Tag Archives: Mark Ravenhill

“The Cane” at the Royal Court

Mark Ravenhill’s new play uses education to examine politics between the generations and the sexes. Cultural pressure points, easily recognised, signal an author with his finger on the pulse, while intelligence and care call out hypocrisy on either side of a divide between ages and genders. The simple scenario has a teacher, about to retire, literally under siege by a violent mob of school children who discover that, once upon a time, he executed corporal punishment.

Fairy tales play a part; the language of the play is often comedically plain, reactions to extremes deadpan, and there’s reference to a witch or two. It seems that Edward, a dedicated Deputy Head, and his wife Maureen, are living in a never-never land, full of nonsensical nostalgia that the Daily Mail would be proud to print and everyone else can enjoy mocking. Those millennial snowflakes are a target of course – so far too predictable – with Alun Armstrong and Maggie Stead doing a wonderful job of making outrage believable. Thankfully, Ravenhill knows it’s essential to present another side to the story.

The presence of the couple’s daughter, Anna, estranged as a traitor since she works for an Academy school, shows the play’s strengths. Ravenhill has created a challenging character and Nicola Walker gives a superb performance in the role. She knows what “best practice” consists of,  yet doesn’t believe any of the jargon she is fluent in and her motives prove dark. Anna’s background, her childhood with this odd couple, leads to some extravagances on Ravenhill’s part. Walker juggles the anger her character has inherited with a façade of calm that is captivating.

Vicky Featherstone’s direction suits the play perfectly. But waiting for the headmaster, who has been scared away by scandal, and a trip into the attic, don’t really cut it dramatically. Efforts are made to inject tension, Chloe Lamford’s design tries especially hard, still it’s hard to believe a lot of what little action there is here. Credibility isn’t the point of course, but its lack can prove frustrating; a block to the admirable detail on offer when it comes Edward’s sexism or Anna’s vengefulness. The Cane works better as a set of ideas than it does as a play, but these are clever arguments, well presented and expertly performed.

Until 26 January 2019

www.royalcourttheatre.com

Photo by Johan Persson

“Troilus and Cressida” at the Riverside Studios

The World Shakespeare festival, which this new production of Troilus and Cressida at the Riverside Studio includes, has made audiences more familiar with radical versions of the canon. But this co-production between the RSC and the renowned American company, The Wooster Group, is staged in such a bizarre fashion, the play becomes confusing and alienating. It doesn’t help that the actors interact with videos mounted on big poles as they perform. This gives rise to seemingly erratic movements which have been prompted by the videos. Frankly, makes the whole show downright odd.

Co-directors Elizabeth LeCompte and Mark Ravenhill set Shakespeare’s Trojan war love story in an unspecified location with Native Americans against contemporary British soldiers. Sort of. The Trojans have futuristic costumes (by Folkert De Jong) and the British troops have a tendency to don drag. You certainly won’t be bored, but there is no balance – the play is made into a puzzle. It’s true that Troilus and Cressida is full of contradictions, but this company is obsessed with abandoning any coherence: the ideas and delivery may be eye-catching, but they add little humour or, more importantly, drama.

It is the actors who suffer most by this treatment with their performances reduced to bizarre cameos. Marin Ireland and Scott Shepherd deliver the title roles in a deliberately monotonous, stylised, fashion. Among the Trojans only Greg Mehrten’s Pandarus manages to break this spell by the force of his stage presence. The British contingent do better (maybe their delivery is more familiar), but Aidan Kelly’s WWF-inspired Ajax and Zubin Varla’s Thersites stubbornly reject any subtlety and quickly become annoying. Scott Handy has a better night of it as an asthmatic Ulysses, but his brief appearance as Helen is such bizarre casting, it jars. Most damning of all, Shakespeare’s text is delivered so differently that comprehension suffers. Whatever points that LeCompte and Ravenhill wish to make are unclear. Most of the plot is lost as well.

Until 8 September 2012

www.riversidestudios.co.uk

Photo by Hugo Glendinning

Written 31 August 2012 for The London Magazine

“Nation” at the National Theatre

Terry Pratchett is one of the country’s most popular authors, with as good a claim as any to being a National Treasure.  A great story teller, full of engaging ideas, he is also very funny.  He is a writer often inspired by imagery, who creates bold, vivid pictures for his readers.  In short, a writer who offers great opportunities for a translation to the stage.

So it’s a baffling disappointment that Mark Ravenhill’s theatrical adaptation is so awful – it seems to perversely avoid all those factors which make Pratchett so successful. Ravenhill has reduced Pratchett’s ideas to the level of parody and made them so simplistic they seem pointless. He has taken away any sense of irony which leaves the work painfully unfunny.  Above all the adaptation is confusing.

Director Melly Still does little to clarify and has her cast running around and shouting quite indiscriminately, apparently just to make lots of noise. Caught in the middle of this adaptation and direction, the cast itself struggles to make any kind of mark.  Gary Carr plays Mau, the last of his people, and Emily Taaffe Daphne, a girl shipwrecked on his island.  Although both perform competently and the material is available for complex roles their journey of discovery fails to engage.

The rest of the large ensemble seldom manage to create distinct personas resulting in little dramatic impact. Given this lack of tension, it is no surprise that the production also has little emotional impact.  One scene, strongly reminiscent of Coram Boy, shows a newly born child in danger of starvation.  What could be poignant and challenging is too quickly resolved in a garbled manner involving the ridiculous milking of a wild boar. Both baby and boar are puppets and it is disappointing that after the success of the National Theatre’s War Horse these create such a poor effect.  With no emotional investment in these creations they are simply there for the spectacle.

Spectacle, the production does have in abundance.  Projection combines with ambitious sound and lighting to recreate, amongst other things, a tsunami.  However, simple mistakes have been made by Still, this time working alongside set designer Mark Friend.  Sightlines at the extreme left of the theatre are severely restricted – something very difficult to achieve in a space as well designed as the Olivier.

To save the worst until last, Adrian Sutton’s score is truly awful.  It seems to embody many of the production’s faults.  Adding nothing to the drama or pathos it is confusing and never rises above parody.  As the production draws to a close it slides into extreme sentimentality.

A defence for many of these decisions could be argued by claiming that this adaptation is essentially for children – but children’s theatre can and should challenge its audience.  It is a irony that nowhere knows this better than the National Theatre, given its superb record of previous productions. But like the rest of the audience, children here will learn little about the questions that surround the ideas in Nation.  With so many problems and mistakes, the dominant question becomes what on earth is going on at this Nation’s theatre.

Until 28 March 2010

www.nationaltheatre.org.uk

Photo by Johan Persson

Written 30 November 2009 for The London Magazine