Oh, to be in England, now that Madonna is here — live, in person, and stirring up her usual media storm as she makes her West End stage debut in a minor comedy about sex, power and the mad, corrupt, commercial world of contemporary art.
Her Royal Madgeness (as some of the tabloids have taken to calling her), is but one of several American stars, including Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow, who are doing turn-away business in London theaters this spring, and, as an actress, she has received by far the weakest reviews; but, her persona once again overshadowing her performance, she is still capturing most of the headlines, despite competition from the fuss over Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee and the national frenzy over England’s fate in the World Cup finals.
She has given no interviews, she is listed only alphabetically (by her married name of Madonna Ritchie) in the cast, and there’s no trace of her in the billing on the theater’s marquee.
Nonetheless, she is the only reason “Up for Grabs,” her chosen vehicle, is sold out through the end of its run July 13 at Wyndhams Theatre, and, were it not for her, ticket scalpers would be doing no business at all for David Williamson’s play.
The comedy, a big hit when it premiered last year in Williamson’s native Australia, features Madonna as a Manhattan (transferred from Sydney) art dealer who will do anything to sell a prime Jackson Pollock painting she has suddenly acquired. Anything, in her case, involves brandishing a black nylon dildo that will satisfy the anal sex cravings of a beefy philistine collector and suffering much lesbian smooching from an Internet millionairess who is married to a punk with a failed penile enlargement.
Williamson, a prolific writer who has done much better work (“The Removalists,” “Dead White Males”), apparently intended to create a satire with a moral thrust in “Up for Grabs,” but the play’s jokes about the art world are lame and its dissection of love and marriage in the fast-track lane is heavy-handed.
Director Laurence Boswell has given the show a slick production of elaborate video projections and swift scene changes, and the cast contains some fevered acting, from film veteran Michael Lerner as the crass collector and Steppenwolf’s Tom Irwin as Madonna’s embattled psychiatrist husband.
Madonna herself, who received an ovation of whistles and cheers from members of the May 23 opening night audience, looks fine in her stiletto heels, white leather jacket, flared black trousers and gray scoop-neck blouse.
She is better here than she was 14 years ago on Broadway in David Mamet’s “Speed-the-Plow.” But her carefully coached stage movements often resemble semaphore signalings, and her thin, unamplified voice is not suited for the theater. She appears only at ease when she gets to boogie down a little with Irwin.
She makes her portrayal of the hard-edged, ambitious art dealer surprisingly sweet and innocent.
At play’s end, finding herself without house, money or husband, she winsomely tells the audience, “I’ll start again,” with no indication of the acquisitive, aggressive nature of her character.
Having the Material Girl express herself this way in a play about the rampant commercialization of art is just about the only effective touch of irony in this labored comedy.
Good reviews for Gwyneth
Away from the larger West End commercial theaters, in the 251-seat Donmar Warehouse, Paltrow is faring much better in the London premiere of David Auburn’s 2001 Pulitzer Prize drama, “Proof.”
London critics generally (and unfairly) dismissed the play as predictable and contrived, but Paltrow earned excellent notices for her work as the troubled, fragile, might-be-genius daughter of a great, mentally disabled University of Chicago mathematician.
The play’s Hyde Park-Kenwood atmosphere is pretty well lost in the production’s simple porch setting, and Paltrow’s portrayal, though intense, emphasizes the perky, wistful traits of her character, rather than her angry, depressive qualities.
Still, it’s a solid production, directed by John Madden, who guided Paltrow to her Oscar win in “Shakespeare in Love”; and the critics here have given the actress a bundle of good reviews to take home with her when the engagement ends June 15.
A couple of critics even raved at length about her beautiful bare feet.
Damon, who is 31 now and has not appeared in a play since his college days, can still play 21 very convincingly, and in the London premiere of Kenneth Lonergan’s American drama “This Is Our Youth,” he has come to the stage as if to the theater born.
Taking over his role from Hayden Christensen, who left the cast to tend to his promotional “Star Wars” duties, Damon portrays an adrenaline-fueled brat who sells dope in 1982 New York and lords it over his meek, doormat buddy (Casey Affleck, Ben’s younger brother, also from the movies). Working at high speed, Damon has all the sharp timing, the clever moves and the keen emotional heat he needs for his role.
The staging by Boswell (the same director who assembled “Up for Grabs”) is unerringly sharp, and Affleck, showing remarkable stage savvy, and Summer Phoenix (River’s sister) as the insecure fashion-conscious girl he briefly beds help turn this London show into an all-American success. (Damon, unfortunately, has to leave the show to tend to his publicity chores for his new movie “The Bourne Identity” and probably will miss most if not all of its remaining performances through June 2 at the Garrick Theater.)
Reviews predict stardom
Not yet a star but clearly a young American actress on the rise is Liesel Matthews, a Chicagoan who has a leading role in the premiere of the grim, glum drama “The Distance From Here,” through June 22 at the off-West End Almeida Theatre at King’s Cross.
Neil LaBute, the Chicago area playwright (“Bash”) and screenwriter (“In the Company of Men”) had a winner last season at the Almeida with “The Shape of Things,” his story of a hapless nerd seduced and abandoned by a heartless female; but his new work, though it deals again with the soulless depths he likes to explore, lacks narrative pull and the strong character development of his best work.
Here he concentrates on a spiritually dead white trash family, and in particular the doomed teenager (Mark Webber) who is destroyed by the aching nothingness of his life.
Going nowhere
Webber as the alienated teen, Matthews as his beleaguered girlfriend and Jason Ritter as the buddy he treats like dirt are fine young American actors, though somewhat blurred in their vocal delivery; and director David Leveaux’s staging, set against grimy green walls and with the family home always penetrated by the flicker of a TV set and the piercing cries of an offstage infant, is loaded with the appropriately depressing details.
Once in a while, LaBute summons the angry eloquence he displayed in the chilling monologues of “Bash.”
But with “The Distance From Here,” he’s going nowhere very ploddingly,
Some critics have groused that all this new American input, in addition to the usual high percentage of Broadway plays and musicals seen here, is not adding to the strength of English theater; but the four plays I saw in London were pulling in the just the kind of young, eager audiences producers so constantly lust after.
And there’s no end in sight to the journeys of American stars who want to get those London stage reviews.
Promised for the fall are DePaul University alumna Gillian Anderson of “The X Files” in a new work by the American playwright Michael Weller and Glenn Close in “A Streetcar Named Desire” at the Royal National Theatre.
