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One Million Tiny Plays About Britain
By Craig Taylor. A Citizens Theatre review.
ROS Philips brings Tardis-like powers to her inspired staging of Craig Taylor's miniature dramas, originally serialised in the Guardian and now brought vividly to life as the plays they always aspired to be. The warping of the space-time continuum is partly in Jason Southgate's design, which makes resourceful use of the small upstairs studio, transforming the space ingeniously from a city park to a commuter train, from an estate agent to a kebab shop, from a prayer room to a hospital.
My Name is Rachel Corrie
By Alan Rickman and Katherine Viner. A Citizens Theatre review.
THIS week, the parents of Rachel Corrie bring a civil suit against the Israeli defence ministry over the cause of their daughter's death. The 23-year-old campaigner was crushed by a bulldozer in Rafah as she stood in peaceful defence of Palestinian homes in 2003. Her parents hope to put on the public record that the killing was intentional.
 Alex Robertson and Isabella Calthorpe in Backbeat at the Citizens Theatre. Pic: Richard Campbell |
Backbeat
By Iain Softley. A Citizens Theatre review.
THEATRE is ill-equipped to represent other art forms. It can cope with portraying a brilliant painter, but struggles to show off a brilliant painting. It can convince us that a play's characters are in a top pop group, but risks shattering the illusion the moment they start strumming their guitars. That is why it is bold for writer and director Iain Softley to bring his 1994 movie to the stage.
Cinderella
By Alan McHugh. A Citizens Theatre reivew.
MOST archetypal stories keep their psychological significance buried beneath the surface. Not so this Cinderella. As playwright Alan McHugh has it, this is a tale about the need for a good mother. And to underline the point, the mother shows up from beyond the grave.
Topdog/Underdog
By Suzan Lori Parks. A Citizens Theatre review.
ONE brother is called Lincoln, the other Booth, products of an errant father with a mischievous sense of humour. Their names should give a clue to how Suzan-Lori Parks's two-hander turns out, not least because Lincoln has a job in an American amusement arcade for which he must dress up as the president on the day of his 1865 assassination, while unemployed younger brother Booth stays at home with a handgun for protection.
 Maureen Beattie as Mrs Alving in Ghosts Pic: Eamonn McGoldrick |
Ghosts
By Henrik Ibsen. Citizens' Theatre review.
"ALL of us are haunted by dead ideas and dead opinions," says the matriarchal Mrs Alving in Ibsen's drama about new ways of living and old skeletons in the closet. Ironically, 130 years down the line, it is the dead ideas of Ibsen that haunt today's stage. No modern playwright would be able to get away with an opening act in which Pastor Manders tells Alving not to take out insurance on her new orphanage, followed by a closing act in which the orphanage burns down. The mechanics are just too obvious.
Sub Rosa
By David Leddy. Citizens' Theatre review.
WAS ever a penny dreadful as lurid as David Leddy's Sub Rosa? A site-specific journey into the bowels of a theatre built in 1878, it is as if a rococo Victorian melodrama has been laced with the ugly authenticity of the in-your-face playwrights of the 1990s. By offsetting a story laden with murder, sexual exploitation and back-street abortions with a romantic promenade through wardrobes and scenery stores, Leddy creates a show that is as ravishing as it is unpleasant.
The Caretaker
By Harold Pinter. Citizens' Theatre review.
A few months ago, the talk was all about white, working-class males feeling alienated in a multicultural society. Whatever the merits of that analysis, Harold Pinter was on the case first, nearly 50 years ago. In Davies, a tramp who suffers the double-edged hospitality of two brothers, the playwright offers us a character whose fortunes are never so low that he can't take a pop at the neighbourhood "blacks". This derelict, who scarcely has a pair of shoes to call his own, has too much pride ever to think himself on the bottom of the ladder..
Don Juan
By Goldoni/McDonald/Raison. Citizens' Theatre review.
IT worked for John Simm in Life on Mars, so why not for Mark Springer in Don Juan? Like DCI Sam Tyler in the TV series, John D is a modern-day man who, thanks to some jiggery-pokery in the space-time continuum, finds himself in a bygone era. The production doesn't make clear whether he is a Max Clifford-style media manipulator or a pop celebrity, but by the time he wakes up in the 1730s, it's plain he is a real Don Juan.
The Sound of My Voice
Adapted from the novel by Ron Butlin. Citizens' Theatre review.
EMERGING a few years after Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City and predating TV's Mad Men, Ron Butlin's short novel is part of a subgenre of alcohol-fuelled, midlife crises in the workplace stories. But where the US equivalents are set in the glamorous worlds of magazines and advertising agencies, Butlin's debut revolves around a biscuit factory. In Jeremy Raison's good-looking studio adaptation, Morris Magellan is a family man and successful company executive, skilled enough at his inane job to disguise his dependency on brandy. Played by a dextrous Billy Mack, squirming in his suit like an inebriated Lee Evans, he is all charm and charisma, despite the self-loathing. It is a fine, fluid performance that manages to make a repellent character endlessly watchable.
Waiting for Godot
By Samuel Beckett. Citizens' Theatre review.
IT is a particularly British pair of tramps who pace the stage in Guy Hollands' production of the Beckett perennial. In their bowler hats and overcoats, Gerry Mulgrew and Kevin McMonagle are genial old boys, polite and stoic in the face of the existential void that lies but a music-hall routine away. They get irritated, of course, but they are governed by make-do-and-mend values and reasonableness. When Mulgrew's Vladimir tells McMonagle's Estragon, "You're a hard man to get on with," he gets one of the bigger laughs of a chucklesome evening, as much as anything because he is doing his level best to get on in such impossible circumstances.
25 September 2009 The Guardian
Hamlet
By William Shakespeare. Citizens' Theatre review.
WHEN John Kazek's Claudius first takes his leave of Hamlet, played by Andrew Clark, he gives him a long, lingering kiss on the lips. Fletcher Mathers as Gertrude follows suit in a gesture less of misplaced Oedipal desire than of arrogant sexual control.
 Angels in America, Citizens' Theatre Pic: Photo: Manuel Harlan |
Angels in America
By Tony Kushner. Citizens' Theatre review.
IF you want a masterclass in acting and stagecraft, not to mention the joy of a thrillingly ambitious piece of writing, clear your diary for Angels In America. There's no question Tony Kushner's "gay fantasia on national themes" puts demands on your time - it comes in two parts, both over three and a half hours - yet Daniel Kramer's brilliant staging with a flawless cast of eight compels you to savour every minute.
The Bevellers
By Roddy McMillan. Citizens' Theatre review.
 Shadow of a Gunman, Citizens' Theatre |
13 November 2006 The List
The Shadow of a Gunman
By Sean O'Casey. Citizens' Theatre review.
THE temptation with Sean O’Casey’s celebrated Dublin trilogy, which began with The Shadow of a Gunman (1923) and continued with Juno and the Paycock (1924) and The Plough and the Stars (1926), is to present them as knock-about Oirish comedies full of loveable old rogues and working-class chancers. That they have their funny side is not open to question - O’Casey had a fantastic ear for language and a keen eye for a larger-than-life character - but he was also a fiercely political animal and to overplay the comedy is to diminish his serious purpose.
The Shadow of a Gunman
By Sean O'Casey. Citizens' Theatre review.
TIME and space are the distinguishing qualities of Philip Breen's staging of the Sean O'Casey classic. He takes two diversions from the traditional presentation of the Dublin tenement tragedy; both are risky, and both pay off. The first is to play the two-act drama without an interval; the second is to break the mood of naturalism with a set without walls, the furniture of Seumas Shields' rented room fronting an open stage.
 Liam Brennan and Meg Fraser in Tom Fool, Citizens' Theatre Pic: Richard Campbell |
Tom Fool
By Franz Xaver Kroetz. Citizens' Theatre review.
IMAGINE an Arthur Miller hero brought so low that he didn't even have the American dream to hang on to. That's what Otto Meier is like in Franz Xaver Kroetz's bleak 1978 three-hander, Mensch Meier, performed here for the first time as Tom Fool in a translation by Estella Schmid and Anthony Vivis.
Blood Wedding
By Lorca. Citizens' Theatre review.
IT was a clever move for director Jeremy Raison to team Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet with Lorca's Blood Wedding in this mini-rep season. It isn't only that both are tales of young lovers compelled by social circumstance to meet a bloody end, it's also that we get to watch the same actors trying out similar but different roles. One night you can see Iain Robertson and Lorna Craig killing themselves for love in a Glasgow mortuary in Gregory Thompson's relocated Shakespeare, the next you can see them doing much the same in a scorching Spain.
 Iain Robertson and Lorna Craig in Romeo and Juliet, Citizens' Theatre |
Romeo and Juliet
By William Shakespeare. Citizens' Theatre review.
WHEN Jimmy Chisholm, as a Capulet, breaks into a karaoke version of George McCrae's Rock Your Baby at a back-yard barbecue, you start to wonder if director Gregory Thompson hasn't taken things too far. The blasts of 1970s disco, the flashing lights, the wall of colourful graffiti that dominates Giuseppe Di Iorio's set ... how desperate can you be to show the kids that Shakespeare's, like, really cool?
Molly Sweeney
By Brian Friel. Citizens' Theatre review.
JM Synge's play The Well of the Saints is about two blind beggars who have their sight restored by a miracle worker. They don't much care for what they see and insist on being returned to blindness. Brian Friel takes a similar idea in his 1994 play Molly Sweeney, except that in place of Synge's robust comedy, he creates a sad psychological realism. Without sight for all her 40-odd years, his title character is traumatised to the point of insanity when an operation gives her some limited vision.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
By Lee Pockriss, Hal Hackady and Henry Farrell. Citizens' Theatre review.
