312 posts
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Post by jm25 on Dec 2, 2022 1:21:57 GMT
Agree that the plot is certainly far from the first of its kind. But for me it worked because of how relevant it still felt. Lots of the rationale and reasoning Halder comes up with sounded fresh off what you’d hear in an LBC phone-in or on Twitter. Scary stuff!
As for seats, the views and restrictions for some of the cheaper/higher up seats in theatres like the Harold Pinter are so bad that I’d genuinely rather not bother at all in most cases. But I knew I wanted to see David Tennant in this so £70 for a front stalls seat it was! Worth it in this case but definitely wasn’t worth it for The Seagull earlier this year… (The staging of both felt similar though!)
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302 posts
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Post by kyvai on Dec 2, 2022 7:22:40 GMT
Yeah I’ve seen a few people say that this is highly relevant specifically now because of some other modern issue - I’ve heard different people relate it to both Ukraine, and transphobia, interestingly; and I don’t know, I guess I just feel “‘‘twas ever thus”, and it’s still not groundbreaking to relate any other persecution to the Nazis. I enjoyed the direction, the acting, the way the story was told - but I just felt a little bit like I was being told “Woah! Look he put jackboots on, they’re talking about state forced euthanasia and Auschwitz, you’re shocked now!”, and I really wasn’t. It’s dreadful, upsetting subject matter, but it was so clearly signposted, there weren’t any emotional twists and turns to get there, you just get what you expect.
I sat stalls row D to the side for The Seagull, and that was a piss poor view as well, anywhere towards the back of the stalls is rubbish too because the place is full of pillars with a poor rake - at this point I just feel like avoiding the Harold Pinter altogether unless I’m able to get a decent seat on the day on TKTS, which was never going to happen when David Tennant is involved, so they’ve got us over a barrel. The only seats with a decent view are over £100 for all plays here it seems, and £150-180 in many instances, and that is insane, for one person to spend 2 hours at a theatre. And yet because of the star name it’s basically a full house. I’d love to see Lemons Lemons and A Little Life, but unless they get discounted it seems unlikely at this point.
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5,707 posts
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Post by lynette on Dec 2, 2022 23:41:03 GMT
I also watched tonight and I’m not sure about this one. Not helped that because of the exorbitant pricing I went for front of the balcony, and bloody hell it is high up there, I’m not usually one for drama about heights but I honestly did not feel safe getting to my seat so spent the first 20 minutes still with a high level If anxiety from that. The prices really are shockingly high at this theatre, and the seating shockingly bad in the areas I’ve tried so far. The play itself - I think most of the criticisms of it - generally that it’s not actually shocking or surprising when it’s meant to be, because we’ve all seen countless similar stories of how the Nazis did what they did by now, and it’s our history, our grandparents and great grandparents stories. But this was written 41 years ago now - the war ended 36 years before that - so 41 years ago perhaps we weren’t as “used” to this whole idea, and the audience was either there when it happened or it was their parents, they were that much closer to these events. At the time it was written it may not have seemed so unsubtle and predictable. The acting was superb, and I’m glad I saw DT. All 3 of them gave very impressive performances, the split-second switching between characters/scenes/internal monologue/memories and current scenes was very well done every time. You’re definitely aware you are in the presence of great actors watching them do their thing. Maybe this has been playing long enough now that it’s reasonable for discussion of the plot in more detail on here without if being considered a spoiler? I have questions about the ending. What is your question? I think it would be ok to discuss now |
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Post by NorthernAlien on Dec 3, 2022 12:42:15 GMT
I also watched tonight and I’m not sure about this one. Not helped that because of the exorbitant pricing I went for front of the balcony, and bloody hell it is high up there, I’m not usually one for drama about heights but I honestly did not feel safe getting to my seat so spent the first 20 minutes still with a high level If anxiety from that. The prices really are shockingly high at this theatre, and the seating shockingly bad in the areas I’ve tried so far. The play itself - I think most of the criticisms of it - generally that it’s not actually shocking or surprising when it’s meant to be, because we’ve all seen countless similar stories of how the Nazis did what they did by now, and it’s our history, our grandparents and great grandparents stories. But this was written 41 years ago now - the war ended 36 years before that - so 41 years ago perhaps we weren’t as “used” to this whole idea, and the audience was either there when it happened or it was their parents, they were that much closer to these events. At the time it was written it may not have seemed so unsubtle and predictable. The acting was superb, and I’m glad I saw DT. All 3 of them gave very impressive performances, the split-second switching between characters/scenes/internal monologue/memories and current scenes was very well done every time. You’re definitely aware you are in the presence of great actors watching them do their thing. Maybe this has been playing long enough now that it’s reasonable for discussion of the plot in more detail on here without if being considered a spoiler? I have questions about the ending. What is your question? I think it would be ok to discuss now and we can always use spoiler tags to hide the question and/or the answer, I guess? {Spoiler - click to view}
here is an example of a spoiler |
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Post by thistimetomorrow on Dec 3, 2022 15:40:05 GMT
I don't know how much of it was the play itself and how much of it was just me being tired, but I found myself nodding off throughout the show, especially in Act 2. It should be noted that this isn't a particularly long show. The first act came just over 40 minutes and the second half at around an hour, but I was really struggling to stay awake for parts of the show.
