Theatre Revue - Week 4 (d)
Mar. 5th, 2011 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lorannahSo... I may have fallen just a little bit behind with the theatre blogging - sort of a combination of moving flats and jobs and seeing a truly ridiculous amount of theatre. But I'm determined to catch up, sooner or later. Hopefully sooner - though given I'm 14 plays behind, that might be wishful thinking.
Anyhow, at the end of week 4 I saw:
15. 29th January 2011 - As You Like It, RSC at the Roundhouse (Shakespeare)
16. 30th January 2011 - Double Falsehood, Union Theatre (Shakespeare... possibly)
AS YOU LIKE IT - RSC at the Roundhouse
I must admit, having already seen six serious plays at this point, it was relief to get a comedy and this is a production and play that I'm exceptionally fond of and had already seen several times. Weirdly I've been finding it much more difficult to work out what to say about the plays that I've seen lots of time. I'm sure I had lots of random thinky thoughts when I first saw this a year ago but possibly my brain had melted from all the theatre, because I've been struggling to remember any of them.
So instead I'm just going to list all the things I love about the play - ah, first up has to be Katy Stephens who is utterly sublime as Rosalind - she's so quick and clever all the time but she also manages to capture a real pathos and sadness in the role. I also love the relationships she builds with the other characters - particularly, obviously, Orlando and Celia. Really though as much as I see them playing their games together, it's the side characters I ended up really loving and caring about in this production - Pheobe and Silvius, and particularly Touchstone and Audrey. Honestly, they're both so utterly ridiculous and silly and excited about each other that I just want them to be together forever. And I love James Trahearne's show stealing turn as Sir Oliver Martext.
I love as well how music pervades this production. It's not only that it's used throughout the play, right from the very start in fact - as Jonjo O'Neill serenades the arriving audience busking in the foyer. I love that they started doing this as I think it's a great opportunity for the audience to warm to Orlando right away - he has quite an unsympathetic opening (though maybe it's just me who thinks he moans to much) and I think this circumvents that a lot. And this time he even played a song that wasn't by Bob Dylan (Redemption Song in fact). The busking also for me matches that feeling of coming out of the play and finding poetry plastered throughout the theatre - it's like the play is so exuberant and emotional and joyful that it's literally bursting out of it's own confines. It reminds me of Rosalind.... Anyway, back to the music thing - I also wanted to say that there are so many of the characters have elements of musicians about them - like they're these little sketches of musicians in all their ridiculous, poetical, self absorbed, posing glory - they remind me of so many people I know. And people I love. It made it even more joyful for me.
I also got a much stronger sense of sexual and gender confusion from the production this time around. Though perhaps partly that's because I'd just been reading about the connotations the name Ganymede would have had for some of Shakespeare's audience (I love Shakespeare - just saying). One thing that particularly stood out as different for me was that I'd never read/viewed Jaques as gay before - despite his interest in witty youths - for some reason it just hit me this time. There was something naked and painful and desperate in the way he looked at Orlando and Ganymede. Actually I really love the way Jaques is handled in the production (and not only for the use it makes of Forbes Masson's awesome vocal range) - there's something I've always found slightly unsatisfying in the portrayal of Jaques as this dispeller of wisdom, pointing out to us the foolishness of everyone elses acts. I love this so much more - Jacques as bitter and cynical and wrong, something to be overthrown and fought against. It deepens the infectious joy for me.
Which I think is nearly all I have to say (though I've almost certainly forgotten something) - the only thing I want to add is how much I love the set - another representation of Rosalind for me (seriously her character infuses this whole production for me). The way it falls apart, destructs itself and becomes something so much more alive and beautiful - it's just gorgeous. As are the costumes - being in the front I can only emphgasise how stunning the detail that goes into them is. There's ridiculously delicate embroidery on the shirts that the majority of the audience won't even be able to do, or the work that goes into shoes, or the beautiful ring that Le Beau is wearing and, my utter favourite, the beautiful patterns inside of Ganymede's jacket. Plus we have first hand knowledge of how lovely Celia's hair pins are, given that one was kicked into my friends lap.
So, yep, as you may have got from this review when I think of this production - my mind is overwhelmed by thoughts of music and beauty and joy. It was just what I needed.
DOUBLE FALSEHOOD - Union Theatre
The obvious thing that springs to mind about Double Falsehood is, of course, the authorship controversy (my gut feeling of which is that if Shakespeare had a hand in the play, only glancing traces now remain – though if I go into why I feel that, this will go on I suspect for pages) but I suspect the reason so many of the reviews of this production have focused on this aspect of the play to the detriment of all others is that, otherwise, it’s incredibly difficult to know how to approach it.
Mostly this is an issue of the play itself, rather than the production – an issue of changing sensibilities. It’s hard for me to approach a play, where so much of the plot argues against my beliefs. Where I could appreciate the setting, the performances, the lighting, the use of sound (mostly)… I couldn’t enjoy the play. And because of that watching it wasn’t ever anything other than slightly uncomfortable.
Simply, I couldn’t enjoy the story of a girl who is repeatedly victimised and whose only revenge is to tie herself permanently to one of her abusers. That being said, though, I was pleased that this production didn’t treat the ending as the happily ever after the text, I suspect, ended – it was bitter and sad – and promised more bitterness and pain and sadness in the future. It left me feeling slightly heartbroken and slightly dirty.
But… it wasn’t a bad production for all that. Like I’ve already said, I liked the way they approached these difficulties rather than just ignoring them. The rape early on is truly visceral – as are other violent scenes later on, the action was not sanitised and generally the performances were very good, adding layers to the characters that I’m not sure were actually present in the text.
I also liked how they handled the staging. The Union, though one of those venues that gives me a slightly ridiculous warm glow just from walking through the doors, offers a huge amount of limitations to productions. But as with Iolanthe, the last thing I saw there, I think that can work to their advantage and stretch their creativity. Here the small dark room added to the claustrophobic feel of the small village. They also used some really beautiful lighting to change scenes – the use of a window to create a church springing to mind (also I am an absolute sucker for strings of hanging lights – so I was won over before it even started).
The locale also had an unintended affect that I rather loved. As the Union is often punctuated by the dull distant rumble of passing trains which here seemed almost always to pass at the moment made important decisions or declarations adding an ominous feel to the proceedings. There was some nice use of sound throughout, with choral chanting as hooded monks moved through the audience particularly effective. Though I did find the loud clucking every time Julio’s father appeared a little strange and distracting.
Which leads to the difficult feeling of enjoying the ingredients, but not enjoying the cake (awful metaphors, ahoy). Though I am still glad I went, even if it is mostly for curiosities sake.
JANUARY STATS:
Number of productions: 16
New for me productions: 9 (whups, I will make this a better ratio in the future)
Breakdown: 10/11 Shakespeares, 3 classics, 1 new play and 1 musical
Favourites: Romeo and Juliet obviously and, if I'm honest, most the Shakespeares - but Julius Caesar, Salad Days and Tiger Country also all stick in my head as excellent.
Dissapointments?: I didn't enjoy An Ideal Husband or Three Sisters as much as I expected for various reasons. Though I think the biggest disappointment for me was Love Is My Sin - just because I rarely have a theatrical experience that pisses me off so much (bad usher). But 3 out of 16 isn't too bad a these things go.
Anyhow, at the end of week 4 I saw:
15. 29th January 2011 - As You Like It, RSC at the Roundhouse (Shakespeare)
16. 30th January 2011 - Double Falsehood, Union Theatre (Shakespeare... possibly)
AS YOU LIKE IT - RSC at the Roundhouse
I must admit, having already seen six serious plays at this point, it was relief to get a comedy and this is a production and play that I'm exceptionally fond of and had already seen several times. Weirdly I've been finding it much more difficult to work out what to say about the plays that I've seen lots of time. I'm sure I had lots of random thinky thoughts when I first saw this a year ago but possibly my brain had melted from all the theatre, because I've been struggling to remember any of them.
So instead I'm just going to list all the things I love about the play - ah, first up has to be Katy Stephens who is utterly sublime as Rosalind - she's so quick and clever all the time but she also manages to capture a real pathos and sadness in the role. I also love the relationships she builds with the other characters - particularly, obviously, Orlando and Celia. Really though as much as I see them playing their games together, it's the side characters I ended up really loving and caring about in this production - Pheobe and Silvius, and particularly Touchstone and Audrey. Honestly, they're both so utterly ridiculous and silly and excited about each other that I just want them to be together forever. And I love James Trahearne's show stealing turn as Sir Oliver Martext.
I love as well how music pervades this production. It's not only that it's used throughout the play, right from the very start in fact - as Jonjo O'Neill serenades the arriving audience busking in the foyer. I love that they started doing this as I think it's a great opportunity for the audience to warm to Orlando right away - he has quite an unsympathetic opening (though maybe it's just me who thinks he moans to much) and I think this circumvents that a lot. And this time he even played a song that wasn't by Bob Dylan (Redemption Song in fact). The busking also for me matches that feeling of coming out of the play and finding poetry plastered throughout the theatre - it's like the play is so exuberant and emotional and joyful that it's literally bursting out of it's own confines. It reminds me of Rosalind.... Anyway, back to the music thing - I also wanted to say that there are so many of the characters have elements of musicians about them - like they're these little sketches of musicians in all their ridiculous, poetical, self absorbed, posing glory - they remind me of so many people I know. And people I love. It made it even more joyful for me.
