Ecstasy

Ecstasy, written and directed by Mike Leigh

With Siân Brooke, Allan Leech, Sinéad Matthews and Craig Parkinson

Hampstead Theatre, 10 March – 9 April 2011

Mike Leigh is now an established veteran of British film and theatre. When he first wrote and directed Ecstasy in 1979 his place was not yet guaranteed, but in it are moments of such emotional truth so subtly and deftly portrayed that theatregoers must have known where he was destined.

Second time round, in it’s revival at the Hampstead theatre it is still, 30 years on, a wonderful play and this is a great production. It is all set in Jean’s (Sian Brooke) claustrophobic bedsit, small even on the Hampstead stage, from which we and she can never escape. Over the course of an afternoon and evening we see the end of Jean’s dysfunctional, verging on rapacious relationship with a married man. Then, having returned from the pub, we hear the reminiscences of three old friends and Jean from back when they were young and, as they like to think now, care free.

The early scene with the sexual violence is terrifying; Roy’s desire and bravado and physicality very intimidating and Jean’s lack of self esteem upsetting. But it is in the hour of dialogue during the post pub party that I feel the play really shows its brilliance. Lubricated by endless cigarettes and more and more drink, Jean, Dawn, Mick and Len show us the layer upon layer of detail that make them who they are. It’s like a mirror being held up, showing us all the insignificant interactions that make up our social lives and how through banal words and phrases, little foibles and old habits, we actually, subtly show so much of who we feel ourselves to be, and how we feel about ourselves.

Throughout Jean’s passivity is striking; she nods and shakes her head, lights cigarettes and fetches drinks, faintly laughs or occasionally interjects, but all the time feels just half there, disengaged from the group around her. There’s a tension rising because Jean is bottling something up, has it buried deep down and as the alcohol flows and emotions come closer to the surface it has to escape. And when it does burst out in a startling, powerful, gripping howl it is so sad, so insightful and honest and bereft of hope Jean feels lost, and it made me want to grieve for her.

Mike Leigh’s deftness of touch and avoidance of the obvious makes the scenario entirely believable. His exploration of friendship, what it offers and what it fails to deliver rings so true, and his portrayal of characters not being able to explain, and not being understood is honest and tragic.

With Hampstead theatre facing cuts, we will be so much poorer for losing productions like this.

Porthole View 9/10

I’ve been watching…

The Asphalt Jungle directed by John Huston, 1950. Bank jobs, hoodlums with a heart, and a film noir where the police were always going to get their man.

I’ve been watching…

Code 46 directed by Michael Winterbottom back in 2003. It’s set in a totalitarian future, and was entirely watchable while not really coming through with the goods; it felt like it ended half way through. Samantha Morton was really good, and also got to deliver the line “Everybody’s children are so special. It makes you wonder where all the ordinary grown-ups come from.” Which it was worth watching the whole film to hear. Credit to writer Frank Cottrell Boyce for that one.

I’ve been watching…

On Monday, Rio Bravo (1959) directed by Howard Hawks. An entirety typical and entirely watchable John Wayne classic.

On Tuesday La Règle du jeu (1939) directed by Jean Renoir. A satirical portrait of the French aristocracies moral turpitude.

On Wednesday Hell Comes to Frogtown (1988) directed by Donald G. Jackson. It’s a crappy, but sort of fun, cult effort at post apocalyptic misogynist mutant soft porn.

Decline and Fall

Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh

Adapted for the stage by Henry Filloux-Bennett

With Michael Lindall, Sylvester McCoy, Jonathan Hansler, Fay Downie, Emily Murphy, Morgan Thomas and Owen Roberts

Old Red Lion Theatre, 30 Nov 2010 – 29 Jan 2011

Decline and Fall is the tale of Paul Pennyfeather (Michael Lindall) who is unfairly sent down from Oxford having been found naked in the quad by one of the masters. It is, of course, not his fault; he was simply returning to his rooms when he was assaulted by members of the ‘Bollinger Club’.