I found the character switching quite confusing. In other shows where actors play multiple characters, we usually get a bit of time between switches where the actor might change an accessory of costume piece in order to distinguish between who they are playing, but here the only the actors change was their voice/accent and occasionally posture. This is true especially for Sharon, who switches the most - David only plays 1 character and Elliot only plays 2 or 3 fairly distinct characters. Once we got a little into the play it was easier to tell who Sharon was playing, but at the beginning when there are quite a few quick switches between the mother/Helen/Anne, I did find myself getting a bit lost. I also found that her accents for each of the characters (bar the mother's Scottish accent) sometimes blended a little into one, making it harder to distinguish who she was at that moment. Also, the set stayed the same until the very end and the only other thing we got to help distinguish between scene changes was the lighting, which didn't help too much.
In general the set was very bare ('Cock' vibes), but I did like the actual fire for the book burnings.
Anyway, I'd give it 3 stars. Bit of a shame because I usually like Dominic Cooke's productions, but this one didn't quite hit the spot for me.
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83 posts
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Post by G on Dec 3, 2022 16:49:03 GMT
I don't know how much of it was the play itself and how much of it was just me being tired, but I found myself nodding off throughout the show, especially in Act 2. It should be noted that this isn't a particularly long show. The first act came just over 40 minutes and the second half at around an hour, but I was really struggling to stay awake for parts of the show. I can relate to this. For me, my eyes got quite heavy towards the end of the Act 1. I found Act 2 more engaging due to the worse and worse moral descent and the more interesting use of the set. Excellent acting on display here but for me Sharon Small ran away with it. (Have to get my thoughts in order about barebones sets as in Cock, The Doctor, and to some extent this. They did not work for me at all in those plays; it is also true that one of the plays I found the most engaging, Pippin at Charing Cross Theatre, also had a very barebones set from memory.) Not commenting on the price of my ticket but many tickets for this went for 1 quid or more per minute. That is the wrong metric to judge a show of course but on balance I probably wish I had kept my coins. |
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Post by Jonnyboy on Dec 11, 2022 9:40:54 GMT
Saw last night and thought was excellent, particularly the second half. Dreadful audience behaviour, I thought. Bottles clanking, inappropriate laughter. And who guzzles their way through a bottle of red at a serious play?
And some seemed to find it a comedy. Laughter at inappropriate places, repeated laughter at the c-word, applause after the song… maybe it’s just me but I felt watching in silence more fitting.
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Post by sfsusan on Dec 14, 2022 22:15:51 GMT
I saw it tonight and also have mixed feelings. But kudos to David Tennant for keeping me (mostly) interested in the wrong-headed angst of a man whose moral descent is so clearly foretold from the first scene.
One interesting thing, the theater was giving out stickers to cover cell phone cameras, just like Cabaret does. (These are blank white, so not even decent souvenirs.) I've not seen any other production do that other than Cabaret... is it because of David Tennant?
