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Applause Magazine (Subscriptions), Address

Applause Magazine (Subscriptions), Address

March 1997 ~ -,.~...... Issue 6 £2.50

Lady in the Dark comes into the light

David Nathan talks to I

New face I

II '" 0] 9 771]64 76]009 I

Editor's Letter

ime was when new Irish plays, regardless of their quality, rarely performed well at box­ ulfices in . Great reviews did not necessarily guarantee great audiences and mounting a new Irish was something of a high-risk venture. But not anymore. The air is alive with the .J of quolity Blarney as an impressive crop of Iris h dramatists, following in the colourful tradition of " &'ucicault, JB Keane, Oscar Finga l O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, Sean O 'Casey, J M Synge and Samuel

=-=_',;<,[( have become de rigueur. The problems of an oppressed, rebellious country, divided both religiously and politically, have for _=: ~J _: been angril y, and poetically expressed by dramatists whose passionate fl air for words is apparent u, -h contemporary Irish pl aywrights as Billy Roche, Tom Murphy, Marina Carr, Frank McGuinness, : ["":b tian Barry, and, the new boy on the block, Martin McDonagh, whose Th e Beauty Q ueen . Lu·"" ne and The CripJlie of Inishmaan have been hits at the Royal Court and the Royal National :-he:Mre respectively. Later in the year the Royal C ourt will be mounting the prolific McDonagh's Connemara trilogy (of ...h lC h Leenane was the first), to be staged in conjunction with the Druid Theatre of Galway; while the " ~ !ll> nal are following lnishmaan with parrs twO and three of their own McDonagh trilogy. Tom Murphy is to have a of his plays presented by the Royal C ourt, including The \lYake, ':trected by G arry Hines at the Royal Court Downstairs. The Court is also contemplating a season of clr i ~ n Friel plays. The Tricycle Theatre, meanwhile, continues its tradition of presenting some uf the beSt " r irish theatre with Pass ion Machine's Kirchensink by Paul Mercier, and D'Unbelievables, (alias Jon Kenny and Pat Short, twO of lrelands's top comic performers) in I Doubt It. • • It would be invidious of a theatre magazine not to acknowledge television as an important medium for J,sseminating, to the widest poss ible public, dra ma in all its forms. Hence the introduction , this month, of a regular TV column by Ronald Berga n, who kicks off by reviewing the first three (of 5) pl ays to BBC's P"rformance series. There is no point in bewailing the time when viewers had the chance to see frequent adaptati ons of classic pl ays and modern masterpieces as well as almost all the plays of Shakespeare. What makes TV drama exciting today is not only its techincal accomplishments, but the chance it gives both new and eStablished performers, writers and directors to manifest their skills in single dramas or series - both period and contemporary. And because we no longer have a particularly active film industry in this country, there is also more of a TV crossover than ever before in which many stage stats can regularly be seen on the box . Stage and small screen are no longe r rivals but partners supplying each other with an abundance of talent. Lo ng may they continue to be so.

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THE CLASSICS: THE NEW PLAYS: Waste from 4 March Hurlyburly frvm 2.1 ~arc h by Harley Granville- Harker by O'll!id Rahc , Cloud frc >l )l , l0 March Prayers of Sherkin by Ca ryl 'Im""ill from 18 )"by by Sebastiau Ha,rry from 28 April by Grace Note from 6 July translaled by '10m Stoppard by Samuel ALWlllson , Playhouse Creatures from 16 June from '14 Septemher by Sqmuel Beckett by April de Angelis , The Provok'd Wife Snake in th¢ Grass from 23 June from 12 O ctohe r by Sir Johll \/a/lbrugh /;y Roy MacGregor , from 25 Aug\lst , Shining So~ls hy Willilim , hakespeare from 9 Noyc mbt...'r , by Chris HaJllulII '

Director: Sir Peter Hall New Plays Director: Dominic Dromgoole Producer: David Mirvish in association with applause

OFFSTAGE 6 News and gossip from around the West End 8 LADY IN THE DARK Dick Vosburgh on a musical that gets its West End premiere 56 years after it was first written 10 David Nathan interviews the actress, and talks about her starring role in Lady in the Dark 15 0NSTAGE Clive Hirschhorn reviews the West End's latest offerings DIARY 18 New productions in and around the West End 20 MAn WOLF .. .questions the wisdom behind this year's awards nominations APPLAUSE THEATRE CLUB 23 Christopher Biggins brings you more great mone)'- saving offers on top West End shows 31 NED SHERRIN Dark Lady. p.I O

PEOPLE WHO MAKE A DIFFERENCE 33 David Nathan talks to producer Bill Kenwright 35 RICHARD NELSON assesses the work of an American playwright who does very well over here REMARKABLE CAREERS 37 A look at the work of actress Constance Cummings, with Michael Arditti 39 BOOK REVIEW Sam Ingleby on 's memoirs QUIET AT THE BACK, PLEASE! 40 nuisance according to Ronala Bergan 42 NEW FACES Ruaidhri Conroy, currently making his mark in The Cripple of lnishmaan SPECTRUM 43 Opera, Dance, TV and Art reviews and previews by Max Loppen, Jeffery Taylor , Ronala Bergan and John Russell-Taylor 49 OFFSTAGE BROADWAY Michael Riedel with news and gossip Remarkable. p.37 from the Big Apple QUIZ 50

50 SHOWS THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE ... to Gerala Kaufman, MP

iv\A RC H 1997 APPlAUSE 5 stage

TED, A NEW MUSICAL by Tony Drew and Rob Stoppard's new one about A E Housman, author SHOCKHOR ROR ! may return to the Bettinson about a gwup of teddy boys in 1950s' of A Shropshire Lad. I t opens at the Lytte lton stage in a year's time. Outing his las t and , is already slated for a March 1998 on I Octoher, the day Trevor N unn takes over. somewhat notorious theatrical outing, a sudden opening in the West End. The musical will no urge to taste Belgian chocolates in situ overcame doubt have the Bettinson feel about it. His two • • • him and he abandoned the production. Plans prior musicals - Buddy and - could have PLANS TO STAGE OKLAHOMA! at the Open Air for his return to the theatre are very provisional had their darker moments but the composer­ Theatre have, unfortunately, gone west. as yet, but he may take a cameo role as a waiter director chose to go for the feelgood factor. The However, A rtistic Director Ian Talbot has opted in a multi-med ia theatre event at the ICA. teddy boys in his new production will probably for a highly suitable replacement in Kiss Me Actor Colin McFarlane has devised the piece help o ld ladies with their shopping and are su re Kate, ' s adaptation of Th e Taming of which should also feature and to be safely tucked up in hed by nine o'clock. th e Shrew. The musical will join A Midsummer . Night 's Dream and All's Well That Ends Well in • •• the repertoire in July. ••• 'S two new musicals THE OffEN ASKED QUESTION over the last ye ar A Scar is Born and Whistle Down the Wind are has been, Who's going to pay the ' The both definitely going to open in the West End American producers seemed to be making such next year, so it seems likely that 1998 will be high demands during the negotiatio ns for a christened the Year of O ur (New) Lord. British transfer that a posse o f producers had shown interest and then shied away. However, • • • Duncan Weldon has now secuted the British THE G OODCOMPANY'S ADAPTATION of Dickens' rights to the Tony-laden tuner and he hopes to Hard Time s is on its way into the West End in bring it to the Prince of Wales this Autumn. May. Aled Jones, the ex-choirbbo y, seems to have given up his attempt to become a rock ido l • • • (thank God for small mercies) and he stars PAM GEM S' MARLENE, a biographical play about alongside fellow Welshman Philip Madoc and , is due at a small West End Fenella Fielding. (Welcome back, Fenella, venue in April. The critics may not have where have you beenI). Unlike the world of warmed to the musical play while it was out on television, the West End has so far rema ined tour but Sian Phillips' central performance as largely immune to 'costume commo tion' - i.e. the drink-sodden diva is incred ible. the inability to believe that any project could capture the popular imagination if it doesn't • • • involve a vandalised Victorian text, an overdose FINALLY, SPARE A TH OUG HT for the young of sideburns and a series of gravity-defying American directo r Wilson Milam. He has been dresses. We have had our fair share of musical plucked from relative o bscurity to direct the adaptations - Heathcliff and Scrooge for example Bri tish premiere of H urly Burly, the first new - but so far we have been spared an epidemic. play in the Peter Hall Company's repertoire at Could this be because our often maligned critics The O ld Vic. At a recent press conference, he have a collective allergy to such projects! stood shyly at the side of the room as Sir Peter introduced him to the gathered bigwigs of the ••• British arts press as the 'wonderful American BACK IN JAN UARY, Julian Mitchell wrote an director, Mr... I'm sorry, I have no id ea what your article claiming that had name is'. Hopefully, Hurly B~(rl y will be a great completely failed to fulfil the National Theatre's success with the director's name em everyone's li ps. remit to produce new plays. Eyre's final nine months in charge will have included premieres of new plays from Martin McDonagh, Peter ONE WORD IMPROV, playing at the Albery, Gill, Tony Kushner, , David provides the only chance to see in Hare and . I think that Julian's the West End this yea r. I hope that this does not real point is that Richard Eyre has singularly mean that the surreal transvestite comedian is failed in his remit to produce new plays by to spend ml)re time writing television sc ripts. Julian Mitchell. InCidentally, the very last play His Co ws for was lamentable but to be produced under Eyre's tenure will be Izzard on stage is something else entirely.

6 APPlAUSE MARCH 1997

Dick Vosburgh looks at the origins of a musical which is the product of a collaboration by Ira Gershwin, Kurt Weill and Moss Hart, and which takes psychoanalysis as its unlikely theme,

ne of the loveliest musical scene. Eleven years later, Rodgers and Hart (no shows of recent years' (New relation to Moss) agreed ro write the sco re for York Times). 'One of the Kaufman and Hart's Dienich musical, but the most stupendous evenings project was abandoned when the second act the theane will afford in proved intractable. Instead, the foursome joined this or any other season' (Variety). 'The first forces on the political satire I'd Rather Be Right. time so successful a wedding between play and After five more collaborations with Kaufman, music has been consummated in the modern Moss decided ro write on his own in future. theatre.' (Bosron Daily Record). These are This came as no surprise ro the playwright Marc typical of the superlatives lavished on Lady Connelly, who had observed, 'Moss is in in the Dark 56 years ago. Thanks ro the such a state of genuf1ection roward Geo rge all Royal National Theaue, this 1941 Kun the time that I don't know how they ever get a Weill-Ira Gershwin-Moss Han musical play wrinen. Moss really wants ro be George's play finally opens in London on March 11, son.' This profeSSional break was urged by starring Maria Friedman and directed by Hart's psychiatrist, the noted Freudian, Franceska Zambello, whose 1995 Dr Gregory Zilboorg, who felt that his patient's television production of Weill's Street veneration fo r the older Kaufman was stunting Scene won the Nombre d'Or-Preis. his emotional well-being. It was therefore Moss Han's fir st success in the highly appropriate that Moss's first play after theatre was the comedy Once in a the break was another attempt at dramatising Lifetime, which he wrote with the psychoanalysis - this time as a serious drama. It mercurial George S Kaufman in 1930. was also appropriate that one of the decisions By 1937 they had also collaborated on its troubled heroine Liza Elliott ultimately Merrily We Roll Along and the Pulitzer makes is ro end her long relationship with her Prize-winning You Can't Take It With lover, an older man, about whom she has a Ymc. it was then that Hart, who had been in father fi xation. psychoanalysis for four years, suggested ro The initial title for this work was I Am Kaufman that they write a Broadway musical on Listening, a phrase with which Zilboorg began The 1943 from ,he Broadwa)' Theatre the subject, ro star Marlene Dierrich. Although his analytic sessions. Liza Ellion is a female where Gercnuie Lawrence opened in Lady in rh e Dark. he srrongly disapproved of psychiauists, - a woman who canno t make up her Kaufman eventually agreed, and he and Hart mind. For ten years she has been the ediror of a went shopping for a lyricist and composer. successful fashion magazine, but, for reasons she can't explain, experiences periods of terror and Though I know I may be worse'n melancholia, which prevent her making any Any oth er crazy person kind of decision, personal or professi onal. At When in dreams I glide, these times, fragments of a little song (the I feel subconscious pride . exquisite 'My Ship') come into her mind. Like Some night I will wake right up by chance 'Rosebud' in Citizen Kane (also 1941), this song And kick my old subconscious in the pants' is the key to Liza's unhappiness, and is finally sung in full at the climax of the pl ay. Part of a lyric wrinen by Lorenz Hart (to Hart envisioned the distinguished actress Richard Rodgers' music) fo r Peggy -Ann (1926), Katharine Cornell as his protagonist, but as the a successful show about the Freudian writing continued , he came to realise that the interpretation of dreams. Like the later Lady in all-important Freudian dream sequences should the Dark, Peggy -Ann had no overture, and, be musicalised, and that a star acrress/singer was indeed, no songs until after a lengthy dialogue needed. About this time, Kurt Weill, ~

