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An Inspector Calls, Cambridge Arts Theatre, 14th May 2009.

Having seen this production when I was studying ‘An Inspector Calls’ for GCSE (which, bizarrely, didn’t destroy it for me), I was curious to see it again with the eyes of a more experienced and jaded theatregoer. I never experienced the initial joy of seeing the play unfold without knowing what was going to happen (a rare pleasure – I read too much), but the stunning set was surprising enough. This is exactly the same Stephen Daldry production, but transported from the rather grand Olivier stage to the much smaller Arts Theatre. The imposing house was rather less impressive from the back row of the stalls, where the underside of the circle cut off the top third, and it all looked slightly cramped. This should not detract from what was a solid production, though.

The Birling family were all good, especially Eric (Robin Whiting), who portrayed young and helpless and disgusted with himself very well. The wild disarray of his costume by the end of the play reflected the disarray of his mental state, and his self-loathing was deep without being worthy. Sheila (Marianne Oldham) came across earnestly and charted the progression from giggly naïf to self-loathing adult excellently. Mr Birling (David Roper) had just the right mixture of bombast and fragility. He was clearly terrified of a scandal, and yet was still a swaggering bully both within his family and in his professional life. There was a clear sense of being nouveau riche and very aware of it – never more so than when the cut-glass tones of his rather better off wife prompted him to do or say something he should have done without prompting. Mrs Birling (Sandra Duncan) was intensely dislikeable, which I mean as a complement. However, it did make it harder to sympathise with her pitiful, snivelling downfall towards the end, with dishevelled hair and dress covered with a brown blanket. Gerald (Alisdair Simpson) was a trifle nondescript, which I think is as much a fault of the play as the actor. He isn’t given much to go on in terms of dialogue, and his part in Eva/Daisy’s death is arguably the smallest, so there is less room for emotional turmoil and depth to be explored.

In spite of the restricted view, I adored the set. Its use of levels, with the upper classes forced to come down to Inspector Goole’s level, is inspired, and the metaphor remains subtle enough to only improve Priestley’s dismemberment of upper-middle-class airs and graces. Edna was a superb, constant embarrassing presence for the Birlings, and managed to convey a huge amount with the smallest of gestures. The fall of the house of Birling was beautifully done (spoiler alert), and there was a very clever ‘picking up the pieces’ scene when the senior Birlings and Gerald gather up their shattered self-belief and sense of humour while crunching across shards of their crockery and glassware

I was not overly impressed with the actual inspector. Although he had a good presence for a small man, and used his body and physicality to intimidate and probe, I found his diction very odd. He was presumably directed to do so, but he emphasised odd words in a phrase and put in overly long and rather bizarrely timed pauses – not leading to increased dramatic effect, unless the desired effect was bewilderment. The script is strong enough, however, that the relentless hounding of the Birlings and search for the truth overrode any small niggles. It is easy to see why this production has run and run.

Ballet Black, Cambridge Arts Theatre, 15th March 2009.

A stunning evening of ballet that mixed contemporary with traditional, this was dance that made me miss dancing, forgetting about the pain and the darning of pointe shoes. The show opened with ‘Hinterland’, choreographed by Liam Scarlett. It was dazzling, exciting, colourful, playful, and made excellent use of the six dancers. As a company, these six seem to be very comfortable together, able to dance was exuberantly and to project their joy of movement to the audience. Scarlett’s dance was bursting with life and fun, and remained witty without becoming trite, vibrant while remaining effortless. The Fosse-like close choric movement was brilliantly done without becoming a pastiche, and the breakout moves back into the whirlwind dance were fantastically effective. Shostakovich’s lively and exhilarating piano music was the perfect accompaniment, without ever distracting from the dance.

The second piece, ‘Pendulum’, was a combative duet, by Martin Lawrance. Every movement had beautiful tension, pride and passion. The accompanying percussive static gradually became faster and louder, and the dancers were equal to it and bigger than it. They fought both each other and the music, occasionally teetering on the edge of violence. The piece was raw and edgy, which a wonderful sense of gathering momentum and the crescendo to the climax did not disappoint.

‘Kinderszenen’ by Antonia Franceschi was my least favourite piece, but I’m finding it difficult to put my finger on exactly why. The steps were accomplished, the dancers poised, polished and athletic, but somehow the disparate elements failed to make a convincing whole. The playfulness of the dance came across well, helped by Allen Shawn’s light-hearted music, but despite some lovely moments, (especially the sudden stillness), it failed to capture me. It grew on me as it went on and each of the separate parts was nice, but there was too much going on onstage, too much fuss. I acknowledge that working with six dancers is tricky, but there was no sense of cohesion in this piece, and the many entrances and exits distracted from the dance. It must be said that even the most graceful dancer cannot make balletic running look less silly than it is.

