1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Apr 12, 2024 6:47:38 GMT
Saw this last night and agree with everyone above that it's a total smash, that the set designer deserves an A Star for brutal claustrophobic simplicity and that Rosie Sheehy is giving one of those great performances that nobody who sees it will ever forget. Some spoilers follow. . . The fact that Richard Jones did Eugene O'Neill's "The Hairy Ape" previously at The Old Vic, with Bertie Carvel, and that Rosie Sheehy was in it, just feels so perfect. Cos that play could easily be subtitled "Capitalist Life is a Constrained Cage of Nasty Little Boxes, and you'll probably Explode in the End: the Male version." Whereas, this play feels like the Sequel: "Capitalist Life is a Constrained Cage of Nasty Little Boxes, and you'll probably Explode in the End: the Female version." We await Jones's conclusion to the Trilogy: "Capitalist Life is a Constrained Cage of Nasty Little Boxes, and you'll probably Explode in the End: AI in Charge, Human Life is Cancelled" with Rosie Sheehy as the AI lol. In "The Hairy Ape," Rosie Sheehy's character was the daughter of the Capitalist magnate who pretty much owned Bertie Carvel's character, and when she looked at him with disgust, it was like he took the red pill and realised he was in the Matrix, and he would never escape. In "Machinal," it's Rosie Sheehy's character who slowly realises she's in "The Matrix," a confused polar bear in a zoo tragically bashing its powerful head against the walls of an inescapable cage. And the garish slopped-on in-yer-face yellow paint of these walls (just two rather than the three at Bath) makes this inescapable stark triangular prison maddening in a way the Big Brother TV producers would be proud of, always looking for environments that will drive human beings up the wall lol. Anyway, I loved the way Jones has directed the ensemble to function so robotically in this prison of a space (all the windows are illusions that never open up for us), I loved the way Daniel Bowerbank's File Clerk constantly declares "Hot Dog" in blue-pilled delight at his own prison, I loved how turning the lights off seems to represent "freedom," even though we know the walls are still there in the dark, I love Pierro Niel-Mee's apparently warm young man, offering so much possibilities in such a shallow way. And most of all I love Rosie Sheehy's physicality, her moment to moment fish-on-a-hook straining against her cages (can you imagine if your "hands" were all someone thought you had to offer?), her onslaught of utterly real, utterly human despair, her immense tangible raging against the machine in every scene. I thought she was great in Hairy Ape, in The Wolves, in King John, in Oleanna, in Romeo and Julie, but God, this is something beyond, something unforgettable. 5 stars from me.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Apr 11, 2024 18:17:26 GMT
I guess I won't be seeing it in June then. Should I make an effort to see it? Is there a show I might have seen before and either liked or hated that would be a good barometer? There really aren't any shows like this, and I'm certainly not one to listen to about this as I'm an outlier opinion. However. . . (Some spoilers follow) . . .the best comparisons I can make are with works where a creative individual is stuck in a rut and a frantic world whirls around them. Such shows are more introspective and static than dramatic and event-filled, though they turn to fantasies to provide an element of drama. The best such show is "Sunday in the Park with George," which gets into George Seurat's creative head, and is, in my opinion, better than this, a 5 star show, lifted by Sondheim's genius and a clever ending, which time jumps away from the static first act. Another show like this is "Preludes," which gets into Rachmaninoff's head, and all the zaniness in that head, and personally, I did not enjoy that as much as this show, and rated it 3 stars of passable at Southwark Playhouse. "A Strange Loop" is a bit like this too, but less so, as it's more an exploration of identity than creativity, but the similarity is being caught in the protagonist's head negotiating creative blocks. I liked that show more than "Preludes" but less than "Opening Night." The best scenes in this show all revolve around Sheridan's Smith's essentially static character, Myrtle, entering into extreme emotional states, lost in a creative block brought on by aging, while a threatening creative world threatens to eat her up. Like all the above plays (except the clever time jump in the Sondheim final section), there is little real drama going on. That's why this was never a good bet for the West End. I really don't think that "Preludes" or "A Strange Loop" could have done much better business than "Opening Night" at the Gielgud, though "Sunday" could have, as Sondheim is more universally loved than Rufus Wainwright, and Jake Gyllenhaal is a world famous actor, rather than a UK famous actor, so the tourists could prebook that from abroad for their holiday visits. Anyway, I think to enjoy this, you must prepare yourself for the stasis, not expect dynamic action, nor must you expect the misanthropic intensity of the movie. Wainwright isn't intense, he's a mournful sardonic observer of life more than a participant. Instead, just allow yourself to imbibe Sheridan Smith's Myrtle's lostness (has any actor ever cried more tears in a play?), and allow Wainwright's comforting wistful music to sweep you and her into a dreamland for each disconnected, strange moment of her suffering, redeemed by the music. In Myrtle's eleven o'clock number, "Ready for Battle," which I had thought might be called "The World is Broken," Myrtle, like Seurat in "Sunday," sings of finding "order in the disorder" of her creative life, which is what Seurat does with his painting. One of the reasons I preferred this to "Preludes" and "A Strange Loop" is the sheer emotionalism of Sheridan Smith's character in every scene. She reminds me of Tracie Bennett's Judy Garland in "End of the Rainbow." I voted 4 stars in the poll, making my opinion an outlier lol.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Apr 10, 2024 22:19:40 GMT
