THEATRE REVIEW: ‘God of Carnage’

Posted on March 28, 2008 by admin

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By Ray Bennett

A civilized meeting of two married couples to discuss the misbehavior of one of their children descends into an evening of virtual hand-to-hand combat in a star-laden production of Yasmina Reza’s new play “God of Carnage” at London’s Gielgud Theatre.

Ralph Fiennes, Tamsin Greig, Janet McTeer and Ken Stott play middle-class Parisians whose attempt to find out why one of their sons struck the other with a stick in a playground encounter begins with polite reserve and ends with blood on the floor.

The production is from the team that produced the 1994 theatrical hit “Art,” which ran on Broadway for 18 months and won the Tony for best play. Christopher Hampton again translates Yeza’s words, with direction by Matthew Warchus.

“Carnage” is entertaining and insightful with fine performances by the cast of four, but its examination of middle-class marriage and the thin veneer of civilization that holds society together fails to apply the scalpel where it would truly hurt. Edward Albee’s George and Martha would have wiped the floor with this lot.

Alain (Fiennes) and Annette (Greig) at first appear keen to address the concerns of Veronique (McTeer) and Michel (Stott) over why their 11-year-old Ferdinand whacked his schoolmate Bruno in the mouth, causing the loss of a tooth or two.

It becomes clear, however, that lawyer Alain sees all children, including his son, as savages and wishes merely to pay for orthodontics and put the matter to rest. Veronique, a liberal author who writes about suffering in Africa, has something more in mind involving apologies and punishment.

Annette, who says she’s in wealth management, and Michel, who runs a domestic hardware company, are supportive and conciliatory at the outset, each aware of the potential for sparks from their respective spouses.

But small haggling over whether Ferdinand was “armed with” or “furnished with” a stick or whether Bruno was merely bruised or disfigured for life lead to more serious disagreements until all-out war is declared.

There are some very funny lines, and all four performers delight in the power of well-constructed dialogue to both soothe and draw blood. At the end, the hypocrisies of both couples are laid bare, but at 90-minutes, the play hasn’t enough time to go very deep and ends up offering neither catharsis nor harmony.

Venue: Gielgud Theatre, runs through June 14; Cast: Ralph Fiennes; Tamsin Greig; Janet McTeer; Ken Stott; Playwright: Yasmina Reza; Translated by: Christopher Hampton; Director: Matthew Warchus; Set designer: Mark Thompson; Lighting designer: Hugh Vanstone; Music: Gary Yershon; Sound designer: Simon Baker; Produced by David Pugh & Dafydd Rogers.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter; Photo: Alastair Muir

 

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THEATRE REVIEW: ‘Jersey Boys’

Posted on March 20, 2008 by admin

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By Ray Bennett

LONDON –”Jersey Boys,” the pop musical about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons that has had a long Tony Award-winning Broadway run, finally made it to London’s West End with a British cast and it’s great finally to see what all the fuss is about.

Frankie Valli and Bob Gaudio from the real Four Seasons were on hand Tuesday night at the Prince Edward Theatre for the London first night and their appearance topped a great night with a packed house on their feet for the Broadway transfer.

The show started off at the La Jolla Playhouse in California, which has been headed for 25 years by two-time Tony Award-winning director Des McAnuff. Named recently as co-artistic director of the Stratford Festival in Canada, McAnuff’s track record includes Roger Miller’s “Big River,” Pete Townshend’s “The Who’s Tommy” and Randy Newman’s wonderful but ignored “Faust.”

Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice constructed a sturdy platform to tell the story of four kids from the neighborhood who were determined to escape the clutches of poverty and crime. Not entirely to escape, as the mob’s tentacles intruded along the way to make life difficult, but to win fame and riches.

Director McAnuff and the rest of the Broadway creative team are all on board and they’ve found a terrific cast of U.K. performers to carry the torch. Ryan Molloy’s grasp of the Valli sound is uncanny and he is able to convey not only the growth of the character but also the increasing richness of his vocals.

Stephen Ashfield is engagingly bluff as Bob Gaudio, the songwriter who came along at just the right time to carry the boys to the top of the pop world. Philip Bulcock captures the insouciance of Nick Massi, whose appetite for pop glory waned along the way. And Glenn Carter gives tough guy Tommy DeVito, who pushed the group forward but gave in too easily to the temptations along the way, the right degree of swagger.

Like most jukebox musicals, the show scrimps on scenery and choreography but that doesn’t matter as it has some smart and informative video and cartoon projections. The focus is tight on the band members and the drama is enhanced greatly by the lighting design of deserved Tony winner Howard Binkley.

Above all, the 33 songs with all the hits including “Sherry,” “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Walk Like a Man,” “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” “Working My Way Back to You” and “Rag Doll” are put across in sensational fashion.

Some critics here wonder if the backstory will interest U.K. theatergoers but whereas many couldn’t tell Arkansas from Utah, New Jersey is Sinatra, Nicholson and Springsteen. They know.

Venue: Prince Edward Theatre, runs through Oct. 18; Cast: Ryan Molloy; Stephen Ashfield; Philip Bulcock; Glenn Carter; Simon Adkins; Suzy Bastone; Michelle Francis; Jye Frasca; Stuart Milligan; Book: Marshall Brickman & Rick Elice; Music: Bob Gaudio; Lyrics: Bob Crewe; Director: Des McAnuff; Choreographer: Sergio Trujillo; Musical supervisor: Ron Melrose; Scenic designer: Klara Zieglerova; Costume designer: Jess Goldstein; Lighting designer: Howard Binkley; Sound designer: Steve Canyon Kennedy; Projection design: Michael Clark.

A version of this review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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Paul Schofield dies

Posted on March 20, 2008 by admin

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By Ray Bennett

LONDON – The great actor Paul Scofield, 1966 Oscar-winner for “A Man For All Seasons,” has died. He was 86. Reuters says he died peacefully at a hospital near his home in southern England, quoting his agent Rosalind Chato: “He had leukemia and had not been well for some time.”

Tributes will pour in for one of the finest stage and screen actors that Britain has ever produced. “Of the 10 greatest moments in the theatre, eight are Scofield’s,” Richard Burton once said.

Scofield gave a towering performance as Sir Thomas More in “A Man For All Seasons” with Robert Shaw as Henry VIII and Orson Welles as Cardinal Wolsey. Director Fred Zinnemann, screenwriter Robert Bolt, DP Ted Moore, and costume designers Elizabeth Haffenden and Joan Bridge also won Academy Awards to go with the best picture prize.

My favorite Scofield performances, however, were in two Burt Lancaster pictures, “The Train” (top picture)  and “Scorpio” (below).

In John Frankenheimer’s “The Train” (1964) he plays a German colonel who tries to steal French art treasures with Lancaster as the resistance railwayman trying to thwart him. Shot in black and white by Jean Tournier and Walter Wottiz (Oscar-winner for the black-and-white “The Longest Day”) with incisive music by Maurice Jarre, it’s a marvelously tense battle of wits with the two leads matching each other in intensity.

Michael Winner’s “Scorpio” (1973) was an underrated spy thriller about an ageing CIA agent named Cross (Lancaster) set to be eliminated by a cold-blooded assassin called Scorpio (Alain Delon). As in many of his better films, Winner had the good sense to allow fine actors to simply do their stuff.

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Filmed atmospherically in Washington, Paris and Vienna, with a good score by Jerry Fielding, the screenplay by David W. Rintels and Gerald Wilson includes a fabulous scene in which Cross gets drunk with his old Cold War foe, the Russian Zharkov, played by Scofield with wry nostalgia and good lines, as Zharkov warns his longtime adversary: “Do me one favor, Cross. Run. As fast and as far as you can,” the scene shows two acting masters at the top of their game.

