★★★★☆

Like the ‘dynamic duo’ that is Georgia Bruce and Jack Chisnall’s presidency of the revue, this review is written by a friend and myself (so bear in mind that the friend mentioned just now might have written this bit – or not). A postmodern answer to a postmodern show.

After an evening discussing the evils of postmodernity, my associate and I found ourselves unable to find the door to the theatre. We concluded that we had become the victims of some sort of devilish Derridean subversion of entrance and exit. Ironically (of course), an hour and a half later, we had in fact been the victims of such a trick. Nevertheless we had been tricked in a slightly different way to what we had thought, for rather than there being no entrance, it was rather the (metaphorical) building that was missing.The show was professionally executed and imaginatively conceived – but to continue the metaphor (or was the door story true…)– we were left with a lot of entrances and exits and sometimes not much in-between.  

The English comic tradition thrives on two kinds of humour: the humour of awkwardness, or absence, and the pitch-black humour of the macabre. The Revue’s OXMAS party employed mainly a version of the former to great bathetic effect: throughout, jokes were instantly devalued, or simply not issued. Despite some very strong sketches, our ultimate feeling was that there was something missing.

The show opened with some short sketches by the presidents which warmed the crowd before Lizzy Mansfield came on for the first of a series of stand up sets. Her humor worked on two levels. On one level she told quirky banal stories with very family friendly punch lines. On the other, she revealed an incredibly dark and intelligent wit, which would periodically drop into her routine, subverting the family friendly in a perversely funny way. For me/us this worked very well, for Mansfield’s skill lies in finding ways of making the dark humor cohere perfectly with the innocent story worlds she conjures. This well constructed combination of morbidity and story telling kept us guessing and made her dark wit all the more guiltily amusing.                                                                                                

The other highlight of the stand ups was George McGoldrick who rather innovatively blended live DJ-ing with his routine. As we were sitting at the rear of the stage we could see him coordinating different sound effects while performing his readings of made up texts. His humor again worked with the logic of disavowal. He doesn’t so much tell jokes but open a space for where there would be a joke. He did this by creating a disjunction between music and speech and in this awkward and inappropriate juxtaposition, the laughter followed. More than anything we have to credit his bravery, on the one hand because of the technical balance of spinning two plates at once but also because as a performer he must manage the risk that the humour won’t come off. It’s a humor that doesn’t have an obvious substantive content, rather it creates the conditions for laughter. Fortunately, it worked on the night.

This strategy of contraposition and disavowal characterized much of the humor throughout. One of the most symptomatic moments of this was the sketch troupe Giants.  They opened by raising their hands and saying ‘giants’ in a halfhearted way. The joke is that they came on, failed to deliver a joke and then acted as if they had just delivered a joke. The joke is, therefore, that we are being expected to laugh, with no cause to laugh – and therefore paradoxically we laugh. It seemed to work and the audience responded well. It also illustrates how many of the routines were structured around the build up to or the failed end of a joke. In short the jokes are jokes about jokes. Having said that they were also responsible for the most outright hilarious moment of the evening during a sketch where the two of them took it in turns to do impressions, with the proviso they wouldn’t try pervy catholic priest… 

The Revue themselves flirted with this disavowed humour, but the best moments were always the ones with a definitive sense of a punch line. One of the best sketches was the one set in a car in which a couple having gone on their first date start listening to Adele’s ‘Hello’. The guy (Jack Chisnall) nonchalantly trying to be cool says its shit. His date (Georgia Bruce) looking pained tries to agree, all the while suppressing the urge to sing a long. The building tension between them finds a definite consummation when driven to desperation Bruce tells a nearby car to stop playing the song. It’s a very well structured sketch that is also very rich in social observation. The excessive agreement with what you are trying to hide in a bid to please someone else has a certain poignancy. It testifies to the awkward tension between people who want to like each other and want to please each other, but fundamentally perhaps aren’t for each other. 

Whether this humor of disavowing a joke works is debatable, certainly we both agreed we didn’t laugh as much we have on other revue shows. But equally it is undeniable the crowd loved it, and this is after all the true test. If you get the chance, try and see the revue next term and see what you think of this new direction.  

(Note from the Stage Editors) As Brutus himself says: ‘No, Cassius; for the eye sees not itself, But by reflection, by some other things.” What follows are two ‘other things’. We hope to experiment further with this dual reviewer format to give more diversity of opinion on theatre at Oxford. 