IN many ways it is a perfect fit. Take a film that's become a camp classic thanks to the diva performances of Joan Crawford and Bette Davis, sprinkle it with songs to add to the flamboyance, and stage it with old-style poise and pizzazz. It's hard to think of a more celebratory way to herald the arrival of Glasgay, the city's festival of queer culture.
Mystery of the Rose Bouquet
By Manuel Puig. Citizens' Theatre review.
"WOMEN are all liars," yells Anne Myatt in the second half of Manuel Puig's strange, intense two-hander. It's a questionable sentiment, but one that makes most sense of the master-servant relationship that develops between Myatt's elderly patient and Julie Austin's private nurse. The contradictory evidence that we gather from barbiturate-fuelled dream sequences and rose-tinted flashbacks makes it impossible to trust anything either woman says.
A Handful of Dust
By Mike Alfreds/Eveyln Waugh. Citizens' Theatre review.
SAY what you like about artistic director Jeremy Raison but he's made a seamless transition from the regime of Giles Havergal, Philip Prowse and Robert David MacDonald that ended in 2003 after 33 years. His staging of Waugh's comedy recalls nothing so much as Havergal's adaptation of Graham Greene's Travels With My Aunt.
Camping, Cleo, Emmanuelle and Dick
By Terry Johnson. Citizens' Theatre review.
LIKE his 1994 hit, Dead Funny, Terry Johnson's Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle and Dick marks the passing of a cheap-and-cheerful era of British comedy. Where the earlier play celebrated Benny Hill and Frankie Howerd, this one is a tribute to the seaside humour of the Carry On franchise.
The Borrowers
By Lynn Robertson Hay. Citizens' Theatre review.
ONE of the funniest running jokes in Little Britain features David Walliams as a diminutive Dennis Waterman seeking work from his agent. He's so small that everyday objects, such as chairs, doughnuts and telephones, constantly threaten to smother him. It's a surreal touch that adds an edge of wonderment to the sketches.
A Whistle in the Dark
By Tom Murphy. Citizens' Theatre review.
WE'RE used to seeing credits for set and lighting designers in theatre programmes, but how often does someone get a mention for the violence? Denis Agnew - for it is he - brings a very credible level of violence to Roxana Silbert's production of A Whistle in the Dark. It is the debut work by Tom Murphy, in which a family of five Irish brothers bring their vicious and ultimately self-destructive values to bear on early-1960s Coventry.
28 September 2004 The Guardian
Vernon God Little
By Andrea Hart. Citizens' Theatre review.
IT'S got the necessary flamboyance, sexiness and satirical intent, but something doesn't quite hit home in this first adaptation of the Man Booker prize-winning novel by DBC Pierre. That something is to do with the curious position that Vernon Gregory Little occupies in the book. On one hand, the 15-year-old boy - accused of complicity in a Columbine-style high school massacre - is the source of the novel's rage against the self-interestedness of small-town Texas. On the other, Vernon is an unreliable narrator; we can never be sure of his motives or his methods.
 Julie Austin as The Lady Aoi, Citizens' Theatre Pic: Richard Campbell |
23 September 2004 The Guardian
The Lady Aoi/La Musica
Yukio Mishima/Marguerite Duras. Citizens' Theatre review.
KENNY Miller's mini-repertory season, A Little Bit of Ruff, comes with a note of apology. He's put together five plays in as many weeks, using the same six actors, four of whom are stepping out as directors for the first time. Taking turns with this double bill is a pairing of The Ruffian on the Stair and 4.48 Psychosis, as well as the stage premiere of Vernon God Little. The hectic schedule means we should expect the rough and ready, not the polished.
22 September 2004 The Guardian
Thésèse Raquin
By Jeremy Raison. Citizens' Theatre review.
EMILE Zola's novel comes in three flavours. The first is boredom: the stultifying repression of the young Thérèse by her feeble husband Camille and his domineering mother. The second is passion: the primal sexual forces released when Thérèse and the brutish Laurent embark on an illicit affair. The third is guilt: the paralysing remorse suffered by the lovers after their drowning of Camille.
Nightingale and Chase
By Zinnie Harris. Citizens' Theatre review.
SHOPLIFTERS, wife-beaters, playground bullies - they're bad people, right? But look a little closer and the reality is rarely so simple. Behind any criminal act is a complex mess of desires, relationships and actions, few of them bad in themselves. Thus it is in Nightingale and Chase, a modest two-hander about a couple careering towards trouble in spite of their best intentions. The outwardly respectable Nightingale turns out to be free with his fists, and his younger wife, Chase, has aserious shoplifting habit.
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