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Post by crowblack on May 31, 2018 16:53:08 GMT
I was a bit left of centre and it was fine. There's a bit of action from a staircase on the left wall and I suppose you'd be seeing the actors' backs if you were well to the left.
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Post by vegas on May 31, 2018 18:41:07 GMT
That's comforting. I'm going to be on the left, just one seat off the center aisle.
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Post by vdcni on Jun 1, 2018 9:51:28 GMT
I enjoyed this but am a bit mystified about some of the really strong reviews - 5 stars from the Guardian for example. There are some great scenes but others that just drag. Generally the cast were all very strong but some of the characters are a lot more interesting than others, I was always engaged when Owen, Máire & Yolland were on stage but less so at other times.
I'm also not in love with the ending which felt more that the play just stopped.
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Post by nash16 on Jun 1, 2018 10:21:59 GMT
I enjoyed this but am a bit mystified about some of the really strong reviews - 5 stars from the Guardian for example. There are some great scenes but others that just drag. Generally the cast were all very strong but some of the characters are a lot more interesting than others, I was always engaged when Owen, Máire & Yolland were on stage but less so at other times. I'm also not in love with the ending which felt more that the play just stopped. Agree completely. That first half especially was very sluggish.
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Post by crowblack on Jun 1, 2018 11:57:46 GMT
I found the subject matter very engaging, though it did make my mind wander from the immediate action in places. The opening scene needed speeding up, and yes - it just sort of ended. I think the director's added 'full stop' was misjudged.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2018 0:54:00 GMT
I have loved this play for so long - read it many times but never seen it so I was a bit underwhelmed by this. I imagined the first act would be more dynamic but, as others mention, it was rather slow. The second act was better. I suppose the play was more resonant and powerful in 1989 when it was written. The set design was wonderful. In this play the so-called blind casting stood out more than it would in any other play because of the theme of colonialism. I found myself thinking through Yolland’s history, which could be a whole other play in itself. I suppose the casting illuminated why Yolland had such an affinity with the Irish and was trying to learn their language, having presumably lost his own. Didn’t quite get the final image (someone please explain). I suppose you have to give this modern classic five stars, especially now that Friel is dead.
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Post by peelee on Jun 10, 2018 12:07:53 GMT
I didn't like the ending this production gave to Brian Friel's play. It was forced and not even accurate in the current news terms of an issue it raised visually. So it seemed a melodramatic note to close what was written by Friel in Translations as a more thoughtful piece of work.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jun 10, 2018 12:21:40 GMT
Can anyone put in a spolier what happens at the end?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2018 8:29:28 GMT
Can anyone put in a spolier what happens at the end? {In tribute to the show I shall translate the spoiler into Irish . . . } Not really.
Ciaran Hinds does his little speech at the end and then some lights come on and you see soldiers in black with guns above the stage as though they are stood on a checkpoint. Lights fade. Show ends. Off to the bar.
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Post by mistressjojo on Jun 11, 2018 9:42:49 GMT
Can anyone put in a spolier what happens at the end? {In tribute to the show I shall translate the spoiler into Irish . . . } Not really.
Ciaran Hinds does his little speech at the end and then some lights come on and you see soldiers in black with guns above the stage as though they are stood on a checkpoint. Lights fade. Show ends. Off to the bar. I wondered what people were talking about with the 'inaccurate ending'. I missed this completely. Ciaran Hinds mucked up his speech the night I went so was looking at him the whole time.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2018 10:12:05 GMT
{In tribute to the show I shall translate the spoiler into Irish . . . } Not really.
Ciaran Hinds does his little speech at the end and then some lights come on and you see soldiers in black with guns above the stage as though they are stood on a checkpoint. Lights fade. Show ends. Off to the bar. I wondered what people were talking about with the 'inaccurate ending'. I missed this completely. Ciaran Hinds mucked up his speech the night I went so was looking at him the whole time. I missed it too...I saw the lights but not the other stuff so I was completely baffled. I was exhausted the night I watched this.
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Post by turbo25 on Jun 11, 2018 10:16:38 GMT
Baffled by the strong reviews. Admittedly I sat at the top of the circle, but this really dragged for me and I just couldn't get involved at all. Utterly lost by the ending, had no idea what was going on.
