Any Given Day ****

Any Given Day is a bit of an enigma.  Like the jigsaw puzzles that two of its characters enjoy, the play is dependant more on the audience’s ability to put pieces together than it is on passive enjoyment.

Segmented into two parts, the production is an almost naturalistic look at the lives of two parties.  First we see Sadie and Bill, two people with learning difficulties who live in the same flat and completely rely on each other, and their predictable routines, for stability.  The second part follows Dave and his employee Jackie as they discuss life, relationships and the hard road to happiness.

The key to the production is not in enjoying the lives or philosophies of the characters but in seeing how their decisions greatly affect others.  Both parts take place at the same time, and actions that occur in one part have consequences in the other.

Kathryn Howden and Lewis Howden are marvels as Sadie and Bill.  Playing such characters can be a minefield, and they thankfully avoid all of the convenient clichés that most performers fall into while turning in performances that are rich in humanity.  Phil McKee is also quite strong in the role of Dave, persistently pushy for a conversation but always genuine.

However, the emotional crux falls to the character of Jackie, and here the production gets a powerhouse performance from Kate Dickie.  Her portrayal is filled with believable heartbreak and emotional scars, and though we root for her to take a chance on happiness, there is a foreboding that haunts her decisions.  Dickie plays her character brilliantly, resulting in a performance that lingers long after the production ends.

This too is heightened by Dominic Hill’s direction.  His pacing, staging and clever use of the Traverse 2 stage, along with an excellent design concept, allows for the action to feel immediate and convincing.  Its difficult making such a small space feel like a real living room and pub, but the production team completely pulls it off, resulting in a performance that feels real, taut and emotionally raw.

All of this stems from Linda McLean’s script.  McLean takes a few leaps of faith with her characters and plotting, and she is paid back with high dividends.  With dialogue that is snappy yet razor sharp, McLean’s characters sound completely convincing and act in ways that are believable, even inevitable.

The result is a production that might be difficult to watch at times but is still quite emotionally rewarding and intellectually challenging.

Written for Onstage Scotland.

Performing at the Traverse until June 19.

Sweeney Todd ***

If one were to choose a single word to sum up Dundee Rep’s production of Sweeney Todd, it would be ambitious.  Considered by many to be one of the most difficult scripts to produce, its nearly three-hour running time is almost completely sung, contains a plethora a theatrical styles and has a plot filled with such themes as social justice, love, revenge and cannibalism.

15 years after being exiled on a trumped up charge, Benjamin Barker returns to London for answers.  His previous neighbour, the meat pie saleswoman Mrs. Lovett, tells him that his wife has since poisoned herself and that his beloved child is now in the care of the same man who framed him.  Barker takes the alias of Sweeney Todd and returns to his trade as a barber, intent solely on revenge.  However, when the bodies start to pile up, Lovett comes up with a gruesome way of disposing the remains.

The most notable aspect of this production is the work of director James Brining.  With its original staging and interpretation, Brining’s concept is direction at its best and most innovative.  He does not echo either Hal Prince’s highly influential original production or Tim Burton’s recent film version.  He does, however, create a production that is completely breathtaking, filling the stage with brilliant flourishes that are astonishing to watch, from the set made of large shipping cargo containers to the intriguing decision to move the action from the Victorian era and into a non-descript point in the mid-20^th Century.

Sadly, not all is great.  While Brining’s direction is stunning, the performances are, at best, inconsistent.  David Birrell makes for an exceptional Todd, mixing anger and cunning with a wonderful voice, and Richard Conlon is great in the crucial supporting role of Pirelli.  The rest of the performances, however, are fine from an acting point of view but strangely weak in musicality.  Ann Louise Ross acts the role of Lovett well but has noticeable difficulty with the singing, making a few too many mistakes to not be noticed, and Robert Paterson’s Judge Turpin is too hammy to be taken seriously.  Other members of the ensemble fair better but still prove to be a mixed bag, especially when it comes to the music.

