Animal Farm, The Egg, Bath
Animal Farm was on.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Monday, May 21, 2007
Vernon God Little, Young Vic
Given recent events in Virginia, this may not seem the ideal time to be staging a show whose background is a high school massacre. (Incidentally, I apply the same logic to plays about the Iraq war. Oh, wait, hang on...)
In turning a first-person narrative into drama, Ronder (the adaptor) inevitably sacrifices some of the throwaway brilliance of Pierre's prose: this is the essence of theatre being different to books. No play can match such lines, saying of a bus-station oldster, "the skin of his face hangs down in pockets, like he has lead implants". No play.
Even if the structure, like the frankly perplexing grammatical construction of this sentence, is fragmented, Rufus Norris's production also captures the contrast between Texan materialism and the impoverished gaiety of the Mexico to which the hero flees. Imagine how much easier it would have been without all that nasty fragmentation though.
The acting is good.
Given recent events in Virginia, this may not seem the ideal time to be staging a show whose background is a high school massacre. (Incidentally, I apply the same logic to plays about the Iraq war. Oh, wait, hang on...)
In turning a first-person narrative into drama, Ronder (the adaptor) inevitably sacrifices some of the throwaway brilliance of Pierre's prose: this is the essence of theatre being different to books. No play can match such lines, saying of a bus-station oldster, "the skin of his face hangs down in pockets, like he has lead implants". No play.
Even if the structure, like the frankly perplexing grammatical construction of this sentence, is fragmented, Rufus Norris's production also captures the contrast between Texan materialism and the impoverished gaiety of the Mexico to which the hero flees. Imagine how much easier it would have been without all that nasty fragmentation though.
The acting is good.
The Globe tour has a fine Elizabethan ring to it
The Globe are doing a tour. Gosh.
I did a tour once. With Ken Loach! (KLANG!) and Dudley Moore! (KLANG!) and some guy who's a judge! (err, KLANG!)
Still, if they do it outside, what if it rains? I mean, how rubbish would that be?
The Globe are doing a tour. Gosh.
I did a tour once. With Ken Loach! (KLANG!) and Dudley Moore! (KLANG!) and some guy who's a judge! (err, KLANG!)
Still, if they do it outside, what if it rains? I mean, how rubbish would that be?
Thursday, May 17, 2007
A Matter of Life and Death, Olivier
A Matter of Life and Death is an old film which was optimistic. Now it’s a new play which isn’t! Fascinating! And undynamic!
Where the film is clearly all lovey, the play is clearly all warry. In his heavenly trial, the protagonist is confronted by his war-victim father, the widows of the Coventry and Dresden bombings, and, somewhat tendentiously, by Shakespeare. The meaning is clear: war and Shakespeare will always triumph over private passions.
What prevents this pessimistic, death obsessed coda being bleak, is the way it’s full of life! There’s a calypso band, a ping-pong game and a sexy bit, as well as a Norwegian and a panorama of life on Waterloo Bridge. Some of this is virtuously delighting, but some of it is self-delighting virtuosity. Spot the difference.
If the production, with its constant use of clever-clever bicycles and too-clever-by-half hospital beds, sometimes seems self-consciously clever, at least there’s a good actor. And thank God someone’s finally been brave enough to stand up against war!
A Matter of Life and Death is an old film which was optimistic. Now it’s a new play which isn’t! Fascinating! And undynamic!
Where the film is clearly all lovey, the play is clearly all warry. In his heavenly trial, the protagonist is confronted by his war-victim father, the widows of the Coventry and Dresden bombings, and, somewhat tendentiously, by Shakespeare. The meaning is clear: war and Shakespeare will always triumph over private passions.
What prevents this pessimistic, death obsessed coda being bleak, is the way it’s full of life! There’s a calypso band, a ping-pong game and a sexy bit, as well as a Norwegian and a panorama of life on Waterloo Bridge. Some of this is virtuously delighting, but some of it is self-delighting virtuosity. Spot the difference.