The final piece, ‘Depouillement’, by Will Tuckett, was a stunning end to the evening. The brilliant, monochromatic ensemble work made excellent use of the whole company. I loved the fluidity and democracy of the dancers, and the pairings, trios, quartets, solos and quintets they mixed and matched within the six of them. Particularly striking were the moments when the three male dancers moved in tight unison, the use of two couples contrasted with a single figure, and the use of wonderful clean lines. Tuckett has made it seem as though Ravel’s music has been written to fit the steps, rather than the other way around. I can think of no higher compliment to pay to a choreographer. A tender and more traditional pas de deux made a nice break in the piece, but the passion and beauty of whole was in the sheer joy emanating from the whole ensemble. I knew the dancers were tired, but wanted them to continue. I was actually breathless at the end, never mind the dancers themselves.

David Plater’s lighting was the perfect accompaniment, enhancing the dancers, especially when they were silhouetted. I don’t normally notice lighting specifically, but this was so clever, so subtle, and so right for the performance, that it deserved a mention. I was less keen on the costumes, which seemed unnecessarily twee given the raw energy and talent of the dance and the dancers, but they were at least designed so that the lines of the bodies were clear. The fact that all six dancers were stunningly beautiful helped, too. Here is a company of hugely talented dancers working with choreographers who will push them and develop the savage beauty of ballet.

Cambridge Arts Theatre may have won a reprieve from my wrath for programming an exciting, varied and intelligent series of plays this season, but its policy on booking fees has raised my blood pressure. They charge £2 per ticket – not per transaction – for bookings made over the phone. A lot, but fair enough, they have to pay some poor sap to staff the phones and take the booking. They charge the same for online bookings which strikes me as faintly ridiculous because the whole point of an online system is that it costs practically nothing to run. However, these charges have become so much the norm that I barely register the annoyance any more. But, CAT has taken things too far. I went to see ‘God of Carnage’ last week, and while I was in the theatre I booked two £10 seats for ‘Romeo and Juliet’. Imagine my surprise when I looked at my receipt and saw I’d been charged £24. I returned to the box office to be told that the £2-a-ticket fee applies even though I was physically present. If the woman staffing the box office has just told me the tickets cost £12 each, fine. That seems a reasonable amount to pay for good show – although pretty steep for student theatre. To have the charge added on separately grated on my nerves, and means that I am far less likely to go and see anything at CAT if the cheapest £12 seats are sold out.

Romeo and Juliet, Cambridge Arts Theatre, 4th March 2009.

A cunning switch in the prologue from “two hours traffic of the stage” to “three hours traffic of the stage”, stuck fear into my heart. Any messing around with the text tends to set my teeth on edge, and this was not the most auspicious start to this otherwise powerful and delicate production. The looming arches of the set effortlessly became street, feast-hall, balcony, tomb, and the red shading into white was an eerie foreshadowing of what was to come. The production was slick and polished, without losing its charm, and a talented cast clearly trusted their director and believed in what they were saying and doing.

The cast were sometimes too quiet to be heard from row P, and a restless audience of schoolchildren (I’m guessing R&J is a GCSE set text) gave them a hard time. I felt sorry for Paris (Adam Drew), whose dramatic but well-acted death drew giggles. Perhaps 14-year-olds have a hard time with pathos. I was actually moved to tears by Juliet’s (Lucy Evans) death, which a first. Her brilliant, breathless portrayal of Juliet as an occasionally petulant child made the tragedy of her death all the more poignant. The decision to have Romeo and Juliet both play very young was mostly effective, and served to make their deaths extra sad, but it did come up against some problems, most notably in the portrayal of their love. They were played so young that the supposed depth of their love was difficult to believe, but these two fine actors carried the play.

The cast had some cross-over with the Hamlet I saw a couple of weeks ago, and the improvements were remarkable, really showing the skill of Charlotte Westenra as a director. She managed to coax an intelligent and subtle performance from Jack Monaghan’s Romeo, and Catriona Cahill (who was a wooden and unengaging Gertrude) was superbly ribald as the nurse. Georgia Sams was overly hysterical as Lady Capulet, and Ed Rice as Capulet found it hard to tread the line between fond father and stern patrician, meaning that his violent outbursts were surprising for the wrong reasons, but generally speaking the cast were great. Particularly of note was James Walker’s mercurial Mercutio, well cast against Joey Batey’s gentle Benvolio (who again, was far better in this show than as Laertes). Harry Adamson was an imposingly grave Friar Laurence, and Rob Carter was a fiercely angry and impetuous Tybalt.