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‘English Patient’ director Anthony Minghella dies

Posted on March 18, 2008 by admin

Anthony MinghellaBy Ray Bennett

Oscar-winning British film director Anthony Minghella, whose epic “The English Patient” won nine 1997 Academy Awards including best picture, has died. He was 54.

Minghella’s agent said he died Tuesday morning of a brain hemorhage. “He was operated on last week for a growth in his neck and the operation seemed to have gone well,” agent Judy Daish said. “At 5 a.m. today he had a fatal hemorrhage.”

The filmmaker’s other pictures include “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” “Cold Mountain” and “Breaking and Entering,” and he was known for his attention to film music, especially in collaboration with Oscar-winner Gabriel Yared.

He recently directed the first episode of a new series based on Alexander McCall Smith’s popular “The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency,” which he coscripted with Richard Curtis. It airs on Sunday March 23 at 9 p.m. on BBC1.

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THEATRE REVIEW: Noel Coward’s ‘The Vortex’

Posted on March 14, 2008 by admin

By Ray Bennett

Noel Coward wrote “The Vortex” in 1924 as a cautionary tale about the price to be paid for overindulging in the roaring ’20s, but his characters appear frightfully shallow and their antics tiresomely petty in the 21st century.

The eminent Peter Hall directed the current revival at London’s Apollo Theatre, and Felicity Kendal of the 1970s U.K. sitcom “The Good Life” does her best as an impossibly self-obsessed aging beauty named Florence who is coming to terms badly with the passage of time. Kendal tries not to flounce too much, though she does at one point have to fling herself onto a large bed and almost tear her hair out.

Dan_Stevens_Felicty_Kendal x325Dan Stevens has it worse, as her son, Nicky, a 24-year-old layabout who has just returned from Paris. There, he has picked up a coyly implied cocaine habit and is mortified to see that mummy is bonking yet another guardsman, Tom (Daniel Pirrie).

When Florence has a hissy fit about her escort’s predictable betrayal with a mindless young thing named Bunty Mainwaring (Cressida Trew), Nicky erupts in anger, even going so far as to throw her rouge and face powder across the room!

Nicky had been passing off Bunty as his girlfriend, but having written the part for himself, Coward makes it clear that the young man’s impulses lie in another direction. And with his taste for drugs, he feels that Florence has really done a terrible job as a parent.

His wealthy father (Paul Ridley), long accustomed to his wife’s strident infidelities, wisely remains offstage most of the time, showing up every now and then to sigh and withdraw.

Florence has plenty of company in her posh residence, however, besides Tom. There’s a party of jolly types including the fatuous Pauncefort Quentin (Barry Stanton), who is given insightful lines like “It’s never too early for a cocktail,” and close friend Helen (Phoebe Nicholls), who would prefer to become closer still.

Coward litters the play with dialogue intended to pass as wit. “He’s terribly selfish,” one says, “but so is everyone who is amusing.” “Isn’t Tom a darling?” “Yes, without being aggressively brilliant.” “He’s the very nicest type of Englishman.” “I hate the nicest type of Englishman.”

The play runs for less than 100 minutes, but here it’s spread out over three acts with two lengthy intervals. It’s a long time before Nicky sums it all up: “We swirl about in a vortex of beastliness!” How true.

Venue: Apollo Theatre, runs through June 7; Cast: Felicity Kendal; Dan Stevens; Phoebe Nicholls; Vivien Keene; Barry Stanton; Annette Badland; Daniel Pirrie; Paul Ridley; Cressida Trew; Timothy Speyer; Playwright: Noel Coward; Director: Peter Hall; Designer: Alison Chitty; Lighting designer: Paul Pyant; Sound designer: Gregory Clarke; Music: Mick Sands; Presented by Bill Kenwright.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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Olivier Awards performances rock the joint

Posted on March 10, 2008 by admin

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By Ray Bennett

LONDON – The joint was jumping at the Olivier Awards Sunday night with performances from the nominated musicals and a tribute to the works of lifetime achievement honouree Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Most unforgettable was the reaction of the young cast of “The Magic Flute – Impempe Yomlingo” (pictured) who had performed earlier. They were watching from the balcony of the ballroom at Grosvenor House and when the show was named best musical revival, boy, did they sing out in triumph!