Saw this tonight and thought it was wonderful. Some spoilers follow. . . This is like an amiable one hour ten minute episode of "Talking Heads," where you get insights into acting, aging, memory, Shakespeare, storytelling, the inevitability of change and the importance of love. This is a one man play featuring Paul Jesson, written especially for Paul Jesson by Richard Nelson, with input by Paul Jesson, such that the fact and fiction blur, and I for one, couldn't tell you where one begins and the other ends. Both character and actor have had part of their jaw removed to cut out cancer, and have had to convalesce. There are reminiscences about acting in Shakespeare plays, anecdotes about Laurence Olivier and whatnot, that all felt like utterly real, albeit desperately moving and elegaic, chit chat. I recall Jesson as a brilliant Gloucester opposite Derek Jacobi's Lear at the Donmar, and he was great too as Cardinal Wolsey opposite Ben Miles's Thomas Cromwell in "Wolf Hall." In film, he was affecting opposite Timothy Spall, in "Mr Turner," as the painter's loving, secretly unwell Dad. Here, after his convalescence, while he may have acquired what sounds like a lisp, it is much more mild than you might imagine, just like anyone who has had a lifelong lisp, and it has had no deteriorative impact on his moment to moment acting, where you feel you can almost touch his thoughts as they emerge as bright and misty-eyed reminiscences. This play feels like an episode of Alan Bennett's "Talking Heads," though Richard Nelson is less committed to drama than Bennett. Like Granville-Barker, the lead character in his play "Farewell to the Theatre," which also played at the Hampstead Theatre, Nelson is more interested in creating an involving meaningful theatrical world and immersing us in it, than playing dramatic tricks on us, and in that he very much succeeds. The collaboration between Nelson and Jesson in creating this play actually feels more like a three-way collaboration, where Shakespeare is a third partner, for Shakespeare's insights and lines inform much of the play, much of which involves Jesson's character recollecting the peculiarities of his beloved partner, Michael. Having himself played Leontes in "The Winter's Tale," at the Globe, here Jesson's character is impelled to speak the last act lines of Paulina (last heard by me spoken by Judi Dench in Kenneth Branagh's West End production) about how "dear life redeems you," and indeed, there is something very redemptive about this conversational, uneventful but deeply moving production. 4 stars from me.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Apr 10, 2024 14:42:39 GMT
Market forces will prevail and you should really blame the people who are willing to pay inflated prices to see shows Not the people selling the tickets This is the exception to the market forces rule, though. These specific tickets have been subsidised by the producers for a specific class to attend, not so they can resell the tickets. Its outrageous to resell these tickets. It should be stopped.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Apr 6, 2024 12:02:51 GMT
Tom’s casting makes it higher profile and therefore more likely to get people who don’t go to the theatre frothed up. So, we all know that this type of casting is common, but they don’t. Noone should have to suffer this. It's horrible that a talented actress needs shielding from an online mob.
On X, some of these people are convinced its a Disney film, some of them think that Juliet was real, some of them are white supremacists.
All of them seem to want Shakespeare's original vision without realising that the only thing we know for sure about Juliet from Shakespeare is that she's 13 YEARS OLD and Romeo fancies her. Bet they'd be up in arms if they got that!
Bet they don't realise Shakespeare himself would have cast a bloke! They'd probably be up in arms if they got that too.
These sorts of insults don't tend to succeed in achieving anything anyway, as the backlash is usually stronger. I remember how The Sun called Jade Goody a "pig," an "oinker," and "a hippo," and in the end the backlash to their barrage of insults lifted Jade Goody higher on a tide of public sympathy than she ever would have been without the insults in the first place.
I hope Francesca Amewudah-Rivers becomes an even bigger superstar than she otherwise would have been.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Apr 6, 2024 11:29:19 GMT
Yes, agreed. I’d really like to hear it again, especially the song in Act 1 that was performed as a quartet (almost like two duets juxtaposed against one another). I don’t even know the song name as they weren’t in the programme! I loved that song too. I called it "One More Dream," as that was the key refrain, but the critics got a songlist, and they named it "Talk to Me," so that's it.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Apr 5, 2024 17:05:08 GMT
Had an email from LoveTheatre saying more seats have been released to them… front centre of the Dress Circle… £275.00!!! ARe they ticket resellers like stubhub or are they a legitimate theater organization where by paying that crazy amount one can think of it as a donation to their company. But deep down -- are these real legitimate tickets? I ask because I'll be in London in late May and might actually buy one ticket as long as it's a real ticket (unfortunately I'm not eligible for the 25 pound tickets.) Lovetheatre.com is a completely legitimate arm of ATG, the primary ticket sellers.
Those are not resale tickets. Lovetheatre.com is typically used by ATG to farm off either higher-priced tickets or lower-priced offers.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Apr 5, 2024 9:41:47 GMT
RIP to the most wonderful actor, who was the heart of everything I saw him in.
