Riverside Studios, London – until 9 March 2025
Reviewed by Phil Brown
5*****
It has to be said that Ordinary Madness is mostly a repackaging of the content originally presented as Life With a Little “L” at the Riverside Studios in the summer of 2024 (also reviewed by Fairy Powered Productions). I was rather hoping, possibly naively, that it would be a further exploration of Charles Bukowski’s writings with entirely new content. There is certainly some new content – Ordinary Madness runs to 110 minutes without interval – 20 minutes longer than Life With a Little “L”. (The change of title is an improvement although I can’t help thinking that Bukowski would have preferred something with “crazy” in it).
The new content consists of a well chosen selection of Bukowski poems – brim full of sharp wit and dark humour. There are three to introduce the show (Hello, How Are You, Bluebird and The Crunch) and several others (A Challenge to the Dark, Style, Confession, and Trapped) used as bridges between the longer scenes – essentially playlets – based on Bukowski’s prose. The show concludes with the final poem, Curtain.
It is pleasing that Bukowski’s work is still getting recognition (he died aged 73 in 1994), but he remains as far from the UK mainstream as his native Los Angeles is from Hammersmith. He deserves far wider appreciation, on a par with Hemingway, say, who was an influence and had similar tough guy, hard living characteristics. Occasionally mistaken as being part of the beat poet scene, as he sometimes appeared in the same journals, I suspect his uncompromising exploration of life’s grittier side, portraying the chaos and beauty of ordinary human existence is too brutal and direct for widespread acceptance. He himself said “I don’t like the clean-shaven boy with the necktie and the good job. I like desperate men, men with broken teeth and broken minds and broken ways. They interest me. They are full of surprises and explosions”.
Bukowski was born in Germany, but grew up in LA pursuing a career as an author and poet, with some impact on underground and mainstream American culture, particularly popular music. Time magazine named him “laureate of American lowlife” and it’s easy to imagine that living in Tinseltown would have exposed him to a wide spectrum of the desperate to fuel his writing.
Ordinary Madness is described in the programme as “about the beauty in the dirt, the extraordinary in the mundane, the hard shell with the soft centre, about that bluebird in our soul that wants to get out”. It’s set in, and with music from, the 1950s to the 1970s. It is certainly an intriguing sequence of snapshots of man-woman transactions of varying degrees of desperation that occasionally veer off into the surreal. But according to Bukowski, “In my work, as a writer, I only photograph, in words, what I see”. One common feature throughout is a palpable sense of menace – jeopardy and risk are ever-present. This is a compelling and relateable, but not always comfortable watch. It’s not all craziness though, there are moments of pure comedy.
The ambitious adaptation to the stage (Art Theatre) shows flair and serious expertise, with each story mixing explanatory narration and dialogue cleverly. The new content gives further insight into the Bukowski mind and definitely enhances the overall experience (director – Anya Viller). The choice of soundtrack and music in the stories is nostalgic and effective, but can on occasion drown out some of the spoken word. The simple set and imaginative use of props (Alexandra Dashevskaya), well chosen costumery (Joseph Nigoghossian), and atmospheric lighting (Benjamin Vetluzhskikh) are all well judged and support each of the performances well. The focus is always firmly on the two or three actors on stage.
Perhaps more than most, this impressive production rests on individual performing ability, and the 5 exceptionally versatile players are superlative and mesh beautifully on stage The cast of three women (Amy Leeson, Francesca Wilson Waterworth and Victoria Valcheva) and two men (James Viller, Andrew Buzzeo) bring these stories to life with considerable skill, energy and nuance. I particularly enjoyed the thoroughly convincing American accents – this show would not work as well using any other diction.
The six stories at the heart of Ordinary Madness are:
- ‘Loneliness’ – a woman mulls over and then responds to a “Woman Wanted” ad she sees in a car window, leading to a spooky encounter
- ‘A Man’ – a woman escapes an abusive husband and visits a down and out acquaintance in a trailer park and he gradually succumbs to his lust for her legs
- ‘Hard without music’ – a man advertises his music collection and eventually sells it to two nuns for $35
- ‘Love for $17.50’ – a man becomes obsessed with a mannequin in a shop window and eventually buys her for company (and more?)
- ‘A .45 to pay the rent’ – a man and his daughter have a surreal relationship during the normal day. He then prepares to “work the night shift” of crime.
- ‘Post Office’ – Bukowski’s first, autobiographical novel covering work for the US Post. As Hank Chinaski, it focuses on his relationship with his first wife Joyce
These brief descriptions give only a flavour of what to expect and clearly can’t do justice to the richness of the material, the searing, unfiltered prose and the subtle qualities of the outstanding performances which make the ordinary, extraordinary.
This brilliantly realised show highlights the vast possibilities of adapting prose for the stage with imagination and skill. It deserves praise for originality and reviving an overlooked author. I sincerely hope there is more to come. A thoroughly absorbing and irresistible show. I can’t recommend it highly enough.