James I (The Key Will Keep The Lock), 8.10.14

The Scots Trilogy (James I, II & III),
currently playing at London's National Theatre

Intriguingly, Hilary Mantel (an unmistakably substantial presence) was in the audience for this NT matinée of the first of Rona Munro’s much-lauded National Theatre of Scotland trilogy on Scots history.  Motley wondered quite what the skilfully nuanced biographer of Thomas Cromwell made of this resolutely demotic foray into the tenebrous gloom and chest-hair of fifteenth century Stirling, a place where even the apples have to be imported from England. 

James McArdle's James I takes on
his uncle Murdac (Gordon Kennedy)

The historical James I (more a “King of Scots” than a “King of Scotland” in Munro’s Nationalist formulation) had come to the throne at the age of twelve in 1406 only to spend eighteen years as a hostage at the English court.  The play covered the 1420-25 period when Henry V of England (Jamie Sives), having publicly humiliated James but realising his own days were numbered, allowed him to return to claim his birthright from the regent, his uncle Murdac Stewart.  Munro’s piece dramatised the thirty year old king’s return, marriage, assumption of powers and humbling of his cousins, the Albany Stewarts.  (For simplicity’s sake, it left out the story of his eventual murder thirteen years later at the hands of yet another of the unruly Stewarts.) 

James McArdle's James I and his bête noire
Blythe Duff's Lady Isabella

With more than a passing nod to Shakespeare’s Prince Hal, but alas with little of the Bard’s lexical sophistication, we witnessed the initially bookish and romantic James (commandingly played by James McArdle) cast aside sensitivity and scruple to assure the safety of his dynasty and that of his new English queen (the endearingly girlish Stephanie Hyam).  Confronted by the greed of the Albany Stewarts (led by Blythe Duff's redoubtable ‘Lady Isabella’, who was clearly channelling Lady Macbeth), the message was that James had no alternative but to “man up”, roger his queen in front of half the Scots nobility and vigorously knock heads together (or off).  This was a bracingly retro message for a female playwright. 

'Uneasy lies the head that wears
the crown' (James McArdle's James I)

Munro had fun depicting the distinctly rambunctious Scottish court, all rough-and-ready snouts to the trough.  Fifteenth-century politics was depicted as being about little more than clashes of uncontrolled appetite between boorish nobles entirely uncivilised by law or culture.  (Lady Isabella, required to vacate the palace upon the king’s return, was only just prevented from carrying off the royal plate, while her unruly sons polished off most of what lunch was available.) 

Jon Bausor’s suitably threadbare two-level set (with a a raised throne above a giant sword, to remind us of the source of all power in this period) was well-done, as were the well-choreographed battle scenes and Paul Leonard-Morgan’s muscular music.  To my mind, though, Munro rather overdid the barely-disguised Nationalist sub-text about the financially-predatory English or the ‘take-me-as-ye-find-me’ Scots being immune to English social deference.

Playwright Rona Munro

Although the relatively obscure historical subject matter was calculated to appeal to Motley, if you’re going to take a period which the Bard so made his own, you really need to clothe your text in something more nourishing than expletives.  While Munro’s timing can’t, in the light of the referendum, be faulted, the exposure to Part One didn’t leave Motley's pulse racing to see Parts Two or Three. 

The Amen Corner, National Theatre, 12.6.13

James Baldwin’s heavily autobiographical early (1954) “gospel” play focused on a Harlem pastor’s attempt to reconcile her church leadership with her family and her past.

Marianne Jean-Baptiste powerfully headed the all-black cast as strict pastor ‘Sister Margaret’, whose authority is undermined when her irreligious alcoholic ex-husband Luke returns. 

There was excellent support from Sharon D Clarke (as ‘Odessa’ her full-figured sister, feet firmly planted on the ground), from Lucian Msamati (as the dying jazzman husband Sister Margaret had deserted years earlier) and from Eric Kofi Abrefa (as the son who flees the nest; a clearly autobiographical figure). 
 

It's invidious to single out one performer from a great ensemble but special mention is due to Cecilia Noble as ‘Sister Moore’ (the pastor’s vast, virginal and Machiavellian rival), whose comic timing was impeccable, and who generated a rousing audience response from lines like:
 
"I want to praise the Lord for being here ... I want to thank Him for keeping me pure and set apart from the lusts of the flesh, for protecting me--hallelujah!--from all carnal temptation.  When I come before my Maker, I'm going to come before Him pure.  I'm going to say 'Bless your name, Jesus, no man has ever touched me!' Hallelujah!" 
 
After a slightly underwhelming start to the season, this has to be the stand-out NT show of the year (counting ‘This House’ as belonging more to 2012).  Directed with brio by Rufus Norris (who, it's just been announced, will be taking over from Nick Hytner as the National's Artistic Director), the production featured a two-tier set by Ian MacNeil (chapel on the upper floor and pastor’s living quarters below): typical strong NT production values. The piece was infused with humour and verve and the glorious live music from the London Community Gospel Choir really brought it alive:  “Praise the Lord!” 
 


Jimmy Baldwin in NYC

Baldwin, who first honed his inimitable skill with words from a pulpit, showed how street churches proved both refuge and straitjacket for the 'respectable classes' of Fifties Harlem, most of them first-generation arrivals from the violence of the 'Jim Crow' South.

The 'message' was the same one Baldwin preached all his life, from the Northern slums to his voyages of discovery in the South in the early years of Civil Rights, from the cafes of the Rive Gauche to the steep streets of Istanbul and the heady scents of the St-Paul de Vence villa where he died:  that to go out into the world is to live, to take risks, to embrace love.

Or, as Sister Margaret puts it, in her preacher's vernacular: 

“To love the Lord is to love all His children -all of them, everyone! -and suffer with them and rejoice with them and never count the cost!”.