My thoughts are with his family and friends. </3
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Apr 5, 2024 9:07:46 GMT
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Apr 5, 2024 8:29:01 GMT
To be fair (not that anyone has to be fair with the DM or the Sun) they’re making it very clear that this isn’t Sheridan’s fault. They’re specifically saying or quoting people saying her performance is good. Slagging off the production/concept is exactly what most people here have been doing since it opened and indeed saying way more critical things than the press have said. Double standards? As for The Telegraph saying it should stay open after giving it two stars and calling it a “pretentious convoluted mess” is a bit rich. It’s behind the paywall so I can’t see his justification for it staying open, what’s his rationale? I loathe The Sun, and wish Liverpool's defacto boycott would expand to the whole United Kingdom. And I loathe The Daily Mail as well. But you're right that they're not saying anything about this that hasn't been said here first.
Also, Cavendish's article doesn't actually live up to his headline.
For example, he writes: "How many of those who walked out of Opening Night will be returning to the West End any time soon?"
Taking Theatreboard's votes as representative of the General Audience, you've got 61 votes in 1 and 2 star territory and only 14 votes in 4 and 5 star territory, so you've got 4 people disliking the show for every 1 that likes it. That suggests that the sooner it closes, the fewer people will be put off from "returning to the West End any time soon." Thus Cavendish's headline is contradicted by the substance of his article.
What he is actually saying is that "No one wants a West End stuffed with tried and tested “safe bets” or old-fashioned star vehicles," and he is sad that this production makes that more likely.
He argues that "the blunt fact is that Opening Night wasn’t ready to open; and I’d argue that many of its flaws are remediable."
I'd probably take some issue with that in that I think the Cassavetes source material would throw general audiences for a loop even more than this show.
But assuming he is right, his prescription is that "We need dramaturgs to be more astute and hands-on. Writers’ egos notwithstanding, we also need people in the room early on, perhaps not even allied to the production so that complacent assumptions can be blasted, early decisions queried and group-think avoided."
So what he is actually saying is not what the headline says but that Ivo Van Hove should have hired a proper writer, just like he hired a proper songwriter, and that critics (in the broad rather than the narrow sense) should be allowed in early to warn creatives, of innovative material, where things might be going wrong before such shows open on the West End.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Apr 4, 2024 22:25:04 GMT
Saw this last night and LOVED it! Lydia Higman, who is a historian who can play the guitar, plays herself as a historian who plays a guitar, rocking rock music with resonant reverb and strumming folk with feeling, all while telling a compelling little known historical story. She's the most fun teacher since Robin Williams in "Dead Poets Society," and he wasn't real. And she's joined by a folk singing threesome of actors, who, through youthful, studenty, genuinely clever and joyous mucking about, tell an original story about an English witchcraft trial in a way that makes it feel ever so meaningful. Some spoilers follow. . . This is a real story about a witch trial in England, what happened before and what happened after, to the extent that it's known. We enter the Royal Court Upstairs to a continuous loop of screen clips of football violence, historical and recent, with last year's Atherstone Ball game, which devolved into mob violence outside a William Hill, the most prominent of the video clips. This sets up a status quo mood of ultraviolence as the play begins, and the historian and narrator of the play, Lydia Higman introduces us to the villain of the piece, Brian Gunter, uber-wealthy landowner with an ultra-violent soul, but with all the best words and remarkably good at rallying folks onside. I can't possibly spoil how Gunter, played with sociable menace by Hannah Jarrett-Scott (Bingley and Charlotte Lucas in the West End's "Pride and Prejudice Sort of") gets into the position of accusing someone of illegally bewitching his daughter, Anne, but he does, and he's "The Crucible" level committed and scary about it. As Anne, the daughter who says she's bewitched, Norah Lopez Holden (a terrific Ophelia to Cush Jumbo's "Hamlet,") is the secret ingredient that lifts this scatty history story from good to great (eat your heart out, Horrible Histories, I think this is more fun). Lopez Holden is at times wild and uncontrolled, mischievous and wicked, but also pained and sympathetic, like a winged and caged bird. While Lopez Holden and Jarrett-Scott do the heavy lifting in the acting stakes, Julia Grogan, as the accused "witch," is also incredibly free and funny in her performance, and together with Higman, actually created this piece. She has a Sarah Hadland comic vibe (think Miranda Hart constantly humiliating the diminutive but endlessly resilient Hadland in the sitcom, Miranda) about her, someone who can be comically humiliated and equally comically resilient. She's especially funny running about with an animal head covering her face lol. The storytelling veers from such super silly comedy to ultra freaky horror to documentary like accuracy with facts projected on a screen, all powered by propulsive rock and ethereal folk. Its like everything in the play is at war with everything else: folk versus rock, men versus women, father versus daughter, silliness versus seriousness, accuser versus accused, liberation versus imprisonment, and in the anything-goes chaos, a resonant true story is brilliantly and originally told. The overall feel is of music and facts raucously melding with something very studenty and silly to make seriously original fascinating theatre. One savage wit at my performance said it was "the best play about witches [he'd seen] all day." I guess it's the studenty silliness that wasn't to his taste. But I felt it was one of the best and most fun plays about witches I've ever seen. 4 and a half stars from me.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Apr 4, 2024 21:27:25 GMT
