See On the Rhine (Donmar Warehouse, London)
Verdict: A lot to keep an eye on
Unless he has four legs and body hair, a dog’s dinner is usually not an appetizing prospect.
One possible exception is this intriguing World War II melodrama set in 1940s America, which is illuminated by Patricia Hodge’s perma-posh savoir faire.
It starts out looking and sounding like a Noel Coward parlor comedy, with Hodge’s haughty and wealthy American matriarch firing off exquisitely turned one-liners. “I love to snoop around,” she says. ‘Shows an interest in life.’
She continues to take shape as a latter-day Lady Bracknell. But thanks to the return of her daughter after 20 years in Europe (with a German husband and three children in tow), Lillian Hellman’s story soon begins to look more like an Ibsen family tragedy, where long-buried secrets they will be exhumed.
Unless he has four legs and body hair, a dog’s dinner is usually not an appetizing prospect. One possible exception is this intriguing World War II melodrama set in 1940s America, which is illuminated by Patricia Hodge’s perma-posh savoir faire.
Particularly full of resentment is Geoffrey Streatfeild as Hodge’s middle-aged son, crushed by his mother’s withering wit, but firing off salvoes of his own over breakfast brandy.
He, moreover, is on the verge of an illicit affair with the wife of a cowardly Romanian count.
But it is that count who supplies the central antagonism. Played by John Light, this depressed scheming scoundrel has uncovered a dangerous secret about his daughter’s sneaky German husband, a man who claims to be a professional anti-fascist and has broken fingers, bullet scars, and tales of the Spanish Civil War. War to prove it.
Lacking a mustache to twirl around in, Light is ostentatiously inscrutable, striking surreptitious poses with artfully bent legs, pursed lips, and counter-twisting torso.
Meanwhile, as a German husband, Mark Waschke is a handsome, sensitive, brave and highly intelligent freedom fighter.
It starts out looking and sounding like a Noel Coward parlor comedy, with Hodge’s haughty and wealthy American matriarch firing off exquisitely turned one-liners. “I love to snoop around,” she says. ‘Show interest in life’
Though Waschke’s melancholy intensity almost makes this Teutonic a romantic Mills & Boon fantasy, Hodge is happy to note that he doesn’t “make platform speeches or try to sell people on anything.” . . until, of course, he does both.
The stories of these two men not only push the drama in the direction of a Casablanca-type thriller, but more intriguingly, the deal they strike is reminiscent of the Maltese Falcon (perhaps unsurprisingly, given that the film is based on the book written by Hellman’s partner Dashiell Hammett).
Hardly less intriguing is David Webber as the Paul Robeson-esque butler, who always seems to be about to pull off some subversive stunt. And to the already overloaded cast can be added the three precocious children of Hodge’s warm but strangely anonymous daughter (Caitlin FitzGerald).
Though this is fascinating in its many parts, the proliferation of themes, tones, and characters precludes any deep emotional involvement.
It also doesn’t help that the sight lines in Ellen McDougall’s stuffy production are frequently dire: one mute actor parked in front of four talking ones.
Basia Binkowska’s design features a luxuriously rich home outfitted with walnut furniture, white carpet, and gorgeous wallpaper displaying a massive 19th-century Rhine view, pierced by valances and drapery.
Meanwhile, an ominous hum suggests a growing tension in Tingying Dong’s sound design (although this could just be the theater’s overactive air conditioning… keep your coat on).
With so many threads, some theater goers may end up baffled as to which one to follow. But it’s hard not to find yourself involved with this dramatic hodgepodge that is somehow still quite tasty.
Paradise now! (Bush Theatre, London)
Qualification: ***
Verdict: Avon calling!
Originality is a prized commodity in a theatrical world that is often all too eager to run with the pack. Young Irish writer Margaret Perry is therefore a vigorously nonconformist outlook that suggests she could have a great future, thanks to her new comedy Paradise Now!
The piece is a long, messy story about today’s Avon Ladies, who work from home and sell essential oils on social media.
Perry’s eccentric half dozen include a pair of high-strung, nun-like sisters from Cork (Michele Moran and Carmel Winters), one of whom falls under the spell of the London representative (Shazia Nicholls) of the essential oils company Paradise. , which is run by a shady American (nicknamed ‘SHE.EO’).
The representative also accidentally recruits a ditzy old school friend (Rakhee Thakrar) who is in the throes of a nervous breakdown, as well as an ambitious and attractive college graduate (Ayoola Smart) and her skeptical ballet lover (Annabel Baldwin). .
The resulting work lands in a Bermuda triangle somewhere between Mike Leigh’s Abigail’s Party, TV’s The Apprentice and Anna Maxwell Martin’s Motherland.
I loved the sly Irish nonchalance of Perry’s humor, which is flippantly playful, gleefully funny, and nonchalantly surreal.
However, it is too long, two hours and three quarters. And not only are some unfinished scenes simply abandoned along the way, but the final ending is both too grand and too flimsy.
The Jaz Woodcock-Stewart production presents Perry’s nonsense with nudity and forceful language, to the beat of a long weekend in Kerry.
However, it is visually intriguing; with dark green office carpet tiles inside an orange Formica box that transforms from bedrooms into a bowling alley and conference center, and features a cameo appearance of a robot vacuum cleaner.
It’s also pleasantly trashy, thanks to female chart hits (including one from his namesake Katy).
She’s not the finished article, but Perry is brilliant. One of her characters reminds us that ‘meteors don’t go up’, but this young playwright from Cork might be the exception.
On The Ropes (Park Theatre, London)
Qualification: **
Verdict: You need to lose some weight
Lightweight boxer Vernon Vanriel certainly has an incredible and shocking story to tell. This is a man who grew up in Tottenham, overcame his Christian mother’s religious objections to his chosen sport, and battled to become the UK’s number two in his weight class in 1983… only to be barred from a shot by the headline after denouncing, the ‘white cartel running British boxing’ in the black newspaper The Voice.
Going off the rails spectacularly, Vanriel became a crack addict and was sectioned twice in hospital, before suffering a heart attack after being beaten by police investigating a domestic dispute.
Then, when he found himself homeless in Jamaica after his British passport became invalid, he narrowly avoided summary execution by the island’s police.
It took him 13 years to return to the UK and regain his residence rights after a legal battle that ended in the High Court.
Vanriel has lived many lifetimes in one, but this exhaustive account of his travails is itself an increasingly grueling two and three-quarter hour (including the intermission) slog.
Dougie Blaxland’s heavy screenplay, written with Vanriel, actually makes it less sympathetic by being too uncritical; especially skating on his relationships with women. With so much bad luck and not enough mea culpa, it’s harder to identify with the man played by a grieving Mensah Bediako.
Where Anastasia Osei-Kuffour’s production works best is as a community event celebrating a local legend in her North London home turf. Played out as 12 rounds in a boxing ring with Ashley D. Gayle acting as MC, it’s also a semi-musical performance fermented mostly with reggae music, including Oh Mama and a rousing gospel number Nobody Knows But Jesus, both sung brilliantly by the supporting actor Amber James. .
However, for all its fair completeness, the show needs to be cut down to two hours, tops. That could have made him a leaner, meaner fighting machine capable of delivering a knockout blow.