Dallas Buyer's Club: Harrowingly Beautiful

Dallas Buyers Club is the second Oscar-nominated blockbuster set in the 1980's to hit UK cinema's this winter. Yet, DBC has a far more palpably dark, gritty tone than its bedfellow, Wolf of Wall Street. A tale (based on a real story) of disease and bureaucracy, DBC has all of Wolf's vices and none of it's colourful revelry. Yet, it carries a far finer sentiment, exploring emotions of hope, friendship and love in times of difficulty. Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto are unlikely, but perfectly complimentary, co-stars in this modern classic.

Michael McConaughey is unrecognisable as protagonist Ron Woodroof: a drug and sex-addict (sound a bit like Belfort, anyone?), who discovers he is HIV positive. McConaughey has always been a slim man, but after losing 3.5 stone for the role, he was sickeningly thin. It made for hard viewing. The way I described it to my friend was like 'skin stretched over a skeleton' - no flesh, no blood. Every move he made, every time he fell, you expected him to break every bone in his body. Yet, the dramatic physical change did not seem gratuitous. As McConaughey said himself, 'this wasn't an affectation or an eccentric idea, I had a responsibility to play the man to the best of my ability'.

It was so refreshing to see McConaughey executing a serious role with such passion and, evidently, hard work. This wasn't a gig he just rocked up to and got on with: you can sense the labour which went into getting each line perfect. But, it was completely worth it. There wasn't a moment when his performance lagged or he was outshone - a mean feat considering the weighty talent of his co-star.

Jared Leto gives an absolutely stunning performance as the cheeky, charismatic, but inherently troubled transvestite Rayon. If I had not heard he was in DBC before I watched the film, I honestly would never have guessed it was him. Leto's performance somewhat eludes description - just watch it and see. Hopefully his brilliance will be rewarded with the 'Best Actor in a Supporting Role' Oscar: and, hopefully, he won't take such a long hiatus from acting again.

The friendship between the two protagonists is tenuous but ultimately beautiful. Woodroof is initially fiercely homophobic, but he is eventually able to overcome his prejudices, love Rayon as a person and build a life based around a shared need for companionship and support. Two very disparate worlds intersect in a fabulous way. 

Jennifer Garner plays it safe in the role of Dr Eve Saks; yet, this film needed a bit of safeness. While there is little remarkable about her performance, there is also nothing bad to say about it. Garner took the back seat so McConaughey and Leto could drive.

Dallas Buyers Club is not an easy watch. It requires some effort on the part of its audience: to stick with it, to not shy away from the often terrible scenes that unfold. Although I still maintain the 'Best Actor' Oscar is Leo's, McConaughey gives the performance of his career in DBC: drains himself physically and mentally. It is so, so far away from How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, and Magic Mike. McConaughey surely now enters into the realm of the greats and carries DBC along with him.

The Oscar's Yours Leo: The Wonderful Wolf of Wall Street

A colourful, clamorous, raucous cinematic experience, I’ll be bold and - in January, no less - assert that Martin Scorsese’s latest offering is THE film of 2014.

The eponymous ‘Wolf’ of Wall Street is one Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), who transforms from Queens kid to Stock Tycoon - helped along the way by vast quantities of drugs, alcohol, and sex. I cannot help but gush about DiCaprio, and not merely because at age 39 he’s still ‘got it’ - in every sense of the phrase - but because of his sheer artistic versatility. He exhibited - progressively - Belfort’s youthful aspiration and naïveté, his manic substance addiction and predilection for hedonistic excess, his Midas-like lust for cold hard cash and his affection - both real and superficial - for friends and women alike. I could happily do a scene-by-scene analysis of DiCaprio’s glorious performance but, suffice to say, he dominated every single shot. Both - paradoxically - disliking and coveting who Belfort is and what he stands for, the audience remains captivated by DiCaprio’s impassioned portrayal for the film’s entire 180 minutes. 

Jonah Hill excelled in the role of Donnie, Belfort’s business partner and pal, adding just the right amount of buffoonery. The ‘bromance’ between him and DiCaprio was entirely convincing. A surprisingly complex character, the eventual treachery Donny enacts allowed Hill to excersice a rarely before-seen, darker capacity as an actor. 

Relative newcomer Margot Robbie oozed equal measures of class and coarseness, passivity and fire as Belfort’s second wife, Naomi. Moreover she was, of course, unbelievably beautiful and immaculate throughout. Her occasional full nudity, as Robbie has said herself in interviews, was necessary to Naomi's character. Aged only twenty-three, Robbie has exploited her youthful inhibition in a way older, more private actresses could not have done. The small glimpses of ‘hard’ acting we saw from Robbie were equally tantalising; she evinced real pathos in an extremely uncomfortable sex-scene before Belfort’s ultimate demise. 

Cinematically, the film was absolutely breathtaking; music surged, colour whirled - it plunged you under its surface and forcibly held you there for three hours. I particularly liked Scorsese’s technique of rewinding the film to tell us what really happened (a simple example being Belfort’s car changing from red to white). His incorporation of early videography - i.e. a hazy clip of Belfort and Naomi’s wedding video, promotional advertisements for the yacht and Belfort’s motivational speaking - insistently reinforced the 1980’s setting. On a related note, costuming was immpeccable; pastel suits, perms, versace on versace, colour clashes and fashion faux-pas mingled in an ever-exciting palette.

Scorsese's blockbuster is not without its critics. The Wolf of Wall Street has been accused of glamourising prostitution, violence and crime. Personally, I admired the cinematography, and felt that - even at its most rampant - the film quite overtly satirised and criticised these vices rather than condoned them. Opinions will diverge, yet, for me, the issues critics raise are unfounded; as long as viewing age restirictions are enforced, there shouldn’t be a ‘moralistic’ problem with the film. It is not ‘simply’, but overridingly, a wonderful piece of twenty-first century art. 

