Coriolanus, by William Shakespeare, Reviewed.

Ah, the Bard. I’m gradually sifting through his works, reading for the sheer pleasure of his language. Coriolanus is one of his tragedies, of course. That it’s been recently filmed, (not that I’ve seen the movie) is a surprise only in that it’s a play begging to be made into a film. With the violence, treachery, wonderfully flawed hero and the battle scenes, it’s a plot made for Hollywood.

The tragedy of the eponymous hero is his combination of social pride and an inability to understand the different qualities required for the General in battle and the Consul as politician. The text is perhaps more crammed than usual with contemporary references and terms that need a scholar to interpret them for the common reader of today, so that there are subtleties I’m sure I’ve either missed or misinterpreted. But I believe I gleaned the important matter of the plot.

Coriolanus, bas relief (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Not a play to be enjoyed, of course. But certainly one that informs and enlightens regarding the human condition. It’s particularly encouraging that it is the women who finally resolve the situation and prevent the ultimate tragedy for Rome itself, even if not for Coriolanus.

A play I’d like to see performed and, as I’m unlikely to find a stage performance in the near future, I can at least arrange to see the film. And I will. As a study of human failing and success, and a description of the fickleness of loyalty and its opposite extreme it packs a powerful punch. If you haven’t read it, I suggest you give it a try.

Related articles

• Coriolanus - Movie
• Ellen Terry as Volumina

Donkeys’ Years, by Michael Frayn, Reviewed.

First produced at London’s Globe Theatre in July 1976 (coincidentally the year in which my novel, Breaking Faith, is set, and a year of drought and heat wave in UK), this three act play is another demonstration of Frayn’s very British humour.

Although described simply as a play in three acts, this is much more like a farce, in the true British, dare I say English?, tradition. If not actually a farce, it could be taken as a parody of the style. It has all the ingredients: sexual misunderstandings, English sexual reserve, hypocrisy disguised as custom, bedrooms and, of course, the loss of clothes for the female and trousers for the male. I imagine the reader would have to become watcher in order to determine whether this is truly farce or the parody I suspect.

It is, of course, full of humour, poking fun at the stuffed shirts of academia, politicians and the servile subclass of those who serve such pretentions. There is much repetition, which, on the page can be a little wearying but on stage would work a treat, given good actors. The action is confined to a single location for each of the three acts and this serves to emphasise the claustrophobic and sheltered nature of the attitudes encapsulated by the cast. These are people who have no understanding of what most of us would call the ‘real world’. Privileged, spoilt and elevated beyond their natural abilities, they posture and pose their way through life completely unaware of the priorities faced by ordinary people outside their favoured circle.

The thread of lust, disguised as admiration until alcohol allows for honesty, permeates the play. The single female representative is the focus of all male attention, apart, of course, from that of the gay vicar (another stock character of English farce). There is little concern for the damage done to either lives or property by their barbs and actions. The level of achievement for most of the protagonists is well above their natural abilities and is an effective way of pointing out how birth and class can elevate beyond desert.

So, a social statement, but one so well submerged in humour that it may be missed by the less attentive. And the humour is brilliant. It had me laughing out loud and frequently, much to the distress of a fellow worker who shared the small room that serves as a temporary sanctuary from the busy and noisy office in which I perform my day job. The jokes come thick and fast, many derived from simple misunderstandings made clear to the audience but hidden from the characters.

I thoroughly enjoyed this play and would definitely attend a theatre for a performance.

Related articles

• Clouds, by Michael Frayn, Reviewed.
• Humour? Funny?

Clouds, by Michael Frayn, Reviewed.

First performed at the Hampstead Theatre, London, in August 1976, this two act play is another of Frayn’s comedies. However, I’m at a loss to know for certain what it’s really about.

Set in Cuba (though the stage is a blank arena with stepped surfaces, chairs and a back-projection screen to receive the images of the sky that give the play its name) the action revolves around a trio of writers who are there to report on the state of the island a short time after Castro’s takeover. As a teenager during the time of the Cuba Crisis, when we held our collective breath as Kruschev and Kennedy postured over the issue of nuclear missiles sited on the island, Cuba holds a resonance unlikely to echo through the blood of the modern reader.

There’s a love story in here, though it may be that simple lust is the driver, in spite of the protestations of the protagonists. There are cultural misunderstandings, cynicism on an epic scale, subtle, and not so subtle, political asides, and, of course, humour. The go-getting American, the lady novelist and the reporter from the UK are stereotypical yet manage to convey some individuality. The tired diplomat-cum-guide-cum-minder is just that, but hovers between his sense of duty and the lust he develops for the lady novelist. The driver is a rogue, philanderer and wide-boy with an obvious eye for the ladies and the only male in the cast who appears immune to the charms of the novelist.

So, an interesting cast with an intriguing span of relationships. We follow them on their odd tour of the island, a typical itinerary for a communist regime, ensuring these foreigners see all the technical and commercial developments but are excluded from intercourse with the actual people wherever possible. There is the standard misunderstanding, deliberate or otherwise, between the eventual would-be lovers. There is the expected friction between the American and British writers. There is the unconscious condescension shown by the writers for their guardian and driver. But, in the hands of this master, the sometimes spare dialogue is made to say so much more than the mere words.

I imagine the sparse setting would enhance the dialogue, which is what the play is all about, removing visual distractions so that all attention is given to the characters as they set about their tasks of  misinformation, professional and personal rivalry, seduction and petty jealousy.

The text made me laugh where I was expected to find humour. It made me react emotionally to the various scenes of conflict, co-operation, misunderstanding and attempted sexual conquest. But I was left with an ending that seemed unfinished and flat. I didn’t expect an explosion, merely something that wound up at least something of the action that had preceded it, rather than the rather vague conclusion that the experience had changed nothing.

Would I go to see the play performed? I wouldn’t queue, but if it were easy to attend, I think I’d give it a try. Make of that what you will.

Related articles

• Cuba names Raul Castro to new term as president
• Fidel Castro attends Cuba parliament
• End of Castro era in Cuba near...

Play With a Tiger, By Doris Lessing, Reviewed.

One thing that can be said with little fear of contradiction is that Doris Lessing's work is anything but simple and straightforward. She loves to wrap her characters and plots in multiple layers, through which the reader must pick his way, often with only minimal guidance as to direction and even, sometimes, intent.

Play With A Tiger was first performed at the Comedy Theatre, London, on 22^nd March 1964 and is set in the city. Whilst it's very much a play of its time, it nevertheless carries some of its themes fairly well into the modern day. Attitudes to unmarried mothers have changed for many, political normality has become anything but, and extramarital affairs are now so commonplace as to be almost expected, but the war of the sexes continues, for some, at any rate.

As Anna and Dave reconstruct their pasts and possible futures, their dialogue exposes their sometimes opposing, sometimes similar stances. The descriptive passages that take them back in time explore their development as people and depict the lives of their parents and families in ways that explain, to some extent, the way they are now. But there is an underlying tone of self-absorption and mutual distrust that was, as I recall, a very common situation for men and women at the time. I'm not convinced it is any better now than it was then, but the development of family planning aids has definitely made things different for the single woman in search of love without the wish to raise a family. This aspect of the relationship between men and women is so different now that modern audiences may have difficulty understanding the dilemma facing maturing women back in those early days of burgeoning sexual freedom.

Dave is careless and unaware of the reality of the effect of his philandering on the women he seduces and uses as an excuse to bolster his ego. He's not a character I can find much sympathy for, with his utterly selfish concerns. Anna is singularly confused and seems unable to make up her own mind about much that troubles her in life. She yearns to be as free as she believes Dave to be, and it's easy to understand this desire when set against the strictures society places on her.

There are asides, set-based devices, and other interactions that illustrate the differences between the male and female views of life at the time, and I suspect these would have worked very well in performance.  They don't translate well via the text alone, however. Would I go to see the play in performance?  I wish I'd seen it at the time, when so much more was immediately relevant, but I don't think I'd watch it today, unless it was substantially re-written to accommodate what has changed. For all that, I enjoyed the read.

Related articles

• Briefing For A Descent Into Hell by Doris Lessing (Vintage V-662 - 1981)

The Royal Hunt of the Sun, by Peter Shaffer, Reviewed.

This play was first performed at the National Theatre in Chichester on 7^th June 1964, when I was a young man of 16. I've never seen a performance, but I wish I had. Bernard Levin described the work as 'The greatest play of our generation', and I can see why, having merely read the text.

