★★★★

“All three actors have wonderful chemistry together, expressing a totally believable fraternal bond.”

Movement in theatre can often feel forced in an attempt to be Avant Garde. Cringe-inducing lyrical movement to show passion or staccato twitching under strobe to show something dark. In Now I See, Lanre Malaolu’s second play in what will be a trilogy as writer, director and movement director, modern black British masculinity is explored in a style of storytelling that naturally and organically interweaves narrative and movement to enhance the drama.

Set at the funeral of one of three brothers, the play is mostly a two hander between the remaining siblings, interspersed with flashbacks to a youth spent playing rough, making up dance routines, and impersonating the Power Rangers. A low-res hum of afro beats provides constant background music (sound design Pär Carlsson), cut with contemporary Black British pop and R&B to accompany some of the more involved moments of movement. Kieron (Oliver Alvin-Wilson) and Dayo (Nnabiko Ejimofor) appear not to have had much of a relationship in recent years, the cause for which is side stepped around and never addressed head on. What is clear is that the onset of sickle cell anaemia for their brother, Adeyeye (Tendai Humphrey Sitima) led to the issues between the brothers and the rest of the family. It’s fitting, then, that the remembrance of Adeyeye’s life should act as a healing experience for them.

Malaolu’s movement expresses emotion – joy, pain, relief – where words fail; enhancing the drama, rather than distracting. Set and staging (Igrid Hu) further complement the movement with a recurring rippling motif extending from drapery across the proscenium arch through to water filling a perspex coffin ever present downstage. In one particularly effective moment Alvin-Wilson as Kieron describes a dream he has had about a bird, a metaphor for his own deep buried pain. Under dim lighting, Nnabiko Ejimofor crosses down stage as the bird, taking slow timid steps before his movement becomes larger and more erratic, visualising the nightmarish quality of Kieron’s dream sequence.

All three actors have wonderful chemistry together, expressing a totally believable fraternal bond. Alvin-Wilson is the gruff, strong man. The eldest brother ground down by life. Who has hardened his exterior to protect against the cruel world and bad luck he has been dealt. Ejimofor is younger, more hopeful, trusting. He embodies the bookish stereotype of a man in touch with his emotions and perceptive to those of others. Tendai Humphrey Sitima as Adeyeye is largely silent in his role as the deceased brother, other than for occasional voice overs. This makes his perhaps the most difficult role of the three, never off stage but hardly at the centre of the drama; a constant presence circling his brothers haunting them or being haunted by them.

This all seems rather dark, but the cast seems to be enjoying themselves so much delivering the witty lines that more than once more than one actor can’t hold it together. Malaolu’s early successes may have been through movement and dance but this piece shows his talents as a writer, despite a slightly over indulgent climactic clash between the brothers in the second act. The script is surprisingly funny and warm for a play about grief and family trauma. But it’s through the smart delivery that the specificity written into the characters comes to life.

THE TAILOR-MADE MAN at the Stage Door Theatre

★★★★

“Pilcher magnificently captures Haines’ free spirit and rebelliousness”

In 1930, William Haines was listed as the top box-office attraction in Hollywood. Just three years later, however, having made the successful transition to ‘talkies’, Haines’ contract was torn up by studio chief at MGM – Louis B. Mayer – and he was thrown out of the studio. Haines had lived the Bohemian lifestyle of Tinseltown, relying on the studio ‘fixers’ and his PR men to buy the silence of the press. When that eventually failed, the studio bosses sought to silence Haines instead. Almost overnight his name was removed from history and all his movies were withdrawn and locked in a vault where they stayed, unseen, for over sixty years. Why?

Claudio Macor’s play, “The Tailor-Made Man”, charts his story. In today’s society it is unthinkable that Haines was treated the way he was, although there are sadly still remnants of the hypocrisy and double standards that litter the cutting room floors of Hollywood. Haines was openly gay (a dangerous thing to be one hundred years ago) and living with his lifelong partner Jimmie Shields. He refused to bow to the demands of Louis B. Mayer and give Shields up to marry the silent screen vamp Pola Negri, and he paid for it with his career.

