KVIFF FILM REVIEW: Daniel Burman’s ‘Brother and Sister’

Posted on July 8, 2010 by admin

brother and sister x650

By Ray Bennett

KARLOVY VARY, Czech Republic – Daniel Burman’s “Brother and Sister” is a tale of an ageing single man dominated by two overbearing women that could easily have become misogynistic but is instead an absorbing and forgiving character study.

With a big, colorful performance by Graciela Borges as a scheming and in many ways hateful woman who has never married, and a subtle, keenly observed one from Antonio Gasalla (pictured with Borges) as her browbeaten bachelor brother, the film should resonate with grownup audiences no matter how much happier are their own families.

Director Burman and his co-writer Sergio Dubcovsky deliver a story of sacrifice and redemption with growing charm and the film should do well in Spanish-language territories and find a welcome at festivals and in art houses.

Borges’ Susana is a real piece of work, a devious and opportunistic Buenos Aires real estate agent whose technique is to keep as many buyers and sellers on the hook for as long as possible.

Her brother Marcos (Gasalla) is not spared from her ruthlessness as she exploits his affection for their bedridden mother to make sure he is the caregiver while she takes care of business.

A goldsmith by trade, Marcos had youthful ambitions to travel and act but with their father dead, he has devoted himself to nursing a parent (Elena Lucena) who is as ungrateful as his sister is manipulative. When he explains that he was unable to phone her because he could not get a signal, she complains, “You need a signal to call your mother?”

When the old woman dies, Susana exploits the situation as her brother weeps by selling the family home and shipping Marcos up river to a town in Uruguay called Villa Laura, where she has a house she owes money on.

While she stays on in Argentina, stealing her neighbor’s mail for invitations to fancy parties, Marcos unexpectedly settles in to his new community and in his mid-’60s discovers it’s not too late to follow his long-abandoned dreams.

Borges and Gasalla make a memorable team as they gradually reveal the siblings’ mutual dependence. There is a rousing finale and a graceful end-credits sequence in which the entire cast joins in a toe-tapping performance of “Puttin’ On the Ritz.”

Venue: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Official Competition; Cast: Graciela Borges, Anthonio Gasalla, Elena Lucena, Osmar Nuñez, Rita Cortese; Director: Daniel Burman.; Screenwriters: Daniel Burman, Sergio Dubcovsky; Director of photography: Hugo Colace; Production designers: Margarita Tambornino Paulina Lopez Meyer; Music: Nico Cota; Editor: Pablo Barbieri; Producer: Diego Dubcobsky; Production company: BD Cine; Sales: BD Cine; Not rated; running time, 105 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Film, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on KVIFF FILM REVIEW: Daniel Burman’s ‘Brother and Sister’

THEATRE REVIEW: David Hirson’s ‘La Bete’

Posted on July 8, 2010 by admin

la bete x650

By Ray Bennett

LONDON – “La Bete” is a 1991 American play by David Hirson set in 17th century France and besides being extremely funny it has a lot say about the dumbing down of art and entertainment.

Mark Rylance (pictured centre), 2010 Olivier Award winner for “Jerusalem,” has the plum comic role of a vulgar, self-absorbed and outlandish actor and writer named Valere who is foisted upon a serious dramatist named Elomire played with exquisite disdain by former “Frasier” star David Hyde Pierce.

Joanna Lumley contributes all the haughty bemusement of her character in “Absolutely Fabulous” as the Princess in whose court Elomire (anagram for Moliere) operates the official theatrical troupe.

Attracted by the brash simplicity of Valere’s street performances, she wants Elomire to combine the crude vagabond clown’s accessible productions with his own artistic creations.

Valere makes his entrance spitting undigested food, belching, farting and speaking incessantly. It’s an epic speech of around 30 minutes and Rylance does it superbly with such vocal agility, verbal punctuation and pantomime that it leaves the audience weeping with laughter.

