Pygmalion – Old Vic

When Henry Higgins picks up flower girl Eliza under the grand columns of the opera house in Covent Garden so begins a story about class, female independence and forms of social engineering in which the link between various forms of betterment and happiness are explored from several angles. Higgins becomes a controversial teacher-oppressor, both creating the opportunities for Eliza’s development that opens up a more refined life but he is also the man who essentially builds a cage around her, a polished prisoner of the Frankenstein creation she becomes. Alas, the Old Vic’s much vaunted new production of Pygmalion could use a Higgins-figure to apply a little polish to its madcap comic-book interpretation that races through the story in under two hours but loses character insight and atmosphere along the way.

Richard Jones’s production has so much potential; the pairing of Patsy Ferran, straight from her success in A Streetcar Named Desire, and Bertie Carvel who has cornered the market in chameleonic character roles over several years. Pre-publicity talks about a radical new take on George Bernard Shaw’s drama and designer Stewart Laing has created a hybrid contemporary-early twentieth-century visual design that wraps in a Scandinavian simplicity along with the excesses of cartoon cinematography. But with more than a week until it’s official press night, Jones’s production needs to find a slightly calmer state in delivery to earn its more introspective resolution.

There are lots of layers to Pygmalion and quite a lot going on in Jones’s approach which takes some shears to the play to deliver it in under two hours without an interval (a decision the theatre is still toying with) while nonetheless borrowing some additional material from the musical My Fair Lady to cover the more elaborate scene changes. The architecture of Bernard Shaw’s work is there and much of the very familiar dialogue, but while the original play allows the teaching of Eliza to occur off-stage, Jones brings in a handful of sequences from the film for a fast-paced montage, accelerating her phonetic and elocution lessons that move quickly to Eliza’s more refined accent. The tone is light with often exaggerated characterisation that tips Higgins into comic strip villain territory, supported by Adam Silverman’s large semi-circular spot lighting and Will Stuart’s music that create a comic strip broadness.

Jones’s production divides itself into two halves; the first an unsatisfactory and high-paced farce that prioritises physicality over an intellectual engagement with the play’s core themes in Acts One and Two when Higgins first encounters Eliza in Covent Garden and she subsequently arrives at his home to pay for lessons. Both are directed at a particularly high pitch, as physical knock-about comedy that gives the actors free-reign to overplay their roles, avoiding the naturalism that sits beneath Bernard Shaw’s play and exploring the parameters of bodily and verbal comedy in a cartoon-like heightened world. Eliza’s famously guttural sounds and hysterical reactions to Higgins’s conversation are the centerpiece of this production’s light-hearted humour, played against a version of the Professor that turns him into a tweedy busybody with ideas about theories of social improvement without caring much for the human and individual consequences.

It is, however, an overwhelming start to the play, one that seeks to emphasise the extremes of character both in Eliza and Higgins that leaves little room for their characters to breath or to fully introduce themselves to the audience, predicated on a great deal of screeching and rotation around the stage. The shrill and uncouth presentation of Eliza is particularly judgmental of working class women – perhaps more so than Bernard Shaw intended – and shows her largely through the eyes of Higgins and the upper-middle class group sheltering from the rain, making her look ridiculous. That may have been a useful angle from which to position the play but it is not a thread that Jones develops particularly successfully in the rest of the show. So, although Higgins’s unchanging and challenging view of Eliza is essential to the plot, her growing stature later flips the play, taking the audience far deeper into her own perspective, balancing out Higgins’s misreading of her character.

What Acts One and Two need are a glimmer of that possibility, of the attentive, intelligent and brave woman that Eliza already is. She raves and overreacts certainly but she is also smart enough to recognise an opportunity to change her life, to determine her own direction of metamorphosis in these early scenes. By stripping her of humanity, looking at her through this extreme and judgmental lens, this is at odds with the philosophical discussion of Eliza’s relative freedom and value as a human being that takes place later in the play. Higgins may not spot her potential but the audience must, and while these scenes have a broad humour, their energy is currently too high, not providing that crucial opportunity to establish the momentum the production needs to support those undercurrents of class destiny and the ethical complexities of shaping another’s life in your image.

As written, Acts Three-Five have a more solemn purpose, exploring the process and consequences of Higgins’s work, and looking more closely at the emotional and philosophical subtext in Bernard Shaw’s play as the effect of Eliza’s transformation takes place. Unlike the musical, the play doesn’t normally include the instructive lessons, although Jones has inserted several of these largely to hide some major set piece changes behind the curtain. And overall, this part of the production is more successful, retaining the light pace and comic book caper tone but giving Eliza more space to grow into an independent character. The scene in which she is introduced to Mrs Higgins and the Eynsford-Hill family at a disastrous tea entirely gives her the floor while her evident silence at the Ambassador’s Ball feels marked, choreographing her movement around the stage, allowing others to talk about her while she maintains a dignified but also an imperiled silence that makes sense of the confrontations to come.

The tone starts to shift from the comic strip comedy towards a better understanding of the play’s central debates in the longer and more discursive final scenes, and while there is much sharpening-up still required, the real meat of the play is here as Eliza is able to articulate and enunciate the demands of her interior life as well as the consequences of making her into a ‘lady.’ Higgins is given a kind of lab in which to work, presented as a scientist conducting a time and conditions-bound experiment, but Jones’s production could do much more to explore the ethics of his approach and behaviours to his subject. And although the original setting is more or less retained, a twenty-first-century production could be expected to think more carefully about the different interpretations of the central relationship – be it older man and young woman, teacher and pupil, scientist and subject – and reflect on the coercive position in which Eliza has been placed and what that means for her freedom to act, her developing sense of self and the opportunities she is presented with or creates for herself. Even within the humorous style of this Old Vic production, it should nonetheless actively engage with the sexual politics of the play to create the character depth it needs and bolster the audience engagement with these issues that demand attention in the closing section of Pygmalion.

