Oxford Theatre News and Reviews
Educating_Agnes Reviewed THÉÂTRE_SANS_FRONTIÈRES Arts Centre to showcase the best of County's young talent_ Creation_Theatre__summer_season NARNIA_STAR_MAKES_STAGE_DEBUT_ THE_ENGLISH_GAME BRIAN_ALDISS on stage Reviewed Measure_for_Measure_ in Summertown Oxford.

Educating Agnes at the Oxford Playhouse.

A Review By Julia Gasper 17 May 2008

Liz Lochhead’s new translation of Molière’s classic “The School for Wives” makes a jolly good evening out. It is fast, funny and frisky, demanding bags of energy from the lead actors, especially Kevin McMonagle as Arnolphe, the elderly would-be husband of a virginal young bride. Arnolphe has to be on stage almost continuously throughout the five Acts, and this is a tour de force that he pulls off admirably. Arnolphe’s moods range from smugness, suspicion, astonishment, and bafflement to indignation, jealousy and rage as his plans to procure himself a perfectly submissive and faithful wife are utterly and totally frustrated.

Arnolphe is warned at the outset by his friend Chrysalde that it is a looney plan and cannot possibly work,

Between you, me and the bedpost, it’s a really crap idea…

but he has to learn from humiliating experience that women - even if brought up in ignorance - have a mind and a will of their own.

A lot of good sitcom is achieved when Arnolphe’s young friend Horace comes to confess to him that he is pursuing the attractive young ward of a silly old buffoon called De La Touche. He expects Arnolphe to help him woo and meet the girl, even to elope with her before her odious guardian can force her into marriage. He relates how he was hidden inside the girl’s bedroom cupboard, terrified, when her guardian, who imagines the house is impregnable, last stormed in to speak to her.

I couldn’t see a thing, of course, stuck there in that press,
But I could hear him trash the place, some mess!

Horace does not realize that Arnolphe, in the pursuit of gentrification, has recently adopted the name of De La Touche, and that he is confessing all his secrets to his worst enemy and rival. This is a lively and really amusing performance by a young actor whose name is not in the programme. All the supporting cast are feisty and colourful.

The part of Agnes is allotted to Anneika Rose, a young actress of Asiatic appearance, prompting a reflection that if we went further and set the whole play in Iran, Saudi Arabia or certain parts of Africa it would work very well and there would be no need for the 18th-century costumes. In many countries today there are women in prison for running away from husbands they never chose. Agnes is more fortunate. Thanks to a series of absurd twists of plot she marries Horace, and brutally tells Arnolphe that she will do as she wishes, regardless of his fuming and pathetic jealousy.

This adaptation into a Scottish idiom by distinguished playwright Liz Lochhead is a bold venture and a tour-de-force in itself. The title is of course a take on “Educating Rita” and Lochhead brings the comedy right up to date by mixing some traditional language with slang that is fearlessly “Now”. Yet she also renders the text into rhyming couplets, admittedly a bit rough and sometimes irregular but the effect is just right, racy, cheeky and full of surprises:-

From Kinsey to Cosmo, behaviourologists say, in no uncertain terms,
The so-called Open Marriage is a Can of Worms.

In accordance with this, the props contain irreverent touches such as metallic balloons and even a Tesco plastic bag, which deliberately puncture the effect of the 18th-century costumes and sets. The backdrop, of a female nude in the style of Rubens, being ogled by a wizened old man, reminds us of how women have been traditionally commodified for male consumers.

There is every reason why this show’s last performance tonight at 7.30pm should be sold out. Expect an enjoyable evening and don’t worry that it might be highbrow – you’d really never know this was a classic.

 

THÉÂTRE SANS FRONTIÈRES
COME TO OXFORD PLAYHOUSE

Tuesday 17 & Wednesday 18 June

On Tuesday 17 and Wednesday 18 June, Théâtre Sans Frontières bring the first UK stage adaptation of Laura Esquivel's best-selling novel COMO AGUA PARA CHOCOLATE (Like Water for Chocolate) to Oxford Playhouse.

Actors from Mexico, Nicaragua, the USA, Spain, the Canary Islands and the UK perform this gorgeous, sexy tale, told in Spanish with a little English.

COMO AGUA PARA CHOCOLATE is a passionate and sensual celebration of Latin American culture, set against the backdrop of revolutionary Mexico in 1910. The play tells the story of Tita, a young woman forbidden to marry because of family tradition and forced to watch her sister marry the man she loves. She cooks to quench her aching heart and her food stirs all who taste it, transporting them into a captivating world of magical realism.