An entirely likeable, innocent but hapless individual, Paul takes a job at a terrible public school in Wales, where incompetent teachers and idiotic staff bemuse and dominate as farcical events unfold around him. At sports day he falls in love with the mother of one of his pupils, and on being asked to tutor the child during the summer holidays, becomes engaged to her. She is Mrs Beste-Chetwynde (Fay Downie), a society beauty who unbenownst to him runs a string of brothels in the new world. Arrested and imprisoned for colluding in this business (after she sets him up), he is thrown into jail and hits rock bottom when she promptly jilts him for a member of parliament. However, feeling contrite, Mrs Beste-Chetwynde engineers his escape using her new-found influence, and he is spat back out into the world, entirely confused by the whole series of events.

The grand irony is that Paul Pennyfeather is the most well intentioned and moral character of the whole piece, yet treated as the worst throughout, blown this way and that on the whim of fate, quite out of control of his own destiny.

Unfortunately this irony isn’t enough to sustain two hours of drama. This faithful adaptation left me empty, but the fault is Waugh’s and not the production’s which has some remarkable highlights and enjoyable passages. It is very neatly directed by Tom King. It is to him that most credit must go because the play is very well choriographed, enjoyably and dynamically constructed with great use of props and set and smooth ensemble acting dealt with neatly and easily. Each character is graced with great mannerisms and affectations which quickly delineate and establish them. Without this bold guidance really taking the play by the horns it could have been a truly dreadful few hours.

The sparkling opening of the play is a real testament to Tom King’s talent, which I hope to see visited on much better material. Sylvester McCoy plays the Oxford Don to great comic effect, and as we race through to the beginning of Paul’s teaching career each new character is introduced strongly and amusingly. We in the audience have to stand up and sit down as we are lectured to as pupils by the pompous headmaster, and it feels as though we’re in for a really entertaining show. However, as the leaden plot takes hold and the adaptation’s flabby middle is exposed all this excitement is lost, and with it I lost sight of any point in staging the play at all. A rendering of Waugh’s book it is, interesting it is not. After the interval Tom managed to flog the play back up to a canter for the final act, sufficient to give a genuine round of applause, but not to take a single thing away from.

The acting is on the whole good quality. Sylvester McCoy is very enjoyable as Captain Grimes, altough pushing far into the realm of the ridiculous. Jonathan Hanser is solid as Dr Fagan and Michael Lindall quite good enough to play the confused Paul Pennyfeather. At points the acting is laboured in an attempt to extract comedy from the script when really none is there, and they too often have recourse to lame caricature to try and raise a laugh. As the lack of depth in the satire was exposed I felt sorry for the actors who did their best trying to make it work, and to their credit did not die on their feet.

Henry Filloux-Bennett’s adaptation was not terrible. He managed to harness plenty of the satire of the novel and making largely solid choices about what to cut and what to retain. It was let down by not being ruthless enough; at 2 hours the play was definitely half an hour too long. The extra material, such as Philbrick’s (Owen Roberts) stories, really wasn’t good enough to drag out. Fundamentally, I feel the choice of novel was unfortunate; however good your director and cast they can’t play on nothing forever, and the conceit of Paul’s fate simply doesn’t carry with it enough comic content to make anything of. Of all of Waugh’s early novels, this is probably the weakest.

Waugh’s early satires all feel as though they were written too quickly. Amusing and effective at sending up his contemporaries, there is no soul to them at all. His authorial presence is so dominant it can easily feel heavy handed as we’re manipulated through the plot. As our main character’s agency is taken from him, so is my interest in his fate. It is frustrating to watch when we know how brilliant he could be, as in Brideshead Revisited and the Sword of Honour trilogy.

This adaptation of Decline and Fall, in fact this whole genre of theatre feels like T.V for the upper classes. It is not particularly well observed satire and there’s no meaningful or incisive drama. It really isn’t interesting, despite in part being clever. The fact that I came out actually having enjoyed parts of it is testament to a good cast and great director.