Stewart Laing’s design is far more representative than the actors’ interpretations, encasing the stage in contemporary wooden paneling and using the same material to suggest the ‘noble architecture’ that Eliza’s vocabulary disgraces. And the stage is divided into different zones, large-scale events taking place on the full stage including Higgins’s work room, Mrs Higgins’s drawing room and the ball, while transitory scenes and ‘filler’ take place towards the front of the stage screen. The division becomes a little rotational and functional, noticeably passing time until bigger pieces of set have moved into place and providing opportunities for the actors to play to the audience, including an overlong sequence of Higgins verbalising funny vowel sounds while his laboratory is prepared. Laing’s staging and Jones’s direction are not always in harmony and the production has yet to decide how representational it wants to be, blending the dry set choice with full costume and even fuller performances.

As a result, these scenes often lack atmosphere, uncertain about the grandness or even the era that they represent. Pre-press has suggested the production is staged in the mid-1930s but that is not consistently realised through staging, costume or the play’s underpinning morality; there are elements of contemporary design particularly in Eliza’s original outfit while the Edwardian era is retained in the exchange of money between Higgins and Eliza’s father Alfred as well as its gendered relationships (which shifted considerably in the inter-war years), preferring to follow Bernard Shaw’s template to retain the comedy excesses of the Professor’s disdain. The revised period setting ultimately adds relatively little to the reworked story and there is scant appreciation for 1930s decor or dress in any of the staging decisions.

Fresh from a triumphant run of drama’s great heroines, Patsy Ferran could make much more of Eliza Doolittle than is currently on view. She was magnificent as Blanche Dubois from early preview with limited rehearsal when still partly on book, so there’s every reason to expect this central performance to grow across the remainder of the run. That focus should be on the early segments of the production, the exuberant, frenzied Eliza who rants and wails with relatively little provocation, and Ferran could bring the scale of this down a little to create more depth and nuance to pre-transformation Eliza, giving the character something to grow from. Yet from her arrival at the disastrous tea party – which is very well played – Ferran is her consummate best, putting her own stamp on a character that speaks those overly familiar lines, balancing well between the exaggerated diction and the growing interior life as self-reflection, shame and a capacity for pain are the double-edged consequences of her improved diction. The capacity is certainly there to become the best thing in this uneven production.

Bertie Carvel takes a different line completely, turning Higgins into a cartoonish villain with heightened accent and a number of squirmy physical quirks. Eager to separate this interpretation from smoother and more authoritarian performances, Carvel’s Higgins is nerdier and more two-dimensional, finding very little to trouble his calm perception or aid his self-realisation along the way. It is perhaps a deliberate choice, one that seeks to address the toxicity inherent in Higgins’s brand of masculinity but it does of course make him an entirely comic creation, provoking laughter from his barbed comments and lack of empathy. Without embarking on any kind of trajectory across the play, he is merely a gargoyle with little to redeem him, making it far harder to believe that Eliza could ever be tempted to spend another moment in his company.

There is good support from Michael Gould as Colonel Pickering who lacks dialogue if not stage time and Sylvestra Le Touzel as a firm Mrs Higgins with little affection for her son. And we long to see more of them both interacting with Eliza in quite different ways to contrast Higgins’s belief that Duchesses and flower girls deserve the same dismissive treatment. Jones goes for speed and comedy over character depth, using a number of fun spotlighting devices and performance decisions as though this were a graphic novel come to life. A calmer start might smooth the way for this Pygmalion as it finds its feet in the week ahead of press night so that its important discussions about female agency, class and the right to determine who you are, are not lost in the farce.

Pygmalion is at the Old Vic Theatre until £28 October with tickets from £20. Follow this site on Twitter @culturalcap1 or Facebook Cultural Capital Theatre Blog

A Streetcar Named Desire – Almeida Theatre

It has been fascinating watching Rebecca Frecknall’s development as a director, from making her mark with a defining production of Summer and Smoke four years ago to the multi-Olivier award winning Cabaret still running in the West End more than twelve months on from its astonishing debut. Now, she tackles one of the greatest plays of all time, Tennessee Williams’s A Streetcar Named Desire back in the intimacy of the Almeida Theatre and brings a devastating new clarity to it, eschewing the distraction of a heavy set and the cliches that tend to dog interpretations of Williams, from the exaggerated Southern accents to Blanche’s affected gentility. Instead, Frecknall restores emotional credibility to her protagonist by putting the relationship between two sisters at the heart of this production and using it to examine the wreckage that love and desire can leave behind for those too fragile to endure it.

A Streetcar Named Desire arrives with considerable regularity and it tends to be a favourite among professional and amateur companies. The last major London version was, however, eight years ago when Gillian Anderson took the leading role in Benedict Andrews’s 2014 version at the Young Vic, a contemporary staging on a streetcar-shaped revolving stage that was notably re-released via National Theatre at home. And with many star version before it including Rachel Weisz at the Donmar, the twenty-first century has not been short of Williams’s greatest play. But Frecknall offers a new dimension to this latest one, a simple but compelling truth that casts every scene anew and brings a fresh perspective to well-worn notions of what this play and its characters ought to be.

It is staged with Frecknall’s trademark simplicity, a bare stage no larger than the performance space for Cabaret with seating in the round. The significance of the slightly angled platform and clear wooden boards is stark, a blank canvas onto which the creators and indeed Blanche can project her skewed fantasies, a fresh start where anything is possible. The momentary resemblance to a ropeless bare knuckle boxing ring only adds to the anticipatory atmosphere as characters and occasional props appear. Frecknall never wants to get in the way of the text and so items are moved into the playing space only as they are needed by the actors, and delivered by those not in the scene. It is deftly done, a chair appearing a few moments before it is used, a telephone as required by the script, Blanche’s pre-packed suitcase ready to take her onto the next dream, all of it removed as seamlessly as it arrived.

Frecknell never hides these intrusions into the illusion of the play, effortlessly merging this vaguely Brechtian device with the naturalism that Williams demands and they never interrupt the flow of the scene. Instead, it draws attention to the prop and rather than cluttering the stage, they hint at place and at the claustrophobia of Stella and Stanley’s two-room apartment while leaving the characters with nothing to hide behind, no elaborate set to absorb or distract from their inevitable destruction as the audience observes their emotional unraveling from every angle.

The director uses music and lighting in lieu of unnecessary set to chart the beats of this play and its turning points. And it has a painterly quality, utilising cues from the scrip such as Blanche’s preference for dimly-lit spaces to preserve her modesty and the illusion of youth. So lighting designer Lee Curran (who also lit Summer and Smoke so evocatively) creates interesting patterns within the show that map the tone and changing mood of the story, opening with a warn and rich New Orleans afternoon sun casting its optimistic pinkish rays across the housing complex and instantly generating the uncomfortable heat that pervades the atmosphere that Williams infers. It is sultry and sweaty so Curran projects light from the side to suggest a sun beginning to set as shadows encroach – a pointed psychological moment in which the escaping Blanche seeks a hopeful welcome with her past and personality edging slowly into the frame, a place where she will only run into herself once more.

Later, inside the Kowalski’s home, the brightness is muted by the Chinese shade that Blanche insists should cover the single lightbulb hanging in the air and bringing a calm semi-romance as Blanche refuses to engage with the reality of her sister’s life and Stella’s more vivid internal and physical experience. Curran then introduces drama within the lighting scheme that responds to these contrasting emotional states and power shifts. The costume colour palette of red, salmon, yellow and mustard stand stark and vibrant in moments of confrontation. And the production looks beautiful as a result with several shots, particularly in the second part, creating some incredible stage pictures.

On Blanche’s birthday, for example, Frecknall creates a pointed moment in which the sisters sit at the front of the stage with a perfect looking blue and white-iced cake while far back Stanley looms between them, the pinkish tone of his t-shirt matching his wife’s pleated skirt, a nod both to the sibling focus of this interpretation as well as the interplay of hyper-masculinity and hyper-femininity that suffuse this production through costume (by Merle Hensel) and characterisation. Further into the production, those two ideas contend again as Blanche in a stunning but flouncy yellow number with layers of skirt is starkly presented against Stanley’s blood-red silk pyjamas in a moment that seems frozen in time and lit dramatically by Curran.

Hensel’s costume design, though contemporary, is extremely evocative both in style and shade, and considerable thought has gone into the contrast between Blanche and everyone else; she also picks pleats along with gauzy material, sheer fabrics, romantic floral designs and shoulder ruffles which speak to a grander approach to dress and a degree of polish that distinguish her particularly from Stella whose more casual manner is reflected in more practical shape and fabric choices. Character and themes are incorporated into every production choice and the overall vision is an artistic one.

Frecknall’s non-musical productions are really defined by their composition and its becomes a sparingly employed theatrical device to denote the emotional beat of the play. The use of piano and metronome were essential to the slow-burn intensity of Summer and Smoke, while this Streetcar applies drums and percussion to similar effect, underscoring but never distracting from Williams’s text which remains the absolute centre of this production. Often there is no musical accompaniment beyond those proscribed by the author; the radio that Blanche uses to irritate Stanley’s poker game or the romantic band sound she hears as a faded echo of memory when remembering her last night with her husband. Where Frecknall and composer Angus Macrae insert additional music it is in places where a change is occurring in the scene, beating out a suddenly acknowledged tension in which characters are learning something new about themselves and times when their relationships are in flux from which, as the culminating drums and cymbals indicate, they will emerge with an entirely new perspective on one another.

While most productions tend to build themselves around the sparky confrontation of Stanley and Blanche, more than any version of this play in recent years, this Streetcar foregrounds the connection between the sisters, initially contrasting their approaches and responses to the New Orleans scenario as well as their shared past at a beloved childhood home. At different points in the play the two women are shown to be more realistic or pragmatic than their sibling and while it is Blanche who tends to be the dreamer, hiding behind illusions about herself, its so interesting to see Stella being drawn from the shadows of Williams’s play and given almost as much time in the spotlight in a story that fundamentally shifts the nature of her marriage and her future beyond the action we observe.

At the start we see a powerful version of Stella, comfortable in her womanhood, sexually fulfilled by a man who she desires and quite happy to have rejected the gentility of her childhood for the modest life with Stanley. Blanche, by contrast, seems the less experienced of the two, uncomfortable around the magnetism of this couple and seeking Stella’s maternal protection. But slowly that shifts as Blanche’s influence over her sister subtly increases, bringing with it a reminder of the people they once were. Later in the play, this production suggests, it is Blanche who is more realistic about the consequences of their family life, living with the death of their parents and the financial burden of sustaining a large home that Stella (and by extension Stanley) have slightly more romantic notions about. It is under Blanche’s influence that Stella starts to question her husband’s manners about which they fight and, despite the famous reunion scene in the middle of the play, months later they are drifting apart as something between them has broken and the sisters become a closer unit almost in spite of themselves.

And much of that is possible due to the more naturalistic presentation of Blanche that over time draws the sisters closer together. Here Blanche is less overtly a “Southern Belle” and more sympathetically viewed as a woman experiencing a deep and affecting trauma at a young age that has shaped her life immeasurably. She has all the same affectations, the tendency to bathe as a way to repurify herself, the want of beauty and calm in every space and a prioritisation of genteel manners, but Frecknall’s interpretation of Blanche is far more human, more subtle than previously seen making her a deeply tragic rather than a comic figure that means her trajectory is all the more affecting.

Stepping in at extremely short notice, Patsy Ferran gives the most astonishing performance as Blanche, though younger than we have ever seen her, softening the extremes of the Southern accent to create the portrait of a woman with nowhere else to turn and ultimately in the last place she ever wanted to go. There is deep resilience in Ferran’s Blanche, a strength that has helped her to endure years of shame within her hometown and the aching loneliness that sits at the heart of this character. Ferran has always dug deep into the seeming fragility of her characters to found greater reserves within and this is exactly what she finds in Blanche. And there is a deep sensuality in Ferran’s performance – not something that has been required of the actor before – one that, again, is subtle but nonetheless vital to her eventual descent into delusion. Ferran finds that place where Blanche’s romantic hopes, so often dashed by brutish men, crash disastrously against the reality of her physical existence, charting her final capitulation with meaning and a true empathy for a woman who has barely known a moment of happiness.

