The Pianist of Willesden Lane at St James Theatre ☆ ☆ ☆☆

 Currently showing at the St James Theatre is a heart-breaking musical feast that takes the audience back in time, demonstrating how far we have come since WWII. The Pianist of Willesden Lane is a one-woman show, originally written from the book The Memoir of Music, Love and Survival by Mona Golabek and Lee Cohen. 
 

Reliving the past is Golabek herself who gives an up close and personal account of the most intimate details of her family’s traumatic and shocking life.  The writer and musician takes us into her personal space, speaking heroically about her mother Lisa Jura, whilst playing various piano pieces effortlessly including Scriabin’s Etude in D Minor, Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata and Debussy’s Clair de Lune. 

Lisa is a young Jewish girl who loves to play the piano; even in silence she loves to place her fingers over the piano keys. One day, as she made her usual way to visit her piano teacher in Vienna, in preparation of playing Grieg’s Piano Concert in A Minor at the Musikverein Concert Call in the future, her life changed as soon as she arrived at his door.

This change came from the regime's decision to make it illegal to teach Jewish children, so he told her it was best to leave immediately, and that was the last time she ever saw her teacher.

Towards the end of 1938, the Nazi’s military power grew stronger and enforced the slaughter and persecution of the Jewish population – Kristalnacht – which was prevalent throughout the Third Reich. Yet by luck, Lisa's father managed to get a golden ticket for her to take the Kindertransport to England. 

Golabek gives a remarkable rendition of her courageous mother through touching and tender moments. These segments included Lisa saying goodbye to her family before boarding the train, to finding a place to sleep during the London’s Blitz and, by chance, getting a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music.

Adapted by Hershey Felder, this visceral play steals the hearts of the audience including those new to classical music. The production has black and white footage, which provide visual context and emotional language to Golabek’s voice. These visual projections are formed by Andrew Wilder’s gold edged frames that act as a way into Lisa’s world, alongside a large Steinway grand piano for Golabek to play breathtaking variations by the great composers.

In light of current affairs, where today’s UK government is considering taking 3000 unaccompanied children from Syria, this 90 minute play is not only a history lesson but a musical story filled with love, pathos and sweeping tension. 

Showing until 27th February. Please here for my information and to book tickets. https://www.stjamestheatre.co.uk/theatre/the-pianist-of-willesden-lane/

Excellent programme &exquisite performances by Mona Golabek on the keys #ThePianistOfWillesdenLane @St_JamesTheatre pic.twitter.com/MMQ42JeXRz

— Mary Grace Nguyen (@MaryGNguyen) January 22, 2016

Coverage: Music into Words

Swing by Around 8 Review

Review: Met Opera's Live in HD: Pearl Fishers

Swing by Around 8: Ghost Light Theater Group ☆ ☆ ☆

It’s not like every day that you get a production that hones in on the mysteries of an orgy party. In society, it’s (not really!) a taboo, so here’s a bit of an insight into how unsexy, disorganised, confusing and stressful it is to pull off. Yet somehow a torn couple, Katherine (Elizabeth Lloyd Raynes) and Matt (Donncha Kearney), figure that it’s the only way they can salvage their dying relationship – by getting it on with other people (at the same time!), - though it ends up being a bit of a disaster with too much wine and silly innuendoes that all go tits up.

Swing by Around 8 is a short new play that made an impact at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, and Ghost Light Theatre Group has taken the work, written by Jessica Bray, and brought it to London. Directed by designer and educator David Gasperetti, Swing by around 8 is showing at the pocket sized pub theatre of Bread and Roses theatre. There’s music by the late David Bowie, playing in the background, accompanied by a dinner table and an open-legged chicken with some chocolate mousse and one less plate of beige food.

Amelia, the well-spoken lady who can’t handle her drink, (Laura Mckee) brings along her philanderer partner Elliott (Jonathan McGarrity), the nurse. Dinner seems to be going so well until one of them feels uncomfortable and their other half begins to enjoy the sexual flirtation a little too much. Then, a host of domestic problems and tetchy issues hit the fan.

Raynes is a tour de force with her performance as the control freak and over-paranoid girlfriend, while Kearney, and his cute Irish accent, give a smooth performance as the insecure boyfriend on the tipping point of throwing in the towel on his relationship with Katherine. Mckee and McGarrity are also a talented duo as professional swingers in Bray’s intriguing work. But it’s just a shame that it ends so soon. Although Sam Blake has a small role in the piece as the policeman, you’re pretty convinced he could have been in on the foreplay as well.

