Greg Doran: the new Michael Boyd

Today, it was announced that Greg Doran is to take over as artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company in September. Very few of us can say we didn’t see that coming. He’s a solid, safe pair of hands. He believes in the integrity of Shakespeare’s language and his productions in the last few years have been nothing but good. As Michael Boyd’s right-hand man, he understands how best the company should be run and no doubt realises where improvement is needed. In discussions, he is gentle, respectful and humble. He seems the obvious choice.

But that’s exactly the problem. When talking about Doran’s work and style, many words associated with mediocrity are employed; “solid”, “good”, “okay”, “fine”. He has rarely been talked of as “bold”, “ambitious” and “provocative”. Hence why he got the job, I imagine. With a company as respected and well-known as the RSC, the board couldn’t be expected to place the ship in a new, less-experienced pair of hands. Or so I imagine the argument goes.

Some of us, however, believe that’s exactly what the company did need. Boyd has done an incredible job over the past decade of bringing the company out of the slums of Noble’s tenancy and into the realm of the theatrical heavyweights. His return to the European model of ensemble has been a superb move (though it could still go further), and most can agree that the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre is one of the most exciting major theatres built in a generation.

This is precisely the reason the RSC doesn’t need Doran at the helm; my guess is he will bring much the same output as Boyd – good but not ground-breaking – and he will continue the outgoing AD’s legacy of raising the enterprise out of the ashes. This is fruitless considering the RSC is in a far better place than it was a decade ago. It is at the stage it should be (minus a London home), and does not need the same, ‘solid’, work in order to build its reputation. Now is the time, more than ever, when the company can afford to take risks.

Some of us were unfortunate enough to be born after the golden age of Hall and Nunn, when European companies were invited to Stratford to perform in the same spaces as British performers and experimental productions were mounted at The Other Place. We long for a return to those roots, which would entail shifting the focus of the company slightly away from Shakespeare and towards theatrical practices in general. There are companies all over the continent – nay, world – who are producing work far more challenging and exciting than anything the RSC has done in years, and on a fraction of the budget. We should learn from them; the RSC needs to stop pandering to the audiences who were watching thirty years ago and provide something for the next generation too. Doran said today on Front Row that it’s not as easy as simply reopening a new black-box studio theatre, and that TOP was more of an “idea” than a real venture, but if he’s to have any success in showing the RSC to be an institution not afraid of “taking risks” (outlined on its web page), then these sort of decisions need to be made.

All this may sound like I would champion the directorship of, say, Rupert Goold, but quite aside from the fact he apparently withdrew his application, even he remains someone who is relatively mainstream (though I imagine he’d have been more exciting than Doran). Granted, the company shouldn’t have been handed over to an unknown, but I imagine that the choice of someone a little younger and avant-garde would have been welcomed by a large percentage of its audience.

Naturally, it’s difficult and somewhat unfair to come to conclusions without letting Doran even have his say about his plans, but based on his track record it’s difficult to envisage the RSC going the places it ought to. Not all of us are middle-class, middle-aged theatregoers who enjoy safe, mediocre theatre.

“The Comedy of Errors” by William Shakespeare

at the Olivier Theatre, Tuesday 20th March 2012

Dominic Cooke had already been tipped by many to be the next artistic director of the National Theatre whilst Nicholas Hytner is still yet to announce his leaving date and before Cooke himself had even ventured into the building to direct something there. After The Comedy of Errors, however – his first production at the National – he’s lost a few places in the race for me. For, although this cosmopolitan production at the Olivier is impressive and creative, it fails to do what it says on the tin. It’s just not that funny.

