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Post by Jan on Nov 26, 2018 14:51:55 GMT
I mean what the symbolism was ? No - patterns? What lies beneath or gets brushed under? Btw, they had some cast carpet hoovering in the Royal Exchange's Streetcar too. No. Apparently the way things were added to the set as the play proceeded was supposed to remind you of a photograph being developed so you started with nothing and it was only at the end you saw everything. There was some explanation of that from the photographer character at one point. I didn't get it at the time though. |
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Post by Polly1 on Nov 26, 2018 17:29:15 GMT
He tripped on the rug when I saw it too.
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Post by orchidman on Nov 28, 2018 4:43:20 GMT
First half was an absolute chore, second half decent. Found Edward Hogg and Kevin Harvey incredibly irritating, I think at least with Harvey his character is supposed to be so. I don't know the play but I found it completely bizarre {Spoiler - click to view}
that anybody would think shooting a duck would win back her father's love as some sort of sacrifice. Even if it made some sense in Ibsen's time, just ludicrous in modern dress. |
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Post by Jan on Nov 28, 2018 7:30:49 GMT
On your spoiler, you could make that point about most modern dress versions of the classics, lots of Shakespeare and all the Greeks for example - Icke's Oresteia - the audience just have to suspend their disbelief over certain plot points. It does not bother me much, but I don't see any compelling reason to update Ibsen (or Chekhov), their era is close enough to us to still be understandable.
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Post by crowblack on Nov 28, 2018 11:42:59 GMT
I don't know the play but I found it completely bizarre It really is. I old my Mum the plot and she was '"Jesus, this is dafter than opera!" I'd add "and who the hell keeps a duck in their loft?" but we did keep an injured seagull in the landing airing cupboard once. Have fun with that one, nordic dramatists. |
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Post by Deleted on Nov 28, 2018 11:51:47 GMT
I don't know the play but I found it completely bizarre It really is. I old my Mum the plot and she was '"Jesus, this is dafter than opera!" I'd add "and who the hell keeps a duck in their loft?" but we did keep an injured seagull in the landing airing cupboard once. Have fun with that one, nordic dramatists. Nah, "The Seagull" is Chekhov, not Ibsen. |
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Post by crowblack on Nov 28, 2018 14:10:41 GMT
I know - but I lump Russia in with the Scandis (cold, forests, melancholy, painted furniture) |
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Post by lynette on Nov 30, 2018 12:24:19 GMT
Friend of mine in an exam wrote Chekhov for Ibsen and vice versatile all through. Don’t think they noticed.
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Post by NeilVHughes on Nov 30, 2018 23:46:12 GMT
As the lifelies unravel, the entire Theatre tenses, the intensity ratchets as we Reach the unbearable conclusion.
An open, almost throwaway, and sometimes irritating first half becomes near perfection after the interval.
Again a production where knowing the ending does not diminish its impact, an experience that is nearly impossible to explain and for me is the essence of Theatre.
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Post by n1david on Dec 1, 2018 5:49:20 GMT
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Post by tmesis on Dec 1, 2018 18:56:19 GMT
I found this insufferably smug, up-itself and tedious. I stayed until the end as many have said the second half was better. Well it wasn't for me. I also thought the scenic 'reveal' at the end a complete let-down, looking like a tawdry Christmas display at my local garden centre.
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Post by popcultureboy on Dec 2, 2018 8:21:42 GMT
I found this insufferably smug, up-itself and tedious. I stayed until the end as many have said the second half was better. Well it wasn't for me. I also thought the scenic 'reveal' at the end a complete let-down, looking like a tawdry Christmas display at my local garden centre. And this is exactly why I chose to leave at the interval, despite being told by everyone who had seen it to "stick with it". I loathed the first half so much, I spent the final ten minutes of it staring at the floor, willing it to be over. The friends who had seen it, I asked them to tell me what they thought I was missing in the second half. They told me and..... I have exactly ZERO regrets that I left. None. Not one. |
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Post by Deleted on Dec 2, 2018 10:49:14 GMT
Yes, me too. Found the first half insufferably self-indulgent and baled out at the interval. Would probably have stayed for the second half if it had started earlier: had to be elsewhere in the evening and wasn't enjoying it enough to justify the rush later on.
