“Les Blancs” at the National Theatre: Am I Supposed to Feel This Horrible?by Randi / April 18, 2016
Describing a Broadway experience as religious tends to sound like the hyper frenzied talk of an exuberant drama student, all exaggeration for effect. Unless you mean an experience just literally on Broadway and you were at the Scientology center right across from the Richard Rodgers. No but still, as much as I love theatre I don’t usually confuse it with a message from jeebus. Yet the most repeated comment coming out of the Bernard Jacobs theatre is exactly that, that seeing ‘The Color Purple’ is an extremely religious experience and you will feel the presence of the divine and BELIEVE and TRUST and REPENT (isn’t that usually part of it). I don’t know if I can say all that or believe it but you know what what the hell I can, it’s true. JFC it’s true.
Even though it seemed too soon for a revival – I saw the original run twice as a legal adult, so like, that’s not that long ago right? right? also this isn’t Gypsy ffs – every doubter who has been given the gift of sight (of this show) has admitted they were wrong. This new production improves upon what was already a solid show with more workable, efficient direction that results in a more scaled-down amalgam to consider. It’s a transport from the London production at the Menier Chocolate Factory from a few years ago, so it’s really “The Colour Purple”. And even though the original won a Tony for the great LaChanze AND even had the incredible Fantasia as a fantastic replacement (and costarred Renee Elise Goldsberry and Brandon Victor Dixon before I knew who they were), this new cast brings everything to a new level, somehow, probably because of god or something but maybe it’s magic. Two of the best singers on the planet are starring in this, one you all know very well and one people should know but are only just learning about, except me because we’re buds because last year she ate my baked goods and liked them so that means we’re friends. Jennifer Hudson, Grammy & Oscar winning singer, is featured as Shug Avery, the famous singer and badass woman. And Cynthia Erivo, in a beyond incredible Broadway debut, plays Celie, is Celie really.
If you never saw the movie (Whoopi and Oprah? Go watch it! Also Gayle King is in it, uncredited. Opes never did anything without her), it’s about a tortured abused little girl who continues to have it pretty shitty as an adult until lesbianism saves her. I mean I joke but it is roughly that if you think about it. In more detail, it’s the entire epic story of a girl named Celie, her life from when we meet her at 14-years-old until decades later, from as bad as it gets to, well, better, and with cooler pants.
At the start, Celie is pregnant with her second child (at 14) by her rapist abusive father. When she gives birth, her father takes the baby away as he did the last one, Celie praying that they find good homes but the audience (and other characters) assuming that he kills them because he’s pretty much the worst person imaginable. Celie loves her younger sister Nettie (a great Joaquina Kalukango, which is a sick name with lots of k sounds) and they play together because they are children and they pray and they sing, which is the nice part for us because damn, their voices are beautiful. Somehow, Erivo really convinces you that she’s a young kid at the start, as does Joaquina. They’re adorable and you buy their sisterly bond. It’s pretty spectacular how Erivo grows over the course of 2 ½ hours, how her demeanor changes and most impressively her voice. Then, the evil man we know only as Mister comes by requesting to marry Nettie. Mister is played by Isaiah Johnson as incredibly hateful and evil for most of the show but then we really buy his remorse and atonement at the end somehow. He was very good. I ran into him a few blocks from the theatre after I saw it and was like “oh my god I just saw your show!” and he was like “Cool what did you think!” and I was like “You were a bastard!” I didn’t say that. I forget what I said because then Montego Glover came by and they are friends and I was just standing there like, should I sneak away quietly? Say goodbye and risk her being like who the f are you? Or just awkwardly wait? I did a mix of all three. So the father is like, Nettie is too young and too pretty to give away just yet, take Celie, she’s ugly so I’ll throw in a cow. They comment a lot about how ugly Celie is, which is ridiculous because Cynthia is a goddess but men are filth. So Celie is sent to be a wife and mother to Mister’s children, even though she’s a child, and it’s just a new man to run her life and abuse her horribly. It’s pretty depressing, but there’s some amazing comic relief in the form of the Church Ladies, the gossipy biddies who comment and cluck about all the goings on in the community, and they are ridiculously funny, singing their comments in rounds and just being hilarious.