Although that is the focus of the story, Macor places it within the wider context of Hollywood in the late twenties and early thirties, throwing light too on some of the more colourful characters that populated that world. In rose-tinted hindsight it is seen as a Golden Age, but Macor’s astute observations unveil the cruel mechanics beneath its glossy, silver-screened veneer. We first see Haines introduced to MGM having been spotted in a talent contest. A mannequin in the eyes of Mayer, naked, blank and ripe to be tailor-made into the next matinee idol. Hugo Pilcher, however, plays him as no dummy. Although initially wide eyed, Pilcher magnificently captures Haines’ free spirit and rebelliousness. Uninhibited and frank, he fearlessly does what he pleases, which is a blessing and a curse. Not always a sympathetic character, his circumstances and Pilcher’s portrayal ensure that we root for him to the end.

With him to the end is Jimmie Shields. Gwithian Evans successfully conveys the bond that keep them together. It is often stretched to breaking point, but Shields always manages to prevent it snapping. Evans shows us the deep frustration but also the devotion and loyalty that is strong enough to bear the Californian heat. Intermittently breaking out of character, Evans uses the transitions to narrate key elements of the story. Split into distinct chapters, the locations and context are beamed onto the back wall like silent movie captions. With Robert McWhir’s uncluttered direction, the story is as clear cut as the finest crystal champagne glass.

Dereck Walker’s depiction of a monstrous, homophobic Louis B. Mayer verges on caricature until we are struck by the frightening realisation that Walker’s interpretation might not be far from the truth at all. An imposing stage presence, that is matched by Peter Rae’s jittery PR guy – Howard Strickling. Sympathetic but obsequious his thankless task is to please everybody. And you know what happens when you do that. Rae, without any need for a physical makeover or visible costume change, brilliantly doubles as Hollywood hack, Victor Darrow, who yearns for the rain-drenched culture of English theatre, but cannot tear himself from the sun, and the sweaty sexuality of Haines and Shields that he likes to bathe in just as much.

The performances, and the writing, draw us into the fascinating story, made more poignant by the fact that this is a true story. But Macor never lets it get too serious. Shelley Rivers is a sunny delight as Marion Davies, even though probably the least researched character, but then again there isn’t the time or space to delve into Davies’ colourful and multi-faceted life. Olivia Ruggiero displays great versatility, as Mayer’s flirtatious secretary, but more significantly lampooning the great Pola Negri, yet still managing to inject a sadness into the character while she draws laughs from the audience.

This is a concise telling of an important slice of movie history. It focuses on some severe injustices, but the lens pans out to reveal a panorama. Evans slips back into narrator mode to deliver an epilogue that reinstates a sense of hope and survival. That to be yourself is, ultimately, a triumph. Similarly, this revival, in the recently opened Stage Door Theatre, above a Covent Garden pub, is also a triumph.

Category Archives: Reviews

NOW, I SEE

★★★★

Theatre Royal Stratford East

NOW, I SEE at the Theatre Royal Stratford East

★★★★

“All three actors have wonderful chemistry together, expressing a totally believable fraternal bond.”

NOW, I SEE at the Theatre Royal Stratford East

Reviewed on 16th May 2024

by Amber Woodward

Photography by Camilla Greenwell

Previously reviewed at this venue:

CHEEKY LITTLE BROWN | ★★★½ | April 2024

THE BIG LIFE | ★★★★★ | February 2024

BEAUTIFUL THING | ★★★★★ | September 2023

NOW I SEE

NOW I SEE

Click here to see our Recommended Shows page

THE TAILOR-MADE MAN

★★★★

Stage Door Theatre

THE TAILOR-MADE MAN at the Stage Door Theatre

★★★★

“Pilcher magnificently captures Haines’ free spirit and rebelliousness”