The Observer from London, Greater London, England • 40

40 OBSERVER SUNDAY 6 MARCH 1988 RICHARD MILPENHAIL I 3 a Flight of kHtiffcs Slimmer is icunlen are better, but by no means in every role and often only just. Music from the Age of Chivalry NICHOLAS KENYON 'PRINTED in vain', scribbled, the Tsar across his copy of Ostrovsky's first play in 1850, 'Acting forbidden'. 'The Bankrupt' was Ostroysky's initial dra-r matic report from 'the dark kingdom' of the Russian civil service, where he worked as a lawyer, and it cost him his job. Directed by Declan Donnellan for Cheek by Jowl and retitled in a stinging and scurrilously funny new version by Nick Dear, A Family Affair (Swan, Stratford-upon-Avon last week; Basingstoke and Builth Wells Nerupts as a rogue switchback of exasperation, cunning and greed perfectly tuned to the society of Tsar Nicholas I and to our own. In exploring the badlands of human behaviour under the pressure of poverty and wealth, Ostrovsky is using the; maps drawn up by Ben Jonson more than two centuries -before.

The air crackles with bracing abuse1 and glitters with the flight of knives making for the nearest undefended back. The terror of poverty stalks them all. Working from a literal, translation by David Budgen, Dear has been unusually successful in striking the precise, note of dynamic vulgarity required. Admirers of 'The Art Of SucT cess' (1986) will know he is a master of timeless and resource-, ful invective, but what makes his Ostrovsky so funny is his instinctive, almost musical, command of comic tempo and. the, panic eagerness of peasant mer-; chants to reach the level their wallets demand without making too many, gaffes along the way: did you send last suitor moans Lipochka, (Lesley Sharp) to her mother Agrafena (Anne White) in the opening scene.

He had a filthy mouth. He never. He swore! An oath of undy-: ing love. In French. He.

minced around like a ballet dancer. He was a Grand Duke, mother! They walk' like that! A plan to forestall the bankruptcy of husband and father (Tam Dean Burn), by the temporary transfer of deeds' to Lazar his clerk (Adam Kotz), comes" horribly to grief when Lazar refuses to give them back, aided by -Ustinya, the ingratiating -matchmaker (Marcia Warren) and the: alcohoUc solicitor Rispo-lozhensky (Timothy Walker). Lazar buys both of them off, but pays neither more than a fraction of their price. Giovanni wavcaj mu Annabella (Suzan Sylvester) are portrayed as, smirky, suburban lads, but the -monotony: of their speaking inhibits their expressiveness. Neither show is least bit erotic, and without the dangerous itch of threatening passion, where is, the point of Tfe Pity She's a Whore Ayckboum's production takes its stylishness and tone from the -two actors who get their laughs with the play and.

not against it: Russell who plays the-booby suitor as a man who takes-out his frustrations of life near the bottom of the heap by ing rose trees and old men; and Francis as the villainous Spaniard Vasquez. The glittering prurience with, Vasquez perceives' the truth ('Her own brother! Oh, perfectly articulates the moral ambiva-lence of this play. It is performed on a towering necropolis Roger: Glossop) whose convex stairways arch against 'the black sky like: the enclosed palaces of the artist, The belvedered city turns' like a great ship in the moonlight revealing a library, a -garden, or a long collonade 'through its transforming itself for the final catastrophe into a double loggia packed with the masquers and musicians of a Renaissance feast. This Island's Mine, written and directed by- Philip Osment Gay Sweatshop (Drffl Hall) fa kind of; into which themes of pride, conceal-, 1 menty! self-discovery and exploi-; tation are-worked across a wide range of characters by no means all gay "and -settings from the, mining suburbs of South Yorkshire to- West Hackney and the;" American South. It-embraces, among many things, the! wartime7.

romance of a.iViennese-vJewesS:;.' and a GI, the ghost of a bitter White -Russian princess, gays sacked by the ignorant, blacks beaten by the police, Prospero, Caliban and an old cat stuck up a tree.The techniques are cumulative and the tone- instructive, vironic, warning of the need-ever: to defend personal' liberties siege. It is done by Mr Osment and his particularly. William Elliott, Margaret Robinson and Diane Hall with grace, sharpness and wit. Tour starts March 15. Cheek by Jowl's 'A Famiy Affair' MICHAEL RATCLIFFE His greatest ally is Lipochka herself, a young Bonaparte in bloomers who sees, her father returned to prison without raising a pencilled eyebrow and becomes Lazar's rapacious and inexhaustible wife.

