A Night at the Theatre

[Belgrove]

Off see The Drowned Man over the Xmas break, an antidote to pantomimes. Much looking forward to this free adaptation of Buchner's Woyzeck, and serendipitously will also be seeing Wozzeck at Covent Garden in a couple of weeks time (to be relayed on R3 in December I think). Like buses, you wait for one Wozzeck to come along...

[Nick Armstrong]

Off see The Drowned Man over the Xmas break, an antidote to pantomimes. Much looking forward to this free adaptation of Buchner's Woyzeck, and serendipitously will also be seeing Wozzeck at Covent Garden in a couple of weeks time (to be relayed on R3 in December I think). Like buses, you wait for one Wozzeck to come along...

Save that you'll have to tell me what the Woyzeck connections are - you get a slip of paper at the start with the two related narratives printed on - but that was where it ended for me. I preferred to drift around catching serendipitous action and revelling in the setting.... Another approach is to attach yourself to one of the key characters and be led by them around the building - but that led to vast shoals of people literally running around en masse after particular characters, which was not what it was about for me - I tended to head in the opposite direction from the charging, narrative-seeking herds...

[gurnemanz]

Prompted by good reviews (especially Grauniad online) we had great evening at the Ustiinov in Bath last night (followed by a nice pint in The Raven). We had heard of Lope de Vega but never actually seen a play by him. Punishment Without Revenge proved to be a strikingly dramatic and well-constructed play. Very well performed and staged, it is a true ensemble piece, fast moving with constantly fluctuating emotions and motivation. It is ongoing in rep till December and thoroughly recommended.

[Belgrove]

I am interested in going to a performance of Georg Kaiser's From Morning To Midnight which the NT are doing from November.

Think twice about seeing this aeolium. Marvellously inventive and entertaining stagecraft influenced by Complicite, but without that company's ability to spot material adaptable for the stage. This is a picaresque tale whose message is that money does not make one happy, er, that's it. The cast works very hard and energetically to breath life into this inert corpse, but are not helped much by Dennis Kelly's mirthless and too literal (I suspect) translation. Great spectacle though.

[amateur51]

Think twice about seeing this aeolium. Marvellously inventive and entertaining stagecraft influenced by Complicite, but without that company's ability to spot material adaptable for the stage. This is a picaresque tale whose message is that money does not make one happy, er, that's it. The cast works very hard and energetically to breath life into this inert corpse, but are not helped much by Dennis Kelly's mirthless and too literal (I suspect) translation. Great spectacle though.

A very fair review I'd say Belgrove.

[aeolium]

Think twice about seeing this aeolium. Marvellously inventive and entertaining stagecraft influenced by Complicite, but without that company's ability to spot material adaptable for the stage. This is a picaresque tale whose message is that money does not make one happy, er, that's it. The cast works very hard and energetically to breath life into this inert corpse, but are not helped much by Dennis Kelly's mirthless and too literal (I suspect) translation. Great spectacle though.

Thanks for this, Belgrove. I had already had second thoughts about going to see it after the reviews had suggested an emptiness at the heart of the play despite the glittering production, and your impressions have made up my mind not to bother.

Incidentally, perhaps this thread could be used to comment on NT/RSC/Globe productions broadcast to cinema (it's quite hard to get tickets for the stage performances these days as so many of them are sold out).

[gurnemanz]

Think twice about seeing this aeolium. Marvellously inventive and entertaining stagecraft influenced by Complicite, but without that company's ability to spot material adaptable for the stage. This is a picaresque tale whose message is that money does not make one happy, er, that's it. The cast works very hard and energetically to breath life into this inert corpse, but are not helped much by Dennis Kelly's mirthless and too literal (I suspect) translation. Great spectacle though.

Re From Morning to Midnight. It's not a great play bit an important one in the history of German theatre. I read it as a student umpteen years ago and was interested to see a performance of it for the first time. We went yesterday. Some of it was nicely done but overall it was a bit of a mess. For me it was overproduced, using too much background music, stage effects, big sounds, video cameras, choreographic acting which was more like dance. The NT sometimes can't resist trying to turn a straightforward drama into an all bells and whistles "show". Something similar happened with recent "Captain of Köpenick".

Critics were generally not impressed but Guardian liked.

[amateur51]

Has anyone else seen the RNT's current production of 'Emil and The Detectives'?