If the production, with its constant use of clever-clever bicycles and too-clever-by-half hospital beds, sometimes seems self-consciously clever, at least there’s a good actor. And thank God someone’s finally been brave enough to stand up against war!
Friday, December 08, 2006
Dick Whittington And His Cat, Barbican
Isn't it surprising that Mark Ravenhill is writing a pantomime? We all thought he only did plays about sodomy and swearing. But surprisingly, he's left that out of this children's Christmas show.
Summer Strallen (Dick) is pleasingly shaped. Mmmmm.
Roger Lloyd Pack has some rude lines that the children don't understand, and does some good acting but isn't funny which is either good or bad acting.
Summer Strallen has lovely legs. Yum.
Overal, the show is jolly, and has some topical gags, which, if we can't have big ideas, are the next best thing I suppose.
What's that? You want to know what Summer Strallen's acting is like? I told you! She's a certainly a stocking filler!
Woof!
Isn't it surprising that Mark Ravenhill is writing a pantomime? We all thought he only did plays about sodomy and swearing. But surprisingly, he's left that out of this children's Christmas show.
Summer Strallen (Dick) is pleasingly shaped. Mmmmm.
Roger Lloyd Pack has some rude lines that the children don't understand, and does some good acting but isn't funny which is either good or bad acting.
Summer Strallen has lovely legs. Yum.
Overal, the show is jolly, and has some topical gags, which, if we can't have big ideas, are the next best thing I suppose.
What's that? You want to know what Summer Strallen's acting is like? I told you! She's a certainly a stocking filler!
Woof!
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Don Juan in Soho, Donmar Warehouse
Patrick Marber's radical rewrite of Moliere is far less subversive than Moliere's original. Moliere's hero is consumed in the fires of hell at the end of the play, presumably as some kind of punishment for his transgressive behaviour. Marber and his secular audience, on the other hand, don't believe in hell and so can't subversively confirm a conservative moral code like Moliere does.
Despite Rhys Ifans looking like Peter O'Toole, the acting is good.
Patrick Marber's radical rewrite of Moliere is far less subversive than Moliere's original. Moliere's hero is consumed in the fires of hell at the end of the play, presumably as some kind of punishment for his transgressive behaviour. Marber and his secular audience, on the other hand, don't believe in hell and so can't subversively confirm a conservative moral code like Moliere does.
Despite Rhys Ifans looking like Peter O'Toole, the acting is good.
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
The Vertical Hour, Music Box Theatre, New York
You can't divorce plays from their context, and the context of this new play by David Hare is that I've been sent to New York by work! Wicked!
In many ways it's a typical David Hare play, but this time it's in New York. Where I am. I was moved by how hungry the Broadway audience (that's Broadway, New York, geography fans!) was for meaty serious British drama about Big Issues. Big Issues are great, aren't they - they help the homeless, and they're a great read on Tube. Or in my case, the Subway(that's what they call it in New York).
As I was saying, the Americans are clearly thirsting for serious British Theatre like this production which is being produced in America and not in Britain. Subtract the Brits and Broadway(NY) drama is negligible. But Hare's new play also deals with Iraq. Although there are aspects of The Vertical Hour I find unpersuasive, what finally matters is the play's total gesture, which is that the Iraq War was totally wrong even if some Americans disagree.
What do we mean by patriotism? Is it just politics? Or does it more truly reside in a love of poets? And landscape? And wine? And quail?
The acting is good.
Juliane Moore has an extraordinary physical quality in that her flame-red hair is offset by a skin of almost translucent whiteness. Which is great acting!
And Bill Nighy looks like a man who has suffered interestingly, perhaps of an illness, or maybe he has been subjected to some kind of unexpected mental torment - the loss of a loved one? - or perhaps he has a sore foot and it hurts everytime he puts pressure on it. Anyhow, that's what he looks like. Which is great acting!
Sam Mendes' production is good and is in New York where I saw it.
You can't divorce plays from their context, and the context of this new play by David Hare is that I've been sent to New York by work! Wicked!
In many ways it's a typical David Hare play, but this time it's in New York. Where I am. I was moved by how hungry the Broadway audience (that's Broadway, New York, geography fans!) was for meaty serious British drama about Big Issues. Big Issues are great, aren't they - they help the homeless, and they're a great read on Tube. Or in my case, the Subway(that's what they call it in New York).
As I was saying, the Americans are clearly thirsting for serious British Theatre like this production which is being produced in America and not in Britain. Subtract the Brits and Broadway(NY) drama is negligible. But Hare's new play also deals with Iraq. Although there are aspects of The Vertical Hour I find unpersuasive, what finally matters is the play's total gesture, which is that the Iraq War was totally wrong even if some Americans disagree.
What do we mean by patriotism? Is it just politics? Or does it more truly reside in a love of poets? And landscape? And wine? And quail?
The acting is good.
Juliane Moore has an extraordinary physical quality in that her flame-red hair is offset by a skin of almost translucent whiteness. Which is great acting!
And Bill Nighy looks like a man who has suffered interestingly, perhaps of an illness, or maybe he has been subjected to some kind of unexpected mental torment - the loss of a loved one? - or perhaps he has a sore foot and it hurts everytime he puts pressure on it. Anyhow, that's what he looks like. Which is great acting!
Sam Mendes' production is good and is in New York where I saw it.
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
The Glass Room, Hampstead Theatre
I for one welcome Ryan Craig's themes, which are big, whilst admitting that he sometimes manipulates characters to suit his subject. Still, at least he doesn't do that to people who aren't fictional constructs of his own imagination, eh?
Elena is a historian who denies the existence of Nazi gas chambers. Myles, the human rights lawyer hired to defend her, is in denial about his Jewish ancestry. Politics!
The play rests on a shaky premise in that Holocaust denial is not a legal offence in Britain. I also found it unrealistic the way that the actors were actually in a room with lots of people who were in the audience, and yet were pretending that they couldn't see them, as though there were some kind of invisible fourth wall between them.
If at times the play resembles a debating-chamber, it is at least pursuing an issue of burning topicality. And I prefer debating chambers to plays anyway.
I for one welcome Ryan Craig's themes, which are big, whilst admitting that he sometimes manipulates characters to suit his subject. Still, at least he doesn't do that to people who aren't fictional constructs of his own imagination, eh?
Elena is a historian who denies the existence of Nazi gas chambers. Myles, the human rights lawyer hired to defend her, is in denial about his Jewish ancestry. Politics!
The play rests on a shaky premise in that Holocaust denial is not a legal offence in Britain. I also found it unrealistic the way that the actors were actually in a room with lots of people who were in the audience, and yet were pretending that they couldn't see them, as though there were some kind of invisible fourth wall between them.
If at times the play resembles a debating-chamber, it is at least pursuing an issue of burning topicality. And I prefer debating chambers to plays anyway.
Sunday, November 19, 2006
Top Marx - Why it's time to stage non-fiction
Some German's are staging Marx's Das Kapital. Not, you'll be relieved to hear, as a musical!!!!!!!!!?!
Lots of theatre is based on stories that someone's already written. But why must they always be made up? Why can't we have factual theatre? I once saw Alec McCowen reading some of the bible.
You could even combine instruction with an artificially imposed and ultimately fruitless tension, which rests not on drama, but on the antagonism of ideologues. Why not have a reading of Genesis mixed up with Darwin's Origin of the Species followed by a debate between Science and God? I would suggest a reading of Mein Kampf, but I only want to see fruitless mudslinging between scientists and theologists, not right and left wingers!
My God, I've just invented the lecture! And the debate! Why is no one doing this?
You think I'm kidding, but actually I'm not. People have actually been making factual theatre for ages. Which rather makes the bit where I asked why people aren't making factual theatre seem redundant. And of course, all of my examples of things people should make aren't actually factual works - they're theoretical ones, but if thinking about factual theatre has taught me one thing, it's that paying too much attention to fact isn't something I'll be doing too soon.