Soon, Nettie runs away to Celie’s house after their father turns his attention to her, but then Mister, being an equally despicable person, tries to do the same, so Nettie fights him and is banished from the property. Celie writes letters to Nettie but never hears from her so she assumes she’s dead, not the truth that Mister would of course be hiding Nettie’s letters to keep Celie from ever feeling hope or joy again. Mister really was a bastard.
Years pass, and Mister’s son Harpo (Kyle Scatliffe, not Oprah’s production company) grows up and falls in love with Sofia, the best baddest-ass broad in town, played by Danielle Brooks from “Orange is the New Black” in all her hilarious and awesome glory. Not stunt casting; she went to Juilliard. Sofia is strong and doesn’t take any shit from Harpo or anyone, so Celie, poor, weak Celie who is so victimized that she can’t see that her oppression is wrong, is befuddled by her for a while. After Harpo tries to exert his male dominance over Sofia and instead Sofia beats him up, Sofia leaves town, and Shug Avery, the famous jazz singer, comes to town. Even though everything and everyone is at the highest performance grade here, you can’t help but feel the energy level rise when Hudson gets on stage. It’s pretty exciting to have someone of her celebrity on Broadway, and in a role so right for her. Her acting skills, or lack thereof, are pretty notorious, but she worked really hard here and is perfectly cast, doing a great job in all aspects of the role. A very impressive debut for an established celebrity. In fact, she will probably be nominated for a Tony, and if it weren’t for the aforementioned Renee Elise Goldsberry and the fact that Hudson is leaving the show next week, she could very well win, because people are so impressed with how well she did and, of course, so eager to bestow love on her in the form of awards to make her like them as all voters do.
So Shug is the long-time mistress of Mister, and she stays in their house and Celie is just like who is this magical person, totally intrigued and eventually in love. Shug does her part to help Mister stop beating Celie at least while she’s in the house, so that’s nice, but eventually they have their own thing and it’s quite lovely. Hudson and Erivo have wonderful, surprising chemistry, and I don’t know how Heather Headley will do in this aspect of the role when she takes over for Hudson. Shug’s love and support helps Celie recognize her own power and worth and it’s all very moving and I’m skipping a lot because I don’t want to continue going through all the details and I don’t want to spoil things for you if you haven’t seen this yet.
Aside from being a pretty darn flawless production of an emotionally moving show, the real conversation in the theatre community is about how it took this long for Erivo to get over here and why, given all the British crap Americans mindlessly and greedily gobble up, this British gem is so unknown to audiences. Well, previously unknown. She’s become the toast of the town, rightly so, and will be accepting a Tony in June if they are based on merit, which I mean awards usually aren’t but we can still hope for her. Her precise control of Celie’s growth keeps the audience by her side the whole time, so when she lets go towards the end with her big numbers, you’re both shocked at what she has been keeping inside and also you somehow just knew she had it in her. This is the kind of performance that people pray to the theatre gods to witness one day. There are videos on youtube of her singing her big 11 o’clock number “I’m Here”, so if you can’t see the show you should go watch those. But seeing this performance live, this entire flawless show, is indeed a religious experience, and not just because the majority of the audience is acting like they are at church, hooting and hollering and responding at times with “yes SING IT” and “mm hmm”s and “praise, praise” and oh my god, I’m sure you think I’m going to complain about this because I usually would, but here it is THE BEST. An effusive audience elevates this experience to a whole new level, like we are all a part of it and in it together. And it is quite special to bear witness to what is happening onstage, so the gospel church-like atmosphere reminds you that this is actually happening and that you are lucky to be a part of it.
AUDIENCE
Like I said, energetic, 100% into it, and effusive – well the good ones are. You’ll still get the annoying people on their phones (like Aretha!). But this is the rare show that makes it clear how important the audience is to live theatre so you better be present.
STAGE DOOR
It’s packed, too packed (and they’re too famous) to take pictures, but they all signed quickly at least for the people around the very small barricades. At least when I went, it was just one barricade leading out onto the street, perpendicular to the theatre/street, instead of several along the side of the theatre. Maybe this is to minimize celebrity interaction with plebs, but it definitely minimizes your ability to get autographs. They go very fast and it’s all very loud so there’s no real chance to say anything other than thank you. People are super pushy but that’s not show-specific, unfortunately!
