One of our Oxford University Student Ambassadors, Chloe Cheung, has written a a review on our current five star, Swan Theatre production of Oppenheimer. 
BP £5 tickets are available for all performances. Oxford University students can get £17 coach trip tickets on the 18 February.

‘Destroyer of worlds’: Oppenheimer at the Swan Theatre, Stratford-Upon-Avon

 by Chloe Cheung

Readers are advised that this review makes details of the plot explicit. 

The threat of nuclear war between the Cold War superpowers plunged the latter half of the Twentieth Century into some of its darkest days.  Tom Morton-Smith’s gripping new play Oppenheimer now brings the man behind the atomic bomb to the stage. 

Immediately, we are plunged into the zeitgeist: at a Communist fundraiser party, concerned guests decry the spread of fascism in Europe.  We hear how German chemists have discovered the processes of atomic fission, with possibly devastating consequences for the Allies.

At Einstein’s recommendation, the US government decides to take action. J Robert Oppenheimer is picked to lead the top-secret weapons development programme: Project Manhattan is born.  

The production is filled with striking moments; credit is due to director Angus Jackson.  Oppenheimer succinctly explains the basics of the theoretical physics involved through clear, lecture-style explanations scrawled on blackboards, so even non-scientists will be able to follow the physics that underpins the play. Most memorably, cleverly utilised projections onto the stage floor demonstrate how added neutrons destabilise uranium to the point of explosion. 

Against the backdrop of rising global political turmoil, Oppenheimer is in the ascendant, rising rapidly to the top ranks of the military.  John Heffernan’s performance as J Robert Oppenheimer is the most compelling, as befits the most complex character in the play. Heffernan encapsulates the contradictions within Oppenheimer’s self: his arrogance, optimism, ambition, weakness and, ultimately, his self-loathing at what he has created. 

In the play, Oppenheimer boldly states that the existence of nuclear weapons would eradicate all future wars.  With hindsight, though, the audience is all too aware of the horrific consequences of nuclear war.

Oppenheimer raises some of the most fundamental questions in our society today about science: the limits of ethics, the justification (if any) for use of nuclear weapons in wartime, how we exploit scientific advances for destructive and dangerous purposes.  The nuclear question is still brutally relevant in our post-Cold War world.  

Oppenheimer is now playing in the Swan Theatre until 7 March. 

Love's Labour’s Won (Or Much Ado About Nothing) - Review

Our Marketing Intern, Hannah Goodwin, went along to a production of Love’s Labour’s Won at the RSC and discovered, with her BP £5 ticket, the unbelievable value that being a RSC Key member can bring!

The Royal Shakespeare Company’s current production of Love’s Labour’s Won (Or Much Ado About Nothing) is full of fun and festivities with the heart-warming notion that love can often show itself in the most unlikely of couples. Its post-World War One backdrop provides the perfect setting for a story of gender battles, sibling rivalry and love conquering all.

Set in Autumn 1918, with the memories of war slowly fading into the past, soldiers Benedick and Claudio return from the trenches to find themselves reacquainted with Beatrice and introduced to her cousin, Hero. As they settle into their post-war lives, Love’s Labour’s Won follows the highs and lows of a whirlwind romance for Claudio and Hero, with their passion being encouraged by most and yet plotted for downfall by others.

Despite Claudio and Hero’s relationship being the focal point of suspense and tension in the play, their engagement is upstaged by the fiery and quick-witted exchanges between Benedick and Beatrice. Their constant challenges of wit and smart remarks not only set up for some hilarious comedy but provides a will they/won’t they situation that completely captivates the audience. With them both confirming their planned lives of solitude and bachelorhood, it only takes a little interference from their friends before battles of wit meet with a ceasefire of love.

Although both relationships are met with challenges, love ultimately wins overall with peace and joy falling over this post-war household just in time for Christmas festivities to commence!

Christopher Luscombe’s production of Love's Labour's Won (Or Much Ado About Nothing) makes a welcome break from the winter chill with a warmth that flows from the stage and into the hearts of its audiences. It is playing in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre at the RSC Stratford until 14 March 2015. With BP £5 tickets available for RSC Key Members, there are really no excuses to miss such a fantastic show!

RSC Key member, Beth Sharrock, has written a review on Love's Labour's Lost.  BP £5 tickets are available for this comic verve. 

Love's Labour's Lost is showing at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon until the 14th of March. 

The RSC has mastered in Love’s Labour’s Lost a play which unapologetically mocks people in love. To their faces. Were Shakespeare alive today, his problematic, comedic masterpiece may be encapsulated in an ironic ‘like’ for one of those detestably cringeworthy “Me and My Girl #theone #loveher” updates.

