Tag Archives: Melly Still

Sputnik Sweetheart

Sputnik Sweetheart

★★★

Arcola Theatre

SPUTNIK SWEETHEART at the Arcola Theatre

★★★

Sputnik Sweetheart

“Melly Still’s direction is artful, feeling at times more like dance”

Sputnik Sweetheart is a mournful and thoughtful production which explores philosophical questions of identity, desire and purpose.

In Tokyo in 1999 Sumire (Millicent Wong), a young precocious writer, rings her best friend, K (Naruto Komatsu), from a phone box every night, she doesn’t sleep. Their friendship, coloured by his desire for her, sees them questioning the meaning and purpose of their lives. When Sumire falls for an older woman, she moulds herself into a completely new person, and the play questions how far she will go to pursue this newfound love. Told through K’s eyes the production plays with narrative voice, and the way his emotions cloud his perceptions.

There are real gems in Bryony Lavery’s adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s novel. Melly Still’s direction is artful, feeling at times more like dance. The stage is surrounded by three screens, onto which line drawing animation is projected, like a graphic novel, beautifully designed by video designer Sonoko Obuchi. This use of multimedia works well, often serving to lighten the more serious live performance. A motif of a cucumber representing an erection flashes up repeatedly, eliciting a solid and regular laugh from the audience. The merging of the forms is one of the most effective parts of this production, it feels fresh and bold, and creates layers within the performance, which allow the surrealism of the plot to flourish.

“This is an ambitious play, and parts do shine”

Lavery’s writing is stylised and lyrical. It is very beautiful, but feels more like the prose it is adapted from. The dialogue is stilted and never quite comes to life. However, part of this may be in the performance, as Natsumi Kuroda, who plays Sumire’s love interest Miu, shines as she brings the words to life. Kuroda is hilarious, and at times a little sinister, Miu’s imposing vision of how Sumire’s life should look feels deeply controlling. However, the most powerful moment in the piece is her monologue, performed from atop a revolving cube, and this is where Kuroda’s talent truly takes flight. The play is watched over by the mostly silent figure of Yuyu Rau, who sits sketching as the plot takes place. While this does play with narrative voices, and the concept of the viewer, it does not quite work.

Shizuka Hariu’s design is minimalist, but evocative. A cube, with one wall as a two-way mirror, acts as phone box, Ferris wheel, and portal into another realm. Phone cords wrap around the characters as their romantic entanglements complicate. Malcolm Rippeth’s lighting design also assists in the boundary-less nature of this production.

This is an ambitious play, and parts do shine, but there is a confused strain to it, which prevents it from ever really taking off. It also veers quite suddenly into the surreal, changing the rules, in a way which is part whimsically charming and part convoluted.

 

SPUTNIK SWEETHEART at the Arcola Theatre

Reviewed on 30th October 2023

by Auriol Reddaway

Photography by Alex Brenner

 


 

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Gentlemen | ★★★★ | October 2023
The Brief Life & Mysterious Death Of Boris III, King Of Bulgaria | ★★★★★ | September 2023
The Wetsuitman | ★★★ | August 2023
Union | ★★★ | July 2023
Duck | ★★★★ | June 2023
Possession | ★★★★★ | June 2023
Under The Black Rock | ★★★ | March 2023
The Mistake | ★★★★ | January 2023

Sputnik Sweetheart

Sputnik Sweetheart

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Robin Hood

Robin Hood: The Legend. Re-Written

★★

Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

ROBIN HOOD: THE LEGEND. RE-WRITTEN at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre

★★

Robin Hood

“The performances are uniformly strong, joyful, silly and skilful”

 

Everyone has their own favourite image of Robin Hood, whether it be Kevin Costner, Jason Connery, Russell Crowe (really?); or the Disney rendition. Or a camp pantomime outlaw in green tights. Carl Grose has taken three of those archetypes and has them gate-crash his alternative – and quite eccentric – version of the legend. The device is an embodiment of the quirky humour that, unlike the sleight of hand archery skills on display, often misses its target.

Part of the problem is that nobody, including Grose, seems to know where the target is. You can’t see the wood for the trees in this overgrown Sherwood Forest where tangled brambles of offbeat ideas lie in wait like thorny catch weed. You don’t need to wade too far in to get lost. Or frustrated enough to want to turn back. Tax collectors in hi vis jackets delight at relieving commoners of their bow fingers. Fingers which, no less, end up in a casket the sheriff keeps hidden away, occasionally lifting the lid to allow the dismembered digits to prophesise to him in squeaky voices. We are in a pretty slaughterous world where scarlet blood puddles and muddles the greenery. Where fact, fiction, myth and legend collide at the whim of an insurgent history teacher on acid.

The opening moments are magical, the scene set by the Balladeer (Nandi Bhebhe; velvet voiced and spellbinding). The landscape is borrowed from Jez Butterworth’s ‘Jerusalem’ as the mystical atmosphere swiftly morphs into a kind of ‘state of the nation’ play. “Who owns England?”, the downtrodden ask. Sheriff Baldwyn (a commanding performance from Alex Mugnaioni) keeps the King in a permanent state of befuddlement by spiking his tea in order to have free reign to be as dastardly as can be. Paul Hunter’s portrayal of the king is a masterclass in comic buffoonery, while still conveying that this hapless monarch knows much more than he is letting on.

Chiara Stephenson’s split-level set crudely separates the two classes, but there is plenty of social mobility. Not least the sheriff’s grog-guzzling wife, Marian (Ellen Robertson – in fine, playful form). We are never quite sure of her motives, but her disdain of, and possibly guilt over, her privilege drives her to extremes of disguise, the likes of which would be far too big a spoiler to reveal here. An ensemble troupe of Merry Men (excuse the Olde Worlde gender reference) create the required mayhem to subvert the established order. Apparently, it all started with a plan to build a new road, putting much of the forest at risk. A rather throwaway shuffle onto the environmentalist bandwagon, but I guess Grose felt the need.

The performances are uniformly strong, joyful, silly and skilful. It must have been a task, but director Melly Still guides the company through the mayhem with a steady hand. For the most part. At interval, the lawns are littered with bemused expressions heading for solace at the bar. It is short lived. The second act gets jaw-droppingly bizarre as we become lost in a sea of abdications, beheadings and resurrections. In the spirit of true farce, some ends are tied up, but no matter how hard we try the disjointed fragments of this production never really meet in our minds. The theatrical trickery has to be admired (Ira Mandela Siobhan is compelling as the conjuring but doomed villain, Gisburne) but the overall journey is unnavigated. Lost in the forest, left to make it up as it goes along.

As the sun sets and a crescent moon hangs above Regent’s Park, we file out into the night wondering if what we have just seen really did come from the same writer who penned “Dead Dog in a Suitcase” and “The Grinning Man”. The tagline in the PR blurb pronounces “Think you know the story of Robin Hood? Think again!”. It promises revelation, but the question remains the same as we leave the theatre.

 

Reviewed on 23rd June 2023

by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Pamela Raith

 

 

Previously reviewed at this venue:

 

Once On This Island | ★★★★ | May 2023
Legally Blonde | ★★★ | May 2022
Romeo and Juliet | ★★★½ | June 2021

 

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