Suitable for ages 15+, tickets for COMO AGUA PARA CHOCOLATE at Oxford Playhouse are available from the Box Office on 01865 305305 or online at www.oxfordplayhouse.com
 

WALL TO WALL ART SET TO SHOWCASE THE BEST OF THE COUNTY’S YOUNG ARTISTS

The search for Oxfordshire’s most exciting young artists is on. A countywide exhibition of creative talent by young people aged between 16 and 18 is planned to coincide with this year’s North Wall Festival and submissions are invited in any media, from charcoal to beach flotsam!

A prize of £500 is waiting for the overall winner in the competition which gives entrants the chance to see the best work curated and exhibited in the North Wall Centre’s contemporary gallery in Summertown, Oxford. Administrator Sarah Lacey said: “We want to put together a dynamic and exciting mix of artworks and are already receiving entries of a very high standard from all over the county. It’s inspiring to see what the region’s young artists have been creating. The Wall to Wall exhibition will be part of an exciting programme of drama, music, comedy and the arts during one of Oxford’s newest summer festivals.”

Competition judges include Jeremy Mogford, whose own collection of modern art is a feature of his Old Bank Hotel and Quod restaurant. The exhibition is a collaboration between The North Wall Arts Centre, the Sarah Wiseman Gallery and Broad Canvas.

Young people interested in submitting their work in painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture or graphic design/illustration should visit www.thenorthwall.com  for more information. Closing date for submissions is 2 June.
 

DV8

TO BE STRAIGHT WITH YOU

AT OXFORD PLAYHOUSE

Wednesday 30 April – Saturday 3 May

DV8's Artistic Director Lloyd Newson leads a multi-ethnic cast in a poetic but unflinching exploration of tolerance, intolerance, religion and sexuality, which comes to Oxford Playhouse from Wednesday 30 April – Saturday 3 May. DV8's new production is based on hundreds of hours of audio interviews collected throughout the UK with people directly affected by these issues.

 “TO BE STRAIGHT WITH YOU is a work about tolerance/intolerance, culture, religion and homo/sexuality,” says DV8’s award-winning Artistic Director, Lloyd Newson. “It is a verbatim theatre work based on 85 interviews and a series of vox pops conducted with people living in the UK. The interviewees include members of the clergy, asylum seekers, human rights organisations and people opposed to homosexuality due to their religious beliefs.  All the text used in the show is taken directly from those interviews.

“Many of the interviewees, particularly from ethnic minority groups with strong religious ties, requested that their identities remain hidden, fearful of the consequences should their communities discover their sexuality.  Despite the great gains in the law to protect gay people in this country our interviews show how lesbians and gay men, if they choose to become visible, regularly face intimidation and/or physical abuse.

“How does a society reconcile religious beliefs with human rights? Is freedom to love another adult of the same gender a human right?”

Always keen to embrace a new challenge Lloyd Newson set himself the task of turning the interviews into a stageable, absorbing piece of theatre that would involve more than talking heads.  Using movement, animated projections, words, music and an outstanding, international cast of nine, DV8 Physical Theatre presents a riveting show that is guaranteed to stimulate debate wherever it’s performed.

Tickets for TO BE STRAIGHT WITH YOU from DV8 Physical Theatre at Oxford Playhouse from Wednesday 30 April – Saturday 3 May are available from the Box Office on 01865 305305 or online at www.oxfordplayhouse.com

The New Theatre Stage Experience presents

BUGSY MALONE

New Theatre Oxford 7th - 9th August

Following the phenomenal 9,000 ticket sell-out success of Disney’s High School Musical in 2007, the New Theatre Stage Experience (formerly Live Nation Stage Experience) will proudly present their version of the Oscar nominated and BAFTA winning BUGSY MALONE from 7-9th August at NEW THEATRE OXFORD!

Set in 1930s America gripped by prohibition, this tongue in cheek musical centres around the rise of Bugsy Malone and the ongoing gang battle between Fat Sam and Dandy Dan.

Join Bugsy Malone and a host of other loveable characters at the New Theatre this summer, including Blousey Brown, Leroy Smith and Tallulah as they duck custard pies and spurge guns on an emotional journey of fate, friendship and trust.

In 2003, Bugsy Malone was voted #19 on a list of the 100 greatest musicals, as chosen by viewers of Channel 4, placing it higher than the Phantom of the Opera, Cats and The King and I. Hits including “Ordinary Fool”, “Down and Out” and the timeless “We Could Have Been Anything” make this show a must see for 2008.

The New Theatre Stage Experience production of Bugsy Malone will be directed by Rodney Howard with choreography and musical direction by West End professionals.

Sleaze Faces the Squeeze:

Measure for Measure

performed by the Creation Theatre Company.