It’s easy to get drawn into these character’s little worlds. As the play goes on you get a deeper understanding of them, though it would have been enlightening to have understood why both couples had relationship problems and what they were about. Yet seriousness aside, this play is warm and funny, and had me chuckling throughout. There’s a lot of material for a sequel. Hint, Hint!

Gasperetti has brought together a convincing cast of new performers and dealt with an interesting issue that many are curious about. It’s a poignant piece especially during a time when online dating and sexual experimentation is on a high.

Only showing until the 6th Feb. Click here for more information. 

Check them out on social media: Facebook:  GhostLightTheatreGroup

Twitter:  @GhostLightTG
Nearest station: Clapham North tube 

Now to see @GhostLightTG! @BreadandRosesTC
Ching, ching! pic.twitter.com/9GNfS4NHFk

— Mary Grace Nguyen (@MaryGNguyen) February 3, 2016

Piaf at the Charing Cross Theatre ★★★★

Cameron Leigh as Piaf ©Gabriel Szalontai 

This year marks the century of the iconic French chanteuse Edith Piaf. To celebrate, Charing Cross theatre unleashes Pam Gem's play, Piaf, directed by Jari Laakso, which was first staged in 1978. The play is quite an eye opener. It pulls away the glamour of Piaf's singing career for the part of Piaf’s life that we are not so familiar with.

As much as she was the Carnegie Hall super star, the play describes Piaf's earlier poverty-stricken life, as potty-mouthed Édith Giovanna Gassion, brought up by prostitutes, and addicted to alcohol and drugs. 

Piaf (Leigh) with husband, Marcel (Zac Hamilton) ©Gabriel Szalontai 

The script is clear-cut. The scenes move from episode to episode of her traumatic life. They are neatly interlinked with her record-breaking songs including Padam, Padam and La Vie en Rose. It’s what keep the play musically alive alongside Cameron Leigh’s perfect performance of the international cabaret star.

The talented performer-musicians are also strong forces on stage, playing several roles in Piaf’s tragic journey. Stephanie Prior is impressive as Marlene Dietrich as well as Piaf's nurse. Samatha Spurgin is brilliant as Piaf's old time friend from the brothel, Toine. 

Leigh with Brian Gilligan, Mal Hall, Zac Hamilton, Philip Murray Warson and Kit Smith ©Gabriel Szalontai 

Brian Gilligan, Mal Hall, Zac Hamilton, Philip Murray Warson and Kit Smith add dashes of humour and electricity to the production, performing a variety of male roles that ruled Piaf's life including German soldiers in WWII, doctors, Louis Leplée (the club owner who discovered Piaf), Theo (her last husband) and police detectives who suspected her of murder. 


Leigh is the tour de force of the show. She nails the title role vocally, characteristically and physically. If you ever wanted to know what Piaf was like in real life, Leigh is your best bet. She can re-enact her every emotion effortless. Seeing her perform Non, je ne regrette rien is a gut-wrenching experience. Many members of the audience had tears in their eyes. However, one wonders if she really was as coarse as Gem depicts her - with an East London cockney accent but, just, the French version.

Scenes where Piaf discovers her husband, Marcel Cerdan had died in a plane crash or suffers from a car crash in 1951, with broken arm and ribs, are convincingly performed by Leigh. The audience pity Piaf's hard life.

If you’re a fan of Piaf, get a ticket now. Cameron Leigh's performance is simply mind-blowing.

Piaf (Leigh) with Toine (Samantha Spurgin)

Currently showing at the www.charingcrosstheatre.co.uk until January 2nd. Click on the link to purchase tickets. 
Director: Jari Laakso; Musical Arrangement and Supervision: Isaac McCullough; Movement Director: Katya Bourvis; Designer: Philippa Batt; Lighting Designer: Chris Randall.
Piaf is produced by Gillian Tan, Blackwinged Creatives, Steven M. Levy and Sean Sweeney.
For more theatre reviews on Trend Fem, click here. 
Dress rehearsal of Cavalleria Rusticana / Pagliacci at the Royal Opera House (Dec 2015)

Hapgood, Tom Stoppard, Hampstead Theatre (Dec 2015)

Henry V, The Royal Shakespeare Company, the Barbican (Nov 2015)

Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, Trafalgar Studio (November 2015)

Completely blown away by Cameron Leigh who sings the lead role of Edith #Piaf. @CharingCrossThr @PiafLondon pic.twitter.com/5qM6222jA8

— Mary Grace Nguyen (@MaryGNguyen) December 12, 2015

⭐⭐⭐ National Theatre Live: Eyre at the Gate Picture House (Notting Hill)

Charlotte Bronte's eponymous novel of the life of Jane Eyre is considered avant-garde, ahead of its time, dabbling with gender roles, sexuality and religion during the 19th century. Yet through Bronte, Eyre was given an individual voice that went against social whims, and was arguably one of the first examples of proto-feminism, of the century.