If you never saw the movie (Whoopi and Oprah? Go watch it! Also Gayle King is in it, uncredited. Opes never did anything without her), it’s about a tortured abused little girl who continues to have it pretty shitty as an adult until lesbianism saves her. I mean I joke but it is roughly that if you think about it. In more detail, it’s the entire epic story of a girl named Celie, her life from when we meet her at 14-years-old until decades later, from as bad as it gets to, well, better, and with cooler pants.
At the start, Celie is pregnant with her second child (at 14) by her rapist abusive father. When she gives birth, her father takes the baby away as he did the last one, Celie praying that they find good homes but the audience (and other characters) assuming that he kills them because he’s pretty much the worst person imaginable. Celie loves her younger sister Nettie (a great Joaquina Kalukango, which is a sick name with lots of k sounds) and they play together because they are children and they pray and they sing, which is the nice part for us because damn, their voices are beautiful. Somehow, Erivo really convinces you that she’s a young kid at the start, as does Joaquina. They’re adorable and you buy their sisterly bond. It’s pretty spectacular how Erivo grows over the course of 2 ½ hours, how her demeanor changes and most impressively her voice. Then, the evil man we know only as Mister comes by requesting to marry Nettie. Mister is played by Isaiah Johnson as incredibly hateful and evil for most of the show but then we really buy his remorse and atonement at the end somehow. He was very good. I ran into him a few blocks from the theatre after I saw it and was like “oh my god I just saw your show!” and he was like “Cool what did you think!” and I was like “You were a bastard!” I didn’t say that. I forget what I said because then Montego Glover came by and they are friends and I was just standing there like, should I sneak away quietly? Say goodbye and risk her being like who the f are you? Or just awkwardly wait? I did a mix of all three. So the father is like, Nettie is too young and too pretty to give away just yet, take Celie, she’s ugly so I’ll throw in a cow. They comment a lot about how ugly Celie is, which is ridiculous because Cynthia is a goddess but men are filth. So Celie is sent to be a wife and mother to Mister’s children, even though she’s a child, and it’s just a new man to run her life and abuse her horribly. It’s pretty depressing, but there’s some amazing comic relief in the form of the Church Ladies, the gossipy biddies who comment and cluck about all the goings on in the community, and they are ridiculously funny, singing their comments in rounds and just being hilarious.
Soon, Nettie runs away to Celie’s house after their father turns his attention to her, but then Mister, being an equally despicable person, tries to do the same, so Nettie fights him and is banished from the property. Celie writes letters to Nettie but never hears from her so she assumes she’s dead, not the truth that Mister would of course be hiding Nettie’s letters to keep Celie from ever feeling hope or joy again. Mister really was a bastard.
Years pass, and Mister’s son Harpo (Kyle Scatliffe, not Oprah’s production company) grows up and falls in love with Sofia, the best baddest-ass broad in town, played by Danielle Brooks from “Orange is the New Black” in all her hilarious and awesome glory. Not stunt casting; she went to Juilliard. Sofia is strong and doesn’t take any shit from Harpo or anyone, so Celie, poor, weak Celie who is so victimized that she can’t see that her oppression is wrong, is befuddled by her for a while. After Harpo tries to exert his male dominance over Sofia and instead Sofia beats him up, Sofia leaves town, and Shug Avery, the famous jazz singer, comes to town. Even though everything and everyone is at the highest performance grade here, you can’t help but feel the energy level rise when Hudson gets on stage. It’s pretty exciting to have someone of her celebrity on Broadway, and in a role so right for her. Her acting skills, or lack thereof, are pretty notorious, but she worked really hard here and is perfectly cast, doing a great job in all aspects of the role. A very impressive debut for an established celebrity. In fact, she will probably be nominated for a Tony, and if it weren’t for the aforementioned Renee Elise Goldsberry and the fact that Hudson is leaving the show next week, she could very well win, because people are so impressed with how well she did and, of course, so eager to bestow love on her in the form of awards to make her like them as all voters do.
So Shug is the long-time mistress of Mister, and she stays in their house and Celie is just like who is this magical person, totally intrigued and eventually in love. Shug does her part to help Mister stop beating Celie at least while she’s in the house, so that’s nice, but eventually they have their own thing and it’s quite lovely. Hudson and Erivo have wonderful, surprising chemistry, and I don’t know how Heather Headley will do in this aspect of the role when she takes over for Hudson. Shug’s love and support helps Celie recognize her own power and worth and it’s all very moving and I’m skipping a lot because I don’t want to continue going through all the details and I don’t want to spoil things for you if you haven’t seen this yet.