8 APPlAUSE MARCH 1997 a fan of American comic strips, asked Han t,) minstrel show was larer cha nged to a circus. film version, which starred G inger Rogers. r,,\\me the book of a musical called Th e (Today, after the 0 J Simpson trial, a A lthough a fin ancial success, this Technicolor FunnIes . Moss declined, but invited Weill to courtroom-cum-circus has los t much of its travesty jettisoned nearly all the compose the music for I Am Listening. (antasy va lue.) This jurisprudence-anJ-sawdusr Weill/Gershwin songs, gave pride of place to a O ne of the first actors to be cast was a sequence contained rwo of rhe best known new ballad by Johnny Burke and Jimmy Van 28 -year-old nightclub comedian named Danny songs in the score: Gerrie's 'The Saga of Jenny', H eusen, bowdlerized 'The Saga of Jenny', and Kaye, for whom H art wrote the role of the which immediately fo ll owed Danny Kaye's rendered H an's plo t meaningless by never effeminate fashion photographer, Russell tongue-twisting 'Tschaikowsky', rrobably the il liowing its leitmo rif, 'My Ship' to be sung Pax tO n. Hart found h is Liza one Sunday night, most irrelevant show-stopper since Mary in full. when he and Kaufman went to a rehearsal of a Marrin sang Cole Porter's 'My Heart Belongs Moss Hart wfOre four more plays after British War Relief benefit, in which they were to Daddy' while doing a strip tease in the Lady in the Dark, but never another music al ­ to r erfc) rm a d"uble act. Gertrude Lawrence was snow ourside a Siberian railway starion in alrhough he direcred the original productions a lst) taking rart, and after the rehearsal, Han Leave It to Me. of and Camelot. He wrote an im'ited her "ut for a snack. 'As we drank our acclaimed autobiography, Act One, in 1960, l'eer. I .lsked her point blank if she wanted to ady in the Dark made Broadway hisrory; and died a year later at rhe age of 57, jusr six he,r nw new rla\,', he recalled. 'She was, as a not only did it rlay ro so ld -our houses months after the dearh of his longtime partner rna! <' r ,,( fac t, searching wildly for a play for the rhroughour its two-season run, but ro a George S Kaufman. new ,e;tS, ll1 and would give me an answer consiste nrly packed standing room. In Im me,iiarely.' his New York That 'immed iately' took four maddening Times review, Brooks 111 . ,nths, at the end of which Weill roo lV as in Arkinson congratulated need of psychiatric counselling. When Gertie H an on finding one way l clearly born ro playa character wracked by of gerring back all the indecision) finally said yes, Hart and Weill he'd given to \\'ent shopping for a lyricist. Dr Zilboorg. Despire its fine If )'ol.<'ve any mental problem th at perplexes score, Lady in th e Dark is If there's an),thing that's wrong -with your refle xes rarely re vived. Although If you' re reall), nut certain as to -which yuur sex IS (ar more women today We are positive that you had better see ed it presrigious Dr Freud and lung and Adler, magazines, and childhood Adler and lung and h eud - Six sex ps)'chos, we' trauma is even better understood than in 1941, So ran pan of a lyric written by Ira Gershwin Hart's book has (to George G ershwin's music) for Pardon My inevitably dated; the English (I933), a show about duo- personality media have poured out so much material about that managed only 46 performances. Seven psychoanalysis in the past 56 years thar liza's years later, Ira agreed to wtite the lyrics for 9-day voyage to se lf-discovery now seems rar her 1Am Listening, his first musical since the death simrlistic. Also, the currency value of such of his brother. di alogue as 'I can't stand aside while you With George, Ita had already written two proceed to destroy something very imrortanr music als for the formidable Gertrude Lawrence: to me' has been devalued by overuse, and Oh, Kay' (1 926) and Treasure Girl (I928). Time many of the play's elements a re anything bur had not mellowed Gertie in the interim; the PC: irs heroine reali ses she needs a man who new musical was renamed Lad), in the Darl< at will dominate her, that man is a sexist type her insistence. (She liked playing the tide role who likes to rinch womens' bottoms, and in a show.) O ne day at rehearsal, she srorped Russell ('Really, I could spit !') Paxton is a singing 'My Ship' during the middle 8: 'I could stereOtypical fl ounCing gay. And how will wait for years/ TiI.1 it appears/ O ne fine day one Franceska Zambello get around rhe spring'. Acidly, she inquired of Ira, 'Why fOllr technical problems posed by the play's years - why nor five or six?' Gershwin solved cinematic structure ?(The original rhe rroblem by replacing the 'for' with a less rroduction employed 58 performers, ambiguous 'the'. (BaWingly, the acting edition 51 sragehands and (our revolving stages. ) of Lad)' in the Dark, published by the Dramatists Will the National have to include a Pl ay Service, retains 'for yea rs', and it will be glossary in the programme ro explain arcane lnreresting to hear whar Maria Friedman sings .} references ro Tommy Manville, Wendell Arart from some uncharacteristically impure Wilkie, the WPA, and this Ira G ershwin GeHrt/de Lawrence sinRing 'The Sa ga of lenny' rhymes, ('prosecution' and 'electrocution' is the couplet: ' ..... she's so glamorous / She makes all from ,he Broadway prod'lCl.i/)n (lOp) . mosr glaring), Gershwin's lyrics are as adroit as other women arpear Hammacher and Ginger Rodgers in ,he 1943 mou,e. anything he wrote wirh his brother, and Weill's Schlammorous' ? music is admirably eclecric. One of their dream Excert for a 198 1 Norringham Playhouse fantasies at first combined a courtroom scene rroducrion \\·hich starred Celeste Ho lm , Lad ), in wirh a minsrrel show, but mercifully, the (he Dark 1, ,' n,''''n in Britain only by rhe 1944

ivlARCH 1997 APPIA.U5E 9 A dedicated actress who has had no formal training, Maria Friedman talks to David Nathan about her (and Passion), and about her latest role as a woman discovering herself through pschotherapy in Lady in the Dark.

t is possible that Maria Friedman, in I am very protective about my work process one of the dream sequences in Lady in the because, so far, it works for me. When ir srops, Dark, opening at the Lynelton in March I'll chat ro you all day long abour it.' for the , will The tightrope sequence, for which she was walk a rightrope. She may even sing ar being trained by an acrobat from Circus Space, the same time. Ir is a ready-made meraphor for may be dropped as, at an early stage in the way her private life and her performing rehearsals, she could nor bear anyone ro watch life are linked by the same means rhat keeps her while she was on the rope. This, she them apart. realised, could cause a problem with an I t is a precarious exercise, for her audience. She has rhe gift of vulnerabiliry, but performance, so frank and open, depends for its hanging in mid-air with o nly the slenderest power upon personal memories which are never means of suppOrt can rake ir roo far. For the , revealed. This lady always keeps parr of herself rest she is confident enough once the nightly in rhe dark. Once, shortly before her one­ moment of fear is banished as she steps onto woman show at the Whitehall Theatre the stage. 18 months ago, I asked her rhe commonplace She has had no formal training as an desert isl and castaway quesrion of whar her actress. Her family was musical, her mother a 10 choice of music meant ro her personally. She concert pianisr, her farher, Leonard, a violinist. would nor, could nor rell me, except ro say, So is her brother, Richard. She was born in 'songs have deep memories, but I never say why Switzerland and they moved ro I sing a particular song because rhar's privare. when her father was offered a post with the I want people ro feel what I'm feeling, but nor Bremen Philharmonic. German - and she finds ro know derails. They are their songs, not the facr 'bizarre' - is her firsr language. She just mine came ro Britain when she was five years old, This time she told the srory of a champion 31 years ago. javelin thrower she saw being interviewed Her parents divorced amicably and in the about his technique. 'He tried ro describe it and mid-sixties her father moved ro Scotland where afterwards, this man who had broken records, he founded rhe Sconish Chamber Orchestra, began to lose. What had been instinctive, Sconish Opera and rhe Scorrish Baroque unforced and natural became self-consc ious and Ensemble. He was a direcror of the he was trying to recreate what he had said Mendelsso hn on Mull Festival when he died. rather than being in the moment.' Bur before that he was able ro bear witness ro a In the moment! seminal moment in the family's life. 'One of the hardest things as an actor - no, Maria had starred singing with a close one of the most glorious things as an actor - is harmony group, had spent eighteen months in a when you are in the moment, a quiet, safe, rouring version of Oklahoma! which ended up concentrated space. If you start ro do stuff when in the West End, had appeared in Blues in the you are out of the moment it becomes acting. Night at the Donmar and was now cast ~

10 APPlAUSE MARCH 1997 ,\Mj(C.., 1997 APPlAUSE 1 1 in (he Na(ional Theane produc(ion of Joshua af(er Ghetto,' she says, '(har I decided I was Sobol' s G hwo. Se( in (he (O wn of Vilna, now passiona(e abou( wha( I did and (ha( I didn'(

Vilnius, in li(huania, i( is a musical pl ay (ha( wam (0 do any(hing else. Ur uncil (hen I had (ell s (he s(O ry of (he Vilna YidJish Thean e loved wha( I dJd and always rook i( seriously. group and i( s ex (inc(ion, along wi(h i(s Bu( I didn'( have a 1m of self-belief. I had an audience, by (he N az is. She had no( knc,w n (ha( agen( who fil(ered audi(ions (l>r me hu( no( her granJparencs came fro m Vilna uncil she someone who coulJ guide my career. So I juS( received a (ele gram from her fa(her which read: (Ook (he jobs I was of(ereJ. 'Your granJrarencs love and (hank you for 'They weren'( all singinc j0 hs. I had done keering rheir (hough(s and words a live. ' lo(s of straigh( (hea(re before, hu( I never gO ( When, a few years Ia(e(, her farher died audi(ions wi(h (he big companies , so I d id (he be(ween her (Wo one-woman shows a( (he less exci(ing scuff, (hings li ke Bwter~ i e s are Free. I.. Donmar, i( was a devas(a(ing loss. She told me I did Therese Raquin in (he top room of a rub in (hen, 'I'm lucky in (ha( I can rue rain in(O my from of five peorle in anc) raks. And an abridged songs. I('s a gif( I gO( from him and my mum version of Romeo and}uliet fc) r sc hools. Bu( wi(h and rrobably from genera(ions before (hem. Ghetto I me( N ick Hyrner «(he d irec(Or) and I

For me, music is a need, I have (0 do it. ' suddenly fel( (ha( being an ac (O r \Va sn'( juS( Her music is of (he undying kind, (he si nging, dancing and entenaining, (ha( you

songs of George and Ira Gershwin, Weill, could really communicate some(hing (0 people.

Sondheim, Arlen, Brei, Berns(ein, Harnick I( is (00 huge a (hing (0 say (ha( i( can change and Bock, Rodgers and H an, Comden and reople's liv es because i( does n'(. Bu( I( Green, Pon er and Vernon Duke. The Be arles enhances (hem, makes peorle (hink. I fel ( (ha( I

and Randy Newman come into i( (00. 'I love coul d be invo lved in some(hing (ha( \Va s (es(ing songs wi(h s(Ories,' she says, 'songs wi(h and demanding, bo(h for myself and, hopefully, characre r. Mc,s( of (he POI' songs (alk abou( (he aud ience.' one emotional s(a(e. I go for things I can She h as no r rot-Iem wi(h making herself

charac(erise. My singing, I like (0 (hink, ugly if (he rart reyuires it. [n (he S(e[,hen

is ac(ing Sondheim/ Pa.\S IUn 1",( yea r she Where she can, she (akes grea( pains - and became yUI(e sc, ur and mad as a \\'"man who

goes (0 grea( expense - o ver (he arrangemen(s obsess i\'e!y sdks a man. lr ran for I(S scheduled of (he songs, r ay ing for (he hes(, working wi(h six monrhs in (he Wes ( End bu( k)s ( money and

(he arranger for hours at a (ime. This is no( (00 divided (heatregoers and cri(ics a like. ' I( wasn'( d ifficul( when (he arranger is , (he abou( perfect love,' she says, 'bu( an comroser, Iyricis( and (heane direc(O r, her uncomfo rtable, di stressing story (c) wa(c h.' panner and fa(her of her (hree year olJ hoy, She was offered o(her \Xies( End shows ­ Toby. 'We n ea( a song,' she sa ys , 'as if no one 'big, cc)mmercial (hings ' - and turned (hem h as ever sung i( before, as if no one has ever down, desri(e (he loads of money in volved. ' I

heard ie. ' love go ing (0 see (hese (hings' she sa ys , 'bu( (0

She could no( be exrec(ed (0 res is( Lady in do (hem eigh( (imes a \Ve ek" She pulls a fac e. the Dark wi(h i(s score by Ira G ershwin and Nor was she inreres(ed in (he (elevisi on offers.

Kun Weill. To (hose (WO, she adds Moss Han. She describes (hem as 'gi rl-friend pans, (he kind Tha(,' she sa ys, 'is a preny heavy cock(ail.' of woman who has a pulse only when (he man's

There was (he scrip(, (00 . 'I loved (he idea of in (he room.' [f (ele vision h ad ()ffered her her a r lay se( in (he 1940s wi(h (he world a ( war own song show she would have jumped a( ie. and a woman in a pos i(ion of au(hority running Bm only if she had comple(e control of (he a very successful comrany and fi nding (ha( her materi al. More (han any(hing else , she woulJ

life, her work and her relmionshirs we re all like (0 (ake over (he Albert H all (U 'ge( my

imperilled because of her emo(i onal sta(e. music OU( (0 lo(s of people.' 'I( has resonance and relevance for (Oday, Af(er Lady in th e Dark she has (he more

(00. Wha( isn'( so radical (Oday is (ha( she (akes realis(ic, s( i11 risky, ambi(ton ( 0 (ake her one­

her proble ms (0 a psychianist. Then i( was woman show, which includes a lor of Broadway

absolurely new ground. Her famasies become show songs , (0 Broadway. 'I 'm nm fri gh(eneJ of

reali(ies in her dreams and Yl)U are nm qui(e (ha(,' she says. 'I fee l I'm very sa fe wi(h a 12­ sure which is which as (he (Wo wo rlds cc) llide. piece band and (he suppor( of (he music, a ll Nearl y all (he mu sic happens wi(hin (he (hose wo nderful chords, notes and words.' dreams; (he res( of i( is like a straigh( r lay.' Wha(ever comes up, (he only offers she

The ac(i ng is n ow as impor(anr (0 her as will re fu se are, as she pu(S i(, '(he (hings (ha( dc' (he music. no( make my hean bea( fas(er.' lr seems (ha( She harks back to G hetto, in 1989. 'I ( was she needs (ha( (ightrope.

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THE CRIPPLE OF INISHMAAN National Theatre, Cattesioe

X Paul Taylor, Independent Iemerged from 's lovingly acted and directed production with the resentful sense of having been conned by a writer of undoubted The latest productions from the West End talent, but as yet no artistic principle or moral scruple...McDonagh 's relationship to his material reviewed by Clive Hirschhorn. is primarily a heartless, opportunistic one.

