The Stage

Danton’s Death

Published Friday 23 July 2010 at 10:50 by Mark Shenton

Donmar Warehouse supremo Michael Grandage - lining up as a potential successor for Nicholas Hytner as artistic director of the National - crosses the river to make his belated directing debut at the venue with a project originally planned for last year, but postponed when he had to take over directorial duties for the Donmar West End production of Hamlet.

Toby Stephens (Georges Danton) and Gwilymn Lee as (Lacroix) in Danton's Death at the National Theatre, Olivier Photo: Johan Persson

That show subsequently transferred to Broadway, as did Grandage’s production of the new play Red that took him to Tony winning glory as Best Director of a Play in June.

Grandage is flying high and prolifically all over the place right now - he’s also currently represented at Glyndebourne by his thrilling production of Billy Budd, while his production of Evita is Broadway bound - but Danton’s Death returns him to his core repertoire concerns at the Donmar. That is to mount re-investigations from the relatively obscure classical European repertoire, presented in new versions by leading contemporary playwrights, done with a magnified operatic intensity with the support of his regular Donmar team, including designer Christopher Oram and composer and sound man Adam Cork, joined by the exemplary lighting designer Paule Constable.

Between them, they come up with a visually arresting and viscerally involving production of this political thriller set against the fervour of the French Revolution, as a battle of political wills and philosophies is dramatically played out between two opposing protagonists, Danton and Robespierre.

There’s a spoiler in the play’s title that lets you know just how it is going to turn out, but it’s the journey to the guillotine, not the destination, that counts and is piercingly well argued by the vibrant Toby Stephens (also making his NT debut) and Elliot Levey, the latter in a breakthrough leading role after a slew of good supporting performances at the National that totally commands attention.

Howard Brenton, who has also adapted The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist for the current production at Chichester’s Minerva Theatre and is about to open a new play Anne Boleyn at Shakespeare’s Globe, provides a revised, abbreviated version of Georg Buchner’s play that he previously adapted for the National’s last production of the play in 1982.