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Post by Nicholas on Feb 27, 2016 12:26:01 GMT
Start with cinema! Shakespeare and chill. Surely that’s it? Nothing lost by sitting in your front room and watching a movie for free: if you like it, great!, and if you don’t, all that’s lost is a little time and no money. In privacy, your friend is also allowed to ask questions about character, plot and meaning that they might need to ask but, obviously, cannot ask in the theatre, so you’d probably be doing them a favour. Even the best, most accessible plays can be mucked up on stage (agree about Macbeth, but imagine if the tedious Young Vic one was your first), but a couple of tried and tested movies can be guaranteed to be good, accessible and fun, and the nature of watching in the comfort of your own home negates the problems you might have from it live. I know lots of people who wouldn’t otherwise see Shakespeare LOVED the Hollow Crown, so might be somewhere to start. I’d recommend the Luhrman R+J (because it’s ‘accessible’ and ‘modern’ we watched it twice a year for five odd years at school so I hate it to high heaven, but have to concede it’s a good movie for a first-timer), probably the Tennant Hamlet although the Gibson one was on last night and I’d forgotten how good it was, and Branagh’s Much Ado for a comedy, though if they’re willing to have a slightly longer evening then definitely the possibly definitive Globe Henry IV with Roger Allam, for obvious reasons: you can guarantee everything there is to love about Shakespeare is in that one show (I didn’t see that at the Globe, only on the telly, but that’s got to be one of the underrated high watermarks of filmed Shakespeare, what a movie it makes!).
Also, to counteract the issues with language, a Globe-to-Globe foreign one might be a great place to start. With language stripped away, you can switch off that intellectual side of your brain and just focus on character, action and plot, and knowing how that works, you might convince them. But I can imagine your colleague might not be best pleased should you go in on Monday and say “Good news, I’ve bought you tickets for a Shakespeare where I guarantee you not understanding some of it won’t be a problem – because it’s in Lithuanian and you won’t understand ANY of it! Bullet dodged there, eh?”
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Post by Nicholas on Feb 26, 2016 18:38:16 GMT
When directors take on Shakespeare, they will always lose in the long run. Because it is Shakespeare who will still be remembered in 400 years time, not assorted Ruperts and Emmas. I think this is the non stated presumption of the Board and society in general. We do like a good rant about our directors. And occasionally they do offer insights. If that’s the view of the silent majority, I’ll speak on behalf of the noisy minority. I want my directors to much up the plays and then be forgotten afterwards. Of course Shakespeare will be remembered in 400 years, and not only remembered but an even more integral part of the cultural fabric. He’ll still be performed, still be re-interpreted, still be studied, still be translated and appropriated worldwide, still be rewritten as Winterson and Jacobson are doing now, and still be quoted in everyday conversation by people who don’t know their language is indebted to him. His plots will always matter, always strike a nerve with societies at conflict, under political pressure, stretched to breaking point, or running wild and free; his characters will always mean something to the melancholic, the ambitious, the jealous, the romantic, the extremist. Whatever directors do, Shakespeare will mean something for every generation.
But that’s why I want Rupert and Emma and everyone to f*** the plays up. I’m not every generation, I’m unfortunate enough to live in 2016. Obviously I’m just going to say what Jan Kott and everyone else has said before, which is that Shakespeare will always feel contemporaneous, but if he’s going to still feel contemporaneous what’s wrong with a director making it matter to the contemporary? Look at Merchant – I’ll give you the court of King James in 1605, Drury Lane in 1814, the German stage in 1935, the German stage in 1950 and the Almeida last year. Same basic words, completely different societies, completely different plays. For better or worse each director turned it into something that meant something to each generation, taking into account how directors had looked at it before.
