Week 32 - Nearly Ninety; A Week in December

Nearly Ninety was created in the last year of choreographer's Merce Cunningham life before he died in summer 2009. Cunningham is probably the best known American avant garde representative and in his long career he influenced not only the dance world, but a wider culture as well. In his performances dance, music and design all play an equal role on the stage. His last work has all the trademarks of creativity and the name mirrors it (he died nearly ninety). Rigid moves, ballet-like leaps and inorganic relations mix with industrial sounds. I didn't enjoy it but didn't dislike it either – it left an indescribable emotion. 

At the monthly book club we discussed A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks. It is a Dickensian novel set in the current day London tracking the intertwined lives of numerous characters. In fact, there are so many characters with back stories, that not much space was left for the action. It is a true 'state of the nation' novel in to which an immense amount of research went in. The book contains detailed descriptions of how the Tube works, of the financial procedures in banks and hedge funds and drug industry among other things. A major fault, however, is the authors decision to invent new names for the items we take for granted and many places in London – Costa café becomes Café Bravo, MySpace – YourPlace, everyone listens to Girls from Behind, not Girls Aloud, etc. What is the point of it?

Also this week: listened to Baroque arias performed by Europa Galante at the Barbican and visited the magnificent Cadogan Hall where Vanbrugh String Quartet performed Beethoven's string quartets and yet again went to the most educating and inspiring guided tour of the National Gallery (everyday 11.30 or 2.30 – highly recommended!).  

Week 31 - Onassis; Men Should Weep

The life of Aristotle Onassis contains all the elements for a gripping play – a larger than life personality, famous lovers (Maria Callas and Jackie O), glamour and money, tragedy (many members of the family died in plane crashes, etc.) and a thriller twist (did Onassis pay for the assassination of R. Kennedy?). However, the just opened Onassis in the Novello theatre is a flop and a great performance by Robert Lindsay does not save it. Most of the action is narrated by Aristo's friend and business partner Kosta, but one does not want to be told what happened, one wants to see it on the stage. And that together with the flowery language of other characters left me longing for the end.

I will remember Men Should Weep at the National for two reasons – one of a great show and another of the ignorance and, ehem, stupidity of some people. The premise is simple – a very poor Glaswegian family in the 1930s depression, where men are looking for jobs and women are left holding the family together. The main character Maggie struggles to cope with her children's problems, with nosey neighbours and the mess in the flat. But along with all the poverty and hardship, there is hope, humour and a fabulously extravagant stage set. Since the play is set in Glasgow, the accents were really strong and it took a while to fully comprehend. At the interval a woman next to me asked if I am Scottish, because she was amazed I could follow the plot. But the top gag of the evening was being whispered behind me. An overheard conversation by two respected-age English ladies: 'I just don't understand why do they have to speak Scottish. We are in London, so they should speak English or at least have the subtitles'. I could not believe my ears.

Also this week: enjoyed Design for Living at the Old Vic with splendid sets.

Week 30 - The Double Issue

Do you know that special feeling when you start a book and from the first page you are absorbed and know that every page will be fantastic and the more you read the better it gets? You want to get lost in that world, for the book never to end. The book has everything you most value and most enjoy. Oh, that is the best feeling in the world and I haven't experienced it for a long time. But the wait was over last week as Amsterdam by Ian McEwan consumed my total attention for few days. The story is about a true friendship of two men – a composer and a newspaper editor. The author provides a wealth of background information on how things work in an orchestra and a daily's office, which added an enormous amount of pleasure to the clean language and brilliant observations of today's world. I was tired of reading average books and so Amsterdam was pure satisfaction.

One of the last Arthur Miller's play Broken Glass just opened at the Tricycle. It's a fantastic production with brilliant acting, especially by Anthony Sher. He is a respected businessman whose wife's legs suddenly get paralysed after she sees reports of Kristallnacht (this is 1938). As the play goes on, we discover that there might be another reason and not all is good under the calm facade of their marriage. As it is typical to Miller, there is a lot of humour and analysis of being a Jew in his play. But above all, we witness the pain an enormous love can bring to people.

