Drama
Get a good sleep before going to see Alice:: you won't want to miss a thing.
This devised piece is based on Lewis Carroll's Alice Through the Looking Glass, and while it isn't entirely true to the novel, the energy of the book shines through in this vibrant adaptation. The actors, as well as director Kieran Pugh, have immersed themselves in Carroll's classic, and the result is one that will blow you away, whether adult or child.
Everything about this production is extreme. The set is perhaps a little too complex: one might ask whether a climbing frame, teardrop mirrors, fairy lights and (possibly) party hats adorning the neighbouring statues is too much to take in along with the beautiful enclosed garden in which the production takes place.
Most members of the company, with the exception of Amy Jackson, who plays Alice, perform as a number of different characters throughout the play. This gives a great sense of cohesion that could so easily have been lost, considering the 'bitty' nature of the novel itself.
The immortal tea party scene has been realised with a truly excellent performance by Iain Drennan as the Mad Hatter, who manages to be both amusing and intimidating. Richard Bradford (the March Hare) successfully pulls off being mad, whilst Peter Munro is absolutely adorable as the timid Dormouse.
Jackson's Alice is astoundingly true to the novel: she is very prim, very innocent and often very confused. Moreover, Jackson does a wonderful job of looking like a seven-year-old, and her body language reminded me more than once of the well-known illustrations that accompany the novels.
The devised elements are equally exceptional, with much emphasis being placed on movement. The most memorable sequence is the use of the Red Queen's (Pia Fitzgerald) control over Alice as she wields a wand, looking scarily like a nineteenth century schoolteacher, and the contrast between this episode and Alice's subsequent matronly care of the tip-toeing White Queen.
I am aware that this review enthuses with unreserved praise. However, all I can say in criticism of Alice is the company appeared to have had almost too much fun devising it.
Sex in marriage is a bit like medicine: three times a day for the first week, then once a day for another week. After that, it's once every three or four days until the condition clears up.
Stoppard's The Real Thing is about marital infidelity and a search for true love amongst a bunch of actors and playwrights, some of them married, others man-eaters. This affords the engaging device of mixing stage kisses with real ones, and puts the characters through a variety of emotional wringers, both on stage, on film set and in the living room.
So, what's it like? As is typical of Stoppard there are plenty of sparks; some of wit, some of intellect, and some of passion. This production starts a pretty convincing blaze that is sure to appeal to the Oxford scene. It doesn't matter how often a couple have sex as long as it's the same number for both of them. Unfortunately, in this case, there are various discrepancies clocking up. Henry is having an affair with Annie, whilst Henry's wife Charlotte baits him over the bits of his personality she is less than keen on. When Henry is later consigned to what he calls "dignified cuckoldry", he's not talking about farming poultry for a living - Annie is a serial philanderer of unimaginable proportions.
The cast, headed up by strong performances from Andrew Mortimer and Sarah Teacher, make a good job of the script, and Olivia Grant's direction anchors the production firmly in the world of 1980s kitsch. Although preserving the flow of the dialogue seems to have been prioritised over bringing out the comedic moments in the play, there are still plenty of jokes revolving around cross-purpose situations, lemon and mayonnaise dips and glasses of Bucks Fizz, as well as some particularly effective physical characterisation from Mortimer.
As the production progresses, we get a sense of impending marital collapse because the couples begin to talk to one another rationally. The breakdown is exquisite. It's a splendidly entertaining night out.
What would the Oxford garden show do without Oscar Wilde? The Univ Players' offering, An Ideal Husband, shows Wilde at his very best. It's a story of blackmail and scandal in the highest echelons of British society, and takes pleasure in highlighting the power which all women exert over their hapless male companions.
This production, directed by Zeynep Kayacan (assisted by Naomi Wilkinson), makes the most of Wilde's play. The entire cast is talented. Period costume and a live string quartet add to the decadent atmosphere, and the set, comprising two separate but connected rooms in Sir Robert Chiltern's house, promises to provide the opportunity for all manner of intrigue.
David Milner as the blustering, cane-wielding old Earl of Caversham is a delight, as is his caddish son, Lord Goring (Jamie Rann). Goring's sweetheart, Miss Mabel (Nanw Rowlands) has a will of steel under her doll-like demeanour. Heather Oliver as Lady Markby, is frankly dotty, and great fun at that.
But not all is light-hearted comedy. The message exists that no one is perfect, however much we may appear so. Sir Robert Chiltern is the most demanding role, since the threat of political ruin forces him to look within himself in a way that other characters do not. James Parker gives Sir Robert this extra dimension.
These performances and the power of the ensemble in this production all add up to stylish entertainment.
The importance of language after suffering was perhaps best expressed by TW Adorno: "To write a poem after Auschwitz is barbaric."
This is the intellectual ground occupied by Yasmina Reza's Conversations After a Burial, set in a bourgeois French home hours after the burial of Simon Weinburg.
Brothers Nathan (Alex Baker) and Alex (Guy Woodward), their sister Edith (Poppy Burton-Morgan), and Aunt Julienne (Tegan Shohet) gather to mourn a patriarch both loved and feared, and to cook a 'pot au feu'. Weinburg's grave in the well-designed set is an omnipresent feature, and in the staging the living are continually forced to confront the dead.
For the director, Andrea Ferran, death is no simple end, but instead sparks a chain of analysis, evaluation and recriminations throughout the family.
Crucially, this passionate drama is constrained by a script fixated on the limits of language - its characters inhabiting that strange, silent space where words seem to have lost their ability to express the enormities of emotional experience.
Sentences trail off; the dialogue is punctuated with pauses and quiet. This is a script in which meaning must be drawn from every smallest nuance and in which even comments on rotten turnips have significance. It is some struggle to make this material moving to an audience. Thankfully, the cast provide some excellent performances; Woodward is particularly convincing, capturing both Alex's violence, and his self-pity.
The dialogue is dull at times, and often pretentious - the scene in which Nathan and Elisa have sex on Weinburg's grave is especially painful. But on the whole, the production is interesting and unaffected.
To produce a play by an author who proclaims human beings "vile" is brave, but hardly makes things easy on the audience. A good effort, but emphatically not Friday night feel-good fare.
13th May 2004