The play opened well, at a decent pace, and Westenra really brought out the humour. It lagged by the end of the first half, particularly as we had been warned to expect three hours-worth, but the second half was well-judged and kept the pace fast enough to maintain engagement without rushing Romeo and Juliet’s painful goodbye, Romeo’s banishment, or the final denouement. The fights were snappy and well done, not as stagey as most, er, stage fights, and choreography was frighteningly realistic. Wastenra’s interpretation was considered and intelligent. This production totally lacked a reliance on gimmicks or melodrama, and instead presented a clear, calm, and strong take on the play, while allowing the inherent tragedy to play out without obstruction.

I don’t know if it’s me, or if the Arts Theatre has just upped its game, but next year’s programme looks ace. I want to see the Henry Oguike Dance Co, Richard E Grant in ‘God of Carnage’, the Marlowe Society’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’, Ballet Black, ‘Gethsemane’ (yay for the NT sending its shows into East Anglia!), ‘Andromaque’ (I adore Cheek by Jowl), ‘For King and Country,’ Michael Morpurgo’s ‘Why the Whales Came’ (which is a beautiful children’s book), ‘An Inspector Calls’ (which I still love despite having the joy wrung out of it by studying it for GCSE) and very possibly the BFG. And that’s all at the Arts between now and July. Colour me impressed, actually. Hooray for local theatre, reviews of all of the above after I’ve seen them.

This was a strangely plodding performance of five short pieces. With an interval between each, the vignettes were invested with a gravitas they did not necessarily merit. That is not to bash all five with the same pointe shoe, there were some nice moments throughout, but although the dance was skilfully executed and often exciting and engaging to watch, this felt like a performance that had been cobbled together rather than arranged, and was curiously dissatisfying despite the technical excellence of the dancers.

However, the first piece, ‘Blue Roses’, was beautiful, moving, and visually impressive. Danced to the prologue and final scene of Tennessee Williams’ ‘Glass Menagerie’, the piece captured the poignancy of the play, although it teetered on the same precipice of sentimentality that hampers the play. The dancers moved to the word without music, which was surprisingly effective, apart from an odd choreographic tendency to insist on a movement for every syllable. This worked for the jerky style of the physically disabled and painfully shy Laura (Anita Hitchins), but for eloquent Tom (Dane Hurst) and charming Jim (Franklyn Lee), it often felt too busy – the movement distracted and detracted from the words. I am well aware that a dance piece that transcends the music/words could be a good thing, but my literary bias baulks at an over-shadowing of the words. The two dancers playing Amanda were generally superb, and the concept of having two dancers represent the same character  - to emphasise her contradictory nature – was clever and well done. However, as with the whole evening, there were small discrepancies that drew the eye and spoiled the overall effect: the two weren’t quite together some of the time, which suggested being under-rehearsed.

This feeling of being not quite ready to perform was pervasive, and surprising given that all of the pieces had been performed before. The third piece ‘The Moor’s Pavane’, was rather dull and overblown, and did not seem sure of itself, despite being billed as José Limón’s masterwork. The programme notes claimed that the intension wasn’t to retell the story of Othello, but in fact it did just that with some rather feeble mime and a heavily symbolic handkerchief. The choreography was plain and uninspired, and the dancers seemed bored with what they were doing. This was by far the weakest of the five pieces, and could have been improved by a more abstract representation of the Othello story rather than a literal re-telling.

A witty solo, ‘Harmonica Breakdown’, finished the evening, and was a charming send-off. Anita Hutchins is a fine dancer, and had the charisma to carry off Jane Dudley’s simple choreography without looking unskilled. I would suggest that it is verging on pretension to dance a pas de deux with a suitcase, as in ‘cervaNtes’, and although Dane Hurst and Ana Lujan Sanchez danced with aplomb, the nudity was gratuitous and detracted from the delicate relationship the dancers were trying to portray. This was Sanchez’s own choreography, and on the evidence of this performance, perhaps she should stick to dancing.

It was difficult to settle into any kind of rhythm with these performances, as they were abruptly broken up by the breaks, and the different styles did not necessarily do a great company of dancers justice. Limón is over fond of the arabesque en attitude to the point where one wondered whether the dancers physically could straighten their legs, particularly during Dane Hurst’s otherwise hugely impressive solo, ‘Chaconne’.