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Post by mrbarnaby on Feb 9, 2023 21:14:10 GMT
I also saw this last night (the final preview, I think, so it should be locked in, and Simon Stone's daily rewrites should be over), and LOVED it! For me, it's a culture clash comedy, as well as a culture clash tragedy, so I think it intends to elicit the laughs it gets along the way: a very modern Phaedra! The cast is universally wonderful! Some spoilers follow. . . The set features a shimmering glass cage trap, as in Simon Stone's "The Wild Duck," also similar to Stone's glass box in "Yerma," where it also felt like an examination room, with the audience in the position of therapist, examining Yerma's psychology from a distance. This set has another layer still, beyond cage trap or exam room: it spins on it's axis, even as characters move around it, and mix themselves up in a variety of combinations. In that sense, the set feels, to me, like a giant cake mixer, spinning it's mix of cultural and experiential ingredients around, cooking these ingredients into a whole new cake. The baking powder of the cake, catalyst of the plot, is Assad Bouab's Sofiane (avatar of Hippolytus from Seneca's play, though he isn't Janet McTeer's Phaedra's stepson, in this version, but the son of her deceased former lover). Stone writes remarkably modern feeling characters (the stuff Archie Barnes's super-smart kid was babbling on about left me feeling positively ancient lol), but with the exception of Sofiane, who emerges from a culture of political persecution as a man who can no longer bear to be anything but open and honest, the other characters embody a quintessential civilised reserve. It is the repeated breaking of that sense of reserve that serves up the comedy. Funnily enough, the play this most reminds me of is "God of Carnage," in which McTeer herself played one of four characters, whose reserved and thick veneer of civilised behaviour was smashed apart into bickering and savagery by an incident at school. Here, there is no incident, but a person, in the form of Sofiane, who triggers the comedy and tragedy. McTeer, as ever, is an absolute force of nature, but this is such a strong cast, with John McMillan's Eric exceptionally funny, as his character is the most recalcitrantly and pathetically civilised, even under enormous pressure, and Mackenzie Davis's Isolde, Eric's wife and Phaedra's daughter, more subtly funny, in the way she is so unwittingly and believably exactly like the mother she hates. And Paul Chahidi, always reliable, is magnificent here, as a man of languages, who bridges cultures, and yet still can't hold things together. When he begins to crack, like an intellectual Basil Fawlty, I belly laughed. Ultimately, this play moves beyond "God of Carnage" into full Greek territory, and for my money, does so successfully and excellently. I wouldn't rate this as highly as Stone's Yerma, which was a primal scream from the soul that still upsets me to think about today, as Phaedra doesn't merit the sympathy Billie Piper's Yerma did, nor does she even merit the symapthy of Marieke Heebink's supremely soulful and tragic "Medea," but by goodness, if you're going on a grand trip into self-entitlement, Janet McTeer is the force of nature to make it exciting. 4 and a half stars from me. Oh Steve. Every post of yours is a mini play in itself. Highs, lows, the emotion. The drama.
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Post by bordeaux on Feb 9, 2023 21:29:21 GMT
I am now looking forward to this. Has anyone seen the Yerma online? I missed it on stage; does the NT Live capture enough of the production's qualities?
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Post by intoanewlife on Feb 9, 2023 22:24:05 GMT
I am now looking forward to this. Has anyone seen the Yerma online? I missed it on stage; does the NT Live capture enough of the production's qualities? Yes it does, it is fantastic x
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Post by ThereWillBeSun on Feb 10, 2023 0:26:11 GMT
Is this worth seeing???
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Post by mrbarnaby on Feb 10, 2023 6:27:46 GMT
Have you not read the above posts?
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Post by lonlad on Feb 10, 2023 9:27:25 GMT
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Post by londontg on Feb 10, 2023 10:56:57 GMT
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Post by bordeaux on Feb 10, 2023 13:06:28 GMT
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Post by jr on Feb 10, 2023 14:33:14 GMT
From Time Out: "a sloppy melodrama with funny bits in it". For me this summarises it perfectly. Lots of cheap TV soap operas are much better than this expensive rubbish.
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Post by intoanewlife on Feb 11, 2023 0:50:37 GMT
It sounds to me like they had their press night WAAAAY too early if they are still having so many problems.
I am going to book later in the run so hopefully its sorted.
I refuse to believe Stone could stuff up that badly.
