An Octoroon (Orange Tree Theatre)

Transferring to the Dorfman next July.

Just been to second preview at the Nash and loved it. Barmy with a punch, part circus part satire. The most bizarre piece if theatre I have ever experienced. I was a little lost in Act 1 (particularly the first 20 minutes which are very different) but it builds steam and Act 2 is a tour deforce. Tempted to book again for later in the run, as the technical elements could do with a little tightening but it is preview 2 so to be expected.

Just as I thought, people are still loving this. Which is great all round, but I remain mystified as to why it's the plays and films I most dislike and only wish I could forget (also Pomona and the interminable Call Me By Your Name) which refuse to lie down and die - quietly!

I saw this at the Orange Tree and liked it - I think the framing of it (though you can imagine the actor playing writer delivering his first speech in a small Richmond Theatre was uncomfortable - if the whole play had been like that - I wasn't up for a lengthy harangue - I would have headed for the door myself) was needed to highlight the reclaiming and reworking of the story. There were also moments of great depth (I remember a scene between two of the actresses being particularly strong) and beauty (loved the cellist who, at the Orange Tree, was sat in the aisle and was incredible.) The staging was hugely creative as well - in an exciting 'what's going to happen next?' way.

This is the third production I've seen, and I enjoyed it every bit as much as the first.

I agree that this one seem to run a little long. Probably could have been 10 minutes shorter.

But overall, well done.

I haven't seen any interviews with the writer or director, so am happy to be corrected, but this was my take on the points you made:

While I don't think it was necessarily 'necessary' to frame the play in the meta and comedic way it did, I think if you removed that side of things it would have been a fundamentally different play. I mean, you could ask whether most artistic choices are truly 'necessary' for pretty much any piece of art. However, in my opinion that's a separate (and less important) issue than whether or not those choices were effective, or true to what the artist(s) were trying to say.

Secondly, my take on it was that the prologue scene with the playwright talking about the play was honest. Which is to say I don't think that he was simply trying to mock the original play, or laugh at Boucicault. My feeling was that the points at the beginning (that he thought the play was good, but troubling in a modern context) were earnest. Therefore, this framing was both an acknowledgement of the fact that you couldn't put the play on 'as is' without at least addressing the issues, as well as a reflection of the fact that he was interested in the issues of race, identity, and theatrical form and explicitly wanted to do a play that talked about these things.

For me at least, it was a mixture of things; sometimes that awkward laughter that you might do when you see something shocking, outrageous or distasteful, sometimes laughing at the silliness/slapstic, sometimes laughing at a clever moment or joke, sometimes laughing in that uncomfortable, awkward way, and so on. On the whole I didn't find it as hilarious as some in the audience did, but I did feel it struck the right balance.

My feeling (and again, I'm happy to be corrected by others), was that the discomfort was part of the point. I don't think that the humour of the play and the seriousness of the subject matter are necessarily incompatible.

I don't know about theatre, but there are certainly comedies set during the holocaust on film. Perhaps not 'farce' but Roberto Begnini's Life Is Beautiful was critically lauded on release, although admittedly it's had a backlash since. I think Robin Williams' Jakob The Liar was similar.

The showing of that image seems to obviously serve to shock the audience but also comments on an earlier line about "photos not being shockable anymore".

The image proves that they still can be, and obviously are.

I enjoyed this, I think, but it was a very uncomfortable watch, which it is of course supposed to be. I think I enjoyed most the bits (eg Act IV) where the debate about the difficulties in staging the play were interspersed with the play itself.

Out of interest I read the original text of "The Octoroon" this morning - it's available on Project Gutenberg - www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46091.

To be honest there's nothing in the original text (or in the introductory scene to "An Octoroon") to explain why Jenkins sees the play as worthy of staging. Anyway, most of the dialogue of the slave characters in the play is reproduced verbatim in the Jenkins version, including pronunciation as specified by Boucicaut. (for instance )

Most of the slaves don't speak in the original so Jenkins has added contemporary dialogue for the female slaves who now take the part of multiple silent characters in the original.

The plot makes a lot more sense in the original - for instance, the photographer and inventor of the camera is not the same character as the nephew, and the corpse & wrecked camera are hidden together by Wahnotee so it makes more sense that nobody mentions it till the scene with the reveal. The Aunt is a major character in the original (her attitude to Zoe is quite interesting) and there's a lot of interesting stuff at the beginning around the way Zoe is treated in a social setting by the white characters, before the reason for this is revealed.

Regarding the ending,

Seemed to me the moral of the original was "be nice to your slaves" rather than "slavery is bad". This is made very clear in the auction sequence in the original.

Forgot to add another difference -

The 'NT Talks' podcast have now released the interview with Brandon Jacobs Jenkins that happened a few weeks ago. I don't know if it's the entire thing (episode is only 20mins long) and it's fairly lightweight and focuses more on the theatrical side of things than the social commentary but it's somewhat interesting.

It's a shame that these podcasts aren't released in a more consistent manner. I don't think the Annie Baker interview during John has been released yet.