I still remember the moment my director and I got back to our producer’s flat. We had just hauled what felt like a tonnage of equipmentup six hateful flights of stairs in order to finally deposit our booty. Shag, hassle, combined with a dollop of exhaustion; so began our odyssey into the OBA Easter project. Looking at some of the effortless professionalism on display at the OBA’s latest screening I came to the sad conclusion that this was perhaps just my own incompetence. The quality of the work on offer is truly impressive, both technically and artistically.

We opened with Isaac. Following in the Oxford mockumentary tradition of Genius before it, Isaac masquerades as a documentary detailing the challenges of integrating “the daylight challenged” (read: vampire) into Oxford life. Like Genius, behind the many laughs there is a cutting dissection of aspects of the student world. The real achievement of the film is how it manages to stay sufficiently generic in its premise to cover a variety of themes while still highlighting very pertinent and relevant issues.

In this regard, the figure of the vampire and his ‘integration’ could be substituted with any one of many other possible groups: racial, social, economic or sexual. What is revealed is a culture of self-satisfaction that relishes in its own sense of being ‘holier than thou’ at the expense of dealing with the issues at hand. In a brilliant ending, the filmmakers come to interview the vampire but end their film before the vampire can say anything.

Next, Dogs and Fags, directed by Archie Thomson and Will Stevens. A radically different story in both tone and style, this time we saw the disintegrating relationship between a mother and her son. Other than her son, there is only one other man in the mother’s life: Noel Coward. Not coincidentally, Noel’s regular scheduled appearances counterbalance the indifferent comings and goings of her son. Miserable and housebound, she eternally awaits the next visit. This somber piece suffered from being placed next to the hysterical Vampire and as such some of its atmosphere was lost. But at heart this is a very humane film that manages to be sympathetic to the mother without condemning the son. An excellent handling of a delicate drama.

With Tom Dillon’s The Pigeon and the Priest, we just had no idea what the audience would think. The film is about a troubled man asking for advice from a priest who in turn tells him a pointless and morbid story. The resolution of the story is left literally hanging. As an audience member, it seemed people liked how the dark humor interwove with the tinge of mystery that propelled the story, and the compelling performances by the actors.

Next up, A Chaste Soul by this paper’s own Anthony Maskell. I asked the good Mr Maskell whether we could describe the film as “what would happen if Tarkovsky made a thriller”, an idea he sort of agreed with. The film is about an assassination gone wrong involving a priest, an assassin and a pregnant woman. An eminently stylish piece shot in black and white and with a box aspect ratio, A Chaste Soul distinguished itself for its striking and highly thoughtful compositions, and its excellent performances.

For me, the standout piece was Sally. Directors Benedict Morisson and Ann Stelzer pull of the feat of telling the story through solely visual means. Given what an engrossing and mysterious piece of work this is,it is indeed no mean feat. A very promising showing for Oxford talent.

★★★☆☆

Thomas Vinterberg’s adaptation of the classic Hardy novel, set in the luscious Dorset countryside, is defined by twocentral performances: those of Carey Mulligan and Michael Sheen. Mulligan’s role as the feisty Bathsheba Everdene, who inherits her late uncle’s farm and combats patriarchal power to maintain it, is eclipsing. Despite a physical fragility that would seem somewhat unsuitable for a young farm girl, Mulligan manages to inhabit the rustic scenes effortlessly. She becomes a part of the wild landscape; the tangled wisps of her hair, threaded in a tumbling plait, blow serenely in the wind as she charges across the hills on a glossy horse, which she rebelliously refuses to ride side-saddled. There is an unpredictability to her behaviour, an impulsiveness that Mulligan’s giggly playfulness conveys perfectly. But there is also a gravity and intensely feeling side to her that is captured by the actress’s velvety voice.

Complementing this vivacious performance is a master class in interiority from Michael Sheen, playing Bathsheba’s infatuated neighbour. Vinterberg keeps Sheen’s character at a distance from the audience; all we are told is that he was ‘jilted’ as a young man, and the sole evidence of his deep insecurities is a nervously twitching smile and Sheen’s uncomfortable nasal stutters. He remains a mysterious back- ground figure, whose presence lingers but whose character is never fully revealed until the film’s conclusion. He provides a necessary intrigue to a story whose characters are largely transparent.

