Does anyone know what the £10 secret seats are like?
At the Saturday matinee, I got Row B of the Stalls, which was very good.
What you get will be entirely dependent on what's not sold.
This is SUCH a good production of the play, and in all honesty, I'd have been happy with any seat to see such a magical show.
The spare set, the evocative music, the brilliant acting, all work to create such a dreamy mood that I was absolutely carried away with it.
Often with this play, the second half is great, but the first half just isn't. Here, the whole piece works, making for peak Tennessee Williams, in my opinion, delicate and deeply moving.
Some spoilers follow. . .
From the moment Kasper Hilton-Hilles's Tennessee Williams avatar, Tom, took the stage with the famous line that he had "tricks" in his pocket, gesturing to a giant neon "Paradise" sign, spinning above him, we got all the "truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion" we could wish for.
The spinning sign is nowhere near as obtrusive as when directors spin the actual stage, and it creates a kind of hypnotic atmosphere conducive to a memory play, even as it refers to the Paradise Club next to where Tom and his family live.
As the narrator, Hilton-Hille really captivates, capturing the wistful, yearning, mournful, elegaic mood, which subtle background music enhances greatly. This is the second play I've seen in which Hilton-Hille has to deal with a smothering mother, after "That Face" at the Orange Tree, and he's been brilliant in both.
But it's Geraldine Somerville who really makes the difference here. Her character can be so affected, you stop believing in her, but Somerville does here what Patsy Ferran did for Blanche Dubois, making Amanda Wingfield feel three dimensional, her tender and delusional sides understated and in balance. The play is all about her, before the interval, and it's so well done that I really cared about both her and her relationships with her 2 children.
The part after the interval, the part with the Gentleman Caller, that part of the play always works in my experience, because it's just such a poignant scene so vividly written, but with a first half that actually works as well, the whole play feels like one great heartbreaking magic trick perfectly executed by 4 wonderful actors and a wonderful director.
My only objection to this production is Whitney Houston's "One Moment in Time" butting it's head in. That song is like a brash Eighties Bull smashing it's way into a delicate China Shop of timeless soothing mood music.
I get that the song represents a potential for escape, but this feels more like Simpson and Bruckheimer booted the director and hired Tony Scott for one scene. I wondered if Elbow's "One Day Like This" might be better, avoiding the Eighties (which we understood to be cheesy even in the Eighties lol).
But realistically, if they'd have chosen something more Thirties, like "Over The Rainbow," I think that would have had the requisite politeness not to disturb the magnificent melancholy illusion of the production.
From Row B, I particularly loved the Jonquil Flowers and Glass Figures placed around the stage at a certain point, which I imagined that Amanda and Laura Wingfield must have placed there personally, to ward off evil spirits the way witches surround a room with salt.
Anyway, as I said, for me this is peak Tennessee Williams, bar one song choice, which wasn't to my taste.
4 and a half stars of magic from me.
