The Observer from London, Greater London, England • 56

OBSERVER SUNDAY 21 APRIL 1991 56 It's a classic answer for black theatre A bitter knight on the booze As an all-black Anthony and Cleopatra prepares to open, Nick Smurthwaite surveys a radical movement at a crossroads. the eve of the company's busiest year to date. None of their plans has been cancelled or even postponed. Verma believes the black theatre movement has grown up and left home. 'If there is going to be any point in using the term "black it has to find a theatrical form for itself.

It has to be more than a question of equal opportunities or all-black productions. It's not enough just to have a black or Asian cast doing a Chekhov play, you must dig deeper to get at the Alby James bears all the hallmarks of a middle-class English background, in terms of education, accent and social graces. Having started out as an economic researcher, he worked at the Royal Court, the RSC and Glyndebourne as an assistant director in the early 1980s before being appointed artistic director of the Temba theatre company in 1984. Temba's reputation has been built on the production of new work by black writers Glory! Black Love Songs, Mama Decemba, Streetwise), but James says he must abandon innovation, temporarily at least, in pursuit of a better class of touring theatre. Strangely, it seems that Ibsen's Ghosts, touring since February and now at the Lyric, Hammersmith, until the end of this week, is more likely to pull in the punters than a homegrown show like Glory There is also the more delicate question of quality.

James is the first to recognise that some of the home-grown work that Temba has produced in recent years has done little to enhance its reputation. He feels that it is better to re-evaluate or adapt the classics than produce' original work by black writer's if that work is not the best. Tart of the problem is that too many of us in black theatre have been doing the same kind of work, to do with establishing our identity. There is an assumption that black theatre can just go on doing a certain kind of thing, regardless of what's going on around us. But if we all continued down that road we'd go into decline, because that kind of work has a sell-by Not that Alby James feels any less bullish than he did seven years ago about the role black artists have to play, and espe daily about Temba's role as a mainstream touring company.

YVONNE BREWSTER lights up a room with her zest. A prime mover in the black theatre movement since coming to England from Jamaica 18 years ago, she now is poised to become the most influential person in what one hesitates to label the black arts in Britain. Six years ago, Brewster founded Talawa the name comes from an Ashanti word meaning small, strong and female with actresses Mona Hammond and Carmen Mun-row, and she has directed all six of their productions to date. The two most recent, an all-black Importance of Being Earnest and a stage version of Mike Leigs TV play, Abigail's Party, took the company into previously uncharted waters. Now she is going for the big one with an all-black Anthony and Cleopatra, opening this week at the Everyman, Liverpool, and coming to London in May.

Later this year she faces an equally daunting challenge her debut at the Royal National Theatre with a new translation of Lorca's Blood Wedding, set in Cuba. Apart from being Talawa's first Shakespearean encounter, Anthony and Cleopatra is bound to raise once again the vexed question of Shakespearean and verse-speaking by West Indian actors. Brewster claims an affinity between Caribbean speech rhythms and iambic pentameter, but many have argued that Shakespeare and the West Indies are worlds apart. The verse-speaking in Birmingham Rep's 1989 production of Twelfth Night ranged 'from the mangled to the mechanical', according to the Financial Times critic. An earlier, nearly-all-black production of Measure for Measure at the National, set in the Caribbean, while more generously received by the critics, prompted charges of 'tokenism'; it was said to be a sop to Afro-Caribbean artists in the UK.

Tokenism is scarcely a charge one can level at Talawa. Neither does Yvonne Brewster concede that her Importance of Being Earnest was putting over a political message. 'If that had been my intention, I would have cast the servants as she says. You get the feeling she is tackling the classics more for the hell of it than out of a sense of dutiful defiance. 'You have to plough the she says.

'If we fail, we fail. I've never had the bottle to do Shakespeare before. What worries me most is that I might ventions of naturalism. In Indian theatre the written text forms a part of a much larger whole, where movement, costume and make-up are critical In Tara's productions of The Government Inspector and Tar-tuffe, both relocated in India, and now Oedipus the Kind, recently embarked on a three-month tour, Verma has achieved a brilliant fusion of European and Asian theatrical conventions, so that one is simultaneously seduced by word and image. He appears to be leading the way in evolving what he calls 'a distinctive aesthetic' for Tara, and for ethnic theatre in general.

