The problem is that this high concept completely overwhelms the play itself. Entering the theatre, we see actors wandering around a gambling casino garishly decked out in blue and gold, with showgirls stalking the stage in five-inch heels and huge plumage. Portia and Nerissa are dizzy blondes with heavy Southern accents who work on a TV game show called “Destiny,” where there are three caskets from which contestants have to choose (gold, silver, lead—get it?). Portia’s suitors are caricatures—the Prince of Morocco is a Muhammad Ali type, the Prince of Aragon is a Mexican mariachi, and Bassanio disguises himself in a Hercules costume. With this travesty swirling about him, Ian McDiarmid, a fine British actor, struggles valiantly to find a place for Shylock in the midst of the chaos. It’s all too much. This hyperactive production gets lost in its own high concept, exaggerating the American culture of greed to a ridiculous extreme.
Meanwhile, on the West End, the cast of Sunny Afternoon is having the time of its life, singing and dancing up a storm at the Harold Pinter Theatre. This newest example of the jukebox musical genre (book by Joe Penhall, music and lyrics by Ray Davies) tells the story of the Kinks, a working-class band that rose to popularity in the ’60s alongside the Beatles. Judging from all the audience members over 50 who were lip-synching the songs on the night we attended (“You Really Got Me,” “All Day and All of the Night,” “Lola,” etc.), this scruffy band captured many English hearts in its time. Their story isn’t nearly as involving as that of The Jersey Boys‘ Four Seasons; the Kinks’s biggest problem was their tour in America, where they encountered legal problems (the line, “We’re the only socialist band opposed by the unions” gets a huge laugh). Still, the music and the spirit of the ensemble carry the evening. Edward Hall directs an exuberant cast that has the audience on its feet dancing for most of Act Two.
Last but certainly not least are new works by two of Britain’s finest writers. Behind the Beautiful Forevers, now at the National Theatre, is a new play by David Hare based on the book by Katherine Boo, a New Yorker staff writer who spent three years reporting in the slums of Mumbai. This epic drama follows the lives of two families living in Annawadi, the slum just behind the Mumbai airport, where the main industry is scavenging. “Rich people don’t know what they got—they don’t know what they throw away,” is the mantra of the young boys who spend their time picking through trash produced by the airport and five luxury hotels in the area, collecting cans, plastic bottles and more. Sixteen-year-old Abdul Hussain is a star picker, and his Muslim family prospers. But the jealous rivalry of Fatima, a neighbor, soon places the Hussains in peril.
How Abdul and other young people struggle to do good and make something of their lives in a perilous world—where a corrupt government and judicial system pose even more obstacles than does poverty—is the crux of this moving epic. Rufus Norris, the National’s new artistic director-designate, directs the sprawling story on the vast Olivier Stage with grace and fluidity. Watching his ensemble of 34 Indian actors bow at the curtain call is a true thrill, and an affirmation of the National’s commitment to tell compelling stories from many cultures.
Meanwhile, the world premiere of Tom Stoppard’s The Hard Problem is the theatre event of the season. After a hiatus of almost a decade (his last play, Rock ’n’ Roll, premiered at the Royal Court in 2006), Stoppard returns to the National with a jewel. In contrast to his last show at the National, the nine-hour epic trilogy Coast of Utopia (2002), about the Russian intelligentsia, The Hard Problem lasts a mere 90 minutes.
The story follows Hilary, a pretty young psychology researcher at a brain research institute, over a period of years, as she grapples with challenging questions that are scientific, philosophical and personal. She trying to connect the dots between consciousness, human motivation and “doing good”—and she won’t give up. Over a dozen scenes, as Hilary’s career flourishes, an ensemble of nine other characters join in the ongoing debate on issues related to this “hard problem,” which encompasses Cartesian dualism, moral relativism versus moral absolutism, altruism versus egoism, miracle versus coincidence, and the essential difference between the terms “brain” and “mind.”
Sound heady? Of course it is; it’s Stoppard. But what makes The Hard Problem moving as well as intellectually challenging is the conflation of the theoretical and the personal. Hilary has another “hard problem”—a deeply personal secret in her past that haunts her, sending her down on her knees every night to pray. Like Stoppard’s masterpiece Arcadia, The Hard Problem functions as a mystery, as well, as clues to Hilary’s secret (a child she had at 15 and gave up for adoption) are planted in scene after scene until the play’s unexpected conclusion.
Sir Nicholas Hytner, the outgoing artistic director at the National, has staged The Hard Problem with clarity and simplicity. Its dozen or so scenes are bridged by sparkling strains of Bach piano music; above Bob Crowley’s spare, stylish set hangs an abstract tangle of wires—representing the neurons and synapses of the brain—through which colored lights course as the music plays. The result is a pristine harmony of form and content, of scenic and sound elements. This elegant investigation of the workings of the mind and heart is among the high points of a new season with few low ones.
Carol Rocamora is a leading translator of Chekhov and a teacher of theatre at New York University.