The Wolf of Wall Street is an enthralling, breathtaking film. DiCaprio has concreted his status as one of the finest actors of the twenty-first century; hopefully, his extraordinary efforts will be rewarded in March. 

NB: The DVD, apparently, contains an hour of extra footage. Excuse me while I pre-order it. 

The RSC's Titus Andronicus: 'Blood and revenge are hammering in my head'.

My last experience of Shakespeare at the RSC was truly horrible (see my Hamlet review), but Titus Andronicus at the Swan Theatre could not have been more different: it was, put simply, a gorgeous spectacle of gore.

We open on the Swan Theatre completely transformed from when I last saw it (only a week previously, for Candide), fitted with baroque arches, moody lighting and a distinctly moroccan - certainly foreign - feel. At the beginning of the play the action occurs very quickly. We soon learn that the three body-bags on stage hold the corpses of Titus Andronicus' (a noble general, played by Stephen Boxer) sons, killed in battle. They are buried, and he enacts a vengeful punishment on the son of the queen of the Goths - allowing his remaining living sons to tear him limb from limb. This first act of retribution becomes the fuel for much of the play's subsequent action, Tamora (Katy Stephens), the queen of the goths marrying Saturninus (the deceased emperor's son, who Titus recommends should be made emperor). With her remaining sons Demetrius (Perry Millward) and Chiron (Jonny Weldon), she plots to eventually wreak vengeance on Titus, from her newly elevated position of power. Meanwhile, Titus kills one of his sons for disobeying him (random, I know), and his beautiful daughter Lavinia betrays him by secretly marrying Bassanius, Saturninus' brother. etc, etc. Sorry to run through this so quickly, but it's basically all plot, and we need to get to the juicy bits!

Now we get to the good part. Demetrius and Chiron, Tamora's two foul, ravenously youthful, horny sons are crudely fighting over their respective wishes to 'obtain' fair Lavinia (Rose Reynolds): by obtain, I mean penetrate. Aaron (Kevin Harvey), a Goth moor arrives on the scene, and contrives a plan whereby they will both be gratified. At this stage, it becomes apparent he has 'obtained' their mother, repeatedly. The reason as to why he helps them is vague, but he figures as an essentially darkly mischievous figure, bound to to evil at whatever costs. Harvey is particularly good in this role, at times making the audience laugh (I think his thick scouse accent helps), and - more often than not - repulsing. Whenever Aaron is involved, there is trouble. So, Demetrius and Chiron manage to ensnare newlyweds Lavinia and Bassanius while the rest of the nobles are on a hunt, killing Bassanius and disposing of his body in a neatly contrived hole. Lavinia, devastated at her husband's death, can aptly foresee what is to become of her. Tamora emerges from the trees. Reynolds' pleas to her human empathy, her kindred spirit as a woman &c are deeply affecting. With a studied reticence Stephens presents an unbending Tamora, who by a twisted, depraved logic affirms that if her children have sexual lusts, they must be sated: and why not on Lavinia, a Roman and Titus' daughter. She leaves them to her sons mercy - not without a tiny flicker of hesitance - and departs. Parental authority has disappeared, and youthful urges are given dominance. The effects can only be disastrous... 

Meanwhile, Titus' remaining sons accidentally come across Bassanius' body. Aaron's plot works to frame them for his murder, and they are lead away captive by Saturninus. Titus believes his luck cannot be any worse, nor his life any sadder (FYI Titus, you're wrong). 

As act II begins (I think, don't quote me), we return to our beautiful damsel. If you happen to have forgot when happens to Lavinia in the play, you're quickly reminded: she is savagely raped, and has her tongue cut out and hands lopped off so she cannot communicate who the perpetrators of the crime were. She is silenced in the bloodiest, and most brutal possible way. The RSC chose to take a graphic approach to this scene, and in some ways, I don't think there is any way to stage such a gross violation 'minimally'. There is a fine line between staging that is reverent of the stories true horror, and gratuitous exhibitionism. Although the audience was visibly and audibly shocked and repulsed by Lavinia's repelling appearance - the two girls sat next to me were very distressed, one burst into tears and could not look at the stage, the other actually wretched - I think that the RSC stays on the side of the reverent. Yes, to look at Lavinia - stumps wrapped in scarlet-stained strands of blond hair, head shorn, clothes torn and bloody, blood spilling from her castrated, muted mouth - is horrible, but it is necessary. We are shown with repugnant accuracy the disastrous consequences of headless, ignorant, rampant, sexualised youth run amok. For a split-second, as Demetrius and Chiron stood gloating, gorged, wielding knifes with the husked shell of a woman at their feet, I was reminded of the horrific case of Jamie Bulger, the beautifully innocent infant tortured and murdered by two ten-year-old's in 1993. Obviously, Demetrius and Chiron are historically older than Thompson and Venables, and there is no real, honourable way to compare fiction and reality, but I instantly felt a disgust at the sheer destructive power of unchecked, unguided, hedonistic, sadistic youth - the same disgust I felt when hearing about the Bulger case a couple of years ago. It is uncannily strange and completely disturbing to realise that issues that clearly concerned Shakespeare and motivated his writing are still horribly relevant today. Sorry for that digression, but it felt important to share.

