Kafka's Monkey - The Young Vic

If you thought that the age of physical actors, renaissance men of the human body and all of its faculties, went out with the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton, think again. If you can’t remember the last time that a simple and isolated facial expression simultaneously made you feel pure delight and utter despair, take a trip to the Young Vic where Kafka’s Monkey, Colin Teevan’s adaptation of Franz Kafka’s “A Report to an Academy”, is now in production.

As the ape central in Kafka’s text, Kathryn Hunter ambles onstage carrying a tattered suitcase and dressed in an oversized gentleman’s suit that suggests more caricature than esteem. Her pants hang off of her innocently and her hair peeks out from under her top hat in a humble mess as Hunter abandons her luggage, rummages through some papers and steps to the podium inhabiting the otherwise bare black box space, a larger than life projection of an ape looming beyond her tiny physique. It is in this moment that Hunter’s ape addresses her audience, the presumed “academy”, for the first time and prepares to relate the story of her character’s “former life as an ape” and assimilation into the world of man.

It is not so much the content borrowed from Kafka’s story that makes this a performance worth seeing, although its counterweighted moments of hope and despair, comedy and tragedy, cannot help but penetrate and unsettle even the most stoic of theatergoers. It is Hunter’s sheer performative bravado that, from the moment she steps onstage, never fails to mesmerize. Having been the first woman to play King Lear on the professional stage in the UK, the Olivier Award winning actress is not unfamiliar with taking on a role that does not mimic her own corporeal make-up. In this piece, however, Hunter is not simply playing a man, but a man who was once a monkey: a challenge to any performer, male or female. Her range shines beyond description as she adopts the body language of our hairy predecessor and contorts effortlessly in ways that would be a feat for an actor half her age.

As members of the unnamed Academy, spectators are just as integral to the piece as Hunter herself. Carefully observing and feeding off of the energy of the audience, she never misses a beat in moments of beautiful improvisation and interaction with her guests: she offers a banana to one man, enjoys another woman’s head lice as a delicious refreshment and begs for the return of a bottle of rum that she has left with another man. Do not enter this theatre if you are not willing to give a little back to this performance that gives so much to you.

Parlour Song - Almeida Theatre

At a time when shows like "Desperate Housewives" and "Weeds" are in high demand, there is hardly a lack of suburban intrigue and scandal. In fact, we seem to be obsessed with it: that dirty little secret lurking below the surface of an otherwise pleasant facade until it hits a breaking point and proper hell breaks loose all over the white picket fences. Jez Butterworth's Parlour Song may unfold in just that myopic landscape (where all of the houses are exactly the same on the outside and structural mirror images on the inside), but his sense of narrative owes little to the pop culture phenomenon of that which is hidden in the little boxes on the hillside and is all the better for it.

Set in rural England, Dale and Ned are neighbors who, on the surface have little in common: The brilliant Toby Jones' Ned is short and stout (sporting a pair of "tits" which he works naively to rid himself of) and works in demolition, obliterating constructions much larger than he could ever be and is married to Joy (Amanda Drew). Dale (Andrew Lincoln) is the macho but sympathetic and human regular Joe who owns a chain of car washes and completely outdoes Ned in the charm department. Despite their differences, the two men share a bond of trust. In their own suburban susperia, the despair is not lying anywhere under the surface. Ned is paranoid: he believes that somebody is stealing all of his possessions, his marriage with his wife has very clearly lost its spark long ago. Dale is discontent: he sees his work as worthless and emasculating in comparison to Ned's, his children are barely a blip on his radar screen, his wife is hardly home when he is. The power of this piece comes not from it's exposition of a seedy underbelly, but an exploration of the humanity of these "dark" thoughts and events.

The piece is brilliantly designed by Jeremy Herbert with a rotating stage that seems to literally unfold, illuminate and cloak itself in darkness just as seamlessly as Butterworth's native dialogue flows from one scene into the next. Toby Jones and Andrew Lincoln respectively do great justice to these two very different men, Jones single-handedly stealing the entire show in a five minute sequence during which he attempts to tone himself up in the privacy of his living room. Amanda Drew's Joy is not quite as striking, but perhaps that is appropriate in a character for whom mediocrity has begrudgingly become a norm. The writing is witty, the staging is full of surprises and (if you must draw comparisons) the dashing Andrew Lincoln could give both Mary Louise Parker and Eva Longoria a run for their money.

