et in Arcadia ego

At last some proper theatre! After the mild disappointment of Hamlet and Godot, David Leveaux's staging of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia at the Duke of York's theatre is the best production I've seen on the London stage all year.

I'll have to admit a slight, ok an extreme bias, toward Tom Stoppard, who I think I prefer even to Shakespeare or to Beckett. A bit of provocation on this Thursday morning. He's one of those writers who, especially given that I hadn't seen or read any of his work until an impulse purchase of Rosencrantz last summer, I wonder how I ever managed to live without in my ignorance. Stoppard loves words, loves meaning, loves poetry, loves learning and wisdom - in a way that makes most scholars and poets look near numb by comparison.

This should in no way, however, diminish from the extraordinary effort of the team involved in the production of the staging: the cast is absolutely fantastic, a brilliant ensemble with nary a weak link in sight. Even the tortoise puts on a splendid show. The set is marvellously conceived and the transitions between the characters in the 19th century seamlessly converge with the modern-day story line.

This is a 'big ideas' comedy, taking on collisions between science and literature, classicism and romanticism, deterministic and unpredictable theories of the universe - but don't let that put you off, for all of these great debates are elegantly played out between character relationships across the past and present.You might also suppose that a play centred around such complex ideas as iterative algorithms might alienate the audience. You would be wrong, of course, as Stoppard's characters are so roguishly lovable that one cannot help but become emotionally entangled in their successes and failures. A play that engages on an emotional level and titillates intellectually is such a rare treat. If you see nothing else this year on the stage, see this play.

And so you don't think I'm only out for high culture, I'll also mention Sister Act the musical, which I went to see with friends last night. It's thoroughly entertaining, if a little less mentally stimulating than Arcadia. If you can believe it, by the end I was standing up, clapping, dancing and singing along with the rest of the theatre. It's very good fun and definitely worth a view.

the three englishmen wait for godot

Busy, busy bee am I.

Had a lovely weekend. Went to see Waiting for Godot at the Haymarket with friends on Friday (more on that in a moment) then went to see those same friends perform their own brand of comedy on Sunday. A bit of Tea Smith and scriptwriting in between and voila: le weekend parfait!

So. Godot. Like Hamlet last week, I have mixed feelings about this production. I first read Beckett's play my freshman year of University - taught to me by a professor I adored - it's one of my favourite pieces of theatre, let alone one of my favourite pieces of writing. I know of few other works open to such multitudinous interpretations as Godot; it truly is a work defined by the maxim, "make of it what you will". The difficulties we may have in defining precisely what Godot is all about (in a way, a pointless exercise, as the play's meaning must be constructed through each individual's meaning) is what makes the play such a marvel.

So Sean Mathias's production, while enormously entertaining in its own right, strips the elegiac beauty and philosophic discomfort from Beckett's text and replaces it with a sort of slapstick, light-hearted humour. I'm just not sure what the point of this production was. Why didn't Mathias get Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen to do proper farce a la Noises Off or even something like The Producers? You know when Hollywood makes a dreadful film out of an amazing book? That's sort of the way I felt about this production of Godot, only the amazing book provides fairly precise blueprints for a great film. What I don't understand is how Mathias managed to strip the profundity of Beckett's undertones of the sad state of humanity and replace it with a few happy little jigs. Maybe I just need to stop going to the theatre when a big name has the staring role. Though a week later, I'm still defending my criticism of the Donmar's Hamlet, which was essentially: Jude Law; pretty good, everyone else; pretty bad. So maybe it isn't the big stars who are the problem, but the directors who let them get away with indulgent and self-regarding performances...

I'm pleased to say self-indulgent direction wasn't the case at all with my mates, The Three Englishmen. They performed their hilarious and completely innovative torch lit play, The Lighthouse Keepers, which I've seen once before performed in the round. I can't fawn overly, otherwise I'll be accused of cronyism so I'll just say that it's a delightful piece of work, very funny and truly original - a rare thing these days. My only criticism is that the space in the Wilmington Arms doesn't really lend itself to torch lit and highly physical theatre. Next time, chaps, find a bigger space!