Demetrius and Chiron flee, leaving Lavinia in her sorry state. Although I of course recognised Lavinia as a damaged, dejected, violated - near animal - creature, I'm happy to say that the sheer skill and beauty of Reynolds' acting managed to convey something else too: Lavinia's undeniable, un-thwartable strength. Lavinia hides her face for shame as she encounters different characters, her uncle Marcus (the ever astute, faultless Richard Durden), and her woeful father, yet I argue that she is not completely hopeless. Demetrius and Chiron's' aim was to silence her, but Reynolds insistent, continuous noise - in the form of tounge-less moans and grumbles - as other characters lament her situation around her, or a la Titus, proffer to speak for her, completely negates their sick objective. Yes, she's not coherent, but she is not silent, never silent. It may be just that I want to read this into the performance, but I think this subtle, small detail diffuses some (but definitely not all) of the feminist claims against 'Titus Andronicus' misogynist agenda. Maybe in an eighteenth century performance Lavinia might have been mute, but in 2013 she strives to reclaim the voice unlawfully snatched from her, to undo the violation of the young, male hand.

Rose Reynolds as Lavinia 

Reynolds and Boxer

Tamora as 'revenge'

But whatever happened to Titus' remaining sons, imprisoned by Saturninus? Aaron emerges on the scene with a sick bargain from Saturninus (a bargain that does not exist): the sons will be restored in return for one human hand. Marcus, Titus and Lucius - in an extremely touching, and nonetheless comic moment - all willingly offer up their hands, squabbling over who should be the one to redeem the sons while Aaron watches with a wry smile. Titus eventually fulfils the sick task (sending Marcus and Lucius away so he can do it). Later, a 'gift' from Saturninus, a pram-full of the sons bloody, dismembered body-parts, is wheeled on stage. Their two heads are thwacked on the floor with a sickeningly realistic thud, the blood and matter clinging to the flimsy plastic. The symbolism of this image was not lost on me (extremely thoughtful staging by Fentiman); the sons, so cherished and loved, are returned in a baby's carriage that subtly incenses Titus' paternal woe, and intensifies our sense of injustice. Titus' severed hand is also returned to, and he is uncannily, comically, heart-wrenchingly, able to shake hands with himself. 

As the woe of the play reaches its crescendo, Boxer comes into his own. Titus' soliloquies are perfectly delivered, blending anger and sorrow, evincing pathos and outrage in the viewer. As the play has progressed we have observed him transform from brutal, honour-obsessed murderer (killing his own son in the first act), to pliable, human father. As woe is heaped on woe, he consistently oscillates between sinking into and luxuriating in his despair, and railing against it. As any theatregoer - or film or TV-watcher - will tell you, however, the gut-lead reaction against despair unfortunately has the tendency to propagate further disaster. What is our instinctual reaction to pain? Revenge.

Gradually, the plot bubbles on; Marcus helps Lavinia name her killers (finally, the pressure of the dramatic irony upon the audience is relieved - at times I wanted to shout out their names to Titus for her!), and Lucius is sent to summon a Goth army. In the meantime, Tamora gives birth to her child. Surprise surprise, it's Aaron, the Moor's. Shakespeare has the wonderful knack of making his secondary plots reflect the larger 'main' plot, and be sources of intrigue in and of themselves. Here we see Aaron - an essentially rouge, villainous, heartless character - almost palpably melt as he realises the great responsibility thrust upon him (with his son's birth) and awakens to the possibility of genuine, un-lascivious, incomparable love. The play opened with a man mourning the loss of his sons killed in battle, its entire action is propelled by Tamora's pain of witnessing her son ripped to pieces, and Titus' revenge is prompted by the deaths and violations of his sons and daughter respectively. Familial love, more exactly the love a parent feels for their child, is highlighted by Shakespeare as the main motivation of any action. As we witness Aaron kill the messenger and plot to kill the midwife present at his babe's birth (who could, he reasons, tell people about it's illegitimacy and so write it's death-sentence), we see the extreme (and violent of course, it is 'Titus Andronicus' for heaven's sake) ends a father will go to to protect his child. Although in 'Titus', the forms protection adopts - killing, torture, betrayal - are inherently, objectively bad, the motivation is, arguably, from the best, most sacred place: the heart. Ends don't justify means, but means do mean something.

Back to the 'rape' plot. Tamora now knows (through some messages) that Titus knows who raped his daughter - it's a whole web of knowing - and decides she's going to trick the old man in his sorrowful 'madness' by showing up at his house, disguised in a wolfs hide, pretending to be the embodiment of 'revenge' (with her accomplices Demetrius and Chiron, Rapine and Murder). In this scene, dark as it is, there is indubitable humous as Titus pretends to be mad and believe Tamora is revenge, and the characters interact beautifully - their exchanges swathed in layers of irony and black comedy. 

Tamora departs, and the mood quickly turns from comedy to horror as Titus reveals the extent of his own horrible 'knowledge', wreaking his revenge on the two defenceless, gruesome brothers (still in their silly disguises). Titus' binding of Demetrius and Chiron and letting of their blood as they hang suspended from the rafters (Lavinia collecting their blood in a bowl), is simultaneously a marvellous technical feat (the staging, set and costume excels throughout), and a spectacle that inspires outrage in the audience. Although shocking, I once more hasten to say that this scene is not gratuitous. Arguably, the tenor of the visual spectacle must match the tenor of Shakespeare's keen verse: if Titus is proclaiming that he will let their blood and mash their bones into a paste to feed to their mother, he can't simply strangle them silently. What they did was animalistic, and they are killed like animals. Their suspended figures, slowly lifted up, aptly mirror the raising of the corpses to the Andronicus family vault first scene of the play: Tamora's children rise up, bloody and defamed - their legacy the obliteration of a human life (Lavinia's) - the hateful counterpart of Titus' noble sons, killed and famed in battle. Respectful/depraved, Roman/Goth. In Titus Andronicus, things occur in circles. Right or wrong, Demetrius and Chiron's bodies balance and lead back to those of the first fallen sons.

