Damned by Despair.

To the National Theatre to see a frankly disappointing production of the Spanish Golden Age play Damned by Despair by the Spanish monk Tristo de Molina, which left me wondering why it had been added to the repertoire?

Paulo a devout monk is tricked by a devil in disguise as an angel to go to Naples and find Enrico, an extortionist thug, played with moments of quiet menace by Bertie Carvel. God has decreed, says the devil, that the two men are destined to meet the same end. The devil encourages Paolo to go to the city and follow the gangster's example.

Under cover in Naples the monk is appalled by Enrico's excesses, but fails to comprehend the basic humanity beneath the murderous exterior. True to his promise he transforms himself into a murderous shark and, in so doing, reveals the uncovered sin at the heart of his piety: pride. He has seen salvation on purely transactional terms and upset that God is not in the business of offering rewards his renunciation of a holy life leads him into everlasting damnation. By contrast Enrico's redemptive speech in the face of death sees him soaring up on a trip wire to heaven, situated somewhere high in the rafters of the Olivier.

The play is deceptively simple and this production falls into the trap of trying too hard to find a modern relevance. The psychological truths looked for by the actors fail to connect them with the two dimensional allegorical characterisations that they are called to represent and the attempt to stage the Naples scenes in a modern setting trivialises further the basic Christian message which gives the play cause.

Overall there is a sense of failure here. The show is much shorter than advertised. An admission perhaps of late rehearsal cuts of unplayable scenes. The set frames the world in a parody of an El Greco painting, jagged mountains and vertical planes abound. It's pretty, but adds little to the telling of the tale. Occasionally there are nods to the £12 student tickets, a reference to Reservoir Dogs and a visceral slow motion shoot out, but nothing really holds together.

A clue to how things might have been different does come in the form of a young choir boy who appears in the stalls to sing an effecting psalm. It's a wonderfully beautiful moment in a sea of confusion. In a more intimate setting where bangs, tricks and whizzes could be done away with the play may well have carried more meaning. Perhaps the director, in a strange parallel to Paolo's own dilemma fell for the temptation of giving this religious drama a secular treatment which reveals more about the demands of the modern audience than the intentions of the play.
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Full of Vexation and Complaint.

The Early Modern Drama lecture this afternoon focused on the first scene of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and in particular the clues that the language gives us about the relationships between the characters.

I've always thought that the most intriguing aspect of this opening is the role Hippolyta plays. She is the first character mentioned as Theseus lets us know how impatient he is to wed (and bed) her and how slowly the time is passing.

Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace; four happy days bring in
Another moon: but, O, methinks, how slow
This old moon wanes! she lingers my desires,
Like to a step-dame or a dowager
Long withering out a young man revenue.

Hippolyta's response is conciliatory, but there's an immediate choice for the actor here. Is Hippolyta soothing her impatient fiance, as is traditionally played? Or is there a cord of sadness that her independence and royal authority about to disappear as she takes a consort's role. She is after all, with or without Theseus, the Queen of the Amazons.

Four days will quickly steep themselves in night;
Four nights will quickly dream away the time;
And then the moon, like to a silver bow
New-bent in heaven, shall behold the night
Of our solemnities.

This is the first and last thing she says in the scene.

The text then introduces another character: Philostrate. Has he been there all along? Or interrupted this private moment between Theseus and Hippolyta? The director must decide, but either way Theseus at once acknowledges his presence and sends him away.

Go, Philostrate,
Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments;

With the servant dismissed the Duke once again turns his attention to his new Queen, conceding his conquest of her was not altogether chivalrous.

Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword,
And won thy love, doing thee injuries;

 

Why does Theseus need to tell her (and the audience) this? Is the recognition a form of mild apology? Aware of her hurt is he trying to gently placate her? The Queen is a long way from her native land. Has she come willingly? Or it it just a triumphant boast? Has she fallen for a man who - to put it bluntly - is very good in bed?