In dismal contrast to the impeccable casting of these two roles is the horrendous choice of Tom Sturridge as the arrogant Sergeant Troy who seduces Bathsheba. Sturridge’s gimpish grin is more alarming than alluring, and he delivers his supposedly enticing lines awkwardly. The famously erotic sword-fighting scene is remdered almost farcical by Sturridge’s attempt at a smoulder, meaning Mulligan’s breathless arousal comes across as ridiculous, however well acted. The romance of the film is, thankfully, redeemed by the relationship between Mulligan and Matthias Schoenaerts’ unfailingly loyal Farmer Oak. In a farmhouse dinner scene, the two sit at either end of a lengthy wooden table under glowingamplight. The aching longing between the two as they exchange glances with each other, entirely oblivious of the ‘madding crowd’ that surrounds them, is enough to move even the most cynical of viewers.

Perhaps the most remarkable achievement of the film, however, is the sensuality of its pastoral setting. Vinterberg doesn’t just show us the rural landscape, he lets us feel it. The heaving breath of Mulligan as she gallops along the hillside, the thudding of the horse’s hooves, the thundering waves of the Jurassic coast; all are foregrounded over the melodic soundtrack of the film, so that the audience is wholly envelope. Vinterberg’s film accesses the essence of Hardy’s novel: a sense of primal unity with the bucolic landscape. He manages to immerse us in the vitality of the outdoor world, whilst the echoing halls of Boldwood’s mansion feel cold and barren.

The film is not innovative, and is perhaps a little clumsy, but few will contest that the choice of a non-English director has proven to be a masterstroke. Rarely do we see a director capture the rawness of the rustic setting with such finesse. Vinterberg has stripped the novel to its core, using an outsider’s perspective to rediscover the heart of the novel in the pulsating Dorset scenery.

Rewind to the 1950s. Everyone is busy throwing on their blue suede shoes, grabbing a mass-produced acoustic guitar and generally failing to emulate El- vis in their faux leather jackets. Rocking and rolling all over the place became a synonym for rebellion in the period immediately fol- lowing the war.

However, jump forward 20 odd years and what was once rebellion is now cliché. With endless guitar solos in emulation of Jimi Hendrix and bands like Simon and Garfunkel calling themselves rock and roll, the genre had lost its edge and motivation. What once had been soundtrack of the frivo- lous fifties, the music in the background of the baby-boomers’ bedroom as another child was brought into the world was no longer rebellion: it was pure monotony. It had become the missionary position of the musical world.

The Barbican’s current Magnificent Obsessions exhibition examines the artist’s role as collector and curator rather than as creator of objects. Featured in it is Damien Hirst’s collection of taxidermy. The exhibition is fascinating for its elucidation on how our ‘things’ rather than our creations might define our identities – what the objects we collect, value, and hoard, for reasons other than their innate value (I personally have a fondness for crap garden gnomes), say about us. Moreover, this macabre collection in particular is resonant for other, more specific, reasons.

This is because stuffed animals have suddenly become really hot stuff. Taking on a life of its own in London, there isn’t a bar in Bethnal Green that isn’t scattered with a stuffed tiger in a hat or a mounted head or two. You can now also take taxidermy lessons alongside your beau or bestie, taking selfies holding up tiny mouse organs, whilst sipping fancy cocktails with punny names. The grotesque aspect of this trend takes its form in the penchant for anthropomorphic taxidermy in particular; dressing up mice in clothes and posing them alongside other rodents with hats, newspapers and pipes on a park bench in the style of Walter Potter’s triumph of the Victorian bizarre with his kitten tea parties.

The world’s largest museum of decorative arts and design, the Victoria and Albert Museum, is without a doubt one of the best attempts made to create a completely categorical study of material culture and its socio-political context. It’s one of those beautiful places where no journey to a single object is direct; you have to detour as the corner of something glitters, shimmers or intrigues you into making further inquiry.

The building itself is enough to occupy a good deal of attention; red brick archways and infinitely tall ceilings, gaping hollow cylinders look down on lower floors, platforms and balconies look out over imposingly beautiful displays. Museums should be interactive even when the articles are stowed behind glass, and for me, the V&A does this best.

On recently making one of my every-couple-of-months spontaneous trips to the Big Smog, I came into Victoria Station after what felt like years spent on the Oxford Tube and, despite my best efforts to think outside the box or find a copy of Time Out, I ended up taking a stroll through Chelsea and finding my way to the museum’s Iron House structure in the hope that a dissertation topic may leap at me from its collections.