Anjana Vasan brings her Stella out of the shadows to give her an equal place in this drama, a woman who seems initially more in touch with the reality of life than her sister but with Vasan’s performance understanding the romantic delusion that Stella too has been living under, one that comes tumbling down as the months roll on. And Vasan is particularly good at charting the changing relationship with Stanley as her confidence grows under the influence of her sister which sees the spousal connection begin to fracture. Where once their marriage was a tight unit, it becomes far less satisfactory to this Stella as her husband’s attitudes increasingly put distance between them, and as Stella’s pregnancy advances so too does her dissatisfaction with the life she once enjoyed with a finale that marks a clear and permanent change in their marriage.

Paul Mescal’s Stanley has been much anticipated and proves just the right mix of bullish masculinity and sensitivity that make Stanley such an appealing character. Particularly interesting here is how the brutish, menacing side of Stanley evolves in Mescal’s performance which politely welcomes Blanche in the early scenes and demonstrates a real and deep tenderness for his wife following a violent outburst that reduces him to tears. But this is a turning point for Mescal’s deeply masculine Stanley who retreats into himself as the home where he was once “king” feels exclusionary, exhibiting an aggression that culminates in a betrayal of his wife and of the man he once was. Mescal’s performance perfectly complements Vasan and Ferran, with Stanley losing himself in a fantasy of who he should be. It may not destroy him as it does Blanche but it takes away the one thing that motivates Stanley, the love and respect of his wife.

This is an intense and compelling version of A Streetcar Named Desire that succeeds in presenting a more truthful but no less powerful version of this story. It is kinder to its heroine than ever before, bringing new layers to its intense and empathetic conclusion while exploring the interplay between the characters’ romantic and practical needs. Frecknall has a real feel for these mid-century writers and the compromises of living in limited circumstances while trying to maintain artistic pursuits and ragged dreams of a better future aided by the kindness of strangers. All of that comes together so beautifully here and Williams has rarely felt so powerful.

A Streetcar Named Desire is at the Almeida Theatre until 4 February with tickets from £10. Follow this blog on Twitter @culturalcap1 or Facebook Cultural Capital Theatre Blog.

Camp Siegfried – Old Vic

Cast your mind forward a few decades and a desperate scramble for tickets to a new play with a couple of theatrical luminaries, two all-time-greats of the theatre about to give a rousing Antony and Cleopatra, perhaps a Gertrude and Claudius. You turn to your friend and say ‘I remember seeing them in 2021 in their first production together. It was Camp Siegfried at the Old Vic, and I was there.’ It happens now of course, the wistful memories of those who remember Olivier’s The Entertainer, Macbeth with Dench and McKellen or even After the Dance with Cumberbatch, shows that for long-time audience members recall the heady day of performance, the satisfaction of seeing a big star in the theatre before they were truly famous but knowing they were on their way before everyone else had discovered them.

Patsy Ferran and Luke Thallon are those future luminaries, great early career actors united in the Old Vic’s hotly anticipated production of Bess Wohl’s Camp Siegfried, a two-hander that must have had the casting team punching the air with joy. Bringing Ferran and Thallon together for the first time is a masterstroke and one that does not disappoint in this sharp and often beautiful new play exploring young love, the awkward transition to adulthood and how individuals are enticed by order, structure and certainty amidst the confusion and unpredictability of finding out who you really are.

These two actors have complementary skills and it has been interesting to consider their career choices in the last three years. Ferran has specialised in playing nervous or withheld characters, people with acres of emotional capacity and depth but unable to physically express that to the people they care about. Her wonderfully contained performances – including Alma in Summer and Smoke and Olga in Three Sisters – were quiet, sensitive, overly responsible people but Ferran fills the stage with the things not said and choices not made, creating a palpable despair that is all the more emotive for its gentle expression. Her Ariadne for 15 Heroines was more ferocious, as Ferran showed her range capturing the bitterness of abandonment and a steely strength that made her monologue one of the highpoints of the anthology while multiple characters in the Bridge Theatre’s A Christmas Carol was a more light-hearted showcase for her talents.

Thallon has risen rather stratospherically, working across a broad range of projects building here to his second leading role in a matter of months. First coming to the attention of critics in The Room as part of Jamie Lloyd’s Pinter at the Pinter season with an astonishingly moving performance, his range has been extraordinary with subsequent, perfectly pitched roles in comedy (Present Laughter also at the Old Vic) and drama (Leopoldstadt, Nine Lessons and Carols, and After Life). Thallon shares Ferran’s ability to convey a huge and very tangible emotional range that is utterly absorbing, and both actors are much in demand, making this combination of two rising talents really something to savour.

Camp Siegfried is Bess Wohl’s latest play and, as theatres finally settle into some consistency and stability, the chance to see new writing by a female playwright is hugely welcome. And Wohl has constructed a remarkable piece of drama that is bursting with interesting themes and comments while simultaneously creating two quite believable, complex and contradictory characters in an unusual but convincing period context. Set prior to the Second World War, the play uses the American Summer Camp as a platform to explore the formation of individual and collective identity, gendered expectations of behaviour and perfection placed on teenagers and the quite dangerous imposition of unchecked political ideology.

Wohl’s skill is to wrap this in a coming-of-age love story in a seemingly idyllic last summer of innocence setting that slowly unravels as the true cost and consequences of the play’s events unfolds. Playing with many of the tropes of what is usually a cinematic genre, Wohl utilises the inexperience and reticence of her characters, two opposite personality types thrown together by accident who discover common ground as their bond deepens. There are long, shy conversations, romantic moments under the stars and, inevitably, bumps in the road that challenge the lovers as the holiday draws to a close.

But through this, Wohl creates moments of discord that, like a spreading ink-blot, stain the perfect surface image that these two nameless people are projecting. First the odd view about racial purity casually emerges, later military ‘leisure’ activities like target practice act as background to their interaction before parental expectation and the very adult purpose of Camp Siegfried has infected every scene. As more uncomfortable views are espoused by these children with a surprising vehemence, Wohl has successfully undercut her sunnier context to show the disturbing underbelly of a place many of us never knew existed.