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Post by kathryn on Jun 11, 2018 10:38:23 GMT
{In tribute to the show I shall translate the spoiler into Irish . . . }Not really.
Ciaran Hinds does his little speech at the end and then some lights come on and you see soldiers in black with guns above the stage as though they are stood on a checkpoint. Lights fade. Show ends. Off to the bar. I wondered what people were talking about with the 'inaccurate ending'. I missed this completely. Ciaran Hinds mucked up his speech the night I went so was looking at him the whole time. {Spoiler} I thought it was a big old wall - the border wall between Ireland and Northern Ireland, and perhaps a nod to the so-called 'peace walls' that separate Catholic and protestant communities in some parts of Northern Ireland. The walls all being the ultimate outcome of the Brits in Ireland - and a nod to its possible post-Brexit return.
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Post by mallardo on Jun 11, 2018 11:00:23 GMT
I thought Ian Rickson's final image was powerful and profound - the play needs to go out with a bang rather than with a whimper - and it rather brilliantly captured one of the main issues of the piece, that cultural imperialism in the form of linguistic appropriation is but a way station on the road to complete political, social and military domination.
I thought the whole production was masterful, wonderfully acted and directed - easily earning five stars.
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Post by crowblack on Jun 11, 2018 11:34:59 GMT
Yes, but to make this all about one specific one was so reductive when the play seemed to give us so many - the imperialism of Latin, the Roman conquest (alluded to, I think, with a girl calling the soldiers centurions?), the Christian and later the Roman Catholic church (neither native to Ireland, but still holding power especially over women's bodies until the 21stc), the various peoples who have colonised the British isles and left their marks on the language - the word 'burn' being substituted for Irish is itself no longer a common one as London norms have replaced Celtic or Viking-influenced regional 'dialect' words, the empires that have held power of India, the spread of Enlightenment ideas and in their wake the empire of Napoleon, seen by some in this play as potentially liberating but also bound up with mass bloodshed (Robespierre's line "no one loves armed missionaries" sprang to mind), the European conquest of the Americas which included the British and Irish diaspora but which was devastating to the First Nation peoples whose place names often survive where they have not, the power of a patriarch over their children, the power of a tribe to (violently) prevent marrying out ...
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Post by lichtie on Jun 11, 2018 11:46:44 GMT
I have to admit I got lost at the end but it's a long long time since I read Virgil... That's my excuse anyway. So I had no idea what Hinds was going on about. Even after skimming the text in the bookshop afterwards I was still a bit lost until Wikipedia came to the rescue... I didn't notice the end bit with soldiers at all!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2018 12:26:35 GMT
I thought Ian Rickson's final image was powerful and profound - the play needs to go out with a bang rather than with a whimper - and it rather brilliantly captured one of the main issues of the piece, that cultural imperialism in the form of linguistic appropriation is but a way station on the road to complete political, social and military domination. I thought the whole production was masterful, wonderfully acted and directed - easily earning five stars. Well, when I read the play it doesn’t seem to end with a whimper. It is a very powerful piece of writing. I’m not sure that I read the play as suggesting that cultural appropriation leads to complete domination but rather that it is an act of violence in and of itself, part of the weaponry of colonialism.
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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 Jun 11, 2018 17:39:39 GMT
I wonder if they've tweaked the ending, as I didn't notice soldiers with guns either, just the lights coming up and revealing searchlights and barbed wire. And the non-speaking soldiers were still in period costume at the curtain call Anyway, I enjoyed this after the very slow first scene. I didn't get the ending either, if you have to look it up on wikipedia afterwards it's a problem either with the writing or direction! The set was great although did make some seems a bit odd, eg when Owen said "I've got some friends outside" and then has to leave the schoolroom and walk right over the fields and past the horizon to fetch them.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 11, 2018 18:07:40 GMT
Well. I know someone who goes weak at the knees for an Irish accent, she would have been in heaven here. They're everywhere! The set is really rather smashing, especially at the back with the swirling mist wafting about and while I enjoyed the play, I think I preferred bits of it rather than the whole thing. Colin Morgan was good and likeable especially when he was being funny (and the fan next to me was BESIDE HERSELF when he first walked on, she was jigging about like she was auditioning for Riverdance), I liked Seamus O'Hara as Manus (his big scene in the second act was really rather touching and I got a bit of that mist in my eye) and Dermot Crowley and Jimmy Jack, I loved the staging of the approach of the British soldiers over the hill and the flirting between Judith Roddy (last seen dusting herself off in flour during 'Knives in Hens') and Adetomiwa Edun as Maire and Yolland was delightfully funny too although . . . {Garden of Edun} . . . heaven knows what happened to him in the second half. Did he die? I think he should have been one of the soldiers at the end shouting "surprise!". Strangely though, all the way through the show I though Colin Morgan's accent was the worst one and that he was struggling with it at times. Then I realised that he's actually from Northern Ireland so it must have been his real accent. Oops. All in all, it was entertaining enough but not one for the DUP annual day out though.