Now, still, showing at the National Theatre is Sally Cookson's ensemble adaptation, which was first shown last year at the Bristol Old Vic, as part of a hugely successful two-part show. Presented as a single show, this 210-minute drama begins with Jane (Madeleine Worrall) crying like a first born child, with atmospheric music performed by a impassioned band who prepares the audience for the psychological ordeals that this would-be child later endures. With Cookson, however, it's abundantly clear that she studies Eyre's cruel and desperate upbringing, rather than hone in, so much, at the troublesome and confusing relationship she develops with Rochester. 

Stage designer, Michael Vale offers a rustic, wooden maze of ladders and platforms for the complex characters to dance, run and hide away.  The jazz ensemble (piano, drums and brass) is stationed centre stage throughout; either they are singing and banging to the beat of Eyre's feet, or buzzing to a stagecoach charade, running on the spot to signify Eyre's journey to a new country estate or the draconian Thornfield Hall School.

Cookson's play instills the neglect and abandonment of various family members in Eyre's life, from her parents, her kindly uncle and best friend, Helen Burns (Laura Elphinstone), who were lost to the widespread diseases of the time. This follows her hardship under the verbally abusive Aunt Reed (Maggie Tagney) and over-zealous Mr Brocklehurst (Craig Edwards). Aideen Malone's exquisite display of light and Benji Bower's howling score represent the fragility of Thornfield Hall and the chilling depression of Lowood.

Worrall's sensitive and tender portrayal of Eyre has crafty nuances of childishness, which appeals to Felix Hayes's aggressive and Byronic Rochester. Hayes retains an assured and bold Rochester whose overt superiority exudes rough-around-the-edges masculinity. Craig Edwards animatedly performs as his giddy and curious dog, Pilot and Melanie Marshall gives a gracious and heart-felt performance singing as Rochester's insane wife, Bertha.

This original production puts a musical twang to Bronte’s 19th century tale and brings to life the internal voices that haunted Eyre. The performance is visceral and the music is, almost, unforgettable. 

For more information on Jane Eyre, please click here.

Click here for NT Live's performance of A View from the Bridge with Mark Strong. 

NT Live Review of Everyman, click here.

Click here for NT Live Review of Tom Stoppard's The Hard Problem.

Longhurst's 'Tis Pity She’s A Whore is taboo, indecent, blood-gushing and too good to be true. ★★★★★

©The Globe/Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

John Ford’s 16th century, incestuous and blood splatter drama has made its way into the brand new, beautiful and elegant candlelit jewel box of the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Its title 'Tis Pity She’s A Whore plays a significant role than simply highlighting the sensationalist and taboo nature of the play. ‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore’ is also the last line said by the Italian Cardinal, which infers the religious context that foreshadows the fate of the two siblings Annabella (Fiona Button) and Giovanni (Max Bennett) who fall desperately in love despite social conventions. 

Its imaginative director Michael Longhurst, who won the Evening Standard Best Play 2012 Award for directing Nick Payne’s dazzling play Constellations, has managed to produce a delightful and minty production which contain all the corruptive and blasphemous elements of Ford’s world, that is, until we reach the final Jacobean blood bath scene. Yet even when the gore spews on stage, the show shimmers with holiness no less enhanced by the atmospheric candles that alight our little, 340-seater, golden playhouse. 

©Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

The beauty of the Alex Lowde’s set is heightened by its musical ambiance composed by Simon Slater with the use of Elizabethan instruments; lutes viols, recorders, and unusual, eerie and sardonic sounds produced by never-seen-before metal and steel percussion instruments to denote the bad omens to come. Choral singing is also subtly incorporated to add irony to the impiety of the naïve brother and sister.

The play however has several suspense-driven subplots encompassing the incest story, which makes the play fruitier and thrilling to watch; there’s never a dull moment. We have Bergetto (James Garnon), Grimaldi (Jethro Skinner), and Soranzo (Stefano Braschi) all racing for Annabella’s hand in marriage; the betrayal of Vasquez (Philip Cumbus) to Hippolita (Noma Dumezweni) who jilts her into thinking he will marry her after he has murdered his master Soranzo, who is also Hippolita’s past-lover; and the in-the-dark murder of innocent Bergetto who Grimaldi mistakes for Soranzo. Most of all, there’s the parallel slapstick comedy to balance the misfortunes, all carried out in the first half of play, by Poggio (Dean Nolan), Bergetto, Donado (Sam Cox) (who is Bergetto’s uncle), and Annabella’s maid and tutoress Putana (Morag Siller). 