Though frankly, when did mixing comedy with drama become such a crime?
Did they just change the wording in one of their Marvel reviews?
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Post by G on Feb 11, 2023 15:29:08 GMT
Can somebody unveil a bit of stage magic for me. People have remarked on the interruptions to change sets. How many sets would you say were used? {Spoiler - click to view} My guess was two: I assumed they had used the same glass box for the home and the restaurant, and the same glass box for the wheat field and the end. Does that sound right? Also where would they store them and how would they bring them on and off the stage? Would these be kept in the space behind the stage - there must be a lot of room there if so…!
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Post by jgblunners on Feb 11, 2023 15:57:01 GMT
Would these be kept in the space behind the stage - there must be a lot of room there if so…! I can’t comment on this production, but for general information: the Lyttelton stage has two spaces off it (one behind, one to the side) which are the same size as the stage. When shows used to play in rep, the set for whichever wasn’t playing performances would be stored in one of these spaces. For larger shows (like Angels in America), the spaces could be opened up and used as extensions of the stage space. So it is definitely possible that there could be multiple sets for this play as you suggest.
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Post by G on Feb 11, 2023 16:41:56 GMT
Would these be kept in the space behind the stage - there must be a lot of room there if so…! I can’t comment on this production, but for general information: the Lyttelton stage has two spaces off it (one behind, one to the side) which are the same size as the stage. When shows used to play in rep, the set for whichever wasn’t playing performances would be stored in one of these spaces. For larger shows (like Angels in America), the spaces could be opened up and used as extensions of the stage space. So it is definitely possible that there could be multiple sets for this play as you suggest. That’s very informative - thank you.
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Post by Steve on Feb 11, 2023 17:24:45 GMT
It sounds to me like they had their press night WAAAAY too early if they are still having so many problems. I am going to book later in the run so hopefully its sorted. I refuse to believe Stone could stuff up that badly. Though frankly, when did mixing comedy with drama become such a crime? Did they just change the wording in one of their Marvel reviews? He hasn't stuffed up. He's mixed comedy with drama, hasn't made either the principal engine, and for some, that is indeed a crime lol. And I get it. Genre pleasures are denied if you don't choose one and hit it hard. I myself rate "The Unfriend" as a try-hard comedy, with only one scene that is laugh-out-loud funny (the toilet scene), and the rest relies on a superb cast to buoy it up. But that's because I take no pleasure in it as a satire or a drama or anything else. For me, I judge "The Unfriend" as a comedy, and it's not quite good enough to be good. If I judged this as a comedy, it would be three stars of laughs, hamstrung by it's serious pretensions. If I judged this as a tragedy, it would be three stars of character-based fatefulness, hamstrung by it's lightweight comedy. But to me, this feels more ambitious than that. It feels multi-dimensional. It creates characters and family relationships that are modern, witty and believable. It throws in a dramatic catalyst, and then does multiple fascinating things all at once, being funny, being dramatic, but mostly serving as a reflective commentary (we literally study the relationships through glass from multiple angles) on how bonded all these very modern relationships are, how deep our roots in family and community are, in a world full of phones, selfishness, scheming and distractions - who is and who isn't a grown-up. Simply put, I don't want to use genre archetypes to dismiss this, cos it feels deeper than a ride on the genre rollercoaster. For me, the tonal wobbliness is a strength, as real life is "tonally unsure," after all lol.
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Post by intoanewlife on Feb 11, 2023 19:03:02 GMT
It sounds to me like they had their press night WAAAAY too early if they are still having so many problems. I am going to book later in the run so hopefully its sorted. I refuse to believe Stone could stuff up that badly. Though frankly, when did mixing comedy with drama become such a crime? Did they just change the wording in one of their Marvel reviews? He hasn't stuffed up. He's mixed comedy with drama, hasn't made either the principal engine, and for some, that is indeed a crime lol. And I get it. Genre pleasures are denied if you don't choose one and hit it hard. I myself rate "The Unfriend" as a try-hard comedy, with only one scene that is laugh-out-loud funny (the toilet scene), and the rest relies on a superb cast to buoy it up. But that's because I take no pleasure in it as a satire or a drama or anything else. For me, I judge "The Unfriend" as a comedy, and it's not quite good enough to be good. If I judged this as a comedy, it would be three stars of laughs, hamstrung by it's serious pretensions. If I judged this as a tragedy, it would be three stars of character-based fatefulness, hamstrung by it's lightweight comedy. But to me, this feels more ambitious than that. It feels multi-dimensional. It creates characters and family relationships that are modern, witty and believable. It throws in a dramatic catalyst, and then does multiple fascinating things all at once, being funny, being dramatic, but mostly serving as a reflective commentary (we literally study the relationships through glass from multiple angles) on how bonded all these very modern relationships are, how deep our roots in family and community are, in a world full of phones, selfishness, scheming and distractions - who is and who isn't a grown-up. Simply put, I don't want to use genre archetypes to dismiss this, cos it feels deeper than a ride on the genre rollercoaster. For me, the tonal wobbliness is a strength, as real life is "tonally unsure," after all lol. Great to hear. I have loved everything of his I have seen including his film and I get that he is indeed a bit Marmite, so I will just wait and judge for myself!