The next two lines offer a change of approach. The 'but' used here always makes me think that Theseus is indeed a little ashamed of his behaviour up to this point. He is keen the wedding should be celebrated by both parties. It's an attempt to make up for the misdemeanour.

But I will wed thee in another key,
With pomp, with triumph and with revelling.

There is much still to discover in the relationship but Shakespeare brilliantly stages another interruption here, stalling further discoveries about how Theseus and Hippolyta come to be together. Egeus bursts in with his daughter Hermia and her two suitors Lysander and Demetrius.

Happy be Theseus, our renowned duke.

Theseus seems thrown and has to quickly adjust from a the intimate privacy of his previous conversation to the formal tone of a head of state. It's clear from Egeus' arrival that he has urgent business. Theseus invites it on.

Thanks, good Egeus: what's the news with thee?

Egeus then sets out the problem. Hermia is betrothed to her father's preferred choice of son-in-law Demetrius. She, however, has fallen in love and wants to marry Lysander.

 Full of vexation come I, with complaint
Against my child, my daughter Hermia.
Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,
This man hath my consent to marry her.
Stand forth, Lysander: and my gracious duke,
This man hath bewitch'd the bosom of my child;

He ends his speech by summoning an old patriarchal law giving him the power to decide his daughter's future

I beg the ancient privilege of Athens,
As she is mine, I may dispose of her:
Which shall be either to this gentleman
Or to her death, according to our law
Immediately provided in that case.

Theseus response is interesting. He neither agrees nor challenges Egeus, but rather asks Hermia for her opinion, albeit reiterating the importance of her father's decision. Has Hippolyta's continued presence in the scene any baring on his gentle approach?

What say you, Hermia? be advised fair maid:
To you your father should be as a god;
One that composed your beauties, yea, and one
To whom you are but as a form in wax
By him imprinted and within his power
To leave the figure or disfigure it.
Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.

Hermia contests a little and, although nervous that she is speaking out of turn, finds the courage to ask for clarification of the sentence should she refuse to marry Demetrius.

I do entreat your grace to pardon me.
I know not by what power I am made bold,
Nor how it may concern my modesty,
In such a presence here to plead my thoughts;
But I beseech your grace that I may know
The worst that may befall me in this case,
If I refuse to wed Demetrius.

Again Theseus' answer changes the dynamic of the scene. He introduces the notion of celibacy and suggests it as an alternative to the death penalty. But in the same breath, perhaps talking as much to Hippolyta as to Hermia, he describes this life as 'cold,''fruitless,''barren,''mew'd' and 'withering.'

Either to die the death or to abjure
For ever the society of men.
Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires;
Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,
You can endure the livery of a nun,
For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd,
To live a barren sister all your life,
Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood,
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;
But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd,
Than that which withering on the virgin thorn
Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness.

A mini argument breaks out between the two young men, during which Lysander reveals that Demetrius has broken off a previous relationship with Helena and left her heart broken. The implication is that he will in time treat Hermia in the same way. Like the Leopard he can not change his spots.

Demetrius, I'll avouch it to his head,
Made love to Nedar's daughter, Helena,
And won her soul; and she, sweet lady, dotes,
Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,
Upon this spotted and inconstant man.

The question is how does Hippolyta hear this? Whether she has been brought to Athens by force or whether she is willingly marrying a man she loves, it's almost impossible to construct a reason for her to support Demetrius' claim on Hermia. She is the only character in the scene who is not Athenian. There is little reason for her to support the 'ancient privilege.' Theseus knows that Demetrius has behaved dishonourably and makes an excuse that his own wedding preparations have stopped him intervening. Do we take him at his word here? Perhaps the public nature of Lysander's claim is now forcing him to act? Would he have preferred to turn a blind eye?

I must confess that I have heard so much,
And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof;
But, being over-full of self-affairs,
My mind did lose it.

There is a final twist. Theseus for all his bluster and confusion does engineer a way for Hermia and Lysander to be alone together. How smart is he being here? Is he giving room for them to plot and ultimately subvert Egeus' wishes and his own state decreed judgement?

