What is with all these terrible Greek tragedies starring Hollywood A-listers?
Plus: Asa Butterfield's impresses on his stage debut, Tom Hiddleston and Haley Atwell give the blandest interview ever, and David Hare is at it again, all in this week's Shouts and Murmurs.
Hello, and welcome to Shouts And Murmurs, a weekly email (mostly) for paid supporters of The Crush Bar, written by me, Fergus Morgan.
Every Tuesday, I round up the best theatre writing elsewhere - news, reviews, interviews, opinions - plus any other interesting or inspiring theatre stuff I find.
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Previously in The Crush Bar:
What about all these awful productions of Sophocles plays starring Oscar-winning American actors, eh? What is going on there?
First: a clarification. I do not mean Alexander Zeldin’s The Other Place starring Emma D’Arcy and Tobias Menzies at the National Theatre, nor Rob Icke’s Oedipus starring Mark Strong and Lesley Manville in the West End. No: I mean Oedipus at the Old Vic starring Rami Malek and Elecktra in the West End starring Brie Larson, which opened on successive nights last week and which were both roundly pilloried by the press.
For more on the exact ways in which both Oedipus and Elecktra were differently but definitely bad, see the review round-up below the paywall. Up here, I am less interested in how these shows sucked and more interested in why they exist. Why are we suddenly getting all these Hollywood stars in avant-garde ancient dramas?
Other people have already had some thoughts. The Guardian’s Charlotte Higgins argued that Greek tragedies are the flavour of the month because they “go to extremes” and “we need that” for “we live in extreme times.” Hmm, that’s a bit glib for me, I’m afraid, and slightly undermined by the fact that The Guardian has published basically exactly the same article whenever a big production of a Greek tragedy has come around in the last twenty years. See also: Harry Mount in The Oldie. I think iNews’ Fiona Mountford is closer to the mark, when she asks…
“Why, though, do these rich and famous actors volunteer to put themselves through this gruelling trial-by-London-theatre? They could, of course, simply stay at home in their lovely houses and count their many dollars. That, however, would not scratch the itch that every “serious” performer has, namely to prove that they are “proper” actors who can exist away from the comfort of the camera and its forgiving offer of multiple possible takes and instead prove themselves, night after long night, in front of an often unpredictable live audience.”
Ever the cynic, I, too, am inclined to think that the current influx of ancient Greek tragedies starring American A-listers has more to do with the financial challenges of doing theatre coupled with the availability - and ego - of the Hollywood stars involved than anything else. Surely, it is no coincidence that Malek and Larson - and, lest we forget, Sigourney Weaver - are starring in plays in London soon after their entire industry was shut down by a strike? Might they, as they sat twiddling their thumbs in LA a year-and-a-bit ago, have thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to tick the ‘done a cool show in London’ box and bank the professional kudos that comes with it? And what producer, facing the well-documented difficulties of making theatre right now, would not have jumped at the chance to put their name in lights?
Pick a recognisable title and get an edgy theatremaker - playwright Ella Hickson, say, or director Daniel Fish - involved, go on about how much you love theatre in an interview, and all the bases are covered. Commercial equation? Sound. Professional ego? Satisfied. Artistic reputation? Enhanced. Until the reviews come in, that is.
This is coming across a bit harsh. I do kind of admire Larson and Malek for giving it a go. I empathise with the theatres and producers that are feeling the pinch and turn to big names to help them out, too. And I absolutely think that Greek tragedy has a place on modern stages. My point - I’m pretty sure - is that I just have more time for productions that are the organic result of artistic development and/or coherent theatrical programming and less time for those that are cobbled together ad hoc.
In fact, I’d probably go a bit further than that: I reckon that the provenance of productions like these is a major factor in whether they are any good or not.
Because it’s funny: if you had asked me which of those four productions - The Other Place, Oedipus, Oedipus, and Elecktra - would be good and which shit last year, I would have called it right - good, good, shit, shit - as I’m sure, would you, reader. Zeldin’s The Other Place and Icke’s Oedipus are clearly the result of either an artist’s evolution or a theatre’s savvy programming, or both. And Oedipus and Elecktra are clearly the opposite, right? I know: if only everyone had our unfailing integrity and sublime taste.
In other news: speaking of ego-driven star vehicles, The WhatsOnStage Awards were given out on Sunday; Riverside Studios has been, um, saved by a mining billionaire; Liam Sinclair has been appointed chief executive of the National Theatre of Scotland; legendary lighting designer Paule Constable is retiring; more good news for Leith Theatre; more bad news for Wales; the Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society has got the keys to its new digs; Joshua McGuire will star in Rhinoceros at the Almeida Theatre.