Who would’ve thought that brogues, neon glasses, a rucksack and a granny dress could look so fabulous together? And as for short girls not wearing long dresses, well that rule is out the window…
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Blog Page 1827
Street Style #4
Like no one else, this fashionista fights the dullness the typical Oxford attire of baggy hoodies and worn-down trackies. Eye-popping t-shirt and laces complement the beige and he’s even got a matching camera!
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Derelict in Menfi
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Week In Pictures (3)
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Review: Mona & Bea
Two girls, one wall, (and thankfully the resemblance to a certain YouTube clip possibly invoked by such a description ends there).
This new writing by Tim Keily is his exploration of the forging of relationships. Whilst Mona’s in the middle of a breakup, Bea’s embroiled in an affair. As the two next door neighbours live side by side, they begin to sense and affect one another. In a simple, symmetrical pair of rooms, separated by an invisible wall, a stark atmosphere is evocatively created. Watching this play there is the potential for an audience to feel as self-aware as the exposed minds of the characters and when Bea’s mobile rang several people sheepishly silenced their own- certainly a testament to the effect theatre can have.
In this play, the more well-established fourth wall takes a relative backseat, while the imaginary bedroom wall takes centre stage (both literally, and, well, not…). This exists as a conceptual barrier rather than a literal representation, giving the actors the opportunity to convey its existence more creatively than if there was a real barrier. Unfortunately this opportunity seems to have been missed in the extracts shown, with Mona (Georgia Waters) and Bea (Olivia Madin), both of whom give very watchable performances in other respects, doing little more physically than ‘connecting’ with a painfully wavering and often repeated palm-to-palm gesture in order to locate each other.
Imaginary paint and plaster aside, Waters and Madin create a startling contrast between their characters. Mona’s psyche is as cluttered as her room, her movements feverish and tense; Bea is ever-composed, simultaneously languid and wiry, with a confidence which becomes slightly sinister within the context of the landscape of exposed thought. The play opens with a duologue composed of disjointed phrases, well timed in order to produce occasional phrasal links between the two sides of the wall. The separation of their dialogue furthers an impression of the remoteness of their connection; Mona’s subsequent shrieks of “No understand! Yes?” in pigeon English serve as a testament to the impossibility of true communication.
These extracts served to showcase the germination of a set of great ideas. There is an overall impression of the potential to propel the two women towards something fascinating and disturbing, and I very much look forward to finding out what.
First Night Review: Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell
When I find myself in a (non-matinee) audience surrounded by white hair and bald heads, I cannot help but ask myself: is this really a play for me?
Such was my concern at the opening of Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell, essentially a two-hour lock-in in late 1980s Soho, spent reminiscing with the notorious drinker, gambler, womaniser, and sometimes journalist, of the play’s title.
The pub-interior scenery, alive with detail, prepared me for something like the recording of a sitcom, which was not at all the case, as the characters of Bernard’s anecdotes sprang from corners like invoked spirits, to colour and illustrate his words. Racing through various accents, voices, costumes, wigs and walks, the cast of only five skilfully evoke the entire population of Jeffrey Bernard’s London and beyond.
Although several references were lost on me (Lester Pigot, I hardly knew you) Jeffrey Bernard nevertheless makes an engaging protagonist, by no means alien. I could well imagine him stumbling into an episode of Black Books, lighting up a cigarette and defying anyone to drink more than himself.
Robert Powell’s stamina in the lead role was tremendous. I was impressed with his ‘drunk’ acting – not as easy as it sounds – that was undermined at first by the articulate confidence of his voice, implicitly revealing his prestigious acting experience, but I quickly and gratefully changed my mind when I realised he would be narrating for the next two hours, and a slur might lose its novelty before the clock at the bar reached 7am.
As Jeffrey Bernard plies himself with endless cigarettes and alcohol, Waterhouse’s play maintains an inexhaustible flow of jokes, anecdotes, puns, and ‘proper’ swearing – not a single white hair flinched at the ‘f*cks and c*cks’ flying about, and I ate my words (thankfully not Jeffrey Bernard’s) about this play being for oldies only.