Cooke has set the play in modern day London, complete with multicultural population and Soho nightclubs. It works perfectly for the play – themes of displacement in a community are drawn out, creating parallels with Sam Selvon’s Lonely Londoners and commenting wittily on one’s anonymity in a city. Bunny Christie’s astonishing design is the best I’ve seen in a long time, shifting and never in stasis, just like London itself. In one scene, we see the grimy backstreets, and in another the wealthy facades of Chelsea (a nice touch sees the three tower blocks lined up, with a single door on either side and a double door in the middle, echoing the configuration of the Globe). Ephesus here is remarkably recognisable, and Cooke keeps the verse snappy and modern – no mean feat in a theatre as grand as the Olivier.

But where the production fails is in its comedy. The visual jokes feel tired and cliched – pie in faces springs to mind – and it feels like not a lot of effort has gone into thinking about how the team could create their own comedy rather than just relying on gurning to the audience and silly voices. Lenny Henry in the role of Antipholus of Syracuse, for example, falls back too much on his infamy as a television actor in order to gain laughs; the humour in this production pales in comparison to the likes of One Man, Two Guvnors and Noises Off.

A generally strong cast (excepting the ensemble, who are nigh on ridiculous), is let down somewhat by Henry, whose verse speaking is close to incomprehensible and who, although emotionally strong, is let down by his lack of theatrical technique. Chris Jarman, as his opposite Antipholus of Ephesus, is the other way round; he is theatrically adept but emotionally barren. Daniel Poyser and Lucian Msamati as the two Dromios give us most of the laughs, even though their personalities are a little too similar. It is the two central women of this production, however, who stand out; Claudie Blakley and Michelle Terry as Adriana and Luciana respectively are simultaneously human and ridiculous, though I question the decision to make them both seem devoid of great mental capacity.

Paule Constable’s subtle lighting allows Christie’s superb set to shine, whilst Gary Yershon’s fantastic music creates hilarious scene changes as a group of four musicians plays pop songs in romanian – a nice touch which adds to Cooke’s comment on multiculturalism, especially when placed against the opening of the second act, during which we hear Dizee Rascal’s Bonkers blasted through the speakers. Although Cooke’s concept is sound, however, adding an extra dimension to the play which has rarely been considered, it is frustrating that this production fails to deliver on the most basic points. Perhaps it should be renamed The Play of Errors.

“Collaborators” by John Hodge

at the Cottesloe Theatre, Tuesday 20th March 2012

“What if…” pieces are always intriguing, offering an alternative view of history. It’s extraordinarily tempting to imagine Shakespeare and Dickens conversing in a pub, or Newton being educated by Einstein. We love to imagine these conversations, and consider how history would be different if these conversations were possible. In Collaborators, John Hodge asks “What if Josef Stalin helped Mikhail Bulgakov to write plays and in return Bulgakov helped him with affairs of state?”  The result is a witty, intelligent play which, even though it tries a little too hard to appeal to our hearts, asks some big questions.

After the success of The White Guard, the playwright and novelist Mikhail Bulgakov is asked (read: forced) to write a play for Stalin’s sixtieth birthday (he is a huge fan of the aforementioned play, having seen it fifteen times). Naturally, the writer wants to create an artistically sound piece of theatre, whilst his paymasters wish him to make something which praises Vozhd in all his glory. After a week struggling to create anything of worth, he is summoned by Uncle Joe himself, with whom he collaborates so both of them are able to get their work done. Along the way, Stalin realises the difficulties in writing and structuring a play, whilst Bulgakov becomes implicit in some of the atrocities of the Soviet regime.

It’s not hard to see what Hodge thinks of the art question here: it is impossible to create good art if one is given preconditions – i.e., no good art can be created under censorship. I think most of us can agree on that: the hilariously awful excerpts from “Young Stalin” prove this. The interesting debate, however, is about Bulgakov’s position. After being relinquished of the shame of writing an awful play, he begins to defend decisions about grain in the provinces which are costing lives. His initial hatred of his leader becomes far less clear-cut, and we are shown that those in power don’t have the luxury of ideology that many of us do: they have to balance arguments before coming to a conclusion. In this respect, Hodge is supremely successful, and the two-handed scenes between Stalin and Bulgakov are without doubt the most superior.

Where the play falls flat, slightly, is in Hodge’s portrayal of Bulgakov’s home life. The writer and his wife, Yelena, live with a whole host of other bohemians, who are somewhat stock and serve only the purpose of allowing an emotional outlet for Bulgakov. They seem superfluous, for this exact dilemma could just as easily be communicated to his wife alone. The core argument – that of the difficulties of ideology in art – is present in the one-on-one scenes, and we gain very little from the presence of other characters in the Bulgakov household.

Nicholas Hytner’s production is beautifully crafted, taking images and techniques from Communist propaganda. George Fenton & Paul Ardiiti’s music and sound are used in an almost cartoon-style way, and Jon Clark’s lighting acts as a frame around certain scenes. The tone of Hytner’s direction shifts from grimy socialist realism to stylised choreography, and is set beautifully on Bob Crowley’s red and black scenic design, looking like its been lifted straight off of a Soviet poster, complete with jagged lines and uneven floor.

A solid ensemble is led by three superb actors. Mark Addy’s Vladimir, the chief of police, lies on the borderline of ridiculous, but manages to retain a humanity which allows us to understand how difficult he finds his job. Simon Russell Beale’s portrays Stalin as an idiotic, frail but supremely passionate man who flips at an instant. There is something supremely menacing about his quietness, and the Somerset accent only adds to the confusion we feel towards him. Alex Jennings completes the trio as Bulgakov, rarely leaving the stage and providing the narrative drive and voicing the audience’s own internal debate.

It does feel at times like Collaborators is trying to tackle a few too many questions without ever fully exploring any of them, but what Hodge shows us is a world in which it is impossible to say what you feel openly. Although it is entirely fiction, the meetings between Stalin and Bulgakov feel extraordinarily real, and we are forced to ask ourselves whether the old maxim suggesting that artists would be better at politics than politicians is true after all.

“7 Day Drunk” by Briony Kimmings

at Warwick Arts Centre, Tuesday 6th March 2012

Does drink breed creativity? This is the basic question which Briony Kimmings’ 7 Day Drunk poses, creating a piece of theatre which is whimsical, bittersweet and ethereal in equal measure whilst simultaneously attempting to interrogate the effects of alcohol on the artistic mind. Taken as a piece of theatre, it is a bit simple. As a piece of performance art, it is joyous and bizarrely hypnotic.

Kimmings, who also performs the piece, tells us that last July she subjected herself to a 7-day experiment which required her to drink a certain amount of alcohol each day, building up each time, whilst creating ‘pieces of art’ for her show. These were then showcased before an audience who rated how ‘good’ they were, and what we see before us is a mixture of all this labour and a journey to finding the answer to the question originally posed.

There is a lot more artistry here than is initially evident; at first glance, Kimmings is simply regurgitating the art she created whilst drunk, but in actual fact it takes great skill to edit 168 hours of raw material and choose the bits to put in front of an audience. The pieces chosen have a very rudimentary narrative; bookended by two songs, there are moments of dance and reflection about the stories of loved ones. We experience the same rollercoaster ride of emotions which often takes place during our own inebriated experience.

Kimmings’ performance is extraordinarily observed. Obviously, she is playing herself, but it is no mean feat to pull off an effective and believable state of drunkeness. It is clear the drunken videos of her have been watched over and over again, as her recreation of these moments is extraordinarily nuanced, whilst during ‘sober’ moments, she makes us want to join in with and befriend her. The dream-like, magical atmosphere evoked is one not far off the world of Noel Fielding.

Reciting the conclusion of Kimmings’ study would be giving the game away, but the beauty of 7 Day Drunk is that even when that fact is deployed, we are left to make up our own minds, meaning the piece never becomes an educational lecture. In this case, it is clear the alcohol involved wasn’t wholly the maker of this art; the skill behind this piece has come post-experiment, and if it wasn’t for Kimmings’ kooky playfulness, there would be nothing of note to show.