But, Demetrius, come;
And come, Egeus; you shall go with me,
I have some private schooling for you both.
 

He leaves making a public statement, however.

For you, fair Hermia, look you arm yourself
To fit your fancies to your father's will;
Or else the law of Athens yields you up
Which by no means we may extenuate
To death, or to a vow of single life.

And then comes the line that gives a key to the whole exchange. It lets us know that Hippolyta has observed all that has gone on and that her emotional response to it is, at best, ambiguous.

Come, my Hippolyta: what cheer, my love?

The royal party make to leave.

In modern productions the actors playing Hippolyta and Theseus have often doubled up to also play Titania and Oberon. This seems entirely appropriate to me. Could the eponymous dream itself be Hippolyta's? The complicated nightmare of a captured bride on the eve of her wedding in which she reveals to herself a confusion about her attitude to the man she is about to marry. Is he a proud Prince, capable of powerful magic? Or an uncouth bore with little more sophistication than a donkey?
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Preserving a Sense of Place.

I'm back in rural Oxfordshire for the weekend spending time at my childhood home in Appleford. The village has seen many changes over the last few years, and since my last visit at the end of summer has sadly lost it's last pub, the old Carpenter's Arms, which was unsuccessfully re branded a year or so ago has finally closed down after serving thirsty villagers continuously since 1891.

Just over fifty years ago there was a thriving community here. A small primary school had 25 on the roll, a small shop doubled up as a post office and opposite The Carpenter's Arms stood The Black Horse giving the agricultural workers, who made up the majority of the village's population a choice of sawdust strewn drinking holes in which to wet their whistle after a long day in the fields.

The Black Horse was the choice of Appleford's most famous son, grand national jockey John Faulkner, who lived until a 104 years old and sired 32 children. When he wasn't riding one thing or another he spent most evenings in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century with a pint and a pipe in his favourite seat in the snug.

By the time I was born in 1970 the school and The Black Horse had gone and although the main work in Appleford was still on the three farms that lie to the South, West and North there was already the sense that a new kind of village was developing, a slight expansion had begun to attract city dwellers out of their urban environment into bucolic bliss.

Still, on Friday nights a fish and chip van came round and on Sunday mornings a bus shop stopped by. There were regular visits form mobile libraries and ice cream vans.

In the eighties and early nineties, the old farm cottages were converted, new barns were built and the sense of an interdependent community had started to wane.

New priorities developed, the desire to increase property prices drove the council to rename the village Appleford upon Thames, ironically in the same month as the local farmer closed off his fields denying legal access to the river.

The post office hung on until the end of the eighties, but out of town supermarkets at Didcot and Abingdon meant that it couldn't compete. It became essential to have a car.

More recently the church has been struggling to pay its heating bills, meaning the fortnightly services are increasingly being held in the village hall. Another certainty of village life threatened.

The closure of the pub brings to an end a process that has been squeezing the village for half a century. It's a pattern that's being repeated all over the country.

I often think the theatre has a disinterested view of the countryside. State of the Nation plays seem to me to predominantly be set in the big city or the housing estate. With the exception of Jez Butterworth's brilliant Jerusalem and Richard Bean's underrated Harvest there has been a real dearth of great rural plays over the past couple of decades and that's a real shame.

Other forms of theatre, such as the celebratory work done in the seventies and eighties by Welfare State and explored in a Spanish comtext by Chris and our friends at Spiral, might offer a different way to encourage and reconfirm local identity, but in general, in an increasingly affluent, but fearful world the idea of sharing time and space with your neighbours seems to be suffering a lingering death. In its place we have self-protective family groups, commuting far away to work and returning home to collapse anonymously in front of the plasma TV screen. The self contained private culture of the city has successfully invaded the countryside.

There's an irony in as much that one of the great middle class aspirations of modern urbanites is to live in a village like community. And so you  hear ridiculous claims from residents in Stoke Newington and Blackheath, Camberwell and Clapham that village life is thriving in the inner suburbs. These villages have little in common with their rural counterparts, where everybody knows everybody else, where children feel safe and neighbours can be relied upon to give you a lift or lend you their stuff.

