Mosquitoes-National theatre

We are in agreement.  

My review from earlier in the run:

"Oh dear.

Watched this tonight and it's not good. Some sort of Nick Payne attempt to meld science and relationships, but it never unites and, more fatally, is never interesting. It's also far. too. long.

Amusing dialogue at first, and Colman gets to do her full range within the 3hrs, sometimes within a scene. The audience love her and lap up every look and line. Williams is given much less, and acting wise comes across quite weak for some reason. The man playing the Swiss boyfriend has the strangest accent I've ver heard on a stage, and is also struggling with his acting. The 3 small parts are pointless and ultimately those actors are reduced to (un)glorified stage managers dragging on the different bits of set. The son was good, but one note. His storyline (they claim to be interlinked but are quite separate) started well, then drifted into nothingness. The mother character had some funny lines, but was annoying. In fact, they were all annoying. Paul Hilton is completely wasted, and speaks two long monologues away from everyone else, that ultimately lead to some crazy lighting and projections (be wowed and awed audience!) but cannot hide the fact that what he's having to speak is dull, and not linked enough to the relationship drama/sitcom.

The direction by Rufus Norris is fine, the set whirs into life when the script is at its worst, trying to blind an audience with lighting and sound, but it's hard to see past the fact the script by Kirkwood is bad. Had she stuck with just the relationship drama, this might have worked.

But, like Common, this script should have been edited and fixed before rehearsals began, or at the latest during rehearsals. What is the NT's fear of cutting texts before they reach a paying audience? I'm sure Duff/Colman/Williams wouldn't care if their parts were cut if it resulted in better plays.

If you like Swiss jokes, and Higgs Boson/CERN jokes, and watching Colman do funny/sad/crying/drunk, and completely unbelievable events happening with no one batting an eyelid when they're resolved by the next scene, you'll enjoy it.

If you like good plays, which weave subjects like science and humanity together seamlessly and ask its audience big questions whilst making you feel for all the characters, you won't find any of that in Mosquitoes."

You people have good memories! I saw it on Thursday and I don't remember either a spanking scene or a cafe scene.

Why do we have to endure adult actors playing petulant teenagers?

Am I particularly stupid and unresponsive, or are others also utterly lost in the Boson monologues?

Why is this character listed as The Boson anyway?

Why was I so foolish as to attend a complex structured artificial traditional play when I prefer more intense experiences?

Why does the NT South Bank have no access to a proper theatre in the round and put up with this pathetic inadequate Dorfman imitation?

But why embed the "birth and old age stuff" in a context which is impenetrable to most of the audience?

I suspect that your "old Mum" is unacknowledgedly responsible for her late husband's Nobel prize.

Ooh, that's fighting talk! I don't think the depiction of Jenny is patronising - the rest of the family's criticism of her is what comes across as loathsome. The Forrest Gump / Wizard of Oz line in the opening scene is double-edged: in those films, Gump is a more positive, powerful character than the supposedly smart but often doomed people who surround him, whilst the Wizard of Oz, behind the dazzling facade, is a small, scared human. Alice's most horrible speech to Jenny - including the line that maybe the loss of her baby was nature's way - is delivered at a point when, unknown to Alice, Jenny has potentially sacrificed herself to save Alice's son. Jenny is also the carer for a mother who despises her whilst praising the daughter who does her own thing in another country, and Alice irrationally pines for a husband so bound up in his work he doesn't attend the difficult birth of their only child and walks out on the boy when he's ill. Alice seems incapable of connecting with her son, who is in danger of being just as lost as Jenny's daughter (btw, in previews this thread was darker - after the sexting scene, you felt suicide might be on the cards). I thought the developing relationship between Jenny and Luke was beautifully done. I saw the play with my Mum who would probably be 'team Jenny' and she loved it, particularly the family / teenage scenes. I noticed many reviewers - presumably all from the Alice class - didn't pick up on the ambiguities (btw, the Boson's final speech suggests Jenny's man-made autism theory and Luke's end of the world fears aren't groundless).

You posted at the same time as me - I've just said the same kind of thing (but it's after 1am so any more debate is for tomorrow!)

