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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: When the play's NOT the thing
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georgiaboy
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# 11294
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Posted
Picking up on comments in 'The play's the thing', it seems there are many productions that treat lightly/ignore what the author wrote. (It's especially endemic in opera these days with 'concept' productions.) Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Your experiences?
Two Shakespeare shows that did NOT work at all for me were 'Titus Andronicus' (admittedly a terrible play IMO) which was given a Star Wars setting, and "Midsummer Night's Dream' which was played as if by a Bulgarian circus troupe. And as Anna Russell used to say, 'I'm not making this up, you know.'
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You can't retire from a calling.
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Bob Two-Owls
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# 9680
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Posted
A version of "The Scottish Play" set in a women's prison seemed like an interesting idea on the face of it. I think I managed half an hour of missed Cell Block H references that had two people in stitches before retiring to the pub over the road.
I only know they were Cell Block H references because one of the laughers turned up in the pub afterwards and asked why I had walked out. She filled me in on the series in minute detail.
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Ariel
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# 58
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Posted
Poor old Shakespeare, his plays seem particularly prone to eccentric interpretations. I can't remember which of the Bard's plays it was I went to many years ago, but the scene was set with a man-size copper pyramid and a bathtub on the stage, which stayed there throughout each scene, and were never used or referred to. It was surprisingly distracting. I kept waiting for the actors to engage with one or the other and they never did.
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Sarasa
Shipmate
# 12271
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Posted
I once saw a version of 'Anthony and Cleopatra' (not a play I know) with Kate O'Mara from The Brothers in the title role. Everyone wore identical roll neck sweaters and trousers and most of the small cast played more than one part. I was totally confused as to what was happening, not helped by her not being a great stage actress.
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'I guess things didn't go so well tonight, but I'm trying. Lord, I'm trying.' Charlie (Harvey Keitel) in Mean Streets.
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
The ghastliness of clever clever productions. They're designed to show off how clever clever the director is. They have exactly the opposite effect.
If the 'concept' helps tell Shakespeare's original story, then good. If it gets in the way of it - as, for me, I'm fairly sure all those cited so far would, then it's failed.
I can think of one recently which I thought did work. I saw it on television a few years ago. It was Julius Caesar, but set in modern Africa. The acting though was excellent, and it was pretty faithful to the original text. I thought it enhanced telling the original story, rather than distracted from it.
But I agree. Most don't. That was an exception.
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Palimpsest
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# 16772
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Posted
It's easy for a "new concept" turn into a display of the Director's ego. Part of the problem is that economics constrain theater groups to do the same classics over and over and over. It becomes tempting to try to break out of the clichéd performance and try to make it fresh.
Part of the problem is there's a mix of people, some of whom may never have seen the show before and some who have seen it far too often.
I saw a production of Lysistrata a couple of years ago which was set on an US Army base in Afghanistan. It did work fairly well. I also liked the film "The Bubble" by Eytan Fox which was a gay Israeli/Palestinian version of Romeo and Juliet.
It would be nice if new shows got done, but it's usually hard to find an audience that will sustain experimentation.
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
I see a lot of plays, and some of the ones I thought would work, don't, and vice versa.
We had an awesome Hamlet where the Prince was played by a woman. Nobody bothered to either highlight the fact or hide it. She was the best Hamlet I've ever seen. Totally awesome.
But then there was this absolutely horrible production of the Winter's Tale where the two opposing cultures were Bill Gates' company (=the king's court) and some bizarre totem-carving, vaguely native American group for the shepherds. Uh uh. (and the totem pole that was plastered with iPads and keyboards was a bit off, too)
WTF is not a good look for a production.
And then there was this absolutely BIZARRE production of Macbeth where the acting was as fine as I have ever seen, the whole thing had that wonderful touch of sheer horror building to the climactic moment--
... when one of the witches (Hecate?) steps into a see-through elevator in a stripper's costume and scarlet frightwig and proceeds to electrocute herself. ![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif) ![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif) ![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
We had intermission.
We returned. Back to excellent excellent acting, everything wonderful, and the ... horror ... that ended the first half had almost receded from memory ...
and Lady Macbeth kills herself, her husband has this haunting soliloquy, and some bright spark decides it's appropriate to wheel her body (actually a sack in a blanket) on state in a wooden child's wagon closely resembling a flower planter with little tulip thingies on it...
