Review: Luv ★★★★ - Lots to love in this surreal 60s love-in

Reviving Murray Schisgal’s 1964 show, unashamedly a mix of absurdist humour and traditional Broadway comedy, is a gamble, especially given our current perspectives on matters of love, sex and the human condition. In lesser hands the gamble might not have paid off, but director Gary Condes has a fine understanding of the material and nudges his cast to find just that right blend between reality and cartoon that made the play a hit over 50 years ago.

The plot is straightforward and the end predictable, but the fun lies in the way we get there. Mercenary Milt encounters his old college friend, boho loser Harry, as Harry is about to jump off a bridge. As they talk, we learn that both men are equally unhappy, thanks to a wonderfully daft vaudevillian exchange as to who has had the harder life (reminiscent of Monty Python’s four Yorkshire men living in a shoe box). Milt wants to marry his mistress and he hits on the idea of offloading his current wife, Ellen, onto Harry, who has never experienced love.

Charles Dorfman’s lugubrious Harry catches the pathos of the character, but never lets the comedy get away. His foil, Nick Barber, equally balances the brightness of conniving Milt with real sadness. Elsie Bennett finds both steel and warmth in Ellen and the trio play up the pastiche combinations of realism, humour and farce that you also find in plays by fellow New York Jewish playwright Neil Simon, to great comic effect.

Designer Max Dorey evocatively creates the suicide bridge against a changing sky with lighting by Christopher Nairne subtly underlining the changing pace the text demands. It fits like a glove in the Park Theatre's intimate studio space.

(Baseball) caps off to the cast for maintaining the verisimilitude of period New York accents throughout and to Dorey for his Swingin' Sixties costumes. Buckland Theatre Company and Gary Condes deliver a satisfying send up of both 60s experimental theatre and Broadway in this delightful, witty revival.

By Judi Herman

Photos by The Other Richard

Luv runs until Saturday 7 January. 7.45pm (Tue-Sat), 3.15pm (Thursday & Saturday). £14.50-£18. Park Theatre, N4 3JP. 020 7870 6876. www.parktheatre.co.uk

Read our interview with actor Charles Dorfman

Review: Once in a Lifetime ★★★ - Sophisticated fun set in Hollywood at the birth of the talkies

When witty Jewish writing duo George Kaufman and Moss Hart wrote this back-of-the-movie-lot comedy, set at the birth of the talkies, neither had been to Hollywood, but they knew enough about the goings-on in the movie business to know it would suit their satirical wise-cracking style. Kaufman co-wrote The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers for the Marx Brothers and this witty habitué of the Algonquin Round Table never lost his sense of sarcasm. He said about one play: "I saw it under adverse conditions; the curtain was up!" The plotlines in their collaborations were primarily Hart’s while Kaufman focused on the witty, sarcastic dialogue.

It's 1928 and The Jazz Singer, the first all-talking picture, is a sensation.  Three struggling vaudevillians, sardonic May Daniels, smooth-operator Jerry Hyland and their stooge George Lewis, the "best deadpan feeder in the business", head west to present themselves as elocution experts, hoping to teach movie stars to speak on screen. With help from gossip columnist Helen Hobart, they’re hired by megalomaniac film mogul Herman Glogauer (Harry Enfield making his theatrical debut), who is trying to come to terms with talking pictures. "Things were going along fine. You couldn't stop making money – even if you made a good picture, you made money."

The three encounter a proverbial dumb blonde wannabe actress and her pushy mum, a playwright driven to distraction and then a sanatorium by studio bureaucracy, a silent-screen beauty with a screeching voice, and Glogauer’s faithful put-upon receptionist.

Glogauer hails dimwit George as a visionary genius, when he is the only one to tell him to his face that he turned down the VitaPhone sound film system. Glogauer makes him head of production and it all goes wrong – or right? – from there…

Director Richard Jones
 and designer Hyemi Shin set the action on a clever revolve, with lightning-fast set changes rolling through train carriages, offices and studios. The plot gains momentum as the action hots up. Claudie Blakely’s lightly acerbic May sparks off Kevin Bishop’s laid-back Jerry and John Marquez’s increasingly confident and funny George. Lucy Cohu’s wondrously-clad grande-dame columnist exudes authority, Amy Griffiths’ silent-screen star is literally a scream and Lizzy Connolly is deliciously dumb and dumber in a succession of wigs and gowns (all hail costume designer Nicky Gillibrand). And Amanda Lawrence’s receptionist steals scenes without pulling focus – her physicality, the mobility of her face, her comic delivery – she is simply riveting.

Harry Enfield’s Glogauer is curiously understated, though he delivers wonderful lines such as "That's the way we do things here – no time wasted on thinking" with (dare I say it) Trump-like panache.

And more please of that joyous sense of insanity and frenzy demanded by the plot, the lines and the built-in wise-cracking from a Marx Brothers scriptwriter. Richard Jones successfully populates the studio lot with a substantially smaller cast than in the original show. As his production gains pace, it will zip along in the gleeful and effervescent way the silly ploy and vivacious dialogue demand. It’s already a fun evening in the theatre with lots of laughs to be had in the run up to Christmas and a happy New Year.

