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Post by sondheimhats on Jan 15, 2017 21:47:47 GMT
It seems like some people simply resent other people being happy and excited. I see why you say that, and resenting others' enthusiasm is definitely common among theatre-snobs. In this case, however, it seems to me that it has more to do with the gesture losing its power. If we stand up for everything, standing ovations cease to mean anything at all, which is just a shame.
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Post by sondheimhats on Jan 15, 2017 13:41:40 GMT
Anyone else notice that all the shows mentioned in this thread are musicals? Something about the culture surrounding musicals and the audiences who attend them, I think. I'm not sure what exactly the reason is, but I definitely notice a difference between plays and musicals in terms of how frequently people stand. In recent months, I saw standing ovations at several musicals, but very few plays (and I see way more plays than I do musicals)
It's interesting to see a thread about this issue in London, because in NYC the S.O's are far more obligatory and meaningless. I guess that's starting to become the case with West End musicals, but again, I don't think it's the case with plays here. I've seen something like 60 plays in the last several months since arriving in London, and out of those 60, I can only recall seeing S.O's at 5 of them: 1. Cursed Child, 2. Yerma (for Billie Piper), 3. King Lear (for Glenda), 4. Donmar Trilogy (after The Tempest on their first full trilogy day), and 5. The Kite Runner. I feel like all 5 performances really deserved the S.O. I was actually very excited about the standing ovation at The Kite Runner, because it really felt like it meant something special, after such a moving story.
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Post by sondheimhats on Jan 5, 2017 20:23:53 GMT
Saw this a few days ago and really enjoyed it, despite not knowing anything about British politics (the program was very helpful).
I sat in the upstairs stage seats. My seat was originally in the back, which I didn't enjoy, so I moved to an empty side-seat at the interval. Personally, I think if you're going to sit onstage, the side is far preferable to the back. I could see more of the action/faces onstage and I didn't have to lean forward as far or as often. The leg room is more restricted, but definitely worth the it. It was interesting to go up to the top level through the backstage wing-space. It was like getting a backstage tour!
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Post by sondheimhats on Jan 5, 2017 0:04:34 GMT
I can't imagine the alternate casting. So funny how this tends to be the case in situations like this. I saw the reverse pair, and yet I have trouble imagining the pair you saw! (I would like to see it though)
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Post by sondheimhats on Dec 28, 2016 9:14:35 GMT
I could be wrong, but my instinct tells me this is a copy-and-paste error. Broadwayworld can be prone to these errors unfortunately often. Let's hope I'm wrong though!
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Post by sondheimhats on Dec 16, 2016 8:47:57 GMT
I too, am over here from the Broadwayworld board, and I'm really enjoying all the civility here!
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Post by sondheimhats on Dec 14, 2016 17:08:13 GMT
Anyone have any recommendations for an American curious to experience panto for the first time? I'd like to see at least one while I'm studying here for the year, but I don't know where to begin.
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Post by sondheimhats on Dec 8, 2016 0:15:47 GMT
Does anyone know if Stevenson has played Elizabeth and Williams play Mary yet? Between the reports here, and those of some friends I know who have seen it, i haven't heard anybody mention seeing that pairing. Curious...
As for the comment about a rigged coin toss not hurting anybody: true, it wouldn't HURT anybody. But if it is rigged, it's somewhat disingenuous, which is just irritating in its own rite. Plus, if the pairings are planned in advance, it would be nice if they made that public so audience members could return to see the other pairing if they so choose.
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Post by sondheimhats on Dec 4, 2016 1:40:40 GMT
A friend of mine saw the show tonight, and apparently it was the same pairing that I saw last night. However, in comparing notes with her, we noticed a discrepancy that could mean the whole thing is rigged.
Last night, Williams called "heads." It landed on heads, and everyone bowed to her as Elizabeth. However, according to my friend, STEVENSON called "heads" tonight, the coin landed on heads, but Williams was still Elizabeth. If there is no consistency between who calls heads and what "heads" even means for the outcome, they can easily decide beforehand who plays which role, and in the moment, they bow to the pre-determined Elizabeth regardless of the coin toss result. They can easily get away with this because the audience has no idea beforehand which coin result yields which pairing.
Hopefully this theory is debunked later in previews. It's also possible that they just have yet to decide how they want the coin toss routine to go, and they just tried something different tonight.