With such a brilliant piece of direction, it is a shame that the usually great Dundee acting ensemble aren’t vocally up to the hard challenge of Stephen Sondheim’s music.  The result is an enjoyable production that’s worth catching, even if it isn’t nearly as good as it should have been.

Until June 12^th at Dundee Rep.

Originally written for Onstage Scotland.

Kursk ****

Kursk is an excellent example of immersion theatre.  Its success is built not on fine writing and acting (which it certainly has) but on how the production completely envelops its audience.

The title refers to the name of a Russian submarine that famously sank in 2000.  Political rumblings and fears of discovered military secrets led the Russian government to ignore the offers of help that came from other countries.  Whether or not the sailors died within moments of the sinking or after a period of time is still unknown, but all lives were lost.

The play does not chronicle the events of the doomed voyage but instead focuses on the lives of five men serving on a British submarine tasked with the stealth observation of Russian war games.  In the course of 90 minutes the audience sees how the men live in cramped quarters and rely on each other for basic survival.

Writer Bryony Lavery has written a very solid script.  All five characters are richly drawn and speak dialogue that is convincing, and the story is well-structured with complicated plot twists and some genuine turns of humour.  And all five actors are more than up to the task of bringing Lavery’s words to full life, creating characters that feel three-dimensional and real.

But if anyone is going to remember this, it is going to be for its production values, and for that the directors and creative team need to be fully commended.  Co-directors Mark Espiner and Dan Jones have created an excellent web of theatrics, keeping the dramatic action taut while hitting the audience with an onslaught of technical marvels.  Designer Jon Bausor’s set makes for a convincing sub that much of the audience can stand in, and Hansjorg Schmidt’s lighting design and Dan Jones’ sound effects make the voyage, and the feelings of claustrophobia, almost real.

Kursk might not have the most groundbreaking story, but ‘groundbreaking’ does seem like a fair word to use in describing the production as a whole.  It feels like theatre, art installation and journalism rolled into one, and it is directed in a way that evokes feelings that conventional performance would find almost impossible.

Run at the Tramway ended, but still touring.

Written for The Skinny.

Blue Hen ***

NLP Theatre may be on to something.  A quick glance at their website tells you that they are making ‘theatre for people who don’t do theatre’, and their choices of productions certainly show that.  They have had great success with their production of Singin’ I’m No a Billy He’s a Tim, a play about a Rangers supporter locked up during an Old Firm match with a Celtic fan.  And now there’s Blue Hen.

Written by Des Dillon, it is about two working class schemers in Coatbridge who drink, enjoy a good banter and just about manage to stay out of trouble.  Their latest idea is to in effect go green by growing their own vegetables and raise enough chickens to sell eggs for profit.  As is the case with most ‘get rich’ plans, the idea goes wrong when the coop becomes a nuisance and one of their newly purchased chickens decides to pick the rest off.

With its look at the effects of the economy and harsh life on schemes, there is ample material for a truly great play.  And indeed Blue Hen has some great moments and ideas.  However, Dillon’s script usually opts for funny dialogue and shenanigans over substance, resulting in a play that almost always takes the easy way and frequently feels hollow.

Charles Lawson and Scott Kyle actually work well, both with the material and each other.  It is easy to believe their friendship, and though neither is that sympathetic one still wants to root for both of them.  Each has fun playing bigger-than-life moments and mugging it up a bit for the audience.

It is easy to be overly critical about the Blue Hen.  The script is mostly a missed opportunity, the direction is competent but stale and the design is no better that what one would come to expect from a community theatre production.  However, it has its heart in the right place and wants so badly to please its target audience.  Going by audience reaction, it certainly achieves that desire far more than it doesn’t.  For that, Blue Hen is a palpable success for those looking for an off-colour production set in an environment frequently ignored by the arts.

Originally written for Onstage Scotland.

Touring until June, 2010.  For dates and information, check NLP Theatre’s website.

Peter Pan **

Why do we need another Peter Pan?  After all, Pan productions are an annual constant in the Scottish pantomime season, one of the many film adaptations always graces the TV and character and plot references have permeated our cultural landscape.