Aside from being a pretty darn flawless production of an emotionally moving show, the real conversation in the theatre community is about how it took this long for Erivo to get over here and why, given all the British crap Americans mindlessly and greedily gobble up, this British gem is so unknown to audiences. Well, previously unknown. She’s become the toast of the town, rightly so, and will be accepting a Tony in June if they are based on merit, which I mean awards usually aren’t but we can still hope for her. Her precise control of Celie’s growth keeps the audience by her side the whole time, so when she lets go towards the end with her big numbers, you’re both shocked at what she has been keeping inside and also you somehow just knew she had it in her. This is the kind of performance that people pray to the theatre gods to witness one day. There are videos on youtube of her singing her big 11 o’clock number “I’m Here”, so if you can’t see the show you should go watch those. But seeing this performance live, this entire flawless show, is indeed a religious experience, and not just because the majority of the audience is acting like they are at church, hooting and hollering and responding at times with “yes SING IT” and “mm hmm”s and “praise, praise” and oh my god, I’m sure you think I’m going to complain about this because I usually would, but here it is THE BEST. An effusive audience elevates this experience to a whole new level, like we are all a part of it and in it together. And it is quite special to bear witness to what is happening onstage, so the gospel church-like atmosphere reminds you that this is actually happening and that you are lucky to be a part of it.
AUDIENCE
Like I said, energetic, 100% into it, and effusive – well the good ones are. You’ll still get the annoying people on their phones (like Aretha!). But this is the rare show that makes it clear how important the audience is to live theatre so you better be present.
STAGE DOOR
It’s packed, too packed (and they’re too famous) to take pictures, but they all signed quickly at least for the people around the very small barricades. At least when I went, it was just one barricade leading out onto the street, perpendicular to the theatre/street, instead of several along the side of the theatre. Maybe this is to minimize celebrity interaction with plebs, but it definitely minimizes your ability to get autographs. They go very fast and it’s all very loud so there’s no real chance to say anything other than thank you. People are super pushy but that’s not show-specific, unfortunately!
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‘Consent’ on the West End: A Cutting Look into Judicial and Human Failings
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today we are talking about ‘Consent’ in London’s West End, playing at the Harold Pinter Theatre until August 11.
The last time I was in London’s Harold Pinter Theatre was for the sublimely disappointing ‘Oslo’, which featured just as much screaming as ‘Consent’. However, the key difference is that the screaming in ‘Consent’ feels earned, and completely necessary. (Hey while you’re here open that ‘Oslo’ review in a new tab because it’s remarkable.) Also making this an entirely different experience? ‘Consent’ was riveting. This well written, incisive new play by Nina Raine made me feel miserable the entire time, but in a great way that good plays are supposed to. It’s timely (I don’t want to be the 1000th reviewer to mention the #MeToo movement in a review for this play but look I just did), it’s well acted, and it will make you feel like everything is hopeless and everyone is a monster and it’s best to just sit in the dark alone quietly for most of your life. Like a good play should!
‘Consent’ follows the lives of a group of barristers, probably in their late 30s, as they deal with their workload and their marriages and the fact that spoiler they are all terrible people. There are two married couples, one single barrister friend, and one outlier actress friend. The barristers joke about their cases – most are in crime – from the first person, i.e. “What have you been working on lately?” “Oh I’ve been killing pensioners, raping a few people” – things like that. Dark humor in people who work in dark fields is nothing new, a common coping mechanism. But to see it put so bluntly, so cavalierly, is an early shock into this play. And the joking doesn’t really seem to be a way for them to deal with all their feelings. They genuinely seem not to care about the awful crimes they’re arguing. And sure you can’t take everything in work personally or emotionally, but the complete lack of empathy is a vital look into their humanity, which informs how they try cases. Of course, the worst-seeming men at the start are the defense attorneys.
