Enron – Royal Court Theatre – Review

Review of ENRON at the Royal Court Theatre

The last projected image you see in Lucy Prebble’s timely new play Enron is a large graph showing characteristic peaks and valleys.

‘All our creations are here,’ says the failed company’s CEO. ‘There’s greed, there’s Fear, Joy, Faith, Hope… and the greatest of these is Money.’

‘Money’ is the last word in the play, and it’s also the first item on Prebble’s agenda. Money is what her play is all about – money, the love of it, and the lengths to which the financial world’s movers and shakers will go to acquire it. It’s hardly a shattering observation and it says nothing about greed that hasn’t been said in countless novels, films and plays before.

But apart from its timeliness, what makes Enron so exciting is director Rupert Goold’s and designer Anthony Ward’s bracingly theatrical appoach to the material.

In telling the now familar story of how, in 15 years, Enron, a Texas-based energy company, grew from nothing to become America’s 7th largest company, employing 21,000 people in 40 countries, and how, through creative accounting, debt concealment and fraudulent dealings, they became the architects of the corporate world’s biggest scandal to date, the show’s creative team have made a theatrical killing.

Initially I was worried that their powerhouse production was in danger of overwhelming Prebble’s text through overkill. The first half, in which you gradually get to know the main players, blurred some of the narrative issues through an excess of stage business and visual affects. At times it almost appeared that Goold had lost confidence in the text and was impelled to gussy up the exposition in case the audience grew bored with its boardroom politics.

But as the performances sharpened, and the almost Greek tragedy-like inevitability began to unfurl, the staging melded seamlessly with the text to create a rare kind of stage magic.

Mark Henderson’s lighting, dominated by a series of mobile neon tubes that changed colour to reflect mood, and a backdrop of video images against a moving electric strip of fluctuating share prices, made quite sure that the occasional dead spots in the text passed more or less unnoticed.

Particularly effective was a great setpiece in which Star War-type laser rods were inventively used to create a series of stunning images.

The three executives who featured most prominently in Enron’s collapse in 2001 were Ken Lay, Enron’s chairman (Tim Piggott-Smith), Jeffrey Skilling, the company’s charismatic chief executive (Samuel West), and Andrew Fastow, its chief financial officer (Tom Goodman- Hill) who, (in this version of the story, at any rate) single-handedly was responsible for devising the scandal that ultimately ruined the company as well as the lives of most of its employees. On the distaff side, the play features a woman called Claudia Roe (Amanda Drew) ‘the fourteenth most powerful woman in the world’ who was also Skilling’s occasional sexual bit on the side and an unsuccesful contender for his job.

All deliver strong, convincing performances (as does the rest of the cast), the single most riveting scene being the one in which the ambitious Fastow convinces a worried Skilling that Enron can be saved by the illegal creation of a ‘shadow company’ to support its falling stock.

Not surprisingly, Enron’s run at the Royal Court is completely sold out. The good news is that it’s transferring to the Noel Coward Theatre on 16 January next year. Book now.

CLIVE HIRSCHHORN. Courtesy of This Is London.

Book tickets to Enron at the Noel Coward Theatre in London

Griff Rhys Jones to star in Oliver!

Comedy appears to be a key factor in casting the role of Fagin in Cameron Mackintosh’s multi-million pound production of Oliver! at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.

First Rowan Atkinson was cast in the lead role when the show opened at the Theatre Royal in January this year, followed by current Fagin, Iranian comedian Omid Djalili. And now the producers have announced that TV and stage star Griff Rhys Jones has landed the part of Dickens’ greatest villain.

Griff shot to fame in the late seventies on satirical TV show Not The Nine O’Clock News alongside Rowan Atkinson. No stranger to theatre, he has won Laurence Olivier best comedy awards for his performances in Charley’s Aunt and An Absolute Turkey and has enjoyed great success on stage and TV.

Producer of Oliver! Cameron Mackintosh said, “I’ve wanted to work with Griff for years so I’m delighted that the marvellous role of Fagin has tempted him back to the stage this Christmas. Griff is an actor with an amazing array of successful talents, all of which will undoubtedly be poured into his unique and entertaining interpretation of one of Dickens’ most famous and beloved creations. I can’t wait!”

Griff joins the cast of the Rupert Goold directed show alongside BBC “I’d Do Anything” winner Jodie Prenger, as Nancy and performs from 14 December until June 2010.

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Oliver! Reviews – Press Round-up

A round-up of Oliver! reviews

• The Telegraph: 4/5
  
• The Guardian: 3/5
• The Times: 4/5
• The Independent: 3/5

ON THE MATERIAL

Telegraph: “It’s a travesty of Dickens. It’s absolutely fantastic showbiz.”

Guardian: “Not even the expertise of the staging and a handful of fine performances can disguise the essential thinness of this piece of deodorised musical Dickens…. But although this is sanitised Dickens, Bart manages to write some thumping good tunes and provide scope for individual actors.”