I'm surprised I disliked this so much as I've enjoyed everything else of Icke's I've seen.
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Post by David J on Dec 2, 2018 13:16:49 GMT
First off, I agree with the above that the meta-theatre stuff was tedious. I get what Icke was going for but it dragged down the first act. Which is a shame because if I was to rate the second act alone I would say this was the best production I saw all year. In fact this brought forward some feelings I've been harbouring over the last few years about the way PC culture tells us to mind our words and polices the way we live our lives. I don't want to divulge on this forum but the more I read about this and the way people out there set out to ruin people's lives because they don't fit in their own worldview just sickens and scares me. So when I see the Gregers character come in to drop a bombshell on the Ekdal family, who for the first act 1 was living a happy if not perfect life, I fought the urge to go up to him and punch him in his serene face. Thankfully the doctor character just about did that for me at the end. Yes maybe the Ekdal family were harbouring secrets that they would have to talk about one day. But it's not up to anyone else to decide when they should address it, especially not Gregers with his ideals and guilty conscience And watching the fallout during the second act I was on an emotional rollercoaster. A visceral and heartbreaking experience with a shocker of an ending, all pulled off brilliantly by Edward Hogg, Lyndsey Marshal and Clara Read as the Ekdal family. I came out of this and walked back to the city centre seething and am still mulling it over. If ever this is a production I am really glad I saw, despite the first act. This play is up there with some of the greatest tragedies for me. It has helped solidify some thoughts I've been harbouring For instance, I felt reluctant to post on this thread theatreboard.co.uk/thread/5663/all-feminists, and no disrespect to the OP but to answer her question, No! |
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Post by peggs on Dec 2, 2018 17:09:48 GMT
Now when I first this another production of this play I had similar Gregors feelings, as far as I was concerned Mr Ekdal junior has done pretty well really even if there is an unspoken truth that he doesn't know about, he's clearly put first and foremost by his wife and daughter in every instance even when that means things like they go hungry and equally clearly he was never going to amount to much, there was never going to be some great idea and frankly he doesn't recognise how well off he is. So yes Gregors instance of truth was entirely self motivated and self justified and not justifiable. There was some line in this production about Ibsen chosing to use the play to portray the idea that secrets are better than truth sometimes because of the fallout but that this was just a convenient way to justify his behaviour when it came to his illegitimate child etc. Ok I thought, that is perhaps something I should think about as I went away from my first few Ibsen's with the take that the plays were often about or featured some secret that one released in some great truth telling moment led to terrible consequences. But I still wanted to slap Gregors. There's a line in this production where Gina says 'don't judge me' and I thought i'm not but I am very much judging someone else I'll admit. I really like this play, it's one of those where you can see the crash coming someway off and there's nothing you can do but watch them all slide headlong into it.
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Post by Jan on Dec 3, 2018 7:08:01 GMT
Icke is very polarising and subject to some severe criticism, as he is directing a lot in Europe now (next two productions are in Germany & Switzerland) I wonder if he will permanently move there, it would be a pity, like when Peter Brook stopped directing in UK.
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Post by nash16 on Dec 3, 2018 15:57:27 GMT
Icke is very polarising and subject to some severe criticism, as he is directing a lot in Europe now (next two productions are in Germany & Switzerland) I wonder if he will permanently move there, it would be a pity, like when Peter Brook stopped directing in UK. I think the things recently on Twitter about him might hasten that retreat abroad. |
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Post by peggs on Dec 3, 2018 20:14:02 GMT
Pity. I more often than not like his stuff and when you come to except something other than the ordinary it's easier to judge whether it'll be your thing or not.
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