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BOOKS & ARTS i n g i n n l e n d gh u g o © Simon Russell Beale and Jonathan Groff in Deathtrap Theatre Killing joke Lloyd Evans Deathtrap Noel Coward Theatre Ira Levin’s name isn’t nearly as well known as his titles. Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives, both originally novels, are his most celebrated works. He also wrote quite a few Broadway hits. In his 1970s play Deathtrap he tries to imagine how an author of murder mysteries might fare as a real-life killer.This idea is entirely preposterous or, if one were being ungenerous, entirely insane, but never mind. It might be fun. We open with Sidney Bruhl, a famous playwright whose best work is behind him, discovering a great new play by an unknown dramatist. It’s a surefire hit. He feels it in his bones. ‘Even a gifted director couldn’t ruin it.’ He decides to kill the writer and claim the play as his own. With the help of his reluctant wife, he invites the young man to their home on the pretext of offering him writing tips. After tricking him into wearing a pair of handcuffs, he throttles him with a cheesewire and buries him in the garden. All this occurs in the first 20 minutes. Numerous twists and turns follow as Bruhl finds that his deadly scheme has furnished him with the materials for a new play. The comic-horror genre is a peculiar hybrid, like a revolver that also blows bubbles, and this slick production fulfils both functions extremely well. The comedy is easy to like and Levin’s gift is gratifyingly cerebral.‘Nothing recedes like success,’ says Bruhl, in an absent moment, as he ponders his recent run of flops. He realises he’s just improvised a good line and rushes to write it down. Simon Russell Beale is eminently suited to this sort of cardie-and-slippers role and he captures every note and nuance of Bruhl without appearing to try too hard. He’s ably supported by Estelle Parsons as a dippy Swedish clairvoyant who drops by occasionally to deliver some idiotic prediction or other. The set, designed by Rob Howell, is a magnificent lumpen warren of Gothic buttresses and cobwebby alcoves from which armed characters can leap out unexpectedly. All the play’s tricks and visual surprises are faultlessly executed by director Matthew Warchus but I have to confess I’m not a devotee of the horror genre. Suffering the discomfort of having one’s self-preservation reflexes activated seems rather an eccentric form of entertainment, like taking a holiday on a volcano. The play’s biggest shock comes early on and because the device is used not just once more but twice, I could tell, by the final act, that another Authors don’t become killers at the drop of a hat cataclysm was about to be thrust upon us. I just didn’t know when it was coming.And having no desire to be scared out of my skin yet again, I lowered my gaze towards my lap and glanced through the corners of my eyes at my fellow captives as the bolt of terror approached. When it arrived the entire house seemed to surge and fall in an instant on the same spasm of fear. I sat there watching them smugly, feeling rather like the 17th-century pope who used to link 100 monks together with a copper wire and observe as a huge charge of static electricity was passed through them. That I couldn’t bear to watch the stage must be a token of the play’s quality, yet it also reveals a self-defeating component in the genre. An art form that attains its supreme moment of excellence by forcing spectators to look elsewhere seems, shall we say, to have a bit of a futility problem. Imagine listening to a symphony that was so good you had to bung up your ears, or visiting an exhibition that was so brilliant you had to put a bag over your head and fumble blindly towards the exit. For all the zest and panache of this production the play is ultimately a rather flimsy thing. Subject it to the lightest cross-examination and it dissolves into absurdity. Rich authors don’t turn into crazy killers at the drop of the hat. And Bruhl’s two romantic entanglements have no emotional coherence. They merely serve as booster fuel to keep the play in the air. Fans of Simon Russell Beale will find him at his affable and adorable best in this role, and yet he’s capable of far greater challenges. It’s a bit like watching Picasso paint your shed.And if you’re one of those hungry souls that likes to ponder a play’s ramifications over a dish of post-show oysters at J. Sheekey’s, you’ll be left with precious little to discuss. Bring a ready-made topic in advance. I suggest something really juicy and stimulating, such as the balance of merit between the AV and AV+ voting systems. Music Reasons to be cheerful Peter Phillips It was being whispered last week at the first of the two Berlin Philharmonic appearances at the Proms that attendance across the board this year has been 94 per cent. If this is true, and is maintained to the end, it is a staggering achievement. Every year for the past 15 or so, the press office at the BBC has put out ever-increasing claims about the number of people who have bought tickets, in such a way that I have never quite believed them. The increase year on year was somehow too reliable. But this would trump them all by far. I wonder why it has happened, if it has. In some ways this year’s season has involved less fuss and fanfare than previously — fewer themes lying behind the programming; fewer anniversaries to make one feel guilty about not having noticed or cared (and the main one, Chopin, being unresponsive); the atmosphere generally more relaxed. If this has led to the kind of better-balanced programmes that the public has wanted to hear, then there is a lesson worth learning. I’m not sure this has been the case — surely we all cherry-pick and find music to suit us — but something has made more people turn out, possibly more regularly than ever before. Of course, it 56 the spectator | 18 September 2010 | www.spectator.co.uk