Rose Taylor

★★★☆☆

With carefully choreographed scenes, a cast-cum-crew crossover and a new score, Gruffdog Theatre’s production of an abridged Julius Caesar was an innovative, if slightly muddled, take on one of the most renowned plays in English literature.

Ben van Leeuwen’s score is a diverse mixture of electric guitar riffs, untuned percussion and Gregorian chanting. The guitar was especially prominent during transitions and quicker scenes, providing low, repetitive, dirge-like melodies which contributed to the sense of foreboding. However, while the cast were confident in their singing, the undeniably atmospheric chanting nevertheless posed a bit of an issue: why the Dies Irae and the Agnus Dei? Although the funereal connotations were comprehensible enough, the inextricable Christianity of the text felt jarring in what is, whatever period the production is set in, undoubtedly a play about pagans.

The visual aesthetic was clearly defined and consistent. The use of light was interesting and an effective way of focusing attention, but as the cast point beams at other members this became an issue with actors tripping up over the bulky lights left in their path. Again, a real shame, as this was very effective without the untidiness of a stumbling cast. Notably, the puppetry was very good and the movement of Caesar’s ghost was brilliantly eerie. Despite its short appearance it left a real impression. The use of the ladder (the only real piece of set) was interesting and imaginative, as well as symbolic of the scrabbling competitiveness of Roman ambition. However, scenes without it seemed lacking, as there was little focal focus on stage. This was most noticeable during Caesar’s funeral, which was completely still and surprisingly conventional. The lack of the ladder, or in fact any of the previously-employed physical movement or music, broke the tension these aspects had built. It’s natural that the focus in this scene, of all scenes, should be on the extraordinary language (although with a few strange omissions – where was ‘the unkindest cut of all’?), but having been so playful hitherto, what should have been the crux-moment of the play felt just a little anti-climactic.

Overall the cast were strong and delivered dialogue confidently with few slip ups. There was not a weak character among them and they supported each other very well and maintained their unique mannerisms – Brutus’ stony self-sacrificing, Cassius’ prickly conniving, the languid moroseness of Casca. However, some played their characters in a more grand-theatrical style while others took a more naturalistic approach, leaving some scenes and interactions imbalanced. Many of them also suffered from occasional lapses into ‘Shakespeare voice’ – an arbitrarily-paced, meticulously enunciated mode of delivery (à la Laurence Olivier), which sounds more learned than understood and risks crushing the individuality of characters and actors’ interpretations. Of the cast here only Casca was completely immune to this, and this clearly helped him win over the audience; the others, despite their generally strong performances and distinctive physical portrayals, did have a few lapses with their delivery.

As for the abridged script, it was well cut despite missing a few big lines. In particular, intercutting Calpurnia and Portia’s scenes with Brutus and Caesar respectively was a great way to draw attention to the similarities between the two women and their marital influence (as well their helplessness in a man’s word). More editing could have been used as there were some discrepancies between action directed in dialogue and what was actually carried out on stage, but it had a good balance of being concise while maintaining the grandness of the original script.

Julius Caesar had the potential for a unique and engaging show, but felt untidy in places. However, with so strong a cast and such interesting direction it remains a passionate, inventive and well-played rendition of Shakespeare.

Matt Roberts

★★★★☆

I escaped a bitingly cold November night this week into the newly renovated Michael Pilch studio to see Gruffdog Theatre’s production of ‘Julius Caesar’ directed by Pete Sayer. A cast dressed in a rag-tag assortment of militaristic garb stood around a ladder, recalling the crucial speech of Brutus, who speaks of “young ambition’s ladder, / Whereto the climber-upward turns his face” in finally choosing duty to Rome over loyalty to Caesar. My initial reaction to this ladder was wariness – it felt too heavy handed – an unnecessarily vigorous nod towards ‘what the play’s about’, and more importantly left the actors quite constricted in the tight, thrust stage of the oddly claustrophobic Pilch studio. My fears were not immediately allayed when a contorted mass of the cast bore an intricate model sailing boat up the ladder – representing… the tempestuous atmosphere of the city? Caesar’s triumphant return? It felt out of place in a production that otherwise prioritised performance and

Once the play got into its stride, all of my prior qualms gave way in their entirety. This was primarily thanks to the absolutely stellar performances that carried me utterly into the world of the conspirators and the politics of the Eternal City. The ferociously camp-cum-perfidious Harry Lukakis gave us an apple-chomping schemer in Cassius who was an absolute pleasure to watch, chewing on what little scenery there was available in the best possible way. The ladder (which I’d feared would be a passive gimmick pointing us towards a theme) took an active role in this production, being used variously as battlement, litter, doorway, and portico – under which the conspirators sheltered from the storm portending the assassination.

