SAPPHO at Southwark Playhouse Elephant

★★

“Wendy Beckett’s script is uncertain and seems not to trust itself.”

Georgie Fellows shines as Sappho in an otherwise uncertain muddle of a play.

The story is set in an alternative history, circa 600 BC. It follows the imagined life of Sappho, the Ancient Greek poet, whose real life we know little about. In this play Sappho is engaged to be married, a marriage of convenience to further her parents’ political ambitions. However she is in love with a woman, not the man she is marrying.

While the premise seems simple enough, it is complicated by convoluted sub-plots about her parents’ politics. They want to spread democracy across the land. Since it’s neither historically accurate, nor particularly clear in the play, this becomes a political drama with no context. The broad strokes commentary against the elite falls flat.

This points to the bigger issue with this play, which is that it doesn’t know what it is. The tone is a mishmash of campy asides and panto acting, with boppy dance numbers and earnest calls to arms. Every chance at emotional depth is undermined by jokey asides, but it’s not quite funny enough to make that worth it.

Wendy Beckett’s script is uncertain and seems not to trust itself. The simple love story at the heart of this play, is nice, and it would’ve been stronger had it stripped back the tangled layers around it.

Wendy Beckett co-directs with Adam Fitzgerald and again this uncertainty comes through. Every performer seems to be in a different play and every scene is a different tone. There is a Greek chorus, which at times are used for beautiful discordant singing and moments of dance (well-choreographed by Fotis Diamantopoulos) but in many scenes confuse and crowd the stage.

The performances are broadly strong, if uneven tonally. Emmanuel Akwafo is a strong comic narrator, though sometimes his asides become a little repetitive. However the show stealer is Georgie Fellows as Sappho, who manages to ride the tonal rollercoaster of this play, and carries its emotional heart, such as it is.

Adam King’s lighting stands out in a moment where the stage in bathed in rainbow light, in what should’ve been a moving commentary about Sappho’s legacy. Halcyon Pratt’s set is simple and versatile, if not particularly memorable.

Mehdi Bourayou’s sound design and score provide boppy pop style numbers and more traditional Greek chorus songs, many of which are really fun. It would’ve been great to have more music in this, as it might have hung it together more fluidly.

Sappho’s importance not only as a poet but as a queer poet is unquestionable, and her poetry speaks through the ages. This play hasn’t quite decided how to tell her story – should it be a campy and fun musical or a hard-hitting political drama. By not making that decision, the play is neither satisfying as a comedy nor a political biopic.

SAPPHO at Southwark Playhouse Elephant

Reviewed on 8th May 2024

by Auriol Reddaway

Photography by Mark Senior

Previously reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues

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CABLE STREET – A NEW MUSICAL | ★★★ | February 2024

BEFORE AFTER | ★★★ | February 2024

AFTERGLOW | ★★★★ | January 2024

UNFORTUNATE: THE UNTOLD STORY OF URSULA THE SEA WITCH A MUSICAL PARODY | ★★★★ | December 2023

GARRY STARR PERFORMS EVERYTHING | ★★★½ | December 2023

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Sappho

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★★★

“If allowed to, I think this piece will grow up to match the quality of Macor’s other plays“

It’s in the title. And it is fundamentally undeniable, which is probably why writer Claudio Macor has separated the dancer from the dance to focus on the lesser known events of Fonteyn’s life. Commissioned to write the piece for the King’s Head Theatre’s annual ‘Playmill’ festival of new writing, Macor has rightly refused merely to tell us what we already know. Here we see Margot Fonteyn reinventing herself as a cattle rancher, we learn some of the reasons she kept on dancing long after she should have stopped. We get snapshots of her childhood and her relationship with her mother. And at its heart is her marriage to Roberto (Tito) Arias, the serial adulterer and dodgy Panamanian politician.

But at barely an hour long we don’t really feel the pulse of this story. We are, in fact, left wanting it to be massaged into life and given the prospect of a long and healthy future. Even given the limitations of being part of a festival, “Margot, Dame” feels underdeveloped. Thankfully we are aided by a back projection informing us when and where we are in the action as the narrative jumps about chronologically. We have fewer pointers, however, to help us decide whether we are watching a comedy or an earnest piece of drama.

Abigail Moore gives an assured portrayal of the eponymous Fonteyn. An unenviable task but she mixes the imposed affectations of the grand dame with the down to earth girl from Reigate. Neat touches such as the origin of her stage name (“… named after a hairdresser’s on Tottenham Court Road…”) season the exposition with a bit of spice. Fanos Xenofos has more scope for dramatic licence as the husband, ‘Tito’. It was a complicated relationship, and Xenofos’ performance only occasionally hints at the mystique of the man that Fonteyn had to put up with. After a failed coup to oust the President of Panama, Tito escapes and returns to Peru. Margot is arrested for her involvement in her husband’s botched attempt at gun-smuggling. When Tito was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life after an assassination attempt, Margot uses up all her savings to care for him – one of the main reasons she continued to dance so late into her life.

The story is not so much sidestepped as danced over lightly. It is a fascinating angle on Fonteyn’s life and one that refreshingly avoids the obvious. But, as if worried that the audience might lose interest, director Robert McWhir and choreographer Robbie O’Reilly have shoehorned flourishes of ballet to cover the scene changes and time shifts, which dilute rather than add flavour.

But one mustn’t lose sight of the purpose of the Playmill Festival at the King’s Head, which is a vital platform for new writing. “Margot, Dame…” has only two performances in which to reveal its essence. As Fonteyn herself famously said; “… the first night is the worst possible time to make a hard and fast criticism: the baby never looks its best on the day it is born…” If allowed to, I think this piece will grow up to match the quality of Macor’s other plays.

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Peter Davies

SAPPHO at Southwark Playhouse Elephant

★★

“Wendy Beckett’s script is uncertain and seems not to trust itself.”

SAPPHO at Southwark Playhouse Elephant

Reviewed on 8th May 2024

by Auriol Reddaway

Photography by Mark Senior

Previously reviewed at Southwark Playhouse venues

Sappho

Sappho

King’s Head Theatre

Reviewed – 17th July 2019

★★★

“If allowed to, I think this piece will grow up to match the quality of Macor’s other plays“

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Peter Davies

Margot, Dame, The Most Famous Ballerina In The World

King’s Head Theatre until 18th July as part of Playmill New Writing Festival

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue: