CATS: The Jellicle Ball

“Remember when plays had language? Dense, murky language, cerebrally and passionately expressed by idiosyncratically human characters? Following the remarkable double-header of Wallace Shawn's What We Did Before Our Moth Days and The Fever, I don't want plays to be anything but walls of text ever again. The two plays — Moth Days, a four-hander and The Fever a monologue performed by Shawn himself — both grapple with painful questions of human behavior. Moth Days is more focused on the pain we can inflict on one another, while The Fever eviscerates the capitalist system which governs the pain inflicted by and upon us. Both had almost no staging: just people, sitting in chairs, talking to us — really to us — about something true. ”

“Is existentialism having a moment? It certainly felt like it at the Royal Court for this thought-provoking double bill. Godot's To-Do List sent a chill through the audience as we recognized the inner voice—or perhaps even more frighteningly, an outer AI or social media one—endlessly controlling our lives but stopping us from doing what we really want to do. Both curtain raisers were two sides of the same coin, and this wonderful piece of contemporary writing was paired with Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape. Directed and performed by Gary Oldman, this was the spectacle the pumped audience was here to devour. Enter Gary Oldman on the second night of his first live stage performance in London for 35 years. Firstly, he mastered his audience with significant aplomb, although he actually used a banana! Once he had us, he carefully led us through the process of Krapp's last tapes, meeting his younger self in the form of a voice recording which was laid down as a birthday ritual. Beckett's magnificent script and a very clever use of lighting did the rest, and the audience were spellbound throughout. Of course, Beckett is a matter of taste; it’s grown up, like a martini. My own preference is surgically cold and very dry, without even the tiniest (and perhaps irresistible) twist of sentimentality.”