Their triumph is to turn a marriage of mutual opportunism into a con- spiracy against the world. Miss-Sharp, fresh from a series of depressingly earnest roles at; the National, confinns herself as one of most exhilarating young comic actresses, we have. The heart and the household -are the, sofe and. two towers of 1 holy pictures which receive propitiatory pats against, troubles to come, or slaps of gratitude with the flat of the hand when more spectacular saintly services have been rendered. (Designer, Nick Ormerbd).

Parodies of Russian life even' the biggest villains melt at the -first plink of a balalaika; vodka both causes and stills the tremble of the morning hand. Donnellan excels in the chore--ography of ample movement and intimate detail in tight, confining pacesjr the stage, which; has no sides; is not the best place for either, but' A Fainay-Affair' confirms the company's standing and is-likely to go from strength-" to joyous strength as it takes the-road from: Worthing to Carlisle before arriving at the. Donmar Warehouse on April 27. 'difference between Alan Ayckboum's productiori-of TTis Pity She's A Whore and that of, Philip- Prowse Glas-; gow," until Saturday) I-reviewed last week, between a production which; -attempts ites accommodate every element in Ford's play and one which, cutting the: text, goes detennirusti-1 cally for a single explanation in browse's case, the stinking corruption of the seventeenth-century. Roman, Catholic church.

Ayckbourn offers no explanations, which is, in the end, more disturbing. His revelation of Ford's text much of it from the fronts of the Olivier stage is more lucid and intelligible. actors iOVER the past- four months over a quarter of a million people have visited the Royal Academy of Arts' splendid exhibition 'The Age of which, closes today. "It is one. of the -oddities of our cultural life that whereas Gothic art and architecture are recognised as a central part of our heritage, English music written during the same period is thought of as an.

eccentric mipority of. little relevance to our musical life which starts with Tallis, Byrd and the There's only one piece of English medieval music which -is at- all iar, 'Sumer is icumen in', made famous by the rose-coloured spectacles through which the -English pastoral composers of this century viewed it. Yet as- the Academy concert series (held in the deathly cold but architecturally appropriate Priory Church of St Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield) have amply demonstrated, in the English music of the years up to 1400 there is richnessj vitality, and extraordinary resilience. On Tuesday the Colognerbased group Sequentia gave a recital -of very early 'Anglo-Norman' (by which they really meant French) repertory, and then a group of whollynglish pieces from the thirteenth century. The direct 1 impact of the: songs both an.

exqmsite three-part 'Veine pleine de ducur' with mixed French and Latin text, harmonically using dissonance to create an effect of ever-shifting consonance, and a two-part 'Edi be thu heven-quene'. with an English text and a pair of lines that darted hypnotically in and out of each other. Both of these pieces seemed like early -hints of the harmonious English style for. which John Dunstable was famous in the. fifteenth century (one of the few 'moments when English music has led the Continent in its -adventurousness, creating 'contenance angloise' which the French admired); Sequentia's way with this music is enormously impressive.

The two leaders of the group, Benjamin Bagby and Barbara Thornton, both communicate with real panache heads raised, eyes gleaming, often accompanying themselves on medieval harp or organ and -the vocal style is sharp-edged and direct. With their collaborators, the fiddler Laura Jeppesen and the singer Edmund Brownless, they have evolved an ethos for this music which is highly rhetorical, using instrumental improvisation 'and 7 personal interplay. What is-more, their corporate style has' evolved over last few years in response to the ferment of musicological work done in this area: cutting down on the extravagance of the instrumental contributions and giving ever: greater prominence to the texts and. their declamation. Sequentia were once famously criticised for combining and.

make, but on this evi-. dence they are among the most accomplished we have in taking those --few scraps of evidence which do survive about medieval performance and welding them into a convincing, thrilling recreation The larger-scale music of the English Gothic period was celebrated in an earlier concert by the Taverner Consort under Andrew Parrott and in Thurs- day's final concert by the rKl- liard Ensemble. Both' finished with music from that magnificent collection the Old Hall manuscript which very recendy has been shown to have' been compiled for the Duke of Clarence between c.1370 and 1420. The Taverner Consort preceded this with some electrifying music from fourteenth-century sources, including the 'Kyrie whose angular chromaticisms make one's hair stand on end. Both groups included music from the collection made at St Andrews in Scotland in the 1240s, but the Hilliard mixed sacred with secular and included both versions of the 'Sumer is icumen sung with modernis-' tic pertness and-dynamic sub- dety that would not have disgraced the King's Singers, Both the Hilhard Ensemble and the -Taverner- Consort draw their singers, from: the accomplished London pool whose' origins are very clearly in the collegiate choirs and cathedral choir schools 'around: the countrya field in.

