433 posts
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Post by DuchessConstance on Feb 8, 2016 21:07:11 GMT
2nd interval and starting to fall in love with it. Acting is certainly wonderful, especially from the two younger women.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2016 21:08:25 GMT
If I get there and the beautiful usher is having a day off, then odds are good I won't make it to the end. Should be able to make the last train easily enough, but won't arrange any breakfast meetings the next day. 3 hours 25, HONESTLY.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2016 21:18:17 GMT
If I get there and the beautiful usher is having a day off, then odds are good I won't make it to the end. Should be able to make the last train easily enough, but won't arrange any breakfast meetings the next day. 3 hours 25, HONESTLY. I do think it's very bad form not to start at 7pm if you're going to go on for that long...!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2016 21:31:47 GMT
Agreed. And it's Robert Icke, after Oresteia they CAN'T have been surprised.
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433 posts
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Post by DuchessConstance on Feb 8, 2016 21:58:25 GMT
Apparently down to 3 hours 20, according to the (non hot but perfectly attractive) ushers.
A few walk outs in the second interval.
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170 posts
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Post by caa on Feb 9, 2016 22:59:11 GMT
This should start at 7pm
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Post by Jan on Feb 10, 2016 8:10:43 GMT
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367 posts
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Post by MrBunbury on Feb 10, 2016 10:19:47 GMT
I saw it last night. I think it is very good and the acting is excellent: Paul Rhys is a great Uncle Vanya (except that he is Uncle Johnny, as names have been anglicized, something I always find questionable) and the set is both simple and effective. I loved the use of light in the second act.
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Post by Jan on Feb 10, 2016 11:41:47 GMT
I saw it last night. I think it is very good and the acting is excellent: Paul Rhys is a great Uncle Vanya (except that he is Uncle Johnny, as names have been anglicized, something I always find questionable) Bizarre. But it's still set in Russia ? Can't think of a single other example where this was done.
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367 posts
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Post by MrBunbury on Feb 10, 2016 12:01:07 GMT
I saw it last night. I think it is very good and the acting is excellent: Paul Rhys is a great Uncle Vanya (except that he is Uncle Johnny, as names have been anglicized, something I always find questionable) Bizarre. But it's still set in Russia ? Can't think of a single other example where this was done. Any reference to specific places has been eliminated so it could be anywhere and the time when the story happens is the present (the language is updated). Still it is an adaptation that works preserving both the plot and the characters' nature. I just wonder why they have to change the names though: can't British audiences relate to Russian characters? They will do the same with "The suicide" at the National so I am bracing myself...
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433 posts
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Post by DuchessConstance on Feb 10, 2016 12:04:24 GMT
People next to me certainly seemed under the impression it was set in England. Complaints about, "very well acted, but English people just don't talk like that!"
Oh and will some kind forum member please pop round with some WD40 for the revolve?
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367 posts
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Post by MrBunbury on Feb 10, 2016 12:07:09 GMT
People next to me certainly seemed under the impression it was set in England. Complaints about, "very well acted, but English people just don't talk like that!" Oh and will some kind forum member please pop round with some WD40 for the revolve? I think it was set in England too. Michael and Johnny are hardly names that you find in the continent )
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Post by Honoured Guest on Feb 10, 2016 12:45:29 GMT
Michael Haneke and Johnny Foreigner. Both "on the continent".
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Post by Jan on Feb 10, 2016 12:52:25 GMT
People next to me certainly seemed under the impression it was set in England. Complaints about, "very well acted, but English people just don't talk like that!" Oh and will some kind forum member please pop round with some WD40 for the revolve? I think it was set in England too. Michael and Johnny are hardly names that you find in the continent ) I have not seen it yet but a key part of the play is the implication that the estate is very provincial, rural, and distant from Moscow, probably many day's journey away in the 1890s. By setting it in modern-day England you lose that remoteness entirely.
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Post by Honoured Guest on Feb 10, 2016 12:54:18 GMT
I am sure they change the names so as to stop the audience from watching the show with the question: "What is this telling me about pre-revolutionary Russia?" Even by leeching out all specificity, some people still think everything they see is set in a specific time and place (these folk apparently assume they are watching a dramatisation of today's England) but nothing will shake them from their delusion and at least the poor dears haven't been confused by multiple references to times and places which always mean that they spend the entire show wracking their brains trying to think of the one time and place which has all the features of what is in front of them.
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367 posts
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Post by MrBunbury on Feb 10, 2016 12:54:22 GMT
Michael Haneke and Johnny Foreigner. Both "on the continent". Yes, I wished the names had been preserved (I am not British, but 'continental'. Johnny Foreigner is a group from Birmingham...) but that is a minor detail as the production is faithful to the original in its own way. I think it will be another success for the Almeida, less radical than the Oresteia but very well-acted and Chekhovian.
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Post by alexandra on Feb 10, 2016 13:11:35 GMT
I thought it was wonderful. It's not Russian at all, but I agree with you MrB, it's entirely faithful to Chekhov in theme and mood despite the adaptation and modernising. It did take a while (I think it was only just over 3 hours now by the way, for those who care) but by the second act I was hooked. Some beautiful wringing performances, really detailed work, and just utterly stifling, which is a good thing.