Julia Gasper 26 March 2008

 At the end of this production, prison bars surround and trap the characters who have just been paired off in the obligatory happy ending. The same prison bars we have seen earlier caging the desperate Claudio, the defiant Pompey and their fellow-victims now return and close in around the entire cast, sentenced to marriages that are incredible or can scarcely offer any hope of happiness. The spotlight in the final tableau is on Angelo, shackled now to Mariana but gazing with longing at the upturned face of Isabella, the girl he really desired. Lucio is forced, under protest, to marry a woman he made pregnant, and restore her honour, whether she wants it or not. And Isabella, the novice nun, shrinks from the offered hand of Duke Vincentio, whom she had taken for a monk and confessor only a few hours before. Being ruler of this city-state, he is hard to refuse, but she is the girl who just wanted to remain a virgin in a convent. Marriage is synonymous with happy endings - isn’t it?  (Photo; Actors Isabella (Amy Stacy) and Claudio (Richard Neale)

 The prison bars are an inspired way of showing the unsatisfactoriness of the ending of one of Shakespeare’s least-known and least loved plays – a play that is roughly categorized as a comedy but often labelled a Problem Play. As much to do with lust as with love, taking for plot the result of a morality drive in a sleazy city overrun with brothels and permissiveness. A bawd and a pimp number among its characters, and Shakespeare outdid himself in sexual innuendo. At the same time it explores, in a disturbing and Lacanian way, the idea of justice and who has the right to impose punishment, giving a wider significance to the prison bars, the prop and symbol that runs through the entire production.

We have come to expect a high standard from the Creation Theatre Company, and this production, directed by Charlotte Conquest, does not disappoint. I have never seen a better Isabella than Amy Stacy. Every line, every nuance of this constantly changing role was full of insight, and she achieved the formidable task of making Isabella sympathetic to a modern audience  - at least, most of the time. She was helped by a powerful performance by Adam Newsome as Angelo. When stirred by desire and unhinged by power, he becomes really menacing and scary. Thus Isabella’s horror of his base demand for her virginity, as the price of her brother’s life, is rendered more emotional and more humanly understandable. Her eventual joy at seeing that Claudio is still alive manages to convince us that she loves him deeply. Will he ever forgive her for the choice she made? It is possible that, overjoyed just to be alive, people may overlook such things. 

 The role of “the old fantastical Duke of dark corners” is difficult for other reasons. Vincentio does not have to convey strong emotion, but he has to convince us that he is more than just an eccentric schemer who likes to put people through ghastly ordeals in order to test them and find out how they would react. In some respects he represents mysterious Providence, but this like everything else in the play is left thoroughly unsatisfactory. If the almighty is omniscient, why would he need to test people? Would he go around in disguise? Would he really resort to such ploys as the “bed-trick” – substituting partners in the dark – to arrive at a truly fair resolution? There is certainly enough frailty revealed by the characters in this story, in fact, the real problem is that so much has been revealed, there may be too much to forgive. Noel White acts a Vincentio who is uncertain and feeling his way, rather than all knowing and all-powerful. He needs to know Angelo better, and he needs to prove that his usual laissez-faire policies are better than severity and coercion. He is desperately improvising his way out of one problem after another.

 This is a production that has no weak roles and no weak scenes. Mistress Overdone’s costume is a masterpiece. A few of the jokes in the original script have been cut. Notes in the programme show that the production has taken notice of the editorial theories of Gary Taylor. Personally, I believe that Shakespeare wrote the comic dialogue between Froth and Escalus, about “what was done to Elbow’s wife?...” which is worth including, and I would have liked more of Lucio’s comic innuendos and interruptions left in (“Do you know this woman?” “Carnally, he says…”). One or two tiny details of pronunciation could be improved: when Vincentio in Act V refers to Angelo’s “desert” the stress must go on the second syllable. As for the name “Lucio”, while Italians would pronounce the c “ch” as in “church”, Shakespeare probably meant it to be pronounced like an “s” so that there is a pun on “loose” i.e. lax behaviour. 

 This is the first Creation Theatre Company production to be given at the North Wall Arts Centre in South Parade, Summertown. This venue, which only opened last year, may not be familiar to a lot of people, so it would be a good idea for the company’s website and publicity leaflets to say a bit more about where it is, how to get there by public transport if necessary and where the best places are to park. There is a yellow sign out on the ring road directing people to the production, but most would prefer a detailed map before they set out! The theatre is small but has comfortable seats and good acoustics, also a rather intriguing little gallery running all around the top, which must have dramatic potential. The building used to be a swimming-pool – quite apt really for a play that throws us in at the deep end of emotion and perplexity.

 This production is only running for three weeks, until 12^th April. So don’t miss it.