And yet, those who know JM Barrie’s original know that his actual vision is rarely fully realised.  Originally meant as an adult’s lament of a lost innocence, the play is much darker in tone and isn’t supposed to have the jokey wordplay and shenanigans that many modern productions feel the need to add.

The National Theatre of Scotland, along with the Barbican in London, have taken a very large gamble with this current production.  Rather than doing a ‘classic’ version, this Pan is brand new.  David Greig has been brought in to rewrite the play with John Tiffany staging.

The great paradox of this production is that, though it is being sold as a new and fresh look at the original source, it actually feels much older.  Resetting the action in Victorian-era Edinburgh might have seemed like a good idea but it does absolutely nothing for the production other than justify Scottish accents and period costumes.  The ambition is there but the execution is sorely lacking and caked in dust.

The biggest drawback is Greig’s script.  Greig peppers the play with new dialogue that feels fresh and is fittingly playful.  However, his attempts at changing the storyline are mostly noncommittal.  Barrie’s Neverland may have been a wondrous place 100 years ago, but it is populated by stereotypes and caricatures.  Rather than running with a brand new concept and original adventures, Greig feels the need to constantly return to the source material, so every time he tries something new he then goes back to Barrie, resulting in a play that wants to be new but ends up feeling like an imposter.  He has made some changes that are mostly successful, which makes his reluctance to make bigger changes all the more frustrating.

Tiffany and his design team don’t fare much better.  Everything in the staging is filled with ideas and concepts that may have seemed right on paper and in the rehearsal room but just don’t really pan out.  As with Greig’s script, the production has flashes of brilliance, mostly when it sails into uncharted waters, but none of it fulfils its promise and peters out.  There are inspired choices, but other foolish decisions more than counter these.

As for describing the cast, the best word would be adequate.  Most of the supporting characters are given little to do and prove all but forgettable once the show is over.  However, Kirsty Mackay’s Wendy is actually quite good, a stronger portrayal than usually given, and Kevin Guthrie’s Pan is equally good.  Pan is usually played by a female or a young man who can pass as a boy.  Guthrie’s Pan is a much more rugged persona, one that looks like he might actually kill an enemy.  Cal MacAninch’s Hook has some good moments but is let down by Greig’s indecision.  It’s a shame, because every time he does something unexpected the play actually feels more involved, and in those rare moments Hook is something that he hardly ever is: scary.

There is nothing overtly wrong with this Peter Pan, but there is nothing majorly right about it either.  It has some great ideas that bare bitter fruit, resulting in a production that wants to be a much more mature production than it is.  Ironic for a play about a boy refusing to grow up.

Originally written for Onstage Scotland.

Touring Britain until June 2010.  Check NTS website for details.

Les Miserables-25th Anniversary tour ****

The most important thing one must know about the tour of Les Miserables currently playing Britain is that it is NOT the famed West End/Broadway production from the 1980s.  It has a completely new production team that have changed much of the musical, sometimes quite significantly.  Gone are the famous turntable stage effects, the constant shades of gray and mass stylised use of the acting company; in are larger set pieces, projections and lots of pretty colours.

While this is fine, calling this the “25^th Anniversary” tour is cheating.  It’s like celebrating someone’s birthday by giving presents and cake to an entirely different person.

However, this production proves that those who thought that the original worked only because of director Trevor Nunn’s clever staging were mistaken.  Les Miserables (or Les Mis, as it has been affectionately called by many) has entered into the public consciousness, and many of its songs are well known, even by those who have never seen a production of it.  If anything, this tour is instead a celebration of producer Cameron Mackintosh’s 25 years of mass global success with the musical.

Based on the very influential (and very long) novel by Victor Hugo, Les Miserables follows the life of Jean Valjean, a man who breaks his parole after serving 19 years for the crime of stealing a loaf of bread.  He attempts to live a good and honest life while using false identities but is constantly thwarted by Inspector Javert, a police officer obsessed with bring Valjean back to justice.  Many other characters filter in and out, but the question of justice and redemption is always looked at, mostly by watching good people suffer cruelly. 