Another standout performance was Calum Jacobs’ Casca, whose effortless comic timing had the audience in fits of giggles at the tension of the sumptuous vagaries of the politicking and scheming. The production was carried by Fred Wienand’s Brutus, in a particularly hubristic characterisation of a man who believes himself to be the true arbiter of justice, and is convincingly destroyed in his defeat and the death of Alethea Redfern’s superb Portia. My one criticism of Brutus’ journey was that his complete u-turn from loyal friend of Caesar to revolutionary assassin effectively happened over the course of one speech, but such issues are almost impossible to avoid when cutting Shakespeare to 100 minutes without an interval.

The most impressive part of this production was Ben Van Leeuwen’s sound design which created the feeling of the world of Rome outside of the tight square of the stage – a combination of humming, Latin chanting, air horns and dustbin drumming, usually emanating from behind the audience itself, lent a weight to the threat of the mob that whimsically switched from demagogue to demagogue. In one particular scene, the dulcet tones of Tom Fawcett’s Mark Antony swayed the crowd yet again in a manner reminiscent of Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Producing the sinister paradox of the infantile alterity of the violent mob as they impressionistically fought and danced their way through the production. The biggest victim of the cuts to this play was John Lynbeck’s Caesar – who, despite his best efforts, was left without enough stage-time to build that arrogant tyrant into a more complex portrayal. Equally, the assassination of Caesar felt a little bit clumsy – particularly when Lynbeck was unable to pronounce the most infamous line of the play as “Brute” cut him off with a dagger. Overall, this was an admirable production that was unafraid of testing new waters and was (primarily) successful in walking the tightrope between innovation and gimmick. 

★★★★☆

Onlife, the new play by Leo Mercer, is a one-man show following Felix (Felix von Stumm) as he deals with the aftermath of a breakup on the eve of pitching his new technological invention, ‘Onlife’, to potential funders. Exploring Felix’s concerns about the demise of human interaction, the play centres, ironically, on technological means of communication, video chats, emails, blog posts, only allowing Felix’s isolated responses to be heard.

Felix interacts with another human only once. Unfortunately for the impartiality of this review that human happened to be this reviewer. Therefore, as much as I would have liked to talk of Felix’s characterisation blooming, I cannot judge this interaction objectively. However, the fact that I was at ease and forgetful of the audience probably means he was convincing up close, but I must hold up my hands and skip past this really quite pivotal part of the play.

Onlife does not have a thrilling narrative, the pace fairly steady throughout with little by way of climax. Instead the focus remains on characterisation rather than plot, something that may have caused more of an issue if it weren’t for von Stumm. Excluding the scene mentioned above, the dialogue consists entirely of one-sided conversations, Felix’s answers, so his physical and vocal reaction to unwritten and unspoken responses is relied on to carry the discourse through. This is a big responsibility, but von Stumm held the performance together, swinging dramatically between a genial, eccentric manner and quite sudden and aggressive outbursts. Despite Felix ultimately being a big, operatic character, von Stumm made him a convincing one. He pulls off the lofty metaphors and philosophical contemplations (that sound perhaps just a little too poetic), as well as occasionally blunt thematic statements; something a weaker performance might not be able to achieve.

Other than these blips, Mercer generally writes in a consistently hyperactive voice which remains naturalistic, with the exception of moments where the dialogue ‘loops’, creating a vocal-glitch effect that mimics the more surreal moments of repetitive action. Under the direction of Will Stevens, this repetition is unnervingly mechanical. It is a physically demanding role and it is a feat that von Stumm manages to maintain so much energy throughout. In particular, the aggression Felix displays when typing shows frustration when dealing with insensitive technology through physical theatre. Rather than beating his (invisible) keyboard, Felix begins to beat himself. While the absence of a physical laptop seemed an odd choice, it was actually quite effective. It exaggerated the strangeness of speaking into nothing, and the oddity of typing – the jerky, unnatural hunched position we adopt. It also shows how emotions can be glimpsed not just in what we say online, but how we punch the keys with our fingers. It is perhaps more discomforting that even without a keyboard Felix’s aggressive backspacing is recognisable. Although this physical violence works well, ending the play with a contrasting gesture – Felix’s typing gently turning into wing-like flapping arms – didn’t work. Despite the clear symbolic intention, it was perhaps a step too far in the direction of kookiness, and risked abandoning the end to silliness.

