Don't bother, they're here
One of the greatest things I’ve ever seen in a theatre (and I have seen it three times now), Internationaal Theater Amsterdam’s Romeinse Tragedies (Roman Tragedies) will be streaming via #ITALive from 3pm on 14th February and I highly recommend it.
| Winner | Runner-up | Other nominees | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best Actress in a Play | Sarah Niles/Natalie Simpson/Racheal Ofori, Three Sisters | Marieke Heebink, Medea | Adjoa Andoh, Richard II Sharon D Clarke, Death of a Salesman Claire Foy, Lungs Leah Harvey, Small Island Chris Nietvelt, De Kersentuin |
| Best Actor in a Play | Lucian Msamati, ‘Master Harold’…and the boys | Cary Crankson, Country Music | Tobias Menzies, The Hunt Daniel Monks, Teenage Dick Wendell Pierce, Death of a Salesman Matt Smith, Lungs Zubin Varla, Equus |
| Best Supporting Actress in a Play | Monica Dolan, All About Eve | Jackie Pulford, Karaoke Play | Ronkẹ Adékoluẹjo, Three Sisters Janni Goslinga, De Kersentuin Pippa Nixon, The Ocean at the End of the Lane Cecilia Noble, Faith Hope and Charity Gemma Whelan, Pinter Seven |
| Best Supporting Actor in a Play | Nick Holder, Faith Hope and Charity | Hugo Koolschijn, De Kersentuin | Rupert Graves, Pinter Five John Heffernan, Pinter Seven Martins Imhangbe/Natey Jones, Death of a Salesman Arinzé Kene/Sope Dirisu, Death of a Salesman Ken Nwosu, Three Sisters |
| Best Actress in a Musical | Audrey Brisson, Amélie the Musical | Kirsty Findlay/Bethany Tennick, Islander | Lucie Jones/Katherine McPhee, Waitress Miriam-Teak Lee, & Juliet Samantha Pauly, Evita Joanna Riding, Follies Zizi Strallen, Mary Poppins |
| Best Actor in a Musical | Jamie Muscato, West Side Story (Curve Leicester) | Keith Ramsay, Preludes | Andy Coxon, West Side Story (Royal Exchange) Jordan Fox/Michael Vinsen, [title of show] David Hunter, Waitress, Charlie Stemp, Mary Poppins Oliver Tompsett, & Juliet, |
| Best Supporting Actress in a Musical | Cassidy Janson/Melanie La Barrie, & Juliet | Jocasta Almgill/Emily Langham, West Side Story (Royal Exchange) | Laura Baldwin/Marisha Wallace, Waitress Tiffany Graves/Gabrielle Lewis-Dodson, The Boy Friend Claire Machin/Claire Moore, Mary Poppins Rebecca McKinnis/Lauren Ward, Dear Evan Hansen Carly Mercedes Dyer/Victoria Hamilton-Barritt, The View UpStairs, |
| Best Supporting Actor in a Musical | David Bedella, & Juliet | Jack Butterworth, The Boy Friend | Ricardo Afonso, Jesus Christ Superstar Rob Houchen, The Light in the Piazza Samuel Holmes, Curtains Cedric Neal, The View UpStairs Jez Unwin, Amélie the Musical |
Best Actress in a Play
Sarah Niles/Natalie Simpson/Racheal Ofori, Three Sisters
It’s practically a tradition now to split this award three years (2018, 2017) but it feels like a no-brainer once again, this trio of performances utterly reinvigorating the Chekhovian archetypes to make their characters speak compellingly anew.
Honourable mention: Marieke Heebink, Medea
Second time’s the charm, Heebink’s ferocious performance has deepened over the years and remained just as heartbreaking as before, if not more so.
Adjoa Andoh, Richard II
Sharon D Clarke, Death of a Salesman
Claire Foy, Lungs
Leah Harvey, Small Island
Chris Nietvelt, De Kersentuin
8-10
Gillian Anderson, All About Eve; Nancy Carroll, The Deep Blue Sea; Gwendoline Christie, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Bridge)
Best Actress in a Musical
Audrey Brisson, Amélie the Musical
I’ve seen Brisson leading this gorgeous musical three times now and her performance has lost none of its magic, literally so in the case of how she flies into her bedroom and figuratively so, in the otherworldly charm she brings to the role. Don’t miss your chance to catch the show as it continues to tour in 2020.
Honourable mention: Kirsty Findlay/Bethany Tennick, Islander
One of the most inventive musicals of the year was born out of the collaboration between these two fine performers. Stupidly I left it until the last show to visit cos I’d love to see it again!
