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Posts Tagged ‘Sheila Atim’

Time Is Love / Tiempo Es Amor

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , on January 11, 2019| 2 Comments »

I’ve had mixed experiences with playwright Che Walker’s earlier work, but I was positive about The Frontline and Klook’s Last Stand and this features Sheila Atim, also in Klook, who has wowed me thrice more and who has provided original music, so I booked as soon as it was announced. Though there are things to enjoy, I left the theatre somewhat befuddled.

It moves between 2016 and 2019, before and after Blaz’s period in prison. We meet his girlfriend Havana, his friend Karl, who may have betrayed him, and Seamus, the cop who caught him, a serial womaniser who has betrayed him in a very different way. Then there’s Havana’s friend Rosa and Serena the sex worker. There’s a nod to Othello, and the main theme is revenge, but there are a lot of unanswered questions, which leaves the story with a whole load of holes. Some of the dialogue is in Spanish and the setting is meant to be the Latino barrio of LA, but I couldn’t see the connection with the programme page on the Latin American gender-neutral term Latinx.

It’s all very film noir, somewhat Chandleresque, but with contemporary sensibilities, including a sexual frankness that occasionally made even me blush. Sheila Atim’s music is more of a soundscape, and a bit of a disappointment. It has a cinematic quality, helped by a screen the width of the theatre space on which stills and seemingly live video are projected. It has an atmospheric, sensual quality to it, but it didn’t deliver on the narrative front.

The performances are outstanding. Sheila Atim is as mesmerising as ever as Rosa, as is Gabriel Akuwudike as Blaz, and there are fine performances from Benjamin Cawley, Cary Crankson, Sasha Frost, and Jessica Ledon, visiting from LA, where the show was first staged. There were too many loose ends for me, though, in a show which was obtuse for its own good.

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Othello – Shakespeare’s Globe

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , on July 27, 2018| Leave a Comment »

For Mark Rylance’s return to Shakespeare’s Globe, as Iago, he’s paired with American actor Andre Holland as Othello, in a pared-down production by his wife, and the Globe’s former Director of Music, Claire van Kampen, and it’s good to report its success.

With just twelve actors, running at a little over 2.5 hours, there are cuts in both lines and roles, some doubling up and two actresses play male roles, but none of these changes seem to damage Shakespeare’s tragedy. If anything, by concentrating on the six main characters the story has more focus. Holland is a fine Othello, with his accent further emphasising the character’s difference. Rylance shows us a multi-faceted Iago, with touches of flippancy and humour, often speaking and moving around quickly, with makes him seem even more villainous. Emilia, too, gains in significance. It has more pace, without damaging the intimate scenes. Jonathan Fensom’s design concentrates on the costumes, which are excellent, so the performances can breathe in a largely unadorned space.

Holland and Rylance make a fine pairing, but there are other great performances too. Sheila Atim’s superb Emilia is particularly good in the final scene where she realises the role her husband has played in her mistresses demise, and she closes the show singing beautifully. Jessica Warbeck as Desdemona handles her emotional roller-coaster well, and has great chemistry with her husband. Aaron Pierre is a passionate Cassio, a professional stage debut no less. The characterisation of Roderigo is unusual, highly strung and effete, but it made him more interesting, and Steffan Donnelly played him very well.

After the audience ruined my evening at The Two Noble Kinsmen recently, I said that this might be my last visit to Shakespeare’s Globe. The theatre gods must have been listening, as last night’s audience was respectful and rapt, with moments where you couldn’t hear a pin drop, erupting in appreciation at the end. This was indeed a fine night at the Globe.

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Girl From the North Country

Posted in Contemporary Music, Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 31, 2017| Leave a Comment »

This play with music places songs by Bob Dylan into a story set in his home town in 1934, seven years before he was born. The title comes from Dylan’s version of Scarborough Fair, but here the north country is Duluth, Minnesota and 1934 was in the middle of the Great Depression. It’s bleak and beautiful.

Nick runs a boarding house, up to his eyeballs in debt. His wife Elizabeth has dementia, his son Gene is an unemployed wannabe writer with a drink problem and his adopted daughter Marianne (a black baby abandoned at the boarding house) is pregnant. All of his guests are down on their luck. Widow Mrs Neilson is waiting for her inheritance, having an affair with Nick while she waits. Mr & Mrs Burke are waiting for money they’re owed; they have an adult son Elias with severe learning difficulties. Bible seller Rev Marlowe and boxer Joe Scott turn up late one night. They might not be who they say they are. Joe takes a shine to Marianne, though Nick has other plans for her. Then there’s the doctor, who acts as our narrator.