Saw this tonight and LOVED it. I agree with the positive reviews above that it's superb storytelling superbly told. Crudup captivates throughout, and I found the story gripping, though whether it actually amounts to anything is another thing entirely. Some spoilers follow. . . In a way, this is a little similar to the Dorian Gray play, with no technology lol. In both, an actor plays a character without a firm grip on identity, and the actor assumes many different characters and identities through the course of the story, all while you worry that the increasing sense of liberation, that the central character the actor is playing feels, will lead to an almighty crash at some point. The difference is that the Dorian Gray play has a meta-subtext about technology taking over and erasing our lives, whereas this piece is more surface, less deep. On the other hand, this piece is much more human and warm, in that all the excitable characters (and they are all delightfully excitable) are played live by a human being, and that human being, Billy Crudup, oozes charismatic daring and possibility constantly and compellingly. Like others in this thread, I was surprised (and ultimately really pleased) that this is not as dark a piece as I was expecting, given that dark pieces like this have been done to death. And the only dark piece like this I currently want to see stars the world's most flexible, brilliant and unpredictable actor, Andrew Scott (in an adaptation of the high priestess of dark, Patricia Highsmith's "Ripley") on Netflix. Compared to what I expect that to be like, this is more like a joyous coming out story of one lonely man, like "Heartstopper," though it follows thriller-like tropes as a kind of tease. Crudup is a joy from start to finish, relishing the excitability of his characters, and while the story itself may not be a comedy, there is some marvellous meta-comedy and genuine humour in all the occasions Crudup is ostensibly playing two characters flirting with each other but is in fact flirting with himself. He is peak funny when playing the coyness of a female character deeply attracted to the macho male character his timid male character is pretending to be. He nails every layer of this complex comic scenario. So, although the meaning of the story never really amounts to much, the beats of the story are about as fun as a story gets. I had 4 and a half stars of fun.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Apr 4, 2024 12:30:17 GMT
Has anyone seen this yet? I'm thinking of booking... I saw it yesterday matinee and felt Greg Hicks was very good, the adaptation perfectly adequate but its Dostoyevsky that didn't really do it for me. Some spoilers follow. . . Dostoyevsky's story bears some similarities with Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol:" both are about an unbearable misanthropic grump who goes on a journey of self-discovery and gets the feels. Both are attempts to convince us that humanity is worth it. But where Dickens does drama (going to war with ghosts and the actual past), Dostoyevsky does dreams: the grump in this story dreams of a utopia which proves the potential of humanity to him, with some surprises along the way. Anyway, I did not end up with that warm feeling about humanity that would prove to me the play worked. There isn't enough drama in a dream and some of the dream actually works against its own thesis. By contrast, every year at the Old Vic, as some old grumpy actor starts doing good deeds, actors tinkle beautiful bells, kids shriek as fake snow drops on their heads, I get a brief warm feeling that all is well with humanity despite the endless crappy news bulletins that usually suggest the opposite. I thought Greg Hicks did mighty work bringing Dostoyevsky's dream (adapted to the London of now) to life, going through myriad mood states of the dream, but I wished he was bringing his skills to the Old Vic this Christmas instead lol. Probably just me. 3 stars.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Mar 31, 2024 0:04:30 GMT
Roar with approval? Umm, I’d love to know if anyone who has seen the show has roared with approval (unless the roar was in response to the knowledge that the show was coming to an end). Lol. Obviously, the roar of approval in the original movie is a fixed-in-aspic cinematic roar. Since the material is about making a play, its actually more exciting that the reaction isn't fixed in aspic, and the reaction from the live theatre audience could be anything, from roars of approval to boos to mouths gaped in astonishment. Its even more meta than the original meta movie its based on, and it's exciting whatever the reaction.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Mar 30, 2024 23:57:40 GMT
You could even buy a t-shirt from the sad looking merch stand by the front door. I really wish I’d bought one for myself actually (or a fridge magnet at the very least). I bought a T-shirt. I was the only one at the merch stall at the end of the show. I wanted evidence for future theatre-goers that I saw this. I proudly wear my "I can't sing" t-shirt for exactly that reason. I must have this t-shirt!
