The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Warning - there are small spoilers ahead. 

Last night was an interesting night for a number of reasons.

1) The second Eurovision song contest semi-final was on (admit it, you love the cheese factor as much as I do)

2) I was woken up in the middle of the night by the room shaking as Kent was hit by a mini-earthquake.  We braved our way through it, huddled together in a ball and in the morning went outside soberly to view the horrific aftermath.  One patio chair was knocked over.  Although, thinking about it, I'm fairly sure it's been like that for a good month or so already.

3) I finally got to see The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the multi-Olivier Award winning play!

Photo by Brinkhoff Mögenburg

Photo by Brinkhoff Mögenburg

Curious Incident is currently on tour and into its second week of residency at the Marlowe Theatre.  I had known it was coming for months, and, having read the book ages ago and heard all the rave reviews about the staging, concepts and creativity of the production, I was really keen to go and see it.

I was also intrigued - in London the play is performed in the round, which isn't physically possible at the Marlowe Theatre, and I had no idea how they were going to translate the play onto a more traditional stage structure.

Apparently with ease!  The grid box is one of the most ingenious stage concepts I think I have ever seen and offered the actors and stage crew boundless opportunities to have fun with lighting and visualising concepts.

Photo by Brinkhoff Mögenburg

Photo by Brinkhoff Mögenburg

For those of you who have been living under a rock, Curious Incident is the story of Christopher, a 15 year old boy with an extraordinary brain, one which grasps mathematical and scientific constructs with ease, but is ill-equipped to integrate with society, and his quest to solve the mystery of his next door neighbors dead dog that he finds speared with a garden fork in the early hours of the morning; a quest that leads him in an unexpected direction and changes him forever.

Photo by Brinkhoff Mögenburg

Although never explicitly stated either in the book or in the play, it is insinuated that Christopher is on the autistic spectrum with possible Aspergers Syndrome.  The portrayal of a person with Aspergers, or any form of autism on the stage, is one that needs to be handled sympathetically and this production beautifully demonstrated the balance between academic brilliance and social awkwardness Christopher experiences, and the challenges he has to overcome in everyday life in a world which is not designed to help or be sympathetic to people who struggle in social situations.  The use of sound, lighting and strobe to signify the times when Christopher needs to retreat into himself to cope with the overwhelming sensory overload around him, and the use of mathematics to stabalise and reassure him are beautiful constructs.

Photo by Brinkhoff Mögenburg

Photo by Brinkhoff Mögenburg

Rather than a first person narrative, the production was presented as a play-within-a-play, with the cast acting out the story that Christopher has written in his book as it is being read out loud by his teacher, and later converted in a play that his school puts on.  The physical movement was particularly effective, with dance elements used when Christopher is imagining himself tumbling through space as an astronaut or trying to navigate the streets of London on his own.  Hardly surprising when a group as well respected as Frantic Assembly have choreographed the play!

Photo by Brinkhoff Mögenburg

Photo by Brinkhoff Mögenburg

Standout sequences for me were the tube, the building of the railway sequence just before the interval (such a shame one of the letters landed on the line and stopped the train from reaching its destination) and the flight through Christopher's imagination as he describes his wish to be an astronaut.  These sequences in particular stand out as you are seeing the world through the eyes of someone that sees it very differently.  The author of the book, Mark Haddon, has stated that he does not want the book (and by default the play) to be about autism, but about difference, about being an outsider and seeing the world in a surprising and revealing way. 

From an acting perspective, the majority of the performances were exemplary.  Joshua Jenkins, who played Christopher, was simply outstanding.  He conveyed the strength and determination of Christopher's character mingled with the raw emotion of someone struggling to cope in a world not designed to meet their needs.  He was on the stage for the entire performance and did not once let his energy levels drop or slip up with the incredibly difficult scientific and mathematical theories he was explaining that bought order and routine to Christopher's world.

Photo by Brinkhoff Mögenburg

Stuart Laing and Gina Isaac, playing Christopher's parents, were exceptional at delivering the love and frustration they both feel at trying to communicate with a child who doesn't respond in the way that they expect, their desire to protect him from the world and also their coping strategies for compensating for Christopher's particular physical needs, such as the fingertip touch to replace a hug as Christopher violently eschews physical contact.

Photo by Brinkhoff Mögenburg

Photo by Brinkhoff Mögenburg

Photo by Brinkhoff Mögenburg

Geraldine Alexander portrays Christopher's teacher, Siobhan, whose calm demeanor and teachings help Christopher make sense of the world around him and provide him with valuable coping strategies when faced with high stress situations.  It is her voice that tells him to follow the red line and tap out the rhythm when Christopher is confronted by the chaos of a big city, who he hears telling him to work through the numbers and try again when he fears he cannot achieve a task. She is his comfort blanket and has a relationship with him that is in stark contrast to his mother, who clearly struggles to cope with Christopher's challenging behaviour.

Photo by Brinkhoff Mögenburg

Now the staging.  There is a reason that Curious Incident has won the Olivier Award for Best Sound Design, Best Lighting Design and Best Set Design and it is simply incredible.  The set becomes a vehicle for seeing inside Christopher's mind, for visualising the connections that he makes, the theories that he uses and the stress that it goes under when he is upset.  White cubes glow and become television screens, fish tanks and wheelie suitcases.  Windows open in the wall and props appear.  A table is pulled from the back wall as if out of thin air.  The set glows and moves and becomes a home, a train station, a tube station and a park.  It needs to be seen to be believed. 

I am ridiculously lucky to have the Marlowe Theatre on my doorstep, and I become even more aware of that fact when I get to see touring shows of the calibre of this one.

The UK tour is running until mid-November.  Check it out, and if you get a chance to go and see it, please do.

It will open your eyes to a world you may not have even been aware existed.

Photo by Brinkhoff Mögenburg

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The Nutcracker

Every since I was small I have loved The Nutcracker.   My mum had an old copy on video and I used to watch it at Christmas; it was one of the sure signs that Santa was on his way.

Everything about it screams of the yuletide festivities and the music by Tchaikovsky will instantly take me to a romantic winter dreamland where toys come to life and snowflakes dance.  The fact that I am writing about this in April must seem very odd then!

For Christmas this year, mum got me two tickets to see the Russian State Ballet and the Orchestra of Siberia's touring production of The Nutcracker at The Marlowe Theatre in March.  

Steve was certainly not interested (not really his thing) but I knew that Claire would be (she is a classical ballet buff) so invited her to join me one very cold Wednesday evening after work.  The show was part of two productions that the Company were touring with; The Nutcracker and Swan Lake and friends of mine in the area would be going to see both.  One of my colleagues commented the next day that they had been waving madly at me from the stalls but I was completely oblivious in the Circle!

Choreography in this production was by Vasily Vainonen and Sergei Bobrov with the full orchestra conducted by Alexander Yudasin.  From my position in the Circle I had a brilliant view down into the orchestra pit and some of the percussion instruments being used were like nothing I had ever seen before.

The entire ballet was just magical.  It opens at the Christmas Eve party where the children play games with the magician and Marie and Fritz receive their presents.  The touches here were lovely, with the children coming to and from the party wearing capes dusted with snow and throwing snowballs at each other.  The changing of the nutcracker into a lifesize doll was masterfully performed and the dancer remained as a life size doll for longer than normal, only changing into a full prince at the end of the act.

The Dance of the Snowflakes was one of the high points for me, and I loved their cone hats and snowballs dangling from their costumes; it was a different spin on a classical costume that I hadn't seen before and added some more personality to this production.

It has been a long time since I have seen a classical ballet production, having seen mainly modern dance interpretations in recent years.  You would think that I would have grown out of the childish desire to be a ballet dancer (despite the fact I hated my lessons) by now, but seeing the Waltz of the Sweets always rekindles it in me.  The Arabian Dance was particularly beautiful, using fabric reminiscent of a Dance of the Seven Veils to add movement and grace to an already beautiful performance.  The Tea Dance (Chinese) had all the fun, energy and vibrancy you expect from it. 

The one major criticism with this production?  There was no Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy!  This is such an iconic part of any Nutcracker production and I am utterly bemused as to why they left it out!  The music was played, but Clara danced to it instead.  No idea why they chose to do this.

It did feel very strange to be watching The Nutcracker when it wasn't Christmas, but the magic and wonder of the show is still enough to spellbind you, no matter the time of the year.

All images were sourced online (apart from the images of the Marlowe Theatre which are my own) but original photography credit could not be found.  If you know who should be credited for the ballet images, please let me know and I will add it.

