[...] From an absolutely up-to-date show
to an antiquated one. At least, that seems to be the opinion of
most of the reviewers of In
Celebration. I don’t agree. It was relatively
recently, in 2001, that I made a belated acquaintance with David
Storey’s work through the production of this play at the Minerva in
Chichester; it struck me with the force of a revelation. I can’t
believe that either the world or I have changed so much since then.
I don’t think it’s valid to argue that
the world in which the play (written in 1969) is set is unbridgeably
alien to us because Britain’s coal mining industry has all but died
since then, any more than Shakespeare’s histories are alien to us
because we no longer have an absolute monarchy. I don’t believe
that British men have become radically more expressive emotionally in
little more than a generation. And as for the dissipation of
class consciousness... as one of my reviews published last issue
observed, all it takes to dispel that notion is to listen to an
audience react to Shaw’s
Pygmalion.
So I don’t think it is the play that is at fault here. But I sat
in the Duke Of York’s Theatre watching the play that had so impressed
me, and utterly failed to connect with my own previous responses.
Self-effacement
I have come to the conclusion that there’s too much acting being done
in this version… at least in the first half. Things happen after
the interval, but mostly they take the form of shouting and crying and
a general feeling that it’s best to pretend they didn’t happen after
all. But that long first half is all about a stilted family
reunion, and director Anna Mackmin and the cast have made the mistake
of trying to fill the space with Personality, Emotions and the
like. Tim Healy is a fine actor; he gives it all he’s got as the
father, and he has quite a bit, but I’m not sure this is the play for
it. After all, legend has it that during rehearsals for the Royal
Court première in 1969, director Lindsay Anderson at one point
berated an actor, “Don’t just do something – stand there!”
In a perverse way, what is impressive about Orlando Bloom is precisely
how little he does: the fact is that the star name on which the
production is sold is perfectly happy to just stand there much of the
time. He performs with an admirable self-effacement that is
entirely faithful to his character. But then, if the entire
production had taken that tone, it would probably have felt dwarfed
even in what by West End standards is a comparatively small venue, and
its presence in the West End would be even more of a mystery than it
currently is to many. Perhaps I was just lucky to make the play’s
acquaintance in a studio venue, and perhaps Bloom should have allowed
himself to be enticed into a more intimate space like the Almeida for
his stage debut if it was to be in this kind of piece.