FROM HERE TO ETERNITY at the Charing Cross Theatre
★★★★
“This is a finely tuned production that rides on its high values and first-rate performances from all involved”
The image that forms in most people’s mind when hearing the title “From Here to Eternity” is of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr’s adulterous, steamy embrace on the shores of the Hawaiian island of Oahu while the waves metaphorically release their foam around the lovers’ entangled limbs. The marketing of Fred Zinnemann’s WWII romance ensured a rave reception, but it strayed somewhat from James Jones’ original fifties novel, on which Tim Rice, Stuart Brayson, Donald Rice and Bill Oakes have more faithfully based their musical.
The film was censored somewhat, resulting in the themes of prostitution, homosexuality and abuse being either underplayed or written out completely. Rice and Oakes’ script thankfully reinstates them, although sometimes it feels like a passing gesture that is reaching out for further exploration. A straight drama would have the space to do this, but the harshness of the story lines is softened by this musical treatment. That’s not necessarily a drawback: Brayson’s exhilarating score, orchestrated by Musical Director Nick Barstow, packs a punch with its mix of military chants, dusky blues and power ballads, occasionally tinged with a Hawaiian twang. It is softer in Act One, but the kid gloves come off after interval and only then does the passion of the piece hit us. If the emotion comes through loud and clear through the singing, however, it falls a little flat during the dialogue.
Brett Smock’s fresh and dynamic staging begins at the end, before rewinding two weeks to lead us day by day to the horrific air strike on Pearl Harbour in December 1941. The days are counted down, like the pages of a calendar torn off by a captive serving time in a prison camp. As we approach the fatal morning when so many lives were needlessly lost, the complex and contradictory emotions of the American soldiers are expressed. “I Love the Army… I Hate the Army” is a leitmotif that more than one character extols.
Private Robert Lee Prewitt (Jonathon Bentley) reports to his new posting at G Company. His commanding officer Captain Holmes (brilliantly played by Alan Turkington) is relying on Prewitt to win the boxing championship, thereby increasing his own chances of promotion. Prewitt however refuses to fight having made a deathbed wish to give up boxing after accidentally blinding a fellow soldier. Holmes’ vengeful bullying extends to his dissatisfied wife, Karen (a cool and calculating Carley Stenson) who seeks solace by embarking on an affair with First Sergeant Milt Warden (Adam Rhys-Charles). Into the fold falls Private Angelo Maggio (Jonny Amies), a hot-headed New York Italian who moonlights as a paid companion to the local male community. Meanwhile Prewitt falls for the beautiful prostitute Lorene (Desmonda Cathabel) and dreams in vain of making a respectable woman of her. A highlight of the production is Eve Polycarpou’s Mrs Kipfer, the brothel’s hard-nosed ‘Madam’. Polycarpou certainly establishes her presence from the moment she steps onstage singing the showstopping “I Know What You Came For”.
Unencumbered by high emotion the storylines progress and overlap each other clearly and intelligibly. Cressida Carré’s choreography is dazzlingly crisp and inventive which the strong ensemble cast synchronize to perfection, not missing a beat from scene, to transition, to scene. Against Stewart J. Charlesworth’s concrete set, it is Adam King’s evocative lighting that truly transports us to the steamy and sultry tropical location.
This is a finely tuned production that rides on its high values and first-rate performances from all involved. The subject matter is reduced to more of an undertow, but the score washes over us in waves of delight. That’s no metaphor – none is needed here to ensure the rave reception this show will undoubtedly receive.
Hannah Murray (Skins, Game of Thrones, Untitled Detroit Project) is to lead the cast for the world premiere of an all-female version of Posh.
This thrilling new production, which will run at London’s Pleasance Theatre from 29th March, gives Laura Wade’s play a new, topical voice by allowing women to take centre stage in roles originally written for men. The production will be directed by Off West End Award winner Cressida Carré.
Darkly comic, and disgracefully entertaining, Laura Wade’s universally acclaimed Posh, burst to life at the Royal Court theatre in 2010 with a cast that featured future stars Kit Harrington and James Norton, before transferring to the West End. Receiving a fanfare of plaudits, Posh became a huge hit with critics and audience alike.
Now the riotous story of Oxford student dining club, a fictionalised version of the infamous Bullingdon Club, will be reinvented for the first time by a company of all-female actors.
In the private dining room of a gastro pub, 10 young bloods with cut-glass vowels and deep pockets are meeting, intent on restoring their right to rule. As members of an elite student dining society, they’re bunkering down for a wild night of debauchery, decadence and bloody good wine.
This thrilling new production has a topical voice. However, this isn’t just a jolly: these women are planning a revolution. Welcome to the Riot Club.
Posh was long-listed as Best New Play in the Evening Standard Awards and nominated Best New Play in the Whatsonstage Awards. It was filmed in 2014 for cinema release as The Riot Club, directed by Lone Scherfig and starring Max Irons, Sam Claflin, Freddie Fox and Douglas Booth.
Hannah Murray | Photo by – Jason Alden
Hannah Murray, named Best Actress at the Tribeca Film Festival for her portrayal of ‘Sara’ in the Danish film Bridgend, was last seen on stage in London in Martine at the Finborough Theatre, for which she was nominated ‘Best Female Performance’ at the Off West End Awards. Hannah made her West End debut in Polly Stenham’s That Face at the Royal Court and her breakthrough role was playing ‘Cassie’ in E4’s cult series Skins, before going on to star in features Chatroom, God Help The Girl, Lily and Kat and The Chosen. She will next be seen reprising the role of ‘Gilly’ in the final series of HBO/SKY series Game of Thrones and in August she will take on one of the lead roles in Katherine Bigelow’s Untitled Detroit Project, set in 1967, about one of the largest citizen uprisings in the United States’ history.
Hannah Murray said:
“I am so excited to be a part of this production, it’s a fascinating opportunity to explore and investigate the nature of privilege – a topic I feel there is an increasing urgency to examine and discuss. Working with an all-female ensemble cast is a brilliant opportunity to collaborate with a fantastic company of talented women, which is not something that happens often enough.”
The rest of the cast features Lucy Aarden (Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, 1st Witch, Macbeth, Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Greenwich Theatre); Cassie Bradley (at the National Theatre, Husbands and Sons and Nurse in Sam Mendes’ King Lear); Alice Brittain (Trevor Nunn’s The War of the Roses at the Rose, Kingston); Molly Hanson (Hermia, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Windsor); Verity Kirk (Cate in Sarah Kane’s Blasted at STYX); Macy Nyman (Wendy in Peter Pan, Exeter Northcott), Toni Peach (Beetles From The West, Barbican Theatre, Plymouth; Jessica Siân (White Lead at Hampstead Theatre); Sarah Thom (Tom Hardy’s Taboo, Bette Davis in Bette & Joan – The Final Curtain, St James Theatre); Gabby Wong (West End includes understudied and played Mephistopheles in Doctor Fautus at the Duke of York’s, and for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Volpone,The Jew of Malta, Love’s Sacrifice. She was Gold Nine in the Star Wars film Rogue One); Amani Zardoe (has just finished filming Victoria & Abdul with Judi Dench. She is also filming Will for TNT. Her stage roles include The Spoils at Trafalgar 1 and Measure for Measure at Shakespeare’s Globe).
Creative team:
Director Cressida Carré Set & Costume Designer Sara Perks Co-Costume Designer Sarah Mills Lighting Designer Derek Anderson Sound Designer Harry Barker Producer Tom Harrop for Can’t Think Theatre Company
LISTING
presents
Pleasance Theatre Carpenters Mews North Road LONDON N7 9EF
