The Seven Acts of Mercy (RSC Swan)

Please do drop any thoughts. Very eager to see this. There is a small subgenre of plays/musicals about paintings.

Me too. So slightly alarmed by the need for pruning remark. Any dogs in it, by which I mean, how long?

Hi all,

We went with several friends to see this last night.

What can I say?

All four of us were deeply disappointed, primarily with the disgusting language used throughout the performance. Hardly necessary I think. We sat on Gallery 2 and found that at times the sound projection was quite poor.

We were so disappointed that we left at the interval, feeling disappointed, and having wasted both time and money.

Not recommended.

Ok full comment time. This is going to be a marmite show. Yes there is a lot of swearing but I managed to get beyond it and see a great show, I can fully appreciate that this will not be the case for all.

Three previous RSC plays came to mind for a multitude of reasons:

David Edgar' Pentecost and Written on the Heart
Helen Edmundson's The Heresy of Love

As far as 'pruning' goes, the scenery changes need sharpening (cut the carpet for a start) and also some speeding up.

I was in Gallery 2 also (B25) and aside from 1 line heard all of it clearly.

Some great performances, especially from Patrick O'Kane and Tom Georgeson.

As an aside it was humbling to listen to You and Yours on Radio 4 the day after and hear real life stories that echoed the housing storyline in the play.

and dogs and nudity?

No dogs but did come down at 3 hours as advertised

Looks like this is going to be a marmite play because I didn't much like it! Or rather, I liked aspects of it but disliked the general sense of being smashed repeatedly over the head by the writer's opinions to the detriment of plot and writing. I don't really like polemical theatre anyway ("So don't go to see a Lustgarten play, you fool") as I dislike being told what to think and having the world presented to me in a totally one dimensional way. There were points (particular when the housing officer was meeting the family) when characters were given lines that no human being would say in that way and in that circumstance, which grated. And what a coincidence that the father was who he was - I saw it coming a mile off and I still groaned when it was 'revealed'. Dreadful, contrived plotting. I'm all for writers expressing their opinions through a play but give me a bit of nuance and an alternative viewpoint so I at least have the illusion of coming to my own conclusion.

But - excellent acting. The moving between the family and Caravaggio was very effective. Some moving moments and also some genuinely funny ones - particularly the bit comparing football teams to political parties - funny even to someone who knows sod all about football.

Longer than it should have been, but there are worse ways to spend a rainy afternoon.

Ha! I promise I'm not UKIP! And yes, great double bill with the Tempest, which I loved (though despite the tech not because of it). Looks like we were in two theatres at the same time - sorry I missed you.

Just come back from this and I agree with all of the above, that is I liked what other people liked and disliked what you disliked. So not so much marmite for me but I saw the kind of problems that contemporary plays tend to have, that is they are often over ambitious, a bit too long and lack focus. If this had real financial constraints and was not put on by the generous RSC it would be shorter and have half the cast. And I think would lose some of the 'language' which as intended I expect becomes another parallel dialect in both the history and the modern scenes. It is theatrical which is good and shouty which is bad. It has stereotypes ( the thugs and the social worker types ) but other very well defined characters, the boy, Caravaggio himself and Lavinia. It has a few layers which is good - a motif on identity was interesting - but although both 'parts' are interesting I didn't see the direct connection. Naples had poor people and so does Bootle. Well, so did other places then and so do other places now. But I did like the idea of the boy taking photos of the seven acts and I think the writer loved this idea and wanted to use it but realised that nobody would understand without the Caravaggios being on the stage too as we are not all familiar with the paintings.

It is similar to Pentecost in that it takes art as a starting point and indeed even Arcadia with its switches from past to present flipped into my mind (and then flipped out again)but it didn't for me have the emotional punch of Pentecost or Arcadia.
All the acting excellent as you would expect.
Partial nudity and fire and strong language as warned by the notices but no dogs ( it will have a dog in the movie, trust me) and no macaroons.

Excellent summing up, Lynette - totally agree with you. Including about the dogs and macaroons.

I saw this when I was in Stratford for Kinsmen and agree with the positive comments. Bold bit of programming putting something like this on over Christmas which sadly I don't think has paid off for the RSC though. Don't think the warnings of sexual content were necessary - The Rover had far more sexual content than this! And the "partial nudity" was minor and in a non-sexual context. Loads of effing and jeffing though.

They have extended the all seats for £10 offer to more dates - this link should work, or use promo code 16009 - t.co/cA0ptyrvWN

I saw this last night for the £10 offer, and really liked it. Enjoyed isn't the right word perhaps, but I got a lot out of it. I had no idea what to expect having read very little more than the briefest synopsis, and knowing nothing at all about Caravaggio or the playwright. I thought it was excellent though. And I've come away determined to do something more positive about how awful society is at the moment than just watching the news and repeating to myself 'everything's so awful at the moment'...

I saw this this afternoon and although I thought there was rather too much swearing I eventually got beyond the point of really noticing and was able to appreciate the performances, especially those of the actors playing Caravaggio, Lavinia, the Grandfather and the boy. I found myself with a lump in my throat at the end and genuinely moved. I thought the changes from one time frame to another worked well, the only problem I had was sometimes understanding what was being said because of the accents.