love playwright David Hare. One of my all-time favorite theatre experiences was written by him – Dame Judi Dench starring in “Amy’s View,” from the third row center on Broadway. At the end of the first act I actually gasped. I also thoroughly enjoyed his “The Vertical Hour.” His ability to write emotional dynamics for brilliant actors makes for thrilling theater. (Andrew Scott was my discovery for that production.)

“Gethsemane,” deals with recent British political scandals and the brutal compromises people at all levels make. Reviews: Ion Oxford Tube (I like this one’s description of the set.), Guardian, Telegraph, Evening Standard, Independent, BBC Newsnight panel discussion (I don’t agree with what the panel says but the intro features a good synopsis of the play.). The reviews are mixed, glowing or unnecessarily harsh.

Tamsin Grieg is flawless as a beleaguered politician. Amusingly, I had to point out to Kevin where he knew her from – the very awesome Black Books (Booklovers, misanthropes, Dylan Moran and Bill Bailey fans all should see this immediately.).

Stanley Townsend plays shady fundraiser Otto as a cross between Boss Hog from the Dukes of Hazzard and a mobster from a Guy Ritchie movie – it works. One of the people on the BBC Newsnight panel called the character anti-Semitic, as does the article here. He is a sleazy character in the play and for those playing guess the political figure he is based on – he would seem to be based on Lord Levy, a Jewish, former fundraiser for the Labour party. There is nothing in the play to suggest he is Jewish. The only connection is in the minds of those watching associating the character with a real person. There is nothing to suggest this character represents the Jewish people. I find it dumb and offensive for it to be labeled anti-Semitic.

The rest of the cast are as follows: Jessica Raine plays the troubled daughter of Tamsin Greig’s character Meredith. Gugu Mbatha-Raw is Meredith’s adviser. Nicola Walker is the idealist teacher Lori, Daniel Ryan plays her highly-educated and simple husband who works for Otto. Pip Carter is Otto’s world-weary assistant Frank. Anthony Calf plays the prime minister (Kevin hated his performance, I didn’t mind it.). Adam James plays a sleazy journalist.

The set by Bob Crowley is well done, a modern-looking white box which serves convincingly as a number of different settings with the addition of a few props and at times the use of it as a projection screen. Fast-paced videos to music are also projected onto it to serve as transitions between scenes. See this review for a nice description or another more detailed description can be found at Vocal Eyes (See the Show Notes downloads.). They do audio-descriptions at performances for blind and partially sighted people. They will be at Saturday’s upcoming matinee in Newcastle and in Cambridge on Saturday the 21st.

The criticism I would levy against the play is it seems to still be rough. It seems at times like the outline for an outstanding play / story with the plot elements in place but the nuanced emotional dynamics that I like in his plays are just not fully there.

Learned a new word from the play – Gesthemane. Gesthemane is a garden at the foot of the Mount of Olives (Gat Shmanim in Hebrew) believed to be the place where Jesus spent the night before the crucifixion in great anguish / doubt. Religion is brought up a few times in the play. In addition to the emotional dynamics this is another place where I think it could have had more meat.

Gateshead Millenium Bridge

The weather was not too cold. We parked on the Gateshead side of the river and walked across the Millennium Bridge to the Theatre Royal. This way we didn’t have to navigate Newcastle’s many one-way streets. It was a really pleasant walk. On the way back the water in the river was so still the reflections of the lights from the bridges and buildings were amazing. We definitely want to go back for an evening to take photos on long exposures with a tripod.

program

Classic Stage Company is awesome again. Went to see a reading of The Tempest last night. The culmination of their Monday Night Open Rehearsal Series where you explore parts of a text with different directors and actors. It had Michael Cumpsty reading Prospero with Brian Kulick directing (full cast below). There are times when I go to a crappy show and am really impressed by the lighting or the scenery in service of something mediocre but a night like this reminds you that a good text and good actors are all you need.