Should I go see, say, Henry VI Part II tomorrow, and it consist of sitting in the darkness whilst Siri reads the words monotonously into my ear, I’ll still recognise something, but why not let our directors make the plays matter for us, for now, do part the legwork for us, sometimes surprise us, sometimes annoy us, but always push the texts forwards? Anyway, won’t that help Shakespeare be remembered in the next 400 years, as someone who’ll matter for whatever meagre burnt-out feral remainders of society still survive in 2416 as opposed to someone who wrote a couple of swell phrases? Personally, I can love Shakespeare on the page for an infinity of reasons, but I go to the theatre to see him in the hope that a director will provoke him, annoy him, penetrate him and find something in the play that matters to me, that matters to now, that makes a difference to him. I suppose ultimately I don't want directors to fight him and lose or win, I want them to collaborate with him - obviously not always harmoniously or successfully - to prove why in Barbican last July, in Calais this January, in Stratford this summer, Shakespeare's gotten through these 400 years and will last the next 400.
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Post by Nicholas on Feb 26, 2016 14:01:23 GMT
Ugh, I'd almost forgotten a visit to the Lion King a few years ago when some kids were leaning over the safety rails and spitting onto people in the stalls.. That one, if I'd been a victim, would have been a case of "forget calling the house manager, I'm dialling 999."
I’d have encouraged them with a little pat on the back. A nice, strong, firm, pressurised pat. Less of a pat, more of a push, actually.
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Post by Nicholas on Feb 24, 2016 4:12:04 GMT
Might it be an idea, in pursuance of this or the profile of the board in general, to move from the virtual world to the real one? "An evening with theatreboard" at some small venue??? This is a nice idea in theory but I think people are forgetting that WOS has a full time paid staff to organise these things. We have had some very kind people putting in lots of time and in some cases money to setting up a new board, but I assume they have lives and jobs of their own and don't want to also set up a whole awards system and ceremony Yes, but the second Theatreforum was going to close almost everyone said “I’ll do what I can to help” – it’s just that starting up a website requires a skillset not everyone has, so many of us eager beavers took a back seat. As one of the many who immediately leapt up to start a new website only to realise I don’t know how to start a new website and immediately sat back down again, so with no existing commitment to the board, I know I’m not alone in saying that I’d happily contribute any help (and a little money) to whatever awards or ceremony or just meet-up we arrange! Though having leapt up to start this my experience at organising galas with strangers at small unknown venues is about as extensive as my experience at creating websites, so perhaps I’ll just sit back down again...
I think we should have ‘worst of’ awards, but decent categories. Worst toilets but in a major theatre (Duffman or Vaudeville), Worst audience behaviour (Old Vic), Worst recurring audience habit (vertical hairstyles), Worst announcement of an announcement of an announcement of an announcement (this announcement of our theatre awards next year), Worst booking system (so many!), Worst membership (any suggestions xanderl?), Worst pricing brackets (possibly the NT). We could also, if we fancied, have some interesting ones, like Worst excuse for lack of diversity in a cast (Nunn) or Worst soul-selling sponsorship deal (been reading about BP so getting all Guardian-y about this) or Worst ticket prices (which we should do however nice our final tone is). I like to get bitchy, so let’s get bitchy for a good cause.
But also we could be nice, and I like the idea that we could use our grassroots awards to reward the smaller people neglected – almost like a WOS Awards for theatres of 200 seats or under, or on the fringes. Obviously we couldn’t vote on those as we couldn’t see everything, but we could take nominations, hear the reasoning therein, put together a jury of volunteers, maybe take a poll... Amidst all of this it would be nice to give credit where credit’s due but never given, to praise those theatres too small to attract major praise but worth praising. Plus, even if we just stuck to traditional performer/director/show categories, I’d be fascinated to see what consensus as to the best of on this board ended up being. We should also have ‘The Alan Rickman Award for Famous Person Most Frequently Spotted in the Theatre’.
I think we should sleep on this, and not do it until perhaps our first anniversary in 2017, but I think we should do this!