page 57
may be nothing more than that the pound is weaker than a year ago and there are more tourists around. Whatever the reason, I would like to put down a marker that these statistics are one in the eye for all those doomsayers, most notably Norman Lebrecht, who, 10 to 15 years ago, made money out of saying that classical music was dying. Their gloom was dished out under various headings. The collapse of the CD market was the favourite: the big names were going under, priceless reputations and blue-chip repertoires were about to be lost to the civilised world; though in the event all that happened was the long-established companies that had ruled the roost for decades were reduced, and traditionalists didn’t like it. The actual number of CDs recorded and released shot up; and, because they were now generally much cheaper to buy, more were sold. Then there was the ‘there is no classical music in our schools’ scare, which some were quick to say was indicative of how the country was going to the dogs, predicting it would lead to a collapse of interest among young people in going to classical music concerts. In fact, as with the humbling of the old CD market, there was some truth in the detail — and there is still cause for concern about how music is taught in our schools — but it didn’t lead to fewer people at concerts. Nor to fewer teenagers hoping to study at our conservatoires.You don’t need to have studied fine art at school to want to visit an art gallery, or to have read Shakespeare before going to the theatre (though it helps). Going to a Prom is not dissimilar from walking into the National Gallery for an hour or two, and it needn’t cost much more. In the past 15 years it has been quite clear that more people than ever want to listen to classical music, either at home or in the concert hall, and certainly there has been more and more of it to choose from. Attendance at those Berlin Philharmonic concerts must have been 100 per cent. I don’t know how the authorities decide when the arena and the gallery are full, but I couldn’t see the floor of the arena for people. On the other hand, the crowd for the BBC Symphony Orchestra on the 8th couldn’t have been more than 65 per cent. ‘Hi, I’m the new gaoler —now don’t tell me . . . you must be. . . ’ This enormous difference in popularity seemed a little unfair. Of course, the Berlin orchestra is probably the leading ensemble of its type in the world, and Rattle is more loved here than Jiri Belohlavek, good as he is.And the BBC SOmust have been listened to by a lot of people already by this point in the season. It was either the programme or the fact that the schools had gone back between the two concerts; though if it was the programme, the difference between Mahler’s First Symphony and Bruckner’s Seventh surely isn’t that great. Maybe the insistent drive for yet bigger and better and more, which has so palpably underlain the Proms’ thinking in recent years, has finally gone too far and the series is a week too long? There is a parallel here with the cricket season. There is always more, never a retrenchment. One can only hope that this last week of the Proms doesn’t spoil the overall box-office average, because it has been a great season and these figures will pay tribute to it. Opera Murdering Mozart Michael Tanner Così fan tutte; Don Pasquale Royal Opera House While the Royal Opera is touring Japan, its home team opened what looks to be mainly an unadventurous season with revivals of two celebrated productions by Jonathan Miller, for which Miller himself returned, having, it seems, modified his view of Così fan tutte drastically, while there probably aren’t two ways of looking at Don Pasquale. The Così was relayed to about 200 cinemas worldwide, as Thomas Allen told us in a characteristically arch speech before retreating into the character of Don Alfonso.Whereas at the last revival of this production, in January, one was simply depressed by the superficiality of the interpretation and the lifelessness of the conducting, this time round the result was positively vicious, an affront to Mozart and Da Ponte for which I can imagine no adequate punishment. The conductor was Thomas Hengelbrock, new to the Royal Opera but due to return later in the month with an obscure baroque opera. His conducting of Così was so wildly eccentric that it is hard to begin to convey credibly how weird it sounded and how perverse. The overture was slammed out in a spirit of utter malevolence, punctuated by vast unmotivated pauses, and the same applied to most of what followed. When the music arrived at anything especially significant, the tempo collapsed and the volume increased or became a whisper. the spectator | 18 September 2010 | www.spectator.co.uk THE john davies gallery Deep in the West Country RICHARD THORN May on the Dart, watercolour, 25 x 28 in An Exhibition of 50 New Paintings Early in the wood, acrylic, 22 x 21.5 in 2nd – 23rd October 2010 Open 9.30am – 5.30pm .Mon to Sat Just passing through, watercolour, 21 x 22 in 32 page colour catalogue £10 (incl. p&p) or by complimentary pdf The Old Dairy Plant Fosseway Business Park . Stratford Road Moreton-in-Marsh .Gloucestershire GL56 9NQ t: +44 (0)1608 652255 e: info@johndaviesgallery.com www.johndaviesgallery.com 57