And MacBeth matter-of-factly throws open a stage trapdoor, seizes the wheelbarrow/wagon thingy, and with a total lack of ceremony DUMPS the body into the hole, dusts his hands off, and leaves.
I nearly ruptured something trying not to laugh. We were right in the front row, five feet from the actors, and it was obviously supposed to be another Crowning Moment of Horror™. But the players were college students, and I just couldn't die of the giggles right in front of them. I nearly peed my pants trying not to.
I have never in my life seen such an uneven performance.
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Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
Henry V, directed and starring some random Italian chap with ony two other actors, virtually none of the original dialogue, and consisting mostly of interpretive dance, drunken yelling (in Italian), and surrealist horse love (don't ask).
Mercifully, it only lasted for 45 minutes. Virtually everyone walked out afterwards saying "what the fuck was that????
[ 18. March 2015, 21:28: Message edited by: Marvin the Martian ]
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Uncle Pete
Loyaute me lie
# 10422
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Posted
A friend, roughly the same age, once convinced me to go see a stage production of Oliver! . We both love Dickens and enjoyed the musical. This was something else. Mininalist props, turtlenecks and not a child actor in sight. Halfway through the third act we both nodded off and only became alert during the "standing ovation". We hurried out.
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M.
Ship's Spare Part
# 3291
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Posted
I have vague memories of a local am-dram group doing something Greek. I think the audience was Macarius, me and the families of the actors. I can't remember exactly what it was but it doesn't really matter, as we couldn't hear anything. The director had decided it would be a good idea to have someone banging a gong the whole way through.
I'm not a great opera fan, but Macarius used to go to the ENO a lot. But eventually he got fed up with with trying to work out what the relevance to, say Aida, the naked people on toilets were.
M.
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Baptist Trainfan
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# 15128
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Posted
A slight tangent ... my wife enjoys contemporary dance (as well as classical ballet). One thing which rather annoys me though is some choreographers who put spoken dialogue into their pieces. I don't object to that per se, though some dance purists might object.
The problem is that dancers are good at, well, dancing but are often (not always) lousy actors. The result most of the time is a descent from sublime movement into inaudible or overemoted am-dram.
P.S. Most of choreographers can't write decent dialogue, either!
P.P.S. Another moan - again with respect to dance: the number of lighting designers who use such low light levels that you can't actually see what's going on unless you are sitting in the very front row of the theatre and have 30/20 vision. Is this true of drama too?
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Cottontail
Shipmate
# 12234
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Posted
I saw a production of The Three Sisters at the Edinburgh International Festival once. It was a respected theatre company, but one of the worst productions I have ever heard.
It was all very slick-looking, but the actors were fairly inaudible until an audience member shouted 'Speak up!' They did improve after that, but the main fault was that the director had decided to wring every ... single ... ounce ... of ... meaning ... out ... of ... every ... single ... line. Chekhov's sparkling dialogue was reduced to sludge-like consistency. The director himself sat in one of the boxes by the stage and banged a drum the whole way through. He did this very slowly and softly, so I think the idea was to slow down the whole rhythm of the play. The poor actors were never allowed to get a move on.
Half the audience left at the interval, but I was the guest of a friend, so I had to stick it out. Then the audience started to rebel. I've never seen anything like it. In the last act, the characters start lamenting their meaningless existence. Life is dull... I don't want anything more now... I'll be all right in a moment.... It doesn't matter.... What do those lines mean? ... There will come a time when everybody will know why, for what purpose, there is all this suffering ... And it all began to speak to the audience's situation on a meta level! The giggling started quietly, then the play ended with the audience howling with laughter at the most tragic lines.
The director's face was like thunder.
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Lord Jestocost
Shipmate
# 12909
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Posted
My class went to see Macbeth, our O-level text, at the Barbican. Some of it was pretty clever, for example with good effects for the witches being hoisted into the air by unseen mechanisms. But it was punctured by the final climactic fight between Macbeth and Macduff, performed in slow motion under a strobe light. Slow-mo works in a movie but not when you know there are two grown men standing in front of you deliberately moving slowly.