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I’d intended to go for a leisurely wander, but that morning I’d stumbled upon a book about Victorian dress which opened with a reference to a sampler found in the V&A, “Tucked into a lonely corner of the Textile Room at the Victoria and Albert Museum, a sampler hangs. Quite a few samplers dot the walls, but this one is unique.” The book, Dress Culture in Late Victorian Women’s Fiction, goes on to describe the embroidery, a long, journal-like piece articulating a young girl’s mistreatment in domestic service. No flowers, no embellishments, no repetitive lines of the alphabet or biblical verses like the ones you’d usually find on textiles of this kind. The author, Elizabeth Parker, starts with the line, “As I cannot write I put this down freely and simply as I might speak to a person to whose intimacy and tenderness I can fully intrust myself and who I know will bear with all weaknesses.” The confessional red silk lines conclude with “Oh, God, what will become of my soul.” It may not be the most extravagant item in the museum’s collection, but it was one I was quite determined to lay my eyes on and read in full.

★★★★★

Sometimes, you walk away from a play with a slight spring in your step. You breathe in the cool spring air and dazedly glide over Radcliffe Square in that state of dreamy awe attended upon stoners and freshers. That’s what Will Yeldham’s production of Stoppard’s The Real Thing did for me. Indeed seeing the smiling faces and spontaneous giggles of the vacating audience, I think they too had a smashing time.

As fun as it was, this was not just a bit of summery feel good frivolity. This was a play as profound as it was uproarious. A play steeped in literary, philosophical and even musical allusion. It’s great achievement was how in addition to presenting intellectual insights, this was much more than a critic’s masturbatory aid. Unlike some Stoppard productions it did much more than celebrate its own cleverness. For at its core was the rather life affirming idea that underneath all the bullshit, even though there may not be a real thing, or any truth, we can still have a jolly good time. I’m tempted to paraphrase this as a sort of English Postmodernity.

Our story begins with another story, in fact one of the plays written by our main character Henry. The basic form of the story will be repeated throughout: a couple meets on the day when one of the couple learns the other has been cheating. This play within a play catches the countenance of them all; a fiction from which none of them can escape. In a fantastic directorial touch, this archetypal story is played out with no stylistic distinction from the rest of the story.

From there we chart the ups and downs of Henry, his wife Charlotte, Henry’s lover Annie, Annie’s husband Max and an obscure ‘political’ prisoner called Brodie. To reveal the subsequent story line would take up too much space that is better spent on the achievement of the cast and crew. But in brief, after the Max’s show, he and his wife host a drinks party at which Henry and his lover decide they better start getting serious about their affair. Soon they do just this, even though Henry and his wife continue to live together. Henry’s lover becomes implicated in the freeing of a ‘political’ prisoner, who was arrested for trying to burn down the cenotaph.  In her noble bid to help his cause, she attempts to get Max to rewrite Brodie’s play in order to get him released. And then all manner of affairs begin.

Any summary won’t do justice the real driving force of the narrative: the wonderful characters. What unites them is there eminent self-awareness, at no point is any subtext allowed to linger. In the space of seconds any one of them can lay any other bare: and they know it. Even this isn’t subtextualised, Max at one points out that there is nothing underneath the various masks everybody puts on. Its like Oscar Wilde meets Derrida-ean deconstruction. Yet in spite of the nihilism, the play retains a warmth and an optimism.  

Responsible for this achievement is the cast and the direction. You can just tell that they were really enjoying themselves throughout and yet not once did they loose control or professionalism. It’s a testament to Seamus Lavan’s characterization of Henry that you come out thinking he probably looks exactly like Henry would look like. What Lavan really manages is the inception like task of intelligently playing an intelligent character that is intelligently written. It is thanks to the ease and panache with which he pulls this task of, that part of the success of the play is derived. For play indeed comes together by unifying Stoppard’s many intertwined narrative layers, from the character of Stoppard’s style to the style of his characters’ characters.

Lavan is most certainly not alone is his excellence. His first counterpart is his wife Cara Pacitti, who assumes a wonderfully entertaining harshness towards him. Pacitti’s venomous but poised commentary to her husband’s life always made a refreshing counterpoint to the dialogue. Henry’s second counterpart is his lover in the form of Daisy Hayes. Hayes has a tough balancing act to play being at once an extremely sensitive and smart character but also clingy and naïve. Her skill in juggling these extremes goes a long way in carrying the momentum of the play in the middle section. Alongside these interchanging lovers we have the poor Max who is married to Hayes’s character. Played by John Dinneen, Max is that poor hapless character nobody takes seriously. As such he is probably one of the few un self consciously funny people in the play. Dinneen really showed of his versatility when, playing one of Henry’s characters and then switching into a completely different personage as Max.  

