Theatre Review…’The Kitchen’ by Arnold Wesker at the National Theatre
On October 6th, I went to see Arnold Wesker’s ‘The Kitchen’ at the National. It was a very strange piece of theatre and not one I would recommend seeing when you’ve had very little sleep the night before, as I made the mistake of doing. Below is a sort-of evaluation of the performance.
Following Bijan Sheibani’s excellent interpretation of the global warming phenomena ‘Greenland’ on the Lyttelton earlier this year, Sheibani returns to the National again, this time to the 1,150 seated Olivier with Arnold Wesker’s ‘The Kitchen’.
The scene is set – as quite self-explanatory due to the name of the play – in a kitchen. Huge steel ovens and steel counters line the stage, silver cookers fill the centre and silver utensils hang from the silver gas pipes. The back wall of the stage has a typical kitchen/restaurant style door, and above that, written backwards to face the outside world is the word ‘Restaurant’. Framing ‘la grande cuisine’ is a proscenium arch, created specifically for the play; on one side a knife, and the other, a fork. The year is 1957. The story is not a happy one.
As the play begins we are gradually brought into the atmosphere of kitchen life in one of London’s most popular restaurants, The Tivoli. At first, just one man, the night porter; we watch as he lights the stoves for the dynamic day ahead. Then enters Bertha the vegetable cook, and Frank who’s on poultry, followed by Alfredo on roasts, Hans who fries, boiled fish Peter, the Irish newbie fried fish Kevin – the stage fills as the workers arrive and we begin to hear the little bits of kitchen gossip as characters dash about. Something happened last night, a fight happened last night, but why? That’s what we all want to know.
Although the script’s stage directions states The final frenzy [of Act One] can be stylized, the dance-like sequence that plays out was not expected. Sheibani has taken his production to the extreme with heavily choreographed routines; an idea which probably saves the first act. I say ‘saves’ because the story is very slow; very slow indeed. In fact, the entire plot seems never to fully develop, even with a two hour performance time. One can’t deny that the promenade which ensued was amazingly choreographed, and very full on, an aspect, no doubt, that Sheibani and movement director Aline David devised in order to show the audience the intensity and pressure of the kitchen. However, the volume of movement and the magnitude of the action were overwhelming and made it hard to focus. You didn’t really know where to look, and, I must admit, I found my eyes wondering quite often to the television screens they had placed around the auditorium for the live filming, just to avoid the full brunt of it all.
For me, when visiting a theatre, I perceive a show to be a success when you, as an audience, can feel the emotion of the characters within you; when in one moment, the entire audience is held in a stance, all bound by that same emotion. If that were the only criteria of a successful production then ‘The Kitchen’ would definitely have succeeded, as in the last few moments of the play, when Marango (Bruce Myers) bellows at Peter (Tom Brooke) “what is there more?”, I felt the room hold its breath in suspense. A superb performance from Brooke had been throughout the play, and he was one of the few actors – despite the act of a heavy German accent – from whom I heard every word spoken. Another of these captivating moments came earlier in the play, in what has come to be known as ‘the dream sequence’. The audience listened fervently as Samuel Roukin, in the character of pastry chef Paul, tells his story of an unjust world, through the relationship with his bus driving neighbour. Roukin’s portrayal of his character was sublime, and the emotion in that scene seeped out of him, completely taking in the audience. For Roukin it may have been quite easy to get into the feeling of working in a restaurant as he had already experience as a banqueting waiter, restaurant manager and cocktail barman.
In fact, many of the actors in this production have had experience within the restaurant industry. And it’s no surprise really that Director and Casting Director were more interested, when auditioning, in people with that practice for those without would not only have had to learn the play, but also how to deal a-new with the heat of the kitchen; a casting aspect quite in the area of Stanislavski. Wesker himself wrote the script with his four years of experience working in three different kitchens going through his mind; The Bell Hotel in Norwich, The Hungaria in London and Le Rallye in Paris – upon which the play’s kitchen is based. He states that his intention for writing ‘The Kitchen’ “was to recreate the experience of working under high pressure, as I had experienced it in the kitchens where I had worked, illustrating the dehumanising effects of the work process.” These so-called ‘dehumanising effects’ are portrayed perfectly by the actors on stage towards the end of the play as the tension in the scene rockets, resulting in what the entire production has been leading up to – Peter’s breakdown. Wesker has written this episode with the idea of showing what the repetition and compression of such a demanding job (not only mentally but physically too) can do to a persons soul when no one checks in that they’re okay and surviving. He doesn’t want sympathy for his hard work, but recognition: “Now he cares!”
Having being written and performed in the late Fifties, many of the population would have been able to relate to the mixture of characters within the play. Only just out of the Second World War, the pressure on individuals to work in a still damaged society – with rationing only just coming to an end and the fear of nuclear war between Russia and America starting any day – the National’s ‘The Kitchen’ also comes again at a time when the country is facing major difficulties within the economy, unemployment and immigration. Sheibani, whilst sticking quite fervently to Wesker’s original text, has tried to recreate ‘The Kitchen’ to relate to today’s society, and in that, he has succeeded.
“The bloody soup is still bloody sour” The Kitchen by Arnold Wesker
Isabelle Holland's Silver Arts Award Portfolio 