I felt that it suffered from many of the problems of over-production fussiness that gurney and Belgrove highlighted in the Kaiser play. It was well done and it would be a great outing for children over the holidays.

[aeolium]

Re From Morning to Midnight. It's not a great play bit an important one in the history of German theatre. I read it as a student umpteen years ago and was interested to see a performance of it for the first time. We went yesterday. Some of it was nicely done but overall it was a bit of a mess. For me it was overproduced, using too much background music, stage effects, big sounds, video cameras, choreographic acting which was more like dance. The NT sometimes can't resist trying to turn a straightforward drama into an all bells and whistles "show". Something similar happened with recent "Captain of Köpenick".

Yes, I agree about the Captain of Köpenick production which I saw, although I quite enjoyed it. I didn't think ultimately it was a good enough play. I remember also being disappointed by a production some years back of Horvath's Tales from the Vienna Woods, which I do think is a good play. I imagine this is done better by some of the German theatre companies and the Horvath is certainly difficult to translate.

There seems to have been a drive in recent years towards increasing the pace, movement and continuity in stage productions. You see this in some of the recent NT and RSC Shakespeare productions e.g. the RSC Richard II with Tennant. I'm not sure how successful this is for some plays.

[Stanley Stewart]

# 36. Picking up on aeolium's cue, I've found that the Globe Theatre productions are quickly available on DVD. In June/July, they played-in Henry VI, Pts 1-3, here at York, over three weeks, with the enticing prospect of seeing all three parts each Saturday. A fluent production which even managed to bring clarity to the political manoeuvres. Subsequently, their touring schedule cleverly included outdoor locations, e.g. the precincts of St Alban's cathedral. I gather that the production has been filmed and this should facilitate easier editing to include interior and exterior locations. I was most impressed by the plasticity of the choreography throughout and today's players even have the skill - all of 'em - to coordinate musical accompaniment; bell-ringing, or percussion effects, throughout. I anticipate the same frisson which the recent DVD of "Grimes on the Beach at Aldeburgh" provided.

The NT seem to be tardy in releasing their productions on DVD, although they have promptly released a handsome two DVD set of the two-part ARENA documentaries and the NT Gala featuring the 50 year celebrations. Valued acquisitions to accompany "Uncle Vanya", "The Three Sisters", "The Merchant of Venice" and "Long Day's Journey Into Night"
and "The History Boys" on my shelves.

Last week, in affectionate memory of Peter O'Toole, I transferred an off-air video of "Jeffrey Bernard is Unwell" to DVD, accompanied by a recent BBC 2 screening of "Dean Spanley" (2008) which slipped past me on its limited theatrical release - and it is rather good.

I don't have Sky Arts facilities but a friend is making my Festive Season by transferring the ENO production of "Death in Venice" to DVD for me. Eagerly awaited.

[amateur51]

I went recently to an evening performance of Turgenev's Fortune's Fool at the Old Vic, adapted by Mike Poulton and directed by Lucy Bailey, and designed by William Dudley, the production will run until 22 February 2014. It stars Iain Glen and Richard McCabe.

On the night we didn't gets Mr Glenn but in his stead was the rather marvellous Patrick Cremin. It's not a great lost play but it certainly has some good moments, not least the twist at the end of the first act, and it illuminates the corrupt, lazy lives of rich rural Russians and holds them up to a coruscating moral light. There are several good comedy performances but the highlight of these is McCabe's camp monster Tropatchov.

Well worth seeing, I thought. The production is beautifully lit and makes great use of the Old Vic's stage unlike the recent Much Ado About Nothing set designed by Ultz.

[Belgrove]

It was inevitable that Oh, What a Lovely War would be revived somewhere, sometime this year, but appropriate that it has returned to Stratford East, where it premiered 51 years ago. From the photographs and costumes of the original production on display, this show appears to be almost a reconstruction of Joan Littlewood's original - The Great War being surveyed as an end of the pier show via the popular songs of that time. It was informed by Alan Clarke's revisionist account of the war, which has itself been subject to revision by historians. So does the show still have a point to make nowadays, where so much footage and documentary information about the war is in the public domain, unlike in 1963? I think it does, the jaunty show tunes are juxtaposed with a constantly running electronic 'scoreboard', giving the appalling tally of casualties and the ground gained, often nil. Some of the portrayals of grouse shooting plutocrats, religiously devout generals and honest Tommy's is rather one-dimensional and dated, but the show still packs an emotional punch and it works in the theatre.

