Michael Giltz: Theater: London Summer Roundup http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-giltz/theater-london-summer-rou_b_220382.html [7/21/2009 5:42:00 PM] JULY 21, 2009 HOME POLITICS MEDIA BUSINESS ENTERTAINMENT LIVING STYLE GREEN WORLD COMEDY 23/6 NEW YORK CHICAGO VIDEO BLOGGER INDEX ARCHIVE Make HuffPost Your HomePage Get Email Alerts Michael Giltz Freelance writer and raconteur Posted: June 24, 2009 04:52 PM BIO Become a Fan Get EmailAlerts Bloggers'Index Theater: London Summer Roundup Read More: A Little Night Music , Ben Brantley , Cannes Film Festival, Disney, New York Times, Peter Pan , The National , War Horse , West End , Woody Allen , Entertainment News Before and after the Cannes Film Festival I spent some time in London catching up on theater and museums.</p><p> Here's a roundup of what I saw, beginning with the shows that are still running soif you're headed to Europe you can act on some of these suggestions.</p><p> Other shows -- like the revival of A Little Night Music and probably War Horse -- are headed to NYC in the future.</p><p> Ben Brantley of the New York Times offers his own take on the London theater scene here.</p><p> But he saw his shows for free while I am indebted to theLeslie Giltz Foundation for subsidizing my days in the West End.</p><p> WAR HORSE *** (out of four) -- Michael Morpurgo's beloved young adult novel -- the story of a farm dragooned into WWI and told from the horse's perspective a la Black Beauty -- is now a smash hit musical that began at the National and is ensconced in the West End.</p><p> It's an ideal second show to take children who were wowed by The Lion King.</p><p> Like that show, War Horse makesbrilliant use of puppetry to let the horse take center stage. (You can check out the promotional clip here to get a glimpse of how they do it.) Joey is the horse and Albert is the farm lad who befriends him.</p><p> Kit Harrington makes his debut as Albert and I'm not certain if he's a major new talent or just ideally suited for this particular role, but he's wonderfully understated as the rough, simple but sweet kid who is devastated to find his dad has sold the horse to the military and joins up just so he can find Joey and bring the animal home safely.</p><p> While definitely a family show, it's not very thevery young or the easily upset because you do see battle scenes and death. (As with mostaudiences, the kids I saw it with barely murmured while men in the trenches died but were visibly moved when one of the horses is injured or killed.) Well into it's run, the show is in solid shape, with the puppetry excellent and the cast solid.</p><p> Songs from the period serve as a Greek chorus andthere's no softening of Albert's drunken loser of a father.</p><p> But by and large it's a charming tale of a Pals: Mischa Barton Struggled with Body Issues READ MORE Hailey Glassman Gushes over Jon Gosselin READ MORE Demi Lovato and Trace Cyrus Split READ MORE More Celebrity News at People.com Popular Stories on HuffPost Nude In NY: Where To Strut With No Stuff (NSFW PHOTOS, POLL) Believe it or not getting nude in NY isn't such a hard feat.</p><p> There are...</p><p> UPDATE: 'Sprite Oral Sex Ad' Was Unauthorized(VIDEO) UPDATE 5:00 PM ET Thedirector of the fake Sprite ad, Max Issacson, has sent...BIG NEWS : Michael Jackson | Jon & Kate Plus 8 | Sports | Farrah Fawcett | More...</p><p> LOG IN | SIGN UP Be the First to Submit This Story to Digg Get Breaking News Alerts Share Print Comments never spam Stephen Baldwin Files For Bankruptcy 'Criminal Aspects' Probed In Cost Of Jackson Memorial PHOTOS: Hollywood's Hottest Older Men: Better With Age? (POLL) Michael Giltz: Theater: London Summer Roundup http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-giltz/theater-london-summer-rou_b_220382.html [7/21/2009 5:42:00 PM]spirited animal amidst the chaos of war.</p><p> Any kids entranced by the show should enjoy Morpurgo's novel.</p><p> But the nominal sequel -- Farm Boy -- is little more than a longish short story fleshed out with drawings and not terribly interesting at any length.</p><p> It's in an open-ended run.</p><p> A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC *** 1/2 (out of four) -- The Chocolate Factory had a major success with their revival of Stephen Sondheim's Sunday In The Park With George and lightning has struck twice with A Little Night Music.</p><p> While many consider My Fair Lady the greatest musical of all, there are those who would argue that Night Music is a perfect one.</p><p> Every tune is in 3/4 time and those more sophisticated than I delight in how each piece of the puzzle plays off one another musically.</p><p> The story is inspired by Bergman's Smiles Of A Symmer Night (which also inspired Woody Allen's A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy ).</p><p> Lovers meet at a country estate, complications ensue, true love triumphs and wisdom is earned.