I also got a much stronger sense of sexual and gender confusion from the production this time around. Though perhaps partly that's because I'd just been reading about the connotations the name Ganymede would have had for some of Shakespeare's audience (I love Shakespeare - just saying). One thing that particularly stood out as different for me was that I'd never read/viewed Jaques as gay before - despite his interest in witty youths - for some reason it just hit me this time. There was something naked and painful and desperate in the way he looked at Orlando and Ganymede. Actually I really love the way Jaques is handled in the production (and not only for the use it makes of Forbes Masson's awesome vocal range) - there's something I've always found slightly unsatisfying in the portrayal of Jaques as this dispeller of wisdom, pointing out to us the foolishness of everyone elses acts. I love this so much more - Jacques as bitter and cynical and wrong, something to be overthrown and fought against. It deepens the infectious joy for me.
Which I think is nearly all I have to say (though I've almost certainly forgotten something) - the only thing I want to add is how much I love the set - another representation of Rosalind for me (seriously her character infuses this whole production for me). The way it falls apart, destructs itself and becomes something so much more alive and beautiful - it's just gorgeous. As are the costumes - being in the front I can only emphgasise how stunning the detail that goes into them is. There's ridiculously delicate embroidery on the shirts that the majority of the audience won't even be able to do, or the work that goes into shoes, or the beautiful ring that Le Beau is wearing and, my utter favourite, the beautiful patterns inside of Ganymede's jacket. Plus we have first hand knowledge of how lovely Celia's hair pins are, given that one was kicked into my friends lap.
So, yep, as you may have got from this review when I think of this production - my mind is overwhelmed by thoughts of music and beauty and joy. It was just what I needed.
DOUBLE FALSEHOOD - Union Theatre
The obvious thing that springs to mind about Double Falsehood is, of course, the authorship controversy (my gut feeling of which is that if Shakespeare had a hand in the play, only glancing traces now remain – though if I go into why I feel that, this will go on I suspect for pages) but I suspect the reason so many of the reviews of this production have focused on this aspect of the play to the detriment of all others is that, otherwise, it’s incredibly difficult to know how to approach it.
Mostly this is an issue of the play itself, rather than the production – an issue of changing sensibilities. It’s hard for me to approach a play, where so much of the plot argues against my beliefs. Where I could appreciate the setting, the performances, the lighting, the use of sound (mostly)… I couldn’t enjoy the play. And because of that watching it wasn’t ever anything other than slightly uncomfortable.
Simply, I couldn’t enjoy the story of a girl who is repeatedly victimised and whose only revenge is to tie herself permanently to one of her abusers. That being said, though, I was pleased that this production didn’t treat the ending as the happily ever after the text, I suspect, ended – it was bitter and sad – and promised more bitterness and pain and sadness in the future. It left me feeling slightly heartbroken and slightly dirty.
But… it wasn’t a bad production for all that. Like I’ve already said, I liked the way they approached these difficulties rather than just ignoring them. The rape early on is truly visceral – as are other violent scenes later on, the action was not sanitised and generally the performances were very good, adding layers to the characters that I’m not sure were actually present in the text.
I also liked how they handled the staging. The Union, though one of those venues that gives me a slightly ridiculous warm glow just from walking through the doors, offers a huge amount of limitations to productions. But as with Iolanthe, the last thing I saw there, I think that can work to their advantage and stretch their creativity. Here the small dark room added to the claustrophobic feel of the small village. They also used some really beautiful lighting to change scenes – the use of a window to create a church springing to mind (also I am an absolute sucker for strings of hanging lights – so I was won over before it even started).
The locale also had an unintended affect that I rather loved. As the Union is often punctuated by the dull distant rumble of passing trains which here seemed almost always to pass at the moment made important decisions or declarations adding an ominous feel to the proceedings. There was some nice use of sound throughout, with choral chanting as hooded monks moved through the audience particularly effective. Though I did find the loud clucking every time Julio’s father appeared a little strange and distracting.
Which leads to the difficult feeling of enjoying the ingredients, but not enjoying the cake (awful metaphors, ahoy). Though I am still glad I went, even if it is mostly for curiosities sake.
JANUARY STATS:
Number of productions: 16
New for me productions: 9 (whups, I will make this a better ratio in the future)
Breakdown: 10/11 Shakespeares, 3 classics, 1 new play and 1 musical
Favourites: Romeo and Juliet obviously and, if I'm honest, most the Shakespeares - but Julius Caesar, Salad Days and Tiger Country also all stick in my head as excellent.
Dissapointments?: I didn't enjoy An Ideal Husband or Three Sisters as much as I expected for various reasons. Though I think the biggest disappointment for me was Love Is My Sin - just because I rarely have a theatrical experience that pisses me off so much (bad usher). But 3 out of 16 isn't too bad a these things go.