Critics and fans have argued over this musical for some time.  In truth, both are right in their views.  Much of the story is hard to follow without supporting knowledge or background, and Hugo’s epic look at a period of French history is shoehorned into slight spurts of exposition that are easily missed.  And yet, there are roughly a dozen songs that are simply fantastic, and when performed well they make for electric, even unforgettable, theatre, resulting in a musical that might be lacking as a whole but is brilliant in its parts.

The current tour certainly has many merits.  The use of Hugo’s artwork is a nice touch and adds much needed colour and atmosphere, especially to ensemble scenes, and the re-interpretation of some key moments are quite effective, especially the song Empty Chairs at Empty Tables and the famed suicide of a key character.  However, other parts have suffered, especially the staging of the important barricade that makes up a large chunk of the second half, and the absence of the turntable means that many of the iconic moments of the original cannot be replicated.

This version of Les Miserables is a worthy production.  It is well directed, designed and has many good performances.  Fans might be disappointed in not seeing the original but should relish this fresh interpretation, but naysayers will not find any more reason to change their minds.  However, as it is one of musical theatre’s great juggernauts, lovers of musicals who haven’t yet had the pleasure might as well see what the fuss is about.

Originally written for The Skinny.

Playing at the Edinburgh Playhouse until May 15, 2010.

The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? ****

There is no polite way to put this.  The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?, is about a happily married man who has entered into an adulterous affair with a farm goat.  Written by the great Edward Albee, it is an interesting mixture of naturalistic and absurdist drama that relishes in making its audience squirm with laughter and shock.

Finding ways of making a drama teeter between revulsion and hilarity, director Dominic Hill’s production is consistently sharp.  There are many styles of theatrics on the Traverse 1 stage, and part of the joy is seeing what is going to get thrown at the audience next.  Jonathan Fensom’s set is more complicated and functional than it first appears, and Katharine Williams’ lighting is subtle but nice.  Together, a realistic portrait of a nuclear family’s home is painted, making the run of events all the more fantastic yet disturbing.

As for the acting, it is consistently top-notch.  Kyle McPhail has some nice moments as teenager Billy and Paul Birchard is fun as Ross, the voice of reason.  However, it is Sian Thomas as wife Stevie and John Ramm as husband Martin who drive the play.  Ramm’s character is actually much more sympathetic than one would assume, a towering success in life who does the best he can to intellectualise his dilemma, and Thomas literally takes control of the stage whenever a new piece of her husband’s affair is revealed.  Together, the two create a stunning portrait of a once-happy marriage spiralling into oblivion.  It is a portrait that is both hilarious and disturbing.

Yet the real star is Albee.  Famous for making plays that combine reality, symbolism and the unconventional, Albee has written a script that works on many levels, questioning fidelity, acceptance and happiness.  No matter how absurd the situation becomes, the dialogue is always believable, and though the characters might make some questionable choices, it is easy to believe that they would do as such.

The Goat is an odd play, much funnier than one would assume and yet more poignant than it should be.  It does make for occasionally uncomfortable theatre, but isn’t that a good thing?

At the Traverse until May 8, 2010.

The Cherry Orchard *****

The Cherry Orchard is one of the most important plays of the modern era.  It isn’t only its rich characters and multi-layered plot that is of note; it also marked an historic moment when a director’s concept conflicted with a playwright’s intentions.

The story follows the financial downfall of an aristocratic family who have the habit of spending more money than they possess.  Their cherished country home, complete with a large cherry orchard, is about to be auctioned to pay off bad debts.  A local business man with ties to the family offers a way out.  The price, however, would be the loss of the loved orchard.

Anton Chekhov wrote the play as a comedy, even filling moments with high humour and speckles of farce.  Stanislavski, the inaugural production’s director, saw it as a tragedy.  Henceforth, many productions of The Cherry Orchard have suffered an identity crisis, teetering between Chekhov’s humour and Stanislavsky’s darker vision.