It was exhilarating, and a grand advertisement for the Young Vic production, which sets the Mozart classic in South Africa, and is playing at the Duke of York’s Theatre through April 12.

star-elena-rogerThe casts of the Donmar’s “Parade,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Little Shop of Horrors” and the night’s big winner, “Hairspray”, also were in top form. Connie Fisher from “The Sound of Music” sang “Take That Look Off Your Face” from “Tell Me On a Sunday” and Lee Mead did “Close Every Door to Me” from “Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat” in the Lloyd Webber salute.

But the one who had the industry crowd standing in applause was Elena Roger (above). The petite Argentine star of the 2006 revival of “Evita” performed “As If We Never Said Goodbye” from “Sunset Boulevard” and blew the roof off.

Richard E. Grant was the droll host of the evening, dripping with sarcasm over many of the corny lines he had to deliver. Presenters included Kevin Spacey and his “Speed-the-Plow” costar Jeff Goldblum who was paired with a delighted Barbara Windsor.

All the winners were gracious although I didn’t hear best actor Chiwetel Ejiofor (“Othello”) name-check his Iago, Ewan McGregor. The best acceptance speech was by surprised choreography winner Toby Sedgwick, who devised the motion of the puppets in the National’s hit “War Horse”, which returns at the end of the year.

Sedgwick observed that working with the faux equines for so long didn’t necessarily turn a person into a horse and then began to snort and stamp his foot.

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OLIVIER AWARDS: Wins for Ejiofor, Scott Thomas, ‘Hairspray’

Posted on March 10, 2008 by admin

Scott Thomas Ejiofor Oliviers 2008 x325By Ray Bennett

LONDON – Chiwetel Ejiofor and Kristin Scott Thomas (left) and the Broadway smash “Hairspray” won top honors Sunday at the Laurence Olivier Awards, Britain’s equivalent of the Tony Awards.

Ejiofor was named best actor for his title performance in “Othello,” while Scott Thomas took the actress prize for “The Seagull.”

With a record-breaking 11 nominations, “Hairspray” picked up with four prizes, including best new musical.

Ejiofor, whose film credits range from Steven Spielberg’s “Amistad” in 1997 to Ridley Scott’s “American Gangster” last year, triumphed over competition that included Ian McKellen in “King Lear” and Patrick Stewart in “Macbeth.”

Ewan McGregor, who co-starred as Iago in the Donmar Warehouse’s hit production of “Othello,” was not nominated. Tom Hiddleston, who also was nominated for playing Cassio in “Othello,” won as best newcomer for “Cymbeline” at the Barbican.

Rupert Goold, who directed Stewart in “Macbeth,” was named best director, and Rory Kinnear won for best performance in a supporting role for the National’s revival of George Etherege’s restoration comedy “The Man of Mode,” which also won for Vicki Mortimer’s costume design.

“Hairspray” also won for best actor in a musical for West End veteran Michael Ball, best actress in a musical for newcomer Leanne Jones, and best performance in a supporting role in a musical for Tracie Bennett.

Richard E. Grant hosted the ceremony at Grosvenor House, where Andrew Lloyd Webber received a lifetime achievement award. Presented by the Society of London Theatre since 1976, the prizes were named the Laurence Olivier Awards in 1984.