Hyde Pierce at first seems doomed to play only in reaction to Rylance, which he does with great finesse, but Elomire comes to the fore in the second half of the play to defend artistic endeavor against the rushing in of fools.

It helps that Hirson has written the entire play in rhyming couplets but director Matthew Warchus makes sure the skilful players glide by the obvious emphasis on key words, making sentences entirely sensible but never overlooking their witty structure.

“La Bete” is widely accessible but it will resonate especially with anyone who has seen a company boss compromise quality and sacrifice principles in pursuit of mass popularity. Television and newspapers come to mind, but there is evidence of such folly everywhere.

The play won awards but was not a commercial success when first presented but the new production sees the original Prince changed to a Princess with re-writing to make up for the lack of an interval through 105 minutes. Funny and insightful, it should prosper in the West End and also on Broadway where it’s headed when it finishes the London run.

Venue: Comedy Theatre, runs through Sept. 4; Cast: Mark Rylance, David Hyde Pierce, Joanna Lumley; Playwright: David Hirson; Director: Matthew Warchus; Set designer: Mark Thompson; Lighting designer: Hugh Vanstone; Music: Claire Van Kampen; Sound designer: Simon Baker for Autograph.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Reviews, Theatre | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on THEATRE REVIEW: David Hirson’s ‘La Bete’

KVIFF FILM REVIEW: ‘There Are Things You Don’t Know’

Posted on July 7, 2010 by admin

there-are-things-you-donrsquot-know x650By Ray Bennett

KARLOVY VARY, Czech Republic – Iranian filmmaker Fardin Saheb Zamani has titled his film about a taxi-driver’s ordinary encounters in the 10 days before a predicted earthquake in Tehran “There Are Things You Don’t Know.”

By the time it’s over, there will be even more things you don’t know, including the point of the movie. Using a mostly static camera and a central character who barely utters a word, it’s an impenetrable and dull exercise entirely lacking the curiosity urged by the title phrase.

Fans of the style of Iranian film that plonks down a camera and lets people speak into it might even find their patience exhausted. Prospects beyond the occasional film festival appear slim.

Ali Mosafa plays the taciturn cabbie who drives silently around the city, going home occasionally to feed his cat. His customers appear mostly to be gorgeous women in traditional Iranian clothing who gab into mobile phones or gossip endlessly.

Two stand out, however. One (Mahtab Keramati, pictured) might be an ex-lover and the other (Leila Hatami) has a mysterious routine that requires her to be picked up at precise times and driven across town.

Late in the picture, the cabbie tells one of them that he never knows what to say to people and is advised to say simply the title line. It doesn’t seem enough, somehow.

Venue: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Official Competition; Cast: Ali Mosafa, Leila Hatami, Mahtab Keramati; Director, writer: Fardin Saheb Zamani; Director of photography: Houman Behmanesh; Production designer: Kamyab Amin Ashayeri; Music: Amir-Ali Vajed Samiel; Editor: Fardin Saheb Zamani; Producer: Manijeh Hekmat; Production company: Bamdad Film; Sales: Iranian Independents; Not rated; running time, 92 minutes.

The review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Film, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Reviews | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on KVIFF FILM REVIEW: ‘There Are Things You Don’t Know’

KVIFF FILM REVIEW: Catherine Martin’s ‘Mourning for Anna’

Posted on July 6, 2010 by admin

mourning-for-anna x650By Ray Bennett

KARLOVY VARY, Czech Republic – The power of nature and art in helping to heal emotional damage in humans is at the heart of Catherine Martin’s somber but affecting “Mourning For Anna”.

Guylaine Tremblay plays a woman who retreats to her rural family home to grieve for her murdered daughter. The Canadian actress portrays her pain with dignity and fearless candor, allowing composure to dissolve unexpectedly into baleful anguish.

Her performance burnishes a sympathetic depiction of simple mourning that will find appreciative audiences in art houses and on the festival circuit.

