Material Witness

REVIEW: The Motive and the Cue at the National Theatre

Sir John Gielgud played Hamlet for the first time in 1929. There can surely be nobody left alive who saw it. Gielgud directed Richard Burton as Hamlet in 1964. There should be a few folk around who saw that, but not too many, and not for long. There is a grainy film of that Broadway performance available on YouTube. It is not quite the same as being there... 

Theatre is transitory. Each performance is unique, 'writ in water', preserved temporarily in the memory of those who were there, and imperfectly in the handful of reviews published. To me this makes every performance precious, every moment in the theatre a small part of a shared history and breeds a sense of community and belonging it's difficult to find elsewhere. You can feel it in the buzz of anticipation in the lobby and bars before a show starts and in the whispered critiques during the interval and as the audience filters out into the street afterwards.

 

This love, respect and reverence of the medium is just one of the multitude of things to enjoy and admire about The Motive and The Cue, the National Theatre's triumphant production of Jack Thorne's new play that explores Gielgud and Burton's troubled cooperation. Burton, the global silver screen superstar, is desperate to leave his mark on the history of the most challenging and mythical role of them all, under the eye of perhaps the greatest to play the role. Gielgud's proprietorial love of the role clashes dramatically with Burton's hotheaded, whisky-fuelled insecurity.

 

In this transitory world, we are lucky to have so much of Burton's Hamlet left. Not only the movie, but also the memoirs of Richard Sterne and William Redfield, who left detailed behind-the-scenes exposés. Sterne even hid under a table to record a private rehearsal between Burton and Gielgud. Thorne's golden pen turns this material into an intimate and captivating journey through an artistic process featuring two very different men at odds with each other, themselves and the world.  

 

The drama takes place over 25 days leading up to the production in the rehearsal room and in the honeymoon suite Burton shares with his new wife, Elizabeth Taylor. As the clock ticks down and the differences between the two men emerge the tension and drama rises. In the room with them is Hamlet, over-bearing in his complexity and elusiveness. Thorne cleverly weaves the Prince of Denmark into the play, his own indecision and doubt mirroring Burton's and mocking Gielgud. 

 

An ensemble cast is fabulous throughout, polished and composed on just their second preview night. There are performances of note from Allan Corduner as Hume Cronyn, Janie Dee as Eileen Herlie and Aysha Kala as Gielgud's young and inisghtful assistant. 

 

And then there are the three leads: Mark Gatiss as Sir John Gielgud, Johnny Flynn as Richard Burton and Tuppence Middleton as Elizabeth Taylor. 

 

Middleton spends relatively little time on stage but illuminates every scene, imbuing Taylor not just with a powerful and ravenous sexuality but also an unexpected gravity and wisdom as she emerges as peacemaker, helping the two men to understand each other and edge towards an accommodation. In other hands the role could be overpowered by the Burton and Gielgud, but this is a star turn, memorable and entirely compelling. 

 

Flynn has the toughest challenge of the three, as Burton himself seems unsure why he is there and presents all his doubt and uncertainty. He is, by turns, charming and loquacious and then drunk, angry and lost. As anyone who's watched his silver screen turns will know, Flynn has something of Burton's raffish charm about him and physically he was a good fit for the role. So early in what will certainly be a successful run, it felt somewhat like he was still finding his way into a complex and difficult character, but as the night wore on I became more and more intrigued and impressed by his performance and how well he captured Burton.

 

Finally, Mark Gatiss, who delivered a bravura performance as Sir John Gielgud at a low ebb in his career, and stole the night. He delivered all of Gielgud's fierce theatre intelligence, his love of "Uncle Will" Shakespeare and Hamlet as well as his charm, vulnerability and occasional venomous bite. He was spell-binding from start to finish, utterly convincing. 

 

The key to unlocking Thorne's great script is taking the audience to the heart of the fractious dynamic between the two men as they tried to find Burton's Hamlet. And in this they - and director Sam Mendes - are very successful. The night I attended, you could hear how engaged the audience was: a sharp intake of breath here, a collective gasp there... The tension was palpable. And so too was the history. It took me all the way back to 1989 when my love affair with Shakespeare began with another troubled Hamlet, that of Daniel Day-Lewis that I saw in the same auditorium, the Olivier.

 

The last play I saw twice was Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem, but that was over a period of more than a decade. I would go back and see The Motive and the Cue next week if I could, as there's just so much to unpick and enjoy and I suspect it would be even better on second viewing.

