View: Next message | Previous message Next in topic | Previous in topic Next by same author | Previous by same author Previous page (May 1999, week 4) | Back to main OPERA-L page Join or leave OPERA-L Reply | Post a new message Search Options: Chronologically | Most recent first Proportional font | Non-proportional font ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Date: Wed, 26 May 1999 00:27:59 +0000 Reply-To: "H.E.Elsom" Sender: Discussion of opera and related issues From: "H.E.Elsom" Subject: Let him have justice, Cochrane, 25May99 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Ray Pain Craig Adams Iris Bentley Julie Atherton Derek Bentley Gavin Wilkinson Christpher Craig Mark Stobbart Lillian Bentley Camilla Arnold Mrs Craig Emma Tapley William Bentley Edward Gower Mostyn Lawrence, James Hadden, Michelle Connolly, Jon-Paul Hevey, Oliver Marshall, Barnaby Latham, Amber Sinclair, Melitsa Nicola Director Julian Woolford Music director Philip Sutton "A new musical by Craig Adams Camilla Arnold Julie Atherton Greg Castiglioni Michelle Connolly Jaime Farr Edward Gower James Hadden Barnaby Latham Oliver Marshall Melitsa Nicola Philip Sutton Emma Tapley Gavin Wilkinson Christpher Craig Mark Stobbart and Julian Woolford" This musical on the murder of PC Sidney Miles and the execution of Derek Bentley began as a second-year project for students at Mountview Theatre School. The students wrote the material in collaboration with the director and music director, and with the support of Maria Dingwall-Bentley, the daughter of Derek's sister Iris. This version was expanded for the Covent Garden Festival. Although the topic seems at first unlikely for a musical, Let him have justice works well within two overlapping genres. It uses extracts from the trial and other documents in a way similar to the theatrical versions of trials and enquiries including the Lawrence enquiry. And it is in the tradition of crime musicals, from The beggar's opera to Sweeney Todd, with its self-absorbed, posing villain Chris Craig and corrupt lawyers. There is also more than a hint of West Side Story, which captures both the energy of rock'n'roll youth and the conventional anxiety about criminal young men. Except for a clever shtick by the conniving barristers, Money for old rope, there is no irony and little satire. Instead, the story is told directly, in simple scenes and choruses. Its general shape is the same as that of the film Let him have it, but the music makes it less of a period piece and more of a tragedy, with conflicting drives represented by obessive music, often minimalist, sometimes commercial blues, and once rock and roll when Chris Craig and his pals offer a new life to Derek Bentley. There is something prosaic about the music (performed on two keyboards with percussion) which nevertheless reflects accurately and depressingly the conventional working of the system. Unlike Dead man walking, this isn't a story of horror in crime and punishment, but a stuffy repetition of the theme, criminal young men must be punished, with the misery of both Miles' family and Bentley's almost ignored officially. The only crimes we hear of, until Craig shoots Miles, are the theft of chocolate bars, and Craig and Bentley's attempt to burgle a confectionary warehouse, a pointed reminder of the oppressive post-war world of rationing and conformity. The action was staged on a bare black set, with black-and-white images (the Bentleys' home, the gate of Wandsworth prison, photos of the real people, negatived light bulbs) projected on to a screen. The costumes were roughly in period, and the accents were proper 1950s London, with not a hint of Estuary (though William Bentley seemed to have a touch of Yorkshire). A comfy chair represented the Bentleys' home, but most of the settings were evoked with just lighting and movement by the cast. A narrator, Ray Pain, the son of another police officer present at the murder, provided a bare outline of the story, but seemed superfluous. He was clearly there because he started the appeal process that finally got Bentley's conviction quashed, by contacting Iris Bentley to tell her his father's testimony. But the action didn't need this way in. Let him have justice is often painful, and very moving, largely as a result of outstanding performances by Gavin Wilkinson as Derek Bentley, and Edward Gower as his father William. Although there were too close in age, they looked as if they could have been father and son. William seemed constantly to be overcoming a fear of the world that Derek couldn't. Wilkinson looked a lot younger than Bentley -- young people looked middle aged in the 1950s -- and very needy. Gower gave a wonderful performance as a loving father who is terrified to the point of abuse by his son doing anything unconventional, but who disguises his own helplessness for his son's sake after he is convicted. Mark Stobbart as Craig Charles was highly effective as a posing wide-boy, dead keen on Jimmy Cagney movies and sick of life in Croydon. His hysteria when confronted by the armed police officer was borrowed from Dirk Bogarde in The blue lamp. There were fine cameos from Mostyn Lawrence as Norman Parsley, a "nice" boy who calls for Derek after his father has said he can't go out with Craig, and from Jon-Paul Hevey and Oliver Marshall as the slimy barristers. The women had more of a chorus role, appropriately for the 1950s setting. Julie Atherton as Iris and Camilla Arnold as Lillian were identifiable characters, but essentially the women were collective wives and mothers, bereaved but campaigning. Not great music, but superb theatre. Well worth seeing. Regards, Helen - H.E. Elsom he@helsom.demon.co.uk http://www.helsom.demon.co.uk/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Back to: Top of message | Previous page | Main OPERA-L page ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Back to the LISTSERV home page at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU.