(A Really Bad) Review - The Fever, The Royal Court Theatre

Is it me?
Last night at The Royal Court one woman gave a bravura performance of a depth and nuance rarely seen in SW1. Eyes flashing and with a hint of a smile touching the corners of her expressive mouth she laughed, sighed, nodded with sympathy. For 90 heightened minutes she delivered her solo, carrying the audience with her to a climax of resounding applause. And why did she chose to display her skill thus? Because she was sitting in Row E seat 13 and Wallace Shawn the author of The Fever was sitting directly behind her in Row F seat 14.
Wallace Shawn, the voice of Rex the dinosaur in Toy Story, the Masked Avenger in Woody Allen's Radio Days,
the (inconceivable!) Count Vizzini in The Princess Bride,

Vanya in his own production of Vanya on 42nd Street, himself in My Dinner with Andre,

and more than all that Jeremiah ...... Diane Keaton/Mary's ex-husband in Manhattan. "He was just this oversexed, brilliant kind of animal."
As the applause died away I turned round, interrupting his conversation with Dominic Cooke's very attractive partner, and congratulated Mr Shawn whom I'm sure had found me a very impressive audience member. He shook my hand and sounded just as he should.

Silver-Fox favourite Claire Higgins also gave a performance last night that I'm afraid passed me by somewhat. She was wearing a white shirt that wasn't particularly flattering, a pair of pale blue "I'm a middle-aged American woman and I don't care what you say about my hips you won't get me a pair of boot-cut" jeans and flattened hair. She spoke directly at the audience, mostly standing centre stage pausing only briefly to take sips of water from a plastic cup filled from a water cooler. (The Royal Court has adopted the completely "bare, stripped down to the brick wall look" that worked so well for last year's The Ugly One... so well I contemplated asking an usher if they had been burgled overnight.)

She seemed really upset about something, upset about having too much money, being too priviliged, being part of the problem that keep the poor poor. Then I started to get upset, 'cos isn't that me ? and why should I be made to feel her middle class guilt when all I did was by a ticket to the theatre, but I suppose that is Mr. Shawn's point.

Anyway my mind started to wander, even though Ms Higgins is fabulous and a lot more engaging than the solo performance of Vanessa Redgrave in The Year of Magical Thinking, which by the way is the reason I was seeing this piece on my own as the Silver-Fox now has an aversion to celebrated English actresses speaking in American accents with nothing to support them other than bad tailoring and some nice lighting effects. The Royal Court should also take some responsibility for my lack of concentration as it was selling some extremely quaffable wine at a knock down price in the bar and I felt impelled to help them out. However they helpfully have printed the whole script in the programme, so it was possible to re-visit my self flagelation all the way home on the number 19.

The Silver-Fox and I will be returning to the Court for Mr Shawn's new play Grasses of a Thousand Colours ( look, English spelling) in which he will be appearing with Miranda Richardson and another Woody Allen player Jennifer Tilly. Maybe he won't be so hard on us and I'll let the Fox share my bottle of wine.