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Mar 30, 2024 23:43:18 GMT
Saw this tonight, and for me, it's a mixed bag. This is NOT a comprehensive account of the Brontes, but rather a consideration of whether or not Charlotte Brontë betrayed the sisterhood and shafted her sister, Anne Brontë, to get ahead? Thus, the two actors that carry 90 percent of the storytelling (that matters) are Gemma Whelan (Charlotte) and Rhiannon Clements (Anne) and both are fabulous. Tonally, I felt the show was wildly variable, with dramatic bits very effective but some of the raucously rude comedy bits veered into try hard unfunny territory, while others hit the mark, boosted by Whelan's comic commitment and timing. Some spoilers follow. . . This is Charlotte Brontë as I haven't seen her before. Instead of the mousy practical one with pinched glasses (see Sally Wainwright's magnificent drama, "To Walk invisible," for the BBC), now she's in rock and roll red, a scarlet woman with a filthy mouth. The one I thought was rock and roll (and who is usually depicted as such - see Kate Bush lol), Emily, is thinly characterised and barely features in this, bar some moaning. Branwell, the debauched dissolute brother, whose shameful escapades are usually the tragic and principal focus of Brontë dramas (see the Wainwright drama or the Wasted Musical that played at Southwark Playhouse) is an afterthought in this show. Anyone who saw that "Upstart Crow" play will know that Gemma Whelan was one of the funniest things in it, and anyone who watched "The Tower" cop show (still on ITVX) will know that Whelan can even make po-faced seriousness ultra-likeable, which is even more remarkable. Thus, you've got one of the best and most likeable actors in the country in the central role. Heck, I even liked her when she was killing homeless people in a Philip Ridley play, she's that likeable. And that's important, because this play does a LOT to make Charlotte Brontë look bad. Even Elizabeth Gaskell's biography (which was commissioned by her Dad and written after her death) is presented by this play as a crass call for attention by Charlotte herself (which is pretty prejudiced against Charlotte, if you ask me). Further, taking Charlotte to task for writing about being a Governess, as if it was to steal Anne's thunder, when Charlotte was a governess before Anne, also felt a bit cheap to me. Though to be fair, this play always gives Charlotte a right to reply, while casting aspersions on her. I am fine with all the rudeness in this play (Charlotte uses the F-word about as often as Sheila Hancock in "Barking in Essex"), though I know the folks who walked out of "Jerusalem" for language will be twisting their undergarments frantically. As I see it, though, the coarse language is a dramatic device that helps us see Charlotte now the way that the hoi polloi of 1850 felt about the supposed unfeminine "coarseness" of Charlotte then. In Whelan's mouth, her irreverence is plain funny, and yes, likeable. But the script forces everything one step too far. This sort of thing is all well and good when you are only going for maximum laughs, like in "Upstart Crow," but when you are trying to make serious dramatic points as well, biasing your script against Charlotte to the max (the poor 9 year old Charlotte practically brought up her baby sister, Anne, after her mother died, but she doesn't get much credit for that here), having her come across almost as narcissistic and inconsiderate as Trump, some of the comic caricaturing of Charlotte feels like overkill, too vitriolic and caustic for light humoured laughter. Nonetheless, the play boldly tells a story of sibling rivalry that I haven't seen before, that is rooted in reality and that is effective dramatically and sometimes comically. As Anne, the butter-wouldn't-melt object of Charlotte's jealousy, Rhiannon Clements is gently spoken, kindly oriented, and winning in the extreme. If Gemma Whelan wasn't so damn brilliant at both humour and drama (her second half speeches had me welling up), it would be hard to like this Charlotte Brontë at all. That said, a directorial flourish of having Whelan's Charlotte play one scene from a glass cage (similarly effective as a statement of imprisoned feminism when Gwendoline Christie and Fiona Shaw got in glass cages in other plays) paid off brilliantly for me, adding a layer of complexity that made sense of the play. All in all, the two principal actors are terrific, and the play tells a worthwhile story, even though sometimes it strains too far to be funny and too far too make a point. 3 and a half stars from me. PS: Tonight, the running time was 2 hours, 5 minutes (including an interval), concluding at 9:35pm.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Mar 30, 2024 18:00:40 GMT
There’s little to be said that hasn’t already been expressed by board members and most of the critics. Perhaps a question about how the play they were rehearsing seemed like a Mamet-type drama, but when it was supposedly on stage morphed into a Neil Simon type of script complete with Vaudeville gags. Some spoilers follow. . . What you observe is lifted directly from the Cassavetes film:- Myrtle goes off script because she just can't face the "Mamet-type drama." Her ex-husband Manny goes along with her improv and they totally change the script into a "Neil Simon type comedy."
The audience doesn't know that the writer's script has been totally changed, but like what they see, and roar with approval.
The other creatives know their vision has been compromised by Myrtle, but most of them are just happy for the claps, and they're overjoyed they survived another night. Much like how the real creatives of this must feel every time they survive a night of this. Forgive me, but I really hope I can go to this again lol.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Mar 28, 2024 0:19:23 GMT
Saw it tonight, and thought it was great. Patricia Clarkson is an astonishing actress, and central to everything and everyone, but all the superb actors get their moments. The show finished at 10:25pm, so the running time is a long 3 hours and 25 minutes, including an interval, but it didn't feel like it because the play becomes exponentially more involving as time progresses. Some spoilers follow. . . With Patricia Clarkson in the play, and her role so pivotal, it really is like she is the sun and the other actors are in orbit around her. I didn't find the play quite so Mary-centric when I've seen it before (with Lesley Manville and Laurie Metcalf). The play is so well named, taking place over one long day, starting in the morning and ending in the night, and since night is when inhibitions are generally at their lowest, it is in the second half that the play really soars. Similarly, a great irony of the play is that the more drinks the characters have, the more entertaining the play, because it opens them all up, even though drink is one of the things destroying them. Even Cathleen, the family maid, played by Louisa Harland (so brilliant in "Ulster American") gets a great scene with the demon drink (the only one with a significant amount of humour, rare and welcome in this dark play). Laurie Kynaston, playing the unwell younger son, smouldered like Montgomery Clift, a living ghost existing in a state of heightened awareness and perpetual distress. As the older son, Daryl McCormack is like embers, generally subdued but constantly threatening to come alive when the dramatic wind blows, and when it does, he's fire. As the patriarch of the family, something about Brian Cox's dreamy storytelling in "The Weir" at the Donmar remains, but now the dreams are no longer wonders but obfuscations, and as his assertive exterior deflates over the course of the play, he movingly comes more and more to resemble Munch's "The Scream," open-mouthed despair personified. But it is Clarkson's moment-to-moment aliveness, and emotional quality of unstable-ness, like a nuclear reaction, veering from smiling resting face to determined plotter to living in the past (like Blanche Dubois) to genuine expressions of love to disingenuousness to despair to cruelty to self-hatred, all turning on a dime, one emotion flowing into the next, that is so involving and so brilliant. From a start that was a little cold for me, I found myself heated up to a full 4 and a half stars of rapt involvement by play's end.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Mar 27, 2024 8:18:28 GMT
Timeout review reviewed: "Sheridan Smith is superb" says the opening headline, directly addressing the concerns of likely ticket buyers. But does the reviewer warn those punters that they won't get the typical genre gratifications from this show (aka no dramatic impetus)? Yes. The reviewer helpfully classifies this show as a "leftfield European musical" plonked in "the middle of London’s glittering West End." He, again usefully, elaborates that the show is "entirely unshackled by genre niceties." Perhaps, he should have spelled out what that means: no addictive story dramas building to predictable thrilling climaxes, but still, it's clear, this one's different. And the reviewer illuminates the positive in this absence of traditional drama, the uniqueness of the show: "there is truly nothing else like ‘Opening Night’ in Theatreland at the moment – not even close." After all, you miss a "Heathers," there's a "Mean Girls." You miss a "Thriller Live," there's an "MJ." But there is NOTHING like this. And this is the one in 10 years time you'll kick yourself for missing, even if you want to diss it till you die lol. The reviewer steps out of time to acknowledge that value. Further, the review is specific about the tonal oddness of the show, which spurns typical tragic drumbeats, and "thrillingly pulls away from that, as Myrtle literally changes the script of her life and ‘Opening Night’ drifts into a euphoric final fantasia." "There are no dance numbers, power ballads, lavish sets, or cute romantic storylines" warns the reviewer, but there is, he points out, "a buoyancy and belief in humanity that’s lacking in the original film." And here it becomes clear that the heir to Michael Billington's compassionate embrace of both bracing theatre and embattled humanity is Lukowski, a critic who centres helping audiences decide whether something is to their taste, while remaining open to works that bravely break the mould. 4 stars for this helpful review.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Mar 27, 2024 7:40:49 GMT
Review of Reviews: The Telegraph This review reads like it was written by Sheridan Smith's healthcare professional: "She had a much publicised mental health episode during the 2016 West End run of Funny Girl, which saw her withdraw from performances for over two months. Since her return to the theatrical fold, fans have rallied, as has she; her ace turn in Shirley Valentine, which comically treats the woman-in-crisis trope, was a signal that she would bravely face her demons, and take risks." The audacious cod psychology of the reviewer, who seems more like a celebrity stalker than a reviewer of a West End show, renders the overfamiliar reference to Smith as "Shezza" even more galling and appalling, as in: "Shezza will live to fight another day." Such an atrocious reviewing approach is slightly redeemed by its observation that "although [Van Hove] pioneered the use of live video on stage, here he barely bothers to justify, dramatically, his use of a roving film crew beyond the basic steer that the company are being trailed for a fly-on-the-wall documentary." It is certainly true that the documentary crew is a thin device, equally thin in "MJ the Musical," but better used there. Overall, 1 star for the cod psychological hogwash.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Mar 27, 2024 7:24:04 GMT