There are bucket loads of stagecraft to marvel at too. This includes the cleverly executed sword fight scenes, which are choreographed to look as wicked as real fights, the alluring contemporary dances, and semi-Elizabethan, semi-contemporary costumes designed by Jemima Penny. The standard of talent and theatrical acting is exceedingly high; knifes stabbing into one another appear so genuine that audiences would think that murder had taken place at The Globe but this is quickly rectified by the ensue of poetic dialogue and gallons of fake blood flowing out of the woody Sam Wanamaker stage. 

[Left to Right: Richardetto (Daniel Rabin), Giovanni (Max Bennett), Cardinal (James Garnon) Donaldo (Sam Cox) & the lovers' father: Florio (Edward Peel)

Bennett portrays an ardent and star-struck lover that turns into a jealous and blood hungry anti-hero; the audience gasps as they see him hold a dagger with Annabella’s pulsating heart in his hand. This cleverly compares with Button’s ability to bestow a passive and vulnerable Annabella whose tender naturalism is sullied by her clandestine relationship with her brother. It begs the question as to whether she would have fallen for her brother if he hadn’t had confessed his love first. Garnon's ability to transform from the inexperienced and scatterbrain Bergetto to the revered Cardinal with gold rings and red silks robes is phenomenal as well. His funny and hobbit like Bergetto is mirrored by his loyal and clowney servant Poggio played by Nolan. Cumbus’ hypocritical and semi-villainous character Vasquez is quite new too. He provokes hatred even if his deeds are done for selfless reasons. And straight shooter Braschi is our chauvinist noble who does a handsome job of keeping the tension tense. 

Longhurst's 'Tis Pity She’s A Whore is taboo, indecent, blood-gushing and too good to be true. The production warns, ‘Contains nudity and scenes of a sexual nature’ and there’s also an unsettling suggestion that Annabella is pregnant with her own brother’s child, which can make the audience queasy. The fact that Bennett and Button look like siblings doesn't help either. There’s a lot to appreciate about the delightful stage and visuals; but be sure to go in with a full stomach as there’s a plenty of Jacobean bloodletting that transpires later on in the play.

This production is currently showing until the 7th December but tickets are selling fast. Click here to purchase tickets.

"Taboo, indecent, blood-gushing & too good to be true" 5 star review soon @The_Globe #Samwanamaker #TisPityShesAWhore pic.twitter.com/pua6aIIvpV
— Mary Grace Nguyen (@MaryGNguyen) November 13, 2014

Shoot, I didn’t Mean That and The Last Days of Mankind: Tristan Bates Theatre ***

Shoot, I didn’t Mean That and The Last Days of Mankind are two separate plays currently showing at the Tristan Bates Theatre and they center on the theme of war in various forms. To mark the centenary of WWI Pamela Schermann, Time Zone Theatre and British playwrights have teamed up to instil a plethora of war perspectives.

Catriona Kerridge’s comedy Shoot, I didn’t Mean That is an insightful piece that is divided into three narratives: Alexine Lafaber is a woman imprisoned for involuntarily shouting ‘Sieg Heil’ and giving a Nazi salute in Vienna; two secondary school girls acted by Jocasta King and Alexa Hartley prepare to fly into the war zones of Syria; and Emily Blairtow is a fearless interpreter sat in a secure glass box at an international tribunal, possibly the UN. 

Lafaber’s reference to basic Nazi and Jew jokes puts the audience in an awkward position but that is what her character is meant to do: to extract and provide insight into what war has done to us and the way we think of war like a taboo and partial stigma. Her character seems to have taken war subconsciously that it has affected her physiologically whilst King and Hartley display a disturbing scene of what foolish teenagers may be doing to themselves in locked classrooms such as re-enacting terrorist hostage scenes due to the, often, corrupted and hyped up media. Blairtow shows her bitterness towards the hypocrisy of governments by drawing devil horns onto her glass screen and singing disco songs to distract her; this is due to her accumulation of anger and frustration of having to deliver cyclical war solutions ironically in a place created as a result of international peace. 

Calling Shoot, I didn’t Mean That a comedy is misleading as there won’t be much laughter, only a few. The overall tone is serious and reflective of where war has taken us. The pace is fairly balanced and the gradual development of Kerridge’s characters is succinct. The constant too and fro of three narratives scattered amongst each other is interesting as it keeps the audience engaged and shocked at the same time. 