He looked surprised and said, 'No'.

What do you know about Joe Orton? If the answer to that question is "nothing" (or anything remotely resembling it) then you have gravely deprived yourself.

Joe Orton lived and died in a neighborhood in London called Islington, which happens to be where I am currently keeping myself. Aside from being a fantastically cheeky and dark playwright, he was also a mischief maker with a wit of steel and a master of promiscuity, much to the chagrin, it turned out, of his long time partner Kennith Halliwell with whom Orton shared his tiny flat at 25 Noel Road. I happened (completely coincidentally...or was it?) to find myself at 25 Noel Road today with a copy of Orton's diaries and complete works. Call me a posthumous stalker.

Orton's most well-known work is indisputably Loot, which centers around a young man who irreverently disposes of his mother's corpse when he needs a place to conceal a large sum of stolen money and sees the fittest location to be the aforementioned deceased's coffin. Overwhelmed yet? It only gets better, so read it. Entertaining Mr. Sloane (currently running on the West End with Imelda Staunton and Mathew Horne) and What the Butler Saw are equally dependant on improbability and shenanigan - critics and admirers have deemed his work to be absurd but Orton insisted that he was writing real life. This is eerily apropos considering the circumstances of his own life and death. Much of the content of his writing seems to foreshadow a great deal of what actually came to unfold in his too short life.

It can be presumed that, if his plays have any part of Joe Orton the man in them, he was not a bullshitter. This is supported by reading even the first page of his diaries (which everybody should do - John Lahr is an amazing editor/compiler/researcher). He is frank in his tastes and even more frank with regards to his sexual practices. After the early passion of his relationship with Halliwell, Orton hardly mentions him as an object of any affection or desire - he functioned more as an assistant to Orton as his success became more and more eminent. On the contrary, Orton conducted most of his physical escapades in toilets and "cottages" (for all of the New Yorkers reading, think Turkish Baths or Tea Houses...) or in abandoned buildings, alleys, flats belonging to men who he picked up on the streets or in parks and toilets.

Despite the lack of sexual spark between Orton and Halliwell in the writer's final years, the two certainly had their fair share of alternative escapades. Both spent six months in prison after having been tracked down as the pranksters who defaced a variety of books that they stole from their local library and returned for other unsuspecting bibliophiles to come across. Orton also took it upon himself to write mischievously sarcastic letters under assumed names to various individuals, publications and institutions. (These letters are also published with John Lahr's edition of his diaries and absolutely worth reading.) Joe Orton hated Americans. I can't really blame him. He is so very articulate in writing about it that you can't justify faulting him. Americans do leave quite a bad taste in the mouth...

Joe Orton died in the apartment that I creepily visited today. He was 34 years old and was murdered by Halliwell - nine blows to the head with a hammer. Halliwell then took his own life with the help of 22 Nembutal tablets. He left the following note:

If you read his diary all will be explained.

KH

P.S. Especially the latter part.

Damn. Orton was working on a screenplay titled Up Against It for The Beatles at the time of his death. It was never finished. Orton's funeral was attended by many friends, family, actors, writers. Only three people attended Kenneth Halliwell's funeral. He was neglected even in his last hoorah.

Read his plays. Read his diaries. At the very least, watch Prick Up Your Ears (the biopic based on John Lahr's research and Orton's diaries - Gary Oldman, Alfred Molina, Vanessa Redgrave, Wallace Shawn...seriously. You have no excuse not to. It's on YouTube.)

Until later.

Spring Awakening - Novello Theatre

If there was ever any hope that this project would be a relatively objective one, that hope is officially abandoned here and now.