This is a piece of fictionalised history with much taken from recorded sources. It reads as true. It reads as a commentary on the utter hypocrisy of the early Catholic Church, the greed of those who would make Empire their ambition, the incredible courage of some and the cowardice of many. In the characters we find historical personalities and other figures developed to illustrate the generality of those men who accompanied Pizarro on his epic journey to rape and plunder the civilisation of the ancient Incas in Peru.

The motivation of the majority was a desire to escape abject poverty coupled with a promise of untold wealth. In an age when the promise of an afterlife was taken as fact by many ignorant and ill-educated people, the value of real life was held to be low, of course. Others who ventured forth on this great adventure of corruption and theft were driven by political or evangelical ambition. The 'royal' representatives of Spain are drawn with savage honesty, corrupt, self-serving and totally driven by an ideal of royalty that has nothing to do with the older idea of noblesse oblige. Those representing the Catholic Church are drawn with brutal truth as purveyors of a falsehood they are determined to force on the innocent in the hope that conversion of such souls might bolster their own insecurities and bring them the selfish reward of everlasting life for their own souls, regardless of the cost for those they thus pollute.

But it is greed that most drives the characters of this play, as in the real journey. They desire gold, at any price and regardless of the cost in human life. There is no hiding from the facts here. Pizarro, although trying to present himself as a complex character with mixed motives, is, in reality, simply a bully and opportunist with a lust for gold that drowns out all reason. He slowly comes to realise what is defining his life and, to his credit, develops some scruples as events unfold and he discovers that the man he would slaughter as a savage is anything but.

My only slight cause for complaint rests in the depiction of Atahuallpa as an entirely noble sovereign. He is undoubtedly more versed in nobility than any of the western characters, but he is also the head of a state where sacrifice and strict rule exist, circumscribing the lives of his subjects to the extent that they are mere shadows of men. Individuality in this state is definitely not permitted and the word of Atahuallpa is law on pain of death. But I suspect the elevation of the Inca leader is simply a device to make him more admirable than the ruffians, cowards, hypocrites and thieves who invade his land in order to destroy a civilisation simply for monetary reward. The destruction of the art into simple blocks of gold, as a means of sharing, is unforgiveable and underlines the wholly material concerns of the men concerned in the looting.

This is a powerful, disturbing and moving piece of drama. It reads on the page with a presence of power and emotional thrust that performance must render into an amazing experience. If I ever get the opportunity to attend a performance of this play, I will definitely go. In the meantime, I recommend any reader with an interest in the frailty of man, the iniquity of empire, the place of brutality in history, to read the text. It is a worthy use of your time.

Related articles

• How we made: Peter Shaffer and Felicity Kendal on Amadeus

Ross, by Terence Rattigan, Reviewed.

First performed at the Haymarket Theatre in London, on 12^thMay 1960, this dramatic depiction of the life of T.E Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia, uses insight, perception and historical events in an attempt to convey something of the reality of this enigmatic man. Of course, most readers will have seen or at least heard of the slightly later David Lean film, Lawrence of Arabia, written by Robert Bolt and Michael Wilson and employing Lawrence’s own writings. The two productions are very different, of course.

Rattigan employs backstory, setting the play initially on the RAF camp where Lawrence, in his other persona, Aircraftsman Ross, attempts to escape his past. After some illustrations of the banality and pointlessness of a service life I recognise from my own short days in the RAF, we are taken into those now famous events that both made and destroyed the man we all know as Lawrence of Arabia. Using dialogue and character to explain this complex figure, Rattigan is able to get at least partially beneath the skin of his protagonist. What he also manages to achieve is the exposure of the prejudices of the times, the blinkered attitude of the military, which appears to continue to this day, and the necessary duplicity that prevails amongst those senior figures during war. But what he reveals, more than anything else, is the sheer, brutal indifference of violent conflict. On the page, the horror and torment are palpable: in performance this must have been so very difficult to watch. Yet, I imagine that audiences were so captivated by the personal will of the lead character that they were unable to escape the performance.

Rattigan has brought to life a man who has defied explanation, a man both reviled and loved, hated and worshipped, honoured and despised, during his lifetime. But he has also tried, with some success, to explain the way in which exposure to different cultures and values, different sacred creeds, colours so absolutely the outlook of those who live within their influence.