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Post by sondheimhats on Dec 2, 2016 23:59:45 GMT
So I was at the first preview tonight. It's a little rough - some awkward staging and bits of dialogue, a few dragging moments (particularly in the 2nd half), and some stumbling over lines. Lia Williams even called for line at one point, which I've never seen in a professional production, even during previews.
However, overall it's in pretty good shape. I found the whole evening to be very engaging. The play explores these characters and their power struggle in fascinating ways, with some beautifully constructed dialogues and monologues. Aside from some of the issues I mentioned above, the play was well-paced, and flowed nicely. The staging was fairly simple. They are on a raised platform with a revolve. Glass benches sometimes come up from the platform, but otherwise there is no furniture. Actors enter from all sides of the round platform, including from the audience.
At the moment the actors seem to be shuffling their feet and shifting their weight a lot, with a lot of extraneous movement around the stage. It was very irritating to watch - like watching a school play with student actors who don't what what to do with their feet. Several actors were doing it, which leads me to believe that Icke is behind it somehow. Hopefully that decreases throughout previews.
Stevenson played Mary Stuart tonight, with Williams as Elizabeth. *POSSIBLE SPOILER BELOW*
Basically the whole cast comes out onstage at the top of the show, with Stevenson and Williams standing facing each other. There is a bowl downstage center with a coin in it. A camera focuses on the coin, giving us a birds eye view streamed to screens scattered throughout the theatre. Williams called "heads" to play Elizabeth (perhaps a slight pun, given she's the one who gets to keep her head in the end?). Another actor SPINS (not flips) the coin. Tonight the spin was very weak and disappointing. Hopefully he gets a little more force behind it in future performances. It landed almost immediately, sucking some of the tension out of the moment. Once the coin lands, the cast bows to Elizabeth and ushers her offstage to begin the play immediately. *END SPOILER*
Both actresses were very good in their respective roles. Williams has a hardness to her Elizabeth that balanced beautifully with her more vulnerable moments. Stevenson' Mary was softer, more feminine, more overtly emotional. Yet both were, in their own ways, powerful, poised and vulnerable. I do wonder how it would be reversed - whether Williams' Mary will be as hard and biting as her Elizabeth, and vice versa for Stevenson.
The show ran 3 hours and 20 minutes tonight, with one interval. The first half is 1h50m, the 2nd is 1h10m. Overall, the long runtime wasn't an issue for me. It started to drag toward the end but otherwise it went by quickly.
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Post by sondheimhats on Nov 30, 2016 8:41:43 GMT
I have to say I really disliked this show. Part of it is personal bias, as I can't stand plays that rely heavily on narration rather than actual scenes with dialogue. The comment about BBC radio is apt. The framing device of the parents was very disappointing. I wish the play had focused on them more and given them more emotional heft. They began to do this at times, but in general I found their material to be thin, wasted, poorly written and hammily acted.
The use of music was also very disappointing. I usually love plays with music, but the songs here felt shoehorned. They broke up the text rather than complementing it, I thought. The songs may or may not have been carefully chosen (I have my doubts), but I definitely felt like they not carefully placed in the text.
I agree that Knox's performance was the strongest element of the show, though it didn't move me that much.
The best I can say about the material itself was that Sorley was indeed a very good writer and had some compelling ideas about war and patriotism. But as a piece of theatre I couldn't find anything redeeming about this play.
1.5 stars - half a star for Sorley, half a star for Knox, and half a star for not being bad enough to make me leave at the interval.
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Post by sondheimhats on Nov 28, 2016 11:17:45 GMT
They sell return tickets as they come in. So if you get there at 6/7am, you're more likely to get tickets earlier in the day (possibly even right when the box office opens). When I went, I got there right at 10. I was about 20th in line, and I was lucky enough to be offered tickets 10 minutes before the 2pm Part 1. It was a really close call, though.
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Post by sondheimhats on Nov 28, 2016 8:04:54 GMT
It has not been done that often - Frankenstein, Dr Faustus, this .... any more ? It's definitely been done more often than that. Phillip Seymour Hoffman and John C. Reilly did it in True West. Laura Linney and Cynthia Nixon are about to do it in Little Foxes on Broadway. Also, in 1935, Gielgud and Olivier alternated between Romeo and Mercutio. I'm fairly certain I've heard of several other examples throughout history as well, though none are coming to mind.