And Wohl plays her hand very carefully, introducing contextual information slowly to reorientate our perspective and knowledge of what is happening. The year is 1938 and we are in Long Island, a monied and lush part of America, but why the characters are here, their socio-economic backgrounds and even whether this is a counter-factual reality is a clarity that only comes into focus over time. This gives drive and considerable possibility to Wohl’s narrative, presenting multiple levels within the play’s construction that build to a more complete and increasingly uncomfortable position.

A central pillar of Camp Siegfried is the overt gender norms provided to the characters as models of perfection. Entirely typical of the ways in which ideals of masculinity in particular were presented after the Boer War, the association of manliness with athleticism, strength and youth were common in multi-country contexts and can be seen in Russian, German and (to a lesser but still noticeable degree) British promotional material advocating public health that ultimately fed military recruitment. Sporting prowess was celebrated and encouraged with indicators of physical perfection bestowing social status on the images of god-like young men whose bodies become synonymous with patriotism and good citizenship. And it’s notable that every scene in in Camp Siegfried takes place outside in the clean, fresh and healthy air of Long Island.

Wohl draws this framework into her play, giving the male character a template that he is trying to uphold, seen in the carrying out of physically demanding tasks like chopping wood, while the uniform of vest and shorts makes visible the visual signs of vigour and muscularity. Within female templates of behaviour fitness has some place, but for the countries with tighter government control of social functions, its ultimate purpose is to create the right conditions for motherhood, to people the mother or fatherland with future generations of robust healthy children who can in turn fulfil their biological destinies to fight, work and breed.

The relationships in Camp Siegfried, we learn early on, advocate this template, encouraging teenagers to adopt these pre-defined roles and, at just 16 or 17, determine the future course of their lives. This induction into the adult world is another key strand of Wohl’s play and her characters exist in this borderline state where they want to seem older than they are but frequently betray their inexperience with an earnest blundering and emotional vulnerability that has much to say about the pressures placed on them by parents and the American-German community, indoctrinating youngsters to do their bit to uphold purity of the bloodstream.

These young adults are given ways of being, structures to live up to and ideals to believe in long before their own personalities and temperaments are fully formed. Wohl shows the consequences of this as an initial heady rush of compliance, embedded in the unyielding principles and hard lines of youth which descends into confusion as they begin to understand themselves better. Know only as ‘Her’ and ‘Him’, this initially freeing but ultimately confining setting allows past traumas to emerge as they share themselves with one another, these characters learn what they really want and what hope they really have in the ideals and ideologies handed down to them.

Patsy Ferran’s Her is the character with true strength and an independent, intellectual reasoning that allows her to be swept up only for a short time before a kind of sense, a low-level gut instinct emerges to guide her choices. Initially, reserved and uncertain, Her is the more experienced and probably closer to adulthood with a prior sexual relationship that she discusses with a matter-of-fact casualness which, at only 16, carries with it a wound that she is entirely unaware of, and as Wohl probes the circumstances, the consequence is a growing claustrophobia and ability to detach from Him that feels brutal but comes from a place of deep vulnerability.

Wohl’s characters are largely so likeable but increasingly remind us of their abhorrent views, the hard-line certainty of which sit so uncomfortably in the mouths of teenagers. Ferran’s Her is a loner, a little pitiable at first but grows in stature as romance gives her social and academic confidence to pursue one of the camp’s top prizes. The diatribe she unleashes is uncomfortable as Ferran gives her character layers of contradiction and complexity, building towards a conclusion that completes a character arc for her and believably sets her in a new direction.

Thallon’s Him is physically strong and outwardly confident, knowing with conviction that his future is a military one. Him likes to believe he has superior knowledge of how things work and the true purpose of the camp while casually advocating views he’s inherited. Thallon never lets us know how deeply Him truly believes in the things he says or even how much he wants to fight and that deliberate ambiguity creates an innocence in the character that frequently betrays his youthful naivety, as though he’s planning a storybook life where Wohl encourages the audience to see how the cold, unpleasant reality will entirely deconstruct his sweet personality and make him a very different adult.

Partly that first brush with real life happens in Camp Siegfried through the relationship with Her that allows Thallon to explore a painful disillusion and process of self-realisation as he fears his own brutal instinct. There is deep concern in Him about the instinctual behaviour he cannot control and while he too fails to recognise the association with the hyped-up militaristic ideology he is fed, in the poignant conclusion Thallon shows Him choosing a future that will force him to succumbing to a barbarity that will harden him irreparably. For all his struggles and confusion, for Him, this moment is probably the best person he may ever be and Thallon leaves us sad and afraid for what’s to come.

That you want to know what happens to both of these people at the end of the story is testament to the world Wohl has created and the engrossing performances of Ferran and Thallon. Together there is a sharpness in their dialogue which is sometimes abrasive, two young adults trying to outsmart each other and Her appropriates Him’s tendency to refer to the other as a ‘dummy’, almost as punctuation at the end of a sentence. Not quite perfect for one another but at the same time meant to be, the chemistry between the actors creates a believably charming if doomed romance in a beautiful but ultimately terrible place.

It is those contrasts that resonant so brilliantly through Wohl’s writing, beauty and destruction, innocence and exploitation, peace and war, love and loss, all coexisting in this one place and in Him and Her who are simultaneously children and adults – old enough for sex, children and war but still spending their summers in knee-high socks at camp. Staged by director Katy Rudd on Rosanna Vize’s representational hinterland, the space keeps the focus on the characters and the acres of meaning that Wohl has packed into her play. Brought to life by two theatre actors on their way to a big career and finally united at the Old Vic, Ferran and Thallon are great now and are only going to get better – make sure you’re there to see it.

Camp Siegfried runs at the Old Vic until 30 October with tickets from £20. Follow this blog on Twitter @culturalcap1 or Facebook Cultural Capital Theatre Blog

A Christmas Carol – Bridge Theatre

As the curtain rises on Act Three of this year’s theatre story – and as we know anything that has two intervals can only be a long and complex saga – one story will dominate the next few weeks, Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol with three new productions opening in the West End alone. Whatever type of Scrooge you’re after, there’ll be a version for you; the Old Vic have their (now) annual tale of joyous redemption performed as part of their In Camera series with Andrew Lincoln making a surprise return to the stage; the Dominion premieres a musical version with Brian Conley and, first, the Bridge Theatre puts Simon Russel Beale in the title role in an atmospheric semi-narrated version that sparkles with ghostly Christmas chill.