The majestic Quebec landscape around Kamouraska, on the south side of the St. Laurence River just north of Maine, also plays a key roll.

When Francoise (Tremblay) flees there to combat overwhelming emotions in solitude the place is buried in its full winter glory. When not wandering the rooms of the memory-filled home she grew up in, she tramps daily through the show and goes so far as to want to become lost in it.

In despair and almost frozen, she is found by a neighbor, Edouard (Francois Papineau), who has also recently returned having become a successful artist. He provides warmth and nourishment as they recollect their time together growing up by the river.

She tells of her failed marriage and adoration of her daughter Anna (Sheila Jaffe, pictured with Tremblay), a passionately talented violinist slain inexplicably by a serial killer. He tells of finding no lasting partner and of becoming disillusioned with the art world despite becoming a success.

Through the winter, he cooks for her and asks her to model for him, and she bares body and soul as she strives for emotional healing. Still, it takes the appearance of Anna and Francoise’s mother and grandmother to give that a real chance.

Writer-director Martin leaves it for the audience to decide if they are apparitions or simply in the woman’s mind, although there’s no attempt at hocus-pocus.

Paced gently with splendid images from cinematographer Michel La Veaux, the film has the rhythm of the winter season as it gives way to the hope of spring.

The opening sequence shows violinist Anna in a fine performance of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15, Opus 132, and there is more Beethoven throughout the film subtly complemented by Robert Marcel Lepage’s understated score.

Venue: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Official Competition; Cast: Guylaine Tremblay, Francois Papineau, Sheila Jaffe; Director, writer: Catherine Martin; Director of photography: Michel La Veaux; Production designer: Caroline Alder; Music: Robert Marcel Lepage; Editor: Natalie Lamoureux; Producers: Claude Cartier, Lorraine Dufour Production company: Coop Video de Montreal; Sales: Coop Video de Montreal; Not rated; running time, 87 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Film, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on KVIFF FILM REVIEW: Catherine Martin’s ‘Mourning for Anna’

KVIFF FILM REVIEW: Tomas Masin’s ‘3 Seasons in Hell’

Posted on July 6, 2010 by admin

3 SEASONS IN HELLBy Ray Bennett

Karlovy Vary, Czech Republic – Tomas Masin’s “3 Seasons in Hell” tells of the terror that ensued in Czechoslovakia in 1948 when, having just emerged from the hell of Nazi occupation, the country was overrun by the Soviet Union.

Based loosely on the memoirs of Czech writer Egon Bondy, it tells of a poet named Ivan Heinz (Krystof Hadek) who subscribes to an unruly mix of artistic freedom, political anarchy and Marxism that he spits energetically into the face of the authorities.

A well-constructed historical drama with memorable images and fine performances, the film should do well internationally and appeal especially to those wishing to add to their knowledge of the post-World War II period behind the Iron Curtain. A suspenseful sequence involving a desperate smuggling attempt into Austria and images of the devastation of Vienna add to the film’s power.

Director Masin and his co-writer Lubomir Drozd follow Ivan over three years as he conspires with other dissidents to resist the ugly boot of communist power and simply survive. Using costumes and props from the period, Masin conveys vividly the chaos and terror of the time with considerable help from production designer Martin Kurel and director of photography Karl Osjarsson.

He also draws striking performances from young leads Hadek and Karolina Gruszka (pictured with Hadek), who plays Jana, the flamboyantly independent and beautiful young woman he falls in love with. Martin Huba brings seen-it-all dignity to the role of Ivan’s stern but loving father, and the supporting roles are cast shrewdly.

At first, Ivan is shown being as tiresome as he is restless, spouting nonsensical slogans and defying authority in the most painless and adolescent ways. Leaving his weary but tolerant and generous father, he goes to live in a hovel inhabited by sickly artist friend Hanes (Tomasz Tyndyk) and gradually his political awareness matures.

