PROMPT
CORNER 04/2007
The Soldier's Fortune / The Man Of Mode / The Reporter
Various
venues
February, 2007
I recently interviewed David Lan about the Young Vic’s reopening.
He waxed enthusiastic (and relieved) about the success of the first two
productions in the rebuilt main house, before adding, “But I'm aware
that success is only disaster deferred, so the next one's going to be
disaster, and that's mine!" Well, many a true word’s spoken in
jest, although “disaster” is a bit strong. But certainly, few
reviewers have found much to say in favour of The Soldiers’ Fortune. Lizzie
Clachan’s design shows off the flexibility of the new space, from a faux-proscenium arch to a pit stage
right, but at the expense of making a playable space: the pros stage is
too far back to connect with the audience, the bulk of the action makes
no sense being played on a set of steps, and when the scene shifted to
a Turkish bath on the semi-subterranean level I stopped trying to watch
the action and instead observed a good third of the stalls audience
trying to peer over or round all those steps to see even a tiny bit of
what was going on.
Thomas Otway wrote comedy with the skill of a man best remembered as a
tragedian, and Lan’s production tries to find a style that will
accommodate text, modern expectations and that damned set, and
fails. (One invalid criticism, however, is contained in Rhoda
Koenig’s Independent review.
A couple of issues back I disagreed with her about the American accents
used by the cast of Bash.
That was a matter of opinion; on the subject of Kananu Kirimi’s
allegedly American accent here, I’m afraid Rhoda is simply wrong in
fact. What she heard were the strong Rs of a West of Scotland
accent: Kirimi comes from that part of the Atlantic coast where the
Skye road bridge touches the mainland.)
Pillock
However, I merely failed to be gripped by The Soldier’s Fortune,
whereas The Man Of Mode had
made me actively furious. I didn’t have space last issue to
fulminate on Nicholas Hytner’s production, so let me take this
opportunity to do so now. Its updatings struck me as reinforcing
the play’s joke about modishness without being in on that joke: like
Sir Fopling Flutter himself, the production cavorts around gorgeously,
believing itself at the contemporary cutting edge, when it simply looks
like a big pillock. Between that, the unintelligibility of many
actors’ delivery and my increasing boredom with being flashed assorted
bits (the left-hand side of the auditorium is the place for genitalia
fans to sit), I came closer to leaving at the interval than I have in
many months.
Altogether more scrupulously managed is Richard Eyre’s production of The Reporter round the corner in
the Cottesloe. It’s a beautifully assembled production, pitch
perfect. Yet its refusal to overstate a single thing means also
that it does not “sell” a play which perhaps could do with a little
more push. As virtually every review mentions, James Mossman’s
suicide note said, “I can’t bear it any more, though I don’t know what
‘it’ is.” I emerged from the theatre with no more idea what
author Nicholas Wright’s “it” is. I could have written 5000 words
on various aspects of individual scenes: compare-and-contrast with
today’s current affairs reportage and political interviewing, or the
portrayal of gay relationships, or Spiritualism, or heaven knows
what-all. But they don’t add up to a play. Wright’s
dramatic investigation of Mossman’s death is as reserved as the
protagonist it portrays. Indeed, it takes this reserve to
unintentional extremes: nowhere in the play or the programme is the
date of Mossman’s death directly stated. Wright is candid that
the play is at least as much speculation as it is biography, but
nevertheless one might reasonably expect it to get around to some
precision regarding its very raison
d’être.
Written for Theatre
Record.
Copyright © Ian Shuttleworth; all rights
reserved.
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