Obsession

Oh no poor Jude . Such a nice (and hot) man. And a much better actor than he's given credit for.

2 stars from the stage and times

3 from the rest so far

I would say quite poor

Given Billington usually gives everything 4/5 stars

ES 2 stars
Daily mail 2 stars
Times 2 stars
Arts desk negative review
The stage 2 stars
Telegraph 3 stars
BWW 3 stars
Guardian 3 stars
WOS 3 stars

I had been interested in seeing this but the combination of the prices and the general lack of semi-decent seats put me off when I last looked online a couple of months ago - seeing those reviews I'm now glad I didn't bother and saved the money for something else (I booked to see Daniel Kitson at the Roundhouse in July earlier today for £13.95 including booking fees: I could go and see him 4 times and it would still be less than the price of the stalls tickets I was looking at)

I went in fearful of having a dismal time, but I loved this! A post-modern avant-garde study of the representation of "obsession," disguised as a play.

Some spoilers follow. . .

From the first appearance of Jude Law's Gino, playing his harmonica like Charles Bronson's revenge-obsessed character in "Once Upon a Time in the West," I found myself being drawn away from the production I was watching, to think instead about the depiction of "obsession" in other art works. When Law enters, the three lead characters freeze, forming points of a huge isosceles triangle, a physical manifestation of a love-triangle, but also reminiscent of a Sergio Leone shootout, a tableau that might occur at the end of an obsessive quest. As in Sergio Leone films, a native English speaker, Law, fills the role of protagonist, while the other key characters are played by mainland Europeans, who, while not dubbed, speak English as a second language. These other characters also reveal themselves not as individuals, but in relation to other works, with Halina Reijn's Hanna singing from Bizet's Carmen, an opera in which a freedom-loving woman is both object and subject of obsession, sandwiched between two men, while Gijs Scholten van Aschat, her older husband, sings from "La Traviata," in which an obsessed older man tries to wedge himself between two young lovers.

Van Hove explores the representation of obsession not only by reference to other films, but also by pre-recording huge filmic close-ups of the principals, their legs and arms and bodies intertwined, lips locking, bodies touching, close-ups being the filmic language of intimacy and obsession. Yet the stage remains vast and empty, a plate on which to put the characters under Van Hove's intricately operated microscope. Van Hove explores portraiture, having Law, critically a film star, stand for long periods with his muscular torso exposed, making shapes with Halina Reijn's Hanna, then freezing, as if posing for dramatic filmic portraits, perhaps for a perfume called "obsession."

Van Hove explores obsession in song, having Law mime to Iggy Pop's primally obsessive "I wanna be your dog," and plays Woody Guthrie's sociopolitical tract "This land is your land," as he explores the romantic imagery and backdrops against which obsessive stories are typically told, huge waves a symbol of the perennial nature and primal forces we seed into our concept of obsession.

Critically, Van Hove abstracts his characters from their particular story, which is presumably why he hired Simon Stephens, a master of alienation and detachment, to translate his Dutch original script into English. The play leaves out specificities of character, so as to keep them filmic iconic symbols, rather than mere characters in a drama. So while I listened to moaning from others about "lack of character development," my own feeling was that that lack of character development was the whole point, to distill depictions of obsession to their universal essence.

Law is not a lazy actor, for me, particularly good at portraying brute passion, as he did with his murderous Henry V, and most perfectly in Anna Christie at the Donmar. Van Hove interrogates his actor's skill at becoming a brute thing, and bottles it in countless poses and portraits, alone and with other actors. Law really is wonderful in this, his whole being translated into freeze-frames of torid passion, and Halina Reijn, in particular, is wonderful support.

I got the feeling that Van Hove had already emulated Visconti's early experiments with realism in other projects, and here, bored with that, preferred to reflect late Visconti's fetishism for depicting decadent rituals, in this case, the rituals we invoke to depict obsession, which Van Hove himself does obsessively from start to finish.

This is essentially an avant-garde art piece about obsession, that interrogates the representation of obsession from the outside-in, even while depicting obsession from the inside-out. For that reason, it's memorable and meaningful, even though it eschews the immediate visceral kicks that a detailed and specificly dramatic show would deliver.

4 stars.

Seeing it on Sunday.

The other film to stage adaptations I've seen of Van Hove's sound quite similar; for those from Bergman, Pasolini and Antonioni you knew you were watching an arthouse European movie with its narrative languidity, its sometimes bafflingly inert dialogue (the Antonioni in particular) and something where even the most extremely emotional outbursts were like watching an alien race, punctuated by distancing theatrical effects. They really are so distinctively European (but not Slavic) and not the 'way we do things here'. It's indicative that the only American director he has done the same for has been the very much arthouse Cassavetes.

For the first half hour I thought this was possibly going to be intriguing, but, ultimately, I enjoyed Steve's brilliant review and insight into it more than the play, which, frankly struck me as ludicrous. Even seeking out the isosceles triangles couldn't lift our spirits.

Jude Law was good - I don't think anyone else would have been better - and I admired him for trying something experimental. There were a few moments when his beauty and physicality and commitment almost raised it to something. But it just got more and more ridiculous. Dud lines like, 'Well, that was special.' That artist Johnny character going on about what a great time they'd had together when they really, really hadn't. The cop character who stood around with his hands in his pocket. The odd truncated sink. The travelator. At the end, people near us were shaking their heads in what looked like disbelief and the reaction was generally muted. I brought an adventurous broad-minded theatre-goer and she was a good sport about it, but most of our discussion centred on what was worse - the play or the production.

2*

Those keen on geometry should pop over to the National for a play about transatlantic trigonometry - Angles in America

They have removed seats A29 and A30 - doesn't seem to be due to the view, I think they've done it as at a couple of points actors enter from that side of the stalls  (as in Hedda Gabler) and this gives them access.

Enjoyed this more than I expected (had low expectations given comments here and the reviews!)

I bought my tickets to this last May I was so keen to see it - bought six of them too.  The two strongest shows of his I've seen have been very emotionally intense and psychologically astute (View from the Bridge, Roman Plays).  Bridge is the thing I've most enjoyed in the past five years, the Roman plays the best thing I've seen this year.  But the Antigone was very underpowered, I thought, and this sounds like a terrible disappointment, and that seems to be the view of a lot of people who have loved his other shows, not people with preconceptions.

Saw the NT Live of this tonight. Thought Jude Law was very good indeed but the production was all over the place. When the leading actress tipped rubbish everywhere, it all suddenly felt very Emperor's New Clothes.

This was a total stinker - even Jude Law couldn't save it. I saw all 8 hours-ish of Angels in America last week and this felt longer!

Perhaps ignorant but can someone explain why Ivo van Hove is such a huge name in theatre? This avant-garde minimalist stuff has been going on for years and, to my mind, the only production of his that was universally adored was the Young Vic's A View from the Bridge?

I'm really looking forward to seeing Bryan Cranston and Cate Blanchett on the stage over the next 12 months but I hope van Hove doesn't shackle them with duds like Law with Obsession and Ruth Wilson with Hedda.