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Post by sfsusan on Sept 11, 2018 14:53:28 GMT
I started clipping posts to quote, then gave up as I agree with so many of the comments: starts out funny, repeats itself endlessly, ends interestingly. And the spitting actually became distracting (I was in J next to the aisle and kept thinking, "no, no, no... stay back"). At the end, the woman next to me (a complete stranger) turned and asked, "Did you enjoy that?"... I had to look at her and say, "I'm not sure". {But about the ending...} I wonder how comfortable it is for the actress to stand in the dark waiting for the audience to realize the play is over and start applauding? It seemed like it was a really long time in dead silence.
In some ways, the audience's somewhat stunned reaction to the end reminded me of seeing Christian Slater in "Glengarry Glen Ross".... into the silence, a lone voice said "Is that IT!?"
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Post by MrsCondomine on Sept 25, 2018 11:10:05 GMT
I went to see this in the end and cried like a baby at the conclusion. Also the cat speech Also Rhys Ifans in that getup
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Post by RedRose on Sept 26, 2018 7:53:12 GMT
I have returned my ticket for next Wednesday. My time to see stuff is very limited and I cannot risk regretting to see something terribble at the Nash again. I am still traumatised by the horrible double dud of Salome and Common last year.
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Post by lynette on Oct 3, 2018 21:40:53 GMT
I have returned my ticket for next Wednesday. My time to see stuff is very limited and I cannot risk regretting to see something terribble at the Nash again. I am still traumatised by the horrible double dud of Salome and Common last year. Not terrible. Far from it. I really enjoyed it and admired both the writing and the performances. It starts off all funny ha ha, slap stick even and then moves into darker territory with relentless intensity as befits the theme. My next door neighbours were guffawing annoyingly for about twenty minutes then silence and no comment at the end. Lear, check, Beckett, check, touch of the Dr Faustus, check and all that twentieth century angst. Lovely. The line up at the end like weirdo dolls was very impressive. Lovely direction all thru and Ifan a bit of a triumph.
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Post by artea on Oct 4, 2018 22:39:52 GMT
(My first post here. It'll probably be too long and there will be spoilers - well, the run has almost ended and it's the only way now I can think of to try to put across why I thought it was so good when most reactions have been so negative.) I'd go further than lynette. I think this is the best production put on so far under the Norris regime. After the reviews it has had and the presumably poor audience figures (esp at full price), it will probably be the first and last Ionesco to appear at the NT. A pity. Ionesco is apparently Romanian for Johnson. He holds the world record for a play running in its original production at the same theatre. La cantatrice chauve 60 years+ au Théâtre de la Huchette in Paris. (The theatre is however tiny!) The complete focus of the 90 minutes of the play is on the 400+ year old king of a dying country railing against his own inevitable death and the various reactions (helpful or not) of those around him. The king is left filling all the time he has left alive with banalities (cf Beckett) while complaining he lacks time to do things. Such is life on basic and metaphysical levels! The jokes are actually largely funny. Exit the king does repetition (like Godot) but also develops, gets darker and darker, and at the end quietly achieves a shattering climax of Shakespearean (and dare I say Wagnerian) proportions (that bridge, that walk into the fire)... And it's all done in such a short time. At the end, Indira Varma seems to take the weight of 400 years off the king's shoulders. He is able to move upright for the first time in the play. She ushers him to his death which he silently finally becomes reconciled with. Varma's final three words are magnificent and, as they say, worth the entrance money to hear. The end justifies everything gone before. Shattering stuff I found. All aspects of the production are in sympathy with each other. It's all imaginatively integrated - a theatrical world away from the complete disasters of Salome, Common etc, and from the mediocrity of so much else from the Norris regime. It's so visual too. This is a production that demands to be seen unlike so much put on in the Dorfman in particular where largely radio plays with added chairs and tables and too much clunkiness have reigned and direction has consisted of little more than shifting traffic. This is French absurdist theatre done very seriously with a marvellous luxury cast, director/adaptor and designer, and no sign of Rufus Norris. The play however runs counter to the current prevailing socio-political mood and aims in theatre. I think it has been unfairly dismissed. It could have been up for awards: best designer best director best actors (Varma and Ifans - heaven only knows how he keeps that voice going throughout). Bravo Patrick Marber. 5 stars from me.
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Post by MrsCondomine on Oct 5, 2018 8:46:47 GMT
This is French absurdist theatre done very seriously with a marvellous luxury cast, director/adaptor and designer, and no sign of Rufus Norris. The play however runs counter to the current prevailing socio-political mood and aims in theatre. I think it has been unfairly dismissed. It could have been up for awards: best designer best director best actors (Varma and Ifans - heaven only knows how he keeps that voice going throughout). Bravo Patrick Marber. 5 stars from me. I absolutely agree 100% with your (very good) post, but especially this bit. People dismiss it as panto, maybe because they genuinely don't like the style, but maybe because they are not ready to engage with it, at this stage, at this time. It was beautiful beneath a very clownish exterior, masquerading as silliness when actually it was deeply upsetting. Watching Rhys Ifans portray this decaying man, trying to cling on, fighting, resigning, raging, then being given permission to let go, and only then finding they can die and everything will be okay without them... it struck me very deeply. The quietness at the end of the play, that big warm void, was weirdly comforting.
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Post by artea on Oct 6, 2018 11:39:12 GMT
Thanks theatremonkey.com for sorting this out.
To fightingfrenchman, thanks. At the end of your comment you're talking catharsis. Tragedy as Aristotle wants it, and it works. Other aspects of Aristotle, at least as interpreted by the French classical tragedians Corneille and Racine, are also very apparent in the play. I'm referring to the three unities of time, action and place. The play doesn't just take place within 24 hours, it unfolds in real time as Queen Marguerite keeps telling us (though her time-keeping may be a bit off esp since the play lost 10 minutes over its run). The plot (such as it is) could hardly be more concentrated, and it all takes place in a single setting which here self-destructs at the end to reveal the void. So you're left, at least to a degree, with a serious, formal classical tragedy, complete with beginning, middle and end, with added absurdity and burlesque.
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Post by kathryn on Oct 6, 2018 12:11:00 GMT
Finally seeing this today!
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Post by lynette on Oct 6, 2018 13:03:27 GMT
Thanks theatremonkey.com for sorting this out. To fightingfrenchman, thanks. At the end of your comment you're talking catharsis. Tragedy as Aristotle wants it, and it works. Other aspects of Aristotle, at least as interpreted by the French classical tragedians Corneille and Racine, are also very apparent in the play. I'm referring to the three unities of time, action and place. The play doesn't just take place within 24 hours, it unfolds in real time as Queen Marguerite keeps telling us (though her time-keeping may be a bit off esp since the play lost 10 minutes over its run). The plot (such as it is) could hardly be more concentrated, and it all takes place in a single setting which here self-destructs at the end to reveal the void. So you're left, at least to a degree, with a serious, formal classical tragedy, complete with beginning, middle and end, with added absurdity and burlesque. I loved the timing thing. Added another dimension I thought. 😳
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Post by mallardo on Oct 7, 2018 7:07:04 GMT
I saw the final performance - so glad I did. Marber's production was stunning and the cast superb, top to bottom. As fine as Ifans was the honours go to Indira Varma, I think - her command of the last ten minutes was extraordinary, The play itself is wonderfully conceived and beautifully written, Ionesco's masterpiece - maybe just a masterpiece, period.
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