Drama
Get your thermals out; the garden show season is upon us. Queen's is the first college this year to brave the May weather with this Coward comedy; assuming that the minds of their audience will be numbed by the cold, summer show directors tend to choose plays from a suitably unchallenging repertoire, and 'Hayfever' is perfect fodder. Mildly amusing and unpretentious, it centres on the bohemian Bliss family and their invitation of guests to stay for the weekend; the determination of each family member to ignore everyone except their own guest creates scenarios that have the guests running away at the first opportunity.
Joe Winters directs the play in the only way you can direct a Coward comedy, as it comes on the page. All the usual elements are there, especially the copious cigarette waving and the very rounded vowels. That said, Winters does create a wonderfully tense atmosphere and allows the awkward silences to linger. He has a strong cast who all fit their (rather stereotyped) characters very well. Sarantha Rajeswaran, with her silky voice, is a good choice for Judith. Benjamin Evans says little as her novelist husband but when he does speak he is delightfully bumbling and irrelevant.
This production does not belong in the higher echelons of University drama. The play itself is trite and the direction and acting, although good, is not particularly stimulating. However, Oxford summer shows are pitched at tourists, parents and friends rather than hardened BT audiences. The standard of them is not very important, though; what matters is the beauty of the sunny garden and the accompanying glass of wine.
Who doesn't consider the questions about love versus hate; men versus women? Who will ever solve the eternal conflicts of art and science? You can try to find answers in this one and a half hour-long comedy.
This play is set in Paris in the Lapin Agile bar (efficiently designed by Alexa-Maria Rathbone, with Helen Bowman's costumes worth mentioning as well) at the beginning of the 20th century. As we know, Picasso and Einstein never met in real life, but in this comedy of anachronism this mistake is put right. Both geniuses are in search of something - Picasso is indulged in his 'blue' period (up every skirt he can find) and Einstein has yet to publish the Theory of Relativity.
An interesting turn comes when a mysterious visitor completes the triumvirate of self-satisfied geniuses. You can laugh at the remarks of Gaston (with his smart French accent) or at the ambiguity of the serving couple in the bar. You will hear a whirl of various accents, underlining the wit. Director Sam Brown says he chose his crew for their enthusiasm and ability to smile under pressure, which is of great importance.
Steve Martin's method of writing such a brilliant comedy is "[I] just kept typing and never stopped". New York Magazine deemed it his "poker-faced - and very funny - riff on the birth of the modern age". So go and see for yourself. Maybe you will learn something, maybe not, but you can be sure about one thing - having a great time.
Two old men sit on a park bench and discuss ducks. 'Duck Variations' may not sound promising, but, in company with 'Sexual Perversion In Chicago', it first gained David Mamet his notoriety for moving use of sparse, clipped dialogue. We first meet Emil (Daniel Harkin) and George (Robert Wells) sitting on a park bench by a lake on the American East Coast, and there they stay, the variations consisting of fourteen snippets of their conversation, centred around the ducks before them.
The scenario is never elaborated; there is no timescale, and we do not know what the relationship between the characters is or what to expect of them. Director Jak MacInnes has highlighted this with minimal scenery and almost Brechtian scene-changes, with the actors coming out of character on stage between variations. The dialogue is complex, and uses the ramblings of the old men as a vehicle for deeper consideration of their concerns - death, the balance of nature, and human relationships. MacInnes has succeeded in bringing out the humour without losing sight of the more serious aspects, providing his audience with a thought-provoking piece perfectly-suited to the intimate atmosphere of the BT. The dialogue - a poetic impression of streetwise jargon which has been likened to Beckett - is dealt with excellently, handling the complex changes from dialogue to near-monologue with ease.
Although students might not normally identify with elderly people from the '70s, this sensitive interpretation highlights the play's universal relevance, making it a must-see for anyone who doesn't understand the point of bird-watching.
'Theatre of Catastrophe' is, according to director Dunlaith Bird, a "violent shattering of classifications and preconceptions". Backed with an almost frightening directorial belief, it is clear that this version of 'Scenes Of Execution' aches for that violence. The notion of Catastrophic Theatre, as opposed to uplifting 'humanist drama', flatters Howard Barker's story of Art versus State in 17th century Venice. Dilettante middle-aged artist, Galactia, is commissioned to paint a hundred-foot mural of the Venetian victory over the Turks in the recent Battle of Lepanto, but finds herself painting not the glory, but the horror. Naturally the State finds her vision unacceptable, awakening conflicts between the artist and her responsibilities. The ambiguity of roles; the uncertainty of who is right; this is what makes Catastrophe.
'Scenes of Venice' is not catastrophic theatre. Instead, it is slick, funny, elegantly structured, sometimes powerful - really, too completely entertaining. The bluntness is in the writing, often actually undermining the more subtle abilities of the cast.
There is an especially sweet performance from Tom Wilkinson as the cow-eyed lover, Carpeta, and a reflexive irony from all involved throughout the performance. Sam Berkson's Prodo, 'the Man with a Crossbow Bolt in his Head' (you had to be there...), pulls it off best. However, you cannot deny odd moments of transcendence, embodying more the 'humanistic' catharsis of theatre than any kind of vision of catastrophe. The emotion and purity come from the visuality, the musical movement on stage, and the proxemics of the actors, especially Alice Eve's Galactia. Her arms mirrored a drop of the voice; she seemed at one point to act the dying cast of a Turk in her own frame. The meaningful moments, in the preview at least, were tender and poignant, not disturbing, and like the whole play, failed only in their own eyes.
No-one expected them to be painful, alienating, frightening, not when this works so well by being itself. Leave the existentialist knife to other writers and other audiences. This is a play about more.
9th May 2002