Further to my posting, on 28th September 2023, about Oliver Cotton’s new play The Score on at the Theatre Royal Bath, I have returned from seeing the play on the 19th October, which was, I believe, its seventh performance. I am told there were a few re-writes and cuts on its way to the performance on the 19th. Whatever improvements have been made, and there have been a few, since its first reading quite a while ago, it has emerged as a great play.
There have been a number of good reviews, in particular one written by Johnathan Baz on Friday 2oth October 2023, which can be found at:
https://www.jonathanbaz.com/2023/10/the-score-review.html
I would urge you to read it. It begins with the line, “The Score is a bold historical tale that makes for some exceptional drama.” and ends “This is a brave and bold piece from Cotton that in its style makes a fine tilt at the honours garnered by Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus. Only on for a ridiculously short run, it demands a transfer to London and a wider audience”.
Like any good piece of great writing it does deserve a wider audience. It will no doubt find its way. Indeed, like most writing, it speaks on many levels, and many will be in tune with some or all of them.
It is rather like Colonel Pickering in Shaws Pygmalion when listening to vowel sounds in Henry Higgins’s study:
HIGGINS: Tired of listening to sounds?
PICKERING. Yes. It's a fearful strain. I rather fancied by myself because I can pronounce twenty-four distinct vowel sounds; but your hundred and thirty beat me. I can't hear a bit of difference between most of them.
HIGGINS Oh, that comes with practice. You hear no difference at first; but you keep on listening, and presently you find they're all as different as A from B.
So with The Score. It begins and ends with a simple domestic situation that has taken Johann Sebastien away from home and back again, on a journey he did not want to make, but which in the end, having taken the viewer/listener along with him, leads him to a kind of peace with himself, and the making of a peace offering to a difficult King, in the form of a musical tribute, the Score, A Musical Offering.
There is, in the end, some joy for the composer, but sadness for the King who has not bothered to keep listening, and failed to hear what his own original theme could have become.
Along the way we are treated to an exposition of what life might have been like at the court of King Frederick the Great, and the reasons behind it. We hear of the uncanny similarities with the events of our own time, which are tragically being repeated, yet again. We see the contrast of thinking and philosophies of ordinary men put in, or arriving at, positions of influence and notoriety. What does one do with power? How can one accept atrocity? How does one speak truth to power? What is creativity? How do we deal with faith and personal belief? What is it to be truly responsible? How do we cope with family and love? What makes us human? All these questions and more are explored in the text, if we just keep listening.
Oliver Cotton gives his characters speeches that the actors poor out of their mouths as if for the first time. They are wonderful things to say and come to grips with, making them all the easier to perform well. At least I felt all the performances were good and complemented each other because of the writing. The actors did not disappoint. I cannot say that anyone was better than another, but Brian Cox and his wife Nicole Ansari were an exemplary Mr and Mrs Bach. Stephen Hagan, the King, product of an abusive father, Doña Croll the all-seeing, loyal but reflective common servant, Christopher Haines, Benedict Salter and Eric Sirakian, a comic trio of court musicians and composers, Mathew Burns a caring and dutiful son and great musician in his own right, and Peter de Jersey as the sometimes over-the-top philosopher and admirer Voltaire, did justice to the play. A seemingly simple ensemble providing us with a multitude of vowels.
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| Some of the cast |
Of course there will be different views about performance, writing and direction, but if you look and listen with care, it will not be as for Pickering, a fearful strain, and you will hear the myriad of beats and the differences between them. Like all good work that stands by itself, it takes more than one glance, or off the cuff reaction, to take it all in. Perhaps one should not expect reviews to be written overnight to meet a publication deadline, although Mr Baz did get it, in my view.
At the end, one can say, “The play’s the thing wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the King” and that is Bach’s musical offering. It is a great pity the King never heard the music play.
I don’t know if any of you will ever see the play as it finishes its run in Bath on the 28th October. I can only hope that it will be performed elsewhere in the very near future, and that it be published at least for a wider readership. If there are any in the United States looking to put on a great show, let me know and I will make inquiries and put you in touch with the relevant people.
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