London Calling with Champaign Charlie: September 25th, 2008

Matthew Marsh

'Now or Later'

'This play was turned down by FOUR New York theatres!' Matthew March told me as he got ready to go on stage at the Royal Court for that night's sell out run of 'Now or Later'
Despite Christopher Shinn's hit run with works like include Dying City, Four, Where Do We Live and Other People, this latest show seemed just too hot for US producers to handle.

The subject matter gives us a clue as to why they shied away and London snapped it up.

'I play the democratic presidential nominee and eventual winner on election night' Matthew went onto explain. 'My son has a lot of hidden secrets that are exposed through the play. These could go onto really affect the future presidency and certainly the ways things are run in my first days of office. It was really easy to get into and I didn't need to do any research...as I always say for an actor the better the writing the less the preparation or background research needed.' He added 

'And any way it taps into a lot of things I could relate to and understand. The first is my love and fascination for politics and especially American politicians. Thanks to the internet people have become terrified of having any and every flaw related to them exposed' he went onto tell me.

'That's just wrong, I don't think ALL politicians are power hungry and self serving. Through the mass media we have far less respect for them as ordinary human beings than we should. I don't believe absolutely ALL of them are corrupt and are in it just for themselves. They deserve to be treated with some respect. He sympathised

After all they're fallible like every human is. He then went onto reveal something else the play tapped into...his own experience as a father.

'I could really relate to this play as a father faced with the dilemma of a son wanting quite naturally to carve a way, his own way for themselves and be their own person'. Pausing for a moment he went on to further reflect how as with real politics 'a private act can become public thanks to the internet' and how this puts everything and everyone in an unnatural state of caution.'

Reflecting on past reviews he began to see the part in a different way. 'This play exposes this and although critics here have referred to me as a 'turbo charged Gerald Ford' I certainly can't relate my performance to being influenced by one politician or even researching them to any real depth' he added.

As with every actor, projects arrive in all manner of ways and this was no exception.

'I was in 'The goat' by Edward Albee when the actor in this work who plays my son Eddie Redmayne told me about it at a party. The next thing I know I'm sitting in my agents office and he casually mentioned this part was up. At the time I was doing a series of public workshops of work in progress here at the Royal Court when the director Dominic auditioned me and I got it.' He went onto recall. 'I really hope this goes onto play back in the US and I play in it. I have never done Broadway even though viewers know me as the 'Head of the CIA' in Spooks!' (A '24' like drama and top rated BBC drama on the shady world of modern espionage).

With that note of hope and anticipation as to what this hit might bring for both the writer Christopher Shinn and Matthew himself, he quickly slipped into 'performance mode' ready for that nights show.

 

Bill Bryden

'Slow Craft Warnings'

Tennessee Williams's 'Slow Craft Warnings' at London's 'Arcola' theatre takes another 'slice of life' look at the other side of Americana - that of the deserted bar.

This is life ast the other end of the social scale. The time is the early 1970's, the location is a deserted bar in an even more deserted part of the California coast. William's in true style transplants all the obsessions and turmoil of his inner life into just nine of life's cast-offs.

Seen by Quentin, the washed-up queer screenwriter at Monk's seedy bar one foggy night in 1972 Southern California, he electrifies the otherwise dead atmosphere his characters just about 'live' inside.

'I knew Tennessee from the 1980's' director Bill Bryden told me. 'We were trying to stage a two hander of his about the life of F Scott Fitzgerald with Paul Scofield and no The National Theatre would not stage it' he added without a hint of sarcasm or remorse.

'We stayed friends to the end and his tragic and unexpected death' At the age of 72 after he choked on an eyedrop bottle cap in his room at the Hotel Elysee in New York.

'He would routinely place the cap in his mouth, lean back, and place his eye drops in each eye' he remembered with a wistful sense of sadness.

'This work was the best of his later plays and really captures what he felt about life and the world around him. I jumped at the chance to direct this at what I think is one of the most exciting theatre spaces in London' said the veteran director whose 1970's productions at the Cottesloe are now theatre legend! Proudly sitting back he couldn't contain his enthusiasm, going on to remind me that the show is now an official 'hit'.

'I put together the cast quickly and got on with it... and it's gone onto become a 'critics choice' on opening'

Choosing his projects carefully he has focused instead on polishing these gems and bring these nine lost souls to life in a characteristically stark and novel way. So much so, that by direct preference to modern techniques 'there is no half light when characters do their audience monologues.' He told me 'they are in full light Shakespeare style.'

The effect is unnerving and unusual, making the whole effect original and edgy.

 As a result these disparate foulmouthed misfits 'connect' in a southern Californian backwater in an intense and thrilling way. Finally Bryden's search for the right home for this staging and homage to his friend work takes on an altogether more intimate meaning for him and as a result the audience. And this collective search for comfort in companionship by the cast - in all the wrong places produces dramatic results.

'I really do hope I can take the cast on masse to New York with this. Yes there are bigger stages in London but it's there where it belongs' he went onto tell me 'Meantime though I will be taking my yearly trip to the US and as it's always in October or November I'll be right there for the elections. Right now I have to watch Gordon Brown's speech at the Labour party conference.' Brown like Bush is an unpopular leader with both his cabinet, public opinion and his party trying to unseat him. 'I helped him write and worked on his speech to the Knesset in Jerusalem' he later told me. 'It's not really public knowledge' and with that firm but polite remark I decided it would be better to leave his work in real politics aside. He went onto to focus and ready himself for that nights show, concentrating no doubt on the politics back and front of house that his reputation has been established and he so elegantly mastered without compromise. But no doubt that hidden cost 

Photos by Keith Pattison and Nobby Clark