Lucie Jones/Katherine McPhee, Waitress
Miriam-Teak Lee, & Juliet
Samantha Pauly, Evita
Joanna Riding, Follies
Zizi Strallen, Mary Poppins
8-10
Janie Dee, The Boy Friend; Gabriela Garcia, West Side Story (Royal Exchange); Adriana Ivelisse, West Side Story (Curve Leicester)
The establishment of the Public Acts programme at the National Theatre offered up something sensational in Pericles, an initiative designed to connect grassroot community organisations with major theatres, resulting in a production that swept over 200 non-professional performers onto the stage of the Olivier to create something that moved me more than 99% of professional productions. A truly joyous and momentous occasion.
Honourable mention: this year’s musical take on As You Like It proved just as heart-swellingly beautiful over at the Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch. Continue reading “10 of my top moments of the decade”
“Als ie echt verkocht moet worden verkoop mij er dan bij”
It’s not often that Jimi Hendrix and Creedence Clearwater Revival make their way into Chekhov but it is precisely this kind of refreshing approach that makes this production feel so alive in a way that is rarely achieved (in the UK at least). So it is somewhat perverse that it is a British director responsible, as Simon McBurney directs Internationaal Theater Amsterdam in De Kersentuin, in an adaptation by Robert Icke.
Shifted to the Netherlands in the 1970s, a real sense of liberation permeates the production, and crucial details shine anew to substantively alter the emotional palette. I’ve never felt the presence of Amanda’s drowned son so strongly, which really makes you consider her feelings towards her former home. And as Miriam Buether’s design discards conventional representation, the focus falls as much on the relations of people as it does on property. Continue reading “Review: De Kersentuin, Stadschouwberg Amsterdam”
“En de ziel begreep dat dat kleine stukje genoeg was”
Completing a trilogy of Louis Couperus adaptations for Toneelgroep Amsterdam, Klein Zielen (Small Souls) is the kind of magisterial theatre on which reputations – such as Ivo van Hove’s – are sustained. Couperus is a Dutch writer with a kind of Rattigan-like status as his work is revived here and Klein Zielen is no exception, a study of a family living under the same roof but shattered by the neuroses and traumas of the past that haunt every moment of their existence.
This is about as lo-fi as van Hove gets, just the one video insert betraying any technological leanings, recalling the stark intensity of A View From The Bridge. And here again, you see the razor precision that he instils in his company and the way they relate to each other, interact with each other. As they each move around the wide open space of the Rabozaal carpeted in a ginormous rug, so much is said about their relationships in the juxtapositions they create. Continue reading “Review: Klein Zielen, Stadschouwberg Amsterdam”
“I arm myself with patience and await the higher powers”
Whilst sitting in the audience for Roman Tragedies on Friday night and before it had even finished, I took advantage of the free wifi and booked myself into Sunday’s show, knowing I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see this most extraordinary of shows again. And instead of writing another review in which I’d just end up repeating myself, I thought I’d just jot down some of the thoughts that came to me both whilst rewatching and on reflection afterwards. Continue reading “Notes on a second viewing of Roman Tragedies”
“A people who can neither rule nor be ruled”
8 years ago, I’d barely started to blog, I didn’t know who Ivo van Hove was, Andrew Haydon didn’t know who I was, it was an altogether simpler time. And I’d be hard pressed to tell you exactly what it was that made me click on the Barbican’s website to book for a 6 hour long Shakespearean epic in Dutch but I’m glad I did, for it genuinely changed the world for me (in terms of my theatrical life anyway, who knew I’d start going to Amsterdam regularly for theatre!). I ranked the show as the best of the year for me back then in 2009 and I have to say I still think it is the greatest piece of theatre I’ve ever seen.
So going back for seconds was always going to be a risk but it was also something I knew I’d never be able to resist. Not least because in the intervening period, van Hove has become one of the most famous, and arguably influential, directors around. His take on A View From The Bridge was the breakthrough moment but for me, it has been his work with Toneelgroep Amsterdam that has consistently been the most revelatory – Kings of War and Scenes from a Marriage both at the Barbican, Long Day’s Journey into Night and the breathtaking Maria Stuart at the gorgeous Stadsschouwburg. Continue reading “Review: Roman Tragedies, Toneelgroep Amsterdam at the Barbican”
“Alles terug”
The class struggle is an innate part of Jean Genet’s The Maids but the mark of many a good drama that has endured for several decades is its ability to handle new interpretations by the directors who seek to revive them. Jamie Lloyd refracted the play through the lens of American racial politics for his visually striking production at the Trafalgar Studios earlier this year and ever the iconoclast, Katie Mitchell, making her directorial debut at Toneelgroep Amsterdam, chooses to put a migrant labour spin on her more naturalistic version.
So sisters Claire and Solange here are middle-aged Polish women – underpaid, underappreciated and in at least one case, really quite ill – who have found work keeping house for Madame, or rather keeping her super-luxe apartment. The relationship is a complex one though as we see them passing the time by enacting and re-enacting the ritualistic murder of their employer, raging against the system in the only way that they can – in secret, in private, away from the eyes of a Western society that doesn’t really give a fuck when it is oppressing. Continue reading “Review: De Meiden, Stadsschouwburg Amsterdam”