Meeting the wild and colorful Jana, he is smitten immediately despite Hanes’ caution: “If you don’t win her, you lose. If you win her, you still lose.”

It is a measure of the skilful screenplay and the performances by Hadek and Gruszka that two characters whose fate appears at first to be inconsequential, come to mean a great deal.

The annoying poet and his promiscuous beauty end up as substantial figures representing the innocence that suffers most under repression.

Venue: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Official Competition; Cast: Krystof Hadek, Karolina Gruszka, Martin Huba, Jan Kraus, Tomasz Tyndyk; Director: Tomas Masin; Screenwriters: Tomas Masin, Lubomir Drozd; Director of photography: Karl Oskarsson; Production designer: Martin Kurel; Music: Filip Jelinek; Costume designer: Katarina Holla; Editor: Petr Turyna; Producer: Monika Kristlova; Production company: Dawson Productions; Sales: The Yellow Affair; Not rated; running time, 110 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Film, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on KVIFF FILM REVIEW: Tomas Masin’s ‘3 Seasons in Hell’

KVIFF FILM REVIEW: ‘The Woman With a Broken Nose’

Posted on July 5, 2010 by admin

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

By Ray Bennett

KARLOVY VARY, Czech Republic – “The Woman With a Broken Nose” tells of a woman with a bloody face who jumps out of a taxi stuck in heavy traffic in the rain and leaps from a bridge. The cabbie tries in vain to stop her and only when he returns to his car does he see that she has left a baby in the back seat.

Writer-director Srdan Koljevic has delivered an artful and wise little picture with unexpected turns and a satisfying tone of wary optimism. It’s a pleasing urban shaggy-dog story with rainy nighttime Belgrade a gleaming backdrop as the few well-meaning characters who witness the woman’s jump stumble along with their raggedy lives.

The production could thrive in international markets with its smartly rounded tale of folks in a place that has seen great strife trying to get along, and finding a kind of unlikely good fortune despite numerous obstacles.

Nebojsa Glogovac has genuine charisma as Gavrilo, a hard-bitten Bosnian disillusioned by war and content to muddle through life driving a cab. Tempted to dump the baby at the nearest orphanage, he gives in credibly to the tug of humanity and seeks help from a hooker pal (Jasna Zalica) to take care of it while he tries to find if the mother, Zena (Nada Sargin) has survived. When he learns that she is in a coma in hospital, he determines to bring her out of it so she can take the baby off his hands.

Meanwhile, two women who were in nearby cars on the bridge, Biljana (Branka Katic) and Anica (Anica Dobra) and who have troubles of their own, become friends.

Biljana, who works at an all-night pharmacy, is mourning the death of her lover who feigned appendicitis to get out of the draft and died on the operating table. Anica, who has gone back to school, is mourning the death of her son who was killed by a hit-and-run driver.

As Gavrilo becomes more involved with Zena, who turns out to have a sinister boyfriend, their lives all entwine again as they are required to give evidence to the police. More by luck than good judgment, their individual stories play out with appealing intelligence.

A lively mix of rock tracks combines with Mario Schneider’s atmospheric music to underscore cinematographer Goran Volarevic’s evocative images in a savvy tale of a big city at night.

Venue: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, East of the West Competition; Cast: Nebojsa Glogovac, Branka Katic, Anica Dobra, Nada Sargin, Jasna Zalica, Vuk Kostic, Nikola Rakocevic; Director, writer: Srdan Koljevic; Director of photography: Goran Volarevic; Production designers: Zorana Petrov, Lana Prolic; Music: Mario Schneider; Costume designer: Nebojsa Lipanovic; Editor: Marko Glusac; Producers: Alexander Ris, Jelena Mitrovic, Srdan Golubovic; Production companies: Neue Mediopolis, Film House Bas Celik; Sales: Aktis Film International; Not rated; running time, 101 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Film, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on KVIFF FILM REVIEW: ‘The Woman With a Broken Nose’

KVIFF FILM REVIEW: Jan Sverak’s ‘Kooky’

Posted on July 5, 2010 by admin

kooky x650By Ray Bennett

KARLOVY VARY, Czech Republic – Czech filmmaker Jan Sverak, whose “Kolya” won the 1997 Oscar for best foreign language film, has created a little gem with his latest, “Kooky”, which combines puppetry with animation and live action.

