The Observer from London, Greater London, England • 61

OBSERVER SUNDAY 23 JUNE 1991 48 Savage parade falls out I Pope, the murders and the obsequies. The interval is taken only after the fourth act; this pleasingly emphasises the shape of the play, rising to the Cardinal's installation in the Vatican and Vittoria's escape from the prison of whores and convertite nuns. Prowse and Simon convey relish in exploring not only the many ambiguities of liberation in the play, but also its complex misogyny. Simon's proud Vittoria dodges none of these difficulties. She paints a compelling, languorously tragic portrait in a consummately intelligent and rancidly rewarding Ignore all health warnings: I advise you to risk seeing it.

Since Donald Pleasence played Davies the Welsh tramp in Harold Pinter's second major play, The Caretaker (revived in a production by the author at the Comedy Theatre), I have seen London reincarnations with Leonard Rossiter, Warren Mitchell, Norman Beaton and Timothy West. Pleasence reclaims the role from these richly contrasting essays in forceful eccentricity by playing Davies quietly, very frightened, with a vigorously recurring middle-finger gesture. Pinter said that he saw three men in a room. Others have seen the shade of Tony Hancock, a visitor from beyond the grave, Christian symbolism; indoor Beckett, Everyman. At the Comedy we see a series of riveting, impeccably paced duets between the alternating six-foot brothers exceedingly well played by Colin Firth (the once-lobotomised Aston) and Peter Howitt (the brasher, more worldly Mick) and the dependent old intruder, cast adrift from his belongings and identity.

Davies's tobacco tin was knocked off on the Great West Road; the bastard monk in Luton foiled to come up. with new shoes; a Scotch git might be after him; his papers are in Sidcup. Pleasence purrs like a Celtic Walter Gabriel, his voice gravelly and precise, small but threatening. This is not a fall-about hilarious production, but its tough, richly topographical London musicality is irresistible. And, since.

Pinter hit his stride, there has been no better exponent of the deflating payoff line 'This just about puts the tin lid on it' or 'I don't think we're hitting it off. 70, Girls, 70 at the Vaude-ville is a third-rate 1971 musical by Fred Ebb and John Kander about old actors turning to crime to save rneir uroauway EvilinstincC Dhobi Oparei '(right, (Brachiano) and Josette Simon ('powerful and ravishing' 1). Photographs: Frank Herrnvmn. sacristans) is literally propelled to revenge. Candles encircle the false brick wall which both reflects and absorbs the Oli-vier's dimensions.

A huge golden globe hangs threateningly above and bells toll solemnly in the distance; actors wail liturgically like penitential sinners and bark and whoop like untrained dogs. The Renaissance ascendancy is represented by Denis Quil-ley's swaggering Brachiano, Eleanor Bron's elegantly wronged Isabella, and the deviously silken Cardinal of Tristram Jellinek (bravely replacing Robert Eddison at the. last gasp). This smug conspiracy is jolted from within by a brazen black underclass, totems of the mongrel masses. The trigger is Brachiano's lust for Vittoria, whose casual, lissom sensuality is the hallmark of Josette Simon's powerful and ravishing performance.

The shuffling intelligencer, T. P. McKenna's acid-voiced, blankly ruthless Duke of Florence, bridges and exploits both communities. By casting Vittoria Corom-bona and her family as black, Prowse is both clarifying the social collisions of the play and suggesting alternative cultural, sexual and moral imperatives. The agent of employed by the Duke, is Vittoriafs own brother Flamineo: the extraordinary Dhobi Oparei, as tall and floppy-limbed as a Harlem Globetrotter, and accused by some of muffling the character's bite and bark, is surely embodying an instinct for evil different from that of the stock stage Machiavel.

His mother, Cornelia (superbly played by Claire Benedict); expresses disapproval very well: 'Because we are poor shall we be Prowse and his cast avoid Grand Guig-nol and make Webster's horror theatrically real. The visions and dumb shows are elided with the public events of Vittoria's arraignment, the election of a Pleasence in The Caretaker'. An UriieiisnmanaDroaa Michael Coveney sees the Renaissance riotously reinvented. NO PRODUCTION of John Webster's The White Devil ever corresponds to the great expectations aroused by Hazlitt, Lamb and T. S.

Eliot. But no production in my experience has come closer than Philip Prowse's breathtaking version at the Royal National Theatre, his, fourth brush with this unruly masterpiece, and the most thoroughly achieved. The National under Richard Eyre has done two Jacobean masterpieces before this one: 'Tis Pity She's A Whore and The Changeling. The first was decent and dull, rather like the English rep production in Michael Blakemore's novel, Next Season; the second was somehow on loan from a gallery, overtly reeking of Goya. Prowse is neither a stick-in-the-mud nor a quoter of painters.

He takes elements of baroque and Renaissance art and reinvents his own landscape. Actors are not then pinned on to it; the whole principle is geared to the revelation of the actor in a revitalised context appropriate to the play. The vast Olivier stage may suggest the architectural mayhem surrounding the lengthy building of St Peter's in Rome. But the scene has its own imaginative, and fully inhabited, dynamism. Broken black tombs surround the arena, a dissected baroque chapel stands above two altars.

