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Post by crowblack on Sept 2, 2017 9:45:36 GMT
We saw this again on Thursday (31st) after originally seeing it in a later preview and it has changed a bit - it's now generally more comic, with a lot more laughs. In preview it felt darker and more naturalistic and angry, more mixed in tone. It also seemed to be more of a play about grief and loss rather than a clash of outlooks, but maybe that's because it's the second time I've seen it and that's the thread in the play I found more emotionally engaging so followed more. I noticed Lucy Kirkwood was at the National that afternoon (I saw her in a cafe) and the board by the box office said running time 2 hrs 30 so I wondered if there had been major cuts over the summer break, but I think it was pretty much the same length as before - we came out at 10.20, so it was still more like 2 hrs 50. There don't seem to be any major changes to the actual text but tweaks in lines and the playing between that alter the tone. The relationship between Jenny and Luke comes across more, whilst the rather Freudian hints between mother and son have been dropped and their reunion scene is lighter. The second half now opens more strongly, with the ghostly father/boson figure colliding with Luke in the Jardin - "he took my Toblerone!" - rather than just a random mugging, and toward the end Luke tear-ing up as he watches his mother play the Higgs decaying sound. The audience thoroughly enjoyed it and my Mum loved it (her first trip to a London theatre in years - I was hoping they'd NT Live it - why the hell haven't they? It'd be so popular! - but as they haven't, I took her and she was beaming afterwards).
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Post by nash16 on Sept 2, 2017 22:05:42 GMT
For me, this play is far too clever, far too up itself and far too National Theatre. A waste of an evening. I'll avoid Lucy Kirkwood in future. I find a lot to enjoy and intrigue in most theatre but this was a mishmash of the incomprehensible and the patronising. Yes, I know that some of the acting is very good. Yawn. It's the play that's the problem. The sort I HATE. We are in agreement. My review from earlier in the run: "Oh dear. Watched this tonight and it's not good. Some sort of Nick Payne attempt to meld science and relationships, but it never unites and, more fatally, is never interesting. It's also far. too. long. Amusing dialogue at first, and Colman gets to do her full range within the 3hrs, sometimes within a scene. The audience love her and lap up every look and line. Williams is given much less, and acting wise comes across quite weak for some reason. The man playing the Swiss boyfriend has the strangest accent I've ver heard on a stage, and is also struggling with his acting. The 3 small parts are pointless and ultimately those actors are reduced to (un)glorified stage managers dragging on the different bits of set. The son was good, but one note. His storyline (they claim to be interlinked but are quite separate) started well, then drifted into nothingness. The mother character had some funny lines, but was annoying. In fact, they were all annoying. Paul Hilton is completely wasted, and speaks two long monologues away from everyone else, that ultimately lead to some crazy lighting and projections (be wowed and awed audience!) but cannot hide the fact that what he's having to speak is dull, and not linked enough to the relationship drama/sitcom. The direction by Rufus Norris is fine, the set whirs into life when the script is at its worst, trying to blind an audience with lighting and sound, but it's hard to see past the fact the script by Kirkwood is bad. Had she stuck with just the relationship drama, this might have worked. But, like Common, this script should have been edited and fixed before rehearsals began, or at the latest during rehearsals. What is the NT's fear of cutting texts before they reach a paying audience? I'm sure Duff/Colman/Williams wouldn't care if their parts were cut if it resulted in better plays. If you like Swiss jokes, and Higgs Boson/CERN jokes, and watching Colman do funny/sad/crying/drunk, and completely unbelievable events happening with no one batting an eyelid when they're resolved by the next scene, you'll enjoy it. If you like good plays, which weave subjects like science and humanity together seamlessly and ask its audience big questions whilst making you feel for all the characters, you won't find any of that in Mosquitoes."
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Post by crowblack on Sept 2, 2017 23:59:48 GMT
Scrolling back, Nash, I saw the same preview you did and really liked it. I've just seen it again and it has evolved / changed, the audience enjoyed it greatly and were thoroughly engaged (laughs and gasps at various bits, and no restless shuffling or sweet munching or other Kermode code violations). Paul Hilton's character had some more interactions outside the 'science bits' - shades of Hamlet's father but benign, perhaps. Luke's teen anguish is funnier, less 'on the spectrum' than in the darker earlier performance we saw, and I totally disagree with your take on the storyline - I thought the interaction between the two sisters and the son, all haunted by the lost father and lost child, was the backbone of the play. Most of the themes wove around it well, though there were bits I'm surprised were still in there (the spanking scene is like the My Lovely Horse sax solo, and I still don't think the cafe scene works).