The one strong impression I had on leaving the theatre was what a magnificent job Richard Attenborough did in his cinematic adaptation, which was even more audacious in its on-screen theatricality. The closing images that accompany the poignant 'When They Asked Us' is unbearably sad, and definitive.

I think it is sold out, but suspect it will transfer elsewhere, and is worth seeing.

[Belgrove]

I consider King Lear to be the most overrated and poorly plotted of Shakespeare's late works, the initial premise of dividing the kingdom, from which all else obtains, being implausible. Thus the drama is hobbled in the first scene. Then there is all that tedious stuff with The Fool, with poor Tom, the pantomime villainy of Edmund, the feeble disguise of the banished Kent, Cordelia's death in gaol (but not Lear's)... the list goes on. Nevertheless the prospect of Simon Russell-Beale assuming the role of Lear in Sam Mendes' new production at the NT was enough to entice me back and to have my prejudices overturned, but it was not to be.

Although (the almost spherical) R-B gave a plausible descent into senility, with capricious flashes of violent instability, sadly it was the verse speaking by him and the majority of the rest of the cast that let this down, ranging from the inaudible to the garbled. Only Stephen Boxer as a sympathetic and noble Gloucester was uniformly excellent. The production has a cinematic sweep and pace (let us not forget that Mendes makes Bond films now) which kept it visually engaging. But if one cannot discern the text, this goes for naught. The last scene when the body count piles up was incoherent and, frankly, ludicrous. Why was Albany's closing couplet spoken by Edgar? Nothing in this tragedy led one to feel moved, but here I point the finger of blame at Shakespeare.

Audience members stood and whooped for R-B at the end; a response, perhaps, proportionate to their expectation of, rather than the substance of the event.

[gurnemanz]

I consider King Lear to be the most overrated and poorly plotted of Shakespeare's late works, the initial premise of dividing the kingdom, from which all else obtains, being implausible. Thus the drama is hobbled in the first scene. Then there is all that tedious stuff with The Fool, with poor Tom, the pantomime villainy of Edmund, the feeble disguise of the banished Kent, Cordelia's death in gaol (but not Lear's)... the list goes on. Nevertheless the prospect of Simon Russell-Beale assuming the role of Lear in Sam Mendes' new production at the NT was enough to entice me back and to have my prejudices overturned, but it was not to be.

Although (the almost spherical) R-B gave a plausible descent into senility, with capricious flashes of violent instability, sadly it was the verse speaking by him and the majority of the rest of the cast that let this down, ranging from the inaudible to the garbled. Only Stephen Boxer as a sympathetic and noble Gloucester was uniformly excellent. The production has a cinematic sweep and pace (let us not forget that Mendes makes Bond films now) which kept it visually engaging. But if one cannot discern the text, this goes for naught. The last scene when the body count piles up was incoherent and, frankly, ludicrous. Why was Albany's closing couplet spoken by Edgar? Nothing in this tragedy led one to feel moved, but here I point the finger of blame at Shakespeare.

Audience members stood and whooped for R-B at the end; a response, perhaps, proportionate to their expectation of, rather than the substance of the event.

I had read your comments before and found them somewhat dispiriting since we had booked to see the production following generally good reviews and enjoyed Russell Beale in several other productions. We saw it this afternoon and I'm afraid I am bound to agree with your points. I really disliked R-B's manner of speaking the lines mostly as a rasping, undifferentiated rant. This did get a bit better in the second half but, as you say, the verse was generally not clearly delivered. Stanley Townsend as Kent was another honourable exception.

The weaknesses in the play itself which you draw attention to do not worry me too much, if we get the full value of the poetry, which I don't think we did.

[aeolium]

I disagree with Belgrove about the quality of the play which I think one of WS' best on the strength of the poetry and the extreme emotional intensity of certain scenes, but on the basis of these reviews I shan't be seeing the production when it is shown live in cinema in early May. The verse is sacrosanct and to sacrifice that for any dramatic effect is worthless imo (and Peter Hall who was in charge of the NT for a good period would surely have thought so too).

Actually I saw SRB in Timon of Athens and thought that was fine, though there is not much memorable verse in that play.