X Alastair Macaulay, he ex rraord inary promise shown by Marrin fulcrum on which rhe plor sw ings is rhe arrival, ar Nicholas Hytner, who has grown a stranger to l\1cDomlgh in hi s accomplished firsr play, rhe neighbouring island of In ish more, of a the British stage in recent years, has retvrned to TThe B2,IlHYQueen of Leenane, has been Hollywood film crew, headed by director Robert direct this Yallamallow of a play. Iwonder why. Imr rc;sil'ely fulfill ed in The Cripple of Inish maan, Fla he rty. The film rhey 're making is Man of Aran, .I Michael Billington, Guardian .1 c.lmdy rhar also manages, wirhour recourse co and , to esca pe rhe soulless ro urine of his Although it at times has the air of ingenious ;<'nn mema liry, co brea k yo ur hearL Abundand\' wrerched , eve ryday life, Billy is derermined, postiche, it is still buoyantly funny. It is also well F' ''')Fld wirh rhe mosr co lourful gallery of som ehow, ro land himself a role in it. Bur directed by Nicholas Hytner and beautifully -h,, [<1 crers rhis side of Synge and O'Case y, and Flaherry ge rs him nowhere. designed by . Ruaidhri Conroy, who has the spindly intensity of a yaung O'Toole, \\ Irh a narrarive dri ve borh rich and unpredicr­ As in The BeatHy QLteen of Lecnane, only makes an impressive stage debut as Billy. It- k rhe pl ay reverberares haumingly, and more so, McDonagh' s gifr for srory- relling is one m;inuares irself in rhe memory. of rhe play 's prime glories. jusr when yo u rhink .I Benedict Nightingale, Ir 's ser on a remore isl and off rhe wesr coas r you're one jump ahead of rhe plor and are Time will tell if McDonagh's display of expatriate scepticism causes offence. All this Englishman .t Ireland in 1934 in (among several orher confidenrly predicring rhe ourcome, rh e play­ can report is exhilaration at a tough ... funny... " laces), a small counrry shop run by Eileen wri ghr, wirh dazzling dexteriry, changes direcri on, troubling ... boisterous, gifted play. ll_hourne (Dea rbhla Molloy ) and her sisrer Kare leav ing you momenrarily flummoxed and your \.4. nira Reeves). Li ving wirh rhem, as he has ex pecrations co nfounded. Ir' s a ro ller-coasrer ride ./)( Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph J one ever since he was a baby, is 18 year-old Billy he rakes yo u on, complere wirh emorional highs Though I laughed loudly and often , it was impossible to silence nagging doubts . There is a (Ruaidhri Conroy), referred ro as Crippled Billy and lows rhar se nd your spirirs soaring one faint hint of the fake about the piece, a r ccause of a severe deformiry in one arm and one momenr, rhen, wirhour due warning, crushing suggestion that it isn't so much Irish as pictures­ leg. The on-going butt of everyone's mirrh and rhem rhe nex t. jr is ne ver maudlin and never, for quely 'Oirish' ... throughout the writing is devoid Jerision (even one of his aums rem ark s rhar an insram , loses irs sense of humour. of the generosity of spirit which enriches the less lou'd se e ni ce r eyes on a goa r) Bill y, wh ose McDonagh's orher strengrh is his abiliry to showy, but more satisfying, plays of Billy Roche. I'arenrs allegedly drowned in a suicide pacr rarher creare compelling, larger-rhan-life characrers .I Michael Coveney, Observer rh an be saddl ed wirh rheir mi s-shapen offspring, wirhour rheir lapsing inro groresque caricarure. McDonagh's enjoyable confection thrives on its has, ir seems, become innured callow jauntiness. The play positively bounces co rh e ji bes, pur -downs and along in Nicholas Hytner's expert, very funny in sulrs of rhe local islanders, and brilliantly cast production. none of whom mean any real .; Shoun Usher, Daily Mail harm to rhe lad, and wh ose The play's a constant challenge to humbug inse miri ve references ro his about finer feelings , a vein shocking one into condi(Lon, have, over rhe yea rs , laughter while wincing at human-nature truths become par for Bill y's course. behind the jibes. Ir's as rhough hi s aPl'earance ./)( Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard cues a rhoughrl ess reflex Nicholas Hytner's suspenseful, beautifully acted response in all who encounter production and Bob Crowley's settings convey a him - including his fri end sense of cut-off rural community... But there's a BarrieI' (Owen Sharpe), local gratvitous sado-masochistic relish in McDonagh's portrait of the cripple as a subject for amusement. goss ip johnnypareenmike (Ray McBrid e), and Barr/ey's pretty .; John Peter, Sunday Times and pren y foul -mourhed McDonagh's writing is a tight-rope act of sevemee n year- old sisrer Helen An oU Lstanding performance fTO m Raaidhli C onro)' as TI\C C ripple or Imsh mann . unnerving skill and maturity. Raw humour and brutality dance hand in hand ... This wonderful (A islmg O'Sullivan), on whom play is in the finest tradition of Irish writing Bill y has a serious, bur hopeless crush. Ir' s a tricky business trading in eccentriciry, and Though several strands of narrarive present McDonagh, risking credibiliry wirh ea ch new ./)( John Gross, Sunday Telegraph rhemsel ves and, ulrimarely interweave, rhe charac rer he weaves inro rh e fabric of hi s play, The main strength of the piece lies in the humour... brillianrly fulfil s rh e dange rous brief he has the story of Billy himself is less successful. We remain relatively unmoved by il. .. an air of clever ass Igned himself. Bill y's I'encham for sraring ar manipulation hangs over the playas a whole . What the papers say ... cows, for example, Bartley's obsession wirh relescopes, Kare 's rendency ro ralk ro srones in .; Bill Hagerty, News of the World .; Favourable to glowing I'eri ods uf cri ses, Eileen' s compulsion co ear The brilliant young writer presents a slice of Irish rurallife .. .unlike any ather you've ever seen .. . X Lukewarm to slating sweers, anJ Ell stoc k her sh op wlrh cans of peas, Nicholas Hytner's production sparkles through­ johnnypatl'enmi kc s ,' dSS lnn for gossip, Helen's IX Mixed out and there are some wonderful performances. prope I1S1 t\· (or hurltn" c~" , at whoever ~

MARe t-< 1997 APPLAUSE 1 5 heart-rending final scene in which Blanche is What the papers say ... taken of( to the local nut-house. No r, surprisingly, was Lange given much to play off in Alec Baldwin's Stanley Kowal ski. On paper, at Haymarket Theatre any rate, you'd imagine the most famous of the Baldwin brothers to be perfect casting as ./ Benedid Nightingale, The Times or wharever incurs her wrath, could, in less Williams' brutal working-class Po lack. But all Peter Hall 's production ... sustains the proper tension and ... achieves the necessary intensity.. talented hands, be little more than risible, that emerged was an overgrown college- kid with Longe shows you the pinched, stricken face defining fixations; a kind of easy shon-hand attitude ra rher than the dange rous sexual animal behind the briHle, glitttering smiles and the pain approach to characterisation. McDonagh is too the role calls for. and the panic beneath the ethereal charm ... as sk ilful a dramatist to fa ll inro that trap and his complete a performance as anyone should expect. characters' foibles and eccentricities throb with .IX Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard conviction. These are real people who, in the Peter Hall's medium-cool production lacks course of events, you grow to know and to atmospheric vigour and reaches a falsely understand. They're given fl esh and blood by a consoling conclusion ... Jessica Lange brings the truly sensational cast, including Gary Lydon as character.. . poignantly to life ... Unfartunately ' Stanley is more a clean-cut the refl ecti ve Babbybobby, who, alone, seems to college-bay than a thuggish, elemental Polak. understand Billy and his problems, but is equally possessed by a v icious streak; John Rogan as the .IX Robert Gore-Langton, Express island 's local no-nonsense doctor, and Doreen A Rowed, at times over-reverential, production. But at best it's pulverising stuff, exposing the Hepburn as Johnnypateenmike's robust 90 year­ sordid intensity of this masterpiece. old liquot-imbibing mother. (There is, it has to be sa id, no way Ms Hepburn convinces as a 90 X Shoun Usher, Daily Mail yea r-o ld , but let that pass.) Arguably one-noted, heavily dependent on The star of the show, though, is young fluHery, incomplete gestures and a maddening liHle laugh, Miss Lange still strikes a nerve and Ruaidhri Con toy as Crippled Billy. Though Billy demands compassion ... Peter Hall's staging.. is perceived by the islanders as someone whose could be described as snail-paced, except that it appearance might se ri ously challenge the is nat quite that hurried . Elephant Man in the looks depanment, Conroy .IX Michael Billington, Guardian defie s initial expec tations by appearing as a Jessica Lange is unquestionably a star (butll deeply se nsitive young man who, despite his don't feel sure she was born to play Blanche deformities (and a hacking cough), has a rather DuBois ... I find it hard to believe in her as the angelic appearance his nearest and dearest have delicate creature of Williams' imagination. A SrreetcM N am~ ...i De.!i ire: ToO:' SC";Ph.:> Tti rmdjess ica Lange. reso lu tely blinded themselves to. Just because ./ Alastair Macaulay, Financial Times one is deform ed on the outsid e, says Billy, a At London' s Hay market Thea tre, Will iams' Jessica Lange... a performance completely and person isn't necessarily ugly and crippled inside. great pla y, under the guidance of Peter Hall, satisfyingly aHuned to Peter Hall's new Conroy's innocent and appealing face reflects breathes more easily - though not, it has to be production and to the English cost around her. Billy's decent, but tonured soul - onl y no one on said, \vithout the occasional wheeze. Everything here is finely judged. lnishmaan can see it. In her London debut, Jess ica Lange (who ./ Paul Taylor, Independent Conroy, who has worked in TV and in film s, has since done a TV version of the New York Still drop-dead gorgeous and evidently feeling is making hi s stage debut in The Cripple of production) is a lot more assu than she was on no great desire to deny this in the interests of the Inishmaan. And what a spectacular debut it is. Broadway where vulnerability was her strongest role, a radiant Longe comes over like on object While actor and author each owe the other asset - borne, no doubt, out of the negative lesson in healthy ageing ... Hall' s production achieves some fine effects in its overlappings of a measure of his success, both are equally critical reac tion she receiv ed, as well as the kind subjective and objective reality. indebted to designer Bob Crowley for his of tentativeness you'd expect from a movie evocative set, and to di rector Nicholas Hymer actress goi ng 'legit' for the very first time. In her .IX Robert Butler, Independent on Sunday for the sea mless, unobtrusive and entertaining third crack at one of the most demanding female Longe does copture many aspects of feathery, fragile , overwrought Blanche .. . but for all the way he has brought this funny and touching tale roles written this century, Lange adds to her effort... the port does not connect with (her) to life. On no account should you miss it. portrayal of Williams' dispossessed Southern belle tough, rangy, individual talent. both humour and an underl ying voyeu ristiC hoever you are,' says Blanche sexuality. Being under the same roof as the Charles Spencer, Telegraph X DuBois in the most quoted line in sexually rampant Stanley and her pregnant sister This most bruising of dramas repeatedly fails to harrow and move me as it should . Port of the W Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Stell a, clearly turns her on. problem lies in Hall's stately and over-reverential Named Des ire , 'l have always depended on the All of Blanche's other traits are present and production. The bigger problem is Miss Longe... kindness of strange rs.' correct: an in ability to confront reality, the Toby Stephens captures the row violence and When two-time Holl ywood Oscar-winner nos talgiC yearning for Southern gentility, an terrible unpredictibility of Stanley Kowalksi. Jessica Lange bra vely decided to make her debut OVert snobbishness , the panic attacks, the need ./ John Peter, Sunday Times as a stage actress in the 1992 Broadway rev ival of for male companionship, the overwhelming A stupendous, harrowing perfo rmance of one of this famous drama, she could not, alas, depend on desire to be noticed and admi red, and, of course, the great American ploys of the century. .. a proud, the kindness of the critics - the majority of the suppressed guilt arising from the suicide she moving, generous and unforgettable experience. whom boiled her in oil. Mind you, having see n induced in her young husband after discovering .IX Michael Coveney, Observer that particular production, Ms Lange - who his homosexuality . Decent, sensitive but finally underwhelming ... wasn't all that bad - didn't reall y stand a chance. Though Lange le aves us in no doubt she cal' Lange brings Blanche's prettified, remaindered For starters, he r director, Grego ry Mosher, be as much an iron butterfly as a fluttering moth. gentility... to full fruition , but this is a first, not a managed to defuse the play's explos ive potential the one aspect in her performance that strains premier, division assault. by muffing all the big moments - including the cred ibility relates to her physical appea rance.

, 6 APPlAUSE Iv\ARCH 1997 Th, ' lI~h h r ~ ~ h L n ~ u a l'c ; [' e~b volum es, her fKe -ht 1\\ , li n Ie c\'l,l"nce of the encroachmg What the papers ay ... I11 JJJ tO ~ ,,; BI ,lnche " he.,siveiy fears. Thus, wh en her ~ent km a n L lIe r Mitch turns an unflattering ELSINORE nJ kc·J I l ~h l bulb ontO her face , what he sees is a National Theatre, Lytteltan b,, _utiful lI'oman in her pr im e rather than the li neJ remmtnts of a Southern belle ra vaged by to confirm that the pl ay's eleven scenes shape X Paul Taylor, Independent If you removed all the technicalities, Lepage's bo<-, :~ and promiscuity. As a res ult one of the themselves in to one of the greatest American creepily allectless performance might put you in most powerful moments in the pl"y fail s to have plays eve r written. mind of someone who had gone mad and now the impact it should. imagined he was , who had , in Though the clean -cut, patrician Toby s both parts of Robert Lepage 's The turn, gone mad and now imagined he was the Stephens is miS-cd ' t as Stanley Kowa lksi, he's a Seve n Streams of the River O ta provided entire cast of Hamlet. Lepage paradoxically, as enough actor to convey a sense of what A me with the two most memorable Sellers often did, gives you the disturbing Stan Ie, , hould be. In the end, though, lashings evenings I spent in a theatre in 1996. it is feeling that there is nothing inside. "t j ,, ' i~ lk r ,\I' edt and the butch way he cups his disheartening to hav e to report that my dislike I' Robert Gore·Langton, Express [hurnr m d forefinger around a cigarette, are of ELsinore, hi s one-man onslaught on Hamle t, Elsinore is infinitely preferable to yet another merek (,,,metlc substitutes for rampant is in exact proportion to my admiration of routine rep version of Hamlet. It's also further :e' " <[ cron e. 'Dnn' t hang back with the brUle,,' Seven Streams. that this weird and wacky Canadian is BLm che impl,)r"s her love -struck sister Stell" . There is not a singl e m0ment in this 11 0 quite incapable of creating dull theatre. 3r" e' hens, however, is more Brutus than brute; " minute canter through the greatest play eve t Hue-blood underneath whose occasional Viol ent written that sheds fresh light on the complex IX Clare Bayley, The Times A sort of Shakespearean Kind Hearts and " uthursrs lurks a nice guy, incapab le ,If the rape character c)f the Prince of Denmark or illuminates Coronets, where much of the enioyment comes h~ t triggers Blanche's descent into madness. It's any as pect of the famous text. from seeing how Lepage transforms himself. His I n intelligent, conscientious enough thesis is that at the heart of Hamle~s moral crisis performance - but it comes from the brain rather is a lack of passion . So it is with Elsinore. than the gut and lacks the one qu ality Stanley has to have: a se nse of danger. IX Charles Spencer, Daily Telegraph An established exercise in failing to come to As Stell a, the all -too-willing and pliable terms with Shakespeare's endlessly tantalising \'Ictlm of Stanl ey's inse nsitivity, Imoge n Stubbs and elusive play. But it has ta be admitted that man

IV'A CH 1997 APPlAUSE 1 7 Keep an eye out for these productions opening in and around the West End this month.

who converge o n a bachelor pad where they TOSCA Theatre trace their pursuit of 'the A merican Dteam' Puccini 's powerful story of the fi ery tempered, jealous operat ic diva Tosca (Maria G uleghina), THE WOLVES through drugs, sex and a bizarre camaraderie. Paines Plough will present Michael Punter's Wilson Milam directs for The Peter Ha ll her artist lover Cavaradossi (Keith O lsen) and pl ay from 5 March at the . Company. O pens at the O ld Vic on 24 March. the corrupt police chief Scarpi a (Sergei The ac ti on is se t in the Republic of Byravia ­ Leiferkus/Simon Es tes), is revi ved by Andtew a ble ak , cold land - ru n until recently by a KING LEAR S inclair at House under the dictator who even pi cked the local football In his last production as Roya l National Theatre musical direction of Edward Downes. team. A surprise vis itor arr ives one night in a supremo, Richard Eyre directs Shakespeare's Opens 5 March. snow storm , bringi ng with h im the possibili ty most formidable tragedy. S tars as Lear. of a brighter future. Direc ted by Simon Usher Opens 27 March at the Cottes loe. MADAM BUTTERFLY with designs by A nthony Lambie and music Graham Vick's EN O production of Puccini's by Gary Rya n. perennial weepie is at the Coliseum from 14 March. Susan Bullock sings the abandoned