Full Cast (Apologies for any errors. The program listed only their names so matching the actor to the character was via google searches and process of elimination in some cases.):

Craig Baldwin – Antonio
David Costabile – Trinculo
Michael Cumpsty – Prospero
Herb Foster – Alonso
Melinda Helfrich – Miranda
KK Moggie – Ariel
Luis Moreno – Caliban
George Morfogen – Gonzalo
Lorenzo Pisoni – Ferdinand
Steven Rattazzi – Stephano
David Skeist – Sebastian

Upcoming at CSC is an open rehearsal series for Aquila Theatre Company and The Iliad. I think I’ll skip that one but for those unafraid of the classics go for a really unique theater experience.

Discovered the artwork of Ted Lange via a boingboing link to his Son of Super Mario today with some great drawings based on The Tempest.

I don’t think that he is Isaac from The Love Boat.

Saw Phare Play’s The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged). It’s like something your really talented friends from college put on and you have a great time. And there are plastic cups of wine sold during intermission – poured generously and only $4.

It’s at the Lodestar Theatre. Make sure you take the address with you. I had the address with me and still walked by it. It’s at 616 Ninth Avenue (between 43rd and 44th.) There is no marquis or sign, just the show’s poster on the door. You have to go up the stairs and there you are. And if your friend is late you will end up texting them during the show while they try to figure out how to get there.

Video from the show below:

The quality of the video is not that good….but the show is quite fun and is running through April 29th.

brochure

Saw Matthew Bourne’s Edward Scissorhands tonight at BAM. New Adventures was in fine form, the dancers were great and so was the set. The tweaking of the story (adding a prologue) for the stage worked. The town vixen was especially fun.

Read a recent review that questioned the need for the retelling of the film in dance theater form….Lots of fairy tales get retold again and again…there is no reason not to add a modern work to the mix. Definitely a good time. Upcoming dates (in Toronto, St. Paul, MN, Denver and Seattle) can be found here.

Summary of Matthew Bourne’s talk on the 15th can be found at BAMDialogue: Matthew Bourne

playbill

Went to see the first preview of Inherit the Wind at the Lyceum Theater. The play is a fictionalized take on the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial. A teacher is put on trial for teaching evolution in a science class, contrary to biblical teaching, and a high profile trial with the great legal minds of the day ensues.

It is left in it’s historical context even though very similar issues are still being argued in today’s courtrooms. The Supreme Court just recently ruled it illegal to force the inclusion of Intelligent Design in public school science classrooms as an alternative theory to evolution, ruling it religious in nature rather than scientific and you would probably then have to include the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

The play was already really tight. It is a limited 16-week run. Christopher Plummer is amazing. I would watch him reciting the telephone book. I would watch him watch paint dry. He has great lines and is really captivating. He plays the character based on Clarence Darrow.

I find it funny that I already associate Brian Dennehy with two made-for-TV films he did based on real trials. Skokie based on a Free Speech trial. In To Catch a Killer he is scary, evil, serial killing clown John Wayne Gacy. He is also quite strong in Inherit the Wind.

There is a large cast and they are quite talented. Maggie Lacey does a great job as the conflicted Reverend’s daughter who happens to love the defendant. Byron Jennings is very righteous as the Reverend. Assorted townspeaople really add to the atmosphere – and seem like they are having fun.

I did not like Denis O’Hare as E.K. Hornbeck, a big city journalist who comes to town to cover the trial. He has great lines and I don’t enjoy his reading of them.

It is worth the price of admission to watch Christopher Plummer. I had seats in the first row on Stage. It is as though you are part of the jury. You sit facing the rest of the audience so at times you see people’s backs. At the same time tickets are cheap, $36 or so and you can’t get any closer to the actors. I recommend the experience; discounted tickets on the stage are also available at the fantastic Spring Awakening (am ready to see this for the third time, it is in heavy rotation on my iPod.) I am so excited to be seeing Duncan Sheik in May, he is supposed to be singing songs from Spring Awakening in addition to his stuff.

