1,008 posts
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Post by talkstageytome on Mar 17, 2017 13:02:44 GMT
I must admit when the cast was first announced I though Rafe Spall would be playing Tesman. I didn't mind him as Brack though.
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1,010 posts
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Post by David J on Mar 17, 2017 13:12:36 GMT
I was left cold by this.
Okay, I've only been acquainted with the play since last year when I saw the Salisbury production with Kirsty Bushell. I also saw The Master Builder and An Enemy of the People for the first time in 2016 as well, and to me when it comes to Ibsen context is a key element to enjoying his plays
Hedda Gabler is an unlikable person, but the whole time I was watching the Salisbury production I was intrigued by why she was the way she was. I was intrigued by what was going on in the Master Builder and Enemy of the People. And the play/production kept dropping hints through the context that surrounded the situation. In Hedda Gabler's case the attitudes and treatment towards women back then
This production simplifies things for the sake of modernising it. It says from the start Hedda Gabler is isolated and lonely. Plain and simple. Stuck in this cavernous prison of an apartment. The subtext of the attitudes of women is reduced to fit with this modern setting, and I kept thinking what exactly is keeping Hedda Gabler in this apartment in this day and age.
Things are better compared to the 19th century but its still not great for women. If you want to put Hedda Gabler in modern times tell me why you think it can be set in modern times.
Because the production shows us Gabler's pain and isolation from the get go it has no where to go. And whilst I liked some of the performances (though Rafe Spall's predatory Judge was certainly a bit simplistic) this production didn't engage me
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724 posts
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Post by Latecomer on Mar 17, 2017 13:13:58 GMT
I thought Rafe was great....scary at the end! Really enjoyed his performance!
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1,103 posts
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Post by mallardo on Mar 17, 2017 13:21:30 GMT
I thought Rafe was great....scary at the end! Really enjoyed his performance! Likewise.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2017 13:36:39 GMT
Have they announced any NT live encores for this? (I'm being lazy about this but I do hate the NT live site...)
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Post by Honoured Guest on Mar 18, 2017 15:56:19 GMT
Yes they have.
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990 posts
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Post by nash16 on Mar 18, 2017 16:27:49 GMT
I was left cold by this. Okay, I've only been acquainted with the play since last year when I saw the Salisbury production with Kirsty Bushell. I also saw The Master Builder and An Enemy of the People for the first time in 2016 as well, and to me when it comes to Ibsen context is a key element to enjoying his plays Hedda Gabler is an unlikable person, but the whole time I was watching the Salisbury production I was intrigued by why she was the way she was. I was intrigued by what was going on in the Master Builder and Enemy of the People. And the play/production kept dropping hints through the context that surrounded the situation. In Hedda Gabler's case the attitudes and treatment towards women back then This production simplifies things for the sake of modernising it. It says from the start Hedda Gabler is isolated and lonely. Plain and simple. Stuck in this cavernous prison of an apartment. The subtext of the attitudes of women is reduced to fit with this modern setting, and I kept thinking what exactly is keeping Hedda Gabler in this apartment in this day and age. Things are better compared to the 19th century but its still not great for women. If you want to put Hedda Gabler in modern times tell me why you think it can be set in modern times. Because the production shows us Gabler's pain and isolation from the get go it has no where to go. And whilst I liked some of the performances (though Rafe Spall's predatory Judge was certainly a bit simplistic) this production didn't engage me "Simplistic" is a much better way of describing his performance/the direction of his performance, I agree.
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990 posts
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Post by nash16 on Mar 18, 2017 16:31:10 GMT
I thought Rafe was great....scary at the end! Really enjoyed his performance! We just really found him ham-tastic, and shouting everything, and kicking the heels of his shoes around. All far too obvious. No subtlety and little evident skill. We longed for Iain Glen's lion-esque Brack, silenty, and mentally taking control of his prey. Not dunking her in t juice and almost doing villain laughs. For all of van Hove's psychological work, he can get very presentational/obvious at times.
