Theatre 2017

THEATRE 2017 February 2017: TOUCHED This play from the Nottingham Playhouse is set in 1945 which supposedly was a time of peace, albeit a shaky one. It covers the hundred days from Victory-in-Europe (8th May) to Victory-in-Japan Day (15th Aug). Touched focuses on the working class lives of three sisters, two played by well-known actors from our TV screens, Vicky McClure and Aisling Loftus, who also come from Nottingham. As always the Playhouse manages to produce a creative set and some clever scene changes. The play has a slow start and not until the interval does the story gain momentum and starts to retain our interest. Talking to some of our U3A play goers, people were frustrated by the problem with projection - no sound bar to help us out ! The background sound - songs of the period, Churchill's announcements, Richard Dimbleby's Liberation of Belsen report etc. is full of interest and pulls events together. Luckily for us the second half improves and we gain an insight into the lives of these women and the problems they had to deal with when men were away at war. The final scene sends a poignant message. The women with their families and neighbours are at a picnic on the hillside, with a single tree in full bloom. Then an explosion symbolises a bomb being dropped on Hiroshima, the petals disappear leaving a bleak landscape, but for these women, their lives continue. Basia Arch March 2017: MADAME BUTTERFLY Twenty four members went along to the cinema on the evening of 30 March to watch a live performance of the well-known Puccini opera Madame Butterfly. Having eventually found our seats in the dark (they forgot to switch the lights on!), we settled down to a very enjoyable performance of this tragic opera set in Japan and sung in Italian. It is an easy opera to follow and the sub-titles may have been a distraction. Madame Butterfly (Cio-Cio-San) enters into marriage with a visiting American sailor Lieutenant Pinkerton (Marcelo Puente) whose intentions are not all they seem to be. The American Consul tries to dissuade Pinkerton from the marriage, saying it will end unhappily, but Butterfly falls in love and renounces her Japanese religion and family. Pinkerton returns to America with his ship. Three years pass by and Butterfly tells her maid, Suzuki (beautifully sung by Elizabeth DeShong), that she has not given up hope of Pinkerton returning to her. Meanwhile Prince Yamadori arrives, offering marriage and a certain future to Butterfly, but she rejects him. The Consul appears with a letter from Pinkerton, who is on his ship in the harbour, whereby Butterfly tells him that she has a child by Pinkerton, and that if she has been deserted she has two options – to become a beggar or die. Suzuki tells her that Pinkerton has an American wife who will care for her child. Butterfly says goodbye to her son and then, taking up a ceremonial dagger left to her by her father, stabs herself, dying without seeing Pinkerton again. Madama Butterfly was played by Ermonela Jaho who gave a truly passionate and convincing performance, I was entranced by her. Margaret Martin March 2017: DI, VIV & ROSE This was a three hander in the Lace Market Theatre Studio (aka the bar area). The audience of some 50 people were entranced by the life stories of friends who met at university and lived and loved over the next 20 years. The play was compelling, with a believable story line and plenty of twists and turns. The acting was fabulous. We were entranced by women whose lives we felt we were sharing – in fact I completely forgot that they were actors in a play. The whole experience was all the more enthralling, because we were only a couple of feet away from the acting area. If you haven’t yet attended a play at the Lace Market Studio, you should give it a try. Paul Martinez April 2017: RED SHOES Having seen & enjoyed Matthew Bourne's Sleeping Beauty last year, I thought Red Shoes is a must see. The costumes were superb and the dancing was very varied and entertaining, I recognised some of the music but not all. By the time the interval came I had totally lost the plot (if there ever was one ). The show started again with two men doing the sand dance which was really entertaining but not sure where it fit into the story. I did enjoy the music and dancing and the train at the end was amazing, but I will have to see the Hans Christian Anderson film of the story perhaps then I will know what it was all about. (I have now seen the film and I am still none the wiser). Geoff Smith. April 2017: TOMMY One of the iconic rock-musicals of the Twentieth Century ‘Tommy’ started life as a stand out concept album, written by Pete Townsend with additional material by