Machinal - Almeida Theatre

Ummmmm, où est Matthew Needham?

How do you know it will be visceral? 

There were no quote marks in the post. So my question is still pertinent. If it is I would ask the writer of the press release the same question.

If it is part of marketing it cannot be misleading, so is it materially misleading if it is not visceral?

Yes!!!! CAN EVERYBODY JUST SHUT UP ABOUT QUOTATION MARKS AND VISCERAL!!!!!!!!

'Nothing is as peevish and pedantic as men's judgements of one another.' Erasmus

Have booked for this after reading about the play and playwrite. Still seems to be reasonable availability. I don’t think I have ever seen any expressionist drama, so quite excited to see what they do with this.

I see one blogger has complained bitterly on Twitter about the poor sight-lines due to the use of a proscenium arch.

Don't worry but do contact the theatre to ask. Most are more careful about this and would change the seating configuration/hold some seats off-sale/contact those who have booked if necessary, but better safe than sorry.

This was the tweet:

"If you’ve bought a ticket for the side stalls at #Machinal @almeidatheatre please be aware that you view will be severely obstructed by an unnecessary & unusual (for the theatre) proscenium arch. No doubt it is part of the designer’s (extremely restricted) vision. #SpoiledTheShow"

We were in E23 and E24 on Wednesday, first two seats on the right hand side side stalls block, and missed a few people in the back right hand corner of the stage in the first typing pool scene and again near the end of the play.

The issues staging wise is that Abrahami/Buether have chosen to place a lot of the scenes in the mid centre stage area when they should/could actually be much further forward.

This, along with the fact that Buether has also chosen to put the side wall blacks in to create her old school photographic effect in between and during scenes, does severely restrict the cheaper seats side-stalls in quite a few of the scenes.

If you saw The Twilight Zone, it's basically that effect design wise that Buether has gone for. However the seating arrangement is "normal Almeida" thus the restirictions.

A blessing not many have noted during Goold's reign here is that many of his directors/designers have (maybe flukily) favoured opening up the stage space and getting rid of the side-blacks when mounting their shows. For the £20 and £10 side Stalls seats, this has meant, a single pillar aside, their views have been much improved. I for one have been glad of it and breathed a sigh of relief when going into shows like Summer & Smoke, Carmen Disruption, and others there.

Maybe it could be something early Preview visitors could mention when feeding back on a show's design here: if the stage is fully open, or if they've tabbed it and out in the fake walls at the sides to create a proscenium.

No actual remarks about the production? Am curious to hear, given how vivid my memories are of the two NY productions (including Lyndsey Turner's with Rebecca Hall), not to mention Fiona Shaw almost being eaten alive by the design for the play when Daldry did it at the Nash.

Almeida's Twitter says 90 minutes.

A running time I know Showgirl will be pleased with. Me too.

Hope Emily Berrington has more to do in this than in Season 3 of Humans, so far. She was great in Children's Children at the Almeida, and in previous Humans seasons on Channel 4, but the writers don't seem to care about her character this year.