I believe the classic go-to example of the play not being the thing is Twang!!, Lionel Bart's follow up to Oliver!, so bad it wasn't even so-bad-that-it's-good. At one point Barbara Windsor's character says something like "I don't know what's going on." A voice came out of the auditorium: "neither do we, love."
Posts: 761 | From: The Instrumentality of Man | Registered: Aug 2007
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
The 18th C opera seria Montezuma is not exactly action-packed: mostly the characters just stand there and sing nobly at one another, as was their wont in those days. Not in this (Edinburgh Festival) production they didn't. For one aria, typically, the soprano had to slowly fall down a flight of steps, then slowly fall up them again, singing all the while. There were the usual copious amounts of male nudity, and by the last act Montezuma was on top of a pillar with the rest of the company and orchestra doing some sort of parodic mariachi conga round the base.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
From the Grauniad's review:
"From the opening scene in which a loincloth-clad Montezuma performs a human sacrifice to the denouement, in which Mexican wrestlers do unmentionable things with bottles of Coke, director Claudio Valdés Kuri's vision of Montezuma is a surreal train wreck of a production, like a B-movie so awful it becomes rather watchable".
I don't think you'd have agreed with that last phrase ... More to the point, it sounds as if the Director didn't just put use the piece as the vehicle for his own dramatic vituperations, but was determined to ignore both the words of the libretto and the archaic form in which it was composed.
I saw an early Haydn opera performed in Budapest. It was so "original practices" that the orchestra wore wigs, which was rather silly. But the staging was charming, if not thrillingly action-packed. (If anything, the whole thing showed just how much better and original Mozart was at writing operas than was Haydn!)
P.S. How did the soprano manage to fall up the steps?
[ 19. March 2015, 11:28: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
P.S. How did the soprano manage to fall up the steps?
I can't speak for the soprano, but I'm guessing you've never worn a long flowing skirt and unsuitable shoes...
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
One that works very well in the film world is Richard Loncraine's Richard III, with Ian McKellen in the title role. It's set in England in the 1930s, with Richard aspiring to a Hitler-esque dictatorship. Given that Shakespeare wrote many of his plays very transparent to his contemporary situation (eg. Julius Caesar as a warning against anti-monarchic rebellion), it seems fitting to draw out the contemporary parallels they continue to have.
When we did JC in school, we did it as a Roman piece, and it works fine as that. We did Romeo and Juliet, though as a turn of the century (1899/1900) piece (with the ball as a New Year's Eve party). That change of epoque I thought brought out a dynamic that's very present in the text already.
I've been in a few small cast productions of shows where everyone was playing multiple characters where costume simply couldn't be used 'literally' (O what a lovely war and Under Milkwood). For Lovely War we all wore variations of "military style civvy clothing" (camo pants, etc.), which was certainly true to the theme. Under Milkwood I directed and I think I somewhat regret my costume choices now: we wanted to get across a 'here comes everyone' thing, but we ended up dressing as four types of high school 'tribe' (preppy, sport, goth and I actually forget what the fourth was).
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Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Preaching blog
Posts: 8164 | From: Notre Dame, IN | Registered: Sep 2003
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
P.S. How did the soprano manage to fall up the steps?
I can't speak for the soprano, but I'm guessing you've never worn a long flowing skirt and unsuitable shoes...
It's not, I admit, my clothing of choice.
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Pine Marten
Shipmate
# 11068
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lord Jestocost:
I believe the classic go-to example of the play not being the thing is Twang!!, Lionel Bart's follow up to Oliver!, so bad it wasn't even so-bad-that-it's-good. At one point Barbara Windsor's character says something like "I don't know what's going on." A voice came out of the auditorium: "neither do we, love."
I seem to remember the headline: 'Twang!! goes clang!' ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
I recall going on a school trip many years ago to see Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades - it was a godawful, tedious experience, the only interesting bit being when the tenor stepped on someone's long train and nearly tripped up. Gordon Bennett, it was dreadful.
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Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. - Oscar Wilde
Posts: 1731 | From: Isle of Albion | Registered: Feb 2006
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adam.:
One that works very well in the film world is Richard Loncraine's Richard III, with Ian McKellen in the title role. It's set in England in the 1930s, with Richard aspiring to a Hitler-esque dictatorship. Given that Shakespeare wrote many of his plays very transparent to his contemporary situation (eg. Julius Caesar as a warning against anti-monarchic rebellion), it seems fitting to draw out the contemporary parallels they continue to have.
