Long time no post huh? A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks. My photo has been taken off my profile. This post could be described as a conflict of interests were it to be known who was writing it. It appears that as of September my job will be one directly linked to the opera world. Therefore, better left anonymous methinks. Anyway. FINALLY saw a staged production of Candide, this one at English National Opera (my favorite company), directed by the brilliant Robert Carsen. With me was The Actress, neither of had seen the piece before. We were not thrilled. While Carsen is a brilliant opera director, his musical comedy/operetta
skills are not great. This is pretty much the hardest piece to stage EVER. From the outset, it has been a nightmare. Voltaire’s satiric novella inspired Bernstein to write some of his wittiest, most wonderful music, brilliant pastiche. Our eponymous Westphalian hero meeting with one disaster after another, maintaining a perfectly stupid (and foolishly taught) sense of optimism throughout. The Lyrics (by Bernstein, Sondheim, Dorothy Parker, Lillain Hellman) are brilliant, a perfect match for the music. BUT, the Book (dialogue) which Hellman write was problematic. Cumbersome, preachy (surprise surprise), and reeking of Hellman’s own ideology. Since then, practically every time this piece is staged, a new Book is assembled, pieces rearranged, left out, added, edited…with mixed results. The best ever stage version was done by Hal Prince, in an environmental staging, with the dialogue kept to a MINIMUM, and the action treated as a madcap farce, with no messages of ideology and politics being forced down the audience’s collective throat. Would that it were so at ENO… Carsen has decided to ’say something’ with this production. Theatre Rule: The more one tries to ’say something’, the less one will manage to get across. He sets the piece firmly in the US (West Failure, geddit) , circa 1960 something. The piece becomes about the US, politics and money. Cunegonde becomes a good time girl, determined to become a star. Her big number ‘Glitter and be Gay’ becomes an homage to ‘Diamonds are a girls best friend’.
The magnificent Auto de Fe scene becomes the McCarthy trials. Note to Mr Carsen : while this was what Bernstein/Hellman were writing about, its far more potent when NOT stated obviously. Although I did enjoy the Ku Klux Klan kick line. My main issue with the pice was the lack of common sense. At the end of act I, the characters all head off to The New World. But in Carsen’s production they are already in The New World. I thought to myself, ‘Oh, they are off to the Middle East, great, I’m interested now’. But no. As the curtain went up on Act II, there they are at Ellis Island. And all I wanted to do was scream “BUT THEY WERE ALREADY IN AMERICA WHY ARE THEY ‘ARRIVING’ THERE NOW?!?!?!?!”. I was SO disappointed. I expected this piece to be such fun, and here was a production determined to take itself SO seriously. Thank GOD the singers were good. Tobey Spence was off sick (a major blow, he was one of the bigDraw Cards), but his 
replacement proved just as good. If only I could remember his name…Marnie Breckinridge was a magificent Cunegonde, high E flats an all. Alex Jennings was BRILLIANT as Pangloss/Voltaire/Martin, coping admirably with fussy direction. At one point he ran out of dialogue before finishing a sequence of stage business. He improvised, hurriedly throwing the remaining props into the wings with a sideways “I’ll be with you all in a minute”, to the audience. They responded with a tumult of applause, possibly in support of a brilliant actor coping with such an insane directorial request. Beverly Klein stole the show as the Old Lady, a non-singer, who sang the role (including the material usually eschewed by non-singers), at the original mezzo-soprano pitch. And in a size 17 Vegas showgirls outfit, she was a wonderful sight. Proof that when you play is straight, its often a lot funnier. Overall, the production was a wonderful chance; wasted. This is not an opera, and it was treated as such. Opera and Musical Theatre, very different. Has someone told this to Mr Carsen I wonder.
A few days later I was lucky to see one of the London previews of ‘The Female of the Species’, 
one of Joanna Murray Smith’s latest plays. It is incredibly funny, and makes no attempt to send messages or be in any way ‘important’ (make note, Mr Carsen). the 90 minute, one act piece is loosely based on the time Germaine Greer was held hostage for a short period by a deranged fan. Eileen Atkins plays Margot Mason, a sixty something, languidly vile author, legendary for her femenist tomes. It’s not exactly a Greer impression, but one can understand her fury, published in most of the London papers, at having her life turned into successful theatre. Thus far she has sent back the script which was sent her, and not showed up at the Press Night to which she was invited. I loved every second of 
the play, the three women in the cast reveling in it; Atkins, Anna Maxwell Martin managing the role of Molly, the deranged fan, and Sophie Thompson as Mason’s married with kids daughter, driven insane by the noise and need of her children. Thus far reviews have been generally good, to very good. The UK critics do harp on about Murray-Smith writing a ‘less than worthy’ play. This is the standard response to someone writing something funny and entertaining, particularly is they are not English. Critics are, I am fast discovering, the lowest form of life in this country. One expects this play to do well, provided the casting remains good. Atkins and the other members of the cast will inevitably leave, and who they bring in to replace them will determine whether people come back to see it a second and third time. I know I would pay to see another actress get her teeth into any of these three roles.
Next on the cultural agenda was ‘Sail Away’, put on by Lost Musicals, a 
company dedicated to the semi-staged revival of US Musicals which have been neglected since their premiere’s. I took The Artist, and we both had a lovely time. Noel Coward wrote the slightly old fashioned piece for Broadway (where it ran for 167 performances, overshadowed by the by phenomenal ‘How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying’. It then transferred to the West End where it ran 252 performances. Both times it starred Elaine Stritch, and was directed by Coward. It is easy to see why the piece did not do better. It feels straight out of the 30s. The Songs are charming, the dialogue witty (at times), but there is no real development of character and both A and B plot are deeply predictable. The company is a delight. There is no set. The cast sits at the back of the stage on chairs, in evening dress. The musical director plays from a piano, the only instrument present. The cast performs with script/score in hand, but with stage movement, and real energy. Some of the musical numbers have choreography, all beautifully done. The audience had a wonderful time, this is clearly a very popular company. They perform their seasons on six consecutive sundays, with each performance generally sold out. The Artist and I enjoyed it immensely, accepting its flaws as typical of its period, and its author’s penchants. That we are able to see this show again, even in a pared down version, is a treat indeed.
NEXT…’The Year of Magical Thinking’ at the National Theatre, with The Actress, fast becoming my London Theatre buddy. My first experience of Vanessa Redgrave onstage, and I was not disappointed. I had read Joan Didion’s memoir prior to seeing the play, as well as having read the play text. This was my first experience of Didion’s writing, and I found it appealing. A sense of cool detachment might seem a strange way to write about the death of one’s husband and only child, but somehow it is far more effective (and moving) than a series of hysterical screams of grief. While the play is heartbreaking (as is the memoir), at no point in the theatre did I cry, but for hours afterwards was aware of so much more than I had
been before taking my seat. Am re-reading the memoir this week. She wrote the book about the death of her husband and the up and down (mainly down) health of their only child Quintana in the year following. As the book went into publication, Quintana died. The play (unlike the memoir) is about both their deaths. Didion (with the help of brilliant director David Hare, both pictured right) has distilled the full length memoir into a 90 minute monologue (and added details about Quintana not written about) which is never for one second dull or self-indulgent, and always marvelously performed by Redgrave. She is, in essence, playing Didion, and managed the accent well, along with Didion’s somewhat calculated delivery. Packed House, well received. An evening to treasure. Have booked to see it again later in the year, after a second reading of the memoir. Have also ordered two of Didion’s books and will start on them directly I have finished re-reading Year of Magical Thinking. A fan is born…
