Game review, Almeida Theatre

So you're fed up with paintballing because it's starting to feel tame, and then someone tells you about this new game where you stalk people around their own house and shoot them with tranquilliser darts. Women cost more because the dose has to be more carefully calibrated, but they take credit cards and you can get four shots for two on a Wednesday. And don't worry that this game too will start to feel tame, because the children in the house are growing apace. As soon as they reach seven you can shoot them with impunity. Welcome to Game.

Game is Mike Bartlett's new play at The Almeida. It is a short but complex piece for which the theatre has been reconfigured as four camouflage-covered hideouts where the audience, banked on benches, peer silently into a smart suburban house like twitchers on the North Norfolk shores seeking sight of avocets. Or hunters stalking Game. The hunter's sense of solitary vigil is recreated by the issuing of headsets through which all sound is relayed. It's just us and the actual players who suddenly appear in the hideouts laughing and fighting and loading and aiming their guns at the hapless couple inside.

In the early stages of the Game random shots render the inhabitants senseless as they wearily try to find private space and time to conceive. Later, when their son arrives and takes to living in a box to avoid being hit, it renders them senseless at a point where they are finally making sense of their lives. What other work might they get, they wonder, that would provide them with such a wonderful home and good income?

In conclusion: Bartlett is endlessly inventive. When on form as with Earthquakes in London he creates a narrative tour-de-force. When off form, we get turkeys like 13. Timed at 60 minutes Game stops while the players and the audience are still ahead. Under Sacha Wares' direction it's an interesting, meticulously executed what-if.

References
Game, Almeida, Tickets


Almeida Theatre, Almeida Street, London N1 1TA.    Run ends April 4.

Lippy review, Maria Studio, Young Vic

The musical motif running through Lippy is Elvis Presley's Crying in the Chapel the second line of which is: The tears I shed were tears of joy. The allusion to joy in this peculiar piece created by Bush Moukarzel and Dead Centre centres on the death of a mother and her three adult daughters who starve themselves to be with God. And, it suggests, to either mark or punish their absent father. It's a bit David Lynch and a bit Enda Walsh and a lot of nothing coming from nothing.

Lippy begins with the amusing premise that we're an audience at an after-show discussion about a play based on lipreading. When the actor fails to show, the interviewer starts interviewing the lipreader behind the drama. We learn that his celebrity began when he saw CCTV footage of the soon-to-be-dead-from-hunger sisters and lipread their conversation...

With a lift of the curtain we are looking into a bare, desolate, kitchen in which the four women are living out their final days and we discover the daughters may have been his children. So far so good. Sort of. At least there is a narrative drive up to this point. After it, we go into what feels like slo-mo. Without real or clear sound, which I think signified the fact that powerless people don't have voices, except one doesn't know what power this family needed in order to eat normally and enjoy life - perhaps it was a dad? - they die. The dim lights dim out completely. Oh good, you think, it's over. How did seventy minutes feel so long? But no. We now have a perfectly fine, but quite unremarkable, few minutes of a close up of one of the women's mouths as she goes over events.

In conclusion: Lippy was a hit in Edinburgh and it's possible that those with an uber-alternative eye will enjoy this piece. Or they too may think it's intriguing and elegantly staged codswallop. Whatever the truth, the tears I was shedding by the end were not alas of joy though I did admire Andrew Clancy and Grace O'Hara's spare set.

References
Lippy at the Young Vic Maria Space, Tickets


Young Vic, 66  The Cut, Waterloo, London SE1 8LZ.  Run ends March 14

Multitudes review, Tricycle Theatre

In my GP surgery I've sat with niqabed women eyes barely visible, making assumptions about their provenance and susceptibility, and almost jumped out of my skin when they've loudly admonished their children with voices and a vocabulary that's pure Little Britain. It is this richness of the muslim experience and the misconceptions of those looking in that John Hollingsworth explores in his gem of a play, Multitudes. It is funny and sharp and poignant in a week where commentators have asked why bright young British girls would go to Syria to be the chattels of violent strangers. Hollingsworth doesn't square that circle, he turns the circle into a pie and slices it up so we can chew on the layers that inform present tensions.