Theatre can still make a difference. It's a simple form that brings people together to share stories and concerns. It takes an initial act of courage and investment to introduce yourself to a room full of strangers, but even with a minimal amount of resources, amazing results can be achieved. Time does change the feel and function of a place, but if we meet and tell each other what we think, through poetry, action and performance, we have a chance to recognise this change and structure the future that we want, making sure nothing of real value is lost along the way. It might be counter intuitive in a technological age to suggest it's a physical coming together of people that will make the difference, but sometimes you have to rehearse the community you want to build and the creative act of telling a shared story contains in it's form as well as it's final content the seeds of a more generous social structure. As Boal so often reminds us - Theatre is the rehearsal for revolution.
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Writing in the Gaps.

Today I took a workshop on scripting dialogue with the Level 2 Theatre Arts students. In the past we haven't looking at this aspect of theatre making with a great deal of rigour and, instead, tend to present a model of devised theatre or physical storytelling. This year though, with the new validation, we've created more opportunities for our students to structure and write scripts for performance.

In part this is a response to some of the poorer practices of devised theatre which have in the past led to the creation of unworthily dull work, often compromised by a coalition of opinions in the planning stage and made ever more bland by the desire not to offend or upset anybody. The final work is often sentimental, cliched and lacking in bite.

It's also a response to a realisation that Dramatic structure isn't, necessarily part of the students DNA, regardless of how well read they are, how often they go to the theatre, how many Hollywood movies they've seen or how many computer games they've played.

I wonder if in the Stanislavski obsessed world of actor training, where the moment to moment psychological impulses of the character are the paramount focus of the actor's work, we've some ignored the idea that even the most naturalistic of plays works to a patterned plot, which draws the audience into it's world. Actors are taught much about identifying super objectives, but less about the architecture of the play as a whole.

So where do we begin? Do we start by stepping back to look at the structures of plays or do we take a magnifying glass and begin to examine the nuts and bolts. Pedagogically both approaches seem to have merit. I decided, however, to get some material down first so we began with some scripting.

The students seemed to enjoy the chance to create dialogue, putting contrasting agendas and ideas on stage in front of their peers. We focused on short scenes in the main - a minute or less.

One of the most interesting moments came after lunch in a short scene put together by Grace and Kelly. The pair played sisters. Grace's character has rushed home with excited news that her boyfriend, David, had just proposed. The problem is that a fortnight ago Kelly's character, having split up with her boyfriend, had, in a tired and emotional way, ended up sleeping with David.

In many ways the clash of agendas is an obvious one, played out many times over in TV soaps. Most of the students followed the traditional convention and created a scene that climaxed and ended at the moment of revelation. Kelly and Grace, however, tried something different and began the scene with the revelation, enabling us to hopelessly watch the fallout. It was a far more rewarding choice, particularly when Kelly began to defend David and attack her, apparently wronged sister.

Refusing to accept the convention, whilst working within a plot structure that an audience can follow is a crafty skill. It was good to see some brave exploration of what might be possible so early in our module.
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The Opening of Hamlet.

A really interesting lecture form Trevor about the opening of Hamlet yesterday in Early Modern Drama. We looked at just the first ten lines or so and in doing so really marvelled at the way Shakespeare was able to craft an opening.

There's a surprise right from the off with Bernardo - the guard arriving to take up the watch - asking 'Who's there?' a revealing sign of his nervousness and a clear signal to the audience that something is up.

Francisco quickly re asserts the natural order of command 'Nay, answer me: stand and unfold yourself.' But the mood has already been disturbingly set.

There's a quick exchange before Francisco tells Bernardo that he comes 'most carefully' upon his hour. Is this a man trying to maintain a semblance of sanity by reinforcing the precision of time? The double meaning here of carefully is brilliantly chosen to keep us on guard.

