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Reports on theatre trips

Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory

A sure sign of Spring, after the snowdrops, is the sight of a group of members wending their way through the wilds of Bedminster to the Tobacco Factory for a shot of live Shakespeare. As we go we remember with gratitude Susan, who selected a date on which parking in Bedminster is possible and purchased our tickets, and Sara Morris who organised our lunch.

This year, however, we were in for a surprise. For 15 years Andrew Hilton has been giving us cool classic interpretations of the plays in which clear enunciation of the text and fidelity to its meaning have always had top priority., For Romeo and Juliet this year he handed over the reins to a young Russian director, Polina Kalinina for her first major production. In her introductory note she gives her view of the play as "kinetic, exhilarating and muscular---- full of hormones and therefore energy, speed and movement. It drives through at an incredible pace and you catch only glimpses of the characters amidst the noise, the fighting and of course the epic party."  This sums up the production rather well and explains why Shakespeare got somewhat less of a look-in than usual. If only some of the effort expended on fighting and dancing had been given to the verse speaking.   

 The setting is said in the program notes to be the late 1960s, somewhere in Europe, and the production to have been much influenced by the student riots of 1968 in France, Germany and Italy. However, the original background of the play is not an anti-authoritarian rebellion against the Prince, but gang warfare between two Mafia families, the Montagues and the Capulets, (though those in Montalbano's Sicily are rather more sharply dressed than the jean and tee-shirt clad teenagers of this production). So inevitably its sound and fury belongs in what has become a long line of gangland versions of Romeo and Juliet going back at least as far as West Side Story in 1958.

Viewed from this angle, there was nothing very extraordinary about the production. One of the reviewers promised us "scenes of unchecked debauchery", but the masked ball was no more noisy or exciting than your average Saturday night disco (the wearing of gas masks seemed a little over the top). I did love one touch in this  scene. From time to time the music stopped and the cast froze, to let Romeo and Juliet's dialogue come through, giving the impression of the lovers being in a different world from the rest of the cast. I wish it could have happened more often. Thankfully in Juliet's bedroom scene we were spared any more than a modest display of M&S. underwear on what seemed to be an ex-NHS bed (surely the Capulets could have afforded something a little better).

As with the director,  the black Romeo (Paapa Essiedu who left drama school in 2012) and white Juliet (Daisy Whalley who made her debut in 2014) were enjoying their first attempt at major Shakespeare roles. Romeo gave a good average performance and hopefully we shall hear of him again. Juliet is a very difficult part, requiring the looks of a teenager and mature acting skills. Charming as Daisy Whalley was, she came across as a little out of her depth. Perhaps she will return to the part in a few years time. In the rest of the cast one could recognise the SATTF regulars, the Prince (Alan Coveney), the Friar (Paul Currier), Tybalt (Craig Fuller) and Paris (Jack Warrier) . Of the newcomers, Sally Oliver gave us a new angle on the Nurse with her estuary accent and a variety of unconventional costumes.  I owe to Susan the suggestion that casting the streetwise Nurse as little older than Juliet made the affected innocence of the latter somewhat implausible. Oliver Hoare rather threw away the part of Mercutio. Perhaps he was meant to be high on drugs. This was a pity, as Mercutio has some good lines.

The problem with making violent action the theme of this play is the fact that there isn't much violence in the second half. Instead we have the rapidly unfolding plot (which was rushed through at breakneck speed, especially in the Mantua scenes) and we have the poetry. Thankfully, Shakespeare is pretty-well indestructible and from time to time the poetry came through, even in this much-cut version, for example in Romeo's final speech, "Death that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, hath had no power yet upon thy beauty" etc. You only have to say it. Overall, this production seems to be aimed at a teenage audience and one hopes that it will be a big hit with them, provided that they are encouraged to sit down and read Shakespeare's play.

What a contrast when we returned on the 25th April for Sheridan's The School for Scandal  to find Andrew Hilton once more in control, proving that a great director, like a great conductor, can inspire his players to give of their very best. Once more close attention to the text was the rule, as it needs to be in this witty comedy. Any anxieties we may have felt at the production of a mobile phone in the new prologue and epilogue were quickly allayed by the truth of its contention that scandal mongering lives on in the world of Facebook and Twitter. The play slipped immediately into character with the entry of the malignant Lady Sneerwell (Julia Hills) and the oily Snake (Paul Currier). Of the other members of the School, Mrs Candour (Fiona Sheehan) rattled off pieces of malicious gossip with machine-gun precision and the somewhat helpless Sir Benjamin Backbite (Byron Mondahl), constantly put down by his spiteful Uncle Crabtree (Benjamin Whitrow), was perhaps the most appealing of this group.

In the main plot, the contrasting Surface brothers, Joseph (Paapa Essiedu) selfish and dishonest and Charles ( Jack Wharrier) wild but generous, were well portrayed, but for me the always dignified Sir Peter Teazle (Christopher Teazle) and the effervescent  Sir Oliver Surface (Chris Garner), who threw himself into his disguise as Mr Premium with such enthusiasm, between them stole the show. Lady Teazle (Daisy Whalley) showed a mixture of cunning and coyness in her disputes with her husband and formed a good contrast with the demure Maria (Hannah Lee).

One could not but admire the director's gradual speeding up of the action in the second half, as the plot twists and turns and situations become more and more farcical, climaxing in the collapse of the screen revealing Lady Teazle in the wrong place at the wrong time. In the performance of Restoration and 18th century drama it is necessary to exaggerate, without going over the top and to my mind, only once, in the drinking scene, was this fine line crossed  in the direction of tastelessness. S. for S. feels like a proscenium arch play, even though the many scene changes were adroitly handled. Brilliant use was made of the open stage in the scene of the portrait sale,  when members of the audience were picked on to take the place of Surface ancestors. Overall, another feather in the cap for Andrew Hilton.