A TIME TO REAP-Royal Court

A good play is one which manages to eke out truths from both the actors and the audience. Good acting is when that action is done naturally and believably, almost imperceptively until there is no seam between the two, and you feel at the end as though you have shared something. The intimacy of a small theatre can either have great impact or be a terrifying and uncomfortable exposure of incompetence. In A Time to Reap upstairs at the Royal Court, it is the former. With an outstanding and lively performance by Sinead Matthews, the young Polish playwright Anna Wakulik examines the controversial topics of abortion, family, and the Church. Cleverly written and inventively staged, the play takes you through the lives of the main characters in a few moments, before settling down into the main story. Marysia (Sinead), a 17 year old who voluntarily has an abortion after a consensual dalliance with a priest at the summer camp, falls in love with with the gynecologist (Owen Teale) who does the procedure, which is of course against the laws of both Church and State. Over the course of the play, she gets pregnant again, this time with the son of her lover (Max Bennett) who is a hedonistic faux student living dishonestly off of his father's largesse in London. The whole edifice is built upon a foundation of lies, lack of commitment, hypocrisy, and a Church-imposed morality that though few follow, dominates both each individual's and the country's life. This play is about the Poland in all of us. The performance so drained the actors that they didn't come back for the second curtain call, though from the comment by the American behind me ("this is the longest I have heard a British audience clap"), it was not for our lack of trying. Highly recommended.
****

ZERO DARK THIRTY

Beards. They predominate. Oh yeah, and bombs. And bureaucracy, And balls, or the lack of them. These are the overriding themes of Zero Dark Thirty, a film about getting your man. In this case, Bin Laden. Before seeing this film, enticed by the hype surrounding it, I couldn't quite remember what the hell it was called, just like I have a hard time remembering the military call signs when spelling out my name to telemarketers (you know, Apple instead of Alpha and all that).  Then I was told it means twelve thirty at night...you know 00:30 on the dark side. A bit like this film, really. But back to the beards. It seems if you want to play in the torture/Islamic world/Navy Seal space, you gotta have one. The film begins with a bearded CIA agent trying out a whole bag of Torquemada torture tricks on a defiant scraggly bearded terrorist who reveals nothing except the days of the week whilst being stuffed into a carton half his size or being led around like a dog or drinking water through a towel stuffed in his mouth. All very unpleasant, and interminable. Like the search for Bin Laden, which goes on for a very long time (as the titles keep telling us) and would still be going on if it weren't for an equally determined and defiant CIA woman with balls-a-plenty. Well, not really, though she does refer to herself as "the motherfucker who found him" when after ten years and billions she did just that. But I am getting ahead of myself. That is nearer the end of this 2hr 37 minute (but who's counting?)chest-beating exercise which apparently is true. The bureaucracy comes off very badly, with an irate CIA apparatchik eventually beating the table around which a lot of forlorn and frustrated agent/bureaucrats sit and berating them for the fact that after almost ten years they are no closer to their quarry, though they do have a lot of neat gadgets. At least he doesn't have a beard, though he has a very bad toupee.  As does James Gandolfino, who plays Leon Panetta, the head of the CIA, as a cross between Tony Soprano and Buddy Hackett. But I am missing the point, obviously. Which is that the world is run by women. Little skinny determined ones who live on Diet Coke and taffy and don't give up, ever.... That would be Jessica Chastain, who is supposedly going to win an Oscar for this. She and another secretary/researcher who finds a long lost file, use the age old method of gutsy determination and pasting people's photos on the wall (though in this case the key guy's brother's photo, which makes finding him problematic), eventually connecting the dots and finding Bin Laden. She is cocksure (not really) but you get my drift, that she is right. And Badaboom, of course she is. She finds the guy, a courier with a huge collection of mobile phones and a wife and kids who leads her to her quarry, and in the critical CIA meeting when the other ball-less wonders are talking in mealy mouthed probabilities, she puts her metaphorical gonads right on the table. Which she feels comfortable in doing, having been bombed twice already in the film and worn an even more ill-fitting toupee (called a wig if you are a woman, apparently). 119 days later, the film then hurtles to its denouement, which involves her inspiring the afore-mentioned Navy Seals and interrupting their game of horseshoes to have them sneak off in Stealth helicopters and attack the commune where UBL (I always thought his name was Osama with an O, but we all know how I am with call signs) is hiding out. This being Hollywood, they crash a helicopter, blow up a bunch of shit, pop a few terrorists, and FINALLY bag the numbah one Bad Guy. Or at least we think they did, because the only thing we have to prove this is a glimpse of something sticking out of a body bag. What's that, you might ask? A beard. Obviously. Then Jessia/Maya ends up getting a free solo ride on a C130 for her trouble, where she cries. And that is pretty much it. I wasn't bored ever. But an Oscar? Nah. I'll give the film a B. Plus. For Beard, of course.

