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Post by Steve on Nov 9, 2019 11:12:26 GMT
Sandy, aka Moses, saying he learned EVERYTHING from Max His previous hit show was called 'Heathens'. Ha ha, well spotted!
Also, if you were going to rename Moses, a guy who wandered the desert, "Sandy" would be a good name choice lol!
Steve , do you write reviews somewhere? I found John quite heartwarming, as a play. While most reviewers seemed to strongly dislike the young couple, I found them - Elias in particular - quite likeable No, just here. I find it turns a show from a rushed McDonald's snack into a three course meal, with all the anticipation preceding the show, then the aftermath of all the different flavours of appreciation following it.
And yes, I agree about Elias being three dimensional. It was heartwarming when he told her ghost stories in bed with the lights out. I suppose my point was that that play isn't redemptive in the way the previous plays arguably were.
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Xanderl
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Not always very high value in terms of ticket yield or donations
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Post by Xanderl on Nov 10, 2019 7:52:08 GMT
Really enjoyed this! This interview is worth a read ... www.standard.co.uk/go/london/theatre/annie-baker-chloe-lamford-interview-the-antipodes-national-theatre-a4271056.htmlwhich does make me think that at a strictly literal level, Baker is just writing plays about her past crappy jobs. I presume she is talking about working on "I Love Dick", an Amazon sitcom - she's credited as writer for one episode and as consulting producer. As I understand it in a writers' room situation they take turns in being credited on an episode. I sat in the circle, P17 (seat closest to the entrance on the side block). A pretty good view from here - only saw the back of Stuart McQuarrie's head most of the time but had a good view of everything else. I think this was better than the side seats in the pit would have been. Badly directed for the first hour though. No reason they couldn't have walked around a bit or swivelled round on their swivel chairs so people got to see faces!
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Post by Being Alive on Nov 16, 2019 16:57:09 GMT
Maybe it's just me - but this did NOTHING for me.
Maybe I wasn't clever enough to understand whatever Annie Baker was trying to tell us, but I literally haven't got a clue what happened AT ALL.
Maybe, just maybe, I'll one day work out how they made take away appear out of thin air...
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3,058 posts
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Post by david on Nov 16, 2019 17:37:19 GMT
After seeing this at today’s matinee, this was both one of the weirdest yet totally fascinating pieces of theatre I’ve seen this year. On the face of it, the play took on a really simple concept of a group of people just sat around a table (loved the colourful carpet) and telling stories to each other , but yet by the end for me it raises the question about what happens when you run of stories to tell.
As my first experience of a piece of writing by Annie Baker, it was certainly an interesting afternoon and a times mind boggling at what I was watching. Certainly, I would of liked more moving around and chair swapping of the cast so I could see their faces more rather than just the backs of their heads. I was sat in M8 and had a decent enough view of proceedings.
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Post by jek on Nov 17, 2019 8:03:22 GMT
I'm in the camp of people who loved John but were bored by this. Not that it dragged horribly - I was surprised when it ended feeling that I hadn't been in the threatre that long - but just that it didn't engage me. I enjoyed some of the acting - Conleth Hill in particular who was so good on TV recently in the Dublin Murders and Arthur Darvill who I had most recently seen on stage in Sweet Charity and on the telly in World on Fire. From my eyrie up in the cheap seats in the gallery of the Dorfman I enjoyed watching the responses of the audience members opposite, in fact during less compelling sections I enjoyed making up stories in my head about their lives - so maybe that was an acceptable response to Annie Baker's work too. I certainly wouldn't be put off seeing another Baker play - she is clearly very talented - but I wouldn't recommend this one to people as a good place to start with her work.
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Post by crowblack on Nov 17, 2019 9:57:21 GMT
Conleth Hill in particular Invisible from where I was sitting! Really p-d off by that.
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Post by andrew on Nov 18, 2019 20:44:39 GMT
Can anyone advise me on which side of the pit is it better to sit at?
