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Post by learfan on Feb 1, 2019 18:39:49 GMT
Ive no intention of seeing this, but there is an hilarious review in this week's Spectator.
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Post by lynette on Feb 1, 2019 20:46:13 GMT
Maybe next time she could choose her play to please you? A safe little Alan Bennett or Noel Coward perhaps? Something set in a drawing room with lovely music during the scene changes? Nothing too challenging for her or the audience.
Alan Bennett is not that safe. As I remember, with The History Boys, he had all the right-thinking bourgeoisie cheering on paedophilia. Thats... quite transgressive. Much more so than this (slightly tedious) evening of ostentatiously highbrow soft porn..
Well, I’m weighing in here with saying that Noel Coward isn’t all that safe either. What most people want is to see the best actors in the best plays. |
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Post by peggs on Feb 1, 2019 21:51:07 GMT
What most people want is to see the best actors in the best plays. Yep that's the dream, doesn't happen that often of course so you settle, but when it does  |
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Post by xxx on Feb 1, 2019 23:51:24 GMT
hi guys, I was wondering......do you think it is better to read the play before going to see it or just go see it and possibly read it afterwards? same thing with the programme....
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2019 1:34:33 GMT
hi guys, I was wondering......do you think it is better to read the play before going to see it or just go see it and possibly read it afterwards? same thing with the programme.... In my opinion you won't gain much from reading the play text in advance but I can't recommend reading the programme before seeing the play enough. In my opinion it can allow this be be seen as a great play. |
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Post by orchidman on Feb 2, 2019 1:55:01 GMT
Went in with extremely low expectations and they were exceeded. Didn't even think Blanchett was particularly good or magnetic. I don't know how she gets a free pass for this. Her lack of discernment inflicts this material on an audience who assumes her participation is a mark of quality. The last thing she did on Broadway sounded dreadful too. Feel sorry for the supporting cast having to watch this crap everyday. Maybe next time she could choose her play to please you? A safe little Alan Bennett or Noel Coward perhaps? Something set in a drawing room with lovely music during the scene changes? Nothing too challenging for her or the audience. Of course she can star in whatever she likes, that's kind of the point, she's in a position most actors can only dream of being in. It just seems very strange to me that even people who didn't like this play (most people) seem to think Cate Blanchett is somehow above criticism. When it is her decision to star in it which made it into event theatre. It really shouldn't be possible for a play to star her and Stephen Dillane in the leads and not be a success. But from the very restrained applause and totally dead atmosphere as people filed out of the theatre when I attended, backed by the critical consensus, this play is not a success. And a play can't challenge an audience when it bores them out of their minds, it has to engage them. Trying their patience is something different. |
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Post by shelbee on Feb 2, 2019 9:52:33 GMT
Maybe next time she could choose her play to please you? A safe little Alan Bennett or Noel Coward perhaps? Something set in a drawing room with lovely music during the scene changes? Nothing too challenging for her or the audience. Of course she can star in whatever she likes, that's kind of the point, she's in a position most actors can only dream of being in. It just seems very strange to me that even people who didn't like this play (most people) seem to think Cate Blanchett is somehow above criticism. When it is her decision to star in it which made it into event theatre. It really shouldn't be possible for a play to star her and Stephen Dillane in the leads and not be a success. But from the very restrained applause and totally dead atmosphere as people filed out of the theatre when I attended, backed by the critical consensus, this play is not a success. And a play can't challenge an audience when it bores them out of their minds, it has to engage them. Trying their patience is something different. I appreciate your honesty. A lot of the good reviews have focused on the acting while ignoring the play. I couldn't imagine how Cate Blanchett could pull this off...when she's not a racy actress. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2019 11:05:37 GMT
Maybe next time she could choose her play to please you? A safe little Alan Bennett or Noel Coward perhaps? Something set in a drawing room with lovely music during the scene changes? Nothing too challenging for her or the audience. snip And a play can't challenge an audience when it bores them out of their minds, it has to engage them. Trying their patience is something different. The audience it has are not the audience it should have had. Part of this being because they were lured with a star and part if it because many didn't bother to find out what they were going to. The natural audience for this are liking and appreciating it much more (not completely but with a much more balanced and nuanced response). Partly you could blame Blanchett I suppose but moreso the press who hyped it (and the NT who colluded in that) are to blame. Audiences should not be above reproach either (often, and this is too often unsaid, an audience is part of the problem), why on earth were they going to something which is going to be uncommercial, challenging fare without knowing that beforehand? |
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Post by NeilVHughes on Feb 2, 2019 12:11:20 GMT
For me a Great Play with a Great Actor, been unable to shrug the impact and the thoughts have been bubbling continuously since seeing it.
To me it fundamentally questions what it is to be a ‘man’ / ‘woman’ and the SUFFERING this entails/creates, being a ‘man’ kills more young men than any illnesss and being a ‘woman’ inhibits the life of so many talented and exceptional women.
Using the context of a relationship provides an opportunity to show how every day we slide across the male/female continuum and that fundamentally our internal emotions/selves are not gender specific only our external appearance.