ATTEMPTS ON HER LIFE ge isha with Ethna Robinson as Suzuki. Three A new play at the Royal Court's Circle Space tenors alternate as Pinkerton - Julian G avin, (A mbassadors T heatre) takes a look at a David Rendall and Bonaventura Bottone ­ woman who believes fanatically in family with Arwe\ Huw Morgan and Ashley Ho lland values, yet spends her afternoons with strange sharing the role of Sharpless. Michael Lloyd men in seedy hotel rooms. Written by Martin conducts (Alex Ingram from 1 May). C rimp and directed by Tim A lbery. Opens 12 March. DIE MEISTERSINGER VON NURNBERG Bernard Hai tink conducts Graham Vick's

BADFINGER award- winning production at The Royal O pera Following its successful inaugural season in House. sings the role of Sachs, 1996, Carlton and Donmar launch an expanded the poet-cobbler who is the fulcrum of both the Four Cornets season of new writing that brings individual and civic dramas that play new plays and compa nies fro m all reaches of themselves out in Nuremberg on Midsummer's Bri tai n and Ireland to the West End. The day. Thomas A llen is Beckmesset, the town producti on - a su rrea l and darkly comic clerk who is determined to win the hand of nightmare set in a junkshop in Wales on a aristocrati c Eva (Nancy G ustafso n) by fair stormy n ight - mark s the world premiere of means or foul. Opens 15 March. Simon Harris' play directed by Mi chael Sheen for T hin Language Theatre Company. Opens THE KING AND THE MARSHAL 13 March at the Donmar. By Danish composer Peter Heise and performed in En gl ish by University College Opera. The

WASTE story is about the mys terious murder of King The fi rst of 12 plays in repertory by The Peter Erik V in medieval Denmark. Heise and his H all Company at The O ld Vic. Hatley librettist studied ballads from the time, together Granville-Barker's play looks at sex and politics with other documentary evidence to reconstruct in Edwardian England. The play d id not the circumstances of the King's death. Directed achieve full pu blic perform ance until 1936 due by Prudential Award winner Robert C hevara. to the Lord Chambe rlain's ban in 1907. Musical d irection by Da vid Drummond. At the Directed by Peter Hall and starring Mic hael Theatre 17 to 21 March. Pennington and . O pens 14 March. Luc Bondy's producti on of Strauss' one act CLOUD NINE Opera opera, first seen at the Salzburg Festival, caused Tom Cairns directs C aryl C hurchill 's provoc­ a sensa tio n when it opened at ati ve and comic study of sex ual politics for The ORPHEUS AND EURYDICE in 1995. Catherine Malfitano returns in the Peter Hall Company. T he play premiered on ENO's new ve rsion by director-choreographer titl e role, while Kenneth Riegel and Anja Silja Broadway in 1981 and ran for two years, Martha C larke, (founding member of Philobus repeat their acclaim ed performances as Herod es tabli shing C hurchill as one of our leading Dance Theatre) is m e first time Gluck's and Herodias. C hristoph von Dohnanyi, dramatists. Opens 21 March at The O ld Vic. masterpiece has been mounted at the Coli seum. Principal Conductor of the Philharmonia, O rpheus will be sung by counter-tenor Michael returns to conduct an unmissable seri es of HURLY BURLY C hance and Les ley G arrett takes on the rol e of pe rformances. Opens 29 March. David Rabe's pl ay foll ows the fortunes of a Euryd ice with Helen Williams as Amor. Jane writer, twO casting directors and a bit-pa rt actor G lover conducts. O pens 3 March.

I 8 APPLAUSE Iv\ARCH 1997 "I HAYEN'T SEEN ANYTHING AS FRESH AND FUNNY FOR AGES" SI 'rutHY AU\,ERTISF. H BILL KENWRIGHT PRESENTS THE PETER HALL COMPANY liT RNS IN ONE OF THE FINEST PERFORMANCES OF HIS DISTINGUISHED CAREER" CARMEN SILVERA HENRY McGEE "SPLE DID" "A DELIGHT" .. \ th ... rti'iCT Eslh:r .'\e" s muJ ~ Iail ERIC SYKES · HIS INIMITBLE C 0\ NING IS WORTH THE PRICE OF THE TICKET ALONE" 1,,\ t: ll ill ~ GHzcth: TIieS __ 0 fOlicre .s for wes~ "PETER HALL directs a cast that is HEAVEN SENT. This is two hours of frothy fun" \V I SU "'iCX ( ill:zctk "A RlOTOUS EVENING full of slapstick humour. WONDERFUL" .' ewcRstlc Joum nl "SUPERB. the audience were tickled pink by this HILARIOUS COMEDY" "A ROLL eKING TREAT" Edinburgh Evening New . DE~MA~ STitEET. LONDO;'\; WI TO THE VICTOR THE SPOILS It's that time of year again, when the sound of gold envelopes being ripped open reverberates around the West End with the words, and the winner is ... ' But what does it all mean ... ?

f there were awards for the best awards, one hes itates ro think where Britain's thearre trophies would rank. In c,'mmercial terms, Britain's pri zes ma[[er hardl y at all: She L (A ~S Me \\'0n five O livier Awards two years ago, and still finished its yearlong run as a rotal financial loss. But even as barometers c>f the year's best - not to Imention the enterrainment value of the programmes themselves - our local laurels come up shorr. After a ll, It 'S a fc' c, lhardv enterprise indeed that conSistently denies a n0mination - she was passed over (or Olivier nominations for both Three Tall Women and - when she's not only surefire box office but conSistently gives outstanding performances. (Oddly, she \\'as nominated for The Importance of Being Earnest, her one stage petformance in recent yeats to elicit less than general acclaim.) Broadway can't get through a Tony se ason without some S0 rr of hoo-ha, and it's a me as ure o( the low interest in Britain's nearest equivalent - the O liviers - that our awmds' own eccentricities often pass without comment. This fact is due to the difference in clout carried by such awatds on either side of the Atlantic. As everyone knows, the New York theatre lives for , which is why the busiest Broadway week of the yem is inevitably the last week ptior to the eligibility cut-off point. (The equivalent in film terms is the glut of movie openings Maggie Smith dreaming of ,ha, around Christmas.) Season after season tells a tale of a last-minute acolade for her Talking Heads. Broad way entry copping a top prize, as Nine famously did in 1982 when Right, 'Larry' ca ~ ( s hIS eye over the proceedings. it crept in at the eleventh hour and proceeded to steal the thunder thought to be reserved (or Dreamg;irls. The up side of the New York scenario is that the To ny hyste ria generates some excitement for the theatre, not to mention embarrassme nt: who will ever forget two seasons ago rising at the crack of dawn ro recite the nominees alongside only ro find that everyone in her Broadway production of Jean Cocteau's Indiscretions had been nominated, except for Turner. This past season Vi ctorNicwria probably got more press out of ' angry disavowal of her nomination than the show would have received if it had been nominated in those other categories where it didn't deserve a mention. The d"wn side o(N ew York is that in a culture geared ro awards, you're su nk if you don't win them. Les Liaisons Dangereuses opened on Broadway to rave reviews in 1987 but couldn't ga ther the Tonys that went to Fences, with the resulr that a Roy al Shakespeare Company sello ut was more or less regarded as a fl op. This past season, neirher Seven Guiwr.~ nor Duned Child survived heing shut out of the to[,

20 APPLA USE fvVI.RC H 997 awards (Seven G~liwrs won one prize, for inconsistency of the Oliviers that works against featured actor), leaving Terrence McNally's its credibility, whether is being .'vIa.; .;r Clms doe clem victor - and, nor pitted against Jason Donovan (I) for Best Actor acciJenrally, the only Best Play nominee still in a Musical or Entertainment in [992 running nine monrhs later. (Bennett won), or Niall Buggy is winning for London should count itself lucky that its Best Comedy Performance - anorhet theatre beats to a rhythm that has nothing to meaningless category - when his quite sobering do with prizes: A Streetcar Named Desire, with work in Dead Funny should have brought him Jessica Lange,w ill no doubt be a success despite that year's prize for Best Supporting Actor. receiving no nominations whatsoe ver; ditto One year, there's a prize for Most Promising Talking Heads. But one cannor help wishing Newco mer; the next, Best Musical Production. that if the English are going to dole out awards, Some years, there are twO directing prizes - one they at le as t do so with some inre lligence and for plays, one for musicals - other years (like consistency. As everyone knows, the impact of this one) only one, with the peculiar result that anyone awards ceremony in this country is Des McAnuffs high-velOCi ty rethink of Tomm y diffused by the competing claims on the is competing against Anthony Page's sctupulous rublic's attention ofThe Evening Standard re-examination of A Doll's House. As it luncheon, held every November, followed by harpens, the most deserving winner, Sam the Oliviers, once a spring event now Mendes for Habeas Corpus, wasn't even cited, repositioned in mid-February. Of the tWO, The no doubt because he won the award last year for Standard is generally the more entertaining, two stagings some way short of the sustained not least due to the ineffable Ned Sherrin as brilliance of Habeas - a show whose entire cast, emcee (invaluably assisted one recent year by in pure like that of the current offering Nine, went entirely, Roseanne mode). But as far as its prizes go, predictability rules. and bizarrely, unmentioned. [n any given season one can guess the Standard winners from a more And what of this year's shortlist? Well, [ certainly hope Henry or less predetermined shortlist that tends to favour Maggie Smith, Diana Goodman () and Ll oyd Owen (Who's Afraid of Virginia Rigg, and Felicity Kendal (among the women) in virtually any thing­ Woolf') are meeting ur somewhere for a drink to commiserate being left Kenda['s /Much Ado win Out of a set of nominations that remains particularly inexplicable ­ embraced most of their while the male acting prize almost co lleagues: to cite always goes to a Grand Old Man ONE CAN QUESS 'THE STANDARD ' in Tomm y, he of the ample lungs (If the theatre (this year, Paul W INNERS FROM A MORE OR LESS and scant charisma, over Scofield), or at the very [east to a Goodman is frankly weird, rerfo rmer in that tradition (Ian PREDETERMINED SHORTLIST THAT though volume alone has worked McKellen, ). The wonders for the career of an Best Comedy prize invariably goes TENDS TO FAVOUR MAGGIE SMITH, earlier Olivier winner, Elaine to a deeply serious play {'It's Paige. As for Owen, his Nick is inspiring to receive this prize AND FELICITY KEN DAL undoubtedly the quiet revelation having thought [ had written a of ' routinely tragedy,' AT[ author Yasmina Reza IN VIRTUALLY ANYTHING . no isy revival, but since he wasn't told this past year's audience), nominated either last year for while Best Musical is usually his exemplary supporting reserved for distinctly ropy American visitors - Kiss of the Spider Woman, performance in Our Boys, he presumably learned some time ago the \1ack and Mabel, even (l would argue) Passion, the most recent winner­ capricious nature of awards. "" hen the ha"er, more honest solution might be to give no musical And then there's James Gillan, the supporting musical performer rri:e t all. nominee who gO t the slot that might have gone to any of the ladies in T h~ O li" le rs are more iconoclastic, which is nice o n those occasions Nine, to Wayne Cater in Guys and Dolls, o r, indeed, to the wonderful Ian when iconoclas m doesn't spill over into idiocy. Bartholomew, Gillan's colleague in Tommy. One doesn't have to be an American based here Instead, Gillan is in the running for playing to be gratified that Six Degrees of Separation wo n 'second pinball lout' and ensemble, and for Best Play in [993, since John Guare's masterwork understudying Keating. Are prizes now given had been denied the same award on Broadway in for crowd scenes or standbys? Was Gillan that favout of the far inferior Los t In Yonkers. And the memorably loutish) (No one [spoke to could list of deserving victors of late includes , even remember who he was.) Whatever the , the Declan Donnellan reason for his nomination, his presence , and, yes, . suggests the creation of a new category in the Here, though, one again wonders about the best Olivier tradition - the James Gillan award wisdom of a prize for Best Comedy, when the last for most preposterous nominee, which could be genuine comedy to receive the award was Ray won in its maiden year by Gillan himself. • Cooney's Out of Order in 1991. (M)' Night With Reg, a chilly play about AIDS possessed of a humour one could only describe as mordant, is a jall"( MeTeer III Anthon), Page's hod), lipped A Doll', House (LOp), and (left) Paul Keating. far more typical 'Best Comedy.') Bur it's the up for a Best Aewr award for Tommy.

ti A ,(H i 997 APP US E 21 THE OFFICIAL LONDON THEATRE GUIDE OF THE SOCIETY OF LONDON THEATRE

ADELPHI DUCHESS NAnONAL THEA11IEt In repe rtoire QUEENS Sunset Boulevard Don't Dress for Dinner In repertoire. Laughter on the 23rd Floor OLIVIER: GUYS AND DOLlS Richard Eyre Andrew Uoyd Webbe(s musical is based Marc Camolettl's successful farce abaut Gene Wilder makes his West End debut in direcls Frank Loesse( s classic musical. on Billy Wilde(s 1950's film abaul an attempted adu~ery continues wilh Royce Nell Simon's comedy revealing the behind­ LYTTELTON : DEATH OF A SALESMAN Alun ageing silenl movie star plotting her Mills, Michael Sharvell-Martin, Jackie fhe-scenes mayhem of tap TV shaw. Armstrong stars In Arthur Mile(s play, comeback in Ihe film induslry. Pelula Clark Clar1

ALBERY GARRICK NEW LONDON ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANYt One Word Improv An Inspector Calls In repertOire. BARBICAN THEAmE: TROILUS AND Eddie Izzard, Steve Fras!' Neil Mullar1