This story appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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THEATRE REVIEW: Miller’s ‘The Man Who Had All the Luck’

Posted on March 9, 2008 by admin

'Man who had all the luck'

By Ray Bennett

London’s Donmar Warehouse has taken a forgotten play by Arthur Miller, “The Man Who Had All the Luck,” which folded after four performances on Broadway in 1944, and reveals that it deserves an honored place among the late American playwright’s works.

A fable about a man who cannot believe his own good luck, the writing is sturdy and provocative, as you would expect from Miller. In his 30s at the time, he explores such themes as the conflict between fathers and sons and how life has a way of catching us out that he would explore further in his greatest plays.

Casting director Anne McNulty has supplied director Sean Holmes with a cast of fine actors who are not only relaxed in their serviceably generic U.S. accents but also somehow have the faces of hardworking rural Americans in the 1940s.

Designer Paul Wills’ evocative sets — including a roadside garage with a period automobile that descends from the ceiling — are bathed in Paule Constable’s autumnal lighting to amplify the play’s mix of hope and despair.

Miller’s central character, David Beeves (Andrew Buchan) is a man who has lucked into a job as a car mechanic but who believes that in America a man should get what he deserves. When good things always seem to come his way, he refuses to believe that he’s earned them. It will spin him toward madness.

Miller said his parable was about a young man who has “succeeded in piling up treasures that rust, from which his spirit has already fled.” The man’s conviction that everyone has a curse that will one day emerge to blight life is deepened by the cruel fate that has been dished out to everyone else he knows.

His brother Amos (Felix Scott), who has a fine pitching arm, having been driven to train by their obsessed father (Nigel Cooke), keeps waiting for a scout from the Detroit Tigers to show up. Friend J.B. (Mark Lewis Jones) keeps drinking as his longed-for chances to become a father become slimmer. Girlfriend Hester (Michelle Terry) has a brute of a father (Roy Sampson) who threatens to shoot David if he comes near her.

There are other well-drawn characters, too, whose aspirations have been tarnished by one or another misfortune and a series of events that make compelling drama. The acting is exemplary, and it’s hard to believe that if the Donmar’s production takes Miller’s play back to Broadway that it won’t have much better luck this time.

Venue: Donmar Warehouse, runs through April 5; Cast: Mark Lewis Jones; Andrew Buchan; Aidan Kelly; Sandra Voe; Nigel Cooke; Felix Scott; Michelle Terry; James Hayes; Roy Sampson; Shaun Dingwall; Gary Lilburn; Playwright: Arthur Miller; Director: Sean Holmes; Set designer: Paul Wills; Lighting designer: Paule Constable; Sound designer: Christopher Shutt.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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THEATRE REVIEW: Shaw’s ‘Major Barbara’ at the National

Posted on March 6, 2008 by admin

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By Ray Bennett

LONDON – Bernard Shaw’s play “Major Barbara” tackles themes similar to the movie “There Will Be Blood,” but instead of the American Daniel Plainview it’s a very English capitalist named Andrew Undershaft who takes on religion and wins.

President Eisenhower warned of the dangers of the military industrial complex in his farewell address in 1961, but it was on playwright Shaw’s mind in 1905, when the play was first produced. Now, a major revival brings out all of Shaw’s skill in creating interesting characters and writing well-structured and often very funny scenes.

Directed by Nicholas Hytner and starring, as Undershaft, Simon Russell Beale –surely the best stage actor in Britain – the play retains Shaw’s cynicism and idealism and does not shirk his inclination to be didactic in respect to society and politics.

Undershaft manufactures weapons of all sizes and sells them to anyone that wishes to go to war. Immensely wealthy, he pays his workers an honest wage and provides homes, schools and health care. He does this not only because he believes treating them well will prevent revolution but also from his belief that the worst crime in life is poverty.

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The mogul also provides for his estranged family, haughty wife Lady Britomart (Clare Higgins), feeble son Stephen (John Heffernan) and two daughters, giggly Sarah (Jessica Gunning) and the very independent and resourceful Barbara (Hayley Atwell, pictured with Beale).