When we did JC in school, we did it as a Roman piece, and it works fine as that. We did Romeo and Juliet, though as a turn of the century (1899/1900) piece (with the ball as a New Year's Eve party). That change of epoque I thought brought out a dynamic that's very present in the text already.
I've been in a few small cast productions of shows where everyone was playing multiple characters where costume simply couldn't be used 'literally' (O what a lovely war and Under Milkwood). For Lovely War we all wore variations of "military style civvy clothing" (camo pants, etc.), which was certainly true to the theme. Under Milkwood I directed and I think I somewhat regret my costume choices now: we wanted to get across a 'here comes everyone' thing, but we ended up dressing as four types of high school 'tribe' (preppy, sport, goth and I actually forget what the fourth was).
Yes, I've seen that Richard III. It does work. That's surprising because even before his bones were found in the carpark, everybody knew who the real Richard III was and that he lived in the 1480s. Likewise, it's difficult to imagine a Henry V active at some other time and place, than going to war in France in 1415.
I'd be more uneasy, I think, about setting Romeo and Juliet in the 1890s rather than Renaissance Italy. Even in the 1590s, I think it depended on its exotic location for its credibility. A Tudor audience knew that you wouldn't get away with pursuing honour in quite that way in Stratford on Avon, but assumed that was how you could do things in Verona.
Everybody has made the same assumption ever since.
My apologies for saying this. I have to admit my mind boggles a bit at Under Milkwood in an odd setting. For most of us, the idioms of small town Wenglish are so much a part of both Dylan Thomas and the whole Under Milkwood experience that it's difficult to imagine it with them removed. It would be a bit like the Ring Cycle done as rhythmic prose.
Perhaps it's different if the whole thing is from an exotic location. Whether Llareggub is Newquay or Fishguard, they are both less than 200 miles from here.
Going back to the OP and the basic question, the people on a stage are actors. They are there to tell a story. If it is an opera, they are there to tell it in music. The music tells the story. The whole thing is based on illusion but for it to work, while you are there, you need to be convinced. You need to believe that this person is Hamlet, Figaro, Odette or whoever. If you're conscious all the time that you are watching X, the famous actor, singer or dancer, then it's not quite working.
Likewise, while you're watching, the director also should be mentally invisible to you. If all the way through he or she is intruding into your consciousness, 'this is my production' or 'look how clever I am' then he or she has failed and is an ass.
I am sure the director of Cottontail's Three Sisters, with his silly little drum, went home disgusted that his audience were a collection of uncultured slobs, but he got what he deserved and he deserved to get it.
Incidentally Tangent IMHO if at the end of Three Sisters, which is a great play, a part of you isn't muttering to itself 'Look, just shut up up and bl***y go to Moscow' the production hasn't achieved all that Chekhov intended. I saw a really good production here a few years ago, fast, languorous, frustrating, witty, tragic and just, well ... good.
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Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
My mind boggles a bit at Under Milkwood in an odd setting. For most of us, the idioms of small town Wenglish are so much a part of both Dylan Thomas and the whole Under Milkwood experience that it's difficult to imagine it with them removed. It would be a bit like the Ring Cycle done as rhythmic prose.
In Welsh ... now that would be something! At what point might the Valkyries appear on stage singing "Women of Harlech"?
quote:
If you're conscious all the time that you are watching X, the famous actor, singer or dancer, then it's not quite working.
Likewise, while you're watching, the director also should be mentally invisible to you. If all the way through he or she is intruding into your consciousness, 'this is my production' or 'look how clever I am' then he or she has failed and is an ass.
Precisely. But if they enhance your appreciation of the play, or make you sit up and think, "I'd never noticed that before", then they've probably succeeded.
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Lord Jestocost
Shipmate
# 12909
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Adam.:
[qb]I'd be more uneasy, I think, about setting Romeo and Juliet in the 1890s rather than Renaissance Italy. Even in the 1590s, I think it depended on its exotic location for its credibility. A Tudor audience knew that you wouldn't get away with pursuing honour in quite that way in Stratford on Avon, but assumed that was how you could do things in Verona.
