New designs on Victoria
The Donmar in the West End season took a bright new turn yesterday when Victoria Hamilton was greeted with a bombardment of new designs for Twelfth Night in a collection of old shoe-boxes.
This was part of Donmar Education Week in which junior school children from Covent Garden and St John’s Wood, after a visit to the glorious production at Wyndham’s in which Victoria plays Viola, produced their own settings in the classroom.
They brought their work to the theatre and set up an impromptu design exhibition in the stalls and circle bars of London’s second most beautiful theatre (the Haymarket is the first).
Victoria wanted to know why there were two ships in one of the shipwreck scenes: the second ship had dropped off Sebastian which made total sense — and the actress admitted this with a gasp of realisation — as we see Viola washed up on the shore of Illyria, but we never know how Sebastian got there.
She also liked the big portrait of himself that Orsino had hung on the wall by a huge red throne: “Yes, of course, that tells you a lot about Orsino, doesn’t it, having a picture of himself, on his own wall….”
Supervised by designer Angela Davies, the Covent Garden kids had created a really dazzling display of colour and paper work in their boxes, while the St John’s Wood crowd had gone in for more back drops, tapestries and architectural detail.
Also on show was the work of five senior school students — from colleges in Hastings and Ealing — who have been working with Twelfth Night designer Christopher Oram and his assistant Richard Kent.
Their brief was the Players’ Scene in Hamlet, and they had produced a wonderful array of costume ideas, scenic balustrades, peacock feathers and fashion page poses. Oram did not say how many of these ideas he’d be incorporating into the upcoming Jude Law production but he was quietly proud of the way his talented young charges had set him thinking…
I found my German theatre critic friend Renata Klett studying the Twelfth Night reviews outside on the pavement. There were three shows she’s come to London specifically to see: Robert Lepage’s Eonnagata, Simon McBurney’s Shun-Kin and Caryl Churchill’s Seven Jewish Children but she’s quickly added Twelfth Night and England People Very Nice.
I’ve known Renata since my foreign festival hopping days of distant yore and she’s never wavered in her dedication to seeking out the best and most challenging new work in dance and drama right across the world.
She’s been to Lithuania more times than I’ve been to Lime Regis and although we hardly ever agree about anything her absolutism on what is good theatre and what isn’t is a perennial standard by which to conduct a rewarding conversation.
We have a Chinese meal and I’m so exhausted and elated at the end of it that for once I am genuinely relieved that I don’t have to go and watch anything tonight and I can simply veg out at home and watch the enthralling European Championship football game between Inter Milan and Manchester United.
En route I have to collect the car from its MOT and service at the local garage. The bill comes as a terrible shock as a new tyre and various new parts, such as windscreen wipers, have been fitted, too.
What’s that line in Nicholas de Jongh’s kindly received Plague Over England about diving into a nightclub to avoid the cold douche of reality? I feel like doing the same as I tot up my garage costs.