Editorial

It may surprise some of you that student theatre at Oxford is only 125 years old – a relative newcomer amongst other venerable Oxford traditions. But the age-old ban on students taking part in ‘amateur theatricals’ was lifted in 1880, to make way for the very first Oxford Greek Play. This year the anniversary of that occasion was marked by the OGP production of Orestes in 1st week – such an important event, we think, for Oxford student theatre that we have reviewed it here, though it has already closed.

Ever since that first OGP, student theatre has grown to a point where in any given week there is a wide variety of theatre available – so much indeed that any student must make tough decisions about what to see. The Oxford Theatre Review aims to see all major student productions on their opening night, and to provide readers with a review of the play as a whole theatrical experience.

With 125 years of student theatre behind us, there is room for much that is original, innovative and challenging, as well as new takes on old standards. We hope to give discerning audience members the tools to make an informed decision about what plays they want to see, and also to be of some use to the theatre community in reviewing the plays as they are experienced in the stalls.

If want to comment on a review, please register your opinion by clicking on the ‘have your say’ button underneath the articles. Feedback and/or constructive criticism is always welcome!

The contributors for this Issue were:

Nemira Gasiunas
Richard Hunt
Max McGuinness
Lauren Schwartzman
Claire Sheldon

It was edited by:

Richard Teverson
Lauren Schwartzman
David Sim

Graphic Design:

Helena Maratheftis
Catherine Williams

Thank you for reading

Boston Marriage – BT Early slot, until 22 October

Director Tom Littler’s latest production is a considerably less lavish affair than A Streetcar Named Desire, which he recently directed at the Playhouse. Gone are the elaborate sets and the massive audiences: this staging at the Burton Taylor is stripped down and basic. Gratifyingly, though, the ingredients of a good play are all present and correct. The casting is spot-on, the acting impeccable, and the staging well judged. In short, Boston Marriage is a great success.

Playing to an almost full audience, the two leads sparkled, maintaining a steady dynamic which did justice to Mamet’s tight script. The sarcasm characterising the repartee between the two was delivered sensitively and with excellent comic timing; both Dyott (Anna) and Ross (Claire) excelled at mimicry, with Ross’s “I baked a pie” receiving a particularly enthusiastic response from the audience. The static setting emphasised the sad but wholly inevitable bond between the two “old and friendless bitches”, ultimately consummated in a lesbian kiss that was shocking but not remotely forced.

There were a few weaknesses in props, notably Ross’s difficulties in lighting her cigarette in the first scene, betraying a nervousness quite at odds with her character’s natural persona. The coat hangers left swinging in the background in the final scene, too, were an unnecessary distraction, which could easily have been removed. On the other hand, the mimes between scenes were played to perfection, setting in relief, in turns, the salient points about the conniving and somewhat sinister double act being played out between Anna and Claire, and the humour which saves Mamet’s play from being a tedious exchange of cynicisms.

Special mention should go to Dyott, who delivered an almost flawless performance. Juxtaposing nervous twitches with steely-faced cruelty to the maid, tender admissions of weakness (“you have broken my heart”) with cutting insults (“burn in the vile circle of hell reserved for the virtuous and weak”), she captured incisively the strange combination of the vulnerable and the callous which makes Anna such an interesting character. Sykes, as the maid, also excelled as the play’s principal source of comic lines, only let down by the occasional slips in her Scottish accent. Her mimed dancing in the final scene change could easily have been excruciatingly out of place in a play whose merit rests on its sharp dialogue; as it was, she just about pulled it off, and certainly elicited the biggest laughs of the evening from a generally-amused audience. Ross was excellent too, although her facial expressions, sometimes a little over strained, are better suited to a less proximal audience. That aside, she easily matched the flair of her partner.

Boston Marriage is not an easy play to stage, nor to watch. It relies on one single, fairly sparse set, and concentrated, repetitive dialogue to evoke the rather tragic, yet strangely captivating, lives of these two cold-hearted Sapphics. Admittedly, one did find oneself craving some kind of denouement in the final scene, but given that its absence is an inescapable feature of the script, the actors did well to sustain attention. A mixture of amusement and pathos, fascination and repulsion, kept the audience rapt in this excellent staging of a rather excellent play.

Orestes – 125th anniversary of the Oxford Greek Play

The Oxford Greek Play was the first student theatre ever sanctioned by the university. The question is, does it still have a place in the crowded world of Oxford Student Theatre 2005?

The answer is yes. The production of Orestes at the Oxford Playhouse (12-15 October) was overall very good, with some standout performances and impressive, almost professional-quality production values. However, the audience was hampered from full understanding by sometimes inadequate supertitles and perhaps felt a bit lost. As a venerable Oxford tradition, the Oxford Greek play is surely here to stay, and that is a good thing, but concessions need to be made to the times and more effort put into helping the audience connect.