NY Times Review reviewed: The review begins with a killer opening line, worthy of a novel: "In a London auditorium, a work of art is being desecrated." This sets the review in extreme highbrow territory, deifying a frustrating idiosyncratic ultra serious portrait, of creativity and aging, as a great work of art, and using it as a cudgel to beat this production. The review serves conservative Cassavetes fans first and foremost, as his work is presented as essentially perfect, but the review gives no inkling of how insular and difficult Cassavetes is, and thus the review is essentially useless to Sheridan Smith fans who have bought a ticket. The conclusion, that "Van Hove has transformed a taut, subtly observed character study into a sludgy melodrama" is foreshadowed by the novelistic opening line, which makes it inevitable. The narrowness of this lens means that the fact that your vast bulk of ticket buyers, Sheridan Smith fans who see a few shows a year, would consider this show infinitely more fun than the source material, is impossible to address, and thus the review deliberately neglects to serve the majority of the show's audience. Rufus Wainwright's songs are described as "algorithmically bland," which addresses the lyrical element patronisingly, by assuming that simplicity isn't beautiful, but also neglects the musical elements, which are as gorgeous, lush and primitive as anything Wainwright has done. Thus, the review's fetish for Cassavetes not only dies not serve the larger subset of Sheridan Smith fans, it also does not serve the smaller subset of Rufus Wainwright fans. For highlighting that this show is less intense than its source material, the review deserves credit, but overall, it's just insular highbrow fossilised masturbation, unopen to the possibilities and potential of the piece, pandering to Cassavetes fans, and snubbing the core audience of ticket buyers. I'd give this review 2 and a half stars.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Mar 26, 2024 23:54:21 GMT
The second half of the show was MUCH more entertaining than the first half. Featuring Jamie Muscato as a new protagonist, his story is told linearly and coherently, and most significantly, passionately and dramatically. Some spoilers follow. . . As intimated above, by other posters, the second half is basically "Carousel," with Rachel Tucker's character in the Billy Bigelow mould seeking to help her child in ghost form. Except, unlike in "Carousel," the focus is not so much on Tucker's Olivia's spiritual redemption (she's not really done anything wrong lol), but is much more about Jamie Muscato's son learning about the mother that his father hid from him (the old intercepted letters later to be discovered plot). In that sense, the structure is actually elegant, with the first half being about Tucker's Olivia seeking her son, and the second half being about the son seeking the mother (prompted by the letters to meet up with the lover characters from the first half). But where the first half was meandering and flat, the second half is taut and dramatic, with Muscato's son seeking his identity, aided, unbeknownst to him by his mother's ghost. Muscato's climactic song, "Dangerous Lines," was a tour de force for me, as he tears his history apart and discovers who he, and everyone around him, is. The second half is also bolstered by a great passionate rejected torch song from Tori Allen-Martin, some comedy bits from Todrick Hall's Starkeeper-type character, which actually worked, including the meta bit where he urged Tucker's Olivia to put some "shoes on" (she'd been wearing her whole "Singing Detective" hospital nightie outfit for too damn long lol), and another great song from Tompsett's character. I felt the second half worked wonderfully, if derivatively, and rated it 4 stars, so I'd give the whole thing 3 stars. This is way more fun than watching this sort of family-made-whole material on telly at Christmas, I felt.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Mar 26, 2024 23:38:15 GMT
I think Sheridan Smith is the bees knees lol.
She was SO good in Shirley Valentine. I can't think of a single actress who could have done it so brilliantly: so relatable, so funny! Just magnificent.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Mar 26, 2024 21:06:35 GMT
Having been duly warned by the above posts, I enjoyed some of the first half, basically everything Oliver Tompsett related.
Some spoilers follow. . .
I loved Rachel Tucker singing "What I'm Here to Find," at the climax of the first half, which she belted out passionately, and which sounded like a cover of Natalie Imbruglia's "Torn."
It was slightly unintentionally comedic that she spent the whole first half wondering what she needed to find, while Jamie Muscato, playing her son, popped up behind a pane of glass every time she was wondering. I wanted to shout "He's BEHIND you!" But wasn't confident enough that it was a pantomime to actually do it.
Anyhow, the structure of the first half was the same as Nye at the National, pinched from "The Singing Detective," with a deathbed character in their jammies, looking back on what meant the most in their lives and singing about it.
By and large, the book for the first half fell flat, as Tucker's character felt universally desirable, with everyone begging for her attention, and her spoiled for choice.
The exception to the rule was Oliver Tompsett's lover character's two appearances as Tucker's baby daddy. Stubbled, with unkempt hair, his gentle husky voice built steadily in joyous rapture, grabbing Tucker's hand, and pulling her across and around the stage into a romance which worked a turn on Tucker's Olivia's standoffish character, until, both open mouthed, from an inch away (I hope they remembered their breath mints) they gave each other the full "Islands in The Stream" Dolly Parton-Kenny Rogers style connection that felt like actual drama.
And indeed, they got to fall in love twice, once before and once after conceiving a child, with both such scenes involving and utterly charming.
Unfortunately, all the other scenes in the first half, involving McCormack's husband character and Tori Allen-Martin's other lover character, were completely one note, with the spurned lovers moaning and Tucker's protagonist uninterested and unengaged. Consequently, the book for the first half was mostly lifeless.
I'd give the first half 2 and a half stars for the Tompsett-Tucker scenes which were charming, loveable and engaging.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Mar 25, 2024 23:29:02 GMT
What was the finishing time?
Did Jamie Muscato have much to do?
