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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Nov 6, 2018 12:27:39 GMT
Just short of three hours. I’ve seen this ‘plus interval’ timing a few times recently at different venues and its use instead of the usual ‘including interval’ is very misleading. Looking back, the Almeida were using ‘including interval’ as recently as for Summer and Smoke so it’s a change that appears to make no sense. Completely failing to see how this is anything other than crystal clear. It's clear on its own but the context is that they have always done the opposite. Does anyone know why they've made this change?
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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 Nov 6, 2018 13:35:04 GMT
They are still using "including interval" for Summer and Smoke on the website so it is an odd change to make. Maybe the "3" key has broken on their typewriter. Only other theatre I'm aware of that does this is the RSC.
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2,548 posts
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Post by n1david on Nov 6, 2018 13:40:58 GMT
Maybe they just think a 3-hour show sounds inherently off-putting in a way that a 2 1/2 hour show doesn't. Doesn't help those who don't notice the change of policy though.
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4,974 posts
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Post by TallPaul on Nov 6, 2018 13:45:10 GMT
All theatres should use 'Carriages At', then there's no confusion!
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Post by Deleted on Nov 6, 2018 13:47:47 GMT
The RSC do it, and the Barbican did it for Ninagawa's Cymbeline. Using those two as my baseline, I assume they get complaints from people who see a 3+ hour running time, and therefore choose to emphasise that the amount of time you'll be actively spending watching the play is less than 3 hours. Which completely misses the point that if the play is over 3 hours (including interval, or 2 hours 40 minutes plus 20 minute interval, or however they phrase it) then a 7:30pm start time means no one's leaving before 10:30pm at the earliest so a lot of people will have to seriously consider their transport options before booking and, indeed, may not even be able to book if their last train home leaves at such a time that they could make it no problem if the play finished at 10:10pm but 10:30pm would be a tight squeeze and 10:35pm means a hotel room or a late night coach or missing out all together.
Yes, we can do the maths, it's SUPER easy maths, but it's such a transparently pathetic way of saying "no, the play itself isn't *that* long, honest" that it's just insulting. We want to know the running time because we want to know when we're going to leave the theatre, not because we're concerned about the precise number of minutes that we spend sat in our seat (but hey, don't worry about the interval, 'cos we can get up and walk around then).
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134 posts
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Post by Mr Crummles on Nov 13, 2018 11:55:30 GMT
I am always a bit wary of adaptations. Some of the comments made here about this production were not very encouraging, but, as I usually like Robert Icke's work, I decided I should go. I am glad I did. His notes worked for me, regardless of how accurate they may be. They just added to the narrative and drama. Perhaps the production should have been called An Essay on the Wild Duck, to avoid letting down people with more purist expectations. Amazing cast. I especially enjoyed Kevin Harvey, who, made me sympathetic to a character that I would normally feel a strong revulsion for. He has a stunning voice too. The little girl, Hedwig (I think I saw Grace Doherty), was also very impressive. It’s interesting that I saw this right after A Pack of Lies. The two plays seem to be about the corrosive – and sometimes venomous – effects of truth.
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Post by Jan on Nov 13, 2018 15:23:34 GMT
Running time on website currently showing as 2 hours 35 plus a 20 min interval. So that’s nearly 3 hours, correct? Or 2 hrs 35 total? Confused.com Just short of three hours. I’ve seen this ‘plus interval’ timing a few times recently at different venues and its use instead of the usual ‘including interval’ is very misleading. Looking back, the Almeida were using ‘including interval’ as recently as for Summer and Smoke so it’s a change that appears to make no sense. RSC started this nonsense a few years ago. Never seen a justification for it.
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186 posts
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Post by argon on Nov 13, 2018 18:21:26 GMT
Just short of three hours. I’ve seen this ‘plus interval’ timing a few times recently at different venues and its use instead of the usual ‘including interval’ is very misleading. Looking back, the Almeida were using ‘including interval’ as recently as for Summer and Smoke so it’s a change that appears to make no sense. RSC started this nonsense a few years ago. Never seen a justification for it. Noticed this yesterday on the cast sheet at the RSC McB at the Barbican. Looks like the need for more arithmetic now.
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Post by Jan on Nov 13, 2018 20:12:59 GMT
RSC started this nonsense a few years ago. Never seen a justification for it. Noticed this yesterday on the cast sheet at the RSC McB at the Barbican. Looks like the need for more arithmetic now. The Almeida used to have a clock up in the foyer showing you what time the performance was due to end. That’s all I want to know. That requires no calculation at all.
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3,485 posts
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Post by showgirl on Nov 13, 2018 20:28:59 GMT
Some of my favourite theatres still have the "foyer clock" system, including the Yvonne Arnaud in Guildford and Orange Tree in Richmond. Only issue is that I invariably attend Thursday matinees, often to find the end time has been left set for the previous evening, which at first sight looks alarming.