The Reduced Digested MickyB
Plays should be more like politics which should be less dramatic. And no songs!
Some German's are staging Marx's Das Kapital. Not, you'll be relieved to hear, as a musical!!!!!!!!!?!
Lots of theatre is based on stories that someone's already written. But why must they always be made up? Why can't we have factual theatre? I once saw Alec McCowen reading some of the bible.
You could even combine instruction with an artificially imposed and ultimately fruitless tension, which rests not on drama, but on the antagonism of ideologues. Why not have a reading of Genesis mixed up with Darwin's Origin of the Species followed by a debate between Science and God? I would suggest a reading of Mein Kampf, but I only want to see fruitless mudslinging between scientists and theologists, not right and left wingers!
My God, I've just invented the lecture! And the debate! Why is no one doing this?
You think I'm kidding, but actually I'm not. People have actually been making factual theatre for ages. Which rather makes the bit where I asked why people aren't making factual theatre seem redundant. And of course, all of my examples of things people should make aren't actually factual works - they're theoretical ones, but if thinking about factual theatre has taught me one thing, it's that paying too much attention to fact isn't something I'll be doing too soon.
The Reduced Digested MickyB
Plays should be more like politics which should be less dramatic. And no songs!
Monday, November 13, 2006
Zerbombt(Blasted), Barbican
Eleven years ago I called Blasted "naive tosh". Six years ago, I decided that this was because I didn't yet know that she was about to have a tragic life, so it wasn't my fault. Today I'm right.
The perrenial danger with Blasted is that it looks like a play of two halves. Of, course, that's because it is. But my unfailingly exclusive and conservative definition of what makes good theatre isn't going to be ruined by any old good theatre. So lets pretend it isn't.
It's lucky, then, that this production is tense from the start, because that allows me to make it sound as though this production isn't a production of two halves which is what the danger of doing a production of the play Blasted is. Ian, the drunk paranoid journalist, reacts nervously whenever the phone rings. Which is tense. There are even echoes of Pinter's The Dumb Waiter. Which is tense.
I still feel this is a young play. (Note - I use the word young in its pejorative sense.)
Halfway through, the set is blown apart, which is shocking. But far from seeming gratuitous, it is a reminder that we live in a world where everything can suddenly be ripped apart. Literally. It actually can. Actually.
What comes across unexpectedly in this production, is the way that Kane actually gives a fuck about her characters. I have even discovered an underlying lyricism in the play. How unexpected to discover the very qualities that make the play worthwhile in a production of the play!
It may not be much, but it is all I have to cling onto.
Eleven years ago I called Blasted "naive tosh". Six years ago, I decided that this was because I didn't yet know that she was about to have a tragic life, so it wasn't my fault. Today I'm right.
The perrenial danger with Blasted is that it looks like a play of two halves. Of, course, that's because it is. But my unfailingly exclusive and conservative definition of what makes good theatre isn't going to be ruined by any old good theatre. So lets pretend it isn't.
It's lucky, then, that this production is tense from the start, because that allows me to make it sound as though this production isn't a production of two halves which is what the danger of doing a production of the play Blasted is. Ian, the drunk paranoid journalist, reacts nervously whenever the phone rings. Which is tense. There are even echoes of Pinter's The Dumb Waiter. Which is tense.
I still feel this is a young play. (Note - I use the word young in its pejorative sense.)
Halfway through, the set is blown apart, which is shocking. But far from seeming gratuitous, it is a reminder that we live in a world where everything can suddenly be ripped apart. Literally. It actually can. Actually.
What comes across unexpectedly in this production, is the way that Kane actually gives a fuck about her characters. I have even discovered an underlying lyricism in the play. How unexpected to discover the very qualities that make the play worthwhile in a production of the play!
It may not be much, but it is all I have to cling onto.
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