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Mar 25, 2024 23:24:40 GMT
And nobody must ever forget the contributions of Professor John Robinson, who wrote the musical, "Behind the Iron Mask," which ran for 3 weeks at The Duchess Theatre in 2005, and "Too Close to the Sun," the musical about the death of Ernest Hemingway, which ran for 2 weeks at the Comedy Theatre in 2009. The actual shortest run, I believe, was "The Intimate Revue" in 1930, which, to prevent it running past midnight, only managed half a performance at The Duchess before closing immediately thereafter. So, "Opening Night" is winning by that yardstick.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Mar 25, 2024 23:04:44 GMT
Steve, do you regularly travel north to see productions at the world-famous Crucible Theatre? No. It feels like only yesterday, but before this one, the last production I saw at the Crucible was "The Nap" in 2016, directed by Richard Wilson and starring Jack O'Connell. theatreboard.co.uk/thread/477/nap-jack-oconnellThat was only shortly after Theatreboard opened to provide a lifeline to continue chatting about theatre after Whatonstage closed down their message board. Time flies. I might get another couple of visits in before I die if I'm lucky lol.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Mar 23, 2024 22:45:36 GMT
I predict every critic will slate it tbh - but I hope there's one that can see what I saw in it but I won't hold my breath 😂 I agree. It will probably fall into the neither-fish-nor-fowl bracket, whereby the critics who want a lowbrow thrill-ride will slam it because its "a pretentious piece where nothing happens" and critics who want highbrow thinkfest will slam it for "diluting Cassavetes' claustrophobic, difficult inexplicable psychological study into an easily digested, simplified West End musical." Tuesday is likely to be a bloodbath. Here's hoping that one idiosyncratic critic likes it lol.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Mar 23, 2024 22:22:47 GMT
Thought this was great. Less about the infectiousness of hysteria, more about the insidiousness and effectiveness of repeating lies over and over, which feels like much of modern politics. The stripped back vibe was creepy. Sargon Yelda, Laura Pyper, Rose Shalloo and Anoushka Lucas are all excellent. Some spoilers follow. . . I never realised how creepy it is for people to converse underneath a table. But when its the only real set, and when actors are crawling there, and when there's a sinister tone, and the lighting dims, I felt my goosebumps raising. But these atmospherics are just mood setters really, as the actual substance of the staging is to have the liars simply boldly stride to the microphones and lie blatantly again and again and again. This is different from the Old Vic and National Productions, for example, where the "witches" were racing around like scary wolf packs hunting prey. Here the "witches" don't form mobs as such, they just separate out and take to spaced out microphones and start boldfacedly lying. It's less viscerally frightening, more intellectually frightening. Where this production really excels is in bringing out the slow-build of Arthur Miller's script, whereby we complacent frogs really aren't aware the water around us is boiling until its all too late. Sargon Yelda, in particular, is SO good at making the Reverend Paris seem utterly civilised and reasonable for the longest time, and then SO good at showing how his self interest is served by willingly succumbing to the poisonous lies on repeat. He feels like a prototype of your modern self-interested person selling out democracy by embracing lies, without thinking through where this will all end. Laura Pyper invests such intelligent and sharp-witted, yet complacent, indignance in her two characters' resistance to all the lies around her, that its actually quite shocking when she starts to drown in them. And as the principal liar, Abigail Williams, Rose Shalloo becomes ever increasingly assertive and perversely thrilled and reveling in the sound and power of her own words. And as the tragically honourable Elizabeth Proctor, Anoushka Lucas is especially poignant and sensitive in the eye of the storm. This take on Miller's play really brings out the overwhelmingly destructive snowballing effect of self-interest and lies. And by being so stripped back, it reveals how brilliant a piece of slow-building drama the writing is. 4 stars from me.
|
|
1,206 posts
|
Post by Steve on Mar 22, 2024 23:34:50 GMT
Saw tonight's Broadway version of "Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella," by the just-about-to-graduate Italia Conti third years, and was completely bowled over. This is superlative on almost every level, and is the most charming and compelling version of the Cinderella story I have seen (I didn't see it on Broadway lol). I mean, I liked it better than the pre-Broadway TV versions of this musical featuring Julie Andrews and Brandy, and I liked it better than "Bad Cinderella" or any number of panto versions of the story, and I liked it better than the original animated movie and the recent Lily James movie. Alot of it may be the "Midnight" cast I saw (as opposed to the Palace cast, which I didn't), as it features an incredible Cinderella, in Chloe Alice, and an equally incredible bad stepsister (the Broadway version has a good stepsister lol) in Simone Ashplant. Now is the time for agents to give those two a call! Some spoilers follow. . . Italia Conti uses the Studio Theatre of Woking's Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, so the stage is as professional as these College shows get, and although their budget may not be large, the colourful projected backgrounds are joyfully charming and evocative. If there is a drawback to this Douglas Carter Beane Broadway version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella, it is that it runs out of Rodgers and Hammerstein numbers in the second half and has an imbalanced book-to-song ratio. The first half is perfect, a pitch perfect blend of R&H, swooning romance, physical comedy, wonderfully choreographed ensemble dancing and singing, playing off and around the principals effortlessly. Chloe Alice's Cinderella sounds like Julie Andrews but with less hoity toity superiority, more fierce and determined, yet poignantly haltingly vulnerable. She makes the story feel important, which it obviously isn't, and she makes the R&H tunes soar. Her "A Lovely Night" was exceptional. I was crying and that's ridiculous. Simone Ashplant's bad stepsister, Charlotte, is one of the funniest moment to moment characters I've seen on stage. The character is super dumb, and Ashplant is in dainty comic pigtails, so she starts off funny, but her comic energy and timing is what blows up the laughter. Her "Stepsister's Lament," at the beginning of the second half, is a comic wonder. She schemes, she stomps, she skips, she scowls, and imbues what could be a standard comic stereotype with scene stealing lead character syndrome such that you can't willingly take your eyes off her if you want to keep laughing. Throw in Athena Bruce's loveably likeable good sister, oozing TV closeup standard decency, Nick Wyatt's stormingly pompous and haughty Lord Pinkleton, whose belt is a total smash, and a dazzling ensemble, and this show just zings. Loved this to the tune of 4 and a half stars.
|
|