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Post by Deleted on Sept 3, 2017 9:30:30 GMT
You people have good memories! I saw it on Thursday and I don't remember either a spanking scene or a cafe scene.
Why do we have to endure adult actors playing petulant teenagers?
Am I particularly stupid and unresponsive, or are others also utterly lost in the Boson monologues?
Why is this character listed as The Boson anyway?
Why was I so foolish as to attend a complex structured artificial traditional play when I prefer more intense experiences?
Why does the NT South Bank have no access to a proper theatre in the round and put up with this pathetic inadequate Dorfman imitation?
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Post by crowblack on Sept 3, 2017 10:29:33 GMT
Heavens, same night, but I think we saw a different play! The first half ended with a scene with Jenny and Alice's boyfriend in a cafe/bar (cafe stools, table, carafe, drinks, one of which is chucked in the face of the BF) followed by a scene in the apartment that ended with the old mother spanking Jenny. It's not something you see on stage every day, or maybe it is and I'm just not going to that sort of play! Most actors playing teens on stage are mid to late 20s (the History Boys etc) - Joseph Quinn's only 23, with a younger looking face and is far and away one of the best newcomers I've seen. Alice is named after a point on the LHC, Luke's name sounds a bit like 'LHC' and the Boson is ambiguously the elusive, searched for, binding particle, the father who may be alive or dead, his monologues going from macro to micro - at one point the father's mental breakdown/psychotic fugue while heating soup for his ill son. I thought it was pretty intense, though how a play resonates depends on what experiences you bring to it or even your gender (first time I saw it with two friends, I really liked it, loved the domestic bits, though thought it needed an edit, the other woman was so-so, liked parts of it, and the man was disappointed, second time I saw it was with my old Mum for whom both the birth and old age stuff really resonated and she absolutely loved it). Btw, I'm a writer and one of the people I saw it with is too, so going through and dissecting a piece afterwards is part of the pleasure for us.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 3, 2017 10:42:24 GMT
But why embed the "birth and old age stuff" in a context which is impenetrable to most of the audience?
I suspect that your "old Mum" is unacknowledgedly responsible for her late husband's Nobel prize.
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Post by crowblack on Sept 3, 2017 14:41:14 GMT
I suspect that your "old Mum" is unacknowledgedly responsible for her late husband's Nobel prize. She isn't, but her brother was a rocket scientist!
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Post by crowblack on Sept 6, 2017 0:09:20 GMT
But oh, what a patronising depiction of anyone "not middle class NT type" and why was Kevin The Teenager (bad impression of) in this? Ooh, that's fighting talk! I don't think the depiction of Jenny is patronising - the rest of the family's criticism of her is what comes across as loathsome. The Forrest Gump / Wizard of Oz line in the opening scene is double-edged: in those films, Gump is a more positive, powerful character than the supposedly smart but often doomed people who surround him, whilst the Wizard of Oz, behind the dazzling facade, is a small, scared human. Alice's most horrible speech to Jenny - including the line that maybe the loss of her baby was nature's way - is delivered at a point when, unknown to Alice, Jenny has potentially sacrificed herself to save Alice's son. Jenny is also the carer for a mother who despises her whilst praising the daughter who does her own thing in another country, and Alice irrationally pines for a husband so bound up in his work he doesn't attend the difficult birth of their only child and walks out on the boy when he's ill. Alice seems incapable of connecting with her son, who is in danger of being just as lost as Jenny's daughter (btw, in previews this thread was darker - after the sexting scene, you felt suicide might be on the cards). I thought the developing relationship between Jenny and Luke was beautifully done. I saw the play with my Mum who would probably be 'team Jenny' and she loved it, particularly the family / teenage scenes. I noticed many reviewers - presumably all from the Alice class - didn't pick up on the ambiguities (btw, the Boson's final speech suggests Jenny's man-made autism theory and Luke's end of the world fears aren't groundless).