Broken Glass was the best of the five performances I saw last week. The rest were mostly dreadful. Whilst waiting for the end, I fell asleep during Danton's Death at the National. A false blessing that there was no interval – not a long play, but I could have left on the break.

Krapp's Last Tape – allegedly Beckett's masterpiece with Britain's best living actor Micheal Gambon. It was another 50 minutes of torment. The recorded text wasn't very clear and jokes with banana as a penis were just cheap... As the playwright John Osborne rightly suggested – Tape's Last Krapp...

A little better was TEOREMAT from TR Warszawa (I saw their 4.48 Psychosis in March) at the Barbican. A theatrical revamp of the 1960s Italian film Teorema about a stiff family whose ordered daily life is distracted by an exciting stranger turning up at the door one day. The production had smart styling, interesting ideas, bare staging and good acting. However, it was way too long and the poetic moral in the end lost me.

Also this week I disliked Handel's opera Radamisto at the English National Opera. Why? Handel's music isn't my cup of tea, but I gave it a try. It is quite simplistic, the plot in the opera is silly and the decision to put one of the characters into a fat suit totally ruined it for me. I couldn't stand the distracting comical element that the fat suit provided.

All in all, a super busy week, but only few gems. 

Week 29 - Enlightenment; Blood and Gifts

The Hampstead Theatre just started its first season under the new artistic director Edward Hall with Enlightenment written by Shelag Stephenson. This season is meant to turn around the fortunes of the theatre which in the last few years lost it's track (not difficult to do that after grandees like Mike Leigh and Harold Pinter worked in the glory years). And what a weak start Enlightenment is! The story is intriguing enough – Adam has gone missing on his gap year travels, his middle class parents are in agony until he returns with memory loss. It turns out that the returnee is not their son and a pile of lies unfold while we find out what happened to the real Adam. However, it is ruined by flat acting (a wife slaps her husband and he just goes on talking – no reaction at all), clichéd characters (a psychic for humour element, an over enthusiastic and slightly dumb TV producer, a swearing former Labour minister) and fatigued moral message (we are good only when it suits us). Hopefully the season will get better once Mike Leigh comes back to direct Ecstasy in March.

The National yet again did not disappoint. Blood and Gifts by J T Rogers was a perfect political thriller. A young and eager CIA agent is sent to Pakistan to help the Afghans to fight the Soviets in 1981. Through his story the audience get to see the corruption of the Pakistani army chiefs, the humanity of the Soviet ambassador, the British inability in the special relation and the motives of the Afghan war lords. The play explains what happened in the ten years war that exposed the weakness and lead to the ruin of the Soviet Empire. Blood and Gifts is brilliant because we see many allusions to today's fight and the main character's personal story is interlinked with the happenings in the world.

Also this week: finished The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, enjoyed a super educational and inspiring tour of the National Gallery (daily at 11.30 and 2.30 – can't recommend enough!) and watched a dance performance Monger by Barak Marshall at the Barbican.

Week 28 - War Horse; Or You Could Kiss Me

Before I packed up my suitcases for Malaga's sunshine, a long held dream came true: saw War Horse , a hugely successful play about a boy looking for his beloved horse during WWI. It is produced by the Handspring Puppet Company, who made fantastic puppets of geese, horses and soldiers. The puppets were amazing, but only that long one can admire them, as the story was slow and predictable with dreadful overacting. I found the puppets of humans rather scary.

That leads to another play by the same company, just previewed at the National, Or You Could Kiss Me. It is a story of a gay couple in old age reminiscing of their youth in the 1970s South Africa. in the present, they are bickering at each other, in the past - being shy and afraid even to kiss. However, in the end we do not find out why their relationship is so bitter. The puppets were scary and the puppeteers were particularly distracting. The play was constantly interrupted by the 'story teller', who controlled the plot and acted all supporting roles. As the end approached, I was wondering if there is anything I liked about this play. The answer: not a single thing.

Also this week: The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas divided us the monthly book club - for some it is an engaging society portrait, so other - a predictable unworthy read. Also, indulged myself in the Mediterranean sun and Malaga's old town.