Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead - Complicité

Unless you are the most ardent Hunter fan, I think you will not be disappointed by the replacement.

Whilst I have issues with the piece, that was nothing to do with the central performance

MJH beat me to two of the things I was going to comment about today's matinee.

Kathryn Hunter was on auto-prompter and reading her lines pretty much throughout. Very distracting and very noticeable from the front row. She also seemed exhausted by the end, a long supportive cast hug/grouping in the wings just visible as I was leaving.

I kinda liked it, I liked more of the staging than the script. It felt too long and I found myself way more interested in the stylisation and the visuals. A big standing O at the end but.. yeah, really not so sure why to be honest.

And, as often, not much to add to this.

I most liked the angle of her character being too small, and even more so too old to be noticeable, as admitting them felt quite radical in a way. 
The "meat is murder" part was the bit about this that mildly annoyed me: it was too blunt to be thought-provoking, and just felt kind of religious, but I would assume that's exactly what they wanted (especially as there are some arguably anti-church elements in the play in contrast), although I cannot quite pinpoint why. (I'm also still pondering Janina's obsession with horoscopes, and these things are likely connected. Is she no better than those who blindly follow religion, rooting her actions in a similar kind of misguided belief system? Are her beliefs, and not the fact that she is old, a socially acceptable reason to discredit her?)

I thought the staging was brilliant, although not too friendly for us with cheap seats. It really added a lot to the experience.
I also found the reading distracting, but I guess it really is a lot of material to go through and (too much) to memorize.

But I did like this, more than I thought I would based on the feedback here.   

Livestreamed from The Lowry Manchester on Thursday, Friday and Saturday through the Bristol Old Vic's site.

I haven't had time to write up my four-star opinion, but the running time in Coventry last Wednesday was as follows:

Act 1: 19:34-21:00
Act 2: 21:25-22:31

Thank you! 

I’m interested in how this translates on live-stream. I found myself completely drawn in but certainly a lot of that (as well as Kathryn Hunter and her fantastic presence) was to do with the lighting and sound. I really noticed how dark the whole theatre and auditorium was most of the time, with very carefully placed pinpoints of lights. And stark moments where we are lit and literally reflected back on ourselves. Plus the rather startling and loud sound design.

Not saying that that couldn’t translate but I’m interested to know if it did? I reckon I’d have found it much easier to be distracted or slightly less engaged if I wasn’t in that pitch black room(and if I had my TV speakers set at a pleasant volume) and with all focus drawn to this tiny woman commanding the space.

A recording of the Lowry performance is made available to stream on demand for a time.