Orestes has not traditionally been considered among the best Greek tragedies, and thus may seem an odd choice. However, it was Euripides’ most often performed play in antiquity, and the reasons for this popularity were well represented in this production. Rather than a ‘normal’ tragedy, Orestes is a melodrama, with over-the-top plot contrivances, singing eunuchs and perhaps the greatest cop-out ending of all time. The OGP took these melodramatic elements and sold them hard, wisely realising that when the vast majority of your audience cannot understand what is being said, as much as possible must be conveyed by gesture, movement and expression: almost like a silent film.

Matt Trueman as Orestes knocked it for six: his shifts from intense, determined lucidity into (equally intense) madness were very well done and made it quite clear what was happening to him. Rose Heiney as Electra seemed positively naturalistic early on, but her increasing despondency was deftly played. Among the more minor roles, two in particular stand out: Guy Westwood as Tyndareus spoke ancient Greek with amazing fluency and Sheridan Edwards as the singing Phrygian slave had a beautiful voice and struck exactly the right comic tone in his scene, though the audience was unprepared for comedy at this point and seemed somewhat uncomfortable. The chorus dealt with their difficult and at times thankless role admirably, their unison almost perfect, but the choral sequences were mostly over-choreographed.

The direction seemed focused on making sure the plot was conveyed as much as possible through movement, but at times it seemed as if every actor was told to pace frantically to convey agitation. Perhaps the most affecting moment was a small one: Orestes’supplication of Menelaus, grasping his knees and desperately yet delicately touching his – it felt authentically ancient. Indeed, the attention to detail throughout was impressive, including the Greek, spoken with a reconstructed ‘classical’ pronunciation.

The production values were for the most part exquisite; with a beautiful set (anachronistic but poetic ruins) well-used and excellent lighting design that helped the audience through swift transitions. Particularly well-done was the gradual filling of the stage with smoke throughout the last scene, so that the direness of the situation only gradually became apparent.

The music was lovely to listen to but did not always seem to correlate particularly well with what was happening on stage. The two excellent ‘monodies’ when actors began to sing their lament really brought home the fact that throughout what we had been watching was an opera. The costumes were the standard ‘Greek tragedy’ toga-like drapes, with mixed effect; Menelaus’ utter uselessness was well-conveyed by his get-up as Sinbad the sailor and the chorus’ black veils were properly spooky, but the older characters were not given much help by their costumes and some of their gravitas may have therefore been undermined.

The ultimate judgment of a play, of course, must come from the audience, and although a significant percentage of the audience may have had some familiarity with Greek, most had not read the play. Thus, the audience were trusting not just the actors but also the supertitles to help them understand the action, and in this case they were failed. The supertitles, which were difficult to read, were not an accurate translation, but merely a summary. This led to a ‘kung-fu movie’ effect when an actor gives a long speech that is summarised in one line, and some occasional unintentional humour (‘O: She killed my father M: Somewhat inappropriate’ ). This unreliability of the supertitles really took the audience out of the action and made watching the play an exhausting experience. There are many excellent reasons to perform a play in ancient Greek in Oxford, but care must be taken not to leave the audience behind. The simplest way to do this is to provide a fluent, easy to read translation. Even without one, however, Orestes was a showcase for much of what is right about Oxford student drama.

Mary Stuart – Keble O’Reilly, 7.30pm, until 22 October

Mary Stuart opens with a sacrilege. Playing the keeper of the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots, Aled Roberts sweeps the candelabra from his mistress’ altar onto the duct tape-strewn stage. Upon entering, the Papist pretender treads on one of these sacred sticks. The two then begin to use the consecrated block as a writing table. Such lack of sensitivity is perhaps to be expected in the bar-less blockhaus of the sparsely populated O’Reilly Theatre.

Unfortunately, the promise of this robust beginning is never fully realised. Mary Stuart is an uninterrupted talk piece. The exceptional wordiness of the 19th-century translation strains the actors who, on occasion, seem to stumble their way through the dialogue. The undoubted effort required of them has left little time for detailed characterisation. Cliodhna McCallister’s Elizabeth is insufficiently cunning, forceful or feisty in her portrayal of the Virgin Queen. She delivers the line, ‘Woman’s not weak’, in a murmur to the ground. The impression is of a severe headmistress rather than a ruthless monarch. Though she may be characterised as a dupe in this piece, such a depiction of Elizabeth is unconvincing. Faced with a marriage proposal or even the suggestion of a plot to kill her, McAllister’s demure disposition is unchanged.

