It's not easy to mistake a British actress for a French one, but Kristin Scott Thomas, who was born in England yet calls France home, has that certain je ne sais quoi. Her beauty is rife with implication. She has that Gallic ability to seduce or scorn without opening her mouth. Shakespearean phrases no doubt fall trippingly from her tongue, but an eloquent silence is her chief asset.
How marvelous to see her wield this expressive reticence in the revival of Harold Pinter's “Betrayal” at the Comedy Theatre in London's West End. Pinter was a playwright who relished his opaque mystery as much as his articulate Englishness, and both come naturally to Scott Thomas.
As befits a work about marital infidelity, the play is largely a three-character affair — an isosceles triangle, if you will, with equally significant male roles intersecting with Emma, played by Scott Thomas with just the right mix of ice and smolder.
Betrayal 2bThe production, directed by Ian Rickson (whose Broadway credits include “Jerusalem” and “The Seagull” with Scott Thomas), takes one major risk, casting the role of Jerry, the man who had a seven-year affair with Emma, with Douglas Henshall, a Scottish actor with a thick brogue and a soft demeanor. His eyes and voice plead with an ardency that is quite a departure from the more watchful passion of Jeremy Irons, who starred in the 1983 film version. This transparent vulnerability takes getting used to — especially for an American theatergoer who might have difficulty culturally placing Henshall's Jerry — but in the end Pinter's drama is luminously X-rayed.
The assured Ben Miles offers a more traditional Oxbridge portrait of Robert, Emma's publisher husband who understands the advantage of a good poker face. He's needed to have one. Jerry, his best friend, was sleeping with Emma on the sly. True to his willfully unflappable temperament, Robert revealed nothing, understanding that the weakest thing a man in his position could do is show the slightest hint of emotion.
The play, which begins in 1977 after the affair between Emma and Jerry has ended and concludes in 1968 just as it's about to get started, is really about the shell game of knowledge that is at the heart of adultery. Pinter, as is his wont, leaves his characters on such slippery ground that it's not easy to figure out who's doing the betraying and who's being betrayed. Deception is always a two-way street. “Betrayal” is as much a puzzle as a poem of faithlessness.
In one of the liveliest scenes, Robert and Jerry meet for their usual lunch at an Italian restaurant not long after Robert has found out about the affair. Their conversation is tense, but the cause of the tension remains buried. Miles suggests Robert's fury without every letting it become explicit. Henshall lets us see the way Jerry has to continually deflect his guilt and fear. A waiter, played by John Guerrasio, provides comic relief simply by trying to keep up with the men's barking orders for food and wine.
Rickson's fluid staging, with one scene still lingering disquietly in the air as spare pieces of furniture are repositioned for the next, makes theatrical sense of the play's reverse chronology. The movement is from cynicism to innocence (in the sense of hopefulness, not purity). Experience has cultivated in this trio an inveterate stealth, which makes the moments before romance and friendship have curdled so heartbreaking to encounter in the play's final stretch.
“Betrayal” has a minimalist construction requiring precision acting. This is Scott Thomas' specialty. A gifted film actress (“The English Patient,” “I've Loved You So Long”) who works best in confined and pressurized dramatic situations, she doesn't need great swaths of realism to get the job done. Her quicksilver nature, able to turn on a dime, is particularly well suited to Pinter, whose terse language swells with ambiguity and contradiction.
After Robert discovers, while on vacation with his wife in Italy, that Jerry has surreptitiously written to her, Scott Thomas' Emma, realizing that she has been found out, writhes in the hotel bed with a regret that seems oddly — yet fascinatingly — tinged with rage. Is Emma a cornered or a wounded animal? Scott Thomas knows that she's both and plays her accordingly, as only someone unafraid of the irrational aspect of complexity would dare to.
The term “Pinteresque” connotes the way the playwright invests ordinary objects with extraordinary menace. Scott Thomas' natural aptitude for this quality is evident in the way her Emma drapes a wrap around herself in the love nest that Jerry has set up for their trysts. The flat has grown chilly, literally and figuratively, and Emma covers herself with a strenuousness that dissolves the distinction between offense and defense. She is simultaneously protecting herself and withholding herself — a perfectly Pinteresque thing to do.
This resonant “Betrayal” is afoot with paradox. Perhaps none greater than the final one suggesting that Jerry, the character who instigated this whole sorry mess, may be the least capable of handling its sorrowful fallout.