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Post by lichtie on Jun 11, 2018 18:54:56 GMT
it's a long long time since I read Virgil Come to think of it, a long time since I've seen any "Thunderbirds" at all. And there is a closure here since as everyone who grew up in Edinburgh in the 60s knows, Thunderbird 3 sits right in the middle of Princes Street
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Post by vegas on Jun 13, 2018 22:53:13 GMT
I found it confusing and rather unsatisfying. The supposed love triangle really didn't present as such. There wasn't any hint of a potential for violence from any of the Irish characters, nor any hint of what happened to the Lieutenant. (I though maybe he just went AWOL because he liked Ireland and hated the army.) I couldn't see why Manus assumed that he would be a suspect. It wasn't even clear how much he knew about Maire and the Lieutenant. It felt like there ought to be a third act, or, alternatively, as though some crucial scenes had been chopped out. The situation had just barely become interesting when the play suddenly ended. The final tableau seemed unearned.
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Post by crowblack on Jun 13, 2018 22:53:24 GMT
Btw, I'm going to see Friel's Aristocrats at the Donmar in August and thinking of trying to dash for a late overnight bus home. I haven't seen the play before so please don't give any plot details away, but can anyone tell me if it's a long play? If it's under 3 hours my plan is probably do-able!
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Post by andrew on Jun 13, 2018 22:54:15 GMT
The soldiers were back out in black modern day soldier costumes tonight, so if they were tweaking it then they've tweaked it right back again. I quite liked this, and whilst I'm not his biggest fan it's a bit boring that for an NT play that people are being vaguely positive about and thats garnered very favourable critic reviews, the thread about it still has people clamouring for Rufus Norris's resignation. It'll happen eventually, lets try and be positive when the Nash is getting it right.
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Post by harrietcraig on Jun 14, 2018 0:38:16 GMT
Btw, I'm going to see Friel's Aristocrats at the Donmar in August and thinking of trying to dash for a late overnight bus home. I haven't seen the play before so please don't give any plot details away, but can anyone tell me if it's a long play? If it's under 3 hours my plan is probably do-able! When Aristocrats was done at the Irish Repertory Theatre in New York in 2009, the running time was 2 hours and 15 minutes, so you should be OK.
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Post by crowblack on Jun 14, 2018 8:26:28 GMT
Great - thank you! Yes, should be time enough to get to Victoria Coach Station. I'm doing a Allelujah and Aristocrats double bill.
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Post by lynette on Jun 14, 2018 17:10:42 GMT
I don’t buy a programme usually nowadays but this time I did. It does have some good stuff in it including a diary written by Friel about the writing of this play. He says at one point that it is not political but it is all about the language and then again that he does not favour concept plays. ( hear that David Hare?) but then what does the NT do? Plonk a purely political ending ( don’t we love a lighting change and good clange noise to imdicate prisons?) which isn’t in the text right there at the end. As if we are incapable of making our own judgements, an insult to Hinds who delivers the last speech with such accomplishment and frankly, daft. It is all about the language and that says it all. We can open up our minds to the suggestions that makes and to the whole colonialism, repression , everything will come forward so why do the NT bods think we are so stupid? The audience was full of young people. It must still be lurking on the A level syllabus then. It is a masterpiece and here, very well done except for that last moment. They just couldn’t help themselves could they?
