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Author
David
Mamet
Directed
by
Lindsay Posner
Robert
Patrick Stewart
John
Joshua Jakson
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Apollo Theatre
27
January - 30 April 2005 |
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There
are some good things in this
play, but too many disappointing
ones; and there are some excellent
things in this production
of it, most especially the
superb acting by Patrick Stewart
and Joshua Jakson, which lifts
even the banal and messy bits
of the play off the floor.
It is not that the play is
dated, though first staged
in 1977; there is no reason
why an account of theatrical
experience written in 1605
should be dated in 2005, given
that the essentials of the
activity are unchanged. Mamet's
piece is meant to be a comedy
with a current of mounting
poignancy; but although there
are laughs to be had, they
are (with a few exceptions)
shallow when they are not
hollow. There is something
missing from the texture,
the structure of this play,
something that brings it dangerously
close, at times, to being
a failed piece of amateurishness.
But it is not for want of
Stewart's and Jakson's talents
that the bad bits of this
curate's egg leave an unsatisfying
taste in the mouth. A two-hander
needs a Beckett to write it
from an unknown quarter of
genius; and in this mosaic
bit of theatre Mamet is no
Beckett. The snippets and
variety turns which constitute
the piece do not have enough
in them either to entertain
fully, or to illuminate life
in the theatre - and that
is serious, because such is
the ostensible purpose of
this back-stage drama of a
relationship between one young
and one old - one rising and
one fading? - thespian. That
one should even have to put
a question mark in that parenthesis
shows that something is missing
in the writing. One never
knows whether Robert is merely
lonely, or in love with John,
or losing his powers, or going
mad. John, on the other hand,
has a certain thick-skinnedness
about him that makes him implausible
as an actor; the character
is not a person who is an
actor, but an actor playing
a rather dim-witted but lucky
young man, not intelligent
enough even to be vain. This,
to repeat, is a fault of the
writing, not of the performance
by Joshua Jakson; once again,
there was nothing to blame
and everything to applaud
in his and Patrick Stewart's
performances.
In fact it was a pleasure
to see two such gifted performers
at work on the stage together,
and Mamet owes them much for
the silk they make of the
sow's-ear bits. When the writing
works - and it occasionally
does - the combination of
all the forces is splendid:
best was the operating room
scene in which both actors
are completely lost in their
lines and have begun to whisper
fiercely at one another, ham-handedly
making things up as they go
along. Robert in the end achieves
a poignant dignity in the
midst of actual or impending
failure, and if there is something
worthwhile one can take away
from the play itself, it is
its iteration of the point
that behind the bright lights
and grease-paint there is
sometimes, and perhaps often,
a human cost that has been
paid in full.
AC
Grayling |
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