2011年6月12日星期日
Oscar-winner Colin Firth
There were large crowds at the first of the Green Days to see the beginning of the 45th Bedford Park Festival. Despite dark clouds and predictions of rain, it remained dry with even occasional glimpses of sunshine.
The proceedings kicked off with a special ceremony involving two of the area’s best-loved personalities.
Richard Briers, who has lived in the area for over 40 years, made a presentation to Mr Lad, who ran the newsagents on Bedford Corner for more than 30 years. He was given a painting of the shop by the Bedford Park Society’s president, Nigel Woolner.
The newsagents closed just before Christmas, when its lease ran out. This was the first time Mr Lad, whose real name is Kishur Mistry, has returned to Chiswick.
In another farewell to Chiswick, the world-famous Rambert Dance Company performed on the festival stage, Rambert’s youth dancers, Quicksilver Dance, performed on the Green on the Saturday afternoon. The Company is leaving the area soon after being based here for 40 years.
And in Strictly Rambert, on Wednesday June 15th, the company’s artistic director, Mark Baldwin, will discuss its distinguished past, new repertoire and exciting future plans, with video clips.
Richard Briers then judged the children’s fancy dress competition at the Green Days fete, which attracts thousands of people each year with its mix of live music, children’s events, stalls, refreshments, Craft Fair and funfair. The crowds were well up to typical levels despite the uncertain weather and there was the usual scattering of well known faces including this year Michael Gambon, a regular visitor to the event.
On the Sunday, a church service on the Green is followed at noon by WorldBusk, aiming to beat the record for the world’s biggest combined busk.
Green Days weekend opens a fortnight of community and arts events in aid of charities and St Michael & All Angels Church, supported by dozens of local businesses. Events include comedy, opera, dance, concerts, exhibitions, talks and open gardens.
Another Chiswick star, West End diva Rosie Ashe, who’s appeared in Les Miserables, Mary Poppins and the original production of Phantom of the Opera, will sing her favourite songs from the world’s great musicals at the Tabard Theatre. She’ll be accompanied by Jonathan Cohen, from TV’s Play Away and Music Time.
Other stars of this year’s Festival include Covent Garden tenor Justin Lavender; poet and biographer Blake Morris; actor Dudley Sutton (best-known as Tinker in TV’s Lovejoy); and the London Tango Quintet. The vicar of St Michael’s, Father Kevin Morris, will take the title role in The Mikado, performed by one of the brightest young opera companies Opera Novella, featuring Sally-Ann Stephenson and other singers from the D’Oyly Carte.
Oscar-winner Colin Firth and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ star Kevin McNally, who both live in Chiswick, are on the jury for a new film-making competition to encourage young talent. The winning films will be screened on the last night, as part of the Bedford Park Film Festival, featuring entertaining clips set in Chiswick.
“We’ve got a fantastic range of entertainment this year, with something for everyone” says Torin Douglas, the Festival co-ordinator. “And to encourage people to make a real fortnight of it, we’ve introduced a special offer – 10 per cent off, if you buy any 10 tickets for Festival events.”
The proceedings kicked off with a special ceremony involving two of the area’s best-loved personalities.
Richard Briers, who has lived in the area for over 40 years, made a presentation to Mr Lad, who ran the newsagents on Bedford Corner for more than 30 years. He was given a painting of the shop by the Bedford Park Society’s president, Nigel Woolner.
The newsagents closed just before Christmas, when its lease ran out. This was the first time Mr Lad, whose real name is Kishur Mistry, has returned to Chiswick.
In another farewell to Chiswick, the world-famous Rambert Dance Company performed on the festival stage, Rambert’s youth dancers, Quicksilver Dance, performed on the Green on the Saturday afternoon. The Company is leaving the area soon after being based here for 40 years.
And in Strictly Rambert, on Wednesday June 15th, the company’s artistic director, Mark Baldwin, will discuss its distinguished past, new repertoire and exciting future plans, with video clips.
Richard Briers then judged the children’s fancy dress competition at the Green Days fete, which attracts thousands of people each year with its mix of live music, children’s events, stalls, refreshments, Craft Fair and funfair. The crowds were well up to typical levels despite the uncertain weather and there was the usual scattering of well known faces including this year Michael Gambon, a regular visitor to the event.
On the Sunday, a church service on the Green is followed at noon by WorldBusk, aiming to beat the record for the world’s biggest combined busk.
