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Post by lonlad on Mar 9, 2024 0:56:43 GMT
A raft of 4 star and even one 5 star review so far (Times, Telegraph, Standard, Guardian, WOS) and all the raves richly deserved.
I went tonight expecting not very much from a director well past his prime, sadly.
In fact, this ranks with the very best of Nunn's work any time anyplace and the cast is sensational, especially the men - Lance and the astonishing Richardson possibly the best balanced Vanya-Astrov double act I've seen since Michael Gambon and Jonathan Pryce in the late 1980s. The translation is fleet and smart and the play has fire in its belly. It may seem old fashioned to look at (samovars! wow!) but don't be fueled: this is in every way a play, and production, for the here and now. The Orange Tree has a serious hit that is all but guaranteed an onward life, as several reviews have said.
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Post by lonlad on Feb 23, 2024 0:42:59 GMT
Boy, this cast is going out on a high - tonight was my 4th viewing and every bit as riotous as the first one, which was the final preview -- very nearly sold out tonight and there was a standing ovation from the seated contingent which hasn't always been the case with this production. All 5 principals were/are on fire and the three that are leaving on Saturday - Danny, Cedric, Marisha - are giving it their absolute all, and having huge fun as they reach the finish line.
George and Celinde of course are staying on, so are rehearsing the new cast during the day and performing with the current one in the evening. They're both wonderful, and Celinde remains by some measure the best Sarah Brown I've seen in over 45 years experiencing this show onstage.
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Post by lonlad on Feb 20, 2024 10:16:58 GMT
Well, to paraphrase a David Hare play title, stuff happens. LEAR missed two performances so a crucial cast member could recover fully from an injury sustained on press night (and so they could re-block some sections to accommodate that performer when they returned on Saturday night). The theatre is a fragile place and COVID has only amplified that but it's far from the only culprit.
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Post by lonlad on Jan 11, 2024 2:23:11 GMT
Everything you heard in advance is true. It boggles the mind. 1 star from The Times just in and I expect a full roster of 1's and 2's to come .... :-(
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Post by lonlad on Dec 10, 2023 8:50:27 GMT
Re the above assessment of the gala, I love the thought of Dame Maggie (Smith, I assume) singing Sondheim ! Though I have no doubt he and she would have loved one another had they ever met, which maybe they did ....
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Post by lonlad on Nov 30, 2023 10:47:59 GMT
Interesting. The one thing it certainly isn't is tedious given how charged every single moment (and corner of the stage) is. Her style in some ways works better here than on shows like ROMEO AND JULIET, to which BERNARDA is infinitely superior.
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Post by lonlad on Nov 28, 2023 23:40:10 GMT
Starriest press night tonight that I've seen at the National Theatre in ages -- the audience rapt throughout and enthusiastic at the curtain call, and rightly so: the production is a triumph and is going to be another hit for Rufus Norris's final stretch at the helm of the National. Commercial producers attached suggest a transfer in the offing. The playtext by the way is invaluable and worth buying in this instance to really understand how Alice Birch has filleted and layered Lorca's original.
The cast is superlative, Lizzie Annis and Isis Hainsworth first amongst equals: huzzahs all round.
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Post by lonlad on Nov 22, 2023 13:18:29 GMT
Totally not a 5 star production, barely a 4. Oh well.
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Post by lonlad on Nov 22, 2023 10:56:43 GMT
I'm stunned by the lavishness of the praise, the Telegraph's (accurate, in my view) 3 star review notwithstanding. It's very much a work in progress and while there are some wonderful aspects to it - not least the phenomenal Bertie Caplan who is a child actor for the ages (until he becomes an adult, that is) - it's not yet ready for prime time. If it moves on to the US or elsewhere as is, I suspect they're in for a bit of a surprise. Matilda it ain't.
Katherine Kingsley, though, is perfection as always.
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Post by lonlad on Nov 8, 2023 0:28:32 GMT
Reviews so far are all over the map from 2 stars (Grauniad) to 5 (Telegraph) and all other options along the way. Not a royal flush but a lot better than some other recent West End openings have managed .....
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Post by lonlad on Nov 4, 2023 17:45:23 GMT
Saw this last night and liked it a lot. Some of it is pretty silly - think Joe Orton on the props front - but then there are shafts of genuine emotion and it's beautifully acted down the line. (And the design is gorgeous as might be expected.) After the spate of West End debacles of late, here is a play and production that more than earns its place on the West End and how lucky is Marcelo dos Santos to follow this play up with an opening a week later at the Bush that comes feted already.
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Post by lonlad on Nov 4, 2023 17:37:52 GMT
How totally weird given that there is zero wiggle room with this particular run. Maybe Branagh has been dispatched to Westfield or somewhere similar to see if he can buy a soul.
