Piaf

3 December 2008 (Wed), West End

This show was not a true musical but a biographical play with songs, all sung by the leading character in the context of performances or concerts. It told the story of the singer’s life from her street years to her lonely death. Given Piaf’s self-destructive personality, this could make for a pretty depressing story, as I understand was the case with the movie. But here it was a wild, rapid-fire portrayal of key incidents in the main character’s life, making for an impressionistic picture of the singer’s eventful life. Piaf was a gutter child, and there’s no skimping on the random sex, raw language, alcohol, drugs and some pretty disagreeable character flaws. I can’t say I came to like her, and the show doesn’t dig deep enough to round out the portrait with any measure of sympathy or understanding. At best, I admired her fire and her perseverance, though I did feel sorry for her just a bit for not having enough strength to dig herself out in the end. There were other interesting characters, especially Piaf’s fat and loose friend from her poor days. Everything in the show, though, revolved around Piaf, so that was the character that mattered. Continue reading →

Waste

14 December 2015 (Mon), National Theatre

An early 20th-century play by Harley Granville Barker. An up-and-coming young politician eyed for a Cabinet post is working on bill to “disestablish” the Church of England, i.e., effectively separate church and state. He is irritated when his lover, a married woman, becomes pregnant; more so when she insists on having an abortion (he wants the child, in a reversal of the usual story); and yet more so when she ultimately commits suicide. But his conscience doesn’t seem to kick into gear until he is unceremoniously dumped by the party as the scandal mounts, which sets him into deep thinking and rash action. Continue reading →

Pericles

11 December 2015 (Fri), Sam Wanamaker Theatre

This was the latest staging at the candlelit Sam Wanamaker Theatre, the first in a series exploring Shakespeare’s four late romances. I can see why this is a lesser known play. It skates perilously on the line between far-fetched and ridiculous: shipwrecks abound, a dead body in a trunk fished from the sea is revived, armor lost at sea washes up on the shore with perfect timing, Pericles miraculously discovers his long-lost daughter (presumed dead) who then discovers her own long-lost mother (also presumed dead), all of whom happen to have ended up on the same sparsely populated island. Shakespeare has never shied from allowing magic and coincidence to do his work for him, but he really got carried away in this one. Maybe that had to do with his collaborator; the excellent program says that George Wilkins wrote the first part and Shakespeare the final three acts. In any case, it led to unintended laughter in the audience in some scenes, such as when the dead woman awakens or when the long-separated family find themselves improbably reunited. It must be hard to say those lines with a straight face. Continue reading →

Hangmen

9 December 2015 (Wed), West End

Talk about gallows humor. This is the first new McDonagh play in London in a long while and the first to be set outside of Ireland. He is back to form and then some, scabrous and witty and outrageous. Continue reading →