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Post by Nicholas on Feb 23, 2016 2:20:46 GMT
Always lose concentration when Fiennes is acting. Don't know one actor who plays up the hammy actor as much as Fiennes. I can hear the Fiennes commentary in his head. It goes something like... walk from table to bench purposefully, and pose. And deliver lines. Walk from bench to chair, how shall I walk? Yes let's do it purposefully and don't forget to hold chair in the pose that you only ever see on stage. And deliver lines, wow that was powerful text. Now walk from chair to table, I must do this purposefully and remember that pose as I lean on the table in a completely unnatural manner. Deliver lines and repeat. Hope this is not giving away a spoiler for anyone who has not seen see The Master Builder but I was dreading the set in act 1 with so many props for Fiennes. I do and don’t agree.
Fiennes definitely has that kind of ‘house style’ you describe, and at his worst, when he’s on auto-pilot, he absolutely does just by rote come on, enunciate the lines, deliver to the front and speak the speech, almost like those Victorian ‘acting’ scenes in Red Velvet. Apparently his Oedipus was hammy and actor-ly, and I agree that his Master Builder is too – over-mannered, over-studied and over-thinking every moment (esp. next to the vivacious Sarah Snook, I’ll say more on the overall production when I have the time but in a nutshell a bit MOR, I did like Fiennes well enough in it but it was a Fiennes-by-numbers performance).
But when he’s not on auto-pilot he’s able to toy with that actorliness in a really canny way, and it’s because he’s so classical and methodical that his best roles work. It’s why Man and Superman was great (part of the character was posturing and pretention, so performing as you describe set himself up as a punchline) and why Grand Budapest was great (everything you say about Fiennes is how that character lives his life, Fiennes brings depth and dignity to this pretentious ham), but also goes through everything from the terrifying, focused, recognisable precision of Amon Goeth to the precise poshness of Wallace and Gromit (and I’m going to go give myself a pat on the back for linking Schindler’s List with Curse of the Were-Rabbit). If you’ve seen the trailer for the new Coen Brothers film you’ll see it’s something, again, only someone with his classical skill-set and self-aware irony could pull off (and if you’ve not seen it, do yourself a favour: I've put it in a spoiler thing as I can't find a way to stop it putting the video in the middle of this all-important spiel, but it's well worth a watch {Spoiler - click to view}
).
On that note worth mentioning his current performance in A Bigger Splash, which is well worth watching to wash away (bad pun) the stiltedness of his Solness – he plays what could be a tedious ex-punk old-rocker trying to keep cool, but Fiennes, that classical behemoth, playing it wholly animalistically gives it a weird gravitas, makes his rambling rock anecdotes minor soliloquies, and makes the moments where he rocks out quite stunning indeed. There’s a scene where he preens along to a Rolling Stones song, and Fiennes brings with it a tragic methodicalness as if this really is his life, a dignity that it doesn’t deserve. So in short (ha!) I agree that Fiennes is everything you say he is, I just also think that mostly (this being a rare exception) that’s to his credit and to his favour – he’s good enough to tinker with that house style to give really canny, humane performances.
Plus, in Man and Superman you only see him behind a pillar, whilst in A Bigger Splash you see plenty of full frontal shots of his pillar.
Did I write all this just to make a bad penis joke? Quite possibly, yes.
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Post by Nicholas on Feb 17, 2016 18:15:26 GMT
The Empty Space: "The critic who no longer enjoys the theatre is obviously a deadly critic." [Peter Brook, 1968]
The Master Builder: "Left at the first interval. What a pile of sh*t" Nell Gwynn: "Left at the interval last night" Mrs Henderson Presents: "Left this at the interval. Makes it a runaway hat trick after Nell Gwynne and Pina Bausch this week" Uncle Vanya: "4 in one week. What a load of sh*te this is. If anyone thinks that the piles of sh*t offered at this venue are a true Uncle Vanya or Oresteia. Shame on you all. Such a shame the way theatre is being polluted and diluted and totally shafted in the arse by a new generation of useless idiots tampering with classic plays. Anyone can take a Chanel dress and sh*t on it. It's easy." Battlefield: "This was a massive pile of sh*t" [Parsley, 2016]
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Post by Nicholas on Feb 12, 2016 23:59:34 GMT
Well, we have heard the chimes at midnight (even if it took WOS ten hours to cotton on). I’ve finally accepted that our former forum’s forever gone, so here I am, the Nicholas you knew and tolerated from the old board. In tribute to the old forum, tonight I’ve been on the gin, I’ve opened the jelly babies, and I even bought some parsley just for the occasion. The only thing I was missing was a meat pie.