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Post by sondheimhats on Nov 26, 2016 22:53:57 GMT
Saw this one on Wednesday.
There were lots of things I liked, and lots of things I vehemently disliked. However, I'd say the overall effect of the evening was positive. I love all things Peter Pan, so it was a pleasure to see the story told in a such a unique way.
My 2 specific qualms were (1) the songs and (2) Tinkerbell. Regarding the songs, there were just too many of them for a show that isn't meant to be a full-on musical. They tended to stop the action and add very little of value to the show, and personally I just didn't find them to be very well-written at all. There were 2 notable exceptions, however - both in Act 2. I also found the portrayal of Tinkerbell to be thoroughly unfunny, so much so that I cringed every time (s)he was onstage. I've loved Peter Pan since I was a very small child, and I've seen many retellings of it. This was the first time I considered not clapping to bring Tinkerbell back to life (ultimately, I did clap anyway - I will ALWAYS clap for Tinkerbell - but man was I reluctant). Those were my two specific problems. More generally, there were also just some moments that fell flat and/or dragged a bit (understandable for early previews of a devised piece)
HOWEVER, there is a lot about this production that I really liked a lot. There are some gorgeous moments of staging, many laugh-out-loud sections, and a fun quirky energy throughout. The ending had me full-on crying (though Peter Pan tends to make me cry quite easily).
I enjoyed this quite a bit more than Jane Eyre, which I found to be extremely tedious and pretentious. I think Peter Pan inherently lends itself to devised theatre infinitely better than Jane Eyre.
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Post by sondheimhats on Nov 21, 2016 16:20:51 GMT
I thought the design and music were beautiful I shelled out a fiver on the CD, I was that interested. I didn't notice they were selling a CD! and £5 isn't too bad. Does it include Fear No More?
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Post by sondheimhats on Nov 20, 2016 16:01:02 GMT
I, for one, really enjoyed this production. Yes, it was a bit too busy at times, and maybe not every directorial decision landed quite to the degree that it could have. But it was a bold, intelligent concept that really served the text, in my opinion. I thought the design and music were beautiful, and I enjoyed the use of translated text. It was still 3 and a half hours on Friday night, but it didn't feel long to me at all.
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Post by sondheimhats on Oct 30, 2016 11:11:59 GMT
I was also at the first preview (thanks again for letting me use your extra ticket, Alison!)
This has been among my favorite musicals for the last five years (*cue rimshot* but actually, I did discover it 5 years ago). It's so tenderly written, so tragic in its simplicity. So I definitely loved returning to see it again.
They originally did this production of the show in Off-Broadway in New York in 2013, and I was lucky enough to see the 1st preview of that incarnation as well (just a strange coincidence that I happened to find myself at both the 1st preview both times). I think JRB's direction is fine, but I do have some issues with it. I think, in some ways, it's too busy. In my opinion, there is more furniture moving on and off than there needs to be, more lighting tricks than there needs to be, and the video projections are just gratuitous and distracting. It seems strange to me that JRB would feel that the show needs these bells and whistles (particularly the video), rather than just letting the text and performances speak for themselves. I can't help but wonder if perhaps JRB feels vulnerable directing this show, since he wrote it based on his own experiences, and feels he has to prove something by adding a lot of production elements. Just speculation, of course.
This "busy" feeling is also reflected in Brown's direction of Jamie. He's given Jamie a lot of business to do onstage during his numbers, such as interacting with audience members, having him jump in and out of squares of light, and laboriously act out every sentence of the Schmuel song while pretending to be the clock. This was not so much the case with Cathy. Samantha Barks, as a result, struck me as much more grounded and sure of herself than Bailey was. Again, I wonder if Brown felt vulnerable directing Jamie's scenes, given that Jamie is based on himself.
Bailey is very charming as Jamie, and does an excellent job for someone who is not as known for musical theatre. I was distracted throughout the show by his less-than-convincing American accent, and by the extraneous stage-business I mentioned above, but otherwise he was good. Samantha Barks has an incredible voice, and her acting, as I said above, was very grounded and subtle, though perhaps not as interesting to watch.