By Judi Herman

Photos by Johan Persson

Once in a Lifetime runs until Saturday 14 January, 7.30pm (Mon-Sat) & 2.30pm (Wed & Sat only), note there are no performances 24 & 31 Dec, £10-£35, at Young Vic Theatre, SE1 8LZ; 020 7922 2922. www.youngvic.org

Review: All My Sons ★★★★ - Miller packs an emotional punch in Michael Rudman’s finely calibrated production

How strangely Miller’s first great hit resonates with today, in ways no one could have predicted. This beautifully measured play opens with shots of laidback family life in a typical American small town where everyone knows one another. Comfortably-off factory owner Joe Keller’s backyard is a focal point, where he and the neighbouring doctor are reading the papers. “What’s today’s calamity?” jokes David Horovitch’s amiable Joe. Cue gales of ironic audience laughter, with the US election so raw.

For a play that unfolds like a Greek tragedy, it’s surprising how much laughter is built into these opening scenes. But that’s the point: drama, and especially tragedy, is an interruption of routine.

Director Michael Rudman worked extensively with Miller himself, notably directing an award-winning production of Death of a Salesman starring Dustin Hoffman. So Rudman brings a huge depth of insider knowledge, as well as a sure directorial instinct for the pace of the story and the complex relationships between its protagonists. There’s a terrific cast here too and designer Michael Taylor’s unusually realistic set – cosy front porch leading onto a verdant garden – works especially well too  for a story that is all too authentic.

Keller is the father at the heart of Miller’s story, set in 1946. His younger son Larry is MIA in World War II and faulty aircraft parts manufactured in his factory caused the loss of other fathers’ sons. His deputy Steve Deever, who took the rap, remains in prison and although it’s known in the community that Joe is equally guilty, the Kellers’ lives seem unaffected on the surface. His wife Kate refuses to accept Larry is dead and his surviving son Chris wants to marry Larry’s girl Ann – daughter of Steve. And the Deevers used to live next door in what is now the doctor’s house, so those relationships are complex and uneasy indeed.

Horovitch’s Joe is all bluff heartiness, demanding to be liked and in pole position in both family and community, his guilt buried deep until events unravel. Penny Downie’s Kate is brittle in her bonhomie, steely in hope, her grief and guilt making her seem vulnerable, drifting almost wraith-like in long housecoats. Their relationship is clearly still physical. Like Claudius and Gertrude, they enjoy the fruits of a calamitous deceit and like the heroes of Greek tragedy they must be undone.

You can see why Francesca Zoutewelle’s enchanting Ann has fallen for Alex Waldmann’s intelligent Chris from the moment she skips into the yard like a breath of fresh air. He has a sense of humour and a conscience – a combination that would bode well for them as soulmates in any other circumstance. But Edward Harrison’s dark, angry George is an all too credible avenging fury.

Rudman told his cast: “Don’t sell the play to the audience. Make them come to you”. It’s a tactic that works wonderfully as the story reaches its tragic climax over the course of a day. Not simply a Greek tragedy, or an all-American one, but a human tragedy from one of America’s greatest Jewish playwrights given a production of which he would surely have approved.

by Judi Herman

Photos by Mark Douet

All My Sons runs until Saturday 19 November, 7.30pm matinees Thursday and Saturday 2.30pm, £8-£35, at Rose Theatre Kingston, 24 – 26 High St, KT1 1HL; 020 8174 0090. www.rosetheatrekingston.org

Review: The Merchant of Venice ★★★★ - Tchaikowsky’s opera builds brilliantly on Shakespeare’s play and receives a stunning UK premiere by the WNO

Andre Tchaikowsky’s opera is my fifth Merchant of Venice in little more than a year ... and somehow it seems entirely appropriate to end this, Shakespeare's quarcentenary year, with a new work of art inspired by one of his best-known plays.

The opera closely follows the play's narrative, shedding a couple of minor characters, notably Lancelot Gobbo, Shylock's servant and purveyor of comic relief, and Tubal, Shylock's confidant and the only other Jew in the Shakespeare canon, apart from Shylock himself and Jessica, his daughter.

John O'Brien's libretto skilfully weaves Shakespeare's words into effective lyrics for Tchaikowsky's stirring, challenging music. Composer and librettist work seamlessly together to do more. For opera can sometimes deliver something different. The exchanges in a duet are all the more intense because the characters sing simultaneously, but the words and music they sing can be different. This works especially well when Quentin Hayes excellently acerbic and magisterial Shylock orders his daughter Jessica (feisty Lauren Michelle) to lock herself in and not to listen to the sounds of merriment in the streets when he goes out to dinner with the Christians he despises. Moreover, in opera performers can and do repeat the same line to great effect, for example, Shylock repeats “I will have my bond!”, emphasising the inevitability and enormity of the revenge he intends to take for his daughter’s elopement with her Christian lover Lorenzo - and with so much of his worldly goods. Such repetition in a production of the play would almost certainly simply seem laboured.