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2,389 posts
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Post by peggs on Nov 24, 2018 20:20:12 GMT
Well I was glad I had read on here that it was all a bit Icke and an interpretation rather just a straight re-telling of the play, thus warned I didn't spend the first 10 minutest thinking what?! and more happily went with 'oh it's all a bit meta' (equally thanks to the board that I even know what that means). I did find this rather long and sometimes laid things on with a shovel when it came to subtly but I did enjoy it. Enjoyed loathing Kevin Harvey's character, even whilst thinking 'yes I know he clearly isn't quite right', spent an age trying to work out what production at the Globe i'd seen Edward Hogg in and reminding self that really mustn't wear joggers as they're just not flattering. Good child acting and that can't be an easy part to play, lovely Nicholas Farrell's rather touching father and Lyndsay Marshall's Gina, my goodness she must have a lot of patience, quietly suffering Gina. I knew where we going so was happy to get their via to rather different routes, wasn't expecting that ohh moment set reveal and of course the duck scene stole.
So a nice thinky one and with the bonus that you can buy a duck poster, box office person tried rather hopefully to sell me a duck with person poster instead noting that everyone just wanted the duck one, but frankly I just thought the duck was rather cool though it didn't look like any mallard I've ever seen, perhaps it was genuinely Norwegian and therefore better on the truth than if it had been a 'translated' English mallard?
Less enamoured by audience the majority of who didn't come in until it was due to start and then seemed completely unfamiliar with the idea of designated seats or who seat numbering worked. But then they all loudly walked out in the interval apparently unaware that there was in fact something still going on, on stage.
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Post by culturevulture on Nov 24, 2018 22:03:41 GMT
I so can relate to the last part of your post. Every visit to the Almeida I am mesmerised by the local audience who seem completely baffled by the alphabetical and numerical sequences such as A,B,C and 1,2,3. It’s a fascinating performance.
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2,977 posts
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Post by crowblack on Nov 26, 2018 12:09:45 GMT
I saw the matinee too - owl-faced person in bright green coat in front row, sitting there thinking oh dear god not more clothing-related audience participation. I'd had a horrible experience at the Royal Exchange a few weeks ago. I wasn't that keen on it - it was like a performance of a text with someone's scribbled marginal essay notes included, or going round a gallery with one of those headsets that tells you just how you should be interpreting the work in front of you . (btw, was he meant to trip on the rug?)
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Post by Jan on Nov 26, 2018 13:58:58 GMT
I saw the matinee too - owl-faced person in bright green coat in front row, sitting there thinking oh dear god not more clothing-related audience participation. I'd had a horrible experience at the Royal Exchange a few weeks ago. I wasn't that keen on it - it was like a performance of a text with someone's scribbled marginal essay notes included, or going round a gallery with one of those headsets that tells you just how you should be interpreting the work in front of you . (btw, was he meant to trip on the rug?) No. You know why they only brought the rug in at the interval ? I mean what the symbolism was ? (I do, but I wonder if it is widely appreciated). Like Icke moaning that no critic had appreciated why an actor sneezed in The Oresteia.
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2,977 posts
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Post by crowblack on Nov 26, 2018 14:33:27 GMT
I mean what the symbolism was ? No - patterns? What lies beneath or gets brushed under? Btw, they had some cast carpet hoovering in the Royal Exchange's Streetcar too.
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Post by Jan on Nov 26, 2018 14:51:55 GMT
I mean what the symbolism was ? No - patterns? What lies beneath or gets brushed under? Btw, they had some cast carpet hoovering in the Royal Exchange's Streetcar too. No. Apparently the way things were added to the set as the play proceeded was supposed to remind you of a photograph being developed so you started with nothing and it was only at the end you saw everything. There was some explanation of that from the photographer character at one point. I didn't get it at the time though.
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Post by Polly1 on Nov 26, 2018 17:29:15 GMT
He tripped on the rug when I saw it too.
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Post by orchidman on Nov 28, 2018 4:43:20 GMT
First half was an absolute chore, second half decent. Found Edward Hogg and Kevin Harvey incredibly irritating, I think at least with Harvey his character is supposed to be so. I don't know the play but I found it completely bizarre {Spoiler - click to view} that anybody would think shooting a duck would win back her father's love as some sort of sacrifice. Even if it made some sense in Ibsen's time, just ludicrous in modern dress.
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Post by Jan on Nov 28, 2018 7:30:49 GMT
On your spoiler, you could make that point about most modern dress versions of the classics, lots of Shakespeare and all the Greeks for example - Icke's Oresteia - the audience just have to suspend their disbelief over certain plot points. It does not bother me much, but I don't see any compelling reason to update Ibsen (or Chekhov), their era is close enough to us to still be understandable.
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Post by crowblack on Nov 28, 2018 11:42:59 GMT
I don't know the play but I found it completely bizarre It really is. I old my Mum the plot and she was '"Jesus, this is dafter than opera!" I'd add "and who the hell keeps a duck in their loft?" but we did keep an injured seagull in the landing airing cupboard once. Have fun with that one, nordic dramatists.