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Post by sondheimhats on Oct 27, 2016 21:15:01 GMT
Interesting to read her perspective on this. In my experiences seeing theatre mostly in New York (and London only recently), I feel like I've seen a fairly equal amount of male nudity vs. female nudity, with male nudity being perhaps slightly more frequent. And I feel like the male nudity I've seen has often been just as -- if not more -- gratuitous than the female nudity. I totally get where she's coming from though. I think she rightly points out that there's a different culture around female nudity than male nudity.
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Post by sondheimhats on Oct 27, 2016 9:40:08 GMT
I now have a spare £19.50 ticket for this Friday as my friend is ill, I've just posted it in the noticeboard section. PM me if you're interested - it seems a shame for it to go to waste. I sent you a PM! Let me know if it's still available
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Post by sondheimhats on Oct 12, 2016 22:39:03 GMT
Saw it tonight with my university class, and it produced a lot of divided opinions. Probably 2/3 of us loved it and the other 1/3 hated it (a rough estimate). It's occasionally messy and occasionally preachy, and in general the 1st half is stronger than the 2nd, but I can forgive all of that because I found it be incredibly fascinating and mostly very well-done. Anne-Marie Duff does an excellent job, as does the whole cast. This show definitely won't be for everyone, but for what it's worth, I think it was great.
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Post by sondheimhats on Oct 9, 2016 15:35:49 GMT
I can remember the name of the lady who played Ariel but she was brilliant - in fact I reckon she could be our next Cynthia Erivo (yes they look very similar in the face and have nearly identical hair haha) as she has a brilliant actress and has a great voice. On that note I really liked how they introduced music without ruining the fluidity or essence of the piece. Her name is Jade Anouka, and I agree that she's excellent. I was most excited to see her in The Tempest, out of almost anyone in the cast (Harriet Walter excluded), because she was also a real stand-out in Henry IV. She plays Hotspur and she's a total firecracker onstage.
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Post by sondheimhats on Oct 6, 2016 11:40:36 GMT
Well I for one am extremely excited for this. I love this play and I love Daniel Radcliffe. I've seen him onstage 3 times (in How to Succeed, Cripple, and Privacy), and I've enjoyed his performance in all 3. I'm very excited to see this. Hopefully I can get tickets...
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Post by sondheimhats on Oct 2, 2016 15:19:04 GMT
I saw this last week and really loved it. Granted, the Globe was almost certainly the wrong space for this production, but I thought it was excellent regardless. Powerfully modernized, perfectly cast, compellingly staged, and done in a way that was very clear. I was somewhat familiar with Cymbeline going in, but my friend who saw it with me wasn't at all. She agreed with my that it was very easy to follow, especially given how many twists and turns there are in the plot.
Among the many things I loved about this production, was the casting of William Grint, a deaf actor, as one of the kidnapped brothers. Casting a deaf actor in the role, and choosing to make the character himself deaf within the story, really brought a lovely added level of dimensionality to not only his character, but also to his relationships with others. And an encouraging example of inclusivity as well!
Running time was about 2h 50m when I went last week. A tad long, but it totally flew by, even from the Yard.
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Post by sondheimhats on Sept 25, 2016 15:26:44 GMT
I have to disagree with you there. I can't imagine HP in the Hirschfeld at all. The seating capacity is fairly similar to the Palace, but I doubt the Hirschfeld has the physical space they require to do HP, unless they drastically scale it down, which would be a shame. I could see it going into the Lyric theatre on Broadway, however.
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Post by sondheimhats on Sept 25, 2016 12:56:09 GMT
Interesting to confirm that the Regan actress wasn't feeling well. Did you notice she wasn't present during the curtain call yesterday afternoon?
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Post by sondheimhats on Sept 25, 2016 12:05:12 GMT
I saw this yesterday afternoon as well, and have to agree with Elanor. I have always found Lear to be a very boring, bloated and aimless play, especially compared with Shakespeare's other epic tragedies. However, I expected more from Sher. I also really enjoyed his Falstaff, but found his Lear to be totally uninteresting, and his deliveries were all very choppy and drawn out. I wouldn't be surprised if his slow delivery were responsible for pushing the show past the 3-hour mark (I'm exaggerating a bit, of course, but still). I also found the production to be pretty fairly uninspired. Not BAD, necessarily, but uninteresting. In defense of both Doran and Sher, I will say that I've seen 5 or 6 versions of King Lear now, and I've yet to see an interpretation (of either the role or the play) that I have found interesting. So in that sense, Doran and Sher were right on the mark.