For myself this expectancy to be a man (muscular/likes sports etc) has always been an internal struggle, a heterosexual never married male with an interest in the arts has a societal stereotype which if I’m brutally honest is my reticence for musicals.
On the critique of being pornographic, sex is the only true datum in the male/female dichotomy, we live in a pornographic world, sex drives everything, even more so now that pornography is mainstream which has introduced another even more debilitating angle to gender expectations. (I’m sure the pornograhic sites on the web are not the significantly most visited sites due to a few thousand regular primarily male continually returning visitors)
On Cate Blanchett, her exceptional performance is how she slides across the male/female continuum effortlessly and is completely uninhibited in a way which is unexpected in a person of her status and if ever in her position would actively pursue roles like these as does she really need to show she can act by being Hedda..... in the way many successful male ‘film’ actors need the validation of a successful Hamlet....
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Post by ATK on Feb 2, 2019 13:04:00 GMT
hi guys, I was wondering......do you think it is better to read the play before going to see it or just go see it and possibly read it afterwards? same thing with the programme.... I would recommend just reading the Wikipedia plot summary of Richardson’s Pamela. It’s enough to help you follow what’s going on in Crimp’s literary game. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2019 13:11:36 GMT
Yes, I'd agree with that. I knew the general premise of "Pamela" beforehand and read the Wikipedia summary afterwards which helped clarify things a lot.
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Post by xxx on Feb 2, 2019 13:33:13 GMT
thank you all for your advice!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2019 13:38:35 GMT
I read the chapter-by-chapter summary on Shmoop.com. It took a long time but filled me in on a lot of useful detail and with a pleasingly irreverent tone (and it was still significantly quicker) than reading the book itself).
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Post by Snciole on Feb 2, 2019 18:17:16 GMT
Is anyone else still laughing at the NT's "higher than expected returns" line. Are they really clutching their pearls in shock at this?
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Post by shelbee on Feb 4, 2019 10:57:45 GMT
Is anyone else still laughing at the NT's "higher than expected returns" line. Are they really clutching their pearls in shock at this? NT still made out. The play is playing to a full house. Who lost are the ones who entered the ballot system wanting to see Cate Blanchett act live on stage and had to settle for this. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2019 11:33:29 GMT
Assuming they won the ballot, they are getting what they paid for in that case since they are seeing Cate Blanchett act live on stage. The fact the play is not to their taste doesn't change that.
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Post by shelbee on Feb 4, 2019 23:06:13 GMT
Assuming they won the ballot, they are getting what they paid for in that case since they are seeing Cate Blanchett act live on stage. The fact the play is not to their taste doesn't change that. It does if they are returning their tickets, walking out or hated the play. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2019 6:33:53 GMT
It really doesn't. She didn't offer to do requests!
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Post by shelbee on Feb 5, 2019 11:55:45 GMT
It really doesn't. She didn't offer to do requests! Who didn't request what?? |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2019 12:00:38 GMT
shelbee, did Cate Blanchett do something bad to you in the past? Or have you been sent here by Ivo Van Hove to infiltrate this thread because La Blanchett pulled out of 'All About Eve'?
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Post by shelbee on Feb 5, 2019 14:54:20 GMT
shelbee , did Cate Blanchett do something bad to you in the past? Or have you been sent here by Ivo Van Hove to infiltrate this thread because La Blanchett pulled out of 'All About Eve'? I have no idea what you're talking about. Because we are discussing the play and tickets.....not Cate Blanchett herself. Why don't you go bother the person who said she was bad in the play. |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2019 14:57:04 GMT
☝️Well that's me told isn't it?
If I had some pearls on, I'd be clutching them right now.
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Post by Being Alive on Feb 7, 2019 16:47:22 GMT
That was an EXPEIENCE.
I don’t have any words to describe what on Earth that was.
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Post by Marwood on Feb 7, 2019 17:34:26 GMT
Never mind them Torturing Each Other, I thought that was 2 hours of Chinese water torture for the audience: a paper thin idea stretched out and repeated ad infinitum to the point that proceedings went well beyond any usefulness or reward for sticking with it.
‘Ho ho ho, Cate is in her undies, ho ho ho Cate is having saucy fun with a muscle bound young arsonist with a one word vocabulary and oh look, ho ho ho Cate is lubing up a love truncheon to stick up her old mans (and good God, Stephen Dillane looks old in this) Elephant & Castle’ The whole affair just left me feeling depresssed at the end, and not in a particularly profound way, but in a ‘so many people got so excited, and so disappointed at not getting tickets, for THIS?’
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Post by floorshow on Feb 7, 2019 23:28:28 GMT
Got some decent online returns for todays matinee. Still not sure what I think about it, there's a lot of wtf were they thinking.It had moments that were going somewhere interesting but they didn't deliver often enough..
The silence on the way out is quite something!
Massively flawed but I didn't hate it,
I ignored the prep and reading list - is each of the bits a particular letter or is that structure Crimps invention?
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