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1,214 posts
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Post by Steve on Mar 23, 2017 0:13:31 GMT
Hedda Gabler is an unlikable person, but the whole time I was watching the Salisbury production I was intrigued by why she was the way she was. I was intrigued by what was going on in the Master Builder and Enemy of the People. And the play/production kept dropping hints through the context that surrounded the situation. In Hedda Gabler's case the attitudes and treatment towards women back then This production simplifies things for the sake of modernising it. It says from the start Hedda Gabler is isolated and lonely. Plain and simple. Stuck in this cavernous prison of an apartment. The subtext of the attitudes of women is reduced to fit with this modern setting, and I kept thinking what exactly is keeping Hedda Gabler in this apartment in this day and age. Things are better compared to the 19th century but its still not great for women. If you want to put Hedda Gabler in modern times tell me why you think it can be set in modern times. What David J says strikes me as right. However, weirdly, I saw it yesterday and absolutely loved this show! For me, this was was a sardonic Hedda Gabler (Ruth Wilson) I liked, rather than merely felt empathy for, and it spoke to me today, right now, rather than have me nodding along sagely about how sexist the world used to be, the rather redundant exercise of most Hedda Gablers. Van Hove's vision channels our Gogglebox world of social media users, enraged and engaged by things on the tv and the internet, yet powerless to actually affect the outcome. His set is a vast empty space, upon which people other than Hedda live real lives, while she sits on various seats (piano stool, chair, couch, etc) critiquing them, goading them, sympathising with them. Even when she stands, she stands apart, giving her pithy sarcastic "tweets" of remarks, as much for the audience as for anyone else, about others in the room. Van Hove places myriad rectangular shapes all over all the walls, which psychologically conjure up the image of life as a bank of endless televisions. On the left wall, he actually shows an image of everyone who rings the bell to enter Hedda's house, which means that everyone literally enters Hedda's life as a televisual image. The ever-present maid, played by Eva Magyar, sits and watches the entire show, Hedda's only loyal ally, a fellow sitter and watcher and reviewer, who also perceives life as a stream of events and images that she is disengaged from, but must endlessly watch. I had an uncanny sense of being part of their crew of powerless reviewers, as I viewed the maid, viewing Hedda, viewing, and reviewing, the real lives of action and passion lived by Lovborg (Chukwudi Iwuji) and Mrs. Elvsted (Sinead Matthews). Ruth Wilson was as wonderful as I have ever seen her in this, full of bile and irony, yet also excitement and naivety, and above all a deep silent sadness rooted in a sense of powerlessness, as again and again, she talks about power and powerlessness in relation to everyone and everything. That's how I feel, I thought, when I futilely curse at Trump or Gove or Johnson on the television, or snigger or weep, for that matter. I don't feel my opinion matters one jot, and that's exactly what I saw on stage with Ruth Wilson's Hedda Gabler. It just felt so modern. It felt modern precisely because Van Hove does NOT restrict Hedda's horrible ennui to the nineteenth century repression of women, but allows it to just be: here, screams this production, is what ennui looks like: don't you feel it too? When Hedda finally acts and does something terrible, her action is presented by Van Hove not as the twisted evil act of a twisted person (that we usually see), but as a spiritual becoming, accompanied by the playing of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, tears of relief flooding down Ruth Wilson's Hedda's cheeks, as she finally graduates from reviewer-of-life to be engaged with life, part of life, at last. Her ennui subsides. Brack doesn't feel ennui, in this production. He's society's automaton, with no understanding of despair. That is why Rafe Spall's non-naturalistic portrayal worked so well for me. Spall moves rhythmically with the beat of Van Hove's background music, doing the robot, literally, staccato in his movements, exaggerated in slow motion expression: of course this societal robot would conclude of Hedda's desperate actions: "people don't do this!" I loved Kyle Soller's Tesman. He is so affecting, natural and normal, not a secluded geek at all. His normality denies the contextual excuses for Hedda's ennui that might have allowed us to explain away her despair. Consequently, her misery lingers, unexplained and challenging, long after the performance ends. For me, this Gogglebox Hedda Gabler has enormous resonance in our Gogglebox world, and I won't, and can't forget it! 4 and a half stars
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2,389 posts
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Post by peggs on Mar 23, 2017 14:00:53 GMT
That's great Steve, I can't claim that you've written what I thought as I didn't remotely analyze that deeply but now re-thinking my experience I am likely your argument and I think it enriches my interpretation, thanks.
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724 posts
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Post by Latecomer on Mar 23, 2017 19:01:02 GMT
Have to agree with Peggs, great interpretation Steve....and yes, I do feel like Hedda about politics at the moment....I have had to stop watching news programmes as I feel they are so stupid and shallow and wrong and yet nothing I do will change anything.......
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170 posts
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Post by moelhywel on Apr 2, 2017 23:23:02 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Apr 3, 2017 9:40:15 GMT
Damnit, nowhere near enough to make an easy trip. I love me some War Horse and Curious Incident, but could we not swap one of those for this. *grumbles*
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Post by Honoured Guest on Apr 4, 2017 10:58:59 GMT
Further tour dates to be announced.
It sometimes pays to wait. The Tobacco Factory summer programme announced today includes two plays I thought I'd missed.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 4, 2017 13:16:02 GMT
Further tour dates to be announced. It sometimes pays to wait. The Tobacco Factory summer programme announced today includes two plays I thought I'd missed. Well as I'm not keen enough to see it to drive to Plymouth or similar I will be waiting
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393 posts
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Post by altamont on May 31, 2017 11:36:13 GMT
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18,844 posts
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Oct 24, 2017 7:12:51 GMT
The Lowry has a Manchester Theatres offer of top price seats for £20 for this. Monday to Thursday performances, book by 28th Oct with code mth.
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