Composer and librettist also make the effective decision to show Shylock’s rage and fury at what he sees as Jessica’s betrayal on stage, rather than have it reported by the gleefully anti-Semitic Salerio and Salanio, so Shylock gets to exclaim “Oh my ducats, oh my daughter!” . And to build this into a real coup de theatre, Shylock’s wrongs are magnified as he is baited by a baying mob, engaged in looting his house, carrying away armfuls of his possessions, including the eight-branched candlestick he would use at the Festival of Chanukah.  Another effective decision is to transpose the aria that is Shylock’s “Hath not a Jew eyes?” speech to the courtroom scene, where it packs a huge punch, especially after all we have seen him endure.

Keith Warner places the action in early 20th century Europe, his Shylock is a wealthy financier. He directs a cast of consummate singer/actors on designer Ashley Martin-Davis’ telling set – stark monochrome angles, tall walls and street corners, for Venice, with an interior of rows of money-lenders' desks like a cross between a stock exchange floor and a bank; which bursts into colour, especially the fun of lush greenery and an exuberant maze, as we are wafted away to Belmont, where Portia and Nerissa (wonderfully complementary Sarah Castle and Verna Gunz) lounge on sunbeds, in their Edwardian bathing dresses sipping cocktails.

There’s fun with the caskets as Wade Lewin’s brigand of a Prince of Morocco, a dancer rather than a singer, bounds across to shoot the lock off his choice of gold. And back in Venice, the trial scene, which leaves the broken Shylock covered by a shroud-like cloth, is, unusually, apparently held in camera rather than in open court. A telling directorial touch has Shylock haunting the final scene in Belmont, as Jessica and Lorenzo exchange lovers’ conceits, but disappearing as Antonio appears, as if he cannot share the terrain with his vanquisher. And the inspired idea of framing the action with Antonio on the psychiatrist’s couch chimes perfectly with Tchaikovsky and O'Brien's vision– and it works brilliantly for that telling first line “In sooth I know why I am so sad”, delivered to his psychiatrist – Sigmund Freud himself of course!

By Judi Herman

Photos by Johan Persson

The Merchant of Venice runs on Tuesday 22 November, 7pm, £10-£40, at Venue Cymru, Llandudno, LL30 1BB. www.wno.org.uk/event/merchant-venice

And on Wednesday 19 & Thursday 20 July, 7.30pm, at Royal Opera House, Bow St, WC2E 9DD; 020 7304 4000. www.wno.org.uk

A look at the life of Johann Peter Salomon, the Jewish-born musician, impresario and creative force behind Haydn's Creation

Ballet Rambert’s new production – with 50 dancers and 70 musicians from the Rambert Orchestra onstage, soloists and chorus from the BBC Singers, and designs by Pablo Bronstein – marries dance to the soaring music of Haydn’s mighty oratorio and its beautiful libretto, taken from Genesis and the Book of Psalms, as well as Milton’s Paradise Lost. It comes to Sadler's Wells this month after a hugely successful premiere at Garsington Opera in July.

These November performances of The Creation are elegantly timed for Jewish lovers of music and dance, as in synagogues worldwide we have just recently begun reading the Torah from the beginning again, with Genesis and the story of the creation.

A fascinating and little-known part of the story of the oratorio's creation is the role played by Johann Peter Salomon, German-Jewish-born musician, composer, conductor and impresario, in inspiring Haydn to compose the work. It was Salomon who provided Haydn with a libretto to draw on and refashion, that included those texts from the Bible and Milton. The pair seemed to have had a wonderful creative partnership, for Salomon originally brought Haydn to London, for the first time in 1791 and again in 1794. The symphonies Haydn composed specially for these visits are sometimes called the Salomon symphonies and as a violinist, Salomon joined Haydn to lead the first performances of many of the works he was inspired to compose in England.

Johann Peter Salomon was born in Bonn in the early 1740s into a family of Jewish musicians who thought it prudent for their infants' futures to baptise them. His sister Anna became renowned for her rich contralto voice and in Berlin, under the patronage of Prince Henry of Prussia, young Salomon composed several French operas with roles and arias for her to perform in concert.

Salomon was invited to Paris in the early 1780s and then to London, where he really found his niche. So much so that in 1790 he decided to visit Vienna to invite both Haydn and Mozart to come to London. It seems that both accepted, but sadly Mozart died in 1791. Haydn earned several hundred pounds and huge public adulation for the music he composed and played in London - imagine how the late Leonard Bernstein or Stephen Sondheim, Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan would be feted if they, came to London to premiere compositions especially composed for Britain.

It's said, however, that Haydn refused to pay his orchestra and Salomon had to pick up the bill, which he did with a good grace. Unsurprisingly, Salomon's Jewish origins meant he was regularly accused of being mercenary, even though many regularly took advantage of his good nature. When he was called a Jew, it was of course a derogatory term. Yet by all accounts he had a winning personality,  which made him popular with patrons and fellow musicians wherever he went. The gifted musician clearly had a good head for business too, a dream combination for an impresario.