</p><p> The cast is superlative and apparently will NOT becrossing the pond when the show transfers to NYC. (I'll especially miss Gabriel Vick as the young lover Henrik -- he looks like the younger brother of Campbell Scott and the major discovery Hannah Waddingham, who is famous in her own country but new to most of us.) And of course there's the music: "Now," "You Must Meet My Wife," "Every Day A Little Death," "Night Waltz" and of course "Send In The Clowns." Each tune is a delight and delivered with aplomb.</p><p> Nothing terribly bad could happen in such a witty, enchanting world and yet everything seems at stake when love is at issue.</p><p> I missed the recent one-night benefit concert production of this show in NYC but now I don't regret it so much.</p><p> This production was an excellent way to see this show for the first time.</p><p> They've just extended the run again through September.</p><p> ENGLAND PEOPLE VERY NICE *** (out of four) -- The National has a remarkable subsidized program where many of their shows have most seats (including some of the best) available for 10 pounds.</p><p> At that price, literally ANYTHING they're producing is worth checking out.</p><p> It's cheaperthan a movie ticket and these are not bare-boned readings but fully staged shows with -- often --large casts that would make them impossible to produce commercially on the West End.</p><p> Case in point: England People Very Nice, a shambling play about immigration. if I'd paid 60 pounds, I might be less ready to appreciate the virtues of this show by Richard Bean.</p><p> But when you're not selling a pint of blood to see a show, it's easier to accept the pretty good rather than being disappointed at not seeing great.</p><p> Certainly ambitious, it covers the fate of immigrants to the UK from the 1500s to the present and is framed as the production of immigrants today being held indetention while they wait to hear whether their requests for asylum have been granted.</p><p> At first, it's rather sketchy, with wves of French and then Jews and then Irish and Indians and so on all coming to England, only to be greeted with disdain by the matron of a pub who invariably begins a scenewith, "Fucking Micks!" Or "fucking Paki's" or whichever insulting term is available.</p><p> The joke of course is that each new wave gets assimilated only to treat with anger and annoyance the next group of immigrants.</p><p> Real details are sometimes remarkable: one house of worship has apparentlychanged hands from the Catholics to the Jews to the Muslims.</p><p> It feels a bit too schematic at first, but as the years pass and we zero in on the struggles of particular families in the present, the story gains a little weight (one recurring bit has two lovers kept apart throughout the centuries as theyreincarnate into new bodies).</p><p> A Greek chorus of a band does an admirable job of offering up a widerange of ethnic tunes and the large fine cast turns the broad brush strokes of the story into sometimes specific and moving moments.</p><p> Ambitious, fitfully amusing and -- for 10 pounds -- quite the bargain.</p><p> The show currently runs through early August.</p><p> PETER PAN (no rating) -- I saw this new production of Peter Pan on the very first night of its run, so it wouldn't be fair to give a genuine rating.</p><p> I'll just offer up a description so you know what to expect.</p><p> Personally, I love the novel Peter Pan by JM Barrie.</p><p> I know it began as a play but the novel is where it reached its greatest realization.</p><p> Children can enjoy it, of course, but adults whoread it will laugh with rueful pleasure and be deeply moved by the end.</p><p> Almost no stage or filmversion has ever come within a mile of its sophisticated scope, except for a Mabou Mines production involving one live actress playing Wendy and puppetry for all the other roles that is one of the best nights of theater in my life.</p><p> The Disney animated film has cheap animation and dreadfulsongs, the standard theatrical version is too kiddie-ish (with the odd tradition of a woman playingPeter a terrible conceit) and this new production is no exception.</p><p> It's very much in the panto tradition with a few twists: there's lots of wire work and a nifty 360 degree screen circling the crowd to give the audience the sensation of watching the characters fly across London toNeverland.</p><p> Unfortunately, the design of the images is rather cartoonish and nondescript (I don'tmind critiquing it because that surely can't change during the run.) The effect works well but the images are too pedestrian to really let your imagination take flight.</p><p> What made this show irresistible in concept was the fact that it's actually staged IN Kensington Garden under a gianttent.</p><p> The actual show is very conventional.</p><p> Ciaran Kellgren is developing a fine Peter, Jonathan Hyde was admirably restrained as Mr.