Tag Archives: Dominica Plummer

THE HUMAN BODY

★★★

Donmar Warehouse

THE HUMAN BODY at the Donmar Warehouse

★★★

“this is a play that promises much and fails, ultimately, to deliver”

Lucy Kirkwood’s new play The Human Body is a complex creation, not unlike the human body itself. Michael Longhurst and Ann Yee’s stylish direction makes many pretty pictures of the bodies on stage from this overly length piece. They have assembled a talented cast, lead by Keeley Hawes and Jack Davenport. Cinematic touches, created by onstage videographers, and clever screening of the images, give a touch of glamour to the proceedings. But the overall effect is to remind us that we are not in the cinema, watching a sharp edged black and white movie, but in a theatre, watching a play that is just out of focus.

Set in 1946, the same year that Parliament passed the National Health Service Act, The Human Body is a timely reminder of what an enormous difference free health care made to Second World War exhausted Britain. GP Iris Elcock, (Keeley Hawes) and her disabled war veteran husband Julian (Tom Goodman-Hill) are attempting to rebuild their marriage in much the same way that the rest of the country is attempting to rebuild. Which is to say—they are outwardly supportive of each other as Iris juggles her household responsibilities with her medical practice, and her political ambitions. Presented as an outwardly successful, New Look woman, It’s in the interior spaces of home, her GP practice, and later, a railway carriage, that all Iris’ juggling comes off the rails.

Echoes of the British movie Brief Encounter allows playwright Kirkwood an attempt at some of the glamour and powerful, yet repressed emotions captured so well in director David Lean’s classic. But The Human Body is less about the passionate affair Iris has with actor George as a result of a chance encounter in a railway carriage. It’s more about her boundless ambition to be in Parliament. Kirkwood’s play isn’t even about the passing of the National Health Act, despite the occasional reference to Aneurin Bevan, who spearheaded the passing of the Act. The Human Body is ultimately about Iris—seen from every angle, thanks to the presence of those videographers on stage. We see Iris attempt the impossible. To be a wife, mother, successful career woman, politician, and lover to George. When we see Iris fail to manage all these roles, even her assistance in supporting the passage of the National Health Act, isn’t quite enough to salvage The Human Body. No amount of brilliant acting, stylish direction, and onstage videographic wizardry can overcome a script that fails to give an audience some sense of catharsis.

 

 

Yet Keeley Hawes manages to keep Iris a fully rounded character despite the shortcomings of the script. She is ably supported by fellow actors Jack Davenport and Tom Goodman-Hill. Jack Davenport’s portrayal of George is particularly noteworthy. He manages to reveal George the man with a complex family life, lurking beneath the film actor’s polished charm. Tom Goodman-Hill has the thankless task of portraying Julian, Iris’ resentful husband, but succeeds in making Julian sympathetic nonetheless. He, along with Pearl Mackie and Siobhán Redmond take on a host of other roles as well. Together these seasoned actors bring energy and a sense of ever-changing drama to The Human Body.

Nevertheless, The Human Body cannot decide whether it is a play, or a film. Kirkwood writes the script as though it were a screenplay, but bringing on bits of furniture, endless props, often held by stagehands while the actors use them, simply serve to remind the audience that film can manage all these complicated changes of location simply by saying “Cut!” and moving on. If one tries to change the location in the theatre on stage, it merely looks clunky. In Iris and George’s passionate encounters, the camera is an intrusive third party, no matter how beautiful the images captured on the screen above the actors. What’s happening on stage is a messy distraction, and even good lighting and snatches of Rachmaninov’s lovely music cannot help the actors establish the same intimacy when there’s a camera in the way. There is a profound difference in the ways that theatre achieves its magic on stage, and film on the screen, and The Human Body is a very good lesson in why that is.

It says much for the skills of the actors that the playing time of The Human Body passes as quickly as it does. Fans of Keeley Hawes and Jack Davenport will not be disappointed. But this is a play that promises much and fails, ultimately, to deliver.