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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 Nov 28, 2018 11:51:47 GMT
I don't know the play but I found it completely bizarre It really is. I old my Mum the plot and she was '"Jesus, this is dafter than opera!" I'd add "and who the hell keeps a duck in their loft?" but we did keep an injured seagull in the landing airing cupboard once. Have fun with that one, nordic dramatists. Nah, "The Seagull" is Chekhov, not Ibsen.
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Post by crowblack on Nov 28, 2018 14:10:41 GMT
I know - but I lump Russia in with the Scandis (cold, forests, melancholy, painted furniture)
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Post by lynette on Nov 30, 2018 12:24:19 GMT
Friend of mine in an exam wrote Chekhov for Ibsen and vice versatile all through. Don’t think they noticed.
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Post by NeilVHughes on Nov 30, 2018 23:46:12 GMT
As the lifelies unravel, the entire Theatre tenses, the intensity ratchets as we Reach the unbearable conclusion.
An open, almost throwaway, and sometimes irritating first half becomes near perfection after the interval.
Again a production where knowing the ending does not diminish its impact, an experience that is nearly impossible to explain and for me is the essence of Theatre.
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2,548 posts
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Post by n1david on Dec 1, 2018 5:49:20 GMT
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Post by tmesis on Dec 1, 2018 18:56:19 GMT
I found this insufferably smug, up-itself and tedious. I stayed until the end as many have said the second half was better. Well it wasn't for me. I also thought the scenic 'reveal' at the end a complete let-down, looking like a tawdry Christmas display at my local garden centre.
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Post by popcultureboy on Dec 2, 2018 8:21:42 GMT
I found this insufferably smug, up-itself and tedious. I stayed until the end as many have said the second half was better. Well it wasn't for me. I also thought the scenic 'reveal' at the end a complete let-down, looking like a tawdry Christmas display at my local garden centre. And this is exactly why I chose to leave at the interval, despite being told by everyone who had seen it to "stick with it". I loathed the first half so much, I spent the final ten minutes of it staring at the floor, willing it to be over. The friends who had seen it, I asked them to tell me what they thought I was missing in the second half. They told me and..... I have exactly ZERO regrets that I left. None. Not one.
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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 Dec 2, 2018 10:49:14 GMT
Yes, me too. Found the first half insufferably self-indulgent and baled out at the interval. Would probably have stayed for the second half if it had started earlier: had to be elsewhere in the evening and wasn't enjoying it enough to justify the rush later on.
I'm surprised I disliked this so much as I've enjoyed everything else of Icke's I've seen.
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1,014 posts
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Post by David J on Dec 2, 2018 13:16:49 GMT
First off, I agree with the above that the meta-theatre stuff was tedious. I get what Icke was going for but it dragged down the first act. Which is a shame because if I was to rate the second act alone I would say this was the best production I saw all year. In fact this brought forward some feelings I've been harbouring over the last few years about the way PC culture tells us to mind our words and polices the way we live our lives. I don't want to divulge on this forum but the more I read about this and the way people out there set out to ruin people's lives because they don't fit in their own worldview just sickens and scares me. So when I see the Gregers character come in to drop a bombshell on the Ekdal family, who for the first act 1 was living a happy if not perfect life, I fought the urge to go up to him and punch him in his serene face. Thankfully the doctor character just about did that for me at the end. Yes maybe the Ekdal family were harbouring secrets that they would have to talk about one day. But it's not up to anyone else to decide when they should address it, especially not Gregers with his ideals and guilty conscience And watching the fallout during the second act I was on an emotional rollercoaster. A visceral and heartbreaking experience with a shocker of an ending, all pulled off brilliantly by Edward Hogg, Lyndsey Marshal and Clara Read as the Ekdal family. I came out of this and walked back to the city centre seething and am still mulling it over. If ever this is a production I am really glad I saw, despite the first act. This play is up there with some of the greatest tragedies for me. It has helped solidify some thoughts I've been harbouring For instance, I felt reluctant to post on this thread theatreboard.co.uk/thread/5663/all-feminists, and no disrespect to the OP but to answer her question, No!
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Post by peggs on Dec 2, 2018 17:09:48 GMT
Now when I first this another production of this play I had similar Gregors feelings, as far as I was concerned Mr Ekdal junior has done pretty well really even if there is an unspoken truth that he doesn't know about, he's clearly put first and foremost by his wife and daughter in every instance even when that means things like they go hungry and equally clearly he was never going to amount to much, there was never going to be some great idea and frankly he doesn't recognise how well off he is. So yes Gregors instance of truth was entirely self motivated and self justified and not justifiable. There was some line in this production about Ibsen chosing to use the play to portray the idea that secrets are better than truth sometimes because of the fallout but that this was just a convenient way to justify his behaviour when it came to his illegitimate child etc. Ok I thought, that is perhaps something I should think about as I went away from my first few Ibsen's with the take that the plays were often about or featured some secret that one released in some great truth telling moment led to terrible consequences. But I still wanted to slap Gregors. There's a line in this production where Gina says 'don't judge me' and I thought i'm not but I am very much judging someone else I'll admit. I really like this play, it's one of those where you can see the crash coming someway off and there's nothing you can do but watch them all slide headlong into it.
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