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Post by kathryn on Sept 28, 2016 9:57:26 GMT
I mean, we never even know why Yerma wants a baby; the only reason Stone or Piper gives us is “because she wants to, because she wants to”. I know you're half-joking here, Nicholas, but - speaking as someone who has never wanted to have children - the reason most people want a baby is basically 'because she wants to'. At least from my perspective, anyway. People don't need any other reason. Indeed, they persist in wanting babies even when it's demonstrably the worst possible thing that could happen at that point in their lives, and they'd be much better off not having them. At some point you just have to chalk it up to biological imperative.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2016 11:57:42 GMT
I mean, we never even know why Yerma wants a baby; the only reason Stone or Piper gives us is “because she wants to, because she wants to”. I know you're half-joking here, Nicholas, but - speaking as someone who has never wanted to have children - the reason most people want a baby is basically 'because she wants to'. At least from my perspective, anyway. Agreed, and it's part of the reason I wasn't that bothered about booking for this (though I do regret missing what seemed to be another great performance by Piper). As a woman who's blissfully child-free, I get a little tired seeing yet another drama out there about a late 30s/early 40s woman who's desperate for a child. There are other types of late 30s/early 40s women out there, you know, dramatists! (Don't even get me started on the travesty that is ITV's Paranoid.)
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Post by Polly1 on Sept 28, 2016 12:21:16 GMT
I know you're half-joking here, Nicholas, but - speaking as someone who has never wanted to have children - the reason most people want a baby is basically 'because she wants to'. At least from my perspective, anyway. Agreed, and it's part of the reason I wasn't that bothered about booking for this (though I do regret missing what seemed to be another great performance by Piper). As a woman who's blissfully child-free, I get a little tired seeing yet another drama out there about a late 30s/early 40s woman who's desperate for a child. There are other types of late 30s/early 40s women out there, you know, dramatists! (Don't even get me started on the travesty that is ITV's Paranoid.) Jeanhunt, thank you, you have articulated my situation and thoughts about this play perfectly.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2016 13:13:55 GMT
s a woman who's blissfully child-free, I get a little tired seeing yet another drama out there about a late 30s/early 40s woman who's desperate for a child. It's the Mumsnet mafia I tell you! Part of their campaign to tell every childless woman that they're incomplete without children and they're not natural if they don't want them! It's relentless!!
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Post by Baemax on Sept 28, 2016 13:54:10 GMT
I too am a blissfully child-free 30-something! More plays with child-free women would be GREAT. Men are allowed to be all sorts of things in plays, but we are almost always considered as mothers or girlfriends before anything else. Just being a person would be nice. Breeders at the St James was a nice play but bothered me a lot, although The Awkward Squad at the Arts Theatre was great, and Jumpy had some good aspects too. I liked Yerma though - for whatever reason, probably the performances, it was a strong enough piece to suggest that this is literally just the one character's journey and thought processes and biological needs, and I never felt that I personally was being judged on any level by the production, because it was so clearly about this one character without her acting as a reflection for all women.
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Post by kathryn on Sept 28, 2016 15:41:11 GMT
It is a great performance - and she is going to win all the awards for it, no doubt at all. But I must confess it left me completely unmoved. A bit of a weird experience, to be honest - I can see that it's good, but personally I just find it completely unrelatable. I imagine for anyone who has been through that situation it will be devastating to watch.
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Post by Honoured Guest on Sept 28, 2016 15:52:40 GMT
I never related to Macbeth until I was tricked by three equivocating witches I met on the blasted heath late one night.
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Post by Baemax on Sept 28, 2016 15:57:53 GMT
Nice point, HG, but come back when society has been telling you from birth that you're a FAILURE AS A MAN unless you've killed a king.
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Post by Honoured Guest on Sept 28, 2016 16:02:06 GMT
Well, at university I gave Prince Edward a death stare. But he just laughed.
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Post by kathryn on Sept 28, 2016 22:33:00 GMT
I never related to Macbeth until I was tricked by three equivocating witches I met on the blasted heath late one night. I entirely accept that the 'problem'* is me. *The problem being not being able to relate to the character, rather than not wanting kids.
