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Post by peggs on Mar 27, 2018 13:54:29 GMT
The Almeida website release an allocation of rush tickets every Tuesday at 1pm for performances in the following week. I swear that joining this site might be the most expensive decision of my life. Yes for all the money save you get tempted in to seeing a lot more things! |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2018 14:54:59 GMT
I popped into the box office. Apparently the rush tickets went “within five minutes” (so now I know why they are called rush tickets.)
I’ll try again next Tuesday.
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Post by andrew on Mar 27, 2018 17:22:18 GMT
I popped into the box office. Apparently the rush tickets went “within five minutes” (so now I know why they are called rush tickets.) I’ll try again next Tuesday. For context, last week I was in a queue of 300 odd people, for what I think is maybe 12ish seats per show. This week there were only three performances up for grabs, so you can see how much the odds are against you. I just happened to be 18th in the random queue |
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Post by ruperto on Mar 29, 2018 12:32:51 GMT
What I liked about this:
* Patsy Ferran, who is amazing - she's going to be a huge star.
* Tennessee Williams's wonderful words.
* Some other good performances.
What I didn't like:
* The production/direction - pretentious and way too stylised IMHO. And with zero sense of time and place, when I'd have thought the whole small-town America aspect is critical. I felt like I was watching something that had been dreamed up in the rehearsal room by a bunch of pseuds. Barefoot cast? Check. Dirty bare stage? Check. No set to speak of, and hardly any props? Check. Cast wearing scruffy/nondescript clothes that don't chime with the roles they're playing, so that a doctor in his surgery (at least, I think he was in his surgery - you couldn't tell) just looks like some ordinary scruffy guy? Check. A character suddenly singing a Portishead song for absolutely no reason? Check.
* Those nine bloody pianos circling the stage that people play, poke, hang around by and clamber on. Those pianos were the capital city of Pseudland.
* The fact that several of the cast double on roles, including Forbes Masson playing both the dads, and Anjana Vasan playing various young women, so that it's not always immediately clear who they are playing. Couldn't they have scaled back on the number of pianos they rented and used the cash to pay for some more actors? It's not as if it's a play with a large cast. It's just more silly pretentiousness, IMHO.
* The fact that for me, it dragged - and I hardly ever check my watch when I'm at the theatre.
I'm a very mild-mannered and generally upbeat theatregoer, but as you can tell, this production really annoyed the hell out of me! Transferring this sort of intimate (the kindest word I can find) production to a big West End theatre would in my view be commercial insanity. But as everyone keeps saying on here, it's great that there's such a diversity of views!!
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Post by n1david on Mar 29, 2018 12:44:13 GMT
* The production/direction - pretentious and way too stylised IMHO. And with zero sense of time and place, when I'd have thought the whole small-town America aspect is critical. I felt like I was watching something that had been dreamed up in the rehearsal room by a bunch of pseuds. Barefoot cast? Check. Dirty bare stage? Check. No set to speak of, and hardly any props? Check. Cast wearing scruffy/nondescript clothes that don't chime with the roles they're playing, so that a doctor in his surgery (at least, I think he was in his surgery - you couldn't tell) just looks like some ordinary scruffy guy? Check. A character suddenly singing a Portishead song for absolutely no reason? Check. Interestingly, I was at the Cast Q&A on Monday and this came up. Apparently, in his later life Tennessee Williams was frustrated at the rigid, traditional staging of his work when he felt it had broader themes which were being lost in the "picture of small town America" context. And they also claimed that Summer and Smoke had been one of Williams's less successful plays because the spiritual elements were not believable when the play was rooted in a very literal context. Hence the decision to take this out of the small-town context into something more generic, more malleable. The actors also discussed the staging (eg why the Portishead song was in there - to set the scene in a casino to provoke a 'mental scene change'). The doubling was deliberate to tie in with the theme of dopplegangers throughout the play - e.g. Forbes Masson's characters being the flip side of each other (he described thinking of one of them as being masculine and one as feminine, in very general terms). I'm not sure I entirely bought the staging, but I thought the cast did a good job of explaining and justifying the staging decisions - I don't think any of it was done on a whim or to be trendy. I hope the Almeida puts the Q&A online, although I don't remember seeing cameras, so I doubt it. But it certainly helped me understand the production. And I agree with the general idea that one shouldn't need to read a programme or attend a talk in order to "understand" a show, but in this case it definitely helped. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2018 14:11:05 GMT
What I liked about this: * Patsy Ferran, who is amazing - she's going to be a huge star. * Tennessee Williams's wonderful words. * Some other good performances. What I didn't like: * The production/direction - pretentious and way too stylised IMHO. And with zero sense of time and place, when I'd have thought the whole small-town America aspect is critical. I felt like I was watching something that had been dreamed up in the rehearsal room by a bunch of pseuds. Barefoot cast? Check. Dirty bare stage? Check. No set to speak of, and hardly any props? Check. Cast wearing scruffy/nondescript clothes that don't chime with the roles they're playing, so that a doctor in his surgery (at least, I think he was in his surgery - you couldn't tell) just looks like some ordinary scruffy guy? Check. A character suddenly singing a Portishead song for absolutely no reason? Check. * Those nine bloody pianos circling the stage that people play, poke, hang around by and clamber on. Those pianos were the capital city of Pseudland. * The fact that several of the cast double on roles, including Forbes Masson playing both the dads, and Anjana Vasan playing various young women, so that it's not always immediately clear who they are playing. Couldn't they have scaled back on the number of pianos they rented and used the cash to pay for some more actors? It's not as if it's a play with a large cast. It's just more silly pretentiousness, IMHO. * The fact that for me, it dragged - and I hardly ever check my watch when I'm at the theatre. I'm a very mild-mannered and generally upbeat theatregoer, but as you can tell, this production really annoyed the hell out of me! Transferring this sort of intimate (the kindest word I can find) production to a big West End theatre would in my view be commercial insanity. But as everyone keeps saying on here, it's great that there's such a diversity of views!! This might be more to your liking.
www.blu-ray.com/movies/Summer-and-Smoke-Blu-ray/73448/
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Post by ruperto on Mar 29, 2018 16:08:16 GMT
Thanks for the tip! I didn't know there was a film of Summer and Smoke - that's one that's passed me by...
