The Spectator - 29.02.2020

44 the spectator | 29 february 2020 | http://www.spectator.co.uk

BOOKS & ARTS

Dance

This will hurt

Sara Veale

Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch

• Bluebeard
  Sadler’s Wells

Dances at a Gathering/The Cellist

Royal Opera House, in rep until 4 March

Pina Bausch’s best work always hovered

between the familiar and the unknown. The

late choreographer revelled in borders and

thresholds, the hinterlands where fantasies

collide with reality. The gulf between men and

women — their conflicting desires, instincts,

clout — was one of her favourite trenches to

plumb, so it’s no wonder she was drawn to

Bluebeard. Her 1977 production was shown

for the first time in the UK this month.

The show’s full title — Bluebeard. While

Listening to a Tape Recording of Béla Bar-

tók’s Opera ‘Duke Bluebeard’s Castle’ — is

the first hint at its tangled drift. Splintered

into cryptic scenes, some buoyant, some dis-

turbingly visceral, it doesn’t narrate Per-

rault’s folk tale about a serial wife-killer

but contemplates its violence: Bluebeard’s

catapult between cruelty and melancholy,

his new bride’s doomed bid for deliverance.

It’s a dance of manipulation, with Bluebeard

taking charge, usually through physical force.

He even conducts the music, rewinding

a tape recorder to replay snatches of Bar-

tok’s early 20th-century score, though it’s

ielle Phillips and Helen Monks are superb

as Shakespeare’s daughters, who smoke clay

pipes and use distorted Brummie accents

(‘you’ rhyming with ‘thou’). David Mitchell’s

Shakespeare is a mixture of egoism, uncer-

tainty, fun-loving mischief and Pooterish

irascibility. ‘I’m not bald, I have shy hair,’ he

mooches defensively. He follows the script

effortlessly as it passes between the Jacobean

era and the present day. His comedy-rap exit

line — ‘who da Bard? Me da Bard!’ — might

easily have fallen flat. Mitchell’s amused cyni-

cism makes it soar. If you’re taking your kids

to this show, and I can’t recommend it highly

enough, give them a forward briefing on the

plots of Twelfth Night, King Lear and Oth-

ello. A short lesson on Shakespeare’s family

(his two daughters and the early death of his

only son, Hamnet) would be a useful addi-

tion. This is comedy gold.

Margaret Perry is a rising wunderkind

from Cork. Her first play, Porcelain, was

plucked from the slush pile at the Abbey

Theatre and given a full production. That

doesn’t happen very often. Her latest, Col-

lapsible, arrives at the Bush in west London

tinkling with gongs from the Dublin fringe,

the Vault Festival and Edinburgh 2019.

The show is a monologue spoken by

Essie (Breffni Holahan), a young Dubliner

in need of a job. To complete her CV she

canvasses friends and family for adjectives

that describe her character. ‘Smart’ and ‘per-

sonable’, suggest her parents. ‘Militant per-

fectionist’, says an ex-boyfriend. Essie sits

in her bedroom hunched over the internet,

occasionally venturing out to meet potential

employers. She has to endure the fake chum-

miness of hipster bosses who sprawl on bean

bags pretending that the job interview is just

a chat with a new friend. As her applications

are rejected she gets more engrossed in the

web and comes close to mental collapse.

Though the piece is verbally rich, it’s a lit-

tle bedazzled by its own virtuosity. And the

storyline — jobless yuppie seeks position in

Dublin — is hardly the stuff of great drama.

Very basic questions go unanswered. Who is

the real Essie? How will her quest alter her?

Who does she care about, apart from her-

self? She mentions Mum and Dad but only

in passing. Her lovers, or former lovers, are

Hayley and Derek. Is she still with them? Is

she gay, bisexual, experimenting?

The show ends with some kind of recon-

ciliation and the arrival of a second perform-

er, which mars the purity of the piece as a

solo effort. The writing and the observations

are good but I wasn’t convinced they belong

in a drama. Essie notices a patch of exposed

brickwork. ‘I know how that feels.’ A line for

a novel maybe. To me this felt like an inter-

esting but overpraised dud. However the run

has just been extended. So what do I know?

David Mitchell as a Pooterish Shakespeare

JOHAN PERSSON

Arts_29 Feb 2020_The Spectator 44 26/02/2020 10:44