It’s great storytelling, as we’ve come to expect from Conor McPherson, and somehow the songs, written 30 to 60 years later, fit the time, place and characters like a glove, though they aren’t sung in character or even by one character; they’re not there to propel the narrative, more for atmosphere. McPherson directs too, and for a playwright he makes a mighty fine director, unusual in my experience! The arrangements and orchestrations by Simon Hale have a period feel and they are are beautiful, breathing new life into the songs. The band wrap around the outstanding vocals, always accompanying, never drowning. The staging, and Rae Smith’s design, reminded me of the musical Once – simple but atmospheric, particularly the photographic panels that come and go.

I’m not sure where to start with the performances; it is such a superb ensemble, benefiting I think for limited musical theatre experience and bad habits! Perhaps I should start with Karl Queensborough, an understudy playing Joe, who really was excellent. Ciaran Hinds has great presence as Nick and towers over diminutive Shirley Henderson as his wife, who is unpredictable and edgy and has the most sensational voice which I’m not sure has ever been heard on stage before. Sam Reid is great too as Gene, delivering I Want You so well a woman in the front stalls said out loud a perhaps unintended ‘wonderful’. Sheila Atim, also in fine voice, is ever so good as Marianne and Stanley Townsend, Bronagh Gallagher and Jack Shalloo give a fine trio of performances as the Burkes. Probably the most experienced musical theatre performer, the great Debbie Kurup, delivers Dylan’s songs beautifully.

Some may call it a musical, some the now derogatory term juke-box musical, for me its a play with music and its it’s own thing, something unique, and I loved it.

 

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The Tempest

Posted in Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on December 12, 2016| Leave a Comment »

After the Donmar’s second all-female prison set Shakespeare, Henry IV, I suggested it might not be wise to do a third (https://garethjames.wordpress.com/2014/10/09/henry-iv-at-the-donmar-warehouse). Well, here’s the third, this time off-site in a purpose-built pop-up theatre in Kings Cross, in rep with revivals of Henry IV and the first in the trilogy, Julius Caesar (https://garethjames.wordpress.com/2012/12/20/julius-caesar).

Our entrance this time is through an ante room where we are penned as prison officers lay out the rules, which I can testify is an authentic prison entrance as I’ve experienced it for real at Wandsworth Prison a few times (attending a show!). In this specially created space we have an even more authentic caged prison gym with seating on four sides. After an introduction from lifer Hannah, we launch into the prisoner’s production of Shakespeare’s play.

It’s uncanny how the dialogue takes on real meaning for incarcerated women. It’s as inventively staged as the first two, with only items you would find in such a place for props and costumes. The performances are extraordinarily committed and passionate. A grey vest, tracksuit bottom and no make-up must be the most unglamorous stage get-up any theatrical Dame has donned and here Harriet Walter as Hannah playing Prospero is the beating heart of the piece. The great Sophie Stanton as Caliban is as at home as she was as a Dagenham Ford machinist or a Thamesmead mum or a series of Spitalfields barmaids. I very much liked Jade Anouka’s Ariel and Leah Harvey’s Miranda and Karen Dunbar was a terrific Trinculo. The last time I saw Sheila Atim, in Les Blancs, she was mute but hugely charismatic, which she is here, but with dialogue as Ferdinand.

I didn’t think the play’s story and themes suit the setting as much as the power, control and revenge of the previous two plays, but it’s a great pioneering achievement which will go down in theatrical history. Oh, and the blue plastic chairs are a lot more comfortable than the grey plastic ones at the Donmar, though not as plush as the Lazarus seats next door!

 

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Klook’s Last Stand

Posted in Contemporary Music, Theatre, tagged , , , , , , , , on June 23, 2014| Leave a Comment »

The Park Theatre seems to be finding its feet, and its audience. This was one of two packed shows, and two packed bars, on Saturday night. It was my first visit to the smaller theatre, Park 90, a black box space with seats on three sides. Only two actor-singers, a multi-instrumentalist and two stools, but a very original and powerful play with music.

Klook has a past, but his life takes a positive turn when he meets much younger single mum Vinette in, of all places, a Californian whole-food shop. They fall in love before our very eyes. We follow the relationship as it grows, with feelings laid bare and passion out in the open, learning about their respective pasts. The songs, by Omar (Lyefook) & Anoushka Lucas with lyrics by writer / director Che Walker, are lovely and beautifully sung with either a piano, acoustic guitar or double-base for accompaniment – all three by versatile musician Rio Kai.

There’s a great mood to the piece – film noir meets jazz in a passionate embrace – and there’s an extraordinary chemistry between Ako Mitchell and Sheila Atim. It ends tragically, and this is all the more shocking after an hour of love. It’s soulful and sexy, dramatic and dangerous, and completely original. Every component fits together brilliantly – Walker’s crackling naturalistic dialogue, songs that propel the story forward and performances that feel ever so real.

Do not miss this!

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