After the Nativity, A Christmas Carol is probably the greatest and best known Christmas story, produced most years with everyone from Albert Finney to Michael Caine, Bill Murray to Alastair Sim, Paterson Joseph and Guy Pearce in the title role of Ebenezer Scrooge. There have been films, mini-series and plays, there have been musical and dance versions, there has been social realism, comedy and spookiness, narrative and even Muppets so a fresh perspective on Dickens is far from straightforward. Yet, the Bridge Theatre has found one.

Drawing heavily on the original novella, Dickens is credited as the writer and meaningfully so for the words described to explain plot points and character descriptions are taken directly from his pages and are used to shape this 90-minute play. Adapted and directed by Nicholas Hytner, this version of A Christmas Carol is distinguished by using three performers who share the narrative duties and play all of the roles, creating scenarios with a minimal collection of props designed to feel like a well-prepared scratch performance, as though scenes are emerging spontaneously before us.

By leaning so heavily on the original text rather than paraphrasing or embellishing for modern audiences, the more atmospheric aspects of Dickens’s writing are released, asking the audience to use their imagination and the writer’s evocative language to picture the various aspects of the story whether the grimly real dudgeon of Scrooge’s office, the urban poverty of London’s streets or the more magical and supernatural aspects of the unfolding drama. Prompted by the actors with voice, accessories and lighting effects, there is a sense of confederacy between the storytellers and the viewer, meeting one another halfway between audio drama and a full-blown realist production.

And that makes it all the more effective and affecting, borrowing the novelists’ tricks and abilities to transport a reader both through time and space as well as into a character’s emotional interior experience and using the possibilities of live theatre to create a genuine connection with this perhaps over-familiar story arc. There are so many versions of A Christmas Carol this year alone but that brings with it several kinds of burden, not only the comparison with predecessors and peer productions but the heavier weight of audience expectation and anticipation caused by over-familiarity with the text.

To be fully immersed in a story audiences already know well is a very difficult thing for theatremakers to achieve. With plays and stories adapted frequently, sometimes they can feel like a box ticking exercise against which the viewer measures the progress of the play and how much more there is yet to come. Watching a production of Hamlet for example might use it’s key milestone – the ‘To be or not to be’ speech, the arrival of the Players, the gravedigger and the fencing match – as anticipatory markers in which the act of waiting for them is almost a failure of the production to grip the audience and make the events of the play feel impulsive and alive with possibility.

The same notion applies to A Christmas Carol, most people in the room know what’s coming and whether the show lasts 90-minutes or three hours, the shape, trajectory and outcome of this tale is already fixed in the collective mind of the room before it begins. What the Bridge Theatre manage so successfully in this new production is to work with that to draw the audience into the collective act of creation using Dickens’s evocative prose as the basis for suspending our disbelief and jointly imagining the scenarios sparsely presented on stage, by drawing-out Scrooge’s transformatory arc more distinctly and much earlier than other versions.

The result is a more emotive experience, as Scrooge’s regret begins with the Ghost of Christmas Past and grows through the remaining visitations. In Hytner’s adaptation, Scrooge himself becomes a more sympathetic figure as the effects of his chilly boarding school childhood and growth into a unscrupulous young businessmen are intriguingly countered by the sense of personal loss that Scrooge experiences as he revisits the scenes of his past. Not just the path that took him away from the possibility of love and ordinary family life in adulthood but, crucially, we see the loss of a sense of fun, enjoyment and connection to other people that the elder Scrooge feels more keenly as he remembers the lightness of dancing at Fezziwig’s Christmas party and the relationship with his beloved sister. The point of this story comes then, not merely from making Scrooge a more charitable figure, but reconnecting him to the man he once was and could have been.

Hytner uses a tripartite narrative structure sharing storytelling duties evenly between actors Simon Russell Beale, Patsy Ferran and Eben Figueiredo who weave seamlessly between the figure of omniscient author overseeing and controlling events and the various Dickensian creations they inhabit along the way. The less-is-more approach offers just enough visual intimation to successfully move the show between its various locations and time periods while itself remaining fairly timeless in its setting. One of the productions smartest achievements is to feel both modern and Victorian at the same time using costume, props and video projection to honour the circumstances of the original story while still keeping more than a foot in contemporary style, a feat designer Rose Revitt achieves with a subtle brilliance that so absorbed in the story the audience barely registers.

Revitt has created a stacked tower of lock boxes, desks, chests and safes that form a pile in the centre of the stage – a nod perhaps to Bunny Christie’s design for Ink who also receives a credit here as Season Framework Designer – which emphasises the money and work themes that open the play. It also gives height and variation to the staging, allowing the three performers to move around the structure to create different scenes, store props and physically drag chests around the forestage to create seating areas, beds and family gatherings that have a visual harmony and connection within the unfolding tale.

This is one of the most haunting versions of A Christmas Carol you are likely to see with plenty of smoke effects to create the smoggy London streets as well as the mystical smoke of ghostly arrivals. The vivid creation of atmosphere is enhanced by Jon Clark’s meaningful lighting design that does much to alter the mood of the piece as Scrooge’s experience takes in the cold and grim reality of the everyday, the genuine fear and intimidating presence of Jacob Marley and his spectral companions that frighten Scrooge into compliance along with the more wistful flights of memory and imagination that help the story to travel between past and future. Clark employs lots of contrasting filters from warm purples, reds and greens in the very Christmassy and celebratory sections to the stark white and grey intensity of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come and Scrooge’s doom-laden and intimidating future.

Hytner’s production and the work of the design team exactly capture those almost extreme variations in Dickens’s writing from the spooky ghost story opening that has a genuine chill here to the simplicity and welcome of the Cratchit household and the warmth of Fezziwig’s celebartion and Fred’s Christmas Day party games. Visually the unfolding narrative holds together strongly and Hytner manages those opposite moods of darkness, misery and foreboding with the brightness and lightheartedness of Christmas spirit extremely well and entirely in the service of Scrooge as a character developing from miser to benefactor, and personally rediscovering his subdued humanity.