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Peter Pan Goes Wrong!

A while ago my friends had tickets to go and see The Play That Goes Wrong by the young and vibrant comedy theatre group Mischief Theatre, first formed in 2008 by a group of graduates and students of The London Academy of Music & Art.  It is very, very rare that I regret a theatre decision but in this case I couldn't make it as I had another engagement.  From their stories about the production, I knew I had missed out on something incredibly special. 

I was right; The Play That Goes Wrong is now firmly ensconced in the West End to rave reviews and I still need to see it!  Luckily it has been extended until September 2015 so there is still time...

When the same group of friends told me that Mischief Theatre were bringing their newest production, Peter Pan Goes Wrong to the Marlowe Theatre, I knew I wasn't missing out again and Steve and I joined Claire, RV, John, Ellie, Peter and Jo for a pre-theatre curry followed by a night of riotous comedy.

The curry may have been a mistake - apparently 2 hours of side splitting laughter plus spice are not a great mix!

Photo from www.edtheatres.com

For a bunch of am drammers, The Play That Goes Wrong and Peter Pan Goes Wrong are the type of productions that we love to see, having us jointly laughing and cringing in our seats as so much of what is going on on the stage resonates with us.  There were moments when I had both hands over my face and was peeking out at the action on stage from between my fingers.

The idea is simple; the audience are watching a play within a play.  The actors are playing an am-dram group who are putting on an am-dram production that just goes horrifically, hysterically wrong in every conceivable way whilst they struggle through to the end.

Photo from www.edtheatres.com

I don't want to give away too many of the gags, but here are a check list of things to look out for:

Wardrobe malfunctions
Collapsing set
Never ending line loop
Accidentally switching characters and saying each others lines
Major and minor injury
Malfunctioning set
Accidental nudity
Personal relationship breakdown on stage out of character
Misbehaving facial hair and wigs
The wrong sound recordings being played
Actor substitutions mid performance
Punch ups
Stage and Tech crew appearing on stage at the wrong moments
Lighting mishaps
Flying misadventures
Out of character on stage revelations
Lovers tiffs
Electrocution
Broken bones
Wrong lines
Diva's
Unconscious actors

 

In the interval we found ourselves comparing when things have gone wrong in our own productions (like the time the trap collapsed in Hobson's Choice and I accidentally trapped Steve's fingers in the door whilst attempting to hold it closed on stage so Derek could drill it from the other side mid performance, or the line loop we managed to get into during the Wimbledon scene in Teechers, or the time we flipped a light switch on stage as a visual cue and two seconds later the lights actually went out) and the exaggerated examples in Peter Pan Goes Wrong (Nana's experiences with the dog flap, the misbehaving night lights and the line loop during a musical number).

Photo from www.edtheatres.com

From the start the audience is utterly engaged in the performance.  Crime scene tape is removed from a row of seats so that people can sit down.  The techies are running backwards and forwards across the stage arguing with each other, until one of the techies gets fed up and came and sits with us for a bit of a gossip whilst the theatre is filling up.  The host gets the whole auditorium (1200 people strong) to sing Happy Birthday to Dave only to realise afterwards that Dave was Michael and it wasn't his birthday, leaving the host to slink off muttering apologies.

Photo from www.edtheatres.com

We are treated to an introduction from the Director and his Co Assistant Director who pompously inform us that we are not watching a pantomime, we are watching something that will apparently be a lot more high brow (he used a word, I'm blowed if I can remember what it was!) and that due to a cast member illness, Michael will now be played by the oldest member of the drama troop.  Beard and all.

Photo from www.edtheatres.com

Some of the actors take on multiple roles.  As is traditional, Hook and Mr Darling are played by the same actor, Nana the Dog is also the Crocodile, John and Michael play Pirates and Tinker Bell gets to jump between so many characters her costumes get rather mixed up as she races through lightening quick changes, and doesn't quite get her dress done up in time.

One of the major reliefs for the actors must be that, if something really were to go wrong, the audience would not have the first blue clue!

Photo from www.edtheatres.com

There are mishaps and misadventures and through it all I was screaming with laughter to the point that my stomach muscles were aching and tears were running down my cheeks.  You can see the amount of work and effort that has gone into the production; every little move has to be choreographed to the last detail and the level of mutual trust between the members of the Company is incredibly high.  The result is an exquisite dance of comedy.

