Go for the acting. To see a powerful actor at the height of his power in his 80s, and a young person starting to rise. Robert Icke, the neon-intellectual, fast-paced director who fought his way through Hamlet, Oresteia And 1984has the two separate plays of Henry IV create an epic portrait, Player Kings. The evening is made possible by Falstaff.
Ian McKellen has spoken eloquently and practically about the difficulties of moving around enormous amounts of padding, and of remembering a role written not in verse but in prose. The lines are so idiosyncratic that he thinks Shakespeare must have written for a certain actor. It could be McKellen.
Not that his performance is predictable. Although he is very funny, he is also very venal: he spins his fantasies with Jeffrey Archer-esque bravado. No loyalty, no sympathy, no pathos. Just the confidence that he is bigger than his own little life. And a new version of being bulky. McKellen certainly has a lot of meat around him, but he’s also created a layer of sonic lard. His voice carries the sounds of old age and over-pleasure: a wheezing, an occasional sob as if a tooth is missing; a gurgling sound as if he were swallowing a mouthful of a bag. His words are as clear as ever, but they seem to be crafted in a completely remade interior.
Strikingly, in an unsentimental production, the moment when Hal, the newly crowned king, gives up his old mucker – “I don’t know you, old man” – is as devastating as ever. McKellen doesn’t milk the rejection, but turns it into an anecdote before sliding away, reorienting the episode somewhat: the young king marches not only toward a purer life, but also toward a crueler one. It’s a subtle shift, amplified by Toheeb Jimoh as Hal. He’s an utterly radiant presence, just like when he played Romeo last year: able to absorb terrible excursions (he’s surprisingly made to stab Samuel Edward-Cook’s non-stop roaring Hotspur in the back) and yet to appear truthful and magnetic. His charisma is just as dangerous as Falstaff’s.
Icke rearranged the plays, but did not revolutionize them. There are additions – Falstaff’s death is imported Henry V – and strange omissions: the sad group of conscripts in the Justices scenes are omitted. There are weaknesses: Richard Coyle’s Henry IV isn’t strong enough to compensate for McKellen, so the sense of Hal being dragged between two fathers is missing. It is a varied evening (stronger in the first half than in the second half), but with nice accents. On Hildegard Bechtler’s helpful design of the brick wall and sweeping curtain, scenes flow into each other, with characters looking from one to the other, as if time – such a major theme in the plays – evaporates. It didn’t feel like almost four hours.
Glowing episodes from the lives of young black men brighten up the West End, bringing not only new observations, but also unexpected intimacy and a new stage vocabulary. We have small theaters to thank for this: David Byrne’s New Diorama first produced the dance-infused For black boys who have contemplated suicide when the hue got too heavy, now in the Garrick; Lynette Linton’s Bush theater put on the award-winning Tyrell Williams Red tone (2022), dynamically directed by Daniel Bailey, now at @sohoplace.
On a run-down south London estate, three teenagers, would-be footballers, are on the brink of change. Gentrification – or regeneration? – means demolition and construction. The dry cleaners are boarded up; the chicken wing shop has become a Costa; residents move to new apartments. Therein lie other insecurities: the fear of a demanding father or a sick grandfather; GCSEs; brushes with girls – a boy wants seven children, “one for each day of the week”. Above all, the urgency of their kickabouts as they await QPR trials.
Francis Lovehall, Emeka Sesay and Kedar Williams-Stirling act with 3D expression. They shrugged each other off; transition to confrontation and warmth; stroke and score with accuracy, precision and fluency. Khalil Madovi’s soundscape surrounds them with the clatter of a hammer on iron and wood. Ali Hunter’s lighting transforms Amelia Jane Hankin’s bare design – the vital field is surrounded by a red metal fence – into a stadium and a place of shadowy reflection. With a beautiful strike, a football glows like the sun, radiant with possibilities.
Underdog: the Other Other Bronte is part of a new theatrical wave: reshaping the idea of what were once considered ‘variegated’ authors. Isobel McArthurs Pride and prejudice* (*sort of) peered at Jane Austen’s heroines from the servants’ point of view; Zoe Cooper recently discovered a strange species in Northanger Abbey.
Sarah Gordon’s new play is about the Brontë sisters: their lives instead of the works. Thirteen years ago, Northern Broadsides and Blake Morrison put a Chekhovian spin on life in the parsonage. We are three sisters. Gordon’s emphasis is clearer: the limitations of the time (which required authors to publish under male names) are pointed out, but the sensibility is completely 21st century: knowledge and no limitations.
Charlotte, legs planted firmly apart in her scarlet dress, orders Sister Anne to stop writing “this shit.” Her biographer Elizabeth Gaskell swoops in like a pantomime lady. Sibling rivalry runs rampant as Charlotte seizes Anne’s new idea. A flashy line-up of literary figures with sideburns and top hats capitulate smugly. Charlotte climbs into a display case to be put on display.
Natalie Ibu’s powerfully comedic production gets lively performances from Rhiannon Clements as Anne, also called a mouse but wild with her pen, Adele James as lively Emily, and Gemma Whelan as dominant Charlotte (who also gets a kick in the 2022 film ). Emily). It is a relief to be free from strangulation and piety. But where in this mechanical modernization is the imagination that makes the sisters worth paying attention to? These Brontës are not different enough.
Star ratings (out of five)
Player Kings ★★★★
Red tone ★★★★
Underdog: the Other Other Bronte ★★
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Player Kings is at the Noël Coward Theater in London until June 22, then tours to Bristol, Birmingham, Norwich and Newcastle until July 27
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Red tone is at @sohoplace, London until May 4
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Underdog: The Other Other Brontë runs until May 25 at Dorfman, National Theatre, London