Green Days weekend opens a fortnight of community and arts events in aid of charities and St Michael & All Angels Church, supported by dozens of local businesses. Events include comedy, opera, dance, concerts, exhibitions, talks and open gardens.
Another Chiswick star, West End diva Rosie Ashe, who’s appeared in Les Miserables, Mary Poppins and the original production of Phantom of the Opera, will sing her favourite songs from the world’s great musicals at the Tabard Theatre. She’ll be accompanied by Jonathan Cohen, from TV’s Play Away and Music Time.
Other stars of this year’s Festival include Covent Garden tenor Justin Lavender; poet and biographer Blake Morris; actor Dudley Sutton (best-known as Tinker in TV’s Lovejoy); and the London Tango Quintet. The vicar of St Michael’s, Father Kevin Morris, will take the title role in The Mikado, performed by one of the brightest young opera companies Opera Novella, featuring Sally-Ann Stephenson and other singers from the D’Oyly Carte.
Oscar-winner Colin Firth and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ star Kevin McNally, who both live in Chiswick, are on the jury for a new film-making competition to encourage young talent. The winning films will be screened on the last night, as part of the Bedford Park Film Festival, featuring entertaining clips set in Chiswick.
“We’ve got a fantastic range of entertainment this year, with something for everyone” says Torin Douglas, the Festival co-ordinator. “And to encourage people to make a real fortnight of it, we’ve introduced a special offer – 10 per cent off, if you buy any 10 tickets for Festival events.”
2011年6月8日星期三
Royal Danish Ballet’s ‘A Folk Tale’ has the human touch
“A Folk Tale,” which the Royal Danish Ballet performed Tuesday night at the Kennedy Center Opera House, is exactly that: a story of the folk, of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. It is a sophisticated, shadowy garden-party ballet, rather like Hans Christian Andersen meets “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” with a little disquieting Ibsen thrown in. Dance-wise, this is not an evening that delivers flashy pyrotechnics. Rather, one of its chief charms is the subtle way that movement and body language are used to distinguish one type of folk from another.
But we’re not talking only about people in this ballet, which springs from the 1854 original by Danish choreographer August Bournonville but was reworked earlier this year by Artistic Director Nikolaj Hubbe and his associate, Sorella Englund. Half the cast members are fantasy creatures; some of the key characters are trolls. One troll, Birthe, thinks she’s human — as a result of a baby mix-up, she’s been raised in a wealthy landowning family, and at first her ungainliness and beastly temper (she likes to whip servants with her riding crop) seem merely the antics of a grown-up spoiled brat. We learn later that her behavior is the key to her true origins.
Then there’s a human, Hilda, who lives among the trolls (she, too, was part of the mistaken baby swap) and is presumed to be part of their world, though she’s gentle and willowy and moves with a kind of floating grace that no underground creature possesses.
The rest of this story of mistaken identities, greed and the power of true love is complicated. But I’d wager you can follow most of it even without the program notes (though I recommend reading them), because the tale is so well told in the body. The characters are put over with vivid conviction by dancers who seem to have absorbed acting ability through every pore. This is the great and lasting achievement of the Danish ballet tradition.
Not every one of these dancers is a beneficiary of the famed Danish schooling in dramatic projection — for instance, Alba Nadal, whose Birthe is imperious with a colorful dose of mania, is from Spain — so credit is also due Hubbe, the former New York City Ballet star, for sharpening the collective talents. As Hilda, Susanne Grinder is as different from the trolls as the sun is from storms. She is not the strongest technician I’ve ever seen and, in fact, was rather wobbly in spots on Tuesday. But her expressive powers are a delight, and she never forgets who she is onstage. You see this in how elegantly she carries herself, the expansive sweep of her arms, even in how she inclines her neck a little to show a shade of hopelessness in Act 2, after she learns she must marry one of the hairy little trolls.
Grace, such as Grinder demonstrates, is the defining mark of humanity here. Hubbe has secularized the ballet — Bournonville’s original contained Christian references, entwining religious grace with physical grace. But the spiritual message is largely the same. Love, kindness, consideration for others — these traits set the virtuous apart, and so it is that Hilda eventually marries her true intended, Junker Ove, danced as a sensitive, quiet lad by Marcin Kupinski. The nicest guy finishes first here.