The Lyceum’s current production suffers no such conflict.  Writer John Byrne and director Tony Cownie clearly side with Chekhov and have created a comedy filled mostly with slapstick and shenanigans but also with the occasional snap of a harsh reality.

The production is billed as a ‘new version’, but in truth it’s more like the old version with a fresh lick of paint.  Byrne has relocated the play to the Highlands on the eve of Margaret Thatcher’s rise to power and has changed the names of characters and added British references, but the events and character reactions are the same.

What is impressive is how well the decision to relocate to Scotland works.  This Cherry Orchard almost feels like a companion piece to The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black, Black Oil, with its look at class, economic turmoil and exploitation of the Highlands.  This isn’t a production that feels like a museum piece, it is a vibrant play that is modern and relevant.

The greatest joy, however, comes from the work of the ensemble.  Every character is not only richly drawn but fully played, and there isn’t one performance that doesn’t feel three-dimensional.  From Maureen Beattie’s kind but flawed matriarch and Andy Clark’s ladder-climbing tycoon to Ralph Riach’s heartbreaking servant and Grant O’Rourke’s grace-challenged clerk, every actor has at least one moment where they shine.  It is a pleasure to see such a large cast that contains equal weight, and every performance proves to be memorable.

It’s hard to find fault with this stellar production.  From an excellent design concept, sharp direction, clever updating of a well-regarded script and a brilliant ensemble performance, The Cherry Orchard is a truly great production that is the best work from the Lyceum in some time.

Originally written for Onstage Scotland.

Playing at the Lyceum in Edinburgh until May 8, 2010.

Mish Gorecki Goes Missing ****

Mish Gorecki Goes Missing is a pleasant little play that is geared towards children older than seven but actually plays well to any age bracket.

Young Mish is an aspiring ballerina, and through hard work and dedication she finds herself chosen to go on a trip to Russia.  All she needs is her mother’s signature on a permission slip and a pair of specialty shoes that can only be purchased at one shop.  The problem is that Mish’s family are in the middle of a crisis and her pleas for attention go unnoticed.

That’s the first thing of note about Skye Loneragan’s play: what could have been a heavy-handed message play is actually delivered with light touches and genuine humour.  Put in the hands of many dramatists and the story would have been dark, even vicious.  Most would also focus more on the negative power of neglect and the burden of being a ‘rock’ for a troubled parent.  That the play does cover these topics but chooses to neither dwell on nor overplay these themes is quite commendable.  Instead, Mish is a hero, a young child who has big dreams and is constantly resourceful.

Director Leann O’Kasi’s production is full of ideas and creativity.  She uses the Tron’s Changing House space well and has many theatrical flourishes that are not only fun to watch but are at times rather impressive.  Kirstin McLean makes for a believable child.  She doesn’t attempt to play the character’s young age but instead focuses on her persona, and it works well.  Angela Darcy and Robbie Jack have the difficult task of playing multiple roles, and their performances and ability to quick-change make for some of the production’s best moments.

Poignant without being patronising, serious without being condescending and consistently funny and playful, Mish Gorecki Goes Missing is an utterly delightful production that will entertain its young target audience while charming the adults.

Originally written for Onstage Scotland.

Playing at The Tron until April 25.

The Force Behind Playwrights Studio

‘Playwrights Studio is here to help playwrights complete their work but also to help theatre organisations get the best plays possible onstage so that the theatre experience of people in Scotland is better.’  So says creative director, Julie Ellen.

The story behind the Playwrights Studio begins with the highly regarded Tom McGrath.  ‘Tom was someone who made things happen,’ says Ellen.  ‘He had the idea of a place where writers could come and hang out and get support without a producing context.’  After receiving much support through committees and the Scottish Arts Council, the project finally got a green light, but only after McGrath had suffered a stroke.  Looking for a new leader, a steering company chose Ellen.  ‘It was curious.  They appointed me to a job that didn’t exist, and I didn’t realise this until I was sitting up in bed on the first day and thinking “Hum, Playwrights Studio.  What do I need?  Oh yes, register a company, open a bank account, find an office.  Oh, this is actually very complicated.”  But it was really good fun.’