That having been said, it is only appropriate that the first post proper is in regards to Spring Awakening, a show that, at this point, I have no ability to disassociate from emotional self. To get the embarrassing part out of the way from the start, let it be known that tonight marked my 22nd return to 1891 Germany. ("Hi, my name is Emily and I'm a theatriholic...") I was seated onstage in the second row downstage right. For anybody who is unfamiliar with this show in performance, it should be said that sitting onstage is not ideal for a first-timer as everybody who has the privilege of seeing this amazing piece needs to really see it: the lighting design could justify the price of any ticket on its own and with the power of the full band onstage the lyrics are often drowned out by the orchestrations (which is not a problem if you happen to know all of the lyrics anyhow...) On the other side of the coin, however, if you have already been and are keen on returning, sitting onstage is a unique and intimate experience. The actors form a relationship with the onstage audience members that goes far beyond the interaction that took place (or didn't) in the States.

This is a good place to segue into what makes the UK production of this show very different from the original New York production (at both the Atlantic and the Eugene O'Neill theatres). Although the creative team is the same as it was for the original production, they were very clear on the fact that they didn't simply want to create a carbon copy of what they had already done. Obviously, it isn't radically different in the basic motions of the thing but it is the care that has very clearly been taken by the cast to present it as honestly as possible. Where the original cast was professional and efficient and talented, the British cast is full of raw energy and genuine passion. This is not to say that I don't adore the original cast because they will forever own a piece of my pathetic heart. The fact is simply that at the Novello Theatre in the West End (and before at the Lyric Hammersmith) the moment to moment work is mind blowing. There is something so much more human with this group of people. Aneurin Barnard (who I had the pleasure of meeting two weeks ago when he spoke to my class - so thoughtful and even more articulate) takes the role of Melchior and makes him so much more heartbreaking than I have ever known that character to be in performance. Iwan Rheon's Moritz is just as skittish as John Gallagher Jr.'s but more vulnerable. I cannot say enough about Charlotte Wakefield's Wendla: she is a real person. Her dialogue and action here come alive and have intention, feeling. She is decisive and innocent without being naive or foolish. Jamie Blackley and Harry McEntire as Hanschen and Ernst (respectively) form a relationship that completely avoids any sense of the cartoonish without losing any of the humor inherent in their hallmark scene towards the end of Act II. Evelyn Hoskins is the first Thea that I not only don't want to punch in the face but would also bow down to. Richard Cordery and Sian Thomas as the Adult Men and Adult Women become just as revered by curtain call as their young colleagues. I could go on...the bottom line is that this is a cast made up of real performers.

Because I am a complete nerd, it is necessary for me to also mention some technical differences that I am also one hundred percent sold on. The fight choreography here is far more intense, significantly more violent, and carried out infinitely more convincingly. It is such a pleasure to watch the reformatory scene and witness a brawl that doesn't make me think of a Punch and Judy vignette. A solo for Melchior has been added to "Whispering" (a reprise of "Touch Me") that really pulls the whole sequence together and makes this song really make sense in terms of both character and narrative. It should also be mentioned that during this song, Melchior is seated in the chair on the wall (as he was in the original production) but in this production the chair is built into a track in the wall and he moves from one side of the stage to the other over the band over the course of the song. It is very slow and the visual of it is very beautiful and completely appropriate in context. Melchior has much more freedom in the way he moves - Barnard is not a complacent still life. His rendition of "Totally Fucked" could not possibly be more charged and this is where his vocal ability really shines. Lines have been added and certain lyrics have been changed to cater to the fact that the English don't know what "looks so nasty in those khakis" means. There are some things that are better off lost in translation...I am not mourning the loss of that one. Fanny Gabor is Clara Gabor. Fanny is a vagina euphemism. Go figure.

I could go on, being even more vague and fan girl-esque than I already have been but will spare you. If you find yourself in London then go see this show. Now.

More intelligent musings next time. I promise.

This is the reason for dreaming.

So, it has finally come to this. I can't say that I'm surprised.

I enter the blogosphere with total awareness that I am a hypocrite. Despite what I may have said about the whole practice in the past, here I am...going for it. Go ahead, judge me. I dare you.

Henceforth, this will be a dumping ground for my (obviously enthralling) accounts of and thoughts about theatre and performance. Again, I dare you to judge me. I can't think of a better way to spare my friends the pain of listening to me gush about my love of all things dramatic.

And so we begin. Curtain up, light the lights...