His aim, no more or less, is to re-invent the classics. In addition to Oedipus, Tara will take Tartuffe, acclaimed at the Cottesloe last year, on an international tour this summer, under the Royal National Theatre banner. Then Verma will return to the Cottesloe in the autumn to direct his version of The Little Clay Cart, an Indian classic. Tara's meteoric rise to national prominence has met with just one stumbling block Wandsworth's decision to cut its entire 55,000 grant that has enabled Tara to support a studio theatre and offices. Ironically, the cut was announced on must reflect the fact that we are living in a multi-racial society.

'My ultimate aim is never to have to say "black theatre" again. It would mean that I had come full circle, as I never had occasion to use the term when I started out in Jatinder Verma established his company, Tara, with three friends 15 years ago in response to violent attacks on Asians in Southall. The GLC provided them with ramshackle headquarters in South London, from which they still operate. 'None of us were in theatre but our anger told us we needed to inhabit a public says Verma, who came to England from Kenya in 1968. They started out doing agitprop stuff relating to the Asian experience, playing to audiences of like-minded, educated Asians, concerned about the issues of the day.

In search of a broader church, Verma turned to the cultural influence most beloved of Asian communities Indian movies. Without diluting the radicalism, he began to introduce music, movement and simple storytelling. 'It wasn't so much a matter of creating a new kind of theatre as finding a distinctive voice. My aim was always to confront ethnicity through drama and to transcend the stultifying con (J II? Robert Skphem as Falstaff in Wenry IV Part One'. Photograph Michael Coveney applauds Robert Stephens as Falstaff.

OLD RSC boys Terry Hands and Trevor Nunn respectively used the Henry IV plays to chart the operatic rise of a mixed-up heroic monarch and to project a seething, Dicken-sian vision of a nation on the inarch. With his 1984 Henry superbly led by Kenneth Bran-. agh, Adrian Noble introduced a hew classical formula of emblematic, sensual scenogra-phy and an easy, modern, introspection. I Newly installed as the RSC's artistic director, Noble pursues this line with Henry IV, Part One in the Stratford-upon-Avon main house (Part Two follows on 30 May). With designer Bob Crowley, he offers neither, clashing rhetoric nor atmospheric fug: the stage is encased by adaptable walls within which the Eastcheap tavern materialises like a blood-red knocking shop of receding perspectives, windows and staircases another example of the RSC's recent infatuation with the eerie townscapes of de Chirico.

The carriers at Rochester are severely but also imaginatively etched against the background. Prince Hal and his father are isolated in a flamboyant void. The battle of Shrewsbury is almost conjured by the wave of Falstaffs arm: the back wall rises, thrillingly, to reveal a line of furious timpanists and, above, a dancing sea of silken banners. Hal and Hotspur lock swords in a cerulean vista. To what extent this new aesthetic will embrace, enhance or undermine the acting itself remains to be seen.

As yet, there are moments of strain. Gesture is occasionally imposed upon the rambunc-tiously sybaritic, florid and bitter Falstaff of Robert Stephens, as when the sun, 'a fair hot wench in flame-coloured taffeta', is ponderously related to he knight's discovery of a scarlet slip in the tavern sofa, The balance between the characters' inner lives and the sculpted presentation is riot fully adjusted, though such well-timed interventions as Christopher Luscombe's freshly funny Francis ('Anon, anon, sir?) and Sylvestra le Touzel's sleekly unamused Lady Percy find their own way well enough, Stephens expunges all geniality 1 from' Falstaff, veering melancholically between bouts of hedonistic indulgence and darkly scathing fits of insecurity. No hint here of some knightly crowd-pleasing rascal; instead, we have a bleak Government health warning on the effects of sack-. It is a remarkable and totally uningratiating performance, culminating in the derisory; catechism on honour, 'a mere scutcheon', which is hissed and tortured through -a mouthful of rancorous disgust. This makes the dithering of Michael Maloney's Hal all the more, comprehensible.