Related media:

Inherit the Wind (Book) Authors:Jerome Lawrence, Robert E. Lee Manufacturer:Ballantine Books Released:20 March, 2007

Monkey Business: The True Story Of The Scopes Trial (Book) Authors:Marvin Olasky, John Perry Manufacturer:B&H Publishing Group Released:15 May, 2005

Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial And America’s Continuing Debate over Science And Religion (Book) Authors:Edward J. Larson Manufacturer:Basic Books Released:02 October, 2006

The Battle Over the Meaning of Everything: Evolution, Intelligent Design, and a School Board in Dover, PA (Book) Authors:Gordy Slack Manufacturer:Jossey-Bass Released:18 May, 2007

The Essential Words and Writings of Clarence Darrow (Modern Library Classics) (Book) Authors:Clarence Darrow, Edward J. Larson Manufacturer:Modern Library Released:12 June, 2007

Inherit the Wind (DVD) Manufacturer:MGM (Video & DVD) Released:11 December, 2001

Skokie (DVD) Manufacturer:Evg Released:12 February, 2004

To Catch a Killer (DVD) Manufacturer:Image Entertainment Released:21 September, 1999

Spring Awakening (2006 Original Broadway Cast) (Music) Artist:Duncan Sheik, Steven Sater, Skylar Astin, Lilli Cooper, John Gallagher Jr., Gideon Glick, Jonathan Groff, Brian Johnson, Lea Michele, Lauren Pritchard Manufacturer:Decca Broadway Released:12 December, 2006

He tried acting at 15. This is how he has found to express himself. It is the freedom to create, having only one rule, there is no voice, but can use all styles. It is not necessarily dancing, also acting. It is very character based. Each character has a whole life story. The character comes before the movement.

He is asked how he casts his productions. He uses traied dancers and he tends to attract the people who want to express the acting in what they do. He wants them to contribute and to look like they come from the real world, not cloned. They are not costumed identically. You gain character, individuality, a wealth of detail. You also lose the ability to make the stage unified. The dancers have to go for precision rather than energy and have to work doubly hard to be understood. The costume is working against them.

He is very conscious of the audience and is telling the story to everyone, of different ages, backgrounds. A child can enjoy something on a diferent level from an adult. Wendy Perrin contributes that her father liked Swan Lake, he was ok with it and he doesn’ exactly go to gay clubs.

Matthew Bourne continues that he is not interested in shocking the audience; he is interested in surprising the audience.

Has he ever tried to do a plotless, abstract ballet? In school, in London, at age 22 (he was late to dance training.) he did what he was taught. He then went to do what was true to him…Characters over body dancing. He loved watching it but was uncomfortable with it, with not knowing who you are, being just a body.

He’s always been an Astaire fan, Fred Ashton, Twyla Tharp. His guilty pleasure is he loves abstract ballets but understands why his wider audience wouldn’t necessarily get it.

As he worked on Edward Scissorhands, Caroline Thompson, the screenwriter was by his side. It is based ona stray dog who needed to be loved and taken care of. Also, how do we treat people who are different? The hands are symbolic of anything different. The story is bigger than the crazy story. The setting was changed from the 80s to the 50s in order to present it to a British audience who are used to those symbols of America from sitcoms and movies.

In Lez Brotherston, designer, he has found a likeminded person so he does not have to explain much when going into a production.

How does he feel about the symbol of success at the end of the film Billy Elliot being Billy dancing in his version of Swan Lake. He says it makes sense for the character since he is rebellious. Can’t imagine him being the prince in Swan Lake at Covent Garden. It is a letdown. In the original script sent to him 2 years prior to the making of the film that was the ending! He becomes a dancer in Swan Lake at Covent garden. When he returned the script he threw out there that it would make sense for him to be in his production of Swan Lake. Adam Cooper left the Royal Ballet to do [New Adventure's] Swan Lake. And he is the dancer at the end of Billy Elliot.

