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Post by TheatreDust on May 26, 2016 12:40:10 GMT
www.arcolatheatre.com/event/kenny-morgan/2016-05-18/I went to see this last weekend and thought it was excellent. The play depicts a possible/likely version of events around the suicide attempt of a young actor who had been in a longish relationship with closeted-gay playwright Terence Rattigan in the 1940s. It is set entirely in the flat Kenny was living in at the time and depicts the various characters that interacted with him (including Rattigan) over the subsequent few days. {Spoiler - click to view}In short, Kenny Morgan was a real person who took his own life after the end of his relationship with Rattigan. The play opens after a failed suicide attempt at the start of act 1 and he makes a second successful attempt at the end. I think the context (i.e. the relationship with Rattigan and then Kenny moving on to a new lover) is accurate, but the story about the final days of his life and the characters involved is imagined but was strongly influenced by Rattigan's "Deep Blue Sea" which features a similar plot and clearly parallel characters. Deep Blue Sea was seemingly written as a direct response to Morgan's death, but he needed to change the lead to a female character given the legal status of homosexuality at the time.
The set and staging was wonderfully atmospheric. I loved the attention to detail - for example, there was an old fashioned rotary-dial phone which, when picked up by the actors, emitted a proper dialing tone from the earpiece; when it was used to make a call, you could actually faintly hear the tinny voice of the other party from the handset. The cast were universally strong. Twice Olivier nominated Paul Keating took the lead and I found his performance really moving. The various people that he interacted with were rounded characters in their own right. I particularly liked George Irving (used to play consultant Mr Meyer on Holby City many years back) who was really effective as a mysterious neighbour who happened to be a struck-off Doctor - we got tantalising glimpses of his backstory - enough for me to wish for him to have a play written specifically about him. It is worth mentioning that the play was written by Mike Poulton who wrote the stage adaptations of Wolf Hall/Bring Up the Bodies.
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Post by mallardo on May 26, 2016 16:00:57 GMT
Thanks so much for posting this, TheatreDust. I had noticed this was on but promptly forgot about it. Now I'll definitely go see it.
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Post by wickedgrin on May 27, 2016 14:10:51 GMT
Yes, I would concur with TheatreDust's review! A very good play - slightly flabby in Act Two but excellently acted by the entire cast with a great period feel in terms of set, costumes and themes although slightly underlit at times.
The telephone was magnificent and threatened to upstage the whole play. Really very very good!
4 stars.
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Post by lolli on May 28, 2016 19:27:27 GMT
To those who've been, do you know who published the playtext?
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Post by dlevi on May 29, 2016 7:31:51 GMT
I saw it last week and thought it was pretty terrific. A little heavy on the atmospheric fog in the first act, but acted with a ferocious intensity. Very worthwhile and I have a feeling this won't be the last we'll see of this play.
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2016 10:03:49 GMT
This is booked as my first visit to the Arcola, drawn there by Lucy Bailey, Terence Rattigan, Mike Poulton and Matthew Bulgo.
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Post by wickedgrin on May 29, 2016 11:22:26 GMT
Yes, the trip to this was my first visit to the Arcola Theatre too. Not especially impressed with the theatre - I found it quite hard to find tucked away - thank goodness for the GPS on my phone or I may have been a late arrival. The signage outside was poor too. The place looked unfinished somehow, but perhaps this was the "look" they were going for - exposed brickwork and plasterboard.
The play and production was excellent though and well worth the visit.
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Post by mallardo on May 29, 2016 11:44:45 GMT
Yes, the trip to this was my first visit to the Arcola Theatre too. Not especially impressed with the theatre - I found it quite hard to find tucked away - thank goodness for the GPS on my phone or I may have been a late arrival. The signage outside was poor too. The place looked unfinished somehow, but perhaps this was the "look" they were going for - exposed brickwork and plasterboard. The play and production was excellent though and well worth the visit.
The Arcola has always looked like that. Plus it's incredibly convenient to two London Overground stations - less than five minutes from both.