Made interesting by the anachronistic feel for which it could also be criticised, Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell literally passes the time, as we wait for the landlord to arrive and rescue our anti-hero. This play is worth watching for the actors’ spectacular performances, and the execution of a pub trick that I shan’t attempt – at Bernard’s advice – until I am 50 years old and plastered with booze.
Review: The Nihilists
Nihilist is that kind of word that we all misuse and love at the same time. In order to set my mind clear about the term I went back to the good old dictionary (Google) for a clearer definition. Strictly speaking, nihilism is the doctrine of negation of all or many aspects of life. The definition becomes more interesting when Russian politics gets involved. Nihilism then became a political movement, developed in a time of unrest, to reject all authorities, it was a movement close to anarchy in its use of violence and bombs in aiming to stir social change. However, what does Oscar Wilde, the nation’s most famous late Victorian playwright, have to do will all those definitions?
Well, Oscar Wilde’s The Nihilists (or Vera as it is sometimes known), does not come even close to the expectations raised by a dictionary definition of the title. Written in 1880 this melodramatic tragedy set at the Russian court was both the author’s first play and his first theatre fiasco: ‘Never mind, Oscar; other great men have had their dramatic failures!’ stated Alfred Bryan at the time. Indeed as all great men sometimes fail, it is all the more interesting to observe the good and the bad they have produced. Matthew Perkins, the director, has certainly decided to take on a challenging play for St Anne’s Art Week. But why did the author not strike a success with his first show? Maybe because the text is over-literary and the writing not adaptable to the stage? That perhaps doens’t seem too bad a fault now when many, including myself, are addicted to the mythical figure of the most famous English dandy. If you are under the spell of Wilde, the epitome of wit and literary talent, you will love The Nihilists and affectionately forget about the unsuccessful monologues just as you would do with an old friend who tells you the same story over and over again.
The Nihilists as a play is not just the exotic story of a Russian court, it is the mirror of Wilde and he is everywhere in it, showing himself in different characters, from the paranoid Tsar, to the puns of the machiavellian prime minister who states: ‘To make a good salad is to be a brilliant diplomatist – the problem is so entirely the same in both cases. To know exactly how much oil one must put with one’s vinegar.’
What would the playwright himself feel about his first play being lovingly undertaken by a ambitious group of students daring to stray off the map? He once stated ‘Life imitates art far more than art imitates life.’ Let’s hope that the audience of The Nihilists isn’t too tempted to join the revolution, drawn in by great sentiments, beautiful slogans and invectives. Towards the end of the play Vera Sabouroff, our protagonist and hero, eventually chooses the path she is going to try to walk as a nihilist and a woman. What will you decide to do? Will you follow Wilde for better or worse, through his very first steps?
Independence Day?
Alex Salmond flew in to Holyrood this week in true presidential style; after all, he is Teflon Alex, the presidential campaigner who rose above party politics to steal a majority in the Scottish Parliament in last Thursday’s elections. When Tony Blair’s mandarins drew up plans for devolved assemblies in 1997, they concocted an arcane electoral system which flatters AV, with the sole purpose to prevent majority role north of the border. It has not.
Admittedly, he is an impressive figure: a man of conviction, so it seems. But thirteen months ago, a certain Nick Clegg (now the Right Honourable NC) was riding high on public naivety with no precipice in sight. Who ever thought that reality would be so different from utopia? The turning point for the Deputy Prime Minister was tuition fees; the focal point for Salmond will be the inevitable referendum for Scots on independence.
Scottish independence is actually more broadly supported in England than in Scotland, with the latest YouGov poll reporting 41% in favour in England as opposed to 28% in Scotland, sixteen points fewer than the support for the SNP at the election. Despite the deficit of public support, Alex Salmond’s credibility will hinge on whether he delivers this referendum. Public opinion is transient – not least when there’s a contentious union-related issue afoot, and there might be two: when Westminster cuts bite in Scotland’s vibrant state sector and if the Barnett formula, which dictates Scottish funding arrangements, is calibrated.
However, the SNP leader is astute and must know that tearing up the Act of Union presents a poisoned chalice. What share of the UK national debt would Scotland bear? What about their contribution to Union’s pension liabilities? Let’s also not forget that the rather disproportionate £8bn annual subsidy that flows from Westminster to Holyrood, which pays for free health prescriptions, free university education and other goodies, would stop. Republicans say that the repatriation of North Sea oil reserves and revenues would cover the loss in subsidy. That is untrue; the omnipotent UN Law of the Sea defines territorial waters as those within a line drawn at the angle of the border of two countries at the coast. This conveniently places a significant amount of the oil and gas reserves in English hands, and deprives the SNP of their would-be revenue-raiser. Scotland’s economy has a per-capita income which is lower than the UK average, and that is before you remove the subsidies and repatriate the UK public sector workers who are based there. Quite simply, the Scottish would be worse off with independence.
So perhaps it is not much of a surprise that independence is more popular among the English than the Scottish; it’d help our economy. Ironically, as a unionist party, the Conservatives would benefit too. Labour have forty-one seats in Scotland; the Liberal Democrats hold eleven, whilst their coalition partners have one. Suppose we run the 2010 general election again but ignore Scottish MPs; the Tories would now have an outright majority of nineteen.
His own people don’t want independence, and I have a sneaking suspicion that he doesn’t either. But he does want to be a proper president with the powers to tax, spend, place his trotters over the nuclear button and land in a Marine One: an upgrade from the rented G-CYRS he calls Saltire One. There’s broader support in Scotland for that.
Will Salmond try and water down the referendum to achieve these grand ambitions? Probably. The Prime Minister’s best hopes of keeping the structure of the Union as it is now is to sanction a referendum only on full independence. He only need consider changes to this strategy if the public mood in Scotland change.
Method Directing
Method acting is a term I don’t really understand; there is a method to everybody’s acting. At least I hope there is. Once the Pandora’s box of these technical terms has been opened, a veritable whirlwind of incomprehensible dramaturgical jargon is unleashed, from which there is no respite. As a general principle when directing, I try to avoid using or even thinking in terms of this argot because it makes everything far too clinically precise and scientific. Precision and scientific accuracy are hardly desirable qualities when creating drama, which should be an entirely free and natural process.
If forced to choose, the dramatic ‘method’ that I identify with the most is probably the Stanislavski method, which sounds rather like a particularly painful orthodontic procedure. In reality it simply refers to a technique through which an actor analyses both his own and his character’s motivations to arrive at an ‘inner truth’ that is a confluence between the two.
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I think that’s probably enough directorial pseudo-intellectualism for now. The second week of Brideshead rehearsals has now rolled by and, from what I’ve seen in rehearsals so far, I will be very surprised if you leave the theatre unmoved. At odd moments in the day, certain phrases from the rehearsals echo back to me: ‘I was looking for love in those days’. The words seem to breathe the heady scent of summer and hope, faintly tinged with bitterness and regret. We have taken to rehearsing outside, on the lush, verdant lawns of Corpus – ostensibly to improve vocal clarity – but, in reality, so we can soak up the Brideshead-esque atmosphere, as if we need an excuse. The tortured struggle of the protagonists is rendered especially tragic when contrasted with the absurdly beautiful background of their lives. It seems that unrequited love, guilt and regret know no bounds, social or otherwise.
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Perhaps the Brideshead purists – they’re quite easy to spot really, just look for someone wearing a white linen suit at Park End who is accompanied by a large teddy bear – will demand my head on a plate, but I have taken the odd liberty when adapting the novel. The transposition of that heart-rending scene in Morocco to a quasi-reality sequence at Brideshead is one of them, which, for a start, allows us to dispense with having to fill the stage with sand and the odd moth-eaten fez.
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During rehearsals, the same question keeps on recurring. Who is Charles actually in love with? Sebastian? Julia? Brideshead itself? My opinion this week, although doubtlessly I will change my mind before long, is that though Charles would never admit it to himself, he is actually in love with the aristocratic world of decadence and aestheticism that Sebastian and Julia represent and reflect in their own personal beauty.
But also: How should Charles stroke Sebastian’s hair? It’s the small things that get us in a muddle at the moment, but we can only live in hope.