The inconsistent design bothered me. What on earth was the story behind those bizarre glass boxes? Particularly the one at the beginning of the 2nd half. It worked fine in and of itself, but it felt like something out of a sci-fi movie. Totally and completely out of place in the context of the rest of the production.
I went with my university class, and almost all of my fellow theatre students were bored to tears as well. Suddenly I don't feel so alone in my dislike for King Lear as a play.
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Post by sondheimhats on Sept 16, 2016 16:57:19 GMT
I saw this on Tuesday. A very mixed mag, to say the least, but also extremely interesting. I won't go into a play-by-play breakdown of which things I liked and which things I didn't, because I'd be here all night, but suffice it to say that it was a very creative and compelling production, with a lot choices which I found to be really terrible. However, even when considering those worse choices, I think they were probably meant to be deliberately grotesque and unsettling.
I too saw Grierson as Faustus - based on the number of reports of heard and read here, I agree that he seems to play the role much more often for some reason. My professor saw Oliver Ryan as Faustus and Grierson as Mepho, however, and said that combination was much better. Still, I think the combination I saw was excellent.
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Post by sondheimhats on Sept 16, 2016 7:43:44 GMT
Is this play any good? Should I be booking? I quite like Rylance but not crazy about him. I'm keen on a good new play though. I saw it in Brooklyn. It's a very strange piece. When I saw it, it ran about 90 minutes (no interval), the first 60 of which were fascinating and delightful. After a while though, the concept started to grow tiresome, and the play's structure was unable to support the remaining half hour. The play also grows significantly more bizarre in the last 10 minutes or so, and I was really unsure what to make of it. However, the first hour is pretty lovely. There are many excellent comedic moments, especially for Rylance and Ray Birke. All in all I'm extremely glad I saw it, especially since I had never seen Mark Rylance onstage before. I would consider returning to see it a 2nd time while it's here, as I think I could get more out of it upon a 2nd viewing, but I think I'll wait and see what happens.
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Post by sondheimhats on Sept 11, 2016 9:04:17 GMT
I had a successful experience at the returns queue yesterday, though just barely! I arrived at about 10:00am, and was about 20th in the queue. The box office opened and they came out and said that, at the moment, they had no returns. It only took about 20 minutes, though, for the first people to get their tickets (those first people told me they got in the queue at 4:30am). Then, for the next few hours, the queue moved surprisingly fast, comparatively speaking. By around noon, I think I was only 7th or 8th in line. At around 1, I was in the first 3 or 4. Finally at 1:50 (10 minutes to curtain), I was offered my tickets and decided to take them. As I was contemplating earlier in the thread, I DID in fact pass on a £190 pair because it was out of my budget, and the person behind me took it. I was willing to take the risk since I knew I would be here in London for a while and would have other chances to get in for cheaper. Luckily, I was offered a noticeably cheaper pair of tickets in the end, and it was a great seat in the 2nd circle.
I didn't see anyone get offered a ticket for just one part. All the tickets I saw offered to the queue were for both parts, which was good. A man came out with a clipboard every time he had a return ticket to offer. He would come out and say how many he had, where in the theatre they were, and how much they were, and the person would then be directed into the box office to pay for the ticket(s) at the window, at which point the man with the clipboard would hand us the tickets from an envelope he already had on his clipboard. So to answer my own question from earlier: NO, there was no direct exchanges between us and the people who returned the tickets. It was all through the box office staff.
However, 30 minutes before the show-time, the man came out and told us that from that point on, we would only be allowed to pay with CASH (credit cards had previously been accepted throughout the afternoon). He said, however, that if we were in the front of the queue and we were offered a return ticket, we would then be allowed to go to the bank across the street and get cash from the ATM without forfeiting our ticket, which I think is a very nice gesture on their part.
All in all, a bit of a nail-biting experience, but totally worth it. I really loved the show!
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Post by sondheimhats on Sept 8, 2016 21:05:25 GMT
^Thanks for the tip about the cash. In the US I think you're not legally allowed to re-sell a ticket while in the actual building. At least, that's what I've inferred from a few encounters between theatre lobby workers and people trying to re-sell tickets (one time I was the one trying to re-sell).
Also, as another poster above mentioned, it could be "shady" since someone could come along and sell you a fake ticket.
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