</p><p> Darling and Captain Hook while Karen Ascoe was already They Played Presidents: Who Was Believable? 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The play felt complete and yet there was another act to go.</p><p> You get this feeling every once in a while andindeed Act Two was utterly unnecessary, with a dramatic storm looming with symbolic purpose and the aging parents working out their feelings and generally seeing the show spin its wheels. it didn't quite undermine the accomplishments of the first half, just showed how sometimes enoughis enough.</p><p> Still, the four member cast was very strong, especially Robin Soanes as the father.</p><p> Time Out London singled out the other play, in which the son joins the government to try and affect policy, as the stronger of the two so I'm even sorrier I didn't catch it.</p><p> However, there was a bonusto seeing only this show: It begins with the dad playing a cassette tape of Neil Young's On TheBeach, a long lost album by the prolific Canadian that he disavowed for many years but which critics have increasingly mentioned as one of his best.</p><p> I even owned the recent reissue but hadn'tfound the time to give it a go.</p><p> Hearing two or so tunes during this show -- not to mention the dadarguing for its brilliance -- whetted my appetite and now I can't stop playing the CD.</p><p> It really has ashambling greatness akin to his best "quiet" work like Harvest and Harvest Moon .</p><p> As far as soundtracks go for the end of the world, this one's a corker.</p><p> Unfortunately, the environment isn'tthe only thing in danger: the Bush Theatre is being threatened with eviction (and in this economy)after years of basically getting a rent-free space above a pub that probably is useless to anyone else.</p><p> They deserve support and really can't exist without subsidized housing, so go to their plays or visit their gift shop or support them in any way you can.</p><p> DEATH AND THE KING'S HORSEMAN *** 1/2 (out of four) -- Another remarkably inexpensive production at the National (only 10 pounds) and this one of a classic play by Wole Soyinka I'd never seen before.</p><p> In it, the king has been dead for one month and it's time for his Horseman, Elesie (Nonso Anozie) to commit suicide and join him in the afterlife.</p><p> Set during WW II (those based on events that took place shortly after the war ended), the tension arises when theBritish colonials in power discover the plan and arrest Elesie to prevent him from performing sucha barbaric act.</p><p> Though filled with humor and satire (the British colonials are played to devastatingly funny effect by black actors in white face), the play has the reach of a Greek tragedy as all the events tumble on top of one another in one terrible night.</p><p> The women of the marketplaceare the Greek chorus, deriding the black locals who work for the British, praising Elesie, demanding the traditions be observed and so on, often with delightful banter and captivating songs.</p><p> And the arrival of Elesie's son (who has been "kidnapped" culturally by the British and goneto the UK to study and become a doctor) has an unexpected impact. (I thought I knew where the play was headed but was wrong.) I don't know how much of the staging and devices employed here are original or the traditional approach to this play, but it was excellent nonetheless.</p><p> It sohappened that I read China Achebe's Things Fall Apart just after seeing this and it's the perfectcompanion piece for another devastating look at colonialism.</p><p> This production has ended and is probably too expensive to travel to the West End or the US, which is one more reason why you Lindsay Lohan Video Michael Jackson Cars Transparency iPhone Religion Iraq Sarah Palin MORE BIG NEWS PAGES » Books by this author On the ball: with his new play All That I Will EverBe, a post-Six Feet UnderAlan Ball proves there'slife afterdeath.(THEATER): Anarticle from: The ... 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Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to View Comments: Newest First Expand All You must be logged in to reply to this comment.</p><p> Log in or Ads by Google Wicked Theatre Tickets Wicked Broadway Tickets - Cheap.</p><p> Check Our Prices.</p><p> Save 10% Or More.</p><p> HOME POLITICS MEDIA BUSINESS ENTERTAINMENT LIVING GREEN STYLE WORLD CHICAGO COMEDY FUNDRACE ARCHIVE Advertise | Log In | Make HuffPost your Home Page | RSS | Jobs | FAQ: Comments & Moderation | FAQ: Huffpost Accounts | Contact Us Copyright © 2009 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc. | Archive | User Agreement | Privacy | Comment Policy | About Us | Powered by Movable Type Michael Giltz: Theater: London Summer Roundup http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-giltz/theater-london-summer-rou_b_220382.html [7/21/2009 5:42:00 PM]