Set on the eve of a Tory Party conference in Bradford the narrative centres on local councillor Kash - brilliant Navin Chowdhury - and his English partner Nat. There's a muslim women's anti-war protest outside the conference centre. While Kash grapples with the public order problem, Nat converts to Islam without warning him. He'd been hoping for a parliamentary nomination. What now? His constituents will think he coerced her into converting, and his community will expect marriage as she's become an observant muslim. Meanwhile, as he works to restore calm in the city, his potential mother-in-law, the Tory grandee Lyn, is driven to drink and despair by Nat's conversion and lets loose a shocking diatribe. She isn't the only one who feels her identity is compromised by multiculturalism. Soon after, Kash's 18-year-old daughter Qadira, an emo in a hijab, carries out an act of Islamist defiance that nobody saw coming.

What works well in Multitudes is that Hollingsworth creates a recognisable scenario: families struggling to manage oppositional personalities, cultural expectations, and belief systems, but somehow muddling along. Their cheek by jowl lives reach a point of critical mass with the arrival of the Tory set, which is also muslim and very funny. The arguments in Multitudes are well rehearsed. What's different is having them all in one place. It stops being about goodies and baddies and become about everyday misunderstandings between people that, without mitigation, escalate and isolate.

In conclusion: Multitudes is highly entertaining under Indhu Rubasingham's direction. The cast is terrific. Clare Galbraith is the pious Natalie, Jacqueline King her fiery mother, and Salma Hoque's Qadira is a sad reminder of our missing UK schoolgirls. Asif Khan and Maya Sondhi perform lightening changes and provide wonderful comic turns across the piece.

References
Multitudes, Tickets

Tricycle Theatre, 269 Kilburn High Road, London NW6 7JR    Run ends March 21

Happy Days review, Young Vic

During the interval of Beckett's Happy Days I moaned to a mate I'd spotted in the Young Vic auditorium, about the casting. "The problem with Juliet Stevenson" I sniffed, "Is that she's always herself. Here she is doing Beckett, encased to her waist in sand, and she still looks, acts, and sounds like Islington woman. I wish she'd take on a transformative role for once."

This isn't to say that Stevenson doesn't shine. She clearly relishes the role of Winnie in Beckett's intriguing rumination on the fragility of human existence and coexistence. In a patterned summer frock that suggests a robust vitality, Winnie's daily routine is to extract and examine the gewgaws of everyday life from a large black handbag: a parasol, a mirror, a music box, a gun... In each she finds a trace of a memory, of Happy Days. Unable to dig her way out of the sand - either the sands of time, or a metaphor for emotional inability or physical disability - she continually calls for, and to, her husband Willie. Willie, sunburnt and taciturn, is living in a hole a few yards away. She strains to see him, to hear him, to have him validate her existence with the tiniest of gestures.

In the second half of Happy Days my interval wish came true. Stevenson is up to her neck in sand. All we see is a head - an animated death mask with a line for a mouth and a little voice somewhere in the back of her throat that indicates the passing of both time and hope. Without Willie, who has died or disappeared, Winnie is marking time. As the lonely life she lives in her head draws to an end, she is given respite, a whisper from a happy day: a wheezing vision of Willie in his wedding finery.

In conclusion: Happy Days has a flexible format over which we can lay any number of narratives - is it a rumination on marriage, habit and the psyche, or love, senility and death? Natalie Abrahami's production looks great and if you love Beckett you'll love Stevenson in both halves. If you don't know Beckett, hang on for End Game or Waiting for Godot.

References
Happy Days, Young Vic, Tickets

Man and Superman review, Lyttelton Theatre

Ann loves John and wants to marry him. To avoid this fate, John goes on the run to Spain. What he doesn't foresee, is that Ann will pile half of rural England into cars and follow. At one point, in a dream, he finds himself in hell. He can't escape her there either. So this is love....  Man and Superman is a marathon play. Three and a half hours exploring courtship and marriage and the different states of manhood. From suitor to suit; from loafer to breadwinner; from getting wood to collecting it: marriage is the end of joy and free expression for a man and a victory for women.