Porthole view: 5.5/10

Copie Conforme (English: Certified Copy) by Abbas Kiarostami

Copie Conforme (English: Certified Copy) directed by Abbas Kiarostami

With Juliette Binoche and William Shimell

UK Release: 3 September, 2010

Set in Tuscany, Copie Conforme follows an afternoon date between an English writer, James Miller (William Shimell), and a French woman, Elle (Juliette Binoche), who owns a small gallery in the town where Miller has come to give a talk. She is in her late thirties or early forties, he a bit older . Elle is an attractive single mother with a precocious pre-teen son, James a debonair writer more successful abroad than at home.

More than anything this seemed to me to be a film about human needs. It is rich in minutiae, exploring the actions and responses we want from other people and how these affect our feelings and shape our behaviour. On a larger scale it is about our differing approaches to the world, how we set about and fulfil our needs. It is about reality, the blurring of the subjective and the objective, about authorship and honesty. The film is an application of art history to the ‘real life’ of their relationship(s).

Copie Conforme is broadly divisible into two halves, which independently make sense but sit incongruously and confusingly together. The shift halfway through is in the relationship between James and Elle, who go from being on a first date to an estranged husband and wife. I thought I had missed something crucial, or misunderstood the beginning, or didn’t understand what I was seeing right then. Confusion! And interest.

The plot is minimal, simply them talking while walking round an ancient, beautiful Tuscan town. Until a visit to a café, they argue about James’ book and talk about art and relationships. Then, in the café James is mistaken by the owner to be Elle’s husband. Rather than correcting her, she starts to role play, to talk as though he is. On his return, she tells him of the deception, and he starts to take part in it too. It sounds simple enough, but from this moment until the end of the film neither of them breaks with the role play, or make reference to it. The arguments and emotions they show are those of an estranged couple, the passion is real and the bitterness and relationship history seems so mutually understood and easily introduced that for them to be simply acting starts to seem improbable and ends up seeming impossible.

Everything is character driven. As we try to fathom what is true and what is make believe in their relationship, we are forced to engage and grapple with their emotions and analyse the detail of their interactions in a much more incisive way than if it were strongly plotted, or clearly conforming to genre.

Kiarostami is interested in the idea of artistic forgery, which is what Copie Conforme, the book that Miller has written, is about. Which relationship is genuine is so hard to unpick; each half hints that the other is inauthentic, and both seem entirely plausible. Like spotting a fake Michelangelo, spotting whether the first part of the film or the second part is ‘genuine’ is incredibly difficult.

It feels we have to see one half of the film as false, inauthentic, and for Elle and James it must be a role play, living a lie. They are engaged in a game of emotional forgery, exploring how genuine we can consider feelings and emotions conjured by imagination or false memory, shared role play or deceit. Can James become, in a flash, Elle’s estranged husband, feel the same frustrations, have the same arguments that they had? Could they be estranged and have kept up a pretence of being on a first date, like it would have been all those years ago? If she really cries and he really gets angry, how do those emotions differ, indeed how do they as a couple differ, from the original pair? Their emotions are real and their behaviour towards one another sincere irrespective of any role play taking place.

The honesty of Binoche’s performance and Kiarostami’s gentle, intelligent handling of their emotions and interaction is powerful and compelling. It turns out that is doesn’t actually matter whether their feelings are being faked or not – both relationships depicted had all the subtleties, layers and feelings of a real one and both are fascinating and insightful in how they are drawn. The plot is disjointed, the explanation not sufficient, but the first part and second parts of the film both expose the characters and make them real to us. It holds a mirror up to how we behave and feel and what we look for and need in another person whether on a first date when trying to impress, or in a long relationship once all artifice has been stripped away.

So it doesn’t matter if their emotions are faked or not, and it also doesn’t matter which ‘film reality’ or part of the film we believe shows the ‘true’ them. To enjoy this film, or for the film to have value both parts simply need to be interesting, or beautiful. A view, I seem to remember, that James held in his book.

