Well two plays. The first at the Donmar was a disappointment which is why I haven't written about it before. And when I say a disappointment I mean specifically that I just didn't find the story engaging. It was called Small Change by Peter Gill and had a good and able cast led by Lindsay Coulson of Eastenders fame and the legend (in my eyes) that is Sue Johnson. It was set in 1950's industrial south Wales and about two mothers and their sons.
There were flashbacks to stuff that had happened when the sons were kids and here is where I falter because my mind kept wandering, when I should have been concentrating on what was being said. I came out not really sure what the whole thing was about.
I know, I know I should pay attention in class but I just didn't connect with it, unlike The Good Soul of Szechuan at the Young Vic. It is the first Brecht play I've ever seen and like Small Change I knew nothing of the playwright or the play prior to bum hitting seat.
The Young Vic, in an attempt to open up theatre to the masses, gives out some free tickets to local residents of which I am one. Having successfully applied for tickets with my neighbours Andrew and Francesca, my thinking was 'well if it's crap I won't feel the need to get my monies-worth and stay for the second half'.
The whole theatre was done up to look like the interior of a warehouse with bright lighting, cheap industrial wooden paneling, conveyor belts, piles of sacks, basic metal filing cabinets and the regular seating had be removed and replaced with more basic school assembly type plastic chairs.
Set in poverty stricken China it tells the story of how three Gods searching for good people are given shelter by a poor prostitute. They reward her with some money and implore her to stay good. She buys a tobacco shop and quickly gets swamped with people who want her 'help' including an out of work pilot with whom she falls in love.
Her cousin arrives to help her and quickly sets about dismissing those who are taking advantage.
Rattling along at an energetic pace, the central theme questions whether you can be a good person in such a bad place. And it is ones of those plays you could discuss for hours afterwards.
Jane Horrocks was wonderful as Shen Te the prostitute and her cousin Shui Ta, deftly juggling what is essentially two sides of the same person.
The staging was imaginative, with the filing cabinets doubling up as front doors to characters houses and having an effect similar to a vanishing cabinet as some of the characters appeared and disappeared through the narrow doors.
I've since been reading a copy of the play bought on the night as I'm sure there is much I missed while trying to take it in visually.
I've also been reading some theatre blogs which seem to be divided into two camps, those that like Brecht and those that don't. A lot seem to get hung up on his politics - he was a communist - and in some ways I think watching a play for the first time in blissful ignorance is the best way because you can enjoy it or otherwise at face value, as a piece of entertainment.
I'd definitely see another of his plays.