Post by dlevi on Nov 5, 2023 16:11:11 GMT
This is a bold, anarchic, funny , fascinating play about the Cleveland Street Brothel Scandal of 1889 in which members of the Royal Family and the upper echelons of London Society were implicated in not only being regulars of this all-male brothel which employed telegraph boys recruited out of the head office of the Royal Mail , but in fact being it’s owners and were able to keep the legal authorities away thanks to their station in society.
Mr Fritz has intriguingly tied these events together with a dogged police investigator who was responsible for investigating the Jack-the-Ripper murders and more pointedly for not following up one leg of the investigation which it is surmised, would’ve found the murderer. These two scandals are thus presented as what sort of lawlessness prevailed in the British upper classes at the time.
The main thrust of the story though is through the eyes and experiences of one of the Telegraph boys who turns to prostitution to simply be able to pay the rent on the flat he shares with his mother. His father, having been tragically killed by a horse who was irritated by a rat crossing its path in a haphazard manner because a flea was chewing at its back. ( hence the title) .
The scenes are played out in a sort of phantasmagoric way utilizing Panto-like sketches, ,military drills , vaudebille turns and outrageous costumes and effects.
To carry off this audaciousness the play needs a director with vision and a team of five actors to play and juggle the multiple roles with high style, wit, charm and for a couple of characters - vulnerability. Sadly neither of these things are present in this production. I found myself watching a good play being badly produced. This is the sort of play which the National Theatre or the Almeida or the Roayl Court should be doing - a theatre which could rise to the occasional of Mr Fritz’s state-of-the-nation play .
Where is Rupert Goold or Rebecca Frecknall or Dominic Cooke when you need them ? I can only hope that at some point in the near future a director with a clarity of vision and a theatre with the appropriate amount of funding will discover this play and give it the production it deserves.
Mr Fritz has intriguingly tied these events together with a dogged police investigator who was responsible for investigating the Jack-the-Ripper murders and more pointedly for not following up one leg of the investigation which it is surmised, would’ve found the murderer. These two scandals are thus presented as what sort of lawlessness prevailed in the British upper classes at the time.
The main thrust of the story though is through the eyes and experiences of one of the Telegraph boys who turns to prostitution to simply be able to pay the rent on the flat he shares with his mother. His father, having been tragically killed by a horse who was irritated by a rat crossing its path in a haphazard manner because a flea was chewing at its back. ( hence the title) .
The scenes are played out in a sort of phantasmagoric way utilizing Panto-like sketches, ,military drills , vaudebille turns and outrageous costumes and effects.
To carry off this audaciousness the play needs a director with vision and a team of five actors to play and juggle the multiple roles with high style, wit, charm and for a couple of characters - vulnerability. Sadly neither of these things are present in this production. I found myself watching a good play being badly produced. This is the sort of play which the National Theatre or the Almeida or the Roayl Court should be doing - a theatre which could rise to the occasional of Mr Fritz’s state-of-the-nation play .
Where is Rupert Goold or Rebecca Frecknall or Dominic Cooke when you need them ? I can only hope that at some point in the near future a director with a clarity of vision and a theatre with the appropriate amount of funding will discover this play and give it the production it deserves.