Shakespeare then gives us some more expositional cues. 'Tis now struck twelve' and 'Tis bitter cold' before Francisco reveals that he is 'sick at heart.'

Bernardo asks whether he has 'had quiet guard?' Francisco says 'not a mouse stirring.' Which suggests the fear comes from a deep disquiet rather than noisy crashes and bangs. As he's leaving Bernardo wishes  him 'good night' as a half line. He pauses here before adding almost as an after thought 'If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus, The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste.'

Shakespeare's London was full of soldiers. English campaigns in the 1590s took men to France, Ireland and the Netherlands. War was a constant and, barely ten years after the defeat of the Armada, the Elizabethan audience knew the bravery needed to face down invading forces. So it's fascinating that Shakespeare chooses the toughest men in Elsinore - these professional soldiers to introduce such this atmosphere of paranoia and uncertainty.

The ghost is on his way and the play is about to unfold itself.
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Yours For The Asking.

Off to The Orange Tree to see Yours For The Asking, a Spanish play written in the fag end days of Franco's regime by Ana Diosdado, who, the programme note suggests, is the country's most successful contemporary woman playwright.

The play centres around the short affair between Juan, a one time investigative journalist, who, following a brief spell in prison, is reduced to writing a gossip column for a well known woman's magazine and Susi, a model who has gone from popular celebrity as the alluring face and body of a perfume ad campaign to public hate figure, after two children died inhaling the toxic fumes from the scent.

The shared loneliness of social exile pulls the lovers together after Juan is sent to Susi's flat to carry out an interview. Quickly exploiting each others sense of injustice, they spend the week holed up with each other, before the journalist returns, complete with a vividly written truthful account of their seven days together, to his work and girlfriend.

We learn very early on that one of the pair has committed suicide, after which most of the stage action is conducted through a series of clunky flashbacks, culminating in an over constructed twist right at the end.

Steven Elder plays Juan, with a cynical, weary dispassion whilst Mia Austen brings a naive sense of optimism, that somehow in a lover's arms the vitriol and exclusion she experiences might simply evaporate. She is distraught when Juan makes his excuse and escape.

In some ways the play reminded me of a weak version of von Donnersmarck's brilliant movie The Lives of Others, in as much as it paints a tragic picture of forbidden freedom in a totalitarian regime, but ultimately. the piece lacks a unifying metaphor and instead we're left with a simple, more direct, story of a man burnt out by his struggles to reveal the truth.
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Cat on a Hot Tin Roof Tie Up.

Good news this morning from Sarah Esdaile, who oversees our MA in Theatre Direction and is currently up in Leeds rehearsing Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

The theatre has teamed up with The Guardian to pioneer a new interactive way of covering the theatre production process, inviting the public to engage with her production process through hosted web chats and a daily blog. Once the show opens, next week, audiences will be encouraged to submit their own reviews and participate in a live twitter feed that will continue for the duration of the run. Both of the paper’s senior critics Michael Billington and Lyn Gardner are also going to publish full reviews.

MA Directing students are heavily involved in supporting the production and next week will travel to Leeds to take part in technical rehearsals and note sessions with the actors, who include Downton Abbey’s Zoe Boyle and Jamie Parker, fresh from playing Henry V at The Globe this summer.

Sarah's been running this course for us for ten years now, ably assisted by Chris White. Between them they're given a fantastically intimate, industry focused training to the cohort.

The presence of mature students in the department is also important. They nearly always come with a great sense of purpose and a real understanding as to why they want the degree. It's a good counter balance to the sometimes unfocused excitement of our undergraduates. Alongside the directing students' Kasia's MA Physical Theatre course is also going from strength to strength. Producing ever more interesting and imaginative responses to their project briefs.

The West Yorkshire Playhouse connection isn't just an added bonus, it's a great pay off for our belief that high profile practitioners, rather than renowned academics should deliver the Masters programmes. It's great that so early in their course the students are being given the chance to fully immersive themselves in the latter stages of a professional production process and to see close up how a director, a theatre and the media can work in concert to generate interest in the work.
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