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BOOKS & ARTS

i n g i n n l e n d gh u g o

©

Simon Russell Beale and Jonathan Groff in Deathtrap

Theatre Killing joke Lloyd Evans

Deathtrap Noel Coward Theatre

Ira Levin’s name isn’t nearly as well known as his titles. Rosemary’s Baby and The Stepford Wives, both originally novels, are his most celebrated works. He also wrote quite a few Broadway hits. In his 1970s play Deathtrap he tries to imagine how an author of murder mysteries might fare as a real-life killer.This idea is entirely preposterous or, if one were being ungenerous, entirely insane, but never mind. It might be fun.

We open with Sidney Bruhl, a famous playwright whose best work is behind him, discovering a great new play by an unknown dramatist. It’s a surefire hit. He feels it in his bones. ‘Even a gifted director couldn’t ruin it.’ He decides to kill the writer and claim the play as his own. With the help of his reluctant wife, he invites the young man to their home on the pretext of offering him writing tips. After tricking him into wearing a pair of handcuffs, he throttles him with a cheesewire and buries him in the garden. All this occurs in the first 20 minutes. Numerous twists and turns follow as Bruhl finds that his deadly scheme has furnished him with the materials for a new play.

The comic-horror genre is a peculiar hybrid, like a revolver that also blows bubbles, and this slick production fulfils both functions extremely well. The comedy is easy to like and Levin’s gift is gratifyingly cerebral.‘Nothing recedes like success,’ says Bruhl, in an absent moment, as he ponders his recent run of flops. He realises he’s just improvised a good line and rushes to write it down. Simon Russell Beale is eminently suited to this sort of cardie-and-slippers role and he captures every note and nuance of Bruhl without appearing to try too hard. He’s ably supported by Estelle Parsons as a dippy Swedish clairvoyant who drops by occasionally to deliver some idiotic prediction or other. The set, designed by Rob Howell, is a magnificent lumpen warren of Gothic buttresses and cobwebby alcoves from which armed characters can leap out unexpectedly.

All the play’s tricks and visual surprises are faultlessly executed by director Matthew Warchus but I have to confess I’m not a devotee of the horror genre. Suffering the discomfort of having one’s self-preservation reflexes activated seems rather an eccentric form of entertainment, like taking a holiday on a volcano. The play’s biggest shock comes early on and because the device is used not just once more but twice, I could tell, by the final act, that another

Authors don’t become killers at the drop of a hat cataclysm was about to be thrust upon us. I just didn’t know when it was coming.And having no desire to be scared out of my skin yet again, I lowered my gaze towards my lap and glanced through the corners of my eyes at my fellow captives as the bolt of terror approached. When it arrived the entire house seemed to surge and fall in an instant on the same spasm of fear. I sat there watching them smugly, feeling rather like the 17th-century pope who used to link 100 monks together with a copper wire and observe as a huge charge of static electricity was passed through them.

That I couldn’t bear to watch the stage must be a token of the play’s quality, yet it also reveals a self-defeating component in the genre. An art form that attains its supreme moment of excellence by forcing spectators to look elsewhere seems, shall we say, to have a bit of a futility problem. Imagine listening to a symphony that was so good you had to bung up your ears, or visiting an exhibition that was so brilliant you had to put a bag over your head and fumble blindly towards the exit. For all the zest and panache of this production the play is ultimately a rather flimsy thing. Subject it to the lightest cross-examination and it dissolves into absurdity. Rich authors don’t turn into crazy killers at the drop of the hat. And Bruhl’s two romantic entanglements have no emotional coherence. They merely serve as booster fuel to keep the play in the air.

Fans of Simon Russell Beale will find him at his affable and adorable best in this role, and yet he’s capable of far greater challenges. It’s a bit like watching Picasso paint your shed.And if you’re one of those hungry souls that likes to ponder a play’s ramifications over a dish of post-show oysters at J. Sheekey’s, you’ll be left with precious little to discuss. Bring a ready-made topic in advance. I suggest something really juicy and stimulating, such as the balance of merit between the AV and AV+ voting systems.

Music Reasons to be cheerful Peter Phillips It was being whispered last week at the first of the two Berlin Philharmonic appearances at the Proms that attendance across the board this year has been 94 per cent. If this is true, and is maintained to the end, it is a staggering achievement. Every year for the past 15 or so, the press office at the BBC has put out ever-increasing claims about the number of people who have bought tickets, in such a way that I have never quite believed them. The increase year on year was somehow too reliable. But this would trump them all by far.

I wonder why it has happened, if it has. In some ways this year’s season has involved less fuss and fanfare than previously — fewer themes lying behind the programming; fewer anniversaries to make one feel guilty about not having noticed or cared (and the main one, Chopin, being unresponsive); the atmosphere generally more relaxed. If this has led to the kind of better-balanced programmes that the public has wanted to hear, then there is a lesson worth learning. I’m not sure this has been the case — surely we all cherry-pick and find music to suit us — but something has made more people turn out, possibly more regularly than ever before. Of course, it

56

the spectator | 18 September 2010 | www.spectator.co.uk

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