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Post by jadnoop on Sept 6, 2017 0:09:52 GMT
Saw it this afternoon, and agree with a lot of the comments on here. Didn't do much for me, I'm afraid. The idea of pitting life (mosquitoes) against science as the deadlier threat to humanity was excellent. But oh, what a patronising depiction of anyone "not middle class NT type" and why was Kevin The Teenager (bad impression of) in this? 3 stars but no more. Disappointed. More on my site if anyone can be bothered to read it. Hey TM really interested to hear the comment about Jenny. Would you be able to point me in the direction of your comments? I couldn't find the page on your website, although I mostly use it for seating so I may have just missed an obvious link. I've seen a few reviews that have said similar things, but I didn't really see it that way when I went. On paper I probably have more in common with Alice, so it may simply be me reflecting my biases, but I found Jenny to be in many ways a far more nuanced, interesting and sympathetic character. My takeaway was that while Alice's position towards Jenny was patronising, I didn't feel that that was the play's view, or Lucy Kirkwood's.
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Post by crowblack on Sept 6, 2017 0:11:38 GMT
I didn't really see it that way when I went You posted at the same time as me - I've just said the same kind of thing (but it's after 1am so any more debate is for tomorrow!)
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Post by jadnoop on Sept 6, 2017 0:18:05 GMT
But oh, what a patronising depiction of anyone "not middle class NT type" and why was Kevin The Teenager (bad impression of) in this? Ooh, that's fighting talk! I don't think the depiction of Jenny is patronising - the rest of the family's criticism of her is what comes across as loathsome. The Forrest Gump / Wizard of Oz line in the opening scene is double-edged: in those films, Gump is a more positive, powerful character than the supposedly smart but often doomed people who surround him, whilst the Wizard of Oz, behind the dazzling facade, is a small, scared human. Alice's most horrible speech to Jenny - including the line that maybe the loss of her baby was nature's way - is delivered at a point when, unknown to Alice, Jenny has potentially sacrificed herself to save Alice's son. Jenny is also the carer for a mother who despises her whilst praising the daughter who does her own thing in another country, and Alice irrationally pines for a husband so bound up in his work he doesn't attend the difficult birth of their only child and walks out on the boy when he's ill. Alice seems incapable of connecting with her son, who is in danger of being just as lost as Jenny's daughter (btw, in previews this thread was darker - after the sexting scene, you felt suicide might be on the cards). I thought the developing relationship between Jenny and Luke was beautifully done. I saw the play with my Mum who would probably be 'team Jenny' and she loved it, particularly the family / teenage scenes. I noticed many reviewers - presumably all from the Alice class - didn't pick up on the ambiguities (btw, the Boson's final speech suggests Jenny's man-made autism theory and Luke's end of the world fears aren't groundless). Yep, I agree. Alice became far more unsympathetic as the play wore on, as well as revealing a certain hypocrisy in the way that she sees her & Jenny's viewpoints. For example, the way that she talked down towards Jenny about her unscientific/irrational views (which were based on what the media was saying at the time), while leaning on religion when her son went missing. To be clear, I'm not suggesting that being religious is a bad thing, just that it's a way of looking at the world that says you won't solely rely on what you can explicitly prove or rationalise. The most telling moment for me, however, was the way that she switched in an instant towards Jenny: after being annoyed and patronising towards Jenny for most of the first act, she was suddenly tender and almost completely reliant on her when the son went missing. And practically begging Jenny to stay. And yet, a moment later, when the son returned all was instantly forgotten and Alice switched back to wanting Jenny out. It felt like an interesting way of showing how Alice treats people, especially with the context of the earlier scene of how Jenny and Alice reacted to their mother's incontinence. All in all, I think what's key though is that this play seems to have sparked interesting and varied discussion both from people who enjoyed, and hated it. Surely that at least is a positive.
