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Post by londonpostie on Apr 16, 2023 6:25:33 GMT
Jon - there was a flurry of posts yesterday so you may not have seen that some of my post (about 6 above here) talks about the same kind of things as your spoiler comment. More generally, probably not going to make a list of points - it's tempting - though I think the way Friel gently but pointedly holds the omnipresent Catholic Church to account for what it did is so powerful. I found myself thinking more about the piece this morning than last night.
5 out of 5 Marconi radios.
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Post by tmesis on Apr 16, 2023 6:32:04 GMT
I went with some trepidation to this last night; I really didn’t enjoy Translations a few years ago at NT, my heart sank when I saw it was basically the same set, and I couldn’t understand why Friel is such a highly regarded playwright. But now I get it - this is very good. I was still a bit sceptical at the start but about half an hour in I was really connecting with these people. Friel quietly but hypnotically draws you in and the tone becomes increasingly elegiac and you just surrender to the characters.
How does he do it? Since nothing happens but everything happens.
Beautifully played by a top notch cast.
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Post by andbingowashisname on Apr 19, 2023 16:16:21 GMT
I had open arms for this, and was left only half-met by the production. Performances were decent enough, particularly Louisa Harland as Agnes, but somehow the whimsy just didn't draw me in as much as I hoped it would. The foreshadowing that the narrator provides is really where all the drama resides - meaning that not much actually happens on stage. I'm all for small moments and missed connections but I was really struggling to find much to hold onto here.
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Post by alessia on Apr 19, 2023 16:33:16 GMT
I had open arms for this, and was left only half-met by the production. Performances were decent enough, particularly Louisa Harland as Agnes, but somehow the whimsy just didn't draw me in as much as I hoped it would. The foreshadowing that the narrator provides is really where all the drama resides - meaning that not much actually happens on stage. I'm all for small moments and missed connections but I was really struggling to find much to hold onto here. I was the same (with additional deep dislike for Gerry) - maybe I went to this with too high expectations. I feel I ought to have loved it, but I just didn't.
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Post by samuelwhiskers on Apr 20, 2023 11:25:03 GMT
I had open arms for this, and was left only half-met by the production. Performances were decent enough, particularly Louisa Harland as Agnes, but somehow the whimsy just didn't draw me in as much as I hoped it would. The foreshadowing that the narrator provides is really where all the drama resides - meaning that not much actually happens on stage. I'm all for small moments and missed connections but I was really struggling to find much to hold onto here. This was my issue too. Immaculately directed and acted (at least by the sisters), the dancing especially is a huge highlight. I understand why the play is structured like it is but it feels more like a book structure. What I mean is, if you read a novel that utilises first person narration and has the main character narrating from the present day, but most of the book is his memories of the past, that works well since it's all just text that you're reading. Performance has to be show not tell, but all the plot is literally told. Tons of plot jammed into extremely plot-tense short bursts of narration, while nothing actually happens during the scenes themselves. You can have elegiac character-driven plays where nothing really happens or you can have plot plot plot. It's poignant sometimes to watch the women enjoying their summer already knowing what ends up happening to them in the future, but I needed more of a link between the dire future narrated by the adult Michael, and the summer-set scenes. I was flummoxed they made such a big deal in the first half about going to the Harvest Dance then it wasn't mentioned again. I realise it's in the original script but seeing actors doing "bending over addressing an imaginary character" acting is so deeply cringe.
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Post by barrowside on Apr 20, 2023 12:31:41 GMT
I had open arms for this, and was left only half-met by the production. Performances were decent enough, particularly Louisa Harland as Agnes, but somehow the whimsy just didn't draw me in as much as I hoped it would. The foreshadowing that the narrator provides is really where all the drama resides - meaning that not much actually happens on stage. I'm all for small moments and missed connections but I was really struggling to find much to hold onto here. This was my issue too. Immaculately directed and acted (at least by the sisters), the dancing especially is a huge highlight. I understand why the play is structured like it is but it feels more like a book structure. What I mean is, if you read a novel that utilises first person narration and has the main character narrating from the present day, but most of the book is his memories of the past, that works well since it's all just text that you're reading. Performance has to be show not tell, but all the plot is literally told. Tons of plot jammed into extremely plot-tense short bursts of narration, while nothing actually happens during the scenes themselves. You can have elegiac character-driven plays where nothing really happens or you can have plot plot plot. It's poignant sometimes to watch the women enjoying their summer already knowing what ends up happening to them in the future, but I needed more of a link between the dire future narrated by the adult Michael, and the summer-set scenes. I was flummoxed they made such a big deal in the first half about going to the Harvest Dance then it wasn't mentioned again. I realise it's in the original script but seeing actors doing "bending over addressing an imaginary character" acting is so deeply cringe. I think by Act 2 the Harvest Dance like so much else, has passed them by.
