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Post by alexandra on Feb 7, 2018 13:52:27 GMT
Oh. I was thinking of booking for this, and now you've put me off, which is fair enough. I'm perfectly happy with mood music and no pat answers, but I am absolutely not the sort that searches the internet for evidence that ghosts exist because they don't. Will I like it? I expect a guaranteed response.
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Post by Latecomer on Feb 7, 2018 14:52:27 GMT
Oh. I was thinking of booking for this, and now you've put me off, which is fair enough. I'm perfectly happy with mood music and no pat answers, but I am absolutely not the sort that searches the internet for evidence that ghosts exist because they don't. Will I like it? I expect a guaranteed response. Yes, you will like it. I don't believe in ghosts either and I loved it. Just a hint of Pinter here and there, lots of very grounded dialogue and about as mystical as Jerusalem. I'd say the level of mystery is about the same as when you end a conversation with your elderly relatives...did they really say that? Did that actually happen in their past or did I hear it wrongly? This can of course, equally well apply to teenagers of today, where they delight in baffling you by using words that mean the opposite of what they are....."it's bad"!!!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 7, 2018 15:50:23 GMT
Yeah, any spookiness is obliquely hinted at rather than explicitly staged. As Latecomer points out, it's no spookier than Pinter.
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Post by mallardo on Feb 7, 2018 17:41:32 GMT
Why do we think it's set in Gettysburg, a place resonant with large events? Or is this another of Ms Baker's false trails?
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Feb 8, 2018 1:02:51 GMT
I think we can take the setting at face value. Too much detail for it to be a hoax.
I must be slow because I didn't realise the piano playing was supposed to be inexplicable at first. I assumed she'd knocked the little jukebox on by accident. It wasn't until later when they both played that I realised.
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Post by mallardo on Feb 8, 2018 1:30:30 GMT
I think we can take the setting at face value. Too much detail for it to be a hoax.
The detail re Gettysburg is all accurate - I once spent a night there in a rundown motel with my then girlfriend now wife; Annie Baker captures the mood and feeling of the place exactly. But to what effect? Why be this specific about the setting unless it's critical to whatever point she wants to make?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2018 9:44:03 GMT
It's clearly a pianola, a self-playing piano. Used to be reasonably popular but ultimately just not as space-friendly as a record player. {Spoiler - click to view} The first time it plays is after Jenny has pressed a key, so I guess that's what sets it off. The second time it plays is when no one is anywhere near it. I'd be more inclined to presume that any uncanny presence has pressed a single key or kicked off the mechanism by some other means, rather than is sitting at the bench and playing a full-on jolly tune with ghostly fingers. So I wouldn't have considered the first time as inexplicable, but as a lifelong ghost-agnostic, I could probably come up with an explanation for the second time not being inexplicable either (mouse in the mechanism? Someone pressed a sticky key while we weren't watching and it didn't unstick until later? Power surge?).
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Post by Honoured Guest on Feb 8, 2018 10:05:15 GMT
A pianola has to be played by a performer. Skill is required to control the tempo and to keep the roll in its correct place.
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Post by partytentdown on Feb 8, 2018 10:26:47 GMT
I think we can take the setting at face value. Too much detail for it to be a hoax.
The detail re Gettysburg is all accurate - I once spent a night there in a rundown motel with my then girlfriend now wife; Annie Baker captures the mood and feeling of the place exactly. But to what effect? Why be this specific about the setting unless it's critical to whatever point she wants to make?
Lots of ghosts?
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2018 10:29:52 GMT
There is a member of the pianola family called the "reproducing piano" that claims to need no real human input. Or, as someone suggested earlier, the unseen George may have had a hand in tinkering with this particular pianola to make it less manual. We're significantly further ahead tech-wise than we were a hundred years ago after all, and asking anyone to believe that a ghost would sit down and perfectly play a jolly little tune from start to finish with their unseen fingers is... well, significantly more than I think Annie Baker is asking of us.
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Post by Honoured Guest on Feb 8, 2018 10:38:15 GMT
I haven't seen John but presumably a ghost would play the pianola in exactly the same way as a human would, by operating the pianola roll, not by treating it as a piano.
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Post by jek on Feb 10, 2018 18:19:51 GMT
Went this afternoon and rather enjoyed it - the performances in particular. It could be cut by 20 minutes or so I thought but other than that no complaints. I enjoyed the way that the ticking of the clock seemed to slow me down to the right pace to enjoy the production. We were in seats M5 and 6 in the pit and missed very little. Earlier in this thread people were asking about sitting in M1-4 as these were the Entry Pass seats. You will miss a bit there (although less than you would on the other side of the theatre) but I would have thought given the price of the Entry Pass tickets it is a no brainer (our tickets were £28 each).
And I have to say that, as an Archers fan, it was great to see Anisha from the Archers (Anneika Rose) in the play.
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Post by perfectspy on Feb 11, 2018 22:56:01 GMT
I saw John. A very long play, just like The Flick. I would describe Baker's works to be like Directors cuts, extending scenes for the theatre purists.
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Post by Cardinal Pirelli on Feb 22, 2018 1:13:23 GMT
Loved the way this took the typical fifties/sixties American play and subverted it; scooping out any forcedly narrative dialogue and replacing it with conversations that, initially, appear to be specks of different ideas, but which gradually come into focus as thematically linked. The setting is typical of playwriting of that era, as are the basic tensions, but instead of the sequential narrative here the effect is created by accretion instead, as though several transparencies are being laid one on top of another.
In a Wilder-esque touch, the “here’s an ending, for those that want an ending” is also a nod to its cousins of earlier decades, it appears on the surface to tie things together but, in fact, resolves nothing being a simulacrum of one. Like the dolls, it stands as a recognisable copy. Each character tells stories that don’t quite hang together, of husbands, sisters and families; they are similarly recognisable but just a little bit askew, they don’t completely add up. In fact, the whole production is like watching something that is travelling at a different angle, an angle that makes it so unsettling to watch.
Most unsettling moment, the weird language in the notebook. Something really unfathomable about that.
Lots to still think about.
EDIT: Plus Lovecraft, the second appearance of Cthulhu in a play at the NT in the last few years!
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Post by bramble on Feb 22, 2018 11:47:06 GMT
agreed plenty think about.well worth the effort.excellently acted.
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Post by wiggymess on Feb 22, 2018 12:00:47 GMT
Sorry to repeat questions on here, but just to clarify re intervals:
1st is around 15/20mins, 2nd has something worth staying in your seat for, and AFTER that has finished, there is around a 10 minute break?
Thanks :~)
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Post by crowblack on Mar 6, 2018 23:24:42 GMT
I'm just back from seeing Circle Mirror Transformation at Home in Manchester, which was excellent. I think it's a much better play than John - it comes in at around 1hr50 straight through, with far more engaging characters/situations and - well, just better overall really (no spoilers). It's only a short run, but maybe it'll travel (?).
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