On the page, Shakespeare’s lesser performed comedy reads like the Bard’s sonneteering run-through. No less than five lovers in the plays pen odes to their mistresses, which makes the play read more like an anthology than a piece of drama. And indeed, the lover’s action shows itself as much on paper as it does between people.

The power of the penned verse in this play is, like forerunner to Malvolio’s blundering interpretation skills, the production’s biggest gag. Picture this; four young academic Edwardian gentlemen reclining in their library walled parlour, vowing to sign their lives and desires in favour of strict study. Freedom of food, sleep, and most importantly – women – are all forsworn by the gallants for three years. 

Now picture these litigiously bound men in their dressing gowns, weeping and pining and waxing positively rhetorical for four beautiful strangers who have taken their fortified court, and even more impregnable vows, by storm. What’s more? In what feels like an unspoken jeer of “Berowne and Rosaline sitting-in-a-tree”, their odes of painful love are all overheard by each other. What’s even more? The scene stealing comedy is provided by Luscombe in the form of a teddy bear.

that's right, a teddy bear. 

"For your fair sakes have we neglected time,

Play'd foul play with our oaths: your beauty, ladies,

Hath much deform'd us"

Berowne, V.ii

The sonnet scene is one which threatens to be a laborious wade through the mud of the inaccessible, superfluous, verbose, grandiloquent sophistry (see where I’m going with this?) that has built itself into a harmful skeleton in the closet of ‘Shakespearephobia’. This production side steps this landmine as smoothly as an Edwardian slick comb ‘do. Our love sick brotherhood have just as great a laugh at each other’s attempts at poetry as we do, with their awkward half rhymes and (more than slightly) tearful deliveries.

The relationship between the forsworn men is beautifully crafted by Sam Alexander (King of Navarre), William Belchambers (Longaville), Edward Bennett (Berowne) and Tunji Kasim (Dumaine). The group so naturally navigate a convincing, if not naive, devotion to learning astray into the murkier waters of unrequited love; which is so artfully acted that one truly believes the feeling is a new, and threatening, experience. Bennett courts Berowne’s monologues with all the joyful angst of a reluctant lover. Perhaps even more skilful is the group’s tackling of one of Shakespeare’s greatest unwritten scenes – an all-singing, all-dancing, all-bearded Muscovite serenade. 

"We are wise girls to mock our lovers so."

Princess, V.iii.

The play’s female temptations are played with a measure of flirtation, modesty and downright girlish giggles by Frances McNee (Maria), Flora Spencer-Longhurst (Katharine), Michelle Terry (Rosaline) and Leah Whitaker (the confident Princess of France). The Princess and her women are a perfectly choreographed, commanding hand to mould the putty mess of unrequited lovers. Measured touches of a more paternal relationship are embraced beautifully by the baby-faced Peter McGovern (Moth) and John Hodgkinson (Don Armado). 

These stunning performances are not without an original score by Nigel Hess so powerful and emotive it seems to inhabit the stage like an extra character. A funny, sad, reflective one. Think Shakespeare’s perfect wise fool expressed in strains of violin.

"Our wooing doth not end like an old play"

Berowne, V.ii

The beauty of this play is in its promises. Or rather, it’s broken ones. The stunning Edwardian interiors and idyllic rural exteriors promise us blossoming romance. The strength and conviction with which our lovers spar, as only Shakespearean ones can, with wits and disguise and each other’s pride promises an amorous resolution. The farcically bombastic play-within-a-play promises a parade of heroes who will be uninterruptedly hilarious. What we see in the play’s concluding scenes is our own hopeful optimism interrupted with a French messenger ringing the death of a beloved father, who also happens to be the King of France, with this news the play’s vows begin to tragically unravel. Gregory Doran and Christopher Luscombe’s choice to stage this scene as a precedent to the Great War is an insightful and painful light thrown upon some of our own broken promises to each other as nations and as people. Glimmering performances, artfully playful direction by Luscombe and an aesthetic itself to fall head over heels for promise a display of how Shakespeare’s comedy should be executed. 

On this, it delivers. 

Behind the Scenes Tour

Attention all RSC Key members! A new discount is now available, with the ever popular Behind the Scenes Tour of our unique theatres reduced to £3.50 exclusively for Key members! This is a chance to go behind the curtain and discover the intricacies of backstage goings-on, with all the knowledge of our experienced Tour Guides at your disposal. We recently sent Kathryn, one of our Marketing Interns, round the theatres in order to give you an insider’s experience of a typical tour.