APOLLO VICTORIA GLOBE THE OLD VIC StMARTIN'S In repertoire from May 27: In repertoire from March 4, WASTE The Peter Hall Compony begins ~s The 2nd longest running musical in theatre HENRY V Richard Olivier directs Murder in a remote hotel is the SOurce of residency at The Old Vic with Haney history is Andrew Uoyd Webbe(s railer-skat­ Shakespeare's patr1atlc history play with the w and's longest run. ~'s now the 45th Granvllie-Bar1< e(s tale o f fhe downfall of a ing extravagarlZa, inspired by the move­ as the yaung wa"iar-king. year for the fhriller and pol~lcian . Peter Hall diracts. ment of trains. Directed by . THE WINTER'S TALE David Freeman diracts people are st ill trying to find out who did it. CLOUD NINE Tom Caims directs Caryl Man-Sat 7.45, fhe Bard's tale of Leonte's misplaced Man-Sot 8.00, Churchill's comic exploration of the resu~s Mats Tue & Sot 3.00 sexual jealousy. Mats Tue 2.45, Sot 5.00 of British imperialism, HURLY BURLY Brl~sh premiere of American HAYMARKET SAVOY writer Dovld Robe's darldy comic portrayal A Streetcar Named Desire o f four men chasing dreams In Hollywood. Plunder The major revr"al of the first stage version Jessica Lange makes her West End debut THE SEAGUll Peter Hall revives Chekhov's In ' farce, Griff Rhys Jones and to include the famous songs from Ihe film as 81anche Dubois in Tennessee Williams' play with Victoria Hamlnan, Fellc~ Kendal Kevin McNally are deeply in involved in a has now been running for three and a half claSSic drama. Pefer Hall directs a cast and Michael Pennington. fraudulent attempt to gain an inheritence years. David Gilmore direcls. that also includes Toby Stephens. PRAYERS OF SHERKIN British premiere of when Sora Crowe appears on the scene. Man-Sot 7.30, Man-Sot 7.45, Sebastian Bony's play set in a strict Man-Sot 7.30, Mats Wed, Sot 3.00 Mats Thur, Sot 3,00 religious commun~ in Ireland. Mals Thur, Sot 2.30

CRITERION HER MAJESTY'S PALACE SHAFTESBURY Reduced Shakespeare Co The Phantom of the Opera Les Mlserables Tommy The Reduced Shakespeare Company Andrew Uoyd Webbe(s musical fallOWS Baublll, Schonberg & KIetzmer m usical 's story of the deaf, dumb presenl The Complete Wor1

DOMINION PHOENIX STRAND Beauty and Ihe Beast Oliveri Buddy A beautiful gin falls in love with a beast 's classic tunes retum to the West 's award winning musical The Buddy Holly $lory. His life story Is who lives in 0 bewitched castle. Disney's End in ' major revival of the foilows fhe plight o f two lir.terpudlian threaded amongst the songs that musical version of the classic tairytole musical version of Dickens' tale. Robert brofhers separated at birth buf destined to Influenced a g eneration before his fealures lyrics by . From April 29. Lindsay now stars as Fogln. meelagain. untimely death. Over 2900 performances. Man-Sot 7.30, Man-Sat 7.30, Man-Sot 7.45, Tue-Thur 8.00, Frl 5.30 & 8.30, Mats Wed & Sot 3.00 Mots Wed, Sat 2,30 Mats TI,ur 3. 00, Sat 4.00 Sat 5.00 & 8.30, Sun ot 4.00

DONMAR WAREHOUSE LYCEUM PICCADILLY VICTORIA PALACE Nine The School For Wives Jolson British premiere of a full staging of the Gale Edwards directs Andrew Uoyd Peter Hall directs Peter Bowles, Eric Sykes stars In the muslcallnspired Broadway musical based on Fellini's 8 1/2. Webber and Tim Rice's musical based on and Daniel Betts In Moliere's sotlrical by the life of AI Jolson, Ihe wand's most A famou, film directar travels to ~aly 10 the adu~ life o f Christ. Songs Include f comedy In which a guardian hopes to famous vaudevillian and star of the first resolve his r~otionships with the women in Dont Know How fo Love Him . many his c harge. Um~ed season. "talkie". Until March 22. his life. Until Mar 8. Man-Sat 7.45, Man-Sat 8.00, Tue-Sot 7.30, Man-So t 7.30, Mals Wed, Sot 3.00 Mals Wed, Sat 2.30 Mats Wed 3.00, Sat 5.00 Mats Wed, Thur, Sat 3.00

DONMAR WAREHOUSE LYRIC PRINCE EDWARD WYNDHAM'S Four Corners Art Festival of three plays highlighting new Andrew Uoyd Webber and Alan The latest from Boublil and Schonberg, , and Ken wor1

DRURY LANE NEW LONDON PRINCE Of WALES Please nofe: All information In , Cats Smokey Joe's Cafe this guide is subject to change without prior notice. Please Boublil & Schonberg's musical about a G .1. Andrew Uoyd Webber's musical inspired revue inspired by the songs who falls in love with a Vietnamese giri by T S Eliot's Old Possum's Book ofPrac tical of Leiber and $loller gets ijs West End check all details befare m aking continues its amazing run. Now in its eighth Cots con~nues into ijs 16th year. Booking premiere. Songs include Heartbreak Hofel your booking. year, the show is booking to December. through to September. and Hound Dog. $lars members of the t =Registered charity. Man-Sot 7.45, Man-Sot 7.45, original American cast. This information is prepared by Mats Wed & Sot 3.00 Mats Tue &Sot 3.00 Man-Sot 8,00, Mats Thur. Sot 3.00 The SocIety of london ThaolTe THE ABOVE SHOWS CAN BE BOOKID THROUGH THE llCKETUNE ON 0171 312 1991, SUBJECT TO THE USUAL AGENCY BOOKING FEE NO BOOKING FEE ON Starlight, Grease, Miss Saigon, Don't Dress For Dinner, The Mousetrap, Woman In Black, Buddy, An Inspector Calls, Oliver!, Martin Guerre

22 APPlAUSE MARC H i 997 London Office: The Applau5e Building, 68 Long Acre, London WC2 E 9JQ S. Albans Office: PO Box I. S, Albans ALI 4E D

HetItJ ReaderJ. It's Spring at last and the West End is finally waking up after winter with some gorgeous new productions. I just love the idea of Caroline O'Connor (right) and Mark Adams coming together again after the wonderful Mack & Mabel to star in Romance Romance at the Gielgud. I have to say though, I'm not sure how romantic Caroline is. After getting married only last May she's spent months in Australia playing Anita in parted from her hubby. All this will be rectified however - he's in the band at Smokey Joe's Cafe so he'll be just round the corner. Maybe romance isn't dead after all. I just have to mention a show that is sure to be the highlight of this year's Covent Garden Festival in May and June. Milliners beware as Beach Blanket Babylon (below) sa il s into the with the most incredible hats you have ever seen. The show is coming over from San Francisc o where I was lucky enough to see it in action. Believe me folks, this cult revue is camper than a Matron's nightie and is sure to be the hottest ticket in town. Poor Eve Pollard ... Ladies Day at Ascot will never be the sa me again. We have pulled out all of the stops again this month to bring you lots of exciting offers covering a bewildering amount of theatre ground. Many of you have asked us to come up with more comedy - so now there's no excuse as Eddie Izzard and chums breeze into the Albery for a C lub Night of hilarious improv isa tion on 16 March (the last night, so it shou ld be fun !). Plus there are lots of Royal ex periences to be had at the Roya l O pera House and the Royal National Theatre and a host of drama and comedy that you will not want to miss.

I hope you enjoy this month's club pages, and I hope to see you very soon. Cheers I I ClirtcJtlJjJlier Biffff11t4 Club Host

offers Diary 24 Travel & Events Offers 25 Theatre Offers 26-27 Puzzles 28 Competition 28 Letters 29 Theatre Information Service 30

ABOUT THE CLUB As a reader of Applause magazine you are automatically a member of the Applause Theatre Club and can enjoy every theatre and travel offer featured in these pages. To take up any of the offers simply call the Theatr' Hotline..,n 0171·312 191)[ or the Tr(\vrl dnd Ev 'nts H()tiinc "n 0 1727841115.

The Theatre Club Nights often allow you to meet the cast, attend a lecture or simply have drinks after the show with other club members. The Show of the Month offers unbeatable prices arranged specially for readers of Applause. You also have the opportunity to travel far and wide experiencing a host of exciting cultural activities.

MARCH 1997 APPlAUSE 23 @.vents diary EVENT * denotes a new event DATE & TIME PAGE * Blood Brothers IHOW OF THI MONTH 3-31 March, M-Th 7.45pm 26-27 Th 3pm, Sa 4pm

S&C Carlisle Line tour (via York, , Skipton and Settle) 15 March, B.32am see Feb issue * One Word Improv 16 March, Bpm 26-27 Art in Ven ice (3-night break in the most remarkable Italian City) 21-24 March see Feb issue

Ivanov (starring Ra lph Fiennes) 25 March, 7.30pm see Feb issue * The School fo r Wives 26 March, Bpm 26-27 * Parisian Impressionist Break 4-5 April 25 * Anastasia 7 Apri l, 7.30pm 26-27 * Waste B April, 7.30pm 26-27 * Lady in the Dark 9 April, 7.30pm 26-27 * 26 April 25 * Premiere 2-4 May 25 * Northern Italy 9-12 May 25 Giverny /Paris Monet weekend (by Eurostar) 19-20 May see Feb issue * Smokey Joe's Cafe 20 May, Bpm 25 Giverny /Rouen Monet weekend (via coach to Monet's summer garden) 6-7 June (note dote & price change) see Feb issue

24 APPlAUSE {VV\RCH 1997 ~;vents & travel

NORTHERN ITALY Take in the beauty of some exceptional buildings and art in three of the most picturesque towns of Northern Italy. Staying at the Hotel Mantegna you will see the Du cal Palace in Mantova, the Piazza del Comune in Cremona and visit the renaissance town of Sabbioneta.

PARISIAN IMPRESSIONIST BREAK Travel by Eurostar to the heart of Paris, where you will stay in a hotel with easy access to the three art galleries scheduled on this trip: the Orangerie, the Marmotton and the Musee d'Orsay, homes to some of the world's finest impressionist paintings .

ALAN AYCKBOURN SMOKEY PREMIERE JOE'S CAFE Enjoy Scarborough's splendid Enjoy the rock 'n' roll music of scenery and sa ndy bays while Leiber and Stoller ('Hound Dog', staying in en-suite accommodation 'Jailhouse Rock', 'Stand By Me') at at Hotel. Included are the , with tickets to the premiere performance top price seats and a two-course of Alan Ayckbourn's latest play, to meal at one of a choice of which he is currently putting the re staurants nearby. finishing touches.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING Enjoy a special day in Stratford-upon-Avon and join in the annual Shakespeare birthday celebrations. First, ride on one of Guide Friday's open-top bus tours through Stratford visiting five fascinating locations linked to the bard. You will round off a great day by enjoying stalls seats at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre for Much Ado About Nothing, starring and Siobhan Redmond.

Iv\ARCH 1997 APPlA USE 25 he' 101 i WASTE Peter Hall directs Felicity Kendal (pictured) and Michael PenningtOn in Harley Granville-Barker's powerful play whose twin subjects, sex and politiCS, resulted in the play being banned in 1907.

8Apri/, 7.30pm TueS da Y

ONE WORD IMPROV The ultimate comedy improvisation experience starring Eddie Izzard, Stephen Frost, Neil Mullarkey & Suki Webster.

"Genius - on tap" Mewd)' Maker

ALBERY THEATRE St Martin's Lane , Lond on WC2

26 APPlAUSE IVIARCH 1997 re offer

312 1991 ANASTASIA j o in Applause at the opening night of 's A nastasia starring Leanne Benjamin and Adam Cooper. Mondav7A . .T pril, 745. . Pm . " ... a triumphant ROYAL OPER restoration of a Covent Gard A HOUse tremendous ballet" en, london WC2 Financial Times

evenings,7.45pm Monday-1"hursday& saturday 4pm wednesday 3pm

PHOEN\){ THEA-r:~ondon WC2 Roa , f the Month

BLOOD BROTHERS Willy Russell's musical continues to delight audiences with the tale o f Liverpudlian twins separated at bi rth and reunited with tragic consequences.

Wednes.day 9 AprilJ.30pm THE SCHOOL FOR WIVES C lassic Moliere comedy directed by LYTTLETON ~~;:a!~~southbank Peter Hall and starring Peter Bowles, Royal Natlona ~ i C Sykes, Carmen Sdvera and london SE1 Henry McGee.

LADY IN THE DARK Moss Hart, Ira Gershwin and Kurt Weill's exceptional and neglected musical is finally brought to London by the Royal N ational Theatre, with Maria Friedman (pictured) in the starring ro le originally created by Gertrude Lawrence. Wednesday 26 March, Bpm .... \

6,eeAD1ll Y THeATRe enman Street, london W1 CH 1 7 APPlAUSE 27 WIN A WALK-ON PARI' IN A WEST END SHOW

Have you ever dreamed of treading the boards in London's West End2... Well, Applause would like to offer you a once-in-a-lifetime chance to shine with the stars. This month's competition gives you an opportunity to win a walk-on part in one of London's best loved plays.

The Royal National Theatre's acclaimed production of J B Priestley's classic thriller An Inspector Calls returned to the West End aher its huge success on Broadway. 's superlative production has won a total of 19 awards in London and New York .

If you are the lucky winner you will have the opportunity to join the cast for a truly memorable day. You will meet the cast before rehearsals with the resident director. Then to make-up and costume before going on stage for this rather special Saturday matinee performance in April. In the audience will be four of your friends and family siHing in the best seats in the house to cheer you on. And aherwards the cast will present you with a signed copy of the playas a memento of your day. To win this fabulous prize simply write your answers to the questions below on a postcard and return with your name, address and daytime phone number to Win A Walk-On Port Competition, Applause Magazine, Applause Building, 68 Long Acre, London WC2E 9JQ. Good Luck!

1) Name the surname of the family at the centre of An Inspector Calls. 2) On which Iris Murdoch novel did Priestley base his 1963 ploy2

3) What does the J B stand for? 4) Name one cast member of the recent revival of J B Priestley's Dangerous Corner at the Whitehall Theatre.

congratulations to these winners of our previous competitions: Mrs J Diprose of Hextable winner of November's Cats competition and Sue Bell of Cleveland, winner of our December crossword competition .

pllzzlepage

MIXED MUSICAlS YTOLEMACTABD Amongst this jumble T ERA B A C OA STY of leHers there are the JULMIVMIOTAS titles to 14 well known musical shows GCHDUMKLBASC past and present. RAGGYFENWEUR They read in a single E IMPASS IONYO line up, down, ACUSUI ZMHUKO diagonally, forward SLLODDNASYUG or backward. E S REP R E MG HIE Answers at FAEVAYREVI LO bottom of page C L I H TWU P R I R I SBBACENOSLOJ

WORDUNKS ANAGRAMS Find a word which can be added These three phrases are aher one word and before the other anagrams of three famous word to make two new words e.g. names (clue: there's nothing WALL (PAPER) WEIGHT. like a damel )

BACK ( ) HAND TIME GAGS HIM SAFETY ( ) RAil DIG A GRAIN BALLOT ( ) OFFICE HORSE ( ) GROUND HE SAVED TIN

·SUOA3 YI!P3 : 661~ OUOIO 'yjlWS a!660w SWVll~VNV ·,(0ld :~o ~ :ulopn) :a6olS S>lNt1a~OM ·SIO) 'awow 'uOiSSOd 'a600J~S'j009MoyS 'ssay) 'jaJ09o)'asoaJ9 ',(wwol 's lloO pUO s,(n9 'JaAIIO 'uosl0r'lasnoJo) 'jolawo) SlV'lsnw a3XlW

28 APPLAUSE i\MRCH 1997 mailbag C!)of the month please address your letters to The Editor, Applause, The Applause Building, 68 Long Acre, London WC2E 9JQ. Each month we will give two tickets to a top West End show SAVE £6 for the best letter published. Retail price £26 Applause price This month's Star Letter gets two £20 tickets to Sunset Boulevard.