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Post by kathryn on Mar 31, 2018 21:18:08 GMT
I really enjoyed this today! I found myself mentally urging Alma to jump his bones - it may have been the lovely view of Matthew Needham’s shoulders I was getting from d27. I don’t think I’ve ever appreciated haveing a side view so much...
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Post by audrey on Mar 31, 2018 22:30:57 GMT
Alma - Patsy Ferran - was incredible in this role and she deserves to get a load of awards. But some plays don't survive the test of time and this is one of them. Our history in plays is sadly one of white male playwrights and it would have been fascinating to see an equivalent female playwright, especially a woman of colour writing about the same period. It was an interesting production but am really not sure why the Almeida thought his play should be revived - would have much preferred to see Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes plays revived from the same period .
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Post by quine on Apr 2, 2018 11:42:11 GMT
Alma - Patsy Ferran - was incredible in this role and she deserves to get a load of awards. But some plays don't survive the test of time and this is one of them. Our history in plays is sadly one of white male playwrights and it would have been fascinating to see an equivalent female playwright, especially a woman of colour writing about the same period. It was an interesting production but am really not sure why the Almeida thought his play should be revived - would have much preferred to see Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes plays revived from the same period . Love Zora Neale Hurston - if you haven't read Their eyes were watching God |
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Post by andrew on Apr 3, 2018 11:30:29 GMT
I attended last night, joined by some of the Mary Stuart cast, Mark Shenton and governor-extraordinaire Mark Carney. I though the staging was OK, although the pretentiousness bell in my head was tinkling ever so slightly. There was no reason they couldn't wear shoes. The piano-number-mystery was on my mind, I determined that they have to have an odd number since the pianos line up with the sections of the back wall. So you either have 5, 7, or 9. They never used more than 7 pianos. Make of that what you will.
I don't think I loved this quite as much as the majority do, although I loved seeing Patsy Ferran, it's a performance I'm glad I didn't miss. I don't think it's Tennessee's best, although there are several moments of magical theatre, the sort that tends to emerge in his plays. The doubling made sense to me, but perhaps I was helped by having already the discussion on here. This particular production manufactured it's own, for example in the beautiful song in the second act. My favourite moment has to be the last scene though, which sort of made the whole thing worth it. A really great ending, brilliantly portrayed and staged.
I think it's worth seeing this to see a not-perfect-play put on in a very compelling way, but it didn't quite climb to the 5 star heights for me that it's gotten to for others.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 3, 2018 11:41:56 GMT
I attended last night, joined by some of the Mary Stuart cast, Mark Shenton and governor-extraordinaire Mark Carney. Oh I couldn't have stopped myself, Mark Carney is such a silver fox. |
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Post by theatreliker on Apr 4, 2018 13:27:40 GMT
Is a transfer on the cards for this?
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Post by zahidf on Apr 4, 2018 14:12:32 GMT
Patsy Ferran has joined my list of 'must watch' in the theatre. Hope she will be in something else VERY soon
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Post by crowblack on Apr 7, 2018 20:14:43 GMT
Is a transfer on the cards for this? I asked at the box office today, but they didn't know. |
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Post by crowblack on Apr 7, 2018 20:24:24 GMT
Patsy Ferran has joined my list of 'must watch' in the theatre. Totally! I went to see My Mum's a Tw*t based on the enthusing about her on here, and now this - she's definitely on my 'go see them whatever they're in' list now. She's magnetic and had me in tears at some points. |
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Post by Rory on May 11, 2018 18:10:24 GMT
Looks like this will be transferring to the West End.
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Post by crowblack on May 11, 2018 18:29:48 GMT
Fab! If I can get a cheap seat I'd love to see it again - or keep fingers crossed for NT Live. |
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Post by Jon on May 11, 2018 18:30:10 GMT
Looks like this will be transferring to the West End. When and where? I assume Autumn since a lot of theatres are booked up. |
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Post by Phantom of London on May 12, 2018 13:24:58 GMT
Thought this on oils be a good one for the Ambassador, once Pressure finishes.
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Post by Phantom of London on May 12, 2018 15:20:34 GMT
Thought this on oils be a good one for the Ambassador, once Pressure finishes. Thought this one would be a good one for the Ambassador, once Pressure finishes. That and the Garrick are the only theatres that are free then. |
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Post by viewfromthewing on May 20, 2018 21:00:55 GMT
Not sure when, but this is supposedly going into the Duke of Yorks for a short run.
I missed it the first time around, so, looking forward to it.
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Post by Rory on Jun 11, 2018 9:12:21 GMT
Looks like this will be transferring to the West End. Duke of York's. Sat 10th Nov - Sat 19th Jan |
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Post by zahidf on Jun 11, 2018 9:12:48 GMT
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3,578 posts
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Post by Rory on Jun 11, 2018 9:18:02 GMT
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