I will confess that, prior to attending this play, I knew next to nothing about Truman Capote. I’d heard of him, but to me his name was little more than a hybrid of a Jim Carrey film and the mutilated surname of a Chicago gangster. Oh, and he wrote Breakfast at Tiffany’s. That’s it; nothing else.
So I went along, expecting to learn as much as be entertained, and I wasn’t disappointed on either front. The format of the show was simple – one man, a chair, a small side-table and a couple of slightly odd costumes (brown belt and black shoes – tut tut tut, ducky). This man, Bob Kingdom, produced a wonderful performance portraying the talented yet deeply unhappy Capote which, having dashed home to do some research, was very accurate. The show is approximately ninety minutes long, which considering that Mr Kingdom is currently performing another one-man show (Dylan Thomas: Return Journey) in repertory, is an epic achievement.
Capote does not come across as a likeable character. He was an incorrigible gossip who would never pass up an opportunity to collect titbits of information before passing it on to anyone who’d listen with an added twist of his own bitchy humour. He name-dropped incessantly, and it wasn’t always possible to know which encounters were real, which were a rehashing of someone else’s experience or pure fantasy (despite ‘his’ repeated assertions in this play, he never actually met Greta Garbo). He came across as very self-obsessed with a desperation for popularity and acceptance, but with a lack of tact and discretion that prevented him from building many real, long-lasting relationships.
Yet in spite of this, the audience did care about him. His upbringing and desperate loneliness had made him the way he was, and as his dependence on alcohol and drugs increased he became more and more tragic. When the play ended the audience was in a thoughtful and slightly sombre mood – a stark contrast to the regular outbursts of laughter of a few minutes earlier.
Some minor aspects of the play didn’t really work, though these were hopefully teething problems. There was a false start to whole evening, when Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” started playing, stopped a few bars in and was followed by a couple of minutes’ silence before recommencing. Occasionally the lighting effects seemed a bit strange, and in some of the moments when Mr Kingdom was in a spotlight it felt as if he was straining upwards to ensure his face was in the light. Also I felt transported into a horror film when a bizarre green light came on and Mr Kingdom suddenly looked a bit like Frankenstein’s monster!
These minor things aside, I would recommend that anyone with an interest in theatre or Truman Capote gets along to the Burton Taylor to see this while they can. It’s not on for much longer, and Bob Kingdom’s performance deserves a far larger audience than it had when I was there.
So I went along, expecting to learn as much as be entertained, and I wasn’t disappointed on either front. The format of the show was simple – one man, a chair, a small side-table and a couple of slightly odd costumes (brown belt and black shoes – tut tut tut, ducky). This man, Bob Kingdom, produced a wonderful performance portraying the talented yet deeply unhappy Capote which, having dashed home to do some research, was very accurate. The show is approximately ninety minutes long, which considering that Mr Kingdom is currently performing another one-man show (Dylan Thomas: Return Journey) in repertory, is an epic achievement.
Capote does not come across as a likeable character. He was an incorrigible gossip who would never pass up an opportunity to collect titbits of information before passing it on to anyone who’d listen with an added twist of his own bitchy humour. He name-dropped incessantly, and it wasn’t always possible to know which encounters were real, which were a rehashing of someone else’s experience or pure fantasy (despite ‘his’ repeated assertions in this play, he never actually met Greta Garbo). He came across as very self-obsessed with a desperation for popularity and acceptance, but with a lack of tact and discretion that prevented him from building many real, long-lasting relationships.
Yet in spite of this, the audience did care about him. His upbringing and desperate loneliness had made him the way he was, and as his dependence on alcohol and drugs increased he became more and more tragic. When the play ended the audience was in a thoughtful and slightly sombre mood – a stark contrast to the regular outbursts of laughter of a few minutes earlier.
Some minor aspects of the play didn’t really work, though these were hopefully teething problems. There was a false start to whole evening, when Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” started playing, stopped a few bars in and was followed by a couple of minutes’ silence before recommencing. Occasionally the lighting effects seemed a bit strange, and in some of the moments when Mr Kingdom was in a spotlight it felt as if he was straining upwards to ensure his face was in the light. Also I felt transported into a horror film when a bizarre green light came on and Mr Kingdom suddenly looked a bit like Frankenstein’s monster!
These minor things aside, I would recommend that anyone with an interest in theatre or Truman Capote gets along to the Burton Taylor to see this while they can. It’s not on for much longer, and Bob Kingdom’s performance deserves a far larger audience than it had when I was there.