Dear Sit; Following Clive Hirshhorn's 'The Day I Met Tennessee Williams' in the January issue of Applause, I would like to recount my meeting with the great man. I was in New York for a friend's appearance with in La Grosse Valise - which was unsuccessfu l to say the This brand new double CD recording of Frank Loesser's least (it lasted one performance!). I was back stage after the show masterpiece is a musical- lovers must. A unique and definitive recording featuring the three songs written speciaJly for the consoling my friend when out of nowhere stepped Tennessee film, a restored number from the original show and lots of Williams looking extremely pained. Just as Victor came into the rarely heard verses. room he sp luttered in a very exaggerated Southern drawl: 'Victor, A terrific cast includes Frank's own daughter Emily as I have and will always come to see you in anything and Sarah, Gregg Edelman as Sky, Tim Flavin as Nathan and everything ... but please, don't be in thi, agai n.' It's certainly a Kim Cresswell as Adelaide, meeting I'll .

M Bertrand, Dulwich Call now on 0171 312 1991 (Please note there will be a 0.50 charge for p&p. Dear Sit; Please allow 28 days for delivery.) I am currently researching prod uctions l)f 's Salome for my dissertation and wondered whether App!'mse readers could help me with information regarding the actor Rutert Farqharson - also known as Robin de !J C ondermine. H e ~'e rtu rmed the role of Herod in of productions Salo m.; and was apparently an extraordinary actor (he may ha\'e e\'en sounded like Wilde himself). I would be grateful for any information,

Da\'id Langham,

Dear Sit; I am writing with disgust after hearing that the site of Shakespeare's original is to be replaced with an office block, I appreciate that a fine replica has been built on the South Bank, but it seems ludicrous to now abandon the original site. It should be preserved as a major London landmark. After all, I think we have enough towering office blocks without adding another eyesore to the list. C Rogerson London

Dear Sit; I rarely feel strongly enough to write to a publication, least of all if it is in agreement with a writer, but I would like to acknowledge Matt Wolf's sentiments regarding Maggie Smith in Talking Heads (january iss ue). Having recently seen her performance, her depth of feeling, her humour and pathos left me simply bowled over. During my 35 years of theatregoing I have seen some of this centuries great perfon:nances - including Maggie Smith playing everything from Rosalind to Lady Bracknell. It's a great play but transcended by a great actress. Tony Marsh, Dunstable

MARCH 1997 APPlAUSE 29 westend

HIGH

travel information seating fax c serVIce

Theatreland Car Parks For a sea ting plan, simply di al the number of the thea tre Westminister MasterPark Car Parks: listed below from the handset of your fax machine, Helpline 0171 4 I2 3795, Cambridge C ircus: Newport Place, WC2 (0171 434 1896) Presented hy Applause magazine in assC'ciatlon with Tel ecom Express Ltd, Westmmster Poland Street: Poland Street, WI (0 171 437 7660) Tower, Lon Jon SEI 7SP. Calls cost £ 1,S O/min (duration of fax approx, 2 minutes), Rochester Row: Rochester Row, SW I (0171 828 4298) Adelphi 099 1 992301 Lyric 099 1 992 324 Trafa lgar: Spring Gardens, SW I (0171 930 1565) Albery 099 1 992 302 National-Olivier 099 1 992 325 Whitcomb: Whitcomb Street, WC2 (0171 8395858) Aldwych 0991992 303 National- Lyttleron 099 1 992326 Apollo 099 1 992 305 New London 099 1 992 328 On presentation of a voucher, theatregoers can pay a special rate of Apollo Victoria 0991992 307 O ld Vic 099 1 992329 £),OO/eveni ng at the car parks above, Simply ask when you book you r tickets with Applause, Barbican 099 1 992 308 Open Air 099 1 992330 Cambridge 0991992 309 Palace 099 1 992331 Public Transport Coliseum 0991 9923 10 Peacock 0991 992 34 1 Bus and Underground services run until midnight, with night buses Comedy 099 1 992 311 Phoenix 099 1 992 332 taking over from there and departing from Trafa lgar Square, For more C riterion 0991992 312 Piccadilly 099 1 992 333 information call London Transport on 0171 222 1234, Dominion 0991992 313 Playhouse 099 1 992 334 Train Services also run until late, but it 's bes t to check with your local Don mar 0991 992 3 14 Prince Edward 0991 992335 tra in stations rega rding last train departure tim es, Trai n enquires can 099 1 992 315 Prince of Wales 099 1 992 336 also be made on 0345 484950, Duchess 0991 992 316 Q ueens 0991 992337 Duke of York's 0991 9923 17 0991992 340 Coaches Fortune 099 1 992 318 Savoy 099 1 992 343 For advice on coach park ing call the Metropolitan Coach advisory Garrick 099 1 992 3 19 Shaftesbury 0991 992344 se rvice on 0171 2305332, G ielgud 099 1 992 320 St Martin's 099 1 992 345 Taxis Haymarket 099 1 992 321 Strand 099 1 992 346 Black cabs are readily ava ilable, but if a minicab is required call Her Majesty's 0991992 322 Vaud eville 0991992 347 0800654321 for more information, London Palladium 0991 992 323 Victoria Palace 099 1 992 348 Lyceum 0991992 358 Whitehall 0991992 349

30 APPLAUSE MARCH 1997 ...... •--- ==-~----IIIIIIII)=S......

t was good (0 see Peter Hall acknow­ highly respected and popular playwright, The Contessa, with Maria very much in mind. ledging 'the generosity and assistance' instead of an account of the life of a I wonder if someone will now be brave of the late Lady St Just, executrix of dramatist out of fav our. Even so it hardly enough to give it a first production) Tennessee Williams' estate in a matches in interest and insight the volume programme note for his production of of letters between Maria St Just and • • • Stree tcar at the Haymarket. Even playwrights Tennessee Williams, 5 O'clock Angel, edited as great as Williams tend to have a period of by Kit Hesketh . The balance of the I had a celebratory drink with Wendy Toye unpopularity in the years immediately letters were from him to her - as G o re Vidal on account of her confirmation as a London following death. It was due to Maria St JUSt' S pithily o bserved, he had not preserved many University Doctor of Letters. 'Come and have skillful and devoted championship of her long of hers, 'Dear Tennessee - so sentimental'. a glass after I have been Doc(O red ', she had time friend that Tennessee's reputation did How much Lahr's inspiration for his said. A couple of days later not slip but burgeoned in the dangerous years. vitriolic piece came from his dismissal as the told me he had been made a Doctor of Letters The result has been a veritable festival edito r of the letters by Lady St Just, I do not too. Richmond in Herbie's case. They are all of Williams. Her determination only to know. She was a wonderfully vivid and over . When Noel Coward heard approve the very best productions means volatile Russian and fought like a tiger for that Olivier had been made a Doctor of that we have seen fine revivals of Orpheus her friends. Tennessee was as fortunate as Letters he snapped out 'Four, I presume'. Descending and The Rose Tattoo (Hall) , Car he was wise in making her his executrix. When Albert Finney was in an early on a Hot Tin Roof, and He wrote one play, I think it was called Chichester season he was made a Doc(O r of Sweet Bird of Youth (Richard Eyre) and The Letters by East Sussex University. His father Glass Menagerie (Sam Mendes). Now the was not impressed, 'Doctor of Letters,' he RSC are promising Camino Real which we huffed in disbelief, 'we haven't had so much as first saw at the Phoenix in the 50's with a bloody postcard for months.' I'm sure Miss Elizabeth Seal, John Wood and Denholm Toye and Mr Kretzmer will grace their Elliot. Glasgow Citz are mounting Cat, and doctorates. Herbie is working on a musical Mold will see a new Menagerie . Even more with Laurie Johnson. It 's called Glory Road; daring, Duncan Weldon is talkmg of putting but as it's about Moses he tells me he has had on the rare Clothes for a Summer Hotel and to resist a temptation to call it One Guy the more familiar Summer and Smoke which Named Mo. starred Margaret Johnston some forty odd years ago. • •• • • • The sad death of Willie Rushton inspired a Soon after Maria St Just's death the New wonderful joke at the Mo rtlake Crematorium Yorker published a long and scurrilous funeral. After Barry Cryer had read one of demolition of her character by John Lahr ­ Willie's wittily rhymed pieces Bron Waugh usually a reliable and highly intelligent critic. ptoduced the perfect Private Eye quip­ (His recent piece on Woody Allen was a funny, topical and in excolCiating bad taste. joy). In spite of shocked letters of denial from He said he'd been asked to tell a few Willie Maria's legion of friends the New Yorker's stories, recall a few jolly memories. 'But', he editor, Brown, refused to publish any said 'I can't do that. Death is a serious rebuttal and so the calumny stood. business. Tho' if Willie were here today I One of Lahr's beefs was that Lady St Just had dare say we'd be having a good laugh at the held up the publication of Lyle Leverich's death of Sir Laurence Van der POSt l ' elephantine, over-researched, underwritten biography of Tennessee, Tom - The Unknown • •• Tennessee Williams, 590 pages of early life. In fact, Mr. Leverich was lucky that his book John Miller is writing 's was delayed. Thanks to Maria's efforts it biography. Big problem. He can't find anysme became the biography of the early years of a willing to say a word against her. Any offers?

MARC H 1997 APPLAUSE 31

who make a di~erence

., He may not be as rich so met hing (0 replace them. Whyl God al one do you think Cameron Mack intosh is a multi ­ knows. I don't need to do it; I don't ge t them multi-multi-multi millionaire I Four shows I He as Cameron all that much cheaper. I sec ure them and I had back ers for those shows. I don't have Mackintosh , but he know they' re min e. When I first started in the backers. It's all my money. If I had Cameron's West End twenty years ago I could n't ge t a shows I would be twe nty rimes as rich as he is. probably does more than theatre fo r love nor money. Neither could My hit shows make a lot of money and it anyone else to keep Britain's Cameron (Mackintos h) or Du ncan (Weldon). comes to me, though I never see it. When a We we re outsiders. That's always li ved with Passion or Company comes along, it's me that theatres in business. David me. I like to know what I'm doing and where loses money. Nathan talks to Bill Kenwright I'm going. It's an addiction,' he confesses with 'Once I thought I'd get backers in . We the relief of a suspect coming clean. 'Without had just had a colossa l success with Clifford about the hits and misses. any shadow of doubt, an addiction.' Odets' Th e Country Girl wi th and Addictions are ex pensive, I po int out. Hannah Gordon. So I got backers for another n a well -ordered wo rl d it wo ul d be 'If a greengrocer or ta xi-d river worried Clifford Odets play, Th e Big Knife, with Shaw quite simple, given that he is as open about hi s weekl y takings,' he sa ys, 'he cou ldn 't aga in , Gayle Hunnicutt and James Sikking as an umbrella in a rainstorm , to go ex ist. What you've go t to do is to look at it on from Hill Stree t Blues. Eve rybody was asking to through all Bill Kenwright's the yea r. I sa id to my Jenny the other night put money into it. It started off at productions for a yea t and work out (ac tress : their relationship's and as soon as I saw it I knew it was not go ing the profit and loss. What the successful shows been goi ng on for more than twO years, the to work. I thought, how am I go ing to face made and how much the fl ops los t wou ld give best thing that has ever happened to him , he those people I So [ wrote to them all telling you a figure which would answer the one says, like finding peace at last) You know them to take their money back. I was right; it ques tion everyone asks about him: How does da rling, I said, I must earn a lo t of money was a d isastcr. he do it ? because I do n't half lose a 1m.' 'J can only live my life the way 1 li ve my 'Right,' says Bill , in a tone that suggests Now it's not that he wants to life ,' he say s. ~ that he, too, would like to find out, 'at the Jose money. He neve r ever... start of 1996 1 had on Th e Rupert Stree t Lonely sudd enl y he stops. He was Hearts Club , Fun ny Mone y, Th e Mas ter Builder, going to say he never Th e Roy Orbison Show and Blood Brothers in puts on shows for the West End. I was also working on Chapter mone y al one, but H . \1ind Millie for Me, Prese nt Laughter and a that would be O1 t'\\ . ,Id '" called Switchback. Ferry Cross th e wrong. No, he ~ . !<-"'. '.':1> In rehearsal and Blood Brothers was re thin ks, he lr C " 3 . . Then we did has va rious 3£all' .. iL:, Lblion toured. The first week in shows that February H e L. 19 mJ the Shon and the Tall bring him

ca me in. Th,, ~ p.: 'j Pa pers at Broml ey income ­ starred ItS rre-\VeS t End tour and there were Stepping Out, other things.' Shirle y 'What happens. ' he ,<1',';;, trying to be Valenti ne, helpful, 'is that I get myself In to situations Blood wh ere I ta ke on thea tres. On Fe bruar y 19'- and Brothers. he's counting as he' s talking - 'I had fo urteen 'I have had productions. I take on lease s of thea tres, like colossal hits, the Gielgud and the Hay market. It mea ns that huge hi ts, all o ver I know that when shows end' have to ha ve the wo rld. Now why BILL KENWRIGH 'Ten years ago a producer never spoke to a there with my scrap book instead of a critic the way we do now. And 1 said to myself, contract. It gives me a big kick, but I don't Just a short walk ~ I can't stand this, this is stupid. I see these guys want to get to know them all that much, any from the West ln~ .... all the time; I want a rel ationship with them. more than I want to know my Everton players So I started chatting to YLlU guys. You give me (he is a director). They're my idols when a battering and I'm big enough to take it. It they're on the pitch, 12 feet tall to me. So I French's Theatre hurts to get bad reviews. Horrible' horrible! don't really need a fantas tically close horrible ' Not only do you lose the money but relationship with them. I just need to respect Bookshop you feel a l'rick, an aboolute idiot.' them and look after them.' He was more than hurt, though, about Once Kenwright, a builder's son from A veritable 's cave of books Night Must Fall . O ne or two critics went for , was an actor with film star about all aspects of theatre: scripts, him personaJiy, which upset him. ' I don't ambitions. The best he did was a role in set design, lighting, sound, audition think,' he says, 'that I got it wrong, but they Coronation Street. He staged a rwduction of material, and more' thought I did. 1 lost my confidence. Billy Liar in Bu xton because he wanted to play For about ten days I thought I can't do this the lead . His friends told him he had done a Our recent publications include: any more. I didn't quite know what to do.' great job - as a producer. So he got on a l,lane to N ew York to see There is a story about him that illustrates Bad Company by Simon Bent his new cast in the successful production of the range of his shows or, if you like, the Cracks by The Dearly Beloved and . He had to supervise the degree to which he is besotted by the business. What I Did In The Holidays take-over cast headed by Stephanie Beacham After the West End run of the by Philip Osment and Nicky Henson. While in New York he play Moon1ight, Pinter threw a party at the Ivy Killers by Adam Pernak met LyIUl Redgrave and thought, 'There's my and sa id nice things about everyone. Then he Playhouse Creatures by April de Angelis answer, a star and Shakespeare - the critics invited Kenwright to speak. 'Moonlight has Playing the Wife by Ronald Hayman will like me again. So I got back on the horse closed,' Kenwright sa id, 'And we open Mike If We Are Women and Shakespeare For My Fath er got sensational Harding's Fur om and '0 Knickers in by Joanna McLelland Glass reviews. That makes me fe el better. Then Liverpool on Tuesday.' Then he turned to Jessica (J essica Lange ) came along for Pinter and sa id: 'Are you available to play French's Theatre Bookshop and Samuel French Ltd A Streetcar Named Desire.' Sadly, he lost the father!' 52 Fitzroy Street, London WIP 6JR money on Shakespeare For M)' Father too. Maybe that goes some wa y to explain Tel 0171 3879373 Fax 0171 387 2161 He likes stars. 'I often feel I should be how Kenwright does it. •