BN: “Bart’s songs may be unsophisticated and the rhymes sometimes feeble (“where oh where is love, does it fall from skies above?”), but they’re so tuneful and put over such elan that last night’s audience rightly cheered Consider Yourself, You’ve Got to Pick a Pocket or Two and several others.”

ON THE CAST

Please note: The role of Fagin is now played by Omid Djalili.

The Stage: “Djalili might not appear to be the most obvious choice for Fagin, but any doubts that miscasting may have taken place are soon put aside. Djalili puts his stand-up comedy skills to great use in scenes where he appears to be ad-libbing, making jokes about politicians’ expenses and the banking crisis, and, as you might expect, he demonstrates perfect comic timing”

Telegraph:  “Rowan Atkinson is both sinister and hilarious as Fagin… Jodie Prenger, brings a warmth to the stage you could warm your hands by, and wrings every last ounce of emotion from that deeply dodgy celebration of wife beaters, As Long as He Needs Me.”

Guardian: “Rowan Atkinson turns in a sprightly, distinctive performance… Atkinson also plays up the character’s sexual ambiguity…. If this revival is worth catching, it is largely for Atkinson’s saturnine comic presence. The biggest fuss, of course, has been about the casting of Jodie Prenger as Nancy on the strength of TV’s I’d Do Anything competition. The good news is that she acquits herself extremely well.”

Independent: “He’s funniest when fingering his stolen gems, or kicking his legs above his head in a sideways exit. But he’s not a malevolent, gleeful, stage-hogging, dubiously paedophiliac monster that you long for and Lionel Bart wrote, even if Charles Dickens didn’t. The moment Prenger appears, I’m afraid, the heart sinks. She seems to be hiding from the audience. Her voice is okay, but she can’t act and she doesn’t have the depth of lung power to fill a plastic bag, let alone a West End theatre on a nightly basis.”

Times: “all credit to Atkinson for giving Fagin at least as much menace as Jonathan Pryce and Robert Lindsay, who were superlative in Sam Mendes’s revival of the musical 14 years ago….And did Jodie Prenger, who won the role of Nancy in one of those deplorably sadistic television contests, justify her choice? I must admit she did. Initially she struck me as parading, posturing, performing rather than acting, but she went on to prove herself a tough, coarse, credible presence with a big, robust voice — and that’s all that is needed. “

Mail: “Rowan Atkinson, playing that warped scout master Fagin, was the eyebrow-wriggling, funny-walking, laugh-wringing supremo of the show last night… Jodie Prenger, who won the part of the doomed, decent Nancy in a primetime BBC1 talent show, stands up to the test like a sturdy galleon.”

Mirror: “Jodie Prenger took to the West End stage last night and claimed the bright lights of the big city for her own… Rowan Atkinson brought a touch of Blackadder and Mr Bean to gangmaster Fagin.”

ON THE TECHNICAL

Telegraph:  “It seems even more polished this time, even more vigorously and inventively choreographed by Matthew Bourne, even more spectacularly designed. Anthony Ward’s beautiful, multi-level sets are both picturesque and brilliantly ingenious, whirling us round the handsome piazzas and dark alleys of London before taking us underground to Fagin’s lair.”

Guardian: “Goold stages it with fluent efficiency, and Anthony Ward’s sets, with their perspectives of St Paul’s and their sliding bridges, are handsome to look at.”

Independent: “Ward’s designs look better than they did in the Palladium.”

Times: “I can’t say that Rupert Goold, who is credited as the director, does much to reinvent Mendes’s production as I recall it, but he certainly gets plenty of energy out of his cast… [Anthony] Ward makes London a character in its own right: a looming St Pauls, swiftly moving and interlocking alleys, and a very Dickensian murk for Bill Sikes to run through.”

THE LAST WORD

Telegraph:  “As most of us get poorer in coming months, this production is going to make producer Cameron Mackintosh even richer. It’s so enjoyable however that I find it impossible to grudge him a penny.”

Guardian: “For the most part, however, this is Dickens as jolly family entertainment stripped of the sense of solitude that has roots in the author’s own experience and that makes Oliver Twist such a disturbing novel.”

Independent: “A masterpiece is restored, but not in its fullest glory.”

Times: “His [Bart's] Oliver! remains as good and revivable as anything he wrote.”

Mail: “It is pointless to say that Sir Cameron Mackintosh has a hit because advance ticket sales are already enormous, but last night’s opening showed that its commercial success is deserved artistically.”

Mirror: “Oliver! is the perfect musical for our credit crunch times, packed with unhealthy school dinners, growing poverty and kids drawn to gang culture and crime. It will steal your heart. Please sir, can I have some more?”

The critics:

Telegraph – Charles Spencer

Guardian – Michael Billington

Independent – Michael Coveney

Times – Benedict Nightingale

Daily Mail – Quentin Letts

Mirror – Alun Palmer

The Stage – Matthew Hemley

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Theatre pieces: Hunter Parrish, August:Osage County, Chichester

After Gareth Gates, do we have a new Joseph?