which Britain still leads the world. Both ensembles are superbly professional and accomplished: lines are firmly sustained- and well moulded. Whereas the Tavern- ers have evolved a distinctive style, often biting and always sharply etched, which suits this repertory well, the Hilliards maintain a much softer-edged, mellifluous, style which emphasises long lines and gendy shaded cadences. This may demonstrate that different performing styles, can be applied to fourteenth-century music as well as to late music. But I find that the Hilliard sound, for all its attractiveness, tends to sentimentalise this music.

They sang John Dunstable's 'Vene sancte spiritus' with admirably rich-sonority, but when Leonel Power's -Ave regina Coelorum' was delivered in a swooning sotto. voce whisper, one might have been in some nineteenth-century neo-Gothic picture. The, plangent -force- of the Taverner's attack on their concluding 'Salve regina' was more I Lesley Sharp as Lipochka: "One of the most exhilarating young comic actresses we HERE IS a pu announcement. Il can convince Leaving it to soaks i mmm urn mmm Mickey Rourke in 'Barfly', and 'Babette's Feast' you of quite how bad a film Barfly, (Cannon, 18) is, and stop even just one person from going to see then my work will not have been in vain. It is all about low life, and I cannot recom-.

mend it too lowly. The reason I feel so strongly about it isn't because it -is the, worst new film of the week that's something aptly called 'Brain Damage' but because it's the film that raises the. highest expectations and promises-the most. After all, its two stars are big box office draws, Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway. The autobiographical screenplay, is by the acclaimed American poet and author Charles 'Barfly' has everything going for it.

And it comes up with lutely nothing. Rourke plays a Henry Chinaski" barfly, a drunk who seems to begin drinking by brandy on his cornflakes, and who flies from bar to bar. The supposedly redeeming fact that he is also a brilliant Dyla-nesque. writer is indicated by. an occasional frantic, feverish scribbling on scraps of paper (esoteric stuff like 'the treasure of my Wanda, a wandering drunk (her redeeming eccentricity is demonstrated by a whimsical desire to pick cobs off a corn plant in the middle of the night).

Their drunken idyll is spoiled when Chinaski's writing brilliance is discovered by a poor little rich girl, who, clearly sees mistakes' and 'when I 'drink I move in the wrong direction'), an ability to quote 'someone called Tolstoy' and a tendency to. mutter 'there's too much reality in here' (I have deleted a lot of expletives, which doesn't actually leave much dialogue). There's also Faye Dunaway as in it, something that is lost on the cinema audience; She fasci-; natedjl by his complaints about too much reality and moved by his eloquence when he -accuses her of singing like a bird in a golden, cage'. There, is a fight-between Wanda and the -PLR girl, Chinaski fights someone else and then, in the words of someone called Tolstoy describing ajShakespeare play, 'they all go off Rourke and Dunaway's performances are too mannered, and hammy, so we feel only irritated and not sympathetic by any show of vulnerability and hopelessness. 'Barfly' proves a new Theory Of Cinema which I intend to develop in the next issue of the scholarlv 'Carriers du OPERA Stale cake TOE HOT Cinema' (published here as 'Cin- get the epilogue about the nece ssity of allowing art to flourish just detailed observations and lovely small little touches (Stephane Audran, as Babette, with a'only a brief proud look, pointing out the significance of the address of the Paris wine shippers to the uncomprehending sisters).

I think I'll write 'Go and see it, it's, Hill-more, so the film people can stick it on the posters. One word of warnings though book. a table at a restaurant for after the performance. A good part of the film is taken up with the French dinner, and it is so appetising and looks so delicious you will be salivating at the end. It's a taste- fill film in more ways than one.