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Post by djp on Sept 29, 2016 4:45:48 GMT
I too am a blissfully child-free 30-something! More plays with child-free women would be GREAT. Men are allowed to be all sorts of things in plays, but we are almost always considered as mothers or girlfriends before anything else. Just being a person would be nice. Breeders at the St James was a nice play but bothered me a lot, although The Awkward Squad at the Arts Theatre was great, and Jumpy had some good aspects too. I liked Yerma though - for whatever reason, probably the performances, it was a strong enough piece to suggest that this is literally just the one character's journey and thought processes and biological needs, and I never felt that I personally was being judged on any level by the production, because it was so clearly about this one character without her acting as a reflection for all women. Saw this last wed matinee, and thought Billie was terrific. No justice if she doesn't get some gongs for this . She's so powerful and intense that in some ways its a good thing she's not putting herself through that too many times. I would have thought that this was clearly an individuals story, it takes time showing a range of reasons for wish becoming desire, and then obsession and then instability developing, and explores those issues enroute. But it ends up, I thought, suggesting heavily the psychological impact of her abortion being at the root of her final decline. She's not responding to pressure to conform, be anything, or be like anyone else - she's caught in her reaction to her own past?
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Post by Steve on Sept 29, 2016 23:49:30 GMT
If Stone had given Yerma a rounder, richer life from the beginning, this would be a two-hour-plus drama of profound humanity with an utterly devastating ending, but as it is it’s a slight 1hr45 study of an over-simplified protagonist given far more depth than she deserves by a wonderful, wonderful central knock-out performance. Fantastic review, Nicholas! I made it to the last show, and I was overwhelmed by it. I agree that if you use your brain, the characterisation comes off as thin and one-note, but for me, this is essentially a primal howl, so I preferred to throw my brain out the window. If you think about it, of course Yerma's offhand dismissal of adoption is ridiculous, and her goal of having a genetic child shouldn't isn't logically the be-all-and-end-all of life. If producing a mini-me is the only goal of me, then life is intrinsically pointless, after all. But biology isn't about rationality, and the play captures her irrationality, and descent into mental illness, as a slow inevitable march into biological hell over 9 years or so, that reaches such a fever pitch of intensity that I found this magnificent and unforgettable. It's all been said about how brilliant Billie Piper is in this, so I will focus on one specific thing I loved, which was how playful her performance was, from beginning to end. At first, she's effervescently playful, then she's quizzically playful, then sardonically playful, then bitterly playful, then bonkers playful, and only at the very very end does the playfulness end, and we get Yerma's pure unadulterated scream of agony. It's that moment the play drops out of Piper's performance that it kicked me so hard in the gut! A brilliant play, burying it's primal scream in an otherwise recognisable and topical milieu, with the best performance of the year from Piper, and excellent support from Brendan Cowell! 4 and a half stars.
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Post by peggs on Sept 30, 2016 12:12:56 GMT
Great review Steve, spot on.
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Post by Nicholas on Oct 1, 2016 22:00:36 GMT
I mean, we never even know why Yerma wants a baby; the only reason Stone or Piper gives us is “because she wants to, because she wants to”. I know you're half-joking here, Nicholas, but - speaking as someone who has never wanted to have children - the reason most people want a baby is basically 'because she wants to'. At least from my perspective, anyway. People don't need any other reason. Indeed, they persist in wanting babies even when it's demonstrably the worst possible thing that could happen at that point in their lives, and they'd be much better off not having them. At some point you just have to chalk it up to biological imperative. HALF-joking? Is such a thing possible? You can never over-estimate how facetious I’m being. I only got into theatre so you lot have to take it seriously when we’re comparing Fannies and Gaylords.
But you’ve hit the nail on the head, actually. That’s a perfectly legitimate(ish) reason to have a child – for the sheer damn hell of it – but it didn’t work within this drama, when it so easily could have. A few years ago Duncan Macmillan’s Lungs was similarly about a very modern hip middle-class couple thinking about having a child “because they wanted to”, but they debated whether that was good enough in this world (they decided, spoiler, that (as Yerma decides) it was), and I refuse to believe that this couple would not have had the same conversations – even briefly – about whether that’s good enough and what it entails to bring a new life into the twenty-first century (particularly given how ‘modern’ other parts of the play were – they clearly read the Guardian, if they’ll discuss Sadiq and Avocados, they’ll sure as hell discuss the carbon footprint of eighteen years of child-rearing, let alone other practical concerns). More damningly, though, they just needed to say “I want a child, because I want a child” with some clarity, and whilst it wouldn’t be motivation enough for me personally, it would be motivation enough for the drama. If it’s a perfectly realistic reason for having a child, it needed to be spoken more clearly here.