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Post by lonlad on Nov 1, 2023 12:45:31 GMT
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Post by lonlad on Nov 1, 2023 10:58:30 GMT
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Post by lonlad on Nov 1, 2023 10:35:27 GMT
Saw it again on Monday and fully concur with the above - better and deeper and richer and stronger .....
All the cast remain on top form, most of them stronger and more secure even than on opening night, and BP now utterly shattering during Losing My Mind. Maybe SHE should be playing Lear (just kidding, though if they were to make it into a musical.... and Mandy Patinkin could be Gloucester).
And it's SO thrilling to look at as well as to hear -- a class act in every way.
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Post by lonlad on Nov 1, 2023 10:28:26 GMT
These reviews are all too kind except the Mail. Branagh has precisely nothing to say about this timeliest of plays but at least, in his favour, speeds through less than two hours saying that nothing. He hasn't bothered to direct the cast in any meaningful way, so all but two of them flail along as if they were in drama class -- fine in that context, not fine at inflated West End ticket prices.
As the play itself puts it: "nothing can come of nothing" .....
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Post by lonlad on Oct 26, 2023 15:46:52 GMT
Lots of people were standing the other night.
There's now a further pan of it, this time from the New York Times.
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Post by lonlad on Oct 26, 2023 13:36:05 GMT
In fact she missed almost NO performances in GYPSY once she got through the rocky preview period that was much-chronicled at the time. And she was astonishing in it, I have to say. BP's attendance record is one of her strengths; Donna Murphy she ain't.
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Post by lonlad on Oct 25, 2023 23:32:01 GMT
Utterly excruciating. By the third hour, you really don't know where to look - the stage not being an option.
Does Sonia Friedman Productions have NO dramaturgs -- was Ian Rickson asleep?
1 star in The Times 2 stars in The Arts Desk 3 stars in The Mail and Telegraph tho' the Mail one certainly reads like a 2 star
Oh well
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Post by lonlad on Oct 19, 2023 15:39:25 GMT
That's not entirely true. If it were, James Norton would be in the mix! Having said that, he's not averse to a photo opp, that is so.
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Post by lonlad on Oct 18, 2023 7:44:28 GMT
Totally agree with the post above. I saw this in 1996 and was reminded afresh what a slog it becomes by the end, though I bet Denise Gough found a way to enliven it last year in Dublin. Alison Oliver is so recessive an actress that she seems to disappear in front of you, and her refusal to project doesn't help. The first half is sparky, the second largely superfluous: in every way, and aptly for a play about twins, a play of two halves.
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Post by lonlad on Oct 18, 2023 7:41:53 GMT
Good grief, this is SO not a good idea. Oh well.
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Post by lonlad on Oct 14, 2023 14:27:56 GMT
This middling attendance bodes ill for the future, it seems to me, especially without Oliviers to come (which are months away in any case as others have said). Hey ho. Let's hope Andrew Richardson gets a great send-off today - and I look forward to seeing George's Sky next week, with Daniel back as well.
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Post by lonlad on Oct 14, 2023 14:24:02 GMT
Thaxton the best Max ever which is saying a lot given how brilliant George Hearn was (amongst others), but his absolute singlemindedness writ large is something to behold as his voice is to hear - but then he and Lloyd are a dream team: Thaxton won his Olivier for starring as Giorgio in Lloyd's Donmar PASSION.
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Post by lonlad on Oct 12, 2023 23:23:52 GMT
4/5 from Whatsonstage - and now to bed ! :-)
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Post by lonlad on Oct 12, 2023 23:22:08 GMT
The Guardian headline about Scherzinger (using the verb "dazzles") is directly contradicted by the copy ("flatly drawn and devoid of any humanity") - that disconnect happens a lot in arts journalism these days.
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Post by lonlad on Oct 12, 2023 23:19:54 GMT
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Post by lonlad on Oct 12, 2023 10:40:42 GMT
Janie is notorious when it comes to her lines - she was in a two hander at the Finborough a season or two ago where she seemed to know almost none of the lines at the performance I saw: it was like something out of NOISES OFF. When she's on form, she's brilliant.
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Post by lonlad on Oct 11, 2023 18:52:04 GMT
Press were invited across last night, tonight, and for tomorrow's opening night as per the New York model, with reviews embargoed till Friday first thing. This has to be a major blow to the production but I would imagine they are freaking out over the tech glitches yesterday night - which had never happened before. If it's a genuine cast illness, that won't be put right within 24 hours, as was rightly said above.
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Post by lonlad on Oct 11, 2023 8:48:44 GMT
Yes, I wondered if those glitches last night might fuel the critics who think JL's approach is all much ado about nothing. More fools they if so - I mean, in the original production, John Napier's monumental set was known to malfunction quite a bit, too LOL! (There was a telling glimpse though for a nanosecond of one of the technicians looking panicky, and who can blame him?)
It is a tech masterpiece.
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