There's more food on display in the Canadian I've Heard The Mermaids Singing (Cannon, Tottenham Court Road, 15). This is a very low-budget: and quite high-quality film about a 'Person Friday' discovering her personifest destiny. The meal scene is in fact the weakest set-piece in the film with a rather obvious joke she can't use chopsticks so food spills on the table and she can't read the Japanese menu so she ends up with raw octopus, ho, ho but otherwise it's a likeable comedy of the kind that is called bitter-sweet. Polly Vandersma (Sheila McCarthy) is a dreamer who thinks her dreams have come true when she gets a job in an art gallery revelling in a feminist world where the wpmen come and go, talking of Michelangelo (the title of the film comes from betrayal and deceit by the artistic -mermaids leave her feeling like a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors "of silent seas (Eliot is catching). Eventually self-realisation and self-confidence come about and Polly feels confident enough to wear the bottoms of her trousers rolled.

Bertolt Brecht's famous adaptation of J.M.R.Lenz's 18th century masterpiece translated by Pip Broughton COMIC, BAWDY and PROVOCATIVE John Lynch Pauline Melville Kevin McNally TamsinOirvier Richard Ratcliffe Sheila Reid Jonathan Stephens Frank Thornton Denys Graham Vernon Gudgeon Louis Haslar PattiHolloway Michael Jenn Alex Kingston Richard Lawry Peter Leafe Cathryn Bradshaw Virginia Coppins Catherine Cusack NiamhCusack Ben Daniels Windsor Davies Vernon Dobtcheff Esther Freud eran Irina Arkhipova (Madame Arvidson) was too preoccupied with conserving her now depleted vocal resources to try. There were none the less consolations, notably Alexandra Agache, a newcomer from. Romania who as Anckarstroem revealed a strong and well-focused Verdian baritone. Judith Howarth was a sparkling Oscar and Anthony Michaels-Moore a distincdy promising Sailor. But these contributions did not suffice to redeem a lacklustre occasion.

During inordinately extended intervals I found myself staring disconsolately at the bottom of a long-since empty glass. If, at Abbado's insistence, Covent Garden could stage 'Boris Godunov' with a single (short) interval, why can it not do the same for 'Ballo'? I owe an apology to Antony McDonald, whom I mistakenly described as assistant to Tom Cairns, whereas he is in fact coauthor of their admirable sets for 'Billy Budd'at the Coliseum. PETER HEYWORTH THERE is no shortage of first rate ingredients in Covent Garden's strongly cast revival of Un Ballo in Maschera. But on the first night the. cake refused to rise.

Margaret Price delivered the heroine's two principal arias with sumptuous tone and a siib-dety of phrase that few singers can match today. But they remained set pieces in a performance that failed to take fire. At moments Miss Price's top notes sounded strained and her soft-grained voice lacked dramatic impact. Can it be that Richard Armstrong, who has in the past proved a sterling Verdian, was also in part to blame for the sense of listiessness that pervaded the performance? His attention to detail and articulation of rhythm was as keen as ever, but the score's glitter and brio were lacking. Giacomo Ara-gall (Gustavus), who gallantly sung in the teeth of indisposition, was manifestly in no condition to instil a litde of the vigour that was lacking, while the vet emaJixercise book you make a film about boring people in a stupor, you end up with a stupefyingly boring film.

K-there is a common trend in. this week's films, it is food and drink. After the alcoholic and acting excesses of 'Barfly there is excessive food consumption in Babette's Feast (Lumiere, U) a Danish film that has deservedly been nominated for an Oscar as best foreign film. Adapted from a Karen Blixen novella, it's a difficult plot to summarise. Not-because it's complex, but because' it's so slight it's easy to make it sound trite.

(The action takes place in Jutland in the last century among an obscure group of religious fundamentalists. A woman, a political refugee from France, comes to live with two unmarried sisters arid spends all her money on cooking a 'French dinner' for the villagers. see the problem). And it's not trite, it's lovely. There's no real message for Director Angelika Hurwicz Associate Director Pip Broughton Designer A.