Salomon went on to become one of the founder members of the Philharmonic Society and led the orchestra at its first concert on 8 March 1813. Salomon died in London in 1815, of injuries suffered when he was thrown from his horse, and is buried in Westminster Abbey. In 2011 the Royal Philharmonic Society instituted the Salomon Prize “to highlight talent and dedication within UK orchestras.” A fitting tribute indeed.

by Judi Herman

The Creation runs from Thursday 10 – Saturday 12 November, 7.30pm, £12-£45, at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, Rosebery Avenue, EC1R 4TN; 020 7863 8000. www.sadlerswells.com

Review: The Last Five Years ★★★★ - A poignant dissection, in a unique timeframe, of a relationship going nowhere

Jason Robert Brown's poignant, semi-autobiographical journey through a relationship, from heady first meeting to marriage and then downhill to disillusion and divorce, is an intimate chamber piece with just two protagonists: Cathy and Jamie. She is a struggling actress, he is a young Jewish writer on the cusp of  success.

The musical's remarkable USP is that Cathy and Jamie travel through time in opposite directions. She begins with the final break up and ends with the delicious moment of meeting – with all the excitement of possibility still ahead. He starts off full of the enticing novelty of his "Shiksa goddess" (shiksa being slang for non-Jewish girl) after all those nice, safe and suitable Jewish girls.

Jonathan Bailey and Samantha Barks seize the opportunities offered by this clever structure. Brown turns a fine lyric – “Jamie arrived at the end of the line / Jamie's convinced that the problems are mine / Jamie is probably feeling just fine and I'm still hurting” – and his music is both lush and nuanced. The show succeeds brilliantly in demonstrating the ultimate isolation of its protagonists, just because the structure dictates that they must spend most of its duration singing alone on stage to an imaginary partner.

It's an extraordinary relief when, at what is really the show’s climax half way through, they do at last have a duet of transcendent joy as he proposes and she accepts. I was left longing for more shared stage time and song. True the show ends with both on stage singing, not together, but as far apart as is possible to be. The audience is all too aware that the youth and optimism with which Barks shimmers is destined to have its shine dulled by Jamie's unthinking neglect. He climbs the slippery pole to success and has his head turned by the adoration of other women, while she remains earthbound, her career never taking off.

It's heartbreaking to watch Barks' beautifully realised account of Cathy unfolding like a flower in sunlight as she goes back to the time when she was full of hope. And Bailey is not afraid to be unsympathetic as success turns his head and he leaves his young wife at home for yet another showbiz party.

Brown gets away with directing himself, though it would have been interesting to see what an outside director makes of the piece. Derek McLane's design of window frames above a bare stage lit with squares of lights suggests New York apartment buildings and is supplemented sometimes more/sometimes less effectively by truck stages wheeled on and off. It seems a large empty space for just two performers at times; though the space above and behind the window frames is wonderfully filled by the glorious band – the plangent strings of two cellos, violin, guitar and bass, with MD Torquil Munro's piano, but no percussion in Brown's own orchestrations. And costume designer Gabriella Slade provides Miss Barks with a fabulous succession of entirely appropriate outfits for every stage of this sad little dissection of a relationship. An affecting evening.

By Judi Herman

Photos by Scott Rylander

The Last Five Years runs until Saturday 3 December, Monday to Saturday 7.30pm, Thursday & Saturday 2.30pm, £10-£59.50, at St James Theatre,12 Palace St, SW1E 5JA; 0844 264 2140. www.stjamestheatre.co.uk

Two consecutive evenings, two talented young Israeli performing artists, both with so much to offer

knock-and-falling

I rounded off October by spending two consecutive evenings being excited and challenged by the work of two talented young Israeli performing artists, both with so much to offer. Niv Petel is heartbreaking in Knock Knock, his beautifully nuanced account of a devastating situation faced by too many Israeli families, and Hagit Yakira attracted full houses for her exciting new work Free Falling.

Petel is an extraordinary physical actor, wonderfully convincing as a devoted mother whose son is the centre of her life. An engaging and important contribution to our understanding of life in Israel. And at Sadler’s Wells last week, dancer/choreographer Yakira presented four talented performers falling and recovering again as they take what life throws at them. Supporting each other, their eyes and faces as important as the rest of their bodies as they look out for each other. In a beguiling add on, three more dance artists responded to Free Falling – including full audience participation on the studio floor, everyone linked in a joyful dance – a sort of Hora at Sadler’s Wells, which makes Israeli dance so welcome. Niv Petel and Hagit Yakira are certainly names to watch.

Continue through the blog to read our reviews of Knock Knock and Free Falling, as well as an interview with Niv Petel, or click the names to go straight to each one.

by Judi Herman

A Report on Free Falling, the new show from Israeli dancer/choreographer Hagit Yakira at Sadler’s Wells

free-falling1

Hagit Yakira attracted full houses for her exciting new work, four talented performers falling, recovering and supporting each other, as they take what life throws at them. Their eyes and faces are as important as the rest of their bodies as they look out for each other. Yakira says she invites her audience “to experience the unravelling of real life experiences”. What I loved, though, was the synthesis – the building up of the elements that make up this seemingly simple but actually complex work performed on a vast bare stage.

One eloquent male dancer repeatedly falls and rights himself, while uttering the words "fall" and "recover". He’s joined by a second male dancer, full of solicitude for his partner, whom he repeatedly lifts and allows to slip away. A female dancer joins them and composer and multi-instrumentalist Sabio Janiak adds his serenely plangent music to the mix. A second female dancer makes a quartet and all four display the same solicitude for whichever of them is falling – clearly making recovery possible, not just by supporting them physically, but with the empathy in their expressions. I thought of the motto of the Three Musketeers (with D’Artagnan also four of course): “All for one and one for all”. The space is vast but they crisscross through it all. Janiak adds percussion too – and sometimes takes away his music leaving just the dancers in their loose, pastel clothes. It's moving, telling, soothing, startling and always engaging. The dancers are Sophie Arstall, Fernando Belsara, Stephen Moynihan and Verena Schneider.

free-falling2

In a beguiling addition, three dance artists respond to Free Falling – a different trio each night. The night I went there was a considered response from Dr Emma Dowling on video and an immediate response from Rosemary Lee, a choreographer and creator of extraordinary large-cast community pieces for dancers of all ages. It was fascinating to compare Dr Dowling’s conscientious onscreen response with Rosemary’s joyful movement through the space, retracing the footsteps of the dancers and throwing down pages from her notebook in response to what she had seen and experienced in each spot.

Between these two came the response from dancer Rachel Krische, drawing on the movement quality choreographed by Yakira for the quartet, but relating to members of the audience – using them as her dance partners, first touching, then asking for more – for support and the intertwining of limbs. And finally, gloriously climaxing in full audience participation on the studio floor – everyone linked in a joyful dance – a sort of Hora at Sadler’s Wells, which makes Israeli dance so welcome. Hagit Yakira is a name to watch – and JR will be watching out for more Israeli dance at Sadler’s Wells.

By Judi Herman

Photos by Loy Olsen and Kiraly Saint Claire

Free Falling was presented as part of Wild Card, a series of specially curated evenings at Sadler's Wells Theatre from a new generation of dance makers, bringing fresh perspectives to the stage. www.sadlerswells.com

To read more about Hagit Yakira and Free Falling, click here http://www.hagityakira.com

Review: Knock Knock ★★★★ - A beautifully nuanced account of a devastating situation

Clad simply in a white top and khaki trousers, to which he adds such details as a white apron, Petel bowls a blinder by playing the mother of his young conscript. He stacks the emotional stakes high – she's a single mother and an army therapist, trained to tell bereaved parents the worst, to make that dreaded knock on the door, and to work with them through the grief and loss that will form part of the rest of their lives. For most of the show Petel talks intimately and affectionately to his son. The account of their intense relationship is beautifully paced, starting with Ilad as a babe in arms and then as a toddler; at kindergarten, then junior school; as stroppy teenager and, inevitably, at 18 preparing for the draft.

Petel’s is a beautifully nuanced physical performance that takes the audience with him through the whole of what we know is to be a tragically short life. There's a moment of hope when we discover that as an only child, he can opt out of active service; we live with his mother through the nail-biting agony of trying to dissuade her son from choosing service to prove himself. But mothers must let go if children are to grow up at all.

With the aid of designer Rhiannon White the show is made up of an extraordinarily simple set and minimal, versatile props to set off the physical and vocal skill and simplicity with which Petel tells his story. White lives up to her name, for everything on stage is stark and clinical: a table, chair, telephone and the towel that Petel winds first into baby Ilad and then almost everything else needed to tell his tale. Under lighting designer Oliver Bush’s equally stark white light, the feel is of a waiting room, a surgery or a morgue – perhaps a waiting room in the afterlife even. The only other colour is the khaki of those trousers, suggesting that Petel is Ilad, as well as his mother, which is a touching duality. Overall, Knock Knock is an engaging and important contribution to our understanding of life in Israel.

By Judi Herman

Knock Knock runs until Sunday 6 November, 7.30pm, £8-£10, at Etcetera Theatre, 265 Camden High St, NW1 7BU; 020 7482 4857. http://etceteratheatre.com

Listen to Niv Petel talking about Knock Knock on JR OutLoud

JR OutLoud: Israeli actor Niv Petel tells us about Knock Knock, his beautifully nuanced one-man show

Writer/performer Niv Petel's one-man show Knock Knock is an explicit, heartbreaking account of the agony faced by bereaved parents of young Israeli soldiers killed during compulsory army service. The dreaded 'knock knock' at the door means a trained army therapist has come to tell you the worst. Petel spoke to JR's arts editor Judi Herman on the stage of the Etcetera Theatre immediately after the show.