How about California ("Verona Beach") in the 1990s, as per the Baz Luhrmann version with Leonardo di Caprio and Clare Danes? I have to say I thought it worked, contrary to expectation, possibly because the mentality of family-above-all resembled that of a certain Italian-derived organisation already believed to be active in the area. (Some pretty stellar Shakespearean actors to back up the two leads also helped.)
Posts: 761 | From: The Instrumentality of Man | Registered: Aug 2007
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
I don't know how I could have forgotten this. Back in the early 80s I went to a student production of "Sir Gawaine and the Green Knight" which was mostly in Olde English (so "Sir Gawaine and The Greene Cnichte").
Sir Gawaine snagged his black tights and got a massive hole and ladder all down one leg shortly after entering on stage and having an unscripted encounter with the furniture.
The Green Knight's wife, alluring him from the bed, hadn't quite bargained for Sir G's weight breaking the bed so that she slid off onto the stage while he collapsed into the wreckage. They ignored this as best as they could and carried on the dialogue valiantly anyway, which was more than could be said for one character who had clearly been roped in at the last minute and had pasted the piece of paper with his lines on on the back of his knightly shield. Not surprisingly perhaps, he spent more time apparently talking to his shield than the other members of the cast for the few minutes he was on stage.
The Green Knight arrived on cue and rode his horse straight into the bedroom to catch the couple at it. The effect was slightly diminished by his having arrived on a small white hobbyhorse and prancing around on it while he delivered his lines.
The crowning touch was when one of the scenery panels (covered with painted vines, to represent marginalia from an illuminated manuscript) suddenly fell backwards with a crash. Nobody seemed bothered, but it had probably been a reasonably regular occurrence throughout rehearsals.
While we didn't understand much of the Olde Englishe the play had been in, we all agreed afterwards it had been one of the funniest productions we'd been to all year.
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Nothing like having people with no idea of what's going on... I was in a Restoration comedy where we impressed a couple of stagehands to be sedan chairmen. The chairee's lines in the scene had quite a lot of 'I must away ere I am discovered' type stuff. Hearing that, they obligingly picked up the chair and carried her off.
The second night we explained they were to wait until she exited the sedan. Which would have been fine if the door hadn't jammed shut.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Wow Arial! Are you sure you weren't being shown the offcuts from Monty Pythin and the Holy Grail?
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
This thread has me worried. I was planning to see a local production of Richard III, now I'm not so sure.
Huia
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Uncle Pete:
... Halfway through the third act [of Oliver!] we both nodded off ...
We did Oliver! when I was in primary school (I was Mrs. Bumble) and IIRC it only had two acts ...
No wonder you nodded off.
[ 20. March 2015, 13:31: Message edited by: Piglet ]
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
There was a 2001 production of Cymbeline* at the Globe which had a very small cast (so lots of doubling up), very minimal staging - I just remember white drapes and a bare stage - and costumes of white robes and masks - very much Japanese Noh style.
We were completely lost, so much that we gave up at the interval. I actually had seats for that one so if they used masks to change characters it wasn't obvious. It wasn't a play I knew, I suspect in common with most of the audience, let alone was familiar enough with to enjoy a different take on it.
* The only bit of Cymbeline I know is the song Fear no more the heat o' the sun which was read at my grandfather's funeral and I wanted to have some context.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
posted by Adam quote:
Under Milkwood I directed and I think I somewhat regret my costume choices now: we wanted to get across a 'here comes everyone' thing, but we ended up dressing as four types of high school 'tribe' (preppy, sport, goth and I actually forget what the fourth was).
NO!
Under Milkwood is very specifically about stereotypes - Welsh, adult stereotypes to be precise - and to cast or dress it any other way is to miss the point entirely.
Do you even understand the name of the village? Llareggub was DT thumbing his nose at the establishment BBC for whom it was written.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Is there anyone else out there who was dragged along to the Westminster Theatre to see Give a Dog a Bone - the MRA pantomime that required far greater acting skill of its audience to simulate enjoyment that was in evidence on stage ![[Eek!]](eek.gif)
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Adam
Under Milkwood I directed and I think I somewhat regret my costume choices now: we wanted to get across a 'here comes everyone' thing, but we ended up dressing as four types of high school 'tribe' (preppy, sport, goth and I actually forget what the fourth was).
Under Milkwood was written as a radio play, which means no costumes or props except for sound. I saw it in London as a stage play with very thin white fabric suspended across the front of the stage. You could see the actors, but not clearly. It was very effective.
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Yes, Moo, I know that UM was written for radio - I question whether Adam does.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
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Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
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Posted
You seem to have missed the point where I said I now regretted them. And yes, I did know it was written for radio: hence the lack of a costuming tradition for the play that originates with the author!
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Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Preaching blog
Posts: 8164 | From: Notre Dame, IN | Registered: Sep 2003
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
I could imagine someone producing a version of Under Milk Wood on the stage or television - just as one can imagine Peer Gynt on the radio, to quote Educating Rita - but for my imagination, it still has to be in Wales. I can't imagine a convincing version set anywhere else or in some neutral setting.
[ 21. March 2015, 17:31: Message edited by: Enoch ]
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Do you even understand the name of the village? Llareggub was DT thumbing his nose at the establishment BBC for whom it was written.
A very backward sort of place ... There has been at least one film and one TV version of UMW. The 1960s film version with Burton and Taylor was AWFUL.
[ 21. March 2015, 18:05: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Baptist Trainfan
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# 15128
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Posted
P.S. At the risk of sounding extremely sad, there have been at least two model railway layouts called "Llareggub".
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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Kitten
Shipmate
# 1179
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Posted
But the TV version from last year was brilliant
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Maius intra qua extra
Never accept a ride from a stranger, unless they are in a big blue box
Posts: 2330 | From: Carmarthenshire | Registered: Aug 2001
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Anselmina
Ship's barmaid
# 3032
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Posted
I've seen some very well played Shakespeare in Belfast over the years, including Kenneth Brannagh's Hamlet (directed by Derek Jacobi) and Anthony Quayle as King Lear.
But I also remember a Lyric production of Macbeth with local actors, where the most memorable moment was the moment Duncan was confronted with the tragic news that everyone in his family had been slaughtered (I think - sorry if I've misrememberd this!).
It was accompanied by a decapitated head rolling around the stage at his feet. His reaction was the most noteworthy thing, where obviously his direction, or his acting instinct, was to be so much in shock at the news that he simply stood there looking ahead mumbling his lines. At one point he actually looked as if he'd fallen asleep, open-eyed. Or he had decided that Duncan's reaction must've been to have had a stroke of some kind, or even entered a stage of 'staring' or minor-seizure epilepsy.
It was an otherwise decent production, but there were a few stifled giggles from the audience at this apparent catatonic attack, so inconsistent with the action up to that point.
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Irish dogs needing homes! http://www.dogactionwelfaregroup.ie/ Greyhounds and Lurchers are shipped over to England for rehoming too!
Posts: 10002 | From: Scotland the Brave | Registered: Jul 2002
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Albertus
Shipmate
# 13356
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
I could imagine someone producing a version of Under Milk Wood on the stage or television - just as one can imagine Peer Gynt on the radio, to quote Educating Rita - but for my imagination, it still has to be in Wales. I can't imagine a convincing version set anywhere else or in some neutral setting.
No, just wouldn't work. Well, Patagonia maybe, but what would be the point in doing that?
Mrs A saw the NT stage version back in the 90s and says it was brilliant.
[ 21. March 2015, 18:40: Message edited by: Albertus ]
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My beard is a testament to my masculinity and virility, and demonstrates that I am a real man. Trouble is, bits of quiche sometimes get caught in it.
Posts: 6498 | From: Y Sowth | Registered: Jan 2008
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
P.S. At the risk of sounding extremely sad, there have been at least two model railway layouts called "Llareggub".
Even sadder question were they standard or narrow gauge? I bet at least one of them was narrow gauge.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
Can we just ensure all this hanky drowning doesn't take us down a branch line on train spotting? Thank you.
Firenze
HH
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
I once went to a performance of Die Fledermaus in Cologne. Most of it was the normal operetta, but one of the acts consisted entirely of two people on stage making jokes about contemporary German politics. I didn't appreciate that much.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
It was accompanied by a decapitated head rolling around the stage...
Oddly enough, I just got home from a dogs' dinner of a mash-up of Shakespeare historicals (Henry VI etc) where at least three freaking separate times someone came on stage cradling a decapitated head in a cloth. Seriously, they were like, stroking it and all. And we only stayed for the first two-thirds of the play!
