London theater is becoming huge. Is this a reaction against the fast, let’s not breathe the same air for a long time pandemic games? Is there a need for all-encompassing stories, a hope that there is something that will outlast individual life or government? This month, Long Day’s Journey into Night reached the farthest reaches of family memory Player Kings crammed in huge Shakespearean dates. Now London Tide It struggles with the volatility and despair of capital. This is again an evening lasting more than three hours.
Ben Power adapts Dickens’ mighty work our mutual friend, efficiently packs heir-marriage-murder plots into a series of rapid-fire scenes on Bunny Christie’s obsidian set. He steered the action toward the moral and social concerns of the novel rather than its runaway weirdness, gave the female characters more say, and trimmed some of the satirical paeans: nouveau riche Veneers have no part in this. One of the main threats in Dickens’s stagings, which is reduced to a series of capricious grotesqueries that might be called Dickensian, is avoided. Bella Maclean and Tom Mothersdale are particularly clever: Maclean, with a crystal voice and a troubled pout; Mothersdale uses it to its fullest capacity to make the relic a strangely appealing feature.
The fluid alchemy of the novel is missing; constant change not only of character but of place
But Ian Rickson’s production is more than episodic, aiming to explore city life not covered by the character. It just doesn’t have enough enveloping vibrancy to pull this off. The boldest stroke is the inclusion of songs by PJ Harvey and Power. Accompanied on stage by Ian Ross (piano and guitars), Alex Lupo (drum set) and Sarah Anderson (keyboards), the songs continue throughout the night: chorus, solo, accusatory, insistent, melancholy, often with a footstep-like rhythm. They provide a dark, gritty undercurrent, but they don’t advance the drama. Rather, they simply repeat, like an ebb and flow.
Christie’s set of rising and falling iron lighting fixtures doesn’t look like 21st-century loft decor, but it’s evocatively determined. The evening would have benefited from relying more on Jack Knowles’s lighting, which undulates with twilight and reflections, and less on characters informing the audience about the blood-red sun. The fluid alchemy of the novel is missing; constant change not only of character but of place and, most importantly, of trade and finance. After all, it was Dickens’ genius to show that the city’s wealth was based on London’s great rubbish dumps. A dirty profit indeed.
American playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins makes it his business to roast old theater chestnuts. Inside Suitable, introduced the idea of family ghosts. Inside one eighthHe recast a 19th-century melodrama and made the actors white. Inside ApocalypseThe film, which director Eric Ting premiered in New York last year, is based on the theme of the reunion of former students; in this case, a reunion of former students 20 years after graduation. Such meetings are always based on unwelcome statements. But Jacobs-Jenkins’ surprises are unusual. An aura of otherworldly uncertainty surrounds actual encounters.
The opening moments are quite disturbing. Arnulfo Maldonado’s design, illuminated by Natasha Chivers’ cool mood, signals familiarity with the fade. In the middle of the homey veranda with swing benches and tired American flags, like another proscenium arch, is a door with a gauze curtain: people can appear ghostly as they pass through. When the evening’s effortless host, Anthony Welsh, speaks, he has a double voice: His words resonate as if they were on air. He is two things: a maturing man and his incarnation, well, that would be a spoiler… let’s say, something devastating.
Set in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic, the play lives up to the threat of its title by capturing a group shifting from youth to middle age, from easy friendship to danger, from life to death. Every character has a compelling moment of confession in the sudden spotlight. It’s strange that despite these static theatrical moments, the action continues to feel realistic. Yolanda Kettle, the wife of a former cop who explains that she didn’t actually storm the Capitol, is particularly good at conveying blinkered glee by leaping over a cliff. She arrives cradling a jar of goodies the size of a pork roast: “I got snacks,” she trembles.
The dialogue is casual yet impressive, with the group turning to old common slang. “If you hide too much, hiding becomes you,” one character warns. Who wouldn’t be proud to have written this? Or to have thought about the moment when two people listen to a series of sounds until they are beyond the range of the human ear. A character who is blind explains that his lack of depth perception makes it difficult for him to maneuver. Depth perception is exactly what Jacobs-Jenkins brings to the stage.
Talented but everywhere GünterCo-created by Lydia Higman, Julia Grogan and Rachel Lemon, and first seen in Edinburgh last year, the film stages a compelling history from 1604: a murder at a football match; a so-called spell; a witch hunt. The disintegration of the witch concept isn’t as surprising as the staging suggests – the message sometimes overwhelms the story – but the energy is amplified by drums and electric guitar, emphasized by modern-day echo, video of swelling crowds, and a taste of music. The 17th-century spookiness of animal masks: A salivating wolf is particularly unnerving. Rhyming nursery rhymes also require applause; It’s sad but true that “split ends” would probably equate to “no friends.”
Star ratings (out of five)
London Tide ★★★
Apocalypse ★★★★
Günter ★★★