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Post by londonpostie on Feb 12, 2023 0:34:14 GMT
Tbh, I read this as probably more of the mocking of particular socio-class types, with blended Greek tragedy.
Bless you Simon Stone for that mocking, absolutely my brew, and not hard to see why The Guardian in particular would respond with two stars.
Probably more to say after an am coffee.
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Post by intoanewlife on Feb 12, 2023 10:53:56 GMT
Ok now I am scared...
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Post by londonpostie on Feb 12, 2023 13:37:32 GMT
oppps < SPOILERS FOLLOW >
Sure there was comedy - no writer is going to turn down an easy win though, for me, mockery is a better descriptor of the weapon of choice. The targets: entitlement, privilege, likely metro, middle-class family and, in particular, a female type. If Simon Stone gives the family enough rope to hang itself, he himself hangs, draws and quarters his Helen of Troy. I guess the starting point is whether it works as an entertainment, and it certainly did for me – it holds you throughout; stimulating, quick-fire banter, acute social observation, laugh out loud moments, unexpected twists .. At the same time, it is clunky. It’s almost like one of those Lennon and McCartney tunes where one contributes the start, the other then end, and cross your fingers George Martin can engineer a bridge/transition (not claiming Phaedra is the theatrical equiv. of A Day in the Life). But yes, 'tonal' variance. There are more dimensions to ponder. For example, I’m not sure the issue of revenge vs. fate is resolved (need a second visit), and it seemed much of what you take away hinges on your reading of that very traditional tension. IIrc, we know nothing of Helen’s background, only that she washes up in Morocco in 1978-79, after a non-identified Uni, a beautiful statuesque young woman. So, an intentionally black slate. We only see her now, 40+ years later; a successful (Ministerial) politician, wife of a Shah-supporting Iranian of very considerable illegitimate wealth, and owner of enough properties to be able to transfer ownership to her children (standard tax dodge). To be clearer about the entitled, privileged, middle-class woman; the only ‘f’ word not used in the production was ‘Feminist’. But it is there, in bold, between most lines. From my own modest but not insignificant life experience, I have known women like Helen; who identify as Feminist, effectively using the identity as a cover for do-whatever-the-f***-you-want and just walk away after. Didn’t matter where the husband’s money came from – priorities are wealth and status, didn't matter who might become collateral damage – her husband/s, other women, other women and children, all of whom pay the price: if ‘men’ can do it so can I. It was, apparently, ‘sexual liberation’ and certainly not predatory or adulterous in nature; it was never feminism, though. It was class entitlement, every bit as much as Boris Johnson’s marital antics have been. At least for the type we see here. My preference might have been not for Helen to be a generic Shadow Minister, but maybe someone senior in media broadcast or print (in management or on screen). I dunno .. maybe a Joan Bakewell-type character .. a Goddess too far, perhaps. Kudos to Simon Stone for getting in some very decent jabs and for the overall ambition (writer/director), and – *deep breath* – to Rufus and Co for the nads. Imo, perfectly reasonable to say it doesn’t land perfectly, or perhaps even comfortably, but time flew for me, I smiled often and I laughed. www.historytoday.com/miscellanies/helen-whore-and-curse-beauty
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Post by edi on Feb 17, 2023 18:44:30 GMT
Going to see it next week.
The NT says: "This is a multilingual production with English subtitles". Is this not in English? I cannot stand reading subtitles, it completely distracts me - I cannot 'see' and 'read' at the same time.