Man and Superman has the feel of a sexist romp in Simon Godwin's playful production, and delights because it isn't. There is a strong feminist streak, albeit bedded in the idea of the maternal. Elegantly stated arguments inform the continuing vexations between the sexes. Ralph Fiennes as a grizzled John beautifully articulates ideas as he scuttles with a loser's stoop across the chessboard of life, a King vainly dodging checkmate. He has some long speeches that must add to ninety minutes, but is ably supported by a wonderful cast including Tim McMullan as an oozingly charismatic brigand leader and, later, Satan. Mentions too for Indira Varma's confident Ann, Elliot Barnes-Worrall as a chirpy Straker, and Nicholas Le Prevost as Roebuck Ramsden.

George Bernard Shaw wrote Man and Superman in 1903. My companion and I, lured by Fiennes, did not know the story and were daunted by the length of the production, but after a bit of a dry exposition were pinned to our seats with smiles on our faces. It's not a play for people who prefer action. Every plot twist facilitates perorations on the same theme from different perspectives: women are driven by the need to procreate and populate the earth and men, powerful because they aren't, lose that power because they cannot resist women. Women therefore hold the power. What's so interesting is that, despite massive changes, Shaw's views on love and the flawed and ungiving institution of marriage remain current. 

In conclusion: It could all be edited down (and may well be, as the National has a habit of crazed pruning at the preview stage) but the tone overall is so lively, and the story such fun, and the endings of the two halves so funny, that all is forgiven. There's also a fabulous, working, vintage Jaguar in one scene. It's currently sold out, but it's always worth calling for returns.

References:

Man and Superman Tickets

Man and Superman, Lyttelton Theatre, National Theatre, South Bank, London SE1 9PX.  Run ends May 17

How to Hold Your Breath review, Royal Court Theatre

So you sit through two hours of a play that is amusing and magical and has started a bit like The Master and Margarita with Satan appearing as a dashing, bearded, Richard Branson lookalike who runs a bit of the UN and unwittingly wins the heart of a sexy blonde with whom he's had a one night stand in Berlin. But then the blonde and her sister (Dana and Jasmine) are cut adrift as they travel to Alexandria, and because Dana refuses to prostitute herself for Satan she is driven through the worst privations in European history - war, hunger, poverty and abandonment. And then she has to learn How to Hold Your Breath because the final hurdle pitches her to the depths of endurance.

It must be admitted that it was not till this point in the play - about ten minutes before the end - that I realised the women might not be Brits working their way across Europe but immigrants seeking safe haven in Alexandria. This is because How to Hold Your Breath is low on context from the first scene onwards. This problem is offset to some degree by Maxine Peake's superb performance as Dana. She's mesmeric; but her Dana is as 3D peachy pale as the average Royal Court audience, and has a designer haircut I admired all the way through, and does not look even vaguely East European, let alone Middle-Eastern or African, which is the usual type seeking first world kindness. Why is that? Would no swarthy or dark-skinned actor prostitute themselves to take the role, or is the choice ironic: the director favouring what we know, and lip service being enough?

Someone cleverer or better connected than me will unpack How to Hold Your Breath and explain it at some point, and it may be worth holding on for that before buying a ticket because the blurb on the Royal Court website, which is all I had, did not aid my understanding one jot. Zinnie Harris's play is described as a twisted exploration of how we live now in which the protagonists discover the true cost of principles. Is it personal or international principles, and what do we learn about our insularity and limited world view (and therefore empathy) that isn't ironically listed on the Twitter hashtag #firstworldproblems?

In conclusion: How to Hold Your Breath is intriguing and is beautifully staged by Vicky Featherstone and Peake is excellent, as are Michael Shaeffer and Peter Forbes. There are funny moments and the stage is used to full effect, but there is too much blind exploration and too little exposition. For this reviewer, it was too much hard work for too little reward.

