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Jumpers
(National Theatre, Lyttelton)
Six
shows in and Nicholas Hytner's National Theatre is blazing a judicious
trail of new and old, pushing boundaries with shows like Jerry
Springer the Opera but also honouring the past by re-visiting
former NT hits in new guises and disguises.
| "It's
probably best not to ask what it means, but simply to allow
the playfulness of the writing and the poignancy of the lead
performances sweep over you..." |
So,
hot on the heels of His Girl Friday, a disguised version
of The Front Page that was a big hit for Laurence Olivier in 1971,
comes Tom Stoppard's intellectual comedy Jumpers (originally
premiered by the National at the Old Vic in 1972) in a sparkling,
agile new production by David Leveaux.
This dazzling, sometimes dizzying, comedy is a play of both verbal
and physical gymnastics, with Stoppard harnessing his familiar delight
in wordplay and debate to a farcical plot from which a flurry of
unruly ideas and arguments erupt.
ten
tumblers
These
embrace everything from moral philosophy to immoral marriages, with
a university professor trying to make sense of the world even as
the Vice-Chancellor is having it off with his wife Dotty, a former
musical comedy actress.
 The
audacity of the concept - which includes a team of ten tumblers
turning the play into a circus, while Dotty's routines turn it into
a musical at other times - is amazing, but also frequently perplexing.
What exactly does it mean? It's probably best not to ask, but simply
to allow the playfulness of the writing and the poignancy of the
lead performances sweep over you.
Starring Simon Russell Beale (the National's last Hamlet) as the
professor-cum-philosopher George and the superb Australian actress
Essie Davis (last seen on the National stage playing sister to Glenn
Close in A Streetcar Named Desire) as Dotty, it is superbly
performed.
Jumpers
is in rep at the National Theatre, Lyttelton until October. Tickets
£10 - £34, concs available. Box office: 020 7452 3000
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