The Woman in Black at the Fortune Theatre, London

The Woman in Black is a brilliant play. The strong resistance to perform that starts the play is enough to set the theme. Then the stage, the acting, the mist covering the audience and taking us into the marshes. Everything from Dickens's Havisham (the main character's fiancé/wife is even called Stella) to Poe's raven comes to mind here. The audience in itself is quite an experience as the man behind me jumps when the ghost appears uttering everything from 'Jesus Christ' to 'God damn' as he is jolted in his seat, the woman in the front row utters her has and ohs, and the rest of the audience is quick to shriek when they are made to shriek.

This is a story of a man in need of telling his story in order to exorcise his demons. And resisting 'performing' his story because it is not entertainment, he is gradually sucked into the act of entertainment through the brilliant performance of his tutor as he displays emotions he feels himself. It is a story of how art can indeed imitate life, and even creep into it, as stealthily as the woman in black creeps into the tutor's life.

The scenes in the haunted house are amazingly put together, and the blatant reliance on the audience's imagination, so frequently stressed in the words of the actors themselves, goes further into presenting how art isn't only very capable of imitating life, but can go beyond that by imagining it (as the audience imagines a dog and a horse when no dog or horse are on stage)

It is the story of a woman who had to give up her baby and, having almost watched him die, seeks revenge from all who know her story. And when the solicitor in charge of her sister's estate (the main character here) goes to the marshes to look at her papers, the story unfolds to him. That the woman is a ghost here, that the woman doesn't appear at the end as the actors salute the audience, and that the woman is, in spite of all this, the center of it all, resonates very strongly with my feminist readings of texts.

P.s. Pictures to be added later, when acquired

Cody Daigle's William and Judith at The Liddy Doenges Theatre

Event: William and Judith by Cody Daigle

Place: The Liddy Doenges Theatre at Tulsa Performing Arts Center

Time: Thurs 16 Feb, 8:00 pm

This is a small stage. Proximity to the actors, as usual with small stages (I remember Anna Christie at the Donmar Warehouse), adds a certain edge to the audience’s reaction to the play. Unlike shows we see on screen, watching a play on stage makes this an experience quite different, even when the material, a fictional story, is basically the same as what we see on stage. And although the screen pulls us further into believing what we see by its ability to manipulate visual effects to the service of the story and the effect a movie’s soundtrack has on our emotional involvement, a minimalist stage somehow pulls its audience with its own magical thrill, often sucking us even deeper into the story it portrays for us simply by isolating all external factors, visual and auditory, and forcing us to focus on the act and the words.

But enough of that, now the play.

Open curtain (there is no real curtain of course. This is, after all, a modern play where curtains become more and more obsolete, and an enactment of a Shakespearean time, when curtains did not exist.)

But for the sake of the thrill, let’s go with Open Curtain.

William has been suffering from a writer’s block and has been assisted in his last 2 or three plays by no other than his successor John Fletcher (that Jacobean playwright who barely ever made any appearance in Intro to Lit classes, was brushed over in drama classes, and briefly and insignificantly touched upon in any Shakespearean drama class. Poor John overshadowed by the bard that preceded him). William’s sister, Judith, refusing to marry the man her father has chosen for her, disowned by her family, turns to her older brother in memories of times they used to share as children, writing plays under a tree. This appearance is expected and anticipated by an audience who knows that this play is based on Virginia Woolf’s “Shakespeare’s Sister” from her A Room of One's Own where she imagines the sad fate of a woman of genius in Shakespeare’s time. (feminists just love these stories of what ifs?) What baffled and won the audience’s claps and laughs and obvious acceptance is the dialogue used in this play. This is a very well written play that means to amuse as it brings life to Woolf’s imaginary story. The acting was superb: Judith is the strong outspoken English woman, even when she finally gives William permission to steal her Tempest. William’s seemingly selfish and obnoxious playwright personality puts him at center stage as he gradually shows us his reluctance to teach his daughter what he taught his sister for fear of a similar fate. And Fletcher the poor playwright hidden in the shadows of Will plays his part exceptionally well.

Now I’m more thrilled to go see how Daigle presents The Tempest on stage. He already got my approval for this one.

Cody Daigle, I salute you and thank you for a beautiful night.

Sade in Abu Dhabi

Last night I went with a few members of my family to the Sade Concert at Yas Arena in Abu Dhabi. I leave you here with a few pictures and comments. Needless to say, Sade's performance was dazzling and the audience was mesmerized throughout.

After warming the audience up with Bob Marley's Don't Worry, Be Happy, Sade steps on the stage as the music begins playing Soldier of Love, quite a hit in her album of the same title, the audience naturally screams in excitement. Sade comes on stage dressed for the part:

 Following that song, Sade gives a brief hello to the audience before going back to an old hit in her Diamond Life Album with her Your Love is King. She goes back to her latest Album in Skin then skips back again to one of my own favorite albums of her, Love Deluxe, singing Kiss of love with a very picturesque Background:

 And when the music starts playing its ba-boom-boom tune, the audience rises in applause knowing what's to come. And Sade does not disappoint. She forces the whole stage and audience to go ba-boom ba-boom with her latest hit, Love Is Found, accompanied by a silhouetted background of her dancing with her fabulous male partner. The image here fails to capture what we were actually witness to. The heart goes ba-boom ba-boom just looking at this man move.