The second play is a new translation of Karl Kraus’s 1922-piece The Last Days of Mankind by Edward Tims and Fred Bridgham. The opening scene is smoky, set in a war zone with our four female actresses in gas marks. The tone is sinister, dangerous and scary. It puts you in no man’s land, instantly. Under Schermann's direction, it provides snippets from the trenches as told by soldiers, cut throat war journalists, innocent civilians and hyenas (or pirates of war.) With powerful video footage of WWII and Hitler, your heart will be racing at a 100 miles per hour. The constant rhyming couplets are, at times, hard to absorb it as it is set amongst horrible images of conflict, bomb artillery and the sound of guns.

Yet, startling and spine-tinkling as The Last Days of Mankind was, I also, felt nauseous and claustrophobic, but not in the negative sense, but in the dramatic. Listening to the rhyming and cold words brought the immediacy of war to the Tristan Bates Theatre, like a war camp. 

Both of these intriguing plays convey the consequences of war. It is not a show to be entertained, it is a visceral experience and audiences will either come out feeling as if they've learnt something or, feel, completely overwhelmed. With such stamina and talent from all four-cast members, booming loud voices and video projections, it may be lot to take in. I’d highly recommend you come in with your ears and eyes wide open with a sturdy war helmet - you're in for a ride. 

Last showing was Saturday 18th in Covent Garden - Click here for more details

Harry Lloyd : Notes From Underground ****

[October 8th] There before my very eyes was Harry Lloyd but, due to my own ignorance, it was only until the next day that I realised it was the Game of Thrones and Doctor Who star. Blissfully I sat there, eye-to-eye, in front of him as he snuggled up to a rag, arm in a sling, on a decomposing armchair. Peering through the corner of my eye, resisting the temptation to blush, I was aware of the lead actor’s attractiveness, under his greasy hair, bushy moustache and beard, even if he instilled the most unlikeable character.

Lloyd’s performance was hypnotising. His ability to entice and enunciate all that there was in this Victorian fear-and-loathing character, as portrayed in Dostoyevsky’s 1864 novella Notes from Underground, made complete sense for a complicated and mentally challenging monologue of a play.

On the Coronet’s brand new stage, Lloyd represents a misanthropist who locks himself away from society. He’s a veteran actor who proved he understood the text – he also knew how to manoeuvre on the little stage comprised of (I reckon) 1500 hardback books stacked on top of each other. The Nottinghill Coronet, newly owned by the theatre company The Print Room, as you and I, may, know it is a cosy, red-lit, three tier cinema with a proscenium arch, yet now it is part of a five year renovation plan to make it into a larger theatre. However, without delay, the little auditorium encompassing the French director, Gerald Garutti‘s Notes from the Underground is ready to get The Print Room on the road.

The novella has influenced such existential antiheroes from Travis Bickle to Gregor Samsa and their ramblings of abhorring the world and the mundane constraints of societal frameworks, questioning human actions, free will, wants and desires. This anonymous and hyper sensitive Russian is fixated on logic, reason, the human condition and is overwhelmed by deeper philosophical ideas that challenge his being and ability to live.

Looking closely into Lloyd’s dark and reclusive man, we perceive an uncontrollable persona tainted by his own self awareness; his shuffling, anger, shouting, whispering, muttering and inward insecurities convey the sense of a man full of contradictions. Confidently he speaks to a phantom audience by addressing the air, ‘Ladies and Gentlemen’ which leads onto anecdotes of his life above; some funny, some odd and some uncomfortable to listen to. He confesses his fear of walking into a well-to-do man, his complex over a dinner with old school friends and his cruel behaviour towards a girl. 

Garutti, the designer and director of the 70 minute show cleverly dressed him in moderate Victorian costume but not too elaborate that the audience can’t empathise with. They first presented the production in a nightclub in Paris in the Bains-Douche and the Atelier Delacroix which proved successful and shall undoubtedly be the case at the Print Room as well.

In an interview with Matt Trueman, arts editor for the Guardian, Lloyd told him, ‘We can all go there on occasion… where you just get wrapped up and twisted in your brain and you understand that, logically, there really is no point and no way out; the place where you are completely alone and can’t share anything.’ In many, or very little, ways there are traces of this cynic in us all mired by the additive and scattered nature of social media and news traffic. 

Unsettling and, at times, hard to keep up with, given the mash up of anecdotes and existentialism, Notes from Underground is a good watch if you like Mr Lloyd but, more importantly, if you fancy being pushed out of your comfort zone, or  society for a moment, just like our Russian 'scuzz'.  

The production is showing until November 1st. Book tickets here.