Barbara, in fact, has rejected the trappings of wealth and joined the Salvation Army along with her doting boyfriend, Adolphus (Paul Ready), a scholar of Greek.

Shaw pits the father and the boyfriend against each other to win over Barbara; one to draw her towards capitalism, the other towards idealism. It’s not a fair fight, and Hytner uses Shaw’s text to illustrate exactly why with all its references to government, industry and world affairs remaining highly pertinent.

The play moves through three impressively detailed sets designed by Tom Pye as Shaw takes his characters from a cozy drawing room to an unsettling Salvation Army soup kitchen to a very scary weapons factory filled with bombs that might be nuclear.

Russell Beale relishes the chance to play a much darker character than usual, and Undershaft’s exchanges with wife, daughter and Adolphus are riveting. Higgins and Ready respond in kind, and Heffernan shows the son’s better colors before the play is over.

Oddly, Shaw doesn’t give his title character many great lines, and while Atwell is fine, she’s not given the chance to impress, as she surely will later this year as Julia Flyte in a new feature film version of “Brideshead Revisited.”

Venue: National Theatre, runs through May 15; Cast: Simon Russell Beale; Hayley Atwell; Clare Higgins; Paul Ready; John Heffernan; Tom Andrews; Jessica Gunning; Playwright: Bernard Shaw; Director: Nicholas Hytner; Set designer: Tom Pye; Costume designer: Vicki Mortimer; Lighting designer: Paul Pyant; Music: Matthew Scott; Sound designer: Mike Walker; Presented by the National Theatre with sponsorship by Travelex.

This review appeared in The Hollywood Reporter.

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Many left behind in digital world: report

Posted on March 5, 2008 by admin

By Ray Bennett

LONDON — Teenagers live in a different world of entertainment and technology compared to the rest of the population, a new survey confirms.

Revealing what it calls “an astonishing divide in digital entertainment takeup and technology ownership between consumers of different ages”, the report by Entertainment Media Research concludes: “There is a substantial proportion of consumers that feel left behind. All this adds up to a significant untapped market for digital technologies and services.”

Young people have embraced new technology being hooked into next generation games consoles, wireless networks, advanced mobile phones and digital music players. Many grownups, in contrast, remain reliant on traditional media.

The London-based researcher says the poll of 1,608 people showed that a great many adults, especially females, confessed they were confused by the jargon of the new technology. “A fairly massive chunk of the market” has major barriers to overcome before adopting the new media.

“These barriers include awareness, understanding and acceptance. Providers wishing to maximize takeup of new technologies should not underestimate the extent to which they need to educate a substantial tranche of the market,” the report says. “But more often than not, new technology is riddled with jargon and a fair amount of prior assumed technology know-how. This only adds to the barriers facing many consumers. There is a much bigger market available for consumer technology and digital media is these barriers are overcome.”

Polling for the survey took place before Toshiba Corp. threw in the towel on HD DVD and it reveals that 31% of participants said they owned, had access to or planned to buy an HD DVD unit compared to 18% heading Blu-ray’s way. With 24% of respondents indicating they would watch HD packaged media, that’s good news for Blue-ray.

The figure compared to 7% who said they planned to stream or watch Internet video-on-demand although 84% expressed interest in seeing movies released via VOD at the same time as on DVD. Ad-supported VOD appealed to 70% of those polled with 15% saying they would prefer a subscription or pay-per-view model.

Around 6% said they would stream TV programs, 4% would rent standard DVD movies while 2% suggested they would watch a pirated DVD.

From other questions, the survey concluded that social networks have the potential to become major content distribution platforms and are an essential place to be for brands.

For the majority, however, the strongest ties remain with printed books, watching TV via Sky or subscription TV and listening to the radio, the report says.

“Whilst much attention is placed on digital entertainment trends, it is still the traditional media to which consumers are most emotionally attached,” it says.

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