PERCHANCE TO DREAM

 

The only so-called “straight play” that I had time to see while in London was at the National Theatre… which, should you find yourself in the Home of The Big Ben, is usually a very safe qualitative bet. The quest for quality, however, is not what got me to cross Waterloo Bridge. It was curiosity.

The Motive and The Cue is a backstage drama about a series of dissonant rehearsals in the 1960s for the play Hamlet, to star Richard Burton, as directed by Sir John Gielgud.

I had met Sir John, when as a young MGM press agent, I handled the motion picture, The Loved One. The famed Shakespearean actor was one of the film’s many stars in a most worthy ensemble of players.

I had never met Mr. Burton, but I did see him play Hamlet on the Broadway stage over a half century ago… the very same production that this new play was about. All that supplied reason enough to get me to break away from a Saturday of shopping with my spouse and her pals to take in this matinee performance.

I had only been in London for little more than a day and jet lag loomed. Add to that--the growing fear as I sat in that theatre--that my kids might be right when they nag about my hearing. Throughout the first act I was in a battle between an inability to discern what was being said and a disinclination to stay awake.

At intermission I asked the couple next to me if they were having difficulty hearing… only the American half of the duo copped to having that problem. Ah yes, English as spoken by the English… “there’s the rub.”

I bit the bullet, went to the lobby, and picked up one of those hearing aids they loan for free at the National to folks such as me. That, plus a much more interesting second act, had me more engaged in the drama.

The actor who played Gielgud was spot on. Looked like the gentleman I remembered from our mid-1960s encounter and, best as I could recall, sounded very much like him as well. The Burton avatar did not make as many interesting choices as I thought he should and the gal who played Elizabeth Taylor said her lines nicely, but…. well … Elizabeth Taylor, she ain’t. The very best thing about the play was the staging of the last moments where director Sam Mendes truly earned his salary.

The 1964 presentation of Hamlet, starring Richard Burton, was a great commercial success on Broadway with sold-out crowds for the entirety of its 17-week run. Personally, all I remember of Burton’s Hamlet was that he chose to deliver the first half of “To be or not to be” off stage as he walked and talked while sort of throwing away what is perhaps the most famous soliloquy ever conceived. I was not impressed and remember one reviewer at the time writing, “the swordplay was well done.”  A damning “with faint praise,” bit if ever there was one.

I should not… will not… write of Hamlet without referencing Lawrence Olivier’s version and his 1949 Oscar winning motion picture of this most performed of all of Shakespeare’s plays (Google it. Get it. It is great).

And, as his one-time flack, it would also be remiss of me not to mention Gielgud’s 300 plus performances as the Prince of Denmark, all of which he assured me were even better than that of his Oscar-winning archrival.

 

My evening was capped off at the Kit Kat Club, recreated in the heart of London for yet another revival of the Kander and Ebb classic, Cabaret. If you are in London and you have never seen this fabulous show, then this is worth your time. When you have seen it as often as I, well… it is still worthy but not up to what I have seen in the past on stage or even on screen. The picking of nits aside, Cabaret remains an important work on a lot of levels… quite possibly even more important today given the current political climate at home.

If you have not seen the show…. or if it has been a while … you do not need to fly to London or New York…. check your GOOGLE machine and order up the 1972 movie directed by Bob Fosse, starring Liza Minnelli. Still, after all these years, a stunner.

Then, there is something called “Immersive Theatre.” Several years ago I attended such a production in an abandoned train tunnel in Washington, DC where the company of actors moved freely among the paying customers, interacting with anyone with whom they came in contact… and always in character.

As far as I could discern there was no plot for those of us in the audience to follow, even though there may have been a whole lot going on in the minds of the individual actors who I believed essayed their roles with talent, sincerity, and attention to detail. It was interesting… something to do… but (truth to tell) “interesting” is about all one could say for the evening.

Now comes the Bridge Theatre Company in London and their production of Guys and Dolls, the venerable Frank Loesser musical that has always been one of my favorites. It arrives, coupled with a new kind of immersive experience that has a point.

One could write about the uniformly excellent cast, the terrific pit band, the sets, the attention to detail, coupled with the imagination that enhances the entire evening. One could, but I will not.

What knocked me out was the staging, which had to include a good part of the audience that was immersed onto “the stage” itself… an audience that was obliged to ebb and flow, to allow ingress and egress to the players and the play itself… to follow the unspoken instructions of the ushers, costumed as mid-20th century New York police officers, that would allow the play to move on at its frenetic pace with nary a glitch.

The logistics of how such a thing might be imagined, let alone designed to actually work, boggled my mind. The enjoyment of the audience (both those participating and those of us observing) was enhanced geometrically. It is simply one of the better theatrical experiences imaginable… worth the flight across the pond to England where, with any luck, this production will be running at least through year’s end.

And, lastly, for even though we have several more days abroad, our final theatrical evening was spent at the Ambassadors Theatre’s presentation of ROSE… a one woman show, starring our good friend, Dame Maureen Lipman. It is hard to tell you how good she is without overindulging in hyperbole.

The play by Martin Sherman is remarkable for several reasons beyond its being very well written. For openers, it was created nearly three decades ago, performed by Olympia Dukakis in 1999 at the National Theatre, yet its two-hour plus length remains remarkably current (and, it turns out, prescient) in its depiction of modern-day antisemitism, and turmoil in Ukraine.

The one-woman monologue comes from the soul and mind of the 80-year-old Rose, who we find sitting shiva… mourning for the dead. It is, she tells us, “… not a religious thing; it’s just Jewish.”

You would think there would not be a lot of laughs in an evening such as this, but that is probably because you are not familiar with the unbelievably talented Dame Mo. Playwright Sherman provides her with several opportunities for tears and laughter and she lands solidly on each and every one.

This production will, most likely, not make it across the pond. And that, dear reader, is truly a shanda. 

What? You couldn’t guess? It means a shame.

 

Barney Rosenzweig