THE PHILADELPHIA JUNTO.: Theatre Review: Valhalla at Theatre503

Wednesday, 14 October 2015

Theatre Review: Valhalla at Theatre503

VALHALLA
By Paul Murphy|Directed by Jo McInnes|To 24 October at Theatre503, 503 Battersea Road, London SW11

As violence sweeps the city, an exhausted couple seek refuge in an isolated Nordic research centre. They are on the brink of discovering the cure for a devastating global disease when cracks in their marriage start to appear. Suddenly they find themselves forced to choose between conflicting allegiances to love and science. Conceived against the backdrop of a bewitching volcanic landscape, this extraordinary play questions the ethics of medical research, genetics and the endurance of human love.

NORSE-IATING

By R.J. CHELLEL, PJ Theatre Critic

LONDON [WC News Service]- After attending VaIhalla at Theatre503 the other night, I read that wretched play on the way home, and it's as bad on the page as it was on the stage.

I remembered those flashed-up Icelandic titles at the beginning of each act. I looked them up, and they, all four of them, relate to Norse mythology. So, for example, Nastrond (sorry, I don't know how to do diacriticals on the computer) at the start of Act III means 'Corpse Shore', the place in the afterlife where Nithoggr lives and chews on the bodies of those guilty of murder, adultery and oath-breaking -- which Norsemen considered the worse possible crime.

Two questions arise: (1) how is anyone in the audience (apart from the odd Viking) supposed to know this? And (2) what has it got to do with the play? The melange of mythology, magic and science never made much sense to me.

As for the Woman's friends, Frejya and Groa? Are they real or mythological figures who exist only in the Woman's imagination? Other questions: what is the significance of the dead fox in that ridiculous scene? Does it represent the Woman's miscarried babies? What is in the hypodermic that is weaponised near the end of the play? A drug to kill the Woman's foetus? And the silly hangman's noose bit that follows, what's that about?

Is this really a play about how the oppression of women by men -- witch-burning and so forth -- has produced a genetic change which kills male cells in utero? The interesting element in the drama concerning medical ethics got rather lost in the muddle. And it was a muddle. (A far, far better dramatic treatment of the subject of the ethical ramifications of drugs trials run by pharmaceutical companies is The Effect by Lucy Prebble. See it if it comes to a theatre near you.) I read the epilogue in the Valhalla playscript, and I still don't get it. Who were all those jumping-up-and-down girls anyway?

One thing I did learn from nosing around Wikipedia was that the Medea gene is real and has, as the Man says, been found in the DNA of the fruit fly, Drosophilia Melanogaster. It is, apparently, the archetypal selfish gene that poisons embryos which have not inherited it, while at the same time stimulating the production of an antidote in those that do.

It's an awful lot of baggage for such a poorly written play. By the way, the actor who stepped in at the last moment to play the Man the night I attended the play (I wonder what happened there) was actually its author, Paul Murphy. I shall be looking out for his work in the future -- in order to avoid it.

BROADSTREETREVIEW.COM INDEX

Articles by Richard Carreño
Diego Rivera's ghost in Detroit October 15 2013 The city of Detroit may be broke, but the Detroit Institute of Arts owns $2 billion worth of art works. Its most valued pieces, by the Communist Diego Rivera, portray heroic workers triumphing over stoic managers. In the best capitalist tradition, Rivera’s frescoes are now being held hostage by a pair of union-busting Republican politicians.

Dissecting West’s ‘Death of General Wolfe’ August 06 2013 Benjamin West’s Death of General Wolfe was once a hallowed symbol of British imperialism. Now it’s been hijacked by Canadians, whose supply of national icons is otherwise limited. National Gallery of Canada. 380 Sussex Drive, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. www.gallery.ca/en.

Pittsburgh’s culture quest July 24 2012 The Mellons and the steel mills are gone, but Pittsburgh today boasts first-class museums, music, theaters and universities. The trouble is, they’re all in the wrong part of town.

Discovered: La Salle’s unsung art museum November 14 2011 An obscure museum in a North Philadelphia basement houses world-class treasures by masters like Tintoretto, Edouard Vuillard, Rembrandt Peale, Georges Rouault and Joseph Epstein. Most remarkable of all, admission is free. La Salle University Art Museum. Olney Hall, 1900 W. Olney Ave., lower level. (215) 951-1000 or www.lasalle.edu/museum.

Matisse and Barnes: A tale of two museums October 04 2011 Henri Matisse was one of the three great revolutionary artists (with Picaso and Duchamp) of the early 20th Century; Albert Barnes was a brilliant collector of revolutionary art. They made a great team until Barnes’s insufferable personality drove Matisse away, with consequences that still reverberate today.

