Funny how vacationing theater critics often end up doing what they normally do back home: seeing lots of theater. I did just that on a recent February jaunt to the Great Britain, though I'll be first to say my five choices were more of what I wanted to see instead of what I should have seen.
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The provocative Salome. Photo courtesy of ArenaPAL. The English National Opera's The Mikado ( above ) is just one of the jewels of the British scene.
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Let me be first to admit guilt at saying, 'You saw that show!? You should have gone to … ' whenever friends and family return from New York or London vacations. So I know I'm rightly up for criticism when I say I opted for The Mikado at the English National Opera ( ENO ) instead of worthy productions like David Mamet's Speed-the-Plow with Kevin Spacey or George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara with Simon Russell Beale.
But, hey, it's my holiday time and there's simply too much going on to catch everything that I 'should' see. So in addition to The Mikado revival, I caught new productions of Salome at the Royal Opera, La Cage aux Folles at the Menier Chocolate Factory, the Royal Shakespeare Company's Henry VI Part II in Stratford-Upon-Avon and The Importance of Being Earnest in the West End.
Going Wilde
Like many punters on vacation, the chance to see TV stars live on stage had me plunking my money down. True, Penelope Keith isn't a name most Americans would recognize, unless you grew up watching British sitcoms on PBS like To the Manor Born or Good Neighbors where Keith's regal ( OK, stuck-up ) characters always stole the show.
Keith was tackling the role of etiquette gorgon Lady Augusta Bracknell in Oscar Wilde's overdone comedy of manners The Importance of Being Earnest. No doubt everyone was just waiting to see how Keith delivered that iconic line, 'A handbag!?'
Instead of imitating Edith Evans' shocked reading in the 1952 film, Keith just spoke it curtly and opted to take more offense at the shabby train station location where the hero Jack Worthing was abandoned as an infant.
Keith was utter perfection in the revival, though the young supporting cast in director Peter Gill's production was very shaky on the night I attended. I was also disappointed that the cast didn't punch up Wilde's witty jokes ( though a friend just pointed out that I'm used to jokes being oversold in American sitcoms ) . Here the approach felt a tad underplayed, which wasn't fully to my taste.
Naked truth
More Wilde was on tap in gay Scottish director David McVicar's controversial take on Richard Strauss' opera Salome. In this new Royal Opera production, McVicar updated the Biblical tale of John the Baptist's beheading to a fascistic 1930s royal mansion ( think of a sexually debased Gosford Park ) .
The production's nudity generated loads of press, less so for the exploited chambermaids but more for the buff Covent Garden busker, Duncan Meadows, who was cast to take it all off as the executioner.
But for opera purists, McVicar's biggest shock was his handling of the Dance of the Seven Veils. Instead of an awkward striptease, McVicar staged it as a flashback hinting at Salome's years of sexual abuse at the hands of King Herod.
Not only did Salome keep it all on for this sequence, it gave an extra dramatic motivation for her sick demands of the John the Baptist's head on a silver platter—it was a horrifying way for her to get back at Herod who is terrified of the imprisoned prophet who keeps condemning his corrupt household.
Nadja Michael wasn't the best-sung Salome I've heard, but she was dramatically convincing in this compelling and expertly staged production.
Fashionable and trendy
The Menier Chocolate Factory isn't officially in the West End, nor is its location south of the River Thames uber-upscale. Yet this plucky combo restaurant and 190-seat theater located in the shell of a former ( you guessed it ) chocolate factory does remarkable work.
Many Menier productions have transferred to the West End and one, Sunday in the Park With George, is now on Broadway. Its recently closed production of Jerry Herman and Harvey Fierstein's 1983 musical La Cage aux Folles looks likely to transfer across to the West End as well, especially if they maintain the touching and campy leading duo of Philip Quast and Douglas Hodge as the longtime gay couple Georges and Albin.
Terry Johnson's intimate production was loads of fun and expertly cast, proving once again that the Menier is the place to see great theater ( and to be seen, since I spotted fashion designer Michael Kors in the audience ) .
Bard country
My first visit to Shakespeare's hometown of Stratford-Upon-Avon shows the Royal Shakespeare Company ( RSC ) in transition. The historic Royal Shakespeare Theatre on the banks of the River Avon is being gutted for a reconfigured thrust stage ( similar to The Courtyard Theatre of Chicago Shakespeare Theatre ) .
While that's going on, the RSC has moved to a temporary purpose-built space across the street called the Courtyard Theatre. Currently, the RSC is ambitiously doing all of Shakespeare's history plays ( save for Henry VIII ) , using the same cast in cycles performed in chronological order and the sequence in which Shakespeare is assumed to have written them. The whole Histories Cycle transfers to London in April.
Since my time was limited ( and since Richard III was sold out ) , I opted to catch what I could by flinging myself in the middle of the War of the Roses with Henry VI Part II. Michael Boyd's slightly modernized staging was engaging and fluid, though his use of actors playing ghosts ( presumably of characters from previous history plays ) was a tad confusing as they doubled up as vengeful executioners and revolting peasants ( of the anarchic variety ) .
Though director Michael Boyd's production was thrilling and extremely well-performed, I was ultimately left disappointed because I only got a taste of this ambitious eight-play grouping of Shakespeare's histories.
Good old G&S
To top off my vacation selection of guilty pleasures, you can't get more essentially English than Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado.
Director Jonathan Miller's junked the 'Japanese' setting of this 1885 operetta and cleverly updated it to a stylish black-and-white English seaside resort in 1920s. Miller's Mikado is available on DVD and has been in the ENO's repertory since 1986, so there was no compelling reason to see it now.
But there's nothing like seeing Gilbert and Sullivan performed live by a bevy of British professional who know the proper comic style and tone to make these Victorian operettas sparkle anew.
So write off my vacation play-going selections as fluff in the face of more serious and important works available. I'll take up your suggestions next time if you agree to foot the bill.