 


THE HUMAN BODY at the Donmar Warehouse

Reviewed on 28th February 2024

by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Marc Brenner

 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

LOVE AND OTHER ACTS OF VIOLENCE | ★★★★ | October 2021

 

THE HUMAN BODY

THE HUMAN BODY<

Click here to see our Recommended Shows page

 

HADESTOWN

★★★★★

Lyric Theatre

HADESTOWN at the Lyric Theatre

★★★★★

“Hadestown is the West End musical you’ll want to see this year. And next year. And the year after.”

Hadestown is that remarkable thing: an adaptation of a tragic Greek myth that isn’t an opera or a film, or a series of elegiac poems, but is instead a bluesy, jazzy, rock musical with an uplifting ending. Yes, you read that right. Anaïs Mitchell, who wrote the music, lyrics and book, promoted early versions of Hadestown from rural beginnings in Vermont for years before she found the right team to help bring her vision to Broadway. And after taking Broadway by storm in 2019, it’s now the turn of London’s West End. This production of Hadestown has found just the right venue. The Lyric Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue is big enough to enhance the energy of its multi-talented cast, yet intimate enough to create the mood of a jazz club in New Orleans.

Hadestown is not the first musical to adapt the ancient Greek story of singer songwriter Orpheus and his wife Eurydice, but this is a fresh take on an old story. In the original, Orpheus and Eurydice are newly weds, blissfully happy until Eurydice dies from a snakebite. Unable to accept her loss, Orpheus follows her into Hades’ realm, with only his musical talent for protection. But Hadestown is not just about Orpheus and Eurydice. It’s also the story of another pair of doomed lovers, Persephone and Hades, the King and Queen of the Underworld. Plus their part in the environmental destruction that’s taking place on the planet above them. There’s a lot of material to unpack, but Mitchell’s lyrics, music and book are satisfyingly complex enough to hold it all.

 

 

Mitchell and her team have made some changes to the original Greek myth. Orpheus is still the dreamy artist, too busy composing songs to notice the danger his wife is in. Eurydice is an orphan in this version, hungry and cold. When the King of the Underworld tempts her with a one way ticket on his train to hell, she gives up Orpheus for food and shelter in return. Her story is mirrored in that of Hades’ unhappy wife Persephone. Hades, the brutal capitalist, is too busy exploiting his workers to pay much attention to her. The irony is that Hades thinks he can chain Persephone to him with his profits in gold, silver and jewelry. In the Hadestown version of the myth, there are four unhappy people with much to give. Yet they keep making the choices that bring them all to hell. There’s a lesson there for all of us. Fortunately it takes the form of memorable songs, brilliant lyrics, plus a book that is unusually complex and thought provoking. With so much packed into Hadestown, it’s easy to forgive the length of this musical. And one or two spots where the action slows, and you waken, for a moment, from the dream.

The Lyric Theatre’s production of Hadestown has put together a fantastic cast, and a band of great talent to support them. Despite the formidable leading men, Dónal Finn (Orpheus) and Zachary James (Hades), this production belongs to its leading women. Gloria Onitiri as Persephone and Grace Hodgett Young as Eurydice fill the space with their powerhouse voices, and Melanie La Barrie (Hermes) is both a voice to reckon with as well as a sympathetic narrator. Fates Bella Brown, Madeline Charlemagne and Allie Daniel turbo charge the female power on stage. The rest of the cast are equally dynamic supporters, and there’s no question the musicians are up to the task of backing these voices. Trombonist Daniel Higham and Brad Webb on drums stand out as they add just the right amount of jazz club intimacy to draw the audience in. The choreography (David Neumann), costumes (Michael Krass) and lighting (Bradley King) echo the sense of nightclub ambience. Together with the vision of Mitchell, the direction of Rachel Chavkin and Rachel Hauck’s scenic design, the team keeps this version of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth paradoxically intimate, while seamlessly transferring the action between upper world to underworld, with assists from stage lifts and revolves.

Hadestown is the West End musical you’ll want to see this year. And next year. And the year after. Take your friends. This version of a classical Greek myth is something we can all relate to. Orpheus and Eurydice’s love story may have a tragic ending, but you’ll leave the theatre in an upbeat mood.


HADESTOWN at the Lyric Theatre

Reviewed on 21st February 2024

by Dominica Plummer

Photography by Marc Brenner

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

GET UP STAND UP! | ★★★★ | August 2022

HADESTOWN

HADESTOWN

Click here to see our Recommended Shows page