The beautiful costumes you will see none better this year are of black and gold silks, with a gash of ecclesiastical scarlet, the whole savage parade exquisitely lit by Prowse's regular collaborator, Gerry Jenkinson. The banished Lodovico (Rupert Frazer, violated in a procession of black-cowled Peter Howitt (top) and Donald mm Mm clink of champagne the setting of two of the credk redeemed by a genuinely ftinny tors scenes a maie sauna anu massage parlour. The Stratford Festival is now run by the Englishman David William, who succeeded! John Bedford; "a routine revival" of Carousel. But Vivian Matalon has'juc-rP45sfii11v revived Thornton A progress report on David William, our new man in Ontario. THE thirty-ninth Stratford season is under way beside the.

Avon: Stratford and the Avon in Ontario, Canada, that is. North America's biggest summer festival has seen good times and hsirl times. Rut it's still here. So is Brian Bedford, its one authentic star name these days, who opened last weekend as Timon of Athens. director Michael.

gham has given the action a 'fall of Paris' feeling, with' the bebop jazz of Duke Ellington and the appearance of a Josephine Baker eioVTcoSple wlKftaa--'' skirt. One senses, too the' tant influence of Trevor Nunn's Young Vic treatment in the Neville last Neville had Wader's J938 OnrTowhand restored the festival's financial" this year's hit is the, premierepf -fortunes after a few rocky years a new English translation (by in the early 1980s. John.vantBurekdBilljGh William's festival, with a sco) 'Michel Trentbtesjl9B8 turnover of 23 million Canadian modern Quebecois dassic, I dollars (about E12.5m); and. Belles Soeurs: tfm only 10 per cent of the total Fifteen women fromi down-J0 income supphed by government town French-speakmg Cathohc grants, is spread'across thteei 'Montreal gather for a.pastmg-ut auditoriums seating party of a Jucky rwmner. mil- people'a night "''iffiS I was disappointed in" the- sort of show to renew tie gfoo name 01 rwpuiarmea, auu eU jWrfhg ambition to present mftrdmdig enous drama in the festival.

i i MCjj hotel It might have made i sense'rand fish skinned Friendship if the cast had been authentic, joined, 'then sundered. Ian wonderful American vaude- Hogg, Gnmes himself, Stuart villians; It doesn't, because Milhgan and Paul Birchard per-they are hot, though Dora form the piece with care and rria home baked applEpiii Longing old-fcshioned mustiness othe. three Festival Theatre' produce tions I saw: Hamlet William as a Victorian a pacy but colourless Much tally optimistic. iaboutA the) American way thril- iT- designer pessimism statmg that, the American system is corrupt trorn top to oottom. Significantly, the remarkable': black actor Larry Fishburne plays the hero's right-hand man in both.

In Class Action, he's Hackman's dedicated, quietly. spoken junior 'partner, a classic role model tor young Airican 'Americans. In King of New, that they are -father and and she has turned he neglected 'her and was unfaithful to her mother The issues are too simplisti-cally put; it is obvious from the start that she'll learn that Daddy knows best and that he'll take on a touch of humility. But Hackman, of the corrugated brow: and the winning grin, gives the character a history, and Mastrantonio is charming. The difference'between Class Action and Abel Ferrara's King Of New York.

(Cannon PainW St, 18). is that between Nader and nada. Apted's heartwarmf mg, liberal movie is fundamen- I as Flamineo) unites Denis Quilley control, but cannot disguise the, hopeless implausibility ot it all, and the thinness of debate. A reminder that the RSC season at the Barbican is now swollen; -by two-palpable hits from last summer's Stratford season. The Comedy of Errors (on the main stage) is one of the most delightful versions of the play you will ever see, ingeniously directed by Ian Judge and riotously designed by Mark Thompson as a pop escapade; brilliantly led by Turrit, respectively; the two, AntinHnhip ne 'IWOa Drorm Take the kids, Atlne Pit, Troilus 'and Cressida, directed by aam Merides, 'and' Resigned by AnthonyWard, is simply the; or a.tumtormiy remarkable -castled; by iph Fiennes as Anianda Root- as Cressida and Simon Russell Bealeas Thersites.

and ThefilftYs thrust is not 'an absolute distortion of the novel; Forster's wit and complexity'of observation disappear ana we are left with a thin-blooded romantic melodrama that lacks the striking visual qualities of Ivory's A Room With a View. Still, it does have a first-rate cast, several of whom (Rupert Helena Bonham-. Carter, Judy Davis) have appeared in previous Forster adaptations. Derek Granger was executive producer on the original Seven Up TV documentary, before becoming a specialist: uv nostal-gic pastoral and period material. like; Brtdeshead Revisited, A Handful of Dust and Where Angels Fear to Michael Aptedj who started out as a researcher on the first Seven Up and1 directed its successors, has always been attracted to gritty: modern material, though he's clearly a romantic at heart.