But this board’s better than the forum, frankly. It’s nice to have somewhere not just for the theatre lovers but truly by the theatre lovers. Thanks to all of you who took that sinking ship and pointed it home. Here’s to the next nine years of bitchy banter about why Michael Xavier’s the best Gaylord, and astonishingly informed opinions on theatre that I value far more than people who do this for a living.
So hey, old friends, now we can stay old friends, who is to say, old friends, how and old friendship survives? But us, old friends, lot to discuss, old friends, here’s to us! Who’s like us? Damn few!
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Post by Nicholas on Feb 3, 2016 3:09:33 GMT
Wow. I’d heard the rumours. I’d read the news. But nothing could prepare me for the actual, unbelievable awfulness of what befell me last night. I’m still reeling. So, a slightly different write-up: it’s a game of “What’s the worst thing about Wonder.land”?
Is the worst thing about it the patronising, ignorant, superior and idiotic writing from its three (three!) writers, who clearly don’t know about working class life, teenage lives, online gaming, or the actual internet itself? At school, we used to have House Drama competitions, and every year there were a couple of entries of ‘issue-tainment’ types where 14-year-olds would write about the important issues teenagers faced (i.e. bullying, cyberbullying, broken homes), and this felt (particularly due to Albarn’s juvenile rhymes) like something the 14-year-olds at my school wrote, only worse. There’s a Stephen Merchant skit where he performs a ‘GCSE Drama’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dji4jk85MUo) and it’s that! It’s just that! This features a young-ish headmistress baffled by the notion of portable internet usage, all teenagers treating posting on each other’s Facebook walls as the height of human interaction, cyberbullying as a silly little nothing nothing, human bullying as a silly little nothing, and so much else that’s patronising, snobby falsehoods that anyone with a window out of which to look would know is outdated and incorrect. It feels like they used ITV2 as research. It suggests ‘adults’ don’t need the internet whereas ‘teenagers’ are fools for needing nothing but. Its plot is ‘the internet is strange’ in a way I thought we all got over years and years and years ago, its interest in how cyber-lives work was nil and its understanding of the internet was, for three (three!) writers, unforgivably shallow. That’s the whole show – unforgivably shallow.
Or is the worst thing about it its terribly delivery of a pat message? A musical about a bullied overweight girl who eventually learns to say that you can’t stop my happiness because I like the way I am is a novel idea – except maybe casting someone overweight, or making a skinny person look overweight, would have more of an impact than seeing Chimimba look skinny and complain about being fat. A musical about an evil headmistress getting her comeuppance at the hands of her pupils is a novel idea, if there is anything approaching realism to their construction. Saying to a clearly self-hating and damaged gambling addict that it’s OK to be a bit zany seems to ignore the fact that he’s a man who wants and needs more help than a vomiting baby puppet can give. The message of ‘be yourself’ would mean more if the writers hadn’t mocked and misunderstood Ally throughout.
Or is the worst thing about it Albarn’s songs? His forced and obvious rhymes are key-stage-one standard (I’ve got a notion for eyes like the ocean) and his music isn’t just the unhummable unmemorable anti-showtunes you get from hiring someone musically inadequate to ape Sondheim, but at times was just painful to my ears in hitting the wrong notes. Everyone loves Charlie, everyone loves Charlie.
Or is the worst thing about it its depiction of addiction? Online gambling is a serious problem, but here is passed off as zaniness. Internet and gaming addiction is a serious problem, but is here patronised unforgivably. I was hoping Ally and her dad would go round the corner to where Emma was getting treatment, as there they’d find an author who understands that addiction isn’t clear cut, sensible or pleasant, but in all ways deserves serious attention, not mockery. It’s like the wonderful People, Places and Things was compensation for this wilfully patronising and ignorant writing.