Now, it goes without saying that the accused need to have representation, and fair representation at that, to promote their best interests in court and to serve justice overall. Defense attorneys are important and necessary to our criminal justice system. (I’m conflating US and UK law in this area because it’s similar enough.) But defense attorneys for accused rapists are a special breed. I have witnessed a lot of rape trials, a lot a lot, and during an internship for a public prosecutor I was involved in a lot of those trials. So I think it’s fair to say I’m more of an expert than the average person on the legal aspects of this play. And Nina Raine has nailed the coldness, the sickening twisting of words, the unfair focus on negligible details that every defense attorney I’ve seen in a rape case will employ. It’s hard to think about, but most of them were pure evil. And I really mean those words. The worst of humanity I could ever imagine have been in those court rooms with me. I remember a case that was lost because the defense attorney got the jury to laugh at a gay witness, the roommate of the rape victim. He kept making gay jokes and ‘prancing’ about when he repeated parts of the witness’s testimony, and since the judge and jury were some of the many, many shitty people on this planet, they thought it was hilarious and ‘voted’ for the funny lawyer. It’s not an issue of putting up the best case for their client, which is their job. It’s that they seem to revel in the unnecessary, unsettling glee they find in demolishing already fragile witnesses (victims), in using their words and their trauma against them to prove a point – that it doesn’t matter if you were raped; all that matters is whether you are presentable, well spoken, and completely faultless in every aspect of your life. And it’s definitely not about getting at the truth, which is rarely the point of any trial.
And ‘Consent’ captured this ease of evil more than any other work I’ve seen try to. Quickly, the marriages are revealed to be on shaky ground, which is not surprising when dealing with people without the ability to empathize. Ed, our main man (Stephen Campbell Moore, terrific and terrifying), is alarming in his calculated, supremely logical look at the world, which works to win him cases but unsettles his wife Kitty (the excellent Claudie Blakley (and yes that’s spelled right I know the e and the l look like they should be swapped but alas I cannot change her name)). He’s the guy who uses logic to kill empathy and truth when it doesn’t make enough logical sense for him, and he values dispassionate logic over the truth when said truth is the kind that demands an emotional response. His absolute lack of empathy struck me right to my core, and watching him both at work and at home made me feel the same powerless yet overwhelming rage I would feel in court. I was glad when Kitty would yell at him the things I wanted to yell out (and from a front row seat, I really almost did), and I was glad that she seemed to have the right footing in such a difficult relationship. But the second act proves that she’s not the moral savior I wanted her to be, which is both disappointing and more realistic. No one is perfect, although it in this play it’s more like everyone is actually a shithead.
The other married barrister couple is Rachel (Sian Clifford) and Jake (Adam James, who my brain kept trying to make into Michael C. Hall). Jake is revealed early on to be cheating on his wife, but he’s not sorry for his actions, only sorry he got caught. He’s very clear on that and doesn’t understand why anyone would fault him for his stance. And he’s the kind of guy that would frame his argument in such a way that it would leave you without a response, almost thinking that maybe he was right – the kind of guy that’s a good barrister, and an asshole. Rachel is the one on the other side, a prosecutor, so I also put the unfair burden on her that I initially put on Kitty – that they’d be my female voices of reason against the men. Of course, people are more complicated than that, and she also let me down, with her second act opinions when it comes to the title of the play. White women, am I right!
The other friends are Zara (Clare Foster), the goofy (pitch perfect) actress friend, and Tim (Lee Ingleby), the awkward barrister who seems hapless but ‘nice’, but shows he sucks just as much. That everyone kind of sucks at times and you want to punch them all at times and you also just see them as normal sometimes all makes ‘Consent’ so convincing, and everyone so real. They’re all people you probably know in real life.
But the best part of the play is when it actually shows the rape trial, where Ed is defending and Tim is prosecuting. Heather Craney plays the victim, Gayle, and she is everything. I was crying through most of the exquisite first act because of how accurate it all was. Gayle meets Tim literally two minutes before the trial starts. She knows nothing about what’s going to happen or what she’s supposed to do because no one ever cared to inform her. It is the prosecution’s job to make sure the victim knows what to do and does it well, since she is the main part of the state’s case. But just because they should ensure that she is fully informed and ready to testify doesn’t mean it always happens. And Tim’s failure here is an example of that. Busy lawyers who think they have a handle on the facts, and who don’t see any value in devoting time and effort to such a case, might only meet the confused victim out in the hallway before the trial starts, where she might hear for the very first time that anything not in her initial statement to the police, made in the aftermath of debilitating trauma, is inadmissible. And yes that’s a bad lawyer who would do that, but it doesn’t stop it from happening – or being allowed to happen. Such is the case with Tim and Gayle. The short exchange they have says so much about the system: Gayle asks if Tim’s her lawyer, and he laughs that no silly, he’s the lawyer for the Crown. Gayle asks who her lawyer is, and Tim has to explain that she doesn’t have one, she’s just a witness against the accused. But he has a lawyer, right? Well of course he does. And his lawyer is ready to tear down everything the unprepared Gayle says, the silly woman who thought that the truth would be all that was required of her.
