First a blazing production of Many regular theatre goers in London are more likely to pick the safety of a Kern and Hammerstein show over Simon Stephens’ new translation of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s reworking of The Beggar’s Opera. They would however be missing a golden opportunity to experience the National Theatre at it’s best.
Rufus Norris’ production is no fluffy musical comedy. He does not shy away from Brecht’s vision of dialectic theatre. The fourth wall is ripped apart as the cast talks to and stares out at the audience demanding them to think about the state of our culture: the difficulties and incongruities of our lives. That is not to say it is serious and overbearing. It is actually refreshingly fleet of foot.The ensemble company of actors is filled with fine comic performances like Nick Holder’s bone crunching, transvestite Mr Peachum, Matt Cross’s buttock clenching, keystone Officer Smith and Rory Kinnear’s vaudevillian antihero, Mack The Knife . The list goes on and on.
And we, the audience, do laugh. We uncomfortably enjoy a tale revealing that the darker, amoral parts of the world are all just based on and driven by the same emotions underpinning our own seemingly safe, clean lives. We are reminded of the man who stops thinking clearly when his desires rise, that self-protection will ultimately and unfortunately trump family and friendships, that power and attention are so dangerously addictive.
Vicki Mortimer’s design and Paule Constable’s lighting balance wonderfully the grandeur of Opera and this Brechtian commentary. A theatrical skeleton sits on the stage, which leaves everything in view but pulls your eye to the very point. A sober, unclean community with slashes of red, staining the character’s lives with blood, complexity and violence.
It is an unedifying sight, a joyous experience, a clash of contradictions. Epic theatre masterfully done.
I was immediately intrigued by the concept of Drew McOnie’s Jekyll and Hyde, a new dance thriller inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. McOnie devised, directed and choreographed the production, which was commissioned by the Old Vic as part of a new dance collaboration with McOnie Theatre company.