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Post by bordeaux on Feb 8, 2024 12:17:36 GMT
I was going to say, didn't the Donmar do this quite recently, but I see it was 2001... I've enjoyed some of Lillian Hellman's plays but nothing she wrote is as good as Mary McCarthy's put down of her: "Everything she wrote was a lie, including 'and' and 'the'".
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Post by bordeaux on Feb 1, 2024 23:52:11 GMT
The idea that Richard III is a study in realism and psychological truth is just misunderstanding the play. It is not a representation of Elizabethan attitudes towards disability. It is a piece of populist propaganda. I don't understand what the cry for authenticity in casting leads anyone to think that this character can only be played by someone with any physical disability. True authenticity would suggest only actors with an serious but not massively impairing form of scoliosis may apply. There are some productions that will wish to place a focus on disability and others that won't. Both are legitimate routes to take. But we cannot start accepting casting limits being imposed by vocal lobby groups. Propaganda for what, though? If it's for the Tudors then it isn't very successful. Richard III is one of the most compelling characters in stage history. I've seen Anton Lesser, Ian McKellen, Ciaran Hinds, Kevin Spacey, Ralph Fiennes and the Propeller and Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory versions and I can remember something about each Richard. But Henry VII - I can't even remember any of their faces. Henry VII belongs to the boring characters who are left on the stage at the end when the exciting characters are dead. That's not propaganda - Shakespeare is showing us that we are rather thrilled by dangerous unpredictable leaders, that our feelings are more complicated than simply wanting good governance. Read Emma Smith's brilliant essay on the play in her book on Shakespeare.
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Post by bordeaux on Feb 1, 2024 23:42:47 GMT
Lots of seats still available. I've just bought two for Feb 13th. Loads more there for £45.00.
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Post by bordeaux on Jan 23, 2024 10:53:23 GMT
Interesting, no Coriolanus in today's announcement. It's a somewhat underwhelming one too: one adaptation of a TV programme, one adaptation of a novel, one interesting and surprising revival, and a new play that sounds a bit soapy (genial...likeable but lumpy according to the NYT).
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Post by bordeaux on Jan 23, 2024 10:47:13 GMT
Fabulous show, one of their very best. It'll be interesting to see how McBurney approaches it after, what a quarter of a century, and a new cast.
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Post by bordeaux on Jan 20, 2024 9:49:59 GMT
Has there been any Hecuba since Clare Higgins' twenty years ago? We could probably enjoy a revival of the Persians, Ajax or Iphigenia, but I doubt we'll see major revivals of Women of Trachis or Euripides' Helen. I would love to see the San Wanamaker Playhouse stage one of Seneca's plays in the Elizabethan translations that influenced revenge tragedies. The last Hecuba I saw was Vanessa Redgrave for the RSC in 2005. Unfortunately it was very poor. Iphigenia in a very good Katie Mitchell production for the NT in 2004. Haven't ever seen the others. I agree on Seneca - he seems to be entirely overlooked despite his influence. The last play of his (not counting "inspired by") I saw was in 1988. Was that the Oedipus at the Almeida with John Shrapnel? Ted Hughes translation. Wonderful, I thought. I was remembering only yesterday the way they did the blinding - a fellow actor simply holding out a bowl of red paint and Shrapnel daubing his own eyes - and immediately you saw a man who had blinded himself.
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Post by bordeaux on Jan 20, 2024 9:41:51 GMT
I'm thinking of going to watch this in Manchester. I've only ever watched Shakespeare once a long time ago while doing Alevels (King Lear in Stratford) and am really not familiar with any of the texts. Will I be ok not really knowing the text? Where is best to sit for something like this? Stalls or circle? I'll be on my own, so I'm hoping I can get a single seat in a good spot. Everyone will have their own view on this, but I would recommend reading a synopsis, not the whole text. I'd read the text afterwards. Seating again is a personal choice. I always like to be as close as possible because I don't to strain to hear the words - I felt that even in my 20s. But these days most productions seem to mike the actors so audibility should not be a problem. And of course if you're an early booker, some theatres have tickets that are cheaper than the top price right up by the stage.
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Post by bordeaux on Jan 18, 2024 10:06:04 GMT
Thanks for finding this - very interesting to see most of us have fairly similar views on it and all agree that Nicholas Le Prevost is particularly good. Funny to think that he is a founding member of The Wrestling School company, dedicated to putting on the work of Howard Barker! I remember seeing him in Seven Lears in 1990 at the Royal Court - seem to remember the play was hard work.
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Post by bordeaux on Jan 18, 2024 6:55:52 GMT
This looks and sounds good at the Bath Theatre Royal. It's an enjoyable evening at the theatre if you like that sort of thing - Edwardian-style, or in this case, early 1920s social comedy. Tom Littler tries to make the case in an interview in the programme that Somerset Maugham is the missing link between Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward but he is neither as witty nor as sharp as either. There are good performances, some witty lines, the whole set-up is artificial but amusing, the ending surprising. Interesting to see what was popular in 1922 (the year of Ulysses, The Waste Land and Virginia Woolf's Jacob's Room!).