‘Picasso and the Paris Avant-Garde’ at the Art Museum February 23 2010 Curator Michael Taylor has unveiled, for the first time in recent memory, the astonishing range, depth, and quality of the Art Museum’s Picasso holdings. But his show falls a few bricks short of an Anne d'Harnoncourt blockbuster. “Picasso and the Avant-Garde in Paris.” Through May 2, 2010 at Philadelphia Museum of Art, Benjamin Franklin Parkway at 26th St. (215) 763-8100 or http://www.philamuseum.org/.

Antiquity, looters and the Penn Museum November 10 2009 Who are the best stewards of ancient artifacts— enlightened Western curators whose museums stole the loot long ago, or dictators of Third World lands where the treasures were originally found? James Cuno of the Chicago Art Institute (who believes the former) confronts the Penn Museum (which favors the latter). "Iraq’s Ancient Past: Rediscovering Ur’s Royal Cemetery." Through Spring 2010 at University of Pennsylvania Museum, 3260 South St. (215) 898-4000 or www.penn.museum/sites/iraq.

‘American Stories' at the Met in New York October 18 2009 “American Stories,” currently at the Met in New York, reveals an indebtedness to Philadelphia's artistic patrimony. Almost the whole show could have been assembled from Philadelphia holdings or works by Philadelphia artists. So why is the Art Museum so modest about its contributions? “American Stories: Paintings of Everyday Life, 1765-1915.” Through January 24, 2009 at Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fifth Avenue and 82nd St., New York. 212-535-7710 or http://www.metmuseum.org/. Art

Museum’s admission hike June 29 2009 The Art Museum recently raised its admission fees, a fund-raising model that is strictly 20th-Century. Then it hired as its new director Timothy Rub, a successful advocate of the 21st-Century model: free admission. Does the Art Museum’s left hand know what its right hand is doing?

Venice: Nice place to visit, but…. March 31 2009 There’s no place like Venice to jump-start your romantic gene. But before you move there, remember: The plumbing stinks. And try schlepping groceries, or hauling a suitcase, or finding a doctor or a decent restaurant or a neighbor who’s under 50.

Newspapers and the Internet March 03 2009 In the Internet age, what will happen to fact-based journalism as daily newspapers fold? Contrary to what you hear from print journalists, the quality of coverage could improve. Which would you prefer: The Inquirer, or a Philadelphia edition of the New York Times?

Vidocq: Philadelphia's Sherlock Holmes December 20 2008 Sherlock Holmes, Charlie Chan and Sam Spade are all legendary but fictitious private eyes. But Edgar Allan Poe and Victor Hugo were inspired by a real Philadelphia gumshoe of literary dimensions, as I discovered behind the door of the Vidocq Society in Center City. The Black Tower. By Louis Bayard. William Morrow, 352 pages; $24.95. http://www.louisbayard.com/

Sarah Palin and the ‘C’ word September 13 2008 Thanks to Sarah Palin, the 800-pound gorilla is out of the cage. The 'C' word— class— is the one word in the American lexicon that's even better hidden in polite public discourse than race. And it has little to do with money.

Alfred J. Munnings at Brandywine Museum July 29 2008 A remarkable new show at the Brandywine River museum is a tribute to the great sporting artist Alfred J. Munnings and also to the private collectors of Chester County who’ve accumulated his works without fanfare.“Alfred J. Munnings From Regional Collections.” Through Sept. 1, 2008 at Brandywine River Museum, off U.S. 1, Chadds Ford, Pa. (610) 388-2700 or http://www.brandywinemuseum.org./

The horror of globalization February 16 2008 What is a German discount food chain doing in Philadelphia, pampering its customers and employees alike and otherwise violating cherished local customs? Don’t these foreigners know what we Americans did to the Hessians the last time we got really angry?

George Stubbs paintings at Penn April 17 2007 The English painter George Stubbs is largely forgotten outside racing stables, geezer men’s clubs and faux clubby steakhouses. But he transformed the way artists depicted horses and sporting scenes. Equus Unbound: Fairman Rogers and the Age of the Horse. Through June 15, 2007, at Kamen Gallery, U. of Pennsylvania’s Van-Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, 3420 Walnut St., first floor. Free and open to the public; photo ID required. (800) 390-1829.

Christie’s and ‘The Gross Clinic’ January 03 2007 As a leading art auction house, Christie’s well understands the role of a dummy bidder in jacking up the price of a work. In Jefferson University's recent sale of The Gross Clinic, Christie’s consultants apparently found an unwitting dummy in the Wal-Mart heiress Alice Walton. Has Philadelphia’s art community learned anything from this $68 million lesson?

What price admission to the Barnes? August 12 2006 Hefty admisssion increases are the new order of the day at New York's Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum. Derek Gillman, new chief of the Barnes Foundation, may be tempted to follow suit. Here's one hard-nosed reason why he shouldn't.

Celebrating ....

Wednesday, 14 October 2015

Theatre Review: Valhalla at Theatre503

By R.J. CHELLEL, PJ Theatre Critic

LONDON [WC News Service]- After attending VaIhalla at Theatre503 the other night, I read that wretched play on the way home, and it's as bad on the page as it was on the stage.