Philistines

by Maxim Gorky
in a new version by Andrew Upton

Set a couple of years before the 1905 Revolution in Russia, this is Gorky’s first play. It combines the then radical and audience alienating style of Naturalism with political analysis and examines the relationships between and actions of a family, their friends and lodgers. It’s territory also occupied by Chekov but this is more overtly political in intent. And over all it is both very funny and dramatically intense.

At first the action concerns Tanya and Pyotr children of Vassily and Akulina. The children’s lives are adrift. They don’t know what to do with themselves, their expectations are always disappointed and they are alienated from their parents. The father Vassily is a bully and a bigot (brought to stupendously vituperative life by an outstanding Phil Davis).

Also part of the household is Nil, who is Vassily’s foster son. He – unlike Vassily’s own children – works for a living and is politically radical. He is in love with the servant Polya.

As well as these two, there are the lodgers Teterev a drunken cynic and Elena who is lively and life enhancing. In addition there is Perchikin Polya’s father a good-hearted drifter.

The action seems inconsequential at times – but it illustrates a society that is trapped in decay and in need of change. The means of change are there to be debated. But there is no consensus about the way forward and the forces of reaction (in the shape of Vasilly in particular) lurk to destructive effect.

In the end Vasilly betrays the political radicals – who include members of his own family. He loses both his children and his lodgers; rejected by all. In a sense this prefigures the way in which the old order in Tsarist Russia will be rejected and forever changed by events in the 20th century.

Directed with élan by Howard Davies, Gorky’s once banned play richly deserves this spirited revival.


Lyttelton Theatre

The Hothouse by Harold Pinter

One of Pinter’s lesser-known works The Hothouse was written in 1957 but not staged until 1980. This might suggest that it is a slight piece not deserving of a revival at the National Theatre. However, in this excellent production its great dramatic and comic worth is made clear.

The action takes place during a drab Christmas day in some sort of institution – but it is not clear if the inmates are ill physically or mentally, the unwilling guinea-pigs in some sinister state experiment or the victims of totalitarian oppression.

The narrative concerns the disintegration of Roote (an excellent Stephen Moore) who is in charge of the institution and the power struggle between his deputies. The two deputies look alike and have similar hairstyles and mannerisms – but one (Gibbs) wears a dark suit while the other (the appropriately named Lush) wears grey. Both are foppish and camp, but also threatening and manipulative.

These three men discuss the death of one inmate and the fact that another has given birth, although no one at this stage appears to know who the father is. The confusion is added to by the fact that inmates do not have names but numbers. A depersonalising device certainly but also drawing a parallel with the holocaust.

There is one woman in The Hothouse, which leads to the question - does Pinter really ‘get’ women? They’re always quite strange is his plays – either submissive before the powerful alpha male or tough and harsh towards those lower down the masculine alphabet.

In The Hothouse Miss Cutts – so called perhaps because she does indeed cut to the nub of things - is no exception. Lia Williams gives a fine highly mannered performance as this inconsistent and ultimately unknowable character. She is both the mistress of Roote and appears to sexually available to Gibbs but not to another character revealingly named Lamb. This latter person is new to the institution He has recently been transferred to it and is not sure what his predecessor did or indeed what his own job consists of.

Much of the story is advanced by monologue – describing what has happened, but with characters going off into surreal leaps of logic and comic tension building repetition. However there is also action - the torture of Lamb for instance, which takes place on a raised platform above the stage. This gives the scene an added edge because of the seeming narrowness of the performing space and the fact it is open to a huge drop. We are anxious both for the character and for the performers many feet above the stalls.

In contrast to Pinter’s other early plays, where names give no obvious clue to character, those in The Hothouse have names that echo restoration comedy, signifying character traits. Roote – because he does with Miss Cutts as well – it turns out - as the female inmate who has given birth on Christmas day, Lush because he drinks, Gibbs because his is glib and Lamb because he is: both meek and a lamb to the slaughter.

In the end the patients rebel. Someone has left a door unlocked and all the staff – with the exception of Gibbs – are killed. This uprising is done entirely in sound: the unidentified cries that have been a random part of the production so far reach a crescendo and a band of red light lights bisects the stage to dramatic effect.

