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Post by lonlad on May 9, 2017 23:24:32 GMT
Saw it tonight. Excruciating. If the National wants to alienate all those drawn to the venue by ANGELS, they have now done so and more. A complete disgrace, and the curtain call was so frigging self important (as was everything else about it) that my entire row was suppressing sniggers ....
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Post by raiseitup on May 10, 2017 9:39:18 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2017 9:49:38 GMT
This play isn't American, so it seems odd that the NT chose to programme it.
Maybe they misread the name Yael Farber as Yale on the front of her pitch?
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Post by samuelwhiskers on May 10, 2017 11:16:38 GMT
Time Out's review is a masterclass in shade.
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Post by lynette on May 10, 2017 11:58:23 GMT
I thought I had booked this but on looking thru my tix book I find that I have not. O joy!
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2017 12:37:56 GMT
^I think that may be the first ever board member to post that they are delighted NOT to have a ticket for a show... There will be a rush of people asking for credit notes Friday rush 😂😂 |
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2,058 posts
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Post by Marwood on May 10, 2017 12:58:43 GMT
I have a ticket for next week - tempted to hawk it round the bars on the Southbank asking if anyone wants it for the price of a pint...
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2017 13:12:34 GMT
I don't even want to look at how much this car crash cost me... But you never know, I might love it. Going in with an open mind and all that.
Or I could do a credit note, of course. Hmmm...
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406 posts
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Post by MrBunbury on May 10, 2017 13:34:10 GMT
Sincerely it is not that bad. I saw it last Thursday and I found it rather impressive visually. The two women singing give a very haunting feeling and there are many arresting tableaux. I liked Isabella Nefar’s performance and how her silence in the first half changes to articulation once Jokanaan the Zealot appears (I regretted that preachers do not look like Ramzi Choukair when they stop me in the street. I would be more open to listen...).
At the same time, I agree that on this occasion Yael Farber may have lost a little the contact with the audience as the text sounds stilted and some decisions in terms of movement might have worked better in theory. Reading the surtitles when Jokanaan speaks in Arabic is distracting but then, that choice sets him out of the decadent court. It is clearly a divisive play, more conceptual than engaging.
Personally, I found Consent next door much more boring since in that play they were talking all the time and I could not care less.
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Post by theatre-turtle on May 10, 2017 13:54:54 GMT
I thought this was a pile of pretentious wank and if there had been an interval I'd have left during it.
I agree word for word with the Times' 1 star review
It fails to grip the audience or establish any themes and some of the dialogue is seriously clunky and pedestrian.
I wouldn't have been surprised if someone were to tell me it were written by some well resourced sixth formers.
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2017 14:52:45 GMT
Awful
And I have told Yael
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Post by crabtree on May 10, 2017 15:22:38 GMT
And no doubt there will be all manner of defensive conversations about the rights of the director to explore her vision and such, and any outrage seen as triumphant. The first rights are to the audience and not other onanistic pleasures.
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2017 16:16:27 GMT
Directing is not a science.
If you don't want Salome, you don't get Mies Julie or Les Blancs. If you don't want Obsession, you don't get The Roman Tragedies or A View From a Bridge. Risk brings reward or failure, if you don't want the risk than all you will get is safe, bland and dull.
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Post by Jan on May 10, 2017 16:59:11 GMT
Interesting to me that almost all the criticism of the piece here could have equally been applied to the last production of Salome the NT staged which was masterminded by Stephen Berkoff. Perhaps they should give up on it.
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2017 17:07:19 GMT
It was very early in his artistic directorship that Richard Eyre programmed Steven Berkoff's Salome. It was reported at the time that Richard Eyre didn't personally like Steven Berkoff's work but that he wanted to broaden the range of theatre proggrammed by the NT, to reflect more fully the range of work going on in British theatre. I seem to remember that the advertised lead player missed many performances (Was it Antony Sher?) but that audiences who saw the less wellknown alternate performer said that they were glad to have done so because the first-cast actor would have dominated the play too much. Am I getting muddled in my memories?
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Post by lonlad on May 10, 2017 17:28:24 GMT
Was Sher in it later? Possibly. The lead at the National (where I saw it in 1989) was Berkoff himself as Herod, with Katherine Schlesinger in the title role. I remember its slow-mo ponderousness but it must have done at least reasonably well for the simple reason that it transferred to the Phoenix-admittedly, this was back in the day when Berkoff was a big name.
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2017 17:31:30 GMT
I think I've probably conflated two shows and Antony Sher was (or wasn't) in the other one!
EDIT: Yes, Sher was (or wasn't) in Berkoff's NT production of The Trial.
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Post by lonlad on May 10, 2017 17:40:48 GMT
Aha, yes, exactly right - which, if memory serves, happily was NOT in slow-mo :-)
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2017 18:02:38 GMT
I hate to detrail what is genuinely a fascinating discussion. But this is driving me nuts: there's a musical with the lyrics "Sal-o-me Sal-o-me" and I can't place what it is. AND IT IS DRIVING ME INSANE.
Please put me out of my misery.
Thank you.
EDIT: I put myself out of my misery there's a bit in Great Comet that goes like that.
As you all were.
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Post by Latecomer on May 10, 2017 18:49:02 GMT
Interesting to me that almost all the criticism of the piece here could have equally been applied to the last production of Salome the NT staged which was masterminded by Stephen Berkoff. Perhaps they should give up on it. I really liked the Headlong production done by Jamie Lloyd in 2010...toured to Oxford. Didn't know Zawe Ashton at the time but she was excellent! It was all oil drums and camouflaged soldiers....I remember it was quite thrilling! |
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Post by caa on May 10, 2017 19:04:41 GMT
Saw the play this afternoon, it has its moments but overall is too long, too much singing and the script is really poor. I was sat in the stalls and missed seeing most of the subtitles.
Sorry if this is inappropriate, but when Isabella Nefar is naked she seems to be wearing a wig to cover her private parts, which I thought was a bit odd.
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751 posts
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Post by horton on May 10, 2017 19:08:37 GMT
Why was my last post deleted? Did I commit a blasphemy in preferring this to Angels in America?
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751 posts
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Post by horton on May 10, 2017 19:14:19 GMT
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Post by Deleted on May 10, 2017 19:44:25 GMT
Sorry if this is inappropriate, but when Isabella Nefar is naked she seems to be wearing a wig to cover her private parts, which I thought was a bit odd. A merkin (they've been around since the middle ages)!
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1,119 posts
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Post by martin1965 on May 10, 2017 21:00:57 GMT
Sounds like another winner for Norris!!
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