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Post by c4ndyc4ne on Feb 17, 2023 22:47:46 GMT
there are extended segments not in english
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Post by intoanewlife on Feb 17, 2023 22:55:57 GMT
Going to see it next week. The NT says: "This is a multilingual production with English subtitles". Is this not in English? I cannot stand reading subtitles, it completely distracts me - I cannot 'see' and 'read' at the same time. I believe it's during blackout scenes (like Yerma which had the thrash music instead) while scenery is getting changed, so not during the actual performance.
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Post by G on Feb 17, 2023 23:34:55 GMT
Going to see it next week. The NT says: "This is a multilingual production with English subtitles". Is this not in English? I cannot stand reading subtitles, it completely distracts me - I cannot 'see' and 'read' at the same time. I believe it's during blackout scenes (like Yerma which had the thrash music instead) while scenery is getting changed, so not during the actual performance. Some spoken bits are also not in English during actual scenes in the performance.
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Post by adolphus on Feb 18, 2023 2:10:58 GMT
There is an Arabic voiceover which is translated into English on a black screen at the start and between several scenes. There's also a long monologue towards the end of the play which is translated onto surtitles on the base of a revolving set, and is very difficult to read as it's also delivered breathlessly. It would be difficult to read even if the set was static.
The staging is overly- complicated, and this Phaedra is simply too selfish, shallow and unlikeable for us to care or in fact believe that she is finally undone by a real love. The script should have have deepened her plight rather than make her more Ab-Fabby Edina grotesque.
Janet McTeer is tremendous, and like the rest of the cast, transcends the text
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Post by youngoffender on Feb 18, 2023 20:42:01 GMT
Today was my first outing to the NT for at least three years, and it was great to see the building so full of life again. It remains my favourite indoor space in London, and I have spent more enjoyable hours in its cafes and foyers than I have in its auditoria (read that how you will...) So was Phaedra the right show to come back for? Well, I certainly found much to admire: the uniformly excellent performances, the sharp familial banter, and the sleek revolving set. But ultimately the play felt as airless as the box they perform in, and I was left entirely unmoved.
I wonder if anyone else was troubled by the play's sexual politics. It's achingly correct in its post-colonial perspective, seeing Helen's initial 'conquest' of Achraf as an appropriation of the exotic from which all future troubles flow. However, it's also as reactionary as Genesis in in its view of female sexuality, where women are succubi from whose insidious charms men must be protected. We only hear Achraf in voiceover, but he is romanticised and ennobled in a way that feels 'exoticising' in its own right, and without any sense that he had his own agency in the betrayal of his family. Likewise, his son's behaviour seems to be painted as the inevitable consequence of Helen's original sin, rather than the freely chosen and destructive actions of a selfish gigolo.
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Post by bordeaux on Feb 19, 2023 15:52:56 GMT
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Post by londonpostie on Feb 19, 2023 16:24:06 GMT
That is some reading ..
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Post by theatrelover123 on Feb 19, 2023 16:34:47 GMT
Those are dreadfully written reviews. Was there no Editor to check them? They read like a drama student reviewer on work experience stepped in to write them at the last minute
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Post by intoanewlife on Feb 19, 2023 20:20:49 GMT
I wonder if anyone else was troubled by the play's sexual politics.
I won't be. I go to see theatre to see other people's stories, not my own.
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Post by stevemar on Feb 19, 2023 22:45:51 GMT
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Post by edi on Feb 21, 2023 10:29:59 GMT
I really don't know, I have very mixed feelings about this.
I enjoyed more when it was played out as a comedy, I found it very modern and in a way relatable to our modern middle class entitled lives. I didn't like the long black outs but I understood it was needed for the glass cage and I was OK to endure it because the glass worked for me. I liked how it rotated and as a previous poster said, mixed the ingredients of the cake of this family. So for the first half and until the end of the restaurant scene, I thought this was a 4+ evening.
But it completely lost me during the long Arabic/French sequence. Even though the subtitles are on various places, none were comfortable for me, and my neck started to ache very soon. Not only that but I was unable to keep up with the reading, it's so fast. So I completely lost my interest and in fact gave up on reading - and it is a longish scene and I felt it would've been important for me to understand - to understand the back story of Sofiane.
The very last melodramatic scene was OK but impossible to reconcile with the previously ruthless and modern woman. But by that time I was simply just too bored to care much.
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