Ellen herself had a great deal of experience.  Having started out as an actor, she turned to arts management administration while trying to create work for herself in London.  She took a post grad course and worked with a number of schools and companies before returning to Scotland to work as a producer for Suspect Culture.  ‘The first six months [of the Studio] were definitely about setting up an organisation, which is a particular job in itself.  I guess that’s how come they got a producer and not a playwright to start it off.’  That was back in 2004, and since then the organisation has not only grown but has become a well-regarded component within the arts community.

However, Ellen has seen a growing trend within theatres.  ‘There’s been a reduction in the amount of new plays produced because there’s been a reduction in the amount of producing companies.’  The loss of such notable organisations like 7:84 and Borderline, companies that used new scripts, has had a noticeable knock-on effect.  Financial constraints are also a major problem.  But Ellen is also quick to point out other companies that still use new work, including the Traverse, A Play, A Pie and a Pint and the National Theatre of Scotland.

When asked if Ellen thinks there’s a bit of competition between these theatres and the Playwrights Studio, she is quite adamant.  ‘We are not in competition because we do not produce.  That’s the bedrock principal of the organisation: we will not produce.  And that gives a different engagement with the playwrights and myself and the rest of the Studio’s team because, if you’re a playwright, you want your plays ON!  If you are in a situation and you are sitting before a person who can put your play on, that’s a different engagement than the one with me where we can talk about the writing and the piece and we can start to free up the thinking from that.  We have this fantastic artistic independence.’

In speaking about new written work, Ellen poses a good question.  ‘What is a script, and what is a play?’  Pointing to the rise in creative marketing, story-based video games and new uses of multi-media, Ellen adds that it is important for any idea to have ‘an imaginative idea that captures people. You get scripts in all sorts of contexts.  But what is a play?  I want it in the present with dramatic conflict.  I’m old-fashioned in my take on a play.  All I know is that, when I’m sitting in the audience, it has to feel immediate, and it has to have a sense of place and time in the writing.  Something that is properly structured so that you’re taking me on a journey somewhere.’

In finding ways of helping artists create such a journey, the Studio has not only worked with emerging writers but has also assisted well-established writers and other practitioners in ways of improving their scripts.  They give them the ability to stand back and actually look at and analyse their text and find better ways of getting an impact out of their actual words.  In speaking about the many devising companies working in Scotland, Ellen says ‘We have lots of great creationist theatre makers in Scotland that are making fantastic work but always, just that feeling, that the script was just a little bit too thin.’

Ellen has seen firsthand the trials of writing for the stage.  ‘One of the hardest things for an emerging playwright is to have written three plays that you’re satisfied with and there is no glimmer of interesting from anyone.  You have to keep writing.  If you invest too much in your plays getting produced, you can get tied in a big knot and lose the will to write drama.’

Not only have many writers lost the will, but many who have managed to get their foot in a door with a theatre company have done so not to have their play produced but to have them commissioned to write a fresh new play.  As Ellen says, many theatre producers don’t want a writer’s new play but want ‘a writer’s new NEW play.’

And in her six years at the Playwrights Studio, what has she learned about the writing process?  ‘Just how painful of a process it really is.  What a lonely, agonising place being the writer can be.  And I re-learn that all the time.  And what a delicate process it is, and how you have to flirt on the edge of madness to allow an imagined world to completely occupy your head in order to be able to then shape that into a really strong piece of dramatic writing.  And I have such admiration, such respect.  And it’s good that I keep re-learning it, because I forget just what a challenge it is to do that and how difficult it is to be a good writer.  It must be so frustrating.’

But then she adds with equal determination.  ‘We don’t know who or where the next playwright is, but we do know we want to make it easy for them if they come in.’

Written for The Skinny’s Venue of the Month feature for April.