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Post by matildaswinton on Apr 22, 2023 0:07:02 GMT
I thought this was absolutely spectacular. I cried more times than I can remember. I felt the need to thank the cast after the show. Not common. This is the kind of work anyone who does theatre wants to do with their life... Phenomenal piece, direction, acting, set, music and choreography…. The fact that those chairs were brought from Ireland and that radio was lent by someone… there is such heart in this show. Made this Californian weep even days after.
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Post by jek on Apr 22, 2023 9:02:38 GMT
I loved this unreservedly as I had the 1991 production. Obviously seeing something in my late 20s and then again in my late 50s meant I dwelt on different things. For me, like for so many other people in the audience I guess, this is in part my story. In 1936 when the play is set my dad was a 10 year old growing up in Cork with two brothers and two sisters. Within three years the whole family had relocated to Dagenham, Essex to work in the Dagenham Fords plant (one of my aunts went on to play a significant part in the equal pay fight recorded in Made In Dagenham). So many Irish families faced dislocation by emigration. Just before I saw the original London production I spent a year working with the homeless in Melbourne, Australia. So many of them were Irish. My own grandparents, dad and uncles all died young (younger than I am now) - alcohol, smoking, poor diet all played their part. And I guess some homesickness and bad conditions at work played their part too.
I thought Wayne McGregor's choreography was brilliant, as was Hannah Peel's music. There is an interesting article by Mark Lawson in the Catholic weekly The Tablet in which Josie Rourke talks about how being raised Catholic and twice weekly attendance at mass formed her as a theatre director.
My partner, who came to the play with none of the baggage I carry (he'd not seen it before and isn't of Irish Catholic stock) loved it too. He said it reminded him of the best of Dennis Potter. He was joking that my religious interests had ensured two of the best nights out this week - this and the Icelandic/Danish film Godland. I'd encourage people to see both.
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Post by max on Apr 22, 2023 10:34:58 GMT
I went with some trepidation to this last night; I really didn’t enjoy Translations a few years ago at NT, my heart sank when I saw it was basically the same set, and I couldn’t understand why Friel is such a highly regarded playwright. But now I get it - this is very good. I was still a bit sceptical at the start but about half an hour in I was really connecting with these people. Friel quietly but hypnotically draws you in and the tone becomes increasingly elegiac and you just surrender to the characters. How does he do it? Since nothing happens but everything happens. Beautifully played by a top notch cast. I liked a line in the 'Why Now' review by James Harvey: "one of those plays in which nothing happens, and everything changes" whynow.co.uk/read/dancing-at-lughnasa-at-the-national-theatre-review-joyous-revival-of-a-melancholic-classic
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Post by Jon on Apr 22, 2023 11:10:24 GMT
I think it's incorrect to say nothing happens. A lot happens but we don't see it because it's a memory play from Michael's perpective.
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Post by londonpostie on Apr 22, 2023 11:27:22 GMT
We don't experience the characters through the reflective frame of an individual. After all, Michael Evans was a baby during the period depicted. More likely, it's a mixture of stories told, cleaning up, gap-filling. As with family histories, always incomplete, often heroic in any available sense.
Friel is a very subtle writer and writing narration, imo, is a very skilful art.
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Post by Latecomer on Apr 22, 2023 19:11:14 GMT
I loved it, especially the speech at the end about the “feeling” of a time in your life….I felt like that about summers as a child, when we camped (a family of 6) on a field in Anglesey for weeks on end, caught and ate fish, just lived pretty much off grid, but listened to the shipping forecast every day (most accurate weather) and had 3 tapes for our tape player…Stylistics, Imagination and Backman Turner Overdrive! Memories we share that on-one else would understand. Like a common bond.
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Post by nottobe on Apr 23, 2023 9:39:37 GMT
I went to matinee yesterday. I already posted in the thread that I was a but weary to see this as I wasn’t sure if I would like the play itself however I am a big Derry Girls fan and decided to give it a go. I have never seen a Friel live but found the BBC documentary about him very interesting.