Now we reach the dramatic catastrophie, and you can betcha, there will be blood. Fentiman et al put a comic twist on the dinner scene, dressing (the ostensibly) 'mad' Titus in a french-maid's outfit to serve up the grisly supper. But things only get darker from here. Titus, in his 'insanity' asks Saturninus if a father should kill his daughter if she has been raped. Saturninus replies yes, to put her out of her misery. Now, I haven't read 'Titus Andronicus '(I knew it only from extracts and allusions), and so Titus' sudden and almost unbelievable, painful, prolonged smothering of the struggling and resisting Lavinia came as a brutal shock to me - and a lot of the audience members. I guess this is why so many people find this play problematic. We believe that Titus loves his daughter, truly, deeply loves her. So why does he kill her? To prove a point to Saturninus, and reveal the rape - treating her more as a symbol than a person? To abolish her shame? To send her to heaven, and put her out of her misery? To show he is the dominant patriarch? I really, really don't believe it's the last one. There is a pathos in Boxer's performance, even, paradoxically, as he suffocates his child. When death is immanent, I can't help thinking, isn't it better to be killed by someone who loves you?

Even in death Lavinia cannot be silenced.

Titus is on a roll now, informing Tamora that the pie she has just consumed is composed of the blood and bones of her own sons. Titus has achieved the ultimate revenge, and simultaneously committed the gravest crime. Villain in himself or no, I couldn't help feeling sorry, and kind of pleased for him as he sinks into the glorious oblivion of the bloodbath that ensues (practically everyone is killed). Again, accusations of gratuitousness are likely to arise here. Although spurting fake-blood can seem amateurish, and remind one distinctly of messy Halloween's past, the argument of gratuity seems pointless now. The entire play, from the first second, has been characterised and coloured by gore - so how else could it finish? 

Arguably, this end is not so acutely or cuttingly horrible (for that moment, see Lavinia's rape), and it feels kind of anticlimactic (not gratuitous, anticlimactic) as if, like Titus, we have seen so much that we cannot possibly feel or respond to any more. As there are no more tears, there are no more outraged gasps. Not sensitised exactly, we begin to view such spectacle with a horror-worn eye - still moved, but dangerously, frightening, less responsive. This is how the visual arts work. This is why we have Saw III and V and infinite. Nothing is enough, more so in 2013 than any other era. Yet if we are less than ruptured in the final act, it is not because we can't feel as a generation anymore - we were moved by the rape, weren't we - but because as a play audience, in the finite space and time of the performance, in that and to that particular world, we have become apathetic. 'Titus Andronicus' takes us on a journey of the different types of horror that is very much its own.

I lied when I said this was the end. It's not the end. We return to Aaron, his punishment (enacted by Lucius for the betrayal of Titus' family) is to be buried in the ground with only his head exposed, left to rant (and starve), at will. Aaron rails against life, and vows that if he could go back and live again he would commit 1000 such villainies with gusto; rape, pillage, murder, betray - the focal depravities of the play's plot and main characters' downfalls'. The irrepressible Aaron is only silenced when the young Lucius enters the stage, holding his baby. Two members of the next generation of Romans and Goths. Lucius brandishes the baby in one hand, and a small shovel in the other - holding it up, sparkling, to the light. This moment is beautifully ambivalent; will he nurture the child, or destroy it. The audience, along with Aaron, gaze in awe: if our response to horror has dulled, our reaction to intrigue has not. In this moment we get an overwhelming sense that the fate of the next generation lies in this moment of cure or kill; the Romans and Goths can form a relationship of mutual respect and distance, or they can continue down the involved, brutal path that has engendered a seemingly endless cycle of childrens' deaths and parental revenge. If Aaron's boy is killed there will be no father to avenge it. So will the cycle stop either way? This is something we simply do not know.

The RSC's 'Titus Andronicus' was a tour de force of both old and young acting talent, with Reynolds flying the flag for the girls, and Boxer upholding that of the men. If you see one play this autumn, make it Titus Andronicus. Set your stomach, hold your nerves, and brace yourself for an unforgettable evening of blood and beauty.

*****

Andrew Motion and the Bristol Poetry Institute

On Friday night I went to a poetry reading by Andrew Motion. This post is basically my way of 'bigging up' the Bristol Poetry Institute, an organisation founded and run by members of the English department at the University of Bristol (where I study). I usually have a lot to criticize regarding the English department, yet this is one of their positive promotions. The BPI has only been active for just over a year, and has already conducted two highly successful poetry readings by past and present poet-lauretes (Carol Ann Duffy, and Motion), held literary debates, ran a Young Poets' competition, and hired it's first poet-in-residence, Rachael Boast. 


I feel that I often find myself writing negative things, and getting negative comments in response (what else should I expect!), so here's something positive: the Bristol Poetry Institute is a fabulous thing, an asset to both the university, and the city, sparking interest and conversation in and about great poetry - old and new. I hope that the institute - now in its infancy - grows in both popularity and strength, and personally hope to be able to attend interesting, engaging readings such as the one held on Friday night, even when I have left my alma mater. 

James Blake at the o2 Academy Bristol

This is just going to be a quick post, and for once it's not about film or theatre, but music (yay)! On Tuesday night I went to see James Blake at the o2 academy here in Bristol. At a mere £12.50 tickets were a steal. We weren't really bothered about seeing James' supporting act 'The Twigs', but from what we did see they were pretty good (Alunageorge/ London Grammar-esque, which is always a good thing).

James performed a wide variety of songs - from upbeat to sombre, old to new, and made sure to include plenty of classics. Anyone who has listened to his music will know he has a beautiful, liquid voice, and a fantastic vocal range, and these aspects were maintained perfectly in his live performances. Personally, I prefer his piano-pieces and songs with plenty of lyrics as opposed to the more instrumental and techno experiments, but it was nice to hear a variety and mash-up swaying love-songs with head-nodding dance-y tracks. He performed most of the songs on his new album, Overgrown (which is great, well worth a buy), and there were only perhaps 2 songs that I'd never heard before.

Highlights included:-

1. 'Limit to Your Love' - A classic, always beautiful. One audience member informed the rest of us that she lost her virginity to this song. James looked very bemused. 
2. 'A Case of You' - This is my all-time favourite cover, ever. I love Jon Mitchell (old before my time), and I love James Blake, so together they're basically perfection. Was thrilled that he did this song. 
3. Not musical - but the lighting was really great! Very moody and intense, complimenting James' music brilliantly.
4. ' The Wilhelm Scream' - James performed this as his encore, using a 'loop' (which my friend informed me is where you record part of a song then sing over it, like a round). He asked the audience to be silent for this, and it was nice (and kind of eerie) to see a sold-out crowd stood hushed and rapt. 

In fact, the only thing I have to complain about is the audience itself. There were people talking loudly during piano solos and throughout - which was really distracting. I don't mind people singing along, I think that shows your appreciation for/knowledge of the songs/artist, but chatting away about what you had for lunch or who's seeing who is quite frankly rude and offensive both to the performer, and to the other audience members who have paid to listen to James Blake - not Sandra from Hull with chiropractic problems. Also irritating was the sheer abundance of iPhone/pad/bloody computers thrust in the air and held aloft during every. single. song. Yeah, take a couple of snaps to show your friends, but why are you videoing the whole thing rather than watching the live performance you're currently at - you might as well be sat at home in bed in your PJ's watching YouTube clips. Not only is this charade nonsensical, its freaking annoying! It was so packed that I constantly had to crane my neck and move around to see anyway (not the tallest person), but as soon as I'd found an OK position someone would brandish their mega-watt mobile device under my nose, completely obstructing the view. Never before have I had such a hatred of apple products. 

Sorry for the rant, maybe this is just concert etiquette in 2013? My last 'concert' (barring music festivals) was Oasis in 2009, so I'm slightly behind the times - but that was all impassioned singing and swigging cider, much nicer than standing like a tinned fish with someone sticking up their sweaty pit to record a video they'll probably never watch again anyway.

Back to the music. I'd recommend James Blake live to absolutely anyone. He is one artist who's live performances barely differ from recordings, and he's a genuinely likeable guy! 4 stars ****

Candide: 'If this is the best of all possible worlds, what then are the others?'

Last Thursday night I went to see a performance of Candide at the RSC's Swan Theatre in Stratford. In many ways, it was one of the strangest plays I have ever seen. Ignorantly, I anticipated a straightforward performance of Voltaire's tale, yet what emerged was a far more loosely interpreted interweaving of the traditional Candide story with various, heterogenous narrative strands; threads ranging in setting from the idealised, antiquated past, to harsh, black contemporary London, to a futuristic neon dystopia, and ranging in humour from comic, comical-tragical, tragical-historical & c. *see Polonius' list in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale.

The play, misleadingly, begins in the original Renaissance setting of Voltaire's story. Candide has found himself in the lavish home of a wealthy, older lascivious Countess (Ishia Bennison). In order to wake him from his depressed stupor (we begin, oddly, after many of the story's actual sad events have taken place), the Countess plans to put on a play of Candide's life and journey (using details surreptitiously gleaned from his journal). This meta-theatrical twist is perhaps the first signal that the RSC's Candide is not going to be your standard, run-of-the-mill performance - as the play develops classic is insistently replaced with 'original' and diverting. 

The play within a play ensues - beginning with the beginning of Voltaire's story. Candide is the ward of Baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh, (Baron of Westphalia, a region in Germany), and receives instruction from Dr. Pangloss, a professor of 'metaphysic-theologo-cosmonigology' and proponent of the 'optimism' theory, which teaches that we live in the 'best of all possible worlds': in essence, it is a deterministic theory which states that 'things cannot be other than what they are'.* On seeing Pangloss 'real' Candide (Matthew Needham) rushes to embrace him. One would be quick to point out - as the actor Pangloss is - that he is a mere representation of Pangloss, not the 'real thing'. I like the way that  'real' Candide can't seem to grasp the idea of a play, it highlights his impenetrable naiveté, and unshakeable - if ridiculous - optimism: although he is watching a play of his own life, and knows what must and will occur next, he still preserves a futile hope that he can alter the past. This bleeding of 'real' life (play life) into theatre (the play within the play) continues with the arrival of Cunegonde, Baron Thunder-ten-Tronckh's beautiful daughter, and Candide's life-long love. Candide tries to embrace the actress Cunegonde - seemingly unaware that she is an actress, a mere representation of his 'love' - desperately and vainly attempting to pluck nourishment from art to feed his bleak reality.

Back to the play, and Candide happily finds himself engaged in a rather dirty kiss with Cunegonde; unfortunately, Baron and Baroness Thunder-ten-Tronckh are also engaged in watching this kiss, and he is quickly given the boot. I didn't expect to see a woman simulate orgasm on stage (the kiss is on the mouth in Voltaire), and it made for uncomfortable, but nonetheless humorous viewing - the old women opposite me were in stitches! As Candide is evicted, the humorous vein continues with a reprise of Pangloss' reccuring interlude 'this is the best of all possible worlds'. At this stage in the play, when the damage is still relatively jejune and light (although Candide is banished, he still heartily vows to be reunited with his love) the song is free from ironic inflection. The song catches its first darker, more cynical notes when Candide is tricked into joining the Bulgar army. Two officers emerge on stage, and playing 'good cop', 'bad cop' they effectively jostle Candide into an alliance he was helpless to resist. Inexperienced and incompetent, he is pushed into war and kills a kindly, innocent man. The chants of the song by both sides 'this is the best of all possible worlds' respectively (they both seem to think they have won, as far as I can tell) is drenched in irony, given the level of bloodshed and fatality such a war would incur. As for Candide's own song? Is it the best of all worlds when you must kill a man for a war you truly do not know why is being fought. In the book Candide does not fight, but decamps and is captured and tortured. However, I like this deviation; Ravenhill makes us question the validity of blind optimism from the outset, and links it to wider issues - such as war and power - that are extremely relevant (and very close to the bone) in contemporary society.

Candide is soon met by Jaques (in Voltaire, James), a wealthy Anabaptist who takes Candide under his wing. Now wealthy, Candide gives some florins to a poor beggar as he passes through the town square: said beggar turns out to be Pangloss himself. Pangloss informs Candide that the palace in Westphalia has been destroyed and Cunégonde raped and disembowelled by soldiers. We also discover that Panquette, a maid from the palace in Westphalia, gave Pangloss the syphilis that has reduced him to his sick, beggarly state. Pangloss still looks upon everything - the death, the disease - of course, as the 'best possible of worlds', and tries to convince Candide of the same: at this point, however, we become doubtful. Candide gets Jaques to pay for Pangloss to be cured, and he loses 'only' an eye and an ear (the best possible of worlds). The trio subsequently embark for Lisbon. Aboard the boat, Jaques and Panlgoss argue over philosophy. Jaques proposes that 'men [...] must have somewhat altered the course of nature; for though they were not born wolves, yet they have become wolves' destroying each other, becoming bankrupt etc. Pangloss retorts with the utilitarian argument that 'private misfortunes contribute to a general good', and their abstract argument soon descends into a hilarious physical fight - Pangloss chucking Jaques from the boat as a storm ensues, affirming all the while that this is 'the best of all possible worlds', and that Lisbon was made for Jacques to die.

This comic scene is (with extreme bathos) immediately contrasted with a sombre one. Lisbon has been hit by an earthquake, tsunami and ensuing fire that has killed tens of thousands of people. The earthquake in Lisbon on All Saint's Day 1755 was one of the main inspirations for Voltaire's text. It (literally) shook the very foundations of contemporary optimistic theory. How can this be the best of all possible worlds, when devastating, horrific natural disasters such as this occur on a near-daily basis? Voltaire uses his narrative to massage this paradox, challenging Leibniz' theodicy of God's benevolence. Upon re-living the trauma of the earthquake (presented before him in play form) 'real' Candide loses it, puncturing the play-within-a-plays sing-song affirmation of optimism and insisting that the world is black, terrible, and - above all - negative. 

From an insistence on metaphorical blackness we are plunged into actual blackness, as the Renaissance setting is rolled away and replaced with a 'modern-day', shiny party scene. Now things get really weird. All the original Voltarian characters - Candide, Cunégonde, Pangloss - are replaced by Sophie, Sarah, Emma et al, a dysfunctional, insipid cockney family celebrating their daughter (Sophie's) eighteenth birthday. The birthday girl remains menacingly silent, while members of her family try to speak for her, her drunk mother (Sarah) berating her 'weird' mysteriousness, and her 'optimistic' step-mother Emma affirming the beneficence of the cosmos and their plan for Sophie's life. Sophie does eventually talk, whipping out a gun and declaring her intention to kill all her family. Her reasons for doing so are (to me anyway) very unclear - something to do with people not treating the earth with enough respect, of being ignorant of their own ignorance, of expecting a lot from life, of wanting to make life better with every generation. Anyway, I didn't quite 'get' this bit. Honestly, if it was meant to link to anything we'd seen so far, that link was tenuous to say the least. I suppose Sophie's negativity is meant to be an antidote to Panglossian optimism - her insistence that everything is not 'all right' a counter to his affirmation that this is 'the best of worlds'. I'm not too sure, but I do know I wasn't a particular fan of this scene, or of Sophie (Sarah Ridgeway's), shouty, brash, amateurish manner. One thing leads to another, and despite their pleas, Sophie shoots every member of her family - including herself (her plan is apparently to depopulate the world) - leaving her mother as the only survivor. 

Now it's some months after the event, and Sarah is visiting a screenwriter (she has already written a book), with plans to make a film of her story. She is accompanied by I think the term was 'narrative guider' (or something to that effect), and they begin with the intention of focusing the film on the aftermath of the disaster - the positive, cathartic steps Sarah has taken towards acceptance and recovery. This is, of course, the optimistic view. However, Sarah (influenced by the boss-man and screenwriter) soon begins to realise - like Candide before her, at the destroyed Lisbon port - that you can't magically make everything positive: the horror of the trauma always remains. 

Segway back to Candide, and some of the original Voltaire re-emerges (this chopping and changing really was exhausting). We meet Candide in the city of El Dorado, an isolated, rural utopia, where people love freely (as we are all 'each other' they affirm), have ample time for work and play and make all decisions in a democratic manner. Bingo, Candide thinks - he's hit the jackpot. Yet, holes in their lifestyle's quickly begin to emerge: Candide cannot believe that they do not mourn a dead man - we're all the same they insist, he lives in us - and eschew precious metals as worthless rubble. Candide decides to leave El Dorado. As it turns out, a world without selfish individualism, without grief, without greed - however manmade and evil those traits may be - is quite boring. It is here that we see Voltaire's second emphatic rejection of the optimistic theory (the first being Candide's horror at the earthquake): reality, he affirms, is beleaguered by both good and bad. A life of only good, a life lived by Leibniz' optimistic theodicy, is somehow unreal - as the RSC reflects in the day-glo colours and hazy smoke of the trippy El Dorado set - and ultimately unpleasant. This scene is filled with the laugh-out-loud comedy that I remembered experiencing originally reading Voltaire, as Candide straps himself to a sheep laden with balloons - pockets filled with gold - and willingly, nay ecstatically returns to a world of avarice and despair: optimism has dramatically failed. 