Christian Steiof Lighting Designer B1U Wardroper THE QLpVl Box Office: 01-928 7616 Credit Cards: 01-261 1821 CreditCanls(with agency booking 7200379 4444741 9999 FROM FRIDAY to 9 APRIL oooooooo6boooooooQ.6ooooboooQQO.ooo "OF JUjL LONDON THEATRES, THE NATIONAL HAS THE 1VIOST Bar Booking until 7 May. Ring 01-9Z8 ZZ5Z 3 CAT ON A HOT fl SMALL FAMILY 'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE rSNSHEM CYMBELINE THESHAUGHRAUN TIN ROOF BUSINESS THE WINTER'S TALE new play by Alan Ayckbourn THE TEMPEST Bat Play Standard Drama Awards 1987 "Doht miss it" The Standard 'Uproarious fun" Daily Mas "Marvellously directed" Observer by Dion Bondcaalt Rarely performed in England, this exuberant Irish comedy is full of high passion and low cunning. At the play's heart is the Shaughraun himself (STEPHEN REA) the soul of every fair, the life of every funeral, the first fiddle at every wedding. Directed by HOWARD DAVIES. Olivier Previews Apr 30, May 2, 3, 4, 5, by John Ford Revenge, betrayal, passion and and a tender story of young love between a brother (RUPERT GRAVES) and a sister (SUZAN SYLVESTER).

AYCKBOURN "One of the leading directors of our times" Daily Mail "Stunning production" The Times Olivier: Mar 7, 8, 9, 10, 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 28, 29, Apr 5, 6, 7, 14, 15, 18, 19, 20, 21. Extra perfs Mar 14 15. by David Hare based on a book by William Hinton Workshop production presented by NT Education and sponsored by The British Petroleum Company PLC. fjp "Luminous clarity and superb excellent I strongly recommend if Times EHucalibnal SUpptement Directed by LES WATERS AS tickets 6 Cottesloe: Mar 31, Apr 4, by Tennessee Williams "White hot poetic, spelfljinding" Financial Times "Three superb central performances" (IAN CHARLESON, LINDSAY DUNCAN, ERIC PORTER) Mail on Sunday Lyttelton: Mar 7. 8.

9mee, 10, 11, 12mce. 14, 15, 17, 30. 31, Apr 4, 5, 12, 13, 15, 18, 20, 27, 28, 29, May 2, 3, 'Day Seats Only Shakespeare's late plays Sponsored by CmCORPOCmBANK Directed by PETER HAXL Cottesloe: CYMBELINE opens May 17. THE WINTERg TALE opens May 18. THE TEMPEST opens May 19.

These 3 plays go to the USSR for 2 weeks from May 29, then Tokyo, returning to the NT on July 1. DayseaBoriyfcrallpeifeunliltheeridofJiily. 0 Olivier Mar 11, 25, 31, Apr 4, 11,12, 22, Extra perfs Mar 16, 17. Day seats only 6, 9,10. Opens May 11, then lz.

IJZ 1Z WAITING FOR GODOT ENTERTAINING THE PIED PIPER A PLACE WITH THE PIPS WAITING FOR GODOT Middlesex Polytechnic in THE COMMITTEE STRANGERS devised by Julia Bardsley Cottesloe: March 22 all tickets 5 Sponsored by SATNSBURY'S by Samuel Beckett GLASGOW Theatre Royal 8 to 12 March Box Office: 041-331 1234332 9000 CAT ON A HOT by Adrian Mitchell devised and directed by Alan Cohen, music by Dominic Mnldowney, from the poem by Browning. "SYLVESTER McCOY. gives a wonderfully, wizardy performance" Independent "A delight from start to finish" Time Out new play by Athol Fngard 'TUGARD works a fierce and funny moral fable" Independent JIM BRO ADBENT and LINDA BASSETT "are a joy" Times "Touching and hilarious" Observer Cottesloe: Mar 7, 15, 16, 17, 18, 29, Apr 6, 7, 8, 11, by Samuel Beckett "Great production of a great play: lyrical, haunting, precise, funny" Sunday Times JOHN ALDERTON and ALEC McCOWEN "a splendidly paced double act" Independent "A Godot well worth waiting for" Daily Mail "Outstanding performances" Fmanaal Times Lyttelton: Mar 18, 21, 23, 24, 25, 28, 29 Apr 7, 8, 11, 21, 22, 25, new play by David Edgar Promenade production "British theatre at its robust and irresistible best" Sunday times "PETER HALL fakes you on a thrillingty theatrical adventure" Sunday Express "PIGOTT -SMITH'S is superb" Observer I Cottesloe: Mar 9, 11, 25T, ENDS. TIN ROOF by Tennessee WDliams BRADFORD Olivier Mar 9mat, 15am, 16am, 17am, Box Office: 0274-252000 oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooobooooooooooooooooopooooooooooooooo oooooo May 5, 6, 12, ENDS. Day seats only.