The Other Place - NT Lyttelton

never seen game of thrones but know menzies from Rome (2005), which i quite liked him in (i like his face, what can i say...), so this feels fitting?

a little disappointed, been in the mood for a good and proper antigone recently, but guess we'll see how it goes

Back from the first preview and this is brilliant. It all went smoothly and is advertised at 1 hour 30 mins no interval but was more around 1 hour 20 mins. I will post a fuller review tomorrow but am very glad I went and it has really got me thinking. A very modern Greek adaptation but still holds a mirror up to us. I would say the National have a success.

I went into this not really knowing what to expect as was sold on the strength of the cast and the overall sound of the play. To be honest I don't really have much knowledge on the greek plays or any on Alexander Zeldin's previous work but that certainly did not matter. This may have slight spoilers.

This is quite similar to Pheadre from last year in the sense it is more so a new play inspired by a Greek play. I really liked Pheadre but where that was quite an epic and sprawling production, this is very much more intimate and contained piece.

The play follows two sisters, Annie and Issy. Their father has died a number of years ago and their uncle Chris has looked after them. Both are now adults and Annie has detached herself from the family however Issy has moved back home. We meet them on the day that Chris has decided to spread his brothers / the girls fathers ashes and the family are awaiting the return of Annie. And that is where the drama begins. The script is so very strong, being filled with a lot of subtext and about what the characters are not saying. It definitely feels like I might need to buy the script some day.

It is a slow burn of a play, building and building over the course of the 80 minutes or so. What is striking is just how very real and conversational the dialogue and performances are. As an audience we feel as though we are spying on the family in this very intimate moment in their lives. Even from the back row of the circle I felt connected. All the cast are great and it truly is an ensemble piece with all six members having key parts in story but never trying to act over everyone else. For a first preview there seemed to be no obvious flubs. The only slight thing was a bit of uncertainty of when to clap at the very end which I am sure they will iron out.

The design is simple but very effective for this and the music too added a forbidding quality to the overall feel. I don't want to spoil anything story wise too much but I was gripped throughout and it certainly is a story that has a lot of connection to it, in various capacity. Also I thought it somewhat amusing that they have a play running called 'A Tupperware of Ashes' and this could have had a very similar title. Although 'A Sandwich Bag of Ashes' isn't maybe as catchy a title. If you see the play you will understand.

As for the sight lines, I would say front row will be good as the stage didn't look any higher than it normally is and all the action takes place on one level.

I look forward to seeing what other people think of this but I would say if you have booked, you are in for a worthwhile night. This is definitely one of the best shows I've seen this year.

I am afraid I am in the minority but it did not engage me particularly on the emotional side. Maybe my expectations were swayed because of the link to "Antigone" that is my favourite Greek tragedy, while the connection is rather loose. On the positive side, I think both Alison Oliver and Emma D'Arcy were excellent and the typical naturalistic dialogue of Zeldin's play is there. Glad to read that others really love it though!

Very tacky and lazy theatre

Seen this sort of sh*te so many times

Neither shocking nor interesting

Saw this Saturday night and ABSOLUTELY ADORED it!

I do count myself a Zeldin fan, getting hooked on his extreme naturalistic style with "Beyond Caring" and booking all his London shows since. This is the most plotty of his shows, as it's "after Antigone," which has a plot, but the conversational way of talking remains ultra-naturalistic, even if there is more schematic design behind the plotting.

As a fan of Sophocles' Greek plays, I do understand why this would weird out an "Antigone" fan, as the plot doesn't follow point for point (I'll elaborate a bit after a spoiler warning). This is not, however, as loose as something like "Romeo and Julie," but nor is it as faithful as something like Patrick Marber's "After Miss Julie." What it is is a remarkable translation of the ancient Greek THEMES to modern characters and situations.

Some spoilers follow. . .

For Sophocles fans, the thing that jars immediately is that the dead bloke, whose ashes/burial/disposal are the plot catalyst, is the FATHER of Emma D'Arcy's Annie (aka Antigone) and Alison Oliver's Issy (aka Ismene) rather than their BROTHER. For some, that will be a plot stretch too far.

