This new script centres on two sisters grappling with their father’s alcoholism, coming to terms with how it affected their lives in ways they didn’t realise growing up, and how this is now crashing down on them and the family. The early moments of the script and performance build the relationship of the sisters well, and sets the convention for their video chats to be played out to the crowd. The sound design is a bit over engineered to create a realistic world, and this begins to get tired as the play enters into the more serious aspects of the script. The text and performances follow this same trajectory, which is too bad; there was an opportunity for a lovely tragicomic denouement but it was missed. There is nothing wrong with the production per se, there just isn’t anything new. Bettina Paris is immensely watchable, and I look forward to seeing her working in stronger material, or at least under stronger direction.
Comedy
Jordan Brookes Fontanelle @ Soho Theatre
Jordan Brookes’ Fontanelle is a stand up show and a musical at the same time; it centres around the question of masculinity and what it means to be masculine, explored around the premise of The Titanic, and the fact that women and children were rescued first. Playing with the form of a standup comedy show, the production also has a chorus of 5 musical theatre performers who interject throughout. At times the interjections are funny and clever, and at times they feel like the concept is being shoehorned into the standup. The show works best when Brookes interacts with the audience, however in order to stay with the convention some of these seem to be rushed, rather than living in a chaotic performance space. Beyond this, the production is uneven — it plays with pacing, but unconvincingly. It plays with the edges of comedy, but without payoff. And it plays with performance, dipping a toe into failed performance, but without properly achieving this — and perhaps even unintentionally demonstrating failure in performance.
This all sounds like it was awful — it wasn’t. There were definitely moments of humour and clever insight about the bind between equality and chivalry....but it all felt undercooked, which meant that it veered into undertones of misogyny to get its laughs.
Hold On To Your Butts @ Arcola Theatre
Positioned as a low-budget live action re-enactment of Jurassic Park….in a theatre….Hold On To Your Butts is a semi-improvised theatrical presentation of the story of the film (sort of), with silly character traits emphasised, and cardboard cut out kid’s basement style interpretations of costumes to create the heightened moments of the story.
It had moments of humour, but for me just wasn’t sufficiently a parody, or sufficiently campy to elicit more than a chuckle, leaving me to question what the point was. Granted, the audience seemed to enjoy the point of view more than I, so perhaps I am just not quite the right audience for this. It wasn’t bad, it just for me wasn’t particularly new or interesting.
The Amazing Banana Brothers @ Soho Theatre
An hour of absolute mania; this two hander (of sorts) is performed at a frantic pace from the moment it begins, so that even the quieter moments contain the air of mania. This is a story of two brothers with dreams, and whose inability to meet those dreams fills them with darkness. That sounds a lot more high brow than it was and yet despite being silly, slapstick, shouty (not in a bad way) and frenetic — it was introspective and questioned our own ambitions and the efforts we make to stick to them.
I can’t say too much without giving it away, but suffice it to say this isn’t light watching. Darkly funny, completely silly, and compelling — well worth taking the time to see this if it comes through.
Mike Birbiglia - The Old Man and the Pool @ Wyndham's
I watched this live at Wyndham’s in London, and subsequently in the recorded version from Lincoln Centre.
What really struck me is Birbiglia’s ability to write in such a manner that he knows precisely when and how the audience will react; so moments that may have appeared improvised in the first viewing when interacting with the audience, when watching the recorded version the beats worked almost identically, despite it being a completely different audience (and country). Cultural differences seemed not to apply in this way.
That said it was fascinating to see how much MORE the really dark comedic elements hit with a British audience (live) vs American (recorded.
Overall this is a touching introspection into our mortality, aging, legacy, and finding humour in these terrifying realities. Beautiful stuff.
Book of Mormon @ Prince of Wales Theatre (West End)
Why are there so many plays where mormons feature prominently? It seems almost bizarre that a religion making up less than 2% of the US population (even less worldwide), which is openly anti gay and until not as long ago as you’d hope, was openly anti-anyone who wasn’t white, holds such a sway on the imagination. Perhaps it is the inherent theatricality of its origin story. Don’t get me wrong, when you dig a little A LOT of origin stories about A LOT of things we believe get theatrical - so this isn’t a slight at mormonism or any religion. Just an observation.
Anyway, we went to see this as a 19th birthday gift to my daughter at her insistence. The parallel that the mormon youth head out on their pilgrimages at 19 was not a coincidence. The current West End cast are all exceptional performers, and the production is all the slick shiny perfection you’d expect for that ticket price. What was uncanny was that it felt less funny than when you hear the recording; certainly the first act got fewer laughs from the crowd than I’d have expected. Perhaps because the songs from that act are quite widely known? The jokes are certainly more broad than those we get in the second act, and land a lot more uncomfortably. They don’t quite punch down, but laterally perhaps? Either way, it is an uncomfortable 2.5 hours at times, despite the performers efforts and comic timing. Do they feel the discomfort, too?
It all just feels so shiny. Being me, I allowed my mind to wander to what a Theatre of Failure interpretation of this show might be. I’ll leave you with that.
The Complete Deaths by Tim Crouch & Spymonkey [Recorded 2016 @ Shoreditch Town Hall]
I watched this in recording via Spymonkey’s Vimeo account - you can watch it here until April 25. (if it asks for a login, just create a vimeo account, and it will credit you the amount). Note: there are 2 parts.
This is what I needed in isolation. Wild, silly, irreverent, a bit mad. This show does…yes…the complete deaths. All of the onstage deaths in Shakespeare’s plays, acted out in various styles by the company, through a debate over what kind of work they are making. Using the aid of video cameras and projection, musical instruments, and a zillion props, the company make light of the darkness in the plays, showing the strangeness and absurdity of the plays in their most serious moments.
This is fun. it is irreverent. I don’t honestly know what else to say, other than watch it. You will laugh out loud. You will wonder what is going on. And you’ll enjoy it.
Tom Rooney & Moya O'Connell in The Wedding Party
review. The Wedding Party by Kristen Thompson @ Crow's Theatre
It has taken me awhile to feel like I could write about this play. The Wedding Party is deliciously fun, tears in your eyes, gut-hurt funny. This isn't the reason it took me so long. In the days following my attendance at this hilarious, intelligent, beautifully written and expertly performed production, it felt as though the world was falling apart. Trump began a daily barrage of executive orders that upended what we think about human decency and caring for others. In the face of this, how could I reconcile a play that was by contrast, seemingly so light in subject and tone?
It came to me the other night, however, on one of my late night dog-walks, seeing people come out of the theatre with huge smiles on their faces (I live upstairs of The Crowsnest). Seeing those faces of pure joy as they walked toward their cars or transit. Hearing them recalling favourite moments, that they'll "never look at a dog in the same way" or "windbreaker of lies" followed by shared laughter, it occurred to me that the point of this kind of play is to be a release. A release from the drudgery, the sadness, the despair. And it is so utterly necessary sometimes to just laugh. To laugh at the idiosyncrasies of an elderly grandmother, or a young boy, or hilarious twin brothers with opposing personalities. To laugh when we see ourselves, our own humanity in these people.
This post is less about the production (which is fantastic, and I 100% recommend to anyone, anywhere) but rather about why this sort of play, which might feel frivolous in these times, is still important. We still need to laugh. To laugh is to remind us of our humanity.
Also, seeing Tom Rooney in a scene with himself is something that everyone should experience.