From Welsh "Salt, Root & Roe" to "Pippin"'s cyberspace game

Salt, Root & Roe & Pippin - London, 26th November 2011

It was my first day in London of several days but it started wonderfully seeing one touching emotional play and a musical I had wanted to see for ages. What a day!

Salt, Root & Roe - Trafalgar Studios, London, 26th November 2011 3pm

I was not too sure what to expect from this play. I had just booked it the night before as didn't fancy any really long play and it was with 22 GBP rather cheap. It slightly put me off that Imogen Stubbs, mainly known for being Trevor Nunn's ex, was in the cast but I was so pleased I got to see this play.

Iona - Anna Calder-Marshall

Anest - Anna Carteret

Menna - Imogen Stubbs

Gareth/Dad - Roger Evans

Salt, Root & Roe is the impressive confronting start of the Donmar's second season at the Trafalgar Studios which is designed to showcase the work of its young resident directors.

It tells of Iola and Anest, a pair of Welsh twins, now in their seventies, who live on the coast of North Pembrokeshire. With Iola suffering from dementia and a brain tumour the two go missing at the beach one day. The police are called (portrayed by the police officer Gareth); a panicked daughter of Anest rushes to help who also had received a final letter from her aunt and wants to save her aunt from assisted suicide at the hands of her mother.

The play is so intense, intimate, heart-breaking and quietly affecting telling an actual sad subject in a wonderful way by setting it in little scenes of humorous moments who seems directly out of life of a (not so?) ordinary family. Especially when Iola has some bad moments, as much as you care for her, it still makes you laugh, what she does, as drowning her niece’s mobile phone in the tea pot.

The story is once a while in what you can call little memory flash backs interrupted when the sister remember their father who seemed to be have a captain and who apparently used to joke that he was a merman – and who must have died while on sea when the twins were still rather young.

Anna Calder-Marshall as the sick Iola and Anna Carteret as the caring Anest not only convince you they could be sisters but suggest that the bond between twins exceeds all other emotional ties there are.

Anna Calder-Marshall in particular gives a most marvellous moving and honest performance with constantly shifting mental states that are either full of empty stares, terrifying alarm and sudden eruptions of violence. The spectrum of dementia, so broad and tragic it is, is portrayed with so much details that I go through such strong emotions for this incredible lady being in tears just for her touching performance. She clearly defines this demanding and harrowing play.

Anna Carteret is rather stoic in the face of her sister’s sickness and very stubborn with her daughter who wants her mother to get some more professional help which she strongly rejects. She wants to prove she can still support her sister on her own (therefore there is a lack of doctors and nurses and not because the area lacks them in general dear other reviewers). She tries to stay in control, sane and reasoned but it is so obvious she struggles massively and to see her having to deal with it is so touching.

Imogen Stubbs is wonderful as the bewildered neurotic daughter whose obsessive-compulsive suffering husband, obsessed with cleanliness, likes her to wear latex gloves (which she wears during the main part of the show and just takes off at the end when she confesses to Gareth who she seems to have some kind of a relationship further than friendship in the past with) and routinely burns their clothes on a bonfire. Her Welsh accent is a bit off once in a while but since she lives away from her old home, not too familiar with the Welsh language especially Iola slips into once in a while and actually more often the further the story develops, it can easily be explained with that.

In the scenes with her mother she is rather harsh but she can also show some tender moments as in the scenes with Roger Evans as local policeman Gareth. With both their marriages rocked bottom you cannot but hope for the two to find each other. There were actually comments about her unstable performance but for me it works. You are never acting the same way around different people especially with your mother and especially one who still treats you are as if you are sill a child.

Roger Evans when on as the nice friendly policeman is a bit the voice of reason and being very effective in it, trying to support Menna and her family through the days and just being there for them despite his own sorrows. It is obvious he strongly cares for Menna but due to the situation the relationship between the two is not developed further.

The set is rather interesting. The front row has been taken out and the seats have been replaced by some old chairs. The floor is an old wooden floor with boxes and a bench standing around which are re-arranged by the cast themselves for the various scenes. What still questions me is a fish tank at the back with a model farmhouse in it and water around slightly rising during the show (or maybe not). I had actually expected it to get totally flooded by the end of the show but it didn’t. For the memory flashbacks the lighting was changed to some beautiful blue giving the whole studio a sparkling atmosphere.

The story ends tragically without giving too much away but also rather optimistically as it shows there can be unconditional love and hopefully a better life for Menna after all.

Pippin - Menier Chocolate Factory, London, 26th November 2011 8pm

Pippin was the one show I was looking forward to most besides Matilda. It is a show I had never seen before live onstage but I had seen this random video from the 80s and had known the odd bootleg and the OBC. While the music had never fully appealed to me but two, three songs the whole concept of the show was VERY intriguing and I really wanted to see another Schwartz show as I cannot stand Wicked to the max but love “The Baker’s Wife” and “Children Of Eden”.

Luckily the timing was right this time for being in London with a show being on at the chocolate factory I really wanted to see so on a cold windy November evening I was off to the theatre I hadn’t been to since 2005 and what a night it was. I still find it extremely hard to put what I saw onstage into words worth what I saw.So please excuse my rambling.