Apted is very much at home in the US and his smooth entertainment, Class Action (Plaza, 15), is as American as apple pie or LA Law. A cleverly contrived tale of generational conflict, family life; and' professional ethics, the picture combines the gutsy fun of Tracy-Hepburn comedy with a populist courtroom drama like Lumet's The Verdict. In a San Francisco legal action, the counsel for the defendants, a mighty automobile corporation, is a cool, ambitious high-flyer (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), a woman of the 1980s working for a law firm dedicated to serving the rich and powerful. The plaintiffs, more than 100 victims of road accidents resulting from an alleged design fault in one of the defendant company's models, are represented by an idealistic, middle-aged civil rights lawyer, a prototypical man of the 1960s (Gene Hackman). The film's gimmick is Bryan tries to jolly things along The Irish actor Frank Grimes has written about an American experience in The Fishing Trip at the Croydon Warehouse and his director Lindsay Anderson has lovingly confused the well-structured but repetitious and banal result (fallen actor lists instant American impressions; upsets his chums; leaves) with a David Storey play.

The Warehouse's designer Michael Pavelka cleverly redefines the accommodating wooden beams and stage as iiniWawrahin on thpnrtifiriah wuuucu UEOura'auu aioKu'uvo an i a-. Irislj actor joins a fe1lbwpat, now a provincial theatre4direc- tor, and his two company members, on a fishing holiday. Martinis and drunk srass smoked! cocaine sniffed oppressors into villains; they are seen as irredeemably, aliens and little insight is provided rinto their conduct. There no sugT understand her husband's culture and the movie ends with-her almost literally, wrapping herself and her daughter, the Stars and Stripes. Not Without -My Daughter endorses a simple, xenophobic acceptance of American superi- ority.

A diametrically opposite conclusion is reached from a very similar plot in the Charles -Sturridge-Derek Granger adaptation of E. Forster's Where Angels Fear to Tread (Odeon; Haymarket PG), which might well have been called 'Not Without My Nephew'. The emissaries of a middle-class Home Counties family vainly attempt to prevent a Plotting: Field and Rosenthal. wayward, widowed daughter-in-law from marrying a feckless young Italian in Tuscany. Then, when the woman dies in childbirth, they seek custody of the baby so he can be reared in safe, Protestant, Edwardian England.

The English are seen as blinkered, prejudiced; repressed and snobbish, the Italians as egalitarian, capable of sorrow and joy. fbrmoai York, he's a. proceeds from his drug-dealing swaggering killer, chief lieu ten-J to build a new municipal hospi-ant to underworld boss-. SiDk.g':iati'veBnThisa 'hite (GbjristophCTWalkra)ft The hectic action starts vhen i Walken is 'as dangerously elect- uie 1 WFW 'j Philip French on a' theme of relative family values. BY AN odd two melodramas with strikingly similar plots; one a period the other contemporary opened this week in adjacent West End cinemas.

In both, a woman marries a handsome foreigner of another religion and culture and has a child that becomes the subject of contention and abduction. The one set in the present; Brian Gilbert's Not Without My Daughter (Plaza, 12), is based on the true-life experi-. ences of Betty Mahmoody (Sally Field) a middle-American housewife who went on a fortnight's vacation to Tehran in 1984 with her Iranian doctor husband (Alfred Molina) and their four-ryear-old daughter (Sheila Rosenthal). Back home for the first time in a decade, the husband rapidly, but not implausibly is reclaimed' by his large; fervently fundamentalist family and on the eve of then: return to Michigan he tells his wife that; he has lost: his job in America and intends to remain in Iran. What started as an uneasy holiday (during her first week Betty is surrounded by armed zealots for exposing a lock of hair in the street) turns mto 18 months of hell.

Robbed of her US citizenship, she is kept a virtual prisoner and sees their child delivered into the hands of the mullahs. But alternating between hope arid despair, she gathers the courage to resist and to plot her escape with her daughter. As a thriller the film packs quite a punch and its account of life in Iran under the ayatollahs is terrifyingly vivid. But though it does not make the heroine's The World in your Walkman from la' cell inSmg Sihgimt6'a suite in the Plaza to re-establish-'j i i by top kwyers, fnendly vandsocmt murders anyone standing in-his. way, mcluding the cops crowd of drunken, violent Irishmen).

1 Whiteas perceived as a rela-tively good- guy because he shows no racial biasin the rVinire nf whom-hef. emolovs: or kills, and because he uses'-ihe il CR4 3ftP CR43HP jj" mm mrs hbhtt 11 AN OBSBRVBH PUBLICATION lBBi I Mango Records, Tropicality 2 is the successor to popular Tropicality'. Now the same team combs both coasts of the tropical divide to bring you the best in African, Latin and Caribbean sounds. All tracks are brand-new 1991 releases, many of them appearing for the first time. Including Joe Arroyo, Thomas Mapfumd, Daniel Ponce, Baaba Maal(above) and Gilbetto Gil.

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