Photo by Chris Gardner

Knock Knock runs until Sunday 6 November, 7.30pm & 6.30pm, £8-£10, at Etcetera Theatre, 265 Camden High St, NW1 7BU; 020 7482 4857. www.etceteratheatre.com

Review: Ragtime ★★★★ – A timely revival for a musical about immigration, aspiration and discrimination

At this time of post-Brexit xenophobia and with refugees in crisis, Ragtime’s dramatic account of the hardships and hatred faced by early 20th-century immigrants to America is all too timely.

Terrence McNally’s book works seamlessly with Lynn Ahrens’ lyrics to bring EL Doctorow's 1975 novel to the stage. The story revolves around the interaction of three families: well-established WASPs (white Anglo-Saxon Protestants) Mother, Father and their Little Boy, with Grandfather and Mother's Younger Brother; ragtime piano-playing African American Coalhouse Walker and Sarah, the mother of his baby son; and Tateh (Yiddish for daddy), a young Jewish widower newly-arrived from Latvia with his daughter, as well as his hopes. “A Shtetl iz Amereke,” sings Gary Tushaw’s starry-eyed, sympathetic Tateh.

When Father leaves for a polar expedition, compassionate, resourceful Mother proves she can think for herself, rescuing the new-born abandoned by troubled Sarah, taking her in too and effecting reconciliation between Sarah and Coalhouse. There is an immediate connection when she meets Tateh, in danger of having his aspirations crushed by grinding poverty. But the racial hatred faced by Coalhouse leads to violence that threatens to engulf them all.

Famous personalities of the era play a part, the Jews represented by escapologist Harry Houdini (played by winning Christopher Dickins, his accordion part of his personality) and fiery anarchist activist Emma Goldman (the splendid Valerie Cutko), inspiring and advising alongside civil rights pioneer Booker T Washington (impressive Nolan Frederick channelling Obama). The car Coalhouse buys from Henry Ford (Tom Giles) provokes the hatred and envy that drives the story. And as professional femme fatale Evelyn Nesbit, Joanna Hickman, funny and ravishing, perches on a piano, her cello-playing part of the allure that mesmerises Jonathan Stewart’s likeable, hot-headed Younger Brother.

Thom Southerland’s production fills the Charing Cross’s tiny stage with ‘teeming masses’ - his cast of 24 actors, mostly musicians, dynamically choreographed along with their instruments, by Ewan Jones on a versatile set (designers Tom Rogers and Toots Butcher). Their twin balconies swing across stage to double as ocean liners and twin pianos make vehicles, platforms, and magnificent music thanks to dynamite onstage MD Jordan Li Smith and the nimble fingers of Ako Mitchell’s Coalhouse.

The rhythms of Stephen Flaherty’s score, ranging from the syncopation of ragtime itself to the klezmer brought by Jewish immigrants, wrap the auditorium with powerful sound, thanks to Mark Aspinall’s orchestrations. When the cast sing in chorus it is breathtaking, sometimes overwhelming. There are glorious individual voices. Anita Louise Combe’s Mother has rich warm tones to match her generous personality. Jennifer Saayeng’s Sarah moves to tears with the quiet vehemence of Your Daddy’s Son and soars in a duet with Mitchell’s virile, passionate Coalhouse, and Seyi Omooba’s voice is heart-stopping in this often spellbinding evening.

by Judi Herman

Photos by Annabel Vere and Scott Rylander

Ragtime runs until Saturday 10 December, 7.30pm, 2.30pm & 3pm, £17.50-£29.50, at Charing Cross Theatre, The Arches, Villiers St, WC2N 6NL; 08444 930650. http://charingcrosstheatre.co.uk

Review: Lunch and The Bow of Ulysses ★★★ – Steven Berkoff coupling on fine form

I’ll always be grateful to Steven Berkoff. Back in my days as drama lecturer, blown away by his 1983 play West, his second foray into life on London’s gangland manors, I wrote to him via his agent to ask if I might borrow the unpublished script. The hard copy arrived almost as fast as an email might now, by return with a friendly invitation to keep it. My students adored playing the scabrously ornate muscular verse and the body language it demanded.

Lunch dates from 1983, too and although it is prose, the language is often as extravagant – and as bracingly sexual. A man and a woman share a seaside bench at lunchtime. He confides lustful thoughts that she arouses, which make Trump’s ill-judged bragging look prim, and it’s in-yer-face in this intimate space, too. He is yearning, rather than boasting, with every muscle and fibre in Shaun Dooley’s extraordinary performance. Emily Bruni’s woman is equally physical – at first sight primly upright and uptight, but actually coiled like a spring ready to snap – or catch him in those coils...

Thanks also to Nigel Harman’s direction and movement director Alistair David, what follows is a masterclass in physicalising Berkoff’s language that would have enthralled my students. They prowl around each other like courting cats, he wiping from his brow real drops of sweat with a real hanky. At this proximity, audience members might also sweat uncomfortably as the couple eventually end up adjusting their dress at our feet.