To say it straight away: This show is very likely to be one you will either hate or love, just as marmite or spinach, hardly anything in between. I have seen several really negative reviews already (though it only opens officially this week) or some rave ones. Mine is a rave one.

Already when you leave the foyer/bar and walk through a corridor to enter the auditorium you see walls covered with movie and video game posters with a geeky looking guy in his 20s dressed in jeans, simple shirt and sneakers sitting at a desk, headphones in his ears and staring at the screen of his laptop.

You enter the auditorium and are hit by loud beeps and computer game noises with green lasers defining the various areas of the stage as you can see a bit on the pictures I took before the show started, the grey stage is triangular with the audience sitting in the other triangle of this square room and you might have to walk over the stage.

I had a seat in row B in the left block directly at the middle aisle which is actually the front row for that block.

Oh dear, you can never be too sure what you let yourself into when sitting like this but it was a great seat and besides the odd stare and Matt Rawle spitting on you occasionally this seat is perfectly fine. There are several screens on the walls on which you can see just that guy you passed by. Interesting was my reaction to this set by Timothy Bird. You feel like being a computer game.

And so it the theme of the whole show. It is concepted like being a computer game and for me it works perfectly.

Leading Player – Matt Rawle

Pippin – Harry Hepple

Charles – Ian Kelsey

Lewis – David Page

Estrada – Francis Ruffelle

Berthe – Louise Gold

Catherine – Carly Bawden

Theo - Stuart Neal

Ensemble: Ben Bunce, Bob Harms, Holly James, Anabel Kutay, David McMullan, Kate Tydman

The show starts with Matt Rawle as the leading player and the ensemble wearing skin tight grey bodysuits looking like your ordinary computer avatar before you adjust them come onstage and various people (several from the cast in their normal street looks) who seem to play an online game appear on the screens and a player is to be chosen who is then "pulled" onto stage - it is the guy you just passed by before the show. It is Pippin (aka Harry Hepple). And from there it starts really.

All the other characters are introduced by the leading player as other players (looking very much like characters from these weird medieval European computer games (but then the story is originally based in that timeline)) who each have to play their parts in this game which promises an end never seen before.

The story is rather simple. Pippin pretty tries to find his place in the world and is being challenged in the different scenes/levels of the game usually by the other players as his father, the king, his stepmother who wants her own son follow the king and not Pippin, his younger stepbrother, Lewis or by the leading player or even by his own desire for being "extraordinary". The first act is so fast, so quickly moving with the most incredible visual effects which are rather simple but efficient and impress me so much as when Pippin fights with animated warriors who are killed, blood splashes everywhere and Pippin's real shirt is covered in (fake) blood. There are some (not really) magical moments when people "melt" into the walls (which are not really walls but grey fabrics with slits) and turn into animated elements or when Pippin beheads one warrior and a few moments later the warrior's head is reanimated (though the projection on the head was not 100% correctly on the prop - hopefully that is fixed now).

The interval is definitely well needed after such a rollercoaster act (also as it gets extremely hot inside the auditorium). When leaving to get a drink or so you actually pass by Harry Hepple who sits at the desk again - poor guy not getting a proper break.

It was also nice to see Stephen Schwartz was in the audience that night.

The second act, especially when the player "Catherine" appears and love is the subject, it all goes a bit blah, but still there are some strong performances from Carly Bawden, a beautiful talented actress/dancer who just looks like one porcelain doll (just wished I was more keen on her voice) and the others and the end is a bit rushed and lame but still when Pippin gets challenged one last time by the leading player there is still one more fascinating moment.

Harry Hepple as Pippin would not have been my obvious choice, but with the concept of the show and him looking very much as you image a computer geek to look like and a wonderful fresh voice he does carry the show so well.

Matt Rawle as the leading player has some satanic dangerous touch to his role reminding me a bit of Katy Perry's husband Russell Brand. He missed a bit of charisma for me but definitely has some great stage presence flirting with the audience, male and female, and a stunning very controlled voice. Frances Ruffelle sounding as directly from some Essex based social housing estate stepmother is a lot of fun, just not too keen actually on the accent, too squeaky for me but it works.

I was especially impressed by David Page as Lewis, a real animalistic warriour with a most devilish sexy look and an incredible dancer. Ian Kelsey as the king and head of the family was a strong performer though I wished could have used a lot more.

Louise Gold as the grandmother was marvellous performing her "No Time at All" with such a delight though I must say I was not too sure about the idea of the singingalong of the audience during that song. I felt a bit embarrassed.

Stuart Neal as Theo was most adorable, he was such a cute "child" - e.g. when his duck (I want that duck! ;-) ) dies, he made me care so much about his character when it could have gone totally wrong, embarrassing and ridiculous.

The rest of the ensemble is also such a treat pulling off the incredible original (or at least very close to) Fosse choreography and singing the songs impressively that I am blown away by so much talent onstage.

Apparently there is the odd number cut and some being moved but since I am not too familiar with the score I didn't notice. The arrangements though sounded fuller and tweaked to any recording I know.

For me this was definitely one most breathtaking evening out at the theatre. I could actually write a lot more little notes but I can just advise anyone who can to see it and experience it themselves - and hopefully you will love it as much as I did!