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Post by barelyathletic on May 31, 2016 9:34:30 GMT
To those who've been, do you know who published the playtext? Samuel French. Though I believe it may only be available through the Arcola. It's not currently on their website. |
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Post by mallardo on Jun 1, 2016 8:56:33 GMT
It cannot be a coincidence that this play appears at the Arcola at exactly the same time the NT is opening a new production of Deep Blue Sea. The plays are almost companion pieces, Kenny Morgan concerning itself with the circumstances in Terence Rattigan's life which led him to write Deep Blue Sea. Rattigan himself is a character (convincingly played by Simon Dutton) and the situation he finds himself in is directly paralleled in the plot of his own play, written a couple of years after the events here.
Kenny Morgan is, essentially, a young male Hester Collyer. The two plays open with virtually the same scene and go on from there on similar paths - with a few large differences. All of which makes it a risky venture for playwright Mike Poulton, inviting comparison with the Master. But, thankfully, he is up to the challenge. This is a sensationally good play.
If it lacks Rattigan's talent for elegant structure - it does run on a bit in Act Two with a succession of similar two-handed scenes - it makes up for it with the shear quality of the writing, the deeply focused characters and the intensely compassionate portrait of its leading man. Morgan is an amazing creation, played here to the hilt by Paul Keating who is simply stunning in the role. Already suicidal when we meet him, he is a man at the end of his tether, overwhelmed by an emptiness brought about by own personal failure and by his all-consuming unrequited love for a man he knows to be a self-obsessed scoundrel (an excellent Piero Niel-Mee).
But he's not simply a sad victim, someone we feel sorry for. He is a victimiser as well. He exerts a kind of tyranny of weakness on those around him, including Rattigan, his former lover. Everyone wants to help him but he won't be helped and the result is a massive sense of frustration that increasingly takes over the play. But even as that's happening, and throughout it, our empathy for Morgan never wanes - and this is the mark of how fully realized this character is, both by the writer and the actor.
If you're planning on seeing Deep Blue Sea at the NT (and even if you're not) this play in this production should be on your must-see list.
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Post by peelee on Jun 1, 2016 18:13:35 GMT
I quite like the Arcola, and I'm looking forward to this play.
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Post by wickedgrin on Jun 1, 2016 19:14:48 GMT
Loved the play - loathed the theatre!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 1, 2016 23:11:16 GMT
Interesting reviews here
The press was mixed from 2-4 stars
I have booked for next Monday and then seeing Deep Blue Sea on PN 2 days later
Should be a complemetary pair of plays?
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Post by drmaplewood on Jun 2, 2016 8:25:24 GMT
Looking forward to this, love the Arcola too. Still do Pay What You Can on Tuesdays, even for sold out shows, which is great.
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Post by PalelyLaura on Jun 2, 2016 8:45:26 GMT
I used to love the Arcola, and got through three of their Passports (spend £50 get 5 play tickets) in about two years. However I've hardly been for a couple of years now. This play might tempt me back, though.
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Post by TheatreDust on Jun 2, 2016 10:49:20 GMT
Yes, the trip to this was my first visit to the Arcola Theatre too. Not especially impressed with the theatre - I found it quite hard to find tucked away - thank goodness for the GPS on my phone or I may have been a late arrival. The signage outside was poor too. The place looked unfinished somehow, but perhaps this was the "look" they were going for - exposed brickwork and plasterboard. Loved the play - loathed the theatre! I love the Arcola - slightly quirky and with a 'natural' look inside, I think it works well for all sorts of productions. They are really big on sustainability/environmental concerns - working really hard to reduce their carbon footprint. I voted for them (one of many who did) to win a grant last year for a carbon-neutral heating project. They have biomass boilers etc and spun off a separate company to support their carbon-neutral aims. I agree about finding the theatre - tricky the first time I went there! However, now I know where it is, I find it really easy to get to. Just a short distance from Dalston Junction overground. |
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Post by wickedgrin on Jun 2, 2016 14:45:54 GMT
Perhaps I should qualify why I "loathed the theatre".
I arrived with only 5/6 minutes to the start of the show (unusual for me) as living outside London and never having been to the Arcola before I found the instuctions on the website as how to get there confusing and misleading. Even stood outside the theatre it was difficult to spot as I thought the signage was poor.
There was a queue at the box office with people (like me) picking up tickets or booking despite the house being very empty. The girl on the box office just gave me what looked like a till receipt for a ticket. When I queried this she said "Yes of course it's your ticket" as if I was an idiot. It was just 2 pieces of till roll stapled together - the top being a receipt and the second bit a row and and seat number.