I'm off to see Tom Stoppard's Arcadia this evening and very much looking forward to it - Stoppard's a huge favourite of mine and I've never seen Arcadia performed before so much excitement all round.

Every Good Boy Deserves Favour

Just been from the National Theatre after seeing Tom Stoppard's Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. If you studied music at school, you'll immediately recognise the mnemonic... Now, for a change, I'm not going to do what I normally do and write an essay about the damn play. Instead I am merely going to tell you to get your little bum bum down to the NT and see this show.

Though the drama had its premiere in 1977, the difficulties in staging a play that require a full orchestra (on stage!) in addition to the cast of actors means that it is rarely performed.

It was the composer Andre Previn (he also scored the music for the play) who put it to Stopard that he ought to write a play for a symphony orchestra. So Stoppard created a play which didn't simply have an orchestra around to play some music, but to perform a function absolutely essential to the narrative of the drama - all I will say is that the play takes place in an insane asylum (in the Soviet Union, of course) and one of the crazies has an illness which takes the form of him imagining that he "has an orchestra." You can imagine how this plays out with a full orchestra on stage.

It's pure brilliance and an absolute one of a kind. Funny, charming, disturbing, thoughtful, and provocative. Do yourself a favour and get a ticket - it's on until the end of February and since it's one of the shows with a corporate sponsor you can get a ticket for only ten quid!

And oh yeah, what instrument do you play?

Into the wild

Further Observations from the US of "god-damn it's hot" A.

What follows are some mostly random observations made over the course of the past week:

An entertaining table at my local (chain) bookshop piled high with �Dummies� books. Titles include:

Overcoming Anxiety for Dummies
U.S. History for Dummies
Menopause for Dummies
IBS for Dummies
Bipolar Disorder for Dummies (I�m not joking)
Foreclosure Self-Defense for Dummies
Depression for Dummies
Stress Management for Dummies

I think you can tell a lot about the state of a nation from its Dummies books�

It�s 40 degrees Centigrade (about 110 Fahrenheit) and the fast-food restaurants a) have patios OUTSIDE and b) have MISTERS on the patios OUTSIDE. There is something quintessentially American about having misters outside on the patio of a fast-food joint to cool off the people who aren�t sitting there, but who might, you know, feel like it. How no one seems to notice that all the water is evaporating before it reaches the tables is beyond me.

Petrol costs an average of $4.10 per gallon. Milk is going for about $3.50 per gallon. No one seems to mind that milk is so expensive, but they don�t seem to be able to have a conversation about anything other than how expensive it is to �fill up.� Discussing the outrageous cost of petrol has become the new national pastime. At least it isn�t whinging�

Despite the fact that petrol now costs a small fortune, four-wheel drive, gas guzzling vehicles still seem to be as popular as ever.

You can�t actually buy food in the supermarket any more. You can buy Cheez-its, Apple Jacks, frozen TV dinners, Coca-cola, Starbucks coffee, Twizzlers, Ramen Noodles, and oh yes, expensive milk. Fresh produce is by far the smallest section in most grocery stores. And the self-styled �European� grocery stores (don�t ask) sell produce bundled up, which is incredibly annoying. If you only want one courgette, it�s impossible to purchase � you have to buy a pre-wrapped package of at least ten of them.

In the interest of balance, let me mention the good things, because despite the above, saving graces abound:

• Phoenix sunsets are pretty unbelievable
• As are the monsoon storms
• National Public Radio � BBC Radio 4 ain�t got nothing on my beloved NPR
• Eliana's Authentic Salvadorian Cuisine, an El Salvadorian restaurant which provokes an aesthetically unappealing bout of Pavlovian slobbering
  
• Air conditioning
• Bookman�s Bookshop

I fear visit is bringing out the worst in me. Daily, I veer wildly between misanthrope and humanist. Perhaps this is why I work with dead people�

On a completely different note, I read Tom Stoppard�s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead last night. Absolutely cracking stuff: Beckett marries Shakespeare and then convinces Descartes to join in for a threesome. I�ve never seen a production of it, so if anyone comes across a staging, let me know. I was crushed to discover (thanks Max) that this is standard school reading, which means most likely everyone else has already read it, but hey, it feels like a new discovery to me, and thus it shall remain. Exciting stuff.