The genius of this play is that the failings of the judicial system reflect the personal failings in the people who work in the law. And this makes sense, after all, since society’s structures and systems will reflect the society that made them. This is the most depressing thought from the play, that the systems that are supposed to serve us really won’t improve if humanity doesn’t improve.
I wish that they kept up this theme in the second act, which is much weaker than the first as it mainly focuses on the relationships of the characters and puts the legal stuff aside. I’m obviously biased in my desire for more of the interplay between the two, but when the interpersonal relationships all blow up and there’s so much screaming and crying and so much emotion (so much), it becomes overwhelming. It would have been better, and easier to take in, if it were tempered with more glimpses into the law to provide small respites from all the heated arguments.
But as it is, ‘Consent’ is a really brilliant play. It’s not the GREATEST THING EVER, as I was left wondering at intermission whether it just might be, but it’s quite well done and so well written. The acting was so effective, I felt like all the trauma was my own. All these people are terrible, yet normal. Which scares me. Is everyone a monster? Does every person cheat? Like every single one? Because that’s what this play is telling me. I mean I know I’m mean on this blog sometimes (because it’s mine and I can do what I want with it) but I’m not a monster, I believe victims, and I don’t think I would find joy in emotionally torturing someone I love. But that’s just me I guess!
INFORMATION
The play is at the Harold Pinter Theatre until August 11. It runs about two and a half hours, with the first act almost 90 minutes and the second much shorter. There was an announcement at the start that one set piece was malfunctioning and so stagehands would be onstage more than usual to move sets, but it was all just loose furniture so I’m not sure how it would have been done without stagehands. Anyway go see it.
AUDIENCE
Typical English play audience, skewing older with lots of chatter among the older ladies. “Oh dear now he’s gone and done that.” “Oh dear he said it he finally said it.” SHUSHHHHHHHHHH. The very old man next to me asked if I was enjoying it at the interval and I said yes it’s quite good and he asked, “are you a lawyer?” and I said “yes?” and he said “I thought you might be!” and now every second of my life will be spent thinking, how…?
Now, it goes without saying that the accused need to have representation, and fair representation at that, to promote their best interests in court and to serve justice overall. Defense attorneys are important and necessary to our criminal justice system. (I’m conflating US and UK law in this area because it’s similar enough.) But defense attorneys for accused rapists are a special breed. I have witnessed a lot of rape trials, a lot a lot, and during an internship for a public prosecutor I was involved in a lot of those trials. So I think it’s fair to say I’m more of an expert than the average person on the legal aspects of this play. And Nina Raine has nailed the coldness, the sickening twisting of words, the unfair focus on negligible details that every defense attorney I’ve seen in a rape case will employ. It’s hard to think about, but most of them were pure evil. And I really mean those words. The worst of humanity I could ever imagine have been in those court rooms with me. I remember a case that was lost because the defense attorney got the jury to laugh at a gay witness, the roommate of the rape victim. He kept making gay jokes and ‘prancing’ about when he repeated parts of the witness’s testimony, and since the judge and jury were some of the many, many shitty people on this planet, they thought it was hilarious and ‘voted’ for the funny lawyer. It’s not an issue of putting up the best case for their client, which is their job. It’s that they seem to revel in the unnecessary, unsettling glee they find in demolishing already fragile witnesses (victims), in using their words and their trauma against them to prove a point – that it doesn’t matter if you were raped; all that matters is whether you are presentable, well spoken, and completely faultless in every aspect of your life. And it’s definitely not about getting at the truth, which is rarely the point of any trial.
