Roman Tragedies Barbican 2017

Going on the 19th (Sunday). Extremely excited.

I went when it was last over, and would say go with an open mind. And embrace it, and also take advantage of the moving around opportunity and don't be afraid to leave for a leg stretch

Below is the e-mail sent out:

We look forward to welcoming you in March for Toneelgroep Amsterdam’s Roman Tragedies at the Barbican. For those not familiar with the format of the show, after the first half an hour of the performance you will be allowed to move freely around the auditorium and stage until the final 75 minutes of the performance when you will be asked to return to sitting in the auditorium. This means that when the performance starts you will have an allocated seat (your seat number can be found on your theatre ticket), but after the Master of Ceremonies invites you to move around, seats in the auditorium will become unallocated for the remainder of the performance.

Refreshments will be available to purchase on stage using cash or contactless payment and you may enter and exit the auditorium whenever you like. Use of mobile phones to access the internet is permissible throughout the performance although we kindly ask you to silence phones and ensure you switch off the flash when taking photos.

Also if you can see it here is a link to a timeline for the show from a different run: anothereyeopens.com/tag/roman-tragedies/

 no worries

The Barbican will give you credit for returned tickets up to 24 hours in advance 

I am there now

It's ambitious

But cumbersome

Disjointed

And there is no need for it to be this long

The acting is impeccable as always from this ensemble

But I much preferred Kings of War

Having the audience on stage

Most of the rudimentary camera work

And having food and drink on stage

Is all a bit pointless

Katie Mitchell does camera work much better than this

The Coriolanus is remarkable

Quite quite so

The acting amazing

Sizzling

I don't like Caesar as a play

Stupid and as the middle of this show it drags the pace down for me terribly

The Antony and Cleopatra

Is like Dynasty

But proportionally so long compared to the others which have been severely truncated

The man and cleaner outside

Priceless

Saw Kings but wasn't as keen. Possibly not helped by the fact I love the 5 plays it condensed. Cleaner was hilarity in the wrong place. Of these I only really feel passionate about Coriolanus

I MADE IT! I SURVIVED!

Wasn't as great as King's of War but it certainly was bloody fantastic being up close to the action on stage.

Oh and sitting close to Jude Law amongst the audience members onstage was a bonus.

Funny how the show seemed to be fine with people taking out their phones and taking photos in plain sight. I got plenty. Even Jude Law had his phone out

The highlight for me was Hans Kesting's "Friends, Romans Countrymen". One of my favourite Richard IIIs and tonight he delivered the speech with such emotion and alacrity.

I think the problem is that with King's of War it involved 5 history plays that followed each other closely during a period when England had descended into a period of never-ending discontent and warfare.

The Roman plays feel seperate from each other, apart from perhaps the narrative links between Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra.

This is most obvious when you get to Antony and Cleopatra, the weakest part of the show for me. Coriolanus and Julius Caesar feel like political thrillers, especially when the audience was onstage like they were the plebians of rome. In Antony and Cleopatra the politics has to share the stage with the romance and added levity, and once the audience had to go back to the their seats things started to slow down by the end

And I am not a fan of the play's pacing at the best of times, but the final act seemed to go on for an eternity. I felt for Cleopatra's grieving but god damn it was drawn out, especially her surrender to Octavius.

Oh and Enobarbus' death was stupid and embarrassing quite frankly. They had this whole thing where he ran out of the theatre with a camera following behind and he went out into the underpass where he flung himself onto the ground wailing, whilst the camera focused on bemused passers by. He then would refer to the headlights from a car that had stopped at this sight with "Be witness to me, O thou blessed sun".

A cheap attempt at levity that the audience lapped up giving him a round of applause as he came all the way back so that he can die.

Ivo van Hove I am disappointed in you

That wasn't a serious comment.

If it helps I could always post a video of me rushing out onto the street, throwing myself on the road and yelling "I survived". The camera would focus on people phoning on the police and cars tooting at me.

I mean if this is what tastes in levity has come to then sure.

Any way the time flew by during Coriolanus and Julius Caesar. Especially when everyone was doing musical chairs every set change

Thought this was excellent - didn't see Kings of War so can't compare with that.

Spent a bit of time up on stage at which point I had a bit of a lightbulb moment that this is actually a very traditional thing to do - it was basically like being in the Pit at the Globe. Becomes quickly apparent that while being on the stage is a fun immersive experience you have a really terrible view of the action. Good opportunity to try out a few different seats!

Agree with the above comments that "Friends, Romans, Countrymen ..." was the highlight.

Wonder if video footage of Donald Trump in Shakespeare productions will become as ubiquitous as footage of George W Bush was a few years ago?

One effect of seeing this is that I appreciate Robert Icke's Oresteia and Hamlet a lot less! Bob Dylan / Power Suits / Soft Furnishings / Countdown clocks for short pauses / Classical text spoken as naturalistic dialogue.

Spotted in the audience - Angus Wright and several of the cast of Hedda Gabler including Ruth Wilson.