What will he do next? He is not sure. Mary Poppins [He choreographed the Broadway show.] and Edward Scissorhands took ten years. He is taking a year off and possibly will work on a small production that has a chance to fail. It is a privelege he has because of the other shows he is involved with. Play without Words, which had been performed at BAM, was meant to be a two week production not a touring show.

How did he choose Edward Scissorhands to adapt as most in the audience could probably think of a film or work they would love for him to adapt. He felt the film was driven by music and he is attracted to outsider characters. It is great for a designer since it is both gothic and suburban. The music is the main thing.

How do his works change over time? The audience may not notice but those involved know all the changes that are there. He changes the choreography and states that he is an “absolute meddler in my own work.” He says he cannot watch DVDs of his works as they are fixed entities. In Swan Lake there is a new cellphone gag that hadn’t been in previously.

Has he ever rejected an idea outright as being to crazy to do? He doesn’t reject anything that he has thought of. It may be recycled into the next project he works on.

He has learned from directors he has worked with on Oliver! (Cameron Mackintosh) Sam Mendes, Trevor Nunn.

His dancers talk like actors. At the National Theatre he asked for the principals to be called actors. There is still a heirarchy where dancers are at the bottom and it is also a matter of payscale. Even in the small roles they are creating a whole character’s world they call them performers.

An Italian journalist asks where he gets his spark of creativity from. He brings ideas together for a big idea. With Swan Lake it was the idea of the male swans and royal scandal. Is his lover an animal, a man or in his head.

For Cinderella, Prokofiev wrote it in the time of WWII so set it there.

Car Man was inspired by the Postman Always Rings Twice.

Who would he like to work with? He generally looks to the past for inspiration but he would like to work with Rufus Wainwright.

I’m glad I went to the talk. I had seen Swan Lake in Tel Aviv so it was very cool to hear him discuss his work. Am going to make sure to see this Edward Scissorhands production.

More Matthew Bourne on Edward Scissorhands here. Below are related photos and media:

Tchaikovsky – Swan Lake (Matthew Bourne)

The Car Man (Matthew Bourne)

Tchaikovsky – Matthew Bourne’s Nutcracker! / Matthew Bourne, Anthony Ward

Edward Scissorhands (Collectible Tin Anniversary Edition)

Charlie Rose with Tim Burton; Johnny Depp (November 15, 1999)

Edward Scissorhands: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

Edward Scissorhands

Dance Magazine

Khalifa Natour

Saw In Spitting Distance a one man show written by Taher Najib, performed by Khalifa Natour and directed by Ofira Henig as part of the Israel Non-Stop Festival 2007. Official description: “Winner of the first prize in Israel’s TheaterNetto Festival, this moving and ironic personal drama touches on all the complexities of the Israeli/Palestinian situation. Experience a rare collaboration between Israeli and Palestinian artists in this humorous yet painful story of a Palestinian actor with an Israeli passport trying to travel from Paris to Tel-Aviv to Ramallah on September 11, 2002.”

Winning first prize at the Theaternetto festival is a big deal. It is a really amazing international theater festival in Tel Aviv for one-person shows.

The show itself is funny, in the everyman against spirit-crushing beaurocracy to the point of the absurd where the only reaction you can have is to laugh in the face of it. Reminiscent of this recent story about US immigration officials. I could definitely picture it as a short film (the words and acting were really vivid) and told the actor so after the show.

Ofira Henig the director and Khalifa Natour the actor were on hand for questions after the show.

The first question, more of a comment, related to what big important statement they were making = how wonderful…She said: “I am an artist before I am an Israeli.” This had me wondering how long it takes before you can say that earnestly without a shred of self-doubt. So at this moment I wanted to hate her but I really enjoyed the rest of the comments so good on her. She commented that they did not want to be seen as an example of coexistence – a thing she believes does not exist. This is their story, a personal story, art, no conclusions should be drawn to either side from it and this is the most important political act they could do.