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Post by bordeaux on Jan 15, 2024 12:39:11 GMT
Will need a lot of reworking to fill the Old Vic stage. But good news for cast and creatives.
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Post by bordeaux on Jan 6, 2024 10:37:59 GMT
I'm hoping someone will pick up the new Sondheim, Here We Are. Wouldn't that be a great way for Tim Sheader to start his Donmar stint? Or for Michael Longhurst to end his?
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Post by bordeaux on Jan 5, 2024 16:31:25 GMT
I thought this was excellent too, with the gradual build-up of tension paying dividends at the end, which I found extremely powerful. Outstanding performances all round and Rebecca Frecknall's trademark style fitted the material in my view. I look forward to seeing what she does next.
I did, though, find the repeated use of the f-word jarring in this context. Why would someone of Bernarda Alba's standing and values being swearing at her children all the time? Why would she put up with it from a servant? I'm sure there is an answer - Alice Birch is a thoughtful writer - but I'd be interested to know what it is. The friend I went with has lived in Italy and he wondered whether both Italian and Spanish have a richer language of vituperation than we do and whether the f-word was chosen to get that across to English-speakers. Does anyone know if her language in the Spanish is in any way shocking?
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Post by bordeaux on Jan 5, 2024 16:12:17 GMT
Having seen and enjoyed only moderately both The Flick and The Antipodes (too oblique, dialogue a little too desultory) I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this. I really got into the characters, their weirdness, the weirdness of the place they were in, the rhythm. I'm a long-term Philip Roth fan, so I thought little would shock me in terms of sex (what repelled my teenage daughters in Saltburn seemed fairly unshocking to me), but I did wonder whether the violence of one character's sexual fantasies was meant to be an insight into her damaged character or just an expression of normal sexual feelings in the next generation down.
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Post by bordeaux on Jan 5, 2024 16:00:01 GMT
This was my third National production in a two-day trip and rounded off the visit wonderfully - though 20 minutes in I was in the sceptical camp as it does take a while to get going. But, as many have said it's witty, moving, fascinating on Hamlet and the era and on the two main actors. I confess I had tears in my eyes at the end, especially when (like in a film) the 'what happened to the characters next' bits pop up. I'm glad Norris is enjoying a successful last two years.
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Post by bordeaux on Dec 20, 2023 9:06:40 GMT
I was going to come on here with a list of recent major Pinter revivals I've seen but then realised that most of them were pre-2002 when I left London. I think Pinter is in a different league to the other writers you mention, Jan, and I can't imagine that the big plays won't get major revivals from time to time over the years. When, though, was the last major Caretaker revival? I can't think of one since the Patrick Marber one with Michael Gambon and that was presumably 2000? The Bath Ustinov is reviving The Lover/The Collection in the Spring with David Morrissey.
Ayckbourn is an interesting one, as you say. Down in the west country we seem to get Relatively Speaking in Bath every two or three years, but nothing else on tour. Matthew Warchus did a superb Norman Conquests a few years back. But those big plays where he was at the height of his reputation as a serious comic dramatist haven't had much interest as far as I can see. Has there ever been a revival of Man of the Moment, for example, which was one of Gambon's finest hours?
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Post by bordeaux on Dec 19, 2023 22:57:05 GMT
I really recommend this production only on till Friday. It is extremely well sung and played (orchestrated for two pianos, celesta and flute) and comes across superbly in the 100-seat Ustinov. It's directed by Isabelle Kettle as part of the second Deborah Warner season here.
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Post by bordeaux on Dec 13, 2023 15:45:18 GMT
Indeed, what a great director. I particularly remember the Michael Gambon Uncle Vanya, 1988ish, with Jonathan Pryce and an astonishing cast. Superb director of new plays too - Michael Frayn's Copenhagen, which I seem to remember he directed and won prizes for in the same year he directed and won prizes for Kiss Me Kate. He also directed the original Noises Off and the very different Democracy for Frayn. And his original production of the musical City of Angels was excellent too. I'd have loved to see some of those late 60s, 1970s productions too.
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Post by bordeaux on Dec 11, 2023 16:44:34 GMT
For me: Phaedra (NT), Life is a Dream (Cheek by Jowl), Streetcar (Phoenix via the Almeida), Romeo and Juliet (Almeida), Machinal (Ustinov, Bath).
But then again I haven't yet seen The Motive and the Cue, The House of Bernarda Alba, A Mirror, Infinite Life.
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Post by bordeaux on Dec 3, 2023 11:39:18 GMT
.. the casts containing names like Robert Robinson and Shirley Williams who would go on to fame in later life... Is that the same Robert Robinson as the one who hosted Call My Bluff? There's an episode of Ask the Family, that he also chaired, currently on BBC iPlayer. That was a must-watch when I was a young adult. It's as good as I remember, and much better put together than any modern-day quiz. Robinson hosts with such wit, charm and intelligence, and rattles through the questions at a rate of knots. Sorry for going off-topic, but you stirred a pleasant reminiscence. Yes, it is. I loved Ask the Family as a child - we watched it as a family in the 70s. I believe they tried to revive it a few years ago but it didn't work - and I seem to remember Mark Lawson in the Guardian admitting that whilst he normally defended modern culture against its older versions even he was aghast at how much the revival had been dumbed down.