The film is shot beautifully and distinctively, marked by long takes symmetrically composed which our characters move in and out of. As the opening credits roll we study a table dressed with microphone, water and jug, positioned in front of an ornate and ancient fireplace. For a few minutes this is all we see; the slowly increasing sound begins to penetrate our consciousness, so we become aware of chairs scraping and muted conversation, but no-one steps into frame. We are expectant, waiting for the event and the film to begin. The credits end, and slightly late but not too flustered our protagonist arrives.

This simplicity feels so authoritative in a modern cinema driven by fast cuts and so reluctant to give an audience space to breathe or engage more intellectually with what they’re seeing. It is continued throughout the film, another particularly good example is a long take with the camera mounted centrally on a car’s bonnet as the couple drive. When they are in shadow, we see their faces, animated in conversation, and then in reflection, looking straight up, the buildings they drive past and the beautiful blue sky. It is arresting and beautiful, and such confident film making.

The counter to this, and equally impressive are a number of long, complex steadycam shots as we follow the couple through an art gallery and winding streets, brilliantly choreographed and with them in conversation all the time.

Binoche is brilliant, a strong character with just a note of desperation, and a need for love, engagement, support and understanding. Shimell plays the foil to Binoche and is, unfortunately, much less expressive and at times wooden. The consistency of his poor performance does somehow prevent it being too distructive, becoming a character in its own right, which is lucky for what is basically a two hander.

This is a complex film, and one that asks viewers to work to understand it. Nothing is delivered on a plate, but it has rewarding layers of meaning and complexity. This, matched with the cinematography create a powerful picture, and one I’d willingly revisit.

Porthole view: 7.5/10

66a Church Road

66a Church Road, written and performed by Daniel Kitson

New Players Theatre

From 29th May 2010

66a Church Road is a celebration of and lament for the flat that Daniel Kitson lived in for 6 long years between 2002 and 2008. It is his story of leaving this flat; a romantic, rose tinted insight into his feelings and memories of the flat, and his relationship with the place he called home.

Before going any further, I want to make my feelings clear: Daniel Kitson is the most inspired, intelligent, captivating and unique comedian I have ever seen. He is funnier than anyone else, and more bittersweet and moving than anyone else. He makes comedy and theatre about things other writers would never think to, let alone dare or be able to. He is someone you want to take home to your mother and be best friends with. And, on top of all that, he is also incredibly rude. Perfect.

66a Church Road is not his best show. In fact, in the 6 or so years that I’ve been doing everything I can to see Kitson as often as possible, I’d say this is his worst show, and by quite a long way. His delivery was perfect although sometimes felt slightly laboured, but the material was at points average, and far too repetitive. We heard in every beautiful touching, clever, funny, gentle way how much he loved this flat, and then we heard it again. And again. What the first time seemed insightful, a perfectly put expression of something we’d always known but not quite managed to say, by the second or third time was beginning to tarnish and seem obvious or trivial.

There were still many great touches and interesting thoughts, brilliantly entertaining moments meaning I never tired of the performance. It’s just the subject matter hasn’t the breadth needed to go the whole 90 minutes. You can’t wring a whole show from moving house, however much you love the house, without bringing some other themes or ideas into the piece. There was a pre-recorded voiceover subplot delivered while the stage lights were down, almost like chapter headings, that gave us glimpses of a tangled love story; the thoughts and feelings of this relationship bound up in the place where so much of it had taken place, giving another reason not to leave it. It ran entirely separate to the main narrative and didn’t interlink with the story per se, but complemented it, giving the show another dimension; the narrative over soft music, dim lights, a more fragmentary story where we had to work harder to make sense of what we heard. An interesting devise, it served as a break, an interlude, from which you could return refreshed to the main thrust of the tale, and it worked well. However, it wasn’t enough to inject the show with the dynamism I expected.

Daniel Kitson has been performing 66a Church Road for the best part of two years, and I can imagine it has become a bit formulaic, a bit tired. It is a great show, and one I’d recommend anyone to see. But still, it is a dip, and I hope the awe inspiring level of quality that Kitson normally gives will be back in the summer.

Porthole view: 7/10