Theatre review: Dr Semmelweis

After his return to Jerusalem was a sell-out, there was little question that another recent Mark Rylance project would make its way to the West End as well: Stephen Brown's Dr Semmelweis, first seen at the Bristol Old Vic, also gives Rylance a co-writing credit as it was apparently his idea to dramatise the story of an obstetrician who saw the importance of hygiene in medicine decades before anyone understood bacteria, and was laughed and bullied out of his profession for it. I'm not sure it's entirely in character for Rylance to side with the latest medical discoveries over, say, fresh air and garlic; then again the play also shows Ignaz Semmelweis as a paranoid conspiracy theorist so it's six of one half a dozen of the other. The play begins in the middle of the story, with Semmelweis losing his mind, but retaining its sharpness in some ways.

Theatre review: Jerusalem

Just as there are a lot of actors who get forever identified with one role, there are also roles that get identified strongly with one actor. But I've never seen so many people insist that it's unthinkable for anyone other than the original star to take over a role, as I have with Mark Rylance and Rooster John Byron in Jez Butterworth's Jerusalem. It's a theory the latest West End revival has no intention of challenging as, 13 years after first playing the role, Rylance returns to Ian Rickson's production. He brings with him some more of the original Royal Court cast, including Mackenzie Crook as Rooster's hapless sidekick Ginger, an unemployed plasterer who insists he's actually a DJ. What he mostly is is off his face, as what brings him to the dilapidated caravan on the edge of a Wiltshire wood is the same as brings most people there: Rooster is the village's resident drug dealer.

Theatre review: Othello (Shakespeare's Globe)

For the final major Shakespeare production of Michelle Terry’s first summer season the last actor to serve as Artistic Director of the Globe returns, with a characteristically idiosyncratic take on a classic villain. Director/composer Claire van Kampen has said she wanted her production of Othello to return the play’s focus to its title character; I’m not entirely sure how she thought she’d manage that with her husband, noted scenivore Mark Rylance, as Super Mario Iago. Venetian Ensign Super Mario Iago has a rather vague grudge against his general, Othello (André Holland) and, aided by Roderigo (Steffan Donnelly,) a man with more money than sense and a crush on Othello’s wife, hatches a convoluted plot not to destroy the general, but to make him destroy himself. Central to his scheming is Othello’s new wife Desdemona (Jessica Warbeck,) a younger woman whose father objected to her marrying a black man, no matter how well-regarded a soldier he might be.

Theatre review: Nice Fish

It seems like "whimsy" is the word of the week - a couple of days ago it was a particularly Welsh brand of it, now it's an American version brought to life by Mark Rylance, himself very much an English eccentric (in fact this play only makes me find more plausibility in Weez' theory that Rylance isn't actually an actor, but a collection of small woodland creatures standing on each other's shoulders in a coat,) who actually grew up in America. Nice Fish is by US writer Louis Jenkins, whose poems Rylance has a habit of reading out in lieu of acceptance speeches for his many awards, and it definitely feels like what it is: A collection of existing writings strung together, rather than a narrative. Erik (Jim Lichtscheidl) has gone out onto a frozen Minnesota lake to fish through the ice, and brought with him Ron (Rylance,) who'll be keeping him company but has no interest in fishing himself.

Theatre review: Farinelli and the King

Amiably bonkers kings traditionally make for good theatre, so for Farinelli and the King, the first new play to be written for the Swanamaker, Claire van Kampen - better known as a composer - turns to 18th century Madrid and Philippe V, a grandson of Louis XVI of France installed, possibly to his own surprise, as King of Spain. He turns out to be a good monarch, but much of his business is war, which takes a mental toll on him. A bout of depression and paranoia sees him withdraw from human company and his duties, becoming obsessed with the passing of time. When we first meet Philippe (Mark Rylance) he's been awake all night fishing in a goldfish bowl, and berating the clocks for all showing slightly different times. For De la Cuadra (Edward Peel) this is an opportunity to have the king quietly shipped away and rule in his stead, but his doctor (Huss Garbiya) has one last ditch-plan.

Non-review: Much Ado About Nothing (Old Vic)

The "nothing" in Much Ado About Nothing has been ascribed many punning meanings. It was Elizabethan slang for "vagina," which fits in with the sexual deceit at the heart of the plot. Less interesting people insist it's in fact a pun on "noting," meaning gossip. Mark Rylance's production at the Old Vic has found a whole new relevance to "nothing," as the answer to the question "how much of the script will James Earl Jones have memorised by the first preview?" A few weeks on and Jones has at least managed to keep the blank pauses to a minimum, but frankly knowing what the words are seems irrelevant in a production when they're often inaudible, and when they can be heard they're being thrown away. Regular readers of this blog will both know a "not-review" is when I want to comment on a show but feel something makes me unqualified to call it a review. Very rarely, that something is me leaving at the interval.

Theatre review: Richard III (Shakespeare's Globe & Apollo Shaftesbury Avenue)

With the usual Indian summer refusing to turn up this year, I'm quite glad that tonight's rainy, freezing cold night at the Globe was my last outdoor theatre trip until next spring. I booked Richard III pretty late into its Globe run (although it too will be wintering at the Apollo) so as to leave a decent gap after the earlier Dick 3s at the Roundhouse and in Stratford. Paired with the revival of his Twelfth Night, Tim Carroll directs much of the same cast in a new production of Richard III, although this too uses the Original Practices techniques that I've expressed reservations about before. Mark Rylance plays the hunchbacked, withered-armed Richard Duke of Gloucester, brother to King Edward V and a few places down the line of succession to the throne. But the three people ahead of him are no obstacle if he kills them all, and once he becomes King Richard, his murderous insanity shows no sign of letting up.

Theatre review: Twelfth Night (Shakespeare's Globe & Apollo Shaftesbury Avenue)

Not a PREVIEW DISCLAIMER as such, apparently newspaper critics are not being invited to review this production until after its West End transfer, so the whole Globe run is either fair game, or we're to infer that it consists entirely of previews. In any case, one of the papers has already broken that embargo.

Mark Rylance was the original Artistic Director of Shakespeare's Globe (ironically enough, since he presumably considers the venue's name to be inaccurate) and, for reasons I won't go into unless anyone is especially interested, an interview of his where he discussed his plans for the venue rather put me off the place, hence my never having visited it until four years ago. Having now seen plenty of enjoyable shows at the Globe though, I didn't feel the need to stay away from the return of Rylance and his Original Practices team, his first since 2006. As well as a new production of Richard III (which I've booked at the very end of its run to leave a decent gap after seeing the RSC's version) director Tim Carroll also brings back perhaps the most famous production of Rylance's tenure, with him as Olivia in Twelfth Night. Unbeknownst to each other, a pair of twins wash up on the Illyrian coast after a shipwreck, where they get confused for each other by the households of the Duke Orsino, and the object of his romantic affections, the grieving lady Olivia.