Who was it said March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb…? Around about St David’s Day we had some teasing hints of sunshine – but now it’s bleak and raw again, and forsooth, snow forecast for tonight….
To keep warm, much bustling about. Yesterday to the “Perform!” event at Olympia, which is a trade show for aspiring performers. Matt Barber, a thrusting young thespian with many irons in many fires, invited me to take part in a forum on “How to get Into Drama School”. All one can do is be honest, remind people of the late Michael Bryant’s dictum “If you want to be an actor – don’t. If you’re going to be an actor – you will” and point out the harsh realities of a) the sheer difficulty of getting into a top school and b) the struggle to make a worthwhile living once your training’s done. But just now parents seem to be saying “Well, there are no jobs for young people anyway so you may as well have a go at acting.” My colleagues at RADA and Central tell me that numbers of applicants this year are about to hit all-time highs, literally in the thousands.
Alongside Matt and I dishing out advice were two fine products of great London schools, Susannah Fielding (Guildhall) and Jeremy Legat (RADA). Jeremy is one of the grads from my time who’s made a considerable mark as a singer as well as in acting – for instance, in “Wicked” – and has a mounting reputation as an acting tutor for singers. Susannah – who is, as you can see, nothing short of scrumptious – plays Imogen in “Trelawny of the Wells” at the Donmar. Guess where your faithful reporter is heading next Monday…
Young Mr Barber is, amongst many other activities, recording a recurring part in the new “Dracula” series coming out later in the year. He also runs a web-site which sits easily alongside www.teachyourselfacting.com, called www.dramaschoolauditions.com. Not quite the same thing, but sort of Avis alongside Hertz….Which, I wonder, tries harder…?
And so back to the grind of escorting bright young Americans about London’s theatre-land. Somehow I’ve achieved several decades without having seen a single production by the famous Canadian director Robert LePage. Primed in advance by a lecture from his technical director, Patric Durnan, we set off for the Roundhouse to see “Spades”, the first of four plays he and his company Ex Machina are developing around a playing-card theme. It’s an astonishing display, delivered by six actors and a team of technicians via a self-contained, large circular platform. They all kneel or crouch hidden beneath it, and the actors and scenery spring up into view as the story requires. There are smashing effects (e.g. I’ve never seen an extractor-fan put to more creative use) with lighting and sound of a startlingly high order.
Patric told us that Ex Machina scripts are developed over several months of brain-storming and improvisation. In this case, I have to say – as have several of the critics – that the play at present still has an “in progress” feel – but nonetheless this is rare theatre, work to be witnessed. And the actors are very, very good – an international team, with Tony Guilfoyle and Nuria Garcia especially impressive.
It was a great privilege earlier this week to host a seminar with the Guardian’s acclaimed theatre critic, Michael Billington. My NYU students are required to produce reviews of two of the shows in the current season – so who better as a mentor? Michael – who is one of the few people to have been on the scene even longer than I have – is a link to the days when Harold Hobson in The Sunday Times was the sole champion of Pinter and Beckett, the brightness of whose genius failed to penetrate the blinkers of all other critics back in the 50’s, and when Frank Rich at the New York Times could stop a multi-million dollar production in its tracks with a single damning review on its Broadway first night.
Nowadays critics have less direct influence – not least because, as Michael says, “these days everyone’s a critic” and opinion spreads as fast as the Internet can carry it – with people even tweeting from their seats before the curtain’s down!
Not of course, to mention the bloggers…And this one went with the students on Wednesday to the Duke of York’s Theatre to see David Hare”s “The Judas Kiss”. This, starring Rupert Everett and Freddie Fox, has been widely reviewed twice, since it’s a transfer from Hampstead Theatre, so I’ll not presume to comment. Suffice to report that several of the young women in my party were left in quite a state by the recent Central graduate Tom Colley as Galileo Masconi. This could just have been to do with the fact that, in a show for which Sue Blane has designed some fine costumes, in the case of most of the handsome Mr Colley’s character’s appearances she can take no credit at all…..
Looking beyond London, former students out there include Bertie Carvel now in previews at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway, offering New Yorkers a chance to marvel at his alarming Trunchbull in the RSC’s “Matilda” – and an as yet relatively unsung, but quite unique talent in the shape of Kevin Trainor, garnering great reviews up at the West Yorkshire Playhouse as a magical “Dr Faustus”.
By the way, I’ve had some requests to offer a comment option on this website – and I’ve finally worked out how to do it. Just click on the word “comments” in the little panel below, and follow the instructions.