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134 APPIAU f M RC H 1997 pfoJile

ADMIRABLE NELSON

Sheridan Morley praises the work of American playwright Richard Nelson) who) like Miller and Mamet) is appreciated here a good deal more than he is in his homeland.

or over a decade now the Royal vi sion, and his own description of Columbus often seem to be writing with machine guns, Shakespeare Company has remained mi ght usefu lly stand as an instant Nelson is as dryas a dry martini. loyal to only one transatlantic autobiography: 'he's sympathetic and he's Born in C hicago in October 1950, he was dramatist, Richard Nelson: still only foolish and he's sad and he's funny' . taken on frequent ttips to Broadway by his in his middle fonies, and with a Like his great compatriot and contemp­ mother who had once been a chorus dancer. At dramatic profile that remains curiously low orary A R Gurne y, Nelson frequently falls foul college he won a playwriting contest, and compared to those of other American of the British press because he is that curiously before his 21st birthday, had written twenty·one playwrights of his generation, 1 believe Nelson unfashionable playwriting figure; an ironist with plays of one kind or another. to be by fa r the most versatile, prol ific and a strong sense of the ridiculous in human and 'At that time a ll one ever saw in the way impressive of them all. political relationships, but with the firm belief of straight plays reflected the last twenty years His latest play, opening this month at the that such irony should be expressed with of Ameri can life', he told me. 'I believe that Ba rbican after a summer run at Stratford last elegance and wit. Where Shepard and Mamet playwriting should be about something more se ason, is Th e General From than that; with Moliere or Gorki .--\mmca, ' Llffing Corin Redgra ve or Chekhov you get both the as Gec. rge Washington and James individual and the context in Laurenson as Bencjict Arno ld. which he or she li ves; it's that Woefully underf3ted b 013 .\ c.t conflict, the successes and my colleagues, a, is so c.(ten frustrations of trying to deal with Nelson's fate over here, this 1S. in a whole world, not just one tiny fact, a seri ously splendid drama part of it, that can make theatre about the nature of treachery and exciting and rich and new.' patriotism and the way that, at It was one of his most least in the case of A rn0 1d , the two faithful directors, David Jones, can be mirror· images of each other. who first brought Nelson to the This is Nelson's seventh Royal Shakespeare Company in original script for the RSC written the early 1980s. over the last decade; among the 'We first met,' recalls others, Principia Scriptorae was Nelson 'in the Spring of 1979 in about an American academic the restaurant of the Park Hotel plunged into the vottex of overseas in New York. I was there being politics; Some Americans Abroad interviewed by him for the job of was a lethal satire o n academic Literary Manager of the tours of Britain; New England was Btooklyn Academy theatre its reverse, a study of unhappy and company which David was then suicidal Brits in America; while forming; we hit it off O K, and I Columbus was a huge but got the job which proved rather ultimately unsatisfactory account less enduring than our fri endship of Christopher's later explorations. and working relationship.' Clearly, versatil ity is not in Despite the early and question: Nelson's people are tragic co ll apse of Jones' plan to engaged on a permanenr search for bring the Brooklyn Academy a identity, and his particular interest resident theatre company, is in Anglo.American relations something it has not achieved to go ne astray; it's a darkly comic this day, the mee ting with »

,V>A CH 1997 APPLAUSE 35 Nelso n led to them working on Principiae Scriptorae at the Barbican Pit in 1986. Since then, most of his plays have heen premiered by rhe RSC. rarher rhan in his narive Ameri ca, a reflecrion perhaps of the facr rhar rhey a re frequendy, if nor spec ifi cally, ami-American (or ar leasr wrinen in a style which Broadw"y no longer seems ro love, rhar of rhe highly academic sariri sr). Nelson is a lso ohsessed wirh rhe n arure of exil e, rhe far e which finally overtakes Benedicr Arnold as The General From America, who ends up living in poverty in London as a resulr of his principled treachery: 'I' ve always been ime resred in people who are alVay from home, or in exile, or jusr our of the ir place and rime: it's somerhing I've pursued in play after play, somerhing I consider nor jusr a personal obsession bur rhe obsessio n of rhe whll le rwemierh cemury. I've never been a documemary wrirer, bur I am inreresred in hiswri cal accidem s, and certainly Benedicr Arnold was one of rhose - rhe world only knows him now as a rrairor bur he was a grear deal more complex a figure rhan such insr8 nt definirion mighr suggesr'. In fact, The General From America, like Columhus, sers up a man mo re sinned against rhan sinning, \\,hl) like Antony or Coriolanus is doomed co do rhe wrong thing for all rhe ri ghr re

Nelson is nor anglophile enough yer ((l make his permanem home here; he is still an American firsr and lase. th"ugh like he recognises rhar his chances of producclon in major pl ayhouses have always been better on this side of rhe pond. Nor is he inclined w reach any gli b conclusions about the differences ber\\'een Brirish and American acrors or d irecrors; wary of attending roo many rehearsals, a ll he will ad mit is rhar every direcror \\'orks differently, and rh ar each time a Londo n play of his is produced in .A merica, he no rices differem moods end emphases eme rging from his rext; 'bur rhen you'd probably ger all those differences in producrion s, say, at Greenwich and SrTarford of the same pl ay.' The truth is rhat Nelson \Hires for transadamic travellers; few in his usuall y upmarket audiences can have failed to notice some differences between Br itain 8nd America, and what Nelson then does is to explore those differences, sometimes celebrating them and ofre n prodding at them as at an open wound. As his oc her Sovier and Central European settings would also suggesr, Nelson lives as a playwrighr on rhe borders of political, social and geographical change; like a war anist, he is up at the frontier, recording moments of transition as well as rhe hisrorical and polirical imperatives which co ndition rhose mo ments. In that se nse , it is not roo great a cla im to suggesr that his characters are oft en C hekhovian in their awareness of a Iosr past and a deeply uncertai n future. For my money he's the the perfect millennium changeover dra matist, eyes fi xed on the near future and heart buried somewhere in the recem past; [ also cannot say too ofren that, just because he doesn't deal in the jugular or the vernacul a r, just because he isn't Mamet or Shepard or on his way co Tarantino, doesn'r necessa ril y mean rhat Richard N elson is not one of [he great American pl aywrighrs of rhe cenrury. Lt' s JUSt that, to his own delight, he remains a little unfashionable. • CONSTANCE CUMMINGS

Michael Arditti talks to an actress who has achieved success on both sides of the Atlantic in a career that has lasted seventy years.

n a theatre which nightly deals in illusions of beauty. there is one actress whose genuine beauty has enchanted audiences on both sides of the Atlantic for nearly seventy years: Constance Cummings. Her recent appearance in the Chichester revi va l of offered a welcome reminder of her talent. Her distingu ished presence and quiet concentration as Vanya's mother foc used attention on a traditionally shadowy role. Like . sh e has shown a rare ability to combine a career in borh New York and London, appea ring on Broadway in such plays as . , The Golden Age and, in the West End. Madame Bovary, Goodbye Mr Chips and Who's Afraid o!Virginia Wool!' She was born in Seattle and raised in Ca li forn ia, and her morher's mid · We stern ancestry was to prove invalua ble to one ,)fher greatest roles, the Ohio·born Mary Tyrone in Long Day's Joume ~ Into Night, She first went to New York at the age of se,'enteen in 192 7. v,'lth the aim of becoming a dancer, only to find that there were very fe\\' ballets being performed. 'There was ballet in operas,' she says; 'the dancers came on and fluttered around on toe·shoes when needed. But there was no ballet as such .' In any case. het ambition may have been misplaced for, as she now admits, 'I don't think I'd have been ve ry good at it. ce rtainly not tod ay. when they're all so thin. I was a rather solidly built litrle thing.' instead. she joined the chorus of Broadway music als, the Gershwins' Oh , Kay, and the re vue, The Little Sh ow. Then, in a stroke of luck more common in the piays of the period than in the lives of the ac tors who performed them, she was spotted in an understudy performance by the roving reporrer of the New Yo rk Sun who. having nothing else to write about in a thin week, chose her. with the tesult that she was summoned to Ho llywood by Sam Goldwyn and cast opposite Ronald Colman. 'I though t it was marvellous,' she says ; 'then I was fired. I probably wasn't sophistica ted enough. They rep laced me with Loretta Young, who was very lovely. But Ronald Colman, who was a very nice man, realised what a terrible blow this was. He had a friend in Myron Selznick's office. He told him 'You must get the kid one film out here. so that when she goes back to New York. she needn't say she was fired. ' A test at Columbia was duly arranged . and she went on to play Walter Huston's daughter in The CrimiMI Code . Ii. I NEVER STOPPED DOING She made fourteen films over ,he next two years and many more during PlAYS .. . FIlMS HAPPENED ;uc;curites. Capra's American Madness IN BETWEEN .. , and It Happened One Night. But, in 193 3, she marr ied the Engl ish playwright >­

MARCH 1997 APPlAUSE 37 Benn Levy, whom she mer during one of hi s sc reenwri[ing stints in Cali fo rnia, and moved [0 London . They we re together for fony yea rs, until Levy's death in 1973. She appeared in several plays by her husband, whom she nicknamed Mousey ('because he was ro [all y [he oppos ite') . These Included The Jealow; God, Retllnl to Tyassi, ClulCerhuck, If I Were You and The Rape of th e Bell. The la[[er, in which she srarred opposite John Clements, Kay Hammund and Richard A[[enborough, remains her favourite. She may nor [end Levy's flame with a Lenya- li ke zeal, nevertheless she considers [hal irs Strong comedy and early femlOis[ message make i[ ripe fo r revival. Levy rook his soc ial commentary OntO a wider stage when he became Labo ur MP for E[On and Slough after [he war (having bee n persuaded ro stand by [heir friend s Nye Bevin and Jennie Lee). His hectic sc hedule lef[ hi s wife wit h a lo[ of free rime and she rook [he opponun i[y [ 0 develop her seco nd great love, anthro[K110gy, studying fo r a yea r a[ [he University of London. Her simu ltaneous appearance in Don'r Listen Ladies prompted her favourite ever headline: London UniverSity Swdent Scars in West End Play. By 1945, she was, of course, an es[ablished West End scar; from her firs t West End appearance opposite Roge r Livesey in Vin cent La wrence's Sour Grapes, [he theatre had dominated her life. 'I never sropped do ing plays,' she sa ys; 'fil ms happened IO-bwveen. I liked [he whole sec-up of [he stage. I prefe rred having [he aud ience and doing [he playas I['S written rather [han our of sequence.' The 'hlms in -between' included Blirhe Spirir with Rex Harri sl1n and Kay Hammond and The Barrie of rhe Sexes with Peter Sellers. The plays included a srring of classics at Ox ford, such as Th e Taming of th e Shrew and Lysisrrara, and appearances for [he Old Vic opposite Roben Dona[ in Romeo and Julier and S[ewan Granger in Sr Joan. Before bei ng allowed [0 play S[ Joa n, she had [0 be ve[[ed by [he author, so she went [Q visit him a[ his London home. "We were [alking. I sa id [Q Shaw 'Have you ever seen me on [he slagel' .. 'No, child, I have no[ .' .. 'How can you [e ll if I'll be good as S[

Joan I'... 'I think I can [ell, child ." ln [he eve nt, he wrote her a le[[er, saY lO g [hal, when she had more poeuy, she wou ld be a very good acrress.

Hi s hopes were fu lfi lled, and in la[er li fe she gave [11'0 unforge[[ab le perfo rmances, [he first in Long Day's J o ~,mey /nlO Night oppos ite her old friend, , and [he second in Arthur Kopit's \);Jings, in which she played a woman suffering fro m a suoke. Bo[h entailed extensive medical research, since Mary Tyrone was 10 [he grip of morphine addiction. She admits with a laugh, 'I think I could do a play about gelling drunker; I've rehearsed [hal. Bur I knew nothing about dope.' Her studies a[ rhe Roya l College of Surgeons contribured [0 a ponrayal of radiant vulnerabili[y which perfectly complemented Olivier's feral James Tyrone. Tha[ she has been see n less on [he stage since her glory days a[ [he

Na[ional is nor due [0 age or incapacity - she wea rs her eighty-six years as if

[hey were a well-prese rved seventy - bur rather [0 [he lack of available roles. 'I[ 's so unfair,' she complai ns, '[here are lo[s of pam for old men, none fo r old lad ies. There are so many things I'd srililike [0 play fo r women of [hiny and fony; btl( it's no use crying ove r [hose.' She has few regrets, declaring [hal 'it's been a very full life, a very fulfilled life. I've been so lucky. I can't [ell you a s[O ry of long m uggles; i[ wasn't like [ha[.' She is currentl y 'resting' bur has no thought of retiring, al[hough she confesses [hal 'ilouk a[ things and chink [hal it's nO[ my world any more. In [he theatre bur, especially, in films, I look down [he cast and [here's no one I know; I feel an ou[side r.' To sugges tions [hal she is, in fact, a great survivor, she smiles and asks 'What's [he u,e of being a SU[I'IV (1 r, when you're stuck on a life-raft miles from shore:' •

Michael Ardiw's hi!!:hl)' acclaimed novels, The Celiba[e and P a~a n and Her Parents, are pt,blished by Sinclair Stevenson and -will he relSS Hed in (xI p.!rback by

Minerva In May.

