Vision On

Stage and screen

I saw the press night performance of Katie Mitchell's new collaborative experiment at the Cottesloe, ...some trace of her. It's really interesting, and a bold engagement with the media of the stage and film, but ultimately as theatrical event it's more than a touch disappointing.

A small company prepares and films live scenes that loosely relate the story from Dostoevsky's The Idiot. Each set-up is prepared, lit and shot on stage below a screen on which the images are presented, live, but in monochrome. Sometimes the actors themselves speak in the scenes, sometimes their words, presumably their thoughts, are read by another member of the cast. The preparations, the lighting, the sound (including effects) and everthing else are done as elaborately choreographed movements, often with several "shots' live at a single moment, with cross-cutting and occasionally multiple projected images.

It's incredibly clever and you sit there admiringly. The ways in which certain shots and effects are created with minimal means is often amusing -- and just occasionally there are moments of beauty in the images. The visual style mixes the aesthetic of expressionist silent cinema with early live television: lots of close-ups, long shots, action within the frame rather than between images.

What I missed was a sense of engagement with the story, with the characters, with any trace of emotion. I found the story really confusing (I hadn't prepared and didn't know it in advance) and I remained cut off from what was going on, sometimes marvelling at the invention but ultimately distanced from it all.

Later: Interestingly, Michael Billington saw the same performance and came to pretty much the same conclusions.

He that plays the prince

For reasons that I hope will soon become apparent, I am currently fascinated by Hamlet and the RSC production with David Tennant. The Guardian carries exclusive production photos and also a fascinating discussion by Michael Billington about the best Hamlets of his time. In his top ten he includes Jonathan Pryce at the Royal Court in 1980, a performance which lives with me still. (The photo is Ellie Kurttz's, courtesy of the RSC.)

Blogger reviews are just beginning to appear, in advance of next Tuesday's press night. Actor Matthew Swan posts here: "What Doran has very successfully achieved is a great Hamlet with a focus on the very human responses each character has to one another and the events that shape the play."

The blog Defying Definition exudes enthusiasm: "I was stunned by it all, gobsmacked, wanting to rewind it and watch it again."

Jan Ford, who describes herself as "an ageing female" is a little more measured: " But, at the end of the play, I felt I'd witnessed a production of some moment and this view seemed to be shared by the audience generally, judging by the acclamation."

Magic from the Met

There's a fascinating piece by Ben Rosen on his blog about the way in which Peter Gelb has turned around the Metropolitan Opera over the past two seasons. Rosen is close to the action, being one of those who appointed Gelb, so he's really well-placed to write about the improvement in standards and in the whole experience of opera-going there, about the marketing initiatives, and about the new forms of audience development.

I'm particularly interested in his observations on the live telecasts to cinemas, having written with enthusiasm about these before. Here he are his (provocative) thoughts:

The experience of watching an HD live telecast of the Met Opera is remarkable. In many ways it is an improvement over seeing the opera in person. Heresy? No, not really. To start with, the close-ups of the singers on the screen are simply not available in the opera house. Also unique are the live interviews with the performers during intermissions; many are caught just as the curtain falls and they head backstage. Or they're interviewed in their dressing rooms. And the specially produced documentaries shown during intermission -– for example, how the opera was rehearsed -– are insightful. Moreover, the high-definition images, color, and sound are all at the highest level... Oh, and a final note of differentiation -- you can munch popcorn during the performance.

Spot on.

The minotaur's songs

Last night BBC2 screened a recording of The Minotaur, Harrison Birtwistle's new opera recently staged by the Royal Opera House. Pretty impressive it was too, with clear, spare visuals complementing Birtwistle's complex score. Great to see a BBC terrestrial channel clearing much of the evening for such a challenging work (even if, bizarrely, between the first and second act, the channel offered Have I Got a Bit More News for You, with guest presenter Jeremy Clarkson).

The on-screen presentation was strikingly penny-plain: no celebrity host (although Antonio Pappano gave us some plot pointers) and only a few DVD-style interview comments from the creative team. Which is probably explained by the interesting story about the screening that Tony Hall, ROH Chief Executive, related to an Arts Council England discussion this week about music and public service broadcasting. (I chaired the event, but I'm not giving away any secrets, since it was agreed that a transcript would be made public.)

