Tristram Kenton Archives - Page 7 of 9

★★★

“Horváth’s story oozes dread and suspense, both of which were lacking this evening”

Christopher Hampton, the West-End’s go-to translator whose adaptation of Florian Zeller’s “The Son” is currently playing at the Duke of York’s Theatre, has turned his hand to Ödön von Horváth’s 1938 novella “Youth Without God” (‘Jugend ohne Gott’). First published the year of his untimely death, Horváth’s novella is a stunning meditation on complicity and justice under the early years of Nazi rule in Germany. Hampton has been faithful to a fault, in a way that leaves this production feeling a little lacking.

Originally a first-person narrative, we follow the nameless Teacher (Alex Waldmann) whose class of teenage schoolboys are introduced as hot-headed, propaganda-spurting youths. After trying to oust their teacher for his insistence that “Africans are humans too”, the boys are sent off with him for military training in the mountains. Free to roam the woods, one boy (Raymond Anum) begins a clandestine affair with a young orphaned girl (Anna Munden), and events quickly spiral out of control with one classmate ending up with a stone to the temple (Malcolm Cumming) and the other on trail for his life.

All this is told ostensibly from the teacher’s perspective, using narration and reported speech to detail the events. This would not be a problem, but Waldmann’s fairly under-energised performance means he doesn’t quite bring us on side, and he remains an impassive and emotionally stunted character throughout. Hampton has translated great swathes of text for the Teacher, but more needs to be worked out between writer, director and actor to differentiate between narrated and lived-in moments. Why is the Teacher speaking to us at all? Knowing the book, the translation feels a little unimaginative at times. As a published text, fine. On stage? It gets quite dry.

Director Stephanie Mohr has some intriguing ideas that feel blocked by a heavy and dominant text. Chalkboards frame the stage and become trees, doors and a canvas for the boys and their teacher to write on. Dolls’ heads and school chairs end up littering the stage, but much of the business comes across as style over substance. The eleven-strong cast seems a bit over the top, given that three actors play multiple roles while the others get away with one. David Beames stands out for offering a dose of energetic oddness amongst the doom and gloom.

Taken altogether, the potential of the text is sadly left drifting in this production. Horváth’s story oozes dread and suspense, both of which were lacking this evening. Some moments had potential to shock and disturb, but the overwhelming emotion at the end of the night is a shrug rather than a shudder.

Reviewed by Joseph Prestwich

Photography by Tristram Kenton

The Glass Piano

Print Room at the Coronet

Reviewed – 30th April 2019

★★★★

“A uniquely atmospheric production; whimsical yet real, dark yet high-spirited, ‘piano’ and ‘forte’ together”

The phrase that comes to mind after witnessing “The Glass Piano” is that truth is stranger than fiction. Based on the real-life story of Princess Alexandra of Bavaria, Alix Sobler’s new play leads us through the corridors and chambers of her nineteenth century palace, and into the hearts of the characters trapped within its walls. The centrepiece is Alexandra herself who suffers from the delusion that as a child she had swallowed a grand piano made of glass, which remains inside her. Known as ‘the glass delusion’, this psychological malady was quite common amongst royals and nobles of the time, before dying out at the end of the century.

Sobler writes with a skilled hand, lacing the text with her dry humour yet still maintaining the element of fairy-tale. Beautifully crafted it touches on the absurd; occasionally jarring but always enchanting – like a piece of music that breaks the rules of harmony with unexpected notes. Conversely, the four characters of the play are very much bound by their laws, trapped by their situations and prevented from fulfilling their dreams – of love. Princess Alexandra, who thinks her life will never change, lives in the palace with her father, King Ludwig, a failed poet, and her maid, the wise Galstina. But when Lucien arrives, initially to assist the King with his writing, anything becomes possible as he challenges the status quo.

Grace Molony is quite magnificent as the princess who tiptoes sideways through doorways, terrified that the slightest disturbance would shatter the piano inside her. Combining an inner strength with the fragility of her condition, she is constantly watchable throughout, and ultimately heart-breaking when she finally finds her own way to be free. Timothy Walker’s formidable Ludwig only glimpses the love that might be before retreating again into his stubbornness, shattering the delicate dreams of those around him. Along with Suzan Sylvester as the maid who never truly knows her place, and Laurence Ubong Williams’ lovestruck Lucien, the cast of four give spellbinding performances.

However, the second act does, at times, threaten to break the spell; and as it meanders fleetingly off course, we are not entirely sure what is real or imagined. But director Max Key’s atmospheric staging continually rescues us from the inherent difficulties of the script that defies categorisation. The end result is clearly moving and magical. An experience heightened by the presence of concert pianist Elizabeth Rossiter who sits at the grand piano throughout, punctuating the play with Gabriel Prokofiev’s lyrical score. Like the text itself, the fragile underscore verges on dissonance with something beautiful underneath. Rossiter’s fingers move across the keyboard, careful not to shatter the melodies as the individual notes pierce like shards of glass. A more poignant soundtrack could not be hoped for.

A uniquely atmospheric production; whimsical yet real, dark yet high-spirited, ‘piano’ and ‘forte’ together. Small scale but grand, this is the perfect piece of theatre for the Coronet – arguably one of the finest off West End theatres in London – with unarguably the best bar.

The Coronet Theatre

Reviewed – 24th October 2019

★★★

“Horváth’s story oozes dread and suspense, both of which were lacking this evening”

Reviewed by Joseph Prestwich

Photography by Tristram Kenton

Youth Without God

The Coronet Theatre until 19th October

Last ten shows reviewed at this venue:

Print Room at the Coronet

Reviewed – 30th April 2019

★★★★

“A uniquely atmospheric production; whimsical yet real, dark yet high-spirited, ‘piano’ and ‘forte’ together”

A uniquely atmospheric production; whimsical yet real, dark yet high-spirited, ‘piano’ and ‘forte’ together. Small scale but grand, this is the perfect piece of theatre for the Coronet – arguably one of the finest off West End theatres in London – with unarguably the best bar.

Reviewed by Jonathan Evans

Photography by Tristram Kenton

The Glass Piano

Print Room at the Coronet until 25th May

Previously reviewed at this venue: