John Gabriel Borkman - Bridge Theatre

I saw JGB on Monday and while I don't regret it, exactly, it's not a show I can easily recommend. The problem squarely lies in the structure: the three main characters talk endlessly about the actions of the past, and somewhere in those reminiscences are the materials for what could have been an arresting plot (grift! back-stabbing!  mortification!). But that plot, alas, isn't what we're seeing, but rather, a sort of dismal epilogue: it's just recrimination 24/7, and that grows quickly wearisome. While the acting is superior, the production isn't helped by a drab, gray design that mirrors the flatness of the arc of the play. 

I'm not quite sure what attract Hytner to this piece. I can see where a play about a megalomaniac financier might have some currency (so to speak) in the age of Trump, but that aspect is never explored. And it's not that every play needs to hit the audience over the head with urgency, but JGB is especially opaque. For Ibsen "completionists," this production is easy to recommend, but for most theatre-goers, I sense it's a puzzlement.

What a treat! Three exceptional actors at the top of their game - Simon Russell Beale, Clare Higgins and Lia Williams ably supported, especially by Michael Simkins.

I was among the very receptive matinee audience today and, judging from their reaction at curtain call, I was far from alone in thoroughly enjoying the afternoon. Yes, you had to concentrate very hard on the intricacies of the plot and dialogue, but then I expect that with Ibsen. I found it gripping from start to finish. Four stars from me.

I agree but we should make clear the poor writing was by Lucinda Coxon and not Ibsen. 

There are lots of good translations of this play which have been very successfully produced (the NT have sold out twice with it) so why not use one of those ? The answer here seems to be that they wanted an "updated" version. It is not necessary to update Ibsen - audiences are smart enough to draw parallels with the present day without being spoon fed - but if you're going to do it you need to rewrite the entire play word by word to fit a modern setting. This can be done well - I recall Simon Stone's "Wild Duck" - but usually it is a disaster. Here the dialogue is totally unbelievable in a modern setting, a strange combination of period English (I suppose copied from the literal translation) with soap opera style melodramatic additions, attempted jokes, and random Americanisms thrown in. Hopeless.

The play is non-naturalistic and poetic - setting it in period makes that easier to accept, here you just think "Why are they speaking like that ?" and that undermines even the best actors. Points of the original plot make no sense in a modern setting either - why would anyone in 2022 care less what surname someone used ? They need to be modified to be relevant. 

I didn't like the design either - set or costumes. 

It is very well acted and so a great opportunity missed. The result is a play starring SRB with 50% of the seats empty. 

Thank you for expressing so well what is wrong with the play- it did come across as modernised and abridged from what Ibsen would have written, but not knowing anything about it and never having seen it, I didn't know the extent of the changes. Now it makes perfect sense why it did not work for me.

My impression at the time was that it wasn't significantly abridged. I checked afterwards and one character had been dropped but no scenes. The problem was rather that key telling lines in the original were simply rendered banal by the adaptation and thrown away. This is a great play but you'll have to take my word for that - the previous productions I've seen were electric - and far more accessible than "The Master Builder" or "When We Dead Awaken" for example.  

I saw the Donmar one. Directed by Michael Grandage in a version by David Eldridge. 

If you haven't got a ticket you can get one on TodayTix Rush for £25 - given how poorly it has sold I imagine you'd easily get a good seat. 

Gallery stalls were closed yesterday, so I assume they always are now.

The use of the piano piece Dance Macabre by Saint-Saens, which is specified in the text, brought to mind as I was watching it Strindberg's "Dance of Death" which is a play which actually is in that format. 

I wondered whether Simon Russell Beale was suited to the part and having seen it tonight, have to say the jury is well out on that. His physique is not helped by the odd (and pointless) decision to vaguely set it a few decades into the future from its original 1890s setting - which sees him clad in a shapeless vest and tracksuit bottom - putting him in a frock-coat or even an old-fashioned, expensive gown might have helped. But above all he is too buffo, too keen to wring a laugh out of anything which makes this production at times veer towards an Ayckbournesque vibe. We needed gravitas and got gags.

Already mentioned the "updating" - the visible evidence is the television set, a two-bar electric radiator and mention of "a car". None of these does anything for the play but, as with many plays which rely on sins and transgressions, making it more modern merely stretches credibility. Profumo would never have resigned in the modern political climate.

Lia Williams stood out for me as the characteristic Ibsen outsider in this play - even if she is JGB's sister-in-law. She was very convincing as the fey, disappointed dying former love interest - convinving to the point that I hope it was all characterisation, she didn't look well.

There is, as has been pointed out, a lot of talking about the past in this play but then this was practically Ibsen's last properly completed play and, in a loose sense, autobiographical in that he was looking back at his career as a playwright. Some of these speeches were addressed at great distances and the intimacy required wasn't always there.

Not bad, but far from what could have been achieved.

I agree on SRB. He is a peerless comic character actor but in serious roles he’s mostly only good as characters who have been disappointed in some way - this fits that bill. I’ve seen him more than any other actor, 35 productions.