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Post by bordeaux on Dec 2, 2023 17:56:23 GMT
When my dad died about eight years ago, one of the pleasures was going through his past programmes, dating back to school productions in the 1940s and university productions in the early 50s, the casts containing names like Robert Robinson and Shirley Williams who would go on to fame in later life. I felt I was brought closer to his life before we children came along. In those days programmes were just often just a folded sheet of A4 paper with lots of adverts, but it was fascinating too seeing programmes for the touring Donald Wolfit's productions in the 50s (he saw them in Newcastle), the odd Edinburgh festival show from that era and later on the touring shows that went to Cambridge where we lived in the 60s and 70s.
I hope that my daughters enjoy looking through my programmes when I die - in 25 or so years of course - and they will get the thrill of seeing famous names like Ralph Fiennes and Mark Rylance when they were in their 20s, the programmes of the original productions of, say, Arcadia and Dancing at Lughnasa, McKellen as Iago and Richard III, Fiona Shaw as Richard II, Maggie Smith in Albee, Gambon and SRB as Vanya. But, yes, they do take up a lot of room!
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Post by bordeaux on Nov 30, 2023 6:50:21 GMT
Another three star review from Arifa Akbar in the Guardian! Four from Whatsonstage.
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Post by bordeaux on Nov 28, 2023 11:45:47 GMT
Eleventh theatre ticket for 2024 booked - it's been years since I've had so much booked going into a new year.
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Post by bordeaux on Nov 23, 2023 13:49:47 GMT
I'm assuming the Christopher Hampton is an adaptation of the wonderful novella, Letter from an Unknown Women, which he has transformed into a Visit. It's a lovely old 40s Hollywood weepie too directed by Max Ophuls with Joan Fontaine and Louis Jourdan. I'm always a little sceptical about adaptations of novels, unless (or even when) they've been adapted by a theatre auteur like Simon McBurney or Ivo van Hove. But Hampton has written some superb plays - including of course the best novel adaptation of them all, Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Tales from Hollywood is one of my favourite plays of all time.
Richard Nelson had quite a bit of success in the late 80s, early 90s with plays like Some Americans Abroad (early SRB performance), Two Shakespearian Actors and Misha's Party, all at the RSC. Then he seemed to disappear but in the past few years I've read raves of one or two of his recent big family plays in two or three parts, but they've never been put on close enough to me or for long enough for me to get to. Has anyone seen any of his recent work?
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Post by bordeaux on Nov 23, 2023 8:17:08 GMT
www.hampsteadtheatre.com/whats-on/main-stage/More details on the theatre's homepage. A pretty impressive line-up in my opinion. Between Riverside and Crazy won both the Pulitzer and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play, amongst other prizes.
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Post by bordeaux on Nov 23, 2023 8:09:48 GMT
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Post by bordeaux on Nov 22, 2023 15:52:57 GMT
There are about 100 seats in the Ustinov. In April Posner is directing David Morrissey and Matthew Horne in a Pinter double-bill, The Lover and The Collection, in the same place.
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Post by bordeaux on Nov 21, 2023 20:56:36 GMT
All sounds fantastic. Reminds me I saw Sam Mendes' production of the Plough and the Stars at the Young Vic in 1991 with Judi Dench, a brilliant night as I recall. There were a couple of superb productions of Juno in the 90s too, one at the NT (actually 1989 Google tells me directed by Peter Gill), I think and one in the West End, but I've never seen Shadow of a Gunman.
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Post by bordeaux on Nov 21, 2023 17:04:22 GMT
I like the Lucy Kirkwood I've seen so that's a pretty definite from me (what happened to Keeley Hawes last time?). I could even do it as a double bill with Nye.... I've seen the Cherry Orchard six times so I'm not in a hurry to see it again (though if the Simon McBurney one came over from ITA I would go). As for the American thing, well, it had great reviews in the US but I feel I've seen so many US plays recently that came over garlanded with plaudits and which only really hit 3 stars, if that, for me. Camp Siegfried, White Noise, A Doll's House Part II, anything by Annie Baker. I'll wait for reviews on here and then get a standing for that, I expect.
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Post by bordeaux on Nov 19, 2023 17:21:33 GMT
I've just received news of this, an adaptation of the John Cassavetes film, Rufus Wainwright providing the lyrics and music. 6th March to 27th July at the Gielgud. Ad on YouTube: .
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Post by bordeaux on Nov 19, 2023 8:33:56 GMT
This is as excellent as above posters say it is and I hope it has a future life, though they'll need a very small theatre to retain as much of the intensity as possible. The Ustinov has about 100 seats. Superb set, superb direction, superb acting - and writing. There is something almost Pinteresque about the way seemingly innocuous language is used to intimidate. I was surprised at how little I remember of the Stephen Daldry version at the National 30 years ago with Fiona Shaw. I have a vision of her on the stage with lots of ceiling lights. Was it Daldry's first bit hit after his successful running of the Gate (it's been a long time since I heard about anything good from there; is it still going?)?
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