The Week on stage, from Jeremy O Harris’s Daddy to Orphans
The highs and lows of the week’s theatre
This week’s theatre round-up includes a Drag Race star in a rock musical, playwright Jeremy O Harris’s UK debut, a production from National Theatre Scotland and Robert Lindsay.
Check back next week for another cohort of productions, including Mike Bartlett’s The 47th and The Bone Sparrow.
Orphans – SEC Armadillo, Glasgow ★★★☆☆
It is easy to see why the National Theatre of Scotland thought Peter Mullan’s magical-realist 1998 film Orphans was ripe for musical adaptation. It’s set in Glasgow, it has a big heart, and it deals with a particularly pertinent topic: the grief of losing a loved one. Cora Bissett’s touring production – book by Douglas Maxwell, score from singer-songwriters Tommy Reilly and Roddy Hart – doesn’t really work, though.
The story follows four siblings on the stormy eve of their mother’s funeral, each of whom deals with their distress differently. Eldest son Thomas locks himself in the chapel with her coffin. Disabled daughter Sheila embarks on an adventure. Adopted son Michael gets stabbed in a bar fight, and brother John sets out on the streets to seek revenge.
Designer Emily James’s set does a good job of evoking central Glasgow with its great, spinning slabs of red sandstone tenement, and there are some entertaining ensemble scenes in rowdy pubs. The cast cope capably, too. Dylan Wood has a desperate menace as John, while Paul McCole earns laughs as an affectionate drunk. His bar-chant, “Every C**t Should Love Every C**t”, is the evening’s best number and typifies the show’s sweary Scottish humour.
But the story itself is too episodic, too tonally up-and-down, and too plain peculiar, and Reilly and Hart’s stop-start score – piped in, rather than played live – rarely reaches anything emotional or exhilarating. Bissett’s three-hour staging is unimaginative and overlong, too. It’s an awkward adaptation that only comes alive down the pub. Fergus Morgan
Hedwig and the Angry Inch – Leeds Playhouse ★★★★☆
It seems wild that the UK hasn’t been treated to a major, full-scale production of Hedwig and The Angry Inch since its West End iteration closed early in 2000 – especially given the subsequent cult status of the 2001 film version. Certainly, it feels like a smart bit of programming to ride the wave of mainstream interest in drag queens by casting RuPaul’s Drag Race alum Divina De Campo as Hedwig.
But thankfully, this casting choice is less cynically canny than simply written in the stars: De Campo is made for this part and whips an eager audience into a froth of sheer delight. She has sublime comic timing, delivering both a purring, fabulous on-stage persona and showing plenty of cracks.
The musical still feels remarkably fresh and original – far from the predictable formulas of many musicals – and the soundtrack rocks, with a fierce, punky energy. De Campo has a gorgeous voice, but she’s not afraid to let rip either, embracing all the rough edges of composer Stephen Trask’s songwriting. The live band are clearly having the most fun, too. As a night out, Hedwig and The Angry Inch makes for a truly delicious treat. Holly Williams
Read the full review here.
Daddy – Almeida Theatre ★★★★★
A disclaimer: if you have a ticket for Daddy, I’d recommend closing this review now. Jeremy O Harris’s play is a masterpiece that doesn’t so much pull the rug from under you as yank it, then stick around to laugh at you lying on the floor, dazed and bewildered. Trust me: this is a show enhanced by a lack of expectations.
At the centre is the relationship between Franklin (Terique Jarrett), a young Black artist, and Andre (Claes Bang), an older white art collector. When they kiss for the first time, tongues collide so aggressively that you could see them in space. It’s a flirtatious cat-and-mouse game, just one where the mouse ends up sprawled on the cat’s knee, being spanked with a slipper and calling him “daddy”.
If the Freud fodder didn’t make it clear, Harris’s play is undeniably provocative. Full-frontal nudity and casual drug-taking are introduced from the get-go; racial slurs are spat by the Black and white cast members. But this is not shock for shock’s sake. The mix of comedy and discomfort will likely polarise audiences, but there’s no danger of you forgetting Daddy. Isobel Lewis
Read the full review here.
The Fever Syndrome – Hampstead Theatre ★★★☆☆
There’s a lot going on in The Fever Syndrome. Alexis Zegerman’s play opens on the eve of a family reunion to celebrate the achievements of Dr Richard Myers (Robert Lindsay), a titan in the field of IVF who has Parkinson’s. The house creaks with unresolved tensions between his adult children and their families. “This is very Edward Albee,” Thomas says. No kidding.
If it all sounds confusing, that’s because it is. Thankfully, Lindsay is a more than capable anchor. From him, director Roxana Silbert cajoles a performance of unexpected fragility, pathos puncturing the fearsome gravitas. He may struggle to eat unassisted, but Richard still intimidates his family and can shut them down with a pithy comment.
Watching Richard’s slow deterioration, his lively mind entombed in a body no longer willing, is particularly gruelling. It’s distinctly at odds with the script, which is jaunty and garrulous. When the whole family gathers, chaos ensues; conversation ricochets back and forth, rat-a-tat-tat. No one can keep up.
The jokes are as obvious as they are on the nose; nuance is not in this script’s vocabulary. If your audience is nervously laughing as a 12-year-old girl graphically fits on stage, then something’s gone awry. Sure, levity can spring from darkness, but there’s a time and a place. Isobel Lewis
Read the full review here.
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