 She follows this with In Another Time (Solder of Love Album) before taking a short break. The break is followed by a short movie clip prepping us up for a song that again took the audience back to what started Sade. Smooth Operator apparently remains an all-time favorite with Sade and her audience and the set intensified this feeling:

 Then Sade sits on the edge of the stage and sings Jezebel (Promise) in a black and white setting that plays quite a role here:

 After Bring me Home (Soldier of Love) album and Is It a Crime (Promise), the stage shows us a banner that reads: Sade Live Tonight in Abu Dhabi while Sade sings The Safest Place, again from her new album.

 This is followed by All About Our Love (Lovers Rock) and Paradise (Stronger than Pride) before Sade retires again to change while the band sings Nothing Can Come Between Us (Stronger than Pride) with the Audience.
When Sade finally returns, she does so behind a white curtain that teases the audience who now sees that Sade comes in a new look, singing Morning Bird (Soldier of Love) followed by a song long waited for by me personally and, I have no doubt, by every member in the audience, King of Sorrow (Lovers Rock). In this white elegant dress and with her hair let down, Sade captivates her audience and steals their hearts away.

 Then we listen The Sweetest Taboo (Promise), The Moon and the Sky (Soldier of Love), Pearls (Love Deluxe), No Ordinary Love (Love Deluxe) and finally By Your Side (Lovers Rock) as Sade once again reminds us that it is impossible to be able to count her many hits, and that, indeed, all that she gave us are hits.

After Sade says her goodbyes and acknowledgments to the band, and after the expected time has lapsed for the audience to cheer and call her back, Sade dazzles us back on stage in red as she is taken on a podium that lifts her as high as the skylines in the screen behind her while she sings Cherish the Day (Love Deluxe)

The concert ends and we leave reluctantly. As we leave we see the faces of people leaving the stage. We chat with a few who are as baffled as we are by Sade's magnificent performance. As we leave Abu Dhabi today, we meet a few more members of the audience in the airplane and finally airport in Kuwait and the topic remains ever so lovingly: Sade gave us a night that we will never forget. 

Eugene O’Neill’s Anna Christie at the Donmar Warehouse

Fog, thunder, lightening, then it rains on the stage and the stage tilts, and the sailors fall off one by one. Suddenly, lo and behold, Jude Law’s miraculous arms start pulling at the rope (what a hunk), defeating wind and rain (and tilt) and he is submerged from the roaring sea onto the stage. This is Anna Christie performed at the Donmar Warehouse. A wonderful performance. But it’s not just Jude Law’s thunderous performance that makes this a spectacular show. Yes. He yells. He throws furniture around. He breaks a chair. Simply, he acts the role of an Irish sailor to perfection. But he’s supported by a wonderful cast as well. I was impressed by Ruth Wilson playing Anna Christie. This woman captured all her audience, perfecting the accent and the behavior of a true Anna Christie. Strong. Willful. And not too shy to be as loud as Mat the Irish sailor.

For those unfamiliar with O’Neill, this is a play about Anna leaving the land and coming into sea as the land seems to betray her. As a child, her father left her in a farm in the care of relatives as he saw the sea to be too treacherous a place to raise a little girl. What he doesn’t know, or doesn’t wish to know, is that her life in the farm was anything but safe. After being harassed by her cousin for a couple of years, she finally leaves the farm and finds her only chance of a life is one in which she is a prostitute in a brothel. When that life wears her out, she decides to seek her father who she hasn’t seen for 15 years. On the night of that gripping storm, she meets Mat and gradually the relationship develops with Mat proposing, and Anna refusing on grounds of her past. Reluctant to tell Mat about her past, but driven in a moment of anger insinuated by her father, she confesses and loses Mat, if temporarily.

But the play isn’t about a girl repenting after a life of prostitution. This is not a moral play after all. At least that’s not how it is on this stage. Chris boldly displays her anger at the two men in her life, making her more than a typical image of a repentant woman. When father and lover claim her as theirs, she frantically pushes both of them aside and declares she is no man’s woman. Mat refers to her Viking blood in the play and this is the best time it shows itself. This is definitely not a woman repenting for her sins. Though aware and regretful of her past life, she is not to be put down. This is a great play. And watching it on the intimate Donmar Warehouse (in spite of only managing to get a standing ticket) was an experience well worth this recommendation.

It isn’t often that I get to see actors well known for their studio performances act on stage. These are the moments that prove a good actor. And in this, I would grade Jude Law a great actor in a performance that, in its vitality, reminds me of watching Meryl Streep perform Mother Courage in Central Park. But this is also a play that introduced me to the wonderful Ruth Wilson.