Maloney's thoughtful, equivocal formance is clearly conceived across the arc of both plays, while, the attractive Hotspur of Owen Teale (an irresistibly charismatic actor) eschews the obvious route to noisy nemesis by puzzling his way eloquently to' rebellious doom. Julian Glover lords it majestically as the troubled jnonarch, Philip Voss is a stalwart saucy Worcester, and the Glendovver scenes are beautifully done. Along the Stratford road in the Swan, we also have David Thacker's revival of The Two Gentlemen of Verona, an unjustly despised play for which-excuses are too often made. Robin Phillips directed a sensational 1970 version around a swimming pool (with Ian Richardson as Proteus); and worked for the RSC Thacker places it loosely in the 1930s, and it is the 'loosely' to which I object. The band and singer (Hilary Cromie) interrupt the action with love songs of Gershwin, Berlin and Cole JPorter.

Into this company, Guy jwoolfenden, completing his scoring card for the complete A if rasJ in which the legend of El Cor- dobes, including his stormy affair with Ava Gardner Stefanfe Powers as 'Laura-Jane Wilding'), is contained in the 'blood brothers' story of a poor Andalusian' shoeTsalesman (Alex Hanson) and his ish counterparty Domingo Hernandez Hemingway described Efo Cordobes, aka Luis Miguel Dominguin, as a combination of Don Juan and Hamlet. Barrow-man; as 'the boy from nowhere? in the show with no flair, offers a mixture of Christopher Gables and John Curry. Or maybe it's -Torvill and Dean; Either the Barrowman satinate buttocks provide the evening's only tension and have already attracted a fan club, The music of Michael Lean-der and the lyrics of Edward Seago are unremittingly undis- He says he is otten invited to work as a director outside Temba on more prestigious shows than Temba could afford to produce. James was to have taken a leading artistic role in the original Roundhouse project. When the funds were redistributed, Temba's bid 'for a share of the Roundhouse cake yielded nothing.

After all these years, the company is still classified as 'small scale' by the Arts Council' but 'is hoping to move into -bigger venues more money by next year. Alby James uses the term -world tneatre to describe Temba's new image, and an eclectic programme for the next two sea sons includes Macbeth, Ayckbourn's Small Family Business, Sartre's Roads to Freedom and Em il and the Detectives. James aims to invigorate the classics with diverse cultural influences. 'There has always; been this attitude that black actors do not have the right intelligence or emotional response to do James says. 'Only one black actor has been cast in the new RSC season.

My journey is to find a different kind of synthesis, to blend African or Caribbean cultural expression with classical texts. I believe a variety of cultural infusions make the work more relevant and While the desire to move on after 20 years is understandable, it seems a pity that it is at the expense of better-known indigenous Afro-Caribbean work. impart to the cast the wrong sort of respect. I don't want to be that reverent about it. The most important thing is to make the play Next year Talawa will take up residence at the Jeannetta Cochrane Theatre in Holboirn, producing three plays a year and working in tandem with the London Institute, which owns the theatre.

Talawa's tenancy, has been made possible by the redistribution of Arts Council funds originally intended for the Roundhouse. inis autumn snouia nave -a seen the opening of a 5-million multi-cultural arts centre at the Roundhouse, a project originated by the Greater London Council. Last year it was pronounced 'unrealistic' by the Arts Council which then proceded to invite ethnic arts groups to bid for a share of the million pounds plus or so set aside for the project. Talawa's bold presentation, complete with tongue-in-cheek home video, won a generous helping of 275,000. A further 45,000 will be made available from Arts Council funds to help Talawa launch its new base.

An artistic policy for the Jeannetta Cochrane has yet to be decided, but it is clear Brewster has no intention of establishing a ghetto. 'Talawa will be the resident company, but there will be visiting companies and it would be sad if only black or Asian companies felt they were welcome. As in all good theatre, our appeal must be general and byjRkhardMMenhaU tinguished, a wnoie loaa or oaii, in fact; And the designs or wil- liam Dudley expensively fill tne stage-ivith -Andalusianabric-aHB brac, beaded curtains, wooden' balustrades, bar-room interiors populated by photographs; even the looming cut-out. black torothat advertises fTio Pepe on every Spanish hillside, Arlene Phillips's chore-' ography-engagingly makes of" i this beast a teeming (flamenco sextet. "The programme 'informs lis that 'all 'the cbmpariyjr'fitom director Elijah' Moshinsky to humblest bit "player, wish nei-ther to.glbrify bullfighting, nor to condone cruelty to animals.