Gareth Gates seems to be doing a fine job in Joseph at the Adelphi Theatre – at least if comments on the westendtheatre blog are anything to go by. Whilst musing on Spring Awakening’s demise on Broadway, we turn our attention to Hunter Parrish – pot smoking star of TV’s Weeds – who recently played the lead role of Melchior on Broadway.

Well known for his love of all things theatrical, in a recent interview he said: “I want them to bring back Joseph [and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat]. If anyone has that idea, I’m your man!” Could he be prize casting post-Gareth – or in any future Andrew Lloyd Webber Broadway plans?

August the Movie?

Apparently a film version of August: Osage County, the play by Tracy Letts that wowed critics and audiences alike at the National Theatre recently, is on the cards. Written by Letts herself, the Weinstein Company is backing the adaptation and aiming for a 2011 release. There are some potential dream casting scenarios for this one.

Starry Chichester

There is much oo-ing and ahh-ing over this year’s Chichester Festival Theatre season, with lots of big name stars. Chief amongst them is Joseph Fiennes who is to headline Trevor Nunn‘s staging of Cyrano de Bergerac; also Rupert Goold directs Enron before it makes it’s way to the Royal Court; Oklahoma! gets a revival from Sweeney Todd stage director John Doyle, Iain Glen stars in a new adaptation of Friedrich Schiller play Wallenstein, and Diana Rigg stars as Judith Bliss in a revival of  Noel Coward’s Hay Fever.

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Enron… the musical?

Writer Lucy Prebble

Well not quite “the musical” but it would be fabulous! Ridiculously young and talented playwright Lucy Prebble (creator of the Secret Diary of a Call Girl TV series) is turning the infamous American corporate scandal into a new play, which also promises music, movement and video. This could all go so easily wrong if it wasn’t that man of the moment Rupert Goold (Oliver!), teaming up again with Oliver! designer Anthony Ward, is at the helm. Promising to cast new light on the scandal, the play opens at the Royal Court Theatre in September.

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No Man's Land Review

NO MAN’S LAND. The Duke of York’s Theatre.

As Briggs describes a route involving an intricate one-way system, with unfathomable twists and turns, it soon becomes clear that his directions lead to a kind of no man’s land. ‘This trip you’ve got in mind,’ he says, ‘drop it, it could prove fatal.’

The speech could be a metaphor for the play itself though its two central characters. Hirst (Michael Gambon – pictured), a successful, well-heeled poet and essayist, and Spooner (David Bradley), a dishevelled, impecunious poet manque Hirst picks up at a pub near Hampstead Heath and invites back for a drink, have their own definitions of ‘no man’s land.’ It never changes, never moves, never grows older. But which remains forever icy and silent.

The play’s narrative thrust could not be simpler. After Hirst invites Spooner into his luxurious home (courtesy of designer Giles Cadle) dominated by a well-stocked bar, Spooner attempts to ingratiate himself with his wealthy host hoping that an on-going friendship might be of benefit to him.

What he has not reckoned with, however, is the menacing presence of Foster (David Walliams) and Briggs, incipient thugs who may or may not be lovers, and whose job is to make sure their boss is protected from leeches like Spooner. They succeed.

The idea of a derelict stranger imposing on the hospitality of another was, of course, explored by Pinter in The Caretaker, his first major success. Indeed, No Man’s Land borrows, in mood and atmosphere, quite liberally from several of the playwright’s earlier pieces – notably The Birthday Party and The Homecoming.

Particularly mysterious is the ambiguity that exists between Hirst and Spooner. Could they actually have once known each other at Oxford and have even been friends?

The play’s second comic set-piece, in which the pair exchange a series of long-past social reminiscences involving names like Lord Lancer (‘He’s not one of the Bengal Lancers, is he?’ enquires Briggs), Burston-Smith, Bunty Winstanley, and Doreen Busby, suggests a once-intimate association.

The play also broke new grounds for Pinter. For the first time, his protagonist is a man of means and, like Pinter himself, a poet.

Fascinating, too, is that Spooner, despite having his eye clearly on the main chance, brings a whiff of life into a house literally plunged into darkness. Briggs and Foster, on the other hand, would appear to be waiting for Hirst to die – which, as the play ends, he seems to be doing.

When No Man’s Land was first performed in 1975, John Gielgud played Spooner and Ralph Richardson was Hirst – a double act hard to forget, even harder to follow, and pointless to compare with succeeding casts.

Gambon’s glazed introspection as he peers silently into the middle-distance contemplating ‘the last lap of a race I had long forgotten to run’, is extraordinarily moving and contrasts brilliantly with his stealthier more buoyant moments when, after a good night’s sleep, he bounds into view with an energy and a sprightly playfulness (albeit short-lived) unseen until this point.

Bradley’s crumpled, delusional Spooner whose every wrinkle speaks of failure and failed potential, is very moving too, a muted cello to Gambon’s periodic, trumpet-like outbursts.

Walliams and Dunning are appropriately sinister as Hirst’s manservants, and exude a homoerotic frisson echoed in a production by wunderkind Rupert Goold, that never allows the play’s fair share of laughter to upstage the darkness at its heart.

CLIVE HIRSCHHORN. Courtesy of This Is London.

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