But then, I wonder if Steve’s hit the nail on the head (lot of nails today). That’s too literal. Dare I flog my dead horse one more time and look at Lars von Trier, who literally destroys the world to make a metaphorical point about depression (in Melancholia, his least objectionable film, and his bona fide masterpiece), so, in comparison, denying a woman a baby is child’s play. I suppose it’s a similar thing here – ultimately the child’s a catalyst, a thematic point. And I don’t know where Lorca ends and Stone begins on that. But I do think that there needs to be a greater sense of realism to the macguffin to make the drama really, really zing.
And I do think a lack of depth and believability hurts it dramatically and emotionally, because without realism I can’t surrender to it wholly (and it was SO CLOSE to realism!). I can believe they’d dismiss adoption, because too many people sadly do. But to return to popcultureboy’s point, I can’t believe that some as strong as Yerma would let her husband take three years to do a sperm test out of misplaced machismo, or that her husband would be so callow himself, or that her friends wouldn’t have a word and make him do it – stalling, yes; macho pride, yes; three years, no not this couple. And I wish we saw more of the ‘rational’ woman before her ‘irrationality’ over the baby took control, because actually I think that would be more believable, to give her three dimensions and watch them crash to one desperate one, would make a far richer arc, and a far less repetitive first half.
That said, still much to admire, particularly in the second half where I think we can agree on it streamlining everything down to the basic, simple, desperate emptiness of her life. And besides, I think we could all do with a Steve Mini-Me in our lives.
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Post by alexandra on Oct 3, 2016 13:28:25 GMT
Nicholas, you just haven't got this at all - I should move on. I never have time to read your whole posts, but Yerma doesn't "decide" to have a child. She doesn't want one "for the sheer damned hell of it". She just wants one.
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Post by thebearofwestend on Jun 1, 2017 9:35:07 GMT
Please come to broadway.
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Post by herculesmulligan on Jul 24, 2017 12:51:46 GMT
A few tickets are currently available on the Young Vic website for this
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Post by mikey on Jul 24, 2017 12:59:46 GMT
A few tickets are currently available on the Young Vic website for this Thank you!!! Been stalking the website for weeks for returns!
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Post by wiggymess on Jul 24, 2017 13:17:16 GMT
They must have gone quick...
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Post by floorshow on Jul 24, 2017 15:51:39 GMT
Just managed to snaffle a single, need a pair really :/
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Post by Marwood on Jul 24, 2017 16:06:04 GMT
Ticket(s) available for 29th July, £125 (although that includes an after party with the cast and crew).
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Post by floorshow on Jul 24, 2017 16:35:40 GMT
Box office staff seem blissfully aware of any tickets apart from the fundraiser being available, still seeing singles come and go for other nights but no pairs..
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Post by tal on Jul 24, 2017 16:46:37 GMT
Managed to get a 20 pound ticket for this Thursday. So happy!
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Post by herculesmulligan on Jul 24, 2017 19:08:48 GMT
You're all welcome!
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Post by floorshow on Jul 26, 2017 10:38:18 GMT
Availability for tonight.
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Post by justinj on Jul 27, 2017 15:10:31 GMT
Many dates have availability
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Xanderl
Member
Not always very high value in terms of ticket yield or donations
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Post by Xanderl on Jul 27, 2017 15:23:06 GMT
Brilliant, thanks!
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Post by AddisonMizner on Jul 27, 2017 15:29:34 GMT
Just managed to get myself a £20 ticket for later in the run. Have no idea what the seat is like? Anybody have a seating plan for this show? Am I right in thinking the running time is 2 hours with no interval?
Really excited now, having previously struggled to get tickets.
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Post by Baemax on Jul 27, 2017 15:48:44 GMT
It's traverse staging, so a big long perspex box running through the centre of the space and the audience sat on either side. The nice thing about the perspex box is if an actor has their back to you, often you can see the reflection of their face, so even if you're right at the far side, you'll get a decent view. I believe it was 1 hour 40 with no interval last time round, I don't expect it will have changed any.
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Post by Honoured Guest on Jul 27, 2017 16:18:01 GMT
Any pillars?
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