While in this scene the rejection of optimism is a good thing, in the next it is not. Here we see Sarah send Hannah (the narrative shaper) away, claiming she does not need her - literally banishing all optimism from her story. Sarah and the writer go and create a new script that is dramatically inflated and completely devoid of any positive slant, featuring all the possible suffering in the world, the rapes and ravishing and disembowl-ments and betrayals of the Candide tale. Sarah argues that she and Candide are kindred spirits, and only suffering can answer suffering. Although I didn't particularly like the acting or the actress (Katy Stephens just doesn't do it for me - I don't know why!), I see what Ravenhill was attempting to communicate; although suffering is a natural part of life, if negativity is made supreme, it is as dangerous as a purely optimistic existence. Suffering engenders suffering, but to wallow and thrill in it - as Sarah now seems to do - is anti-cathartic, unnatural, inhuman. As with all things, there needs must be balance. 

The next scene jumps forward once more, to the futuristic, sterile 'Pangloss Institute' where Sarah (her film created) is on an exhibition tour displaying artefacts from Candide's life. An info-graphic informs us that Pangloss (must be around 400 years old now - all realism has gone out of the window, absurd!) has manufactured a drug to make all humans optimistic (particularly disturbing in light of the NHS' current goto method for curing depression), imposing a worldwide, forced compliance to his theory - Pangloss is the bad guy, what?! Anyway, Sarah demands conference with Candide (his body is preserved and he comes back to life - I told you it was weird), and informs him of Pangloss' plan. She is interrupted, however by a surprise guest (yep, gets even weirder), Cunegonde (Susan Engel). Cunégonde is not the stunning, buxom beauty she once was, but a time-ravaged, 300 year old woman, trailing a shabby dress behind her. Cunegonde begs Candide to fufill his promise and kiss her - battered as she is - successively listing the multiple horrors she has suffered and endured, all in the hope that Candide will 'one day' kiss her. Engel is a commanding, passionate and talented actress, and although she is on stage for a mere five minutes, she steals the show. Over 300 years Cunegonde has preserved the optimistic fervour all characters in the play so far have lost, and the accreting anger and frustration in her cries for a kiss evidence the desperation of a theory worn thin by consistent abuse. I like this reversal at the end. In Voltaire's story Candide is the protagonist, and Cunegonde's personal journey is overlooked. Ravenhill has shown in Candide and Sarah that optimism can falter, but here he presents a character who sticks with it - for better or worse. Yet she is not happy, Cunegonde is distinctly unhappy. She ultimately achieves her wish (very disturbing to see a 20-ish-year-old 'snogging' a 70-plus-year-old on stage, but there you go), yet it is tinged with ambivalence. Was it worth it? Did the years of optimism help? What was the alternative, to lay down and die? Everyone has to believe in something, after all. Technically, the play doesn't end on this moment - Sarah returns to stage and slits her wrists, but this is just so pathetic and gratuitous, and such an obvious attempt to draw the several threads of the plot together that I just can't tolerate it - but it was certainly the moment I find myself dwelling on.      

Sarah Engel as Cunegonde

Overall, I think Ravenhill has done well enough in his attempt to diversify an old tale. But my question is, did we need the modern references in order to 'get' the message? Is that not a link the theatre audience could have made on their own. We know some people live in luxury while others starve, we know that people use technology as a distraction from everyday life, and we also know that 'happiness' is, more often than not, unattainable. Personally, I don't feel like the blind amoeba Sophie (and vicariously Ravenhill) seems to tell me I am, wandering around cherishing a vain notion of idealistic living just around the corner, and selectively turning a blind eye to the world's suffering. I liked Candide, but it insistently felt like it was trying to tell me something about myself, or about society, that I already know: Ravenhill was preaching to the choir. The RSC's Candide could have done with being a smidgen less didactic, a lot less faux-modernistic, and a heap more faithful to the text. 

*** Three stars. 

* All direct quotations from John Butt's 1947 translation of the original, published by Penguin Classics 1982.

The National Theatre Live's Macbeth: 'double, double toil and trouble'

Ok, ok so I saw this ages and ages ago and I'm only just finding time to write about it. Forgive me! Now, I went to see Macbeth at one of my local cinema's 'National Theatre Live' showings. The Regal (said cinema) is an absolutely stunning art-deco style cinema. I remember going to it as a child (to see Madeline of all things) when it was in a shocking state: completely dilapidated, possibly haunted, and purely terrifying to my 8 year-old self. After a 10+ year closure, and several failed attempts to reopen, The Regal has spectacularly risen like a Phoenix from the ashes of its former self (excuse the cheesy metaphor). It is simply Evesham's best asset. Although I suppose that's not much of a contest, as close contender's include it's two subways (yes two) and Home Bargains.

The Regal, Evesham.

Take a look at their website if you're in the area!: http://theregal.ac

Anyway, I love the regal, with its plush chairs and old-style atmosphere, and was interested to see what it would be like to watch theatre from a cinema. Despite my praise of the venue, the experience left little to be desired.