A trip behind the scenes is undoubtedly a treat for any theatre-lover, but this one hour tour of both the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and the Swan Theatre is definitely worth experiencing. Following the transformation of the theatres in 2010, the new Front of House (where the tour begins) now boasts some rather special features that could easily be missed without the tour, such as the old stage flooring that ensures you quite literally tread the same boards as many famous actors and actresses.

The first section of the tour takes you up to the third floor, where floor to ceiling windows provide a fabulous view over Stratford-upon-Avon and the RSC estate. From this vantage point it is possible to appreciate the eclectic architectural style of theatres, from the gothic Swan Theatre to the newer and more Art Deco RST. A further fascinating factor of this area includes the strategically placed theatre seats high up on the wall of the rooftop restaurant, giving you an idea of the height of the very back row of the upper circle before the theatre’s transformation.

Moving into the backstage area of the RST, the tour allows you to become privy to aspects such as the speaker layout of the entire theatre and even the RST control room. The control room provides a particularly great insight into the way a theatre like ours works. Home to the automation and lighting controls, as well as the immensely important deputy stage manager’s desk, this room overlooks the 1,040 seats of the RST auditorium – the best view in the house, unless you have a fear of heights!

The maze of backstage corridors connects the two theatres together, so the tour takes you directly from the RST into the Swan. It is in these areas that you get to see the outstations used by actors during performances – these are used both by the actors to confirm they are in position and by the deputy stage manager to cue their entrances. It is often these elements that get forgotten when you are swept up in watching a performance, but of course without these the show would quite simply not go on.

If you’re lucky, and there are no rehearsals or events taking place, you may also get to go into the Swan auditorium. For fans of the theatre’s history, this point of the tour is a great opportunity to vocalise any and all questions about the Swan’s background (such as the story of how it was funded, or its use as a wartime canteen).

Returning to the labyrinth of corridors and rooms that make up the backstage areas, the tour takes you past the dressing rooms that serve both theatres, giving you a further glimpse into the actors’ surroundings. It must be said, with warm floors and balconies overlooking the river, these rooms banish all preconceptions of cold and draughty changing rooms stuck unceremoniously in a basement area.

Throughout the tour there are always plenty of opportunities to ask questions about the current and upcoming productions, and it is guaranteed that no two tours will be the same. Without access to this kind of tour, visitors to the RSC would definitely miss out on an all-round experience of the theatres, and one that is both fascinating and educational. I urge you to take this opportunity whilst you can!

Please note: as the RSC in Stratford-upon-Avon has two working theatres, tour destinations may vary. For more information about our tours please click here.

Hello RSC Key members! This newest blog post – a synopsis of Thomas Dekker’s city comedy The Shoemaker’s Holiday – is written by Kathryn Piekarski, one of our current Marketing Interns. The Shoemaker’s Holiday will show in the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon from 11 December 2014 to 7 March 2015.

Synopsis:

Rowland Lacy (an aristocrat) and Rose Oateley (daughter of the Mayor of London) are young, in love, and desperate to marry, but social class and disapproving relatives stand in the way of their plans for the future. In an attempt to separate the young lovers, Lacy is ordered to serve in the war in France whilst Rose’s father contrives to match her with a more ‘suitable’ gentleman, Master Hammon. However they are not the only couple fated to be torn apart – shoemaker Ralph is also to be dispatched to the war, much to the despair of his loving wife Jane. Although Ralph dutifully sets off across the sea, leaving a parting gift of new shoes for Jane, Lacy decides to take some drastic steps in order to remain behind in London.

Simon Eyre, known as the mad shoemaker of Tower Street, and his wife Margery are on their way from rags to riches when Lacy – now disguised as Dutch cobbler Hans – joins his company of shoemakers. Lacy uses his new position, along with the help of his fellow journeymen and Rose’s maid Sybil, to visit Rose and continue with their marriage plans. Eyre’s journey of good fortune sees him first made Sheriff and then the new Mayor of London, and festivities are arranged to commemorate Eyre’s social ascension.

Meanwhile, Master Hammon – following a rejection by Rose – courts Jane and misinforms her of Ralph’s death in the war in order to persuade her to marry him instead. Ralph arrives home injured but alive, and is dismayed to be unable to find Jane waiting for him on his return. However, as chance would have it, Ralph is commissioned to make a pair of wedding shoes for Hammon’s new bride, to be modelled on the very pair he gave to Jane on his departure for the war. Along with the brotherhood of shoemakers Ralph invades the wedding in order to reclaim his wife from Hammon, who attempts to turn the ceremony into a twisted commercial exchange for Jane’s person.

Lacy’s disguise is eventually discerned by his uncle the Earl of Lincoln and Rose’s father, but following some lucky misdirection they are manoeuvred to invade Hammon’s wedding by mistake, whilst Lacy and Rose escape to marry with the support of the Eyres. The King attends the shoemakers’ celebrations and simultaneously pardons Lacy for abandoning his war duties and blesses the young couple’s marriage. In response to further protests from Lincoln and Oateley, the King knights Lacy and so renders Rose a Lady, finally silencing the arguments against her lower social standing. The celebratory banquet concludes the events, the King attending alongside all the shoemakers of London. 

BP £5 tickets are available for this production

RSC Key member, Grace Murray, reviews Webster's Shocking Revenge Tragedy, The White Devil.

The White Devil

Directed by Maria Aberg

Swan Theatre

Until 29^th November

Maria Aberg’s lurid and often uncomfortable production of Webster’s revenge tragedy could not have come at a better time. The corrupt patriarchy which dominates the Italian court of The White Devil may at first seem distant from our modern society, but the ongoing Everyday Sexism and Yes All Women campaigns, among others, have proven that we still have a long way to go before feminism becomes obsolete. Webster’s tale of the bloody consequences of the affair between Vittoria (Kirsty Bushell) and Duke Bracciano (David Sturzaker) exposes the hypocrisy and rigid genderism which still influence our perspective on sexuality today.

                               

The production opens with Vittoria stripped to her underwear on a bare stage, dressing in front of a suddenly uneasy audience. It’s impossible to escape the casual objectification in this warped version of Rome, both for Bushell’s magnetic Vittoria, defiant but frustrated by her lack of agency, and for the audience itself, bombarded by the sexual imagery on the vast overhead screen which borrows from the modern music video. Aberg also turns Vittoria’s scheming brother Flamineo into her sister, played by Laura Elphinstone as a calculating politician who adopts the misogyny of her male superiors. Flamineo’s sexist tirades seem all the more unthinkable when delivered by a woman.

Indeed, nothing is sacred in Aberg’s vision. The house of convertites, a place of seclusion for sinful women, instead serves as the menacing backdrop of many a court scene as its drugged inmates shuffle around a transparent cell. Adultery is committed in the midst of throbbing techno music, and at one point a dead body is dragged across the stage. Webster’s play exposed the carnal desires at the heart of the 17^th century nobility, but Aberg’s production forces its audience to accept that sex and violence still leave us enraptured as well as enraged. It’s a deeply unsettling feeling: there’s nowhere to hide.

When Erica Whyman announced the RSC’s plans to stage The White Devil, she noted that although the problems of gender inequality aren’t easy to solve on the stage or in the world, “we are intent on asking some questions about both”. The White Devil asks us many, but most of all I was left wondering, “What has changed?” And the answer is, “Not enough.”

BP £5 tickets are still available for The White Devil. 

We solemnly swear we are up to no good...

As one of the current interns for the RSC Marketing department, one of my tasks for today was to venture into The Courtyard Theatre and capture some pictures of the creation of The Other Place, the temporary studio space being created for the Midsummer Mischief festival. It’s being made on the stage of The Courtyard, and is still very much under construction (as can be seen in the photos!).

Midsummer Mischief is a festival taking place from June 14^th until July 12^th, and features a programme of four pieces of new writing, presented in a double-header format (two for the price of one, what more could you ask for?). The festival is to mark the 40 year anniversary of the establishment of The Other Place, a radical studio space that was the brainchild of legendary director Buzz Goodbody. Buzz was only 28 when The Other Place opened in 1974, proving age really is just a number – take note young people.

Each of the four female playwrights has been asked to write a piece of new writing in response to the statement: ‘Well behaved women seldom make history’. When I first read the statement, I immediately wanted discuss with anyone and everyone who would listen, and couldn’t even decide whether I agreed with it or not! So I’m very excited to see what four very talented and spirited women have created using this stimulus, and I think we can rest assured it will be anything but well behaved.

Part of my role as intern has been to help come up with bright ideas for ways to promote the festival online and through social media. The Midsummer Mischief blog (http://theotherplaceatthersc.tumblr.com/) is a great place to explore the festival and its fascinating history. As the festival itself is so temporary, contemporary and exciting, we really wanted to make sure the audiences are too (enter RSC Key members). This is such an exciting project for the RSC, featuring four pieces of new writing in a completely new theatre space, and what’s more it’s all accessible for RSC Key members for just £5! Come and join us for your dose of summer mischief!