Or is the worst thing about it its depiction of the working classes? Rufus previously directed Broken, a sensitive if flawed and simplistic look at the working class of Britain (though I was no fan of the London Road movie, which undid much of that and equally mocked the lower class), but here a broken family is something to laugh at, a state school is a grey grim hellhole and all teenagers seem to be yobbos and chavs. This culture was portrayed as a thing to be mocked – everyone loves Charlie, everyone loves Charlie. In that, it’s actually quite offensive that the head of our nation’s theatre treats the working class with such disdain as to mock them like this. It’s patronising in the extreme, but at least it goes with how patronisingly it treats mental illness and addiction.
Or is the worst thing about it its depiction of teenagers? It stands in direct comparison to the much maligned Mermaid, one of my shows of the year, and shows how right I was to love it – that was, like this, about a girl who struggles to fit in and is bullied, so invents (by writing, one of her many hobbies, unlike Ally who has one hobby and no intellectual interests) a fictional compatriot in a world she can control for security, only to understand the real world more through this. The difference is that had brains. That treated teenagers as little unformed adults, intelligent if with much to learn, intellectually and societally aware, passionate, varied and interesting. This treated teenagers as idiots.
Or is the worst thing the fact that the three fantastic lead performances from Anna Francolini, Lois Chimimba and particularly Carly Bawden (who manages to bring humanity to a technical cipher in the same way Alicia Vikander did in Ex Machina, albeit with more dancing in high heels) are utterly wasted performing such substandard material?
Or is the worst thing about it its ending – not one of its three (three!) writers could see that the headmistress had committed a crime in stealing her pupil’s expensive phone, assuming her identity online, committing cyberbullying, and inciting self-harm and suicide from the other members of wonder.land. The actual ending rushes a happy tableau and ignores the psychological ramifications to such an extent it’s reminiscent of the near-parodic way Hill-Gibbons directed the final scene of Measure for Measure. It’s the most unhappy happy ending you could hope to see this year, given that the villain is overcome through the writers being idiots and victory is won by ignoring the cyber-world in which Alice has probably just caused at least one suicide. Hip hip hooray, and merry Christmas from the NT.
No. The worst thing, simply, is this: it’ll never be on DVD. This has cult movie status written all over it. It’s like Reefer Madness The Musical with the ironic layer taken off. It’s like The Room, or The Wicker Man – moment after moment fails to do what its three (three!) writers want it to do, yet attempts it with such aplomb it’s amazing. It’s prime drinking game material (drink every time someone says “Charlie”), it’s vintage ‘mock mercilessly’ material, and all I could think was that it’s a crying shame I’ll never watch this with friends on a Saturday night. Moment after moment after moment is so bad that, once recorded, it would become iconic. It’s not quite So-Bad-It’s-Good, because it’s so patronising and mocking that it leaves quite a sour taste, but beyond that it’s majestic. In fact, I might go back, pick the furthest corner seat in the circle, bring in a hipflask and laugh myself silly. It’s sh*te. Nothing about it redeems it. It’s a must see. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Charlie.
P.S. Weirdly, and most egregiously, there was no need for this to be Wonderland. The allusions were forced at best – those random playing cards, the random guillotine, the random forced connections between the real world and the Alice mythos. Ultimately it’s about online lives and how characters we create online help and hinder us in reality and little else – it’s The Nether for stupid people, and given that I thought The Nether was soft-touch anyway that means it’s very stupid indeed. When it comes down to it the ending isn’t a high-stakes world-worrying battle as to whether Wonderland will be destroyed or not, but instead whether a young girl can go onto, in essence, a chatroom. That’s what got me – I ask you, what kind of stakes are ‘Being unable to talk to strangers online’, and who gets that passionate, angry and upset over the closing of a forum?
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