The revolving set was beautifully made and a masterful concept that comes into its own towards the end of the second act.  I could see the wheels in Steve's head turning at a few of the set tricks as he worked out how he could build something similar for us.  We all left commenting how we would kill to be able to be involved in something like this. 

Even the programme features a programme within a programme, with mock bio's, adverts for future up and coming productions from the Company and local advertisers shelling their wares.  It is the attention to detail that really makes Mischief Theatre stand out.

Photo from www.edtheatres.com

Despite the best efforts of the mock cast, this production does still have pantomime moments with shouts of 'He's behind you' and 'Oh no he didn't' ringing to the rafters.  The children in the theatre loves this as it meant that the pantomime format was still there and familiar to them, allowing them to get involved.  There are musical and dance numbers that the audience can get involved in, occasionally interrupted by techie mistakes as the music gets stuck on repeat or one of the actors headpieces tunes into a local radio, causing him to announce, in full vocal harmonies with the rest of the cast, that 'the traffic on the M2 is backed up to Junction 5'.  Good to know for the trip home.

Peter Pan Goes Wrong is touring the UK until July 2015 (full schedule here).  Go and see it and take everyone you know for a brilliant night of laughter.  Just remember, everything you see on the stage has probably happened to a Company for real somewhere else!

Photo from www.edtheatres.com

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La Finta Giardiniera‎

"People's reactions to opera the first time they see it is very dramatic; they either love it or they hate it. If they love it, they will always love it. If they don't, they may learn to appreciate it, but it will never become part of their soul"- Edward Lewis, Pretty Woman

Photo Credit: Richard Hubert Smith, 2014

As someone who purports to love theatre in all its wondrous forms, I am slightly shamefaced to admit that I have never seen a live opera.  I have watched a number of them curled up on the sofa with a mug of tea courtesy of Sky Arts, but I have never experienced the wonder of being sat in a theatre and letting the music just wash over me.  

Photo Credit: Richard Hubert Smith, 2014

Therefore when Glyndebourne offered me the chance to come and see one of their touring shows at the Marlowe theatre, I jumped at the opportunity. 

Photo Credit: Richard Hubert Smith, 2014

Glyndebourne tours their Summer Festival shows, which meant that over a three day period, they were presenting three individual operas: La Traviata, The Turning of the Screw and La Finta Giardiniera‎.  As it happened, I was off work on annual leave the week that they were visiting Canterbury (it was performance week for House of Bernada Alba), so I was on stage every evening at the Gulbenkian Theatre which ruled out all evening operas for me unfortunately.  Luckily there was a matinee performance of La Finta Giardiniera‎.  It finished at 5.30pm, I needed to be at the theatre to get ready at 6.30pm – it was fate.

Photo Credit: Richard Hubert Smith, 2014

My Mum was also free, so I did what any good daughter would do, and offered her one of the two tickets that Glyndebourne had so kindly gifted me.  I also invited her to take me out to lunch at Deeson’s first (OK, I did offer to pay, but apparently that violates a few laws of nature in her book and I wasn't going to argue).

Photo Credit: Richard Hubert Smith, 2014

Photo Credit: Richard Hubert Smith, 2014

The weekend beforehand, I was at my parents’ house for mum's birthday, and my sister presented me with a chart.  It's was the love plot of La Finta Giardiniera (complete with keys that I still don't fully understand).  To say it was complicated was an understatement.  Armed only with this knowledge of what the opera was about, I was a little wary that I wouldn't fully understand what on earth was happening.

I needn't have worried.  Not only was the Italian Baroque Opera, directed by Freddie Wake Walker supertitled and the characters so fully developed it was easy to follow what was happening, but we were also treated to an introduction about what to expect.  

Photo Credit: Richard Hubert Smith, 2014

The plot is fairly simplistic and filled with stock characters.  Violante / Sandrina, the titular Garden Girl, is stabbed by her lover, Belfiore for reasons still not quite clear to me at the start of the opera.  She heals and decides to adopt a disguise as the Garden Girl (Sandrina), presumably to avoid her quite frankly violent lover.  Belfiore meanwhile goes and gets himself engaged to Arminda, the snobbish niece in fantastic dresses of the Mayor (Don Anchise (Il Podestà).  Serpetta is the Mayor’s maid and has a serious crush on him, whilst Nardo, Sandrina’s fellow servant, is desperately in love with Serpetta, whilst she scorns him.  Arminda has an ex-lover hanging around her, trying to win her back (Ramiro) whilst, just to ensure that everything is neat and tidy, Don Anchise is also trying to win the love of Sandrina.  