I wonder if we had stayed to the end just how many times that same bowling ball or whatever it was would have been trotted out. Very disturbing.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
I once went to a performance of Die Fledermaus in Cologne. Most of it was the normal operetta, but one of the acts consisted entirely of two people on stage making jokes about contemporary German politics. I didn't appreciate that much.
I remember fondly a production of Die Fledermaus in Boston many years ago. The Jailer was played by Victor Borge. For some reason the jail cell had a grand piano. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
I saw a performance of Carmen at the Volksoper in Vienna many years ago. The music wasn't bad, but the overacting was dreadful.
The worst scene was when Carmen was stabbed. She was all the way over on one side of the stage. She threw her arm up to her forehead and kept it there while she staggered backwards all the way to the other side of the stage. With each step, she leaned further back, until it became a remarkable feat that she didn't fall over. It was hilarious.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
Can we just ensure all this hanky drowning doesn't take us down a branch line on train spotting? Thank you.
Hostly comment noted. Although I do remember seeing Northern Ballet's version of a "Midsummer Night's Dream" which mostly takes place on the sleeping-car express. Very clever.
I'll be good from now on ...
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
Well, as I mentioned on the other thread, I've been going to live theatre frequently for 20+ years, and among other things that's tended to mean going to see Bell Shakespeare productions, often 2 in a year.
So I've seen some of the plays multiple times, and there's one absolute train wreck that stands out. Barrie Kosky directed a version of King Lear that was appallingly incomprehensible. Everyone in heavy makeup, spending most of their time standing statically, miked, painfully booming voices, a section of talking/shrieking at ridiculous speed, and then in the second half basically nothing happening except for a lot of fake blood streaked around.
One of the reasons it stands out was because many years later, when they finally did King Lear again, it was delicate and beautiful and included this extraordinary performance by a percussionist, live at the side of the stage throughout the entire thing, providing the soundtrack (including creating the storm that Lear gets caught in). It wasn't completely naturalistic either, starting as it did almost like the characters were in a rotating music box (delicate glockenspiel notes!), but it worked.
[ 23. March 2015, 06:45: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cottontail:
I saw a production of The Three Sisters at the Edinburgh International Festival once. It was a respected theatre company, but one of the worst productions I have ever heard.
The first production I saw of the three sisters was a very clever minimalist version where only one in three lines were used, and of the lines that were used only half the words were used.
It might have been very clever and meaningful for someone who new the play thoroughly but I didn't and was completely lost. There was no information on the flyers or posters to warn the audience about the need to read and commit the play to memory before attending. I and several others decided at the break that it was fitting to continue the theme and only use the first of the two halves of the play.
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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Lord Jestocost
Shipmate
# 12909
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Posted
I have the pleasure of living in Abingdon, which means I often get to see the world premieres of Terry Pratchett novel adaptations by Stephen Briggs and the Studio Theatre Group. They are performed in the Unicorn Theatre, which is a restored medievalish theatre with a very distinct character of its own. Which means they are written for the Unicorn, too, and all the stage directions are based on the Unicorn's minimalist layout. The theatre has no provision for anything but the most basic scenery, and very often the cast have to do their own lifting as they enter and exit. It's incorporated into the action with backing music to hide the fact.
What doesn't work is when another theatre group, in a modern theatre with all the fittings, takes the play exactly as written, with sets. I saw this happen with a performance by another company of the Stephen Briggs version of Wyrd Sisters. The Unicorn's dynamic, flowing scene changes became tedious minute-long intervals in which entire sets had to change. It must have added a good, unnecessary 30 minutes to the play and it was SO BORING.
Posts: 761 | From: The Instrumentality of Man | Registered: Aug 2007
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
The first production I saw of the three sisters was a very clever minimalist version where only one in three lines were used, and of the lines that were used only half the words were used.
It might have been very clever and meaningful for someone who new the play thoroughly but I didn't and was completely lost. There was no information on the flyers or posters to warn the audience about the need to read and commit the play to memory before attending. I and several others decided at the break that it was fitting to continue the theme and only use the first of the two halves of the play.
At one line in three and then half of that line only, I'd have been tempted to have demanded ⅚ of my money back.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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