Conjured from the imagination of a little boy with asthma, it tells of what happens when a favorite teddy bear named Kooky is thrown into the trash and condemned to the local dump.

Miniature but phantasmagorical creatures of the forest befriend the pink cuddly toy as the boy imagines Kooky making a flight for freedom and returning to his side.

Filled with extraordinary images created with verve and wit, and rendered with enormous charm, the film will bring great pleasure to family audiences just as it is. Before international release, however, it is to get a new English-language voice cast with new jokes to enhance the Czech references. With a broader sensibility, it could become a worldwide family hit.

“Kooky” doesn’t aim to punch machismo buttons in the manner of “Toy Story 3,” which had grown men in tears recalling their swaggering boyhood action figures, but it does appeal to grownup nostalgia as well as to the young.

“Kooky” is just a moldy old teddy bear but young Ondra loves him just the same. When his mother buys him a new doll and insists that the dusty bear is bad for his breathing, it ends up deep in piles of rubbish and Ondra’s vivid imagination takes over.

Among Sverak’s many accomplishments in the film is that he always makes sure to remind the audience that this is the child’s view of things. The freedom that gives the filmmaker and his talented team of craftspeople is fresh and creatively liberating.

As soon as Kooky springs to life in the boy’s mind, we are there with the doll in the trash and when he bolts for the fence, suddenly the plastic bags that turn into ferocious gatekeepers and pursuers become sinister and frightening.

Dashing for the trees, the puppet encounters the kind of weird and wonderful beasties that could only exist in the mind of a small boy. Captain Goddam is an odd looking rodent-like character who, as the Guardian, runs the bit of undergrowth where Kooky ends up.

He has no time at first for the soft toy with fake fur, warning: “Here in nature, we don’t play games. This is real life.”

Turns out the Captain has a rival for power in the villainous Nushka, who enlists the Bagmen to help capture Kooky and demonstrate that the Guardian has lost his authority. Terrific action ensues with wild chases involving wacky automobiles that turn the outdoors into winter the faster they go. Michal Novinsky’s agile score embraces the film’s fertile invention and adds to its pleasure.

It could all get a bit goofy but Sverak has total command of his environment and by combining real and animated creatures in the extraordinary cinematography of Vladimir Smutny and Mark Bliss he makes it thoroughly captivating.

Venue: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Official Competition; Cast: Oldrich Kaiser, Ondrej Sverak, Kristyna Fuitova-Novakova, Filip Capka; Director, writer: Jan Sverak; Producers: Jan Sverak, Eric Abraham; Directors of photography: Vladimir Smutny, Mark Bliss; Production designer: Jakub Dvorsky; Music: Michal Novinski; Editor: Alois Fisarek; Sales: Fandango Portobello Sales; Not rated; running time, 95 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Film, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Reviews | Tagged , , | Comments Off on KVIFF FILM REVIEW: Jan Sverak’s ‘Kooky’

KVIFF FILM REVIEW: Agusti Vila’s ‘The Mosquito Net’

Posted on July 5, 2010 by admin

the-mosquito-net x650By Ray Bennett

KARLOVY VARY, Czech Republic – The title of Barcelona-born filmmaker Agusti Vila’s “The Mosquito Net” refers to a story created by one of the characters about a girl who is scared to death because she’s afraid of stepping on ants when she walks and won’t use netting when she sleeps.

It’s just one neurosis among the many that afflict everyone in the film as writer-director Vila spins a yarn of obsession and indulgence that could be a comedy if it were not so very, very dry and the events so close to tragedy.