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3,058 posts
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Post by david on Nov 18, 2019 20:56:28 GMT
Can anyone advise me on which side of the pit is it better to sit at? I was sat in M8 in the pit area. It was one of the side high seats (£29). I thought it as a decent view of the cast sat around the table and I was able to see Conleth Hill fine. I got the impression that whatever side you picked, I don’t think you’d escape not seeing the back of heads without sitting in the main pit area and paying the higher prices.
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Post by andrew on Nov 18, 2019 21:25:02 GMT
Can anyone advise me on which side of the pit is it better to sit at? I was sat in M8 in the pit area. It was one of the side high seats (£29). I thought it as a decent view of the cast sat around the table and I was able to see Conleth Hill fine. I got the impression that whatever side you picked, I don’t think you’d escape not seeing the back of heads without sitting in the main pit area and paying the higher prices. Thanks a lot!
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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 19, 2019 9:57:25 GMT
For the same price you might be better in row P of the circle - I sat in P17 (the back row of the circle, closest view to the entrance) and had a good view of just about everything - I only saw Stuart McQuarrie's back for most of the first hour, but he wasn't blocking my view of anything else.
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1,845 posts
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Post by NeilVHughes on Nov 22, 2019 23:23:22 GMT
Fortunate upgrade tonight, got upgraded from my restricted view to the centre of row K, directly opposite Conleith at his eye level and therefore little or no sightline issues.
A play that coalesces a lot of what I believe are the thematic ideas of Beckett and Pinter.
Our lives are made up of thousands upon thousand of random events which we assign a story (what happened at school today, what happened at the supermarket on the way home...) As these stories coalesce we build OUR own story or the narrative of the self.
When we are young children we have little or no boundaries to our imagination and open to almost an infinite number of stories, as we grow older these stories become impacted by the constraints of education, our environment at home, the local area, our class, our experiences, and other peoples and societies expectations and many more.
When we reach our early twenties most of us settle into a narrow narrative which we call our self or personality, I am not the type of person who...., I don’t do things like that...
What we have done is impose a structure on the random events that occur daily and define our timeline as logical with some purpose whether internal, I was born to do this, or external such as faith (a good Christian would...), a national character trait (I’m British so therefore I would not...) and these provide a foundation to construct our perception of control protecting us from being in a constant existential crisis as we traverse the infinite choices available to us each day, week, year.....
This play considers the macro and micro stories by which we live our lives and I did like how in the end the ennui was broken not by the macro creation myth but the idealistic infantile imagination even though the coming constraints were signalled as the opening phrase coalesced into its expected form.
Beckett takes it further when he starts to destruct language, the greatest constrainer of all, once we tag an item with its name it is that forever as someone once said “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” but then we would not be able to create stories, which could be considered our only human defence against the lack of meaning which consciousness craves.
Stories are the lens that we use to control the world, only once I learnt to remove the lens was I able to appreciate modern art and for that I thank Beckett and now love walking around Tate Modern with my blinkers removed and whenever I feel the need to understand how language creates and defines the world I only have to delve into Beckets How It Is, a multitude of paragraphs without punctuation which morph into different meanings and therefore the development of the story each time I read it.
All in all a great play but maybe not great entertainment.
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Post by juicy_but_terribly_drab on Nov 23, 2019 19:50:07 GMT
I also got upgraded this afternoon so we spent £30 total instead of £100 for the seats we were in. Overall it was a good view but Sandy was often obscured. I really enjoyed it. I couldn't really tell you what it was all for or what everything meant (though some of your comments have enlightened me to some things) but I laughed throughout and, when I wasn't laughing, it was always interesting to me so I'm very glad I saw it.
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Post by theatrefan77 on Nov 24, 2019 0:05:00 GMT
I also find it interesting although it didn't amount to much by the end of it. I thought some parts were very clever but rather pointless. Half way through I started to loose interest as the whole thing seemed to be running out of steam and wasn't going anywhere really. The acting was excellent though. 3 stars
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Post by crowblack on Dec 10, 2019 17:59:58 GMT
I also find it interesting although it didn't amount to much by the end of it. I thought some parts were very clever but rather pointless. Half way through I started to loose interest as the whole thing seemed to be running out of steam and wasn't going anywhere really. The acting was excellent though. I've just felt the same watching her brother-in-law's 'Marriage Story' on Netflix!
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