Tangier! What promise that word conjures. And to be brought here to discover the one-night-only production of Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, directed by Rob Ashford for the Tangiers Charity Plays—as well as all manner of attendant frivolities—is the icing on the cake. It is 10 years since Rob first did a charity play here. With the Chekhov, there have been eight productions in all because of the COVID-19 pandemic. I’ve seen six of them—the second production, Terence Rattigan’s After the Dance, I did the costumes for (Stephen Jones hats included) and even had a small role in. So I willingly invested in a charity ticket…and, to top it all off, we were staying at Veere Grenney’s stupendous house, Gazebo. A Soane-esque villa (artist Alistair Erskine painted the library à la Renzo Mongiardino, and the drawing room is upholstered in pale green, brown, and ivory rose chintz), it has terraced gardens of such magnificence—laid out by his friend, the fellow New Zealander Christopher Masson—that they seem to lead down to the sea, where the Atlantic meets the Strait of Gibraltar and Spain is nine miles away. At once so near and so far, far away.
It is here that the play was to be performed. The idea for it came about when Sir Kenneth Branagh came to stay in Tangier at the beginning of the year. Asked what play he would do, he responded that he loved The Cherry Orchard, and asked if he would be in it, he said yes, if he could be Lopakhin and Derek Jacobi Firs. Before long, a stellar—and I mean stellar—cast had been summoned: Gillian Anderson as Ranyevskaya, Michelle Dockery as Varya, Penelope Wilton as Charlotta, Samuel West as Gayev, Luke Thallon as Trofimov, and on it went. Jaimal Odedra did the splendid set and costume designs.
On Thursday night, the Gallery Kent had the opening of a show, “Compass Point,” featuring the work of Sarah Guppy, Stephenie Bergman, and Johnny Rozsa. Alas, our plane from Gatwick didn’t make it in time for the opening, but we went to see the show on Friday morning. Sarah (Veere’s sister) had a series of small and exquisite acrylic studies of the life around her in Tangier, Stephenie had abstract ceramics that she works on in Taroudant (Veere has a large structure by her in his garden), and Johnny had created a gallery of Moroccan characters—I was mad for them and snapped up Fadma, purple headscarf, golden earrings, and all (which I was agreeably surprised hadn’t already been claimed, as so many others were, on the first night).
We were then bidden—on behalf of the extraordinary Madison Cox, who was busy organizing the play et al.—to the American Legation Museum that night, and rather wonderful it is, right in the medina. Once a slightly shabby place—although amazing for its scale, considering how nondescript it is from the lane outside—it has had new life breathed into it by interior designer Frank de Biasi and designer Gene Meyer, with an intelligent hang of the art and brilliant colors. (For instance, melon walls with an eau de nil skirting board, finished with a brown stripe.) I was intrigued by the exhibition “Dissatisfied With the Ordinary: The Legendary Theater Program of the American School of Tangier,” revealing the plays produced under Joe McPhillips (erstwhile owner of Gazebo, Veere Grenney’s home). Costumed by Yves Saint Laurent or Michael Roberts, with incidental music by Paul Bowles (for instance), these productions were extraordinary—and turned young people on to the arts of theater.
Later that night, there were goodies in store thanks to Jane Stubbs (I got the letters of Paul Bowles and a book on Morocco by Lord Kinross), who works at the library at the American Legation, as well as embroidered pillows and linens and jewelry.
On Saturday, we had a morning’s romp through the stores, starting at Galerie Tindouf (opposite the Minzah hotel), run by the imposing Boubker Temli, and the shop more or less next door (run by Boubker’s brother), which looks junky but has its treasures hidden within. Deep in the medina, we stopped into the fantastic shop of Majid, a trove of antique Moroccan artistry. Also opposite Galerie Tindouf, I discovered a shop with the most perfect white kid-leather shoes for $35—the finishing touch to my off-white Edwardian garden-party suit (from Ralph Lauren) and vest (from Fornasetti). My friend Joseph Hanson wrenched off the white cravat from a costume shirt he had brought, and I thus had the perfect flourish for my crisp white shirt. The weather, however, was compromised: It rained and rained, and it rained some more.
Yet by five o’clock, as we were struggling with the final bits of our ensembles, the sun shone, it was a trifle cooler, and all was well. We gathered for an hour upstairs in the house and terraces, where everyone (well, not quite everyone, Michéle Lamy!) wore Edwardian-esque ivory outfits, and then we descended to the pool. The audience sat on a structure that had been built over the pool and looked up to an area of greenery arranged with wicker furniture.
Sadly, Sir Kenneth Branagh had a family emergency a day or so earlier and had to return to England. (Rob Ashford must have been having kittens, although one couldn’t tell because of his sangfroid.) With that said, I couldn’t quite remember who Sir Kenneth would have been playing—daft, I know, as he could only have been playing one character. But it was only in the interval that I consulted the program and realized that Stefan Healy, an Irishman just a year or two out of RADA whom I thought exceptionally good as Lopakhin, was originally cast as Passerby and Stationmaster with a grand total of three lines and had stepped in (knowing the role). I couldn’t believe it. In fact, everyone was so good—so moving—telling this story of the leisured class lost in time as the new rich marched relentlessly on.
Then we repaired to Jean-Louis Deniot and William Holloway’s house next door to continue the night away; the DJ was fantastic. It was a sea of white beneath the stars.
On the Sunday we all gathered with the cast to have a lunch with Jasper Conran at his Villa Mabrouka, christening the pizza oven. Michelle Dockery was staying on in Tangier for another week with her husband, so bewitched by it was she; I was staying on for two whole weeks. What bliss.