In an epilogue Gibbs explains to his government superior that the person responsible for leaving the door unlocked was Lamb – who thus becomes a scapegoat.

This is a well-performed, immensely funny play. It feels simultaneously part of 1957 yet also modern. There are Pinter’s usual themes of power bullying and silence and it is both political and personal. Altogether a very good revival and a welcome opportunity to see one of Pinter’s less well-known works.

Lyttelton Theatre

Sizwe Bansi Is Dead

This play is strongly associated with the South African actors John Kani and Winston Ntshona who devised it along with Athol Fugard. Indeed the original cast recently revived it to great effect at the Lyttelton Theatre on the south bank.

Peter Brook’s new production provides a welcome opportunity to see another version of the play within the space of a few short months. It is performed in French by francophone African actors. Non-French speakers in the audience are aided by surtitles – so it’s no more complex than watching a sub-titled film.

The play is staged simply: what is in the performing area can almost be considered ‘found’ objects. Among other things there are a couple of flats that double as signs for “Styles the Photographers” and are reversed to hang clothes. The lighting is straightforward too. Yet in this simplicity there is great power. The seemingly discarded becomes a significant environment for the characters and thus mirrors their position in an apartheid society.

What this production also does is demonstrate that the play is not just a historical document from apartheid era South Africa but has relevance for the world today. Its critique applies to any society which oppresses its members.

Habib Dembete and Pitcho Womba Konga inhabit their roles completely. Dembete in particular gives a stellar performance as both Styles and Bantu, showing the intelligence and cunning needed to survive within an oppressive regime. In contrast Konga as the eponymous Sizwe Bansi shows the political and social awakening of a naturally good-natured person. He is a stirring giant representing the rising anger of the previously dispossessed; a people who are coming to realise that they have been systematically exploited and undervalued as human beings. It is a disturbing and powerful moment of theatre and confirms this play’s continuing potency.

The Pit Theatre, Barbican

Cymbeline

Cheek By Jowl’s Cymbeline is performed in a transformed Barbican Theatre. It is the second Cymbeline of note this year, following Kneehigh’s imaginative and entertaining re-interpretation of this late Shakespeare play at the Lyric in Hammersmith.

Unlike Kneehigh, Cheek by Jowl perform the traditional text but in what appears to be 1940’s style dress. They don’t skate round the paradoxes and inconsistencies of the work – they drive straight through them. But they do it with such panache and conviction that – while the audience may acknowledge the plot’s weak points – it is totally carried along by the strength of their collective performance and sheer narrative drive of the production.

A master stoke in this interpretation is the doubling up of Postumus and Cloten both portrayed by the excellent Tom Hiddleston. He switches between the characters at the change of a coat and the donning of a pair of glasses. Postmus is portrayed as something of an earnest wimp while Cloten is a prancing fool. The latter’s attempts to serenade Cymbeline’s daughter Imogen in the style of say Robbie Williams is a stand out show stopping moment. Hiddleston gives us an egotistical princeling doing a poor impression of a self-conscious and self-satisfied pop star’s less endearing characteristics. It is a masterpiece of multi-layered irony.

Cymbeline himself is a foolish Prince Charles like figure whose second wife towers over him in fine comic style, clutching his head to her chest as she manipulates and patronises him. In addition Jodi McNee gives a stylish performance as Imogen combining intensity and naiveté in equal measure.

The company’s way of leaving characters on stage in scenes they are not involved in – yet are either being talked about or have an emotional impact on - is both satisfying and helps clarify the convoluted narrative.

The staging is simple and sparse. There are few props but those there are are well used. The giant architectural pillars of the Barbican stage (which are normally hidden from audience view) become an essential part of the set as. palace walls or forest trees.

The cast doesn’t fill the stage in an epic sense yet the space around them gives a sense of an epic tale. The distances that are often between performers not only show the emotional but also the physical distances between the characters.

Theatregoers in London are fortunate to have had not one but two lucid, cogent and entirely convincing production of Shakespeare’s problem play this year. And, what is even more remarkable is their total difference from each other.

Barbican Theatre until 23rd June

Leaves of Glass

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