Most people I know with shared backgrounds haven't grown up like their siblings, including my own family (without going into it too much, me and my brother were like Lisa and Bart Simpson), and hardly anyone I've known since childhood or university has had a predictable life. Btw, the friend from school who 'got religion' is also the physicist who visited Cern last month.

I didn't find the storylines predictable - I first saw it in preview, so had no idea where the plot was going, though guessed we were going with the LHC symbolism of a large circle. There were gasps and cries of 'oh no!' at certain points from the audience so - even after the reviews which gave away a lot - there were evidently still surprises. First time/preview, I wondered if Luke would end up dead too, or whether the ghostly father would return physically. The twist that it is Luke who comes up with the world ending/creating theory was a last minute addition (it's not in the playtext). I attributed Jenny's reliance on drink and fags as a prop from the years she's spent struggling to conceive: I know plenty of bright people who rely on booze and fags.

First time round, seeing it with no priming at all about the plot, I did find it a bit of a barrage and would have liked it if the scenes had more room to breathe before the 'science bits', though I was never bored and the audience around me payed full attention - I didn't notice the usual shifting and rustling you get in long plays. The tone of the play in preview (and text) was a bit more naturalistic, subtle and spiky: it has since been tweaked more for comedy, going with the rhythms of the audience, and is more even. I was surprised the cafe and spanking scenes hadn't been cut or altered, though - they're the ones that really stretch credulity for me.

Yes, you are articulating what I was trying to say when I described this play, disparagingly, as an "NT play". It's the way it's constructed to be "analysed" in the ABC way that Crowblack is doing. It seems to expect of the audience a GCSE-standard English Literature essay-writing approach: This line means "this", that exchange means "that", etc., etc. But when one of the ingredients is Kevin the Teenager played to the full by someone much older, and another is a monologuing spectral physicist, my attention wanes, I'm afraid, and I decline to complete my exam paper and to pay attention. Of course, I realise that other people get off (the traditional NT audience) on this sort of thing.

Traditional NT, not typical NT.

My main reason was that I see most of Rufus Norris's productions because I enjoy the depth and texture he brings to his theatremaking, with his generous collaboration.

Secondly, I had some, much less committed, interest in Lucy Kirkwood because I admire her enterprise, ambition and personal warmth.

I'm a writer and used to work a bit as a critic, and went to see it with another writer, both of us currently in the throes of editing, so picking over things is what we do with everything! Apparently Kirkwood has been woking on this play for many years and it does have something of the feel of a piece that has gathered a lot of stuff along the way that she's reluctant to jettison (ditto The Ferryman), but I like that - it's like picking through a hoard or stuffed attic. It doesn't have the smugness you get from Stoppard's concepty plays.

I don't either, but you can tell if a production / writer is coming from a place of experience. For example, there are a lot of plays about mental health issues and, since getting back into theatregoing having gone through some, it's obvious to me which have been made by someone with close knowledge of it and which are just by a writer looking for a juicy subject: the latter can be interesting or entertaining, but the former are visceral.

If I have a choice when booking seats, I aim for a late preview so my judgement of the play hasn't been coloured by anything: I'm interested to see if it can stand on its own two feet. If I'm at a preview or a post-show and the writer is around, I do like to ask questions too. Having been 'away' for a while, this generation of writers and directors are mostly new to me so I have no prejudice one way or the other regarding their quality. I've read some of Kirkwood's other plays - I really liked The Children, (booked but missed it at the RC), thought Tinderbox was trying too hard to be Ortonesque, but showed her flair for language, whilst Chimerica didn't really engage on the page. Of Norris' work, just London Road on TV - clever, but it came across as rather patronising. Btw, there's an interesting interview with Lucy Kirkwood in July's Physics World.

Saw this last night and while I loved the performances by the Olivias I really can't say I loved the play. I didn't hate it but I just found the idea of another play about dysfunctional families a bit heavy on my brain. That apart the direction was excellent and the supporting actors in general were very good. The actor playing the boson, Paul Hilton, did seem tbe stuck in Peter Pan mode though.

Who's seen this most recently? What's the current running time looking like?