You don't see too many standing ovations in the theatre these days, but Ken Stott's curtain call last night drew the audience at the Duke Of York's Theatre to their feet -- and quite rightly. This was a really magnificent performance as Eddie Carbone and I'm sure he'll be on the Olivier shortlist for the Best Actor award this year. On the way to the theatre I met two friends who remembered Michael Gambon in the same role in 1987 and decided to give this production a miss. A mistake, I think. Great as Gambon no doubt was, I can't imagine a better Carbone than this one. It's a perfectly balanced cast, with Hayley Atwell as Eddie's niece Catherine and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio as his wife Beatrice. Lindsay Posner's production has an operatic feel to it; I kept hearing echoes of Rigoletto. The period (Brooklyn in the early 1950s) seems almost as remote as the middle ages, but Miller knew what he was doing when he decided to set his play among Sicilian immigrants. My only quibble with this great play is Arthur Miller's use of the lawyer Alfieri not just as a character but as an omniscient narrator, introducing the story and telling the audience what to think. I liked Allan Corduner as Alfieri and I was also impressed by Harry Lloyd as Rodolpho, the illegal immigrant who takes away Catherine from her over-possessive uncle. Carbone is an obsessive character, driven mad by jealousy, unable to acknowledge his feelings for Catherine and emotionally illiterate. Stott's performance shows that he's still human, not a monster.
At the climax of the play, when Eddie appeals in vain for 'respect' and wants his 'name' back, I heard from the middle of the stalls the unmistakeable ringtone of a mobile phone. Admittedly, it wasn't loud enough to disrupt the moment completely, but I would have been quite happy to see Stott march down into the audience and wield his knife on the offender rather than on Marco. What part of 'Please switch off your mobile phones' is it that these people don't understand? Don't Blackberries and IPhones have an off button?
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