I have to say I would describe this play as quietly devastating. For me I rarely see pieces that haunt me and I would say this I see one of them. By haunt me I mean that it was only as I was walking down the South Bank that it was hitting me and these characters were still on my mind long after the play. I had a similar experience watching After Sun and I would say there’s are actually quite a few links between this and that film about remembering your youth.
The cast were all universally great great but I particularly loved Alison Oliver as Chris. She has such a naturalist and realistic way of acting that I couldn’t take my eyes off, I can’t wait to see her in other things. The production as a whole worked well even though there were some things I think were a bit unclear.
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Post by circelily on Apr 24, 2023 7:47:55 GMT
I love your review nottobe. I too experienced Aftersun like that. And am a big Siobhán McSweeney fan. You've made me want to make see this production even more.
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Post by barrowside on Apr 25, 2023 19:41:28 GMT
I thought this production was really beautiful. It doesn't eclipse the glorious Abbey Theatre original but has so much to recommend it. I thought the girls were totally convincing as a real family of sisters. All were great and their interpretations of each character were fresh. I particularly loved Justine Mitchell and Siobhán McSweeney but Louisa Harland was a superb Agnes and both Bláthín Mac Gabhann and Alison Oliver are going to be big stars. The set is beautiful and while quite literal is really captures the golden haze of Michael's memories. It also fills the Olivier stage well while keeping the kitchen and garden intimate. I didn't care for the projections on the drapes. When we entered the theatre we thought the drapes were gorgeous and represented the Irish rain in their unlit state - I wished they'd left them as they were. Overall though it is a treat.
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Post by sweets7 on Apr 25, 2023 23:23:29 GMT
Really liked it. Being Irish I studied Friel at school. Philadelphia. Thought it was utterly boring. In fact so much of what we learnt at school was about immigration and longing and pain and trauma and displacement. Maybe it’s all we are good for. The Irish do Intergenerational trauma like no one else…except those other societies throughout thr world with repeated significant trauma. I’d say we do it as well as them anyway.
Anyway obviously being older you have a different view. Education really happens at the wrong age. I’d seen this before but ai really likes this version. I loved Agnes, she was such a powerful figure here.
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Post by dlevi on Apr 26, 2023 7:31:49 GMT
I had seen the original both in the Lyttleton and later on Broadway and thought at that time that this play was a modern classic. I'm not sure why I gave the Old Vic production in 2009 a miss, but I did. That said, I think this production is as glorious as the play can be. Josie Rourke and her designers and actors are all serving the play itself, the consequence of which is that it works it is allowed to simply work its magic. There is no directorial "fixing" of the play ( Framing devices, back stage video, ridiculous Gooldian ( Herrin-like) movements etc.) It's just a great play superbly performed in a sumptuous production.
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Post by cartoonman on Apr 26, 2023 8:46:31 GMT
Saw this last night and it is a fine production . I felt it needed a final tightening which I'm sure it will get as the run continues. By the way his best play is of course Faith Healer. The Royal Court production with Stephen Lewis made me see Blakey in a brand new light! I'm going on Friday. I saw Stephen Lewis years ago in a comedy production at Stratford East. He is a very good actor.
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Post by stevemar on Apr 27, 2023 16:17:02 GMT
Well, this was rather good. 4 and a bit stars from me. On paper, Brian Friel’s plays don’t really spark that much interest for me. It turns out though that I have seen a few - Faith Healer and Philadelphia, Here I Come at the Donmar and Aristocrats and Translations at the National. All were fine, but some of these didn’t make much of an impression on me for whatever reason. Perhaps it was the perfect interaction between the cast, the languid pace, the intimacy of the piece (was in second row) but somehow commanding the Olivier, but also where I am in life looking back at memories of childhood and the past more these days, but this really hit home. I suppose my only criticism would be the slow start (but this yields dividends as the play settles into its stride), and could the plot points crammed into the penultimate monologue be fleshed out more? Can’t really say more than the reviews of Steve, jek and Latecomer, nottobe and dlevi. I suspect it doesn’t matter and probably isn’t the point of the play, but I do have spoiler questions for posters who are more familiar with the play. {Spoiler questions} Why is the sisters’ father never mentioned (unless I missed it and this is a key point, so I will feel daft!). Was he never around?
Is there a particular reason why none of them are married? They are cast as outsiders of the village who can’t go to the Harvest Dance, only connect to the outsiders, and is this related to their lack of father/illegitimacy or lack of prospects?