This play is much more than a biography of a remarkable man; it is a statement about hypocrisy, the expedience necessitated by war, greed, betrayal, loyalty, friendship and love. A truly remarkable piece of theatre, even when read only on the page. Were this to be recreated as a stage performance, I would do all in my power to attend. If the power is so great in the text alone, performance must render this work one of the most outstanding theatre experiences. Thoroughly recommended. Read it.

Related articles

• Home Video Review: 'Lawrence Of Arabia' On Blu-Ray

A Sense of Detachment, by John Osborne, Reviewed.

First performed at the Royal Court Theatre on 4^thDecember 1972, this play was published a year later. The copy I have was issued by the publishers as a review copy (the publisher’s slip is still loose within the pages), but not to me. No, I picked it up in a second hand book shop some years later.

That the play’s first performance took place in such an august location says a great deal about the theatrical world’s respect for the playwright at the time. Of course, his ‘Look Back in Anger’ had deservedly set him up as a ‘name’ in the literary world way back at the end of the 1950s. But, whether this play would have received such respect had it come from the pen of a lesser known writer is open to doubt.

The piece is partially ‘improvised’. Much of the intended dialogue is specified but there are passages where the cast is intended to react to the audience, especially where public participation might be encouraged by the antics and words of a couple of cast members placed within that audience. I expect that such risky participation was what drew many into theatre. Certainly, the early dialogue given the cast would be insufficient to garner much in the way of admiration. It’s banal and uninspiring on the page. Performance may well have brought it more life but the text is decidedly flat and lacks the humour that’s clearly intended.

But, as time passes on the uncluttered stage, we’re bombarded with significant comment on social issues of the time. In particular, the Older Woman is given the task of demonstrating the then growing tolerance of pornography and its detrimental effects on women. At the time there was increasing awareness of the way in which pornography objectifies women and portrays rape as not only acceptable but actually desirable, even by the women thus abused. Osborne’s clever use of a mature but attractive woman to apparently enjoy her readings of graphic female abuse is very effective on the page and, I suspect, even more so in performance. The playwright was, of course, very concerned about social issues and he uses the play to highlight many aspects of life that he wants people to think about. I suspect that audiences would leave the performance with a deeper understanding of the destructive tendencies of pornography.

There are aspects of this play that definitely don’t come across in the text. I can imagine that performance would enliven, invigorate and excite the written words to make the whole experience more meaningful and enjoyable. But there are elements of the piece that defy explanation. Many of the passages are drawn from other sources, often obscure, without reference to those sources, so that it’s difficult to know whether a specific point was being made in any given circumstance. Sometimes, the juxtaposition of dialogue and action appears almost absurd; whether this was deliberate and whether it was a theatrical device employed to unsettle what Osborne probably viewed as a complacent middle class audience is uncertain at this distance. The effect on the page is simply confusing, but, again, in performance, it would probably be more effective.

On balance, this is definitely a play to be seen rather than read. But I don’t think I’d be tempted to attend such a performance now. I think the piece is of its time and unlikely to transfer to the modern day in a form that would render it entertaining or thought-provoking. The debates opened here are now well established and no longer bear the rawness and immediacy they would have had at the time of its writing.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2006/apr/29/theatre.biography       for a piece on the biography of John Osborne.

The Comedy of Errors, by William Shakespeare, Reviewed

Heresy! Infamy! Thou darest malign the Bard?

The Comedy of Errors appears to be based on a premise that I found impossible to swallow, for two simple reasons. First; why would the twins, both sets, not have been named prior to their separation and therefore have different names? It seems unlikely that these infants were so young as to have been denied such a basic ceremony as naming. Secondly, and perhaps more to the point, why were both sets of twins dressed identically, bearing exact copies of the same hairstyle, using the same manner of speech? So identical, in fact, that they could not be separated by the intimate servants or, in the case of Antipholus of Ephasus, by his wife and her sister. One was raised in Syracuse, a town in Sicily, with, admittedly, Greek influence. And the other in Ephasus, in Turkey, again, with Greek influence. However, the manner of speech in these two widely distant provinces would undoubtedly have been equally wide. Manner of dress, customs, mannerisms etc would all have been very varied, and Shakespeare would have been aware of such regional differences from his exposure to such during his everyday life in England.

