For one reason or another, we hadn\u2019t been to the Old Vic since the daft unisex loos were installed, and, said my wife, \u201cSomething else has changed.\u201d It was very noticeable that the press night audience for the Samuel Beckett double-bill was much younger than when I last reviewed a production here: it is, of course, the \u201cHarry Potter\u201d effect. I am a Harry Potter virgin; but I can understand why the 30-and-under fans have come to see Daniel Radcliffe. The first thing to say is that he really gets \u201cphysical theatre.\u201d Not only is his body-language eloquent, but he is a stage athlete. In the slight first play of the evening, the rarely staged Rough for Theatre II<\/em>, playing the character named simply \u201cA,\u201d he makes an astounding standing leap onto a high-ish window sill, not once, but twice; the second time bending backwards and lighting a match to see the face of \u201cC,\u201d Jackson Milner, who has his back to us for the entire performance, as he presumably contemplates suicide by jumping from the window.<\/p>\n The title \u201cRough\u201d seems to indicate that this is a blueprint, or set of notes for a play, rather than the play itself. But with the thrilling Alan Cumming playing \u201cB\u201d (they\u2019re designated that way around, but it doesn\u2019t actually matter), this is a full-fledged Beckett comedy with its characteristically sinister cutting-edge. Similarly dressed, \u201cA\u201d and \u201cB\u201d are bureaucrats of some sort discussing the fate of \u201cC,\u201d while sitting at identical desks with identical lamps and chairs. Besides the pair of stunning leaps, there\u2019s a good deal of business with lamps going dark, matches being struck, a caged songbird being displayed in silhouette, files of papers falling, chairs moving, and long, funny soliloquies for Cumming in his best Scottish accent. His baritone voice is beguiling, skittish, and seductive, except when he is frightened and wants a bit of \u201cHuman warmth\u201d by moving his chair near that of Radcliffe. The words themselves don\u2019t seem to matter as much as the constant patter of speech and the awkwardness of the situation. Even when they are face-to-face, and thus side-on to the audience, Cumming projects his voice to the outermost seat in the balcony. Radcliffe\u2019s soft tenor, though, is lost in their exchanges. For a moment I thought that this veteran, though young actor of screen large and small had not learnt the first lesson of drama school, and wasn\u2019t projecting his higher voice.<\/p>\n Endgame<\/em> proves I was wrong. In this more familiar play, Radcliffe plays \u201cClov,\u201d the younger man\/boy servant\/substitute son of \u201cHamm\u201d (Cumming), and he can be heard clearly even by the slightly-deaf me in row L of the stalls. Again, his sense of physical theatre is magnificent. He limps, as Beckett required, slaps himself (as if to say \u201csilly me\u201d) whenever he forgets something or does it in the wrong order, erects and climbs the ladder clumsily one rung at a time, then slithers down it, and peers down as though to fall over the vertiginous rim of an infinite dustbin. These are theatrical gestures my (elderly) generation will remember from vaudeville; and (my favourite) director, Richard Jones, is as careful with the execution of them as the playwright was in specifying them. In the final scene, Radcliffe, dressed to leave his master and the room, freezes, motionless, in a posture of quizzical hurt and menace.<\/p>\n As Hamm\u2019s dustbin-dwelling parents, \u201cNagg\u201d (Karl Johnson) and \u201cNell\u201d (Jane Horrocks) could hardly be bettered. Nagg is given important speeches, of doom-laden common sense. The pity is that Beckett did not give Nell more lines, as we are cheated of seeing more of the prosthetically-altered Ms Horrocks.<\/p>\n But finally the evening and the honours belong to Cumming\u2019s Hamm. Dressed as a punk\/hippy\/skinhead magus, blind and exploring his own scalp to find the fontanelle, he is ensconced in a throne-like chair on casters, revealing the narrowest legs and ankles imaginable. Alan Cumming is thin, I thought to myself, but surely not so emaciated \u2013 more prosthetics, and the feet turned towards each other to boot. Poor Cumming \u2013 can he actually stand up in this trick chair, I wondered? Or is he crouching on his knees for what is a very long time? Hamm wants his servant, summoned by a dog whistle, but also rejects him. He loves him, wants to be loved (and touched, and kissed) by him, yet spurns him at every opportunity. Hamm tries to give Clov the combination to (the safe in) the larder, so he can recover the gun and deliver the longed-for quietus to his master.<\/p>\n Does Clov finally leave Hamm? Richard Jones and designer Stewart Laing don\u2019t answer the question, but settle it, in a coup de th\u00e9\u00e2tre<\/em> that also provides an ending for \u201cRough,\u201d as the three walls of the entire set slowly recede on their way to black-out infinity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" February 5, 2020 by Paul Levy Alan Cumming and Daniel Radcliffe in Rough for Theatre II (Photo Manuel Hardan) For one reason or another, we hadn\u2019t been to the Old Vic since the daft unisex loos were installed, and, said my wife, \u201cSomething else has changed.\u201d It was very noticeable that the press night audience […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paSOZf-7v","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paullevy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paullevy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paullevy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paullevy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paullevy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/paullevy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":466,"href":"https:\/\/paullevy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465\/revisions\/466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paullevy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paullevy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paullevy.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Alan-Cumming-B-and-Daniel-Radcliffe-A_Rough-for-Theatre-II_Manuel-Harlan-at-The-Old-Vic-2-scaled.jpg?fit=800%2C533&ssl=1\")
Alan Cumming and Daniel Radcliffe in Rough for Theatre II<\/em> (Photo Manuel Hardan)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/plainenglish\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/Alan-Cumming-Hamm-and-Daniel-Radcliffe-Clov_Endgame_The-Old-Vic_Photo-by-Manuel-Harlan-1.jpg?resize=800%2C431&ssl=1\")
Hamm and Clov in Endgame (Photo Manuel Hardan)<\/p>\n