All of this leaves the largely absent and yet hugely central Brodie played by Daniel De Lisle. De Lisle really resembled Begbie from Trainspotting. Like Begbie, you weren’t too sure how much to laugh and how much to be scared of him. Put him in an Oscar Wilde(esque) play and throw a box of hummus in his face and the results speak for themselves. Accompanying these wonderful performances were two cameo appearances from Maddy Walker as Henry’s daughter and Freddie Waxman as a rival playwright. Walker’s discussion with Lavan about the merits of boiler room virginity and Latin classes has to be one of the highlights of the production. Equally, Waxman’s train carriage seductions really take the idea of theatrical pretension to untold heights (trust me as a critic I know).

All in all, one of the few productions that lives up to the greatness of the text. The result is a warm hearted and uproarious take on the nihilism that results from an age of endless ironic self-reference and relativized discourse. Yet in spite of identifying the emptiness at the end of this deconstruction of the self, the other and the act of love itself; the play makes you glad to be alive. Great stuff.  

★★★★☆

Imagine theatre without Aristotle. Let’s get rid of the constraints that come with time, place and action having to be consistent throughout. Let’s get rid of the convention that characters are of high social standing in tragedy or of low social standing in comedy – in fact, why even bother with having a person as the protagonist at all? And while we’re at it, let’s also scrap the rule of one actor playing one character. I don’t even need to say that male characters, let alone actors, have no place in this theatre. But hold on with your judgment for a moment.

Emily Albery’s production in the Burton Taylor in Week 4 offered some material for thought on this. String of Pearls by Michele Lowe is the story of a necklace. The metaphor in the title is therefore just as catchy as it is pervasive in a 90 minutes play. Originally a present to Beth from her husband, the necklace presents the missing piece in her granddaughter Amy’s wedding. The necklace, as we find out, has in fact made a journey all over America and even to Paris. Whoever get hold of it falls into some trouble and passes it on – sometimes unwillingly and often unknowingly – to another woman, who is to continue the story.

The necklace is the only bit of continuity, a lifeline both for the plot and for the audience. Superficially unrelated monologues are connected only by the reoccurrence of the necklace in another owner’s hands. But ‘owning’ is already a difficult word here, because for the audience the necklace really takes on a life of its own. With a constant deliberate mystery around the women interacting with it, the necklace becomes the lifeline for the audience’s attention. We empathise with it when the pearls are scattered over a hotel room, or when the necklace is cast in the Hudson River. We even feel a bit of catharsis when it is finally united with Beth.

With the necklace’s dominance also comes a new view on the other characters. The small but very good cast of Helene Bonnici, Emma Buchy-Dury, Alice Moore and Alex Worrell handled a total of 27 characters between them. Under the directing of Caitlin Jauncey, they played nicely with the cold and sometimes even disturbing distance that the exclusive use of monologues – occasionally two happening at the same time – created between the women. Scarcity in props and the absence of a background setting was matched by predominantly plain black costumes.

Of course, all this was necessitated by the immense speed with which the events moved from one place and time to the next. One actress immersing herself and the audience into one character and her story, as the other actresses are sitting on stage, arranging hair and props for the next scene, made the theatrical point of the production clearly: We, the audience, are doing the job of putting it all together. We, the audience, have to connect the scenes as if we are connecting pearls, one at a time, all seemingly the same and hopefully coming together at the end. In giving us these individual pearls, Lowe’s style, albeit dominated by narrative, is refreshingly colloquial but not forced. While she largely abstains from derogatory terms or obscenities these achieve some great effects and laughs when comedy is intended.

Constantly switching between the women’s mundane and quite archetypal lives and the deeper connection of the necklace between them, the viewer is occasionally taken aback by a wonderful little scene. But only rarely did the play escape its own bigger picture to create genuine drama within a particular monologue itself, often with the aid of very sensitively chosen music. The highlight in this must be the final story of Kyle, a woman looking after her mother, who is suffering form Alzheimer. The mother’s failure to recognize Kyle as her daughter, rather than the carer, provided for a powerful inter-character relation that was mimetic of the whole play, because the recognition is eventually achieved. Just as it took a long time for the mother to put the events together in her head, the audience’s search for how ‘it all hangs together’ comes to an end as Kyle sells the necklace to Beth’s new lover to be come a present for her once again.

Although it may not have answered it conclusively and in its favour, this production has put to us the question whether a play really needs the strong dynamics individual characters can develop over an evening, or the strong grip of a unified action, which the viewer can’t escape. Whatever our judgment on modern minimalist theatre and no matter how highly we honour our Aristotle, we have to see that it’s not impossible to make a play hang together without the glue of convention.