A Tale of Two Cities - Open Air Theatre

Tsk!

They are warning people now. I never understand why theatres invite problems by not adequately warning people in advance. This has been going on for years. The National did this all those years ago with The Romans In Britain when they ended up having to defend a court action, simply because they invited controversy by not giving adequate warning resulting in people attending trusting it was actually a historical drama.

From a news report:

Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre has been forced to defend a sex scene and strong language in its adaption of A Tale of Two Cities, after audience members walked out.

Reports in the Sun claimed that families with children were seen leaving, while a Regent’s Park spokesman argued that the play contains no nudity and had not been marketed to young children.

The scene that attracted criticism has now been removed from Matthew Dunster’s adaptation of the Charles Dickens novel, following its first preview performance on July 8.

During the preview performance, the character Sydney Carton was seen to pay a prostitute who then removes her underwear before a sex scene.

However a spokesman for Regent’s Park says this was a “brief, fully clothed-scene” in which there was no visible nudity.

In a statement, he said: “The production is billed as a ‘new play adapted from the novel by Charles Dickens’ which seeks to frame the original, often shocking, story within a contemporary context.

“At the first preview on Saturday night there were very few children among an adult audience of more than 1,100.


“On arrival, those accompanying any children were spoken to individually and offered a refund for their party should they not wish to see the performance. The vast majority of the audience stayed for the entire show.”

The spokesman added that, as the play is developed through the preview period, the scene with Sydney Carton and “much of the strong language” was removed before the second preview on July 10.

Additionally, the theatre’s website has been updated with advisory information and all customers who have booked for future performances have been contacted.

A report in the Sun newspaper claimed that up to 100 people left the audience, however Regent’s Park Theatre argued that such figures were an overstatement.

The spokesman added: “There are a number of inaccuracies in the reporting of Saturday night’s performance of A Tale of Two Cities, which is neither aimed at nor marketed to young children.

“In particular, the three-hour play contains no nudity and reports of the number of children in the audience and the number of people leaving are overstated

I can understand why the lack of warning about the sex scenes was a really big issue but I really don't understand why using a well known title and story is. Adaptation happens all the time, whether it's Greek, Shakespeare and so on. The simultaneous announcement of Oliver Twist for younger audiences correctly says 'adapted by' instead of the 'a new play by' of Tale of Two Cities, so they did make a clear distinction. People are reacting because of the age inappropriate content and no warning, that's where the problem lies.

Every decision made about this production was the wrong one. Even the set refused to perform last night. I reckon most of the actors would have if they could have.

Showing your age there!

Saw it Monday night. Having read about it and knowing what to expect, it was not as bad as I was expecting. In fact some scenes were rather good. Some of the acting leaves a bit to be desired and the start is particularly confusing if you don't know the story. However, I quite liked the mix of old and new and the staging (which had no problems). Having said this, overall there was still something unsatisfying about the play as a whole.

Did it rain?