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Post by mallardo on Jun 15, 2018 8:05:27 GMT
I don’t buy a programme usually nowadays but this time I did. It does have some good stuff in it including a diary written by Friel about the writing of this play. He says at one point that it is not political but it is all about the language and then again that he does not favour concept plays. ( hear that David Hare?) but then what does the NT do? Plonk a purely political ending ( don’t we love a lighting change and good clange noise to imdicate prisons?) which isn’t in the text right there at the end. As if we are incapable of making our own judgements, an insult to Hinds who delivers the last speech with such accomplishment and frankly, daft. It is all about the language and that says it all. We can open up our minds to the suggestions that makes and to the whole colonialism, repression , everything will come forward so why do the NT bods think we are so stupid? The audience was full of young people. It must still be lurking on the A level syllabus then. It is a masterpiece and here, very well done except for that last moment. They just couldn’t help themselves could they?
With all due respect, of course the play is political. How could it not be? Friel's diary entry underscores the point when he says he's worried that the political element will overwhelm the language issue. As it turned out he solved the problem. The political element does not overwhelm but it's certainly always there and powerfully so.
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Post by asfound on Jun 15, 2018 8:21:16 GMT
As if we are incapable of making our own judgements, an insult to Hinds who delivers the last speech with such accomplishment and frankly, daft. It is all about the language and that says it all. We can open up our minds to the suggestions that makes and to the whole colonialism, repression , everything will come forward so why do the NT bods think we are so stupid? This just seems to be wear we are in our current climate. No nuance, no subtlety, everything has to be big STATEMENTS and obvious REFERENCES. West End aside, almost every play I've seen recently has had some rather tedious, shoehorned and rather predictable nod to bien pensant political thought, Fox News at Machinal last night and the Trump cap at Julius Caesar. Politics now seems to be about empty sloganeering on social media, I guess they are just catering to that rather than trust people to be able to think for themselves.
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Post by nash16 on Jun 15, 2018 8:30:55 GMT
I don’t buy a programme usually nowadays but this time I did. It does have some good stuff in it including a diary written by Friel about the writing of this play. He says at one point that it is not political but it is all about the language and then again that he does not favour concept plays. ( hear that David Hare?) but then what does the NT do? Plonk a purely political ending ( don’t we love a lighting change and good clange noise to imdicate prisons?) which isn’t in the text right there at the end. As if we are incapable of making our own judgements, an insult to Hinds who delivers the last speech with such accomplishment and frankly, daft. It is all about the language and that says it all. We can open up our minds to the suggestions that makes and to the whole colonialism, repression , everything will come forward so why do the NT bods think we are so stupid? The audience was full of young people. It must still be lurking on the A level syllabus then. It is a masterpiece and here, very well done except for that last moment. They just couldn’t help themselves could they? The ending felt as patronising as Ivo van Hove's coda at the end of Network with the footage of the Presidents. Why don't these directors trust that we've "got" it?
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Jun 15, 2018 9:49:55 GMT
I don’t buy a programme usually nowadays but this time I did. It does have some good stuff in it including a diary written by Friel about the writing of this play. He says at one point that it is not political but it is all about the language and then again that he does not favour concept plays. ( hear that David Hare?) but then what does the NT do? Plonk a purely political ending ( don’t we love a lighting change and good clange noise to imdicate prisons?) which isn’t in the text right there at the end. As if we are incapable of making our own judgements, an insult to Hinds who delivers the last speech with such accomplishment and frankly, daft. It is all about the language and that says it all. We can open up our minds to the suggestions that makes and to the whole colonialism, repression , everything will come forward so why do the NT bods think we are so stupid? The audience was full of young people. It must still be lurking on the A level syllabus then. It is a masterpiece and here, very well done except for that last moment. They just couldn’t help themselves could they? The ending felt as patronising as Ivo van Hove's coda at the end of Network with the footage of the Presidents. Why don't these directors trust that we've "got" it? A coda is a concluding section and Network had already concluded. You could call it a postscript, I suppose.
It wasn't patronising although it was a deliberate provocation and it was good to see the few there who laud the rise of populist nationalism being suitably angry. Personally, I want action rather than words as we are sleepwalking to disaster and people need to go further than just nodding along.
Van Hove did a production of 'The Fountainhead' exhibiting the pathetic, whinging 'student politics' of Ayn Rand, so he's not just provocative in one direction.
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