But it’s their relish of the language that carries you along, the taste of it on the tongue – even when his chat-up line is trying to interest her in the space he sells for a living “electro-type on quarto double weight” (yes, space on paper, not online, Lunch is of its time) he enunciates alluringly in his attempt to melt “an ice lolly in a whirlwind.” “You’re not looking for me, you’re looking for it, you canine groper,” is her riposte (this comes more like a chat-up line before that apparent tumble behind the beach shelter).

That’s just a taste of what’s to come in the Bow of Ulysses, set (and indeed written) 20 years later and as many years into a marriage on the rocks. Rather than trading bracing insults, though, the estranged couple express themselves in longer, bitter monologues, downbeat this time. It was good to see these short companion pieces together, though strangely the first, as a real period piece, seemed less dated than its sequel. Ben and Max Ringham provide an evocative seaside soundscape and designer Lee Newby has a great eye for shades of brown that match at least the dress of this ill-matched pair in a seaside shelter that’s the only restful element in an unsettling evening.

By Judi Herman

Photos by Marc Brenner

Lunch and The Bow of Ulysses  runs until Saturday  5 November, Monday to Saturday 7.45pm Thursday and Saturday 3pm, £19.50-£35, at Trafalgar Studios 2, 14 Whitehall, SW1A 2DY; 0844 871 7632. www.atgtickets.com

Arnold Wesker tribute: The playwright still packed them in at the Royal Court in an affectionate and celebratory look at his life

“He shone with the sun”, lilted singer Rosie Archer in a soaring paean that took place as part of many poignant moments during an afternoon of tributes to the playwright Arnold Wesker, who died age 83 on 12 April 2016.

Held at the Royal Court Theatre, Wesker's spiritual home despite the theatre having turned down Chicken Soup with Barley (it premiered in 1958 at Coventry’s Belgrade Theatre), the evening was filled with warm memories of the late playwright from luminaries across the arts world.

Mike Leigh spoke of his delight in his teens at discovering this East End working-class dramatist. “What a hero he was. We sought out his plays and read them avidly,” recalled Leigh, reading from a piece based on an article first published in the July 2016 issue of Jewish Renaissance. Later in the Royal Court’s bar, Leigh told me that he had been approached to participate in the event after Wesker’s wife Dusty had shown the organisers the piece.

David Edgar spoke of Wesker’s groundbreaking representation of “political disillusion”; director Fiona Laird remembered her surprise at finding the playwright “charming,” instead of the curmudgeon she had been led to expect. A frail looking Bernard Kops, one of the last of those ‘angry young men’, recalled Wesker’s desire to broaden the reach of culture with his Centre 42 project.

There were some great performances too: Samantha Spiro’s delivery of Sarah Kahn’s final speech (she played Kahn in the Royal Court’s revival of Chicken Soup in 2011) brought tears to my eyes, although puzzlingly she omitted the ultimate rousing imperative, “You've got to care, you've got to care or you'll die!” Ian McKellen performed an excerpt of Chips with Everything with gusto, and Henry Goodman made a mischievous Shylock in a speech from the 1976 play of the same name. Finally, Jessica Raine, who played Beatie in the Donmar Warehouse’s 2014 production of Roots, movingly reprised that character's astonishing final speech.

And there were surprises: who knew Wesker had written lyrics for a Eurovision Song Contest entry? Sadly, Jonathan King rejected Shone With the Sun as “too classical”, otherwise Britain’s Eurovision history might have told a different story. He had been a talented artist too, said set-designer Pamela Howard, who presented several of his fine ink drawings.

As the audience left, speakers played Aaron Copeland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, a favourite with the playwright, and a reminder of the compassion at the heart of Wesker’s own art.

By Rebecca Taylor

CLICK HERE to read Mike Leigh's tribute to Sir Arnold Wesker from our July 2016 issue

Review: Fagin’s Twist ★★★★ - The exhilarating dance drama gives a thought-provoking twist on a familiar tale

You'll recognise the battered toppers, silk handkerchiefs and the pocket watch, but will you recognise the characters you thought you knew and loved (or hated)? Young orphan Fagin, resourceful and charismatic, escapes the workhouse with his best mate Bill Sykes to build an underground empire, a refuge for the likes of Sykes's girl Nancy and the Artful Dodger. Then they stumble upon young Oliver Twist.…

Fagin’s Twist is a breathtaking synthesis of dance, words, music and design, which succeeds brilliantly in finding – or fashioning – the fully-rounded humanity of Dickens’ characters we think we know so well already from the page, stage and screen.

Writer Maxwell Golden has dared to add his gloss to Dickens to tell those back stories – for Bill Sykes, Nancy, the Artful Dodger and of course Fagin himself. Aaron Nuttall’s Dodger narrates as niftily as he moves, so that Golden lives up to his name – his script sounding direct, fresh and as muscular as the dance itself.

Exploring the dark side of London in Dickens’ time and indeed right now, Tony Adigun’s restless, shape-shifting choreography is complemented by the constant morphing of Yann Seabra’s angular wooden slats lit with extraordinary versatility by Jackie Shemesh, to evoke alleys and streets and the sinister interiors of workhouse and thieves’ den.