And ‘Consent’ captured this ease of evil more than any other work I’ve seen try to. Quickly, the marriages are revealed to be on shaky ground, which is not surprising when dealing with people without the ability to empathize. Ed, our main man (Stephen Campbell Moore, terrific and terrifying), is alarming in his calculated, supremely logical look at the world, which works to win him cases but unsettles his wife Kitty (the excellent Claudie Blakley (and yes that’s spelled right I know the e and the l look like they should be swapped but alas I cannot change her name)). He’s the guy who uses logic to kill empathy and truth when it doesn’t make enough logical sense for him, and he values dispassionate logic over the truth when said truth is the kind that demands an emotional response. His absolute lack of empathy struck me right to my core, and watching him both at work and at home made me feel the same powerless yet overwhelming rage I would feel in court. I was glad when Kitty would yell at him the things I wanted to yell out (and from a front row seat, I really almost did), and I was glad that she seemed to have the right footing in such a difficult relationship. But the second act proves that she’s not the moral savior I wanted her to be, which is both disappointing and more realistic. No one is perfect, although it in this play it’s more like everyone is actually a shithead.
The other married barrister couple is Rachel (Sian Clifford) and Jake (Adam James, who my brain kept trying to make into Michael C. Hall). Jake is revealed early on to be cheating on his wife, but he’s not sorry for his actions, only sorry he got caught. He’s very clear on that and doesn’t understand why anyone would fault him for his stance. And he’s the kind of guy that would frame his argument in such a way that it would leave you without a response, almost thinking that maybe he was right – the kind of guy that’s a good barrister, and an asshole. Rachel is the one on the other side, a prosecutor, so I also put the unfair burden on her that I initially put on Kitty – that they’d be my female voices of reason against the men. Of course, people are more complicated than that, and she also let me down, with her second act opinions when it comes to the title of the play. White women, am I right!
The other friends are Zara (Clare Foster), the goofy (pitch perfect) actress friend, and Tim (Lee Ingleby), the awkward barrister who seems hapless but ‘nice’, but shows he sucks just as much. That everyone kind of sucks at times and you want to punch them all at times and you also just see them as normal sometimes all makes ‘Consent’ so convincing, and everyone so real. They’re all people you probably know in real life.
But the best part of the play is when it actually shows the rape trial, where Ed is defending and Tim is prosecuting. Heather Craney plays the victim, Gayle, and she is everything. I was crying through most of the exquisite first act because of how accurate it all was. Gayle meets Tim literally two minutes before the trial starts. She knows nothing about what’s going to happen or what she’s supposed to do because no one ever cared to inform her. It is the prosecution’s job to make sure the victim knows what to do and does it well, since she is the main part of the state’s case. But just because they should ensure that she is fully informed and ready to testify doesn’t mean it always happens. And Tim’s failure here is an example of that. Busy lawyers who think they have a handle on the facts, and who don’t see any value in devoting time and effort to such a case, might only meet the confused victim out in the hallway before the trial starts, where she might hear for the very first time that anything not in her initial statement to the police, made in the aftermath of debilitating trauma, is inadmissible. And yes that’s a bad lawyer who would do that, but it doesn’t stop it from happening – or being allowed to happen. Such is the case with Tim and Gayle. The short exchange they have says so much about the system: Gayle asks if Tim’s her lawyer, and he laughs that no silly, he’s the lawyer for the Crown. Gayle asks who her lawyer is, and Tim has to explain that she doesn’t have one, she’s just a witness against the accused. But he has a lawyer, right? Well of course he does. And his lawyer is ready to tear down everything the unprepared Gayle says, the silly woman who thought that the truth would be all that was required of her.
The genius of this play is that the failings of the judicial system reflect the personal failings in the people who work in the law. And this makes sense, after all, since society’s structures and systems will reflect the society that made them. This is the most depressing thought from the play, that the systems that are supposed to serve us really won’t improve if humanity doesn’t improve.
I wish that they kept up this theme in the second act, which is much weaker than the first as it mainly focuses on the relationships of the characters and puts the legal stuff aside. I’m obviously biased in my desire for more of the interplay between the two, but when the interpersonal relationships all blow up and there’s so much screaming and crying and so much emotion (so much), it becomes overwhelming. It would have been better, and easier to take in, if it were tempered with more glimpses into the law to provide small respites from all the heated arguments.
But as it is, ‘Consent’ is a really brilliant play. It’s not the GREATEST THING EVER, as I was left wondering at intermission whether it just might be, but it’s quite well done and so well written. The acting was so effective, I felt like all the trauma was my own. All these people are terrible, yet normal. Which scares me. Is everyone a monster? Does every person cheat? Like every single one? Because that’s what this play is telling me. I mean I know I’m mean on this blog sometimes (because it’s mine and I can do what I want with it) but I’m not a monster, I believe victims, and I don’t think I would find joy in emotionally torturing someone I love. But that’s just me I guess!
