People like theatre - well some do anyway

The latest in an occasional series of theatre reviews...

Best Of Enemies : Noel Coward Theatre

I didn't know anything about this as a play when I booked it, but was drawn in by the dual star power of David Harewood and Zachary Quinto - I suspected they were unlikely to be involved in anything too rubbish.  In the intervening period, I'd learnt it was based upon (which is always a phrase with a certain amount of latitude involved) a series of televised debates that happened in the late 60s but it's fair to say I'd not exactly read around the subject - I was very much hoping that it would treat me gently and ease me into it.

But, whatever the play was going to do to me, it was going to do it from quite some way away - I was very much up in the gods.  And it also wasn't going to do it with an abundance of scenery, it appeared.

But, as the lights go down, some scenery does appear - two chairs!   And we're thrown into a scene where something BIG has obviously just happened and we're dealing with the aftermath - so there goes my hopes of being eased into it.  But, fortunately, this is just a theatrical device to get me hooked and we're swiftly rewound back in time to set the scene.  It's 1968 and the Republican and Democratic conventions are about to happen to select their presidential candidates.  There is a standard way that this is covered by the TV channels - but ABC, being a distant third in the ratings war with NBC and CBS, needs to come up with something to differentiate their coverage.

And their new thing was "celebrity" debate - I use the quotes because the people involved were somewhat different to what we'd see these days.  William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal were both "public intellectuals" (as Wikipedia puts it) representing very different political ideologies who already had a history of enmity.  The play does an impressive job of explaining all this very efficiently (with neither David or Zachary being overly involved) - it really helped allay the fears I had that it was going to be a long evening indeed.

And once we've got the scene setting done, we follow a timeline over the two conventions and the debates (I think there were six) as the two protagonists parry and riposte in a very "public intellectual" kinda way (at least to start with).  And I think that's all I'm going to tell you in case you're off to see it - I will also say it has a very well-done ending which does something different and makes you think about an unexpectedly wider context.

And boy, does it feature some proper acting.  David Harewood and Zachary Quinto are both excellent and they have a LOT of lines to learn - frequently happening at the same time due to the often fractious nature of the debate.  I was vaguely aware of Gore Vidal and Zachary gave me exactly the sort of representation I was expecting - conversely, I wasn't at all aware of William Buckley, but I really felt I got to know him through David's portrayal (which features a quite peculiar accent, which was apparently something Buckley was known for).

One interesting side comment which I can't quite decide is fair or not, but I'm going to mention anyway.  I’m generally a fan of colour (or gender) blind casting, but this is a historical piece and, even though I knew nothing about William F Buckley, I knew perfectly well there was no chance of him being anything other than white.  So it's a tribute to David that he portrayed the role as well as he did (and his casting) but his skin colour was jarring - whether this is my or the play's problem, I'm probably not best placed to comment.  Zachary, by contrast, didn't exactly have to adapt too much to play Gore - but boy does he do a good job and I'd give him the "man of the play" award.

The play has a surprisingly large cast (15?) but most of them play a multitude of parts, so are rarely given much of an opportunity to shine.  However, I am going to call out Clare Foster who plays Patricia Buckley (William's wife) and she makes it a very "behind every strong man..." role, obviously loving the man but also pricking his pomposity when required.  Additionally, John Hodgkinson shines in his two very different roles as Howard Smith, the moderator of the debates and Richard Daley, the amusingly sweary mayor of Chicago.

All the cast are very much all made to work for their living - yes, there was no initial scenery but various bits are dragged on and off throughout the play (including a large bed).  As well as the scenery, the three blue boxes seen towards the top of the screen were "television screens" which were given a variety of uses throughout the play including representing the actions on stage as if they were being televised, showing us "off-air" character reaction and playing historical footage - it was all very cleverly done.  There are also many very quick cuts between and also during scenes - done well through the use of scenery, personnel and lighting changes, often happening on stage and on the television screens at the same time.  All in all, there are a lot of cues for the actors to react to and they all perform admirably - it was a technically impressive production.

Time for a slight digression to talk about the theatre, which I'd not been to before.  It's a lovely theatre which obviously has loads of history (it opened in 1903) and is very pretty inside.  But, in terms of stage view, it was the worst seat I’ve had so far.  Things were fine when I sat down, but when the guy (who was slightly taller than average, but not huge) sat down in front of me, all I could see was the back of his head.  Fortunately he didn’t move too much and one of the seats next to me was empty - otherwise I would have struggled to see much.  I appreciate it’s a risk buying the cheapest seats, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised so far by how good a view I’ve generally had, so this was a disappointment.  I would say the theatre had a good set of speakers though - there was amazing bass at times in some of the sound effects.

Back to the play, I REALLY enjoyed this.  It was partly due to the staging and performances which were really well done and had the audience enthralled - at one point, "queer" is unexpectedly used as an insult and there were gasps as people were audibly shocked.  It was also a great story which is historically interesting whilst also being depressingly relevant to, whilst also contrasting with, what we see today.  It was interesting that William F. Buckley and Gore Vidal were sniffily considered as "celebrities" who had no business talking about politics - and they were both uncertain about the wisdom of getting involved in something so tawdry on television, but they suspected no-one would watch it (which turned out to be very wrong indeed).   It's also very hard to imagine anything like that happening these days - we're more likely to get Gemma Collins and Joey Essex trying to spell politics (but that's still far preferable to Laurence Fox getting involved in anything).

Reading up further on the subject, I see there's a documentary (also called Best Of Enemies) on these debates which I shall be making an effort to track down - if you're interested in these times then I can also recommend The Trial Of The Chicago 7, which happens at the same time as the latter half of this play, but is set outside the hotel as opposed to inside it.

Summing up, considering I saw this a fortnight after The Lehman Trilogy, it could easily have come off second-best (it's certainly second in terms of running time) but I think I actually preferred this - it has a smaller sense of scale, but doesn't lack for ambition and can focus on detail more when required.  It has some great acting and is very intelligently staged - I thought it was a top rate production all round.  If you fancy it, you've got a week left before it's gone - I thoroughly recommend it (in case you hadn't guessed!)

The Lehman Trilogy - another very enjoyable evening
Best Of Bug - some really cool videos