I had the real pleasure to see David Tennant exercise his acting muscle as "Richard II" at BAM last week. Those of you who know him only from his stint as the 7th(?) "Dr. Who" and/or the widely acclaimed but somewhat disappointing British and American versions of "Broadchurch" on television, would have been amazed to see his transformation into probably the nuttiest king in the Shakespeare History plays. He devastates. Is that a verb? We watch as he morphs from a spoiled foppish king to one, who at his death, might have been a real power. When, upon his return from battles in Ireland, he finds has been conquered by his cousin, the future Henry IV, he realizes for perhaps the first time that he is mortal: "For God's sake, let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings..."
Alex Hassell was excellent as well as the young king in "Henry V" although the play is all battle and not to everyone's taste. Henry V was the human king as opposed to Richard II's spoiled popinjay and Henry VI's brutish conqueror. In "Henry VI" parts 1 and 2 (which I did not see this time around having just seen Harriet Walter in Phyllida Lloyd's inventive all-female production at Saint Ann's Warehouse) Prince Hal matures from a feckless boy to the king he will become in "Henry V." He was the people's king and we finally get a taste of this in "Henry V" when he visits his dispirited men on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt in disguise. He brings with him "a little touch of Harry in the night" and it is enough to lift them up to win one of the great military battles in English History.
Both productions from the RSC are well if not exactly imaginatively directed by Gregory Doran and the performances were all excellent except for a few scenes with a mumbling Jane Lapotaire as Queen Isobel in "Henry V" who unfortunately seems past her sell-by date. She fared slightly better as the Duchess of Gloucester in "Richard II." Oliver Ford Davies was a curious but fine Chorus in "Henry V" shambling on an off the stage in professorial gear, a baggy sweater and glasses, which was not in keeping with the otherwise period aspect of the play. And I did quite enjoy the Elizabethan music that framed both plays, especially the three Sopranos in "Richard II."
On a low note, Anne Washburn's "Antlia Pneumatica" (literally "Air Pump", don't ask) at Playwright's Horizons was a disappointment. Washburn's "10 Out of 12" at Soho Rep was one of my top three favorite plays last year. Unfortunately "Antlia Pneumatica," friends gathering at a country house to memorialize a dead friend as in "The Big Chill," seemed directionless. I enjoyed the first half of the play because her characters are always so unique and wonderful and her dialogue is snappy but the play went nowhere really and the ending, or lack thereof, left the audience confused. Perhaps that was her intention but for the purposes of this play it didn't cut it. The performances were mostly excellent, especially Annie Parisse as Nina, but Rob Campbell as Adrian, her one-time lover, wasn't able to deliver on the charisma that his character required. The character was also saddled with a bizarre Sam Shepard-like monologue that he couldn't quite finesse.
I'm afraid the "Revolt, She Said" by Alice Birch at the Soho Rep was a complete mess, a feministic harangue with, once again, a trashing of the stage. Hellooooo??? Directors???? Find some other way to depict chaos please. This is getting really old.
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