Stevens makes good use of a small space: not only did the fixed set (Felix’s room) puddle out with a mess of clothes that seemed to suit Felix’s muddled character absolutely, but allowing movement around the BT Studio – facing the audience, lurching, spinning and wandering around – made the most of the intimate space. It is admirable that it felt like von Stumm was infiltrating the audience’s space, not the other way around, and it is this quality, and his performance, which really elevates the production.

Celebrity children are literally the best thing. Like, the best. Hailing from the hip-happening streets of Hollywood’s gated communities, these cutie patooties are quite clearly the most highly evolved type of human imaginable. Imagine having nothing but the DNA of two gorgeous, pouty famous people replicating inside you forever and ever ad infinitum! Imagine being super fucking wealthy and infallibly popular just ‘cos everyone wanted to bang your dad in the 80s! What an honour, what a way to live!

When first-generation celebs have babies, they bestow a gift upon the world. They’re creating an ideal of what human beings can and should be. New ‘normal’ (not on my watch!) parent: look down at your own troubled tyke and realise all the ways in which that little scamp will never ever, not even once manage to measure up to a second generation Barrymore or third generation Arquette. And it’s all on you and your poor life choices, you crusty, infamous, asymmetrical mess. LOL!

No wonder the world’s gone celebrity baby crazy. In these dark times of moral relativism and overstimulated apathy, we need these bright young things just to make it through the days. Personally, I know that if I have had an awful time at work, if I’ve fought with my loved ones, or if Mercury’s in retrograde, I just gotta know what’s up with Patrick ‘Pattyboy’ Schwarzenegger or Kate Hudson. Even an update on Bryce Dallas Howard will do if I’m really in a pinch. I’m serious! Just let me know that these glowing, dewy-skinned beacons of humanity have had a great day grabbing lunch at Nobu and maybe stopping by a Wholefoods on the way to the gym. How’s Dakota Johnson doing? Well, I hope! When I know that these more highly evolved beings are doing fine, it gives me a content feeling inside and makes the ceaseless suffering of my disgusting existance seem worthwhile. They help me just get through the days. Shoutout Gavin and Gwen, cos lil’ Kingston Rossdale and his bleached crop of hair saved my life! I wonder how he feels about Blake Shelton?! What a fascinating kid!

The best thing for me about 2015 has been that we don’t even really care who the famous parents are anymore. Literally any former C-lister’s spawn will do. Sure, we’re still obsessing over Willow and Jaden Smith, who are the offspring of two bona fide A-listers (even if one of them mostly just works in TV, blech!). But now we also get to worship Bella and Gigi fucking Hadid! These ladies are my girls! Well, technically not, ‘cos they’re actually Yolanda Foster’s girls, but I like to feel that Yolanda can rely on my protective gaze to stay trained on these lovely young ladies whilst she’s off doing whatever ex-models do. Imagine being the daughter of a Real Housewife of Beverly Hills. It’s almost too much to fathom. The first time the world got some good quality, clear pap pics of Kendall Jenner and Gigi Hadid hanging out, I literally had to stop for a hot minute ‘cos I couldn’t even breathe.

OMG, remember The Simple Life? That show was the best! When Paris and Nicole pretended to date those small-town hicks I totally lost it! Just imagine?! Gross! Ahahaahahaaaaa!

Ooops, I’ve wandered from the point! Soz. The roundabout point is definitely that given the proven track record of celebrities to produce super hot, super chill kids with sass and panache, what the hell are we doing allowing these deified beings to mate outside of their own superior gene pool? I reckon once a hot young celeb has had their fill of the limelight we retire them to safari parks, where they roam the landscape procreating with one another as us normals gawp on from our jeeps (which are locked to protect the celebrities from us, rather than us from them). That way we get to feel bad about the boring, repellent sex we’re confined to in our mortal lot, whilst ensuring that our glistening, long-limbed overlords are safely entrenched as constant reminders of our inadequacy.