John Entwhistle and Keith Moon, oft performed by the Who and performed in theatres initially on Broadway in 1993 and later at the West End in 1996. The plot, albeit ‘flimsy’ on first viewing is of how a deaf, dumb and blind boy born in the aftermath of World War Two witnesses the death of his father, and in a childhood where he is shut off from all around him, is mistreated by other males in his family. However, Tommy can ‘sure play a mean pinball’, so much so that he becomes a pinball icon, a Messiah figure, something Tommy struggles to deal with-with disastrous consequences. The story is perhaps a tenuous reflection of the life of its creator Pete Townsend. The 2017 production contains new material written by Pete Townsend and is a co-production between Ipswich New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich and Ramp on The Moon. The cast of twenty-two disabled and non-disabled performers and musicians are both versatile and talented, singing, signing, playing instruments as well as acting. The performance was a triumph in several respects particularly that every performance is accessible to all with surtitles above the stage, audio description and sign language imaginatively incorporated into the show. It is totally inclusive. The standards of choreography and singing are marvellous, particularly form those actors providing the voices of Tommy and his mother. There are also stand out performances by William Grint as Tommy, former Dr. Who and West End actor/singer Peter Straker as the Acid Queen, Akim Jaydon as Tommy’s step-father and by Garry Robson (fondly remembered as a member of favourite local band-Kelly’s Heroes) as the sinister Uncle Ernie. The set was both simple and effective. This punchy and vibrant musical made for a memorable evening performance which thoroughly merited a standing ovation, and certainly deserved plaudits for its cast and crew and rightly earned favourable comparison with previous interpretations. Also, special thanks to Basia Arch who organised excellent seats for us at the very front of the auditorium. HOW CAN WE FOLLOW? Neil Kendrick April 2017: GRAPES OF WRATH From the outset, the elegiac notes of the musical saw tell you that this production is going to be something quite different, quite unsettling. The Joad family are tenant farmers driven from their home. The land has been over farmed by new tractors and turned into the useless infertile Dust Bowl; creating an army of the dispossessed, migrating to the West in search of work and a better life. I had expected the play to be uncomfortable viewing as the novel by John Steinbeck, set in the Depression of 1930’s America, is a melancholic account; detailing the hardship suffered by hundreds of thousands of people struggling to survive in a world created by economic greed. Sound familiar? My expectations were confounded when the musicians mounted the large metal framework box, the main feature of the sparse set. The talented main cast played and sang raw, aggressive music, conveying the displacement experienced by the characters in the story. Once you become accustomed to the Mid-Western American drawl, the characters’ storytelling is both poignant and humorous. The actor playing the tough, exhausted mother stood out as she tried to keep her family together with all their varying needs and expectations. The decision to cast actors from a variety of cultural backgrounds was initially confusing until you understood the parallels being drawn with recent human experience. The absorbing narrative is a reminder of refugees, fleeing for their lives, on a dangerous route to a safer more hopeful future. This was a courageous production taking creative risks with a minimal set, dissonant music and in casting community actors as extras. For the most part the story was very gripping and the end was extremely moving. Terri Beale May 2017: THE PERFECT MURDER This was a thriller, with a fair share of black humour, in which husband and wife were both secretly trying to kill one another. Once again, I was impressed by the acting, especially Victor, the husband, who was downright creepy, and Joan, his wife, who had a superb "stage" scream and threw a hugely convincing panic attack. Alan Geary, who reviewed this play for The Nottingham Post, commented on the warning notice displayed in the foyer that "the play contains partial nudity", and that he must have blinked in the wrong place because he didn't see any nudity, partial or otherwise. Well, blow me down, I must have blinked in the self-same spot - so that was a waste! A waste of the warning, I mean! Now, here's something you might not have thought of.

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