 

The National Theatre has another massive hit on its hands, on a par with The Lehman Trilogy. It runs until July and is going to play to packed houses. Beg, borrow or steal a ticket. Just don't miss it. 

 

Karen Joy Fowler's Booth and the cruel tension of inevitability

Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed by John Wilkes Booth in the Ford Theatre in Washington DC on April 15th 1865. It’s a racing certainty that everyone embarking on Booth, Karen Joy Fowler’s brilliant historical novel recounting the history of the assassin's Maryland family knows this fact. I certainly did.

And yet, as the narrative drove inexorably towards the fatal encounter, a small part of this reader’s consciousness simply couldn’t help but hope for an alternative outcome. Perhaps that President Lincoln, like Ulysses S Grant, pulled out of his theatre visit at the last moment. Or that John Wilkes, the most beloved of Mary Booth’s six surviving children, dropped his fatal assassination plan at the last moment to spare his mother the inevitable anguish of his actions.

It’s impossible, of course. The history books are clear on the outcome.

But still, the desire for a happy ending is so strong it can transcend reality, and the momentum towards the event is hugely affecting, almost painful. I’d be interested to know if other readers ~ or indeed viewers ~ share this experience of impossible denial?

It takes some doing for the writer of course. The last thing a reader expects for a tale with a 150-year-old spoiler is this kind of dramatic tension, but here we are are. Done as skillfully as this, it is the very inevitability of the assassination that creates the atmosphere of impending doom and nervous energy that increases the nearer the event gets.

In Booth it comes from the lavishly intimate portrait of the family of Shakesepearean actor Junius Brutus Booth that Fowler paints, from John’s days in his mother’s womb, through every trial and tribulation they suffer - and there are many - on to the fateful day in DC. They survive their father's neglect, poverty, plague, famine, death, the grief of lost children and the humiliation of the discovery that Junius has another family, to reach 1865 almost in tact before John brings disaster down on their own heads as well as their war-shattered country.

My faint and ridiculous hope of a reprieve for Lincoln is as much born of a desire for a better ending for Asia, Rosalie and Edwin Booth as for the President. Fowler has made them real: flawed but sympathetic human beings who inhabit the story with power and purpose.

Like all great historical fiction, the central story is only a part of the show. There is huge detail in this canvas on issues as diverse as the evil cruelty of slavery and the vibrancy of 19th Century theatre - Edwin played Iago in Californian mining camps, almost losing his life when a much moved patron took violently against the character's scheming! We learn about violent city life and rural destitution, about the 49er gold rush and crossing the isthmus of Panama before the canal.

It’s a marvelous book, despite its harrowing ending, with the power of haunting that extends long beyond the turning of the final page.

REVIEW: The Last Remains by Elly Griffiths

So farewell then, Dr Ruth Galloway - archeologist, teacher, single mother, investigator and much admired companion through 16 novels. 

When I picked the first of these 16 books up in the summer of 2019, I'm not sure I'd have been prepared to bet much on Elly Griffiths being able to sustain the adventures of a North Norfolk archeology lecturer through another 15 titles. Not only has she done this, but she has retired Ruth Galloway at a time when much of her audience would surely have continued to want more. And surely it's best to bow out on top with the audience wanting more, rather than allow the series to go stale. 

Much of the charm of these books is tied up in Ruth's everywoman character. She comes with the same hopes, fears, problems and triumphs as the rest of us - bar the frequent run ins with corpses - and confronts most of it with resolution, cheerful good humour, and a glass of wine. It's impossible not to like and root for her. I wrote previously about what I love about the series in this review of the 12th novel, The Lantern Men.

In The Last Remains, Ruth's corpse is the body of a young Cambridge student found behind a false wall in an abandoned building having been missing for more than two decades. She, Emily Pickering, disappearing following an archeology trip in Norfolk.

The search for the truth of Emily Pickering's disappearance brings Ruth into contact with all the characters who have enriched these books including curmoudgeonly cop Nelson, his former sidekick Clough, Cathbad the druid and his wife DI Judy Johnson. That the book never feels like a farewell tour is testament to Griffiths' skill as a writer. She draws together the strands of the investigation with all the loose ends of the 14-year-old series without being sentimental or heavy handed. It is a satisfying and credible ending, if a little sad of course, because I will miss Dr Ruth and her friends and colleagues. 

The good news for the legion of fans of Griffiths is that there is plenty more from this most prolific of writers. There are the Brighton mysteries and a promising newcomer in DS Harbinber Kaur.