The Confessions - National Lyttelton
Oct 19, 2023 22:49:48 GMT
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Latecomer, rumbledoll, and 5 more like this
Post by Steve on Oct 19, 2023 22:49:48 GMT
Saw this tonight and LOVED it.
A journey through one ordinary Australian woman's life from youth to old age, it's simultaneously singular and universal, and altogether unforgettable.
Some spoilers follow. . .
What's this like? It's an extraordinary play about ordinariness, so it merits comparison to other such plays:-
(1) About a decade ago, Cate Blanchett did a play called "Big and Small" at the Barbican in which a woman wanders through her own life like a square peg that just can't fit into a round hole. I was bowled over by it, but it wasn't to everyone's taste as it was extremely stylised and non-naturalistic.
This feels like Alexander Zeldin's spin on that kind of story, about a woman struggling to feel comfortable in her own skin over decades, except, like his other plays, it is utterly naturalistic, full of mundane dialogue and quotidian conversations. Every scene is transfixing and truthful, amusing for its mundanity, moving for its truthfulness;
(2) I was reminded of was Alistair McDowell's "All of It," at the Royal Court, in which Kate O'Flynn astonishingly and movingly acted out the whole of an ordinary woman's life, from birth to death, in 45 minutes. This is like that, except it's more specific, in that it would appear that the woman is based on Zeldin's own mother's "ordinary" life, so there is a strange confessional quality to it, as if secrets are being unearthed, that isn't in McDowell's play, and the timespan covered isn't as long;
(3) Brian Friel's "Dancing at Lughnasa," which recently played the National Olivier, also bears similarities, in that both plays are semi-biographical, conjuring up the world of the authors' parents, although with Friel, we follow many characters, whereas with Zeldin, it is very much his "mother's" story;
(4) Another cultural touchstone that this is like is the movie, "Forest Gump," if the story were less reactionary, and poor Robin Wright were the main character, and her flailing attempts to be significant in the world were treated with reverence and respect, instead of patronising scorn.
Anyway, unlike Zeldin's other plays, this one is not about societal injustice, as faced by marginalised British characters, but like in those plays, it does utilise his Annie Baker-esque eye for the mundane and monotonous way real life plays out, with an eye to building a bond between the characters on stage and our own day to day monotony and awkwardness. Like in his other plays, the house lights stay on to varying degrees, to emphasise an essential lack of separation between the stage world and us.
The whole cast is wonderful, without exception, with Eryn Jean Norvill's portrayal of the lead, Alice, unconfident in the face of her own ordinariness, ever flustered by the high and low expectations of others, completely winning.
Joe Bannister, as two terrible men in Alice's life, is fantastic and frightening, in the most mundane, predictable and banally malevolent ways.
And other cast members also make indelible impacts, creating highly credible characters, such as: Amelda Brown's bruised older and wiser version of the lead; a heartbreaking Brian Lipson as her happily unfulfilled father and her equally unexpectant husband-to-be; Yasser Zadeh as the kindliest best best mate that one could wish for; Pamela Rabe as the lead's vacant controlling mother-dearest; Gabrielle Scawthorn as an always hopeful female best mate; Lilit Lesser as amusingly sly and impish female friends; and Jerry Killick as two characters that feel carefully and beautifully carved and crafted from the essence of small town Australia.
For me, the only downside of the play is the awkward shoo-in of Zeldin's own avatar, who is not properly included in the set-up, and thus, when he does appear, his appearance is somewhat inelegant and forced, and threatens to steal the play from its rightful owner, his mother.
All in all, if you like any of the plays above, or if you resent Forest Gump as much as I do, you might like this unique, universal and utterly human story about how difficult it is to fit into our own skins and stories. 4 and a half stars from me.
A journey through one ordinary Australian woman's life from youth to old age, it's simultaneously singular and universal, and altogether unforgettable.
Some spoilers follow. . .
What's this like? It's an extraordinary play about ordinariness, so it merits comparison to other such plays:-
(1) About a decade ago, Cate Blanchett did a play called "Big and Small" at the Barbican in which a woman wanders through her own life like a square peg that just can't fit into a round hole. I was bowled over by it, but it wasn't to everyone's taste as it was extremely stylised and non-naturalistic.
This feels like Alexander Zeldin's spin on that kind of story, about a woman struggling to feel comfortable in her own skin over decades, except, like his other plays, it is utterly naturalistic, full of mundane dialogue and quotidian conversations. Every scene is transfixing and truthful, amusing for its mundanity, moving for its truthfulness;
(2) I was reminded of was Alistair McDowell's "All of It," at the Royal Court, in which Kate O'Flynn astonishingly and movingly acted out the whole of an ordinary woman's life, from birth to death, in 45 minutes. This is like that, except it's more specific, in that it would appear that the woman is based on Zeldin's own mother's "ordinary" life, so there is a strange confessional quality to it, as if secrets are being unearthed, that isn't in McDowell's play, and the timespan covered isn't as long;
(3) Brian Friel's "Dancing at Lughnasa," which recently played the National Olivier, also bears similarities, in that both plays are semi-biographical, conjuring up the world of the authors' parents, although with Friel, we follow many characters, whereas with Zeldin, it is very much his "mother's" story;
(4) Another cultural touchstone that this is like is the movie, "Forest Gump," if the story were less reactionary, and poor Robin Wright were the main character, and her flailing attempts to be significant in the world were treated with reverence and respect, instead of patronising scorn.
Anyway, unlike Zeldin's other plays, this one is not about societal injustice, as faced by marginalised British characters, but like in those plays, it does utilise his Annie Baker-esque eye for the mundane and monotonous way real life plays out, with an eye to building a bond between the characters on stage and our own day to day monotony and awkwardness. Like in his other plays, the house lights stay on to varying degrees, to emphasise an essential lack of separation between the stage world and us.
The whole cast is wonderful, without exception, with Eryn Jean Norvill's portrayal of the lead, Alice, unconfident in the face of her own ordinariness, ever flustered by the high and low expectations of others, completely winning.
Joe Bannister, as two terrible men in Alice's life, is fantastic and frightening, in the most mundane, predictable and banally malevolent ways.
And other cast members also make indelible impacts, creating highly credible characters, such as: Amelda Brown's bruised older and wiser version of the lead; a heartbreaking Brian Lipson as her happily unfulfilled father and her equally unexpectant husband-to-be; Yasser Zadeh as the kindliest best best mate that one could wish for; Pamela Rabe as the lead's vacant controlling mother-dearest; Gabrielle Scawthorn as an always hopeful female best mate; Lilit Lesser as amusingly sly and impish female friends; and Jerry Killick as two characters that feel carefully and beautifully carved and crafted from the essence of small town Australia.
For me, the only downside of the play is the awkward shoo-in of Zeldin's own avatar, who is not properly included in the set-up, and thus, when he does appear, his appearance is somewhat inelegant and forced, and threatens to steal the play from its rightful owner, his mother.
All in all, if you like any of the plays above, or if you resent Forest Gump as much as I do, you might like this unique, universal and utterly human story about how difficult it is to fit into our own skins and stories. 4 and a half stars from me.