With performances of the Birtwistle coming up, Tony Hall said that the ROH approached the BBC about a television co-production. But to no avail; the Corporation wasn't interested. So the House went ahead and made the video recording using its own cameras and resources, planning to release a DVD through its subsidiary Opus Arte. But after the premiere, and the laudatory notices, only then did the BBC come back and ask if they could licence the recording.

Persuasion

Gary Taylor's engaging contribution to the NT programme for The Revenger's Tragedy is reprinted in the Guardian today, extending the Shakespeare-and-Middleton discussion. Taylor gave an exceptional Platform Performance on Tuesday in the Cottesloe: assured, confident and borderline-arrogant, funny, accessible, delightful. He's clearly a "star" academic.

He took it on himself to argue that Middleton is as great as Shakespeare, and if he didn't (quite) convince the audience of this, he certainly sent many of them away with the conviction that they needed to read more of Middleton. His most convincing point was that Shakespeare's writings had effectively set all the rules of what we regard as "great" literature, and that because Middleton is trying to do something different, we inevitably feel that he comes up short against the Bard. But that in fact Middleton's universe, while distinct from Shakespeare's, is as interesting and compelling and pertinent. Even if I wasn't entirely persuaded, I was very impressed both by his ideas and his presentation.

"Our other Shakespeare"

I'm greatly looking forward (my tickets are for Thursday) to the National Theatre's new production of The Revenger's Tragedy. (Another is about to open at Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre.) I only wish that the plays of Shakespeare's contemporaries were given more often -- and this is one I've long wanted to see. (Alex Cox and Frank Cottrell Boyce made a low-budget British feature from the play in 2003.) Perhaps the new Oxford edition of Thomas Middleton's plays (and the National, like most scholars today, attributes the text to Middleton) will help change this neglect. Oxford have also published an important companion volume of critical writings.

There's been a fascinating exchange in the TLS over the new Middleton volumes. Jonathan Bate wrote a positive but not uncritical review, which has been followed by an exchange of snappy letters with the volume's co-editor Gary Taylor here and here. There's more on Middleton and the Oxford project at the (slightly disappointing) website set up by Florida University to support the edition and also thanks to the Education department at Shakespeare's Globe, which includes an audio file of a lecture by Taylor and his interesting recommendations of books essential to a true understanding of Shakespeare.

Other Middleton resources include the full texts of many of the plays, including The Revenger's Tragedy, and scholarly background from Luminarium. Incidentally, the characterisation of Middleton that I've used for the title of this post is Gary Taylor's.

A Dream in Stratford

To Stratford on Friday for a RSC meeting and then a performance of Greg Doran's revival of A Midsummer Night's Dream. (Also to glimpse the shell of the main RSC theatre, as it currently is.) I saw this Dream at the Barbican towards the end of its run in early 2006 (I think) and wasn't overwhelmed by it then, but this new outing (the press night was yesterday) in the Courtyard Theatre is splendid. Genuinely funny (especially the mechanicals) and some great touches: the changeling as a manipulated puppet boy, a tremendous Bottom in Joe Dixon, the grand mirror backdrop (apparently to be a consistent presence also in Love's Labours Lost and Hamlet), and most especially the moment when Oberon and Titania are reunited.

... Come, my queen, take hands with me,
And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.

As he says this Oberon launches Titania into the air, spinning and whirling around the stage. It's a thrilling effect, apparently dangerous in the best way of theatre, and also moving, giving concrete form to their deep love.

The RSC programme contains two very good short essays, one by the naturalist Richard Mabey and one by the invariably excellent Jonathan Bate.

What price salvation now?

To Nick Hytner's engaging National Theatre production of Shaw's Major Barbara. The arms manufacturer Undershaft is by far the most sympathetic figure and Simon Russell Beale offers a compelling characterisation.

In the third act he outlines his analysis of politics:

I am the government of your country: I, and Lazarus. Do you suppose that you and half a dozen amateurs like you, sitting in a row in that foolish gabble shop, can govern Undershaft and Lazarus? No, my friend: you will do what pays us. You will make war when it suits us, and keep peace when it doesn't. You will find out that trade requires certain measures when we have decided on those measures. When I want anything to keep my dividends up, you will discover that my want is a national need. When other people want something to keep my dividends down, you will call out the police and military. And in return you shall have the support and applause of my newspapers, and the delight of imagining that you are a great statesman. Government of your country! Be off with you, my boy, and play with your caucuses and leading articles and historic parties and great leaders and burning questions and the rest of your toys. I am going back to my counting house to pay the piper and call the tune.