A dark and thrilling eclectic score, both found and original, ranges from strings, piano and harp to music to blast you into submission, but even when it’s ‘in yer ears’ it earns its place there, thanks to sound designers Brian Hargreaves and Seymour Milton.

The performers crown this glorious synthesis by tackling both the dance and drama with energy and brio. Ensemble and soloists are equally at home in the breathlessly fast-moving routines and changing tableaux (sleight of hand looks like it comes naturally to this gang), as well as the escape over London's sinister roofscape; and the more measured duets and solos that explore the burgeoning relationship between Lisa Hood’s passionate Nancy and Dani Harris-Walters’ virile Bill. Joshua James Smith is an intriguingly complicated Fagin, a damaged youth using the cards fate deals him to find his golden opportunity in the gang leader’s swinging pocket watch. He’s a fine lithe figure in his swirling coat with fur tippet, cleverly evocative of Victoriana and yet cutting a more timeless dash like all Seabra’s costumes. Plus there’s Jemima Brown’s little orphan Oliver, working hard on tugging at Nancy’s heartstrings with his efforts to find his niche ...

There’s also an intriguing exhibition in the theatre bar of George Cruikshank’s illustrations for Oliver Twist, complete with correspondence from Dickens. Add some sly quotations from Lionel Bart’s Oliver in Golden's script and it all makes for an unexpected twist on Dickens.

By Judi Herman

Photos by Rachel Cherry

Fagin's Twist runs until Saturday 15 October, 8pm & 2pm, £18, £12 concs, at The Place, 17 Duke's Rd, WC1H 9PY; 020 7121 1100. www.theplace.org.uk

Then on tour at the following places:

Monday 17 October, 8pm, £10, at Gloucester Guildhall, GL1 1NS; 01452 503050. www.strikealightfestival.org.uk

Thursday 20 & Friday 21 October, 7.45pm, £12, at Birmingham Hippodrome, B5 4TB; 0844 338 5010. www.birminghamhippodrome.com

Tuesday 25 October, 7.30pm, £15, £10 concs, at Nottingham Lakeside, University of Nottingham, NG7 2RD; 0115 846 7777. www.lakesidearts.org.uk

Friday 28 October, 7.30pm, £14, £11 concs, at Barbican Plymouth, PL1 2NJ; 01752 267131. www.barbicantheatre.co.uk

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Review: Adding Machine: A Musical ★★★★ - An enthralling account of a life lived by and for numbers

What’s the difference between a musical and an opera? One definition might be that in opera the drama is largely generated by the music, in a musical it is largely defined by the text. And of course there are the honourable blends exemplified by Kurt Weill's Street Scene, adapted from Jewish writer Elmer Rice’s play.

Seeing Street Scene prompted Jason Loewith to attempt a similar musical adaptation based on Rice’s 1923 play The Adding Machine. Joshua Schmidt composed the music, as well as writing the libretto and book together with Loewith for a 2007 American opening.

The storyline makes a play of two halves. The first is a stifling, all too real account of the life of white-collar worker Mr Zero, exploited at work and hen-pecked at home till he snaps and murders his boss when he is let go in favour of the new-fangled adding machine. The second half is a surrealist journey into the Elysian Fields of the afterlife (complete with swimming pool in the confined playing space in the Finborough), where even Zero and a fellow condemned prisoner might join other souls offered another chance.

Kate Milner-Evans’ Mrs Zero powers the opening, her singing deploring her unhappy life and worthless husband stark, challenging and in-yer-face in this tiny space, her emotional expression transcending what language alone can communicate. The ensemble respond with an intricate mix of movement and song about numbers, perfectly setting up the claustrophobic atmosphere of a life where people are given numbers according to their social standing. Mr Zero – excellent Joseph Alessi – conveys the burden and boredom of a zero, trapped adding numbers day in day out, incapable of escape and unable to liberate himself (as well as performing the feat of devouring ham and eggs as he sings). There’s excellent support from James Dinsmore as a believable Boss here and in the hereafter, from Edd Campbell Bird as Shrdlu, another murderer, in both worlds and from Joanna Kirkland as the girl of Zero’s dreams.

The music was originally scored for just three instruments, Schmidt explaining that he approached the task with this combination in mind and tried to create a full blown, challenging score for three instruments. “It’s not a matter of compensating for instruments that aren’t there." His music sometimes recalls Kurt Weill, but he has a style and punch all his own and Ben Ferguson (Musical Director), Tristan Butler (percussion) and Hamish Brown (synth) give a full account of the enterprise. Chi-San Howard’s movement direction beautifully fuses actions, movements and words with the musical intent on Frankie Bradshaw’s clever transverse set. Direction by Josh Seymour intelligently contrasts the two halves of the show and seamlessly integrates drama, music, spoken word and movement.

By Judi Herman

Photos by Alex Brenner

Adding Machine: A Musical runs until Saturday 22 October, 7.30pm & 3pm, £20, £18 concs, at Finborough Theatre, 118 Finborough Rd, SW10 9ED; 0844 847 1652. www.finboroughtheatre.co.uk

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