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Post by crowblack on Sept 6, 2017 9:38:30 GMT
the way she lead her life - given that she shared a background with Alice - didn't compute for me. Most people I know with shared backgrounds haven't grown up like their siblings, including my own family (without going into it too much, me and my brother were like Lisa and Bart Simpson), and hardly anyone I've known since childhood or university has had a predictable life. Btw, the friend from school who 'got religion' is also the physicist who visited Cern last month. I didn't find the storylines predictable - I first saw it in preview, so had no idea where the plot was going, though guessed we were going with the LHC symbolism of a large circle. There were gasps and cries of 'oh no!' at certain points from the audience so - even after the reviews which gave away a lot - there were evidently still surprises. First time/preview, I wondered if Luke would end up dead too, or whether the ghostly father would return physically. The twist that it is Luke who comes up with the world ending/creating theory was a last minute addition (it's not in the playtext). I attributed Jenny's reliance on drink and fags as a prop from the years she's spent struggling to conceive: I know plenty of bright people who rely on booze and fags. First time round, seeing it with no priming at all about the plot, I did find it a bit of a barrage and would have liked it if the scenes had more room to breathe before the 'science bits', though I was never bored and the audience around me payed full attention - I didn't notice the usual shifting and rustling you get in long plays. The tone of the play in preview (and text) was a bit more naturalistic, subtle and spiky: it has since been tweaked more for comedy, going with the rhythms of the audience, and is more even. I was surprised the cafe and spanking scenes hadn't been cut or altered, though - they're the ones that really stretch credulity for me.
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Post by crowblack on Sept 6, 2017 10:23:51 GMT
Interesting the Luke post-script was tacked on. The rebirth of the world was a similar speech, but was originally written with Gavriella as the one who dreamed up the formula - I actually think it worked much better with Luke, given his fears about the end of the world earlier in the play, and the way he was introduced at the start of the play - rising through the floor and halo'd by the disc thing like a religious icon. In the end, he dies prematurely but is a sort of saviour, following the religion theme (yes, she throws a lot in there but, given time to unpick it, I really liked that) There's a spanking scene in Kirkwood's early play Tinderbox too. I guess it's her thing!
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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2017 10:28:00 GMT
I maybe see too many plays, but perhaps yearn for some other way of building drama rather than always throwing in the usual. Yes, you are articulating what I was trying to say when I described this play, disparagingly, as an "NT play". It's the way it's constructed to be "analysed" in the ABC way that Crowblack is doing. It seems to expect of the audience a GCSE-standard English Literature essay-writing approach: This line means "this", that exchange means "that", etc., etc. But when one of the ingredients is Kevin the Teenager played to the full by someone much older, and another is a monologuing spectral physicist, my attention wanes, I'm afraid, and I decline to complete my exam paper and to pay attention. Of course, I realise that other people get off (the traditional NT audience) on this sort of thing.
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Post by crowblack on Sept 6, 2017 10:57:30 GMT
I realise that other people get off (the traditional NT audience) on this sort of thing. First time at the NT since I was at school, as it happens (and then it was for Shakespeare), and I loathe Tom Stoppard, if that's the kind of thing you're getting at - I didn't think this fell into that category. Joseph Quinn's a bit younger than the typical stage teen/child (his three professional stage roles have all been characters who are 17) so I don't know what you were expecting or are used to. If you don't like whatever it is you regard as 'typical NT' fare, why go there? It's not cheap! I wasn't keen on the Ferryman partly because it felt like a West End crowdpleaser, not a Royal Court play. If I go to a curry house I don't expect fish and chips.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 6, 2017 11:07:19 GMT
If you don't like whatever it is you regard as 'typical NT' fare, why go there? Traditional NT, not typical NT. My main reason was that I see most of Rufus Norris's productions because I enjoy the depth and texture he brings to his theatremaking, with his generous collaboration. Secondly, I had some, much less committed, interest in Lucy Kirkwood because I admire her enterprise, ambition and personal warmth.
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Post by crowblack on Sept 6, 2017 11:34:22 GMT
I'm not sure I enjoyed or hated the play I've just read your review - your feelings are the polar opposite of mine! I thought the mother a bit cartoonish (though some of her odder lines seem to have been cut so the characterisation worked better post-preview) whilst Yoli Fuller was rather wooden and his character unconvincing (was the bit where he complained about hospital bills still in there? It didn't strike me as very Christian!). I thought Quinn was spot-on, that mid-teens mixture of annoying self-righteousness, anger, awkwardness and vulnerability, a mix of Alice's brains and Jenny's emotion (and reminded me of some people I know, a couple of whom were diplomat's kids). Also, what's an "unlikely family?" My Mum (from a council house) was a Liverpool teacher, Hollywood model and care/refugee worker, her brothers a rocket scientist and occasional thesp, borstal boy and military, engineer and motor racer.