I’d also like to add the caveat that none of this applies to Angelina Jolie, who I’m not convinced is not just a nipped and tucked Jon Voight, star of Holes. Anyway, her kids just seem a bit boring really. Sure, they’ll be hot and live a charmed life, but they’ll also have seen things, you know? In my opinion, she should’ve banned them from going on any of her humanitarian missions. Why sully perfection and light with such darkness, Angie? Let celebrity babies SoulCycle in peace goddammit!

And you, Brad – you’re just gonna stand by and let her rob your kids of their God-given sense of entitlement? Jeez

I have to start by admitting I know nothing about contemporary or classical dance. I was however fortunate to be invited to the run through of this very different offering at the BT. It is not often we see shows dedicated solely to showcasing dance. In part I guess this is due to a scarcity of dancers in Oxford, but also because of a scarcity of audience. Being myself part of the philistine mass, I was apprehensive about the prospect of finding words or indeed even thoughts to apply to what I was to see.

The question of relating to an audience is one which is central to choreographer Emily Everest-Phillips’s approach. Indeed when I confessed my ignorance, I was even reassured, that this was precisely what they wanted from a previewer. Fortunately I was also given an impromptu dance lesson – the insights from which I hope will make this preview a little better than an exercise in the blind leading the blind.

The first thing I learnt is that dancing is really very difficult. I was instructed in the execution of a sort of pectoral thrust while pulling one’s open palmed hands backwards. The result was akin to Disco Stu’s pelvic solicitations. But I gleaned something of the nature of the sort of expression dance affords. The choreographer gives you a movement, and then you mirror this movement while imbuing it with an expressive embellishment of your own. Thus what in Maddy Walker’s capable performance became an enigmatic and ethereal whisper was in my rendition a sort of mathematically constructed pick-up line.

The sense that the interplay of gestures is equivalent to constructing a phrase was confirmed when I was told the audition process was designed to initiate a conversation. The dancers were given some moves and then asked to dance with each other in the hope of a dialogue emerging. This sense of conversation was I think most clearly seen in how the dancers used space and time in relation to each other. In the opening dance, the pair engaged in a persistent game of moving behind and in front of each other in small and subtle ways. They sort of mirrored each other but along both the x and y axes. This created an almost contrapuntal relation between each other in space. The connectedness but also fragility of the relation between the two was thus very eloquently expressed in this shifting and mirroring of positions. 

Mirroring was not the only type of relation expressed however. In another piece, one of the two dancers started on the floor and moved slowly while the other moved frantically on her feet. By the end the one who started on the floor was dancing and the one who started by dancing was lying on the floor in the same spot as her counterpart. Asymmetry seems to be just as an important a relation. But what I think both this symmetry and asymmetry have in common is a very architectonic concern for balance and harmony. From what I saw, this architecture was concerned with constructing a sense of oneness. This oneness came about by either conclusively separating or uniting the pairs. In this regard, I was reminded of intertwining musical strands searching for a definitive synthesis in a fugue. I think the im/possibility of unity (such as in a fugue) is what happens in the space between two bodies in close proximity to each other. It is this which I think the production is trying to get at. 

This reading however forgets the other side of the story. The dances were not a formalistic staging of spatial relations; this was after all a conversation. The dancers were smiling a lot; they were enjoying it in a way that suggested more than just the delights of Cartesian geometry. The best expression of this I think always came about 75% of the way through the routines. It’s the point at which the dancers, having already impressed with their ability, somehow kept on going. This excess of energy is very compelling for you wonder: how and why can they keep going? This I suppose is the content that corresponds to the form, the drive and the energy that informs the expression of their carefully choreographed movements.

In the attempted synthesis of form and content, some moments really take your breath away. I’m still not precisely sure what is being said. It is  however being said in a way that suggests so much, tenderness, fragility, violence and poetry. It is indeed very compelling and strangely moving. All in all, I very much look forward to seeing if as Hegel said of love, the production can ‘propound and resolve the contradiction’. If the dances will ultimately manage to move from the proximity they seem describe to the unity they seem to be toying with. 

Or the above is a load of nonsense. In any case it’s certainly very enjoyable to watch and I highly reccomend you go and watch.