{"id":1367,"date":"2016-10-20T11:55:45","date_gmt":"2016-10-20T10:55:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/?p=1367"},"modified":"2016-10-20T12:07:59","modified_gmt":"2016-10-20T11:07:59","slug":"propwatch-the-whisky-glasses-in-the-red-barn-and-no-mans-land","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/2016\/10\/propwatch-the-whisky-glasses-in-the-red-barn-and-no-mans-land.html","title":{"rendered":"Propwatch: the whisky glasses in The Red Barn and No Man\u2019s Land"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"the-red-barn-at-national-theatre-manuel-harlan\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The past is another country: they drink things differently there. After the gin-marinated 1950s of John Osborne\u2019s The Entertainer<\/em><\/a>, this week I hit the whisky: in the 1960s Connecticut of The Red Barn<\/em><\/a> and then with the 1970s Hampstead topers in Pinter\u2019s No Man\u2019s Land<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gin, in Osborne\u2019s play, is predominantly a woman\u2019s tipple: mother\u2019s ruin, and the ruin of Archie\u2019s maudlin wife Phoebe, loosening her maundering tongue. Whisky, on the other hand \u2013 that\u2019s a man\u2019s drink, and couldn\u2019t be better chosen to run through two plays about masculinity queasily asserting itself.<\/p>\n

Strong plays weak<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Red Barn<\/em>\u00a0at the National Theatre is David Hare\u2019s adaptation of La Main<\/em> by Georges Simeon, in which a man\u2019s life swirls out of kilter after his friend disappears in a rural snowstorm. Characters reach for the amber stuff in extremis, pouring another finger of poor judgement. Police lieutenant arrives in search of your friend, missing-presumed-dead? Offer him a drink, and when he gives you the fish-eye, have one yourself. Fetching up for an affair at the widow\u2019s apartment? You could surely use a whisky. The lady has one too? Watch yourself, buddy, you\u2019re in dangerous waters.<\/p>\n

Robert Icke’s production\u00a0fairly shines with masculinity\u2019s fragile veneer. It may look chic with Mad Men<\/em> assurance \u2013 the tailoring, grooming and swinging furnishings \u2013 but the male who negotiates this environment is far from alpha. Icke\u2019s coup\u00a0is casting Mark Strong as Donald, a lawyer sinking in a life half-lived. Strong plays weak, a mighty actor cast for frailty. Last seen on stage compact with hair and muscle as raging Eddie in A View From the Bridge<\/em><\/a>, Strong (photo above by Manuel Harlan) here blinks in specs and a suit. His stillness is paralysis; his eyes aren\u2019t like tunnels but lost holes in the snow. He\u2019s always out-foxed.<\/p>\n

Bunny Christie\u2019s<\/a> fantastic set \u2013 a variation on the cinematic moving shutters of her Baby Doll<\/em> some years ago \u2013 means the play keeps its counsel. No one gets full perspective, all views are partial, shifting and liable to close down at alarming speed. Donald \u2013 the good husband, father, friend, adviser \u2013 sees less than anyone, and pours away his reputation. Scotch doesn\u2019t ruin him, but alongside lust and lost ambition, it\u2019s another occluding lens through which he miss-sees. When Mona (Elizabeth Debicki), the lost friend\u2019s widow, joins him in a post-coital glass, the amber fluid stands out in her chic white apartment, signalling caution: beware the woman with a man\u2019s drink. (Simenon\u2019s period sirens often activate a male impulse to self-sabotage.)<\/p>\n

This Propwatch<\/a> series is mildly obsessed by onstage catering, whether a celebratory cake<\/a> or solitary fried egg<\/a>. No apologies for that \u2013 we are how we eat, and these choices can reveal a character. Take Donald\u2019s wife Ingrid (Hope Davis, unnervingly poised). Even in the midst of a snowstorm, a power failure and a man hunt, she nonetheless emerges with a platter of perfect sandwiches, neat triangles with the crusts cut off. No wonder Donald clings to and chafes at his marriage.<\/p>\n

\"nomansland\"<\/a><\/p>\n

What does stage management use for scotch? Tea and toast<\/a> can both do the job. It\u2019s probably just as well in No Man\u2019s Land <\/em>(Wyndhams Theatre),\u00a0where much drink is consumed. And I mean much.<\/em> Pinter states that the drinks cabinet is \u2018the central feature\u2019 of the set, with its \u2018great variety of bottles: spirits, aperitifs, beers, etc.\u2019 Those bottles get a good going over during the course of the play, from the first \u2018As it is?\u2019 to the last \u2018I\u2019ll drink to that.\u2019 In the first act alone I counted four vodkas and a bottle of beer, alongside at least ten glasses of whisky, until Hirst the host (Patrick Stewart, quietly stocious) loses patience with small measures and demands to swig from the bottle. His intrusive guest, Spooner (Ian McKellen, pictured above by Kevin Berne) attempts to make coffee, but that doesn\u2019t get very far. Champagne makes an entrance in the second act, and Spooner\u2019s wheedling anecdotes include a Hungarian emigr\u00e9 on Pernod and his own extensive wine tours around Dijon.<\/p>\n

The company of men<\/strong><\/p>\n

But whisky, \u2018the great malt which wounds,\u2019 will put the man in man of letters. McKellen\u2019s acute sensitivity to the whereabouts of the bottle becomes the defining note of his first act. However bleary, he keeps it in his sights, weaving over to the cabinet in hope of a refill, eyes wide in expectation, cheeks sagging in disappointment. Whisky becomes a physical challenge too: as he weaves back and forth in his grubby plimsolls, he keeps his mac folded over his arm \u2013 he\u2019s clearly accustomed to being asked to get his coat \u2013 and eases the tumbler from one hand to the other as he tries to maintain a wordly monologue. When he then tucks the bottle under one arm, he\u2019s on the verge of juggling. Spooner is a man who needs to improvise on the fly, and who grabs a whisky while he can.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re in the company of men here. Boasting, bullying, angling for a job, laying claims to status. Women only feature in hazy recall: wives, lovers (these usually other men\u2019s wives), the odd emotionally ambivalent mother with a gift for currant buns. But there are only men in no man\u2019s land. A calcified state \u2018which never moves, which never changes\u2026 but which remains for ever, icy and silent.\u2019 Heavy curtains drawn tight, even on a summer\u2019s morning. Men stuck with themselves, pickled. Hand on glass, now and forever. \u2018A drop for you, sir?\u2019<\/p>\n

Follow David on Twitter: @mrdavidjays<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The past is another country: they drink things differently there. After the gin-marinated 1950s of John Osborne\u2019s The Entertainer, this week I hit the whisky: in the 1960s Connecticut of The Red Barn and then with the 1970s Hampstead topers in Pinter\u2019s No Man\u2019s Land. Gin, in Osborne\u2019s play, is predominantly a woman\u2019s tipple: mother\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1370,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[65,322,321,175,34],"class_list":{"0":"post-1367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-national-theatre","9":"tag-props","10":"tag-propwatch","11":"tag-robert-icke","12":"tag-theatre","13":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1367"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1375,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1367\/revisions\/1375"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/performancemonkey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}