Photo Credit: Richard Hubert Smith, 2014

Photo Credit: Richard Hubert Smith, 2014

The opera explores the twists and turns of the convoluted love lives of the seven characters and becomes especially interesting when Sandrina and Belfiore meet again, prior to their descent into madness.  They recognise each other, much to Sandrina's dismay, forcing her to maintain her pretense.  Themes of madness, the natural environment competing with the rigid formality of the Rococo interior, spurned love and class boundaries all run throughout the opera, which was composed by Mozart when he was 19 years old.  

Photo Credit: Richard Hubert Smith, 2014

La Finta translates as the False, or The Pretend Garden Girl, and pretense is a running theme of the production.  Not only are we watching actors, pretending to be characters, but we are also theatre of the disguise, a common theme in French Baroque drama of the time (Violante, the Marchionesse is in disguise as Sandrina, the Garden Girl).  We are also watching characters who are unsure what they are feeling, pretend to feel emotions, trying them out for size until they find one that fits.  To compensate for this, gestures are oversized and grand, with each character having a signature stance that they adopt at regular points throughout the opera (my favourite was Serpetta, her stance reminded me of Truly Scrumptious' doll pose in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  She was also wearing what I am sure were Irregular Choice shoes - a brand I love, which could also have biased me somewhat...).

Photo Credit: Richard Hubert Smith, 2014

As the characters become more at home in their emotions, recognising their true selves and their true feelings, everything else becomes stripped down.  They remove the layers of their extravagant costumes, wearing only their simple underclothes and bare feet.  Masks of heavy makeup are gradually removed from their faces, revealing the true individual underneath.  What is even more impressive is what happens to the set, which literally disintegrated before our eyes.  I admit, when the first door fell off its hinges, my immediate reaction was “wow, even professional companies sometimes experience mishaps”.  Then Sandrina jumped through one of the flats, leaving tattered remains behind her.  Shortly afterwards another flat crashed to the floor with a tremendous thump, demonstrating the precision of the staging as it missed Belfiore's head by inches, then two more flats rose into the air.  After that the cast just went to town, ripping the set to pieces around them until only the fireplace was left standing.  It was around then that I realised that this wasn’t just a series of mishaps, Comedy of Errors style.  Replica’s of the furniture from Act 1 were revealed to be made of paper as the chairs were torn apart, and one of the legs (a masking curtain) was ripped down.  Good lord that looked like fun!

Photo Credit:  Sam Stephenson, 2014

Photo Credit: Richard Hubert Smith, 2014

Photo Credit:  Sam Stephenson, 2014

When I had first spoken to my mother about the opera, she has been cautious, having never been to see an opera before, and just as we were going in she had said she would ‘keep an open mind’.  At the interval she was smiling, by the end she had the biggest grin on her face.  She was also slightly bemused at how on earth they were going to reset everything in time for the next performance.

Photo Credit: Richard Hubert Smith, 2014

There are some reviewers out there who haven’t been particularly enthusiastic about this work, claiming that due to the fact it is one of Mozart’s earliest opera’s, it doesn’t have the elegance or finesse of what he was later capable of.  I’m no expert, and I am certainly not an opera snob, so from a pure theatre lover’s perspective, they don’t know what they are talking about.  

Photo Credit: Richard Hubert Smith, 2014

This was a joy to watch.  The actors were fantastic in their characterisation and stamina, the concept was clever and the music was achingly beautiful.  

Photo Credit: Richard Hubert Smith, 2014

Glyndebourne, thank you for having me.  It was a privilege.

*This was a sponsored post.  Glyndebourne provided me with two complimentary tickets to their matinee performance of La Finta Giardiniera‎at The Marlowe Theatre, however this has in no way affected my appreciation of the production.  I also would just like to say that they are a joy to work with, and my particular thanks goes to Vicky from Glyndebourne who I have been in correspondence with.

If you like (or hate!) what you have read, please do let me know in the comments below or slap me with a cheeky follow, or say Hi to me on my facebook group or twitter!