References:
Royal Court, Tickets


Royal Court Theatre, Sloane Square, London  SW3.  Run ends 21 March

The Last of the De Mullins review, Jermyn Street Theatre

The initial thought when you read that a feminist play written by an Edwardian man is to be staged in London for the first time in over a century, is that the production is either a gimmick or a folly. What a joy to discover the The Last of the De Mullins - the story of a gentlewoman who leaves her family in order to keep her illegitimate son, is neither. The writing is gritty and modern and everything from the acting to the costumes to the lighting and Victoria Johnstone's charming set, works.

Eight years after she ran away from home and adopted a new identity, Janet is called by her mother to her dying and unconscious father's bedside. By the time she and little Johnny arrive, Mr De Mullin, has rallied. Will the presence of his prodigal daughter and bastard grandson bring on a relapse? Far from it. On meeting the little chap, Mr De Mullin hatches a plan. He is currently The Last of the De Mullins, but if the child remains and reverts to the family name, the line lives on... What started as a drawing room comedy now takes a more serious turn. The arguments that follow about the position of, and social impositions on, women remain at the forefront of feminist discourse today.

So much ground is covered in this 1907 play by St John Hankin - the right of women to financial independence, to motherhood, and to self-determination - that it's impossible to reconcile all the strands with a neat ending. But if The Last of the De Mullins doesn't quite pull it off, it gets enough right to provoke and amuse in Joshua Stamp-Simon's lively, glossy, and visually rich production. It fits a lot onto the tiny stage at the little Jermyn Street Theatre.

In conclusion: Roberta Taylor and Harriet Thorpe as Mrs De Mullin and Mrs Clouston can say as much with a finger movement as a whole paragraph. Maya Wasowicz as the fading sister, Hester, is deeply moving and Charlotte Powell is a fiercely intelligent Janet. There isn't a dud performance across the piece, not even from the eight-year-old.

References
Jermyn Street Theatre, Tickets

Jermyn Street Theatre, 16b Jermyn Street, London SW1Y 6ST  Run ends 28 February

The Wasp review, Hampstead Theatre Downstairs

The Wasp in Morgan Lloyd Malcolm's terrific new play is a reference to the Tarantula Hawk, an insect that 'captures, stings, and paralyses' the tarantula spider, dragging it to a specially prepared nest 'where a single egg is laid on the spider's abdomen and the entrance is covered' (Wiki). Inside the spider, the larvae hatch and feed on the spider's innards, avoiding the vital organs to ensure it remains a living host until they're ready to emerge from its abdomen. Spooky stuff.

The good news is that The Wasp in Lloyd Malcolm's thriller does not so much make your flesh creep as your nerves tingle with delight. The action centres on the gravelly Heather, resplendent in designer reds, reeling in her old playground adversary, Carla. Carla's a bit of rough, married to a man thirty years older and pregnant with her fifth child. As the conversation twists around and probes historic cruelty, who's the goodie and who the baddie? Where is this unexpected negotiation taking us?

It would spoil the gobsmacking ending to give anything away. Suffice to say the dialogue is laced with black humour, wit and pathos and the performances are cracking. Brilliant Sinead Matthews punches above her weight as the scheming Heather, threading her way across a highly charged and blighted landscape with a voice that's a mixture of treacle and sand. Rough and downtrodden Carla can't decide if she wants in or out of Heather's game. As Carla, Downton's Myanna Buring manages a difficult role beautifully.

In conclusion: Tom Attenborough directs a tense 90 minutes in Hampstead's intimate downstairs space. There's a lot of dialogue to facilitate the shifts in power and mood but it lifts enough to keep you watching and the dark, utterly unexpected resolution, is just perfect. Lloyd Malcolm's last play, Belongings, was a jewel about a woman soldier. This is a totally different ticket, but at £12 it will be a hot one.

References
Hampstead Theatre, Tickets

Hampstead Theatre, Eton Avenue, London NW3 3EU.  Run ends 7 March