By contrast, Heather Oliver’s Mary gradually gains gravitas as the action progresses. Her movement is fluid and projection superior but for over an hour she does not face the audience. Only the character of Mary has a fully conceived and well portrayed personality, based on a confident regal bearing and religiously inspired naivete. Oliver might have flourished in a more inventive production but here her talent is somewhat constrained. The meeting between the sister Queens in the play’s final hour is confused and inconsequential, conveying little of the conflict-ridden relationship between them. Where there should be passion and vitriol, there is often a tendency to awkwardness.

Mary’s failed go-between and young lover, played by Will Blair, similarly gets into his stride after a shaky start and a convincing rapport develops between the two. His overall performance improved immeasurably throughout the evening and his characterisation of Mortimer as the youthful and naive activist for Mary transforms rapidly as the complexities of his treason and the pressures this places upon him are realised. Competent performances are also delivered by Colin Warriner as Lord Burleigh and Dan Proctor as the Earl of Shrewsbury.

The contrast of Burleigh’s silky smooth and faintly disturbingly callous power-politics with the rather more brusque demeanour of Paulet was intriguing. James Kierstead, as the Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, is accomplished in his role. There are some tantalisingly seductive touches between him and the two Queens, which serve to heighten the tension as power-politics and love combine with eventual tragic consequences.

A quartet of musicians gives the production much-needed variety and it might have benefited the overall performance had their efforts been given greater prominence. The costumes too, were of a high quality and the work of Lynn Quelch in putting together such a coherent set of period-style clothes must be commended. Simple in nature, they convey an authentic conception of the period whilst eschewing the dangers of caricature. Otherwise, a dry-ice machine sparks into life whenever atmosphere needs to be injected into the flagging drama.

The set is dominated by an elevated throne draped by a bile-coloured blanket whose lurid necessity is questionable. The undifferentiated downward lighting is often unflattering, obscuring the players’ eyes and providing them with double ‘shadow chins’ for the best part of the action. The actors occasionally stray into the unlit near left hand corner of the stage, always a danger in such a large space.

That said, the final scene provides a striking close, as music and lighting at last combine to leave the drained Elizabeth as a lone monarch, imperious and victorious, yet defeated and demoralised. Some promising performances aside, Mary Stuart fails to justify its length and largely conventional feel. The attempt to re-introduce non Shakespearian classical theatre is still to be commended, and the text appears to have been dissected thoroughly; however, as a whole the production fails to provide the audience with the fruits of this labour.

Sexual Perversity in Chicago – BT Late slot, until 22 October

With a title like Sexual Perversity in Chicago, I don’t know what I was expecting. What I got was an extremely amusing presentation of sexual relationships that transcended their 1970’s setting. With quick dialogue and witty delivery, the audience was hooked immediately and at no point did they seem restless or distracted. I was impressed with the range displayed by the entire cast, and as an audience we were carried along on the stream of the ever-changing emotions that are intrinsic to life and relationships. Don’t shy away from the swearing and passing references to bestiality, bondage and sexually deviant Egyptian kings; with this comes a truly humorous and, at times, poignant production.

However, it did suffer from some opening-night kinks quite beyond the perversity promised. The play consists of a series of short, fast-paced scenes. Unfortunately, movement between the scenes was slow and accompanied by nothing but a full blackout and the more-than-occasional crash as the cast walked into the furniture. One particularly spectacular bump in the dark involved several beer bottles being knocked over, bouncing back-stage with a reverberating ring. It broke the tension created by the cast and watching the play I felt the stop-start nature of the action jarring and disruptive – especially given the brevity of some of the scenes. The amateurish nature of this situation was in complete contrast to the quality of the acting and one can only assume that this opening night problem will be soon rectified.

The set itself was simple – as was lighting and sound – but it worked well. One problem was that in many scenes, the cast were sitting or lying on a low table close to the audience. This was great if you were early enough to get a front row seat, but audience members in the back rows were shifting to get a better view. Luckily, the dialogue and delivery was where the real quality lay in this production, so one didn’t feel too cheated by a partial view. However, this is a perennial problem in the studio setting of the BT and I was surprised that it hadn’t been more adequately addressed.

The entire cast gave an outstanding performance, and special mention must be given to Charlie Covell’s portrayal of a caustic, cynical primary school teacher. The real star from the outset however was Mike Lesslie. The audience engaged immediately with his self-confident, sex obsessed, misogynistic Bernie. Lesslie took this character beyond the skin tight trousers and open-to-the-navel shirt and provided us with the glimpse of a real person hiding his insecurities behind drink, bravado and tales of preposterous sexual exploits.

Sexual Perversity in Chicago may not be the kind of thing you’d take your grandmother to see (unless she was particularly progressive) but it’s more than worth seeing. You will find yourself both amused and touched. Although we may not all have been sexually adventurous Scorpios in the Seventies, we’ve all been there.