The next question asked if the play wasn’t too kind to the horrors that exist in the region. Her response was that this was a Palestinian’s playwright’s story. She was not directing the story of the Palestinian People, only the story of Taher and Khalifa. She continued to the questioner: You are looking for a demonstration, maybe. But Art shouldn’t be propoganda, it shouldn’t give answers. It should be more complicated than that and should make you ask questions.

Khalifa joins the conversation a bit late. They both relate that in Palestinian theater the question of who is telling whose story is important. They would like to perform the play more but they are both involved in other projects and the play was produced independently, not as part of a theater company’s repertory.

She likens theater that demonstrates its politics to being sick on an audience. She does this less so in her later work even though she feels she is more radical than ever. She feels you have to touch the audience. You can’t punch or browbeat them. You need to make them feel something. I appreciate this sentiment a lot. I hate being at a performance and feeling like I am being hit over the head with a sledgehammer with the MESSAGE. She continues that they both work on works by Oscar Wilde, Chekhov and Shakespeare. Again she views this as the most political act one can do. That there should be issues of aesthetics and sophistication in art not just what you think.

When asked about the minimalism of the direction she responded it was a lesson in modesty. Not everything has to be Broadway. A good actor, text, lighting and music – you don’t really need anything else.

When asked about the play’s effect on Israeli and Palestinian audiences (It is performed in both Hebrew and Arabic) the response is that it has a big effect on Israelis because of the questions it raises within them. Is it about them, it makes them smile, theyr elate to it. That enjoyment raises questions and it’s quite strong though usually it is the people who are already convinced who attend.

The Palestinians feel immediate empathy. At the Arabic premier in Acco (Acre) there was a full house and from the very first word the audience was with him, identifying with his character immediately. They laugh really hard and empathize. They are laughing at themselves.

In Switzerland was the first performance they ever had abroad. There was complete silence. There were no Israelis or Palestinians in the crowd – all Swiss. They were panicked. It turns out they were really into it. They remembered every word but they didn’t allow themselves to laugh at the situation and to find the irony and humor in it.

There is a fine tradition of Gallows Humor. While this play is about facing beaurocracy rather than death – it comes from that same place where you can cry (with defeat or rage) or laugh so why not laugh or at least giggle hysterically.

The Treatment

Went to see the treatment by Eve Ensler at The Culture Project tonight. Dylan McDermott (Eve Ensler’s adopted stepson) is a soldier with post-traumatic stress over torture he committed in the line of duty. Portia is the psychologist and soldier tasked with the job of getting the goods on his superiors and treating his disorder.

It had some interesting ideas [about psychological trauma, treatment and torture, transferrence, duty and military life] but didn’t go deep enough with these ideas instead just bludgeoned the audience with a simple message in flat-out exposition about the rules having changed, rules are good, we need them blah blah blah. At some point he says something about not wanting to talk about his mother and then spilling out his guts about his mother. Isn’t that a tired trope at this point?

The playwright should be given credit for using her work to protest something she finds unjust. We don’t seem very involved with this war like Vietnam…maybe it’s because we have cable now – it is not the only thing going on in your living room. The cynical part of me sees it also as an attempt to be relevant – The Vagina Monologues came out in 1996.

It’s like Colombian artist Fernando Botero‘s new paintings based on Abu Ghraib now on exhibit at the Marlborough Gallery. He is a talented artist, known for his pleasant figures with exaggerated proportions (ok they’re fat). Someone may want to tell him prisoners don’t usually look like that. On the one hand, good for him for protesting something ugly with his work. On the other hand according to a recent New York Magazine piece: “The buzz, helped Botero pieces break records at auction this year, two selling for over $2 million each.”