38 APPlAUSE ~tA R C H I 97 BOOKREVIEW

Sam Ingleby reviews what promises to be the first instalment of playwright Neil Simon's memoirs.

hen he sropped writing comedy for Sid Caes8r and was Simon promises another volume to deal with the post-Joan period. j\ briefly tending ro the needs of Jerry Lewis, Nell Simon Meanwhile, he goes on writing plays which, like all great comedies, / started ro write comedies for the rest of us. He h ~ ~ been rely on tTUth. ;bing It noll' for nearly 40 years and it don't seem a day too much. 'The pro blems we cause ourselves,' he says, 'are nOt necessarily a True, the comedies have become progressively darker, but the laughing matter, but when I put it down on paper and get it right, then laughter, somehow, has nor diminished. Anyone who has provided the put it up on the stage and make that stage a mirror of our own responses world - barring, I suppose, China, India and the American mid-west ­ and reactions, more often than not the audiences seem to laugh at with so much laughter deserves ro be saluted. themselves. They usually say, I know someone exactly ilke that when, in We, on our part, need ro know that it isn't as easy as it looks or fact, they may be talking ., i,tlut themselves.' sounds. We remember with delight such thll1gs as the promise the newly­ There is something strange ly clumsy and hesitant, even endearing, wed husband makes ro the eager wife in BarefooTin ,he Park - '1' II come about that se ntence. If he were sayi ng such a thing in a play you know it home early and we'll wallpaper each other'; or when Oscar yells at Felix would be sharper, stronger and shorter. I doubt if there arc many 'more in The Odd Couple, 'I can't stand litrle notes on my pillow: We're all o ue often than nots' and 'maybes' in his dialogue. But it is parr of an honest of Corn Flakes. F U. It took me three houts to figure out that F U was book that lets us know J good deal about the pri vate pain from which the Felix Ungar.' Nei l Simon plays are hewn. Of course we recognise it; if it didn't hurr, Simon links the pl ays to his life, but gives few clues to the origin of we wouldn't laugh. • great lines like these. Did he name the character Felix Ungar in order to get an F U joke into the third act 7 O r did it come ro him as he was writing? Maybe the character was called something else and h e changed the name to Felix Unga r when he thought of the joke. We are not told . He may well believe that subjecting the sublime one-liners - which, in fact, can be several lines long - to too penecrating an examination might make them fade away like po litical promises. All the sa me, his autobiography would have been much more interesting if he had gone into more detai I. He knows he is funny and he should know, roo, after all these successful years, that talent like that does nor disappear if it is examined more closely. He is good on the origin of his plays. The Odd Couple came about when his brother Danny and Roy Gerber, a theatrical agent, moved in together to save money after they had each gone through a divorce. Da.1 ny actually cooked a meal for four and when the girls showed up an h,'ur late because Roy hadn't to ld them the exact time to be there, o nm' al m ~'s t killed him with his spatula, writes Simon. To him it was clearly an htlarious situation and he suggested a play. Danny starred to write it, but eventualh' gave up and rold Neil to get on with it. Neil gave him a percentage of the play and they both still make money out of it. The nearest he comes to the Neil Simon we know from the plays is when his first child is born and, noting that she has a 'pointy' head, he wonders whether they should put her in a crib at night or JUSt throw her into a dartboard. He started the book, he says, with the intention of showing how his life and his work fed off one another. Indeed, he demonstrates it by being unable to continue with it after reaching the point, on 11 July 197 3, when his wife, Joan, died after 17 years o f blissful marriage. H e was 46 Rewrites. A Memoir, "ears of age and it is noteworthy that one of his recent plays in London by Neil Si mon. was Chapter Two in which the protagonist is a man who, while sti ll Simon and Schuster, £16.99. gfl eving deeply over the death of his wife, and to his deep astonishment, meets and marries anOther woman.

",1/"« H 1 '-17 ArFlAUSE 39 QUIET AT THE BACK, PLEASE!

Ronald Bergan visits the much,needed Audience Rehabilitation and Training Centre deep in the Hertfordshire countryside, and listens to the opening talk given by its chief instructor.

ood morning, lad ies and gentlemen, we lcome w the Audience Rehabilitm ion and Training Centre. As you know, you have been sent here to learn how w behave at the theatre before yo u can take your G places aga in as members of an aud ience. Aft er th is week's course, you will be permitted to go to a pl ay or musical under supervision, where your behav iour will be monitored. If it is deemed sa ti sfacwry, then you wi ll h ave your audience li cence renewed. Should you commit another audience fel ony that contravenes the Audience and Spectator Act, then you might lose your right w audience membership for life. This morning, I will just give you a general rundown on the most common audience crimes without looking at yo ur ow n particular problem. First of all , I'd like to deal wi th those who suffe r fro m, what I call , 'The C lap'. This is a widespread complaint wh ich manifes ts itself by the seemingly uncontro ll able impulse to applaud at every opportunity. it usually begins as soon as the curtain goes up. One look at a set, no maner how und istingui shed, triggers this reacti on. When the leading acwrs and actresses enter, the person wi th 'The C lap' begins to applaud aga in. Many d irectors go to great lengths to counteract this ailment. A mong the methods used are , getting the star w enter discreetly beh ind a group of people; having them speak immediately, or disguising the actor so much that it is some minutes before the spectator recognises h im or her, by which time it is too

U DO YOU MIND SPEAklNq Up? late to clap. ""('HE. ACtORS AR£ MAfONe; SO MUCH NOISE Audiences at operas and music als have a particular horror of I C'AN'r HEAR A WeiRD YOU'RE SAYINC;!" silence. In order w avoid any hint of it, they make sure they are the first to bang their hands together before the las t note of a song has died away, and they will hold up the anion for as long as possible aft erwards , presumably because they prefer the sound of applause to that of singing. I must wa rn you that one of our curati ve methods is

40 APP USE ilMRC 1997 [0 tie the addicts' hands behind their backs during a performance. At We also have cures for those with irritating tics such as incessa nt first they will find this excruciating, but we hope that after a couple note takers ([look forward [0 purging the theatre critics among you of shows they will begin to appreciate the consequences, and it won't of this nasty habit) and chronic fid ge ters - those women who cannot be necessa ry in future. refrai n from flicking their behind them, applying lipstick just

As great as the impulse to clap, is that of the need [0 talk during before the interval or the end of the performance, or fiddling with the performance. There are those who cannot wait for the interval or jewellery as if some subtle thief would deprive them of their trinkets final curtain to express their opinion on what they have witnessed. if they didn't cling to them in the dark. The combination of the There is a loquacious breed who hardly uner a word before the show, dimmed lights, and the footlights have a different effect on others but who suddenly find their [Ongues as the curtain rises as if the who imagine it is a cue for a good sleep. After a large meal and all spotlight were turned on them. Even if they speak softly it sounds as those chocolates eaten loudly during the first act, and alco hol loud as a ,W\2e ,,·hisper o r an actor's aside. However, ask them after consumed during the interval, why shouldn't one have a noisy snooze the play \\hat they thought of it, and they have little to say, haVing during the second ac t? We find that electric shocks tend to dissuade aIr" :.L gl\·en a running commentary throughout. We have ways of people from dozing off. mak tn" \ , ) U shut up. We will also be confiscating all digital watches in order to The cure is a mouth clamp, which serves also for those people prevent bleeps. Even though they might help wake up the owners or ,,·i... have only to step into an auditorium than a great desire for those around them, they disturb undeliquent playgoers. But the mLls t s\\eets and ice-cream suddenly comes over them. They will be taught heinous crime of all is the possession of mobile phones which ring that if one attempts to unwrap a chocolate slowly, it only prolongs during a performance. This is especially disorientating for actors in the sound of the rustling of the paper. plays with phones, who think the stage manager has missed his cue, As irritating, in a different way, are those spectators who spend or in classics that predate the invention of the telephone. During the entire play reading the programme from cover to cover hardly their first few days here, the culprits will have no escape from a daring to look up. These offenders will be sent to the theatre without ringing phone, day and night. as those who have been caught using a a programme, a punishment which requires them to look at the stage. flash camera in the theatre will have to face a barrage of flashlights H owever, there ,He those who not only read the programme wherever they are. thoroughly but who look around the auditorium for something to What's that you say? If you can't applaud when you like, or eat, distract them from what they have ostensibly paid to see. Their heads talk, fidget. sleep or read, rhen yo u are being deprived of all the will be fixed in iron vices, forcing them to look straight ahead, pleasure of theatre-going. This may sound a rad ical idea, but have you preventing them from turning away from the stage. ever tried just watching the show I

Saying hello to The Goodbye Girl

Pr file of pla'Vwright

NEWS, REVIEWS, GOSSIP & MUCH MORE

MARCH 1997 APPLAUSE 41 RUAIDHRI CONROY by Paul Errol

It was never the expressed intention of 18 year-old Ruaidhri Conroy, who plays Cripple Billy in Martin McD,magh's The Cripple of

Inishmoon, [0 become an actor. It JUSt happened, and , in the absence of any thing berrer, Ruaidhri (pronounced Rory ) dec ided it was as good

a way as any to earn a living. It all began when his a ror father, Brendan Conroy, suggested him for a 'run on' part in a play he was the sh w starred. But we had a \\'arm -ul' ,es"ic1n which relaxed me a bi t. doing in . The Ot her good thing IVas that my ma and Ja weren't in the 'All I had to d " Rualdhri told me in a rich Irish accent as he lit audi ence as my ci a w a.,; working in a pIa\' in Ireland . I wouldn't have the first of everal cigatett he sm ked during our lunch [ ether, wanted to see them staring at me. Anyway. "nee I !5\'t ,1n stage, the nerves 'was li terally to run on and off. But it pa id £36 a wee k, wh ich lI'as disappeared and it was grand.' grand, Se I thought to my elf, 'why not" After that,' he aid , 'I joined a Ruaidhri , who has twOo lder sister al ' 0 in che bu"mes' , has had no children' s agency and g t quite a lot f work in ads and in short fil ms, formal theatre rraining. 'If I'm going to rudy anl'thing: he :aid:it won't be and san extra. For ome reason there were never any' udition- for ac ting. That wo uld JUSt be a waste ,f tim e. Drama cL s>~ are imc (m some the theatre. I don't know why. Maybe because there aren't that many people, bllt not for me.' g ld parts for an eight year-old.' He rarely go to the theatre hi m elf. and l-efote Crippie opened hi His fi rst big break came four years later when he was chosen, aft er London theatregoing had been confi ned to the dtl l.mal wher he'd seen 14 auditions, to appear in the film Into the \lYel t. John Gabriel Barkman and Death of a Saiesmlll . .I got reI' tickets for both,' 'I first re d for the part when I was 12,' he said, 'but it was a he sa id, 'and enjoyed them. Paul cofield wa rea lly good . I also went to trouhled production and in the two yean" it roo k to get made, the the dress rehearsal of GIt)'S and Doll.!. It \\'a rand. I'd never seen a musica l director changed , and so did the script and everal members of the hefore. I usually ~ II asleep in the theatre. May \:oe that'Swh y I don't go cast. When it fi nally came out, it was a big hit and ran in cinemas in so much. Ireland for over six months. I don't think it did much busines 'But now that I'm in Londun until t-,'!a\" there'll be more ti me ­ anywhe re el e, but in Ireland people in the street recognised me and e peciall y as some week we only have one or twOperformances. Whi h I they could qUOte wh Ie lines of dia logue from the film . It was grand.' don't really like. Al , I'll try g Illj! to the cmerna a bit more . When [ was Other film roles fo llowed and he has ince appeare in Horse, Hear about 15, I went a lot. With the money I made from /nlO the \\Jes t [ bought My Song , In/o the Border Country, and in tephen Frears' The Van . a video machine and for the next three years I wasted ti me watching far Then, last year, at the age of 17, he flew to London to audition for a tOO many fil ms at home. But the machine and all my tapes were stolen play in the Young Writer's Festival at the Royal C-ourt. He didn't ge t while I was away making a 11 m, and I've neve r botht:red to replace them .' the parr. I he ambitioU5? Undaunted, his agent Lisa Cook suggested he make the most of his 'Well, I'd like to be famou , y-e • But not so much fot the mon y. I till trip by dropping in at the National Theatre to pick up a copy of a new live at home and I don't have many expen es right now. I'd like to be play they were about to uacalled TheCripple of Inishnuum, and for famous for the freedom it gives Y \I to choo the parts you really want. which he thought he might be suitable. I've neve r rea ll y given my career much thought, you know. I never made a '1 read the play on the plane goi ng back t Dublin,' Ruaidhri aid, deci ion to be an actor, and I never made a decision not to be one . Ther~ 'and I wa laughi ng ou[ loud ly. It was gr at. This was omething I wa no reason ever to ay no to the work, so I've ju t kept on doing It. really wanted ro do. Wel l, what happened next,' he aid, 'wa [hat I 'What would be grand,' he said , 'i to go to ew York Wi th the pl ay. read two scene for Nicholas Hymer, the direct r, and Martin I'd reall y like that becau e I li ke to travel. One of the perks of making fil ms Me nagh at the n a Thursday and the following is that you get to travel all ewer t prom te the picture before it opens. But

Monday they tO ld me I'd gon he part. I moved d wn to London, who knows what'S goi ng [0 happen? r ifl'll even be in nother play for a

found digs and we began to rehearse. Ar fi rst,' he ,a iU , 'I had some whi le. There aren't that many good stage pam for 18 year-olds. Right n IV, pr blem~ learn ing h )w [0 walk as cripple, and I ,lid 'ome v ry sil l), though, I'm enjoying the chance to be in a ~ lay at the National Theatre thing . But then they gO t in a physiotherapist who' wwked \\'ith :md to be as good in it as I can. I'm enj ying be ing in London, which I cripple ' and polio victims and he taught me just wh"t to d . After that think I like belttr than Dubl in - it's so mu h bigger - and llove the I was me. people I'm working with. 'Fortunately we had a I ng rehearsa l peri [get it ju t right, and 'If nothing like thi ever happen to me aga in, well, I won't complain . the only real nerves I had was on our opening night, two hours \:oefore It' heen a grand exp ri ne fa r, and it's no lVer et.' •

42 APPlAUSE MARCH 1997 SPE CTRUM

MAX LOPPERT SAMPLES suggest that this may not last very long. perfOTlDonee does one rea lise that be has once A 'light work', in su m: Chen,bin is sited in that again said something valuable and pertinent about ASSENET 'S CHERUBIN area of musical -the"tre in which "spects of opera, the human condition - about the maddening, "ND DISCOVERS A TASTY and musical comedy overlap, and in which delightful unpred ictahility of the human heart. the French have " Iwa ys excelled. In more than one O n this occasion all these points could he DESSERT se nse, indeed, Massenet' s score, with its small units made, and the charms of the work simultaneously of song and d"nce number and exactly·placed relished, above all because of its musical dlTcction. Cherubin, Masse net's 27th opera, returned to occasionallatger set.piece, is made entirely of light John El iot Gard iner, back wi th the Royal Opera Covent Garden on New Year's Day. It had been a music. The tunes, the dances, the por'pOU Tfl for the first ti me in 23 yeors, is intermuionaily surprise hit when the Royal Opera gave it its introductions to each act, all state thei r adherence ad mited fo r his period-conscious performances of belated British premiere, in February 1994; this to the music" l category that (fot instance, the gteat Monteverdi , Rameou, G luck anJ Mozart; less well­ time the success was less surpris ing, and even British conductor Sir Thom"s Beecham used to known in this country - becil usc so much