A farce, and this play is definitely a farce, requires the audience to suspend their disbelief in order to appreciate the confusions caused by the plot. I found I was unable to suspend my incredulity to the extent necessary to enjoy this piece of comic drama.

I’m an admirer of our national Bard; what writer of English could fail to prize the literary skills of this world renowned wordsmith? But I couldn’t push past what quickly became an insuperable barrier to my enjoyment. This impediment was further reinforced by the poor quality of the poetry of the piece. We’re all used to the subtlety, variety, cleverly composed and richly metaphorical nature of Shakespeare’s dialogue. But in this, one of his earlier plays, he seems not to have quite got the hang of things. The language is unnecessarily convoluted, as if he’s more concerned with impressing the audience than with conveying his meaning. The usual contemporary references aside, I found the meaning often difficult to determine because of the structure of the sentences and the employment of obtuse metaphors. I accept, when reading Shakespeare, that some of the language’s more subtle meanings will be lost on me: I’m not a scholar of the period and I lack the time to delve into references that require lengthy searches to unpick. But, in this play, I felt the playwright was more concerned with fireworks than with substance. Also, although I’ve never seen a production, I very quickly knew the outcome, since this was flagged too clearly in the first act.

So, not the best of his work, but, hell, it’s Shakespeare, so it must be good, yes? 

####

To my regular readers, my apologies for the lack of a piece on writing today. My ME/CFS has returned and it limits my energy and creativity. I'll try to get back to normal next week. Thank you for your patience.

Related articles

• The Secret Life of William Shakespeare by Jude Morgan - review
• [Review] Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare
• William Shakespeare - "Steesh of Avon"
• Stephen Fry Battles Illness To Perform In William Shakespeare Play
• As You Like It: "the happiest of Shakespeare's comedies."

The Great God Brown, by Eugene O’Neill, Reviewed

What to say about this piece of classic American literature? The play is presented in six stages; a prologue, four acts, and an epilogue. 

First impressions are that this should have been devised as a film, not a stage play, had that medium been capable at the time. Many of the stage directions (and these are multitude and detailed) would produce results invisible to all but the first few rows in the audience. And some are so specific and precise as to defy execution. It’s as if O’Neill has forgotten that theatre is a collaborative medium relying as much on director and actors as on the text from which the action is driven. I recall, in my early days of writing for radio, being advised that stage directions should be kept to a minimum, the nature of the delivery being evident from the words used in the dialogue.

Parts of the play come over like the tortured polemic of the inebriate, which the drunk generally mistakes for truth. Given that large portions deal with a drunken Dion, this struck me as ironic.

But, the play has a great deal to say and, in spite of its overambitious and sometimes pretentious presentation, it manages to say much of it very well. Written during the great depression, and strongly affected by the religious hypocrisy that remains a pervasive influence over huge swathes of the USA, it deals with the conflict between creativity and money-making. That it is also a love story is what mostly redeems it for me.

The use of masks to illustrate the difference between what is said and what is meant by the various characters is probably very effective on stage, for those at the front of the audience at any rate. I suspect that the subtle changes would be invisible to those paying less for their seats, which is again ironic, given that the play has a good deal to say about the uneven spread of wealth.

I can’t say that I enjoyed reading this text. But I was compelled to read it to the end. I cared about the outcome and was interested in the characters. Ultimately, however, it was a play that left me unsatisfied and, to some extent, confused. I don’t expect it to live in my mind for long and I doubt I’d bother to go to a performance at a theatre. I might be tempted to watch it as a television production, hoping, in that medium, to experience the minutiae that might otherwise be missed on stage.

As a piece of American culture, it exposed, to me, the national obsessions with money, ambition and religious guilt, as well as the inability of some men to separate lust from love. Dion, as the tortured artist came across as more selfish than passionate and Billy, as the face of business, portrayed the greed and self-interest that many find distasteful about the culture of the country. But the players are complex and very human, displaying the characteristics of a society still searching for its identity under the weight of imposed dogmatic religion and the worship of money.

As ever, this is my personal response to a piece of writing. I’ve made no excursions into the multitude of critiques and literary analyses that must have been written on this play. This review is the result of my own experience of reading the text, and probably says as much about me as it does about the work itself.