★★★★★

“Without romanticising failure or bitterly rehashing it, this is a performance about frustration, drifting and feeling ‘not good enough’”

Brian Lobel and Gweneth-Ann Rand have failed. That is, the two fantastic failures have created a magnificent performance that interrogates what it is to fail in art, in life, in public and in private. The show is made up of a beautiful selection from the 24 Italian Songs and Arias songbook that are interspersed with personal stories and conversations. It is a hilarious, warm, candid and thought-provoking piece that reminds us all that we need to learn to live with our failures.

Failing is so often a very lonely moment. One fails as an individual and, as Lobel points out, the experience itself is given very little room in contemporary capitalist culture. Lobel and Rand have not only given failure the stage, but they have turned it into a collective experience. Failure is being increasingly thought about by the art and the corporate world alike but, it is opera in particular here that Lobel offers as the last bastion in which it is possible to truly fail, to be booed off stage and have serious career setbacks.

What I did not expect is how funny opera can be. The translations and commentaries displayed onscreen manage to flit from the poignant to the comic. In a move of brilliantly simple staging, there is even a banner with the score that failed Lobel, preventing him from entering the State Choir.

Perhaps ironically for a show that is about failing to sing, the Italian Songs and Arias are performed by a host of talented singers, all with different backgrounds and stories to share. Gweneth-Ann Rand’s voice is powerful and delicate while Joseph Marchant offers a performance that is tender and controlled. One of the last songs performed by Naomi Felix was extraordinarily beautiful.

The whole show weaves emotional tones with grace and subtlety. Without romanticising failure or bitterly rehashing it, this is a performance about frustration, drifting and feeling ‘not good enough’. To accompany this review with a star rating seems inadequate. Instead, what I would really like to offer is deep admiration and fascination for a piece by performers who are certainly more than ‘good enough’.

Reviewed by Tatjana Damjanovic

Photography by Maurizio Martorana

An Enemy of the People

Union Theatre

Reviewed – 10th January 2019

★★

“a very difficult play which Willmott’s ambitious adaptation struggles to realise”

To be an ‘enemy of the people’ is a loaded term, one dragging along with it a history of censorship and autocratic rule. It is a threat, and one that Arthur Miller chose to employ in order to explore what might happen when the truth comes up against the will of the majority. An Enemy of the People was first adapted by Miller from a play by Ibsen and has now been updated by Phil Willmott who has placed the story in Trump’s America. In a world of post-truth and populism, this may seem like a close fit but the text itself seems unbending in this update, not lending itself to an easy parallel with the absurdity of Trump’s politics.

This production finds the intellectual Dr Stockmann fighting to save an impoverished provincial American town from building a new spa whose springs are polluted. The town, eager to see some prosperity, slowly turn against the well respected doctor, treating his scientific assessment, his facts, into fiction. Pitted against him stands Mayor Stockmann, his sister and unscrupulous career politician.

Dr Stockmann and Mayor Stockmann, however, seem to struggle to live in the same era: the mayor comes across as a 21st century corporate populist while her brother embodies a conscientious man from the 19th century, ignorant of the political dangers he puts himself in because of his pursuit of truth. It is difficult for the other characters to negotiate the space between these two wildly different positions. It becomes a play in which characters embody their political views with zeal rather than conviction.

The cast, made up of refreshingly mixed ages, generally holds the show well, though some of the American accents could have been a little tighter. Mary Stewart plays Mayor Stockmann as a woman for the first time, an excellent move which Stewart delivers with precision and charm. Jed Shardlow also delivers a convincing torn radical newspaper editer, Hovstad.

As ever, the Union Theatre’s simple but evocative staging (Jonny Rust and Justin Williams) works well to turn a small revolving platform into a construction site. The simplicity of the staging, however, seemed to leave the actors constricted in terms of movement. Some clearer physical choices, or chairs, were needed.

This is a very difficult play which Willmott’s ambitious adaptation struggles to realise. The battle between tyranny and truth alone makes for a stilted drama that misses the opportunity to explore the subtleties of politics becoming very personal. The parallels with Trump’s America do make the play very relevant but a Brexit boggled UK audience, might find it tricky to relate to the characters, not least because a political debate of this sort would be postponed until after Christmas.

The Yard Theatre

Reviewed – 15th January 2019

★★★★★

“Without romanticising failure or bitterly rehashing it, this is a performance about frustration, drifting and feeling ‘not good enough’”

What I did not expect is how funny opera can be. The translations and commentaries displayed onscreen manage to flit from the poignant to the comic. In a move of brilliantly simple staging, there is even a banner with the score that failed Lobel, preventing him from entering the State Choir.

Reviewed by Tatjana Damjanovic

Photography by Maurizio Martorana

24 Italian Songs and Arias

The Yard Theatre until 19th January as part of Now 19 Festival

Previously reviewed at this venue:

Union Theatre

Reviewed – 10th January 2019

★★

“a very difficult play which Willmott’s ambitious adaptation struggles to realise”

Reviewed by Tatjana Damjanovic

Photography by Scott Rylander

An Enemy of the People

Union Theatre until 2nd February

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue: