Levey gives the priggish Robespierre a wide range of very subtle emotions, from conflicted self-control to flashes of self-doubt and hints of lunacy, and he speaks with a sinister resonance that is unnerving. Even better is Newman's St Just, who alone of all the players really conveys the unswerving, cunning brutality of the Terror: the physical authority and heartless conviction he brings to the role are chilling.
Although the French Revolution is almost lost in the past, there are plenty of recent and contemporary resonances in this play. Robespierre's contorted rhetoric, seemingly so hyper-rational but actually insane, brings to mind the monstrous rhetoric of Mao Tse-tung, Stalin, the Taliban or the Iranian mullahs, all claiming with Robespierre that terror is a necessary part of virtue and vice versa. To anyone who questions the revival of a 19th-century play about an 18th-century revolution, one should say that those who forget history, as most of us do, are condemned to repeat it. Despite its difficulties and its weaknesses, this production is worth seeing and runs until October 14.
For those like me who find the American film star Jeff Goldblum irresistible, his appearance at the Vaudeville in London in Neil Simon's The Prisoner of Second Avenue is not to be missed. The play itself hardly matters, which is just as well as it is not very good. That doesn't seem to matter to Goldblum much — he clearly loves being on the London stage, and hamming it up a bit, and takes his curtain calls with an endearing smile. There is something reassuring in the way that international superstars such as Goldblum still think it worthwhile to tread the boards of a small English theatre. It is a pity we didn't get a chance to see what he could have done with a good play.
The Prisoner of Second Avenue, first produced on Broadway in 1971, was a big hit at the time, but — unlike the irresistible Mr Goldblum — it hasn't aged well. Goldblum's character is imprisoned in his depressing flat near Second Avenue by unemployment, a nervous breakdown and general Weltschmerz, though hardly as serious as that of Danton. The play has a lot of fairly funny lines, which the actors milk competently — Mercedes Ruehl, the long-suffering wife, has good comic timing and an intriguing voice — but mental illness and a drawn-out breakdown are no longer subjects that many people find funny. The central concerns of the play seem dated and unconvincing.
The audience seemed to enjoy it hugely, but I cannot help thinking that was because they, like me, were dazzled by the outsize physical presence and deeply seductive voice of the great man: he has a classical actor's ability to project his lines very clearly without any apparent effort.
Although he is not quite as young as he used to be, Goldblum still has the Hollywood hunk's radiant allure. That's what people pay to see when movie stars come to the West End. And that's what you get with this production.