http://www.zerodarkthirty-movie.com/

FILM REVIEW: AMOUR by MICHAEL HANEKE

Life is the sum total of little moments. Love, enduring love, is the gradual building up, and then withdrawing, of shared moments of life, as though they were coins accumulated in a chest over time. It is the process of drawing down this cache of hidden memories which costs, and it is the unexpected decline when the chest inexorably empties which costs the most. This is the subject of Michael Haneke's absorbing and harrowing film Amour, which deservedly won the Palme D'Or at Cannes in 2012. An elegant Parisian musician couple, Anne and George (Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva) gradually descend into the purgatory of their private battle for survival in their apartment, a walled repository and prison of the tiny things which make up the life we take for granted: eating, reading, washing, working, playing, talking....all of which gradually desert Anne as the result of a series of strokes as George is forced to fight a futile rear guard action against the disintegration of her body and her mind. I say harrowing because Haneke pulls absolutely no punches, and the 127 minute film is not so much watched as endured. You watch out of choice; you endure the inevitable.

And this film is endured with one eye on the past, on parents, whether alive or not, and on the future which faces us all. And if you are with the person you love, it is painful. Painful but necessary.

The film is filled with allegory and metaphor. Music, their profession, represents their life's work, their passion, their family, and their regrets. Eventually it too becomes too painful a reminder, and it also stops, replaced by the discomfort of silence. Water represents life. It is the tap running which jars Anne out of her first stroke whilst at the kitchen table. It becomes too painful when the act of being bathed, stripped of her dignity, causes her to repeat the word mal (pain) over and over. It features in the nightmare of George, a harbinger of what he must do. It is the only thing which Anne, with all else gone, can refuse in order to communicate her wishes. A pigeon appears...twice, and is freed once, gently, and the second time, by force. And there is a wonderful story told lovingly by George to the prostrate Anne about being miserable and alone at a summer camp, where his mother told him to signal his state of mind in the weekly post card she had made him promise to send, with the code being flowers (happy) or stars (sad). His last postcard had nothing but stars drawn on it. Flowers and stars.  Happy memories and bitter defeats. White and Black. Light and Dark. Existence and Oblivion. Life.

And all of this is condensed into one word, the only thing worth living and dying for. Love. Amour. The most powerful force in the universe which will force you to fight the battles you don't want to fight. And end them.

My wife gave this film 90 out of a 100. It was too late at night to go into her reasons, but my view is that it has little to do with the film itself, but the uncomfortable fact the movie constantly reminds us of, that the last ten yards are the hardest.

Most critics give it five stars out of five. I send a postcard full of flowers AND stars.

Go see it.

Trailer of AMOUR

THE KITCHEN SINK- A Review at The Bush Theatre

The Kitchen Sink, Tom Well's brilliant new play at The Bush's new digs, has everything...not only BUT the receptacle in question but INCLUDING it.  If the kitchen is the heart of every home, in this case it is the soul, and the five ensemble members of the cast do a brilliant job of baring both. The play tells the story a Yorkshire family in transition. Each character is very believable, and ultimately, likable. The father (Steffan Rhodri), a gruff milkman whose dilapidated mik float is symptomatic of a business on its last legs, is perhaps the hardest to appreciate, but like everyone else, he sort of grows on you. Son Billy (Ryan Sampson), a gay artist who decamps for London Art College on the strength of his  unintended unique interpretation of kitsch (he is a resolute Dolly Parton fan) shines. Sister Sophie (Leah Brotherhead) is caught between the dream of being a ju-jitsu instructor, a past which frustrates her future, and a faltering though earnest suitor, Pete(Andy Rush), an aspiring plumber whose middle name could be hesitant. As in most homes, the glue which holds everything together is mother  Kath (Lisa Palfrey), a dinner lady/school crossing monitor with moxie who soldiers on through everything life throws at them with grace, humour, and courage.

 

The dialogue sparkles. The set is a living set, literally. Real food is prepared, goes into the rubbish bin. Muffiins burn. Pipes spring leaks. There are tears, laughs, words, unspoken truths. Fin bref, as the french say, family life, a pastiche of which almost everyone can recognise despite the family's unique situation.

 

This play amazes, and effortlessly glides from the singular to the universal. There are a couple of moments of emotional perfection which can only be truly appreciated in a small theatre like The Bush. You don't want it to end, and when it finally does, the only possible reaction was to leap to my feet to applaud.

 

I can't remember when was the last time I did that.

 

Go see it.