Sometimes abrupt in its storytelling and withdrawn in the information it provides about characters, the film remains intriguing and the questions it raises stick in the mind. It should engage audiences with a taste for complex urban quandaries presented with Spanish flair.

A dysfunctional family is at the center of things with Alicia (Emma Suarez) the writer and illustrator of weird tales who indulges her teenaged son Lluis (Marcos Franz, pictured with Suarez) in his passion for bringing home stray dogs and cats.

The opening scene is very funny as Alicia and husband Miguel (Eduard Fernandez) come home to find yet another pup has been added to the menagerie, much to Miguel’s annoyance.

Fighting over animals, however, is just one part of the couple’s growing dissatisfaction with their marriage. Her increased distraction over getting her next project published and his growing insistence on tidiness in the home have led them to separate bedrooms. Things come to a head when their son brings home a wounded pigeon and Miguel smacks one of the dogs on the snout when it goes to sniff the bird.

They separate and each embarks on an affair, Miguel with their beautiful young immigrant maid Ana (Martina Garcia), to whom he has already begun to make fetishistic overtures, and she drunkenly with one of her son’s school friends (Alex Batllori).

Meanwhile, Alicia’s single-mother sister Raquel (Anna Ycobalzeta) is having a meltdown and has started abusing her young daughter and Miguel’s aged parents (Geraldine Chaplin and Fermi Reixach) are dealing with her Alzheimer’s and his suicidal tendencies.

The talented ensemble cast plays it straight but it’s tempting to laugh at some of the behavior because much of it is absurd. The thread of lousy parenting and child abuse is so strong, however, that laughter sticks in the throat. It would be good to think that’s exactly what Vila intended.

Venue: Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Official Competition; Cast: Emma Suarez, Eduard Fernandez, Geraldine Chaplin, Marcos Franz, Alex Batilori; Director, writer: Agusti Vila; Director of photography: Neus Olle; Production designer: Leo Casamitjana; Music: Alfons Conde; Editor: Marti Roca; Producer: Luis Minarro; Production company: Eddie Saeta S.A.; Sales: Eddie Saeta S.A.; Not rated; running time, 95 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Film, Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Reviews | Tagged , , | Comments Off on KVIFF FILM REVIEW: Agusti Vila’s ‘The Mosquito Net’

EDINBURGH FILM REVIEW: Hattie Dalton’s ‘Third Star’

Posted on June 27, 2010 by admin

THIRD STAR 6 x650

By Ray Bennett

EDINBURGH – Four men go on a camping trip to Wales seeking a memorable beach from childhood, but one of them is dying and his motives might be different in Hattie Dalton’s gloomy drama “Third Star.”

Screened on the closing night of the Edinburgh International Film Festival on June 26, the film stars Benedict Cumberbatch as James, who has inoperable and terminal cancer and wants his buddies to share one last venture with him. The actor’s sensitive performance, in which he expresses more with his eyes than is in the script, does much to redeem an otherwise dreary exercise.

Such a downbeat tale might not find appreciative audiences at a time when many are seeking respite from difficult days, and box office attention would be appear to be slight.

Writer Vaughan Sivell establishes the four pals without much information but then Davy (Tom Burke), Miles (JJ Field, pictured right with Cumberbatch), Bill (Adam Robertson) and James don’t appear to know each other very well. Their exchanges involve imparting information they should know already even if it’s news to viewers.

THIRD STAR 2 x650

Their banter is at the level of mates off to watch the football even though they should be aware of the significance of carting a dying man to visit a treasured place from when he was a kid.

There’s a drinking scene that leads to a brawl in a pub and arguments over who has brought too much to carry and who has left the important stuff behind. There’s an almost calamitous brush near a cliff (above) and storms that carry away vital equipment.

James’s intentions aren’t much of a mystery and were it not for Cumberbatch’s capacity to generate intelligent sympathy it would be tempting to suggest he get on with it.