Sharing the storytelling duties between the three actors creates considerable flexibility in the management of the show, freeing the cast to also adopt the numerous smaller roles as well as creating a dynamism within the production as sound and intonation freely moves around the stage. But what we do have is character consistency, so the actor assuming one of the roles retains it throughout – regardless of gender or age – bringing greater clarity to the multi-narrator device.

Simon Russell Beale tackles his second Scrooge of the season, having voiced the lead in Russell Maliphant’s dance film version which opened on the same weekend. Delivered from the formality and intensity of his Shakespearean persona, Russell Beale has a fantastic time in this production playing excitable maiden aunts, venal shopkeepers and enthused party-goers, all with a quick change of voice and body language or rearrangement of clothing. But it is this more sorrowful Scrooge that stands out, making far earlier and more explicit connections between his current lifestyle and the more human traits of his youth than other versions. Russell Beale offers genuine fear of each of the spirits and no sense of complacency about their similarly unfolding purpose, but primarily a feeling that the visions they reveal and their underlying lessons hit home immediately, that this Scrooge had a heart and the capacity to feel regret, compassion and most especially shame all along.

With Russell Beale shouldering the central role, Ferran and Figueiredo share most of the remaining duties as the four ghosts and Scrooge’s primary acquaintances. They often work in partnership as Mr and Mrs Cratchit, Fred and Clara or the future couple delighted by fiscal relief of the miser’s death, and in each they carefully match their accents to create fast and effective character portraits. Ferran’s talents are perhaps a little under-utilised given her performances in 15 Heroines, Three Sisters and, of course, Summer and Smoke, and there is far less for her to get to grips with here though she is excellent throughout.

To be on stage with actors as reputed as Russell Beale and Ferran and to outshine them both is no mean feat, but it is Figueiredo whose performance you will remember from this production and the absolute joy of watching a selection of wonderful comic characters each with a unique accent. Figueiredo was excellent as Christian in Jamie Lloyd’s Cyrano de Bergerac a year ago and he brings the same energy and a versatility to A Christmas Carol leaping between characters and vocal styles with little more than a breath at times, bringing out the hilarity and joviality of Fezziwig, the benevolent wisdom of the Ghost of Christmas Present, the hangdog gravity of Jacob Marley and the life loving openness and acceptance of Fred, each as distinct and memorable as the one before. And with a variety of UK and international accents this production gives a real feeling for the capital city, then as now, as a multicultural melting pot. Figueiredo may be the least widely known member of this cast but his presence is the bridge between the other two that brings Hytner’s production to vivid life.

Filled with a real love of Dickens’s words as well as his characters the Bridge Theatre has found a fresh and exciting way to tell this familiar tale and give Scrooge’s redemption arc a renewed emphasis. Full of scares and laden with Christmas spirit, there may be competitive versions of the tale available this month but this celebration of storytelling is full of festive magic.

A Christmas Carol runs at the Bridge Theatre until 16 January with tickets from £15. Follow this blog on Twitter @culturalcap1 or Facebook Cultural Capital Theatre Blog.

15 Heroines – Jermyn Street Theatre

Being a woman in Greek Mythology isn’t easy and for the most part they sit on the sidelines, forgotten sideshows to what are predominantly male narratives of war, conquest and feats of daring. Where women do feature, they are mere prizes to be won, abandoned wives, jilted lovers and objects to be admired or possessed whereas female-led tales tend to have a central character who is mad, a dangerous child-killer or has an unhealthy obsessions with their male relatives. Ovid’s collections of letters entitled Heroines puts these women centre stage, and although many focus on the absent male presence to whom they are addressed, they question the grand stories of honour, glory and heroism.

The small Jermyn Street Theatre was one of the first to respond to this summer’s lockdown, recognising instantly the power and possibility of digital theatre in the subsequent months. Their latest project 15 Heroines was announced some months ago, challenging a number of female playwrights to rewrite Ovid’s stories for the modern day and performed as standalone monologues by a female cast of well-known and rising stars. Filmed just before the second lockdown and streamed in repertory last week, these three collections of five plays – subtitled War, Labyrinth and Desert – are a triumph of ingenuity and responsiveness, drawing parallels with concepts of crisis, the everyday reality of living through and beyond them, and ensuring that in a changing theatrical landscape, some of the first voices we hear are female.

There is a tonal commonality across the three anthologies filmed entirely on the small Jermyn Street stage but eschewing any reference to the theatre in the visual presentation of these works. And while naturally such a major undertaking means there is variability in the success of the pieces, together they have a youthful energy, reflecting the all-too-often overlooked power and importance of female perspectives amongst the male posturing of classical tales. Even when they are pining for their absent lovers, in many cases we feel an equality in these partnerships; their men may be fighting wars that no one much believes in, but these women are barely impressed and certainly determined to be heard.

Each anthology premiered to an audience of 250-300 – impressive for a theatre with a maximum capacity of 70 – each focused on five different but connected women affected by the decisions of their partner. The first examines the consequences of the love affair between Helen and Paris, and the ensuing decade-long battle between the Trojans and the Spartans. Pitched at different periods during these years, War offers several new angles on a seemingly well-known story as the consequences of abandonment, dynastic inter-marriage and loyalty test the glory narrative of men fighting for honour – something that Briseis notes men are born with but women must earn with their chastity and good behaviour.

The strongest of the three collections Labyrinth is framed by the stories of Theseus and Jason, heroic men on quests to defeat monsters and bring glory to their people. Instead, they leave a trail of female destruction in their wake, one which these playwrights argue is visited back on them. The Desert has a looser thematic connection between the women featured but focuses on tales of revenge, empowerment and decision-making that takes the characters in new directions.

Rewriting Women’s Stories

Looking across the three collections, the segments are at their best when they entirely rethink as well as modernise the role of each character, transitioning to a position of strength rather than the passivity afforded them by myths and legends, even when their narratives and purpose has been shaped by the men around them. Abi Zakarian is one of the most successful, putting a very different spin on the life of Achilles’s wife who, won as part of the spoils of war, has only the only true sense of agency in the first collection of monologues. Brilliantly performed by Jemima Rooper, Briseis is sharp, savvy and more than a match for anyone who crosses her path and Zakarian’s text changes pace confidently with elements of comic excess that unexpectedly evolve into something a little more savage in the surprising but delicious conclusion.