On entering a very dark and smokey auditorium I was directed to the wrong seat by the usher to the side when I thought I had booked the central block. The seat numbers were impossible to find on the really uncomfortable fold up chairs. They were on tiny white stickers on the back - impossible to see. SO I had to ask the usher again which was my seat! He clearly thought I was stupid and pointed to the seat number on the back of the chair. "But that isn't my seat number" I said proffering my ticket. "Oh" he said "You must be there then!" pointing to the correct seat. Not a word of apology for directing me to the wrong seat.
The whole place looked unfinished - exposed brickwork and plasterboard. If I wanted a site specific theatre experience for a disused warehouse I know where I would go.
Thank goodness the play was good or I would definately have left at the interval. I am in no rush to ever return.
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Post by mallardo on Jun 2, 2016 15:58:17 GMT
I have to say, wickedgrin, that I have never had any kind of problem there - apart from some pricey drinks in the bar. The main house - there is a nice little studio theatre downstairs - is strangely aligned, to be sure, with many more seats on the sides than in front but there are no bad seats. And the space works well for both musicals and plays. I'm probably biased in its favour because it was at a production of Sweet Smell of Success there that I almost met Stephen Sondheim - alas, I was too tongue-tied to talk to him. And, btw, he sat upstairs in what passes for the circle, probably to avoid people like me.
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Post by showgirl on Jun 2, 2016 17:11:10 GMT
I don't mind the Arcola but it is slow to reach for me, as I have to get a main line train to London, then tube to Highbury and then the overground - and you never know which station at the Dalston end will have the first train, but you have to choose one platform or the other, as they use different ones. Same dilemma after the performance, i.e. in trying to decide which station to head for. All this is fine and I know others travel from further afield; my point is that it's a slow, multi-stage journey so makes for a late night - and 3 types of engineering work to check before I even risk booking.
The theatre does have a rough and ready look, which is presumably partly deliberate and partly to save on costs. It's similar to the Park, in a way, in programming, having 2 spaces, prices, audience, etc, but programming aside, I prefer the Park as it's much lighter inside and easier in travel terms.
Neither is great if you are on your own; the Arcola, in particular, tends to have a very noisy, crowded bar, which is totally off-putting to anyone alone and wanting to eat and/or drink quietly, so I always hope to bag a seat on a sofa in the foyer and discreetly eat my own snack. I'd be happy to give them my catering business if they in turn catered for me, but I can see that from a financial viewpoint, couples, groups, etc, are a far more lucrative market.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 5, 2016 9:45:44 GMT
OMGosh I just adored this. I have no doubts that it will be one of my productions of the year. There are some killer lines (I'd better go, the urchins are probably throwing stones at the Rolls) but ultimately it's heartbreaking. Now I'm not ashamed to admit that I can blub at the drop of a hat but I was in bits throughout the second act. Kenny was such a frustrating character and in the wrong hands could just have been irritating but Paul Keating is just sensational. You really want Kenny to be happy because of him. It's the kind of performance that deserves to be seen in London's glitzy west end but I admit it would probably tank. The rest of the cast are also brilliant- not a weak link amongst them. Go see it!!
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Post by lolli on Jun 5, 2016 15:43:25 GMT
Yes, if this were at the Donmar it would be getting all kinds of attention. A must see.
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Post by perfectspy on Jun 5, 2016 21:32:26 GMT
I used to love the Arcola, and got through three of their Passports (spend £50 get 5 play tickets) in about two years. However I've hardly been for a couple of years now. This play might tempt me back, though. The passport option is what gets me through their doors, otherwise I wouldn't visit here as much due to distance. |
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Post by stefy69 on Jun 7, 2016 6:57:40 GMT
Thanks to the reviews on here I am pleased to say I now have seats for this.
Thanks to this board as it had completely slipped under my radar !
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Post by Deleted on Jun 7, 2016 11:33:43 GMT
Thanks to the reviews on here I am pleased to say I now have seats for this. Thanks to this board as it had completely slipped under my radar ! Missed this last night Was too weak The reviews were quite mixed Some 2 stars and references to hysterical melodrama It's far from sold out too |
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Post by Polly1 on Jun 15, 2016 9:00:27 GMT
Going tonight, my first trip to the Arcola. Bit of trepidation about venturing to Dalston on my own but really want to see this. Wish me luck!
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