INFORMATION
The play is at the Harold Pinter Theatre until August 11. It runs about two and a half hours, with the first act almost 90 minutes and the second much shorter. There was an announcement at the start that one set piece was malfunctioning and so stagehands would be onstage more than usual to move sets, but it was all just loose furniture so I’m not sure how it would have been done without stagehands. Anyway go see it.
AUDIENCE
Typical English play audience, skewing older with lots of chatter among the older ladies. “Oh dear now he’s gone and done that.” “Oh dear he said it he finally said it.” SHUSHHHHHHHHHH. The very old man next to me asked if I was enjoying it at the interval and I said yes it’s quite good and he asked, “are you a lawyer?” and I said “yes?” and he said “I thought you might be!” and now every second of my life will be spent thinking, how…?
Watch on the Rhine at the Donmar is the Best Play in London RN NL
(that means right now no lie)
Guys I had literally no idea what Watch on the Rhine was, so much so that every time I saw it in my calendar I thought that my husband was reminding us to watch something called “On the Rhine”. For like MONTHS. Very embarrassing for me, since it was a 1941 Lillian Hellman play (and 1943 movie) and I love Lillian Hellman but I guess that love was based on a very small too small sample size of her work. Regardless we stan a Jewish commie lady! This play came as you can see smack dabbadoo in the middle of World War II; Lillz was really like “gird your loins, world!” with this one.
We meet a rich family in D.C. whose grown daughter is coming back to her mother and old maid brother for the first time in 20 years after going to Europe and marrying a man named Kurt (OR IS HE) and having three amazing kids. They fled Germany probably because he’s prob Jewish and they might be (the names are! it’s unsaid! come on!) and really, it turns out, because he’s a professional anti-fascist and one of the top faces posted on Wanted signs around the Nazi offices. How it comes out is so good, with the old rich gramma being like ‘well we are all anti-fascist OBVIOUSLY’ (the obviously in the tone made me look around the audience to see who shifted uncomfortably) and the daughter was like ‘yeah well Kurt WORKS at it.’ So he’s on lists and shit and they had to flee and shit gets IN. TENSE. because there’s a Friend of Nazis named Teck (jfc) staying at the house who wants to cash in on what he knows.
Once I figured out whyyyy the leading lady, our Sara the returning daughter, was so familiar (it was because of It’s Complicated) (it’s a fantastic movie btw) (I really recommend it) (I love famous old people romcoms so much) I was fully taken into the drama and invested in the story. Sara and Kurt’s relationship was SO INTERESTING. They were madly in love with each other still but that was clearly predicated on having respect for each other as strong warriors for justice, so they were never gonna settle down and enjoy peace for a moment unforch no not ever. Teck (jfc) probably just sped up the process with the wrench he throws into their plans. This guy really does some excellent Nazi-friend acting, Naziing so hard in so many ways to play the bad guy but wow did he do it. The climactic scene where he explains calmly that he’s going to blackmail Kurt was SO tense and simmering so much that I think I actually gasped out loud when Kurt (finally) lunges for him and attacks him. (Actually…I think I said YES or LET’S GO so yeah I was REALLY INTO IT sorry (not sorry)). I love when Nazis get hurt! Here’s a great infographic that fits well here!
The cast was uniformly excellent (okay minus one but I’m not gonna name names), but what really struck me was how good the children were. Child actors are rarely tolerable, and no offense but what I’ve seen in this country is even worse than in the USA (I think it’s because of the West End’s child labor laws — there are too many protections, too many kids for each role, there’s no fear or suffering and you gotta have the fear for a good child actor.) (I am JOKING.) No but seriously these kids, especially the two boys, holy WOW. Some of the most believable, real, raw, honest acting I’ve seen in this CITY let alone from BABIES. In total awe. Poor little Bodo who was so smart and so funny and cute but still a baby, as they say, and poor little Joshua who acts so brave and so grown up because he has had to grow up too fast but he is still just a kid too. Ugh I’m gonna cry again give them all the awards it’s just not right that Back to the Future won an Olivier but not these kids. Also give them a hug.
Anyway considering how full-no-idea I was going in, I’m like full evangelical now about how strong this production of this super intense and smart and moving play is. If I gave star ratings I’d be giving five yellow ones.