We see this also in Bryony Lavery’s reimagining of the deserted Ariadne seduced by Theseus after slaying her Minotaur brother and left to wander alone on Naxos. Entitled String and included in the Labyrinth collection, alhough scorned, it is Ariadne’s brilliant mind, her scientific reason and rationality that dominate a story in which Theseus becomes a minor blip in an otherwise educated and full life. Performed by Patsy Ferran, Ariadne comes alive in this 20-minute piece, given emotional depth and a wry humour that Ferran inhabits entirely while the build-up to the final moment of female strength is grippingly played.

Also from Labyrinth, Samantha Ellis’s retelling of Phyllis’s abandonment by Theseus’s son Demophon is one of the smartest and most atmospheric monologues in the programme. And while this is a fairly straightforward rage against abandonment trajectory, Ellis gives depth and purpose to Phyllis’s experience. Staged as a dramatic and gothic woodland scene, Nathalie Armin imbues the character with a force of personality that turns the story upside down, showing that Phyllis is not merely another tragic woman who can’t live without a man, but that Demophon has foolishly messed with the wrong one. Like Ariadne, this woman is going to have the final say. Taken out of ordinary rooms and the recognisable locations of other stories and placed in a mystical place of possible witchcraft and spirits, I’m Still Burning is one of the most powerful pieces in the three anthologies.

Desert also offers up some smart twists on the original tale, placing Rosalind Eleazar’s Dido in a different light as the woman who built a city from nothing and makes a sound-minded decision to end her life – rather life Cleopatra – following the departure of Aeneas, rather than a suicide hastened by pining loss. Likewise, April De Angelis’s reworking of Hercules’s partner Deianaria as a scorned footballer’s wife who exacts a terrible revenge on her cheating husband. By recasting the hero’s labours as soccer achievements and a pivotal Strictly appearance, performer Indra Ové exposes the unsavoury underbelly of celebrity and the hollow reality of the monied lifestyle.

A complete scenario reset also offers contemporary insight and reflection, for Isley Lynn who intriguingly places her Canace (Eleanor Tomlinson) on a chat show in which the audience only hears one side of the conversation. If unfamiliar with the story, over the course of 15-minutes we slowly piece together the facts of a grand romance gone badly wrong as the outside world comes crashing it. Intriguing too is Desert’s concluding piece by Lorna French about Sappho whose quiet start explodes into a conversation about Windrush, race and betrayal that makes Britain itself the crushing lover.

Wailing and Waiting

Some of the writers have done less to reorientate their characters, and while settings or eras have been updated, they remain entirely defined by the men who have left them – even when more interesting possibilities present themselves. In Know I Should Have by Natalie Haynes (Labyrinth), Hypsipyle becomes another bitter, wine-drinking victim when Jason abandons her to seek the Golden Fleece and falls for Medea. Olivia Williams is very credible as the crossed Queen, but on an island filled with women who have slain their dishonest menfolk, why is this tale of marital abandonment the one Haynes wants to tell – a powerful monarch of female warriors reduced to a Bridget Jones parody with a side of rage.

Lettie Precious has the same problem with Oenone in War, bemoaning the departure of Paris in such heightened and desperate terms that the audience just wants her to pull herself together. The fascinating tones of racism and its physical manifestation in the body are overwhelmed by the debased pleading. Likewise the story of Penelope in War, though amusingly played by Gemma Whelan, becomes that of just a nice middle class wife waiting interminably for news of Ulysses return in Hannah Khalil’s interpretation in which Penelope sends nagging text messages while being entirely defined by her man.

None of these approaches moves very far from Ovid or the two millenia of dismissal heaped on these women already. Only Charlotte Jones gets the balance right with Laodamia’s tale, a piece that borders on the heightened comedy of reality TV to present the fearful wife of Protesilaus who goes to war on behalf of Menelaus. Laodamia (Sophia Eleni) may be a wailing woman wanting her man to return but her story has more contemporary resonance, exploring concerns about joining fights that are not their own, her own reflections on Helen’s supposed allure and the underlying pain felt by military wives who fear the worst.

Failing Masculinity

One notable theme across all fifteen stories, however, is the common failings of masculinity and while battles and concepts of honour have been celebrated for two thousand years, these women offer an alternative perspective. In fact, the male characters collectively referred to in absentia are uniformly feckless, cheating, disloyal, selfish and unnecessarily aggressive, prizing conflict and its spoils far beyond anything truly meaningful with the women who care for them.

In War, the eagerness with which the various male leaders flock to Menelaus’s side is treated with disdain by the wives, a foolish decade-long fight over nothing (to them). But it engenders a series of terrible deeds, women like Briseis won as trophies and then despoiled, Menelaus and Helen’s own daughter Hermoine (written by Sabrina Mahfouz) sold in marriage and raped by her husband for ancestral gain while Paris, so often represented as the ardent and impassioned lover, is shown cuckolding women long before he lays claim to Helen.

The notion of men as serial seducers, not to be trusted burns through Labyrinth as several of the protagonists fall for Theseus, his son or Jason, abandoning all reason and their virginity before being summarily replaced by a younger or more attractive alternative partner. The picture of reckless and careless conquerors this creates is not so much honourable as despicable when each man heads off on further quests with promises to write and return. History, written by men, has pitched these characters as heroes and Gods, but across 15 Heroines a new possibility emerges in which these breakers of oaths fall foul of their all-too-human vices.

In coordinating fifteen playwrights, characters and performers Jermyn Street Theatre have successfully completed their own Herculean labours to deliver this fascinating anthology. Across three beautifully staged and filmed collections each lasting around 80-minutes, 15 Heroines is an impressive and energised reworking of Greek myth that leaves the audience keen to find out more about each of these women and their remarkable lives.

15 Heroines was streamed in repertory by Jermyn Street Theatre from 9-14 November and will be available again from 20-22 November. Follow this blog on Twitter @culturalcap1 or Facebook Cultural Capital Theatre Blog