A Thousand Sons, Report to an Acadamy, and I, Kermit
Why can I see the bones in my hand? Nuclear veterans, an anguished performing ape, and Kermit the Frog.
This week I have a bumper editon of reviews for you:
The harrowing A Thousand Sons, about Britain’s nuclear veterans;
An adaptation of Kafka’s Report to an Academy, playing in London until the end of July, about an ape who learned to mimic humans so he could escape captivity; and
I, Kermit, in which a voice actor has a Kermit-the-Frog-themed mental breakdown.
If you’re planning a trip to the Edinburgh Fringe, you’ll have the chance to see A Thousand Sons there. I’ll be staying in London, where our very own Camden Fringe has plenty to offer. Musicals about the Emperor Nero and Julie D’Aubigny! Plays about hiding out from a nuclear war, post-war Cork, celestial bureaucracy! A murder mystery! The Mayor of Casterbridge with high-finance girlbosses!
A Thousand Sons ★★★☆☆
The nervous and wide-eyed Bertie dashes from scene to scene, awkwardly trying to ingratiate himself with his fellow soldiers. He make awkward jokes – he isn’t a funny man – about how there’s always fish for dinner, about how Christmas Island doesn’t have any snow. It’s a tropical island paradise, a beautiful place with deep blue lagoons and blinding sun. It’s Eden before the entrance of sin. And then the bomb drops.
The horror of nuclear weapons is made painfully immediate: bright red lights, frighteningly loud sound effects, Bertie vulnerable with minimal protective equipment. “I can see through my closed eyes into the bones in my hand,” Bertie says, horrified, after the blast. “Why can I see the bones in my hand?”
In rhyming verse, he describes the birds dropping burning from the black sky, the soldiers battered by waves of sharp debris from the sea. The verse adds an unnatural and alien quality to Bertie’s inner monologue, and imposes a sense of urgency, something inevitable about it.
Bertie’s anger mounts as he grapples with the effects of the nuclear legacy on his own health, and the health of his children, and rails against the inadequate response of the British government. The script occasionally dips back into verse, where it is a little clunky now – with childishly simple language, and some rhymes that feel forced.
Throughout, the show is unashamedly a work of political theatre: it knows its position, and it makes that position clear. While this works well towards the end of the show, giving audience a tangible and almost hopeful takeaway, in earlier scenes it is somewhat distracting to have so much of the message presented so literally. Sefton should have more faith in the quality of his performance and in Bertie’s story: the narrative speaks for itself.
Originally reviewed for The Reviews Hub. Played for two shows on 11 July. Now moves to Edinburgh Fringe: 5-20 Aug at Greenside @ Nicholson Square, Fern Studios
Report to an Academy ★★★★☆
In 1917, two short stories by Franz Kafka were published in the German monthly magazine Der Jude, (literally ‘The Jew’). One of these stories was ‘A Report to an Academy’, narrated by an ape who has taken on a human life.
The ape, nicknamed ‘Red Peter’ by his captors, was shot and captured from Africa, in what is now Ghana. He was kept in a tight cage, too short to stand but too narrow to sit, and sailors poked at him with sticks.
Desperate for a way out, he learned to mimic human mannerisms. “I am deliberately not saying freedom,” he says, to avoid misunderstanding: “Only a way out—to the right or left or anywhere at all.”
The stage adaptation of Report to an Academy, adapted and directed by Gabriele Jakobi, is a one-act, one-man show with persistent intensity. From the moment Robert McNamara limps across the stage, his cane smacking loudly on the ground, he is anguished and triumphant in equal measure.
There is a deliberate coarseness to his manner that borders on the alien: he licks his lips and sticks his tongue out, he bares his teeth, he spits on the ground. At one point he feigns exposing himself.
Without prosthetics or makeup, except to produce the large red scar which prompted the nickname ‘Red Peter’, Robert McNamara is nevertheless wholly believable as the ape.
There are several short music-hall interludes, where he continues his story while dancing with a cap and cane. These are a welcome relief from the intensity of the rest of the monologue. The jaunty dancing, contrasted with the grimly set face and bleak narrative, is disorienting.
Almost literally a performing monkey, ‘Red Peter’ spits resentment at the life he is living, but he regrets nothing. This was the only way out of the cage. It was never going to be freedom.
The production is fastidiously faithful to Kafka’s original story. It doesn’t layer on interpretations about animal cruelty or global warming. Nor does it take a stance on the suggestion of one Kafka biographer: that the story is a satire of the assimilation of Jewish people into Western society.
The stage show of Report to an Academy is a clear window, through which we can see Kafka’s short story as he wrote it. It is a capable actor performing what Kafka has written as a straightforward monologue, and done very well.
Originally reviewed for TheatreWeekly. Report to an Academy is at The Old Red Lion Theatre until 30th July 2022.
I, Kermit ★★★☆☆
“First and foremost, you’ve got the frog.” This one-act play opens more like a stand-up set, as a lone actor grows increasingly frantic while describing the various levels of reality that make up the Muppets universe. As he works himself up describing the show within a show, the actor-director-frog, it’s somehow unbelievably funny. Steve Whitmire (played by Miles Blanch) has just been fired as the voice of Kermit the Frog, and he is handling it poorly.
The big question about a show starring Kermit the Frog is: how long can one man keep the Kermit voice going? It’s an immense strain on the vocal chords. The answer, here, is to add a second actor. Kermit the Frog is divided into two beings – one, ‘the Frog’, is a charming puppet sitting on Steve’s arm which he refuses to remove. Miles Blanch is a talented puppeteer, and while his Kermit voice wobbles occasionally towards the end, he more than makes up for it with the warmth he brings to the character and the comic dynamic he creates between them. It’s hilarious, and it’s clear that the writer (Charlie Sharpe) understands perfectly what people love about the Muppets.
The other ‘Kermit’ is Steve’s flatmate. Painted green, he rails desperately against Steve’s attachment to the frog puppet, describes it as mental illness, and periodically snaps, “Your mouth is moving!” He isn’t Kermit in any meaningful way: he isn’t a frog, and he doesn’t have Kermit’s distinctive voice, or his tact and kindness.
The two men argue relentlessly, in a manner that feels like it’s trying to be capital-t Theatre but ends up just being slightly confusing. They dwell on the death of Jim Henson, the creator of the Muppets and the original voice of Kermit the Frog, and the portrayal of Steve’s grief is almost moving. But overall, the production hints at profundity and emotional significance without delivering it. Their argument about whether or not to adapt a ‘Muppets Animal Farm’ is far more watchable. Meanwhile, the real-life drama of Steve Whitmire is left unacknowledged: relatives of Jim Henson accused him of outrageous demands, and refusing to train understudies.
This show is not recommended for children, or for adults who lack a deep and abiding love for the Muppets. But it has its own special charm, and underneath the average play is the premise for a very good comic play or stand-up set.
Originally reviewed for The Reviews Hub. I, Kermit has now concluded its run at the Lion and Unicorn Theatre in Kentish Town.