More Ladies

Returning to my thoughts on Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, fans of the show have directed me to a variety of positive reviews that do grapple with the meaning and importance of the NTS' production. Most explicitly, in a short critique, Melanie Reid of The Times commented...

Our Ladies... is about how the most sordid circumstances of our lives are the conditions of our deliverance, because they belong to us.

It's a beautiful sentiment, and one that the play does present: in a late scene, the ladies collectively sing Bob Marley in a moment that captures the feeling of tired, resigned celebration that follows a hectic night out. 

Adding in something about the way that music

Manuel Harlan

provides the catalyst for the transformation of despair into acceptance and even triumph would clarify how the show expresses this (throughout the script, music lends depth and immediacy to the school girls' experience (exactly in the way that the Catholic school probably hoped it would (although perhaps not with the same songs taught by the school))).

But this review, from The Times (despite a rather snarky comment about Scottish accents), gives an example of how criticism can advance the discussion around theatre. Identifying a core message, and passing it on: the usual critical function of assessing the play is placed at the service of further discussion about an idea. The quality of the performances, the direction, the musical choices, are subsumed to the theatrical mission of sharing experience.

I'm not sure that I'd call the adventures of Our Ladies sordid, mind. They are just a bunch of teenagers out on the razz. The script makes a point about accidental pregnancy (not all teenage mums have a limited horizon), the dangers of old perverts and having too much to drink (and spewing over yourself at a prestigious choir competition). But this isn't sordid, especially. 

It's being a teenager. 

And there's the rub: my teenage self was a bit busy reading Latin and getting obsessive about 'cool music' (not ELO, who provide the songs). As a former teacher, I know what teenagers these days get up to (have to love my patronising tone, there). I do recognise the redemption, and the irony that it is the same school that our ladies rebel against that has given them the redemptive power of music. 

I'm Uneasy... Not Like Sunday Mornings...

Never let it be said that I can let things go. After the generous response to my article in which I bemoaned my inability to enjoy populist theatre, I've come up with more self-indulgent and pompous thoughts.

Can we blame media structures?

It was probably inevitable that I would blame other critics for my failures - I suggested that reviewing was becoming a synopsis with adjectives, with a lack of detailed argument.

To be fair, this isn't all criticism, and it is not just print criticism that does this. I ripped off a piece by Catherine Love last week, and it had plenty of detail, historical knowledge and sharp analysis. While I am sympathetic to the idea that the minimal space given to theatre criticism in newspapers can encourage 'potted reviews' (and that the pressure of on-line immediacy discourages expansive writing (TL;DR)), it does not necessarily mean that reviews are always cursory. I generalised from a specific instance because I have a vague idea that reviews are getting briefer.

So, the structures of the media are a factor, but not the whole story. What is regarded as acceptable as a review might be, though.

This might have been an attempt to address the moaning about critics and their role which kicked off after that Stage article. 

Who the hell are you to judge?

I admit that I have been guilty of lazy reviewing. If I wanted to, I could present a list of 'bad practices' taken from my own work. So, yeah, I'm a hypocrite. However, I do suffer from regular and painful abscesses, which can be regarded as a punishment. It's no excuse, but feel free to relish the thought of Mr Academic Big Shot here whining like a baby.

What's wrong with populism?

Nothing. Please don't apologise for liking something just because I don't find Diderot's theories in it. Part of my conflict comes from the disjuncture between my opinion and the majority response. I'm working out how to recognise that difference without surrendering my opinions or being patronising. 

I could point to my long and tedious history of criticism, and mention that I have very... distinctive tastes. For those who follow criticism, that's a bonus.  For those who don't, who surf onto my opinions, I'm a guy with a stick up his ass (see previous point).

No, what's wrong with populism?

It permits weak productions to get away with shoddy theatricality. I approve Our Ladies for not over-sexualising the young women (the costumes never went Britney, for example). But I also worry that the presentation of working class lives - and frankly, given that the play ends with one girl still in conflict over her sexual desire and another pregnant, pretty difficult lives - for entertainment is problematic. 

I'll wind myself into a knot here. I struggle with political theatre, and the self-awareness of Our Ladies' heroines is admirable... but I couldn't help but think: this is a play about young women who are being fucked over by an economic system that limits their options and aspiration. Yet, at the end, they sing some Bob Marley and every little thing's gonna be alright. 

These particular anxieties - theatre as valve for frustrations, the working class as a vaudeville routine - applies to serious agit-prop, too. And, like my relationship to 27 and Iphigenia in Splott, it is unresolved. 

Unlike populist theatre, I'm uneasy.

Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour @ SECC

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a problem. Tonight I went to see a well received and well reviewed play by the National Theatre of Scotland. Written by Lee Hall, who did Billy Elliot, Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour is an alcohol drenched, sex obsessed romp that follows director Vicky Featherstone's once-stated commitment to make theatre that is a good night out, and not a stuffy evening of academic performance.

I think that I like stuffy evenings. I got very little pleasure from Our Ladies. I thought the musical choices were arbitrary - not illustrating the themes of the play, but singalong anthems to hide the sloppy character development. 

Knowing that I have a problem is the first step. My problem is that I go to the theatre for a transcendent experience. Surrounded by an audience which is clearly enjoying itself, I wonder whether I am the right person to be reviewing unashamedly popular theatre. 

The cast are brilliant: great singers, full of energy and, when called upon to give a monologue, moving and passionate. The script has its moments: Hall can write a speech full of detail and suggestion, although he might be leaning on the source novel, The Sopranos. Featherstone keeps things running at a good pace. 

But this is barely theatre. Take a pivotal scene, when two of the young women are discussing their tentative desire. They kiss, they break, and one explains to the other that it isn't going to work. So the other  turns to the audience and says her heart is broken.

That's narrative, not theatre. Why couldn't she have acted her heartbreak? Why have the subtext spelled out so clumsily? There is so much chat to the audience - just like in the recent adaptation of The Iliad at The Lyceum - that actual performance of emotion is replaced by words. Some people call this Brechtian. I don't.

I realise that I am in a minority here. The audience lap it up - possibly because the format ('closer to a gig,' say the programme notes) allows plenty of space for those show stopping numbers. 

And there are loads of reviews that give it four stars. I am nothing if not pragmatic. I want to give the cast and direction the respect they deserve. So I turn to the reviews for answers. 

All I got is plot summaries and bland statements that it is good, or superb, or dynamic. There's no argument, no suggestions of why reading the book would not give me everything the play has. 

So, I am left with a few questions.

If my opinion is so different from the audience around me, does that make my opinion less valid?

Am I just a terrible snob who can't have a good time (I have been annoyed by Breakfast at Tiffany's, too, this week, another populist adaptation which refuses to develop dramatic tension)?

Has the review become little more than an exercise in rewriting the synopsis and few qualitative adjectives?