What this means is that it is Oedipus's remains, NOT those of Polynices, that the main characters are fighting over here (to my mind, it's fortuitous we've got the superlative Mark Strong in town in "Oedipus," which I am chomping at the bit to see as a companion piece lol). It's reinforced that it's Oedipus (or his modern avatar) who has died because Jerry Killick's Terry (aka Tiresias) tells us that this dead Dad lost his mind and chased birds around town (and such bird imagery is more relevant to Oedipus's story than Polynices's story in the Sophocles).

Anyway, this tussle over a man's ashes initially felt like the least credible plot point in the play, as the source material is all mega-wars, mega-deaths and mega-punishments, whereas here we simply have a daughter and her uncle squabbling over whether to bury ashes in a funeral plot (Uncle Chris wants to move on) or to keep them in the house the dead man so loved (Niece Annie, who wants to honour the past). It felt small-scale and silly by comparison to the source material.

But then Emma D'Arcy's unsmiling dark angel Annie rocks up, thundering about in an otherwise affable joky household who are obsessed with glass windows and letting the light in, and she is so obviously freighted with dark grave baggage that the tension ramps up exponentially to weighty Greek levels after all, even if the conversations remain Zeldin-chatty-naturalistic. D'Arcy basically comes in like a wrecking ball, as Miley Cyrus would say, and they are so emotionally loaded and confrontational, condensing that intensity into remarkable disconcerting stillness, that the audience perched, edge of their seats, mouths agape, some gasping (similar to the thrilling atmosphere I experienced at the Royal Court's "Giant"), anticipating confrontations inevitably brewing among these characters.

Anyway, the Greek theme about whether we can change our fate, whether we are what we are, or whether we can move on, is SO perfectly dealt with here, with powerful scenes featuring each and every member of the family, and even Jerry Killick's Terry, half moaning chorus, half prophetic Tiresias, is part of it. In a way, Killick does here what he did in "The Confessions," which is that he grounds the piece in a believable world, musing on the others' messes while encouraging everyone to tuck into a takeaway.

D'Arcy gives everything to their character's inner world, and it's thrilling absorbing watch. And Tobias Menzies's Chris, who opposes her plans for the ashes, is almost as strong as the antagonist to her protagonist.

My favourite character, though, was neither of these, but instead, Alison Oliver's Issy. Oliver's chirpy cheery natural sounding expressiveness, her constant injection of the word "lol" into conversations (she uses it in speech about as much as I use it in writing, lol, and probably for the same reasons, to stay upbeat in a sea of downbeat), her endearing effusiveness, the way she squeals to block out other people's mounting aggression, it just makes for such a REAL feeling character, such a person of now, trying to do the right thing, and grounds the whole piece in what feels like real life.

Less weighed down by family history, Lee Braithwaite's Leni, stepchild to Chris, is by far the funniest character, out of the loop on so many of the actual goings on, yet an emotional savant able to read everyone's moods and likely actions, a voice for the audience's perceptions that cuts through most hilariously. Braithwaite's comic timing is pitch perfect.

So although I started this play with a degree of doubt as regards the plot, I ended up dazzled by the tension, the action, the acting, the naturalism, the humour, the darkness, and the way Zeldin makes the Theban plays feel so relevant, riveting and now.

4 and a half stars from me.

Ha ha. Don't expect it to be quite so believable/tense at the very start. It warms up.

I hope you have a great time!

WOS: 5*
The Stage: 4*
Liam O'Dell 4*
Standard: 4*
Time Out: 3*
London Theatre 3*

First reviews that I've seen pop up

Interesting that some good reviews

Have not necessarily translated to ticket sales

Last night the audience certainly felt the tension, lot's of gasps and moans of dread at a couple of moments. It's not a groundbreaking play and I can accept the criticism that there isn't anything here that we haven't seen before, but I thought it was a pretty riveting and intense night of theatre. Every character is suffused with their own tragedy, half of it unspoken, emotions rippling underneath the surface as events play out in the unfinished home renovation that's erasing the memory of the cruel father. Everyone's trapped, everyone's trying to move on, nobody can. I thought it was great.

An interesting evening, which included a show stop as Emma Darcy fully stacked it off the front of the stage and landed in an audience members lap - seemingly ok after a 5-10 minute show stop and hobbled through the rest of the evening.

This didn't quite come together for me, because it felt a bit like a lot of them were in different plays to each other (although maybe that's the point). Nina Sosanya and Tobias Menzes were good, but it never really came alive for me.