As it is, the film trudges on with banal revelations from the three friends and attempts to suggest there will be surprises later on. Right.

Venue: Edinburgh International Film Festival; Cast: Tom Burke, Benedict Cumberbatch, JJ Feild, Adam Robertson; Director: Hattie Dalton; Writer: Vaughan Sivell; Director of photography: Carlos Catalan; Production designer: Richard Campling; Music: Stephen Hilton; Costume designer: Marianne Agertoft; Editor: Peter Christelis; Producers: Kelly Broad, Vaughan Sivell; Not rated; running time, 92 minutes.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

Posted in Edinburgh International Film Festival, Film, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on EDINBURGH FILM REVIEW: Hattie Dalton’s ‘Third Star’

THEATRE REVIEW: ‘As You Like It’, ‘The Tempest’

Posted on June 24, 2010 by admin

The Tempest, As You Like it x650By Ray Bennett

LONDON – Sam Mendes brings his Bridge Project back to the Old Vic for the second year but while the pairing of “As You Like It” and “The Tempest” makes enjoyable theater, the productions lack the vitality and artistic merit of last year’s double-bill, “The Cherry Orchard” and “The Winter’s Tale.”

The plays arrive in London after starting out at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and making a world tour, and while the accomplished cast is too professional to let that show, there is an ebullience and artistic ambition that are somehow missing.

The plays are linked in that they deal with brotherly betrayal, power plays and flights for survival, and the characters in each are under the spell of a master manipulator, Rosalind in “As You Like It” and Prospero in “Tempest.”

Performed in repertory, they also play as an almost six-hour marathon on some days with a matinee and an evening show. “As You Like” runs for more than three hours plus an interval but as it is one of Shakespeare’s more indulgent plays there are threads that Mendes might well have done without.

As it is, it seems to take an age for the abandoned Rosalind, played by an effervescent Juliet Rylance, to win the hand of her beloved Orlando (Christian Camargo, playing him as more than a little dim). Ron Cephas Jones makes the Duke’s wrestler sinewy and scary while Michelle Beck is a saucy delight as Rosalind’s best friend Celia. Thomas Sadoski, with droll manner and witty movement, manages to find laughs as the usually tiresome Touchstone.

The biggest laughter, however, comes when Stephen Dillane (centre), playing Jacques as a dispassionate and grouchy observer of life, breaks into song with a voice much like Bob Dylan’s followed by a harmonica riff or two. Jacques has the notable speech, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” and Dillane almost throws it away as if making it up on the spot. It gains even more power as a result.

Dillane also plays Prospero in “The Tempest” and he approaches the role with a similar nonchalance, retreating almost to the wings as the events he’s set in motion take place in a sandy circle at the center of the stage.

Prospero has the big speech, “Our revels now are ended … ” and Dillane tackles it with similar detachment although in this play he chooses to speak so softly that it’s sometimes difficult to hear him.

Rylance plays Miranda with the same charming energy although she has less to do. Cephas Jones makes Caliban a creature reminiscent of Gollum: considerably taller but with that creature’s grovelling menace. Camargo is imposing as an ethereal Ariel and he features in one of Mendes’ best moments when he towers above the stage with giant wings. It’s a shame there aren’t more scenes just as dynamic.

Venue: The Old Vic, London; runs through Aug. 23; Cast: Stephen Dillane, Juliet Rylance, Edward Bennett, Christian Camargo, Thomas Sadoski, Anthony O’Donnell, Ron Cephas Jones, Michelle Beck; Playwright: William Shakespeare; Director: Sam Mendes; Set designer: Tom Piper; Costume designer: Catherine Zuber; Lighting designer: Paul Pyant; Sound designer: Simon Baker for Autograph.

Posted in Reviews, Theatre | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on THEATRE REVIEW: ‘As You Like It’, ‘The Tempest’