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Post by Latecomer on Apr 27, 2023 20:14:13 GMT
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Post by stevemar on Apr 28, 2023 5:35:24 GMT
Thanks Latecomer
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Post by cartoonman on Apr 29, 2023 12:56:27 GMT
Saw this last night. The set is really good. It makes use of the whole of the huge stage. I was concerned that Ardal O'Hanlon might be too much like his Father Dougal role but he was a fine actor as were the rest of the cast. My father, born 1923, lived on a farm in Essex and things were not good in the 30s. There is quite a bit of humour in the play. It is well worth seeing. By the by, Ardal is the best stand up comic I have ever seen. My thanks to Latecomer-its a very interesting read.
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Post by theatremiss on Apr 30, 2023 0:00:20 GMT
I saw this yesterday’s matinee (followed by the Motive and the Cue in the eve). I thought it was a lovely piece, bittersweet at times. A great cast and I totally agree with a previous post about Alison Oliver who i was totally captured by.
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Post by barelyathletic on May 2, 2023 16:08:35 GMT
Love the play. Loved the set. Loved Maggie,thought Kate and Chrissie were very good. Michael did what was needed but, although they were fine, I didn't think Agnes came close to the aching depths and poignancy that Brid Brennan reached in the original and Rose was underplayed. Ardal O'Hanlon was stronger in the second half (it's almost impossible to watch him however hard he tries without thinking of father Dougal). But for the love of God! Could the National not find a single decent Welsh actor in the whole of the country? The annoying twit of an English man they presented completely threw me out of the play. Gerry Evans is Welsh and shares the sisters' Celtic roots. And he should be hugely charming, not a blithering idiot. Any one of those sisters would have shown him the door years ago. Can't blame the poor actor, but what an atrocious casting decision and piece of misdirection in an otherwise pretty good revival. Maybe I've been spoiled by seeing the original. This could have come so close but for the fact that Gerry walked in not only from another country but from another play. Grrr.
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Post by barrowside on May 2, 2023 16:30:30 GMT
It's amazing how many of us remember the original in such detail. It casts a very long shadow indeed.
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Post by bordeaux on May 2, 2023 19:42:59 GMT
Yes, the Gerry in the version that came to the NT in 1991 was very charmingly played by Stephen Dillane.
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Post by londonpostie on May 2, 2023 22:48:19 GMT
I don't think we should underestimate the effect a confident, masculine - even exotic - travelling salesman has on the deeply parochial, adult, sisterhood. Among much else, he represents 'a ticket out of here' to a new life and modernity, if he would only ask one of them.
Fwiw, I liked how Friel chose to mitigate The Outsider - who at this point in history would have associations with the English - by (a) making him Welsh and (b) linking him with international socialism/anti fascism.
I was amused to imagine Gerry Evans meeting Willie Loman on the road somewhere; sharing with one another internal and external fantasist lives they weave.
I quite like that, in this production, Father Dougal from Father Ted is promoted to Father Jack, though a different Father Jack from the one in Father Ted (Feck, Arse, Girls, Drink, etc).
In passing, I have wondered if Friel was *homaging* socialist Arthur Miller, maybe just a little. Also, if you want a little homaging with this (post-Father Ted), it must be quite difficult to ignore priests in decline in rural Ireland who share the name Father Jack.
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Post by rumtom on May 3, 2023 20:18:21 GMT
I saw this today and absolutely loved it. The set design worked so well that I was quite happy watching even before anyone came on stage. And with such a good cast I felt like I was watching a memory of a time and place I'd never experienced.
I was interested in the way religion, pagan festivals and Ugandan spiritual ceremonies are discussed (or not), does anyone know whether this a theme in Friel's work or just an inevitable topic in this story?
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Post by bram on May 3, 2023 22:47:16 GMT
A really engrossing and thought provoking play superbly acted and directed and designed.
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Post by edi on May 4, 2023 16:51:44 GMT
{Spoiler questions} Why is the sisters’ father never mentioned (unless I missed it and this is a key point, so I will feel daft!). Was he never around?
Is there a particular reason why none of them are married? They are cast as outsiders of the village who can’t go to the Harvest Dance, only connect to the outsiders, and is this related to their lack of father/illegitimacy or lack of prospects?
I liked it, but kept thinking that I must be missing some background information, like the one in the spoiler above. Also - the 'Welsh' chap did not come across like 'Welsh' - Wasn't sure the outcome of the two girls was beliavable, i thought it would've worked better if we are not 'told' what happened to them.
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