Firstly, we went on perhaps the hottest day of the summer. For a cinema without air-conditioning, this was a fatal slip up. People were hot, tensions were high, and further exacerbated by the seemingly endless adverts for National Theatre that cinema staff informed us they 'could not skip'. Also, they apparently could not skip the most ridiculous introduction I have ever sat through in my entire life - an interview with the director (Rob Ashford). This is why I found it so ridiculous:

1. I do not care what Kenneth Branagh was like to work with.
2. I do not want to know about the staging space (it was set in a church) before I have seen the play.  Completely annihilates any sort of surprise and intrigue. 
3. Everyone knows the plot of Macbeth, and everyone expects the same thing. The only thing a director can seriously alter is the staging and costuming of his performance. Therefore WHYon earth would you reveal your variables before viewing, making the whole thing an episode in predictability, sameness - shattering any smidgen of originality and creative play. 
4. I do not want my views to be infected by anyone else's. Apparently the church is meant to symbolise the 'good' inside everyone, and the good inside Macbeth and Lady Macbeth before they begin plotting (director obviously hasn't read the play, Lady. M is never ostensibly 'good'). NO, the 'church' or anything else, is whatever I interpret it as. I hate hate hate anyone trying to impose their own views on top of mine (as I think most people would agree), especially when it comes to art, the most SUB-jective facet of life.  
5. If you expect me to be 'sucked into' the world of the play, do not present me with a feature highlighting and probing its artificiality and status as a mediated piece of art directly before it begins. 
6. None of it even made fully comprehensible sense, as we hadn't seen the bloody performance that they were twittering on about yet.

I found this 'helpful', 'informative' interview completely obstrusive and unnecessary, and almost felt like walking out of the cinema (I pretty much knew what was going to happen now, what's the point in watching!). Anyway, I didnt, but I'm not positive that that was the right decision.

So, the play is set in a church (what a surprise, didn't see that one coming [grr] ). I actually quite like the setting, its different and blends eeriness with drama, offering shadowy spaces and hidden alcoves, high ceilings and tight pews. I believe that Ashford and Branagh manage to do some creative things with the space - using it as a hallway, a battlefield, a forrest and a dining room - (my mum however, found the long, small place restrictive - so there you go, two divergent opinions!). The initial fight scene, with spraying mud and rain, seemed excessive (I'm not a massive fan on fight scenes, see my Hamlet review), but the intrigue heightened with the appearance of the witches. They were appropriately comic and menacing, yet with the fatal flaw that Shakespeare's words were entirely lost in their screeches and cackles, and their portent only elucidated by Branagh's repetition. As you all probably know, Macbeth - buoyed by the witches' prophecy - returns home as the Thane of Cawdor, and with ambitions of seizing Duncan's crown. It is here that we meet Lady Macbeth, played by Alex Kingston. I am undecided about Kingston's performance - yet err on the side of disproval - for a few reasons:

• Firstly, I'm glad they chose an older actress to play this role. Lady Macbeth is a frighteningly forceful character, and far too often directors place young waifs in the roles of battle-axes. Kingston has a strong on-stage present, and effectively exerts her will over Macbeth. 
• For all her ostensible strength, however, I feel that Kingston did not execute the role to the best of her ability. Lady Macbeth's most famous speeches willing Macbeth to action were just not right. The passion was there, but the emphasis in the wrong places, and I felt the memorable line about dashing infant's brains was not nearly emotive or emphatic enough. This may seem like nitpicking, but in Shakespeare's play Lady Macbeth steals the show - here, Branagh and Kingston are equally unmoving.
• Indeed, when expressive, Kingston was irritatingly so, enunciating every word to the extreme - obliterating the lyrical beauty of Shakespeare's verse. 
• The sleepwalking scene. Come on. Really? If you want a showcase of shoddy acting this is it. Kingston played up the comic aspect of the scene (an aspect barely there in Shakespeare's direction), and her dumb show totally failed to show a character's unconscious conscience troubled by irrepressible guilt. It looked more as if she was trying to flap a fly away than wipe her hands of Duncan's blood. Crude, rudimental, amateur.    

That said for Kingston, on to Branagh. Now, I suppose there wasn't anything wrong with his performance, per say, but it just, just... 'meh'. Macbeth was supposed to be Branagh's spectacular return to National Theatre after a ten year hiatus. We expected fireworks - or failing that, at least a sparkler - but instead got a damp, fizzling flame. His soliloquies were fine, but on par with say Laurence Olivier, and just nothing you'd really find memorable.

So then, what did I like about the performance?

1. I really liked the staging of the kings' procession. I felt that the fact that it really played up to the cameras, and the aerial view - with writhing bodies and swooshing sashes, picturing the kings' genesis - was truly enrapturing.
2. In fact, the filming of the whole thing was great, offering close-ups and multiple angles that you would not get to experience from a fixed theatre seat. (The only drawback was the live theatre audience. They were constantly moving around, fanning themselves, and at two different points I actually saw old men sleeping. I suppose this can't be helped, but it was extremely distracting!!).  
3. Ray Fearson's Macduff, if occasionally erring on the shouty side, was the saviour of the latter half of the play. His distress at discovering his wife and children had been murdered - unfortunate collateral damage in the sordid affair - was truly tangible, his harrowing cries reverberating about the church, and vicariously, the movie theatre. (Rosalie Craig as Lady Macduff was also impressive, an antidote to Kingston's showy, mismatched performance, Craig was on point, clear and decisive in her efforts to protect her family). 
4. The silent, menacing ghost of Banquo (Jimmy Yuill) was truly terrifying, visibly sending Macbeth from celebration to madness in the banqueting scene. Indeed in this scene, I was able to tolerate Kingston as Lady Macbeth, whose pleas to her husband to act normally, and efforts to convince her diners of his sanity highlighted the desperation of the situation, and the concurrent void in their relationship (we are not surprised, after this testing scene, to learn that she has killed herself).  

All in all, this was a lack-lustre performance, set in a nice found space and filmed well. As the play concluded, I gleaned no real sense that this was an unfortunate couple lead astray by ambition (it might be worth noting that Branagh and Kingston were far from electric together, despite the crotch-grabbing). In fact, none of the main themes of shakespeare's work - power, death, guilt, marriage etc. - were really played upon, or shone through. Couple this lack of direction with weak major actors, and insufficiently good minor ones, and you're left with a damp squibb of a show. Not worth the money we paid, or enduring a stiflingly hot cinema. The National Theatre's Macbeth failed to ignite.