Of masses and fugues and “ops”
The lack of reviews may lead my few readers to believe or – perhaps be relieved to believe – that I have not been to see or hear anything since Christmas. My silence stands to be corrected. So here, collected into a single whine, are brief reviews are my culture outings over the last quarter. As the title indicates we will start with Gilbert and Sullivan. This season the English National Opera gave what it claimed last year would be its last performances of Jonathan Miller’s production of Mikado.
Mikado.ENO 30th January 2013
Mikado is probably the best loved of the G&S operas. It is now over 125 years since its initial record-breaking run in the Savoy Opera House built to showcase the operettas by Richard D’Oyle Carte. The Mikado remains Gilbert and Sullivan’s most popular operetta and this staging from 1986 still fizzes with all the champagne-cocktail style it evoked on its first night – which I attended all those years back!
Jonathan Miller has provided me with some of the best nights of my life. My debt of gratitude to him can’t be measured in mere thanks – he has quite literally changed my life: Figaro; Rigoletto; Carmen; Cosi Fan Tutti; but for me above all his Rosenkavalier are productions of such ingenious, such reflective thought, such stagecraft and bear marks of obvious love that Miller touches the soul of these masterworks whilst leaving something of himself with them, something which reveals only more of their genius. Few producers are so self effacing in stage-work. Miller has his own genius and obviously I’d imagine a big heart to feel so deeply both text and music. However, for many it is Miller’s Mikado that strikes a chord. It is dazzlingly inventive; so stylishly staged; with so many sly knowing nods to so many English vanities. Like the scalpel of Gilbert’s satire Miller’s production is surgeon-sharp. It cuts to the quick; it leaves no scars; it brings tears to the eyes; it fondly caresses Sullivan’s music as it also embraces Gilbert’s lyrics with equal affection and without any affectation.
Wittily transposing the topsy-turvy Victorian values of Gilbert’s mock-Japanese Town of Titipu to a Marx Brothers-inspired take on the denizens of a very English early 1930s seaside hotel, Miller’s production feels like the movies; the world of Novello; of Coward & Gertie Lawrence There was a starry cast of seasoned veterans and some welcome newcomers led by ENO’s resident master of the comic patter song, Richard Suart. Stuart celebrated his own 25th anniversary in the role of Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner. Though to be honest I think he brought little fresh to the role beyond new lyrics to the ‘little list’. I feel my only criticism of this would be that Gilbert’s original list was funnier on the night than the pastiche from Stuart. And I observe this kindly: the production is beginning to take on the very staid, safe elements which made G&S popular into the repertory staple of single-sex grammar schools and amatuer dramatic societies of the Home counties and from which dead traditions it was originally resurrected by Miller. Nevertheless beyond John Cox’s wonderful Patience which predates this Mikado, there has been no more successful version of any of the G&S operas I’ve seen. ENO has staged two monumental disasters: Ken Russell’s ghastly, awful, embarrassing, Princess Ida; and a dull and silly Gondoliers.
Perhaps time it’s for an new Iolanthe….which in my opinion is far and away the greatest single G&S. The cast for Mikado was great – Yum Yum was brilliant; Katisha arch if a little underpowered; Robert Murray a slightly screeching Nanki Pooh; and Donald Maxwell a dignified and vain but a vulnerable Pooh Bah.
Ko-Ko Richard Suart; Nanki-Poo Robert Murray; Yum-Yum Mary Bevan
Pooh-Bah Donald Maxwell; Peep-Bo Fiona Canfield; Katisha Yvonne Howard
The Mikado of Japan Mark Richardson
Pish-Tush David Stout; Pitti Sing Rachael Lloyd
Conductor David Parry
Original Director Jonathan Miller; Revival Director Elaine Tyler-Hall
Set Designer Stefanos Lazaridis
Costume Designer Sue Blane; Choreographer Anthony van Laast; .Revival Choreographer Stephen Speed
Privates on Parade at the Noel coward Theatre
This revival I was taken to rather at the last minute. I have affection for this piece as it was one of the formative things I saw in my early years in London.I went with my dear friend Philip Low in the 1979. Dennis Quilly was still giving his unforgettable performance – and then what was an extremely brave performance – as Captain Terri – I think John Cleese had just left the cast but I may be wrong.
The conceit of the show has an echo of the TV series ‘It ain’t half hot mum’ but this story is harder-edged; the satire altogether sharper; the characters both more honest and more vulnerable. I love the music, lyrics and the songs that capture both your heart but something much bigger – the spirit of the times. This is a repressive world of Imperial certainties and class immobilism being painfully reshaped by war, education and democratic-socialism
The story is of Steven Flowers being posted to the Song and Dance Unit in South East Asia where serving under the flamboyant Captain Terri Dennis where he discovers it takes more than just a uniform to become a man.
Simon Russell Beale plays the cross-dressing Captain Dennis whose performances of Marlene Dietrich, Vera Lynn and Carmen Miranda form the centrepiece of Peter Nichols’ award-winning comedy set against the murderous backdrop of the Malaysian campaign at the end of the Second World War.
Russell Beale was too big for this part in more than the metaphorical sense. Consequently he gave a rather stereotypical, if static, but overly camp account of this rather complicated character. Beale was was more drag-queen than female impersonator and that distinction is important – it’s the distinction between pantomime-dame and pantomime. It was as if if the character was being played for the amusement of the cast, like the antics from the back end of the pantomime horse.
The sense of Terri’s vulnerable personality was lost. Half-disguised behind the make-up; when, fleetingly, on stage and in the performance, are the only moments Captain Terri can allow himself the oxygen to be himself. For the rest his self-sacrifice of personal happiness is obscured behind a world-weary brittle wit that makes him both wise and vulnerable.
It is this that is meant to give the edge both to the character and to the performances. Otherwise it all becomes a rather vulgar star-vehicle for exhibitionist gay-drag pastiche of grand-guignol. And this vehicle was not designed to bear the weight of this star. We were given something better suited to the knowing audiences of the world of the Vauxhall Tavern of the Trolletes and Adrella in the 1980’s and 1990’s; rather than to the world where Captain Terri emerges a married man, even for his noble reasons it is an obviously wrong choice; that was the real world into which not only Danny la Rue but also Kenneth Williams and Frankie Howard emerged in the 1950’s.
Beale overwhelmed the story and the cast in quite the wrong way. I hated it.
Director Michael Grandage
Set and Costume Designer Christopher Oram
Lighting Designer Paule Constable
Choreographer Ben Wright