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Post by crowblack on Sept 6, 2017 11:42:28 GMT
It's the way it's constructed to be "analysed" in the ABC way that Crowblack is doing. It seems to I'm a writer and used to work a bit as a critic, and went to see it with another writer, both of us currently in the throes of editing, so picking over things is what we do with everything! Apparently Kirkwood has been woking on this play for many years and it does have something of the feel of a piece that has gathered a lot of stuff along the way that she's reluctant to jettison (ditto The Ferryman), but I like that - it's like picking through a hoard or stuffed attic. It doesn't have the smugness you get from Stoppard's concepty plays.
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Post by crowblack on Sept 6, 2017 14:51:03 GMT
Oh well, horses for courses as they say. I think there was a gender split with the people I went with - me and Mum loved it, a female friend liked it but preferred The Children, a male friend said it didn't work for him. I'm assuming you're male too (??) - maybe it's more of a woman's play. Yerma didn't work for me, possibly because I felt it was a play written by a man, adapted by a man, about something very fundamentally female and just didn't ring true. Btw, I don't think not being of a group should prevent someone from writing about a subject, as some voices nowadays seem to demand, but I'm surprised the all-male-writer-background with Yerma hasn't been raised. Had it been a play about a very black issue written by two white guys I'm sure it would have been.
I noticed you put the running time at 2hrs 30. Last Thursday we came out just before 10.20, so it still had something close to its original running time of around 2hrs 50. I did see the writer at the NT earlier that afternoon so maybe more cuts have been made.
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Post by crowblack on Sept 6, 2017 15:44:08 GMT
I don't gender divide productions I don't either, but you can tell if a production / writer is coming from a place of experience. For example, there are a lot of plays about mental health issues and, since getting back into theatregoing having gone through some, it's obvious to me which have been made by someone with close knowledge of it and which are just by a writer looking for a juicy subject: the latter can be interesting or entertaining, but the former are visceral. If I have a choice when booking seats, I aim for a late preview so my judgement of the play hasn't been coloured by anything: I'm interested to see if it can stand on its own two feet. If I'm at a preview or a post-show and the writer is around, I do like to ask questions too. Having been 'away' for a while, this generation of writers and directors are mostly new to me so I have no prejudice one way or the other regarding their quality. I've read some of Kirkwood's other plays - I really liked The Children, (booked but missed it at the RC), thought Tinderbox was trying too hard to be Ortonesque, but showed her flair for language, whilst Chimerica didn't really engage on the page. Of Norris' work, just London Road on TV - clever, but it came across as rather patronising. Btw, there's an interesting interview with Lucy Kirkwood in July's Physics World.
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Post by peggs on Sept 6, 2017 17:35:32 GMT
It seems to expect of the audience a GCSE-standard English Literature essay-writing approach: This line means "this", that exchange means "that", etc., etc. For that reason whilst loving reading wildly frustrated by that approach as school, theatre going has been revelatory as so often there are so many things a line could mean. But yes HG I take your point, while enjoying the acting the actual writing was a bit black and white for me.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 7, 2017 8:56:15 GMT
Saw this last night and while I loved the performances by the Olivias I really can't say I loved the play. I didn't hate it but I just found the idea of another play about dysfunctional families a bit heavy on my brain. That apart the direction was excellent and the supporting actors in general were very good. The actor playing the boson, Paul Hilton, did seem tbe stuck in Peter Pan mode though.
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Post by mallardo on Sept 9, 2017 7:19:30 GMT
The Olivias apart - both wonderful - I hated both the play and the production. Rufus Norris did this mishmash of vague ideas and overcooked family saga no favours with his techno-glitz take on it. It simply exposed the huge gulf between the domestic melodrama at the heart of the piece and the impenetrable, all-enveloping "science" which, I suppose, was supposed to illuminate and give context to it. Each time the Boson came on with his overripe end-of-the-universe scenarios I cringed and turned off. I don't know if Paul Hilton can act or not but I never want to see him in anything again.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 9, 2017 13:02:41 GMT
Who's seen this most recently? What's the current running time looking like?
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Post by lynette on Sept 9, 2017 13:27:53 GMT
Going tonight. I will try to remember to tell you.
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