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367 posts
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Post by MrBunbury on Feb 10, 2016 13:13:54 GMT
I thought it was wonderful. It's not Russian at all, but I agree with you MrB, it's entirely faithful to Chekhov in theme and mood despite the adaptation and modernising. It did take a while (I think it was only just over 3 hours now by the way, for those who care) but by the second act I was hooked. Some beautiful wringing performances, really detailed work, and just utterly stifling, which is a good thing. This Robert Icke does not miss a single shot at adaptations ) (unlike Uncle Johnny/Vanya)
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Post by alexandra on Feb 10, 2016 13:26:44 GMT
But Vanya does translate as Johnny, I assume, which sounds a bit patronising, doesn't it? He isn't called Uncle Ivan, which I've never noticed when the Russian names are used.
Sorry, very slow of me MrB, I just got your joke. Anyway for me the anglicised name is a trick that wasn't missed.
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Post by Jan on Feb 10, 2016 14:16:46 GMT
I am sure they change the names so as to stop the audience from watching the show with the question: "What is this telling me about pre-revolutionary Russia?" Even by leeching out all specificity, some people still think everything they see is set in a specific time and place (these folk apparently assume they are watching a dramatisation of today's England) but nothing will shake them from their delusion and at least the poor dears haven't been confused by multiple references to times and places which always mean that they spend the entire show wracking their brains trying to think of the one time and place which has all the features of what is in front of them. But the play IS set in a specific time and place. You can update it to a different but appropriate time and place - 1920s Alberta or 1960s far North East Scotland - but removing all references to time and place you lose aspects of the play.
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Post by alexandra on Feb 10, 2016 14:34:12 GMT
I agree with you in theory Jan. Of course any of these people could have just got in the car and driven to the nearest city. Which, in fact, some of them do in the play (in the original too I mean - not in a car, but they leave). But the others are trapped by their temperament, character and situation more than by their location. It doesn't seem to lose that sense of entrapment in the playing, here.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2016 20:28:51 GMT
It's called Uncle Vanya, for pete's sake. What on earth made them think they had to use the English equivalent 'Johnny' for people to 'get' it? If anything, I would have thought it was just grounds for confusion - "I'm here to see a play about Uncle Vanya, who's this Johnny bloke?"
I should imagine a substantial number of their audience have managed to negotiate several weeks of War and Peace on the Beeb just fine, without getting confused by all those 'foreign names'. Whatever next? John Valjohn?!
Also - as Jan Brock suggests, it's a quintessentially Russian piece, no? Why shift the location in the first place?
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2,706 posts
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Feb 10, 2016 20:39:45 GMT
I actually never realised that Vanya was a diminutive (I suppose I knew the title before I knew about Russian naming), that casts a whole new light on the title.
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1,103 posts
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Post by mallardo on Feb 10, 2016 21:40:59 GMT
Strangely, the reviews from people who liked the production actually make it sound awful. If he's Uncle Johnny in this all-local-references-removed version why are they still calling the play Uncle Vanya? It sounds a lot like that hopeless Anya Reiss version of The Seagull set on the Isle of Man.
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Xanderl
Member
Not always very high value in terms of ticket yield or donations
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Post by Xanderl on Feb 10, 2016 21:49:33 GMT
Uncle Johnny sounds like a disgraced children's entertainer
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2,389 posts
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Post by peggs on Feb 10, 2016 21:54:03 GMT
Yes the russianess of this was part of what appealed to me and I whilst I can see perhaps if you wish to remove all associations with russia you need to chance the name i rather want my Vanya character. People do go 'oh you are cultured' when they hear I go to theatre, they're wrong of course, or at least I don't really know what exactly it is they mean but they'll be a lot less impressed if I go to see Uncle Johnny than Vanya, which actually probably means I think they're references to culture link somehow to intelligence and the unfamiliar being more impressive than the normal which Johnny suggests.
Still i'm glad to know in advance as I can adjust my expectations now and may well then be quite happy with it all.
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Post by Honoured Guest on Feb 10, 2016 22:59:47 GMT
Strangely, the reviews from people who liked the production actually make it sound awful. If he's Uncle Johnny in this all-local-references-removed version why are they still calling the play Uncle Vanya? It sounds a lot like that hopeless Anya Reiss version of The Seagull set on the Isle of Man. I guess the play is called Uncle Vanya because that's the usual English translation of Chekhov's title. People report that this version is not located, so it sounds nothing like a version set on the Isle of Man.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2016 23:00:33 GMT
As long as it's better than Anya Reiss's Uncle Vanya at the St James.
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Post by Jan on Feb 11, 2016 10:17:38 GMT
I agree with you in theory Jan. Of course any of these people could have just got in the car and driven to the nearest city. Which, in fact, some of them do in the play (in the original too I mean - not in a car, but they leave). But the others are trapped by their temperament, character and situation more than by their location. It doesn't seem to lose that sense of entrapment in the playing, here. I suppose I'm still infuriated by the Southwark Playhouse Three Sisters set in Dubai.
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Post by alexandra on Feb 11, 2016 10:41:47 GMT
I actually never realised that Vanya was a diminutive (I suppose I knew the title before I knew about Russian naming), that casts a whole new light on the title. Exactly. I hadn't thought about it either.
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