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Post by anxiousoctopus on Dec 14, 2022 22:26:06 GMT
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471 posts
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Post by mistressjojo on Dec 15, 2022 9:49:59 GMT
They were emphasising no photos *including the curtain call* on my visits, so I think it was more about ‘protecting the impact of the narrative’ , possibly less about the Nazi get up and more so the final reveal ( for those who may not have seen it coming). David Tennant has already stripped off the uniform for the curtain call, plus as I mentioned earlier in this thread he's dressed as a Nazi for a role before so the photos are already out there. They weren't enforcing the stickers at all ( we still had people very obviously taking photos ), if they were really serious about it they could have gone the whole camera locked bag route. |
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Post by NorthernAlien on Dec 15, 2022 10:29:59 GMT
They were emphasising no photos *including the curtain call* on my visits, so I think it was more about ‘protecting the impact of the narrative’ , possibly less about the Nazi get up and more so the final reveal ( for those who may not have seen it coming). David Tennant has already stripped off the uniform for the curtain call, plus as I mentioned earlier in this thread he's dressed as a Nazi for a role before so the photos are already out there. They weren't enforcing the stickers at all ( we still had people very obviously taking photos ), if they were really serious about it they could have gone the whole camera locked bag route. Yes, when we went, they gave our lead person a sticker when they went to collect the tickets from the box office - but didn't enforce the use of it, and the rest of us just didn't get given stickers at all. |
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Post by sfsusan on Dec 17, 2022 20:11:46 GMT
David Tennant has already stripped off the uniform for the curtain call I thought that was very sensitive of him, particularly after having seen Cabaret the previous week where applauding Tomorrow Belongs to Me felt like applauding the Nazis. |
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5,179 posts
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Post by Being Alive on Jan 6, 2023 8:54:30 GMT
I thought this was less than the sum of it's parts if I'm honest...
The cast are universally very good - I'd never seen Tennant on stage before and he's a terrific stage actor, and really holds his own against the great Elliot Levy and Sharon Small.
I just didn't feel like the play had much to say. I guessed where we were headed about 10 minutes in, and was just quite bored waiting to get there. I thought the production design was a bit tedious if I'm honest (again, realised why it was built like that 10 mins in and was waiting for the 'reveal' which I thought was a cheap gimmick at the end.
Like I said they're great actors, but weren't allowed to be brilliant because the material didn't allow it.
3 stars from me - I'm glad I saw it, but I'm still like...why this play?
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Post by cavocado on Jan 6, 2023 10:36:21 GMT
I saw this a couple of weeks ago but have been thinking about it a lot since. It's a clever play, but the understatement made it hard to appreciate and stay focused. Halder is a likeable but dull, flawed, complacent man who lets himself be dragged along by the tide because it's the easiest way to live. Sharon Small's charismatic characters made it easier to watch, but I thought Tennant gave an impressively unsettling performance.
It was clear where it was heading from the start, but what I liked was that by making Halder such an ordinary everyman, the play drags the audience into its murkiness, because how many of us could honesty say we'd have done differently, that we always ask difficult questions, speak out against bad things, even when it might put our loved ones at risk, even when we're already embroiled and implicated in something before we realise it's wrong? Having seen To Kill a Mockingbird again around the same time, I'm wondering where most of us would place ourselves on the sliding scale from John Halder to Atticus Finch, and which play tells us more about human nature as it is, rather than as we'd like it to be.
A depressing play for the festive season, but it has a lot of resonance for today - any number of issues where people are suffering and dying because doing something would be too disruptive or difficult - so I'm glad I got a chance to see it.
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Post by nottobe on Apr 11, 2024 13:12:22 GMT
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4,983 posts
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Post by Someone in a tree on May 22, 2024 6:41:34 GMT
This is still on iplayer and I'm very glad it is. A trio of strong perfmances and clear direction make for one very interesting evening. Powerful stuff.
... I appear to be absorbing a dark period of history with, The tattooist of Auschwitz, Zone of interest, Conspiracy and now Good all read / watched in the last month
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