The statement sums up the air of half-cocked cultural tourism the gutless Moshinsky. is purveying. I shall curse him heartily when I "return to. the death-dealing bullrings of Seville and Puerto this summer. fm LAG5 MORE THAN I 1 MILLION COULD BE WON WITH "HOT NOTES" canon of 37 plays, bravely injects a jaunty foxtrot setting of 'Who is Silvia, what is it falls flat.

Hairstyles and skirt lengths are wrong, and so is the casting of an expert in tucked-up neurosis, Saskia Reeves, as a Silvia with cut-glass, vampish aspirar tions. The lovers' brimming; with premonitions ti the later" comedies, is completed by Clare Holman as a fraught Richard Bonneville as a. busily; bemused Valentine and, Barry Lynch as Proteus. Lynch; moody saturnine, relaxed alone conveys the blithely morr: dant spirit of the piece. This revival will be remembered, though; for the wonderful and genuinely hilarious performance of Richard Moore as Launce, Proteus's servant.

Laying out his shoes, his socks, and his arguments like fish on a slab, Moore invests his inane chatter with the sparkling gravity of a natural raconteur. And he does so accompanied by a scrawny, unimpressed Irish' wolfhound, Crab, whose very likeness (pendulous morose cheeks, sleepy eyes) he assumes as the evening progresses. I think the Eighties are going to be says a character in Caryl Churchill's Top Girls (1982)i revived by Max Stafford-Clark at the Royal Court. There are no new layers of sarcasm to be found in the line, or the play. The supposition that a working woman, must obliterate her human and maternal functions was severely, and heroically, tested in the last decade.

And I don't just mean by Melanie Griffiths. Lesley Manville and Deborah Findlay were both in the drigi-nal production; the first now plays the managing director, the class-transgressor in Thatcher blue and golden while Findlay repeats her three roles which include the disenfranchised sister of Marlene, stuck in an East Anglian backwater where she has raised her sister's lumpen daughter (Lesley Sharp). Matador at the Queen's is a risibly awful 'Hispanic' musical QG3P 5 ipo on Prime movers: Jatvnej Verma, Yvonne Brewster and Alby James.Photograph by Richard Mildenhall. arcays New Stages is pleased to announce the independent theatre companies receiving awards in the second year of Barclays Bank's sponsorship programme for fringe SPONSORED BY theatre. They are: ADZIDO PAN AFRICAN DANCE ENSEMBLE BRITH 60F CAROUSEL THE CH0LM0NDELEYS AND THE FEATHERSTONEHAUGHS GEESE THEATRE COMPANY MACLENNAN DANCE AND COMPANY MAYHEW AND EDMUNDS PLAIN CLOTHES PRODUCTIONS S0H0 THEATRE COMPANY STATION HOUSE OPERA UN-NATURAL TRACES CONTEMPORARY ART FROM CANADA psent3 sr AirCanada M0 WtBattQiSsUim a 00 WOO STRONG TUNE IN TO ANDY LLOYD'S BREAKFAST SHOW-MONDAY TO FRIDAY 8.15AM JAZZ 102.2 CHECK IT OUT! Barclays New Stages is an innovative three-year sponsorship programme devised by Barclays Bank to encourage and promote Britain's independent theatre sector.

The scheme operates in two phases: the first offers sponsorship to original productions, the second supports a festival at Britain's leading venue for new writing the Royal Court Theatre. In its first year Barclays New Stages has enabled ten fringe theatre companies to create, perform and tour new works nationwide. Some of these companies will be invited to perform at the first Barclays New Stages season at the Royal Court Theatre from 17 June 1991. Barclays Men Stages details. Kallauay ltd 071 221 7883 Festival details.

Sojal Court Tneatre bc office 071 730 1745 i COMPETITION OPEN ONLYTO PERSONS AGED 18 YEARS OR OVER Also Showing. The True North: Canadian Landscape Painting 1 896 939 LEVEL 8, BARBICAN CENTRE, SILK STREET. LONDON EC2. Recorded Information 071-588 9023 Pfeose note: We ore closed Wednesday 8 May..