National Anthems
Old Vic
12 February 2005
Curiosity drove me to the Old Vic to see Kevin Spacey in National Anthems but if I’d paid attention to the reviews I might never have gone. Spacey’s artistic directorship of the Old Vic has been nothing if not controversial. The press regularly describes his reign as ‘troubled’, ‘weird’ and ‘beleaguered’ and last year’s Cloaca (which I didn’t make it to) was from all accounts a stinker – with what the Daily Telegraph described as ‘all the allure of a faintly rancid dead fish’.
Here’s what the media luminaries had to say about National Anthems:
“A little lost and unduly inflated… stagey and contrived” – BBC
“Glibly mechanical” – The Guardian
“Shallow, contrived and dated … predictable and obvious” – The Daily Telegraph
“Slick and sometimes wincingly contrived showcase” – The Independent
We went anyway and I’m so glad we did. It was absolutely electrifying! I don’t think I’ve seen acting that good. The audience was ecstatic, with half the stalls spontaneously rising to give the performance a standing ovation.
This leads me to suspect that much of the bile directed against Spacey has little to do with the artistic merits of the plays and performances and everything to do with who he is. Brits don’t want a famous American actor at the helm of one of London’s most venerated theatrical institutions. It’s probably not helped by the fact that Spacey is serving up such distinctly American fare. National Anthems is American through and through, from the moment the giant American flag drops to reveal the interior of a suburban home to the cultural references about baseball and American football. Even the actors are American, with Spacey’s co-stars Steven Weber and Mary Stuart Masterson appearing in London through an exchange agreement with Actors’ Equity. Tellingly, the next play in the Old Vic season is The Philadelphia Story (I can’t wait!).
National Anthems is set in Birmingham, Michigan, a well-to-do suburb of Detroit, in 1988. It was first staged in Broadway in 1988 in a production also starring Kevin Spacey. The script simply sets it in the present day but the director decided to stage it as a period piece. Hence the set design, costuming, dialogue references to baseball players, car model numbers and brand names are all anchored in the late 1980s. I’m not convinced that it needed to be a period piece as the themes and preoccupations of the characters still ring true today. Still, the setting provides some light relief and certainly doesn’t detract from the drama.
The set is lavishly designed. The stage was brought forward several rows (hey, it made my row J seats even better!) to enable the construction of a house, with a full-scale living room replete with expensive furnishings and fittings, a staircase with an upstairs landing, and an exterior with walls, a roof and a front door.
Spacey reprises the role he played in the original production as Ben, the neighbour who unexpectedly calls on Arthur and Leslie, the young upwardly mobile couple who have moved in down the street. The best thing about Spacey is that he is so different in every performance and his true identity remains an enigma. In National Anthems he is by turns edgy, funny, pathetic and weird. All of the acting is top class and it needs to be because it’s a demanding script. The first act is entertaining but not especially memorable but things really get going in the second half, when we find out who Ben is and the two men, eager to prove their manliness, challenge each other to a football match in the living room. Without Spacey and the strong support roles, it could so easily have all fallen apart in the last scene. Instead they carry it off brilliantly and it’s easily the best part of the play.
The play is thematically rich, mining the preoccupations of consumerism, class, success and race in 1980s suburban America. The one fault in the script is that it lays it all out for you – not much is left for the audience to ponder and interpret. This is more than made up for by the humour and the sheer enjoyment of watching the performance.
Rating *****
Copyright 2005 Caitlin Fitzsimmons
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