That is, unless he’s a troll. Sweet little Viderik, performed Tuesday by the compelling character dancer Lis Jeppesen, is in love with Hilda, but there is no place for him in her happily-ever-after. The look on his rubbery face — and especially the stoop to his furry, misshapen body — is utterly wrenching as he watches the happy nuptials at the end. Prepare yourself.
Poignant as it is, this is not a ballet of high physical drive. The Bournonville style is understated, though the flashes of quicksilver footwork and light, airy jumps in “A Folk Tale” are splendid. Hubbe, who took over in 2008, has said refining the company’s technique is a priority. This production shows us that ballet is a theatrical art, not just an athletic one.
In this unhurried work of subtlety, Mia Stensgaard’s sets and costumes are the most emphatic element and wonderfully so. Her lacy laser-cut designs create intriguing patterns of shadows and light and take us into a world of Victorian pop-up cards with a 21st-century edge. Here, the human realm is not so different from the hidden fairy burrows; one unfolds to reveal the other, challenging our perceptions of both and plunging us into the unsettling origins of folk tales as a way to explain the unexplainable.
But we’re not talking only about people in this ballet, which springs from the 1854 original by Danish choreographer August Bournonville but was reworked earlier this year by Artistic Director Nikolaj Hubbe and his associate, Sorella Englund. Half the cast members are fantasy creatures; some of the key characters are trolls. One troll, Birthe, thinks she’s human — as a result of a baby mix-up, she’s been raised in a wealthy landowning family, and at first her ungainliness and beastly temper (she likes to whip servants with her riding crop) seem merely the antics of a grown-up spoiled brat. We learn later that her behavior is the key to her true origins.
Then there’s a human, Hilda, who lives among the trolls (she, too, was part of the mistaken baby swap) and is presumed to be part of their world, though she’s gentle and willowy and moves with a kind of floating grace that no underground creature possesses.
The rest of this story of mistaken identities, greed and the power of true love is complicated. But I’d wager you can follow most of it even without the program notes (though I recommend reading them), because the tale is so well told in the body. The characters are put over with vivid conviction by dancers who seem to have absorbed acting ability through every pore. This is the great and lasting achievement of the Danish ballet tradition.
Not every one of these dancers is a beneficiary of the famed Danish schooling in dramatic projection — for instance, Alba Nadal, whose Birthe is imperious with a colorful dose of mania, is from Spain — so credit is also due Hubbe, the former New York City Ballet star, for sharpening the collective talents. As Hilda, Susanne Grinder is as different from the trolls as the sun is from storms. She is not the strongest technician I’ve ever seen and, in fact, was rather wobbly in spots on Tuesday. But her expressive powers are a delight, and she never forgets who she is onstage. You see this in how elegantly she carries herself, the expansive sweep of her arms, even in how she inclines her neck a little to show a shade of hopelessness in Act 2, after she learns she must marry one of the hairy little trolls.
Grace, such as Grinder demonstrates, is the defining mark of humanity here. Hubbe has secularized the ballet — Bournonville’s original contained Christian references, entwining religious grace with physical grace. But the spiritual message is largely the same. Love, kindness, consideration for others — these traits set the virtuous apart, and so it is that Hilda eventually marries her true intended, Junker Ove, danced as a sensitive, quiet lad by Marcin Kupinski. The nicest guy finishes first here.
That is, unless he’s a troll. Sweet little Viderik, performed Tuesday by the compelling character dancer Lis Jeppesen, is in love with Hilda, but there is no place for him in her happily-ever-after. The look on his rubbery face — and especially the stoop to his furry, misshapen body — is utterly wrenching as he watches the happy nuptials at the end. Prepare yourself.
Poignant as it is, this is not a ballet of high physical drive. The Bournonville style is understated, though the flashes of quicksilver footwork and light, airy jumps in “A Folk Tale” are splendid. Hubbe, who took over in 2008, has said refining the company’s technique is a priority. This production shows us that ballet is a theatrical art, not just an athletic one.
In this unhurried work of subtlety, Mia Stensgaard’s sets and costumes are the most emphatic element and wonderfully so. Her lacy laser-cut designs create intriguing patterns of shadows and light and take us into a world of Victorian pop-up cards with a 21st-century edge. Here, the human realm is not so different from the hidden fairy burrows; one unfolds to reveal the other, challenging our perceptions of both and plunging us into the unsettling origins of folk tales as a way to explain the unexplainable.
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